Around the next bend the assassin spotted a wide and deco rated balcony, five feet to the side of the continuing walkway. Entreri leaped onto it, seeing a better carved stairway ascending from that point.
As soon as he landed, two dark elves burst out of doors set in the back of the balcony, against the mound. A silver streaking arrow greeted the first, blowing her back into the carved room, and Entreri made short work of the other, finishing her before Drizzt and Catti brie had even leaped across to join him.
Then came Guenhwyvar, the panther flying past the three sur prised companions to take up the lead along the stairway
Higher and higher went the companions, fifty feet, a hundred feet, two hundred feet, off the ground. Huffing and puffing, the tired group ran on, having no choice. Finally, after they had put a thousand feet below them, the huge stalagmite became a stalactite, and the stair gave way to horizontal walkways, connecting many of the larger hanging stones over the Baenre compound.
A group of drow charged along the walkway from the other direction, cutting off the companions. The dark elves fired their hand crossbows as they came, into the great panther as Guenhwy var flattened its ears and charged. Darts stung the cat, pumping their poison, but Guenhwyvar would not be stopped. Realizing this, the trailing members of the group turned and fled, and some of those caught too close to the cat simply leaped over the side of the railed walkway, using their innate powers of levitation to keep them aloft.
Catti-brie immediately hit one of them with an arrow, the force of the impact spinning the dying drow over and over in midair, to hang grotesquely at a diagonal, upside down angle, lines of his blood running freely from the wound to scatter like rain on the stone floor many hundreds of feet below. The other levitating dark elves, realizing how vulnerable they were, quickly dropped from sight.
Guenhwyvar buried the remaining elves on the walkway. Entreri came right behind and finished off those wounded drow left broken in the fierce panther's wake. Entreri looked back to his com panions and gave a determined shout, seeing running room ahead of them.
Catti-brie responded in kind, but Drizzt kept silent. He knew better than the others how much trouble he and his friends were really in. Many of the Baenre drow could likely levitate, an ability that Drizzt had for some reason lost after he had spent some time on the surface. The Baenre soldiers would be up all along the walk ways before long, hiding among the stalactites with their hand crossbows ready
The walkway came to another stalactite and split both ways around the structure. Guenhwyvar went left, Entreri right.
Suspecting an ambush, the assassin rushed around the bend in a slide on his knees. A single drow was waiting for him, arm extended. The dark elf snapped the hand crossbow down as soon as she saw the assassin coming in low. She fired but missed, and Entreri's sword punctured her side. Up came the assassin in a flourish. Hav ing no time for any extended battles, Entreri used his prodding sword as leverage and heaved the female over the railing.
Drizzt and Catti-brie heard a roar and saw a dark elf, swatted by the panther, go tumbling away on the left as well. Catti-brie started that way to follow, but heard a whistle from behind and looked over her shoulder just as Drizzt's tattered green cloak waved in the air. The woman reflexively ducked, then stood.staring at a crossbow dart that had tangled up in the thick cloth, a crossbow dart that had been aimed at the back of her head.
Drizzt dropped the cloak and skipped to Catti-brie's side, affording her a fine view of the walkway behind them and the group of drow fast approaching.
On the narrow walkway, there was no better weapon in all the world than Taulmaril.
Streak after streak flashed down the length, killing and wound ing several drow. Catti-brie thought she could keep up the attack indefinitely, until all the pursuing enemies were slain, but suddenly Drizzt grabbed her by the shoulders and heaved her to the side, falling flat with her under him halfway around the round stalactite.
A lightning bolt slammed the stone, right where they had been standing, showering them both with multicolored sparks.
"Damn wizard!" the fiery woman shouted. She came up on one knee and fired again, thinking