But he didn’t take it. Noting movement ahead, Drizzt instead rushed back farther, the legion devil turning desperately to keep up … oblivious to Hadencourt’s swinging forearm a few strides behind it.
Using that lesser opponent as a shield, Drizzt avoided the shuriken barrage. The legion devil jerked spasmodically as the spinning missiles invaded its back and exploded. Under that brutal assault, the fiend couldn’t hold any measure of its defensive posture, and the drow struck hard.
The fiend stood dead on its feet, tilting and about to fall over, its face locked in a hateful stare at Drizzt, when the malebranche arrived right behind it, swatting it aside with no regard whatsoever for its condition.
On came Hadencourt, his great trident stabbing hard and slashing viciously, forcing Drizzt back and to the side. The furious malebranche pressed on relentlessly, driving the drow ever backward, and with attacks too forceful and potentially devastating for Drizzt to even think of countering.
“Where are you running, fool?” Hadencourt taunted.
Drizzt had no verbal jab to counter that. As he’d known his advantage previous, so he recognized Hadencourt’s now. He thought of the trees, the higher branches, and he let his gaze slip up there once or twice, trying to get Hadencourt to believe that he meant to add another dimension to the battlefield. His retreat was more than a ruse, however, for he could hardly believe the ferocity of the malebranche, and he found it hard to achieve any counters against Hadencourt’s great trident, let alone any effective ones.
So he backed and Hadencourt came on. Drizzt managed a last glance at Dahlia, who had not yet regained even footing against her legion devil opponent.
Suddenly, things were not going well.
Drizzt stumbled back against a thick tree and managed to roll around it just in time to put it between himself and the thrusting trident. He came right back out, hoping the weapon might have gotten snagged on the tree.
But Hadencourt was ready for him, and Drizzt had to dodge back to the other side as the devil filled in the space where he’d been standing.
Drizzt darted out to his right, back the way they’d come, then reversed to the left with great speed.
Hadencourt kept up, though, and more dangerously, so did the malebranche’s deadly trident, putting Drizzt on the very edge of absolute catastrophe.
The fiend slipped up, trying too fast for a kill, and as Dahlia knocked aside that awkward thrust, she turned the tide of the battle yet again. Now back in balance and with the shock of Hadencourt fading, she had only the one legion devil standing in front of her, and standing uncertainly, with a hole blown into one leg from Drizzt’s magical arrow. The battered fiend somehow managed a modicum of balance, but even so, had one arm drooping from the beating Dahlia had given it.
Dahlia knew she would win here, knew that this foe was nearing its end. But as she worked her way around, turning the devil with her so that she could witness Hadencourt’s charge, she didn’t feel nearly as confident regarding her companion’s chances. She watched the other legion devil fall under Hadencourt’s barrage, thanks to a clever turn by Drizzt, but her hopes lasted only the moment it took the mighty malebranche to close the gap to Drizzt, immediately putting him on the defensive, and with no sign of Hadencourt’s overwhelming advantage easing. Dahlia gasped aloud as Drizzt went around the tree, and Hadencourt stabbed the trunk so powerfully the elm nearly broke and fell over.
That gasp, that distraction, cost her, and almost dearly, for the legion devil was not similarly distracted and came on with a slash, which Dahlia blocked, but then with a shield rush, too sudden and too near for Dahlia to dodge.
Wisely, the elf didn’t try to brace against the battering shield, but instead gave ground willingly, even flying to her back, but in a controlled manner that allowed her to complete the roll and come back to her feet.
The legion devil never slowed, though, and so paced her.
But Dahlia had expected that, and in her roll, she rejoined her staff into a singular unit, and when she came over, rolling only to her knees, she planted the end of that eight-foot staff in the ground beside her and held on tightly.
The legion devil’s breath blasted out as it collided with the other end of that metal pole, the tip catching it right in mid-chest. It was not a fatal