R. Salvatore - The Dragon King

Both Oliver and Katerin were handed lanterns, but Siobhan told them to keep the light down low. “Fairborn fight better in the dark than do one-eyes,” she explained, and then she paused, studying closely her two friends, who were not of the elvish race.

“We’re going down there beside you,” Katerin said determinedly, ending the debate before Siobhan could even begin it. And so they did, three abreast, eight ranks in all, moving slowly and cautiously down the rough and uneven stairs.

They passed several dead cyclopians, the unfortunate first line of defense that had taken the brunt of the missile barrage, and then they came into the lower level.

Oliver’s lantern seemed a tiny thing in here. The ceilings were low and close; Katerin and some of the taller elves had to stoop to avoid clunking their heads. The massive archways were even lower, their stones so thick that the whole of this area, built to support the tremendous cathedral above it, seemed one great winding maze.

The friends tried to stay together, but often they were forced to walk single file. Every archway presented four possible turns, and the floor was so uneven that being on the same line as a friend was no guarantee that the ally could even be seen. The torchlight did little to defeat the perpetual gloom, the cobwebs hung low and thick, and the archways were so numerous and imposing, and so low, that the area seemed more a winding, twisting nest of passageways than an open area dotted by columns.

“This was where the old abbey stood,” Oliver reasoned, his voice low and muffled by the many cobwebs and blocking stones. “They built the cathedral right above it.” As he spoke, the halfling turned a corner, coming upon a raised section of floor, three or four age-worn steps that led up to a stone box, an altar, or perhaps a crypt. Oliver could not be sure. He turned back to ask Siobhan’s opinion, only to find that he had somehow split away from the others.

“I do so like the sky for my ceiling,” the halfling whispered.

“One-eye!” came an echoing cry from somewhere in the distance, followed quickly by the ring of steel, and then a guttural grunt, followed soon by a Fairborn voice claiming, “They are in here still!”

“Siobhan!” Oliver called softly, trying hard to backtrack. He went through an archway, but every direction looked the same. “Left breast, right breast, down the middle, damn the rest,” Oliver chanted, pointing in each direction. Then, as Gascon tradition demanded, the halfling went the way of the last “Damn the rest.”

He heard more sounds of battle, individuals clashing but nothing large-scale. The cyclopians were indeed in here, hiding separately, looking to ambush.

Oliver went left at the next low arch, then, thinking he recognized the area as the entry foyer, came around a corner with a bright smile, expecting to see only the stairs leading back to the main floor of the cathedral.

His light was immediately swallowed by a pair of forms too large to be Fairborn, too wide to be Katerin.

The halfling squeaked and thrust forth his rapier, trying to get his lantern to the floor that he might draw out his main gauche. He thought that his slender blade would surely get the closest foe, but the form moved with the perfect balance and grace of a pure warrior, smoothly and deftly dodging.

Oliver thought he was about to die, but the shine of skin as the foe came around was ruddy and tan, not the grayish hue more common to one-eyes, and this opponent had two eyes—cinnamon-colored eyes.

“Luthien,” Oliver began, but stopped short as he realized his error.

“Watch that blade, fool!” Ethan Bedwyr snarled, gingerly turning aside the still-poking rapier.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was told that Katerin had come in here,” Ethan replied softly. “I promised my brother that I would watch over her.”

A sly grin came over Oliver. “Your brother?” he asked.

Ethan had no time for such semantic games. He motioned to two other Huegoth companions who were still on the stairs, indicating that they should go to the right, then he and his immediate companion set off straight ahead.

Oliver bent down to retrieve his lantern and replace the main gauche on his belt, only to find himself alone once more. He looked to the stairs, tempted to go back up, but then he heard another cry from somewhere in the distance, a voice he recognized.

Siobhan and one Fairborn companion went down a dozen steps and turned a sharp corner, putting the sounds of the others far behind, then dared to crawl under a tiny door, no more than three-feet-square, barely large enough to admit a large cyclopian. The tunnel beyond was not much larger than the entrance, and the pair had to bend low, even crawling at points to continue along.

The darkness was complete, even to the sensitive eyes of the Fairborn, forcing Siobhan to light a hand lamp, a tiny lantern she had used often in her days as a housebreaker in Morkney-controlled Montfort.

She motioned for her companion, who was leading, to move on.

Finally, they came out into a higher area, the oldest catacombs in all the cathedral. Open crypts faced them from every wall, displaying the tattered skeletal remains of the first priests and abbots in Carlisle, perhaps in all of Avonsea. Most were lying on their back, but some, in more ornate crypts, were seated upon stone thrones.

Siobhan worked hard to steady her breathing as she noted one ancient corpse beside her, sitting tall and proud through the centuries, except that its skull was on the floor, probably the victim of hungry rats whose bones, too, were now likely resting in this place of death. The half-elf pulled her gaze away to see her companion bump his head hard on the curving ceiling of the next arch.

“Careful,” Siobhan whispered, but then she cried out as her companion turned about and toppled.

Even in the dim light of her hand lamp, Siobhan could see the bright blood spewing from the elf’s chest, which had been ripped from armpit to spinal cord.

Ahead of her stood the brutish cyclopian duke, that fabulous broadsword dripping elvish blood, Cresis’s ugly face twisted with the promise of death.

There had only been a single, distant cry, and yells were becoming more frequent with each passing moment as more and more of the hunters happened upon hiding cyclopians. But Oliver had never been more focused in all his life. His mind, his soul, had locked on to that single utterance, and the maze seemed to sort itself out before him as he darted along, daring to turn up the flame in his lantern that he might better see the breaks in the uneven floor.

He paused in one wider area to jab his rapier into the butt of a battling cyclopian. Then, seeing that his prod had distracted the brute enough to give its Fairborn opponent an insurmountable advantage, Oliver ran on.

He passed through one archway without a look to either side, replaying that cry in his head, following his instincts and his heart.

Katerin spotted him and called out, and she, Ethan, and a Huegoth came in close pursuit.

But they could not keep up with Oliver in these tight quarters. They reached the top of a broken and uneven staircase, angling downward, just after the halfling had entered the little hole at its bottom.

Only the ring of steel told them that they had come the right way.

Siobhan was an archer, among the finest shots in all of Avonsea. But she was no novice with the blade, as Duke Cresis soon discovered.

The brute thought it had her by surprise, and so its first attack was straight ahead, a thrust for the half-elf’s heart.

Out flashed a short sword, turning the brute’s blade minutely as the half-elf turned her own body. A clean miss, and Siobhan countered lightning-fast, rolling her wrist to launch her blade in a diagonal line at Cresis’s ugly face.