Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(54)

The Ashmadai howled and met the dwarf’s charge with glee. Dahlia flanked out to the left, her twin weapons spinning to match Athrogate’s morningstars, and Jarlaxle rushed up from the right. One against two, and two to each, they engaged.

Jarlaxle’s free left hand snapped out a line of spinning daggers, down low at first as he neared the closest opponent, a tiefling bearing a strange symbol branded into his dusky flesh. But then he switched them up high with the last throw, forcing the cultist to lift his forearm to deflect the missile. And in that evasive movement, the tiefling lost sight of the drow for just a heartbeat.

A heartbeat too long.

Jarlaxle slid past on one knee, using the tiefling to block his own companion.

A stab to the back of the leg left that Ashmadai stumbling and skidding down, hamstrung.

Across came the other, stabbing his spear-staff for the drow’s head.

But a second sword appeared in Jarlaxle’s grasp, and swept up and around, parrying perfectly. And when the first followed behind that parry, the cultist had no defense.



Athrogate waded in, disregarding again the stab of one cultist and the heavy swing of the other. He took hits to trade the hits, and his weapons were better by far. A human Ashmadai stabbed him deep in the front of his shoulder as he brought his arm around, but that didn’t deter the blow, for the dwarf was beyond feeling pain at that terrible moment, at the realization that he had destroyed the most sacred and ancient of dwarven homelands.

He felt his muscles tearing, but didn’t care, and completed the rotation. The morningstar crashed down upon the human’s lowered, leading shoulder with such force that it threw the cultist face down to the floor.

Athrogate stomped on the back of the Ashmadai’s neck as he turned to face the second, and accepted a crack on the hand holding his other morningstar, the price of a missed block. Normally such a hit would have taken the weapon from his grasp, but not with Gauntlgrym exploding around him.

He plowed on with fury, both weapons swinging, driving the cultist back toward the lowered portcullis.

The Ashmadai ran out of room to retreat, so he worked his staff furiously to deflect and block. But a blow got through, crunching him in the side, driving him into a lurch. A second blow from the other side straightened him again, only to be hit again on the first side, higher up.

Then from the second side again, battering him, crushing his bones to dust, tearing his skin and sending his blood and brains flying wide to one side, then the other.

He crumpled to his knees and Athrogate kept hitting him—the only thing holding the dead cultist up were the dwarf’s blows.



Dahlia was far more cautious. She worked her weapons defensively, picking off every thrust and swing, still fighting two enemies—a human woman and a male half-orc—long after Athrogate began to bull his remaining opponent backward.

She played for her opponents’ mistakes, and as good as they were, Dahlia was better.

The Ashmadai to her left, the half-orc, moved to flank her, and the woman to her right predictably used her turn to come ahead boldly with a stab for Dahlia’s turning hip.

But Dahlia reversed, and her swing indicated that she would send her left weapon all the way across to try to hook the spear aside.

The half-orc braced for the ruse, and was caught by surprise as Dahlia’s right-hand weapon came up and under instead, yanking the spear-staff nearly from his grasp—and indeed, it would have taken that weapon away had that been Dahlia’s intent. She disengaged with a subtle twist instead, and allowed herself to overbalance and fall to her leading, right knee, where she reversed the spin of that weapon and swept it low, taking the human’s legs out from under her.

Dahlia rotated fully to bring her second weapon to bear, though she had no angle for such a spinning flail to do any real damage.

Except it was no longer a flail in her left hand, but a four-foot length of spear, and a slight twist stabbed it down hard into the woman’s face, driving right into her opened mouth as she tried to scream. A burst of lightning exploded with the impact, and it seemed to jolt Dahlia back to her feet, where she broke the staff once more into twin flails, and waded into her remaining opponent.

She had the half-orc cultist backing up, though the ugly brute was skilled and managed to hold his ground well as Dahlia played out her momentum.

A flicker of silver flashed over Dahlia’s shoulder and she dodged away and glanced back at the same time. She turned right back to her opponent, though, when she realized the flash was from one of Jarlaxle’s endless daggers, which he’d buried deep into the half-orc Ashmadai’s left eye.

Dahlia spun back as her last opponent fell aside, to see Jarlaxle rushing for the portcullis. Athrogate had amazingly hoisted the gate up to his shoulders once more.

Under went Jarlaxle, and Dahlia was quick to follow, fearing that those two would drop the gate and leave her to die—and who could blame them?

Jarlaxle rushed to brace his shoulder under one end, Dahlia the other, and Athrogate managed to scramble through.

The floor rumbled, the walls shook. The ghosts of Gauntlgrym were all on their knees, eyes and hands lifted in prayer to Moradin.

The trio ran on.

By the time they reached the circular stair, the complex was shaking violently. As they climbed back into the vast open cavern, they saw dire corbies falling and flailing. Bridges of stone that had survived the millennia cracked apart and tumbled down into oblivion.