Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,118

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.

He pushed it to the top of the stairwell and shouldered it through the opening with enough force so that it slid down the five steps and across the landing, then down the curving stairwell below that. A moment later, Oliver’s efforts were rewarded by the screams—rapidly diminishing screams—of surprised cyclopians.

“They will be back,” Luthien said grimly.

“My so young and foolish friend,” Oliver replied, “we will be frozen stiff before they ever arrive!”

It seemed a distinct possibility. Winter was cold in Montfort, nestled in the mountains, and colder still three hundred feet up atop a snow-covered tower, with no practical shielding from the brutal northern winds.

Luthien went to the tower’s side, to the frozen rope Oliver had tied off weeks ago around one of the block battlements. He shielded his eyes from the stinging wind and peered over, down the length of the tower, to the naked body of dead Duke Morkney, visible, though still in shadow, apparently frozen solid against the stone.

“You have your grapnel?” Luthien asked suddenly, referring to the enchanted device the wizard Brind’Amour had given to the halfling: a black puckered ball which once had been affixed to the now frozen rope.

“I would not leave it up here,” Oliver retorted. “Though I did leave my fine rope, holding the dead duke. A rope you can replace, you see, but my so fine grapnel . . .”

“Get it out,” Luthien shouted, having no patience for one of Oliver’s legendary orations.

Oliver paused and stared hard at the young man, then cocked an eyebrow incredulously. “I have not enough rope to get us down the tower,” the halfling explained. “Not enough rope to get us halfway down!”

They heard the grunts of approaching cyclopians from the entrance to the stairwell.

“Get it ready,” Luthien instructed. As he spoke, he tugged hard on the frozen rope along the tower’s rim, freeing some of it from the encapsulating ice.

“You cannot be serious,” Oliver muttered.

Luthien ran back and gingerly lifted the wounded man. Another cyclopian growl emanated from the curving tunnel, not so far below.

Oliver shrugged. “I could be wrong.”

The halfling got to the frozen rope first. He rubbed his hands together vigorously, blowing on them several times, and into his green gauntlets, as well, before he replaced them. Then he took up his main gauche in one hand and the rope in the other, and went over the side without hesitation. He worked his way down as quickly as he could, using the long-bladed dagger to free up the rope as he went, knowing that Luthien, with his heavy load, would need a secure hold.

Oliver grimaced as he came down to the rope’s end, gingerly setting his foot atop the frozen head of the dead Duke Morkney. Settling in, he