Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,234

slamming him painfully against the corridor wall.

Luthien bounced out the other side, still scrambling on all fours, scraping his knuckles and gasping for breath, trying to make it back to the door of the wizard’s room, though he didn’t even have his head up, so bad was the pain.

He saw the hem of the wizard’s brownish-yellow robes, a sickly color for a sickly man.

Luthien forced himself to his knees, threw his back against the wall, and squirmed his way up to a standing position. Before he ever fully straightened, before he ever truly looked Paragor in the eye, he heard the crackle of energy.

Blue lines of power arced between Paragor’s fingers, and when he thrust his hands toward Luthien, those lines extended, engulfing the man in a jolting, crackling shroud.

Luthien jerked spasmodically. He felt his hair standing on end, and his jaw chattered and convulsed so violently that he bit his tongue repeatedly, filling his mouth with blood. He tried to look at his adversary, tried to will himself toward the wizard, but his muscles would not react to his call. The spasms continued; Luthien slammed the back of his head against the wall so violently that he had to struggle to remain conscious.

He hardly registered the movement as Praehotec finally turned and advanced, a clawed hand reaching for his head.

With a roar of victory, the beast grabbed for its prey, meaning to squash Luthien’s skull. But the energy encircling the young Bedwyr sparked on contact and blew the demon’s hand aside. Praehotec looked at Paragor, serpentine face twisted with rage.

“You cannot kill this one!” the duke insisted. “He is mine. Go to his lover instead and take her as you will!”

Luthien heard. Above all the crackling and the pain, the sound of his own bones and ligaments popping as he jerked about, he heard. Paragor had sent Praehotec to Katerin. He had given the demon permission to kill Katerin . . . or worse.

“No,” Luthien growled, forcing the word from his mouth. He straightened, using the wall for support, and somehow, through sheer willpower, he managed to steady himself enough to look the evil duke in the eye.

Both Paragor and Praehotec stared at the young Bedwyr with a fair amount of respect, and so it was Luthien, gazing over the duke’s shoulder, who noticed the blue-robed wizard at the open doorway to the duke’s bedchamber.

Brind’Amour’s hands moved in circles as he uttered a chant. He took a deep, deep breath and brought his hands back behind his ears, then threw them forward, at the same time blowing with all his might.

Luthien got the strange image of the wizard as a boy, blowing out the candles upon his birthday cake.

There came an explosion of light, and a great and sudden burst of wind that flattened Luthien against the wall at the same time as it blew out the arcing energy emanating from Paragor’s hands, freeing the trapped young Bedwyr.

Paragor stumbled, then turned about, glaring at this new adversary, recognizing him as the old man he had seen in the divining basin. Now, with the display of power from the man, Paragor pieced things together.

“You,” he snarled accusingly, and Brind’Amour knew that the wizard-duke, who knew the stories of the ancient brotherhood and had no doubt been warned of Brind’Amour by Greensparrow, at last saw him for who he really was. With a primal scream, Paragor lifted his hands, and they glowed that sickly brownish-yellow color. The wizard-duke charged, his hands going for the old man’s throat.

By the time Luthien gained enough of his senses to look up, he was lying on the floor, a sheet of golden light suspended in the air above him. He saw the giant, shadowy form of Praehotec through that veil, saw the demon’s huge foot rise up above him.

Luthien closed his eyes, tried to grab his sword, but could not reach it in time, and screamed out, thinking he was about to be crushed.

But then it was Praehotec who was screaming, terrible, awful wails of agony, for as the demon’s foot entered the sheet of golden light, it was consumed, torn and ripped away.

Brind’Amour’s hands, glowing a fierce blue to match his own robes, came up to meet the duke’s charge. He caught Paragor’s hands in his own and could feel the disease emanating from them, a withering, rotting touch. Brind’Amour countered the only way he knew how, by reciting chants of healing, chants of ice that would paralyze Paragor’s invisible flies of sickness.

Paragor twisted