The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(32)
Entreri, Dahlia, and Drizzt did the “frog-hopping,” as Ambergris called it, taking turns in the point position, scouting and securing, then motioning for the next in line to hop past. Afafrenfere remained with the dwarf, always settling into position beside the trailing member of the frog-hopping trio.
Drizzt came to the northwestern corner of a low stone building and peered around. He crouched at the end of one long and fairly straight street, stretching far into the heart of the lower city. Just east of his position, back to his right and barely a block away, loomed the wall, where torches burned at regularly-spaced intervals. To his left, at about the same distance, this section of the city fell away steeply to the rocky coast.
The drow glanced back to Entreri, the next in line, and instead of signaling him to move past, motioned instead for him to join Drizzt at the spot. Almost as soon as he arrived, the assassin nodded, seeing the same potential Drizzt had noted in this particular location.
Drizzt pointed to Entreri, held up two fingers, and motioned to the southeastern corner of the building where they crouched, and the parallel road beyond. Then he held up two fingers again and pointed to the building opposite this one to the west, across the street.
Entreri slipped back the way he had come and collected the others. He and Dahlia went to the east of Drizzt, the dwarf and monk settling in at the road parallel and west.
There the five crouched in the shadows and waited, but not for long. A cry from the city’s dividing wall alerted them.
Drizzt looked to Entreri and Dahlia, who were nearest that wall, and the assassin glanced back at him and pointed to the north and nodded. With that, Drizzt eased an arrow onto Taulmaril’s string and moved around the corner of the building, crouching low in the shadows against the structure.
To the east, Dahlia whistled, the sound of a night bird. To the west, Afafrenfere answered, as they had previously planned.
At the first sign of motion down the avenue, Drizzt drew back and held firm, Taulmaril leveled. He saw some forms moving about for cover in the shadows of a building far down the road, and heard the crash as stones flew at them from the city wall. Still he held his shot, wanting to be sure.
A humanoid form moved back from the pack, into the center of the road and hoisted a javelin to throw.
Humanoid, but no human, Drizzt could discern clearly even from this distance in the dark night. At least as tall as a man, and with a small, spiny ridge running from the top of its head down its back, it moved with jerking, reptilian motions.
The creature hurled the javelin as Drizzt let fly his arrow, the silver flash streaking down the street and bringing forth a myriad of flickering images and shadows as it sped.
The creature staggered back several steps under the weight of the blow, and half-turned to look back Drizzt’s way. It continued turning around, though, circling lower and lower with each movement, finally collapsing into the street.
Other forms scrambled and Drizzt sent off a line of arrows, not at anything in particular, but mostly to hold the attention of the creatures.
He saw a pair dart across the street, rolling to the safety of a building on the other side. He heard curious squeals, high-pitched and filled with sharp whistles that faded off into discordant hissing sounds.
More arrows flew off, Drizzt sweeping Taulmaril right to left across the street and back again.
He caught sight, just for a heartbeat, of one sea devil on the rooftops, leaping from building to building to his left, working its way toward him. A moment later, he spotted it again, once more just for a heartbeat.
Long enough.
In the silvery brilliance of Taulmaril’s arrow, he noted the creature’s surprised and horrified expression right before it went flying away with such force that Drizzt noted its webbed feet as it tumbled head over heels.
There were more of them up there, he guessed, and likely some coming along the buildings on his side of the street as well.
He rolled out from his position to the middle of the road and began spraying shots down the lane once more, demanding attention. He didn’t follow the trajectory of the shots, didn’t bother to aim at anything specific, and kept glancing up, right and left, ready for the inevitable melee.
As soon as they noted the flash of Drizzt’s first arrow, Entreri and Dahlia moved off quickly. They rushed around the first building and into the narrow alleyway beyond, then out and about the second, as well, and so on down the line.
After several such jaunts, Entreri started out again, but Dahlia grabbed him and held him in place. For she had noted the drow’s shot across the way, the arrow flying up to the roof to take out the sea devil.
Dahlia motioned upward with her thumb, and even as she and Entreri glanced up, a sea devil passed right over them, leaping to the roof of the building they had just passed.
Dahlia planted her staff and Entreri spun around and crouched, setting his hands to help her in her leap. Up she went, inverting at the top of the eight-foot pole, throwing herself over the lip of the roof. She landed crouched, almost on her belly and facing back into the alleyway, but wasted no time in whirling around and bringing Kozah’s Needle to bear with a great sweep across that sent a sea devil staggering.
Up leaped Dahlia, thrusting repeatedly to keep that sahuagin and a second at bay, buying time.
Up came Entreri, climbing the wall with ease, and coming over the roof’s lip with sudden ferocity. He charged past Dahlia, past the tips of the two tridents matching stabs with her. Inside that reach, the assassin halted and spun to the right. The sea devil on that side tried to bite him as he came in close, but it changed its mind, or Entreri changed it, as a dagger jabbed up under the creature’s chin, through its lower jaw and into its upper. Never letting go, Entreri rolled around to the side and behind his foe, and tore free his blade as his sword came around to slash the creature across the back, cutting it down.