“Who’s wasting time?” the dark elf asked between desperate parries.

Bruenor and Torgar took the not-so-subtle hint, hoisted their weapons, and ran in support.

From on high, another arrow flashed, splitting the air just to the side of Drizzt and splitting the face of the bearded devil standing before him.

Bruenor’s old, notched axe took out the devil chasing the drow from the other side, and Torgar rushed past the drow, shield-blocking another glaive aside, and as he passed, Drizzt sprinted in behind him to slash out the surprised devil’s throat.

“We kill more than Pwent and his boys do, and I’m buying the ale for a year and a day,” Bruenor cried, charging in beside his companions.

“Ten o’ them, three of us,” Torgar reminded his king as another arrow from Taulmaril blasted a lemure that roiled toward them.

“Four of us,” Bruenor corrected with a wink back at Catti-brie, “and I’m thinking I’ll make that bet!”

Either unaware or uncaring for the fall of Nyphithys, the other erinyes tightened their pressure and focus on Obould. Their magical ropes had wrapped him tightly and the devils pulled with all their otherworldly might in opposing directions to wrench and tear the orc king and lift him from the ground.

But they weren’t the only ones possessed of otherworldly strength.

Obould let the ropes tighten around his waist, and locked his abdominal muscles to prevent them from doing any real damage. He dropped his greatsword to the ground, slapped his hands on the ropes running diagonally from him, and flipped them over and around once to secure his grasp. While almost any other creature would have tried to free itself from the grasp of two devils, Obould welcomed it. As soon as he was satisfied with his grip, his every muscle corded against the tightening rope and the pull of the erinyes, the orc began a series of sudden and brutal downward tugs.

Despite their powerful wings, despite their devilish power, the erinyes couldn’t resist the pull of the mighty orc, and each tug reeled them down. Working like a fisherman, Obould’s every muscle jerked in synch, and he let go of the ropes at precisely the right moment to grasp them higher up.

Around him the battle raged and Obould knew that he was vulnerable, but rage drove him on. Even as a barbezu approached him, he continued his work against the erinyes.

The barbezu howled, thinking it had found an opening, and leaped forward, but a series of small flashes of silver whipped past Obould’s side. The barbezu jerked and gyrated, trying to avoid or deflect the stream of daggers. Obould managed a glance back to see the halfling friend of Bruenor shrugging, almost apologetically, as he loosed the last of his missiles.

That barrage wasn’t about to stop a barbezu, of course, but it did deter the devil long enough. Another form, lithe and fast, rushed past Regis and Obould. Drizzt leaped high as he neared the surprised bearded devil, too high for the creature to lift its saw-toothed glaive to intercept. Drizzt managed to stamp down on the flat of its heavy blade as he descended, and he skipped right past the barbezu, launching a knee into its face for good measure as he soared by. That knee was more to slow his progress than to defeat the creature, though it caught the devil off guard. The real attack came from behind, Drizzt spinning around and putting his scimitars to deadly work before the devil could counter with any semblance of a defense.

The wounded barbezu, flailing crazily, looked around for support, but all around it, its comrades were crumbling. The orcs, the Gutbusters, and Bruenor’s small group simply overwhelmed them.

Obould saw it, too, and he gave another huge tug, pulling down the erinyes. Barely a dozen feet from the ground, the devils recognized their doom. As one, they unfastened their respective ropes in an attempt to soar away, but before they could even get free of their own entanglement, a barrage of spears, stones, knives, and axes whipped up at them. Then came a devastating missile at the devil fluttering to Obould’s left. A pair of dwarves, hands locked between them, made a platform from which jumped one Thibbledorf Pwent. He went up high enough to wrap the devil in a great hug, and the wild dwarf immediately went into his frenzied gyrations, his ridged armor biting deep and hard.

The erinyes screamed in protest, and Pwent punched a spiked gauntlet right through her face.

The two fell like a stone. Pwent expertly twisted to put the devil under him before they landed.

“You know not what you do, drow,” Nyphithys said as Drizzt, fresh from his kill of the barbezu, approached. The devil’s wings hung bloody and useless behind her, but she stood steadily, and seemed more angry than hurt. She held her sword in her left hand, her enchanted rope, coiled like a whip, in her right.

“I have battled and defeated a marilith and a balor,” Drizzt replied, though the erinyes laughed at him. “I do not tremble.”

“Even should you beat me, you will be making enemies more dangerous than you could ever imagine!” Nyphithys warned, and it was Drizzt’s turn to laugh.

“You don’t know my history,” he said dryly.

“The Arcane Brotherhood—”

Drizzt cut her short. “Would be a minor House in the city of Menzoberranzan, where all the families looked long to see the end of me. I do not tremble, Nyphithys of Stygia, who calls Luskan her home.”

The devil’s eyes flashed.

“Yes, we know your name,” Drizzt assured her. “And we know who sent you.”

“Arabeth,” Nyphithys mouthed with a hiss.

The name meant nothing to Drizzt, though if she had added Arabeth’s surname, Raurym, he would have made the connection to Marchion Elastul Raurym, who had indeed tipped them off.

“At least I will see the end of you before I am banished to the Nine Hells,” Nyphithys declared, and she raised her right arm, letting free several lengths of rope, and snapped it like a whip at Drizzt.

He moved before she ever came forward, turning sidelong to the snapping rope. He slashed at it with Icingdeath, his right-hand blade, turned fully to strike it higher up with a backhanded uppercut of Twinkle in his left hand, then came around again with Icingdeath, slashing harder.

And around he went again, and again, turning three circles that had the rope out wide, and shortened its length with every powerful slash.

As he came around the fourth time, he met Nyphithys’s thrusting sword with a slashing backhand parry.

The devil was ready for it, though, and she easily rolled her blade over the scimitar and thrust again for Drizzt’s belly as he continued his turn.

Drizzt was ready for her to be ready for it, though, and Icingdeath came up under the long sword, catching it with its curved back edge. The dark elf completed the upward movement, rotating his arm up and out, throwing Nyphithys’s blade far and high to his right.

Before the devil could extract her blade, Drizzt did a three-way movement of perfect coordination, bringing Twinkle snapping up and across to replace its companion blade in keeping the devil’s sword out of the way, stepping forward and snapping his right down and ahead, its edge coming in tight against the devil’s throat.

He had her helpless.

But she kept smiling.

And she was gone—just gone—vanished from his sight.

Drizzt whirled around and fell into a defensive roll, but relaxed somewhat when he spotted the devil, some thirty feet away on an island of rock a few feet up from his level.

“Fool drow,” she scolded. “Fools, all of you. My masters will melt your land to ash and molten stone!”

A movement to the side turned her, to see Obould stalking her way.

“And you are the biggest fool of all,” she roared at him. “We promised you power beyond anything you could ever imagine.”