R. Salvatore: Luthien's Gamble

But it was blind luck, he realized, as the next cyclopian came in, pressing him hard. Unbalanced, he had to fight purely defensively, his sword barely diverting each savage thrust. Luthien understood the danger of delay, knew that time was against him. Cyclopians were coming out of the pews to either side and charging down the aisle behind him. Grabbing the wounded man had cost him his life, he suddenly realized, but still, Luthien Bedwyr didn’t regret the decision. Even knowing the result, if the situation was before him again, he would still try to save the wounded man.

His vision impeded by the rump of the unconscious man, Luthien could hardly see his opponent when the brute dodged to the left. Had the cyclopian been smart enough to rush in from that angle, it surely would have cut Luthien down. But it came back out to the right, and Luthien saw, though the cyclopian did not, a slender blade following its path. The cyclopian stopped and cut back to the left again, right into Oliver’s rapier.

That deadly rapier blade angled down for some reason that Luthien did not understand. He turned to regard Oliver, and found the halfling balancing on top of the pew back.

“Follow me!” Oliver cried, hopping ahead to the next high back, thrusting as he landed to force the nearest cyclopian to give ground.

“Behind you!” Luthien cried, but Oliver was moving before he ever spoke the words, turning a perfect spin on the narrow plank. The halfling leaped above a sidelong cut and struck as he landed, again with perfect balance, his rapier tip poking a cyclopian in the eye.

The brute threw its weapon away and fell on its back to the bench, grasping at its torn eye with both hands.

“So sorry, but I have no time to kill you!” Oliver yelled at it, and the halfling waved to Luthien and rushed to the side, down the pew instead of down the aisle.

Luthien wanted to follow, but could not, for a horde of cyclopians beat him to the spot, and he could feel the hot breath of many more at his heels. He roared and slashed wildly, expecting to feel a spear tip at any moment.

The tumult that suddenly erupted about him sounded like a swarm of angry bees, buzzing and whipping the air every which way. Luthien yelled out at the top of his lungs and continued to strike blindly throughout the terrifying moment, not really understanding.

And then it was over, as abruptly as it had begun, and all the cyclopians near the young man lay dead or dying, stung by elvish arrows. Luthien spared no time to glance back to the triforium; he skittered along between the pews in fast pursuit of Oliver.

When they exited the other end, along the northern wall of the cathedral, they were glad to see that the three men they had rescued were beyond the altar, clambering over the tip of the angled drawbridge, where Katerin and others waited.

Oliver and Luthien made the edge of the northern transept, and saw Katerin holding her ground as cyclopians scrambled to close the escape route.

Few cyclopians blocked the way to the apse, and those fled when one was taken down by Siobhan’s last arrow. On ran the two companions, Luthien still carrying the wounded man.

The altar area teemed with one-eyed brutes, and the allies holding the breach were overwhelmed and forced to fall back.

“No way out,” Oliver remarked.

Luthien growled and sprinted past the halfling, to the base of the apse, then up the few stairs to the semicircular area. He didn’t go straight for the altar, though, but veered to the left, toward the arched northern wall. “Close it!” he yelled to his friends at the drawbridge.

After a moment of stark horror and shock, Oliver calmed enough to figure out Luthien’s reasoning. The halfling quickly gained the angle that would put him ahead of his encumbered friend. He made the wall, ripping aside an awkwardly hanging torn tapestry to reveal a wooden door.

Another barrage of arrows from the triforium kept the path clear momentarily as Oliver stood aside and let Luthien lead the way into the narrow passage, a steeply angled and curving stair that wound its way up the Ministry’s tallest tower, the same stair the two companions had chased Morkney up before their fateful encounter. Oliver slammed the door behind him, but cyclopians soon tore it from its meager hinges and took up the chase.

The first thing Luthien noticed when he went into the dark stair was how very cold it was. Twenty steps up, the young man came to understand why the cyclopians, on those few occasions since the uprising when they had occupied the Ministry, had not cut down the body of their fallen leader. The normally treacherous steps and the curving walls were thick and slick with ice, snow, and water no doubt pouring into the tower from the open landing at its top.

In the darkness, Luthien had to feel his way. He put one foot up after the other, as quickly as he could go, more often than not leaning heavily against the man he carried, who was, in turn, wedged against the frozen wall.

Then Luthien slipped and stumbled, banging his knee hard against the unyielding stone. He felt movement to his side and saw the halfling’s silhouette as Oliver passed, low to the floor, using his main gauche as an impromptu ice pick, stabbing it, setting it, and pulling himself along.

“Yet another reason to fight with both hands,” the halfling remarked in superior tones.

Luthien grabbed Oliver’s cape and used it to regain his balance. He heard the cyclopians right behind, struggling, but coming on determinedly.

“Care!” Oliver warned as one block of ice cracked free of a step, sliding down past his friend and nearly taking Luthien with it.

Luthien heard a commotion behind him, just around the bend, and knew that the closest cyclopian had gone down.

“Leave a rope end,” the young warrior instructed when he came up to the cleared step.

Oliver immediately tugged his silken rope from his belt and dropped one end close to Luthien, then pressed up the stairs with all speed.

Luthien didn’t dare lay the unconscious man on the floor, fearing he would slide away to his doom. He turned on the cleared step and braced himself, readying his sword.

He couldn’t see the cyclopian’s look of horror, but could well imagine it, when the first creature stumbled around the bend right below him, only to find that the quarry was no longer in flight!

Blind-Striker hit hard and the brute went down. Luthien stumbled as he struck, falling against the wall, and he winced when he heard the agonized groan of the unconscious man.

Down the dying brute slid, taking out the next in line, and the next behind that, until all the cyclopians were in a bouncing descent down the curving stair.

Luthien shifted the man to a more secure position on his shoulder, took up the rope, waited for Oliver to tighten the other end about a jag in the uneven wall, and began his determined climb. It took the companions more than half an hour to get up the three hundred steps to the small landing just a few steps below the tower’s top. There they found the way blocked by a wall of snow. Behind them came the pounding footsteps of cyclopians closing in once more.

Oliver dug into the snow with his main gauche, the dagger’s thick blade chipping and cutting away the solid barrier. Half frozen, their hands numb from the effort, they finally saw light. Dawn was just beginning to break over Montfort.

“Now what are we to do?” Oliver yelled through chattering teeth and the howling, biting wind as they pushed through to the tower’s top.

Luthien laid the unconscious man down in the snow and tried to tend his wound, a wicked, jagged cut across his abdomen.

“First we are to be rid of those troublesome one-eyes,” Oliver answered his own question, while he searched about the tower top until he found the biggest and most solid block of ice.