Chapter Five: The Darkest Hour, the Final Duel
Entreri. The one man in all of Faerun I have no desire to face is, of course, the one that Fate mockingly throws directly into my path.
He is my opposite in this place. He is the one who showed my principles, my morality, to be faulty, to be a lie. He is what I am not. He has held up a mirror to my morals, revealed them for what they are. Less substantial than the mists of the dale, less real than the swords in my hands.
Less than the air over the earth.
They are nothing. The desperate concepts of a mind truly weak.
I look back now and I remember. I remember back to my confrontation with Matron Malice, my mother, back in Menzoberranzan, after she had knowingly, indeed eagerly, given my father Zaknafein to Lolth, the Spider Queen as a sacrifice. She offered me the chance to become Weapons Master of House Do'Urden.
At that time I had seen it as an evil offer intent upon trapping me the same way it had trapped Zaknafein. I saw it as a trick, a way to destroy the moral light in my heart.
And now I look back at it in my present light and I wonder. Should I have accepted? My place is surely among the drow, down in the bowels of the earth, amid the heartless, the hopeless, and the dark world of the Underdark.
I have tried to live upon the surface, but even now, so many years after my first step into the open sky, I am shunned and feared for my heritage, my dark skin.
I am drow.
I know what that means.
Perhaps I should start to live like one.
I shall start with the death of my foe, Artemis Entreri.
He shall surely die.
--Drizzt Do'Urden
***
The scimitars weaved furiously before the leaping drow, slicing out individual patterns totally unrelated to each other yet also complementing the other, Twinkle spinning out to the left and carving circles through the air while IcingDeath shot straight out, weaving indestructible defenses against any attack.
Entreri was so stunned that he barely reacted for a moment. But he recovered in time to draw his jeweled dagger, his most prized weapon, and his only-recently acquired sword. Its blade glowed bright red as it was yanked from its scabbard and whipped up before Entreri to deflect Twinkle, sending the sword down and to the side as the human's dagger sliced forward to test the defenses. It was clanked away instantly by Icingdeath.
And then Entreri was overwhelmed by a myriad of stunning maneuvers as Drizzt spun and sliced, weaving his blades in an awe-inspiring display of talent as the drow played through his rage. Entreri staggered to keep up, slashing left, and rolling away and back from a horizontal slice by IcingDeath which opened a cut in his leather jerkin across his belly. Fortunately for Entreri, that was all it cut.
The human was forced to retreat backward, parrying slash after cut after lunge, being driven back by the sheer primal ferocity of the attack, desperately trying not to become distracted by the incredible display. Then Drizzt halted the pursuit and simply stood there, scimitars at his sides, his chest heaving, his eyes flaring with purple fire.
Entreri faced off against him, remaining outside of striking distance.
"You skill remains, drow," the human sneered, finding rage building in him as he finally confronted his long-time nemesis at last.
Drizzt gave him a cold glare, and then moved forward again, scimitars flashing like fire with every lightning strike, the drow's lavender eyes blazing with every thunder roll. Entreri was continually pressed back farther and farther.
And then Drizzt began to spin, rotating his feet so that Entreri was always facing a different scimitar weaving his way, Drizzt presenting his left side and Twinkle in an overhead slash that Entreri banged away, then shifted, stepping forward and setting his right side towards the human, Icingdeath sweeping upwards from below, his left foot already following, like a dance.
Entreri found himself gaping at the speed, the flow, the perfect weave of the duel blades against him, Drizzt's constantly spinning scimitars dicing the air before him. It was not just surprise, it was utter awe, utter astonishment at the agility, the speed, the sheer power of the moves, designed perfectly to drive Entreri back.
And then Entreri was out of room, his back coming to rest against the sheer cliff face that rose above him. He knew there was a trail somewhere to the left, but it only led upwards. Not a direction Entreri wished to go, but then, a choice between that and death would surely result in him taking the path.
Drizzt came on, twirling his scimitars before him, a dangerous look in his eyes. Entreri waited until the last possible moment then swept his sword vertically before him in a flash of red that trailed a wall of ash.
Drizzt blinked in surprise as the ash wall appeared before him. His momentum carried him through it easily, it was not meant to deter him, merely distract, and it crumbled around him. His scimitars carved trails through the rock wall where Entreri had been only a second before.
Sensing an attack from the side, Drizzt dropped to the ground as Charon's Claw whistled overhead, slicing a lock of Drizzt's white hair as the blade sailed by. Drizzt slashed out with Icingdeath for Entreri's shins, but the nimble human leaped over the move, hopping back out of range. Then Entreri moved forward, clearly hoping to create an advantage by assaulting the drow while he was down.
But Drizzt was already rolling away and to his feet. He was just bringing his weapons up to bear when Entreri launched a fury of blows designed to overwhelm and confuse an opponent. It would certainly have worked had it been any opponent but Drizzt Do'Urden, mightiest warrior of warriors.
The two began to circle, three, four, even five blows ringing into the night over the din of the thunder every second, weapons a blur of flashes and clangs of metal. Slowly but surely, Entreri began to force Drizzt into the defensive, furiously driving the drow backwards up the narrow path that wound its way to the peak of the mountain.
Had they looked back, they would, in the frequent flashes of lightning lighting up the sky, seen a score of orcs following cautiously, waiting to overwhelm and kill the winner.
***
The wind whipped through Alustriel's hair as she directed the flaming and flying chariot over Icewind Dale.
"Faster!" she cried, her face aglow with pale light, dress damp from the pouring rain, hair trailing out behind her lazily seemingly avoiding the rain, for it was perfectly dry.
Pwent watched her with surprise and more than a little trepidation.
"We approach the Spine of the World!" She shouted at him over a particularly close clash of thunder and a lightning bolt blasted through the air within feet of the chariot. The dwarves crowded into the back of the chariot shifted nervously.
Dimly, the dwarf realized that this girly elf may be crazier than all of his Gutbuster Brigade.
***
The trail leading up the mountain was no more than three feet wide with a solid and smooth rock wall upon one side and a several thousand foot drop, all the way to the bottom of the Spine of the World, on the other.
Drizzt slapped away yet another attack, moving quickly backwards, picking off three more jabs with that red sword and one more from Entreri's dagger. Drizzt kept moving backward, up and up, his swords twirling before him. He had been surprised by the human with that ash wall trick and it had allowed Entreri to press the advantage, sending Drizzt on the defensive. He had not yet caught up.
Then suddenly, lightning flashed so very close to the path, only feet from them. Drizzt and Entreri felt the power of its passing, and it blinded Drizzt for a split second. It was enough. Icingdeath came up with his arm to cover his hurting eyes.
Entreri struck with a slashing blow. Drizzt felt it coming and tried to twist away, but it drew a red line down his leg from hip to knee.
Drizzt cried out and fell to the ground, landing awkwardly, Twinkle bouncing free of his grasp and made a blue arcing line over the cliff and out of sight.
Entreri cried out in triumph and lifted Charon's Claw over his head.
"To the victor!" he shouted and brought the sword down.
Drizzt lifted his leg and caught the descending arm, then lifted his other one and with a roar of pain and absolute rage, kicked Entreri in the groin.
Gasping in agony, Entreri fell to his knees, his dagger sliding out and falling away to follow Drizzt's sword down and out of sight.
Drizzt felt his leg, and blinked in surprise. The wound had already closed! Then he felt the magical ruby working and realized what was happening.
He rolled to his feet and attacked Entreri, who was still on his knees. Entreri pushed away the pain and brought Charon's Claw up, deflecting the strike. He then staggered to his feet and drove Drizzt on.
Entreri, in a deeper rage than he thought possible, pushed his fighting skills to the limit, the surprised Drizzt again on the defensive as Charon's Claw hummed and whirled around him.
***
Alustriel scanned the mountains intently, searching for some sign. She had dreamed a vision and it was coming to pass, piece by piece.
"Look ye there!" shouted Pwent suddenly, pointing.
She turned and looked in the direction the dwarf was pointing a stubby finger. At first, she saw nothing, but then spotted what the smelly dwarf was pointing at. Orcs. At least a score.
Nodding, she turned the chariot about and headed straight for them.
Pwent turned to the few members of the Gutbuster Brigade he could pack into the chariot.
"Orc-bashin' time!" he shouted at them eagerly.
There were fidgets of excitement from the crowd as they readied their weapons. They loved bashin' orcs.
***
Grignag, orc leader, looked around at his troops. They were eager, he could tell. Eager to eliminate the surviving human.
The human was the only survivor of the raid on the caravan. The general had ordered absolute secrecy, no survivors. Grignag had noticed the human escaping and gathered a score of his men and pursued. He would return to the general triumphantly holding the warrior's head and present it to the general.
He knew that the general would be pleased.
***
The two combatants reached the peak of the mountain and found it fairly flat ground in a ten-foot circle. On all sides, the mountain fell away to rocks far, far, far below.
Drizzt spun out to the side now that he was free of the confines of the path, and rolled, skidding to his feet, Icingdeath before him.
Entreri emerged and set his feet, Charon's Claw extended out to guard the front.
"Quite the display, don't you think, drow?" Entreri taunted, feeling a desire to mock Drizzt despite his better efforts and wishes not to.
Drizzt gave an enraged roar and charged forward, Icingdeath weaving and dancing. Lightning lit up the sky all around them. The wind tore at their clothes, whipping and snapping their cloaks, and thunder rolled in the black sky, the rain slapping and spattering hard at them, seeming to aim for the eyes.
Entreri met the attack calmly and slashed Charon's Claw back and forth, to the right and then to the left, above and then below.
Evenly matched, the two warriors vented their fury, swords moving faster than the eye could follow. The lunges and parries were skilled, fast and furious, each blow carrying with it each fighter's own personal demons. Never in all the ages of the past had Faerun seen such a battle, never in all the ages past had there been such a display of fighting prowess and skill. Never would Faerun see its kind again.
***
The chariot swooped low, only a dozen feet above the heads of the orcs, a gout of flame leading it in from the hand of Alustriel. As it rocketed by, Thibbledwarf Pwent Battlerager leaped from the back, his dozen dwarven followers at his heels, like a dozen dwarven bombs delivered express to their enemies.
They landed on the ground, in bushes, and on enemies, spiky armor doing its job well, splattering orcs to the ground. The screams of panicked orcs filled the air.
Pwent landed in a small shrub and quickly got tangled in its branches. Cursing, he jiggled about, the sharp points of his armor quickly reducing the bush to a series of shredded greenery. Rolling to his feet, Pwent charged off, into the thick of the fight.
He loved bashin' orcs.
***
They locked their weapons, each swordsman pressing against the other in an effort to throw his foe to the ground. Drizzt's eyes blazed like twin lavender stars in the night, Entreri's like two red points of light.
Drizzt bellowed in rage, trying to cast off the human, their blades sparking and grating against the other.
Suddenly the rain was gone, the thunder, the clouds, even Entreri was gone and Drizzt was back in Zaknafein's gym during their final duel.
They pressed their swords together, each enraged against the other.
"Child killer!" shouted Zak, goading Drizzt on.
Drizzt felt the rage filling him, rushing through his veins and filling his heart until the point of breaking, the anger, the pain. He was the Hunter.
With the greatest strength Drizzt had ever known, he gave a scream of pure anguish and hurled Zak away from him, lifting the weapon's master from his feet and tossing him away as if he were a rag.
***
Entreri was lifted into the air at the strength of the push and knocked backward five or six feet, sliding to the edge of the ledge before stopping, his head drooping over the side, over a thousand feet over empty air.
He climbed to his feet and readied Charon's Claw, glaring at Drizzt, who was merely standing straight and staring at him blankly. There was something strange about that stare, as if Drizzt were looking at Entreri but seeing someone else.
He charged Drizzt then, but the drow was ready for him.
The scimitars batted away every attack, every strike, each move bringing the fight closer to the end of the sequence of moves. Entreri jabbed his sword straight out. Icingdeath slammed into it and pinned it to the ground.
***
Drizzt came up high, too high, and Zak drove him back on his heels. Drizzt knew what would soon be coming; he invited it openly. Zak kept Drizzt's weapons high through several combined maneuvers. He then went with the move that had defeated Drizzt in the past, expecting that the best Drizzt could attain would be equal footing: double-thrust low.
Drizzt executed the appropriate cross-down parry, as he had to, and Zak tensed, waiting for his eager opponent to try to improve the move.*
"What will you do now, killer of young elves? Killer of Ellifain!"
Drizzt stared into the eyes of his father in absolute horror. That wasn't possible! Zaknafein had not known the elf's name, had not lived to see Drizzt slay that same elf girl later in his life! It could not be! Suddenly Drizzt felt the guilt well up in him. He felt the shame of his deeds reflected in the eyes of his father and he could not face that stare.
Cursing, tears forming in his eyes, Drizzt struck, blindly, and with all the strength he could muster. He let go of his sword. Zak overbalanced and fell forward, and Drizzt brought his knee straight up into his face. Zak reversed direction and fell backward to the ground, clutching at his nose.
"It was in defense!" Drizzt shouted at him, his voice cracking.
And he came out of the past, staggering as he rushed back to the mountain top.
He looked down and found Entreri clutching at his nose, laying upon the ground, blood covering his face.
Drizzt also realized that he was unarmed. A rage filled him as he looked upon Entreri and he snatched up his scimitar and charged. Entreri rolled to his feet and charged Drizzt. They came together for a singular moment and lightning blasted through the sky, turning night to day, and thunder rolled, long and loud, as Entreri felt Icingdeath slide easily into his body at the same time that Drizzt felt Charon's Claw pierce his flesh.
Both opponents gasped in pain and hovered on their feet for a long moment, staring at each other, both impaled by the other, both seriously wounded.
Time stopped for one long, horrifyingly long, moment.
Then they slid off of each other's swords and fell beside each other, gasping for breath, clutching at bleeding wounds, swords clattering to the stone.
"Ironic how the tables turn, isn't it?" Entreri rasped.
Drizzt raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question, wincing in pain.
"Once it was I who attacked so rashly, who let his anger be his guide, to want revenge, to not know one's place in the world. Now, I see, that has changed. I am the one secure in my place, and you, O Righteous Drow, are lost and confused," said Entreri, voice wavering at several points.
The rage left Drizzt's eyes as he heard Entreri speak. The human was right. The roles had reversed and Drizzt hated himself the more for it. He would never have done that in the past, would never have rushed so stupidly into battle. He smiled slightly as he remembered how he had taught Wulfgar the same lessons he was now repeating. How cruelly ironic fate was.
"Who then is now living the lie, Drizzt Do'Urden?" Entreri sneered, clearly enjoying every second of having the moral advantage over Drizzt, even though it may be the last seconds of his life.
The words were an icy knife in the weary heart of Drizzt Do'Urden.
"So teach then, O Mighty Human," smiled Drizzt. He knew his place, his purpose once again.
Entreri smiled.
"Gladly," he said, and the human, finding some energy reserves, rolled to the right, grasping Charon's Claw eagerly.
The human found himself propelled by an anger that fed his energy, that gave him the last reserves of strength. He was driven to do what he set out to do, defeat the drow. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the burning, sharp pain in his side, ignoring the wet, red blood staining his tunic, ignoring the fact that he was seriously wounded.
Drizzt climbed to his feet wearily, but did not retrieve his scimitar.
Entreri lurched towards Drizzt grimly.
Drizzt Do'Urden lifted not a finger.
In fact, he smiled.
* taken from Salvator's Homeland, pg. 276
Entreri. The one man in all of Faerun I have no desire to face is, of course, the one that Fate mockingly throws directly into my path.
He is my opposite in this place. He is the one who showed my principles, my morality, to be faulty, to be a lie. He is what I am not. He has held up a mirror to my morals, revealed them for what they are. Less substantial than the mists of the dale, less real than the swords in my hands.
Less than the air over the earth.
They are nothing. The desperate concepts of a mind truly weak.
I look back now and I remember. I remember back to my confrontation with Matron Malice, my mother, back in Menzoberranzan, after she had knowingly, indeed eagerly, given my father Zaknafein to Lolth, the Spider Queen as a sacrifice. She offered me the chance to become Weapons Master of House Do'Urden.
At that time I had seen it as an evil offer intent upon trapping me the same way it had trapped Zaknafein. I saw it as a trick, a way to destroy the moral light in my heart.
And now I look back at it in my present light and I wonder. Should I have accepted? My place is surely among the drow, down in the bowels of the earth, amid the heartless, the hopeless, and the dark world of the Underdark.
I have tried to live upon the surface, but even now, so many years after my first step into the open sky, I am shunned and feared for my heritage, my dark skin.
I am drow.
I know what that means.
Perhaps I should start to live like one.
I shall start with the death of my foe, Artemis Entreri.
He shall surely die.
--Drizzt Do'Urden
***
The scimitars weaved furiously before the leaping drow, slicing out individual patterns totally unrelated to each other yet also complementing the other, Twinkle spinning out to the left and carving circles through the air while IcingDeath shot straight out, weaving indestructible defenses against any attack.
Entreri was so stunned that he barely reacted for a moment. But he recovered in time to draw his jeweled dagger, his most prized weapon, and his only-recently acquired sword. Its blade glowed bright red as it was yanked from its scabbard and whipped up before Entreri to deflect Twinkle, sending the sword down and to the side as the human's dagger sliced forward to test the defenses. It was clanked away instantly by Icingdeath.
And then Entreri was overwhelmed by a myriad of stunning maneuvers as Drizzt spun and sliced, weaving his blades in an awe-inspiring display of talent as the drow played through his rage. Entreri staggered to keep up, slashing left, and rolling away and back from a horizontal slice by IcingDeath which opened a cut in his leather jerkin across his belly. Fortunately for Entreri, that was all it cut.
The human was forced to retreat backward, parrying slash after cut after lunge, being driven back by the sheer primal ferocity of the attack, desperately trying not to become distracted by the incredible display. Then Drizzt halted the pursuit and simply stood there, scimitars at his sides, his chest heaving, his eyes flaring with purple fire.
Entreri faced off against him, remaining outside of striking distance.
"You skill remains, drow," the human sneered, finding rage building in him as he finally confronted his long-time nemesis at last.
Drizzt gave him a cold glare, and then moved forward again, scimitars flashing like fire with every lightning strike, the drow's lavender eyes blazing with every thunder roll. Entreri was continually pressed back farther and farther.
And then Drizzt began to spin, rotating his feet so that Entreri was always facing a different scimitar weaving his way, Drizzt presenting his left side and Twinkle in an overhead slash that Entreri banged away, then shifted, stepping forward and setting his right side towards the human, Icingdeath sweeping upwards from below, his left foot already following, like a dance.
Entreri found himself gaping at the speed, the flow, the perfect weave of the duel blades against him, Drizzt's constantly spinning scimitars dicing the air before him. It was not just surprise, it was utter awe, utter astonishment at the agility, the speed, the sheer power of the moves, designed perfectly to drive Entreri back.
And then Entreri was out of room, his back coming to rest against the sheer cliff face that rose above him. He knew there was a trail somewhere to the left, but it only led upwards. Not a direction Entreri wished to go, but then, a choice between that and death would surely result in him taking the path.
Drizzt came on, twirling his scimitars before him, a dangerous look in his eyes. Entreri waited until the last possible moment then swept his sword vertically before him in a flash of red that trailed a wall of ash.
Drizzt blinked in surprise as the ash wall appeared before him. His momentum carried him through it easily, it was not meant to deter him, merely distract, and it crumbled around him. His scimitars carved trails through the rock wall where Entreri had been only a second before.
Sensing an attack from the side, Drizzt dropped to the ground as Charon's Claw whistled overhead, slicing a lock of Drizzt's white hair as the blade sailed by. Drizzt slashed out with Icingdeath for Entreri's shins, but the nimble human leaped over the move, hopping back out of range. Then Entreri moved forward, clearly hoping to create an advantage by assaulting the drow while he was down.
But Drizzt was already rolling away and to his feet. He was just bringing his weapons up to bear when Entreri launched a fury of blows designed to overwhelm and confuse an opponent. It would certainly have worked had it been any opponent but Drizzt Do'Urden, mightiest warrior of warriors.
The two began to circle, three, four, even five blows ringing into the night over the din of the thunder every second, weapons a blur of flashes and clangs of metal. Slowly but surely, Entreri began to force Drizzt into the defensive, furiously driving the drow backwards up the narrow path that wound its way to the peak of the mountain.
Had they looked back, they would, in the frequent flashes of lightning lighting up the sky, seen a score of orcs following cautiously, waiting to overwhelm and kill the winner.
***
The wind whipped through Alustriel's hair as she directed the flaming and flying chariot over Icewind Dale.
"Faster!" she cried, her face aglow with pale light, dress damp from the pouring rain, hair trailing out behind her lazily seemingly avoiding the rain, for it was perfectly dry.
Pwent watched her with surprise and more than a little trepidation.
"We approach the Spine of the World!" She shouted at him over a particularly close clash of thunder and a lightning bolt blasted through the air within feet of the chariot. The dwarves crowded into the back of the chariot shifted nervously.
Dimly, the dwarf realized that this girly elf may be crazier than all of his Gutbuster Brigade.
***
The trail leading up the mountain was no more than three feet wide with a solid and smooth rock wall upon one side and a several thousand foot drop, all the way to the bottom of the Spine of the World, on the other.
Drizzt slapped away yet another attack, moving quickly backwards, picking off three more jabs with that red sword and one more from Entreri's dagger. Drizzt kept moving backward, up and up, his swords twirling before him. He had been surprised by the human with that ash wall trick and it had allowed Entreri to press the advantage, sending Drizzt on the defensive. He had not yet caught up.
Then suddenly, lightning flashed so very close to the path, only feet from them. Drizzt and Entreri felt the power of its passing, and it blinded Drizzt for a split second. It was enough. Icingdeath came up with his arm to cover his hurting eyes.
Entreri struck with a slashing blow. Drizzt felt it coming and tried to twist away, but it drew a red line down his leg from hip to knee.
Drizzt cried out and fell to the ground, landing awkwardly, Twinkle bouncing free of his grasp and made a blue arcing line over the cliff and out of sight.
Entreri cried out in triumph and lifted Charon's Claw over his head.
"To the victor!" he shouted and brought the sword down.
Drizzt lifted his leg and caught the descending arm, then lifted his other one and with a roar of pain and absolute rage, kicked Entreri in the groin.
Gasping in agony, Entreri fell to his knees, his dagger sliding out and falling away to follow Drizzt's sword down and out of sight.
Drizzt felt his leg, and blinked in surprise. The wound had already closed! Then he felt the magical ruby working and realized what was happening.
He rolled to his feet and attacked Entreri, who was still on his knees. Entreri pushed away the pain and brought Charon's Claw up, deflecting the strike. He then staggered to his feet and drove Drizzt on.
Entreri, in a deeper rage than he thought possible, pushed his fighting skills to the limit, the surprised Drizzt again on the defensive as Charon's Claw hummed and whirled around him.
***
Alustriel scanned the mountains intently, searching for some sign. She had dreamed a vision and it was coming to pass, piece by piece.
"Look ye there!" shouted Pwent suddenly, pointing.
She turned and looked in the direction the dwarf was pointing a stubby finger. At first, she saw nothing, but then spotted what the smelly dwarf was pointing at. Orcs. At least a score.
Nodding, she turned the chariot about and headed straight for them.
Pwent turned to the few members of the Gutbuster Brigade he could pack into the chariot.
"Orc-bashin' time!" he shouted at them eagerly.
There were fidgets of excitement from the crowd as they readied their weapons. They loved bashin' orcs.
***
Grignag, orc leader, looked around at his troops. They were eager, he could tell. Eager to eliminate the surviving human.
The human was the only survivor of the raid on the caravan. The general had ordered absolute secrecy, no survivors. Grignag had noticed the human escaping and gathered a score of his men and pursued. He would return to the general triumphantly holding the warrior's head and present it to the general.
He knew that the general would be pleased.
***
The two combatants reached the peak of the mountain and found it fairly flat ground in a ten-foot circle. On all sides, the mountain fell away to rocks far, far, far below.
Drizzt spun out to the side now that he was free of the confines of the path, and rolled, skidding to his feet, Icingdeath before him.
Entreri emerged and set his feet, Charon's Claw extended out to guard the front.
"Quite the display, don't you think, drow?" Entreri taunted, feeling a desire to mock Drizzt despite his better efforts and wishes not to.
Drizzt gave an enraged roar and charged forward, Icingdeath weaving and dancing. Lightning lit up the sky all around them. The wind tore at their clothes, whipping and snapping their cloaks, and thunder rolled in the black sky, the rain slapping and spattering hard at them, seeming to aim for the eyes.
Entreri met the attack calmly and slashed Charon's Claw back and forth, to the right and then to the left, above and then below.
Evenly matched, the two warriors vented their fury, swords moving faster than the eye could follow. The lunges and parries were skilled, fast and furious, each blow carrying with it each fighter's own personal demons. Never in all the ages of the past had Faerun seen such a battle, never in all the ages past had there been such a display of fighting prowess and skill. Never would Faerun see its kind again.
***
The chariot swooped low, only a dozen feet above the heads of the orcs, a gout of flame leading it in from the hand of Alustriel. As it rocketed by, Thibbledwarf Pwent Battlerager leaped from the back, his dozen dwarven followers at his heels, like a dozen dwarven bombs delivered express to their enemies.
They landed on the ground, in bushes, and on enemies, spiky armor doing its job well, splattering orcs to the ground. The screams of panicked orcs filled the air.
Pwent landed in a small shrub and quickly got tangled in its branches. Cursing, he jiggled about, the sharp points of his armor quickly reducing the bush to a series of shredded greenery. Rolling to his feet, Pwent charged off, into the thick of the fight.
He loved bashin' orcs.
***
They locked their weapons, each swordsman pressing against the other in an effort to throw his foe to the ground. Drizzt's eyes blazed like twin lavender stars in the night, Entreri's like two red points of light.
Drizzt bellowed in rage, trying to cast off the human, their blades sparking and grating against the other.
Suddenly the rain was gone, the thunder, the clouds, even Entreri was gone and Drizzt was back in Zaknafein's gym during their final duel.
They pressed their swords together, each enraged against the other.
"Child killer!" shouted Zak, goading Drizzt on.
Drizzt felt the rage filling him, rushing through his veins and filling his heart until the point of breaking, the anger, the pain. He was the Hunter.
With the greatest strength Drizzt had ever known, he gave a scream of pure anguish and hurled Zak away from him, lifting the weapon's master from his feet and tossing him away as if he were a rag.
***
Entreri was lifted into the air at the strength of the push and knocked backward five or six feet, sliding to the edge of the ledge before stopping, his head drooping over the side, over a thousand feet over empty air.
He climbed to his feet and readied Charon's Claw, glaring at Drizzt, who was merely standing straight and staring at him blankly. There was something strange about that stare, as if Drizzt were looking at Entreri but seeing someone else.
He charged Drizzt then, but the drow was ready for him.
The scimitars batted away every attack, every strike, each move bringing the fight closer to the end of the sequence of moves. Entreri jabbed his sword straight out. Icingdeath slammed into it and pinned it to the ground.
***
Drizzt came up high, too high, and Zak drove him back on his heels. Drizzt knew what would soon be coming; he invited it openly. Zak kept Drizzt's weapons high through several combined maneuvers. He then went with the move that had defeated Drizzt in the past, expecting that the best Drizzt could attain would be equal footing: double-thrust low.
Drizzt executed the appropriate cross-down parry, as he had to, and Zak tensed, waiting for his eager opponent to try to improve the move.*
"What will you do now, killer of young elves? Killer of Ellifain!"
Drizzt stared into the eyes of his father in absolute horror. That wasn't possible! Zaknafein had not known the elf's name, had not lived to see Drizzt slay that same elf girl later in his life! It could not be! Suddenly Drizzt felt the guilt well up in him. He felt the shame of his deeds reflected in the eyes of his father and he could not face that stare.
Cursing, tears forming in his eyes, Drizzt struck, blindly, and with all the strength he could muster. He let go of his sword. Zak overbalanced and fell forward, and Drizzt brought his knee straight up into his face. Zak reversed direction and fell backward to the ground, clutching at his nose.
"It was in defense!" Drizzt shouted at him, his voice cracking.
And he came out of the past, staggering as he rushed back to the mountain top.
He looked down and found Entreri clutching at his nose, laying upon the ground, blood covering his face.
Drizzt also realized that he was unarmed. A rage filled him as he looked upon Entreri and he snatched up his scimitar and charged. Entreri rolled to his feet and charged Drizzt. They came together for a singular moment and lightning blasted through the sky, turning night to day, and thunder rolled, long and loud, as Entreri felt Icingdeath slide easily into his body at the same time that Drizzt felt Charon's Claw pierce his flesh.
Both opponents gasped in pain and hovered on their feet for a long moment, staring at each other, both impaled by the other, both seriously wounded.
Time stopped for one long, horrifyingly long, moment.
Then they slid off of each other's swords and fell beside each other, gasping for breath, clutching at bleeding wounds, swords clattering to the stone.
"Ironic how the tables turn, isn't it?" Entreri rasped.
Drizzt raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question, wincing in pain.
"Once it was I who attacked so rashly, who let his anger be his guide, to want revenge, to not know one's place in the world. Now, I see, that has changed. I am the one secure in my place, and you, O Righteous Drow, are lost and confused," said Entreri, voice wavering at several points.
The rage left Drizzt's eyes as he heard Entreri speak. The human was right. The roles had reversed and Drizzt hated himself the more for it. He would never have done that in the past, would never have rushed so stupidly into battle. He smiled slightly as he remembered how he had taught Wulfgar the same lessons he was now repeating. How cruelly ironic fate was.
"Who then is now living the lie, Drizzt Do'Urden?" Entreri sneered, clearly enjoying every second of having the moral advantage over Drizzt, even though it may be the last seconds of his life.
The words were an icy knife in the weary heart of Drizzt Do'Urden.
"So teach then, O Mighty Human," smiled Drizzt. He knew his place, his purpose once again.
Entreri smiled.
"Gladly," he said, and the human, finding some energy reserves, rolled to the right, grasping Charon's Claw eagerly.
The human found himself propelled by an anger that fed his energy, that gave him the last reserves of strength. He was driven to do what he set out to do, defeat the drow. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the burning, sharp pain in his side, ignoring the wet, red blood staining his tunic, ignoring the fact that he was seriously wounded.
Drizzt climbed to his feet wearily, but did not retrieve his scimitar.
Entreri lurched towards Drizzt grimly.
Drizzt Do'Urden lifted not a finger.
In fact, he smiled.
* taken from Salvator's Homeland, pg. 276