Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,232

beast, back in front of the door. He saw Katerin on the bed, tugging for all her life, the cyclopian gasping and clawing at her hands and wrists. He saw the second brute, dodging futilely side to side as it tried to squirm under the bed, as Oliver’s darting rapier poked it again and again.

“Get out!” Luthien cried to Oliver and he pulled the amber gemstone from his pouch and sent it skidding under the bed, hoping the halfling would see it and find the chance to take Katerin along with him if that stone was indeed an escape.

Paragor was approaching, dark eyes focused right on Luthien, as though nothing or no one else mattered in all the world. The duke’s hair flared in wild wings behind his ears, and he seemed inhuman, as monstrous as the beast Praehotec.

Luthien accepted that he was overmatched, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was that Katerin and Oliver might escape, and so the young Bedwyr spun about, snarling with fury and slashed Blind-Striker across Praehotec’s back, right between the wings.

The demon howled and whipped around, clawed hand raking. But Luthien was already gone, rolling to the side, and Praehotec’s great hand caught nothing but the door jamb and remaining pieces of the door, launching a volley of splinters right into Paragor’s face.

“Fool!” the duke yelled, hands going to his bloody face. “Do not kill him!”

Even as Paragor yelled his instructions, Blind-Striker came in again, a crushing blow to the side of the crouching demon’s head. Praehotec let out a wail, and no commands the wizard-duke could utter then, no reasoning, would have contained the fiend’s fury. Praehotec wheeled wildly, filling the corridor with its huge form, preventing Luthien from skipping behind this time.

They faced off, the demon still in a crouch, its wings tight to its back so they would not scrape against the walls. The corridor was small and rather narrow, had been built for defense, and its ceiling was not high enough to accommodate the tall fiend. Praehotec was at no disadvantage, though; it could fight this way easily enough.

Luthien, too, went into a crouch, backing down the hall as the demon stalked him. Clawed hands came at him, and all the young Bedwyr could do was whip his sword back and forth, parrying. Luthien nearly tripped over one of the dead cyclopians, and knew that if he had, his life would have come to a sudden and violent end.

Regaining his footing and looking up at his foe, Luthien watched in blank amazement as two dagger-length beams of red light emanated from Praehotec’s blazing eyes. The serpentine maw turned up into another of those awful grins as the demon crossed its eyes to angle the beams. As soon as the light beams touched, a third beam burst forth, a red line that hit Luthien square in the chest, hurling him backward.

He fought for his breath, felt the burn, the spot of sheer agony, and saw the grinning beast still approaching. He tried to backpedal, all his sensibilities told him to flee, but the door held firm behind him, and it could only open one way, into the corridor.

Had Luthien been thinking clearly, he might have stepped aside and thrown it wide, then run out into the palace proper. But he could not stop and reason, not with the pain and with Praehotec so close, great arms reaching for him. And then his chance was lost altogether as Praehotec worked more magic, swelling and twisting the door in its jamb so that it would not open at all.

“Will you fall down and die, you ugly offspring of a flounder and a pig?” Oliver shouted, poking the cyclopian yet again. He had pierced the creature twenty times, at least. Its face, its chest, and both its reaching hands spotted bright lines of blood. But the brute didn’t cry out, didn’t complain at all, and didn’t retreat.

Something skittered beside Oliver and he heard Luthien call out for him to escape. Without even knowing what it might be, the halfling instinctively scooped up the bauble. Then he changed tactics. He poked at the cyclopian again, but fell back as he did so, allowing the brute to get further under the bed. When it had squeezed in all the way, Oliver, much smaller and more maneuverable in the tight quarters, poked it hard in the forehead, then scampered out the other side, coming to his feet to find Katerin still tugging with all her strength,