Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,9

Garth Rogar caught Luthien’s swinging sword in his hand, but this time, his feet were tangled. When Luthien heaved suddenly, arms and legs wide, the barbarian’s spear went flying and Rogar himself fell heavily to the ground.

“Get him! Get him!” Avonese cried.

“Fight back, you oaf!” screamed Elenia.

Luthien was just settling into his stance when Garth Rogar jumped up. Luthien thought Rogar would go for the fallen spear—and he would have let the worthy opponent retrieve it—but Garth, savagery coursing wildly within his barbarian blood, charged instead. Surprised, Luthien got his shield up, and then his whole arm fell numb under the sheer weight of the Huegoth’s tremendous punch.

Luthien bounced back a full step, looked in amazement as his shield, one of its straps snapped by the blow, fell from his arm. He just managed to duck a second punch, one that he figured would have hurt him more than any spear could, and leaped back from a third, swinging his broken shield at his opponent as he went to keep the man back.

Garth Rogar smacked the metal shield away and came in, slowing only to dodge a short thrust from Luthien’s sword. A second thrust turned him to the side, to Luthien’s left, and Luthien’s free hand was waiting, snapping a punch into the barbarian’s already broken nose.

Garth Rogar tried to fake a smile, but he had to shake his head to clear away the dizziness.

“Do you yield?” Luthien politely asked, and they both heard Elenia’s protesting scream from the stands, and Avonese’s howls of victory.

Predictably, Garth Rogar charged. At the last instant, Luthien tossed his sword up into the air, right in the barbarian’s face. Garth flinched, then jolted to a stop, his own momentum used against him, by a left-right punch combination that would have felled a small bull.

Luthien caught the sword in his left hand, moved it to Garth’s neck to force a yield. Ferocious Garth caught its tip, tossed it out wide and clamped his hand on Luthien’s forearm.

“Rip his arm off!” Elenia cried. Avonese leaned right across Gahris’s lap to hiss at her.

Luthien’s muscles flexed as he fell into a clinch with the larger and stronger man. Wilmon, and even Aubrey, scowled a bit at the ensuing sighs of their obviously enchanted consorts.

Luthien held well against Rogar, but knew that the man’s sheer weight would soon overwhelm him. He pushed forward with all his might, then took a quick step backward, breaking one hand free, though Garth stubbornly held his sword arm. The combatants exchanged punches; Garth Rogar took a second, and a third, willingly, as he bent to clamp a hand under Luthien’s crotch. A moment later, the young Bedwyr was rising helplessly into the air, the angle all wrong for him to get any weight behind a punch—and Garth Rogar’s grip on his sword arm remained unrelenting.

Luthien head-butted the barbarian instead, forehead to face. The stunned Garth Rogar heaved him ten feet away, then focused on just keeping his balance. For the barbarian, the world would not stop spinning.

Luthien pulled himself up from the ground and cautiously stalked back in, looking for a clean opening between Garth’s wild swings. Luthien was on the verge of exhaustion and feared that a single hit from his powerful enemy would send him spinning to the ground.

He waved his sword all about as he came in slowly, forcing the dizzy barbarian to keep up with its tantalizing movements. The thrust was a feint—Garth Rogar knew that—but so was the following right cross. Luthien pulled up short and fell to the ground, his legs sweeping across, kicking out both of Garth Rogar’s knees. Down went the barbarian hard on his back, his breath coming out in one profound blast.

Luthien was up, quick as a cat, but Garth had not the strength to follow. Luthien planted a foot on the fallen man’s chest, and his sword tip came to rest on the bridge of Garth Rogar’s nose, right between his unfocused eyes.

The screams of Elenia and Avonese were surprisingly similar, but the expressions that each wore after the initial outburst certainly were not.

Gahris was truly pleased by the appreciation, even admiration, stamped upon Aubrey’s face, but the eorl’s smile disappeared as Avonese again leaned heavily across his lap, looking at the pouting Elenia with sparkling, wicked eyes.

“Pray offer the down-pointing thumb, Eorl Bedwyr,” Avonese purred.

Gahris nearly choked. A down-pointing thumb meant that the loser should be killed. That was not the way on the islands: the fights were for