Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,109

struggled to his knees. He wanted to die with dignity, at least. He put one foot under him, but paused and stared hard at the monster.

“No!” Praehotec growled. The demon wasn’t looking at Luthien; it was looking up into the empty air. “The kill is rightfully mine! His flesh is my food!”

“No,” came Duke Morkney’s voice in reply. “The sweet kill is mine!”

Praehotec’s serpentine face trembled, then bulged weirdly, reverting to the face of Duke Morkney. Then it returned to Praehotec, briefly, then back to Duke Morkney.

The struggle continued, and Luthien knew that the opportunity to strike would not last long. He staggered forward a bit, trying to find some weapon, trying to find the strength to attack.

When he glanced back across the tower top, he saw not Praehotec but Duke Morkney’s skinny and naked body, the duke bending low to retrieve his fallen robe.

“You should be dead already,” Morkney said, noticing that Luthien was struggling to stand. “Stubborn fool! Take pride in the fact that you fended off the likes of Praehotec for several minutes. Take pride and lie down and die.”

Luthien almost took the advice. He had never been so weary and wounded, and he did not imagine that death was very far away. Head down, he noticed something then, something that forced him to stand straight once more and forced him to remember the losses he had suffered.

Oliver’s rapier.

To Duke Morkney’s mocking laughter, the young Bedwyr stepped over and picked up the small and slender blade, then stood very still to find his balance and stubbornly rose up tall. He staggered across the tower top, toward his foe.

Morkney was still naked and still laughing as Luthien staggered near, rapier aimed for the duke’s breast.

“Do you believe that I am not capable of defeating you?” the duke asked incredulously. “Do you think that I need Praehotec, or any other demon, to destroy a mere swordsman? I sent the demon away only because I wanted your death to come from my own hands.” With a superior growl, Morkney lifted his bony hands, fingers clawed like an animal, and began to chant.

Luthien’s back arched suddenly and he froze in place, eyes wide with shock and sudden agony. Tingling energy swept through him, back to front and right out of his chest. It seemed to him, to his ultimate horror, that his own life energy was being sucked out of him, stolen by the evil wizard!

“No,” he tried to protest, but he knew then that he was no match for the powers of the wicked duke.

Like a true parasite, Morkney continued to feed, taking perverse pleasure in it all, laughing wickedly, as evil a being as the demon he had summoned.

“How could you ever have believed that you could win against me?” the duke asked. “Do you not know who I am? Do you now understand the powers of Greensparrow’s brotherhood?”

Again came the mocking laughter; the dying Luthien couldn’t even speak out in protest. His heart beat furiously; he feared it would explode.

Suddenly, a looped rope spun over the duke’s head, drawing tight about his shoulders. Morkney’s eyes widened as he regarded it, and he followed its length to the side to see Oliver deBurrows, crawling over the battlement.

The halfling shrugged and smiled apologetically, even waved to the duke. Morkney growled, thinking to turn his wrath on this one, thinking that he was through with the impudent young human.

The instant he was free, Luthien jerked straight, and the motion brought the deadly rapier shooting forward, its tip plunging into the startled duke’s breast.

They stood face to face for a long moment, Morkney staring incredulously at this curious young man, at this young man who had just killed him. The duke chuckled again, for some reason, then slumped dead into Luthien’s arms.

Down below, in the nave, the gargoyles turned to stone and crashed to the floor, and the skeletons and rotting corpses lay back down in their eternal sleep.

Oliver looked far below to the now huge crowd and the large force of Praetorian Guards coming into the plaza beside the Ministry.

“Put him over the side!” the quick-thinking halfling called to Luthien.

Luthien turned curiously at Oliver, who was now scrambling all the way over the battlement and back to the tower’s top.

“Put him over the side!” the halfling said again. “Let them see him hanging by his skinny neck!”

The notion horrified Luthien.

Oliver ran up to his friend and pushed Luthien away from the dead duke. “Do you not understand?” Oliver asked. “They need