The creature was ready, though, and as the dwarf bore in, it snapped its mouth out at him, and when it had to retract far short of the mark to avoid a swipe of that vicious axe, the creature just fell back on its tail, as the other one had done, and brought up its formidable rear legs.

One blocked Bruenor’s next swing, kicking out and catching the axe below the head, while the other lashed out, scraping deep lines on the dwarf’s armor. Following that, the creature snapped its upper body forward, the triangular maw biting hard at the dwarf, who only managed at the last instant to get back out of range.

And right back came Bruenor, with a yell and a spit and a downward chop.

The creature rocked back and the axe whipped past cleanly. The creature reversed, coming in behind.

Bruenor didn’t stop the axe’s momentum and reverse it to parry. Rather, he let it flow through, turning sidelong as the blade came low, then turning some more, daring to roll his back around before the beast in the belief that he would be the quicker.

And so he was.

Bruenor came around, the axe in both hands and at full extension in a great sidelong slash. The creature scrambled to block. Bruenor shortened his grip, bringing the axe head in closer. When the creature kicked out to block, the axe met it squarely, removing one of the three toes and cleaving the blocking foot in half.

The creature threw itself forward, screaming in pain and anger, coming at Bruenor with blind rage. And the dwarf king backed frantically, his axe working to-and-fro to fend off the snapping assaults.

“Elf! I’m needin’ ye!” the desperate dwarf bellowed.

Drizzt was in no position to answer. The wound he had inflicted on one of the beasts wasn’t quite as serious as he’d hoped, apparently, for that creature showed no signs of relenting. Worse for Drizzt, he had been backed into a wider area, giving the creatures more room to maneuver and spread out before him.

They went wide, left and right, amazingly well coordinated for unthinking beasts—if they were indeed unthinking beasts. Drizzt worked his blades as far to either side as he could, and when that became impractical and awkward, the drow rushed ahead suddenly, back toward the tunnel.

Both creatures turned to chase, but Drizzt reversed even faster, spinning to meet their pursuit with a barrage of blows. He scored a deep gash on the side of one’s mouth, and poked the other in its bottom eye.

Up above he heard a crash, and from the side Bruenor called for him. All he could do was look for options.

His gaze followed the trail of falling rocks, to see Torgar Hammer striker in a wild and overbalanced run down the side of the stalagmite. The dwarf held a heavy crossbow before him, and just before his stumbling sent him into a headlong slide, he let fly a bolt, somehow hitting the creature to Drizzt’s right. The crossbow went flying and so did Torgar, crashing and bouncing the rest of the way down.

The creature he had hit stumbled then spun to meet the dwarf’s charge. But its jaws couldn’t catch up to the bouncing and flailing Torgar, and the dwarf slammed hard against the back and side of the beast, bringing it down in a heap. Dazed beyond sensibility, Torgar couldn’t begin to defend himself in that tumble as the creature moved to strike.

But Drizzt moved around the remaining creature and struck hard at the fallen beast, his scimitars slicing at its flesh in rapid succession, tearing deep lines. Drizzt had to pause to fend off the other, but as soon as that attack was repelled, he went back to the first, ensuring that it was dead.

Then the drow smiled, seeing that the tide had turned, seeing the lowered head spike rushing in hard at the standing creature’s backside.

Even as Pwent connected, skewering the beast from behind, Drizzt broke off and ran toward the wagon. By the time he got there, he found Bruenor and his opponent in a wild back and forth of snapping and slashing.

Drizzt leaped up to the lip of the wagon side, looking for an opening. Noting him, Bruenor rushed out the other way, and the creature turned with the dwarf.

Drizzt leaped astride its back, his scimitars going to quick and deadly work.

“What in the Nine Hells are them things?” Bruenor asked when the vicious thing at last lay still.

“What from the Nine Hells, perhaps,” said Drizzt with a shrug.

The two moved back to the center of the room, where Pwent continued pummeling the already dead beast and Regis tended to the dazed and battered Torgar.

“I can’t be getting down,” came a call from above, and all eyes lifted to see Cordio peering over the entrance, far above. “Ain’t no place to set the rope.”

“I’ll get him,” Drizzt assured Bruenor.

With agility that continued to awe, the drow ran up the side of the stalagmite, sliding his scimitars away. At the top, he searched and found his handholds, and between those and the rope, which Cordio had braced once more, Drizzt soon disappeared back out of the hole.

A few moments later, Cordio came down on the rope, gaining to the top of the mound, then, with Drizzt’s help, he worked his way gingerly down to the ground. Drizzt came back into the cavern soon after, hanging by his fingertips. He fell purposely, landing lightly atop the stalagmite mound. From there, the drow trotted down to join his friends.

“Stupid, smelly lizards,” Pwent muttered as he tried to put his boot back on. The metal bands had been bent, though, crimping the opening in the shoe, and so it was no easy task.

“What were them things?” Bruenor asked any and all.

“Extraplanar creatures,” said Cordio, who was inspecting one of the bodies—one of the bodies that was smoking and dissipating before his very eyes. “I’d be keeping yer cat in its statue, elf.”

Drizzt’s hand went reflexively to his pouch, where he kept the onyx figurine he used to summon Guenhwyvar to the Prime Material Plane. He nodded his agreement with Cordio. If ever he had needed the panther, it would have been in the last fight, and even then, he hadn’t dared call upon her. He could sense it, too, a pervasive aura of strange otherworldliness. The place was either truly haunted or somehow dimensionally unstable.

He slipped his hand in the pouch and felt the contours of the panther replica. He hoped the situation wouldn’t force him to chance a call to Guenhwyvar, but in glancing around at his already battered companions, he had little confidence that it could be avoided for long.

The orcs of Clan Yellowtusk swept into the forest from the north, attacking trees as if avenging some heinous crime perpetrated upon them by the inanimate plants. Axes chopped and fires flared to life, and the group, as ordered, made as much noise as they could.

On a hillside to the east, Dnark, Toogwik Tuk, and Ung-thol crouched and waited nervously, while Clan Karuck crept along the low ground behind them and to the south.

“This is too brazen,” Ung-thol warned. “The elves will come out in force.”

Dnark knew that his shaman’s words were not without merit, for they’d encroached on the Moonwood, the home of a deadly clan of elves.

“We will be gone across the river before the main groups arrive,” Toogwik Tuk replied. “Grguch and Hakuun have planned this carefully.”

“We are exposed!” Ung-thol protested. “If we are seen here on open ground…”

“Their eyes will be to the north, to the flames that eat their beloved god-trees,” said Toogwik Tuk.

“It is a gamble,” Dnark interjected, calming both shamans.

“It is the way of the warrior,” said Toogwik Tuk. “The way of the orc. It is something Obould Many-Arrows would have once done, but no more.”

Truth resonated in those words to both Dnark and Ung-thol. The chieftain glanced down at the creeping warriors of Clan Karuck, many shrouded by branches they had attached to their dark armor and clothing. Further to the side, tight around the trees of a small copse, a band of ogre javelin throwers held still and quiet, atlatl throwing sticks in hand.