Down came the weapon in an overhead chop, and Oliver darted forward, rolling right through the brute’s widespread legs. He looked back to see sparks flying as the weapon took a chunk of stone out of the floor.
Oliver dove and rolled back the other way as the cyclopian roared and swung about. Then they were facing each other squarely again, Oliver with his back to the crank and the shaft beyond.
Luthien charged in bravely, daring the odds. These two brutes were also well armored, and they wielded fine swords that accepted the heavy hits of the young Bedwyr’s first flurry and turned his blade aside.
Luthien lunged straight forward; a sword chopped his blade’s tip to the stone, while the other brute thrust ahead, forcing Luthien to twist violently to the side to avoid being impaled. He got his weapon back in line quickly and slapped the stubborn cyclopian’s sword away, then countered viciously.
But the attack was again defeated.
Oliver’s rapier jabbed into the front of the cyclopian’s armor three times in rapid succession, but the blade only bent and would not penetrate. The halfling had hoped to tire the heavy-muscled brute, but it was he who was soon panting, diving this way and that to avoid the mighty battle-ax.
He glanced all about, searching for a new tactic, a chink in the cyclopian’s armor. What he found instead was a ring of keys tagged onto the brute’s belt. Instinctively, the halfling glanced over at Luthien, and continued to watch the young man out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the right moment.
Luthien was hard-pressed but fought back valiantly, fiercely, keeping the cyclopians in place. Looking past his adversaries, he saw the two dwarves untangle themselves from the chain that hooked them together at the ankles, saw them line up, and could guess well enough what they had in mind.
Luthien’s sword snapped left and right, left and right, routines easily defeated, but demanding his opponents’ complete attention.
The charging dwarves hit the cyclopians in the back of the legs, heaving them forward.
Luthien’s sword snapped right, turning down the blade of that brute. The young Bedwyr then spun fast to the left, tucking his shoulder so that the cyclopian would not ram him and so the brute would slip behind him. And Luthien’s sword flashed left, not only defeating the attack of that stumbling cyclopian, but knocking its sword to the stone.
He heard Oliver call out his name and spun around once more, jamming an elbow into the ribs of the cyclopian behind him and knocking the unfortunate brute down the shaft. Then Luthien rushed forward out of the tumbling cyclopian’s desperate reach.
In one fluid motion, Oliver’s rapier darted at his adversary and slipped to the side, through the loop of the key ring. Out to the right went the blade, snapping the keys from the jailor’s belt, then high and back to the left, the key ring slipping free and flying through the air.
Into Luthien Bedwyr’s waiting hand.
Luthien slid down to the floor, knowing the most important shackle to be the one binding the dwarves together. He was lucky—the second key fit—and the lock clicked open, and Luthien jumped back up to meet the remaining cyclopian, its sword back in its hand.
For all the advantage the friends had apparently gained, though, none were breathing easier. Torchlight flickered from two of the side tunnels, and yells and heavy footsteps echoed down one. The soldiers on the platform below the room were not content to sit back and wait, either. A one-eyed face came above the lip, and then another to the side; the brutes were climbing the guide ropes.
The jailor roared to see its keys go flying away and on the monster came, its huge ax thrashing back and forth. Oliver twisted and darted, making no attempt to get a weapon up to block the battle-ax, knowing that either of his blades would be snapped in half or taken from his hand by the sheer force of the jailor’s blows.
The ax chopped down, and Oliver skipped left, near the crank. Up he hopped, atop the spindle and heavy rope. Then he hopped straight up again, desperately tucking his little legs under him as the ax swished across. The powerful cyclopian broke its momentum in mid-swing and curved the ax up high, over its head.
Down it came, and Oliver leaped and rolled to the right. The ax smashed onto the spindle, bit hard into the rope. The dimwitted jailor blinked in amazement as the frayed hemp unraveled and snapped, then watched helplessly as the rope’s severed end soared off toward the block and tackle, and the platform (and a dozen cyclopians) fell away!
“I do thank you,” Oliver remarked.
The jailor roared and swung about, overbalancing with the unbridled strength of the blow. The cyclopian never came close to hitting the halfling, though, for Oliver was on his merry way back toward the crank even as the ax came across the other way. Up again, Oliver poked straight out, his rapier’s tip scoring a hit into the cyclopian’s big eye.
The blinded jailor slashed wildly, this way and that, banging his ax off the stone, off the crank. Oliver tumbled and rolled, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle (as long as the ax didn’t get too near to him!), and gradually, by calling out taunts, he managed to get the jailor near the edge of the hole.
On a nod from Oliver, Shuglin barreled into the backside of the jailor, launching the brute over the side.
“Should’ve kept the ax,” the dwarf grumbled as the jailor, and the battle-ax, plummeted from sight.
One on one, Luthien had little trouble in parrying the vicious strokes of his cyclopian adversary. He let the one-eye play out the rage of its initial attack routine and gradually turned the tide against it, setting it on its heels with one cunning thrust after another.
Understanding that it could not win, the beast, with typical cyclopian bravery, turned and fled—to join its companions who were then entering the chamber from the side passages.
And so the forces faced off for several tense seconds, the cyclopian ranks swelling to a dozen or more. Oliver looked back into the shaft doubtfully, for it dropped out of sight into the gloom and he did not even have his grapnel and line. Luthien managed to get the shackles off of Shuglin, then went to work on the other dwarf, while Shuglin ran over and retrieved the sword from the first cyclopian Oliver had killed.
Still the cyclopians did not advance, and Luthien understood that they were allowing their enemies to prepare themselves only because they expected more reinforcements to enter the room.
“We must do something,” Oliver reasoned, apparently having the same grim thoughts.
Luthien slipped his sword in its scabbard and took out his bow, popping it open, pinning it, and setting an arrow in one fluid motion. The cyclopians understood then what this man with the curious stick was doing, and they fumbled all over themselves trying to get out of harm’s way.
Luthien shot one in the neck, and it went down screaming. The others screamed, too, but they did not run for cover. Rather, they charged before Luthien could set another arrow.
“That was not what I had in mind,” Oliver remarked dryly.
In the ensuing tumult, the desperate companions did not hear the twang of bowstrings, and all four of them looked on curiously as several of the charging brutes lurched weirdly and tumbled to the stone. Seeing arrows protruding from their backs, the friends and the cyclopians looked back to the room’s ledge and saw a handful of slender archers—elves, probably—their hands moving in a blur as they continued to rain death on the cyclopians.
The one-eyes scrambled and fled, many running with one or two arrows sticking from them. In response, arrows and spears came whistling out of the side passages, and though Oliver’s claims about a cyclopian’s lack of depth perception held true once more, the sheer numbers of flying bolts presented a serious problem.