time to partially block that stab, but only partially, and still the tip of Twinkle punctured its leathery skin. Better-aimed, the real attack of Icingdeath knifed in over the sword and scimitar, driving right into the howling devil’s mouth, breaking teeth and twisting into the throat and skull.
The blade reversed almost the moment it went in, for Drizzt had no time to tarry.
He couldn’t have asked for a better moment for Guenhwyvar’s arrival—how many times in his life had the drow experienced exactly that? The speeding panther flew in front of him, driving back the three legion devils.
Drizzt turned and he ran, full speed, his magical ankle bracelets speeding him along. He veered and paused only long enough to retrieve his bow, then tried to approximate where Dahlia had entered the forest—perhaps he could catch her pursuing devil and down it—but she was long gone.
Behind him, he heard Guenhwyvar roar out, and he knew there was pain in that call, but he knew that he couldn’t turn and fight.
Not here. Not now.
Hadencourt was still grimacing in pain, rubbing the hole in his chest, as he came around the globe to rejoin the three legionnaires. They had not pursued Drizzt, or the panther that was now limping into the brush, for the malebranche had instructed them not to do so.
No, Hadencourt had better allies for that task.
One of the legion devils growled in response and clapped its sharp teeth together and banged its sword on its shield, each strike drawing a pained grimace. The line of blood on its back thickened once more as the crease Icingdeath had put there opened wide.
The second wounded devil seemed less eager to chase off after the drow. It worked its serpent’s tongue over its broken teeth, each flicker bringing forth gobs of blood. The movement seemed to feed on itself, growing more ferocious with each flicker, becoming a convulsion, becoming a seizure.
Hadencourt looked at the pitiful thing with disdain, and when it fell to the ground and began thrashing, blood now pouring more freely from its mouth, the malebranche snorted in derision, kicked the sputtering legion devil in the face, and told it to be silent.
And when it was not, when it kept thrashing and gurgling and spitting, Hadencourt drove his trident down into its chest.
A few more thrashes and the legion devil lay still.
The other two nodded their agreement.
A handful more devils joined them then, smaller and lighter creatures hardly as tall as a short dwarf, though quite unlike a dwarf, they had wiry bodies and thin limbs. They scrabbled on all fours as often as they walked upright. Their actions were more primal than those of their more cultured devil companions, more feral and vicious, with their tongues constantly flicking out from their canine snouts and their wild eyes darting around hungrily.
Most notable of all, they were covered, tailbone to skull, in a coat of quills, red-tipped and blue like veins near their base.
The remaining two legion devils crinkled their expressions in disgust and tried to avoid looking at the spined devils.
“You know what I seek,” Hadencourt instructed them.
The five spined devils scrabbled off into the forest, a pair running up the nearest tree as easily as if they were skipping across a fallen log.
Tearing aside brush with his sword, the legion devil charged through the forest. The creature knew the elf woman was just ahead. It knew that it had her!
The devil burst through one thicket, stumbling onto clear ground, then skidded to a stop. The path ahead was clear, the brush thinner, and the elf nowhere in sight. The devil moved more cautiously then, remembering the lessons Hadencourt had imparted when it had been summoned forth to wage this battle.
The devil nodded its horned head. It considered again the female’s departing move. Before it, left and right, stood a pair of tall trees and in the path directly between them lay the tell-tale imprinting of the butt end of a long staff, a depression in the ground, and there, the elf’s footprints ended.
Forked tongue flicking past its long teeth, the devil leaped up and hooked its sword arm over the lowest branch.
Hanging there in mid-air, its focus above, sword arm looped, shield arm reaching, and kicking one leg up repeatedly, the legion devil presented the most appealing target.
Dahlia, who had not climbed the tree and had only made it look like she might have vaulted up there, rushed out from around the tree trunk to the devil’s right, staff in