Drizzt glanced back to see a dark form rolling out to the side of the demon, then bursting into flames, and he caught his breath and had to steady himself.
For all his life and in all the world, nothing had seemed more eternal yet reliably unreliable to Drizzt than that strange and strangely endearing fellow drow.
And there stood the pit fiend, triumphant, straddling the still and flaming form and staring hatefully and eagerly for its next victim.
Chapter 24 - Old Kings and Ancient Gods
BRUENOR SALUTED DRIZZT AND RUSHED THROUGH THE FIRST OF A SERIES of doors down the small tunnel, Athrogate right behind him.
Drizzt didn’t see it, and had to just trust in his friend. His glance back at Jarlaxle, his shock at seeing the drow’s demise, had cost him precious seconds, and he sprinted to catch up to Dahlia, who was already furiously working her tri-staff to hold back the rush of Ashmadai. He drew out his onyx figurine as he went and called for Guenhwyvar, but he didn’t keep the cat at his side as she appeared, instead ordering her to bring chaos to the ranks of their enemies.
Off Guenhwyvar leaped, and in came Drizzt, hard. Afraid for his dwarf friend and surprisingly outraged at the loss of his other … friend, the drow charged into the nearest Ashmadai warrior with his scimitars spinning. He hit the cultist’s scepter four times before the Ashmadai man, an ugly half-orc, even knew what hit him. Batting the scepter left and right, not even bothering to work it out to one side or the other, Drizzt had the overmatched warrior confused and off balance. He struck again with a fifth parry, batting the scepter to the right, then hit it with an unexpected uppercut, lifting it away. Even as it cleared the Ashmadai’s torso, Twinkle, in Drizzt’s left hand, slashed across, slicing open the half-orc’s belly. As the Ashmadai lurched forward, the same blade struck a backhand against the half-orc’s temple, sending him tumbling to the side.
Up came Icingdeath in a powerful horizontal presentation as Drizzt stepped ahead to meet the next enemy in line. But before he could strike through the opening with his left-hand blade, he had to launch Twinkle out wide to parry a thrusting staff-spear.
Drizzt missed the opening, but Dahlia didn’t. Under his upraised blade came her staff, a single long pole once more, to stab into the Ashmadai’s chest. When it hit, it threw forth a burst of lightning, launching their opponent through the air and backward. He flew several feet, and several feet high, but he never came back to the floor. A long-bladed sword drove through his chest, impaling him in mid air.
The legion devil easily held the dead Ashmadai aloft with just that one sword arm, and let him hang there for a few heartbeats, arms and legs out wide, lifeblood pouring from the wound. Looking around its macabre human shield, the devil grinned at the drow and the elf, even laughed a bit. Then it jerked its great sword powerfully back and forth and the dead cultist fell to the floor at the devil’s feet in two pieces.
Drizzt presented Twinkle horizontally in front of him, left arm out straight, his right hand tucked at the side of his face, Icingdeath atop the left-hand blade. He stood in a crouch, right foot dropped back and holding most of his weight. Beside him, Dahlia broke her staff again into three parts, pointed one end toward the fiend, and set the pole hanging from that end into a lazy, measured swing.
The great devil’s three hellish companions stepped out beside it.
“You should have kept the cat with you,” Dahlia whispered.
Drizzt shook his head. “We have to fade back to protect the tunnel.”
But they were already too late. The pit fiend appeared there, sliding through another dimensional gate to the entrance to the tunnel. With a mocking laugh, it went in pursuit of the dwarves.
Drizzt turned to give chase, but the lesser devils could also teleport, and two of them did, blocking his way so that the four devils surrounded them. In unison, the fiends began banging their black-bladed swords against their iron shields.
Dahlia glanced at Drizzt, and the hopelessness washed from the drow in the wake of an impish, mischievous, exuberant grin.
“You know they’re devils, right?” the drow asked her.
“We know what they are, but they have no idea who we are,” Dahlia replied.
She exploded into motion, leaping at the nearest fiend, her front pole spinning wildly. Up came the devil’s shield to block that spin, but it was merely a distraction. Dahlia prodded ahead with the center piece of her tri-staff as if it were a spear, clipping the devil’s cheek as it frantically dodged back.
The elf had the staff presented more conventionally in front of her in the blink of an eye, both ends spinning, and she worked her hands up and down expertly to block the second devil’s thrust. The second creature reached far enough ahead to allow the spinning pole to painfully crack against its forearm.
As Dahlia went forward, Drizzt rolled behind her, back to back, his scimitars working in a blur, sweeping side-to-side strokes that picked off the thrusting sword of the legion devil rushing in pursuit. He hit that blade several times in rapid succession, then launched his own attack from on high, forcing the devil to lift its shield to block, once then again. Before the devil could bring its sword back in for a countering stab, Drizzt rushed under that upraised arm as if he meant to run right past the fiend.
The devil turned and so did Drizzt, cutting back the other way, inside the devil’s reach. Up went Twinkle, taking the devil’s sword arm with it, and as Drizzt stepped back under that uplifted arm to rejoin Dahlia, a backhand from Icingdeath sank deep into the hellspawn’s flesh. The frostbrand drank hot devil blood, and the fiend howled in agony.