Dahlia flew over the wall, this time beating Entreri. Both were on the ground in the inner bailey by the time Drizzt scrambled over. This area was more open, with only a couple of small structures between the companions and the treelike tower that stood beside a cave opening on the side of a rocky hill, the place they suspected to be Sylora’s abode.
“Be quick!” Dahlia warned. “Sylora may strike at us from afar!”
Her words seemed prescient indeed, for at that very moment, they all noted a form in the branchlike balcony of that treelike tower, one Dahlia surely recognized, even from afar.
She started to sprint for Drizzt and Entreri, but pulled up short, taken aback and genuinely surprised as the pair ran off, shoulder-to-shoulder, across the open ground and straight for the tower. Dahlia felt like an outsider suddenly, as if her two companions shared some bond she couldn’t understand.
And indeed they did, for not only had the unlikely pair battled against each other so many times in the long distant past, they had battled side-by-side, as well. A century might have passed, but it hardly seemed to matter in that desperate moment. For time had not blurred the reflection each of these warriors saw in the other. They, their skills, their challenges, and mostly their fears, remained inexorably linked, Drizzt to Entreri and Entreri to Drizzt.
They understood each other, they knew each other, and most of all, they knew each other’s fighting maneuvers.
Like one four-armed, four-legged beast, Drizzt and Entreri charged out into the open, and they were set upon immediately by a host of Ashmadai zealots.
Just before they met the lead of that counter-charge, Drizzt stopped fast and Entreri rushed past him, right-to-left.
So, too, did the nearest Ashmadai ahead and to Drizzt’s right, one who had been coming in straight at Entreri, turn to follow the assassin’s cut, and so when Drizzt rolled around Entreri’s back, the enemy wasn’t ready for him.
Drizzt hooked his right scimitar inside the man’s left arm, pulled it free of the scepter, then stabbed with his left and brought the right one back with a sudden backhanded slash.
The drow kicked the wounded zealot back into those coming in behind, and reversed his rush, ducking low.
Entreri back flipped right over him and the two zealots he’d intercepted both came on, but both looked up at him as he somersaulted—so neither were prepared for the drow, coming out of his crouch with upraised blades.
Despite her urgency, Dahlia almost stopped short again at the sight, and when Entreri landed in perfect balance and came around just in time to cut a backhanded parry with his sword, step forward, and dispatch the next zealot with his dagger, the elf woman heard herself gasp.
Dahlia prided herself on her fighting skills, and indeed they were magnificent. She’d respected the skills of both of these warriors individually, of course—that was more than a small part of why she’d chosen Drizzt Do’Urden as the next diamond stud to grace her ear—but now, amazingly, the two together seemed even greater than the sum of their considerable parts.
Dahlia kept close enough to the pair to enjoy the reprieve offered by their destructive wake as they waded across the field. When one zealot ran out wide to flank Entreri, Dahlia was there, meeting him with the blur of her flails. She slapped at him, left and right, above and below, and had him dodging and twisting every which way to try to keep up with her movements. He didn’t even realize how off-balance he’d become until Dahlia sent one of her weapons spinning up under his extended arm, caught its flying pole as it came around with her other hand, and sent her victim flipping head over heels to land hard on his back.
He made the mistake of trying to get right back up instead of curling defensively on the grass. The woman, who couldn’t have remained behind to finish him off had he so curled, took that one opening to smack him across the skull and lay him low.
Dahlia turned back to see Sylora up on the balcony lifting her wand.
Drizzt saw the sorceress as well. “Dahlia, to me!” he yelled, then called to Entreri for cover.
The assassin moved in front of him in a blur, sword and dagger spinning wildly, driving back the nearest zealots with pure fury.
Trusting that Entreri could hold the line as Dahlia rushed forward to replace him, Drizzt fell back fast into a backward roll.
Drizzt managed a wry grin as Dahlia reacted perfectly, leaping over him as he extricated himself.
He was still grinning as came around, with his bow in his hands and with an arrow already set on the bowstring.
The sorceress above couldn’t have anticipated such a movement, and with the stunning grace and realignment of the drow, she seemed to interrupt her spellcasting for just a heartbeat.
That momentary delay gave Drizzt all the time he needed to beat her to the strike. In the blink of an eye, he launched an arrow at her face.
But Sylora smiled and barely flinched. The shot soared true, but the lightning arrow fell short of the mark, slamming into some shield the sorceress had around her. Sparks flew, arcing out to the sides and up and down, but none going forward into Sylora.
Despite the failure, Drizzt wouldn’t let up, and so he sent bolt after bolt at the balcony, the sheer fury of the assault driving the powerful sorceress back.
The line of devastation held true for several shots, but then Drizzt was forced to alter his tactics, bringing the bow down lower with every other shot to blast aside an advancing Ashmadai.
Still, Drizzt grinned all the wider as he did. Dahlia and Entreri had begun a dance of their own. They went back to back, blades and poles working brilliantly to open paths. They turned shoulder to shoulder in perfect unison to overwhelm one zealot who found herself out alone as her comrades moved to try to flank the devastating pair.
Drizzt rushed to catch up, calling for them to keep him clear. His focus was back above again, and had to be, his missiles crashing into the balcony, ricocheting around the overhang to keep the mighty sorceress at bay.
More zealots came in at them, but Dahlia and Entreri proved up to the task of driving them off. Their coordination improved with each new turn, and as they came too far under the overhang for Sylora to pose much of a threat, Drizzt, too, could join in.
He shouldered his bow and drew his blades, thinking to do just that, trying to sort out how he might best complement the fighting pair, when the puzzle solved itself.
Dahlia, too consumed by her hatred of Sylora, apparently, seemed less than interested in the zealots. Entreri executed a crossover strike, moving in front of her and stabbing an Ashmadai hard with his sword. As that one crumbled, the appropriate action for Dahlia would have been to fall back to her right, around the assassin, to protect his right flank.
But as the zealot in front of her fell away, the others posturing and angling for a better lane of attack, Dahlia saw the path to the cave clear in front of her and charged from the throng.
Entreri let out a yelp, for he was left obviously vulnerable. Only Drizzt’s quick action saved him. The drow, legs speeded by his magical anklets, rushed up beside Entreri just in time to parry a stabbing scepter, and even then he had to lunge so far forward that had the Ashmadai been a more proficient warrior, he could have retracted and changed his angle of attack to hit the drow instead of the assassin.
But that zealot wasn’t so good, and Drizzt was able to get his feet balanced back under him in short order. Then it was the zealot who was still off-balance from the hard parry. He did manage to realign his scepter in some semblance of defense, but he needed much more than “some semblance” against the likes of Drizzt Do’Urden.
The drow’s blades smacked at the scepter left and right, went over and under and back around in such a dizzying blur that the zealot couldn’t seem to distinguish one from the other.
In a few heartbeats, the overmatched Ashmadai swung his scepter haphazardly, awkwardly, so busy trying to keep up with the whirling scimitars he seemed to forget the purpose of the dance. Eyes down at the blades, trying to sort out the movements, the poor fool didn’t even see the killing blow, and his eyes went wide with shock indeed when Icingdeath came in hard against the side of his neck.
Other zealots replaced him, but they found themselves against Entreri instead of Drizzt as the two quickly rotated around.
In that turn, Drizzt caught sight of Dahlia at the cave opening, and he sucked in his breath to see her locked in battle with a strange-looking Ashmadai, wrapped like a mummy in some grayish hide and holding a scepter that showed as much black as the typical red. His worry only multiplied.
Entreri caught sight of her as well.
“Not that one, Dahlia,” the assassin whispered.
Dahlia didn’t recognize Jestry. She did guess from his initial attack and defense routines that this opponent was more skilled than the vast majority of Ashmadai, though she almost immediately realized he was no match for her. She worked her flails furiously, slapping them hard against the scepter every time the strangely-armored Ashmadai tried to come at her, or simply to keep him on the defensive. Impatiently, she found an opening and took it, expecting her strike to finish him. Hard against the side of his head went her right-hand flail, a solid blow that should have snapped the zealot’s head to the side.
Should have.
And in anticipation of exactly that consequence, Dahlia put her left hand into a high, backhanded roll up and over her head so her other flail would score a second strike following the first.
That first strike didn’t jolt the Ashmadai as she had expected. Indeed, the man’s head barely moved, and his attention wavered not at all. But his hands moved, taking advantage of Dahlia’s overconfident follow-up maneuver by stabbing his scepter straight ahead.
The agile elf managed to twist to her right behind that backhand to avoid the brunt of the blow, taking just a grazing touch and barely drawing a scratch. In exchange for that, Dahlia managed a third strike, again against the side of the zealot’s head, and again, to no avail. Even caught by surprise, she thought she’d won the round.
She went right back to her furious spins and strikes, trying to get back to level footing with the zealot and figure out a better method of striking him. She couldn’t believe the strange hide wrapping had so utterly defeated three solid hits by Kozah’s Needle.
Then she found a second problem, a far worse one. The muscles where she’d been grazed contracted suddenly, painfully, causing her to lurch back and to her left. She staggered and stumbled, right back to her original position, where she managed to stand straight once more, wincing against the pain.
Her left hand led, the flail spinning up and over, down against the scepter, while she rolled her right-hand weapon over top to bottom, catching the pole in her armpit. And there she held it, tightening her muscles expertly while pulling mightily against the hold.
She bided her time, left hand working furiously, and the left side of her ribs aching profoundly. On one such spasm, Dahlia lurched.
The zealot leaped forward, stabbing hard.
But Dahlia’s lurch had been voluntary, and enticing. She side-stepped and the zealot missed badly, opening his defenses in the process.
Out snapped the right-hand flail, a sudden and brutal, spearlike thrust that drove into the zealot’s chin with tremendous force. The man’s head snapped to the side, and he staggered away under the sheer weight of the blow.
But he didn’t fall, and if the strike had seriously injured him, he didn’t show it. With a feral growl, he came right back after the woman, fighting wildly, seeming more angry than hurt.
And now Dahlia was angry, too, for she heard Sylora up above, calling out—to Valindra, it seemed—and the sound of that voice surely drove Dahlia on, her frustration mounting against this zealot who was preventing her from reaching her prize!
She took a different tack then, repeatedly cracking her flails together as she worked them furiously around and against the scepter. She felt the tingle of power with each strike as Kozah’s Needle began to build its charge. In a matter of heartbeats, she’d cracked the metal poles together more than a dozen times, and her hands began to feel the prickles of mounting power. But she held on and continued to grow that explosive energy, determined to reduce this fool to a smoking husk. Again and again the flails clanged together.
A second zealot dashed in at her from the side, but Dahlia noted the movement and merely flipped her wrist over, her right-hand weapon cracking against the thrusting scepter, driving it back behind her. And she turned as it did, her left hand coming around to crack the zealot in the head. Unlike the mummified opponent in front of her, this one wasn’t so well-armored, and the heavy blow opened his skull and sent him flying away.
Knowing the strange one to be coming fast in pursuit, Dahlia finished her spin, her hands working furiously as she did. She came to face him once more, and held not a pair of flails, but a single eight-foot staff.
“Drizzt!” she called, fending off the Ashmadai’s attacks. “Drow! Lend me an arrow!”
“Entreri!” Drizzt called to his nearest companion.
But even as he spoke the name, the assassin yelled back, “Go! Go!”
Entreri rushed in front of him, sword and dagger working in a blur to drive back the attackers, giving Drizzt the room to disengage just long enough to draw Taulmaril once more and set an arrow. He leveled and let fly, the lightning missile speeding just past Dahlia’s shoulder, aiming for her opponent’s face.
It never got there, intercepted by the power of Kozah’s Needle, drawn into the staff, which was already tingling with energy.
Dahlia wasted no time, spinning the staff up above her head and around, and promptly thrusting it into the chest of the mummified zealot. That physical blow did little damage, of course, but Dahlia cried out in victory, the win all but assured, as she let loose the tremendous lightning energy pent up in the weapon.
Drizzt nodded grimly as crackling arcs rushed along the length of the staff, diving into the zealot, cascading along his form with sharp crackles. All around him the lightning danced, gradually coalescing down his right arm and at his right hand—more specifically, at a ring he wore on his right hand. The lightning sparked and snapped and rolled around the circle.
And turned around.
Scimitars back in his hands, Drizzt’s eyes widened with surprise and shock as Dahlia went flying backward, arms and legs flailing, staff flying from her smoking grasp.
“Go! Go!” the drow yelled at Entreri.
Drizzt stepped in front of the assassin, his scimitars intercepting the scepters of the two Ashmadai pressing in, opening just enough of an avenue for Entreri to run free to the cave.
He heard Sylora above him, but pressed from every side now, Drizzt could only grimace against the implications of her chant. His hands worked in a blur, over and around, as he spun to drive back the two he’d been fighting. Drizzt dropped low and kicked out to painfully straighten the leg of one of Entreri’s foes as the woman tried to come at him from behind.
Up Drizzt sprang, his blades spinning horizontal circles up high and out wide, working down to block, working back up high to drive one or another of the four back yet again. He found his rhythm and when one of the frustrated zealots threw his scepter at Drizzt, the drow’s blade was in line, not to block, but to deflect the weapon. It flew into the face of the zealot behind him.
That one fell away and the one who threw the spear followed it by leaping wildly at Drizzt, trying to tackle him to the ground. That zealot did indeed hit the ground, face first, clutching at the five stab wounds the drow had expertly inflicted before nimbly ducking aside—and doing so with such control that he used the falling Ashmadai to block the view of the zealot opposite. He came over that descending form so quickly and so furiously that the surprised zealot never got her weapon up to block the scimitar thrusting true for her throat.
She did manage to scream, at least, but that was abruptly cut short.
As more Ashmadai rushed to crowd in around him, Drizzt found a moment to glance at Dahlia. She was on her feet again, her braid dancing like a living serpent atop her head. She’d retrieved her staff, but was obviously shaken and confused. The strange Ashmadai bore down on her with great advantage.
And Entreri had not gone to her!
Drizzt spied the assassin scrambling off to the side, along the rocks at the base of the tower, apparently seeking a way in. The dark elf called out to him, but didn’t finish the thought before the ground around him roiled suddenly, turning black and with a strange smoky ash wafting from it. The Ashmadai nearest Drizzt cried out first from the burning pain.
And Drizzt felt it too, acutely, such a sting as if his pants had been lit on fire. Only his bracers saved him then, his feet working fast enough to extract him from the devilish black ring of ashen energy.
Hardly thinking of the movement, the drow had simply leaped out of the ring of woe as efficiently as possible, and that moved him farther from Dahlia, back out from the cave entrance and the rocky hill. He got a better view of Sylora Salm at least, standing above him, twenty feet above on the balcony.
She held a strange wand, a broken branch, it seemed, and she smiled wickedly. In that moment, Drizzt felt as if all of this had surely been for naught, as if he and his companions had been fools indeed to think they could go against the magnificence that was Sylora Salm.
Back at the smoking ashen ring, a pair of zealots burst from the growing cloud of withering blackness, reaching for Drizzt.
Their faces were no more than skinless skulls, their reaching hands skeletal, and both crumpled dead to the ground before they ever got near.
But Sylora kept smiling.
Dahlia’s skills and warrior instincts superseded her surprise and got her back to her feet and back in a fighting pose before the mummified champion could truly exploit the explosive turnaround.
But it was worse than mere surprise. The blow had hurt her, and her muscles trembled so violently she could hardly hold onto her long staff. Dahlia wanted to break her weapon back into flails, or perhaps into a tri-staff, that she might pry the zealot’s weapon away, but she didn’t dare, for fear of dropping Kozah’s Needle altogether.
The wound inflicted by the zealot’s scepter had not abated, either, her gut muscles tightening painfully. She didn’t know how long she could fend off this ferocious opponent. She was beginning to understand that she was beaten.
That understanding only got worse when, in one parry and dodge, she looked past her opponent to the back of the cave and saw a grinning Valindra Shadowmantle looking back at her. The lich held her larger, redder scepter, and more than once pointed it Dahlia’s way. But she didn’t enact any of its powers, or her own. She simply seemed to be enjoying the show.
Valindra didn’t intervene because she knew she didn’t have to, Dahlia thought, for even though her sensations were returning, her grasp growing steadier on the long staff, she could hardly hope to defeat this strange Ashmadai.
In a single fluid movement, Drizzt sheathed his blades, took up his bow, and sent a stream of arrows at Sylora Salm.
They struck that strange shield in front of her and burst into myriad multi-colored sparks, one after another. The drow could only hope he was doing some damage to that magical defense, at least, wearing it thinner with each explosive strike.
He caught sight of Sylora moving her hand, her wand, behind that barrage, and he fell back as the two Ashmadai who’d fallen dead at his feet leaped up suddenly, animated by the sorceress.
Drizzt turned his bow at them, but before he could fire off an arrow, the two leaned toward the balcony and seemed to elongate, then to fly off as they became insubstantial black smoke.
Drizzt spun his bow up and let fly, filling the area in front of Sylora with yet more sparks. From that field of explosion, though, came a responding missile, black and large and flying fast at Drizzt. Again the magical speed of his anklets saved him as he threw himself aside, both from the missile and from yet another Ashmadai coming in at him from behind.
That unfortunate woman caught Sylora’s missile instead, and it covered her in what seemed like thick soot. In moments she began to writhe and scream out, throwing herself to the ground as if on fire.
Drizzt sent an arrow, then a second and third, up at Sylora, then turned and shot dead the screaming Ashmadai, purely out of mercy.
He moved with every shot, having no intention of catching any return fire from Sylora.
All the dead Ashmadai around him began to rise up, and all the remaining living Ashmadai backed away.
The zombies didn’t come at him, though. One after another they leaned toward the balcony and were stretched upward, reduced to black smoke, and absorbed into Sylora’s wand.
Another missile flew down from on high, striking the ground in front of Drizzt, creating another ring of woe, perhaps ten feet in diameter.
The drow moved aside and kept up his fire. Then he moved again from a third ring of woe, then a fourth. He recognized that Sylora was surely cutting him off from the cave, from Dahlia, with an overlapping line of rising ash energy. The powerful sorceress didn’t stop there but created more deadly rings, driving Drizzt back, herding him like an animal to the slaughter.
He growled and continued his missile response, increasing the speed of his shots so incredibly that it seemed as if the bow reached forth with one long missile. The balcony exploded and sizzled with such a rain of sparks that to a distant onlooker, it might have appeared as if all the wizards of Faerûn had joined in a great fireworks celebration.
Drizzt kept glancing at Dahlia, wanting to help her, but not daring to interrupt his flow of arrows, not wanting to even allow Sylora to see the battlefield in front of her.
He was almost out of room to move.
On the rocky hillside at the base of the tower, Artemis Entreri quickly deduced that there was no way into that treelike structure. He also found a host of enemies waiting for him, a cluster of ashen zombies, standing and swaying.
To his surprise and relief, they didn’t attack, and to his further astonishment, one after another burst into smoke and flew up at the distant balcony lip, as if it had been dismantled and sucked in by some giant vortex.
Not one to pause and reflect on good fortune, Entreri scrambled up the front of the hill, and was nearly stabbed as a zealot appeared from behind one of the many large rocks, spearlike scepter thrusting hard.
Across came the assassin’s sword, just quick enough to drive aside the thrust. But the Ashmadai tiefling rose up above him, on the rock he’d been scaling, and thus gaining the advantage.
Except that this was Artemis Entreri.
Entreri cried out and fell back, turning to run, and the predictable zealot leaped at his back.
Entreri spun and swept his sword across, deflecting the scepter. He fell aside as he did, the man frantically trying to twist and grab at him, and catching instead a stabbing dagger right in the heart.
With a groan, the Ashmadai continued by, and Entreri cut him chest to groin, gutting him as he tumbled past.
A second Ashmadai replaced the first, coming straight up in front of Entreri, who had his back to the open drop now. The zealot stabbed wildly as if trying to force Entreri from the ledge, and at one point, the man cried out, thinking victory at hand as Entreri bent far backward, balancing precariously.
But when the zealot dropped his shoulder and bulled forward to finish the task, even diving so he would go with his victim, Entreri twisted to the side and dropped into a low crouch. He came up fast, shouldering the man from the ground, and turned and launched him into the open air.
Then he ran on, up the hillside, angling for the top of the cave.
He ran out of room, but mostly, Drizzt was just running. He sprinted to the edge of one ring of woe, and having no choice as another ashen black missile streamed out from the balcony at him, he leaped over it.
The smoking strands reached up at him and bit at him hard, stinging his legs, and he landed wobbly, but still managed to snap off another ineffective shot at Sylora.
But now Drizzt was back in open ground, and as he shook off the latest burns, he started to run around, buying himself more time. First he concentrated on those Ashmadai nearby, lowering Taulmaril and sending out a stream of arrows to drive them away.
Then he went back to Sylora, continuing his spark barrage to keep her from spotting him clearly. Finally, he turned his attention to poor Dahlia, who fought frantically, but lost ground against the strange opponent she faced.
Drizzt winced as she barely dodged a high swing of the Ashmadai’s scepter, then shook his head in frustration as Dahlia properly responded and slammed the man—to no visible effect.
The zealot’s next swing clipped her, just a bit, as she spun, and she even turned around enough for Drizzt to catch her profound grimace of agony.
He couldn’t get to her. He had no clear shot, but he had no choice, either. He leveled the bow and let fly as Dahlia spun to the side, and to his relief, she didn’t come right back the other way, and to his greater relief, her staff didn’t catch that missile.
The arrow struck true, square in the chest of the mummified Ashmadai, slamming him hard, and he staggered backward, almost into the cave.
Only then did Drizzt see another figure deeper within the shadows, and he surely recognized Valindra Shadowmantle!
He let fly again, and a third time, though he had to roll aside to avoid another ring of woe, then had to dive again as a more direct missile nearly caught him from above. Both of his shots soared past Dahlia and the Ashmadai and into the cave, though he couldn’t tell if he’d scored any meaningful hit on Valindra or not.
What he did see, to his dismay, was that his earlier direct hit on the Ashmadai apparently had inflicted no serious damage. The man again pummeled Dahlia, who kept cringing and lurching, and seemed barely able to block his barrage.
Drizzt couldn’t help her!
He had no choice but to turn his attention back to Sylora, to match her assaults with an overwhelming volley. The sparks, even if they did no more than somewhat blind the sorceress, were his only defense, and eventually getting through that magical shield, his only hope. As it was, Sylora had already littered the field with the black circles of destruction. The Ashmadai at the perimeters of the fight began throwing rocks, and a few even had bows.
For a moment, Drizzt considered that he might have to flee the field, and if Dahlia fell near the cave, the drow expected he would have no choice but to run away.
Drizzt knew they’d been baited, brought to a place in which he and his friends could not win.
Their enemy was, perhaps, too powerful for them.
But the despair could not take hold. Unexpectedly at that dark moment, Drizzt felt as if he was upon Andahar, riding from Luskan through the dark night. Exhilaration replaced dismay, and pure energy replaced fear.
He moved faster, diving and rolling, coming around to let fly behind to drive back an Ashmadai, then back forward, one, two, three shots to blind Sylora, if not actually hurt her. On one turn, he noted a host of zombies and he let fly at the group as well. But then he noted that they were not approaching, and a heartbeat before another black volley came at him from the balcony, one of those charred little creatures broke apart into flying ash and soared up to Sylora, as if it was one of her arrows.
He didn’t understand, and he didn’t have time to sort it out. Better to shoot the zombies, perhaps, or the Ashmadai?
He just kept his stream of shots and his continual movement, dodging rings and stones and arrows, trying not to wince when he glanced at Dahlia and her desperate struggle.
They would win, he believed. He was riding through the dark Luskan night and he would prevail.
There was no other choice.
“How do I hurt you, you beast?” Dahlia asked, accentuating her question with a spin of her staff and a straight, hard stab that jabbed the zealot in the chest, again to little or no effect. Her voice was raspy, her abdomen knotting and clenching from the withering wound.
But she wasn’t twitching from the residual effects of her own lightning anymore, at least, though her braid had unwound itself in the process, leaving a thin shock of long black and red strands splayed around her otherwise bald head. Worse for Dahlia, she couldn’t feel several of her fingers, and worse still, one of her eyes flickered and closed from the newest wound wrought by the zealot’s powerfully enchanted scepter.
Despite all of that, the elf warrior broke her staff in half as she retracted it, then spun out those two poles, one in either hand, and broke them fast into flails. She didn’t expect the weapons to be any more effective than the long pole, but she hoped her whirling display would buy her more time.
She couldn’t win. She knew that.
“Shoot him again, Drizzt,” she whispered desperately.
She ducked low as the scepter whipped across up high, then cut her counter short as the zealot retracted and stabbed for her belly once more. Then she jumped up high as his real attack swept in, a low cut aimed at Dahlia’s legs.
She’d expected it. If he could but touch her legs with that withering scepter, the resulting cramping muscles would likely render her incapable of escaping.
And that’s exactly what Dahlia was thinking about: escaping. As the scepter passed beneath her tucked legs, she still maintained enough of her balance to spin her weapons up and over, smashing them down atop the zealot’s wrapped head.
He ignored the strikes and brought his scepter sweeping back the other way.
Dahlia moved as if to jump again, but instead stepped back—and it was a good thing she took that second route. The zealot stopped his swing midway through and lifted the scepter straight up. Had Dahlia leaped as before, she would have surely collided with it on her inevitable descent.
Now he faced her again, his eyes shining, his smile peeking out between the tight wrappings.
It occurred to Dahlia then that either of those places, eyes or mouth, might prove to be her best opportunity, but before she could even think through that proposition, she let out a cry of surprise and fell back as a form came leaping down.
She recognized it as Barrabus, as the man Drizzt named Entreri, and for a moment thought he was leaping at her. His hands were up high and wide, one holding his dagger, the other a knife. He crashed onto the zealot’s back, and even that didn’t bring the monstrous Ashmadai to the ground.
But down came those hands, faster than the zealot could react, dagger plunging into one eye, knife into the other.
How the zealot howled and spun around, feet moving every which way, arms waving crazily. The scepter fell from his grasp as his sensibilities fled.
Entreri hung on, riding him like a wild horse.
Around and around the zealot spun, slapping and lurching, and finally throwing the assassin aside.
Out came the knife with Entreri’s tumble, though he’d lost his grip on the dagger.
There it stuck, protruding from the mummified zealot’s left eye.
Entreri hit the ground in a roll and drew his long sword as he came back around to his feet.
“Come along!” he ordered Dahlia, and he rushed right past the still-spinning zealot and into the cave, not even pausing to retrieve his dagger.
Dahlia followed, slowing only long enough to glance back at Drizzt and to smack the zealot one last time across the side of his head. Convulsing weirdly now in his death throes, he fell to the ground as she passed him by.
“Valindra first!” Dahlia cried when she saw Entreri cut to the left, to the base of the tower.
But when she entered the cave, she blinked. It was a shallow cave with no apparent exits or hiding spots, but the lich was nowhere to be found.