The fashionable highwayman was about eye level with the cyclopian soldiers as he looked at them from atop his yellow mount. He parried a spear thrust from one direction, yanked the bridle to bring his mount back on two legs and swing the beast about just in time, to defeat a slashing sword from be-hind. He was a flurry of activity, but the cyclopian driver, smiling wickedly, pulled out another weapon: a loaded cross-bow.
That would have been the end of the legendary (at least in his own mind) Oliver deBurrows, but a short distance away, in the thicket across the river, young Luthien Bedwyr had found his courage and his heart. Luthien had never been fond of the ever-present greedy merchants, placing them in a cate-gory just above cyclopians. The halfling was a thief--that could not be denied--but to Luthien so was the merchant. He didn't acknowledge the emotions guiding his actions in that critical moment; he only did as his heart dictated.
He was no less surprised than the cyclopian driver when an arrow, Luthien's arrow, took the brute in the chest and pushed it back down in its seat, his crossbow slipping from its weakening grasp.
If Oliver even saw the shot, he didn't show it. "Yes, do come on, you with one eye who looks so much like the back end of a cat!" he bellowed at one cyclopian, spinning his rapier in such a dazzling (though totally ineffective) display that the cyclopian took two steps back from the yellow mount and scratched its sloped forehead.
Luthien walked Riverdancer out of the thicket and down the steep bank, the strong horse gaining enough momentum to leap out, barely touching the water, crossing with one run-ning stride. Across the field charged Luthien, bow in hand, shooting as he went.
The cyclopians roared in protest. One grabbed a long hal-berd from the side of the coach and darted out to meet Luthien, then changed its mind amidst the stream of soaring arrows and slipped in behind the coach's horses instead. Oliver, entangled in fending attacks from three different po-sitions, didn't even know what his enemies were yelling about. The halfling did note, though, that the cyclopian now behind his turning mount became distracted.
"Pardon," he said to the brute in front of him, and he hurled his main gauche so that the opponent had to fall back a step, getting tangled but not hurt as it pushed away the halfheartedly tossed weapon. In the same movement, Oliver swooped off his wide hat and placed it over his mount's rump, and the pony responded immediately by rearing up and kicking out, straight into the ribs of the distracted cy-clopian behind. Oliver, meanwhile, now saw Luthien, riding and shooting. The composed halfling simply shrugged and turned back to the more pressing situation.
It was still two against one, though, and the halfling found himself immediately hard-pressed, even more so because now he held only one weapon.
Another crossbowman, lying flat on top of the coach, changed its target from Oliver to the newest foe. The cyclopian leveled the weapon, but could not get a clear shot as Luthien bent low to the side of his running horse, using Riverdancer as a shield. The cyclopian fired and missed badly, and Luthien came up high enough to return the shot, his arrow knocking into the wood just below the prone cy-clopian's face. Even on
the running mount, Luthien managed to reload before the cyclopian, and his second shot, fired no more than twenty feet from the coach, nailed the brute in the face.
Then a halberd was thrust in front of Luthien's face as the next soldier darted out from behind the horse team. The only defense offered to Luthien was to fall back and to the side, right off of Riverdancer. He landed hard, and only by re-minding himself through every inch of the brutal tumble that if he did not get right back up he would soon be skewered did he manage to keep his wits about him. He also wisely held onto the bow, and he whipped it across in front as he fi-nally managed to put his feet under him just in time to bat aside the next thrusting attack.
Oliver was able to line up his pony so that both remaining cyclopians were facing him. His rapier snapped back and forth over the pony's low- hung head, intercepting cut after cut. The halfling tried to appear nonchalant, even bored, but in truth he was more than a little concerned.
These cyclopi-ans were pretty good and their weapons finely made. Still, Oliver had not survived two decades as a highwayman with-out a few tricks up his puffy white sleeve.
"Behind you!" he cried suddenly, and one of the cyclopi-ans almost fell for the obvious ruse, almost turned its head to look over its shoulder-- not an easy feat when you have only one eye located in the middle of your face!
The other cyclopian kept up its attack without a blink, and the foolish one came back doubly hard as soon as it realized how stupid it looked.
But not only did Oliver guess that the brutes wouldn't fall for the ruse, he hoped they wouldn't. "Behind you!" he cried again, just to egg them on a bit more, just to make them think that he thought they were stupid.
Predictably, both cyclopi-ans growled and pressed harder.
Oliver kicked his heels and his yellow pony leaped for-ward, right between the brutes. So intent were they on their offensive posture, the cyclopians didn't even mark Oliver's swift maneuver as the halfling let go the bridle and rolled off the back end of the pony, turning a complete somersault and landing easily on his feet. The cyclopians swung about as the horse cut between them, and Oliver promptly jabbed, his rapier blade deep into the rump of one.
The cyclopian howled and whipped about, and a snap of Oliver's rapier sent the outraged brute's sword falling free.
"Foolish one-eyed sniffer of barnyard animals!" the halfling snorted, holding his hands out wide in disbelief. "I, polite Oliver deBurrows, even told you that it would come from behind!" The halfling then assumed his best fencing posture, free hand on hip. He yelled and leaped forward as if to strike, and the wounded cyclopian turned and fled, howl-ing and fiercely rubbing its stuck butt.
The other cyclopian came on, though, viciously.
"You should be so wise as your friend," Oliver taunted, parrying one swing, ducking a second, and hopping over a third. "You are no match for Oliver deBurrows!"
In response, the cyclopian came on with such a vicious flurry that Oliver was put back on his heels, and though he could have poked his rapier home a dozen times, any offen-sive strike would surely have allowed the cyclopian a solid hit at him, as well. The creature was strong and its
sword nearly as heavy as the halfling, and Oliver wanted no part of that trade.
"I could be wrong," the halfling admitted again, working furiously to keep the brute off of him. He gave a short and sharp whistle then, but the cyclopian took no note of it.
An instant later, Oliver's yellow pony slammed into the brute's back, throwing it facedown on the turf, and the pony continued forward, clambering atop the groaning cyclopian. The curious-looking and curiously trained pony then began hopping up and down, crunching bones with every short jump.
"Have you met my horse?" Oliver asked politely.
The cyclopian roared and tried to rise, but a hoof crushed the side of its face.
Luthien was hurt more than he cared to admit. The wounds wouldn't have been serious, except that he was en-gaged in a brutal fight at the moment and his head was pounding so badly that he could hardly see straight.
In fact, he saw not one but two halberd tips continually darting his way.
He whipped the bow back and forth and backpedaled.
He walked right into a tree, and lost his breath in the sur-prise. The agile young Bedwyr fell to the side as the cyclop-ian, thinking him caught, jabbed straight ahead, the wicked halberd tip digging a fair- sized hole in the wood.
Luthien responded with a swing of his own, but he missed and cringed when he heard the bow crack as it struck the tree. He brought it back out in front of him: half of it was hanging by a splinter.
The cyclopian bellowed with laughter; Luthien threw the bow at it. The brute batted it aside and its laugh turned to a growl, but when it began to advance once more, the cyclop-ian found that its opponent now carried a sword.
Oliver's pony was still dancing atop the groaning cyclop-ian when the halfling swung into the saddle. He meant to turn about and go help the young man who had come to his aid, but he paused, hearing whispers from inside the coach.
"Shoot him!" he heard a woman say ."Are you a coward?"
Oliver nodded in confirmation, guessing that she was talk-ing to the merchant. Most merchants were cowards, the halfling believed. He hopped to a standing position atop his saddle, turned his pony beside the coach, and stepped lightly onto its roof, nearly tripping over the body of a cyclopian, a long arrow stuck deep into its face. Oliver looked down at his shoe, streaked with the cyclopian's blood, and crinkled his face in disgust. A huge hand shot out suddenly, grabbing the halfling's ankle and nearly knocking him over.
The cyclopian driver held on stubbornly, despite the arrow sticking into his chest. Oliver whipped him atop the head with the side of his rapier blade, and when the brute let go of the halfling's ankle to grasp at its newest wound, Oliver kicked it in the eye. The cyclopian gurgled, trying to scream, and tumbled backward off its seat, falling in a heap behind the nervous horse team.
"Count your luck that you did not mess my fine and stolen clothes," the halfling said to him. "For then I would surely have killed you!"
With a derisive snort, the halfling picked his way to the other side of the coach's roof and knelt down on one knee. A moment later, the plump
arms and head of the merchant ap-peared, holding a crossbow and pointing it in the general di-rection of Luthien and the last remaining soldier.
Something tapped the merchant on top of his head.
"I do not think that would be such a wise idea," he heard from above.
Slowly the merchant turned his head upward to regard the halfling, on one knee still, with his elbow propped against his other knee, green-gloved hand, holding the rapier, against the side of his face, with his index finger tap-tapping against the side of his nose.
"I do not know for sure, of course," the halfling went on casually, "but I think he might be a friend of mine."
The merchant screamed and tried to wheel about and bring the crossbow to bear on this new foe. The rapier snapped suddenly, flashing before the fat man's eyes, and he froze in shock. As soon as his senses recovered and he realized that he hadn't been hit, he tried to finish the move, even going so far as to pull the crossbow's trigger, before he realized that the quarrel was no longer in place along the weapon's shaft, plucked cleanly away by the well-aimed rapier.
Oliver held out his hands and shrugged. "I am good, you must admit," he said. The merchant screamed again and dis-appeared into the coach, whereupon the woman set upon him, calling him "coward" repeatedly, and many other worse names.
Oliver sat in a comfortable crouch on the roof, enjoying it all thoroughly, and turned his gaze back to the continuing fight.
The cyclopian was working the long halberd fiercely, whipping it to and fro and straight ahead. The young man, to his credit, hadn't been hit, but he was tumbling wildly and snapping his blade all about, apparently unaccustomed to facing so long a weapon.
"You must move straight ahead when he moves ahead!" Oliver called out.
Luthien heard him, but the strategy made no sense. He had fought against spear wielders in the arena, but those weapons were no more than eight feet long. The shaft of this halberd nearly doubled that.
Luthien started forward, as instructed, on the cyclopian's next thrust, and he caught the tip of the halberd on his right shoulder for his effort. With a yelp, the young man fell back, grabbing his sword in his left hand and favoring the stung shoulder.
"Not like that!" Oliver scolded. "Do not thrust in an angle that is complementary to your enemy's line of attack!"
Still hard-pressed, Luthien and the cyclopian paused for an instant to wonder what in the world this curious halfling was talking about.
"Do not line up your body with the enemy's closest tip," Oliver instructed. "Only a silly viper snake would do that, and are you not smarter than a silly viper snake?" The halfling then launched into a long dissertation about the proper methods of parrying long weapons, and of fighting silly viper snakes, but Luthien was no longer listening. A sweeping cut forced him to spin away to the side; a straight thrust for his abdomen had him jerking his rump far out behind him, doubling over.
The cyclopian retracted and poked ahead again, thinking he had the young man off balance. He did, indeed, except that Luthien hurled himself facedown to the ground right behind the retracting blade. The halberd's tip as it came jabbing back scratched Luthien's behind but caused no serious damage, and Luthien spun about on the ground and scrambled ahead, grabbing the halberd shaft in his right hand and pulling it down as his sword came whip-ping up. The long weapon cracked apart.
"Well done!" came the halfling's cry from the top of the coach.
The cyclopian was not unarmed, though, still holding a broken shaft that now effectively served as a spear. Oliver's cheer had barely left his mouth when the one-eyed brute growled and pushed ahead, catching Luthien as he tried to stand. Down went the young man, apparently impaled.
"Oh," the halfling groaned as the roaring cyclopian put his weight behind the spear and began to grind and twist it merci-lessly. On the ground, Luthien squirmed and squealed.
Oliver put his grand hat over his heart and lowered his head in respect.
But then the cyclopian jerked suddenly and straightened, letting go of his weapon. He stumbled backward several steps and tried to turn, and Oliver saw that he was grabbing his belly, trying to hold in his spilling guts. Back on the ground, Luthien's sword, the top half of the blade blood-ied, was sticking straight up. Luthien sat up, tossing the spear aside, and Oliver laughed loudly as he recognized the truth of the matter. Luthien hadn't been impaled; he had caught the cyclopian's blade under his arm and rolled to the side as he fell to disguise the ruse.
"Oh, I do think that I am going to like this one," the halfling said, and he tipped his hat to the victorious Luthien.
"Now, cowardly fat merchant-type, will you admit that you are defeated?"
Oliver called, rapping the coach door with his rapier. "You may get out now, or come out at the end of my so fine rapier blade!"
The door creaked open and the merchant came out, fol-lowed by a painted and perfumed lady wearing a low-cut-up-high and high-cut-down-low silken crimson gown. The woman eyed the halfling incredulously, but her expression changed when she noticed the handsome young Bedwyr as he walked over to join the group.
Luthien caught her lewd gaze and returned it with an in-credulous smirk.
He immediately thought of Avonese, and his left hand unconsciously tightened on the hilt of his bloody sword.
Three graceful hops--to the seat, to the horse's rump, and to the ground-- brought Oliver down to them, and he walked around the two prisoners. A yank of his free hand took the merchant's belt purse, and a flick of his rapier took the woman's jeweled necklace over her head.
"Go and search the coach," he instructed Luthien. "I did not ask for your help, but I will graciously split the wealth." He paused and thought for a moment, counting kills. At first, he gave Luthien credit for three of the cyclopians, half the enemy, but then he convinced himself that the driver be-longed to him. "You defeated two of the six," he announced. "So four of six items are mine."
Luthien stood up straight, indignant.
"You think you get half?" the highwayman balked.
"I am no thief!" Luthien proclaimed. All three--Oliver, the merchant, and the lady--looked about the carnage and the dead and wounded cyclopians lying in the muck.
"You are now," they all said together, and Luthien winced.
"The coach?" Oliver prompted after a long and silent minute slipped past.
Luthien shrugged and moved by them, entering the coach. It had many compartments, most filled with food or handkerchiefs, perfume and other items for the journey. After some minutes of searching, though, Luthien found a small iron chest under the seat. He pulled it out to the open floor and hoisted it, then moved back outside.
Oliver had the merchant on his knees, stripped to his un-derwear and whimpering.
"So many pockets," the halfling explained to Luthien, going through the man's huge waistcoat.
"You may search me," the woman purred at Luthien, and he fell back a step, banging against the coach's open door.
"If you are hiding anything precious under there," the halfling said to her, indicating her skintight, revealing gown, "then you are not half the woman you pretend to be!"
He was laughing at his own joke until he noticed the iron box in Luthien's hands. Then Oliver's eyes lit up.
"I see that it is time to go," he said, and tossed the waist-coat away.
"What about them?" Luthien asked.
"We must kill them," Oliver said casually, "or they will bring the whole Praetorian Guard down upon us."
Luthien scowled fiercely. Killing armed cyclopians was one thing, but a defenseless man and woman, and wounded enemies (even if they were cyclopian) defeated on the field of honor, was something entirely different. Before the young man could begin to protest, though, the halfling moaned and slapped a hand across his face.
"Ah, but one of the one-eyes got away," Oliver said in feigned distress, "so we cannot eliminate all witnesses. It would seem, then, that mercy would serve us well." He looked around at the groaning cyclopians: the driver behind the team; the one trampled into the ground by Oliver's pony, propped on one elbow now and watching the proceedings; the one that Luthien had stabbed still kneeling and holding his belly; and the one that Oliver's horse had sent flying away standing again, though unsteadily, and making no move to come back near the robbers. With the one Oliver had sent running away, rubbing his behind, that left only the dead crossbowman atop the coach.
"Besides," the halfling added with a smirk, "you are the only one who actually killed anybody."
"Take me with you!" the lady screamed suddenly, launch-ing herself at Luthien. She crashed into him, and Luthien dropped the iron box--right on both of his own feet. Inspired by the pain, the overpowering stench of the lady's perfume, and his memories of Avonese, Luthien growled and pushed her back, and before he could think of what he was doing, he punched her right in the face, dropping her heavily to the ground.
"We must work on your manners," Oliver noted, shaking his head. "And your chivalry," he remarked to the merchant, who made not the slightest protest about the punch.
"But that, like the chest of treasure, can wait," the halfling explained.
"To the road, my friend!"
Luthien shrugged, not knowing what to do, not even un-derstanding what he had done.
"Threadbare!" Oliver called, a fitting name if Luthien had ever heard one. Oliver's ugly yellow pony trotted around the coach horses and kneeled so that the halfling could better gain his seat.
"Put the chest upon your own horse," Oliver instructed, "and I will go and find my main gauche. And you," he said, tapping the quivering merchant atop the head with the side of his rapier blade. "Count as you would count your own co-ins. And do not stop until you have counted them, every one, a thousand times!"
Luthien retrieved Riverdancer and secured the chest be-hind the horse's saddle. Then he walked over and helped the woman back to her feet. He meant to offer a sincere apol-ogy--this was not Avonese, after all, and he
and the halfling had just robbed her--but she immediately wrapped herself around him once more, biting at his earlobe. With great ef-fort (and nearly at the cost of that ear), Luthien managed to pull her back to arm's length.
"So strong," she purred.
"Your lady?" Oliver began, walking Threadbare past the kneeling merchant.
"My wife," the merchant replied sourly.
"A loyal type, I can see," Oliver said. "But then, now we have the money!"
Luthien shoved off and ran away from the woman, getting into his saddle so quickly that he nearly tumbled off the other side. He kicked Riverdancer into a short gallop, seeing the woman running fast after him, and rushed right past Oliver, toward the bridge.
Oliver watched him with amusement, then wheeled Threadbare around to face the merchant and his woman. "Now you may tell all your fat merchant-type friends that you were robbed by Oliver deBurrows," he said, as though that should carry some significance.
Threadbare reared on his hind legs, and with a tip of his hat, Oliver was off.