back and realized that the drow's sword had hit him at least once. Of more concern, though, was the numbness flowing down Pwent's arm, poison spreading from the crossbow wound. Rage mounting once more, Pwent dipped his pointy helmet, scraped a boot across the stone several times for traction, and rushed ahead, spearing the already dead foe through the chest.
When he jumped back this time, the dead drow toppled to the floor, warm blood spreading out under the body's ripped torso.
"Hope ye wasn't Bruenor's pet drow," the battlerager remarked, suddenly realizing that the whole incident might have been an honest mistake. "Oh, well, can't be helped now!"
* * * * *
Cobble, magically inspecting for traps ahead, instinctively winced as another arrow zipped past his shoulder, its silver shine diminishing into the brightly lit chamber beyond. The dwarven cleric forced himself back to his work, wanting to be done quickly, that he might loose the charge of Bruenor and the others.
A crossbow quarrel dove into his leg, but the cleric wasn't too concerned about its buglike sting or its poison, for he had placed enchantments upon himself to slow the drug's effects. Let the dark elves hit him with a dozen such bolts; it would be hours before Cobble fell to sleep.
His scan of the corridor complete, with no immediate traps discerned, Cobble called back to others, who were impatient and already moving toward him. When the cleric looked back, though, in the dim light emanating from the enemies' chamber, he noticed something curious across the floor: metallic shavings.
"Iron?" he whispered. Instinctively his hand went into his bulging pouch, filled with enchanted pebble bombs, and he went into a defensive crouch, holding his free hand out behind him to warn the others back.
When he focused within the general din of the sudden battle, he heard a female draw voice, chanting, spell-casting.
The dwarf's eyes widened in horror. He turned back, yelling for his friends to be gone, to run away. He, too, tried to run, his boots slipping across the smooth stone, so fast did his little legs begin to move.
He heard the drow spell-caster's crescendo.
The iron shavings immediately became an iron wall, unsupported and angled, and it fell over poor Cobble.
There came a great gush of wind, the great explosion of tons of iron slamming against the stone floor, and flying spurts of pressure-squeezed blood and gore whipped back into the faces of the three stunned companions. A hundred small explosions, a hundred tiny sparkling bursts, rang hollowly under the collapsed iron wall.
"Cobble," Catti-brie breathed helplessly.
The magical light in the distant chamber went away. A ball of darkness appeared just outside the chamber door, blocking the end of the passageway. A second ball of darkness came up, just ahead of the first, and a third after that, covering the back edge of the fallen iron wall.
"Get charging!" Thibbledorf Pwent cried at them, coming back into the corridor and rushing past his hesitating friends.
A ball of darkness appeared right in front of the battlerager, stopping him short. Hand crossbow after hand crossbow clicked unseen behind the blackness, sending stinging little darts whipping out.
"Back!" Bruenor cried. Catti-brie loosed another arrow; Pwent, hit a dozen times, began to slump to the stone. Wulfgar grabbed him by the helmet spike and started away after the red-bearded dwarf.
"Drizzt," Catti-brie moaned quietly. She dropped low to one knee, firing another arrow and another after that, hoping that her friend would not come running out of the room into danger's path.
A quarrel, oozing poison, clicked against her bow and bounced harmlessly wide.
She could not stay.
She fired one more time, then turned and ran after her father and the others, away from the friend she had come to rescue.
* * * * *
Drizzt fell a dozen feet, slammed against the sloping side of the chute, and careened along a winding and swiftly descending way. He held tightly to his scimitars; his greatest fear was that one of them would get away from him and wind up cutting him in half as he bounced along.
He did a complete loop, managed to somersault to put his feet out in front of him, but inadvertently got turned back around at the next vertical drop, the ending slam nearly knocking him unconscious.
Just as he thought he was gaining control, was about to turn himself about once more, the chute opened up diagonally into a lower passageway. Drizzt rifled out, though he kept the presence of mind to hurl his scimitars to their respective