Part 16 (1/2)

Luthien stared at the figurine Oliver had noted. It was a fine representation of a halfling in pewter, standing boldly, cape billowing out behind him and sword drawn, its tip to the ground beside bare, hair-topped feet. A fine work indeed, but Luthien couldn't help but notice how it paled compared with the larger, gem-studded statues in the window beside it.

Luthien grabbed Oliver by the arm, just as the halfling placed the gla.s.s cutter on the window.

”Who put it there?” Luthien asked.

Oliver looked at him blankly.

”The statue,” Luthien explained. ”Who put it on such prominent display?”

Oliver looked at him doubtfully, then turned to regard the statue. ”The proprietor?” he asked more than stated, wondering why the answer didn't seem obvious to his companion.

”Why?”

”What are you whispering about?” the halfling demanded.

”Bait for a halfling thief?” Luthien asked.

Again Oliver looked at him doubtfully.

”You must learn to smell such things,” Luthien replied with a smile, perfectly mimicking Oliver's accent.

Oliver looked back to the statue, and for the first time noticed how out of place it truly seemed. He turned and nodded grimly to Luthien. ”We should be leaving.”

Luthien felt the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He leaned out of the alcove, looking one way and then the other, and his expression was grave when he slipped back in beside Oliver.

”Cyclopians at both ends of the lane,” he explained.

”Of course,” Oliver replied. ”They were there all alo-” The halfling stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly viewing things with the same suspicion as Luthien.

”They were indeed,” the young Bedwyr remarked dryly.

”Have we been baited?” Oliver asked.

In answer, Luthien pointed upwards. ”The rooftops?”

Oliver replaced his tools and had the grapnel out in an instant, twirling it about and letting fly. Once secured, he handed the rope to Luthien and said politely, ”After you.”

Luthien took the rope and glared at Oliver, knowing that the reason the halfling wanted him to go first was so that Oliver could be hauled up and wouldn't have to climb.

”And do look about before you bring me up,” the halfling remarked.

With a resigned sigh, the young man began the arduous task of climbing hand over hand. Oliver snickered when Luthien was out of the way, noticing that the young man's crimson-hued shadow had been left behind on the pewter store's window.

Luthien did not take note of Oliver's movements as he went up, reminding himself that he shouldn't be surprised when he pulled the halfling up a few minutes later to find Oliver carrying a sack filled with china plates and crystal goblets.

”I could not let all our work this night go to waste,” the sly halfling explained.

They set off among the steeply pitched rooftops, often walking in gullies between two separate roofs. Unlike the city section near the dividing wall, all the buildings here were joined together, making the whole block one big mountainlike landscape of wooden s.h.i.+ngles and poking chimneys. Scrambling along, Luthien and Oliver were often separated, and only luck prevented Luthien from whispering to a shadowy form that appeared in a gully ahead of him.

The form moved before Luthien could speak, and that movement showed it to be several times the size of the halfling.

Cyclopians were on the roofs.

Luthien fell flat on his belly, thanking G.o.d once more for his crimson cape. He glanced about, hoping that Oliver would amble up beside him, but had a feeling that the halfling had gone beyond this point along the other side of the angled roof to Luthien's left. He could only hope that Oliver was as wary, and as lucky, as he.

Faced with a dangerous decision, Luthien took out his bow and unfolded it, popping the pin into place. The cyclopian in the gully ahead continued to mill about, apparently not yet sensing that it was not alone. Luthien knew he could hit it, but feared that if the shot was not a clean and swift kill, the brute would bring half the Praetorian Guards in Montfort down upon him.

His decision was made for him a moment later when he heard a cry and a crash, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a certain halfling's taunts.

Oliver had not been caught unawares. Moving along the gutter overlooking the avenue, the halfling had noted a movement near the peak of the high roof. For a fleeting instant, he thought it to be Luthien, but he realized that his companion was not so stupid as to be up high where he might be spotted a block away.

Oliver then pressed on, looking for a more defensible position. If those were indeed cyclopians up there, they could dislodge him from his precarious perch simply by sliding down the steep roof into him. The halfling came to a break and started to turn right, but stopped, noticing the same cyclopian Luthien was watching. Fortunately, the dull-witted cyclopian hadn't noticed Oliver, and so the halfling ran on along the gutter, taking some consolation in the fact that this next roof was not nearly as steep.

He was hoping that he could get around this roof, too. Then he could swing back around to come at the cyclopian in the gully from the opposite side of Luthien.

He never made it that far.

A cyclopian came at him from over the rooftop, half running, half bouncing its way down, sword waving fiercely. Oliver dropped his sack of booty to the roof and drew rapier and main gauche, settling into a defensive crouch. When the cyclopian came upon him, predictably leading with its outstretched sword, the halfling dodged aside and hooked the blade with his shorter weapon.

He tugged fiercely and the dumb cyclopian, not wanting to lose its weapon, held on stubbornly. Its momentum, coupled with Oliver's tug, proved too much, though, and over the edge the brute pitched, getting a kick in the rump from Oliver as it went tumbling past. The cyclopian yelped through the twenty-five-foot drop, then quieted considerably when it smacked the cobblestones face first. Its arm twisted underneath as it hit, and its own sword drove up through its chest and back to stick garishly into the air.

”Fear not, stupid one-eye,” Oliver taunted. He knew he should be quiet, but he just couldn't resist. ”Even my main gauche could not now take your precious sword from you!”

Oliver spun about-to see three more cyclopians coming down at him from the rooftop. Figuring to go out in style, the halfling swashbuckler removed his great hat from one of the housebreaker's many magical pouches, slapped it against his hip to get the wrinkles out, and plopped it onto his head.

The cyclopian in the gully jumped straight up at the sound, then shuddered suddenly as Luthien's arrow drove into its back. Luthien started to jump up, thinking to run to Oliver's aid, but he flattened himself again, hearing the distinctive clicks of crossbows from the top of the steep roof to his left.

They were firing blindly, unable to penetrate the crimson cape's camouflage, but they had an idea of where to shoot. Luthien nearly wet his pants as three quarrels drove into the wood, one barely inches from his face.

Luthien was not so blind to the archers, though, seeing their black silhouettes clearly against the cloudy gray sky. He knew that there must be magic in the folding bow (or he must have been blessed with an inordinate amount of luck), for his next shot was too perfect as he s.h.i.+fted to the side and awkwardly fired off the arrow.

One of the cyclopians was jolted upright and tilted back its thick head-Luthien could see the thin black line of his arrow sticking from the creature's forehead. The brute reached up and grabbed the quivering shaft, then fell backward, dead, and slid halfway down the other side of the roof.

The other two cyclopians disappeared behind the roof peak.

Oliver's rapier darted left, then right, his main gauche slas.h.i.+ng out to the side, intercepting one attack, his spinning rapier defeating another. Down ducked the halfling as a cyclopian sword swooped over his head.

Then he sneaked in a counter, jabbing his rapier into the leg of one of the brutes just above the knee. The one-eye howled in pain.

”Ha, ha!” Oliver cried, as though the score was a foregone conclusion, hiding his honest surprise that, in his wild flurry, he had managed to hit anything. He brought his rapier up to the brim of his cap in victorious salute, but was put back on his heels, spinning and dodging, even whimpering a bit, as the wounded cyclopian responded with a vicious flurry of its own.

The halfling felt his heels hanging over open air. His blades went into another blinding spin, keeping the cyclopians at bay long enough for him to skitter along the roof's edge. The maneuver allowed him to regain secure footing, though the cyclopians kept pace every step, and the halfling quickly came to the realization that fighting with three-to-one odds, with his back leaning out over a long drop, was not such a smart thing to do.

The two cyclopians, their crossbows reloaded, popped up over the roof peak again. They glanced all about, cursing the crafty thief and his concealing cloak, then fired at the spot where they suspected Luthien had been.

Luthien, having slipped around the roof, looked up the slope, past the dead cyclopian, to the backs of his remaining adversaries. Up came the bow and he let fly his arrow, hearing the grunt as one of the brutes caught it full in the back. The other cyclopian regarded its companion curiously for just a moment, then snapped its terrified gaze about. It scrambled up the last few steps of the roof and leaped over the peak, but took Luthien's next flying arrow right in the belly.