“Come to me, Guenhwyvar!” he yelled, and dropped the statue to the stone. “I need you.”
“Drizzt, no!” Cordio cried, but it was too late, already the gray mist that would become the panther had begun to form.
Torgar sprinted by the drow, taking the stairs two at a time. He veered from his path to the behemoth to intercept the first floating, shadowy creature to emerge from the gate, which resembled an emaciated human dressed in tattered dark gray robes. Torgar leaped at it with a great two-handed swipe of his axe, and the creature, a dread wraith, met that with a sweep of its arm, trailing tendrils of smoke.
The axe struck home and the creature’s hand slapped across the dwarf’s shoulder, its permeating and numbing touch reaching into Torgar and leaching his life-force. Blanching, weaker, Torgar growled through the sudden weariness and pulled back his axe, spinning a complete circuit the other way and coming around with a second chop that bludgeoned the dread wraith straight back into the smoky portal.
But another was taking its place, and Torgar’s legs shook beneath him. He hadn’t the strength to charge, so he tried to firm himself up to meet the newest wraith’s approach.
Leaving Drizzt with a dilemma, to be sure, for while Torgar obviously needed his help, so did Bruenor up above, where the giant was moving deliberately, cutting off the dwarf’s avenues of escape.
But the choice didn’t materialize, for there came a flash of blackness and time seemed to stand still for many long heartbeats.
Light turned to dark and dark to light, so that the giant seemed to become a brighter gray in hue, as did Drizzt, and the dwarves’ faces darkened. Everything reversed, torches flaring black, and the hush of surprise engulfed the creatures of shadow and the companions alike.
Guenhwyvar’s roar broke the spell.
When Drizzt turned to see his beloved companion, his hope turned to horror, for Guenhwyvar, whiter than Drizzt or the behemoth, seemed only half-formed, and she elongated as she leaped for the second emerging wraith, as if she were somehow dragging her magical gate with her very form. She hit the wraith and went back into the shadow portal with it, and as those two portals merged into a weird weave of conflicting energies, there came another blinding burst of black energy. The wraith hissed in protest, and Guenhwyvar’s roar flooded with pain.
The behemoth howled, too, its agony obvious. The portal stretched, twisted, and reached out to grab at the gigantic creature of shadow, as if to bring it home.
No, Drizzt realized, his eyes straining to make sense through the myriad of free-flowing shapes, not to bring it home but as if to engulf the giant and swallow it, and the behemoth’s howls only confirmed that the assault of the twisting portals was no pleasant embrace.
The giant proved the stronger, though, and the portals winked out, and the light returned to normal torch-and lichen light, and all was as it had been before the giant had enacted its gate and Drizzt had responded with one of his own.
Except that the behemoth was clearly wounded, clearly off-balance and staggering. And not everyone had been frozen by the stunning events of the merging gates and the dizzying reversals of light and dark.
Far up the stairs, King Bruenor Battlehammer seized the moment of opportunity. He came down like a rolling boulder, skipped out to the edge of a stair, and leaped as high and as far as his short legs would carry him.
Drizzt charged at the behemoth, demanding its attention with a wild flurry of his blades and a piercing battle cry, and so the giant was fully focused on him when Bruenor’s axe, clutched in both his hands, cracked into its spine.
The behemoth threw its shoulders back in pain and surprise, its elbows tucked against its ribs, its forearms and long fingers flailing and grabbing at the empty air.
Drizzt’s charge became real, focused, and he went right for the giant’s most obviously injured leg, his scimitars digging many lines as he quick-stepped past.
The behemoth whirled to follow the movements of the drow, and Bruenor could not hold on. His axe remained deep into the giant’s back as the dwarf flew off down the stairs. He crashed in a twisted mess, but Cordio was there at once, infusing him with waves of magical healing.
The giant grimaced and staggered, and Drizzt easily got out of reach. He turned fast, thinking to charge right back in.
But he paused when he saw a tell-tale mist reappearing by the small figurine lying on the stairs.
The giant set itself again. It tried to reach back to extract the dwarf’s axe, but the placement prevented it from getting any grip. Down below, Torgar tried to join in, but his legs gave out and he slumped to the stone. No help would come soon from Bruenor, either, Drizzt could see, nor from Cordio, who attended the dwarf king. And Regis was nowhere to be seen.
Giving up on the axe, the behemoth turned its hateful glare at Drizzt. The drow felt a wave of energy flow forth, and for just an instant, he forgot where he was or what was happening. In that split second, he even thought about leaping down at the dwarves, somehow envisioning them as mortal enemies.
But the spell, a dizzying enchantment of confusion, could not take hold on the veteran dark elf the way it had so debilitated Regis, and Drizzt leaped down to the side, coming to the same level as the giant, surrendering the higher ground to limit the giant’s attack options. Better to force it to reach for him, he thought, and better still for it to try to stomp or kick at him.
The giant did just that, lifting its leg, and Guenhwyvar did just as Drizzt wanted and sprang upon the one planted leg, raking at the back of the behemoth’s knee.
In charged Drizzt, forcing the giant to twist, or try to twist, to keep pace. The drow’s magical anklets allowed him to accelerate suddenly past the stomping foot, and he reversed immediately, spinning and slashing at the back of the leading leg. The giant twisted and tried to kick, but Guenhwyvar clamped powerful jaws on the back of its knee, feline fangs tearing deep into dark muscle.
That leg buckled. Arms flailing, the giant fell over backward down the stairs, landing with a tremendous, stone-crunching crash, and just missing crushing poor unconscious Torgar.
Drizzt sprinted and leaped atop it, running down its length to reach its neck before it could bring its arms in to fend him off. Drizzt found less resistance than he expected, for the giant’s fall had driven Bruenor’s axe in all the deeper, severing its spine.
The behemoth was helpless, and Drizzt showed it no mercy. He crossed its massive chest. Its head was back due to the angle of the stairs, leaving its neck fully exposed.
He leaped from the gurgling, dying behemoth a moment later, landing gracefully on the stairs in full run, angling toward where the batlike creature and Pwent had tumbled. It was quiet there, the fight apparently ended, and Drizzt winced when he saw a leathery wing flop, thinking the monster still alive.
But it was just Pwent, he saw, grumbling as he extracted himself from the broken body.
Drizzt veered back the way they’d come, thinking to go after Regis, but before he could even begin, Regis appeared between the buildings, walking back swiftly toward the group, his mace in hand, his chubby cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“It took me strength, me king,” Torgar Hammerstriker was saying when Drizzt, Guenhwyvar in tow, moved back to the three dwarves. “Like it pulled me spine right out.”
“A wraith,” explained Cordio, who was still working on the battered Bruenor, bandaging a cut along the dwarf king’s scalp. “Their chilling touch steals yer inner strength—and it can suren kill ye to death if it gets enough o’ the stuff from ye! Take heart, for ye’ll be fine in a short bit.”