"In there," Entreri whispered as he and Catti-brie came flat against the walls flanking the doorway to the huge, hollowed stalagmite. Gently, Entreri touched the stone door to try to discern any traps (though he figured that any traps would be magical in nature and he would find them when they blew up in his face). To his surprise, the portal suddenly rose, disappearing into a crack in the top of the?amb? and revealing a narrow, dimly lit corridor.
He and Catti-brie exchanged doubtful looks, and after a long, silent pause, both stepped in together—and both nearly fell over with relief when they realized that they were still alive in the corridor.
Their relief was not long-lived, however, for it was stolen by a guttural call, a question, perhaps. Before the pair could decipher any of the words, the form of a huge, muscular humanoid, easily seven feet tall and as wide as the five-foot corridor, stepped into the other end, almost completely stealing the diminutive light The creature's sheer bulk, and its distinctive, bull-like head, revealed its identity.
Catti-brie nearly jumped out of her boots when the door slid closed behind her.
The minotaur grunted the question again, in the Drow tongue.
"He's asking for a password," Entreri whispered to Catti-brie. "I think."
"So give it to him."
Easier said than done, Entreri knew well, for Jarlaxle had never mentioned any password to the inner Baenre structures. Entreri would have to take issue with the mercenary over that small slip, he decided—if he ever got the chance.
The monstrous minotaur advanced a threatening step, waving a spiked adamantite rod out in front of it.
"As if minotaurs aren't formidable enough without giving them drow-made weapons," Entreri whispered to Catti-brie.
Another step put the minotaur barely ten feet from the companions.
"Usstan belbol. . usstan belbau ulu.. dos," Entreri stuttered, and he jingled a pouch on his belt. "Dosst?"
The minotaur stopped its advance and screwed up its bullish features.
"What did you say?" Catti-brie whispered.
"I have no idea," Entreri admitted, though he thought he had mentioned something about a gift.
A low snarl emitted from the increasingly impatient minotaur guard's mouth.
"Dosst" Catti-brie asked boldly, holding out her bow in one hand and trying to appear cheerful. She smiled widely and bobbed her head stupidly, as though offering the bow, all the while slipping her other hand inside the folds of her traveling cloak, feeling for an arrow in the quiver at her hip.
"Dosst?" she asked again, and the minotaur poked itself in the chest with a huge, stubby finger.
"Yeah, yerself!" Catti-brie growled, and out snapped the arrow, fitted to the string and fired before the stupid minotaur even got its back down. The arrow slammed into the monster's chest and sent it staggering backward.
"Use yer finger to fill the hole!" Catti-brie roared, fitting another arrow. "And how many fingers ye got?"
She glanced quickly to Entreri, who was staring at her dumbfoundedly. Catti-brie laughed at him and put another arrow into the monster's chest, driving it back several more steps, where it toppled into the wider room beyond the corridor. When it fell, more than half a dozen other minotaurs were ready to take its place.
"You are crazy!" Entreri shouted at the woman.
Not bothering to answer, Catti-brie slammed an arrow into the closest minotaur's belly. It doubled over in pain and was plowed under by its charging comrades.
Entreri drew out his blades and met the charge, realizing that he had to keep the giants away from Catti-brie so that she might utilize her bow. He met the first minotaur two steps in from the end of the corridor, throwing his sword up to deflect a blow from the creature's spiked rod (and the assassin's whole side tingled with numbness from the sheer weight of the blow).
Much quicker than the lumbering giant, Entreri countered with three rapid dagger strikes to the monster's mid-section. Down swooped the spiked rod, and, though his sword intercepted the blow, Entreri had to spin a complete circuit to absorb the shock and get out of harm's way.
He came around with his sword leading, its green-glowing point cutting a neat line under the minotaur's jaw, slicing through bone and the creature's cowlike tongue.
Blood spewed from the beast's mouth, but it swung again, forcing Entreri back.
A silver streak stole the sight from both combatants as Catti-brie's arrow flew over the engaged minotaur's shoulder to drive into the thick skull of the next creature in line.
Entreri could only hope that the minotaur was similarly blinded as he made his desperate rush, jabbing viciously with his dagger, cutting his sword in a brutal downward slash. He scored lightning-fast hit after hit on the stunned and wounded beast, and his sight returned as the minotaur slumped down in front of him.
Entreri didn't hesitate. He sprang right atop the thing's back, then leaped farther along to the back of the next dead beast, using its bulk to bring him up even with the next monster in line. His sword beat the minotaur to the attack, scoring a solid hit on the creature's shoulder. Entreri thought this one an easy kill as its weapon arm inevitably slumped useless at its side, but he had never fought the likes of a bull-headed minotaur before, and his surprise was complete when the creature snapped a head butt that caught him in the chest.
The minotaur jerked to the side and began a charge across the room, still carrying the assassin between its horns.
"Oh, damn," Catti-brie muttered as she saw the line between her and the remaining monsters suddenly open. She dropped to one knee and began frantically tearing out her arrows and launching them down the corridor.
The blinding barrage dropped one, then two minotaurs, but the third in line grabbed the falling second and hoisted it up as a shield. Catti-brie managed to skip an arrow off that one's thick head, but it did no real damage and the minotaur rapidly closed.
The young woman fired off one more shot, as much to blind the monsters as in any hope of stopping the charge, then she dove to the floor and boldly scrambled ahead, sliding aside the trampling legs.
The minotaur crashed hard into the outer door. Holding its dead comrade in front of it, it could not tell that Catti-brie had slipped away, and it heaved the huge corpse back from the wall and slammed it in again repeatedly.
Still on the floor, Catti-brie had to pick her way past three sets of treelike legs. All three minotaurs were roaring, offering some cover, for they thought that the one in front was squashing the puny woman.
She almost made it.
The last minotaur in line felt a brush against its leg and looked down, then bellowed and grabbed its spiked rod in both hands.
Catti-brie rolled to her back, her bow coming out in front. Somehow she got off a shot, knocking the creature back for just an instant. The woman instinctively threw her feet straight up and over her, launching herself into a backward roll.
The blinded minotaur's rod took a fair-sized chunk out of the stone floor an inch below Catti-brie's angled back.
Catti-brie came right to her feet, facing the beast. She whipped her bow across in front of her and spun away, stumbling out of the corridor.
The breath was taken from his body with the impact. The minotaur wrapped its good arm about Entreri's waist, holding him steady, and hopped back, obviously meaning to slam the assassin into the wall once more. Just a few feet away, another minotaur cheered its winning comrade on.