Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(110)
One after another, Taulmaril the Heartseeker let fly, arrows trailing silver lightning as they shot off down the corridor. Crouched on one knee, Drizzt leaned out of the alcove and kept up the barrage as long as he could, dropping salamanders with every shot, sometimes two for one mighty arrow, and once even three.
But the losses only seemed to infuriate the monstrous creatures, and Drizzt knew he couldn’t drive them all away. They were fighting for the primordial, for their god. The bodies piled in the corridor, but more salamanders slithered over them. And when the drow cut those down, the enraged creatures behind used a different tactic, pushing the pile in front of them instead of scrambling over it.
The drow grimaced and kept shooting—what else could he do? He drew back Taulmaril’s bowstring as far as he could and let fly into the center mass, the lightning-arrows drilling holes into the pile and jolting bodies, occasionally breaking through to sting at the living elemental-kin behind.
The press continued, though, and Drizzt was about to put Taulmaril up and draw his swords when a pair of true lightning bolts shot down the corridor from behind him, startling him, blinding him temporarily, and forcing him back into the alcove. He came to the edge and peered around quickly to see a jumble of body parts, blackened and smoking, salamanders scrambling behind the blasted front ranks to rebuild their moving wall.
Drizzt went back to efficient work again with his deadly bow. Behind him, from the doorway of the room, Jarlaxle put his wands to use once more, angling the twin lightning bolts up high so they would rebound off the ceiling and dive down behind the wall of salamander corpses.
“Glob it!” Drizzt cried, for lack of a better word.
“Clear!” Jarlaxle yelled back, and Drizzt fell into the alcove.
A glob of green paste flew past him to strike the floor right in front of the corpse wall.
But still the salamanders came on, tearing asunder their macabre fortification and rushing over. A flying wall of spears led their charge, skipping and bouncing around the corridor.
“They’re close!” Dahlia called from across the wall.
“Follow the line!” Jarlaxle yelled from the doorway, and a double flash, one-two, of lightning rumbled past the pair, the reports shaking the stones.
“Now!” Dahlia shouted as soon as the blasts had shot past, and she leaped out into the corridor, brandishing her tri-staff.
Swords in hand, Drizzt joined her, and just in time to flash Icingdeath out to his right, in front of Dahlia, and deflect a thrown trident.
The monsters pressed in three abreast, stabbing furiously at drow and elf.
Drizzt’s scimitars worked in circles in front of him, parrying every thrust—sometimes one, sometimes two, depending on the target of the middle creature. The reach of those long spears and tridents prevented him from going forward behind any parries, though. He didn’t want to surrender his position beside Dahlia. Together they formed a mighty defensive wall—and more than merely defensive, Drizzt realized as they fell into a side-by-side rhythm. Dahlia’s amazing staff, sometimes whole, sometimes twin bo staves, sometimes a tri-staff, sometimes a pair of flails, afforded her all kinds of varying reaches and counters. Drizzt worked more pointedly on defense, easily picking off the strikes of the salamander directly in front of him, and executing continuous blocks on the one in the middle as well.
“Aye!” Dahlia cried, apparently understanding his intent, and she dropped back one step as Drizzt shot by, sidelong, deflecting spear after spear after trident in rapid succession. Wall to wall, the drow worked, his feet a blur as he sidestepped, his hands a blur as he worked his blades to deflect any and every attack.
He went back and to his left, and heard a snap beside him. Yet another incarnation of Dahlia’s amazing weapon—four equal lengths of stick, joined end to end in a line so that she used them almost like a whip. And to great effect, as the salamander on Drizzt’s far right discovered, the end pole turning over powerfully and perfectly to knock a hole in its forehead.
Even as it fell dead, a spear flew in from the next in line, but Drizzt was there with a clean deflection as Dahlia reeled in her staff. He worked back the other way quickly, leaving no hole in their defense.
“Over!” Dahlia called from behind him, and he instinctively ducked just as the warrior elf pole-vaulted over him, landing lightly on her feet inside the reach of spear and trident. Even as she landed, though, her staff whole and cumbersome in the tight quarters, she yelled, “Over!” again.
Her leap had been a diversion and nothing more. She went up again, vaulting backward. Three spears reached high to chase her, but none caught its mark.
Drizzt went quickly forward, under Dahlia, appearing as if out of nowhere in the midst of the salamanders. His scimitars flashed left, right, and a devastating double stab in the middle, slashing the beasts aside. Then he blocked a thrown spear, and a second and a third, and more creatures charged up with shields as if they meant to bull rush him back toward the room.
“Over! Bow!” Dahlia yelled, and Drizzt didn’t quite understand how that might work out. He didn’t question her, though, and simply fell back in a roll as Dahlia planted the end of her staff beside him and went up high.
He angled his tumble for the alcove, and sheathed his blades and scooped up Taulmaril as he came around, immediately setting an arrow.
Dahlia had not come down. She remained up high, hand grasping the top end of the planted eight-foot staff, feet kicking out repeatedly, unpredictably, and wildly at her enemies. Even when they managed to get a shield in her path, she merely stomped her foot on it and used it to maintain the high ground.