The wizard turned a curious eye on the young man. “Go?” he asked.
“Out before the army,” Luthien explained. “On a more northerly arc.”
“To roust up support,” the wizard reasoned, then went very quiet, considering the notion.
“I will not be secretive about who I am,” Luthien said. “I go openly as the Crimson Shadow, an enemy of the throne.”
“There are many cyclopians scattered among those hamlets,” Brind’Amour reminded. “And many merchants and knights sympathetic to Greensparrow.”
“Only because they prosper under the evil king while the rest of Eriador suffers!” Luthien said, his jaw tight, his expression almost feral.
“Whatever the reason,” Brind’Amour replied.
“I know the folk of Eriador,” Luthien declared. “The true folk of Eriador. If they do not kill the cyclopians, or the merchants, it is only because they have no hope, because they believe that no matter how many they kill, many more will come to exact punishment upon them and their families.”
“Not so unreasonable a fear,” Brind’Amour said. The wizard was merely playing the role of nay-sayer now; he had already come to the conclusion that Luthien’s little addition to the march was a fine move, a daring addendum to a daring plan. And they would likely need the help. Malpuissant’s Wall had been built by the Gascons centuries before to guard against just such a rebellion, when the southern kingdom, after conquering Avon, had decided that it could not tame savage Eriador. The wall had been built for defense against the northern tribes, and would be no easy target!
“But now they will know hope,” Luthien reasoned. “That is the measure of the Crimson Shadow, nothing more. What I do while wearing the cape long ago became unimportant. All that matters is that I wear the cape, that I let them think I am some hero of old returned to lead them to their freedom.”
Brind’Amour stared long and hard at Luthien, and the young man became uncomfortable under that familiar scrutiny. Gradually the wizard’s face brightened, and he seemed to Luthien then like a father, as Luthien hoped his father would be.
In all the excitement of the last few weeks, Luthien realized that he had hardly considered Gahris Bedwyr since Katerin’s arrival with Blind-Striker, the Bedwyr family sword, bearing news that the rebellion was on in full on Isle Bedwydrin. How fared Gahris now? Luthien had to wonder. Homesickness tugged at him, but a mere thought of Ethan, his brother whom Gahris had sent away to die, and of Garth Rogar, Luthien’s barbarian friend, ordered slain in the arena after Luthien had defeated him, stole that notion. Luthien had left Isle Bedwydrin, had left Gahris, for good reason, and now frantic events gave him little time to worry about the man he no longer considered to be his father.
He looked at Brind’Amour in a different light. Suddenly the young Bedwyr needed this wise old man’s approval, needed to see him smile as Gahris had smiled whenever Luthien won in the arena.
And Brind’Amour did just that, and put his hand on Luthien’s shoulder. “Ride out this day,” he bade the young man.
“I will go to Bronegan, and all the way to the Fields of Eradoch,” Luthien promised. “And when I return to you on the eastern edges of Glen Albyn, I will carry in my wake a force larger than the force which soon departs Caer MacDonald.”
Brind’Amour nodded and clapped the younger Bedwyr on the back as Luthien sped off to find Oliver and their mounts that they might head out on the road.
The old wizard stood on the wall for some time watching Luthien, then watching nothing at all. He had set Luthien on this course long ago, the day in the dragon’s cave when he had given the young man the crimson cape. He was responsible, in part at least, for the return of the Crimson Shadow, and when he considered Luthien now, so willing to take on the responsibility that had been thrust his way, Brind’Amour’s old and wheezy chest swelled with pride.
The pride a father might have for his son.
CHAPTER 19
PASSAGE OF SPRING
HE DOES THE RIGHT THING,” Siobhan remarked, coming up on the wall beside Katerin. Katerin didn’t turn to regard the half-elf, though she was surprised that Siobhan had chosen this particular section of the wall, so near to her.
Below the pair, Oliver and Luthien rode out from the gates, Oliver on his yellow pony and Luthien tall and proud on the shining white Riverdancer. They had already said their farewells, all that they had cared to make, and so they did not look back. Side by side, they trotted their mounts across the courtyard to the fallen outer wall, the area still dotted with several cyclopian corpses that the burial details hadn’t been able to clear away, black-and-silver lumps in the diminishing snow.
“They have a long ride ahead of them,” Siobhan remarked.
“Who?” Katerin asked.
Siobhan glanced at her skeptically and took note that her gaze was away to the east, to the horizon still pink with the new dawn. Pointedly, the proud woman did not look at Luthien.
“Our friends,” Siobhan answered, playing the foolish, adolescent game.
Now Katerin did look to Luthien and Oliver, just a casual glance. “Luthien is always on the road,” she answered. “This way and that, wherever his horse takes him.”
Siobhan continued to study the woman, trying to fathom her purpose.
“That is his way,” Katerin stated firmly, turning to look at the half-elf directly. “He goes where he chooses, when he chooses, and let no woman be fool enough to think that he will remain for her, or by her.” Katerin looked away quickly, and that revealed more than she intended. “Let no woman be fool enough to think that she can change the ways of Luthien Bedwyr.”
The words were said with perfect calm and control, but Siobhan easily read the underlying bitterness there. Katerin was hurting, and her cool demeanor was a complete façade, while her words had been uttered in just the right tones to make them a barbed arrow, shooting straight for the half-elf’s heart. Rationally, Siobhan understood and knew that Katerin had spoken out of pain. In truth, the half-elf was not insulted or wounded in any way by Luthien’s departure, for in her mind, she and the young Bedwyr had come to terms with the realities of their relationship.
Siobhan remained silent for a long moment, considered her sympathy for Katerin and the words the woman had just thrown her way. The verbal volley had been strictly out of self-defense, Siobhan knew, but still she was surprised that Katerin would attack her so, would go to the trouble of trying to make her feel worse about Luthien’s departure.
“They have a long ride ahead of them,” Siobhan said once again. “But fear not,” she added, with enough dramatic emphasis to grab Katerin’s gaze. “I do know that Luthien does well on long rides.”
Katerin’s jaw slackened at the half-elf’s uncharacteristic use of double entendre and Siobhan’s sly, even lewd, tone.
Siobhan turned and slipped easily down the ladder, leaving Katerin, and the specter of Luthien and Oliver riding away to the north and east.
Katerin looked back to the now-distant riders, to Luthien, her companion all those years back in Bedwydrin, where they had lost their innocence together, in the ways of the world and in the ways of love. She had wanted to hurt Siobhan, verbally if not physically. She cared for the half-elf, deeply respected her and in many ways called Siobhan a friend. But she could not ignore her feelings of jealousy.
She had lost the verbal joust. She knew that, standing up on Caer MacDonald’s wall in the chill of an early spring day, watching Luthien ride away, her face scrunched in a feeble attempt to hold back the tears that welled in her shining green eyes.
“You are so very good at running from problems,” Oliver remarked to Luthien when the two were far from Caer MacDonald’s wall.
Luthien eyed his diminutive companion curiously, not understanding the comment. “Likely, we’re running into trouble,” he replied. “Not away from it.”
“A fight with cyclopians is never trouble,” Oliver explained. “Not the kind that you fear, at least.”
Luthien eyed him suspiciously, guessing what was to come.
“But you have done so very well in avoiding the other kind, the more subtle and painful kind,” Oliver explained. “First you send Katerin running off to Port Charley—”
“She volunteered,” Luthien protested. “She demanded to go!”
“And now, you have arranged to be away for perhaps two weeks,” the halfling continued without hesitation, ignoring Luthien’s protests.
Those protests did not continue, for Luthien realized that he was guilty as charged.
“Ah, yes,” Oliver chided. “Quite the hero with the sword, but in love, alas.”
Luthien started to ask what the halfling might be gibbering about and deflect Oliver’s intrusions, but he was wise enough to know that it was already too late for that. “How dare you?” the young Bedwyr asked sharply, and Oliver recognized that he had opened a wound. “What do you know of it?” Luthien demanded. “What do you know of anything?”
“I am so skilled and practiced in the ways of amour,” the halfling replied coolly.
Luthien eyed his three-foot-tall companion, the young Bedwyr’s expression clearly relating his doubts.
Oliver snorted indignantly. “Foolish boy,” he said, snapping his fingers in the air. “In Gascony, it is said, a merchant is only as good as his purse, a warrior is only as good as his weapon, and a lover is only as good as—”
“Oliver!” Luthien interrupted, blushing fiercely.
“His heart,” the halfling finished, looking curiously at his shocked companion. “Oh, you have become such a gutter-crawler!” Oliver scolded.
“I just thought . . .” Luthien stammered, but he stopped and waved his hand hopelessly. With a shake of his head, he kicked Riverdancer into a faster canter, and the horse leaped ahead of Threadbare.
Oliver persisted and moved his pony to match the Morgan highlander’s speed. “Your heart is not known to you, my friend,” he said as he came up alongside Luthien. “So you run, but yet, you cannot!”
“Oliver the poet,” Luthien said dryly.
“I have been called worse.”
Luthien let it go at that, and so did Oliver, but though the conversation ended, Luthien’s private thoughts on the matter most certainly did not. Truly the young man was torn, full of passion and full of guilt, loving Katerin and Siobhan, but in different ways. He did not regret his affair with the half-elf—how could he ever look upon those beautiful moments with sadness?—and yet, never had he wanted to hurt Katerin. Not in any way, not at any time. He had been swept up in the moment, the excitement of the road, of the city and the budding rebellion. Bedwydrin, and Katerin, too, had seemed a million miles and a million years removed.
But then she had come back to him, a wonderful friend of another time, his first love—and, he had come to realize, his only love.
How could he ever tell that to Katerin now, after what he had done? Would she even hear his words? Could he have heard hers, had the situation been reversed?
Luthien had no answers to the disturbing questions. He kept a swift pace toward the northernmost tip of the Iron Cross, trying to put Caer MacDonald far behind him.
The snow that had so hampered the cyclopians and left so many one-eyes dead on the field as they tried to flee became a distant memory, most traces of white swallowed by the softening ground of spring. Only two weeks had passed since the battle, and the snow, except in the mountains, where winter hung on stubbornly, was fast receding, and the trees were thickening with buds, their sharp gray lines growing red and brown and indistinct.
Luthien and Oliver had been out of Caer MacDonald for five days, and now, with several hundred soldiers filtering in from the west to join the campaign, Port Charley folk mostly, Brind’Amour began his march. Out they marched in long lines, many riding, but most walking, and all under the pennants of Eriador of old—the mountain cross on a green field.
At the same time, Shuglin and his remaining dwarfs, some two hundred of the bearded folk, left Caer MacDonald’s southern gate, trudging into the mountains, their solid backs bent low by enormous packs.
“Luthien has passed through Bronegan,” the wizard said to Katerin, who was riding at his side.
The young woman nodded, understanding that this was fact and not supposition, and not surprised that the wizard could know such things.
“How many soldiers has he added?” she asked.
“A promise of a hundred,” the wizard replied. “But only to join with him if he returns through the town with many other volunteers in tow.”
Katerin closed her eyes. She understood what was going on here, the most unpredictable and potentially dangerous part of the whole rebellion. They had won in Caer MacDonald and had raised the pennants of Eriador of old, which would give people some hope, but the farmers and the simple folk, living their quiet existence, hardly bothered by Greensparrow and matters politic, would only join in if they truly believed not only in the cause but in the very real prospect of victory.
“Of course they need to see the numbers,” Brind’Amour said, as though that news should neither surprise nor dismay. “We expected that all along. I hate Greensparrow above all others,” the old wizard said, chuckling. “And am more powerful than most, yet even I would not join an army of two, after all!”
Katerin managed a weak smile, but there remained a logical problem here that she could not easily dismiss. Not a single town north of Caer MacDonald, not another town in all of Eriador, except perhaps for Port Charley, could raise a significant force on its own. Yet the towns were independent of each other, under no single ruler. Each was its own little kingdom; they were not joined in any way, had not been even in the so-called “glorious” days of Bruce MacDonald. Eriador was a rugged land of individuals, and that is exactly what Greensparrow had exploited on his first conquest, and exactly what he would likely try to exploit again. The young woman tossed her shining red hair and looked around at the mass moving in fair harmony behind her. Here was a strong force—enough to take the wall, likely. But if Greensparrow struck back at them, even when they were secured behind the wall, even with the barrier of the mountains, even with the newly acquired fleet to hamper the king’s efforts, they would need many more soldiers than this.
Many more.
“Where will Luthien turn?” Katerin asked, unintentionally voicing the question.
“To the Fields of Eradoch,” Brind’Amour answered easily.
“And what will he find in that wild place?” Katerin dared to ask. “What have your eyes shown you of the highlanders?”
Brind’Amour shook his head, his shaggy white hair and beard flopping side to side. “I can send my eyes many places,” he replied, “but only if I have some reference. I can send my eyes to Luthien at times, because I can locate his thoughts, and thus use his eyes as my guide. I can find Greensparrow, and several others of his court, because they are known to me. But as it was when I was trying to discern the fleet that sailed north from Avon, I am magically blind to matters wherein I have no reference.”
“What have your eyes shown you of the highlanders?” Katerin pressed, knowing a half-truth when she heard it.
Brind’Amour snickered guiltily. “Luthien will not fail,” was all that he would say.
CHAPTER 20
THE FIELDS OF ERADOCH
TO THE CASUAL OBSERVER, the northwestern corner of Eriador was not so different in appearance from the rest of the country. Rolling fields of thick green grass—“heavy turf,” the Eriadorans called it—stretched to the horizon in every direction, a soft green blanket, though on a clear day, the northern mountains could be seen back to the west, and even the tips of the Iron Cross, little white and gray dots, poked their heads above the green horizon far in the distance to the southwest.
There was something very different about the northeast, though, the Fields of Eradoch, the highlands. Here the wind was a bit more chill, the almost constant rain a bit more biting, and the men a bit more tough. The cattle that dott
ed the plain wore coats of shaggy, thick fur, and even the horses, Morgan Highlanders like Luthien’s own Riverdancer, had been bred with longer hair as a ward against the elements.
The highlands had not seen as much snow this winter as normal, though still more fell here than in the southern reaches of Eriador, and the snow cover was neither complete nor very deep by the time Luthien and Oliver crossed through MacDonald’s Swath and made their way into the region. Everything was gray and brown, with even a few splotches of green, as far as their eyes could see. Melancholy and dreary, winter’s corpse, with still some time before the rebirth of spring.
The companions camped about a dozen miles east of Bronegan that night, on the very edge of the Fields of Eradoch. When they awakened the next morning, they were greeted by unusually warm temperatures and a thick fog, as the last of the snow dissipated into the air.
“It will be slow this day,” Oliver remarked.
“Not so,” Luthien replied without the slightest hesitation. “There are few obstacles,” he explained.
“How far do you mean to go?” the halfling asked him. “They have left Caer MacDonald by now, you know.”
Oliver spoke the truth, Luthien realized. Likely, Brind’Amour and Katerin, Siobhan and all the army had already marched out of the city’s gates, flowing north and west, along the same course Luthien and Oliver had taken. Until they got to MacDonald’s Swath. There, they would cross and go to the south, into Glen Albyn, while Luthien and Oliver had turned straight north, across the breadth of the swath, to Bronegan, and now, beyond that and into Eradoch.
“How far?” Oliver asked again.
“All the way to Bae Colthwyn, if we must,” Luthien replied evenly.
Oliver knew the impracticality of that answer. They were fully three days of hard riding from the cold and dark waters of Bae Colthwyn. By the time they got there and back, Brind’Amour would be at the wall, and the battle would be over. But the halfling understood and sympathized with the emotions that had prompted that response from Luthien. They had been greeted warmly in Bronegan, with many pats on the back and many toasts of free ale. Yet the promises of alliance, from the folk of Bronegan and from several other nearby communities who sent emissaries to meet with Luthien, had been tentative at best. The only way that these folk of the middle lands would line up behind the Crimson Shadow, in open defiance of King Greensparrow, was if Luthien proved to them that the whole of Eriador would fight in this war. Luthien had to go back through Bronegan on his journey south, or at least send an emissary there, and if he and Oliver had not mustered any more support, then they would ride alone all the way back to Glen Albyn.
The Crimson Shadow Page 50