R. Salvatore - The Dragon King

The brute fell back, stumbling over a block of stone into a wider area, the oldest altar in the ancient abbey.

Siobhan was fast to pursue, trying to press her advantage, but the same block of stone slowed her enough for the one-eye to steady its defenses.

“Duke Cresis?” Siobhan sneered.

Cresis snorted and did not bother to answer.

“I offer you the chance for surrender,” Siobhan bluffed, and she prayed that the obviously powerful one-eye would accept. “The city is ours; you have no place to run.”

“Then I will die with my sword in one hand and your head in the other!” the one-eye promised, and on Cresis came.

The broadsword flashed right, left, left again, and then straight down, the brute taking it up in both hands for the final attack. Siobhan parried and dodged, ducked low under the third swing and came up hard to meet the chop, her blade flat out over her head. She meant to catch the broadsword and turn it out wide, then step ahead, in close, and use the advantage of her much shorter sword in the tighter press.

Cresis’s swing was far too powerful for that maneuver, and Siobhan found her legs nearly buckling under the weight of that vicious overhead chop. Her finely forged elvish blade held firm, though, stopping the attack short of her head, and she rolled out to the side, stabbing twice in rapid succession as she went, scoring one slight hit on the cyclopian’s hip.

Cresis laughed at the minor wound and came in fast pursuit, thrusting his sword with every step. Siobhan danced desperately to keep out of the brute’s reach. She came up hard against the block of stone that had once been an altar, and Cresis, thinking her caught, forged ahead.

Siobhan’s balance was perfect as she went over the thigh-high block, falling prone on the other side as the cyclopian’s blade swished the air above her.

Cresis leaped over, but the agile half-elf was already gone, scrambling out one end and putting her feet back under her. She reversed direction immediately, regaining the offensive, snapping her smaller blade at the brute’s groin, then cutting it up so that Cresis’s down-angled sword missed the parry.

The cyclopian fell back, a deep gash along its chin, its bulbous nose split nearly in half.

Siobhan could have asked again for surrender, and the brute might have agreed, but she was too far into the fight by then. She came on hard and fast, scoring again, this time putting the point of her sword deep into the brute’s left shoulder, and coming in so close that she pinned Cresis’s arms against the brute’s torso.

But only for a moment, for Cresis howled in pain and heaved forward with all its considerable strength, launching Siobhan a dozen feet. She somehow managed to keep her balance and was ready when the brute came in at her again, with an all-too-familiar routine.

Right, left, left again, and then down, but this time, with only one hand on the sword.

Siobhan parried, dodged straight back, sucking in her belly, then ducked the third, coming up powerfully, seeing that Cresis had only one hand on the broadsword.

The blades met with a tremendous ring; Siobhan twisted with all her might, then stepped ahead, grinning in expected victory as the broadsword went out wide.

The light intensified as Oliver entered the chamber, to see his dear Siobhan in close with the huge and ugly brute. Cresis’s sword was out to the side, not moving, but for some reason neither was Siobhan’s readied blade diving for the one-eye.

Oliver understood when his love slipped away from the brute’s chest, and more particularly, away from Cresis’s left hand, which held a bloody dirk.

Siobhan managed a look at Oliver, then her sword hit the ground with a dead ring, and the half-elf quickly followed its descent.

Oliver was no match for Cresis and the mighty one-eye was hardly injured, but the halfling fostered no thoughts of retreat at that horrible moment. He roared for his love and leaped ahead, coming so furiously with his rapier, a ten-thrust routine, that Cresis could hardly distinguish each individual move, and the brute took several stinging hits along the forearm as it tried to maneuver the broadsword to block.

The cyclopian tried to square, but the enraged halfling would not relinquish the offense. Sheer anger driving him on, Oliver poked and poked, slashed at the broadsword with his main gauche, even catching the blade between the front-turned crosspiece of the crafted dagger at one point, though he had not the leverage to break the cyclopian’s weapon or to tear it from Cresis’s powerful grasp.

Still, it was Cresis, and not Oliver, who continued to back up, and Oliver found an opportunity before him as the cyclopian neared the altar block. Up the halfling leaped, and now Cresis had to work all the harder to parry, for Oliver’s rapier was dangerously in line with the cyclopian’s already-torn face.

“You are so ugly!” the halfling taunted, spitting his words. “A dog would not play with you unless you had a piece of meat tied about your fat waist!”

“I would eat the dog!” Cresis retorted, but the brute’s words were cut short by yet another multiple-thrust attack.

Cresis was wise enough to understand that the halfling’s rage was too great. If Cresis could keep Oliver moving, keep him sputtering and slashing wildly, the halfling would soon tire.

So the brute parried and started away from the altar, but then its one eye went wide with surprise as the main gauche came spinning, end over end. Up went the cyclopian’s arm, blocking the dagger, but that wasn’t the only incoming missile as Oliver ran to the edge of the altar block and threw himself at his enemy.

Cresis howled in pain again, his forearm burning from the stuck dagger. He tried to maneuver the broadsword to catch the flying halfling, but the brute’s reaction was slow, its muscles torn and tightening.

Oliver crashed in hard, though the three-hundred-pound cyclopian barely took a tiny step backward. It didn’t matter, for Oliver had leaped in with his rapier blade leading.

He was tight onto Cresis’s burly chest then; he might have been a baby, clinging to its burly father. But that rapier had hit the mark perfectly, was stuck nearly to its basket hilt right through Cresis’s bulky neck.

The cyclopian wheezed, sputtering blood from its mouth and its throat. It held on tight, tried to squeeze the life out of Oliver. But that grip inevitably loosened as the gasping brute’s lungs filled with its own blood. Slowly, Cresis slumped to its knees, and Oliver was careful to get away, avoiding a halfhearted swing of the broadsword.

Cresis went down to all fours, gasping, trying to force air into its lungs.

Oliver paid the brute no more heed. He ran to his love, cradling her head in one arm and plunging his hand over the bleeding wound in the hollow of Siobhan’s chest.

Ethan scrambled into the chamber then, followed closely by Katerin. “Ah my love!” they heard the halfling wail. “Do not die!”

“We cannot go on in this direction,” Brind’Amour informed Luthien. The young Bedwyr pushed through some brush to join the wizard and saw the flat water, surrounding them on three sides.

They had spent nearly half an hour walking through the tangled and confusing underbrush to the end of a peninsula.

Luthien was about to suggest that they start back, but he held quiet as Brind’Amour moved behind him, the wizard staring intently at Riverdancer.

“The steed is rested,” Brind’Amour announced. “We will fly.”

Luthien didn’t argue the point; he was thoroughly miserable, his feet wet and sore, his scalp itching from a hundred bites, and his nerves frayed, and though no monster had risen up against them, every one of the Saltwash’s shadows appeared as though it hid some sinister beast.