PROSPECTS

Luthien heard the whips cracking on the decks of other Huegoth vessels, heard the cries of the unfortunate Eriadoran sailors as they were shuffled belowdecks and chained to benches. Some of the prisoners on his own longship were treated similarly, and it seemed as if Luthien and his friends would find no escape. The grim prospects of a life as a galley slave loomed large before the young Bedwyr, but he was more afraid for his closest companions than for himself. What would the Huegoths make of Oliver, who was obviously too small to row? Would the foppish halfling become a source of entertainment, a longship jester subject to the whims of the brutal barbarians? Or would the fierce men of Isenland simply jettison him overboard like so much useless cargo?

And what of Katerin? For Katerin, and the half dozen other women captured in the battle, Luthien feared even more. Huegoth raiders were away from home for long, long stretches, time counted in months more than in weeks. What pleasures might the merciless barbarians make of such a delicacy as Katerin O’Hale?

A violent shudder brought the young Bedwyr from the dark thoughts, forced him to focus on the reality instead of the prospects. Fortunately, Katerin and Oliver were on the same longship as he, and they, along with Luthien and Brother Jamesis, had thus far not been so much as scratched. It would stay that way, Luthien told himself determinedly. He resolved that if the barbarians meant to kill Oliver, or if they tried to harm Katerin in any way, he would fight them again, this time to the most bitter end. He had no weapons save his bare hands, but in defense of Oliver and especially Katerin, he held faith that those hands would be deadly.

The Huegoths were quite proficient in the role of captors, Luthien soon realized, for he and all the others were properly secured with thick ropes and guarded closely by a score of huge warriors. When that was finished, a selection process began on the longship, a magnificent vessel that Luthien figured to be the flagship of the fleet. Old and used-up galley slaves, men too weak and malnourished to continue to pull to the demands of the barbarians, were dragged onto the deck, while newer prisoners were ushered below and chained in their place. Luthien knew logically what the Huegoths meant to do, and his conscience screamed out at him to take action, any action. Still, the barbarians kept their intentions just mysterious enough for the young Bedwyr and the others, particularly those slaves who looked upon the sun for the first time in weeks, to hold out some hope. That hope, that thought that they all might indeed have something to gain through obedience and something to lose by causing trouble, proved paralyzing.

Thus, Luthien could only close his eyes as the replaced galley slaves, withered and beyond usefulness in the cold eyes of the Huegoths, were pushed overboard.

“I, too, will find such a fate,” Oliver said matter-of-factly. “And I do so hate the water!”

“We do not know that,” whispered Brother Jamesis, his voice trembling. Jamesis had facilitated the surrender, after all, and now he was watching the fruits of his action. Perhaps it would have been better for them all if they had battled to the last on the sinking Weaver.

“I am too small to row,” Oliver replied. He was surprised to find that his greatest lament at that moment was that he had not found time to explore the intriguing possibilities with Siobhan.

“Quiet,” Luthien sharply bade them both. “There is no gain in giving the Huegoths ideas.”

“As if they do not already know!” said Oliver.

“They may think you a child,” Katerin put in. “Huegoths have been known to take in orphaned children and raise them as Isenlanders.”

“Such a comforting thought,” Oliver said sarcastically. “And tell me, what will become of me when I do not grow?”

“Enough!” Luthien commanded, sheer anger causing his voice to rise enough to get the attention of the nearest Huegoth guard. The huge man looked Luthien’s way and issued a low growl, and the young Bedwyr smiled meekly in reply.

“We should not have let them bind us,” Luthien lamented out of the side of his mouth.

“We could have stopped them?” Oliver asked.

The group quieted as a band of barbarians came toward them, led by Rennir, the Huegoth leader.

“I must protest!” Brother Jamesis called immediately to the large man.

Rennir’s white teeth showed clearly within the bushy blond hair that covered his face. His teasing expression revealed that he had heard similar words before, that he had watched “civilized” folk witness Huegoth justice on previous occasions. He stalked toward Jamesis so boldly that the monk shrank back against the rail and Luthien and the others thought for a moment that Rennir would simply heave Jamesis into the sea with the floundering slaves.

“We had an arrangement,” Jamesis said, much more humbly, when the Huegoth leader stopped right before him. “You guaranteed the safety . . .”

“Of your men,” Rennir was glad to finish. “I said nothing about the slaves already within my longships. Where would I put you all?” The Huegoth turned a wry smile over his shoulder, back to the chuckling group of his kinsmen standing near.

Brother Jamesis searched hard for some rational argument. Indeed, the Huegoth was holding true to the wording of their agreement, if not the spirit. “You do not have to execute those who have served you,” Jamesis stuttered. “The island of Colonsey is not so far away. You could drop them there . . .”

“Leave enemies in our wake?” Rennir thundered. “That they might wage war with us once more?”

“You would find fewer enemies if you possessed the soul of a human,” Luthien offered, drawing Rennir’s scowl his way. Rennir began a slow and ominous walk toward the young Bedwyr, but Luthien, unlike Jamesis, did not shrink back. Indeed Luthien stood tall, jaw firm and shoulders squared, and his cinnamon-colored eyes locked on the gray orbs of the giant Huegoth. Rennir came right up to him, but though he was taller by several inches, he did not seem to tower over Luthien.

The dangerous stares lasted for a long while, neither man speaking or even blinking. Then Rennir seemed to notice something—something about Luthien’s appearance—and the Huegoth leader visibly relaxed.

“You are not of Gybi,” Rennir stated.

“I ask you to retrieve those men in the sea,” Luthien replied.

Several barbarians began to chuckle, but Rennir held up his hand, no mirth crossing his deadly serious features. “You would show mercy if those in the sea were of Isenland blood?”

“I would.”

“Have you?”

The surprising question nearly knocked Luthien over. What in the world was Rennir talking about? Luthien searched frantically for some response, realizing that his answer now might save the lives of the poor slaves. In the end, he could only shake his head, though, not understanding the Huegoth’s intent.

“What is your name?” Rennir asked.

“Luthien Bedwyr.”

“Of Isle Bedwydrin?”

Luthien nodded and glanced over at Oliver and Katerin, who could only shrug in reply, as confused as he.

“Have you?” Rennir asked again.

It clicked in Luthien’s head. Garth Rogar! The man was referring to Garth Rogar, Luthien’s dearest friend, who had been pulled from the sea by Luthien and raised in the House of Bedwyr as a brother! But how could Rennir possibly know? Luthien wondered.

At that critical moment, it didn’t matter, and Luthien didn’t have the time to debate it. He squared his shoulders once more, looked sternly into Rennir’s gray eyes, and said with all conviction, “I have.”

Rennir turned to his fellows. “Drag the slaves from the water,” he commanded, “and pass word to the other boats that none are to be drowned.”

Rennir turned back to Luthien, the Huegoth’s face wild, frightening. “That is all I owe to you,” he stated and walked away. As he did, he put a lewd stare over Katerin, then chuckled.

“You owe me a place beside my men,” Luthien stated, stopping Rennir short. “If they are to row, then so am I!”

The Huegoth thought on that for a moment, then threw his head back and roared heartily. He didn’t bother to look back again as he joined his fellows.

The longships moved in a wide formation around the western shore of Colonsey. This somewhat surprised Luthien and his companions, who thought the barbarians would put out to the open sea. They learned the truth when they came into a sheltered bay, passing through a narrow opening, practically invisible from the sea, into a wide and calm lagoon.

A hundred longships were tied up along the rocky beach. Further inland, up the rocky incline, dozens of stone and wood huts dotted the stark landscape, and smoke wafted out of many cave openings.

“When did this happen?” a stunned Brother Jamesis muttered.

“And what of Land’s End?” Luthien asked, referring to the small Eriadoran settlement around to the eastern side of the island. If this many Huegoths had formed a base on Colonsey, it did not bode well for the hundred or so people in the rugged, windswept settlement. Luthien understood the trouble the barbarians had gone to, and realized then beyond any doubt that their attacks on Bae Colthwyn were not intended as minor raids. They had wood here, in large supply, though there was little on rocky Colonsey, and Luthien took note that there were many Huegoth women among those gathering at the shore to greet the returning longships. This was a fullscale invasion, and Luthien grimaced as he thought of the misery that would soon befall his dear Eriador.

Slaves were not normally taken off the longships when they were in harbor, and as the other boats put in, most of the Huegoths clambered over the side, splashing into shore, leaving just a few guards behind. Luthien’s thoughts immediately turned to the potential for escape, but he was surprised when Rennir’s boat put in and a group of Huegoths came and gathered him up with his three companions, ushering them roughly ashore.

Luthien never got the obvious questions out of his mouth when he stumbled onto the rocky beach, Rennir taking him by the collar and dragging him along to the largest hut of the settlement.

“Beg before Asmund, who is king!” was all the Huegoth said as he pulled Luthien past the guards and into the open single-roomed structure.

His hands still bound behind his back, Luthien stumbled down to one knee. He recovered quickly, forced himself not to look back as he heard Katerin, or Jamesis, perhaps, go down behind him. As calmly as he could manage, Luthien straightened himself on his knees, regaining a measure of dignity before he looked upon the Huegoth king.

Asmund was an impressive figure indeed, barrel-chested, with a huge gray beard, brown, weathered skin, and light blue eyes so intense that they seemed as if they could bore holes through hard wood.

But Luthien hardly noticed the king. He was more stricken by the sight of the man standing casually beside the great Asmund.

A man with cinnamon-colored eyes.

 

 

THE ERIADORAN TIE

Ethan,” Katerin muttered in disbelief.

Gasping for breath, Luthien started to rise and was promptly grabbed by Rennir. Luthien growled and pulled away from the huge man, determined to stand before Asmund, and especially before Asmund’s escort. It was Ethan, obviously, but how his brother had changed! A stubbly beard graced his fine Bedwydrin features and his hair had grown much longer. The most profound change, though, was the man’s eyes, intense and wild, perfectly dangerous.

“You know him?” Oliver whispered to Katerin.

“Ethan Bedwyr,” Katerin said loudly. “Luthien’s brother.”

“Ah, so I see,” said Oliver, taking note of the distinct resemblance between the men, particularly in the rare cinnamon coloring of their eyes. Then, as he realized the truth of this impossible situation, the halfling’s jaw dropped in speechless astonishment.

Asmund, seeming quite amused, turned Ethan’s way, giving the floor to the Eriadoran.

Luthien’s heart and hopes soared. “My brother,” he said breathlessly as Ethan walked over to him.

The older Bedwyr pushed Luthien down to the floor. “No more,” he said.

“What are you doing?” Katerin cried out, rushing to intervene.

“A woman of spirit!” howled huge Asmund as Rennir grabbed the thrashing Katerin in his massive arms.

“What is wrong with you?” Luthien demanded of Ethan, rolling up to one knee and staring hard at his brother. He looked to Rennir, then back to Ethan, pleading, “Stop him!”

Ethan shook his head slowly. “No more,” he said again to Luthien, but he did indeed turn to Rennir and bade the man to let go of Katerin O’Hale.

“If you’re thinking that I’m to be grateful, then you’re thinking wrong!” Katerin roared at him, moving up to face him squarely. “You are on the wrong side of the ropes, son of Gahris!”

Ethan tilted his head back, his features taking on a look that seemed both distant and superior. He never blinked, but neither did he lash out at Katerin.

“You are with them,” Luthien stated.

Ethan looked at him incredulously, as though that much should have been obvious.

“Traitor!” Katerin growled.

Ethan’s hand came up and Katerin turned away, fully expecting that she would be slapped.

The blow never came, though, as Ethan quickly regained his composure. “Traitor to whom?” he asked. “To Gahris, who banished me, who sent me away to die?”

“I searched for you,” Luthien put in.

“You found me,” Ethan said grimly.

“With Huegoths,” Luthien added, his tone derisive. More than a few barbarians around him growled.

“With brave men,” Ethan retorted. “With men who would not be ruled by an unlawful king from another land!”

That gave Luthien some hope concerning the greater situation at least. Perhaps this Huegoth invasion wasn’t in any way connected to Greensparrow.

“You are Eriadoran!” Katerin yelled.

“I am not!” Ethan screamed back at her. “Count me not among the cowards who cringe in fear of Greensparrow. Count me not among those who have accepted the death of Garth Rogar!” He looked Luthien right in the eye as he finished the thought. “Count me not among those who would wear the colors of Lady Avonese, the painted whore!”

Luthien breathed hard, trying to sort out his thoughts. Ethan here! It was too crazy, too unexpected. But Ethan did not know of all that had transpired, Luthien reminded himself. Ethan likely thought that things were as he had left them in Eriador, with Greensparrow as king and Gahris as one of his many pawns. But where did that leave Luthien? Even if he convinced Ethan of the truth, could he forgive his brother for allying with savage Huegoths against Eriador?

“How dare you?” Luthien roared, struggling to his feet.

“Greensparrow—” Ethan began to counter.

“Damn Greensparrow!” Luthien interrupted. “Those ships that your newfound friends attacked were Eriadoran, not Avonese. The blood of fellow Eriadorans is on your hands!”

“Damn you!” Ethan yelled back, slamming into Luthien so forcefully that he nearly knocked his younger brother over once more. “I am Huegoth now, and not Eriadoran. And all ships of Avonsea serve Greensparrow.”

“You murdered—”

“We wage war!” Ethan snapped ferociously. “Let Greensparrow come north with his fleet, that we might sink them, and if Eriadorans also die in the battle, then so be it!”

Luthien looked from Ethan to Asmund, the Huegoth king smiling widely, and smugly, as though he was thoroughly enjoying this little play. It struck Luthien that his brother might be more of a pawn than an advisor, and he found at that moment that he wanted nothing more than to rush over and throttle Asmund.

But in looking back to Ethan, Luthien had to admit that his brother didn’t seem to need any champion. Ethan’s demeanor had changed dramatically, had become wild to match the raging fires in his eyes. Gahris’s actions in banishing Ethan had come near to breaking the man, Luthien realized, and in that despair, Ethan had found a new strength: the strength of purest anger. Ethan seemed at home with the Huegoths, so much so that the realization sent a shudder coursing through Luthien’s spine. He had to wonder if this really was his brother, or if the brother he had known in Dun Varna was truly dead.

“Greensparrow will not come north,” Luthien said quietly, trying to restore some sense of calm to the increasingly explosive discussion.

“But he will,” Ethan insisted. “He will send his warships north, one by one or in a pack. Either way, we will destroy them, send them to the bottom, and then let the weakling wizard who claims an unlawful throne be damned!”

He would have gone on, but Luthien’s sudden burst of hysterical laughter gave him pause. Ethan tilted his head, tried to get some sense of why his brother was laughing so, but Luthien threw his head back, roaring wildly, and would not look him in the eye. Ethan turned to Katerin instead, and to Luthien’s other companions, but they offered no explanation.

“Are you mad, then?” Ethan said calmly, but Luthien seemed not to hear.

“Enough!” roared Asmund, and Luthien stopped abruptly and stared hard at his brother and the Huegoth king.

“You do not know,” the younger Bedwyr brother stated more than asked.

Ethan’s wild eyes calmed with curiosity and he cocked his head, his unkempt hair, even lighter now than Luthien remembered it, hanging to his shoulder.

“Greensparrow no longer rules in Eriador,” Luthien said bluntly. “And his lackeys have been dispatched. Montfort is no more, for the name of Caer MacDonald has been restored.”

Ethan tried to seem unimpressed, but how his cinnamon-colored eyes widened!

“’Twas Luthien who killed Duke Morkney,” Katerin put in.

“With help from my friends,” Luthien was quick to add.

“You?” Ethan stammered.

“So-silly barbarian pretender-type,” Oliver piped in with a snap of his green-gauntleted fingers, “have you never heard of the Crimson Shadow?”

That name brought a flicker of recognition to Ethan; it seemed as if the legend had spread wider than the general political news. “You?” Ethan said again, pointing and advancing a step toward Luthien.

“It was a title earned by accident,” Luthien insisted.

“But of course you have heard of Oliver’s Bluff,” the halfling interrupted, skipping forward and stepping in front of Luthien, so that his head was practically in Ethan’s belly, and puffing his little chest with pride.

Ethan looked down at Oliver and shook his head.

“It was designed for Malpuissant’s Wall,” the halfling began, “but since the wall was taken before we ever arrived, we executed this most magnificent of strategies on Princetown itself. That is right!” Oliver brought his hand up right in Ethan’s face and snapped his fingers again. “The very jew-wel of Avon taken by the forces of cunning Oliver deBurrows!”

“And you are Oliver deBurrows?” Ethan surmised dryly.

“If I had my so-fine rapier blade, I would show you!”

A dangerous scowl crossed Ethan’s features, one that Asmund did not miss. “That can be arranged, and quickly!” the Huegoth king said with a snort, and all the barbarians in the tent began to laugh and murmur, apparently pleased at the prospect of a duel.

Luthien’s arm swept around the dramatically posing Oliver and pushed the halfling back. Luthien knew well his brother’s battle prowess and he wasn’t keen on the idea of losing his little halfling friend, however annoying Oliver might sometimes be.

“It is all true,” Luthien insisted to Ethan. “Eriador is free, under King Brind’Amour.”

Ethan turned back to find Asmund staring hard at him, searching for some confirmation or explanation of the unknown name. Ethan could only shrug, for he had never heard of this man Luthien claimed was now ruling the northern kingdom of Avonsea.

“He was of the ancient brotherhood,” Luthien explained, seeing their skepticism. “A very mighty . . .” Luthien paused, realizing that it might not be a good thing to reveal Brind’Amour’s true profession to the Huegoths, who distrusted magic. “A very mighty and wise man,” Luthien finished, but he had already said too much.

“The ancient brotherhood,” Ethan said to Asmund, “thus, the king of Eriador, too, is a wizard.”

Asmund snorted derisively.

The fact that Ethan betrayed that secret so matter-of-factly gave Luthien some idea of how far lost his brother truly was. Luthien needed something to divert the conversation, he realized, and he only had one card to play. “Gahris is dead,” he said calmly.

Ethan winced, but then nodded his acceptance of the news.

“He died peacefully,” Luthien said, but again, Ethan didn’t seem very concerned.

“Gahris died many years ago,” Ethan remarked. “He died when our mother died, when the plague that was Greensparrow swept across Eriador.”

“You are wrong!” Katerin O’Hale said boldly. “Gahris made certain that no cyclopians remain alive on Bedwydrin, and Lady Avonese—”

“The whore,” Ethan sneered.

Katerin snorted, not disagreeing in the least. “She died in the dungeon of House Bedwyr.”

“There are no dungeons in House Bedwyr,” Ethan said doubtfully.

“Eorl Gahris built one just for her,” Katerin replied.

“What is this all about, Vinndalf?” Asmund asked.

Ethan turned to his king and shrugged once again, in truth, too surprised to sort through it all.

“Vinndalf?” Luthien echoed.

Ethan squared his shoulders. “My proper name,” he insisted.

Now Luthien could no longer contain his mounting anger. “You are Ethan Bedwyr, son of Gahris, who was eorl of Bedwydrin,” the younger brother insisted.

“I am Vinndalf, brother of Torin Rogar,” Ethan retorted.

Luthien moved to respond, but that last name caught him off his guard. “Rogar?” he asked.

“Torin Rogar,” Ethan explained, “brother of Garth.”

That took the wind from Luthien. He wanted to meet the brother of Garth Rogar—that thought reverberated in his mind. He sublimated it, though, realizing that such a meeting was for another time. For now, Luthien’s duty was clear and straightforward. Fifty lives depended on him, and the ante would be even greater if the Huegoths continued their raids along Eriador’s coast. All that Luthien had discovered in this meeting, particularly the fact that the Huegoths did not know of recent events in Eriador, and thus could not be in any alliance with Avon, had given him hope. That hope, though, was tempered by the specter of this man standing before him, by Ethan, who was not Ethan.

“Then my greetings to Vinndalf,” Luthien said, surprising Katerin, who stood scowling at his side. “I come as emissary of King Brind’Amour of Eriador.”

“We asked for no parley,” Asmund said.

“But you know now that your attacks on Eriadoran ships and coast do no harm to Greensparrow,” Luthien said. “We are not your enemies.”

That brought more than a few laughs from the many Huegoths in the hut, and laughter from outside as well, confirming to Luthien that this meeting of the lost brothers had become a public spectacle.

“Ethan,” Luthien said solemnly. “Vinndalf, I am, or was, your brother.”

“In a world from which I was banished,” Ethan interrupted.

“I looked for you,” Luthien said. “I killed the cyclopian who murdered Garth Rogar, and then I looked for you, to the south, where you were supposedly heading.”

“I took him there,” Oliver had to say, if for no other reason than the fact that the halfling couldn’t stand being on the sidelines of any conversation for so long.

“I, too, considered our father dead,” Luthien went on, “though I assure you that in the end the man redeemed himself.”

“He thought of you on the night he died,” Katerin put in. “His guilt weighed heavily on him.”

“As it should have,” said Ethan.

“Agreed,” Luthien replied. “And I make no excuses for the world from which you fled. But that world is no more, I promise. Eriador is free now.”

“What concern have we of your petty squabbles?” Asmund asked incredulously. As soon as he regarded the man, Luthien realized that the Huegoth feared that Luthien might be stealing some fun here. “You speak of Greensparrow and Eriador as though they are not the same. To us, you are deg jern-alfar, and nothing more!”

Deg jern-alfar. Luthien knew the word, an Isenland term for any who was not Huegoth.

“And I am Huegoth,” Ethan insisted before Luthien could make any points about his Eriadoran blood. Ethan looked to a nodding Asmund. “Huegoth by deed.”

“You are a Huegoth who understands the importance of what I say,” Luthien added quickly. “Eriador is free, but if you continue your raids, you are aiding Greensparrow in his desires to take us back under his evil wing.” For the first time, it seemed to Luthien as if he had gotten through to his stubborn brother. He knew that Ethan, whatever his claim of loyalty, was thrilled at the idea that Eriador had broken free of Avon, and Luthien knew, too, that the thought that the Huegoth actions, that Ethan’s own actions, might be aiding the man who had, by sending the plague, murdered their mother and broken their father, was truly agonizing to Ethan.

“And what would you ask of me?” the older Bedwyr brother asked after a short pause.

“Desist,” said Oliver, stepping in front. Luthien wanted to slap the halfling for taking center stage at that critical point. “Take your silly boat and go back to where you belong. We have four-score warships—”

Luthien pushed Oliver aside, and when the halfling tried to resist, Katerin grabbed him by the collar, spun him about and scowled in his face, a look that conjured images in Oliver of being thrown to the floor and sat upon by the woman.

“Join with us,” Luthien said on a sudden impulse. He realized how stupid that sounded even as the words left his mouth, but he knew that the last thing one should do to a Huegoth (as Oliver had just done) was issue a challenge of honor. Threatening King Asmund with eighty galleons would force the fierce man to accept the war. “With nearly four-score warships and your fleet, we might—”

“You ask this of me?” Ethan said, slapping himself on the chest.

Luthien straightened. “You are my brother,” he said firmly. “And were of Eriador, whatever your claim may now be. I demand that you ask of your king to halt the raids on Eriador’s coast. For all that has happened, we are not your enemies.”

Ethan snorted and didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder at Asmund. “Do not put too much weight on my ability to influence my Huegoth brothers,” Ethan said. “King Asmund, and not I, decides the Huegoth course.”

“But you were willing to go along,” Luthien accused, his face twisting in sudden rage. “While Eriadorans died, Ethan Bedwyr did nothing!”

“Ethan Bedwyr is dead,” the man called Vinndalf replied.

“And does Vinndalf not remember all the good that Luthien Bedwyr brought to his younger life?” Katerin asked.

Ethan’s broad shoulders slumped for just an instant, a subtle indication that Katerin had hit a chord. Ethan straightened quickly, though, and stared hard at Luthien.

“I will beg of my king to give you this much,” Ethan said evenly. “On mighty Asmund’s word, we will let you leave, will deliver you and Katerin and your puffy and puny friend back to the coast of Bae Colthwyn, south of Gybi.”

“And the others?” Luthien asked grimly.

“Fairly taken,” Ethan replied.

Luthien squared up and shook his head. “All of them,” he insisted. “Every man and woman returned to Eriador, their home.”

For a long moment, it seemed a stand-off. Then Rennir, who was enjoying it all, crossed the room to Ethan and handed the man Blind-Striker. Ethan looked long and hard at the sword, the most important relic of his former family. After a moment, he chuckled, and then, eyeing Luthien in an act of open defiance, he strapped the magnificent weapon about his waist.

“You said you were no longer of family Bedwyr,” remarked Luthien, looking for some advantage, and trying to take the edge from his own rising anger. Seeing Ethan—no, Vinndalf—wearing that sword was nearly more than Luthien could take.

“True enough,” Ethan replied casually, as though that fact was of no importance.

“Yet you wear the Bedwyr sword.”

Now it was Ethan’s turn to laugh, and Rennir and Asmund, and all the other Huegoths joined in. “I wear a weapon plundered from a vanquished enemy,” Ethan corrected. “Fairly won, like the men who will serve as slaves. Take my offer, former brother. Go, and with Katerin. I cannot guarantee her safety here, and as for your little friend, I can assure you that he will find a most horrible fate at the hands of the men of Isenland, who do not accept such weakness.”

“Weakness?” Oliver stammered, but Katerin slapped her hand over his mouth to shut him up before he got them all killed.

“All of them,” Luthien said firmly. “And I’ll have the sword as well.”

“Why should I give to you anything?” Ethan asked.

“Do not!” roared Luthien as the laughter began to mount around him once more. “I ask for nothing from one so cowardly as to disclaim his heritage. But I’ll have what I desire, by spilled blood if not by family blood!”

Ethan’s head tilted back at that open challenge. “We have fought before,” he said.

Luthien didn’t answer.

“I was victorious,” Ethan reminded.

“I was younger.”

Ethan looked to Asmund, who made no move.

“The slaves are not yours to give,” said Rennir. “The capture was mine.”

Ethan nodded his agreement.

“Fight for the sword, then,” offered Asmund.

“All of them,” Luthien said firmly.

“For the sword,” Ethan corrected. “And for your freedom, and the freedom of Katerin and the little one. Nothing more.”

“That much, save the sword, was already offered,” Luthien argued.

“An offer rescinded,” said Ethan. “You challenged me openly. Now you will see it through, though the gain is little more than what you would have found without challenge, and the loss—and you will lose—is surely greater!”

Luthien looked to Asmund and saw that he would find no sympathy there, and no better offers. He had stepped into dynamics that he did not fully understand, he realized. It seemed to Luthien as though Asmund had desired this combat from the moment the king learned that Luthien and Ethan were brothers. Perhaps it was a test of Ethan’s loyalty, or more likely, brutal Asmund just thought it would be fine sport.

Behind Luthien, Katerin O’Hale’s voice was as grim as anything the young Bedwyr had ever heard. “Kill him.”

The words, and the image they conjured, nearly knocked Luthien over. He was hardly conscious, his breath labored, as his companions were pushed away, as Rennir handed him a sword, as Ethan drew out Blind-Striker and began a determined and deadly approach.

 

 

SIBLING RIVALRY

Ethan’s initial swing brought Luthien’s swirling thoughts back to crystal clarity, his survival instincts overruling all the craziness and potential for disaster. The weapon Rennir had given him was not very balanced, and was even heavier than the six-pound, one-and-a-half-handed Blind-Striker. He took it up in both hands and twisted hard, dipping his right shoulder and laying the blade angled down.

Blind-Striker hit the blocking blade hard enough for Luthien to realize that if he hadn’t thrown up the last-second parry, he would have been cut in half.

“Ethan!” he yelled instinctively as a rush of memories—of fighting in the arena, of training as a young boy under his older brother’s tutelage, of sharing quiet moments beside Ethan in the hills outside of Dun Varna—assaulted him.

The man who was known as Vinndalf didn’t respond to the call in the least. He backed up one step and sent Blind-Striker around the other way, coming straight in at Luthien’s side.

Luthien reversed his pivot, and his grip, dropping his left shoulder this time, launching the heavy weapon the other way and cleanly picking off the attack. Ahead came Luthien’s left foot; the logical counter was a straightforward thrust.

Ethan was already moving, directly back, out of harm’s way and not even needing to parry the short attack. That done, he took up his sword, the magnificent Bedwyr sword, in both hands and began to circle to his right.

Luthien turned with him. He could hardly believe that he had so thrust at his own brother, that if Ethan had not been so quick, he would be lying on the floor, his guts spilling. Luthien dismissed such images. This was for real, he told himself; this was for his very life and the lives of his dearest friends, as well. He could not be distracted by contrary feelings, could not think of his opponent as his brother. Now he tried to remember again the arena in Dun Varna, tried to remember the style of Ethan’s moves.

Ethan dropped his shoulder and came ahead in a quickstep, lunging for Luthien’s lead knee. The attack stopped short, though, before Blind-Striker even tapped Luthien’s parrying blade, and Ethan threw himself to the side, his other foot rushing right beside his leading leg, turning him in a complete circuit. Down to one knee he went, both hands on his sword as it came across in a devious cut.

Luthien had seen the trick before and was long out of danger before Ethan even finished.

Ethan had been a mature fighter when last they had battled, and so Luthien thought it unlikely that his tactics would have changed much. But Luthien had been young on that occasion, a novice fighter just learning the measure of single combat.

That was his advantage.

Ethan was up to his feet, dropping one hand for balance and charging hard in the blink of an eye, Blind-Striker going left, right, straight ahead, then right again. Steel rang against steel, Luthien working furiously to keep the deadly blade at bay. Those attacks defeated, Ethan took up the weapon in both hands and chopped hard at Luthien’s head, once, twice, and then again.

Luthien beat them all, but stumbled backward under the sheer weight of the furious blows. He wanted to offer a fast counter, but this sword, half-again as heavy as the weapon he was used to carrying, would not allow for any quick response. And so he backed away as wild-eyed Ethan forged onward, slamming with abandon.

Now Luthien concentrated on conserving his strength, on picking off the attacks with as little motion as possible. He willingly gave ground, came near to the hut wall and shifted his angle so that, propelled by yet another brutal blow, he went right out the door into the dazzling daylight.

A throng of Huegoths swarmed about the battling brothers; Luthien saw Katerin and Oliver come to the door, Rennir roughly pushing them aside to make way for grinning Asmund.

Oh, this was great play for the fierce Isenlanders, Luthien realized.

The uneven and stony ground somewhat took away Ethan’s advantage of wielding the lighter and quicker weapon. Suddenly footwork was of the utmost importance, and no warrior Luthien had ever met, with the possible exception of fleet-footed Oliver deBurrows, was better at footwork than he. Luthien skittered right along the uneven ground, deftly trailing his heavy sword to pick off any of pursuing Ethan’s attacks. He came to a spot where the ground sloped steeply and saw his chance. Up Luthien went, beyond Blind-Striker’s reach as Ethan came by below him, and then down Luthien charged in a fury, suddenly pressing his brother with a series of momentum-backed chops.

Perfectly balanced, Ethan was up to the defense, picking off or dodging each blow. It occurred to Luthien then, when he thought he had gained an advantage, that the endgame of this combat would not go well. Win or lose, the young Bedwyr would find himself in a bind. Would it be to the death? And if so, how could Luthien possibly kill his own brother? And even if it wasn’t to the death, Luthien understood that he had much to lose, and so did Ethan, for Ethan had likely only gained acceptance among the fierce barbarians through skill in battle. Now, in this encounter, if Ethan lost their respect . . .

Luthien didn’t like the prospects, but he had no time to pause and try and discern another way out. Ethan went up high on the sloping stone, trying to get the angle above him, and he had to work furiously to keep up.

Out came Blind-Striker in a wicked thrust, suddenly, as the brothers picked their way up the stone. Luthien couldn’t possibly get his heavier blade in line in time, nor could he dodge in the difficult position, so he rolled instead, out from Ethan and then down the slope, coming lightly to his feet some twenty feet below his brother.

He heard Katerin cry out for him, and Oliver’s groan in the midst of the cheers of a hundred bloodthirsty Huegoths.

Down came Ethan, spurred on by his comrades, but Luthien was not going to grant him the higher ground. Off sped the younger Bedwyr, running away from the slope. Ethan yelled out as he pursued, even going so far as to call his brother a coward.

Luthien was no coward, but he had learned the advantage of choosing his ground. So it was now, with Ethan fast closing. Luthien turned along the beach to a small jetty, skipping gingerly atop its stones. Now he had the high ground, but Ethan, so enraged, so full of adrenaline, did not slow, came in hacking wildly, thrusting Blind-Striker this way and that, searching for a hole in Luthien’s defenses.

There was no such hole to be found; Luthien’s blocks were perfect, but Ethan did manage to sidle up the rocks as he attacked, gradually coming near to Luthien’s level. Luthien saw the tactic, of course, and could have stopped it by shifting to directly block his brother, but he had something else in mind.

Up came Ethan. Luthien’s sword started for the man’s knees and Ethan jumped back, launching a vicious downward cut.

Luthien’s thrust had been a feint; before he ever got close, and as Ethan started the obvious counter, the young Bedwyr moved back a step, reversed his grip on his heavy sword, and shifted it, not to block Blind-Striker, but to deflect the sword. As Ethan’s weapon scraped by, Luthien turned his blade over it and shoved it down for the rocks, and off-balance Ethan could not resist. Sparks flew from Blind-Striker’s fine tip as the gleaming blade dove into a crevice between the stones.

From his lower angle, Ethan could not immediately pull it out. One step up would allow him to extract the blade, yet he could not make that step. He had lost a split second, and against cunning Luthien, a split second was too long.

Endgame.

Luthien knew it, but had no idea of what to make of it. Images of Katerin and Oliver as Huegoth prisoners flashed in his mind, yet this fledgling Eriador would not likely survive his victory. His foot slipped out from under him suddenly, and down he went to the stone, his sword bouncing away. He rolled up to a sitting position, holding his bruised and bleeding hand.

Ethan stood over him, Blind-Striker in hand. In looking into his eyes, those trademark Bedwyr eyes, Luthien thought for a moment that his brother would surely kill him.

Then Ethan paused, seeming unsure of himself, a mixture of frustration and rage. He couldn’t do it, could not kill his brother, and that fact seemed to bother the man who called himself Vinndalf more than a little.

Blind-Striker came in to rest at the side of Luthien’s neck.

“I claim victory!” Ethan bellowed.

“Enough!” roared Asmund before Ethan had even finished. The Huegoth king said something to the man standing beside him, and a host of Huegoths moved to join the brothers.

“Into the King’s Hall!” one of them commanded Ethan, while two others roughly hoisted Luthien to his feet and half-carried him across the beach, past the hundred sets of curious eyes, Oliver’s and Katerin’s among them, and into King Asmund’s quarters. There, Luthien was thrown to the floor, right beside his standing brother, and then all the Huegoths, save Asmund himself, quickly departed.

Luthien spent a moment looking from the seated king to his brother, then slowly rose. Ethan would not look at him.

“Clever boy,” Asmund congratulated.

Luthien eyed him skeptically, not knowing what he was driving at.

“You had him beaten,” Asmund said bluntly.

“I thought so, but—” Luthien tried to reply.

Asmund’s laughter stopped him short.

“I claim victory!” Ethan growled.

Asmund abruptly stopped his laughing and stared hard at Ethan. “There is no dishonor in defeat at the hands of a skilled warrior,” the Huegoth insisted. “And by my eyes, your brother is as skilled as you!”

Ethan lowered his gaze, then sighed deeply and turned to Luthien. “You tricked me twice,” he said. “First in putting my blade between the rocks, and then by pretending to stumble.”

“The stones were wet,” Luthien protested. “Slick with weeds.”

“You did not trip,” Ethan said.

“No,” Asmund agreed. “He fell because he thought it better to fall.” The king laughed again at the incredulous expression that came over Luthien. “You would not kill Ethan,” the keen leader explained. “And you held faith that he would not kill you. Yet if you defeated him, you feared that, though our agreement would be honored concerning the sword and the release of you and your friends, any chance of the greater good, of ending our raids along your coast, would be destroyed.”

Luthien was truly at a loss. Asmund had seen through his ploy so easily and so completely! He had no answer and so he stood as calmly as he could manage and waited for the fierce king’s judgment.

Ethan seemed more upset by it all than did Asmund. He, too, could not deny the truth of Asmund’s perception. When Blind-Striker had gone into that crevice, Luthien had gained a seemingly insurmountable advantage, and then Luthien had fallen. In retrospect, Ethan had to admit that his brother, so balanced and so in command of his movements, could not have slipped at that critical moment.

Asmund spent a long while studying the pair. “You are the only Eriadorans I have come to know in heart,” he said finally. “Brothers of a fine stock, I admit.”

“Despite my intended slip?” Luthien dared to ask, and he relaxed more than a little when Asmund laughed again.

“Well done!” the king roared. “Had you beaten Ethan, your gain would have been your life and the lives of your two closest companions. And the sword, no small thing.”

“But the price would have been too high,” Luthien insisted. “For then our parley would have been ended, and Ethan’s standing in your eyes might have been lessened.”

“Would you die for Eriador?” Asmund asked.

“Of course.”

“For Ethan, who we now name Vinndalf?”

“Of course.”

The simple way Luthien answered struck Ethan profoundly, forced him to think back on his days in Dun Varna with his younger brother, a boy, then a man, he had always loved. Now Ethan was truly wounded, by his own actions, by the notion that he might have killed Luthien in their duel. How could he have ever let his rage get so much control over him?

“Would Ethan die for you?” Asmund asked.

“Yes, he would,” Luthien replied, not even bothering to look to his brother for confirmation.

Asmund roared with laughter again. “I like you, Luthien Bedwyr, and I respect you, as I respect your brother.”

“No more his brother,” Ethan remarked before he could consider the words.

“Always,” Asmund corrected. “If you were not his brother still, you would have claimed victory with your sword and not your mouth.”

Ethan lowered his gaze.

“And I would have struck you dead!” Asmund yelled, coming forward, startling both Ethan and Luthien. The king calmed quickly and moved back into his chair. “When we earlier spoke, you claimed that we were not enemies,” he prompted to Luthien.

“We are not,” Luthien insisted. “Eriadorans fight Huegoths only when Huegoths attack Eriador. But there is a greater evil than any enmity between our peoples, I say, a stain upon the land—”

Asmund patted his hand in the empty air to stop the speech before Luthien could get into the flow. “You need not convince me of the foulness of Avon’s king,” the Huegoth explained. “Your brother has told me of Greensparrow and I have witnessed his wickedness. The plague that swept Eriador was not confined to your borders.”

“Isenland?” Luthien asked breathlessly.

Asmund shook his head. “It never reached our shores because those afflicted at sea daren’t ever return,” he explained. “Our priests discovered the source of the plague, and ever since, the name of Greensparrow has been a cursed thing.

“You were the best friend of Garth Rogar,” the king said suddenly, changing the subject and catching Luthien off guard. “And Torin Rogar is among my closest of friends.”

This was going quite well, Luthien dared to hope. He was certain that he, Oliver, and Katerin would be granted their freedom; now he wanted to take things to the next level.

“Garth Rogar was the only Huegoth I came to know in heart,” he said. “Representative of a fine stock, I say!”

Again Asmund bellowed with laughter.

“We are not your enemy,” Luthien said determinedly, drawing the king into a more serious mode.

“So you say,” he remarked, leaning forward in his chair. “And is Greensparrow your enemy?”

Luthien realized that he was moving into uncharted ground here. His gut instinct told him to yell out “Yes,” but formally, such a proclamation to a foreign king could turn into serious trouble.

“You hinted at an alliance between our peoples to wage war on Greensparrow,” Asmund went on. “Such a treaty might be welcomed.”

Luthien was at once hopeful and tentative. He wanted to respond, to promise, but he could not. Not yet.

Asmund watched his every movement: the way his hands clenched at his side, the way he started to say something, then bit back the words. “Go to your King Brind’Amour, Luthien Bedwyr,” the Huegoth leader said. “Deliver to me within the month a formal treaty naming Greensparrow as our common enemy.” Asmund sat back, smiling wryly. “We have come for war, in the name of our God and by his will,” he proclaimed, a not-so-subtle reminder to Luthien that he was dealing with a fierce people here. “And so we shall fight. Deliver your treaty or our longships will lay waste to your eastern coast, as we had planned.”

Luthien wanted to respond to that challenge as well, to counter the threat with the promise of many Eriadoran warships to defend against the Huegoths. Wisely, he let it pass. “A month?” he asked skeptically. “I can hardly get to Caer MacDonald and back within the month. A week to Gybi—”

“Three days in a longship,” Asmund corrected.

“And ten days of hard riding,” Luthien added, trying not to think of the suffering the galley slaves would surely know in delivering him so far, so fast.

“I will send your brother to Gybi to serve as emissary,” Asmund conceded.

“Send him to Chalmbers, directly west of here,” Luthien asked. “A shorter ride on my return from Caer MacDonald.”

Asmund nodded. “A month, Luthien Bedwyr, and not a day more!”

Luthien was out of arguments.

With that, Asmund dismissed him and Ethan, who was charged with making the arrangements to deliver Luthien, Katerin, Oliver, and Brother Jamesis back to the Eriadoran mainland. The other fifty Eriadorans were to remain as prisoners, but Luthien did manage to get a promise that they would not be mistreated and would be released if and when the treaty was delivered.

Within the hour, the ship was ready to depart. Luthien’s three companions were on board, but the young Bedwyr lingered behind, needing a private moment with his brother.

Ethan seemed truly uncomfortable, embarrassed by the entire situation, of his choices and of his role in the Huegoth raids.

“I did not know,” he admitted. “I thought that all was as it had been, that Greensparrow still ruled in Eriador.”

“An apology?” Luthien asked.

“An explanation,” Ethan replied. “And nothing more. I do not control the actions of my Huegoth brothers. Far from it. They only tolerate me because I have shown skill and courage, and because of the tale of Garth Rogar.”

“I did go south to find you,” Luthien said.

Ethan nodded, and seemed appreciative of that fact. “But I never went to the south,” he replied. “Gahris commanded me to go to Port Charley, then to sail to Carlisle, where I would be given a rank of minor importance in the Avon army and sent to the Kingdom of Duree.”

“To battle beside the Gascon army in their war,” Luthien put in, for he knew well the tale.

Ethan nodded. “To battle, and likely to die, in that distant kingdom. But I would not accept that banishment and so chose one of my own instead.”

“With the Huegoths?” Luthien was incredulous.

Ethan shook his head and smiled. “Land’s End,” he corrected. “I went south from Bedwydrin for a while, then turned east, through MacDonald’s Swath. My destination became Gybi, where I paid handsomely for transport, in secret, to the Isle of Colonsey. I believed that I could live out my life quietly in Land’s End. They ask few questions there.”

“But the Huegoths came and crushed the settlement,” Luthien accused, and his voice turned grim as he spoke of the probable deaths of many Eriadorans.

Ethan shook his head and stopped his brother’s errant reasoning. “Land’s End remains intact to this day,” Ethan replied. “Not a single man or woman of that settlement has been injured or captured.”

“Then how?”

“My boat never got there, for it was swamped in a storm,” Ethan explained. “The Huegoths pulled me from the sea; chance alone put them in my path, and it was simple chance, simple good fortune, that the captain of the longship was Torin Rogar.”

Luthien rested back on his heels and spent a long moment digesting the story. “Good fortune for you,” he said. “And for Eriador, it would seem.”

“I am pleased by what you have told me of our Eriador,” Ethan said, unstrapping Blind-Striker and handing it back to Luthien. “And I am proud of you, Luthien Bedwyr. It is right that you should wear the sword of family Bedwyr.” Ethan’s face grew grim and uncompromising. “But understand that I am Huegoth now,” he said, “and not of your family. Deliver your treaty to my king or we—and I—will fight you.”

Luthien knew that the words were a promise, not a threat, and he believed that promise.

 

 

POLITICS

Incredibly, less than two weeks after leaving the Huegoth encampment in Colonsey, Luthien and Oliver had the great Ministry of Caer MacDonald in sight. They had covered hundreds of miles, by sea and by land, and Riverdancer and Threadbare were haggard. Katerin had not returned with them; rather, she had gone south from Gybi by longship, with Ethan and Brother Jamesis, headed for the Eriadoran port city of Chalmbers.

“The journey back should be easier,” Luthien remarked to his exhausted companion. “We shall use Brind’Amour’s magics to cross the land. Perhaps our king will accompany us, wishing to sign the treaty personally with Asmund of Isenland.”

Oliver grimaced at the young Bedwyr’s continued optimism. All along the journey, the halfling had tried to calm Luthien down, had tried to temper that bubbly optimism with some very real obstacles that Luthien apparently was not counting on. So far, Oliver had tried to be subtle, and apparently it wasn’t working.

He pulled Threadbare up short, and Luthien did likewise with Riverdancer, sidling up to the halfling, following Oliver’s gaze to the great cathedral. He figured that Oliver just wanted a moment with the spectacular view of this city that had become their home.

“Brind’Amour will not agree,” Oliver said bluntly.

Luthien nearly toppled from his mount, sat staring open-mouthed at his diminutive companion.

“My bumpkin-type friend,” the halfling explained, “there is a little matter of a treaty.”

Luthien thought Oliver was referring to the pending treaty with Asmund. Was the halfling saying that Brind’Amour would never agree to terms with the Huegoths? The young Bedwyr moved to argue the logic, but Oliver merely rolled his eyes and gave Threadbare a kick, and the skinny yellow pony trotted on.

The two friends stood before Brind’Amour in the audience room at the Ministry within the hour, with Luthien happily spilling the details of the Huegoth advance, and the potential for a truce. The old wizard who was Eriador’s king beamed at the news that the Huegoths were not in league with Greensparrow, but that wide smile gradually diminished, and Brind’Amour spent more time looking at worldly Oliver than at Luthien, as the young Bedwyr’s full tale began to unfold.

“And all we need do is deliver the treaty within the month to King Asmund,” Luthien finished, oblivious to the grim mood about him. “And Greensparrow be damned!”

If the young Bedwyr expected Brind’Amour to turn cartwheels in joy, he was sorely disappointed. The king of Eriador eased back in his great chair, rubbing his white beard, his eyes staring into empty air.

“Should I pen a draft for you?” Luthien asked hopefully, though he was beginning to catch on that something was surely amiss here.

Brind’Amour looked at him directly. “If you do, you must also pen a fitting explanation to our Gascon allies,” he replied.

Luthien didn’t seem to understand. He looked to Oliver, who only shrugged and reminded him again that there was a treaty that might get in the way.

Suddenly Luthien understood that Oliver hadn’t been doubting the potential treaty between Brind’Amour and Asmund, but about a treaty that had already been signed.

“Nothing is ever as easy as a bumpkin-type would think,” the halfling said dryly.

Luthien decided that he would have to speak to Oliver about that bumpkin reference, but this was neither the time nor the place.

“There is a matter of a treaty signed by myself and the duchess of Mannington, acting on King Greensparrow’s behalf,” Brind’Amour clarified, taking up the halfling’s argument. “We are not at war with Avon, and our truce does not include a provision for acceptable invasions.”

The sarcasm stung Luthien profoundly. He understood the pragmatism of it all, of course, but in his mind Greensparrow had already broken the treaty many times over. “Sougles’s Glen,” he said grimly. “And Menster. Have you forgotten?”

Brind’Amour came forward at once, eyes gleaming. “I have not!” he yelled, the sheer strength of his voice forcing Luthien back a step. The old wizard calmed at once and eased himself to a straight posture. “Cyclopian raids, both,” Brind’Amour said.

“But we know that Greensparrow was behind them,” Luthien replied, full of determination, full of frustrated rage.

“What is known and what can be proven are oft two very different things,” Oliver remarked.

“True enough,” agreed the king. “And on strictly moral grounds, I agree with you,” he said to Luthien. “I have no discomfort with the morality of launching a war, with Huegoth allies, against the king of Avon. Politically, though, we would be inviting complete disaster. Any attack on Avon would not rest well with the lords of Gascony, for it would disrupt their trade with both our kingdoms and make a mockery of their aid to us, playing the role of victims, in the previous war. They would not help us this time, I fear. They might even offer some warships to Greensparrow, that the war, and particularly the Huegoth threat, be quickly ended.”

Luthien clenched his fists at his sides. He looked to Oliver, who only shrugged, and then back to Brind’Amour, though he was so angry that he was viewing a wall of red more than any distinct forms. “If we do not ally with Asmund,” he said slowly, emphasizing each word, “then we will be forced into a war with the Huegoths.”

Brind’Amour agreed with the assessment, nodding and then giving a small chuckle. “The ultimate irony,” he replied. “Might it be that Eriador will join in common cause with Avon against the Huegoths?”

Luthien rocked back on his heels.

“Oh, yes,” Brind’Amour assured him. “While you were on the road, King Greensparrow’s emissary reached out to me, begging alliance against the troublesome barbarians of Isenland.”

“But what of Menster?” Luthien protested. “And what of Sougles’s Glen, and all the other massacres perpetrated by—”

“By the one-eyes,” Oliver interrupted. “My pardon,” he quickly added, seeing Luthien’s dangerous glower, “I am but playing the role of the Gascon ambassador.”

“Cyclopians prompted by Greensparrow!” Luthien growled back at him.

“You know that and I know that,” Oliver replied, “but the Gascons, they are another matter.”

“Oliver plays the role well,” Brind’Amour remarked.

Luthien sighed deeply, trying to calm his rising ire.

“Greensparrow has prompted the raids,” the Eriadoran king said to soothe him.

“Greensparrow will never accept Eriador free,” Luthien replied.

“So be it,” said Brind’Amour. “We will deal with him as we can. While you were gone, our forces were not idle. Siobhan and the Cutters have been working with King Bellick dan Burso’s dwarfs, and have discovered the whereabouts of a large cyclopian encampment.”

“So we ally with Greensparrow against the Huegoths at sea, while we fight against his allies in the mountains,” Luthien said distastefully.

“I told you that you would not so much enjoy politics,” Oliver remarked.

“As of now, I don’t know what we shall do,” Brind’Amour answered. “But there are many considerations to every action when one speaks for an entire kingdom.”

“Surely we will attack the cyclopians,” Luthien said.

“That we shall,” Brind’Amour was glad to assure him. “I do not believe that our Gascon allies would protest any war between Eriador and the cyclopians.”

“One-eyes, ptooey!” spat Oliver. “In Gascony, we consider a cyclopian eye an archery target.”

Luthien was far from satisfied, but he realized that he was involved in something much bigger than his personal desires. He would have to be satisfied; at least he might soon get the chance to exact revenge for the folk of Menster.

But there was something deeper tugging at his sensibilities as he and Oliver exited the audience room in search of Siobhan. He had just over two weeks remaining to deliver the treaty or Eriador would be at war once more with the Huegoths—and Luthien would be at war with his own brother.

Oliver kept beside his sullen friend for the rest of the day, from a long quiet stay at the Dwelf to a walk along the city’s outer wall. Luthien wasn’t speaking much and Oliver didn’t press him, figuring that the young man had to get through all the shocks—Ethan siding with the Huegoths and the reality of political intrigue—on his own.

Shortly before sunset, with news that Siobhan would be back in the city that night, Luthien’s face brightened suddenly. In looking at him, Oliver understood that the young man had come up with yet another plan. Hopefully a better-informed course of action than his previous ideas, Oliver prayed.

“Do you think that Brind’Amour would ally with the Huegoths if Greensparrow was first to break the treaty?” Luthien asked.

Oliver shrugged noncommittaly. “I can think of better allies than slavers,” he said. “But if the gain was the potential downfall of King Greensparrow, then I think he might be convinced.” Oliver eyed Luthien, and particularly, Luthien’s wry smile, suspiciously for a short while. “You have an idea to entice Greensparrow into action against Eriador?” the halfling asked. “You think you can get him to break the treaty?”

Luthien shook his head. “Greensparrow already has broken the treaty,” he insisted, “merely by inciting the cyclopians against us. All we need to do is get proof of that conspiracy—and quickly.”

“And how do you mean to accomplish such a task?” Oliver wanted to know.

“We will go to the source,” Luthien explained. “Siobhan will return this night with information about the cyclopian encampment. No doubt Brind’Amour will order action against that band immediately. All we have to do is get there first and get our proof.”

Oliver was too surprised to find any immediate response. Vividly, though, the halfling didn’t miss Luthien’s reference to “we.”

 

 

LIVING PROOF

Luthien and Oliver eased up side by side toward the top of the boulder. They could hear the bustle of the cyclopian encampment below, in a stony clearing surrounded by pines, boulders, and cliff walls. Luthien glanced to the side as he neared the rim, then moved quickly to pull the wide-brimmed hat from Oliver’s head.

Oliver started to cry out in protest, but Luthien anticipated such a reaction and put his hand over the halfling’s mouth, motioning with the other hand for Oliver to remain quiet.

“I tell you once to give me back my hat,” the halfling whispered.

Luthien handed it over.

“And for you,” the halfling went on, “and your woman friend,” he added quickly, recalling all the times Katerin had also so bullied him, “if you ever put your dirty hand over my mouth again, I will bite you hard.”

Luthien put his finger to pursed lips, then pointed in the direction of the cyclopian encampment.

Up rose the pair, Luthien merely extending to his full height, Oliver having to find one more foothold. They eased over the boulder’s rim together, looking down on their adversaries. From this angle, the camp seemed almost surreal, too vivid with its brightness against the backdrop of the dark night. The companions spotted several small campfires, but these could not account for the almost daylight brilliance within the encampment, or for the fact that the light had not been so visible from any other vantage point, as though it was somehow contained within the perimeter of the camp.

Luthien immediately understood that magic had to be its source, but he knew that cyclopians did not use magic. The one-eyed brutes certainly were not smart enough to unravel the mysteries of the magical arts.

But Luthien could not deny what he saw. Everything in the clearing, the scores of cyclopians milling about, the uneven shapes of the many stones, the rack of weapons against the cliff wall opposite his perch, was vividly clear, stark in outline.

Luthien looked to Oliver, who only shrugged, similarly mystified. “Cyclopian wizard?” the halfling mouthed.

Both turned back to the encampment and found their answer as a broad-shouldered, large-bellied man walked into view, laughing cheerily as he talked with a large cyclopian. He wore a dark-colored tabard, richly embroidered, that hung to his knees. Even from this distance, Luthien could see the sheen on his hose, indicating that they were silk, or some other exotic and expensive material, and the buckles of his shoes gleamed as only the purest silver could.

“I count two eyes on that one,” Oliver whispered.

Luthien was nodding. He didn’t recognize the man, but the presence of magic and the rich, regal dressings led him to believe that he could guess the man’s title. This was one of Greensparrow’s dukes; this was all the proof that Brind’Amour would need.

The man, laughing still, clapped his cyclopian companion hard on the back, then reached up and put a fur-trimmed cap with a golden insignia sewn into its front atop his thick gray hair. Another cyclopian came by and handed him a huge mug, which he lifted to his beardless face and nearly drained in one gulp.

Some of the contents spilled out, running down the man’s considerable jowls, and the cyclopian burst out in laughter. The man followed suit, roaring wildly.

“Brind’Amour will laugh louder than he when we deliver this one to Caer MacDonald,” Luthien whispered.

“How are we to get to him?” Oliver asked the obvious question. If this was indeed a wizard, then capturing him in the impending battle would be near to impossible.

Luthien smiled wryly and held out the edge of his marvelous crimson cape. The Crimson Shadow could get into that encampment undetected, no matter how bright the light!

“You mean to sneak in and steal him away?” Oliver asked incredulously.

“We can do it,” Luthien replied.

Oliver groaned softly, rolled over to put his back against the boulder, and slumped down from the rim. “Why is it always ‘we’?” he asked. “Perhaps you should find another to go with you.”

“But Oliver,” Luthien protested, coming down beside his friend, his smile still wide, “you are the only one who will fit under the cape.”

“Oh, lucky Oliver,” grumbled the halfling.

They moved away from the camp, to inform the nearest elves of their plan. More than two hundred dwarfs were in the area, along with the forty elves and half-elves, including Siobhan, that now comprised the spying band known as the Cutters. The original plan was to go in hard and fast under the cries of “Sougles’s Glen!” and slaughter every cyclopian. Luthien, with help from Siobhan, had convinced the fierce dwarfs otherwise, had shown them the potential for greater good by exercising restraint until the proof they needed could be found.

Luthien and Oliver were back at their high perch soon after, waiting for the majority of one-eyes to drift off to sleep, or at least for the light to go down somewhat. An hour passed, then another. The sliver of the waning moon moved low in the western sky, and was soon swallowed up by turbulent black clouds. The rumble of distant thunder tingled under their feet.

The man Luthien had targeted as a duke continued to laugh and to drink, sitting about a fire, throwing bones with a handful of brutish cyclopians. Even with the magical cape, there was no way that Luthien could get near to him without a fight.

But then came a break. The man belched loudly and stood up, brushing the dust and twigs from his tabard. He drained the rest of his mug, belched again, and walked away, toward the perimeter of the encampment, just to the right and below the watching companions.

“Whatever goes in . . .” Oliver whispered.

He and Luthien slipped down the back side of the boulder and crept along in the darkness, inching their way in the general direction to intercept the man. Soon they were following a steady stream of sound, and spotted the man standing beside a tree, supporting himself with one hand, while the other held up the front of his tabard. He was fully twenty yards from the encampment, with most of that distance blocked by tangled trees and shrubs.

“Do not get too close,” Oliver warned. “It seems that he has a missile weapon.”

Luthien stifled a nervous chuckle and inched his way in. He froze as he stepped on one stick, which cracked apart loudly. Oliver froze in place, too, a horrified expression on his face.

The companions soon realized that they had nothing to worry about. The drunken man was oblivious to them, though he was barely ten feet away. Luthien considered his options. If he rushed up and punched hard but did not lay the man low, his cry would surely alert the cyclopians. Certainly Luthien couldn’t strike with his sword, for he wanted the man alive.

The threat should suffice, Luthien decided, and with a look about for Oliver, who was suddenly not to be seen, the young Bedwyr drew out Blind-Striker. Luthien couldn’t dare call out for his missing halfling friend, so he took a deep and steadying breath, rushed the last few feet, and lifted his blade up before the man’s face.

“Silence!” Luthien instructed in a harsh whisper, bringing the finger of his free hand to pursed lips.

The man looked at him curiously and continued his business, as though the possibility of capture hadn’t yet occurred to him.

Luthien wagged the blade in the air. The man, startled from his stupor, widened his eyes suddenly and straightened. Thinking that he was about to cry out, Luthien lunged forward, meaning to put his swordtip right to the man’s throat.

But the man was faster, his motion simpler. His hand moved from the tree and in a single arc, yanked a talisman from his tabard and swished in a downward swipe. A field of shimmering blue came up before him.

Luthien’s momentum was too great for him to react. Blind-Striker’s tip hit the field and threw sparks, and the sword was violently repelled, flying back over Luthien’s head, yanking his arm painfully. Luthien, though, was still moving forward, and he, too, couldn’t avoid the shield. He yelped and rolled his shoulder defensively, barely brushing the bluish light. But that was all the repelling magic needed, and the young Bedwyr found himself flying backward, off his feet, to crash into the trees.

The jolly wizard’s laugh was stifled before it ever began, as he felt a sting in his belly. He looked down to see Oliver, standing on his side of the repelling field, rapier drawn and poking.

“Aha!” said the halfling. “I have gone around your silly magics and am inside your so-clever barrier.” Oliver’s beaming expression suddenly turned sour and he looked down. “And my so-fine shoes are wet!” he wailed.

The man moved fast; so did Oliver, meaning to stick him more forcefully. But to the halfling’s horror, a single word from the wizard transformed his rapier blade into a living serpent, and it immediately turned back on him!

And the wizard’s huge and strong hands were coming for him as well! Right for his throat.

Oliver cried out and threw his rapier over his head, then moved to dodge. The attack never came, though, for the blade-turned-serpent struck the repelling shield and rebounded straight out, hitting the wizard square in the face. Now it was Duke Resmore’s turn to cry out, reaching frantically for the writhing snake.

Oliver darted between the man’s legs, turned about and grabbed the edges of his tabard. Up the halfling scrambled, taking the serpent’s place as the man threw it to the ground. Oliver grabbed on to one ear for support, and the man’s head jerked backward, his mouth opening to cry out. Oliver promptly stuffed his free hand into that mouth.

Luthien came around the edge of the shield, Blind-Striker in hand. Some of the cyclopians the duke had left behind were heading in their direction and calling out the name of “Resmore.” They had to go, and quickly, Luthien knew, and if this wizard, Resmore, would not cooperate, Luthien meant to strike him dead.

“My gauntlets, they are leather, yes?” Oliver asked.

“Yes.”

“But he is biting right through them!” Oliver squealed. Out came the hand, and the wizard-duke wasted no time.

“A’ta’arrefi!” he cried.

Barely twenty yards away, a host of cyclopians cried out.

Two running strides brought Luthien up to the man, and a solid right cross to the jaw dropped him where he stood, forcing Oliver to leap away, rolling in the twigs.

“One-eyes!” the halfling groaned as he came up, but he found some hope when he spotted his rapier, the blade whole again. “Take his silly cap, and let us go!”

Luthien shook the pains out of his bruised hand and moved to comply, realizing that the insignia on that cap might suffice. He stopped, though, as Oliver spoke again.

“Do you smell what I smell?” the halfling asked.

Luthien paused, and indeed he did, an all-too-familiar odor. Sulfurous, noxious. The young Bedwyr looked to Oliver, then turned to follow Oliver’s gaze, back over his shoulder, to a spinning ball of orange flames, quickly taking the shape of a bipedal canine with goatlike horns atop its head and eyes that blazed with the red hue of demonic fires.

“Oh, not again,” the beleaguered halfling moaned.

The monster’s howl split the night.

“Let me guess,” Oliver said dryly. “You are A’ta’arrefi?”

The creature was not large, no more than four feet from head to tail, but its aura, that sensation of might that surrounded every demon, was nearly overwhelming. Luthien and Oliver had battled enough of the fiends to know that they were in serious trouble, a fact made all the more obvious when A’ta’arrefi opened wide its fanged maw, wide enough, it seemed, to swallow Oliver whole!

Above them all, a bolt of lightning crackled through the rushing black clouds, a fitting touch, it seemed, to this hellish scenario. The sudden light showed the companions that cyclopians were all about them now, fanning out in the woods and keeping a respectable distance, whispering that this was the Crimson Shadow.

Luthien hardly gave the brutes a thought, focusing, as he had to, on the caninelike demon.

Out of that huge maw came a forked tongue, a hissing bark, and A’ta’arrefi, with speed that stunned the companions, leaped forward, dancing in the unholy symphony of the angry storm.

Oliver screamed. Luthien did, too, and raised Blind-Striker, though he knew that he could not be quick enough to intercept the charge.

And then he was blinded, and so was Oliver, and so were the cyclopians, as a lightning stroke came down right in front of him. Luthien felt his muscles jerking wildly, felt his hair dancing, and realized that he had been lifted right off the ground by the terrific impact. Somehow he came back down on his feet and held his tentative balance, though he soon enough realized that, with the demon charging, he might have been wiser to fall to the side.

But the expected attack never came, and Luthien heard before he saw, that battle had been joined in the woods about him. He heard the twang of elvish bows, the thunder of a dwarven charge, the cries of surprised and quickly dying cyclopians.

Finally, Luthien’s vision cleared, and he saw that A’ta’arrefi was no more—no more than a blackened forked tongue lying on the ground at Luthien’s feet.

As abrupt as the lightning bolt came the downpour, a torrent of rain hissing through the trees. Luthien pulled the hood of his crimson cape over his head, purely an instinctual movement, made with hardly a thought, for the young man was surely dazed.

Resmore’s groan brought Luthien back to the situation at hand. He shook the dizziness from his head and turned to the prone duke. He couldn’t stifle a burst of laughter as he spotted Oliver, sitting beside the man, the halfling’s usually curly hair straightened and standing on end.

“Boom,” the foppish halfling muttered and toppled to lie across the duke. The jarring woke the man.

Luthien skidded down atop him to hold him in place.

“I will deliver you personally to King Greensparrow,” the dazed and drunken Resmore slurred.

Luthien slugged him again to silence him, and when the man went still, Luthien lay atop the pile, spreading his shielding crimson cape to hide them all. He wanted to get up and join in the fight, but he understood the importance of his inaction, both to safeguard his all-valuable prisoner and to ensure that the magic-wielder could not wake up again and get into the fray.

Besides, Luthien soon realized, it was all going the way of the dwarfs and elves. Vengeance fueled the chopping axes and pounding hammers, and none could fight better in the darkness than elves, and none were better with deadly bows. The cyclopians had been caught by surprise, and even worse for them, they had been sitting within a brightly lit encampment and were now perfectly blind to the night.

Luthien thought he would have to fight, though, when he heard one terrified one-eye come rushing out of the brush, sloshing through the growing mud puddles, running straight for the unseen pile of bodies. The young Bedwyr turned slowly, so as not to give up the camouflage, and he spotted the cyclopian, looking back desperately over its shoulder, at about the same instant it ran smack into Resmore’s repelling shield.

Back the one-eye flew, meeting up with a pair of dwarfs as they burst out of the brush.

“I didn’t think he’d have the guts to charge!” one of the dwarfs roared, coming to his feet and promptly bringing his axe into the stunned cyclopian’s backbone.

“Nor did myself!” howled the other, caving in the one-eye’s skull with his heavy hammer.

“His children should be proud!” the first dwarf proclaimed.

“His children should be orphans!” cried the second, and off they ran, happily, looking for more one-eyes to smack.

Luthien eased his head back down, shifted himself more completely under the cape. It was better to stay out of this one, he decided.

 

 

EVIDENCE AND ERRORS PAST

The return to Caer MacDonald was heralded by cries of vengeance sated and by trumpets blowing triumphantly along the city’s walls. Word of their victory had preceded Luthien and his forces, as well as the whispers that a wizard, one of Avon’s dukes, had been captured in the battle.

Luthien and Oliver flanked Resmore every step of the way, with weapons drawn and ready. The duke hadn’t said much; not a word, in fact, other than a stream of threats, invoking the name of Greensparrow often, as though that alone should send his captors into a fit of trembling. He was tightly bound, and often gagged, but even with that, Luthien held Blind-Striker dangerously near to the man’s throat, for the young Bedwyr, more experienced than he wanted to be with the likes of wizard-dukes, would take no chances with this man. Luthien had no desire to face A’ta’arrefi, or any other demon again, nor would he let Resmore, his proof that Greensparrow was not honoring the truce, get away.

Men, women, and many, many children lined the avenues as the victorious procession entered Caer MacDonald. Siobhan and Shuglin led the way, with the elvish Cutters in a line behind their leader, and twenty dwarfs following Shuglin. In the middle of this powerful force walked Luthien, Oliver, and their most valuable prisoner. Another score of dwarfs took up the rear, closely guarding the dozen ragged cyclopian prisoners. If the bearded folk had been given their way, all the cyclopians would have been slaughtered in the mountains, but Luthien and Siobhan had convinced them that prisoners might prove crucial now, for all the politics of the land. Aside from these forty soldiers returning to Caer MacDonald, the rest of the bearded folk, along with another dozen cyclopian prisoners, had remained in the Iron Cross, making their way to DunDarrow to bring word of the victory to King Bellick dan Burso.

Cheers accompanied the procession every step along the main way of Caer MacDonald; many tossed silver coins or offered fine wine or ale, or plates heaped with food.

Oliver basked in the moment, even standing atop his pony’s back at one point, dipping a low bow, his great hat sweeping. Luthien tried to remain vigilant and stoic, but couldn’t contain his smile. At the front of the column, though, Siobhan and Shuglin paid the crowd little heed. These two exemplified the suffering of their respective races at the hands of Greensparrow. Shuglin’s folk, those who had been caught, had long been enslaved, working as craftsmen for the elite ruling and merchant classes until they outlived their usefulness, or gave their masters some excuse to send them to torturous labor in the mines. Siobhan’s folk had fared no better in the last two decades. Elves were not numerous in Avonsea—most had fled the isles for parts unknown many years before Greensparrow’s rise—but those who were caught during the rein of the evil king were given to wealthy homes as servants and concubines. Siobhan, with blood that was neither purely elven nor purely human, was on the lowest rung of all in Greensparrow’s racial hierarchy, and had spent many years in the service of a merchant tyrant who had beaten and raped her at will.

So these two were not smiling, and would not rejoice. For Luthien, victory had come when Eriador was declared free; for Shuglin and Siobhan, victory meant the head of Greensparrow, staked up high on a pole.

Nothing less.

King Brind’Amour met them in the plaza surrounding the Ministry. Purposefully, the king made his way past Siobhan and Shuglin, holding up his hand to indicate that they should wait to tell their tale. Down the line he went, his eyes locked on one man in particular, and he stopped when he came face-to-face with the prisoner.

Brind’Amour reached up and pulled the gag from the man’s mouth.

“He is a wizard,” Luthien warned.

“His name is Resmore,” Oliver added.

“One of Greensparrow’s dukes?” Brind’Amour asked the man, but Resmore merely “harrumphed” indignantly and lifted his fat face in defiance.

“He wore this,” Oliver explained, handing the expensive cap over to his king. “It was not so much a trick for me to take it from him.”

Luthien’s sour expression was not unexpected, and Oliver purposefully kept his gaze fixed on his king.

Brind’Amour took the hat and turned it in his hands, studying the emblem: a ship’s prow carved into the likeness of a rearing stallion, nostrils flared, eyes wild. “Newcastle,” the Eriadoran king said calmly. “You are Duke Resmore of Newcastle.”

“Friend of Greensparrow, who is king of all Avonsea!” a flustered Resmore replied.

“And king of Gascony, I am so sure,” Oliver added sarcastically.

“Not by treaty,” Brind’Amour reminded Resmore calmly, the old wizard smiling at the duke’s slip. “Our agreement proclaims Greensparrow as king of Avon and Brind’Amour as king of Eriador. Or is it that you deem the treaty immaterial?”

Resmore was sweating visibly now, realizing his error. “I only meant . . .” he stammered, and then he stopped. He took a deep breath to steady himself and lifted his chin proudly once more. “You have no right to hold me,” he declared.

“You were captured fairly,” Oliver remarked. “By me.”

“Unlawfully!” Resmore protested. “I was in the mountains, by all rights, in land neutral to our respective kingdoms!”

“You were on the Eriadoran side of the Iron Cross,” Brind’Amour reminded him. “Not twenty miles from Caer MacDonald.”

“I know of no provisions in our treaty that would prevent—” Resmore began.

“You were with the cyclopians,” Luthien promptly interrupted.

“Again, by word of the treaty—”

“Damn your treaty!” Luthien shouted, though Brind’Amour tried to calm him. “The one-eyes have been raiding our villages, murdering innocents, even children. At the prompting of your wretched king, I say!”

A hundred voices lifted in accord with the young Bedwyr’s proclamation, but Brind’Amour’s was not among them. Again the king of Eriador, skilled in matters politic, worked hard to quiet them all, fearing that a mob would form and his prisoners would be hanged before he could gather his evidence.

“Since when do one-eyes need the prompting of a human king to raid and pillage?” Resmore sarcastically asked.

“We can prove that this very band you were captured beside was among those participating in raids,” Brind’Amour said.

“Of which I know nothing,” Resmore replied coolly. “I have only been with them a few days, and they have not left the mountains in that time—until you illegally descended upon them. Who is the raider now?”

Brind’Amour’s blue eyes flared dangerously at that last remark. “Pretty words, Duke Resmore,” he said grimly. “But worthless, I assure you. Magic was used in the massacre known as Sougles’s Glen; its tracings can still be felt by those attuned to such powers.”

Brind’Amour’s not-so-subtle proclamation that he, too, was a wizard seemed to unnerve the man more than a little.

“Your role in the attacks can be proven,” Brind’Amour went on, “and a wizard’s neck is no more resistant to the rope than is a peasant’s.”

The mob exploded with screams for the man’s death, by hanging or burning, or whatever method could be quickly expedited. Many seemed ready to break ranks and beat the man. Brind’Amour would hear none of it, though. He motioned for Luthien and the others to take Resmore and the cyclopians into the Ministry, where they were put into separate dungeons. Resmore was assigned two personal guards, elves, who were quite sensitive to magic, who stood over the man continually, swords drawn and ready.

“We should thank you for your role in the capture,” Luthien remarked to Brind’Amour, walking the passageways along the smaller side rooms in the great structure beside Oliver and their king.

“Oh yes,” Oliver piped in. “A so-very-fine shot!”

Brind’Amour slowed enough to stare at his companions, his expression showing that he did not understand.

“In the mountains,” Luthien clarified. “When Resmore called in his demon.”

“You faced yet another hellish fiend?” Brind’Amour asked.

“Until your so-booming bolt of lightning,” Oliver replied. “On came the beast for Luthien—he would not approach my rapier blade, you see.”

“A’ta’arrefi, the demon was called,” Luthien interrupted, not willing to hear Oliver’s always-skewed perspective.

Still Brind’Amour seemed not to understand.

“He resembled a dog,” Luthien added, “though he walked upright, as a man.”

“And his tongue was forked,” Oliver added, and it took the halfling’s two companions a moment to decipher that last word, which Oliver’s thick Gascon accent made sound as though it was two separate words, “for-ked.” The halfling’s gesture helped in the translation, for he put two wiggling fingers up in front of his mouth.

Brind’Amour shrugged.

“Your lightning bolt,” Luthien insisted. “It could not have been mere chance!”

“Say it plainly, my boy,” the wizard begged.

“Resmore’s demon ran for us,” Luthien replied. “He was but five paces from me when the storm broke, a sting of lightning rushing down.”

“Boom!” Oliver yelled. “Right on the head.”

“And all that was left of A’ta’arrefi was his blackened tongue,” said Luthien.

“For-ked,” Oliver finished.

Brind’Amour rubbed his white beard briskly. He had no idea of what the two were talking about, for he hadn’t even been looking that way; Brind’Amour had been so engrossed with events in the east and south that he had no idea Luthien and Oliver had even gone into the mountains with Siobhan, let alone that they were facing a demon! Still, it seemed perfectly impossible to him that the lightning bolt was a natural accident. Luthien and Oliver were lucky indeed, but that was too far-fetched. Obviously a wizard had been involved. Perhaps it was even Greensparrow himself, aiming for Luthien and hitting Resmore’s fiend by mistake. “Yes, of course,” was all that he said to the two. “A fine shot, that. Demons are easy targets, though; stand out among mortals like a giant among halflings.”

Luthien managed a weak smile, not convinced that Brind’Amour was speaking truthfully. The young Bedwyr had no other explanation, though, and so he let it go at that. If there was something amiss, magically speaking, then it would be Brind’Amour’s concern, and not his own.

“Come,” the wizard bade, moving down a side passage. “We have perhaps found the link between Greensparrow and the cyclopians, thus our treaty with Avon may be deemed void. Let us draw up the truce with King Asmund of Isenland and begin to lay our plans.”

“We will fight Greensparrow?” Luthien asked bluntly.

“I do not yet know,” Brind’Amour replied. “I must speak with our prisoners, and with the ambassador from Gascony. There is much to do before any final decisions can be made.”

Of course there was, Luthien realized, but the young Bedwyr held faith then that he would not be battling against his brother. Greensparrow’s treacherous hand had been revealed in full; Resmore was all the proof they needed. Visions of sailing the fleet up the Stratton into Carlisle beside the Huegoth longships danced in Luthien’s mind.

It was not an unpleasant fantasy.

 

 

Brind’Amour entered the dimly lit room solemnly, wearing his rich blue wizard robes. Candles burned softly from pedestals in each of the room’s corners. In the center was a small round table and a single stool.

Brind’Amour took his place on the stool. With trembling hands, he reached up and removed the cloth draped over the single object on the table, his crystal ball. It was with trepidation and nervous excitement that the wizard began his incantation. Brind’Amour didn’t believe that Greensparrow had launched a bolt for Luthien that had accidentally destroyed Resmore’s familiar demon. In lieu of that, the old wizard could think of only one explanation for Luthien’s incredible tale: one of his fellows from the ancient brotherhood of wizards had awakened and joined in the effort. What else might explain the lightning bolt?

The wizard fell into his trance, sent his sight through the ball, into the mountains, across the width and breadth of Eriador, then across the borders of time itself.

 

 

“Brind’Amour?”

The question came from far away, but was insistent.

“Brind’Amour?”

“Serendie?” the old wizard asked, thinking he had at last found one of his fellows, a jolly chap who had been among his closest of friends.

“Luthien,” came the distant reply.

Brind’Amour searched his memory, trying to remember which wizard went by that vaguely familiar name. He felt a touch on his shoulder, and then was shaken.

Brind’Amour came out of his trance to find that he was in his divining room at the Ministry, with Luthien and Oliver standing beside him. He yawned and stretched, thoroughly drained from his night’s work.

“What time?” he asked.

“The cock has crowed,” Oliver remarked, “has eaten his morning meal, put a smile on the beaks of a few hen-types, and is probably settled for his afternoon nap!”

“We wondered where you were,” Luthien explained.

“So where were you?” Oliver asked.

Brind’Amour snorted at the halfling’s perceptive question. He had been physically in this room—all the night and half the day it would seem—but in truth, he had visited many places. A frown creased his face as he considered those journeys now. The last of them, to the isle of Dulsen-Berra, central of the Five Sentinels, haunted him. The vision the crystal ball had given him was somewhere back in time, though how long ago he could not tell. He saw cyclopians scaling the rocky hills of the island. Then he saw their guide: a man he recognized, though he was not as fat and thick-jowled as he was now, a man Brind’Amour now held captive in the dungeons of this very building!

In the vision, Resmore carried an unusual object, a forked rod, a divining stick. So-called “witches” of the more remote villages of Avonsea, and all across wild Baranduine, used such an object to find water. Normally a divining rod was a form of the very least magic, but this time, Resmore’s rod had been truly enchanted. Guided by it, Resmore and his one-eyed cronies had found a secret glen and the blocked entrance to a cave. Several wards exploded, killing more than a few cyclopians, but there were more than enough of the brutes to complete the task. Soon enough, the cave mouth was opened and the brutes rushed in. They returned to Resmore in the grassy glen, dragging a stiff body behind them. It was Duparte, dear Duparte, another of Brind’Amour’s closest friends, who had helped Brind’Amour in the construction of the Ministry and had taught so many Eriadoran fisherfolk the ways of the dangerous dorsal whales.

All the long night Brind’Amour had suffered such scenes of murder as his fellows were routed from their places of magical sleep. All the long night he had seen Resmore and Greensparrow, Morkney and Paragor, and one other wizard he did not know, flush out his helpless, sleeping fellows and destroy them.

Brind’Amour shuddered visibly, and Luthien put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“They are all dead, I fear,” Brind’Amour said quietly.

“Who?” Oliver asked, looking around nervously.

“The ancient brotherhood,” the old wizard replied—and he truly seemed old at that moment! “Only I, who spent so long enacting magical wards against intrusion, seem to have escaped the treachery of Greensparrow.”

“You witnessed all of their deaths?” Luthien asked incredulously, looking at the crystal ball. By Brind’Amour’s tales, many, many wizards had gone into the magical slumber those centuries before.

“Not all.”

“Why did you look?” Oliver asked.

“Your tale of the encounter with Resmore,” Brind’Amour replied.

“You did not send the lightning,” Luthien reasoned. “Thus you believed that one of your brothers had awakened, and had come to our aid.”

“But that is not the case,” Brind’Amour said.

“You said you did not find them all,” Oliver reminded.

“But none are awake; of that I am almost certain,” Brind’Amour replied. “If any of them were, my divining would have revealed them, or at least a hint of them.”

“But if you did not send the lightning . . .” Luthien began.

Brind’Amour only shrugged, having no explanation.

The old wizard sighed and leaned back in his chair. “We erred, my friends,” he said. “And badly.”

“Not I,” Oliver argued.

“The ancient brotherhood?” Luthien asked, pausing only to shake his head at Oliver’s unending self-importance.

“We thought the land safe and in good hands,” Brind’Amour explained. “The time of magic was fast fading, and thus we faded away, went into our slumber to conserve what remained of our powers until the world needed us once more.

“We all went into that sleep,” the wizard went on, his voice barely above a whisper, “except for Greensparrow, it seems, who was but a minor wizard, a man of no consequence. Even the great dragons had been destroyed, or bottled up, as I and my fellows had done to Balthazar.”

Luthien and Oliver shuddered at the mention of that name, a dragon they knew all too well!

“I lost my staff in Balthazar’s cave,” the wizard continued, turning to regard Luthien. “But I didn’t think I would ever need it again—until after I awoke to find the land in the darkness of Greensparrow.”

“This much we knew,” Luthien said. “But if Greensparrow had been such a minor wizard, then how did he rise?”

“What a great error,” Brind’Amour said to himself. “We thought magic on the wane, and so it was, by our standards of the art. But Greensparrow found another way. He allied with demons, tapped powers that should have been left alone, to rebuild a source of magical power. We should have foreseen this, and warded against it before our time of slumber.”

“I do so agree!” Oliver chimed in, but then he lowered his gaze as Luthien’s scowl found him.

“You should have seen me!” Brind’Amour said suddenly, his face flashing with the vigor of a long past youth. “Oh, my powers were so much greater then! I could use the art all the day, sleep well that night, then use it again all the next day.” A cloud seemed to pass over his aged features. “But now, I am not so strong. Greensparrow and his cohorts find most of their strength through demonic aid, a source I cannot, and will not, tap.”

“You destroyed Duke Paragor,” Luthien reminded.

Brind’Amour snorted, but managed a weak smile. “True,” he admitted. “And Morkney is dead, and Duke Resmore, his demon somehow taken from him, is but a minor wizard, and no more a threat.” Again he looked to Luthien, his face truly grim. “But these are but cohorts of Greensparrow, who is of the ancient brotherhood. These dukes, and the duchess of Mannington, are mortals, and not of my brotherhood. Minor tricksters empowered by Greensparrow.”

Luthien saw that his old friend needed his strength at that moment. “When Greensparrow is dead,” he declared, “you, Brind’Amour, king of Eriador, will be the most powerful wizard in all the world.”

Oliver clapped his hands, but Brind’Amour only replied quietly, “Something I never desired.”

 

 

“Leave us,” Brind’Amour instructed as he entered the dungeon cell below the Ministry. The small room was smoky, lighted by a single torch that burned in an unremarkable wall sconce beside the door.

The two elvish guards looked nervously to each other, and to the prisoner, but they would not disobey their king. With curt bows, they exited, though they stubbornly took up positions just outside the cell’s small door.

Brind’Amour closed that door, eyeing Resmore all the while. The miserable duke sat in the middle of the floor, hands bound behind his back and shackled by a tight chain to his ankles. He was also gagged and blindfolded.

Brind’Amour clapped his hands and the shackles fell from Resmore’s wrists. Slowly, the man reached up and removed first the blindfold and then the gag, stretching his numb legs as he did so.

“I demand better treatment!” he growled.

Brind’Amour circled the room, muttering under his breath and dropping a line of yellow powder at the base of the wall.

Resmore called to him several times, but when the old wizard would not answer, the duke sat quiet, curious.

Brind’Amour completed the powder line, encompassing the entire room, and looked at the man directly.

“Who destroyed your demon?” Brind’Amour asked directly.

Resmore stuttered for lack of an answer; he had thought, as had Luthien and Oliver, that Brind’Amour had done it.

“If A’ta’arrefi—” Brind’Amour began.

“A wizard should be more careful when uttering that name!” Resmore interrupted.

Brind’Amour shook his head slowly, calmly. “Not in here,” he explained, looking to the line of yellow powder. “Your fiend, if it survives, cannot hear your call, or mine, from in here, nor can you, or your magic, leave this room.”

Resmore threw his head back with a wild burst of laughter, as if mocking the other. He struggled to his feet, and nearly fell over, for his legs were still tingling from sitting for so long. “You should treat your peers with more respect, you who claim the throne of this forsaken land.”

“And you should wag your tongue more carefully,” Brind’Amour warned, “or I shall tear it from your mouth and wag it for you.”

“How dare you!”

“Silence!” the old wizard roared, his power bared in the sheer strength of his voice. Resmore’s eyes widened and he fell back a step. “You are no peer of mine!” Brind’Amour went on. “You and your fellows, lackeys all to Greensparrow, are a mere shadow of the power that was the brotherhood.”

“I—”

“Fight me!” Brind’Amour commanded.

Resmore snorted, but the scoff was lost in his throat as Brind’Amour launched into the movements of spellcasting, chanting heartily. Resmore began a spell of his own, reaching out to the torch and pulling a piece of fire from it, a flicker of flame to sting the older wizard.

It rolled out from the wall at Resmore’s bidding, flaring stronger right in front of Brind’Amour’s pointy nose, and Resmore snapped his fingers, the completion of his spell, the last thrust of energy that should have caused the lick of flame to burst into a miniature fireball. Again, Resmore’s hopes were abruptly quashed as his flame fell to the floor and elongated, something he never intended for it to do.

Brind’Amour continued his casting, aiming his magic at the conjured flame, wresting control of it and strengthening it, transforming it. It widened and gradually took the shape of a lion, a great and fiery cat with blazing eyes and a mane that danced with the excitement of fire.

Resmore paled and fell back another step, then turned and bolted for the door. He hit a magical wall, as solid as one of stone, and staggered back into the middle of the room, gradually regaining his senses and turning to face the wizard and his flaming pet.

Brind’Amour reached down and patted the beast’s flaming mane.

Resmore cocked his head. “An illusion,” he proclaimed.

“An illusion?” Brind’Amour echoed. He looked to the cat. “He called you an illusion,” he said. “Quite an insult. You may kill him.”

Resmore’s eyes popped wide as the lion’s roar resounded about the room. The cat dropped low—the duke had nowhere to run!—and then sprang out, flying for Resmore. The man screamed and fell to the floor, covering his head with his arms, thrashing for all his life.

But he was alone in the dirt, and when at last he dared to peek out, he saw Brind’Amour standing casually near the side of the room, with no sign of the flaming lion to be found, no sign that the cat had ever been there.

“An illusion,” Resmore insisted. In a futile effort to regain a measure of his dignity, he stood up and brushed himself off.

“And am I an illusion?” Brind’Amour asked.

Resmore eyed him curiously.

Suddenly Brind’Amour waved his arms and a great gust of wind hit Resmore and hurled him backward, to slam hard into the magical barrier. He staggered forward a couple of steps and looked up just as Brind’Amour clapped his hands together, then threw his palms out toward Resmore. A crackling black bolt hit the man in the gut, doubling him over in pain.

Brind’Amour snarled and brought one hand sweeping down in the air. His magic, the extension of his fury, sent a burst of energy down on the back of stooping Resmore’s neck, hurling him face-first into the hard dirt.

He lay there, dazed and bleeding, with no intention of getting back up. But then he felt something—a hand?—close about his throat and hoist him. He was back to his feet, and then off his feet, hanging in midair, the hand choking the life from him.

His bulging eyes looked across to his adversary. Brind’Amour stood with one arm extended, hand grasping the empty air.

“I saw you,” Brind’Amour said grimly. “I saw what you did to Duparte on the Isle of Dulsen-Berra!”

Resmore tried to utter a denial, but he could not find the breath for words.

“I saw you!” Brind’Amour yelled, clenching tighter.

Resmore jerked and thought his neck would surely snap.

But Brind’Amour threw his hand out wide, opening it as he went, and Resmore went flying across the room, to slam the magical barrier once more and fall to his knees, gasping, his nose surely broken. It took him a long while to manage to turn about and face terrible Brind’Amour again, and when he did, he found the old wizard standing calmly, holding a quill pen and a board that had a parchment tacked to it.

Brind’Amour tossed both items into the air, and they floated, as if hung on invisible ropes, Resmore’s way.

“Your confession,” Brind’Amour explained. “Your admission that you, at King Greensparrow’s bidding, worked to incite the cyclopians in their raids on Eriadoran and dwarvish settlements.”

The items stopped right before the kneeling duke, hanging in the empty air. He looked to them, then studied Brind’Amour.

“And if I refuse to sign?” he dared to ask.

“Then I will rend you limb from limb,” Brind’Amour casually promised. “I will flail the skin from your bones, and hold up your heart, that you may witness its last beat.” The calm way he said it unnerved Resmore.

“I saw what you did,” Brind’Amour said again, and that was all the proof the poor duke needed to hear to know that this terrible old wizard was not bluffing. He took up the quill and the board and quickly scratched his name.

Brind’Amour walked over and took the confession personally, without magical aid. He wanted Resmore to see his scowl up close, wanted the man to know that Brind’Amour had seen his crimes, and would neither forget, nor forgive.

Then Brind’Amour left the room, crossing through the magical wall with a single word.

“You will no longer be needed here,” Resmore heard him say to the elves. “Duke Resmore is a harmless fool.”

The dungeon door banged shut. The single torch that had been burning in the place was suddenly snuffed out, leaving Resmore alone and miserable in the utter darkness.

 

 

THE PRINCESS AND HER CROWN

She sat before the mirror brushing her silken hair, her soft eyes staring vacantly through space and time. The bejeweled crown was set on the dresser before her, the link to her past, as a child princess. Beside the crown sat a bag of powder Deanna used to brighten the flames of a brazier enough to open a gate from Hell for the demon Taknapotin.

She had been just a child when that bag had become more important to her than the crown, when Greensparrow had become closer to her than her own father, the king of Avon. Greensparrow, who gave her magic. Greensparrow, who gave her Taknapotin. Greensparrow, who took her father’s throne and saved the kingdom after a treacherous coup by a handful of upstart lords.

That was the tale Deanna Wellworth had been told by those loyal to the new king, and repeated to her by Greensparrow himself on the occasion of their next meeting. Greensparrow had lamented that, with his ascent to the throne, she was now out of the royal line. In truth, it mattered little because Greensparrow was a wizard of the ancient brotherhood, after all, blessed with long years, and would surely outlive Deanna, and all of her children, if she had any, and all of their children as well. But Greensparrow was not unsympathetic to the orphaned girl. Mannington, a not-unimportant port city on the western shore of Avon, would be her domain, her private kingdom.

That was the story Deanna Wellworth had heard since her childhood and for all of her adult life; that was the tale the sympathetic Greensparrow had offered to her.

Only now, nearing the age of thirty, had Deanna come to question, indeed to dismiss, that story. She tried to remember that fateful night of the coup, but all was confusion. Taknapotin had come to her and whisked her away in the dark of night; she vividly heard the screams of her siblings receding behind her.

O noble rescuer . . . a demon.

Why hadn’t Taknapotin, a fiend of no small power, rescued her brothers and sister as well? And why hadn’t the fiend and, more importantly, Greensparrow, who was easily the most powerful individual in the world, simply halted the coup? His answers, his excuses, were obvious and straightforward: there was no time; we were caught by surprise.

Those questions had often led Deanna to an impenetrable veil of mystery, and it wasn’t until many years later that the duchess of Mannington came to ask the more important questions. Why had she been spared? And since she was alive after the supposed murderers had been executed, then why hadn’t she been placed in Carlisle as the rightful queen of Avon?

Her stiff brush scraped hard against her head as the now-familiar rage began to mount inside of her. For several years, Deanna had suspected the betrayal and had felt the anger, but until recently she had suppressed those feelings. If what she feared had truly happened those two decades ago, then she could not readily excuse her own role in the murder of her mother and father, her five brothers and her sister.

“You look so much like her,” came a call from the doorway.

Deanna looked into the mirror and saw Selna’s reflection, the older woman coming into the room with Deanna’s nightclothes over her arm. The duchess turned about in her seat to face the woman.

“Your mother,” Selna explained with a disarming smile. She walked right over and put her hand gently against Deanna’s cheek. “You have her eyes, so soft, so blue.”

It was like a religious ceremony for the handmaid. Weekly at least, over the last twenty years, Selna, who had been her nanny in the days when her father ruled Avon, would brush her hand against Deanna’s cheek and tell her how much she looked like her murdered mother. For so many of those years, Deanna had beamed under the compliment and begged Selna to tell her of Bettien, her mother.

What a horrible irony that now seemed to the enlightened woman!

Deanna rose and walked away, taking the nightclothes.

“Fear not, my Lady,” Selna called after her. “I do not think our king will punish you for your weakness in the Iron Cross.”

Deanna turned sharply on the woman, making her jump in surprise. “Has he told you that personally?” she asked.

“The king?”

“Of course, the king,” Deanna replied. “Have you spoken with him since our return to Mannington?”

Selna appeared shocked. “My Lady,” she protested, “why would his most royal King Greensparrow deem to talk with—”

“Have you spoken with him since we left the Iron Cross?” Deanna interrupted, speaking each word distinctly so that Selna could not miss the implications of the question.

Selna took a deep breath and lifted her jaw resolutely.

She feels safe within the protection of Greensparrow, Deanna mused. The duchess realized that her anger may have caused her to overstep her good judgment. If Selna’s calls to Greensparrow were easily answered—perhaps the king had given her a minor demon to serve as courier—then Deanna’s anger might soon bring Greensparrow’s probing eye her way once more, something she most certainly did not want at this crucial hour.

“My apologies, dear Selna,” Deanna said, moving over to put her hand on the woman’s arm. Deanna dropped her gaze and gave the most profound of sighs. “I only fear that your perception of my weakness beside the cyclopians has lessened me in your view.”

“Never that, my Lady,” the handmaid said unconvincingly.

Deanna looked up, her soft blue eyes wet with tears. Ever since her childhood, Deanna had been good at summoning those; she called them “sympathy drops.”

“It is late, my Lady,” Selna said tersely. “You should retire.”

“It was weakness,” Deanna admitted with a slight sniffle. She noted that Selna’s expression shifted to one of curiosity.

“I could not bear it,” Deanna went on. “I hold no love for Eriadorans, and certainly none for dwarfs, but even the bearded folk seem a high cut above those ghastly one-eyes!”

Selna seemed to relax somewhat, even managed a smile that appeared sincere to Deanna.

“I only fear that my king and savior has come to doubt me,” Deanna lamented.

“Never that, my Lady,” Selna insisted.

“He is all the family that I have,” Deanna said, “except for you, of course. I could not bear to disappoint him, and yet, that, I fear, is exactly what I have done.”

“It was a task for which you of princessly temperament were not well-equipped,” Selna said.

Princessly temperament. Selna often used that curious phrase when speaking to Deanna. Often the young woman wanted to yell in the face of it. If she was so attuned to royalty, then why was Greensparrow, and not she, who was of rightful blood, sitting on Carlisle’s throne?

Deanna forced the angry thoughts deep within her. She let the tears come then, and wrapped Selna in a tight hug, holding fast until the woman remarked that it was time for her to go.

The duchess dashed those tears away in the blink of an eye as soon as Selna was safely out of the room. The hour was late, and she had so much to do this night! She spent a long moment looking at the dresser, at the crown and the bag, gathering her strength.

The hours passed. Deanna moved out of her room to make sure that all those quartered near her were asleep. Then she went back to her private chamber, closed and magically sealed the door, and went to her wardrobe, producing a small brass brazier from a secret compartment she had fashioned in its floor.

Not long after that, Taknapotin sat comfortably on her bed.

“A’ta’arrefi was not so formidable,” the cocksure demon remarked.

“Not with the power of the storm I sent to you,” Deanna replied coolly.

“Not so difficult a thing to channel the energy,” Taknapotin admitted. “And so A’ta’arrefi is gone, poof!”

“And Resmore is out of the way, dead or in the dungeons of Caer MacDonald or DunDarrow,” Deanna said.

“And we are one step closer to the throne,” Taknapotin said eagerly.

Deanna still could not believe how easy this part of her plan had been. She had merely dangled the carrot of supreme rulership in front of Taknapotin and the fiend had verily drooled at the thought of overthrowing Greensparrow. This was the weakness of evil, Deanna realized. In alliance with such diabolical creatures, one could never securely hold any trust.

Not if one was wise.

Deanna walked over to the dresser and took up the crown, the link to her heritage, the one item that Greensparrow had managed to retrieve after the defeat of the usurpers. The one item that Greensparrow had given to her personally, begging her to keep it safe as a remembrance of her poor family.

“I do not think that any others need die,” Taknapotin remarked. “Surely you are closest now, with Paragor and Resmore gone.”

“Ah, but what of Duke McLenny of Eornfast in Baranduine?” Deanna asked. “He is wise to the world, my pet. So wise.” The duchess chuckled silently at the irony of that statement.

“He suspects?”

Deanna shrugged. “He watches everything from the privacy of that wild land,” she said. “Removed from the scene, he might better judge the players.”

“Then he is a danger to us,” the demon reasoned.

Deanna shook her head. “Not so.” She turned from the mirror, holding the delicate crown in both hands. “Not to us.”

Taknapotin looked at her curiously, particularly at the way her hands were clenched about that all-important crown.

Deanna’s voice changed suddenly, dropping a complete octave as she began her chant. “Oga demions callyata sie,” she recited.

Taknapotin’s eyes blazed brighter as the beast felt the impact of the chant, a discordant recital that pained any creature of Hell to its black heart. “What are you doing?” the fiend demanded, but it knew all too well. Deanna was issuing the words of banishment, a powerful enchantment that would send Taknapotin from the world for a hundred years!

She continued her chant, bravely, for the fiend rose up powerfully from the bed, fangs gleaming. The enchantment was powerful, but not perfect. Deanna couldn’t be sure that it would work, in part because in her heart, in the heart of any wizard who has tasted such power, she could not fully desire to be rid of the demonic ally. She continued, though, and when Taknapotin, struggling and trembling, managed to take a step closer to her, she lifted high the crown that was her heritage, the gift of Greensparrow, the item that she now believed held more value than its gems or its memories. With a knowing smirk, Deanna twisted the metal viciously.

A sizzling crackle of black energy exploded from the crown, stunning Deanna and temporarily interrupting her chant. But it affected Taknapotin all the more. That crown was the demon’s real tie to the world. It had been empowered by Greensparrow, the true master, and given to Deanna for reasons greater than nostalgia.

“You cannot do this!” Taknapotin growled. “You throw away your own power, your chance of ascension.”

“Ascension into Hell!” Deanna yelled back, and with her strength renewed by the pitiful sight of the writhing agonized fiend, she took up her chant once more, uttering every discordant syllable through gritted teeth.

All that remained of Taknapotin was a black stain on her thickly carpeted floor.

Deanna threw down the twisted crown and stamped her foot upon it. It was the symbol of her foolishness, the tie to a kingdom—her kingdom—and to a family she had unwittingly brought down.

Though she had just enacted perhaps the most telling and powerful magical feat of her young life, and though Taknapotin, the demon that gave to her a great part of her power, was gone from her forever, Deanna Wellworth felt strangely invigorated. She went to her mirror and took up a vial, supposedly of perfume, but in truth, filled with a previously enchanted liquid. She sprayed the liquid generously over her mirror, calling to her closest friend.

The mirror misted over, and the fog seemed within the glass as well. Gradually the center cleared, leaving a distinct image within the foggy border.

“It is done?” asked the handsome, middle-aged man.

“Taknapotin is gone,” Deanna confirmed.

“Resmore is in the care of Brind’Amour, as we had hoped,” said the man, Duke Ashannon McLenny of Baranduine.

“I wish that you were here,” Deanna lamented.

“I am not so far away,” Ashannon replied, and it was true enough. The duke of Baranduine resided in Eornfast, a city directly across the Straits of Mann from Mannington. Their connection in spirit was even closer than that, Deanna reminded herself, and, though she was more scared than she had ever been, except of course for that terrible night twenty years before, she managed a smile.

“Our course is set,” Deanna said resolutely.

“What of Brind’Amour?” Ashannon asked.

“He searches for a friend of old,” Deanna replied, for she had heard the wizard’s call. “He will unwittingly answer my call.”

“My congratulations to you, Princess Deanna Wellworth,” Ashannon said with a formal bow and the purest of respect. “Sleep well.”

They broke the connection then, both of them needing their rest, especially since their respective demons were no more. Deanna was truly charmed by the man’s respect, but it was she who owed the greatest debt in their friendship. Ashannon had been the one to open her eyes. It was the duke of Baranduine, who had ruled the largest clan of the island when Deanna’s father was king of Avon, who had figured out the truth of the coup.

Now Deanna believed him, every word. Ashannon had told her as well the truth about her crown: that it was the key to Taknapotin, a tie in an unholy triangle that included Greensparrow and allowed the king to keep her under close scrutiny. That crown was the link that had allowed Greensparrow to call in Deanna’s demon so easily that night in the Iron Cross. That crown, both by enchantment and by the subtle feelings of guilt that it incessantly forced upon poor Deanna, was the key that allowed Greensparrow to keep her locked under his spell.

“No,” Deanna reminded herself aloud. “It was only one of the keys.”

She walked determinedly across the room and gathered up her robe. Selna’s room was only three doors down the hall.

 

 

In the duke’s private room in Eornfast, Ashannon McLenny watched his mirror cloud over and then gave a great sigh.

“No turning round’about now,” said a voice behind him, that of Shamus Hee, his friend and confidant.

“If ever I had meant a round’about, I’d not have told Deanna Wellworth the truth of Greensparrow,” the duke replied calmly.

“Still, ’tis a scary thing,” Shamus remarked.

McLenny didn’t disagree. He, above perhaps any man in the world, understood Greensparrow’s power, the network of spies, human and diabolical. After the coup in Avon, Ashannon McLenny had thought to break Baranduine free of the eastern nation’s clutches, but Greensparrow had put an end to that before it had ever begun, using Ashannon McLenny’s own familiar demon against him. Only the duke’s considerable charm and wits had allowed him to survive that event, and he had spent the subsequent decade proving his value and his loyalty to the Avon king.

“I’m still not knowing why Greensparrow ever kept the lass alive,” Shamus mumbled. “Seems a cleaner thing to me if he had just wiped all the Wellworths from the world.”

“He needed her,” McLenny answered. “Greensparrow didn’t know how things would sort out after the coup, and if he could not cleanly take the throne, then he would have put the lass there, though he would have been in the shadows behind her, the true ruler of Avon.”

“Wise at the time, but not so much now, so it seems,” remarked Shamus with a chuckle.

“Let us hope that is the case,” said McLenny. “Greensparrow has slipped, my friend. He has lost a bit of his rulership edge, perhaps through sheer boredom. Events in Eriador are proof enough of that, and, perhaps, a precursor to our own freedom.”

“A dangerous course,” said Shamus.

“More dangerous to Deanna by far than to us,” said McLenny. “And if she can succeed in her quest, if she can even wound Greensparrow and steal his attention long enough, then Baranduine will at long last know independence.”

“And if not?”

“Then we are no worse off, though I will surely lament the loss of Deanna Wellworth.”

“You can break the ties to her and her little plan that easily, then?”

Ashannon McLenny nodded, and there was no smile upon his face as he considered the possibility of failure.

Shamus Hee let it go at that. He trusted Ashannon’s judgment implicitly; the man had survived Greensparrow’s Avon coup, after all, whereas almost all of the other sitting nobles at the time had not. And Shamus understood that McLenny, whatever his personal feelings for Deanna (and they did indeed run deep), would put Baranduine first. He had seen the man’s face brighten with hope when they had first learned from Deanna Wellworth that Brind’Amour of the ancient brotherhood was alive and opposing Greensparrow.

Yes, Shamus understood, McLenny was a man for the ages, more concerned with what he left behind than with what he possessed. And what he meant to leave behind was a free Baranduine.

 

 

DRESSED FOR BATTLE

Yes, my dear deJulienne,” Brind’Amour said absently, leaning back in his throne, chin resting heavily in his palm. “DeJulienne,” he muttered derisively under his breath. The man’s name was Jules!

The other man, dressed all in lace and finery, and spending more time looking at his manicured fingernails than at Brind’Amour, continued to spout his complaints. “They utter such garish remarks,” he said, seeming horrified. “Really, if you cannot keep your swine civilized, then perhaps we should put in place a wide zone of silence about the wall.”

Brind’Amour nodded and sat up straighter in his throne. The argument was an old one, measuring time from the formation of the new Eriadoran kingdom. Greensparrow had sent Praetorian Guards to Malpuissant’s Wall to stand watch on the Avon side, and from the first day of their arrival, bitter verbal sparring had sprung up between the cyclopians and the Eriadorans holding the northern side of the wall.

“Uncivilized,” Brind’Amour replied casually. “Yes, deJulienne, that is a good word for us Eriadorans.”

The fop, Avon’s ambassador to Caer MacDonald, tilted his head back and struck a superior pose.

“And if you ever speak of my people again as ‘swine,’” Brind’Amour finished, “I will prove your point exactly by mailing your head back to Carlisle in a box.”

The painted face drooped, but Brind’Amour, seeing his friends enter the throne room, hardly noticed. “Luthien Bedwyr and Oliver deBurrows,” the king said, “have you had the pleasure of meeting our distinguished ambassador from Carlisle, Baron Guy deJulienne?”

The pair moved near to the man, Oliver bobbing to stand right before him. “DeJulienne?” the halfling echoed. “You are Gascon?”

“On my mother’s side,” the fop replied.

Oliver eyed him suspiciously, not buying a word of it. It had become common practice among the Avon nobles to alter their names so that they sounded more Gascon, a heritage that had become the height of fashion. To a true Gascon like Oliver, imitation did not ring as flattery. “I see,” said Oliver, “then it was your father who was a raping cyclopian.”

“Oliver!” Luthien cried.

“How dare you?” deJulienne roared.

“A true Gascon would duel me,” Oliver remarked, hand on rapier, but Luthien grabbed him by the shoulders, easily lifted him off the ground, and carried him to the side.

“I demand that the runt be punished,” deJulienne said to Brind’Amour, who was trying hard not to laugh.

“With my rapier blade I will write my so-very-long name across your puffy Avon breast!” Oliver shouted.

“He suffers from the war,” Brind’Amour whispered to deJulienne.

“Phony Gascon-type!” Oliver yelled. “If you want to be truly important, why do you not stand on your knees and pretend you are a halfling?”

“I should strike him down,” deJulienne said.

“Indeed,” replied the king, “but do have mercy. Oliver killed a hundred cyclopians personally in a single battle and has never quite gotten over it, I fear.”

DeJulienne nodded, and then, as the impact of the statement hit him fully, blanched even paler than his chalky makeup. “I will spare him then,” the man said quickly.

“I trust our business is finished?” Brind’Amour asked.

The Avon ambassador bowed curtly, spun on his heel, and stalked from the room.

“Jules!” Oliver called after him. “Julie, Julie!”

“Did you really see that as necessary?” Brind’Amour asked when Oliver and Luthien came to stand before him once more.

Oliver tilted his head thoughtfully. “No,” he answered at length, “but it was fun. Besides, I could tell that you wanted the fool out of here.”

“A simple dismissal would have sufficed,” Brind’Amour said dryly.

“Baron Guy deJulienne,” Luthien snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. Luthien had tasted more than his fill of the foppish Avon aristocracy, and he had little use for such pretentious fools. The woman who had sent him on the road from Dun Varna in the first place, the consort of yet another self-proclaimed baron, was much like deJulienne, all painted and perfumed. She had used the name of Avonese, though in truth her mother had titled her “Avon.” Seeing the ambassador of Avon only reaffirmed to Luthien that he had done well in giving the throne over to Brind’Amour. After the war, the Crimson Shadow could have likely claimed the throne, and many had called for him to do just that. But Luthien had deferred to Brind’Amour, for the good of Eriador—and, the sight and smell of deJulienne pointedly reminded him, for the good of Luthien!

“I should have sticked him in his puffy Avon breast,” Oliver muttered.

“To what end?” Brind’Amour asked. “At least this one is harmless enough. He is too stupid to spy.”

“Beware that facade,” Luthien warned.

“I have fed him information since he arrived,” Brind’Amour assured the young man. “Or should I say, I have fed him lies. DeJulienne has already reported to Greensparrow that nearly all of our fleet is engaged in a war with the Huegoths, and that more than twenty Eriadoran galleons have been sunk.”

“Diplomacy,” Luthien said with obvious disdain.

“Government, ptooey!” Oliver piped in.

“On to other matters,” Brind’Amour said, clearing his throat. “You have done well, and I offer again my congratulations and the gratitude of all Eriador.”

Luthien and Oliver looked to each other curiously, at first not understanding the change that had come over Brind’Amour. Then their faces brightened in recognition.

“Duke Resmore,” Luthien reasoned.

“The wizard-type has admitted the truth,” Oliver added.

“In full,” Brind’Amour confirmed. The king clapped his hands twice then, and an old man, dressed in brown robes, moved out from behind a tapestry.

“My greetings, once more, Luthien Bedwyr and Oliver deBurrows,” he said.

“And ours to you!” Luthien replied. Proctor Byllewyn of Gybi! The mere presence of the man told Luthien that the treaty with the Huegoths had been drawn.

Brind’Amour stood up from his throne. “Come,” he bade the others. “I have already spoken with Ethan and Katerin and word has gone out to the Dorsal Sea. King Asmund should have arrived in Chalmbers by now, thus I will open a path that he and Ethan might join with us.”

And Katerin, Luthien hoped, for how he missed his dear Katerin!

It was no small feat convincing suspicious Asmund to walk through the magical tunnel that Brind’Amour erected between Caer MacDonald’s Ministry and the distant city of Chalmbers. Even after Katerin and Brother Jamesis had gone through, even after the Huegoth king had agreed, Ethan practically had to drag him into the swirling blue lights.

The walk was exhilarating, spectacular, each step causing a mile of ground to rush under their feet. Chalmbers was fully three hundred miles from Caer MacDonald, but with Brind’Amour’s enchanted gate, the six men (including two strong Huegoth escorts, none other than Rennir and Torin Rogar) stepped into the Ministry in mere minutes.

“I do not approve of your magics!” Asmund said, defeating any greetings before they could even be offered.

“Time is pressing,” Brind’Amour replied. “Our business is urgent.”

Rennir and Torin Rogar grumbled.

“Then why did you not walk through the blue bridge to us?” Asmund asked suspiciously.

“Because Avon’s ambassador is in Caer MacDonald,” was all that Brind’Amour would reply. “This is the center, whether the Huegoths choose to join with Eriador’s cause or not.”

Luthien looked at the old wizard with true surprise; Brind’Amour’s stern demeanor hardly seemed a fitting way to greet the Huegoths, especially since they were proposing an alliance that went opposite the traditions of both peoples!

But Brind’Amour did not back down, not in the least.

“I am weary,” Asmund declared. “I will rest.”

Brind’Amour nodded. “Take our guests to their rooms in the northeastern wing,” he said to Luthien, nodding in that direction to emphasize the area. Luthien understood; deJulienne was quartered in the southeastern wing, and Brind’Amour wanted to keep the Avonese ambassador and Asmund as far apart as possible.

“I will do it,” Oliver offered, cutting in front of Luthien. He turned and winked at Luthien, then whispered, “You show Lady Katerin to her room.”

Luthien didn’t argue.

 

 

“You are sure that all is well with you?” Luthien asked softly.

Katerin rolled over, facing away from the man. “You need to ask?” she said with a giggle.

Luthien wasn’t joking. He put a hand on Katerin’s shoulder and gently, but firmly, turned her back to face him. He said not a word, but his expression stole the mirth from teasing Katerin.

“Ethan was with me the whole time,” she replied in all seriousness. “He is still your brother, despite his claims, and still my friend. He would have aided me, but in truth, I needed no protection or assistance. As rough as they might be, the Huegoths are honorable enough, by my eyes.”

“You would not have agreed with that when we were on Colonsey,” Luthien reminded her, and she had to admit that to be true. When they had first been captured, when The Stratton Weaver had been sent under the waves, Katerin was quite sure that her life would become a miserable thing, enslaved in the worst possible way by the savage Isenlanders.

“I am not for understanding them,” she admitted. “But their demeanor changed as soon as the treaty was proposed by Asmund. I spent much time with Ethan and the Huegoths in Chalmbers, many hours out on the longship, and I was not threatened, not even insulted, in the least. No, my love, the Huegoths are fierce enemies, but loyal friends. I hold all confidence in the alliance, should it come to pass.”

Luthien rolled onto his back and lay quiet, staring at the ceiling. He trusted fully in Katerin’s judgment, and was filled with excitement.

But also with trepidation—for the war, if it came, would be brutal, far worse than the battles Eriador had fought to win its tentative freedom from Avon. Even with Huegoth allies, the Eriadorans would be sorely outnumbered by the more prosperous kingdom to the south. Even with the Huegoth longships and the captured Avon galleons, the Eriadoran fleet would not dominate the seas.

Luthien chuckled softly as he considered the irony of his current fears. When Princetown had fallen, that same spring only a few short months before, Luthien had wanted to press the war all the way to Carlisle. Brind’Amour had warned against such a desperate course, reminding his young friend of Greensparrow’s power.

“Find your heart, my love,” Katerin said, shifting so that her face was above Luthien’s, her silken red hair cascading over his bare neck and shoulders.

Luthien pulled her down to him and kissed her hard. “You are my heart,” he said.

“As is Eriador,” Katerin quickly added. “Free of Greensparrow and free of war.”

Luthien put his chin on her shoulder. Gradually a smile widened on his face; gradually the fires came again into his cinnamon eyes.

 

 

“It is all but done,” Luthien remarked as he and Brind’Amour left the table after a long and private session with Asmund and Ethan.

“Your brother shows wisdom far beyond his thirty years,” Brind’Amour said. “He has led Asmund down this road of alliance.”

“It was Asmund who first proposed the treaty,” Luthien reminded.

“And since that time, Ethan has taken the lead in making Asmund’s wish a reality,” replied Brind’Amour. “He is loyal to his king.”

That remark stung the young Bedwyr, who did not like to think of Ethan as a Huegoth, whatever Ethan might claim. He stopped in the corridor, letting Brind’Amour get a couple of steps ahead of him. “To both his kings,” he replied when his friend turned back to regard him.

Brind’Amour thought on that a moment, considered Ethan’s work in the discussions, and nodded his agreement. Ethan’s actions on behalf of Eriador had been considerable in the sessions; on several occasions he had openly disagreed with Asmund, and had even managed to change the Huegoth’s mind once or twice.

Brind’Amour’s nod set Luthien moving again. He caught up to his king, and even swept Brind’Amour up in his wake, taking the lead the rest of the way to the war room, where Siobhan, Katerin, Oliver, and Shuglin waited anxiously.

“It will be finished and signed this night,” Brind’Amour confided.

Smiles were exchanged all about the oval table, on which was set a map of Avonsea. The mirth fell away when it reached Oliver, though, the halfling standing solemnly atop a stool.

“What is your pain?” Luthien asked bluntly. “An alliance with the Huegoths gives us a chance.”

“Do you know how many innocent Avon people-types the Huegoth barbarians will destroy?” the halfling asked, reminding them of the reality of their newfound friends. “How many now work the oars of their longships? How many would they have thrown into the sea when we were captured, had not the one called Rennir recognized Luthien as one owed a debt?”

True enough, they all had to admit. They were about to get into bed with the devil, it seemed.

“We cannot change the Huegoth ways,” Brind’Amour said at length. “We must remember that Greensparrow is the most immediate threat to our independence.”

“To Eriador whole,” Oliver replied, not backing down. “But do not be so quick to tell that to the next man sent bob-bobbing in the deep waters because his life with Asmund’s people has taken his strength.”

Katerin slammed her fist on the table in frustration; Shuglin, who had no experience with Huegoths and considered their slaves as unfortunate people too far removed for consideration at that point, glared at Oliver.

Luthien, though, nodded at his little friend, somewhat surprised by Oliver’s enlightened view of things. Oliver had never been one to hesitate from separating a wealthy merchant from his purse, but Oliver, Luthien silently reminded himself, was the one who used to buy many winter coats, then find some minuscule complaint with them that he might justify throwing them out in the street—where the homeless orphans promptly found them and gathered them up.

Siobhan, too, saw the truth in Oliver’s words and she walked up beside him, and, in front of everyone, kissed him.

Oliver blushed and swayed, nearly toppling from the stool. As was his way, the halfling quickly regained his dignity.

“The Huegoths are not the best moral choice as allies,” Katerin agreed, “but we can trust them to keep their part in the alliance.”

“But should we accept them at all?” Siobhan asked.

“Yes,” Brind’Amour replied immediately, in a tone that showed no room for debate. “I, too, despise many of the Huegoth customs, slavery highest among them. Perhaps we might do something about that at another time. But for now, the foremost problem is Greensparrow and his cyclopians, who, even Oliver must agree, are far worse than the Huegoths.”

Everyone looked to Oliver, and, feeling important, he nodded for Brind’Amour to continue.

“We cannot defeat Greensparrow without Huegoth aid,” the Eriadoran king went on. Even with that aid, Brind’Amour doubted the outcome, but he kept that unsettling thought private. “Once Eriador is truly free, once Greensparrow is thrown down, then our power and influence will increase many times over.”

“We war for freedom, not power,” Luthien had to say.

“True freedom will grant us power beyond our borders,” Brind’Amour explained. “Then we might properly deal with the Huegoths.”

“You cannot go to war with an ally,” Oliver retorted.

“No,” Brind’Amour agreed, “but as allies, our influence upon Asmund will be much greater. We’ll not change the Huegoth ways, any way short of complete war, and I do not think that any of us has the heart to take battle all the way to Isenland.” He paused to watch the shaking heads, confirming his proclamation.

“I, too, would choose differently than the Huegoths as allies if any choice was to be made,” Brind’Amour went on. “Your own Gascony, Oliver, cannot be counted on for any overt aid, though Lord de Gilbert has promised Eriador a lenient credit line should war come.”

“A promise he probably has also extended to Avon,” a snickering Oliver admitted, and the tension broke apart.

“Then we are agreed?” Brind’Amour asked when the nervous laughter subsided. “Asmund is our ally.”

Luthien seconded the call, just beating Shuglin to the mark. Katerin came next, followed by Siobhan and finally, with a great and dramatic sigh, Oliver. There was one other voice to be heard in this debate, Brind’Amour knew, but he would have to deal with that problem later.

Brind’Amour moved up to the table’s edge and took up a pointer. “Ethan has helped,” remarked the wizard, who suddenly did not seem so old to Luthien. “He, too, understands the benefit of keeping the Huegoths as far from land as possible.”

“Ethan knows the truth of Eriador now,” Luthien put in.

“Thus, and Asmund has tentatively agreed, the Huegoth ships will sail in formation east of the Eriadoran Dorsal fleet, which itself will sail east of the Five Sentinels.” Brind’Amour ran the pointer down the eastern shores of the island line.

“What of Bangor, Lemmingburg, and Corbin?” Katerin wanted to know, referring to three Avon coastal towns, clearly marked on the wizard’s detailed map. “And what of Evenshorn, on the northern fringes of the Saltwash? If the ships are to sail outside the Five Sentinels, how are we to wage war with all the eastern towns of Avon?”

“We are not,” Brind’Amour replied without hesitation. “Avon is Greensparrow. Avon is Carlisle. When Carlisle falls, so shall Avon!” He banged the pointer’s tip on the point where the twin rivers both known as Stratton joined, in the southwestern section of the southern kingdom.

“The Five Sentinels are a long way from Carlisle,” Siobhan remarked. “A roundabout route, and certainly longer and more dangerous than simply sailing along the Avon coast.”

“But this course will keep the Huegoths offshore,” Oliver piped in.

“And,” said Brind’Amour slyly, “it will lessen the chance of an engagement with Avon’s fleet.”

“I thought that was the point,” Shuglin said, looking confused.

Brind’Amour shook his head and waved his free hand, running the pointer down the wide channel between the Five Sentinels and the eastern shore of Avonsea. “If we battle with Avon’s fleet here,” he explained, “and they are victorious, they will still have time to sail all the way around to the south, to do battle with our second fleet before it enters the River Stratton.”

All the others moved closer to the table as the wizard spoke, his tone making it clear that he had thought this out completely and carefully.

“Also,” the king explained, “let us keep our alliance with Asmund secret from Greensparrow. Surely the presence of Huegoth longships so close will make him nervous. And nervous leaders make mistakes!”

Brind’Amour again paused to consider the affirming nods, drawing strength from the others. It was clear that the wizard was doing a bit of gambling here, and a bit of praying.

“The attack will be four-pronged,” he explained. “Half our fleet and the Huegoths will sail outside the Five Sentinels, securing the outer islands, and then swinging to the west for the mouth of the Stratton. A second fleet, already on its way to Port Charley from Diamondgate, will go south, through the Straits of Mann, and come into the Stratton from the east.”

Luthien and Katerin exchanged nervous glances at that. Both understood the danger of this second move, for the fleet would be caught in narrow waters between the two strongholds of Mannington and Eornfast.

“The largest land force,” Brind’Amour went on, moving the pointer appropriately, “will strike out from Malpuissant’s Wall, securing Princetown, then sweeping down the open farmlands between Deverwood and the southern spurs of the Iron Cross, a straight run for Carlisle.”

“Might they be held up at Princetown?” Oliver asked.

“By all reports, the city remains virtually defenseless,” Brind’Amour said with confidence. “Neither the wizard-duke nor the garrison has been replaced.”

“And the fourth prong?” Luthien asked impatiently, guessing that this last, and perhaps most important, move would likely be his to lead.

“Straight south from Caer MacDonald,” Brind’Amour answered. “Collecting King Bellick’s dwarfs and pressing straight through the mountains.”

Luthien eyed that intended line. The Iron Cross was no easy traverse, even with a dwarvish army leading the way, and worse, it was widely accepted that the bulk of Greensparrow’s cyclopian allies, including the highly trained and well-armed Praetorian Guards, were encamped along that same route. Even if those obstacles were overcome, it wouldn’t get much easier for the Eriadoran army once the mountains were crossed, for that pocket of Avon, tucked into the nook between the Straits of Mann and the southern and western reaches of the Iron Cross, was the most populous and fortified region in all of Avonsea. Towns dotted the banks of all three rivers that ran from the mountains into Speythenfergus Lake, culminating with mighty Warchester, the second city of Avon, with walls as high as those of Carlisle itself!

Finally, a resigned Luthien looked to Katerin and shrugged, managing a smile.

The woman only shook her head; now that the true scope of their undertaking had been laid out before them, it seemed a desperate, almost impossible attempt.