R. Salvatore - The Sword of Bedwyr

Luthien could hardly believe it, but the halfling seemed to have this situation in hand. The young man drew strength from that fact and found that he could move his limbs once more.

But appearances could be deceiving when dealing with dragons. Balthazar was weighing the situation carefully, even considering the halfling’s offer to go out and spread anew the legend. Such tales would no doubt inspire others to come to the lair, would-be heroes and treasure seekers. The dragon wondered if that might be the way in which it would at last end its imprisonment and be free to fly about the land once more, feasting on whole villages of men.

In the end, though, lazy Balthazar decided that it really didn’t want to have to continually wake up and deal with upstart heroes. And Balthazar had already determined that this foppish halfling was a liar and a thief.

The wyrm’s head snapped forward, so quickly and terribly that Luthien cried out, thinking Oliver surely eaten. Up came the bow, Luthien nocking the strange arrow as he raised it.

Worldly Oliver, who had studied fighting tactics in the finest schools of Gascony, including tactics used against legendary beasts, was not caught unawares. He dove forward as the dragon’s head came down, drawing his rapier as he rolled. When he regained his feet, he prodded the blade straight up, but sighed resignedly as the slender blade bent nearly in half with no chance of penetrating the dragon’s armor.

Up reared Balthazar, swishing its great tail, beating its leathery wings so fiercely that the wind from them halted Oliver’s advance. Purple cape flying behind him, the halfling squinted against the onslaught and put his free hand on his hat to hold it in place.

That would have been the end of Oliver deBurrows, taken in the bite of a dragon’s mouth, but Luthien let fly the arrow, hoping and praying that it was something special.

It arced for the beast, then was deflected by the tremendous wind and seemed as if it would hit nothing but the floor. It never made it that far, exploding unexpectedly in midair.

Rockets squealed and bursts of multicolored sparkles filled the chamber. Balls of sizzling light whooshed out in wobbling lines, one heading straight for Balthazar’s face and forcing the dragon to dodge to the side. A red flare rocketed straight up and blew apart with a tremendous, resounding explosion that shook the chamber, rattled the coins and gems and nearly knocked Luthien from his feet.

Balthazar’s protesting roar joined in the echoes and squeals.

Oliver had the presence of mind to run off under that cover, thinking quickly enough to bend and scoop Brind’Amour’s oaken staff as he passed it. He ran straight for Luthien and would have run by, but the young man reached out and grabbed the staff, which was nearly twice the stumbling halfling’s height.

Oliver cried out as if struck, then opened his eyes wide, realizing that it was only Luthien. He willingly gave over the staff and ran on, grabbing the torch, the young man right beside him.

Balthazar roared again as the two exited the chamber, and loosed a line of fiery breath.

Luthien and Oliver were around the corner in time, but deflected flames licked at their backsides and prodded them along; the stone of the corner crackled and melted away. Luthien couldn’t resist the urge to look back and see the bared fury of the mighty dragon. Oliver tugged him along fiercely, suspecting that even the slightest delay would put them right in the middle of Balthazar’s next flaming blast.

The rocket fanfare continued in the treasure chamber. Above it, the fleeing companions heard the scraping tumult of the dragon’s stubborn pursuit.

“THERE IS NOWHERE TO RUN, THIEVES!” Balthazar roared. The great wyrm entered the corridor, claws digging into the stone so that it could pull its huge mass along and breathing forth its deadly breath once more.

Luthien and Oliver were long gone, down the passage and through the next chamber. Luthien thought of turning with the bow and putting a few shots behind him, but he scowled at his own stupidity, wondering what those little arrows were supposed to do against the likes of the armored dragon. He popped the pin out of the bow instead, folded it, and tucked it into his new belt, near the small quiver.

The companions continued to widen their lead, the dragon’s bulk working against it in the narrow corridors, but then they came to the one barrier—the underground pool—where Balthazar would have a tremendous advantage.

Luthien started to the right, toward the ledge, though he knew that they could not possibly get all the way along its narrow length before the dragon caught up to them. He saw that the rope was still on this side, still loosely looped about the boulders, and so he turned and went for that instead.

Rope in one hand, Brind’Amour’s staff in the other, he climbed the highest rock he could find and bade Oliver to scramble atop his shoulders.

“You will have to get up higher if you wish to swing across!” the halfling pointed out, and Luthien, looking all about for sight of the turtle, handed the staff to the halfling. The young man reached up as high as he could along the rope’s length, bent his knees and tensed his legs.

A roar from the corridor behind them launched Luthien into action. He leaped from the rock as high as he could, scrambled hand over hand to get as high a grip on the rope as possible, and tucked his legs under him as he and Oliver swung out over the pool.

They weren’t even near the middle when the drag on the trailing rope slowed them and Luthien’s legs splashed into the water. Knowing what was to come, the desperate man climbed, hand over hand, to pull himself out of the hot pool, then kept climbing, remembering the awful reach of the giant turtle.

The weight as they came out of the water halted their swing altogether, and the two began to rotate slowly as the rope untwisted.

“I do not so much like this,” Oliver remarked.

“Give me the staff,” Luthien replied, and the halfling gladly handed it over, using the opportunity of two free hands to scramble a bit higher on Luthien’s shoulders. Oliver was already thinking that if the turtle snapped at Luthien, he might be able to leap atop the thing’s back and run toward the far shore, then spring out and swim for his life.

He hated the notion of leaving Luthien behind, though, for he had taken a sincere liking to this brave young human.

Luthien, hooking his ankles around the rope and hanging on with one free hand, unexpectedly began to loop himself about the rope, increasing the swing and nearly dislodging Oliver from his shoulders.

“What are you doing?” the halfling demanded.

“At least this will be safe,” Luthien answered, and as he came around, he used the momentum of the swing to aid his throw and hurled Brind’Amour’s staff toward the far shore. It skipped off the last few feet of water and settled, floating near the bank.

“I thought you meant to try to use the silly thing!” Oliver protested. He ended with a squeal as a loud roar told him that Balthazar was entering the chamber.

“How would I know how to use a wizard’s staff?” Luthien quipped back.

“You would not,” came an unexpected answer from the shore. The two hanging companions looked over to see Brind’Amour calmly bending over the water to retrieve his valued item. As the rope rotated, the two then saw Balthazar come up to the other shoreline.

“Caught in line between a wizard and a dragon,” Oliver remarked. “This is not my very best day.”

Luthien grabbed on tight and tried to steady the rope, looking from one powerful adversary to the other. Balthazar issued a long, low growl at the sight of the wizard, and Luthien did not doubt that the dragon remembered well that day four hundred years before, when Brind’Amour and his cohorts had sealed the cave.