Gauntlgrym (41 page)

“Look around you. You are sorely outnumbered.”

“Yerself ain’t met me friend, I see,” Bruenor interjected, and he grabbed up his axe and banged it against his shield to set the shield firmly in place on his arm.

The barmaid tossed aside her tray and stepped back, but not quick enough. Drizzt’s weapons came out in a flash, Twinkle’s blade knifing in to stop at the side of her neck.

“I’m bettin’ first blood spilled to be yer own,” Bruenor told her.

“It matters not,” the woman replied with a strange smile. “You’ll not get to Gauntlgrym, whatever my fate. You can abandon that thought peacefully, or we will ensure that fact by killing you. The choice is yours.”

Bruenor and Drizzt exchanged glances, and nods.

The drow’s scimitar flashed, but away from the woman’s neck, tearing the shoulder of her barmaid’s dress and dropping the fabric down off her shoulder. She reacted instinctively, grabbing for the material, and just as Drizzt had
anticipated. He stepped forward and punched out, smashing Twinkle’s pommel into her face, the impact throwing her to the floor.

All around the room, from under tables or cloaks, the others pulled their weapons, mostly curious-looking scepters, half staff, half spear.

Bruenor swept his axe across down low, bringing it under his table, hooking it by the leg, and with a great heave and follow-through, sent the table flying at the opponents standing nearby, driving them back.

“Fight or flee?” he called to Drizzt as he rushed behind his friend to intercept a trio coming in.

He saw his answer in Drizzt’s eyes, simmering with eagerness—and in the dark elf’s actions. The drow rushed forward over the fallen, squirming barmaid to meet the swings of the next two in line with a series of powerful parries and twisting counters. In the blink of an eye, Drizzt had both men reversing direction, back on their heels and working furiously to keep up with his darting scimitars.

Bruenor lifted his shield arm high, accepting the heavy blow of an Ashmadai’s clubbing scepter. He swept his axe across under that upraised arm, but the human woman managed to duck out of reach, and two tiefling warriors to her right rushed in at the apparent opening.

But Bruenor was too seasoned and too crafty to make such an obvious gaffe. His swing was genuine, and he added to its weight and momentum purposely, lifting up on the ball of his leading left foot and spinning a perfectly-timed full pivot to bring his shield right back in alignment with the new attackers. The foaming mug held strong against the stab of a sharpened scepter end, and it took only a slight lift for the dwarf to effectively deflect an overhead club from the other.

He went forward, driving his shield and the tieflings’ weapons up and out as he did, barreling right under his uplifting shield. Bruenor launched a second slash with his axe, which brought blood, catching the thigh of the tiefling on the far right, and brought a howl of pain as the half-devil fell back and over, holding his torn leg.

Bruenor ran right over him, kicking him in the face for good measure. As he passed, the dwarf skidded down low, sliding right under a table, and there he turned and stood powerfully, lifting the table with him and throwing it and its many mugs and plates, both full and empty, back in the faces of the remaining two pursuers.

With a violent flurry, Drizzt rushed between his own pair of Ashmadai, a lumbering half-orc and a dark-skinned human who might have been Turmishan. Both fell aside with multiple cuts on their arms and torsos, shielding themselves defensively though the drow looked past them, eagerly wading into the next enemies in line.

Drizzt knew that speed was his ally. He and Bruenor had to keep moving ferociously to prevent an organized line of attack against them, and that was just the way he liked it.

He ran to a table, jumped up on it, jumped off again, blades flashing with every step, cracking against staff and spear, slicing clothing and skin. Howls and screams, cracking wood and breaking glass marked his passing, like a black tornado cutting a swath of absolute destruction. More than once he abruptly stopped and spun, defeating pursuit with a flurry of parries and thrusts.

On one such turn, Drizzt brought both his blades in from opposite directions and at different angles, scissoring the thrusting spear with such force that he tore it from his pursuer’s grasp. The woman threw her hands up, expecting an onslaught of scimitars, but Drizzt knew that those behind him were closing fast.

He jumped and set his feet on chairs, one left and one right, then sprang up again, tucking a tight back flip as he wound his way over the pursuer, who barreled right under and past him and inadvertently stabbed his own ally. That fact hadn’t even set in, Drizzt knew, by the time he landed behind the stumbling man, Icingdeath sweeping across to slash the back of the man’s legs, just below his buttocks.

How he howled!

Drizzt whirled, slashing long and wildly to keep the others at bay; no less than five of the enemy had formed a semi-circle around him. He set himself low, unwilling to commit and ready to react, forcing them to make the first move.

He managed to glance at Bruenor, to find his friend standing atop the bar, similarly surrounded.

“Die well, elf!” Bruenor called.

“Always as intended!” Drizzt yelled back, not a hint of regret in his voice. But before either could put words to action, another voice rose above the din.

All eyes went to the door, where a most unusual creature had entered the Cutlass, an elf woman dressed in black leather, high boots, and a short, seductively angled skirt, and with a wide hat and a metallic walking stick.

“Who is this?” she demanded.

“Dwarf and a drow!” one man yelled back.

“Not these two!”

“A dwarf and a drow—how many could there be?” another man yelled back at her.

“I can think o’ one other pair,” Bruenor interjected.

“That would be … us,” came a voice from the staircase—Jarlaxle’s voice—and all eyes turned that way to see a second drow and dwarf on the stairs.

“A drow and a dwarf, a dwarf and a drow, a hunnerd times better’n a fox and a cow! Bwahaha!” Athrogate added with unbridled enthusiasm.

The cultists cast about for guidance, obviously caught way off their guard. “Surrender, then, all of you!” one of them demanded. “You are not to return to the beast!”

“The beast?” Jarlaxle replied. “Oh, but we are—and yes, King Bruenor, he is referring to your coveted Gauntlgrym. I have quite a tale to tell to you.”

“When we’re done smashin’ some fools, he means,” Athrogate roared, and he came over the rail in a great leap, morningstars spinning out to the sides. He was fairly high up, and so, though his plummeting charge was a bit of a surprise, the cultists below had time to move aside.

Athrogate landed flat on the top of a table, sending plates and glass flying and flattening the wood straight to the floor, where he landed with a great grunt. Anyone doubting that dwarves could bounce would have had those doubts removed, though, as Athrogate, spitting bits of food, various beverages, and broken ceramic and glass, rebounded right back to his feet. Even more astonishingly, he kept his morningstars somehow spinning at the ends of their respective chains.

“Bwahaha!” he roared, and the Ashmadai backed off in shock. Only for a moment, though, then a pair charged at him furiously.

Both were airborne a heartbeat later, one launched sidelong by the weight of one enchanted morningstar—Athrogate having enacted the magic of that one to coat the head with oil of impact—and the other hooked by the ball and chain around one arm as he tried to block. A twist, a turn, and a throw by the dwarf sent the poor cultist into a flying somersault, at the end of which he, like the dwarf, crashed through a table.

“Bwahaha!”

“Go,” Drizzt bade Bruenor.

Those two dwarves had fought side by side before, and to great effect. Without the slightest hesitation, using Athrogate’s distraction to his advantage, Bruenor charged across the floor, kicking chairs and tables as he went, sweeping glasses and plates, furniture and utensils with his battle-axe, launching them into any and every nearby Ashmadai, just adding to the confusion.

Athrogate saw him coming and likewise cut a path of devastation, seeming more than happy to get beside King Bruenor again for a good row.

Ashmadai rushed the bottom of the staircase, but Jarlaxle paid them no more heed than to toss the feather from his wide-brimmed hat down at them. That feather quickly transformed into a gigantic, flightless bird. The beast cawed, its huge call befitting its stature, echoing off the tavern’s wall. It began beating its small wings furiously, its long, thick neck snapping its powerful beak down at nearby enemies, its heavy legs stomping and cracking the floorboards.

But Jarlaxle wasn’t watching. He tossed the feather and forgot about it, knowing that his dependable pet would buy him all the time he needed. His focus was on the front door, on Dahlia, the last to enter. He tried to get a gauge of the elf woman, looked for a hint of disconnect in her movements. He replayed her words and tried to picture again her face as she’d spoken them. Did her expression match her words?

Jarlaxle reminded himself that it didn’t matter as he drew out his favorite wand and leveled it Dahlia’s way.

The fight was on in full below, with Bruenor and Athrogate battling right below him, and Drizzt weaving into that devastating dance of his across the way, yet Dahlia didn’t yet move to react. Perhaps that was because there were still more than a dozen of her minions between her and the enemy, or maybe it was an indication of something else, Jarlaxle dared to hope.

But the choice was hers, not his.

He spoke a command word, releasing the power of the wand. A thick green-colored glob of some unspeakable semi-liquid flew forth from the tip, sailing down the stairs and across the room to slam against Dahlia, who seemed to disappear under the splatter of the goo as it fastened itself to the doorjamb and wall.

A second blast was on the way before the first had even connected, further burying Dahlia, completely covering her so that anyone looking to the door
for the first time at that moment would have never known an elf woman had stood there a moment before.

Jarlaxle stared at the blob on the wall, and wondered.

Below him, at the base of the stairs, his giant bird shrieked in protest, and an Ashmadai howled in pain as the bird repaid him for the stab of his scepter.

Jarlaxle’s grin disappeared as he turned his attention to Drizzt. He watched the fury of the drow unleashed. Jarlaxle had seen Drizzt in action many times before, but never like that. The ranger’s blades dripped with blood, and his swings were not so carefully measured.

As in the battle with the ash zombies in the forest, Drizzt Do’Urden fell into himself, let all of his frustration, fear, and anger curl in on itself. Now he was the pure fighter, the Hunter, and it was a role he had cherished for decades, since the Spellplague, since the unfairness and callous reality of the world had shattered his delusions, and his sense of calm.

Bruenor used the tables as missiles, hooking them with his axe or his foot and throwing them into the faces of nearby enemies. For Athrogate, the furniture was merely a nuisance and nothing more, something to smash and overturn, all for the pure love of destruction.

But for Drizzt, the chairs and tables, the long bar and the railing, were props, and welcomed ones. His dance would have been far less mesmerizing and effective on an empty, flat floor. He charged to the nearest upright table, leaped atop it, then sprang off it so gracefully that not a glass, mug, or platter moved. He touched down, one foot on the back of a chair, the other on the seat, his momentum carrying him forward, driving the chair over backward.

He reversed his weight and the chair moved back upright, bringing the drow backward to avoid the stab of an Ashmadai’s weapon.

Then he reversed again, quickly, shifting the chair over backward and walking to the floor with it, leaning back as he went to avoid that same Ashmadai as he retracted his thrust and swung his scepter at Drizzt’s head like a club.