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FOLLOW THE SCREAMS
Drizzt? Drizzt?" a nervous Regis asked With his eyes fixated on the door of the house across the lane, he reached back to tug at his friend&039;s sleeve "Drizzt?" he asked again, flailing his hand around He finally caught on to the truth and turned around to see that his friend was gone
Across the lane, the wo and full of pri there The halfling sue and took up his little mace in one hand, his ruby pendant in the other As he forced hi softly for Drizzt with every step, he reminded himself of the nature of his enemy and let the useless pendant drop back to the end of its chain
The screa of furniture as Regis neared the house He saw the woht of the door, her ar a chair to slow her pursuer
Regis darted to thatand saw that her ihoul
Regis fought hard trying to breathe at the sight of the hideous thing It had once been a nizable noith its eht over bone, lips rotted away to reveal fangs clotted with strips of freshly devoured flesh The ghoul grabbed the chair in both hands, nails as long as fingers scraping at the wood, and brought it up to itsto bite soing it aside
The woed, but so intent was it on the woman that it never noticed the shoul rushed past, Regis leaped out Both hands clutching his th to whip the weapon across the back of the passing ghoul&039;s head Bone crackled and withered skin tore free The ghoul stu down amidst more chairs
Regis, too, landed hard, overbalanced froh, and set with a wide stance facing the fallen ghoul, praying that he had hit it hard enough to keep it down
No such luck - the ghoul pulled itself back up and turned its lipless grin at the halfling
"Cois heard hihoul leaped at hi that the poison and filth, the essence of undeath in those clawlike fingernails could render aiainst the ghoul&039;s arot scratched, and felt his knees wobble against the vile poison And while his swings were stinging the ghoul, perhaps, he wasn&039;t really hurting it
Desperation drove Regis to new tactics and he dived in between the ghoul&039;s wide swings, repeatedly bashing his mace about the undeadof his shoulders, arh hie to fall down, and kept swinging, kept pounding
Then his strength was gone and he cruhoul fell in front of hi Regis then, though he couldn&039;t feel her touch He heard her grateful thanks then her renewed screais couldn&039;t turn to follow her moves - four legs, two ghouls He tried to find coe that his paralysis likelyhi a lane, his forces behind him, and Robillard beside him "Come out, one and all! There is safety in unity!"
The people of Luskan heard that call and ran to it, though some houses echoed only with screams Deuderhouls and rescue victims
"Arklem Greeth freed the since sunset, since the onslaught of undead "He seeks to punish the Luskar for allowing us, his enemies, to take the streets"
"He will only turn the whole of the town against hirowled
"I doubt the monster cares," said Robillard He stopped and turned, and Deuderaze to a balcony across the way A group of children hustled into view then disappeared into a different door Behind the
A bolt of lightning reached out fro into two streaks as it neared the balcony, each fork blasting a houls, fell dead on the balcony as the blackened wood behind thelad to have Robillard on his side
"I will kill that lich," Robillard muttered
The captain didn&039;t doubt hi for his co the screaerous Too dangerous
Drizzt nodded to Guenhwyvar, who padded along the rooftops, shadowing his rowled and sprang away
Across the way, a wo, terrified Drizzt instinctively charged for her, expecting pursuit
When none came, when he realized the proxiis, a sickly feeling churned in the dark elf&039;s gut
He didn&039;t pause to question the wo that she wouldn&039;t have been able to ansith any coherence anyway He didn&039;t pause at all He sprinted flat out for the door, then veered when he noticed an open- no ghoul would have paused to open a , and the air was too cold for any to have simply been left wide
Drizzt knew as he leaped to the sill what he would find inside, and only prayed that he wasn&039;t too late
He crashed atop a ghoul bent over a shoul slashed at hi a tear on Drizzt&039;s forearm He ached from that, but his elf constitution rendered hi touch of such a creature, and he gave it no thought as he hit the floor in a roll He sla the barrier to redirect his houl bore down hard
Twinkle and Icingdeath went to fast work before hiis had parried with his little mace But those blades, in those hands, proved far houl&039;s arms were deflected then they were slashed to pieces before they went falling to the floor
Out of the corner of his eye, Drizzt saw Regis, poor Regis, lying in blood, and the i ghoul, blades stabbing, poking into the emaciated creature et, sickly sounds Drizzt hit it a dozen tiht through the creature&039;s back
He retracted as the ghoul fell against a wall Likely, it was already dead, but that didn&039;t slow the outraged drow He brought his blades back and sent thehoul instead of stabbing it Skin ripped in great lines, showing gray bones and dried-up entrails
He kept beating the creature even when he heard its cohoul leaped upon hiot close, for even as the ghoul leaped atop hiht over hiainst its destroyed friend
Drizzt held his swing as a dark for the anie of slashing claws and tearing fangs
Drizzt ran to Regis, dropping his blades and skidding down to his knees He cradled Regis&039;s head and stared into his wide-open eyes, hoping to see a flash of life left there Yet another ghoul charged at hiis and hit the thing squarely, blasting it back into the other roo so near to death, whispered breathlessly
In Luskan, they cahts of Endless Screahouls and other undead es destroyed,
Terror fast turned to rage for the folk of Luskan, and that rage had a definite focus
Deudermont&039;s work moved all the faster, despite the nocturnal terrors, and almost every able bodied man and woman of Luskan marched with him as he flushed the Hosttower&039;s wizards out of their safehouses, and soon there were thirty ships, not four, anchored in a line facing Cutlass Island
"Arkle Fro, the halfling could see the harbor and the ships, and froainst the Hosttower "He thought to cow theered the to die when he&039;s terrified," Drizzt replied "Then there is ato die when he&039;s outraged That reatest courage and the time when enemies should quiver in fear"
"Do you think Arkle out at the distant Hosttower and its ruined and charred southern arht for a moment then shook his head "He is a wizard, and wizards don&039;t scare easily Nor do they always see the obvious, for their thoughts are elsewhere, on matters less corporeal"
"Reis