The heavy sword flashed again, and this time Ariakas shouted from the fiery pain in his leg. Warm liquid sprayed across the floor, and he idly knew that this was his own blood. Instinct seized him then as, rolling and scrambling, he squirmed away from the ogre's repeated thrusts, though not before the keen edge also put a slice into his left shoulder. Finally he darted back, feinting right, and then tumbling over his wounded arm to col shy;lapse with his back against a column. The ogre, in the full momentum of his charge, lunged after the feint and then lost his balance, crashing to the floor.
Unarmed and maimed, Ariakas clawed his way to his feet and stumbled past several of the stone pillars. The booming footsteps of the ogre reverberated behind him as he ducked this way, dodged that. The ogre was fast, but not nimble, and at last Ariakas leaned against a stone pillar, gasping for breath and trying to suppress the shrieking pain of his wounds. The ogre groped through the darkness some distance away.
Where could he get a weapon? The slain ogre had effectively pinned Ariakas's sword in the death-wound. The wounded ogre flailed weakly on the floor, nearly dead, but the only weapon he'd carried was that great club-a wooden tree limb that the human would have been hard-pressed to hoist with both hands. Now, his arm smashed and his body fatigued, the knobbed stick was useless to him.
Finally his thoughts fell on the long dagger, still buried in his belt pouch. It was hard to imagine the twelve- inch blade inflicting a killing wound on the huge, flab-fleshed ogre, but Ariakas grasped the slender steel weapon-his best, his only, hope. Still listening to the thumping pur shy;suit of the sword-wielder, who had temporarily lost his quarry, Ariakas unsnapped the pouch's buckles with his good hand.
The sounds of the clasps brought the ogre thundering toward him. Ariakas darted around columns, nearly slipping on the blood of the dead ogre, and then back shy;tracked through the shadows until once again his clumsy pursuer had fallen behind. Only then could the man thrust his hand inside the pouch. He pulled the dagger free just before the snarling humanoid reached him.
Leaping over the dead ogre, Ariakas once more tried to stumble away. The pursuing beast tripped over the corpse, sprawling heavily to the floor. The monster caught itself with its great paws, gasping for a moment while it peered through the darkness with bloodshot eyes.
Sensing his opportunity, Ariakas lunged at the ogre's head. The monster's mighty sword came up, but Ariakas fell to the side, then slashed inward with the dagger. The knife seemed hot in his hand, thirsty for blood as he drove toward that bulging neck. The keen blade sliced through skin and muscle as if the ogre's flesh were noth shy;ing more than a down pillow.
Shrieking in pain, the monster twisted away, dropping the heavy sword. As the weapon clanged to the stones, the ogre plunged toward it, but Ariakas's quick kick spun the blade out of the monster's reach.
Before the ogre could recover its balance, the man had leapt on the dropped weapon, and though it required all of his strength to raise it in one hand, Ariakas leveled the huge sword at a point between the ogre's bulging eyes.
'Wait,' croaked the monster. 'Don't kill!'
'You won't bargain for your life with me!' snarled Ariakas, drawing back his hand for the fatal blow.
'Let me talk!' spit the ogre, cringing away from the blow that didn't fall… yet.
'What do you want to say?' Ariakas gestured with the blade for the ogre to continue.
'This tower-it's trap for you! The lady, she's our cap shy;tain-she orders us to whump you, warns us that you pretty good.'
'Liar! How dare you-' A flush rose to Ariakas's face, and once again he steadied his aim.
'She tell us to goes after dwarf-all buts us. We gets to kill you,' blurted the ogre.
'Why kill me? What would be your reward?'
'You big test-kill you, and I gets to keeps my sword.' The beast nodded at the weapon Ariakas still held lev shy;eled before the brutish face.
A wave of nausea swept upward through the warrior's body, and he suddenly felt dangerously light-headed. The ogre, too, sensed his weakness-the beast pulled his legs beneath him, readying for a powerful spring.
'Liar!' repeated Ariakas, driving the blade forward, piercing the ogre's throat even as the monster broke to the side. Fatally cut, it fell, kicked several times, and died.
Groaning, Ariakas slumped to the floor. His arm throbbed, and his lungs struggled for breath. Even as he labored to retain consciousness, he listened for sounds of danger-and he heard nothing. All three ogres had expired, and the rasping in his own throat was the only sound in the large room. As his heart settled, he realized that the entire tower was silent, and then his mind shifted back to the lady who awaited him above.
The ogre was lying! This conviction rose to reassure him, but then the fog of his pain played silly games with the truth. How had the ogres known of the secret stair? Why had the lady told him exactly where to find the keys? But of course-if she'd wanted him to fail, she'd never have told him about that key ring!
Still, contradictory assumptions and suspicions whirled through his mind, heightened by the rising obfuscation of physical pain. Blood flowed from a multi shy;tude of wounds, and his broken wrist throbbed. He must go to the lady! There he would learn the truth.
He considered trying to retrieve his sword and im shy;mediately discarded the idea. Instead, he clutched the ogre's huge sword in his good hand. Before he started toward the stairs, he reeled against one of the pillars as a wave of pain and nausea threatened to drag him down. Grimly he shook off the feeling, like a wounded bear might shrug away the pestering bites of a wolf pack.
Lurching from pillar to pillar, using his sword hand to support him against each, he staggered toward the land shy;ing of the tower's main stairway. For the last five steps there were no columns to lean against, and he stumbled forward to fall at the foot of the stairs. He looked upward, vaguely remembering the many flights leading upward to the lady's chamber.
Slowly, with gritty determination, he clumped upward, one step at a time. A filmy haze, blood red in color, drifted across his eyes, but he shook that off as he had earlier banished the creeping unconsciousness. Instead of weakening, he seemed to grow stronger as he climbed, striding firm and steady past the first and sec shy;ond landings.
Upward he marched, past the third, and finally around the fourth landing. Now his memory burned clear, and he knew he climbed the last flight before the lady's chamber.
Then, with a nauseating wave of weakness and despair, he heard the sounds of marching overhead. Only then did he remember the guard posted at the top of the stairs, and the prospect of another fight sapped the little blood he had left in his veins. But he had come too far- the prize was too great-for him to turn back. Blunder shy;ing up the stairs, he abandoned stealth in favor of speed, seeking the flickering torch that illuminated the top.
True to pattern, the ogre sentry clumped past shortly, marching to the man's left, apparently unaware of the threat ascending from below. As soon as the ogre passed the stairway, Ariakas lurched upward with all his remaining strength. The creaking of his boots betrayed him, but the ogre merely hesitated in his monotonous patrol, the great head cocked to one side as if to hear bet shy;ter. The huge sword drove like an arrow toward the monster's blunt neck.
Some dull premonition spurrred the ogre to spin with remarkable dexterity. Ariakas snapped a curse as his blade merely gouged the flab rolls around the hefty neck. Eyes widening in surprise, the ogre drew its own weapon — a huge, bronze-tipped hammer.
Once again Ariakas struck, desperate to slay this last obstacle. This time the sword plowed deep into the bulging abdomen, and the ogre grunted as a jet of blood spurted from the wound.
The great jaws gaped, and the hammer flailed out shy;ward. A glancing blow to the man's broken arm brought a cry of pain from Ariakas. Gasping in agony, he pulled his blade back slightly, and then drove it forward, again aiming for that fat-protected neck.
'Unghhh!' The monster uttered the beginning of a word, but then the cold steel sliced through his larynx, his jugular, and finally his spine. Collapsing like a sack of potatoes, the beast crashed to the floor at the top of the stairs. The hammer clattered to the flagstones, poised at the rim of the steps, and then bounced downward, clanging and ringing toward the landing below.
His mind a fog of pain, Ariakas instinctively turned down the corridor toward that bright room, that ephemeral beauty. Before he made it halfway, however, the wave of sickness swept upward again, seizing him and swirling a cloak of unconsciousness around his brain.
Then she was there, appearing to him in sudden clar shy;ity. She was strong, this lady, and she knew more about him than he dared to believe about himself. In that instant of understanding, he knew that the ogre had
