heard the familiar shuffling behind him and immediately brought up a globe of impenetrable darkness, right over himself and the creature.
The marilith taunted him. "You think I cannot see?" the fiend roared gleefully. "I have lived longer in darkness than you, Drizzt Do'Urden!"
Her unabated attacks seemed to confirm her words. Sword rang out against scimitar, against scimitar, against scimitar against ... axe.
The creature didn't understand for a split second, a fatal hesitation. Suddenly she realized that Drizzt was no longer in front of her, but the drow's dwarven ally! And if Bruenor was in front ...
The marilith reached into her innate magic once more, thinking to teleport away to safety.
Drizzt's strike came first, though, his hungry scimitar driving through the marilith's backbone.
His darkness globe went away then, and Bruenor, in front of the fiend, howled insanely as the tip of Drizzt's scimitar blasted out of the marilith's chest.
Drizzt held on, even managed a twist or two, as the scimitar fed, energy coursing along its blade and hilt.
The marilith spat curse after curse. She tried to attack Bruenor, but could not lift her arms as that wicked, cursed blade gulped at her life force, draining it away. The marilith was less substantial suddenly, her flesh melting away to smoky nothingness.
She promised Drizzt Do'Urden a thousand tortured deaths, promised that she would one day return to exact horrific revenge.
Drizzt had heard it all before.
"There's more and worse inside," Drizzt said to Bruenor when the business was finished.
Bruenor gave a quick look over his shoulder and saw Stumpet closing on his struggling daughter-what the dwarf thought to be a good thing. There was nothing more that Bruenor could do for her. "Let's go then!" he bellowed in reply.
Only a few manes remained-more were coming over the ridge from the back side of the iceberg-and the friends charged on, side by side. They blew away any of the meager resistance, went into the cave hard and fast, where the last group of manes waited, and were summarily destroyed.
The only light the companions had with them came from Drizzt's blades. Twinkle glowed its usual blue, while the other blade flared brightly, a different hue of blue. This scimitar glowed only in extreme cold, and it was glowing more fiercely after its most recent feast.
The cave seemed larger from the inside. The floor inside the entrance sloped down steeply to add to its depth, though the whole of the place was thick with icy stalagmites and stalactites, most reaching from floor to ceiling, which was now more than thirty feet above the pair.
When the fight was ended, Drizzt pointed across the way, to a steep incline, a path up the opposite wall, which ended on a landing that seemed to turn around a blocking sheet of thick ice.
They started across the jagged floor, but stopped when they
heard the maniacal laughter. Errtu appeared, and cold became hot as the mighty balor loosed his devastating fire.
*****
It was a simple case of underestimation. The chasme knew about the material world, had been here before, and understood what to expect from the creatures that lived here.
But Guenhwyvar was not of the material world, and was above what a normal cat could do.
The chasme rushed over the pair, thinking itself high enough to be safe. Great indeed was the fiend's surprise when the mighty cat leaped straight up, crossing thirty feet in a mere instant, great claws hooking fast onto the buglike torso.
Down they went in a heap, Guenhwyvar raking wildly with her back legs, holding fast with her front and biting with all the considerable strength of her powerful jaws.
Regis looked to the rolling pair, quickly surmising that he could do little to help. He called repeatedly for Guenhwyvar, then looked about, seeing that some of the manes were fast returning, this time continuing over the ridge to close in.
"Hurry, Guenhwyvar!" the halfling cried, and the panther did just that, redoubling her devastating kicks.
Then it was Guenhwyvar alone on the ground, pulling herself from the fast-dissipating black smoke. The cat came right to Regis, and started for the door, but Regis, an idea popping into his head, tugged hard to stop her momentum.
"There's a window on the top floor!" the halfling explained, for he had no desire to fight his way through the tower's guardians, which might, he realized, include Errtu. He knew this was a desperate chance, for the window on Cryshal-Tirith's top floor was as often a portal to another place as a normal entrance or exit for