R. Salvatore - The Sword of Bedwyr

Still the cyclopians did not advance, and Luthien understood that they were allowing their enemies to prepare themselves only because they expected more reinforcements to enter the room.

“We must do something,” Oliver reasoned, apparently having the same grim thoughts.

Luthien slipped his sword in its scabbard and took out his bow, popping it open, pinning it, and setting an arrow in one fluid motion. The cyclopians understood then what this man with the curious stick was doing, and they fumbled all over themselves trying to get out of harm’s way.

Luthien shot one in the neck, and it went down screaming. The others screamed, too, but they did not run for cover. Rather, they charged before Luthien could set another arrow.

“That was not what I had in mind,” Oliver remarked dryly.

In the ensuing tumult, the desperate companions did not hear the twang of bowstrings, and all four of them looked on curiously as several of the charging brutes lurched weirdly and tumbled to the stone. Seeing arrows protruding from their backs, the friends and the cyclopians looked back to the room’s ledge and saw a handful of slender archers—elves, probably—their hands moving in a blur as they continued to rain death on the cyclopians.

The one-eyes scrambled and fled, many running with one or two arrows sticking from them. In response, arrows and spears came whistling out of the side passages, and though Oliver’s claims about a cyclopian’s lack of depth perception held true once more, the sheer numbers of flying bolts presented a serious problem.

“Run on!” came a cry from the ledge, a voice Luthien knew.

“Siobhan,” he said to Oliver, pulling the halfling along as he made for the wall.

Luthien grabbed Oliver’s rope and gave three quick tugs, releasing the magical grapnel from the ceiling. Siobhan’s group already had one rope down to them, and Shuglin’s companion grabbed on and began climbing swiftly, hand over hand. An arrow thunked into the dwarf’s heavily muscled shoulder, but he only grimaced and continued on his determined way.

Luthien set Oliver’s rope, heaving the grapnel onto the wall up beside the ledge, and he handed the rope over to Shuglin. The dwarf bade Oliver to grab on to his back, and up they went, Luthien shaking his head in amazement at how quickly the powerful dwarf could climb.

A spear skipped across the stone between Luthien’s legs; cyclopians came out of all three passages, the lead ones carrying large shields to protect them from the archers on the ledge.

Luthien had wanted to wait and let Shuglin and Oliver get off the rope, not knowing how much weight the small grapnel would support, but he had run out of time. He leaped up as high as he could, grabbing the rope (and tucking its end up behind him), and began pulling himself up, hand over hand, trying to steady his feet against the wall so that he could walk along.

It wasn’t as easy as the powerful dwarves made it look. Luthien made progress, but he would have surely been caught, or prodded by long spears, except that Shuglin shrugged Oliver off as soon as they made the ledge, and he and his dwarven companion took up the rope and began to methodically haul it in.

Arrows whizzed down past Luthien’s head, and even more alarmingly, arrows and spears came up from below. He felt a bang against his foot and turned his leg to see an arrow sticking from the heel of his boot.

Then rough hands grabbed his shoulders and he was hauled over the ledge, and on the group ran. They passed several dead cyclopians, including the two Luthien and Oliver had killed, and came out of the tunnel, hearing that the cyclopians had gained the ledge behind them and were once again in pursuit.

“Our horses are there!” Luthien explained to Siobhan, and she nodded and kissed him quickly, then pushed him along to catch up with Oliver. She and her Cutter companions, along with Shuglin and the other dwarf, went the other way, disappearing into the brush.

“I cannot believe they came for us,” Luthien remarked as he caught up to the halfling, Oliver with one foot already in Threadbare’s stirrup.

“You must be a good kisser,” the halfling answered. Then Threadbare leaped away, Riverdancer pounding right behind, back out onto the road.

The cyclopian horde exited the mine, howling with outrage, but all they heard was the pounding of hooves as Luthien and Oliver charged away.

Luthien casually walked into the Dwelf sometime after Oliver, as the halfling had instructed. Oliver had grown very cautious in the week since the escape at the mines and had gone out of his way so that he and Luthien were not viewed as an inseparable team. Luthien didn’t really understand the point; there were enough halfling rogues in this area of Montfort to more than cover their tracks. If the Praetorian Guard was searching for a human and his halfling sidekick, they would have dozens of possibilities to sift through.

Luthien didn’t argue, though, thinking the halfling’s demands were prudent.

The Dwelf was packed, as it had been every night that week. Elves and dwarves, halflings and humans filled every table—except one. There in the corner sat a group of cyclopians, Praetorian Guards, brimming with fine weapons and wearing grim, scowling expressions.

Luthien pushed his way through the crowd and found, conveniently, an empty stool at the bar near Oliver.

“Oliver!” he said, overly excited. “So good to see you again! How long has it been? A month?”

Oliver turned a skeptical look upon the exuberant young man.

“You were both in here the night before last,” Tasman remarked dryly, walking past.

“Oops,” Luthien apologized, giving a weak smile and a shrug. He looked around at the throng. “The crowd is large again this night,” he remarked.

“Good gossip brings them in,” Tasman replied, walking past the other way and sliding an ale across the counter to Luthien as he went off to see to another thirsty customer.

Luthien hoisted the mug and took a hearty swig, then noticed Oliver’s profound silence, the halfling wearing an expression which showed him to be deep in contemplation.

“Good gossip—” Luthien started to say. He was going to ask what the patrons might be talking about, but in just deciphering the small patches of conversation he caught out of the general din about him, he knew the answer. They were talking about the Crimson Shadow—one scruffy-looking human even shuffled his drunken way near the cyclopians’ table and muttered, “The Shadow Lives!” and snapped his fingers under their noses. One of the brutes started up immediately to throttle the rogue, but its comrade grabbed it by the arm and held it firmly in place.

“There is sure to be a fight,” Luthien said.

“It will not be the first this week,” Oliver replied glumly.

They remained in the Dwelf for more than an hour, Luthien taking in all the excited chatter and Oliver sitting with a single ale, mulling over the situation. A general chorus of dissatisfaction sounded behind every story, and it seemed to Luthien as if the legend he had become had given the poor of Montfort a bit of hope, a rallying point for their deflated pride.

His step was light when Oliver left the Dwelf, signaling him to follow.

“Perhaps we should stay a while,” Luthien offered when they walked out into the crisp night air. “There may be a fight with the cyclopians, and the brutes are better armed than the Dwelf’s patrons.”

“Then let the patrons learn their folly,” Oliver retorted.

Luthien stopped and watched the halfling as Oliver continued on his way. He didn’t know exactly what was bothering Oliver, but he understood that it probably had something to do with the increased attention.