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.
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