Luthien's Gamble

2 To the Bitter End

“You should not be up here,” Oliver remarked, his frosty breath filling the air before him. He grabbed the edge of the flat roof and pulled himself over, then hopped up to his feet and clapped his hands hard to get the blood flowing in them.

Across the way, Luthien didn’t reply, other than to nod in the direction of the Ministry. Oliver walked up beside his friend and noted the intensity in Luthien’s striking cinnamon-colored eyes. The halfling followed that gaze to the southwest, toward the massive structure that dominated the Montfort skyline. He could see the body of Duke Morkney still frozen against the cathedral wall, the spear still stuck in the dead man’s head. The rope around his neck, however, now angled out from the building, its end pushed away from the buttress where it had been tied.

“They cut the rope,” the halfling howled, thinking the garish scene perfectly outrageous. “But still the dead duke stays!” Indeed the cyclopians had cut the rope free from the tower top, hoping to dislodge Morkney. Farther down the tower side, though, the rope remained frozen and so the cyclopians had done nothing more than create what looked like a ghastly antenna, sticking up from Morkney’s head as if he were some giant bug.

Luthien jutted his chin upward, toward the top of the tower, and shifting his gaze, Oliver saw cyclopians bumbling about up there, cursing and pushing each other. Just below the lip, the tower glistened with wetness and some of the ice had broken away. The halfling realized what was happening a moment later when the cyclopians hoisted a huge, steaming cauldron and tipped it over the edge. Boiling water ran down the side of the tower.

One of the cyclopians slipped, then roared in pain and whirled away, and the hot cauldron toppled down behind the water. It spun along its descent, but stayed close to the wall, and slammed into the butt of the spear that was embedded in Morkney’s head. On bounced the cauldron, bending the spear out with it, and the soldiers on the roof winced as Morkney’s head jerked forward violently, nearly torn from his torso. The spear did come free, and it and the cauldron fell to the courtyard below, to the terrified screams of scrambling cyclopians and the derisive hoots from the many common Eriadorans watching the spectacle from the city’s lower section.

The pushing atop the tower became an open fight and the offending cyclopian, still clutching the hand he had burned on the cauldron, was heaved over the battlement. His was the only scream from that side of the dividing wall, but the hoots from the lower section came louder than ever.

“Oh, I do like how they bury their dead!” Oliver remarked.

Luthien didn’t share the halfling’s mirth. The Ministry had been lost to Aubrey, and it was Luthien’s decision to let the viscount keep it, at least for the time being. The cost of taking the building back, if they could indeed roust the cyclopians from the place, would not be worth the many lives that would be lost.

Still, Luthien had to wonder about the wisdom of that decision. Not because he needed the cathedral for strategic purposes—the huge building could be defended, but the open courtyards surrounding it made it useless as a base of offensive operations—but because of its symbolic ramifications. The Ministry, that gigantic, imposing temple of God, the largest and greatest structure in all of Eriador, belonged to the common folk who had built it, not to the ugly one-eyes and the unlawful Avon king. The soul of Montfort, of all of Eriador, was epitomized by that cathedral; every village, no matter how small or how remote, boasted at least one family member who had helped to build the Ministry.

The next cauldron of boiling water was dumped over the side then, and this time, the cauldron itself was not dropped. The hot liquid made it all the way down to the duke, and the rope, freed of its icy grasp, rolled over and hung down. A few seconds later, the upper half of Morkney’s frozen torso came free of the wall and the corpse bent out at the waist.

The two friends couldn’t see much on the top of the tower, of course, but after a long period when no cyclopians appeared near the edge, Luthien and Oliver surmised that the brutes had run out of hot water.

“Is a long way to climb with a full cauldron,” the halfling snickered, remembering the winding stair, a difficult walk even without the cold and the ice.

“Aubrey believes that it is worth the effort,” Luthien said, and his grim tone tipped Oliver off to his friend’s distress.

Oliver stroked the frozen hairs of his neatly trimmed goatee and looked back to the tower.

“We could take the Ministry back,” he offered, guessing the source of Luthien’s mood.

Luthien shook his head. “Not worth the losses.”

“We are winning this fight,” Oliver said. “The merchant-types are caught in their homes and not so many cyclopians remain.” He looked at the wall and imagined the scene in the northern courtyard. “And one less than a moment ago,” he said with a snort.

Luthien didn’t disagree. The Eriadorans were close to taking back their city—Caer MacDonald, it had been called—from Greensparrow’s lackeys. But how long would they hold it? Already there were reports of an army coming from Avon to put down the resistance, and while those were unconfirmed and possibly no more than the manifestation of fears, Luthien couldn’t deny the possibility. King Greensparrow would not tolerate an uprising, would not easily let go of Eriador, though he had never truly conquered the land.

Luthien thought of the plague that had ravaged Eriador some twenty years before, in the very year that he had been born. His mother had died in that plague, and so many others as well, nearly a third of the Eriadoran populace. The proud folk could no longer continue their war with Greensparrow’s armies—forces comprised mostly of cyclopians—and so they had surrendered.

And then another plague had come over Eriador: a blackening of the spirit. Luthien had seen it in his own father, a man with little fight left in him. He knew it in men like Aubrey, Eriadorans who had accepted Greensparrow with all their heart, who profited from the misery of the commonfolk.

So what exactly had he and Oliver started that day in the Ministry when he had killed Morkney? He thought of that battle now, of how Morkney had given over his body to a demon, further confirmation of the wickedness that was Greensparrow and his cronies. The mere thought of the evil beast, Praehotec by name, sent shudders coursing through Luthien, for he would not have won that fight, would not have plunged Oliver’s rapier through the duke’s skinny chest, had not Morkney erred and released the demon to its hellish home, the human thinking to kill the battered Luthien on his own.

Looking back over the events of these last few weeks, the blind luck and the subtle twists of fate, Luthien had to wonder, and to worry—for how many innocent people, caught up in the frenzy of the fast-spreading legend of the Crimson Shadow, would be punished by the evil king? Would another plague, like the one that had broken the hearts and will of Eriador when Greensparrow first became king of Avon, sweep over the land? Or would Greensparrow’s cyclopian army simply march into Montfort and kill everyone who was not loyal to the throne?

And it would go beyond Montfort, Luthien knew. Katerin had come from Isle Bedwydrin, his home, bearing his father’s sword and news that the uprising was general on the island, as well. Gahris, Luthien’s father, had apparently found his heart, the pride that was Eriador of old, in the news of his son’s exploits. The eorl of Bedwydrin had declared that no cyclopian on Isle Bedwydrin would remain alive. Avonese, once Aubrey’s consort and passed on by Aubrey to become the wife of Gahris, was in chains.

The thought of that pompous and painted whore brought bile into Luthien’s throat. In truth, Avonese had begun all of this, back in Bedwydrin. Luthien had unwittingly accepted her kerchief, a symbol that he would champion her in the fighting arena. When he had defeated his friend, Garth Rogar, the wicked Avonese had called for the vanquished man’s death.

And so Garth Rogar had died, murdered by a cyclopian that Luthien later slew. While the ancient rules gave Avonese the right to make such a demand, simple morality most definitely did not.

Avonese, in pointing her thumb down, in demanding the death of Garth Rogar, had set Luthien on his path. How ironic now that Aubrey, the man who had brought the whore to Bedwydrin, was Luthien’s mortal enemy in the struggle for Montfort.

Luthien wanted Aubrey’s head and meant to get it, but he feared that his own, and those of many friends, would roll once King Greensparrow retaliated.

“So why are you sad, my friend?” Oliver asked, his patience worn thin by the stinging breeze. No more cyclopians had appeared atop the tower, and Oliver figured that it would take them an hour at least to descend, fill another cauldron, and haul the thing up. The comfort-loving halfling had no intention of waiting an hour in the freezing winter wind.

Luthien stood up and rubbed his hands and his arms briskly. “Come,” he said, to Oliver’s relief. “I am to meet Siobhan at the Dwelf. Her scouts have returned with word from the east and the west.”

Oliver hopped into line behind Luthien, but his step quickly slowed. The scouts had returned?

The worldly Oliver thought he knew then what was bothering Luthien.

The Dwelf, so named because it catered to nonhumans, particularly to dwarfs and elves, was bustling that day. It was simply too cold outside to wage any major battles, and many of the rebels were using the time to resupply their own larders and relax. Located in one of Montfort’s poorest sections, the Dwelf had never been very popular with any except the nonhuman residents of Montfort, but now, as the favored tavern of the Crimson Shadow, the hero of the revolution, it was almost always full.

The barkeep, a slender but rugged man (and looking more fearsome than usual, for he hadn’t found the time to shave his thick black stubble in nearly a week), wiped his hands on a beer-stained cloth and moved up to stand before Oliver and Luthien as soon as they took their customary seats at the bar.

“We’re looking for Siobhan,” Luthien said immediately.

Before Tasman could answer, the young Bedwyr felt a gentle touch on his earlobe. He closed his eyes as the hand slid lower, stroking his neck in the sensuous way only Siobhan could.

“We have business,” Oliver said to Tasman, then looked sidelong at the couple. “Though I am not so sure which business my excited friend favors at this time.”

Luthien’s cinnamon eyes popped open and he spun about, taking Siobhan’s hand as he turned and pulling it from his neck. He cleared his throat, embarrassed, to find that the half-elf was not only not alone, but that one of her companions was a scowling Katerin O’Hale.

The young man realized then that the gentle stroke of his neck had been given for Katerin’s benefit.

Oliver knew it, too. “I think that the war comes closer to my home,” he whispered to Tasman. The barkeep snickered and slid a couple of ale-filled mugs before the companions, then moved away. Tasman’s ears were good enough to catch everything important that was said along his bar, but he always tried to make sure that those conversing didn’t know he was in on the discussion.

Luthien locked stares with Katerin for a long moment, then cleared his throat again. “What news from Avon?” he asked Siobhan.

Siobhan looked over her left shoulder to her other companion, an elf dressed in many layers of thick cloth and furs. He had rosy cheeks and long eyelashes that glistened with crystals of melting ice.

“It is not promising, good sir,” the elf said to Luthien, with obvious reverence.

Luthien winced a bit, still uncomfortable with such formal treatment. He was the leader of the rebels, put forth as the hero of Eriador, and those who were not close to him always called him “good sir” or “my lord,” out of respect.

“Reports continue that an army is on the way from Avon,” the elf went on. “There are rumors of a great gathering of cyclopian warriors—Praetorian Guard, I would assume—in Princetown.”

It made sense to Luthien. Princetown lay diagonally across the Iron Cross to the southeast. It was not physically the closest to Montfort of Avon’s major cities, but it was the closest to Malpuissant’s Wall, the only pass through the great mountains that an army could hope to navigate, even in midsummer, let alone in the harsh winter.

Still, any march from Princetown to Montfort, crossing through the fortress of Dun Caryth, which anchored Malpuissant’s Wall to the Iron Cross, would take many weeks, and the rate of attrition in the harsh weather would be taxing. Luthien took some comfort in the news, for it didn’t seem probable that Greensparrow would strike out from Princetown until the spring melt was in full spate.

“There is another possibility,” the elf said grimly, seeing the flicker of hope in the young Bedwyr’s eyes.

“Port Charley,” guessed Katerin, referring to the seaport west of Montfort.

The elf nodded.

“Is the rumor based in knowledge or in fear?” Oliver asked.

“I do not know that there is a rumor at all,” the elf replied.

“Fear,” Oliver decided, and well-founded, he silently added. As the realities of the fighting in Montfort had settled in and the rebels turned their eyes outside the embattled city, talk of an Avon fleet sailing into Port Charley abounded. It seemed a logical choice for Greensparrow. The straits between Baranduine and Avon were treacherous in the winter, and icebergs were not uncommon, but it was not so far a sail, and the great ships of Avon could carry many, many cyclopians.

“What allies—” Luthien began to ask, but the elf cut him short, fully expecting the question.

“The folk of Port Charley are no friend of cyclopians,” he said. “No doubt they are glad that one-eyes are dying in Montfort, and that Duke Morkney was slain.”

“But . . .” Oliver prompted, correctly interpreting the elf’s tone.

“But they have declared no allegiance to our cause,” the elf finished.

“Nor will they,” Katerin put in. All eyes turned to her, some questioning, wondering what she knew. Luthien understood, for he had often been to Hale, Katerin’s home, an independent, free-spirited town not so different from Port Charley. Still, he wasn’t so sure that Katerin’s reasoning was sound. The names of ancient heroes, of Bruce MacDonald, sparked pride and loyalty in all Eriadorans, the folk of Port Charley included.

“If a fleet does sail, it must be stopped at the coast,” Luthien said determinedly.

Katerin shook her head. “If you try to bring an army into Port Charley, you will be fighting,” she said. “But not with allies of Greensparrow.”

“Would they let the cyclopians through?” Oliver asked.

“If they will not join with us, then they will not likely oppose Greensparrow,” Siobhan put in.

Luthien’s mind raced with possibilities. Could he bring Port Charley into the revolution? And if not, could he and his rebels hope to hold out against an army of Avon?

“Perhaps we should consider again our course,” Oliver offered a moment later.

“Consider our course?” Katerin and Siobhan said together.

“Go back underground,” the halfling replied. “The winter is too cold for much fighting anyway. So we stop fighting. And you and I,” he said to Luthien, nudging his friend, “will fly away like wise little birds.”

The open proclamation that perhaps this riot had gotten a bit out of hand sobered the mood of all those near to the halfling, even the many eavesdroppers who were not directly in on the conversation. Oliver had reminded them all of the price of failure.

Siobhan looked at her elvish companion, who only shrugged helplessly.

“Our lives were not so bad before the fight,” Tasman remarked, walking by Luthien and Oliver on the other side of the bar.

“There is a possibility of diplomacy,” Siobhan said. “Even now. Aubrey knows that he cannot put down the revolt without help from Avon, and he dearly craves the position of duke. He might believe that if he could strike a deal and rescue Montfort, Greensparrow would reward him with the title.”

Luthien looked past the speaker, into the eyes of Katerin O’Hale, green orbs that gleamed with angry fires. The notion of diplomacy, of surrender, apparently did not sit well with the proud warrior woman.

Behind Katerin, several patrons were jostled and then pushed aside. Then Katerin, too, was nudged forward as a squat figure, four feet tall but sturdy, sporting a bushy blue-black beard, shoved his way to stand before Luthien.

“What’s this foolish talk?” the dwarf Shuglin demanded, his gnarly fists clenched as though he meant to leap up and throttle Luthien at any moment.

“We are discussing our course,” Oliver put in. The halfling saw the fires in Shuglin’s eyes. Angry fires—for the dwarf, now that he had found some hope and had tasted freedom, often proclaimed that he would prefer death over a return to subjugation.

Shuglin snorted. “You decided your course that day in the Ministry,” he roared. “You think you can go back now?”

“Not I, nor Luthien,” the halfling admitted. “But for the rest . . .”

Shuglin wasn’t listening. He shoved between Luthien and Oliver, grabbed the edge of the bar, and heaved himself up to stand above the crowd.

“Hey!” he roared and the Dwelf went silent. Even Tasman, though certainly not appreciating the heavy boots on his polished bar, held back.

“Who in here is for surrendering?” Shuglin called.

The Dwelf’s crowd remained silent.

“Shuglin,” Luthien began, trying to calm his volatile friend.

The dwarf ignored him. “Who in here is for killing Aubrey and raising the flag of Caer MacDonald?”

The Dwelf exploded in cheers. Swords slid free of their sheaths and were slapped together above the heads of the crowd. Calls for Aubrey’s head rang out from every corner.

Shuglin hopped down between Oliver and Luthien. “You got your answer,” he growled, and he moved to stand between Katerin and Siobhan, his gaze steeled upon Luthien and muscular arms crossed over his barrel chest.

Luthien didn’t miss the smile that Katerin flashed at the dwarf, nor the pat she gave to him.

Of everything the dwarf had said, the most important was the ancient name of Montfort, Caer MacDonald, a tribute to Eriador’s hero of old.

“Well said, my friend,” Oliver began. “But—”

That was as far as the halfling got.

“Bruce MacDonald is more than a name,” Luthien declared.

“So is the Crimson Shadow,” Siobhan unexpectedly added.

Luthien paused for just an instant, to turn a curious and appreciative look at the half-elf. “Bruce MacDonald is an ideal,” Luthien went on. “A symbol for the folk of Eriador. And do you know what Bruce MacDonald stands for?”

“Killing cyclopians?” asked Oliver, who was from Gascony and not Eriador.

“Freedom,” Katerin corrected. “Freedom for every man and woman.” She looked to Siobhan and to Shuglin. “For every elf and every dwarf. And every halfling, Oliver,” she said, her intent gaze locking with his. “Freedom for Eriador, and for every person who would live here.”

“We talk of halting what we cannot halt,” Luthien put in. “How many merchants and their cyclopian guards have been killed? How many Praetorian Guards? And what of Duke Morkney? Do you believe that Greensparrow will so easily forgive?”

Luthien slipped off his stool, standing tall. “We have begun something here, something too important to be stopped by mere fear. We have begun the freeing of Eriador.”

“Let us not get carried away,” Oliver interjected. “Or we might get carried away . . . in boxes.”

Luthien looked at his diminutive friend and realized how far Oliver—and many others, as well, given the whispers that had reached Luthien’s ears—were sliding backward on this issue. “You are the one who told me to reveal myself in the Minisiry that day,” he reminded the halfling. “You are the one who wanted me to start the riot.”

“I?” Oliver balked. “I just wanted to get us out of there alive after you so foolishly jumped up and shot an arrow at the Duke!”

“I was there to save Siobhan!” Luthien declared.

“And I was there to save you!” Oliver roared right back at him. The halfling sighed and calmed, patted his hand on Luthien’s shoulder. “But let us not get carried away,” Oliver said. “In boxes or any other way.”

Luthien didn’t calm a bit. His thoughts were on destiny, on Bruce MacDonald and the ideals the man represented. Katerin was with him, so was Shuglin, and so was his father, back on Isle Bedwydrin. He looked toward Siobhan, but could not read the feelings behind the sparkle of her green eyes. He would have liked something from her, some indication, for over the past few weeks she had quietly become one of his closest advisors.

“It cannot be stopped,” Luthien declared loudly enough so that every person in the Dwelf heard him. “We have started a war that we must win.”

“The boats will sail from Avon,” Oliver warned.

“And so they will be stopped,” Luthien countered, cinnamon eyes flashing. “In Port Charley.” He looked back out at the crowd, back to Siobhan, and it seemed to him as if the sparkle in her eyes had intensified, as if he had just passed some secret test. “Because the folk of that town will join with us,” Luthien went on, gathering strength, “and so will all of Eriador.” Luthien paused, but his wicked smile spoke volumes.

“They will join us once the flag of Caer MacDonald flies over Montfort,” he continued. “Once they know that we are in this to the end.”

Oliver thought of remarking on just how bitter that end might become, but he held the thought. He had never been afraid of death, had lived his life as an ultimate adventure, and now Luthien, this young and naive boy he had found on the road, had opened his eyes once more.

Shuglin thrust his fist into the air. “Get me to the mines!” he growled. “I’ll give you an army!”

Luthien considered his bearded friend. Shuglin had long been lobbying for an attack on the Montfort mines, outside of town, where most of his kin were imprisoned. Siobhan had whispered that course into Luthien’s ear many times, as well. Now, with the decision that this was more than a riot, with the open declaration of war against Greensparrow, Luthien recognized that action must be taken swiftly.

He eyed the dwarf directly. “To the mines,” he agreed, and Shuglin whooped and hopped away, punching his fist into the air.

Many left the Dwelf then, to spread the word. It occurred to Oliver that some might be spies for Aubrey and were even now running to tell the viscount of the plan.

It didn’t matter, the halfling decided. Since the beginning of the revolt in the city’s lower section, Aubrey and his forces had been bottled up within the walls of the inner section and could not get word to those cyclopians guarding the Montfort mines.

“You are crazy,” Siobhan said to Luthien, but in a teasing, not derisive, manner. She moved near to the man and put her lips against his ear. “And so exciting,” she whispered, but loud enough so that those closest could hear. She bit his earlobe and gave a soft growl.

Looking over her shoulder, glimpsing Katerin’s scowl, Luthien recognized again that Siobhan’s nuzzle, like her earlier display of affection, was for the other woman’s sake. Luthien felt no power, no pride, with that understanding. The last thing the young Bedwyr wanted to do was bring pain to Katerin O’Hale, who had been his lover—and more than that, his best friend—those years on Isle Bedwydrin.

Siobhan and her elvish companion left then, but not before the half-elf threw a wink back at Luthien that changed to a superior look as she passed Katerin.

Katerin didn’t blink, showed no expression whatsoever.

That alone made Luthien nervous.

Not so long afterward, Luthien, Oliver, and Katerin stood alone just inside the door of the Dwelf. It was snowing again, heavily, so many of the patrons had departed to stoke the fires in their own homes.

The talk between the three was light, but obviously strained, with Oliver pointedly keeping the subject on planning the coming assault on the Montfort mines.

The tension between Luthien and Katerin did not diminish, though, and finally Luthien decided that he had to say something.

“It is not what it seems,” he stammered, interrupting the rambling Oliver in midsentence.

Katerin looked at him curiously.

“With Siobhan, I mean,” the young man explained. “We have been friends for some time. I mean . . .”

Luthien found no words to continue. He realized how stupid he must sound; of course Katerin—and everyone else!—knew that he and Siobhan were lovers.

“You were not here,” he stuttered. “I mean . . .”

Oliver groaned, and Luthien realized that he was failing miserably and was probably making the situation much worse. Still, he could not bring himself to stop, could not accept things as they were between him and Katerin.

“It’s not what you think,” he said again, and Oliver, recognizing the scowl crossing Katerin’s face, groaned again.

“Siobhan and I . . . we have this friendship,” Luthien said. He knew that he was being ultimately condescending, especially considering the importance of the previous discussion. But Luthien’s emotion overruled his wisdom and he couldn’t stop himself. “No, it is more than that. We have this . . .”

“Do you believe that you are more important to me than the freedom of Eriador?” Katerin asked him bluntly.

“I know you are hurt,” Luthien replied before he realized the stupidity of his words.

Katerin took a quick step forward, grabbed Luthien by the shoulders and lifted her knee into his groin, bending him low. She moved as if to say something, but only trembled and turned away.

Oliver noted the glisten of tears rimming her green eyes and knew how profoundly the young man’s words had stung her.

“Never make that mistake about me again,” Katerin said evenly, through gritted teeth, and she left without turning back.

Luthien gradually straightened, face white with pain, his gaze locked on the departing woman. When she disappeared into the night, he looked helplessly at Oliver.

The halfling shook his head, trying not to laugh.

“I think I’m falling in love with her,” Luthien said breathlessly, grimacing with the effort of talking.

“With her?” Oliver asked, pointing to the doorway.

“With her,” Luthien confirmed.

Oliver stroked his goatee. “Let me understand,” he began slowly, thoughtfully. “One woman puts her knee into your cabarachees and the other puts her tongue into your ear, and you prefer the one with the knee?”

Luthien shrugged, honestly not knowing the answer.

Oliver shook his head. “I’m very worried about you.”

Luthien was worried, too. He didn’t know what he was feeling, for either Katerin or for Siobhan. He cared for them both—no man could ask for a dearer friend or lover than either woman—and that made it all the more confusing. He was a young man trying to explore emotions he did not understand. And at the same time, he was the Crimson Shadow, leader of a revolution . . . and a thousand lives, ten thousand lives, might hinge on his every decision.

Oliver started for the door and motioned for Luthien to follow. The young man took a deep and steadying breath and readily complied.

It was good to let someone else lead.