Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(83)

Thus, the two sparred without gain for several moments, both content to let the other make the first error. When the hook horror cried out in pain, and with Drizzt out of sight, Belwar was forced to act. He stumbled forward, feigning a trip, and lurched ahead with his hammer-hand as his pickaxe dipped low.

The duergar recognized the ploy, but could not ignore the obvious opening in the svirfneblin’s defense. The dagger came in over the pickaxe, diving straight at Belwar’s throat.

The burrow-warden threw himself backward with equal speed and lifted a leg as he went, his boot clipping the duergar’s chin. The gray dwarf kept corning, though, diving down atop the falling deep gnome, his dagger’s point leading the way.

Belwar got his pickaxe up only a split second before the jagged weapon found his throat. The burrow-warden managed to move the duergar’s arm out wide, but the gray dwarf’s considerable weight pressed them together, their faces barely an inch apart.

“Got ye now!” the duergar cried.

“Get this!” Belwar snarled back, and he freed up his hammer-hand enough to launch a short but heavy punch into the duergar’s ribs. The duergar slammed his forehead into

Belwar’s face, and Belwar bit him on the nose in response. The two rolled about, spitting and snarling, and using whatever weapons they could find.

By the sound of ringing blades, any observers outside Drizzt’s darkness globe would have sworn that a dozen warriors battled within. The frenzied tempo of swordplay was solely the doing of Drizzt Do’Urden. In such a situation, fighting blindly, the drow reasoned that the best battle method would be to keep all the blades as far away from his body as possible. His scimitars charged out relentlessly and in perfect harmony, pressing the two gray dwarves back on their heels.

Each arm worked its own opponent, keeping the gray dwarves rooted in place squarely in front of Drizzt. If one of his enemies managed to get around to his side, the drow knew, he would be in serious trouble.

Each scimitar swipe brought a ring of metal, and each passing second gave Drizzt more understanding of his opponents’ abilities and attack strategies. Out in the Underdark, Drizzt had fought blindly many times, once even donning a hood against the basilisk he’d met.

Overwhelmed by the sheer speed of the drow’s attacks, the duergar could only work their swords back and forth and hope that a scimitar didn’t slide through.

The blades sang and rang as the two duergar frantically parried and dodged. Then came a sound that Drizzt had hoped for, the sound of a scimitar digging into flesh. A moment later, one sword clanged to the stone and its wounded wielder made the fatal mistake of crying out in pain.

Drizzt’s hunter-self rose to the surface at that moment and focused on that cry, and his scimitar shot straight ahead, smashing into the gray dwarf’s teeth and on through the back of its head.

The hunter turned on the remaining duergar in fury. Around and around his blades spun in swirling circular motions. Around and around, then one shot out in a sudden straightforward thrust, too quickly for a blocking response. It caught the duergar in the shoulder, gashing a deep wound.

“Give! Give!” the gray dwarf cried, not desiring the same fate as its companion. Drizzt heard another sword drop to the floor. “Please, drow elf!”

At the duergar’s words, the drow buried his instinctive urges. “I accept your surrender,” Drizzt replied, and he moved close to his opponent, putting the tip of his scimitar to the gray dwarf’s chest. Together, they walked out of the area darkened by Drizzt’s spell.

Searing agony ripped through Clacker’s head, every blow sending waves of pain. The hook horror gurgled out an animal’s growl and exploded into furious motion, heaving up from the crushed duergar and spinning over at the newest foes.

A duergar club smashed in again, but Clacker was beyond any sensation of pain. A heavy claw bashed through the purple outline, through the invisible duergar’s skull. The gray dwarf came back into view suddenly, the concentration needed to maintain a state of invisibility stolen by death, the greatest thief of all.

The remaining duergar turned to flee, but the enraged hook horror moved faster. Clacker caught the gray dwarf in a claw and hoisted him into the air. Screeching like a frenzied bird, the hook horror hurled the unseen opponent into the wall. The duergar came back into sight, broken and crumbled at the base of the stone wall.

No opponents stood to face the hook horror, but Clacker’s savage hunger was far from satiated. Drizzt and the wounded duergar emerged from the darkness then, and the hook horror barreled in.

With the specter of Belwar’s combat taking his attention, Drizzt did not realize Clacker’s intent until the duergar prisoner screamed in terror. By then, it was too late.

Drizzt watched his prisoner’s head go flying back into the globe of darkness.

“Clacker!” the drow screamed in protest. Then Drizzt ducked and dived backward for his own life as the other claw came viciously swinging across. Spotting new prey nearby, the hook horror didn’t follow the drow into the globe. Belwar and the dagger-wielding duergar were too engaged in their own struggles to notice the approaching crazed giant. Clacker bent low, collected the prone combatants in his huge arms, and heaved them both straight up into the air. The duergar had the misfortune of corning down first, and Clacker promptly batted it across the chamber. Belwar would have found a similar fate, but crossed scimitars intercepted the hook horror’s next blow.