THE STRAITS OF MANN

The ugly little yellow pony skittered right, and then left, working hard to compensate for the rocking motion of the rough sea. Oliver seemed quite content up on Threadbare’s back, though. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes bright, a far contrast from his last sea voyage, which he spent mostly at the rail.

“My horse, he likes the water,” the halfling quipped to Katerin, whenever she happened by. She merely shook her head in disbelief.

The woman had little time to pause and consider the always-curious halfling, though, for the ship, Dozier’s Dream, and the forty others sailing about it, would soon round a bend along the northwestern coast of Avon, moving into the narrowest part of the Straits of Mann. The stronghold of Eornfast lay less than twenty miles across the channel and Mannington just a few miles more on this side of the dark waters.

The lead ship, barely two hundred yards ahead of Dozier’s Dream, hadn’t even fully executed the turn when the enemy was revealed. Balls of flaming pitch streamed through the air, sputtering into the water all about the leading Eriadoran vessels. Crews tacked hard, turning out to the wider waters, dropping the sails to battle mast on those ships that could not escape.

“Katerin, to me!” cried old Phelpsi Dozier from the wheel.

Katerin rushed over to join with the weathered old mariner. This was his ship, the command given out of respect to Port Charley’s oldest sailor, but Phelpsi was wise enough to understand and admit to his limitations. “Get ’em ready!” he said to Katerin. The old man paused when he glanced behind the woman, and like Katerin, shook his head. “And will ye get down from that stupid pony!” he yelled at Oliver.

“Horse!” Oliver corrected, and when Threadbare, as though the pony understood the old man’s insults, stomped hard on the deck, the halfling promptly added, “And my Threadbare is not stupid!”

Most of the ships were turning to the west, putting out away from the coast, and as they sailed around the bend, Katerin saw the truth of their enemy. At least as many Avon sails were up to match the Eriadorans, forty to fifty war galleons, no doubt all manned by experienced crews, cyclopian and human. Katerin’s fellows were skilled seaman, but only a handful in the entire Eriadoran fleet had ever waged battle upon ships of this size and caliber.

Where they were lacking in skill, though, the Eriadorans were determined to make up in sheer courage. So it was then for Katerin. She saw many ships turning out, and many Avon ships angling to intercept. The leading Eriadoran galleon on this side of the channel, though, would soon be surrounded, with nowhere to run. The ship took a flaming hit, then another, and the crew was soon too busy battling fires to consider the fast-closing Avonese warships.

Katerin called for full sail, straight on.

From his unusually high vantage point, Oliver saw what she meant to do, and recognized the risk that the woman of Hale was so willingly accepting. “Why do I always pick crazy-type peoples for my friends?” the halfling lamented.

“So says the halfling sitting on a pony on the deck of a ship,” Katerin was quick to reply.

“Horse,” Oliver corrected.

“If you sit up there that you might look important, then act important,” Katerin scolded. “Put the archers in line, port side, and tell them to hold their shots until we’re close enough to jump across. Same for the catapult crew!”

Oliver nodded, then paused, staring blankly at Katerin.

“The left side,” the woman explained.

“I knew that,” Oliver remarked, gingerly turning Threadbare about and clip-clopping off down the deck.

“Left,” Katerin said again after him.

The lead Eriadoran exchanged heavy fire—catapult, ballista, and bow—with two Avon ships, one on either side. None of the three were sailing; none dared unfurl a sail in that barrage of bolt and flame. The rough tide battered the outer Avon ship the hardest, that one being to the starboard of the Eriadoran and thus the furthest out from the coast. Waves rolled against the Avonese relentlessly, driving both it and the Eriadoran toward shore and forcing all three of the ships even closer together.

Katerin tried to gauge her distance, and the speed of the drifting trio. She honestly didn’t know if she could get between the Eriadoran and the Avon ship closest to shore.

“Ye’ve got the courage of a cuda fish,” old Phelpsi Dozier remarked in her ear. “Or the brains!” he added with a snicker.

Katerin truly liked the old man, was even coming to love him. She had met Dozier on her first trip to Port Charley, when she was serving as an emissary for Luthien in the days when the revolution loomed no larger than the city walls of Caer MacDonald. Anyone looking at Phelpsi would think him frail, and perhaps simple, and yet he had managed to trap both Katerin and Oliver in the hold of his private boat, and now, with death staring them all in the face, he was as strong a shoulder as Katerin had ever known.

He continued to chuckle aloud, even when the Avon ship, realizing what Dozier’s Dream meant to do, began firing at them, even when one crossbow quarrel cracked into the wood of the mainmast, barely a foot over Phelpsi’s head. “Cyclopians never could shoot well!” the old man howled.

Katerin gained resolve from the snickering old Phelpsi, and used that strength to focus on her task. The tide pushed her ship relentlessly to port, and Katerin had to continually correct the course. Some rigging tore free and one of the sails began flapping wildly, but the damage could not slow the ship’s momentum.

With only twenty yards separating them, it became apparent that Dozier’s Dream simply would not fit between the vessels.

“Pull the reins!” Oliver cried to Katerin. “Or pull whatever a ship might have!”

“Get down from the pony,” Katerin warned. She turned more to port, not wanting to clip the other Eriadoran, though the new angle put them even more in line with the Avon galleon.

“I am safer up here!” Oliver cried.

A barrage of arrows led the way for the charging Eriadoran ship; the catapult let fly, skipping a heavy stone across the Avon ship’s decking, and Dozier’s Dream crashed in, skimming the length of the Avon galleon. Rigging on both ships tangled and fell. Mast crosspieces smacked together and splintered.

Threadbare went into a short hop, landed firmly, and Oliver sailed over the pony’s head, diving into a somersault, then a second, a third, even a fourth, along the deck, before he finally managed to stagger to his feet. He immediately turned toward Katerin, but overbalanced and fell headlong to the planks.

“Do not even speak it!” the halfling warned, but Katerin was paying him no heed, had no time to think of Oliver. Arrows buzzed the air all about the woman, and though Dozier’s Dream was still moving forward, still crunching wood before the two ships settled in a tangled mess, the cyclopians were already coming over their rail.

Bolstered by the grateful cheering of the other Eriadoran crew, the crew of Dozier’s Dream met the cyclopian charge, first with a volley of arrows, then with swords. Oliver regained his seat on Threadbare and plowed into a trio of one-eyes, knocking one into the churning water between the vessels.

One of the brutes recovered quickly, but hesitated before it rushed in at Oliver, obviously stunned to see someone riding on a ship! “Hey,” the brute bellowed, “why is you up on that ugly yellow dog?”

In response, Oliver kicked Threadbare into a short hop, knocking the brute to the deck. Threadbare came on immediately, trampling the cyclopian, finally stopping with its back legs straddling the brute.

“Horse!” Oliver corrected. “But I am sure that you can see that now, from your better angle.”

The cyclopian uncovered its face long enough to reach for its fallen sword. Before its hand ever got close, though, it had to cover once more, as Oliver placed his hat over Threadbare’s rump, a signal he had long ago taught the pony, and the intelligent mount responded by kicking out, and then trampling the unfortunate cyclopian once again.

“A pretty horse, would you not agree?” Oliver asked.

“Ugly dog!” howled the cyclopian.

“They are so very stubborn,” Oliver lamented, putting his hat back over Threadbare’s rump, prompting the pony to action.

“Pretty horse!” the cyclopian yelled repeatedly, whenever it could seize a breath. It was too late for the brute to exact mercy from Oliver, though. The halfling kept his hat in place long enough for Threadbare to silence the cyclopian forever.

Those precious moments had put the halfling in a tenuous position, though. Glancing all about, Oliver soon realized that more cyclopians had come over to his ship than remained on the other. With his typical logic guiding the way, the halfling prodded the wonderful pony into a leap over the rails.

Threadbare hit the deck of the Avonese ship running, turning at Oliver’s bidding toward the door of the cabin under the high rear deck, a door that had been smashed in by the catapult shot.

A huge and fat cyclopian came out of that hole, shaken and wounded, but still ready for battle, holding a gigantic mallet across its belt. Its bulbous eye widened even more, though the one-eye showed no fear when it took stock of Oliver and his pony thundering across the deck. The fat brute braced itself, legs wide apart, and smiled wickedly.

Oliver sincerely wondered if this had been a wise course. Considering the damage caused by the bouncing catapult ball, the halfling had figured the cabin to be empty—of living cyclopians, at least—offering him a fine place to relax, perhaps even to find a bit of wine and cheese.

Now he was committed. His first instinct was to continue the charge straight on, right into the brute, but he feared that this tremendous one-eye might outweigh both him and his pony combined! He pulled Threadbare to a light trot instead, bent low, and whispered into the pony’s ear.

Oliver kicked hard on Threadbare over the last few paces, gaining a sudden burst of speed. The cyclopian howled and braced itself, but as quickly as he had started the charge, Oliver stopped it, falling off to the side, then dropping into a running crouch right under the belly of his pony.

On cue—Oliver’s rapier tapping the pony’s chest—Threadbare reared, kicking at the one-eye. The brute was too engaged to take note of the halfling as he ran out from under the pony and scampered right between the cyclopian’s widespread legs.

Oliver fell into a roll and turned about as he regained his feet, rushing right back in, double-sticking with rapier and main gauche. Both blades bit hard, one on each side of the cyclopian’s buttocks, and the brute reflexively skipped forward, right into the yellow pony’s flailing forelegs. The cyclopian threw up its burly arms and frantically ran to the side, confused and battered. Threadbare chased it every step, biting at the back of its neck.

“I do hope that you can swim,” Oliver remarked dryly as the cyclopian slammed against the rail, doubling over it, but catching itself quickly.

Threadbare never slowed, lifting his head high and ramming the brute right through the rail. The victorious pony reared again and neighed excitedly, then turned about to face his halfling rider.

“Join me for a spot of tea?” Oliver asked, motioning to the empty cabin.

The yellow pony snorted.

Oliver looked about and gave a great sigh. The fight was on in full, mostly on the decks of Dozier’s Dream, and it remained fierce, though his side was obviously winning. “Very well, my equine conscience,” the halfling said.

Threadbare hopped and Oliver ducked fast, as a crossbow quarrel split the air above his head. Then the halfling dodged to the side as a cyclopian fell over the rail of the poop deck, dropping dead to the main deck at Oliver’s feet. The halfling looked back to regard Phelpsi Dozier, the ancient man obviously enjoying himself, patting an old crossbow, nodding and grinning wide, though few teeth remained in his mouth.

The ring of steel echoed across the decks of all four ships for more than half an hour, and when the fighting sorted itself out at last, the cyclopians were beaten, though many Eriadorans had been lost. Out in the deeper waters, the sailors from Eriador fared even worse, being outmaneuvered by the more skilled Avonese galleon crews.

Katerin organized what was left of the two crews, enough sailors to lightly man two ships. Unfortunately, the only ship of the four that could quickly put back out to sea was the Avonese vessel on the starboard side of the outer Eriadoran. Planking was put in place, and the crew went to work, changing the colors, untangling the rigging, and sorting out their positions. They left the three tangled ships, their own dead, and more than six hundred slain cyclopians behind, caught the wind in their sails, and moved out bravely to the west, into the crossfire of wild battle.

The fighting raged for several more hours, more men and brutes falling from sheer exhaustion than from arrows. Of the eighty-seven ships that had engaged, seventeen were either sunk or sitting helplessly, colors struck in surrender, drifting on the waves and wakes of passing ships.

And more than half of those seventeen were Eriadoran.

Katerin held out hope that they still might win out, but she realized that her fleet would be far weaker when it sailed out the southern mouth of the Straits of Mann, too diminished to be much of a factor even if they ever did reach the Stratton River and the seawall of Carlisle.

But they had to fight on, the determined woman realized, because every Avon ship that slipped under the waves was one fewer raider to strike at Port Charley, or at Diamondgate, or even her own home of Isle Bedwydrin.

“The one-eyes’re good,” old Dozier remarked, standing between Katerin, who was at the wheel, and Oliver, who remained atop his pony.

In truth, the pilots of the Avonese vessels were almost exclusively human, but Katerin could not disagree with Phelpsi, as much as she hated giving any credit at all to wretched cyclopians.

“There is an old Gascon saying,” Oliver interrupted. “My Papa halfling, he once told to me, ‘A fight is first of skill, then of heart.’ And he also told to me,” the halfling went on, striking a heroic pose for emphasis, “‘A one-eye, his chest is big, but his heart is oh so small!’ We will win.”

The simple confidence in the halfling’s tone as he spoke the last three words, “We will win,” struck Katerin profoundly. With a determined growl, she found the angle to intercept the closest Avonese vessel and daringly called for full sail.

Katerin took care this time not to entangle; there were simply too many free Avon ships for any Eriadoran to get caught up with one. Her crew was now much larger than before, more than four hundred strong, and as the ship slipped across the prow of the Avon vessel, the barrage of arrows raking the decks of the enemy ship took a mighty toll, including a score of bolts that cleaned out the two men and one cyclopian standing near the wheel.

Katerin’s crew cheered her on; the catapult got off yet another shot as the daring woman cut the ship into a sharp one-eighty turn, bringing her around before the Avonese could replace their helmsmen and properly react. This time Katerin cut across the Avonese galleon’s stern, and the volley started earlier, cleaning out the cyclopians, archers, and catapult crew from the poop deck. The Eriadoran archers got off a second shot, then a third, as the ship slipped past, and the catapult waited until the optimum moment to slam a ball of flaming pitch against the Avonese mainmast, which went up like a great candle.

Again the reply from the Avonese vessel was weak and without consequence, and Katerin knew better than to give this enemy a third try at her ship with her sails so very vulnerable. She took the galleon away, sails full of wind. Fighting against so many in such tight and dangerous waters was reckless, she knew; one ball of pitch could turn her entire deck into a conflagration, one flaming arrow could destroy a mast.

“Perhaps we should drop to battle sail,” Oliver offered as the speeding ship closed in on a pair of Avonese vessels.

“You are the one who always claimed that cyclopians were terrible with bows,” Katerin replied. “They could not hit the side of a mountain, so you said.”

Oliver looked up and it seemed to him that those stretched sails were larger targets than any mountain. He regarded stubborn Katerin and shook his head helplessly.

Katerin didn’t have to look at him to understand the stare, but she accepted the look and the risk. Now was the time for daring, even desperation that bordered on recklessness. She spotted a pair of Avonese vessels and angled accordingly.

Even determined Katerin had to back off, though, when she realized that the two galleons had spotted her and were calling back and forth, coordinating their response. With a frustrated snarl, Katerin cut hard to port, turning her ship low in the water. Her crew let fly, so did the Avonese, but the vessels were still too far apart and none of the three took hits of any consequence.

Katerin’s frustrated expression melted into a grin a few moments later, though, when her crew began to cheer wildly. A trio of Eriadoran ships had come in at the Avonese from the other side when they had been intent on Katerin’s speeding ship, and the Avonese had not been able to react appropriately. Both tried to turn their broadsides to the new threat, but they had gone in opposite directions and had actually tangled together. Now the crews of the two Avonese vessels were more engaged in fighting flames than in fighting Eriadorans, while the three Eriadoran vessels began to circle, archers and catapults pounding away. They pumped hundreds of arrows and dozens of balls of pitch and heavy stones into the Avonese galleons before more enemy warships sailed in, forcing the three Eriadorans to flee.

So I will be the taunting mouse for the Avonese cats, Katerin thought. She would be the distraction, the daring, darting little mouse, trying hard to stay out of the cat’s claws, while her companion vessels found the openings left in her speeding wake.

Of the next eight ships that struck colors or filled with water, six were Avonese.

The spirits of all the Eriadoran crews began to rise, bringing new energy to continue the fight as the sun began its western descent. Katerin’s spirits were perhaps highest of all, the fearless woman full of energy, full of the fight for Eriador. She would continue her wild run until one of her sails went down, she determined, and then she would find an Avonese ship to ram, that she might keep up the fight.

Something about the tone of Oliver’s groan gave her pause, though, as profound a lament as the fiery young woman had ever heard. She looked to the halfling and then followed his gaze out to the north, the starboard side.

There she saw the end of the invasion, the doom of her fleet: a solid wall of sails, it seemed, lining the horizon. The vessels were not galleon size, but neither were they little fishing boats. “How many?” Katerin gasped. A hundred?

“Green flag!” cried a crewman straddling the mainmast, sighting the new fleet as he was trying to repair some of the rigging damage. “White-bordered!”

Katerin was not surprised. She had expected these newcomers, though not in such numbers. “Baranduine,” she muttered hopelessly.

Phelpsi Dozier ambled over. “Not bad folks, the Baranduiners,” he said. “Not like these damned cyclopians! I seen ’em often in the open waters. Might be they’d accept an honorable surrender.”

The mere mention of the word sent Katerin’s teeth to grinding. How could they surrender, thus laying open the entire western coast of Eriador? What would Brind’Amour and his forces do if Greensparrow walked in the back door and flattened Caer MacDonald?

There came a burst of billowing orange smoke on the deck right before the wheel, an eruption out of nowhere, it seemed, and after the initial shock, Katerin thought she might get her answer. Had Brind’Amour come personally to her ship to speak with her?

When the smoke cleared, though, the woman saw not Brind’Amour, but another man, middle-aged, but undeniably handsome. His dress was practical for the weather and rigors of the sea, but fashionable and showed that the man was not wanting.

“My greetings,” he said politely, giving a sweeping bow. His eyes locked on Oliver, the halfling all in his finery—purple cape, green hose and gauntlets, and wide, plumed hat—sitting astride Threadbare. “I am Duke Ashannon McLenny of Eornfast on Baranduine.”

Katerin and old Dozier stared open-mouthed.

“And I am not amused by your show of silly wizard tricks,” the halfling proclaimed, never at a loss for words. “Etiquette demands that you ask permission before you board a ship.”

That brought a smile to Ashannon’s face. “There was little opportunity,” he explained. “And in truth, yours is the third Eriadoran ship I’ve boarded already. I must speak with a woman, Katerin O’Hale by name, and a man of Port Charley who is called Dozier, and a halfling . . .” His voice trailed off as he continued to stare at the most-curious Oliver.

“You would be Oliver deBurrows,” Ashannon reasoned, for there simply couldn’t be two such halflings in all of Avonsea!

“And I am Katerin O’Hale,” Katerin interrupted, finding her tongue—and her anger. Her hand went immediately for the hilt of her belted sword. This was one of Greensparrow’s wizard-dukes standing before her, and considering her past experiences with these men, she figured that Ashannon’s demon ally wouldn’t be far away.

“Fear not,” Ashannon assured her. “I have not walked into your midst as an enemy. Some consider me a fool, perhaps, but I am not.”

“Why are you here?” Oliver had to ask.

Ashannon swept his hand out to the north, forcing them all to look again to the incoming fleet. “A hundred warships,” he began.

“You come asking for surrender,” Katerin said grimly, and she wasn’t certain that she could refuse such an opportunity. The Baranduine ships were fast closing on a group of several Avonese vessels, whose mostly cyclopian crews were standing at the rail, cheering wildly.

Ashannon smiled. “You will see,” he said, turning to the north.

By the end of the first volleys, balls of smoking brown earth that exploded when they landed and scores and scores of arrows, most of the cyclopians on those three Avon ships were dead and fires raged on each of the galleons.

Katerin, Dozier, and Oliver snapped blank stares on the duke of Eornfast.

“I have met with Brind’Amour,” Ashannon explained. “Baranduine is no friend to King Greensparrow. Pass the word to your fleet,” he instructed. “I warn you, any of my ships that are attacked will respond.” With a burst of smoke, the man disappeared, and a similar puff of smoke rising from the midst of the Baranduine fleet told the three startled companions which ship Ashannon marked as his flagship.

The fight was over hours later, in the dark, with thirty Avon galleons scuttled and ten others sent running, and a weary and battered, but now tripled, invasion fleet ready to move on. The Baranduiners sent skilled seamen to aid the Eriadorans, and gently passed over some peat bombs, the brown earthen balls that would violently burst apart upon impact.

Katerin and Oliver readily accepted Ashannon’s invitation to board his flagship and sail beside him, the two of them intrigued and full of hope.

The fleet, more than a hundred strong, crossed out the southern end of the Straits of Mann, past the lights of Mannington, before the dawn.

 

 

THE NIGHT OF THREE ROUTS

Though he had never been in this region before, Luthien Bedwyr needed no map to tell him which city was next in line. The Eriadoran army had thundered across a hundred miles and a dozen villages since coming out of the mountains. Resistance had been light, even nonexistent in some places, as the cyclopians—particularly the Praetorian Guards who had been routed out of the Iron Cross—continued to flee to the south, pillaging supplies as they went. That rowdy retreat had played well into Luthien’s hands, turning the populace against Greensparrow. And with the help of Solomon Keyes and Alan O’Dunkery and other important Avonese, there had been minimum loss of human life to either side.

But now . . .

Luthien walked Riverdancer to the top of a small hillock. He peered south in the waning light of the day, following the silver snakelike Dunkery until it widened and dispersed into a shining blot on the horizon. There lay Speythenfergus Lake, and on its northern banks, along the strip of land between the Dunkery and Eorn Rivers, sat high-walled Warchester, its militia no doubt swelled by the thousands of cyclopians who had forsaken the villages to the north.

Below him on his right, Luthien’s army plodded along, making steady progress. They would march long after sunset, setting their camp in sight of the mighty city.

How would the Eriadorans and mountain dwarfs fare against the fortifications of mighty Warchester? Luthien and his forces had never laid siege to a city, or tried to battle their way through towering walls of stone. They had won in Caer MacDonald by fighting house to house, but they had already been inside the city’s walls when the battle had begun. They had won in Princetown by deception, luring the garrison outside of the city into a killing valley known as Glen Durritch. But how would they fare against a fortified city that expected them and had prepared for their arrival?

Luthien entertained the thought of convincing Bellick to go around Warchester, flanking Speythenfergus Lake on the east and marching straight out for Carlisle. The young Bedwyr understood the folly of such a plan, of course; they could not leave an entire cyclopian army behind them!

And so they had to go to Warchester, had to lay waste to the fortified city, and perhaps even turn west to the coast and attack Mannington as well. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Luthien considered the apparent folly of their march and longed for the quiet rolling hills of Isle Bedwydrin.

 

 

“When Duke Theredon is not here, I am in command,” the brutish cyclopian insisted in its sputtering lisp, poking its fat and grimy thumb into its barrel-sized chest.

Deanna Wellworth scrutinized the one-eye. She had always thought cyclopians disgusting and ugly, but this one, Undercommander Kreignik, was far worse than most. Its bulbous eye dripped with some yellow liquid, caking on the side of the brute’s fat, oft-broken nose. All of Kreignik’s teeth were too long and crooked, jutting out at weird angles over torn and twisted lips, and the cyclopian’s left cheekbone had long ago been smashed away in a fight, leaving half of Kreignik’s face sunken, and giving him a tilted, uneven appearance.

“I am a duchess, equal in rank to your missing duke,” Deanna reminded, but Kreignik was shaking its ugly head before she ever finished.

“Not in Warchester,” the brute insisted.

Deanna knew that she could not win this verbal battle. Since her arrival through a magical tunnel the previous night, she had been treated with outright disrespect. Like all of the other rightly paranoid wizards of Greensparrow’s court, Theredon had put safeguards in place against the intrusions of any other wizards. The dead duke’s orders to Kreignik, and probably to every ranking cyclopian below the one-eye, were unyielding; even Greensparrow himself would have trouble prodding the brute to comply. Kreignik likely wasn’t the first cyclopian to rise to the rank of undercommander of Warchester. Men such as Theredon tested their subordinates by, for example, assuming the form of another duke, then challenging the loyalty of the cyclopian officers. Failure to follow Theredon’s specific orders would mean a terrible, torturous death.

Kreignik had probably witnessed more than one such event. No threats and no logic that Deanna could use would sway the stubborn one-eye.

“I told you that Undercommander Kreignik would not fail at a critical time,” came a call from behind the brute. Kreignik turned, and Deanna looked beyond the massive brute, to see Duke Theredon ambling down the hall.

Deanna winced at the sight. Brind’Amour, though he had altered himself to appear as Theredon, had the mannerisms all wrong, shuffling like an older man, and not walking with the confident and powerful gait of the strong duke.

“And you feared that my soldiers would not be ready!” the fake Theredon roared, clapping Kreignik on the back—an inappropriate action that made Deanna wince yet again. “Ready?” Brind’Amour roared. “Why, with all the cyclopians that have come down from the north, we are more than ready!”

Deanna noted the skeptical look on Kreignik’s face and knew she had to do something to salvage the situation. “Why my dear Duke Theredon,” she said with a laugh, “you have been drinking that Fairborn vintage I gave to you!”

“What?” Brind’Amour stammered, growing serious at the sight of Deanna, her lips drawn tight again as soon as the obviously mocking chuckle had ended. “Oh, yes,” the old man improvised. “But not so much.”

“I warned you of its potent kick,” Deanna said, and Brind’Amour understood that she would have liked to really kick him then and there. “What good will you be in the coming battle?”

“What good?” the old wizard scoffed, and he assumed a more regal posture. “With the Praetorian Guards from the Iron Cross, I estimate that we outnumber the Eriadoran fools by nearly two to one. And we have the better side of the walls in our faces!” He snapped his fingers in the air before Deanna’s unblinking eyes. “They could not take Warchester in a hundred years!”

Kreignik seemed to like that proclamation, so much so that the scowl melted from the ugly brute’s face. Kreignik even dared to reach over and pat the imposter duke on the back, though Brind’Amour was quick to flash a scowl at the one-eye, backing it away.

“Perhaps they will not then attack,” Deanna prompted. “But lay in wait in siege.”

Brind’Amour laughed, and so did Kreignik, but Deanna was not amused. The plan, after all, had been to convince the cyclopian undercommander that retaining their forces in the city would be foolish and dangerous. Brind’Amour’s words were true enough; even with Deanna and Brind’Amour working their magic, the Eriadorans had little chance of crashing through Warchester’s fortified gate with the city so swollen by retreating cyclopians. Even if Luthien and Bellick somehow managed to enter and win out, their army certainly would be badly wounded, and with two hundred miles still to go to Carlisle.

Deanna’s skin felt prickly as a wave of anxiety crept up about her. All of this seemed suddenly foolhardy; how could they hope to win out all the way to Carlisle? How could she, even with Brind’Amour and Ashannon, hope to defeat Greensparrow? The duchess firmly shook the thoughts away, reminding herself that Greensparrow’s strength lay mostly in terror and in the hordes of cyclopians he had brought under his rule. Magic and demons and dragons were powerful weapons, but in the end measure, this war would be won by the resolve of the common soldiers and the cunning of their leaders.

Steadied once more, Deanna focused on the immediate task at hand, that of convincing Kreignik to go out from Warchester. She was about to try another course, when Brind’Amour abruptly stopped laughing.

“That is it!” the old wizard shouted in Kreignik’s face.

The cyclopian backed a step, its expression twisted with confusion.

“Do you not see our opportunity?” Brind’Amour shouted, and danced about the corridor. “We can take the offensive, Kreignik,” he explained. “We will go out onto the field and utterly destroy them. And we will catch this Crimson Shadow fool, and the fool Brind’Amour, too, if he is among their ranks. Oh, what gifts will King Greensparrow give to us when the Eriadorans are delivered to him!”

Kreignik didn’t seem to buy it, though the brute had trouble hiding its intrigue at the possibility of such glory.

“We have no choice in the matter,” Deanna quickly put in. “By all reports, there is a second Eriadoran army rounding the southern spur of the Iron Cross. If this army at our gates gets bogged on the fields outside Warchester, we can expect the second group to join up with them. Or worse, both armies will bypass Warchester altogether and march straight on to Carlisle.”

“We will pursue them then,” reasoned Kreignik. “We will catch them from behind and squeeze them against Carlisle’s walls.”

Brind’Amour draped an arm across the brute’s wide shoulders. “Would you like to be the one who tells King Greensparrow that we willingly allowed the Eriadorans to get all the way to Carlisle?” he asked quietly.

The brute stood straight, as if slapped. “Catch them on the field!” he proclaimed. “Ten thousand Praetorians will go out this night!”

Brind’Amour tossed a wink Deanna’s way, and the woman managed a slight nod and smile before Kreignik turned back to her. She noticed then that Brind’Amour went suddenly stiff, the grin flying from his face. He looked all about frantically, and Deanna had no idea what was so suddenly causing him such distress.

“The Fairborn wine,” the old wizard stammered. “I must . . .” He gave a wail and ran off, leaving Deanna mystified.

Until a moment later, when King Greensparrow stalked around the corner at Deanna’s back, flanked by an escort of five Praetorian Guards.

Deanna nearly fainted. “My King,” she stuttered, dropping a respectful curtsy.

“What preparations have you made, Duchess Wellworth?” Greensparrow snapped. “And why have you not returned to Mannington, guiding the fleet against the Eriadorans?”

“I . . . I did not think so small an Eriadoran flotilla would prove a problem,” Deanna explained. “My captains are more skilled . . . and Duke Ashannon will sail across the channel, no doubt.” Deanna hardly knew what she was saying, was desperately trying to improvise. “The more immediate threat seemed this army. The speed and sureness of its approach has been remarkable—I could not leave Warchester unattended.”

She noticed a frown grow on Kreignik’s ugly face. The brute was not stupid. How could Deanna have been in on a “test” with Theredon, as the duke had claimed, yet now claim she thought Warchester had been unattended? Deanna’s heart beat faster; it could all come tumbling down right here, right now. The undercommander said nothing, though, probably too afraid of Greensparrow’s wrath should it speak out of turn.

Greensparrow mulled over the explanation for a moment, then nodded, though his dark eyes never blinked, and his gaze never left Deanna’s eyes. “So you came into Warchester and assumed control,” the king said.

“As we discussed,” Deanna replied, resolutely not looking at Kreignik.

Greensparrow nodded and turned to Kreignik. “And what have you planned?”

“We will go out to destroy the enemy on the field,” the undercommander replied.

Deanna held her breath, not knowing how Greensparrow would feel about such a daring move. The king, after all, understood that the Eriadorans could not possibly crush Warchester, especially since he believed that Brind’Amour was dead.

“This was Deanna’s idea?” Greensparrow asked.

Deanna could tell by his suspicious tone that the king was prying for something. She wondered if Brind’Amour would reveal himself now, come out in open challenge to Greensparrow once and for all. Deanna felt faint with that possibility. Neither she nor the Eriadoran wizard had prepared for such an encounter; both were magically drained from their journey to the city, and Brind’Amour even more so from his impersonation. And to fight the Avon king in here, in the midst of an Avon stronghold, with more than fifteen thousand loyal cyclopians around him, was nothing short of foolish.

Kreignik straightened. “I only thought that . . .” it stammered. “The duchess was not . . . I mean . . .” Kreignik continued to stumble, even more so as Greensparrow’s dark eyes flashed dangerously and the king began to wave his arms. Kreignik took a deep breath, visibly trying to sort out its thoughts, but before the brute got the next word out of its mouth, it was dead, lying in a smoldering heap on the floor. Deanna stared wide-eyed, and then turned her stunned gaze on Greensparrow, who stood shaking his head angrily.

 

 

Watching the action through a mirror in a side room far removed from the corridor, Brind’Amour, too, stared wide-eyed at the unexpected scene. The old wizard knew that he should break the connection—certainly he was taking a risk in divining so near to Greensparrow—but he feared that the Avon king had discovered them, that Deanna would need him. He got some relief when he glanced down to the yellow disenchanting powder he had set about the perimeter of the room the night before. Only the mirror was open to the palace, but even that was dangerous, Brind’Amour realized. He had detected Greensparrow quite by accident, by luck, and now he had to hope that the Avon king was not so fortunate. For Brind’Amour did not want a fight now, not here, not with Luthien oblivious to it all out on the field. At first he had considered throwing himself at the Avon king, in a desperate effort to finish this ugly business once and for all. That course would have gotten him killed, though, and Deanna, too, even if they managed to overcome Greensparrow. Brind’Amour lamented again the weakness of magic in these days. In times of old, if he and another wizard had fallen into a personal battle, then all the soldiers, human or cyclopian, in the area would have run for cover, would have been absolutely inconsequential in the magical fight. But now a sword could be a formidable weapon against a wizard, and those cyclopians standing defensively around Greensparrow certainly knew how to wield their swords!

So Brind’Amour could only watch and pray—pray that Deanna would make no mistakes, and that Greensparrow wouldn’t happen to notice him.

 

 

“Cyclopians,” the Avon king fumed. “This one’s orders were explicit: only Duke Theredon Rees or myself could issue any commands concerning the Warchester garrison. Yet here he is, the fool, abiding by the requests of the duchess of Mannington.”

“You disapprove of my plan?” Deanna asked, trying to keep the sincere relief out of her voice. “I thought that we had agreed—”

“Of course I do not disapprove,” Greensparrow replied with a growling voice, obviously agitated. “I have Eriadorans coming at me from four sides. You destroy the middle here, while Ashannon crushes their flank in the straits, and the threat, if there ever was one, is ended.

“But do not think that your duties will be ended!” Greensparrow snapped suddenly, sharply, and Deanna jumped in surprise. “I expect the invaders to be crushed, slaughtered to the man, or dwarf, and then I charge you and Ashannon with our counterattack. Retrace Brind’Amour’s own steps back to the north, while Ashannon sails to Port Charley. Your forces will meet in Montfort, which the upstarts call Caer MacDonald. Raise my pennant over the city once more, on your life!” He paused a moment, taking a full measure of the woman: recalling, Deanna knew, her failure in the Iron Cross. “Kill anyone who argues the point, and murder their children as well!” he finished, his eyes narrowing.

Deanna nodded with every word, glad that Greensparrow was still following his typically overconfident instincts, thoroughly relieved that he was too assured to suspect the treachery that she and Brind’Amour had attempted here in Warchester. Also, the king’s orders left little doubt in Deanna’s heart that she was following the correct course. When evil Greensparrow told her to murder children, he meant it.

He meant it as he had meant to murder Deanna’s own brothers and sister that night in Carlisle.

It took all the woman’s resolve and years of training for her to hold her thoughts private, and properly shield her emotions. She wanted to lash out at the evil king then and there, force Brind’Amour into the fight so that she could pay this wretched man back for the deaths of her family.

She grinned wickedly instead, nodding.

“You,” Greensparrow snapped at one of his Praetorian Guard escorts. The brute immediately jumped forward, fearing a fate similar to that of Undercommander Kreignik.

“What is your name?”

“Akrass.”

“Undercommander Akrass,” Greensparrow corrected. “You are to follow Duchess Wellworth’s commands as you would have followed those of Duke Theredon Rees.”

Akrass shook its head. “I cannot,” the brute replied. “My orders are to stand by you, and you alone, to the death.”

Greensparrow chuckled and nodded. “You have passed the test,” he assured the brute. “But the test is no more, by my own words.

“Deanna Wellworth is the duchess of Warchester,” he went on, then to Deanna, he added, “Temporarily.”

This caught the five Praetorian Guards by surprise, and Akrass even dared to look back to the others.

Deanna nodded. “I will not fail in this,” she said with clear resolve, and she meant every word, though her intended mission was not what King Greensparrow had in mind.

Not at all.

“You are leaving?” Deanna asked as Greensparrow suddenly swept away.

“I am off to the coast to see about Ashannon,” he snarled.

Deanna was glad that he turned back to the corridor before realizing how pale her face suddenly went.

“You should fly to the east instead,” she blurted, stopping Greensparrow short. He turned slowly to regard her.

“New information,” she stammered, searching for something to tell this tyrant. “I fear that some Huegoths have joined in with our enemies. Their western fleet . . .”

Greensparrow’s face screwed up with rage.

“I wanted to search it out more before speaking with you,” Deanna tried to explain. “I cannot be certain. But now, I have other duties, more important.” She straightened her shoulders, finding her courage. “You should fly out to the east and determine if the information is true. Ashannon will see to the Eriadoran fleet, and I will strike back to the north. We will await you in Montfort!”

Greensparrow let his gaze linger a bit longer on the woman, then turned and pushed through the Praetorian Guards.

Deanna nearly fainted with relief.

In a room not so far away, Brind’Amour sighed.

 

 

Luthien had heard the earlier reports that a great winged creature had landed on the fields south of Warchester. The descriptions had been vague—the army was still several miles from the city, and miles further from those southern fields—but the young Bedwyr could guess at what his scouts were talking about.

This time, he, too, spotted the beast, its great lizardlike form, widespread wings, and long, serpentine tail, as it flew far off to the south and east. Some on the hillock beside him called it a bird, but Luthien knew better.

It was a dragon.

Luthien’s heart sank at the sight. He was one of the very few people alive in all the world who had faced a dragon before, and only dumb luck and the work of Brind’Amour had allowed him to escape. The young Bedwyr couldn’t even imagine fighting such an enemy; he wondered if his entire army could even harm the great beast if it turned suddenly to the north and attacked.

Luthien shook that thought away; if such was true, then the dragon would have come north, breathing its fire and rending man and dwarf. The young Bedwyr looked back over his troops, and took heart. Let the wyrm come north, he decided, and they would put up such a barrage of arrows that the sheer weight of the volley would bring the beast down!

The dragon continued to the east, Luthien saw as he looked back, and was now no more than a speck on the distant horizon.

“Keep going,” Luthien prayed quietly. He suspected that he would see this one again, though. It had landed south of Warchester, which meant that Greensparrow’s allies included more than cyclopians and a handful of wizards.

 

 

“How could you tell him?” Brind’Amour asked, comfortable in his own form again when he and Deanna were alone in the locked and magically secured room.

Deanna held up her hands.

“Of the Huegoths,” Brind’Amour explained impatiently, for she knew what he meant. “How could you tell Greensparrow of the Huegoths?”

Deanna shrugged. “It seemed the lesser evil,” she replied casually. “If Greensparrow had gone to the west, as he had intended, then Ashannon and our fleets would be sorely pressed—likely destroyed even, when you consider the power such a wizard might exert over the cloth and wood of sailing ships. Even worse for us all, if Greensparrow flew west, he would likely discern the truth of it all. Flying east, he will spend many days confirming the information of the Huegoths, if they are as far offshore as you believe, days that we will need if we ever hope to get to Carlisle.”

Brind’Amour was upset, but he understood Deanna’s reasoning. There had to be a measure of truth within a web of lies, the wizard realized, and that truth had to be convincing. Deanna had thrown Greensparrow a bit of valuable information that she might keep his trust, something that she and Brind’Amour certainly needed. It was only that confidence Greensparrow held, in himself and in those he had subjugated, that had thus far kept him oblivious to the treachery. Still, it occurred to Brind’Amour that Deanna’s goals and his own were not one and the same. Both wanted Greensparrow thrown down, but Brind’Amour didn’t think that the duchess would shed many tears if the Eriadoran, dwarvish, and Huegoth forces were badly diminished in the effort.

He would have to keep a close eye on Deanna Wellworth. With that in mind, the wizard closed his eyes and began his transformation once more, assuming the form of Theredon Rees.

“Have you the strength for the illusion?” Deanna asked, drawing the wizard from his contemplations.

Brind’Amour stared at her blankly.

“Dusk is nearly upon us.”

Brind’Amour nodded, catching on. Akrass was busy assembling the ten thousand who would go out from Warchester under cover of darkness.

“The mantle of Duke Theredon is ready to be donned,” Brind’Amour assured her.

Deanna wasn’t sure if that would even be necessary—or wise, since they would have to make up yet another story to satisfy the curiosity of Akrass. Greensparrow had publicly given her power over the entire Warchester garrison, after all, and Theredon was not needed.

Brind’Amour understood the same, but he wasn’t about to let ten thousand cyclopians march out of Warchester under Deanna’s control with his own forces so vulnerable if things were not handled just right. Not yet.

The pair left the room soon after to meet with Akrass, Deanna explaining quickly that since Theredon had returned—and wouldn’t Greensparrow be pleased to learn that his duke was indeed still alive?—she was relinquishing command to him, but also that Greensparrow’s words concerning her own power still held, and she would serve as the duke’s second.

Akrass believed it—what choice did the poor brute have?

They came out of the gates after sunset, the full moon rising in the east. “Theredon” and Deanna headed the procession, in step with the cyclopian Akrass, whose chest was swollen with pride. The one-eye wasted no time in beating any who ventured too near, or who showed even the least amount of disrespect.

Before they had gone very far, before the entire cyclopian line had even crossed under the huge gates, Brind’Amour put out a whistling call that was answered, a moment later, by a small owl, which flew down to the wizard’s arm and cocked its head curiously.

Brind’Amour whispered into the bird’s ear and sent it away, flying north with all speed.

“What do you do?” Akrass asked.

Brind’Amour scowled at him, reminding him that his newly granted power did not include questioning the duke of Warchester! The cyclopian lowered its gaze accordingly.

“Now we have eyes,” Brind’Amour remarked to Deanna.

“Eyes and a plan,” the duchess replied.

That plan was fairly simple: the cyclopians broke up into three groups, with three thousand going over the Dunkery River to flank the Eriadorans on the right, three thousand going over the Eorn River to flank the enemy on the left, and the remaining four thousand, including a fair amount of ponypig cavalry, going straight north, between the rivers, headlong into the Eriadoran encampment with the initial attack. The confusion caused within the Eriadoran army’s ranks would turn to sheer panic, it was reasoned, as soon as the one-eyes came across the Dunkery and the Eorn, squeezing like a vise.

Of course, Brind’Amour and Deanna had other ideas.

 

 

Luthien, Bellick, and Siobhan were quick to respond when word reached them that a talking bird had entered the camp. The young Bedwyr prayed that this might be the work of Brind’Amour, even the wizard himself in a transformed body.

He was a bit disappointed when he found the owl perching on a low branch. It seemed oblivious, and though Brind’Amour often appeared that way, Luthien knew that this was not the wizard. Still there was no doubt that there was a bit of magic about the bird, for it was indeed speaking, uttering only one word: “Princetown.”

“Brind’Amour has gone to Princetown?” Siobhan asked the bird.

“Princetown,” the owl replied.

“At least we now know where the wizard has gone off to,” Bellick remarked sourly, not thrilled to think that Brind’Amour would not rejoin them for their all-important attack against Warchester. As far as any of those in the camp knew, there was an enemy wizard ready to meet that charge.

Luthien wasn’t convinced. He tried questioning the bird along different lines: “Are we to go to Princetown?” and “Has Princetown claimed allegiance with Eriador?” but all that the bird would reply was that one word.

Until Luthien and the other two turned to leave. Then the owl said suddenly, “Glen Durritch.”

As one, the three turned back to the bird. “Princetown, Glen Durritch,” grumbled Bellick, not catching on.

“Left, right, straight ahead,” said the bird, and then, as though the enchantment put over the creature had expired, the owl silently flew off into the darkness.

Luthien’s face brightened.

“What do you know?” Siobhan asked him.

“Only once have we gone against a fortified Avon city,” Luthien replied. “And we won a smashing victory.”

“Princetown,” Bellick put in.

“But we did not actually battle against the city,” Siobhan objected.

“We fought in Glen Durritch,” said Luthien. Siobhan’s face brightened next, but Bellick, who had come on the scene in Princetown near the end of the battle and really didn’t know how things had fallen out so favorably, remained in the dark.

“Brind’Amour took the form of Princetown’s Duke Paragor and sent the city’s garrison out from behind the high walls,” Luthien explained.

Bellick’s gaze snapped to the south, toward Warchester. “You’re not thinking . . .” the dwarf began.

“That is exactly what I am thinking,” Luthien replied.

Siobhan called for the scouts to go out in force, and for the camp to be roused and readied for battle.

“This was a warning from Brind’Amour,” Luthien insisted, joining Bellick as the dwarf continued to stare out to the south. “The garrison is coming out, and we must be ready for them.”

 

 

For the three cyclopian groups, the one crossing the swift Dunkery had the most difficult time.

Even worse for the one-eyes, Bellick had realized that they would.

The cyclopian flank was split, a third already across the river, a third in the water, and the rest lining the eastern bank, preparing to cross, when the Eriadorans hit. The cavalry, led by Luthien and Siobhan, sliced down the eastern bank, while archers opened mercilessly on those brutes struggling in the water, their thrashing forms clearly illuminated by the full moon. At the same time, Bellick’s dwarven charges overwhelmed those on the western bank, pushing them back into the river.

The waters ran red with cyclopian blood; even more brutes drowned in the swift current, their support lines chopped by dwarvish axes. Those one-eyes on the eastern bank were the most fortunate, for some of them, anyway, managed to run off into the night, screaming and without any semblance of order.

It was over quickly.

But though the rout was in full spate, the Eriadorans had just begun this night’s work. Spearheaded by Luthien’s cavalry, the force charged off to the south, determined to get to Warchester ahead of the remaining two cyclopian groups, to ambush them out on the field.

 

 

“It is empty!” Akrass roared, kicking at a bedroll—a bedroll stuffed with leaves and stones so as to appear full. Every fire in the vast encampment burned low, every blanket, every bedroll, covered nothing more than inanimate stuffing.

Before the cyclopian could even begin to express its outrage, the sounds of battle drifted in from the east, from the Dunkery.

“They have gone out to meet our flank!” yelled Brind’Amour, still in Theredon’s guise but growing more weary by the moment.

Akrass called for formations, thinking to charge right off to the east and ambush the ambushers. With his duke’s blessing, the undercommander did just that, so he thought.

The moon could be a curious thing when wizards were nearby. Simple spells of reflection could make the pale orb seem to shift its position. Similarly, spells of echo reflection could alter the apparent source of clear noise. And so the disoriented Akrass led his four thousand straight to the north instead of the east.

“Nice moon,” Brind’Amour remarked to Deanna as they put their horses in line for the march, as the old wizard realized just how well Deanna had executed the enchantment.

“Simple trick,” the woman replied humbly.

Brind’Amour was truly pleased. “Simple but effective.”

 

 

The last of the Warchester formations trudged across the low and muddy Eorn without incident. They were too far away to hear the sounds of battle, or the rumble of the cyclopian thrust to the north, and so they, like Akrass’s group, were caught completely by surprise when they happened upon the Eriadoran encampment, expecting to find the battle underway, but discovering nothing but empty bedrolls.

By that time, the fields to the east were quiet once more.

The cyclopian leader of this group, without Theredon or Deanna or even Akrass to guide it, ordered a full retreat, and so the force set out back down the Eorn, this time on the river’s eastern bank. They looked over their shoulders every step, hoping that their comrades would come marching down behind them, but fearing that the charge from behind might come from the sneaky Eriadorans.

Their defensive posture was to the rear then, as in any good retreat.

Except that this time they got hit from the front, and then from both sides as the superior Eriadoran forces closed on them like the jaws of a hungry wolf. It took several minutes for all the one-eyes to realize that these were their enemies; many thought that they were being greeted, and then erroneously attacked, by the garrison that had remained at Warchester!

They figured out the truth eventually, those that were still alive, but by that time it was far too late. Confusion turned to panic; cyclopians ran off in every direction, though the dark silhouette of high-walled Warchester was clearly visible to the south. Some desperately called for the garrison to come out to their aid, but the one-eyes inside the high walls, with typical selfish cowardice, would not dare desert the defensible city to save their kin.

 

 

“Long enough,” Brind’Amour and Deanna decided, though it was a moot point. The leading edge of the cyclopian force, Akrass riding among them, had come into a village—and recognized the place as Billingsby, a hamlet five miles north of Warchester.

Deanna trotted her horse ahead of the main group to meet with the undercommander as Akrass came thundering back from Billingsby.

“The Eriadoran wizard-king, Brind’Amour, has struck,” she said in despair. “He has obviously deceived us and led us in the wrong direction!”

Akrass wanted to strike the woman; Deanna could see that.

“Greensparrow will blame me,” Deanna said, intercepting the brute’s intentions.

The furious cyclopian backed off immediately, figuring that if it attacked Deanna now, perhaps even killing her, Greensparrow’s ire might fall squarely on its own shoulders.

“To Warchester!” the cyclopian undercommander howled, waiting for no commands from the wizards. Akrass galloped his ponypig up and down the line, sweeping up the marching cyclopians in its wake, thundering back to the south.

 

 

By the time the battle was finished, the eastern sky had turned a lighter shade of blue, dawn fast approaching. Bellick’s Cutter scouts came riding hard, informing the dwarf king that the third and largest force had swung about and was double-timing it back to the south, straight for Warchester.

King Bellick stroked his fiery orange beard and considered his options. His army was tired, obviously so, for they had fought two vicious encounters already. And with the daylight, and the warning cries that would no doubt come out from Warchester, it didn’t seem likely that this third group would be caught so unawares.

Bellick split his forces, east and west, marching them out of sight of the city, with orders to let the one-eyes pass, then come in hard at the back of their line.

The men and dwarfs and Fairborn, bone-weary, covered in blood of kin and enemy, eagerly agreed.

The cyclopian line came in stretched thin, with the one-eyes too concerned with getting back to the safety of Warchester to consider their defensive posture. That march turned into an all-out rout when the Eriadorans appeared, striking hard at the rear flanks, chasing and killing the brutes all the way to Warchester’s gates.

That was where Bellick and Luthien had determined to turn about for some much-needed rest, but unexpectedly, a moment later, the iron gates crackled with blue lightning—and then fell open wide.

For one horrible moment, Luthien feared that the entire Warchester garrison was about to come out at them. But then, as the lightning continued to crackle, consuming many Praetorian Guards standing near those gates, the young Bedwyr recognized the truth: that Brind’Amour had opened wide the city. All weariness washed from Luthien, and from the rest of the Eriadoran forces, with the presentation of such an opportunity. To Bellick’s call, they charged ahead, howling and firing bows.

 

 

THE WALLS OF WARCHESTER

The cavalry made the courtyard inside the gates and found it surprisingly deserted—even those one-eyes who had just reentered the city had fled for better ground. And that, Luthien saw with despair, would not be difficult to find. Warchester was surrounded not by one wall, but by several, all spiraling around the city proper and offering scores of defensible positions. Cyclopians were terrible with bows and even with throwing spears, but the defenders of the city were not all cyclopian, and Luthien could see just from this one area that those archers among the Avonese ranks would have many opportunities to fire their bows at the invaders. Luthien wished that he had the luxury of proper preparation, that he and Siobhan, Bellick, and some others could sit around a fire with a map of the city’s interior and lay out organized plans. The young Bedwyr had been in enough large-scale battles to know the impossibility of that. He had pointed his forces in the right direction, but now, in the helter-skelter of pitched fighting, each warrior would have to make his own choices, each group would find new obstacles and would have to discern a way around them.

Luthien hated the prospects of this city fighting with so many miles yet to go, but the Eriadorans had gained the main gate, and this was an opportunity that simply could not be passed up. Luthien prodded Riverdancer to his right, where the curving courtyard began to slope up. Most followed in his wake, some went to the left. Still others, mostly dwarfs, went straight ahead at the next wall, hoisting ladders or throwing ropes fixed with strong grappling hooks, then pulling themselves upward, fearless, seemingly oblivious to the many one-eyes who came to defend the high wall.

Luthien didn’t have to go far to find a fight. Just around the bend, he came to a jag in the wall, behind which a score of cyclopians had dug in. Calling for Siobhan, he plunged ahead, cutting down the closest of the brutes with a mighty swing of his heavy sword. Riverdancer trampled yet another one, and then Luthien leaped the horse ahead, leaving the one-eyes behind to the throng coming hard in his wake.

Further around the bend, Luthien was able to gain a vantage point where he might look back to the inner wall directly across from the broken gates. He turned just as a dwarf went tumbling from its height, sliding off the edge of a cyclopian sword. But that brute, and others near it, were overwhelmed as a dozen other bearded warriors crashed in. The wall was taken.

An arrow zipped past Luthien’s face, and he turned to follow its course in time to see it nail another one-eye right in the chest. The brute staggered, but was pushed aside as a wedge of cyclopians charged down the gap between the walls, heading Luthien’s way.

The young Bedwyr and his cavalry unit met them and trampled them.

 

 

The central and highest area of Warchester, like all large Avonsea cities, was dominated by a tremendous cathedral, this one named the Ladydancer. Around the structure was an open plaza, which on quiet days served as a huge open marketplace. Now that plaza was swarming, the terrified populace desperate to get inside the cathedral.

But the doors were not yet open.

Deanna Wellworth, Brind’Amour, and Akrass the cyclopian stood on the balcony that opened above the cathedral’s main doors. Over and over, Brind’Amour, posing still as Duke Theredon, called for quiet, and gradually the hysterical crowd did calm—enough so that the sounds of the battle raging along the outer walls of the city could be clearly heard.

That done, the old wizard stepped back, taking a place next to Akrass, and Deanna took center stage.

“You know me,” the woman cried out to the crowd. “I am Deanna Wellworth, duchess of Mannington.”

Several calls came back, some for the opening of the Ladydancer, others asking if Deanna’s garrison would come to Warchester’s support.

“What you do not know,” Deanna went on, and her voice was superhumanly powerful, enhanced by magic, “is that I am the rightful heir to the throne of Avon.”

The people didn’t react strongly, seemed not to understand her point. Of course they knew of Deanna’s lineage, at least the older folk among them did, but what did that have to do with the present situation, the impending disaster in Warchester?

“I am the rightful queen of Avon!” Deanna shouted. She looked to Brind’Amour and nodded, and before Akrass could even begin to digest that proclamation, the one-eye was dead, Brind’Amour’s dagger deep into its back.

“I can no longer tolerate the injustices!” Deanna cried above the growing murmurs and open shouts. “I can no longer tolerate any alliance with filthy one-eyes, nor the truth of Greensparrow! You have heard the rumors of a dragon lighting on the fields south of the city. That was no Eriadoran ally, my people, but our own king, in his natural form!”

Like a giant wave caught between many great rocks, the crowd jostled back and forth, erupting in places, noisy everywhere.

“Hear me, my subjects of proud Warchester!” Deanna shouted. “This is no invading army, but a mercenary force hired by your rightful queen! This is my army, come from Eriador to restore the proper ruler of Avon to her throne!”

Brind’Amour heard a tumult behind him and casually turned about and threw his magical energy into the huge door of the balcony, warping the wood and sealing it tight. “You will start a riot,” he stated, an obvious fact, given the level of commotion mounting below them.

“We need a riot,” Deanna insisted.

Brind’Amour could not disagree. He had seen the defenses of the fortress called Warchester and knew that there remained several thousand cyclopians ready to fight in the place. Add to that the thirty thousand humans who called Warchester city their home and Bellick’s forces were sorely outnumbered.

The old wizard stepped forward, dragging dead Akrass with him. Yet another enchantment—and Brind’Amour was fast exhausting the energy to cast such spells—made the cyclopian as light as a feather pillow, and Brind’Amour lifted the corpse high into the air above his head. “Take up arms against your true oppressors!” the fake Duke Theredon instructed. “Death to the one-eyes!”

That cry echoed back from a surprisingly large number of men and women, and the plaza erupted into chaos. There weren’t many cyclopians about—most were down at the lower walls—but not all of the gathered people would heed Deanna’s call. Thus the riot Brind’Amour had predicted began in full.

“Sort it out,” he bade Deanna. “Find your allies and secure the Ladydancer. Get the wounded and the defenseless inside.”

Deanna was already thinking along those same lines, and she nodded her agreement, though Brind’Amour, in a puff of orange smoke, was already gone to find Luthien.

Deanna continued to prod on her supporters, telling them to join together, to clearly identify themselves. Her speech was interrupted, though, as a heavy spear thudded down on the balcony just beside her. Turning, Deanna saw that several brutes had gained a perch on the tower high above her.

Her response—a crackling bolt of writhing black energy—only bolstered Deanna’s support as it cleared that tower of one-eyes.

Turning back to the crowd, Deanna soon discerned a large group of organized supporters, working coherently and trying to get the innocents behind them, between them and the cathedral doors. The rightful queen of Avon turned and shattered Brind’Amour’s stuck doors with yet another bolt, then fried the band of surprised cyclopians standing in the anteroom just inside. Soon the cathedral doors were thrown wide, and Deanna had her growing army of Warchester rebels.

The riot raged across the plaza.

 

 

Brind’Amour knew that his magic was nearing its end for this day. Despite the adrenaline rush and the wild fighting all about him, the old wizard wanted nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep. He used his wits instead, using his disguise to break up groups of cyclopians who were holding defensible regions of the wall by ordering them off on some silly business, weakening the line with improper commands.

It was more than an hour before the old wizard finally spotted some allies, a force of nearly a hundred dwarfs battling fiercely in ankle-deep water on the edge of a small moat surrounding one of the guardhouses. With no magical power to spare, Brind’Amour moved on. It took him another half hour to finally hear the thunder of hooves.

Coming to the edge of a high wall, Brind’Amour saw the forces squaring off on either side of a long and narrow channel: Luthien and a hundred riders, Fairborn mostly, at one end, and a like number of cyclopians on ponypigs at the other.

The charge shook the ground of all the huge city. Luthien’s cavalry gained an advantage with a volley of bow shots, but unlike the encounters on the open fields, they could not strike and then turn away. This time, the forces came crashing together in a wild and wicked melee, many going down under the sheer weight of the impact, others held up in their saddles only because there was no room for them to fall.

Amidst it all, the weary old wizard spotted Luthien on that shining white stallion, his mighty sword chopping ceaselessly, his voice calling for spirit and for Eriador free.

But the cost, Brind’Amour pondered. The terrible cost.

Luthien and nearly half his force broke through, and a swarm of Eriadoran foot soldiers came into the channel behind them, finishing off the beaten cyclopians, tending the Eriadoran wounded, and running off eagerly after the Crimson Shadow.

The fighting soon got worse—by Brind’Amour’s estimation, and by Luthien’s—for it became, in many places, human against human.

It ended late that afternoon, except for a few pockets of fortified resistance, with another victory for Eriador, with Warchester taken. The price had been high, though, devastatingly high, the northern army taking casualties of four out of every ten. Nearly half of Bellick’s fearless dwarfs were dead or wounded.

Support for Deanna Wellworth was strong among the populace, but not without question. The woman had taken credit for the attack, and every family in Warchester had suffered grievously. Still, those Avonese who came out of the Ladydancer that night spoke of the evil of Greensparrow and their common hatred of cyclopians, and, sometime later, of the mercy shown by the conquering Eriadorans, who were tending Warchester’s wounded as determinedly as they tended their own.

Brind’Amour was glad to be back in his own form again, though he was so exhausted that he could hardly walk. He introduced Deanna to Luthien, Bellick, and the other Eriadoran leaders and told them all that had transpired.

“We have won the day,” Siobhan declared, “but at great cost.”

“We’re ready to march on,” a determined Shuglin was quick to respond. “Carlisle is not so far!”

“In good time,” Brind’Amour said to the eager dwarf. “In good time. But first we must see what allies we have made here.”

“And I must return to Mannington,” Deanna added, “to find what forces I can muster for the march to Carlisle.”

Brind’Amour nodded, but did not seem so encouraged. “Mannington is still a city of Avon,” he reminded. “This battle might well be repeated in your own streets, but without the support of Eriador’s army.”

“Not so,” said Deanna. “Most of my Praetorian Guards are out with the fleet, and no doubt at the bottom of the channel by now, and I have sown the seeds of revolt for some time among the most influential of my people.” She managed a sly grin. “Among the bartenders and innkeepers, mostly, who have the ear of the common folk. Mannington will not be so bloody, and a large number, I believe, will follow me out to the south, to Carlisle, where we will join you on the final field.”

It was encouraging news, to be sure, but for the Eriadorans, who had fought through fifty miles of mountains and a hundred miles of farmland, who had fought four battles over the course of one night and one day, the mere thought of continuing the march brought deep and profound sighs. They were tired, all of them, and they had so far yet to travel.

“Keep a transportation spell ready,” Brind’Amour warned, “in case Greensparrow looks in on you and discovers the truth of it all.”

“He will know soon enough,” Deanna replied. “And he will not be pleased.” With a comforting smile, and a pat of her hand on the old wizard’s stooped shoulder, the proclaimed queen of Avon went off.

“Secure the city and our camp,” Brind’Amour instructed Bellick. “We will stay five days, at the least.”

“Time favors Greensparrow,” the dwarf warned.

“Who could have anticipated the fall of Warchester in a single day?” Brind’Amour asked. “I had believed we would be bogged here for at least a week, perhaps even several, perhaps even leaving half our numbers behind to maintain a siege. We have the time, and need the rest.”

Bellick grunted and nodded, and walked off with Shuglin and his other dwarven commanders to see to the task.

Luthien and Siobhan also went off, to determine what remained of their cavalry, and what new horses might be garnered within Warchester. They tallied their number of kills as they walked, after agreeing that they would not count, or even speak of, the men they had necessarily killed this day. Counting dead cyclopians was one thing, a relief from the pressures of the war, an incentive to keep up the good fight. Counting human kills would only remind them of the horrors of war, something that neither of them could afford.

“Sixty-three,” Luthien decided for himself, and Siobhan’s fair face screwed up as she admitted a total of only “Sixty-one.”

Neither of them spoke it, but they both realized that the half-elf would find ample opportunity to catch up in the days, even weeks, ahead.

When the army left Warchester, six days later, they were well-rested and well-supplied, their ranks thick with soldiers indeed, for many of Warchester’s folk decided to join in the fight against Greensparrow, to join in the cause for their rightful queen.

“It is as I told you it would be,” a grinning Luthien said to Brind’Amour as they started out. “Avon will rise against Greensparrow in the knowledge that our cause is a just one. Perhaps we should have continued our last war from Princetown, after we together destroyed evil Duke Paragor.”

“You did predict this,” Siobhan admitted, riding along easily beside the pair. “Though I never would have believed that the folk of Avon would join in the cause of an invading force.”

“They did not,” Brind’Amour said in all seriousness. “Those who have joined have done so only because of one person. Had Deanna Wellworth not risen against Greensparrow, then our fight for Warchester would have been desperate and the army marching from Mannington would be marching against us.”

It was sobering talk, a reminder of just how tentative this had all been, and would likely remain. Brind’Amour said nothing of the sea battle in the Straits of Mann, for he had not found the time or the magical energy to discern how his fleet had fared.

The old wizard could guess at the situation, though, had a good feeling about it all that he kept private until he could be sure.

The rout of Avon was on in full.

 

 

Greensparrow paced anxiously about his great throne, wringing his hands every step. He went back to the throne and sat down once more, but was standing and pacing again within a few short moments.

Duke Cresis had never seen the king so agitated, and the cyclopian, who had heard many of the reports, suspected that the situation was even more grave than it had reasoned.

“Treachery,” Greensparrow muttered. “Miserable treacherous rats. I’ll see them dead every one, that wretched Ashannon and ugly Deanna. Yes, Deanna, I’ll take whatever pleasures I desire before finishing that traitorous dog!”

So it was true, Cresis understood. The duke of Baranduine and the duchess of Mannington had conspired with the enemy against Greensparrow. The brutish one-eye wisely held in check its comments concerning the irony, realizing that a single errant word could bring the full wrath of Greensparrow. When the king of Avon was in such a foul temper, most thinking beings made it a point to go far, far away. Cresis couldn’t afford that luxury now, though, not with two Eriadoran land armies and one, possibly two fleets converging on Carlisle.

Greensparrow went back to the throne and plopped down unceremoniously, even fell to the side and threw one leg over the arm of the great chair. His kingdom was crumbling beneath him, he knew, and there seemed little he could do to slow his enemy’s momentum. If he threw himself into the battle with his full magical powers, he would be putting himself at great risk, for he did not know the full power of Brind’Amour.

There is always an escape, the king mused, and that part of Greensparrow that was the dragon longed for the safe bogs of the Saltwash.

He shook that notion away; it was too soon for thinking of abdicating, too soon to surrender. Perhaps he would have to go to the Saltwash, but only after the Eriadorans had suffered greatly. He had to find a way . . .

“The Eriadoran and Baranduine fleet approaches the mouth of the Stratton,” Cresis offered. “Our warships will hit them on the river, in the narrower waters where the great catapults lining the banks can support us.”

Greensparrow was shaking his head before the brute was halfway finished. “They will sail right past the river,” the king explained, confident of his words, for he had seen much in his days of dragonflight. “A battle is brewing on the open waters south of Newcastle.”

“Then our eastern fleet will join in, and we will catch all the Eriadoran ships and those of treacherous Baranduine in between!” the cyclopian said with great enthusiasm. “Our warships are still the greater!”

“And what of the Huegoths?” Greensparrow snapped, and fell back helplessly into his throne. That much of what Deanna had told him was true, he had confirmed. A great Huegoth fleet was sailing with the Eriadorans in the east. In his dragon form, Greensparrow had swooped low, setting one longship aflame, but the wall of arrows, spears, even balls of pitch and great stones, that rose up to meet him had been too great, forcing him to turn for home.

He had gone to Evenshorn first, and there had confirmed that Mystigal was not to be found. Then, flying high and fast to the west, he had spotted the second Eriadoran army sweeping across the rolling fields between Deverwood and Carlisle, like an ocean tide that could not be thwarted. Still, it wasn’t until Greensparrow had arrived back in Carlisle, his fortress home, that his spirits had been crushed. In the time the king of Avon had taken to go so far to the east and back, many had come running down from the region of Speythenfergus to report the disaster in Warchester, and word had passed along the coast and up the Stratton about Duke Ashannon’s turnabout in the Straits of Mann.

Cresis appeared truly horrified. “Huegoths?” the cyclopian stammered, knowing well the cursed name.

“Evil allies for evil foes,” Greensparrow sneered.

The cyclopian’s eye blinked many times, Cresis licking its thick lips as it tried to sort out the stunning news. To the brutish general, there seemed only one course.

“One army at a time!” Cresis insisted. “I will march north with the garrison to meet our closest enemies. When they are finished, if time runs short, I will turn back for Carlisle to prepare the city defenses.”

“No,” Greensparrow said simply, for he knew that if the garrison went north, that second Eriadoran army would swing west and catch them from the side. Greensparrow was even thinking that he had better focus his vision on Mannington for a while, to see if treacherous Deanna had raised an army of her own to march south.

“Prepare the defenses now,” Greensparrow instructed after a long silence. “You must defend the city to the last.”

Cresis didn’t miss the fact that Greensparrow had not said “We must defend the city to the last.”

With a click of his booted heels and a curt bow, the cyclopian left the king.

Alone, Greensparrow sighed and considered again how fragile his kingdom had become. How could he have missed the treachery of Deanna Wellworth, or even worse, how could he not have foreseen the efforts of the duke of Baranduine against him? As soon as Deanna had reported the supposed fight with Brind’Amour, Greensparrow should have gone straight off to find Taknapotin or one of the familiar demons of the other dukes and confirmed her tale.

“But how could I have known?” the king said aloud. “Little Deanna, how surprising you have become!” He had underestimated her, and badly, he admitted privately. He had thought that her own guilt, his cryptic stories and those of Selna, and the carrot of ruling over Mannington, and perhaps soon in Warchester as well, would have held her ambition in check, would have kept Deanna bound to him for the remainder of her life. Greensparrow had long ago seen to it, using devilish potions administered by his lackey Selna, that Deanna would bear no children, thus ending the line of Wellworths, and he had sincerely believed that Deanna could prove no more than a minor thorn in his side for the short remainder of her life.

How painful that thorn seemed now!

His northern reaches had crumbled and four armies were on the move against him. Carlisle was a mighty, fortified city, to be sure, and Greensparrow himself was no minor foe.

But neither was Brind’Amour, or Deanna, or Ashannon McLenny, or this Crimson Shadow character, or the Huegoths, or . . .

How long the list seemed to the beleaguered king of Avon. Again that dragon side of him imparted images of the warm bogs of the Saltwash, and they seemed harder to ignore. Perhaps, Greensparrow considered, he had erred so badly because he had grown weary of Avon’s throne, had grown weary of wearing the trappings of a mere human when his other side was so much stronger, so much freer.

The Avon king growled and leaped up from his throne. “No more of that, Dansallignatious!” he yelled, and kicked the throne.

I would have kicked it right through the wall, the dragon side of him reminded.

Greensparrow bit hard his lip and stalked away.

 

 

CAUGHT

They came in right between the twin tributaries that bore the name of Stratton, a scene not unlike the approach to Warchester, except that there was less ground leading to Carlisle. And the cities themselves, though both formidable bastions, could not have appeared more different. Warchester was a dark place, a brooding fortress, its walls all of gray and black stone banded with black iron, its towers square and squat, and with evenly spaced crenellations across its battlements. Carlisle was more akin to Princetown, a shining place of white polished walls and soaring spires. Her towers were round, not square, and her walls curved gracefully, following the winding flow of the Stratton. Huge arching bridges reached over that split river, east and west, joining the city proper with smaller castles, reflections of the main. She was a place of beauty, even from afar, but also a place of undeniable strength.

Luthien could feel that, even regarding the place from across two miles of rolling fields. He could imagine attacking Carlisle, the white walls turning brown from poured oil, red from spilled blood. A shudder coursed along the young Bedwyr’s spine. The trek to Carlisle had been filled with terrible battles, in the mountains, across the fields, in Warchester, but none of them seemed to prepare Luthien for what he now believed would soon come, the grandfather of those battles.

“You should be afraid,” remarked Siobhan, riding up beside the young man where he sat upon Riverdancer.

“It is a mighty place,” Luthien said quietly.

“It will fall,” the half-elf casually replied.

Luthien looked upon her, truly scrutinized the beautiful woman. How different Siobhan appeared now, all bathed and cleaned, than after the fights, when her wheat-colored tresses were matted flat to her shoulders by the blood of her enemies, when her eyes showed no sympathy, no mercy, only the fires of battle rage. Luthien admired this indomitable spirit, loved her for her ability to do what was necessary, to shut her more tender emotions off at those times when they would be a weakness.

The young Bedwyr dared to entertain an image then, of him and Katerin, Oliver, and Siobhan, riding across the fields in search of adventure.

“Do not tarry,” came a call from behind, and the pair turned to see Brind’Amour’s approach. “Bellick is already at work, and we must be as well, setting our defenses in place.”

“Do you think Greensparrow will come out of his hole?” Siobhan asked skeptically.

“I would, if I were caught in his place,” replied Brind’Amour. “He must know of the approaching fleets—he was told of the Huegoths—and his eyes have no doubt seen the charge of our sister army, sweeping down from the northeast.

“I would come out at this one force with all my strength,” the wizard finished. “With all my strength.”

Luthien looked back to the high walls of Carlisle, shining brightly in the afternoon sun. Brind’Amour’s reasoning was sound, as usual, and the army would be better off taking all precautions.

So they dug trenches and set out lines of scouts, fortifying their perimeter and sleeping beside their weapons, particularly the tough dwarfs, who settled down for the night in full battle armor.

They didn’t really expect anything until the next dawn; cyclopians didn’t like to fight in the dark any more than did the men or dwarfs. The Fairborn, though, with their keen eyesight, thought little of the problems of night fighting, even preferred it.

And so did the dragon.

Greensparrow walked out of Carlisle as the midnight hour passed, quietly and without fanfare. Safely out of the city, the king called to that other half, the great dragon Dansallignatious, the familiar beast he had joined with those centuries before in the Saltwash. The king began to change, began to grow. He became huge, black and green, spread wide his leathery wings and lifted off into the night sky.

Just a few minutes later, he made his first pass over the Eriadoran encampment, spewing forth his fiery breath.

But the invaders were not caught by surprise, not with the Fairborn elves watching the night sky. A hail of arrows nipped at the swooping dragon, and Brind’Amour, who had rested through all the ten days it had taken the army to march from Warchester, and for the week before that when they had remained in the captured city, loosed his fury in the form of a series of stinging bolts of power, first blue, then red, then searing yellow, and finally a brilliant white, cutting the night sky like lightning strokes.

Dansallignatious took the hits, one, two, three, four, and flew on to the north, scales smoking, eyes burning. The beast took some comfort in the havoc he had left in his wake, a line of fire, a chorus of agonized screams. Far from the camp, he banked to the west, then turned south, preparing another pass.

Again came the hail of arrows, again came the wizard’s bolts, and the dragon flew through, killing and burning the earth below him.

There would be no third run; Greensparrow was spent and battered. He went back into the city satisfied, though, for his wounds would quickly heal, but those scores he had killed on the field were forever dead.

 

 

The next day dawned gray and gloomy, fitting for the mood in the Eriadoran camp. Many had died in the dragon strafing, including more than a hundred dwarfs, and the wounds of dozens of survivors were horrible indeed.

The Eriadorans prepared for an assault, suspecting that the dragon attack had been the precursor for the full-scale attack. They expected the gates of Carlisle to swing wide, pouring forth a garrison that numbered, by most reports, more than twenty thousand.

That indeed was Greensparrow’s intention, but the plan was scratched, and the hearts of the Eriadorans were lifted high indeed, when the wide line of the Stratton south of Carlisle filled suddenly with sails! Scores of sails, hundreds of sails, stretched by a south wind and rushing to the north.

Siobhan spotted the banner of Eriador, Brind’Amour noted the green, white-bordered markings of Baranduine, and Luthien saw the froth of Huegoth oars.

“The dragon will come out against them, and leave them flaming on the river,” Luthien said.

Brind’Amour wasn’t so sure of that. “I do not believe that our enemy has truly revealed himself to those he commands,” the old wizard reasoned. “Do you think that the folk of Carlisle know that they have a dragon for a king?”

“He could still come out,” Luthien argued, “and later dismiss the event as the trick of a wizard.”

“Then let us hope that we wounded him badly enough yestereve that he will not,” Siobhan put in grimly.

The lead vessels never slowed, crossing under the high bridges east of Carlisle proper. Cyclopians crowded on those bridges, heaving spears, dropping stones, but the ships plowed on, returning fire, clearing large sections with seemingly solid walls of arrows. From Carlisle proper and from the smaller fortress across the river to the east, came catapult balls. One galleon was hit several times and sent to the bottom.

But the maneuverable Huegoth longships were on the spot in a moment, plucking survivors from the river, then swinging fast to the north, oars pounding to keep them in close to their companion vessels.

Despite the Stratton’s sometimes formidable current, the ships passed the killing zone too quickly for the defenders of Carlisle to exact very much damage, and as if in answer to the prayers of those watching in the north, the dragon Greensparrow did not make an appearance. Nearly a third of the total fleet sailed on, their prows lifting high the water. An occasional catapult shot soared in, more often than not splashing harmlessly into the river, and even those attacks were soon enough put far behind the vessels.

Luthien took note of the wide grin that came over Siobhan’s face, and he followed her shining stare to one of the lead sailing ships, a Baranduine vessel, which seemed to be in a race against a Huegoth longship. Both ships were still too far away for individuals to be discerned on the decks, even for Siobhan’s keen eyes, with the exception of one remarkable silhouette.

“He is on his pony!” Luthien exclaimed.

“He always has to be the center,” snickered Siobhan.

Luthien smiled widely as he considered the half-elf, once again trying to picture her with Oliver.

Lines of soldiers cheered the approach at a wide and sheltered region where the ships could drop anchor and the Huegoths and some of the smaller Baranduine vessels could even put in to shore. The ropes came flying in to them, were caught and secured, and the forces were joined.

“Luthien!” The call, the familiar voice, sent the young Bedwyr’s heart fluttering. Throughout the weeks of fighting, Luthien had been forced to sublimate his pressing fears for his dear Katerin, had to trust in the woman’s ability. Now that trust was rewarded as Katerin O’Hale, her skin darker from the days under the sun, but otherwise none the worse for her journey, came bounding down the gangplank of the lead Baranduine vessel, Duke Ashannon McLenny’s flagship. The woman pushed her way through the crowd and threw herself into Luthien’s waiting embrace, planting a deep kiss on the young man’s lips.

Luthien blushed deeply at the coos and cheers that went up around him, but that only spurred Katerin on to give him an even more passionate kiss.

The cheering turned to laughter, drawing the couple from their embrace. They shifted to get a view of Oliver, still on Threadbare, coming onto the long gangplank.

“My horse, he so loves the water,” the halfling explained. That may have been true, but his horse, like everyone else coming off the ships after weeks at sea, had to find its land legs. Threadbare came down two steps, went one to the side, then two back the other way, nearly tumbling from the narrow plank. Then back the other way, and back and forth, all the while making slow progress toward the shore.

Oliver tried to appear calm and collected through it all, coaxing his pony and praying that he wouldn’t be thrown into the water—not in front of all these people! With some care, the halfling finally managed to get the pony onto the bank, to a chorus of cheers.

“Not a problem!” the halfling cried with a triumphant snap of his fingers, as he slid his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground.

Unfortunately, Oliver’s legs were no less used to the swaying of shipboard than were Threadbare’s, and he immediately skittered to the left, then three steps back, then back to the right, then back again. He made a halfhearted grab at Threadbare’s tail, but the pony was so named because of that skinny appendage, and Oliver slipped off, falling to his seat in the water.

The cheers became howls of glee and two men ran down to Oliver and scooped him up.

“I meant to do that,” the halfling insisted.

That brought even louder howls, but they stopped abruptly, transforming into hushed whispers, when Siobhan moved near Oliver. Rumors about these two had been circulating and growing during the weeks and now everyone, Luthien and Katerin perhaps most of all (with the sole exception of wide-eyed Oliver!), wanted to see what Siobhan would do.

“Welcome back,” she said, taking Oliver’s hand, and she kissed him on the cheek and led him away.

The crowd seemed disappointed.

The time for greetings was necessarily short, with so many plans to be made and movements to be coordinated. Carlisle had not yet fallen, and the mere appearance of reinforcements did not change that situation!

The leaders met within the hour, Brind’Amour, Bellick, old Dozier, and Ashannon, along with Luthien, Siobhan, Katerin, and Oliver. Brind’Amour arranged for Ethan to keep King Asmund away for a short while, that he might first deal with his closest advisors, and with Duke Ashannon, who was still a bit of a mystery in all of this.

Ashannon and Katerin did most of the talking at first, with Oliver throwing in details of his own heroics.

“The Avonese fleet did not engage us south of Newcastle, as we expected,” Katerin reported.

Brind’Amour seemed concerned, but Katerin was quick to put his obvious fears to rest.

“They were badly outnumbered and had little heart for the fight, especially when the Huegoth longships came into the lead of our eastern fleet,” she explained. “They sailed south for Gascony, and there asked for refuge.”

“Which the Gascons granted,” Ashannon added. “But not without concessions.”

Oliver conspicuously cleared his throat, and Ashannon yielded the floor.

“I met with my countrymen,” the halfling explained. “The Avon-types were granted sanctuary, but only on condition that they declare neutrality. Greensparrow’s fleet is out of the war.”

“Most welcomed news,” Brind’Amour congratulated. “Most welcomed!”

There were smiles all around, except for Katerin. “I have heard word of a force of five thousand coming down from the north,” she said gravely.

“Duchess Deanna Wellworth and her garrison from Mannington,” Luthien explained, and the tone of his voice told Katerin that these were not enemies.

“Deanna is a friend,” Ashannon assured her. “And more importantly, she is a sworn enemy of King Greensparrow.”

It proved to be a fine meeting, a meeting full of optimism, and now that the prongs of the invasion were closing in on Carlisle, Luthien and all the others dared to hope for victory.

Those hopes brightened with the dawn, as Deanna Wellworth’s soldiers joined the line, and that same afternoon, the lead riders, Kayryn Kulthwain among them, came in from the northeast, heralding the approach of the second Eriadoran army, a force that was now larger than it had been when it left Malpuissant’s Wall.

By mid-morning of the next day, Brind’Amour would have fifty thousand on the field encircling Carlisle, with supply lines stretching the breadth of Avon and the fruitful southern coast open to his warships.

Among the Eriadoran allies, there remained only one voice of dissent, a certain Huegoth leader who could not be put off any longer.

Luthien was with Brind’Amour when the king went to Asmund’s longship. The younger Bedwyr hardly noticed the principals at the initial greeting, when he looked again upon his older brother. Ethan offered a hand to Luthien, but did not accompany it with a smile, nor a flicker of recognition in his cinnamon-colored eyes. Even after weeks moving in common cause, Ethan seemed as cold to Luthien as he had when the brothers had first found each other on the Isle of Colonsey.

Could it be that Ethan would never remember, or admit, who he truly was?

They had no time to discuss their personal situation, though, for Asmund descended on Brind’Amour like a great bear.

“We are warriors!” the Huegoth king roared. “And yet we have been sitting on the empty waves for weeks, our foodstuffs delivered by Eriadoran ships that have touched the shores of Avon!”

“We could not reveal—” Brind’Amour began, but Asmund cut him short.

“Warriors!” the barbarian roared again, looking for support from Torin Rogar, standing at his side. The huge Rogar nodded and grunted.

“I have not lifted my spear in many days,” Torin complained. “Even the Avon warships turned from us and would not fight.”

Brind’Amour tried to appear sympathetic, but in truth, after the beating his forces had taken all the way from Caer MacDonald, such eagerness for battle left a bitter taste in his mouth. The old wizard held little love for Huegoths, and for a moment seriously considered granting Asmund’s desires, throwing the king and all his brutal warriors against Carlisle’s high walls.

“I pain for battle,” Asmund said hungrily.

“That you might replenish your slave stocks?” Luthien said bluntly. He noted Brind’Amour’s scowl, and Ethan’s, and he understood. Prudence told the young Bedwyr that they should keep the alliance solid at this critical juncture, but Luthien could no longer hold back his ire—at the Huegoths and at Ethan.

Asmund grabbed at the handle of the great axe that was strapped to his back; Luthien likewise put a hand to the hilt of Blind-Striker.

“You dare?” Asmund began. He thrust his fist into the air, a signal to his sturdy men that the meeting was at its end. Brind’Amour sucked in his breath, but Luthien did not blink.

“Perhaps Eriador would be wise to guard its coast,” Asmund threatened.

“Is your pledge of honor so fragile that it might be broken by a few words spoken in anger?” Luthien asked, giving Asmund pause.

The king squared against Luthien, came very close to the young man, glaring down at him ominously. Luthien didn’t back away an inch, and didn’t blink.

“Friends do not fear to point out each other’s faults,” Luthien said in all seriousness, and he was taken aback a moment later, when Asmund suddenly bellowed with laughter.

“I do like you, young Luthien Bedwyr!” the king roared, and all his warriors stood more easily.

Luthien started to respond, again with grim confidence, but this time, Brind’Amour’s scowl became an open threat and the young Bedwyr held his tongue.

The alliance was solid, for the time being, and after Asmund extracted a promise from Brind’Amour that the Huegoths could lead the charge against Greensparrow’s fortress—a promise the Eriadoran king was more than happy to give—Brind’Amour and Luthien took their leave.

“When Greensparrow is properly dealt with, we will turn our eyes to the Huegoths,” Luthien said as soon as he and Brind’Amour were back on land and away from Huegoth ears.

“What would you do?” Brind’Amour asked. “Wage war on all the world?”

“Promise me now that you will not let them leave the Stratton on ships rowed by slaves,” Luthien begged.

Brind’Amour looked long and hard at the principled young man, wearing a stern and determined expression that the old wizard could not ignore. That dedication to principle was Luthien’s strength. How could he possibly refuse to follow such an example?

“Asmund will be properly dealt with,” Brind’Amour promised.

 

 

THE SIEGE OF CARLISLE

They stood on the forward masts of the warships closest to Carlisle and on the hills outside of the city. Some brave ones rode their horses dangerously close to the white walls, waging a battle of words.

“We have fifty thousand on the field against you,” they all said, as instructed by Brind’Amour and Deanna Wellworth. “Among our ranks is Deanna Wellworth, rightful queen of Avon. Surrender Greensparrow, the murderer of King Anathee Wellworth!”

Every hour of every day, those words were called out to the besieged people of Carlisle. Brind’Amour didn’t really expect the Avonese within the city to rise up against their king, but he was looking for every possible advantage once the fighting did start. And that would take some time, the old wizard understood. An army could not simply charge the walls of a fortified bastion such as Carlisle.

They did wage a few minor battles, with the Eriadorans testing the strength of various points along Carlisle’s perimeter. Asmund’s Huegoths took the lead in most of these, but even the fierce Isenlanders knew when to turn about, and casualties remained light on both sides.

Meanwhile, other, more important preparations were underway, foremost among them the old wizard’s work to keep Greensparrow busy. The Eriadorans could not afford to have the dragon coming out at them every night, or to have the wizard-king launching magical attacks into their ranks. Thus, Brind’Amour took it upon himself to engage Greensparrow, to test his strength, the powers of the ancient brotherhood, against this new-styled wizard. Alone in his tent the first night of the siege, Brind’Amour created a magical tunnel, reaching from his chamber to the tower Deanna had identified as Greensparrow’s. This tunnel was not like the ones the wizard had used to transport Asmund or Katerin and Oliver, but one that would take him in spirit only to face the wizard-king.

Greensparrow was surprised, but not caught off guard, to see the ghostly form of the old wizard hovering before his throne.

“Come to scold?” the Avon king snarled. “To tell me the error of my ways?”

Brind’Amour’s response was straightforward, a burst of crackling red sparks that burned, not into Greensparrow’s physical body, but into his soul. A moment later, Greensparrow stepped from his corporeal form, spirit leaping forward to engage the old wizard. And thus they battled, as Brind’Amour and Paragor had battled, but in spirit form alone. It went on for exhausting hours, neither truly hurting the other, but draining each other, and when Brind’Amour broke the connection the following morn, he was weary indeed, sitting on the edge of his bed, head down and haggard-looking.

Deanna found him in that position. “You met with him,” she reasoned almost immediately.

Brind’Amour nodded. “And he is powerful,” he confirmed. “But not compared to what we wizards once were. Greensparrow came to power through treachery because he could not gain the throne through sheer might. So it is now. He rules, iron-fisted, but that iron fist is not one of magic, nor even one of his dragon alter-form, but of allies, cyclopian mostly.”

“Do not underestimate his power,” Deanna warned.

“Indeed I do not,” Brind’Amour replied. “That is why I went to him, and why I will go to him again this night, and the next, and the next, if need be.”

“Can you defeat him?”

“Not in this manner,” Brind’Amour explained, “for I go to him in spirit only. But I can keep him occupied, and weary! This battle will be one of swords.”

Deanna liked that prospect far greater than the thought of waging a magical battle against Greensparrow. Five armies had joined against Carlisle, and the besieged city had no apparent prospects for reinforcement.

In this situation, the biggest advantage for the Eriadorans was their dwarvish allies. Carlisle had been built to withstand the charge of an army, most likely a straightforward cyclopian force, but the designers had not foreseen the tunneling expertise of an enemy such as the bearded folk of DunDarrow. The dwarfs worked tirelessly, taking shifts so that the digging never stopped. They went down low, right under the river, so that the people within the city would not hear their work. Ashannon worked tirelessly as well, using his magic to shield the dwarvish work from Greensparrow’s prying eyes.

On the sixth day of the siege, the first decisive encounter took place, in the smaller city across the eastern branch of the Stratton from Carlisle proper. Asmund led the Huegoth charge from the north, Siobhan’s cavalry and the Riders of Eradoch in strong support. Several galleons braved the catapult fire from both banks to come in at the city along the river to the west, while Shuglin led two thousand dwarfs through their crafted tunnels, popping up at various strategic points within the fortress. Even more importantly, the dwarvish burrowing had weakened the substructure of the walls.

The north wall, its bottom carved out, crumbled under the weight of the charge, and in poured the vicious Huegoths and the cavalry. Luthien, Oliver, and Katerin, already within the city through dwarvish tunnels, spent more time sorting out innocents and ushering them out of harm’s way than in fighting, for in truth there wasn’t much fighting to be found. The garrison fled the minor city, along the bridges to Carlisle proper, almost as fast as the invaders entered it. And Greensparrow, who they assumed to be weary from his nightly encounters with Brind’Amour, made no appearance.

The place was conquered within an hour, and fully secured before the day was out.

The noose around Carlisle had tightened.

That same night, Luthien and Oliver, using the crimson cape and Oliver’s magical grapnel, a puckered ball that could stick to any surface, made their stealthy way into Carlisle and walked the streets of Greensparrow’s domain. They ventured into taverns, met with people in alleys, always whispering the name of Deanna Wellworth, planting the rumors that the invading army was, in fact, a force raised by the rightful queen of Avon.

The pair were out of the city again long before the dawn.

Also that night, Brind’Amour went again in spirit to meet the Avon king, but he failed, finding the way blocked by a disenchantment barrier akin to the one he had used on Resmore and again in the castle at Warchester. Up to that point, Greensparrow had been more than willing to battle the old wizard, but now, Brind’Amour realized, the wily Avon king had come to understand their strategy. His engagements with Brind’Amour were in part to blame for the fall of the section across the river; he could no longer afford the distraction of a nightly stand-off with his adversary.

The realization did not greatly worry Brind’Amour. He understood his foe better now, the man’s strengths and limitations, and he was confident that his forces could strike hard and decisively, and that he, along with his fellow wizards, Deanna and Ashannon, would effectively neutralize the overburdened Avon king.

As he had proclaimed to Deanna on the second morning of the siege, this would be a battle of swords, not of magic.

 

 

“He cannot come at us across the river when our ships hold the waterway,” Brind’Amour explained at a strategy meeting early the next morning. “And with us so close to his walls, he would not dare open the city’s gates and try to break out to the north.”

“We would be in Carlisle in a matter of minutes,” Katerin reasoned, and though her estimate seemed overly optimistic, the point was well-taken.

“Time favors us,” Siobhan thought it would be prudent to add.

“Does it?” asked Deanna Wellworth.

“The seeds of rebellion are being sown within Carlisle,” Luthien answered before Siobhan could respond. “Oliver and I found many folk willing to hear of Avon’s rightful queen, and of the treachery of Greensparrow.”

“Of course, that might be only because I am so convincing,” added the halfling.

That brought a chuckle—from all but surly Asmund, who was fast growing weary of this siege.

“I will not sit on the field and wait for the first snows of winter,” the Huegoth said. Indeed, Asmund and his forces could not wait much longer. They had a long way to sail to get home, in waters that would grow more inhospitable with the changing season. Soon the winds would shift to the north, blowing in the face of Huegoth longships trying to make their return to Isenland and Colonsey, where a fair number of their women and children waited.

Brind’Amour sat back and let the chatter continue around him. Asmund wanted action; so did Kayryn Kulthwain and especially Bellick, who assured the others that at least twenty openings would be burrowed into Carlisle that very night, and that the substructure of several key points along the eastern and southern walls had already been compromised.

“They’re thinking that we’ll come from the north and east,” the dwarf king remarked with a wink at Brind’Amour. “But they’ll be only half-right. Mannington’s and Luthien’s riders will fake the attack from the north, while our ships put an army in the shallows of the river delta south of the city. We’ll be in so fast, the one-eyes will still be standing at the north wall, wondering when your folk will attack,” he said to Deanna. “And the rest of us will poke them from behind!”

It wouldn’t be quite that easy, Brind’Amour knew, but it was a good point. Carlisle was ripe for plucking, and if they attacked and were not successful, they could always retreat to their current position and take up the siege once more, this time against a city weakened by battle. The coordination would be tricky, though, since so many various factions were together on the field, but the old wizard, the king of Eriador, decided then and there that the time for action had come at last.

“With the dawn,” Brind’Amour said unexpectedly, silencing conversation and turning all eyes upon him. “Even before the dawn,” he corrected, then paused to better sort out the plan, and the emotions of all of those staring at him.

And so it began, an hour before the eighth dawn of the siege, when Shuglin the dwarf came out of a tunnel into a quiet house just east of the plaza of Carlisle Abbey. All throughout the silent city, Bellick’s forces slipped into position, while on the plain north of Carlisle, Deanna Wellworth’s five thousand, along with the first army of Eriador, including Luthien, Siobhan, Katerin and Oliver and the Cutter cavalry, formed a long and deep line. South of Carlisle, Huegoths crowded into their longships, ready to storm the river fork, and in the east, Kayryn prepared her gallant riders for the mighty charge across the bridges.

The dawn was heralded by the blowing of a thousand horns—Eriadoran horns, Huegoth horns, Mannington horns—and by the thunder of cavalry in the north and on the stone of the eastern bridges, and by the roars of charging armies.

Luthien led the rush from the north, a feigned attack that kept the massive cyclopian force along Carlisle’s northern wall distracted until the dwarfs within the city could organize. Then Carlisle’s south wall crumbled in several places and on came the Huegoth charge, the army of Baranduine rolling in behind them. Kayryn herself led the thunder across the fortified bridges.

For more than an hour, little ground was gained, with Luthien and his forces stuck out on the northern fields, unable to find a breach in the intact and well-defended northern wall. In the south, Asmund’s Huegoths met stiff resistance just inside the wall, and the Riders of Eradoch took brutal casualties on those narrow bridges. The waters of the Stratton ran red; the white walls of Carlisle were splattered with the blood of defender and invader alike.

Five of the leaders, Brind’Amour, Bellick, Deanna, and Ashannon, along with Proctor Byllewyn of Gybi, stood watching from the captured eastern region throughout that terrible hour, wondering if they had erred. “Did I underestimate Greensparrow?” Brind’Amour asked many, many times.

But then came the turning point, as Bellick’s dwarfs, led by mighty Shuglin, gained the main courtyard and threw wide Carlisle’s massive northern gates. Now Luthien’s charge was on for real, the young Bedwyr and his forces pouring into the city, spreading wide in every direction like the finger flames of a wildfire.

 

 

Greensparrow, too, watched it all, from a high chamber in Carlisle Abbey. Duke Cresis came to him many times over the first hour, assuring him that the city was holding strong.

Then the cyclopian came in to report that the northern gate had fallen, and Greensparrow knew that the time had come for him to act. He dismissed Cresis (and the one-eye was glad to be away from the dangerous and unpredictable tyrant!) and went alone up the stairs of the Abbey’s main tower.

From that rooftop, King Greensparrow saw the ruin of his life. There was fighting in every section of the city. The north was lost, and the dwarfs were sweeping east to open the bridges, while the cavalry was thundering along the streets, winding its way to join in the fierce fighting at the south wall.

“Fools, all,” the wizard-king sneered.

Greensparrow spotted a curious group of riders, noted particularly a man on a shining white stallion, a crimson cape billowing out behind him.

“At least, this,” the king remarked, and his hands began weaving semicircles in the air, touching thumb to thumb, then little finger to little finger, the tempo gradually increasing as Greensparrow gathered his magical energies that he might strike dead the troublesome Crimson Shadow once and for all.

But before he could execute the spell, Greensparrow found his feet knocked right out from under him as the tower trembled under a tremendous magical assault.

Looking to the east, Greensparrow noted three forms: an old wizard in blue robes and holding an oaken staff, the duke of Baranduine, and the woman who would be queen. Brind’Amour struck repeatedly at the tower, lightning bolts reaching out from his staff to slam at the foundations beneath Greensparrow. Deanna and Ashannon were not so powerful, but still they threw every ounce of their strength at the king.

The tower swayed dangerously.

Looking back, looking all around, Greensparrow saw that he had become the focus. Even the Crimson Shadow and his cohorts had stopped their charge, were sitting astride their mounts and pointing.

“Fools, all!” the evil king cried, and then, in the daylight, before the eyes of so very many, the king of Avon revealed himself. He felt the pain, the torment, as his limbs crackled and expanded, as some bones fused while others broke apart. That horrible itch covered him head to toe, skin breaking and twisting, hardening into green and black scales. Then he was no longer Greensparrow; that part of the being that was Dansallignatious spread wide its leathery wings. And just in time, for the tower of the Abbey shuddered again and toppled.

All across the city, defender and attacker alike paused in their fighting to watch the fall, to see the king-turned-dragon hovering in the air above the cloud of rising dust.

A blue bolt of lightning reached out across the river and jolted Greensparrow, and with a howl of pain the dragon king swooped about. Cyclopian, Huegoth, Eriadoran, and dwarf—it did not matter—fell beneath the fiery breath as the great beast swept on. That part of the monster that was Greensparrow wanted to destroy the Crimson Shadow most of all, then turn east and across the river to engulf his wizard adversaries in killing fire. But that part of the monster that was Dansallignatious could not discriminate, was too taken up with the sheer frenzy of the killing.

And then, as the defense organized against the dragon, as walls of stinging arrows rose to meet his every pass, as warships sailed closer that they might launch their catapult volleys at the passing beast, and as the magical barrage from across the river only intensified, the dragon king saw the ruin and the loss and knew that it was time to flee.

Across the river Greensparrow soared, sending a last line of fire at the building where his principal adversaries stood ready. Deanna Wellworth was prepared, though, enacting a globe similar to the one she had used to trap Mystigal and Theredon on the high plateau. And though the area within grew uncomfortably hot, though Bellick’s face beaded with sweat, and Byllewyn collapsed for lack of breath, when the dragon king had soared far off to the east, he left none of them truly hurt.

“Abdication!” screamed Bellick. “I know a running king when I see one!”

Tears in her blue eyes, Deanna wrapped the dwarf in a victorious hug.

Brind’Amour was not so full of glee. He started away in a great rush, bidding the others to follow. He led the way onto the nearest bridge and used his powers to their fullest to help clear the defense at the other end.

He would not explain his urgency, and the others didn’t dare question him.

 

 

Somewhere far south of that point, Luthien Bedwyr was surprised when Riverdancer pulled up short so suddenly that Oliver, on Threadbare right behind him, almost wound up on his back. Siobhan and Katerin brought their mounts up a short distance ahead, looking back curiously at Luthien.

He had no answers for them, for he could not get Riverdancer to move. The shining horse held perfectly still for several moments, didn’t even take notice when Threadbare bit him on the tail.

Then, despite Luthien’s bidding, and fierce tugging on the bridle, Riverdancer swung about and pounded away. “Ride on to the south!” Luthien yelled, but his friends would not desert him, not when they didn’t know whether his horse was taking him to allies or enemies.

Mighty Riverdancer soon outdistanced them, though, and Luthien breathed a sigh of profound relief when he turned into an alley to find Brind’Amour and the others waiting for him. The old wizard waved him down off the horse, then began whispering into Riverdancer’s ear.

“What?” Luthien started to ask, but Deanna pulled him aside and shook her head.

Riverdancer neighed and bucked suddenly, and tried to pull away. Brind’Amour would not let go, though, and, his enchantment over the horse complete, he began instead to speak soothing words to the beast.

Luthien’s eyes popped open wide—so did Oliver’s, as the halfling led Katerin and Siobhan into the alley—when Riverdancer’s sides bulged and expanded. The horse shrieked terribly, and Brind’Amour apologized and hugged the beast’s head close.

But the pain passed as the bulges expanded, shaping into beautiful feathered wings.

“What have you done?” cried a horrified Luthien, for though the horse-turned-pegasus was indeed beautiful, this was his Riverdancer, his dear friend.

“Fear not,” Brind’Amour said to him. “The enchantment will not last for long, and Riverdancer will bear no ill effects.”

Luthien still found himself gasping at the appearance of the winged horse, but he accepted his trusted king’s explanation.

“It must be finished here and now,” Brind’Amour explained. “Greensparrow cannot get away!” He moved to the side of the magnificent beast, and obedient Riverdancer stooped low to help him climb into the saddle.

“The city will soon be yours,” Brind’Amour said to Deanna. “Avon will soon be yours. I may miss your triumphant ascent to your rightful seat. Do not forget those who came to your aid, I beg.”

“There are many wrongs to be righted,” Deanna replied.

“If I do not return, then know that Greensparrow shall forever remain a problem to you. Keep your eyes to the Saltwash and your guard up high!”

Deanna nodded. “And for Eriador, whatever your fate, I promise independence,” she replied. “Your army will not go north until a proper line of command has been established, be it King Bellick of DunDarrow, or Luthien Bedwyr, Proctor Byllewyn of Gybi, or Siobhan of the Fairborn.”

Luthien was horrified that they were speaking so plainly of the possibility of Brind’Amour’s death, but he quickly came to accept the necessity. Eriador could not be thrown into chaos again, whatever might now happen, and Luthien found that he believed Deanna’s promise that Avon would no longer seek domination over his homeland. Still, given Deanna’s last words, it seemed a real threat to Luthien that if Brind’Amour did not return, Eriador would split into tribal factions. Luthien could foresee trouble between Kayryn Kulthwain and Bellick, both so very proud and stubborn, perhaps trouble between both of them and Proctor Byllewyn!

Luthien’s gaze went right to Brind’Amour, the brave wizard leaning low, stroking Riverdancer’s muscled neck. On sudden impulse, Luthien ran to his horse, sliding Brind’Amour back almost onto Riverdancer’s withers.

Brind’Amour put an arm out to stop him. “What are you about?” the wizard demanded.

“I am going with you,” Luthien replied determinedly. “It is my horse, and it is my place!”

Brind’Amour looked long and hard into the young Bedwyr’s cinnamon-colored eyes. He found that he could not disagree. Luthien had earned the right to join in this last and most desperate chase.

“If the horse will not carry us both, then select another as well,” Luthien demanded. He looked back to Oliver, sitting, now nervously, on his yellow pony. “Threadbare,” Luthien added.

“You want to grow wings on my precious horse that we might chase a dragon into a swamp?” Oliver asked incredulously.

“Yes,” answered Luthien.

“No!” Brind’Amour emphatically corrected, and just as emphatic was the halfling’s sigh of relief.

“Riverdancer will take us both,” Brind’Amour explained, and Luthien was appeased.

“Luthien!” cried Katerin O’Hale.

The young Bedwyr slipped down from the horse and went to her at once, pulling her in a close embrace. “It is the proper finish,” he said with all his heart. “It is the end of what I began when I killed Duke Morkney atop the Ministry’s tower.”

Katerin had meant to tell him not to go, to scold him for thinking so little of her that he would ride off on such a suicidal quest as to chase a dragon king into its swamp home. But like Brind’Amour, the young woman couldn’t deny the sincerity in Luthien’s eyes, the need he felt to see it through to the possibly bitter end.

“I only feared that you would go without bidding me goodbye,” she lied.

“Not goodbye,” Luthien corrected. “Just a kiss and a plea from me that you keep yourself safe until I can return to your side in this, the domain of Queen Deanna Wellworth.”

His optimism touched Katerin, mostly because she realized that Luthien only half-believed that he had any chance of getting back to her. Still, she could not tell him to stay. She kissed him, and bit back the word “Goodbye,” before it could escape her lips.

Then the gallant pair were off, Riverdancer as powerful in flight as he had been in the gallop, climbing high above the embattled city, noting the progress of their allies. Then Carlisle was far behind them, and the fields of Avon rolled along far beneath them.

The Saltwash was waiting.

 

 

THE DRAGON KING

A gray and hazy morning greeted the companions as the great pegasus set down on a patch of soft and mossy turf. They had flown throughout the afternoon and the night, straight to the east, but had not caught sight of the speeding dragon.

Luthien’s fears were obvious: what if Greensparrow had not really gone to the Saltwash, but had merely flown out from Carlisle to rest before resuming the battle?

Brind’Amour would hear nothing of that disturbing talk. “Greensparrow knows that all is lost,” he explained. “He revealed himself openly in his true and wretched form, and the Avon populace will never accept him as king. No, the beast went home, into the swamp.”

As comforting as the wizard’s confidence was, Luthien understood that filtering through Greensparrow’s home in search of the runaway wizard would not be an easy thing. The Saltwash was a vast and legendary marsh, its name known well even in Eriador. It covered some fifteen thousand square miles in southeastern Avon. On its eastern end, it was often unclear where the marsh ended and the Dorsal Sea began, and on the west, where Luthien now stood, the place was deep and dark, filled with crawling dangers and bottomless bogs.

Luthien did not want to go in there, and the thought of entering the swamp in search of a dragon was almost too much for the young man to bear.

Brind’Amour was determined, though. “Take your rest now,” he bade Luthien. “I have spells with which to locate the dragon king, and I will strengthen the enchantment on Riverdancer. We will find Greensparrow before the sun has set.”

“And what then?” the young Bedwyr wanted to know.

Brind’Amour leaned back against the winged horse, trying to find a reasonable response. “I did not want you to come,” he offered quietly at length. “I do not know that you will be of much help to me against the likes of Greensparrow, and do not know that I can defeat the dragon king.”

“Then why are we here, just we two?” Luthien asked. “Why are we not in Carlisle, finishing the task, helping Deanna assume her rightful throne?”

Brind’Amour didn’t appreciate the young man’s sharp tone. “The task will not be finished until Greensparrow is finished,” he replied.

“You just said—” Luthien started to protest.

“That I may not have the power to defeat the dragon king,” Brind’Amour finished for him, the old wizard’s eyes flashing dangerously. “A fair admission. But at the very least, I can hurt the beast, and badly. No, my young friend, it cannot be finished in Carlisle until the true source of Avon’s fall is dealt with. We could have defeated the cyclopian garrison, and roused support for Deanna—no doubt that is happening even as we stand here talking—but what then? If we packed up our soldiers and marched back to Eriador, would Deanna truly be safe with Greensparrow lurking, waiting, only a few score miles to the east?”

Luthien had run out of arguments.

“I will go into the swamp later this day,” Brind’Amour finished. “Perhaps it would be better if you waited here, or even if you took the road back to the west.”

“I go with you,” Luthien said without hesitation. He thought of everything he had to lose after he had spoken the words. He thought of Oliver and Siobhan, his dear friends, of Ethan and the possibilities that they might live as brothers once more, and most of all, he thought of Katerin. How he missed her now! How he longed for her warmth in this cold and dreary place! All the good thoughts of how his life might be when this was ended did nothing to change the young Bedwyr’s mind, though. “We have been in this together since the beginning,” he said, laying a hand on the old wizard’s shoulder. “Since you rescued Oliver and me off the road, since you sent me into the lair of Balthazar to retrieve your staff and gave to me the crimson cape.”

“Since you started the revolution in Montfort,” Brind’Amour added.

“Caer MacDonald,” Luthien corrected with a grin.

“And since you slew Duke Morkney,” Brind’Amour went on.

“And now we will finish it,” Luthien said firmly. “Together.”

They rested in silence for only a couple of hours, their adrenaline, even Riverdancer’s, simply too great for them to sit still. Then they walked cautiously into the swamp. Brind’Amour hummed a low resonating tone, sending it off into the moss-strewn shadows, then listening for its echoes, sounds that might be tainted by the presence of a powerful magical force.

The Saltwash quickly closed in behind them, swallowing them and stealing the light of day.

Luthien felt the mud seeping over the tops of his boots, heard the hissing protests of the swamp creatures all about him, felt the sting of gnats. To his left, the brown water rippled and some large creature slipped under the water before he could identify it.

The young Bedwyr focused straight ahead, on Brind’Amour’s back, and tried not to think about it.

 

 

The fighting in Carlisle had continued through the night. There were no recognizable lines of defense in the city anymore, just pockets of stubborn defenders holding their ground to the last. Most of these were cyclopians, and they continued to fight mainly because they knew that the Avon populace would show them little mercy after twenty years of cyclopian brutality. The one-eyes had been Greensparrow’s elite police, the executioners and tax collectors, and now, with the king revealed as a dragon, and long gone from the city, the cyclopians would serve as scapegoats for all the misery that Greensparrow had brought.

Not that all the citizens of Carlisle had taken up the cause of the returning queen. Far from it. Most had taken to their homes, wanting only to stay out of the way, and though many had surrendered and even offered to fight alongside the Eriadorans, more than a few continued their resistance, particularly in the southern sections of Carlisle against the fierce Huegoths.

To Oliver, Siobhan, and Katerin, and many others who had come from Caer MacDonald, it seemed a replay of the revolt in Montfort, only on a much grander scale. The trio had witnessed this same type of building-to-building fighting, and though they had been split apart from each other during the night, they understood the inevitable outcome and where it would lead. Thus Oliver was not surprised when he galloped Threadbare through the main doors of Carlisle Abbey to find Siobhan and Katerin, each leading their respective groups of soldiers, already inside, battling the one-eyes from pew to pew. The slanting rays of morning cut through the dimly lit cathedral, filtering through the many breaks in the wall of the semicircular apse, where the tower had crumbled.

“So glad that you decided to join in!” Katerin called to the halfling as he cantered past her, his pony thundering down the center aisle of the nave.

Oliver pulled Threadbare up short, the pony skidding many feet on the smooth stone floor. “We cannot let them have the cathedral,” he said, echoing the reasoning that had brought Katerin in here, and Siobhan, and many others. It was true enough; in all of Carlisle, as in every major Avonsea city, there was no more defensible place than the cathedral. If the cyclopians were allowed to retreat within Carlisle Abbey in force, it might be weeks before the invaders could roust them, and even then, only at great cost.

The leaders of the army understood that fact, though, and so it did not seem likely that any cyclopians would find refuge in here. Siobhan’s Cutters had gained the triforium, and from that high ledge were already raining arrows on the cyclopians in the nave, a force that was rapidly diminishing. Katerin’s force had gained two-thirds of the pews in the main nave, and the northern transept, up ahead and to the left of Oliver’s position, had been taken. In the southern transept, the defense was breaking down as terrified one-eyes ran out the doors, scattering to the city’s streets.

“With me!” Oliver cried, bolting Threadbare ahead, barreling into a throng of cyclopians. Several went flying, but Oliver’s progress was halted by the sheer number of brutes. The halfling’s rapier flashed left, poking one in the eye, then swiped across to the right, cutting a line down another’s cheek.

But Oliver soon realized that his call had caught his comrades by surprise, and that he had rushed out too far ahead for any immediate support.

“I could be wrong!” the halfling sputtered, parrying wildly, trying to protect himself and his pony. Cyclopian hands grasped at any hold they could find, trying to bring both rider and beast down under their weight. Other one-eyes came out of the pews behind Oliver, cutting off those, Katerin included, who were trying to come to the halfling’s defense.

“Oh, woe!” Oliver wailed, and then he remembered that Siobhan was watching him, and that most important of all, he must not die a coward. “But I must sing in my moment of sacrifice!” he proclaimed, and he did just that, taking up an ancient Gascon tune of heroics and the spoils of war.

 

We take the town and throw it down,

Fighting for the ladies.

Whose so-sweet thorns bring out our horns,

Fighting for the ladies.

 

And so we kick, and punch and stick,

Fighting for the ladies.

And if we hurt, they bind with their shirts!

Fighting for the ladies.

 

Fighting for the ladies!

Take off your clothes to cover our holes,

Oh, won’t you pretty ladies.

Then run away because we won the day!

Chasing naked, pretty ladies!

 

As he finished, the halfling shrieked and ducked as the air about him filled suddenly with buzzing noises. For a moment, Oliver thought that he was in the middle of a swarm of bees, and when he finally figured out that these were arrows swishing right by him, he was not comforted!

But then it ended, as quickly as it had begun, and the cyclopian press around Oliver and his yellow pony was not so great anymore. And then Katerin was up to him, scolding him for such a foolish charge.

Oliver hardly heard a word she said. He looked up to the triforium, to Siobhan and her Fairborn forces, already many of them moving along to seek out the next important target.

Oliver tipped his great hat to the beautiful half-elf, but Siobhan did not smile.

“My friends, they do not shoot so well!” she yelled down, imitating Oliver’s Gascon accent.

Oliver stared at her, perplexed.

“She heard your song,” Katerin remarked dryly. “I think she told them to shoot you dead.”

“Ah,” noted the halfling, tipping his hat once again and smiling all the wider.

“Gascon pig,” Katerin said with a snicker, and turned away.

“But I am so wounded!” Oliver wailed suddenly, and Katerin spun about. “May I use your shirt to bandage my wounds?”

It was among the finest bits of riding that Katerin O’Hale had ever witnessed, for as she took a single threatening stride Oliver’s way, the halfling swung Threadbare to the side and hopped the pony up onto a narrow wooden pew, running along in perfect balance.

Katerin looked helplessly to Siobhan, the both of them grinning widely at their irreverent little friend.

Then it was back to business, finishing off the one-eyes on this lowest floor of the cathedral, securing the nave, the transepts, and what remained of the apse. Soon the twin front towers were taken as well, but not before the cyclopians managed one breakout, led by a huge and terrible brute, dressed in regal fashion and wielding a beautifully crafted broadsword. Duke Cresis forged along at the head of the fighting wedge, crossing through the semicircular apse at the cathedral’s eastern end, then turning into the southern transept. And when Cresis found that way blocked by a wall of Eriadoran defenders, the brute swung back to the east, down a narrow passageway and then through a cleverly concealed door on the left- hand wall. Cresis and twenty of his fellows had gained the catacombs.

“Throw burning faggots down the stairs,” one Eriadoran offered. “Smoke them out, or to death—let the choice be on them!”

Others seconded the call, but Siobhan held reservations. The leader of that one-eye band had been identified as Duke Cresis, and the half-elf wasn’t so sure that the brute should be given any opportunity to escape. “Perhaps there is another exit from the catacombs,” she reasoned. “We cannot let so powerful a cyclopian slip back onto Carlisle’s streets.”

“Would any want to follow the brutes into the dark catacombs?” another soldier asked bluntly.

There came several calls for the dwarfs, but Siobhan silenced them. “We have no time to find Bellick’s folk,” she explained. “I am going.”

A score of Fairborn were quick to line up behind her.

“I hate to leave my so-fine horse,” Oliver lamented, but he, too, moved near to Siobhan, and Katerin was there at the same time.

“Four by three!” Siobhan ordered, and twelve archers took up positions before the closed door, four ranks of three each. “Do not wait to see,” the half-elf explained, and she nodded to two men standing beside the door.

On a three-count, the men pulled the door open wide, diving out of the way as the first rank of Fairborn let fly. They dropped and rolled aside, and the second rank loosed their arrows as the first ran to the end, setting new bolts to their bowstrings. Then the third, then the fourth, let fly, and then the first again, and so it went, through two complete volleys, a score and four arrows bouncing down the stone walls and stairs.

Both Oliver and Katerin were handed lanterns, but Siobhan told them to keep the light down low. “Fairborn fight better in the dark than do one-eyes,” she explained, and then she paused, studying closely her two friends, who were not of the elvish race.

“We’re going down there beside you,” Katerin said determinedly, ending the debate before Siobhan could even begin it. And so they did, three abreast, eight ranks in all, moving slowly and cautiously down the rough and uneven stairs.

They passed several dead cyclopians, the unfortunate first line of defense that had taken the brunt of the missile barrage, and then they came into the lower level.

Oliver’s lantern seemed a tiny thing in here. The ceilings were low and close; Katerin and some of the taller elves had to stoop to avoid clunking their heads. The massive archways were even lower, their stones so thick that the whole of this area, built to support the tremendous cathedral above it, seemed one great winding maze.

The friends tried to stay together, but often they were forced to walk single file. Every archway presented four possible turns, and the floor was so uneven that being on the same line as a friend was no guarantee that the ally could even be seen. The torchlight did little to defeat the perpetual gloom, the cobwebs hung low and thick, and the archways were so numerous and imposing, and so low, that the area seemed more a winding, twisting nest of passageways than an open area dotted by columns.

“This was where the old abbey stood,” Oliver reasoned, his voice low and muffled by the many cobwebs and blocking stones. “They built the cathedral right above it.” As he spoke, the halfling turned a corner, coming upon a raised section of floor, three or four age-worn steps that led up to a stone box, an altar, or perhaps a crypt. Oliver could not be sure. He turned back to ask Siobhan’s opinion, only to find that he had somehow split away from the others.

“I do so like the sky for my ceiling,” the halfling whispered.

“One-eye!” came an echoing cry from somewhere in the distance, followed quickly by the ring of steel, and then a guttural grunt, followed soon by a Fairborn voice claiming, “They are in here still!”

“Siobhan!” Oliver called softly, trying hard to backtrack. He went through an archway, but every direction looked the same. “Left breast, right breast, down the middle, damn the rest,” Oliver chanted, pointing in each direction. Then, as Gascon tradition demanded, the halfling went the way of the last “Damn the rest.”

He heard more sounds of battle, individuals clashing but nothing large-scale. The cyclopians were indeed in here, hiding separately, looking to ambush.

Oliver went left at the next low arch, then, thinking he recognized the area as the entry foyer, came around a corner with a bright smile, expecting to see only the stairs leading back to the main floor of the cathedral.

His light was immediately swallowed by a pair of forms too large to be Fairborn, too wide to be Katerin.

The halfling squeaked and thrust forth his rapier, trying to get his lantern to the floor that he might draw out his main gauche. He thought that his slender blade would surely get the closest foe, but the form moved with the perfect balance and grace of a pure warrior, smoothly and deftly dodging.

Oliver thought he was about to die, but the shine of skin as the foe came around was ruddy and tan, not the grayish hue more common to one-eyes, and this opponent had two eyes—cinnamon-colored eyes.

“Luthien,” Oliver began, but stopped short as he realized his error.

“Watch that blade, fool!” Ethan Bedwyr snarled, gingerly turning aside the still-poking rapier.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was told that Katerin had come in here,” Ethan replied softly. “I promised my brother that I would watch over her.”

A sly grin came over Oliver. “Your brother?” he asked.

Ethan had no time for such semantic games. He motioned to two other Huegoth companions who were still on the stairs, indicating that they should go to the right, then he and his immediate companion set off straight ahead.

Oliver bent down to retrieve his lantern and replace the main gauche on his belt, only to find himself alone once more. He looked to the stairs, tempted to go back up, but then he heard another cry from somewhere in the distance, a voice he recognized.

 

 

Siobhan and one Fairborn companion went down a dozen steps and turned a sharp corner, putting the sounds of the others far behind, then dared to crawl under a tiny door, no more than three-feet-square, barely large enough to admit a large cyclopian. The tunnel beyond was not much larger than the entrance, and the pair had to bend low, even crawling at points to continue along.

The darkness was complete, even to the sensitive eyes of the Fairborn, forcing Siobhan to light a hand lamp, a tiny lantern she had used often in her days as a housebreaker in Morkney-controlled Montfort.

She motioned for her companion, who was leading, to move on.

Finally, they came out into a higher area, the oldest catacombs in all the cathedral. Open crypts faced them from every wall, displaying the tattered skeletal remains of the first priests and abbots in Carlisle, perhaps in all of Avonsea. Most were lying on their back, but some, in more ornate crypts, were seated upon stone thrones.

Siobhan worked hard to steady her breathing as she noted one ancient corpse beside her, sitting tall and proud through the centuries, except that its skull was on the floor, probably the victim of hungry rats whose bones, too, were now likely resting in this place of death. The half-elf pulled her gaze away to see her companion bump his head hard on the curving ceiling of the next arch.

“Careful,” Siobhan whispered, but then she cried out as her companion turned about and toppled.

Even in the dim light of her hand lamp, Siobhan could see the bright blood spewing from the elf’s chest, which had been ripped from armpit to spinal cord.

Ahead of her stood the brutish cyclopian duke, that fabulous broadsword dripping elvish blood, Cresis’s ugly face twisted with the promise of death.

 

 

There had only been a single, distant cry, and yells were becoming more frequent with each passing moment as more and more of the hunters happened upon hiding cyclopians. But Oliver had never been more focused in all his life. His mind, his soul, had locked on to that single utterance, and the maze seemed to sort itself out before him as he darted along, daring to turn up the flame in his lantern that he might better see the breaks in the uneven floor.

He paused in one wider area to jab his rapier into the butt of a battling cyclopian. Then, seeing that his prod had distracted the brute enough to give its Fairborn opponent an insurmountable advantage, Oliver ran on.

He passed through one archway without a look to either side, replaying that cry in his head, following his instincts and his heart.

Katerin spotted him and called out, and she, Ethan, and a Huegoth came in close pursuit.

But they could not keep up with Oliver in these tight quarters. They reached the top of a broken and uneven staircase, angling downward, just after the halfling had entered the little hole at its bottom.

Only the ring of steel told them that they had come the right way.

 

 

Siobhan was an archer, among the finest shots in all of Avonsea. But she was no novice with the blade, as Duke Cresis soon discovered.

The brute thought it had her by surprise, and so its first attack was straight ahead, a thrust for the half-elf’s heart.

Out flashed a short sword, turning the brute’s blade minutely as the half-elf turned her own body. A clean miss, and Siobhan countered lightning-fast, rolling her wrist to launch her blade in a diagonal line at Cresis’s ugly face.

The brute fell back, stumbling over a block of stone into a wider area, the oldest altar in the ancient abbey.

Siobhan was fast to pursue, trying to press her advantage, but the same block of stone slowed her enough for the one-eye to steady its defenses.

“Duke Cresis?” Siobhan sneered.

Cresis snorted and did not bother to answer.

“I offer you the chance for surrender,” Siobhan bluffed, and she prayed that the obviously powerful one-eye would accept. “The city is ours; you have no place to run.”

“Then I will die with my sword in one hand and your head in the other!” the one-eye promised, and on Cresis came.

The broadsword flashed right, left, left again, and then straight down, the brute taking it up in both hands for the final attack. Siobhan parried and dodged, ducked low under the third swing and came up hard to meet the chop, her blade flat out over her head. She meant to catch the broadsword and turn it out wide, then step ahead, in close, and use the advantage of her much shorter sword in the tighter press.

Cresis’s swing was far too powerful for that maneuver, and Siobhan found her legs nearly buckling under the weight of that vicious overhead chop. Her finely forged elvish blade held firm, though, stopping the attack short of her head, and she rolled out to the side, stabbing twice in rapid succession as she went, scoring one slight hit on the cyclopian’s hip.

Cresis laughed at the minor wound and came in fast pursuit, thrusting his sword with every step. Siobhan danced desperately to keep out of the brute’s reach. She came up hard against the block of stone that had once been an altar, and Cresis, thinking her caught, forged ahead.

Siobhan’s balance was perfect as she went over the thigh-high block, falling prone on the other side as the cyclopian’s blade swished the air above her.

Cresis leaped over, but the agile half-elf was already gone, scrambling out one end and putting her feet back under her. She reversed direction immediately, regaining the offensive, snapping her smaller blade at the brute’s groin, then cutting it up so that Cresis’s down-angled sword missed the parry.

The cyclopian fell back, a deep gash along its chin, its bulbous nose split nearly in half.

Siobhan could have asked again for surrender, and the brute might have agreed, but she was too far into the fight by then. She came on hard and fast, scoring again, this time putting the point of her sword deep into the brute’s left shoulder, and coming in so close that she pinned Cresis’s arms against the brute’s torso.

But only for a moment, for Cresis howled in pain and heaved forward with all its considerable strength, launching Siobhan a dozen feet. She somehow managed to keep her balance and was ready when the brute came in at her again, with an all-too-familiar routine.

Right, left, left again, and then down, but this time, with only one hand on the sword.

Siobhan parried, dodged straight back, sucking in her belly, then ducked the third, coming up powerfully, seeing that Cresis had only one hand on the broadsword.

The blades met with a tremendous ring; Siobhan twisted with all her might, then stepped ahead, grinning in expected victory as the broadsword went out wide.

The light intensified as Oliver entered the chamber, to see his dear Siobhan in close with the huge and ugly brute. Cresis’s sword was out to the side, not moving, but for some reason neither was Siobhan’s readied blade diving for the one-eye.

Oliver understood when his love slipped away from the brute’s chest, and more particularly, away from Cresis’s left hand, which held a bloody dirk.

Siobhan managed a look at Oliver, then her sword hit the ground with a dead ring, and the half-elf quickly followed its descent.

Oliver was no match for Cresis and the mighty one-eye was hardly injured, but the halfling fostered no thoughts of retreat at that horrible moment. He roared for his love and leaped ahead, coming so furiously with his rapier, a ten-thrust routine, that Cresis could hardly distinguish each individual move, and the brute took several stinging hits along the forearm as it tried to maneuver the broadsword to block.

The cyclopian tried to square, but the enraged halfling would not relinquish the offense. Sheer anger driving him on, Oliver poked and poked, slashed at the broadsword with his main gauche, even catching the blade between the front-turned crosspiece of the crafted dagger at one point, though he had not the leverage to break the cyclopian’s weapon or to tear it from Cresis’s powerful grasp.

Still, it was Cresis, and not Oliver, who continued to back up, and Oliver found an opportunity before him as the cyclopian neared the altar block. Up the halfling leaped, and now Cresis had to work all the harder to parry, for Oliver’s rapier was dangerously in line with the cyclopian’s already-torn face.

“You are so ugly!” the halfling taunted, spitting his words. “A dog would not play with you unless you had a piece of meat tied about your fat waist!”

“I would eat the dog!” Cresis retorted, but the brute’s words were cut short by yet another multiple-thrust attack.

Cresis was wise enough to understand that the halfling’s rage was too great. If Cresis could keep Oliver moving, keep him sputtering and slashing wildly, the halfling would soon tire.

So the brute parried and started away from the altar, but then its one eye went wide with surprise as the main gauche came spinning, end over end. Up went the cyclopian’s arm, blocking the dagger, but that wasn’t the only incoming missile as Oliver ran to the edge of the altar block and threw himself at his enemy.

Cresis howled in pain again, his forearm burning from the stuck dagger. He tried to maneuver the broadsword to catch the flying halfling, but the brute’s reaction was slow, its muscles torn and tightening.

Oliver crashed in hard, though the three-hundred-pound cyclopian barely took a tiny step backward. It didn’t matter, for Oliver had leaped in with his rapier blade leading.

He was tight onto Cresis’s burly chest then; he might have been a baby, clinging to its burly father. But that rapier had hit the mark perfectly, was stuck nearly to its basket hilt right through Cresis’s bulky neck.

The cyclopian wheezed, sputtering blood from its mouth and its throat. It held on tight, tried to squeeze the life out of Oliver. But that grip inevitably loosened as the gasping brute’s lungs filled with its own blood. Slowly, Cresis slumped to its knees, and Oliver was careful to get away, avoiding a halfhearted swing of the broadsword.

Cresis went down to all fours, gasping, trying to force air into its lungs.

Oliver paid the brute no more heed. He ran to his love, cradling her head in one arm and plunging his hand over the bleeding wound in the hollow of Siobhan’s chest.

Ethan scrambled into the chamber then, followed closely by Katerin. “Ah my love!” they heard the halfling wail. “Do not die!”

 

 

“We cannot go on in this direction,” Brind’Amour informed Luthien. The young Bedwyr pushed through some brush to join the wizard and saw the flat water, surrounding them on three sides.

They had spent nearly half an hour walking through the tangled and confusing underbrush to the end of a peninsula.

Luthien was about to suggest that they start back, but he held quiet as Brind’Amour moved behind him, the wizard staring intently at Riverdancer.

“The steed is rested,” Brind’Amour announced. “We will fly.”

Luthien didn’t argue the point; he was thoroughly miserable, his feet wet and sore, his scalp itching from a hundred bites, and his nerves frayed, and though no monster had risen up against them, every one of the Saltwash’s shadows appeared as though it hid some sinister beast.

So Luthien breathed a sigh of relief, filling his lungs with clean air as they broke through the soggy canopy. He squinted for some time, trying to adjust his eyes to the dazzling sunlight whenever it found a break in the thick cloud cover that rushed overhead. Logically, Luthien knew that they were probably more vulnerable up here than they had been in the cover of the swamp; Greensparrow would spot them easily if he bothered to look to the skies above his dark home. But Luthien was glad for the change anyway, and so was Riverdancer, the horse’s neck straining forward eagerly. On Brind’Amour’s suggestion, Luthien kept the horse moving low over the treetops.

“Do you see . . . anything?” Luthien asked after several minutes, looking back to the wizard.

Brind’Amour shook his head in frustration, then, after a moment’s consideration, poked his thumb upward. “We’ll not find the beast through this tangle,” the wizard explained. “Let us see if the dragon finds us!”

The words resonated through Luthien’s mind, inciting memories of his one previous encounter with a dragon, a sight that still sometimes woke him in the night. They had come out here for Greensparrow, he reminded himself, and they would not leave until the evil dragon king had been met and defeated.

Up went Riverdancer, a hundred feet above the dark trees. Two hundred, and the swamp took on different dimensions, became a patchwork of indistinct treetops and splotches of dark water. Still higher they went, the Saltwash widening below them, every shape blending together into one great gray-green quilt.

Flattening and blending, all the sharp twists of branches smoothed and blurred together in softer edges. All except for one, a single break in the collage, as though the Saltwash, like a great bow, had shot forward this singular, streaking arrow.

Luthien hesitated, mesmerized. What propelled the dragon at such speed? he wondered dumbly, for the mighty beast flapped its wings only occasionally, one beat and then tucked them in tight, speeding upward as though it was in a stoop!

Riverdancer snorted and tried to react, but it was too late. Luthien’s heart sank as he realized his error, his hesitation. He looked into the maw of the approaching beast and saw his doom.

Then the world seemed to shift about him, to warp within the blue-white swirl of a magical tunnel. It ended as suddenly as it began, and Luthien found himself looking up at the dragon as it sped away from him.

Brind’Amour’s staff touched his shoulder and the wizard called forth a bolt of crackling black energy that grabbed the dragon and jolted it.

Out wide went Greensparrow’s wings, dragging in the air, stopping the momentum.

Luthien reacted quickly this time, bringing Riverdancer up high in a steeper climb, trying to come around behind the great beast.

But Dansallignatious, Greensparrow, ducked his head as he fell, turning his serpentine neck right about.

Riverdancer folded one wing and did a complete roll as the dragon breathed its line of fire. As he came upright, fighting to hold his seat and hold control, Luthien stared incredulously, watching a green, disembodied fist rush out from behind him. It shot through the air, punching hard into the dragon’s midsection, and exploding there with enough force to hurl the beast many yards away.

“Hah!” Brind’Amour snorted, and snapped his fingers in the air beside Luthien’s ear.

In less confident tones, the wizard whispered, “You’ve got to stay near to the beast, boy. Close enough so that if Greensparrow breathes, he’ll burn away his own wing.”

Luthien understood the logic of the reasoning, but saying something and doing something were often two completely different things—especially when one was talking about a dragon!

A second fist of magical energy went flying out, and then a third, and Luthien prodded Riverdancer in their wake, following their course toward the beast.

Greensparrow’s winding neck swerved and the next fist shot by. The last one, though, scored a glancing blow, snapping the dragon’s head out to the side. Still, Greensparrow seemed perfectly focused on the third missile, the living missile of the pegasus and its two riders, and Luthien nearly swooned, thinking suddenly that he had put himself and his companions right into the path of certain death.

“Hold the course!” Brind’Amour yelled, and Luthien, screaming all the way, obeyed.

The second flying fist, the one that had missed the mark altogether, had turned about like a boomerang, and came in hard, clapping the dragon off the back of the head just before Greensparrow could loose his fire. The beast pitched forward; Riverdancer flew in right over its bending neck. Luthien tried to draw out his sword, for he was close enough, almost, to hit the monstrous thing, and Brind’Amour’s staff came forward once more as another bolt, this one red in hue, streaked down, sparkling from scale to scale.

Now the dragon roared and continued to duck its head, rolling right into a dive. Brind’Amour cried out in victory, so did Luthien as he started to bank Riverdancer into pursuit, but neither of them comprehended the vast repertoire of weapons possessed by a beast such as this. The dragon was rolling down, putting its head toward the safety of the swamp, but as the great bulk came around, Greensparrow kept the presence of mind to lash out with his long and powerful tail.

Riverdancer was turning, and that surely saved the steed’s life and those of its riders, but still the pegasus took a glancing blow on the rear flank.

Suddenly the trio were spinning, holding on for their lives. Brind’Amour came right off the horse’s back and had to latch on with both hands to the cowl of Luthien’s cape. He cried out, cursing as his staff plummeted out of sight, disappearing into the tangled background of the Saltwash.

Luthien righted the horse and wrapped one arm about the wizard as he continued to flail helplessly at Riverdancer’s side.

The sun seemed to go away then, as the dragon soared past them, barely twenty feet to their right, great clawed feet reaching out. Luthien pulled hard to his left, turning the steed away, but a claw tore at Riverdancer’s right wing, gashing flesh and snapping bone.

They spun over once more, this time in a roll that Luthien could not hope to control. Down they tumbled, and as they came around, Luthien saw that Greensparrow had folded his wings in a power dive and was in close pursuit, that awful fanged mouth opened wide.

But again came that blue swirl, as Brind’Amour opened a magical tunnel right below them. They were in it for only a split second, a split second that put them two hundred feet lower, barely at treetop level and several hundred yards to one side.

Falling again, too confused and surprised to even know what lay below, Luthien could only hold on and scream.

The pair and their wounded pegasus splashed hard into a muddy pool.

It seemed like minutes passed, but in truth it was but seconds before the two men and the wounded steed pulled themselves onto the soft turf at the pool’s edge. Mud covered Brind’Amour’s blue robes, turned Riverdancer’s shining white coat a soiled brown, and coated Luthien as well—except for that magnificent crimson cape, which seemed to repel any stains, holding fast its shining crimson hue.

The companions hardly had time to take note of that, though. Riverdancer’s right wing was badly broken and torn, the pained horse tucking it close to his side. Brind’Amour grabbed the bridle and led the steed into a thick copse, then cast some enchantment and motioned for Luthien to follow him.

“I cannot leave Riverdancer . . .” the young Bedwyr started to protest.

“The horse must revert to its natural form,” Brind’Amour tried to explain, patting the air soothingly. “Riverdancer’s wounds shall not be so great when the wings are gone, but even then, the horse will be in need of rest. And no use in trying to ride in this tangle anyway, against the likes of Greensparrow.”

As if on cue, there came a deafening roar and a great shadow passed overhead.

“Come along,” said Brind’Amour, and this time Luthien offered no argument.

 

 

To Oliver’s surprise, and temporary relief, Siobhan opened her beautiful green eyes and managed a pained smile. “Did we get him?” she asked, her words broken by labored breathing.

Oliver nodded, too choked to respond. “Duke Cresis of Carlisle is a bad memory and nothing more,” he finally managed to say.

“Half-credit for the kill,” Siobhan whispered.

“All for you,” Oliver readily replied.

Siobhan shook her head, which took great effort. “Only half,” she whispered. “All I need.”

Oliver looked back to Katerin, noting the streaks of tears on the woman’s fair features.

“Half for me,” Siobhan went on. “Fifteen and a half this day.”

Oliver tried to respond, but couldn’t understand the significance.

“Tell . . . Luthien that,” Siobhan stuttered. “Fifteen and half for me this day. Final count . . . ninety-three and a half for me . . . only ninety-three for . . . Luthien . . . even if he kills . . . Greensparrow.”

Oliver hugged her close.

“I win,” she said, a bit of cheer somehow seeping into her voice. Then her timbre changed suddenly. “Oliver?” she asked. “Are you here?”

The light had not diminished, and Oliver knew that her eyes were not wounded. But she could not see, and the halfling realized what that foretold.

“I am here, my love,” Oliver replied, hugging her, and keeping his voice steady. “I am here.”

“Cold,” Siobhan said. “So cold.”

More than a minute passed before Katerin bent over and closed Siobhan’s unseeing eyes.

“Come with us, Oliver,” she bade the distraught halfling, her voice firm for she knew that she had to be strong for her friend. “There is nothing more you can do here.”

“I stay,” Oliver replied determinedly.

Katerin looked to Ethan, who only shrugged.

“I will finish the business in the catacombs,” Ethan promised. “And return for you.”

Katerin nodded and Ethan was gone, back the way they had come. The woman moved away from Oliver then, respectfully, and sat upon the altar block, her heart torn, as much in sympathy for poor Oliver as in grief for the loss of her dear half-elven friend.

 

 

“We must find my staff,” Brind’Amour whispered.

“How?” Luthien balked, looking around at the endless tangles and shadows of the Saltwash. “We have no chance . . .”

“Sssh!” Brind’Amour hissed. “Keep your voice quiet. Dragons have the most excellent of hearing.”

Again as if on cue, there came a great rush of wind and the canopy above the two exploded into a fiery maelstrom. Brind’Amour stood as if frozen in place, gaping at the conflagration, and only Luthien’s quick reaction, the young Bedwyr tackling the wizard into a shallow pool and throwing himself, and his magical shielding cape, over Brind’Amour’s prone form, saved the old man from the falling brands. Great strands of hanging moss dove down to the ground, coiling like snakes as they landed, their topmost ends burning like candle wicks. Not so far from the companions a tree, its sap superheated by the fires, exploded in a shower of miniature fireballs, hissing and sputtering as they landed on the pools or muddy turf.

“Up, and run away!” Brind’Amour cried as soon as the moment had passed, the blazing branches smoldering quickly in the dampness of the marsh.

Luthien tried to follow that command, stumbling repeatedly on the pool’s slippery banks. In the distance, he heard Riverdancer’s frantic neighing, and then, as he turned back in the direction of the area where he had left the horse, he saw the approach of doom.

He grabbed for Brind’Amour, thinking to pull the man back into the mud, but the wizard darted away. The cover was not so thick anymore—certainly not enough to shield them from the penetrating gaze of a dragon!—and Brind’Amour knew that to cower was to be caught.

No, the old wizard determined, they had come in here to battle Greensparrow, and so they would, meeting his charge.

Brind’Amour scrambled up to the trunk of an ancient willow, a graceful spreading mass that had accepted the first dragon pass as though it was no more than a minor inconvenience. “Lend me your strength,” the wizard whispered to the trunk, and he embraced the tree in a gentle hug.

The dragon rushed overhead, looking about the area it had so brutally cleared. It let out a shrill shriek as it crossed over Brind’Amour, and immediately began its long and graceful turn.

Luthien called out a warning to the wizard, but Brind’Amour seemed not to hear. Nor did the wizard appear to take any note at all of the dragon. He stood hugging the tree, whispering softly, his eyes closed.

Luthien inched closer, not wanting to disturb the man, but keeping a watchful eye for the returning dragon. He started to call out to Brind’Amour again, but stopped, startled, when he noticed that the fingers of the wizard’s hands were gone, as if they had simply sunken into the willow! Luthien looked to the man’s face, was touched by the serenity there, then looked back to see that Brind’Amour’s arms were in up to the wrists!

“Lend me your strength,” Brind’Amour whispered again, but in a language that Luthien could not understand, a language of music, not words, of the eternal harmony that had brought the world into being, that gave the tree its strength and longevity, the language of the very powers that sustained all the world.

Luthien did not know what he should do, and when he looked back the way the dragon had flown, to see the creature speeding toward him once more, he could only cry out helplessly to his entranced friend and throw himself to the side, away from Brind’Amour and the willow, to the base of another large tree.

Greensparrow issued a deafening roar, culminating with the release of that tremendous fire. At the same moment, Brind’Amour cried out, as if in ecstasy, and a green glow engulfed the wizard, ran up his arms and to the tree, then up the tree, intensifying as it spread wide along the branches.

The hot dragon flames fell over them all; Luthien tried to dig a hole in the ground. His eyes burned and he felt as if his lungs would explode, and he could only imagine the grim fate that had befallen Brind’Amour, who was not protected by the marvelous crimson cape.

Indeed those fires did fall over the wizard, but Brind’Amour felt them not at all, no more than did the ancient willow. For Brind’Amour was a part of that tree then, and it a part of him, and while he had taken from it its ancient resilience, it had gained the wizard’s sentience. Stooping, pliable limbs reached up from the swamp, swatting and entangling the dragon as it flew past.

Greensparrow was caught completely off his guard as one great limb whipped up to smack him right between the eyes and another caught fast on his left wing. Over and around the dragon spun. Wood bent and twisted and tore apart.

Now Brind’Amour did cry out in pain, and the sheer shock of the dragon hit destroyed his symbiosis with the tree, left him sitting on the wet ground, wondering why wisps of smoke were rising from his robes. He groaned as he considered the willow, many of its branches torn away, the trunk half-uprooted and tilting to the side, the whole of the ancient tree nearly pulled from the ground by the weight of its catch.

Brind’Amour wanted to go to the willow, to offer comfort and thanks, to try to lend his powers that it might better heal. He had other problems, though, for the dragon had been taken from the sky, to crash down heavily, clearing a swath a hundred yards long. But the beast was far from defeated. Greensparrow pulled himself free of the tangled and broken flora and righted himself, facing the wizard. One wing had been torn and would need time to heal; the dragon could not fly. Like a gigantic cat, Greensparrow crouched, tamping down his back legs, his yellow-green orbs locked on the puny man who had given him such pain.

A single leap brought him close enough to loose his fires once again, engulfing Brind’Amour.

But the old wizard was ready. With his magic, he reached down to the earth at his feet, drawing the moisture from it, meeting the dragon fire with a wall of water. Then he loosed his own response, a blazing line of energy that cut through the fires and slammed at Greensparrow.

Luthien huddled and trembled, blocked his ears from the thunderous roars of beast and flame. It went on and on, seconds seeming like hours. All that Luthien wanted was a single gasp of air, but that would not come. All that he wanted was to get up and run away, but his feet would not answer his call. Then the world started to slip into blackness, an endless pit, it seemed, and he was falling.

The sounds receded.

Then it ended, the fires and the energy bolt, and Greensparrow and Brind’Amour stood facing each other. Brind’Amour knew by the way the serpentine neck suddenly snapped back and by the beast’s wide eyes that his resilience had surprised the beast.

“You have betrayed all that was sacred to the ancient brotherhood,” the old wizard cried.

“The ancient fools!” the dragon replied in a snarling, resonating voice.

Brind’Amour was caught off guard, for the dragon’s words did not come easily, every syllable stuttered and intermixed with feral snarls.

“Fools, you say,” the wizard replied. “Yet that brotherhood is where you first found your power.”

“My power is ancient!” the dragon answered with a roar. “Older than your brotherhood, older than you!”

Brind’Amour understood it then, recognized the struggle between the wills of this dual being. “You are Greensparrow!” he cried, trying to force the issue.

“I am Dansallignat . . . I am Greensparrow, king of Avonsea!” the beast roared.

Then the dragon flinched, an involuntary twist, perhaps, and Brind’Amour was quick to the offensive, hurling yet another bolt, this one white and streaking like lightning. The dragon roared; the wizard screamed in pain as all his energy, all his life force, was hurled into that one bolt. Magic was a power limited by good sense, but Brind’Amour had no options of restraint now, not when facing such a foe. He felt his heart fluttering, felt his legs go weak, but still he energized the bolt, launched himself into it fully, sapping every ounce of strength within him and hurling it, transformed, into the great beast.

He could hardly see the dragon, and wasn’t really conscious of his surroundings anyway, but somewhere deep in his mind, Brind’Amour realized that he was indeed hurting the monster, and that it was transforming.

Finally the energy fizzled, and the wizard stood swaying, thoroughly spent. After a moment, he managed to consider his opponent, and his eyes went wide.

No longer did the dragon stand before him, nor was his foe the foppish king of Avon. Greensparrow and Dansallignatious had been caught somewhere in the middle of their dual forms, a bipedal creature half again as large as a man, but with scaly skin mottled green and black, great clawed hands, a swishing tail, and a serpentine neck as long as Brind’Amour was tall.

“Do you think you have defeated me?” the beast asked.

Luthien heard that call distantly, and the very voice of the beast, a whining, grating buzz, wounded him, stung his ears and his heart.

“You are a fool, Brind’Amour, as were all your fellow wizards,” Greensparrow chided.

“And Greensparrow was among that lot,” the wizard said with great effort.

“No!” roared the beast. “Greensparrow alone was wise enough to know that his day had not passed.”

Brind’Amour had no response to that, for he, too, had come to believe that the brotherhood of wizards had surrendered their powers too quickly and recklessly.

“And now you will die,” the beast said casually, moving a stride forward. “And all the world will be open to me.”

Again, Brind’Amour could not refute the dragon king’s words—at least not the first part, for he had not the strength to lift his arm against the approaching creature. He wasn’t so convinced, though, that Greensparrow’s claim about the world would prove true.

“They know who you are now,” he said defiantly, his voice as strong and confident as he could possibly make it. “And what you are.”

Greensparrow laughed wickedly, as if to question how that could possibly matter.

“Deanna Wellworth will take back her throne and her kingdom, and Greensparrow the foul will not be welcomed!” Brind’Amour proclaimed.

“If I can so easily defeat the likes of Brind’Amour, then how will the weakling queen, or any of her ill-advised allies, stand against me?” As he spoke, Greensparrow continued his advance, moving to within a few feet of Brind’Amour, who was simply too spent to retreat. “I will take back what was mine!” the beast promised, and the time for talking had passed.

Greensparrow’s serpentine neck shot forward, maw opening wide. Brind’Amour let out a cry that sounded as a pitiful squeak, and threw up his arms before his face. Fangs tore his sleeves, ripped his skin, but the defensive move stopped Greensparrow from finding a secure hold, his snout butting the wizard instead and throwing Brind’Amour down to the ground.

At the same moment, the dragon king caught a movement to the side and behind, as a form uncoiled from its position at the base of a tree and rushed out at him.

Brind’Amour’s companion! the dragon king realized. But how had he missed seeing that one?

Luthien took two powerful strides, bringing Blind-Striker in a two-handed over-the-shoulder arc that drove the blade hard against the beast’s extended neck. He chopped again and again as Greensparrow tried to reorient and square himself to this newest foe. Green-black scales splintered and flew away. The beast’s clawed hind feet dug trenches in the earth as it backpedaled.

Luthien, blinded by rage, screamed a dozen curses and pumped his arms frantically, refusing to give up the offensive, knowing that if he allowed the beast to gain its composure and its footing, he would surely be doomed. Again and again he launched his mighty sword, each swing culminating in a hit, sometimes solid, sometimes glancing. He kept Greensparrow backing, kept whacking at the twisting form with all his strength.

But then he slipped—a slight stumble, but one that allowed the dragon king to get out of reach, to gain its footing.

“The Crimson Shadow!” Greensparrow snarled. “How much a thorn you have been to me!”

Luthien put his feet back under him and started to charge once more, but skidded to a fast stop, realizing that to dive into that tangle of claws and fangs was certainly to die.

“For months I have been waiting for this moment,” Greensparrow promised. “Waiting to pay you back for all the trouble. For Belsen’Krieg and Morkney, for Paragor of Princetown and for the ridiculous cries of ‘Eriador free!’ that have reached my ears.”

Luthien stepped forward and swung, but found himself falling backward before the blade got halfway around, as the snakelike neck snapped out at him. He fell into the mud and scrambled backward. Greensparrow was laughing too hard to pursue.

“Watch him die, Brind’Amour,” the dragon king chided. “Watch all your hopes torn apart.”

Luthien glanced Brind’Amour’s way, praying that the wizard was ready to join in then. But Brind’Amour could not help him, not this time. The wizard remained on the ground, barely holding himself in a sitting position. His magic was gone, expended in the enchantments, particularly that last bolt of power, his ultimate attack. It had taken much strength from the dragon, had even reduced it to this present form, but it had not destroyed Greensparrow.

Luthien studied his foe carefully. The dragon king was certainly wounded, had suffered a great beating from the tree and the energy bolts, and from Luthien’s own wild attack. Large welts lined Greensparrow’s neck, and his face was scored on one side. One of his wings was tucked neatly against his back, but the other hung out at a weird angle, obviously broken.

Slowly Luthien slid his foot back under him.

“Or perhaps I should not kill you,” Greensparrow was saying, his gaze as much at the empty distance as at Luthien. “Perhaps I should bring you back to Carlisle, an admitted liar and enemy of the throne. Perhaps I could use you to discredit Deanna Wellworth,” the beast mused, and looked back—to see that Luthien was up and charging!

Greensparrow snapped his head at the young Bedwyr, but too late. Luthien came under the descending maw, throwing up the tip of his blade, and Greensparrow’s own momentum worked against him as Blind-Striker bit under the dragon king’s bottom jaw, right through scales and skin, right through the flicking forked tongue and into the roof of his mouth.

Luthien continued forward and held on with all his strength, trying desperately to get inside the angle of the monster’s flailing arms.

Greensparrow hissed and thrashed and Luthien could not hold the sword and stay in tight. His feet went out from under him as Greensparrow spun to the side, but Blind-Striker held fast and Luthien was pulled right from the ground.

A clawed hand swiped at his exposed ribs, tearing through his chain-link armor and the thick leather tunic below it as easily as if it was old and brittle paper. Bright lines of blood appeared, one gash so deep that Luthien’s rib was visible.

Still he hung on, growling against the pain, but then the other blow came across, punching and not raking, a blow so fierce that Luthien flew away, taking his sword with him.

The dragon king’s head jerked violently to the side as Blind-Striker tore free, and Greensparrow slumped to one knee, giving horrified Luthien enough time to scramble away into the cover of the swamp.

But the beast was fast in pursuit, sniffing and snarling, sputtering curses that rang in the ears of the young Bedwyr. Never before had he run from battle, not from Morkney, not from the demon Taknapotin. But this beast, even wounded as it was, was beyond both of them, was something too evil and too awful.

And so Luthien ran, stumbling, pressing his arm against his side in an effort to keep his lifeblood from spilling away. He heard the sniffing behind him, knew that Greensparrow was following the trail of dripping blood.

The beast was right behind him. Luthien gave a cry and ran on as fast as he could go, but caught his foot in an exposed root and went tumbling headlong.

All his sensibilities screamed at him that the trail had ended, that he was about to die!

A long moment passed; Luthien could hear the breathing of the monster, not more than a few feet behind him. Why didn’t Greensparrow get it over with? he wondered.

His cape. It had to be the cape. Luthien dared to peek out from under the hood, could see the lamplight glow of those terrible dragon eyes scanning the ground. Luthien held his breath, forced himself to stay perfectly still.

He would have been found; he knew that Greensparrow would have sorted out the riddle soon enough, except that there came a crashing noise somewhere up ahead, and the white coat of Riverdancer flashed into view, running past.

Greensparrow howled, thinking that his young opponent had somehow gotten ahead of him, back to his horse. If the beast went airborne, it would be beyond his grasp!

That the dragon king could not allow, so he took up the chase, leaping forward, and stumbling over a form that he could not see.

Greensparrow hardly took note of the trip, and his heavy foot had taken the breath from Luthien. The young Bedwyr could have remained where he was, allowing the dragon king to run off in pursuit of Riverdancer, while he went back to Brind’Amour.

But Luthien saw his chance before him and would not pass it up, no matter the terror, no matter the pain. With a shout of “Eriador free!” the young Bedwyr launched himself forward, catching up to the beast even as it pulled itself from the ground. Blind-Striker’s tip bit hard, right between the wings, tearing through the scales and nicking the backbone.

Luthien kept going forward, leaped right onto Greensparrow’s back, catching a firm and stubborn hold on the broken wing even as the beast tried to turn about.

Greensparrow threw himself into a roll, ducking his shoulder so that he would go right over the pitiful human. Luthien tried to leap free, got his blade out of the beast’s back and pushed off the wing. He scrambled away as Greensparrow rolled, but the dragon king came up in a leap that brought him up to Luthien, and the man’s breath was blasted from his lungs as Greensparrow came down heavily atop him.

He was pinned, nowhere to run, with the dragon king’s terrible face barely inches away. They held the pose for several seconds, a strange expression, a look of confusion perhaps, on Greensparrow’s dragon features.

Luthien knew that the torn maw could not bite at him, but his arms were pinned against his chest and he could not hope to block if Greensparrow gouged at his face with that array of horns. Desperately he struggled, to no avail. He couldn’t even draw breath, and felt a pointed press against the hollow of his breast that he soon realized to be the tip of his own sword!

Luthien’s eyes went wide. If that was the swordtip, then Blind-Striker was pointing straight out. But if the dragon king was on top of him . . .

“Foolish, wretched boy,” Greensparrow said, his voice serene and his words accompanied by dripping blood. The creature managed a small, incredulous chuckle. “You have killed me.”

Luthien was too stunned to reply.

“But I will kill you as well,” Greensparrow promised, and Luthien had no words, and certainly no actions, to refute the claim as Greensparrow’s neck lifted the horned head up high and put the sharp horns in line with Luthien’s face. Even if the dragon king expired before he struck, the simple weight of the dropping horns would surely finish Luthien.

He tried to face death bravely, tried not to cry out. His concentration was shattered, though, by a thunderous roar to the side of his head, by the spray of muddy turf as Riverdancer charged up and spun about, then kicked out with his hind legs, connecting solidly with the dragon’s head even as it began its descent.

Greensparrow’s neck snapped out to the side violently; the head thumped hard against the ground.

The dragon king lay very still.

 

 

EPILOGUE

It took Luthien some time to extract himself from under the dead beast. Even after he had squirmed clear, he spent many minutes just lying in the muck, trying to catch his breath, praying that the searing pain would abate. Somehow he managed to get to his feet. And then he nearly collapsed, fell against his precious Riverdancer, merely a horse once again and with no sign of Brind’Amour’s wings, and hugged the horse tight.

Luthien looked to the fallen dragon king, to see Blind-Striker’s crafted pommel poking into the air out the creature’s back. Guiding Riverdancer, using the horse’s strength, Luthien managed to get the dead dragon king angled so that he could retrieve the sword. Then Luthien led the horse back to Brind’Amour, and the young Bedwyr was relieved indeed to see that the wizard, though he was lying on his back, apparently unconscious, was breathing steadily.

It took a long while to get Brind’Amour across Riverdancer’s back. That done, and with no desire to be in the swamp when night descended over it, Luthien led the horse away, following as direct a westerly course as he could.

Luck was with him, and sometime long after sunset, Luthien emerged from the Saltwash onto the rolling fields of southeastern Avon. He meant to build a fire, but collapsed on the grass.

When he awoke to the slanting rays of dawn, he found a cheerful Brind’Amour standing over him. “This day you ride,” the wizard said with a wink. “A long road ahead of us, my boy.”

Brind’Amour helped him to his feet, and Luthien realized that his wounds were not so sore anymore. He looked to the one on his ribs and saw a thick muddy salve there, and he didn’t have to ask to figure that Brind’Amour had added a bit of magic to the healing.

“A long road,” the wizard said again, adding a wink. “But this time, the end of that road should be a better place by far!”

Indeed it was, for by the time the companions got back to Carlisle, Deanna Wellworth had assumed her rightful place as queen of Avon. Her speech to the doubting and frightened populace had been conciliatory and apologetic, but firm. She was back, by right of blood. They would have to accept that, but Deanna was wise enough to understand that the real test of her power, and the real reason for her return, was to improve the lives of those who looked to her for guidance.

Her reign, she promised, would be as her father’s had been, gentle and just, for the good of all.

How much her hopes, and the hopes of those who supported her, were lifted on that morning when Luthien and Brind’Amour, both riding the healed Riverdancer, came back through Carlisle’s shining gates, with news that the dragon king, evil Greensparrow, was truly dead!

That settled, Deanna acted quickly. She recognized Brind’Amour as rightful king of the free land of Eriador, and afforded the same autonomy to King Ashannon McLenny of Baranduine and to King Bellick dan Burso of DunDarrow. The four then struck a truce with Asmund of Isenland, though the subtle threat of war was needed to convince the fierce and proud Huegoth king to agree. For the three kings and one queen of Avonsea held a firm front in their demand that none of their subjects be held in slavery by Asmund’s warriors.

The longships were emptied; men who thought they would never again see the light of day fell to their knees on the banks of the Stratton, giving thanks to God.

Asmund’s warriors would row themselves home!

That business completed, Brind’Amour took to his own matters, arranging for the proper burial of those Eriadorans who had fallen, including the brave half-elf who had been his dear and valued friend, and who had been so instrumental in the change that had come over the land.

Luthien, too, could not hold back the tears as Siobhan was laid to rest, and only the sight of broken Oliver and the strength of Katerin gave Luthien the resolve that he, too, must remain strong for his halfling friend.

The first week after Deanna’s ascent was filled with grief; the second began a celebration that the new queen of Avon declared would last for a fortnight. It began as a farewell to Asmund and the Huegoths, but seeing that the party was about to commence, the pragmatic barbarian changed his plans and allowed his rightly weary warriors to stay a bit longer.

On the first night of revelry, after a feast that left the hundred guests at Deanna’s table stuffed, Brind’Amour pulled Luthien and Oliver, Kayryn Kulthwain and Proctor Byllewyn aside. “Greensparrow was right in dividing his kingdom among dukes,” the king explained. “I will not be able to see the reaches of my kingdom from my busy seat in Caer MacDonald.”

“We accept you as king,” Proctor Byllewyn assured him.

Brind’Amour nodded. “And I name you again, and formally, as duke of Gybi,” he explained. “And you, Kayryn Kulthwain, shall be my duchess of Eradoch. Guide your peoples well, with fairness and in the knowledge that Caer MacDonald will support you.”

The two bowed low.

“And you, my dearest of friends,” Brind’Amour went on, turning to Luthien and Oliver. “I am told that there is no duke of Bedwydrin, and no eorl, but only a steward, put in place until things could be set aright.”

“True enough,” Luthien admitted, trying to keep his tone in line with the honor that he expected would fall his way, though his heart was not in the assignment. Luthien had his fill of governments and duties, and wanted nothing more than a free run down a long road.

“Thus I grant you the title of duke of Bedwydrin,” Brind’Amour announced. “And command of all the three islands, Bedwydrin, Marvis, and Caryth.”

“Marvis and Caryth already have their eorls,” Luthien tried to protest.

“Who will answer to you, and you to me,” Brind’Amour replied casually.

Luthien felt trapped. How could he refuse the command of his king, especially when the command was one that almost anyone would have taken as the highest of compliments? He looked to Oliver, then his gaze drifted past the halfling, to Katerin, who was out on the floor, dancing gaily. There, in the partner of the red-haired woman of Hale, Luthien found his answer.

“This I cannot accept,” he said bluntly, and his words were followed by a gasp from both Kayryn and Byllewyn.

Oliver poked him hard. “He does not mean to say what he tries to say,” the halfling stammered and started to pull Luthien aside.

Luthien offered a smile to his diminutive friend; he knew that Oliver wanted nothing more than the comfortable existence that Brind’Amour’s offer to Luthien would provide for them all.

“I am truly honored,” Luthien said to the king. “But I cannot accept the title. Our ways are beyond the edicts of a king, are rooted in traditions that extend to times even before your brotherhood was formed.”

Brind’Amour, more intrigued than insulted, cocked his head and scratched at his white beard.

“I am not the rightful heir to Bedwydrin’s seat,” Luthien explained, “for I am not the eldest son of Gahris Bedwyr.”

That turned all eyes to the dance floor, to Katerin and to her partner, Ethan Bedwyr. Brind’Amour called the couple over, and called to Asmund as well.

Ethan’s initial response to the offer was predictable and volatile. “I am Huegoth,” came the expected claim.

Katerin laughed at him, and his cinnamon-colored eyes, that obvious trademark to his rightful heritage, flashed as he snapped his gaze about to regard her.

“You are Bedwyr,” the woman said, not backing down an inch. “Son of Gahris, brother of Luthien, whatever your words might claim.”

Ethan trembled on the verge of an explosion.

“You left Bedwydrin only because you could not tolerate what your home had become,” Katerin went on.

“Now you can make of your home your own vision,” added Brind’Amour. “Will you desert your people in this time of great change?”

“My people?” Ethan scoffed, looking to Asmund.

A large part of Oliver deBurrows, that comfort-loving halfling constitution, wanted Ethan to reject the offer so that Luthien had to take the seat, that Oliver could go beside him and live a life of true luxury. But even that temptation was not enough to tear the loyal halfling from the desires of his dearest friend. “Even Asmund would agree that such a friend as Ethan Bedwyr sitting in power among the three islands would be a good thing,” Oliver put in, seeing his chance. “Mayhaps you have seen your destiny, Ethan, son of Gahris. You who have befriended the Huegoths might seal in truce and in heart an alliance and friendship that will outlive you and all your little Ethan-type children.”

Ethan started to respond, but Asmund clapped him hard on the back and roared with laughter. “Like a son you’ve been to me,” slurred the Huegoth king, who had obviously had a bit too much to drink. “But if you think you have a chance of claiming my throne . . . !” Again came the roaring laughter.

“Take it, boy!” Asmund said when he caught his breath. “Go where you belong, just don’t you forget where you’ve been!”

Ethan sighed deeply, looked from Katerin to Asmund, to Luthien, and finally to Brind’Amour, offering a somewhat resigned, somewhat hopeful nod of acceptance.

 

 

It might have been simply the perception, the hope that embraced the kingdoms of Avonsea, but the ensuing winter did not seem so harsh. Even on those surprisingly infrequent occasions when snow did fall, it was light and fluffy, settling like a gentle blanket. And winter’s grip was not long in the holding; the last snow fell before the second month of the year was ended, and by the middle of the third month, the fields were green once more and the breeze was warm.

So it was on the bright morning that Luthien, Katerin, and Oliver set out from Carlisle. Brind’Amour and the Eriadoran army had long ago returned to Caer MacDonald, Ethan Bedwyr to Bedwydrin, Ashannon McLenny and his fleet to Baranduine, and Bellick dan Burso to DunDarrow, all ready to take on the responsibilities of their new positions. But for Luthien and his two companions, those responsibilities had ended with the fall of Greensparrow and the official coronation of Queen Deanna Wellworth of Avon. Thus the trio had lingered in Carlisle, enjoying the splendors of Avon’s largest city. They had spent the winter healing the scars of war, letting the grief of friends lost settle into comfortable memories of friends past.

But even Carlisle, so huge, so full of excitement, could not defeat the wanderlust that held the heart of all three, of Luthien Bedwyr most of all, and so, when the snows receded and the wind blew warm, Luthien, upon Riverdancer, had led the way to the north.

They rode easily for several days, keeping to themselves mostly, though they would have been welcomed in any village, in any farmhouse. Their companions were the animals, awakening after winter’s slumber, and the stars, glittering bright each night above the quiet and dark fields.

The trio had no real destination in mind, but they were moving inevitably to the north, toward the Iron Cross, and Caer MacDonald beyond that. The mountains were well in sight, Speythenfergus Lake left far behind, before they formally spoke of their destination.

“I do not think Caer MacDonald will be so different from Carlisle,” Luthien remarked one morning soon after they had broken camp. Again the day was unseasonably warm and hospitable, the sun beaming overhead, the breeze soft and from the south.

“Ah yes, but Brind’Amour, my so-dear friend, rules in Caer MacDonald,” Oliver said cheerily, kicking Threadbare to move ahead of Katerin’s chestnut and come up alongside Riverdancer.

Katerin did not smile as Oliver moved past her; her thoughts, too, were on Caer MacDonald, and the impending boredom promised by such a peaceful existence.

“True enough,” said Luthien.

“So,” Oliver began to reason, “if we creep into the house of a merchant-type and are caught—not that any could ever catch the infamous Oliver deBurrows and his Crimson Shadow henchman!” Oliver quickly added when his companions brought their mounts to an abrupt stop, both regarding him skeptically.

“Crimson Shadow henchman?” Katerin asked.

“We’ll not go to Caer MacDonald as thieves, Oliver,” Luthien said dryly, something the halfling obviously already knew. The halfling shrugged; Katerin and Luthien looked to each other and smiled knowingly, then urged their horses ahead once more.

“Why would we need to?” Oliver asked. “Of course, we shall live in the palace, surrounded by all pleasures, food and pretty ladies! Of course I was only joking; why would I want to steal with so much given to me?”

Luthien’s next question stopped his companions short again.

“Then what shall we do?” the young Bedwyr asked.

“What must we do?” Oliver asked, not understanding.

“Are we two to build a home and raise our children?” Luthien asked Katerin, and the woman’s stunned expression showed that she hadn’t given that possibility any more thought than had Luthien. “Are we all to serve Brind’Amour, then,” Luthien went on, “carrying his endless parchments from room to room?”

Oliver shook his head, still not catching on.

Katerin had it clear, though, and in truth, Luthien had brought up something that the young woman hadn’t really considered. “What are we to do?” she asked, more to Luthien than to Oliver.

The young Bedwyr regarded her, his face skeptical as he considered that the reality of their apparent future could not match the intensity of their recent past.

“What is there for us in Caer MacDonald?” the woman asked.

“Caer MacDonald is the seat of Eriador, where our friend is king,” Luthien answered, but his statement of the obvious did little to answer the woman’s question.

Katerin nodded her agreement, but motioned for Luthien to continue, to explain exactly what that might mean.

“There is important . . .” the young Bedwyr started. “We will be needed . . . Brind’Amour will need emissaries,” he finally decided, “to go to Gybi, to Eradoch, to Dun Caryth, and Port Charley. He will need riders to take his edicts to Bedwydrin. He will need—”

“So?” Katerin’s simple question caught Oliver off his guard, and defeated Luthien’s mounting duty-bound speech before it could gain any momentum—not that the young Bedwyr was trying to instill any momentum into it!

“The war is over,” Katerin said plainly.

Oliver groaned, finally catching on to the course the two were walking. He started to protest, to remind them of the luxuries awaiting them, the accolades, the pretty ladies, but in truth, Oliver found that he was out of arguments, for in his heart he agreed—though the halfling part of him that preferred comfort above all else screamed a thousand thousand protests at his sensibilities. The war was over, the threat of Greensparrow ended forever. And the threat of the cyclopians had been ended as well, at least for the foreseeable future. The three kingdoms of Avonsea’s largest island were at peace, a solid alliance, and any problems that might now arise would surely seem petty things when measured against the great struggle that had just been waged and won.

That was why Luthien had refused the crown of Eriador when his name had been mentioned as possible king soon after the northern kingdom had gained its independence from Greensparrow’s Avon. Oliver studied his young friend, nodding as it all came clear. That was why Luthien had deferred to Ethan for the high position that Brind’Amour had offered. That was, in truth, why Luthien and Katerin had been so agreeable to the idea that they should linger in Carlisle. They had spent months waging a just war, their veins coursing with adrenaline. They were young and full of excitement and adventure; what did Caer MacDonald really have to offer to them?

“I spent many hours with Duke McLenny . . . King McLenny, on board his flagship as we sailed along Avon’s western and southern coasts,” Katerin said sometime later, the trio moving again, but more slowly now. “He spoke to me at length about Baranduine, wild and untamed.”

Luthien looked at her, a mischievous smile crossing his face.

Oliver groaned.

“Untamed,” Katerin reiterated, “and in need of a few good heroes.”

“I do like the way this woman thinks,” Luthien remarked, promptly turning Riverdancer to the west.

Oliver groaned again. On many levels, he wanted to convince Luthien and Katerin to accept the life of luxury, wanted them to settle down with their baby-types, while he got fat and comfortable in Brind’Amour’s palace. On one level, though, Oliver not only understood, but, despite himself, agreed with the turn in direction. Wild Baranduine, rugged and unlawful, a place where a highwayhalfling might find a bit of sport and a bit of treasure. Suddenly Oliver recalled the carefree days he and Luthien had spent when first they had met, riding the breadth of Eriador at the expense of merchants along the road. Now the halfling envisioned a life on the road once more, with Luthien and that marvelous cape, and with Katerin, as capable a companion as any highwayhalfling could ever want, beside him. His vision grew into a full-blown daydream as they moved along, becoming vivid and thoroughly enjoyable—until the halfling saw an error in the image.

“Ah, my dear Siobhan,” Oliver lamented aloud, for in his fantasy, the group riding about Baranduine’s thick green hillocks was four, and not three. “If only you were here.”

Luthien and Katerin regarded the halfling, sharing his sorrow. How much more complete they, too, would feel if the beautiful half-elf was riding alongside!

“A couple of couples we would then be!” Oliver proclaimed, his tone brightening, his dimples bursting forth as that cheery grin widened on his cherubic face. “We could call ourselves the two-two’s, and let the fat merchant-types beware!”

Luthien and Katerin just laughed helplessly, a mirth tainted by the scars of a war that would never fully heal.