Luthien's Gamble

7 The Crimson Shadow

“Could we not have gone in the lower door?” Oliver asked, thoroughly cold and miserable and with still more than a hundred feet of climbing looming before him.

“The door is blocked,” Luthien whispered, his mouth close to Oliver’s ear, the cowl of his crimson cape covering not only his head but the halfling’s as well. “You did not have to come.”

“I did not want to lose my rope,” the stubborn halfling replied.

They were scaling the eastern wall of the Ministry, more than halfway up the tallest tower. The night air was not so cold, but the wind was stiff this high up, biting at them and threatening to shake them free. Luthien huddled tight and checked the fastenings of his magical cape. He couldn’t have it blowing open up here, leaving him and Oliver exposed halfway up the wall!

He had been wearing his cape daily since the rebellion began, for it was the symbol that the common folk of the city had rallied behind. The Crimson Shadow, the legend of old come to life to lead them to freedom. But the cape was much more than a showpiece. Cloistered within its protective magics, the cape tight about him and the cowl pulled low, Luthien was less than a shadow, or merely a shadow blended into other shadows—for all practical measures, completely invisible. He had only used the cape in this camouflaging manner a couple of times during the weeks of fighting to go over the wall and scout out enemy positions. He had thought of trying to find Aubrey, to kill the man in his house, but Siobhan had talked him out of that course, convincing him that the bumbling viscount was, in reality, a blessing to the rebels.

This time, though, Luthien would not be talked out of his plan; in fact, he had told no one except Oliver of his intentions.

So here they were, in the dark of night, almost up the Ministry’s tallest wall. There were cyclopians posted up there, they both knew, but the brutes were likely huddled close around a fire. What would they be on watch against, after all? They could not see the movements of men on the streets below, and they certainly did not expect anyone to come up and join them!

Oliver’s last throw had been good, heaving the magical grapnel up to the end of the rope, but after climbing the fifty feet to the puckered ball, the companions found few places to set themselves. There were no windows this high up on the tower, and the stones had been worn smooth by the incessant wind.

Luthien hooked his fingers tight into a crack, his feet barely holding to a narrow perch. “Hurry,” he bade his companion.

Oliver looked up at him and sighed. The halfling, his feet against the wall, was tucked in tight against Luthien’s belly—the only thing holding Oliver aloft was Luthien. Oliver fumbled with the rope, trying to loop it so that he could fling it up the remaining fifty feet, all the way to the tower’s lip.

“Hurry,” Luthien said more urgently, and Oliver understood that the young man’s hold was not so good. Muttering a curse in his native Gascon tongue, the halfling reached out and tossed the magical grapnel as high as he could. It caught fast, no more than twenty feet above them.

Again came that whispered Gascon curse, but Luthien dismissed it, for he saw something that the halfling did not.

Oliver quieted and held on tight to Luthien, who took up the rope and climbed only a few feet, coming to a stop atop a jutting stone.

“Make the next throw the last throw,” Luthien whispered, planting himself firmly.

Oliver tugged three times on the rope, the signal for the grapnel to loosen. It slipped down silently and Oliver reeled it in. Now, since Luthien had solid footing, so did Oliver, and the halfling took his time and measured his throw.

Perfect: the grapnel hit the wall with the slightest of sounds just a foot below the tower’s lip.

Again Oliver grabbed on and Luthien took up the rope, ready to climb. Oliver grabbed his wrist, though, and when Luthien paused, he, too, heard the movement up above.

Luthien ducked low under the protective cape, sheltering himself and Oliver. After a long moment, the young Bedwyr dared to look up and saw the silhouette of a cyclopian peering over the wall down at him.

Luthien thought the game was up, but the brute made no move and no sound, gave no indication at all that it had seen the companions.

“Nothing,” the cyclopian grumbled, and walked away from the rim, back to the warmth of the fire.

Oliver and Luthien shared a sigh, and then the young Bedwyr hauled them both up the rope to the tower’s lip.

They heard the cyclopians—three, at least—about a dozen feet away.

Oliver’s head came over the lip first, and he confirmed the number and the distance. Luck was with the halfling, then, for he noted, too, the movement of a fourth brute, milling about on the landing just a few stairs down from the tower’s top.

Oliver signaled his intent to Luthien, and then, like a weasel slipping along a riverbank, the halfling picked his way along the top of the wall, around and over the battlements without a sound.

Luthien silently counted; Oliver had asked for a count of fifty. That completed, the young Bedwyr pulled himself up to the tower’s lip, peering at the three brutes huddled about their small fire. Luthien slid up to sit on the wall, gently rolled his legs over, and put a hand to his sword’s hilt. He would have to strike fast and hard and could only hope that Oliver would take care of the one by the stairs—and hopefully, there was only one at the stairs!

No time for those thoughts now, Luthien scolded himself. They were three hundred feet up the tower and fully committed. He slipped down off the wall, took a deep breath as he set his feet firmly, then charged, drawing his blade.

Blind-Striker hit the first cyclopian where it crouched, slashing diagonally across the back of the brute’s shoulder, severing the backbone. The cyclopian fell without a sound, and Luthien whipped the sword across as the second leaped up, spinning to face him. His blade got the creature through the chest—two dead—but snagged on a rib and would not immediately come free at Luthien’s desperate tug.

The third cyclopian did not charge, but turned and fled for the stairs. It jerked weirdly halfway there, then stopped altogether, went to its knees, and fell over on its back, dead. Luthien noted Oliver’s main gauche embedded deeply in its chest, a perfect throw.

Oliver came out of the stairwell and casually stepped over and retrieved his thrown weapon. “What were they eating?” the halfling inquired, walking past the kill toward the small fire. He picked up a stick, a chunk of cooking mutton on its other end.

“Ah, so fine,” the halfling said, delighted, and sat down.

A few moments went by before Oliver looked up to see Luthien staring at him incredulously. “Do hurry,” the halfling bade the young man.

“You are not coming?” Luthien asked.

“I said I would get you up the tower,” Oliver replied, and went back to the mutton feast.

Luthien chuckled. He pulled off his pack and dropped another silken cord, this one as long as the tower was tall, at Oliver’s feet. “Do prepare the descent,” he bade the halfling.

Oliver, face deep in the mutton, waved him away. “Your business will take longer than mine,” he assured Luthien.

Luthien snickered again and started away. It made sense of course, that he should go down alone. Once inside the Ministry, he would have to move quickly, and he could not do that with Oliver tucked under the folds of his cape.

He found the fourth cyclopian, dead of a rapier thrust, on the landing just below the tower level. An involuntary shudder coursed Luthien’s spine as he recognized how efficient his little friend could be. All for the good cause, he reminded himself, and started down the longer, curving stair. He met no resistance all the three hundred steps to the floor, and to his relief found that the door at the bottom of the stair, along the curving wall of the cathedral’s eastern apse, was ajar.

Luthien peered into the vast nave. A few torches burned; he heard the snores of dozens of cyclopians stretched out on the many benches. Only a few of the brutes were up, but they were in groups, talking and keeping a halfhearted watch.

They were confident, Luthien realized. The cyclopians were convinced that the rebels wouldn’t accept the losses they would no doubt suffer if they attacked the fortified Ministry. A good sign.

Luthien came out of the door and crept among the shadows, silent and invisible. He noted more cyclopians milling about on the triforium ledges, but they, too, were not paying much attention. Luthien went right, to the north, and scouted out the transept. The doors down there were heavily barricaded, as expected, and a group of cyclopians sat in a circle before them, apparently gambling.

They were bored and they were weary—and soon they would have nothing to eat.

Luthien thought of going all around the transept, back into the nave and down to the west. He changed his mind and went back to the apse instead, then around the semicircle and into the southern transept.

Halfway down, he found what he was looking for: a huge pile of foodstuffs. The young Bedwyr smiled wickedly and moved in close. He took out a small black box, which Shuglin had designed for him, and then six small pouches, filled with a black powder that the dwarfs used in their mining. He considered the pile for a few moments, placing the pouches strategically. He set two between the three kegs of water he found on one side of the pile, probably the only drinking water the brutes had.

Next came some flasks of oil, wrapped in thick furs so that they would not clang together. Carefully, the invisible intruder doused the pile of provisions. One of the cyclopians near to the southern transept’s door sniffed the air curiously, but the smell of Luthien’s oil was not easily detected over that of the lanterns already burning throughout the Ministry.

When the cyclopian went back to its watch at the door, Luthien huddled under his cape with the black box, perfectly square and unremarkable, except that the top had a small hole cut into it. Luthien carefully opened the box. He tried to study Shuglin’s design to see what was inside, but in the dim light he could make out little. There were two small glass vials, that much he could see, and the strike plate and wick were in between them.

Luthien looked up, glanced around to make sure that no cyclopians were nearby. Then he huddled low beside the pile, making sure that his cape and the piled provisions shielded the box. He flicked the strike plate. It sparked, but the wick did not catch.

Luthien glanced about again, then repeated the motion.

This time, the wick lighted, burning softly. Now Luthien could see Shuglin’s design, the amber liquid in one glass, the reddish liquid in the other, and the leather pouch below, probably filled with the same black powder.

Intriguing, but Luthien had no time to study it further; Shuglin guaranteed him a count of twenty-five, no longer. He closed the box and crept away, back into the shadows, back into the apse, through the door and onto the lowest stairs. There, he paused, watching.

With a hiss and a sputter, the black box exploded, igniting the pile. Cyclopians hooted and shouted, charging in all directions.

A second explosion sounded, and then a third and a fourth, close together, and the water kegs burst apart.

Luthien turned and sprinted up the stairs, smiling as he heard four more distinctive blasts.

“I take it that we are done,” Oliver remarked between bites of mutton when the young man, huffing and puffing, stumbled out onto the tower’s top.

“We have to go and tell the guards around the plaza to be alert,” Luthien replied. “The cyclopians will try to break out soon.”

Oliver took one last bite, wiped his greasy hands on the furred cape of one of the dead cyclopians, and moved to the wall, where the grapnel and rope were already fastened to the longer cord that reached all the way to the street, ready to take them down.

Inside the Ministry, the cyclopians found most of their provisions ruined and nearly all of their potable water lost. They jostled and fought amongst themselves, every one blaming another, until one brute found the answer in the form of a crimson shadow of a caped man, indelibly stained on the wall of the eastern apse.

Luthien’s enchanted cape had left its mark.

Word raced up Avon’s western coast, across the mountains into Eriador, and from village to village, to Caer MacDonald and beyond. A great fleet was sailing, bracing the freezing waters: at least fifty Avon ships, enough to carry more than ten thousand Praetorian Guards. And those ships were low in the water, said the rumors, low and brimming with soldiers.

The news was received stoically at the Dwelf. Luthien and his companions had expected the army, of course, but the final confirmation that it was all more than rumor, that Greensparrow was indeed aware of the rebellion and responding with an iron fist, sobered the mood.

“I will set out for Port Charley in the morning,” Luthien told his gathered commanders. “A hard ride will get me there before the Avon fleet arrives.”

“You cannot,” Siobhan replied simply, with finality.

Luthien looked hard at her, as did Oliver, who was about to volunteer to ride off beside his friend (all the while hoping that he might turn Luthien north instead, back into hiding in the wilds).

“You govern Caer MacDonald,” the half-elf explained.

“Do not leaders often sally forth from the place they lead?” Oliver remarked.

“Not when that place is in turmoil,” the half-elf answered. “We expect a breakout from the Ministry any day.”

“The one-eyes will be slaughtered in the open plaza,” Oliver said with all confidence, a confidence that was widespread among all the rebels.

“And Luthien Bedwyr must be there,” Siobhan went on without hesitation. “When that fight is done, the city will be ours, wholly ours. It would not be appropriate for that important moment to pass with the leader of the rebellion halfway to Port Charley.”

“We cannot underestimate the importance of Port Charley,” Luthien interjected, feeling a little left out of it all, as if he weren’t even in the room, or at least as though he didn’t have to be in the room. “Port Charley will prove critical to the rebellion and to Caer MacDonald. Even as we sit here bantering, Shuglin’s people work frantically to prepare the defenses of the city. If the whispers speak truly, then an army equal in size to our own force will soon march upon our gates.”

“Equal odds favor the defense,” Katerin O’Hale remarked.

“But these are Praetorian Guards,” Luthien emphasized. “Huge and strong, superbly trained and equipped, and no doubt the veterans of many campaigns.”

“You doubt our own prowess?” Katerin wanted to know, her tone sharply edged with anger.

“I want the best possible outcome,” Luthien firmly corrected. In his heart, though, he did indeed doubt the rabble army’s ability to hold against ten thousand Praetorian Guards, and so did everyone else in the room, proud Katerin included.

“Thus, Port Charley is all-important,” Luthien went on. “They have not declared an alliance, and as you yourself have pointed out,” he said to Katerin, “they will not be easily convinced.”

The red-haired woman leaned back in her chair and slid it out from the table, visibly backing off from the conversation.

“We must bottle that fleet up in the harbor,” Luthien explained. “If the folk of Port Charley do not allow them to pass, they will have to sail on, and might waste many days searching for a new place to land.”

“And every day they are at sea is another day they might encounter a storm,” Oliver said slyly.

Luthien nodded. “And another day that they will tax their provisions and, knowing cyclopians, their patience,” he agreed. “And another day that Shuglin and his kin have to complete their traps around the outer walls of Caer MacDonald. The fleet must be kept out. We cannot fail in this.”

“Agreed,” Siobhan replied. “But you are not the one to go.” Luthien started to respond, but she kept on talking, cutting him off. “Others are qualified to serve as emissaries, and it will not look as good as you believe to have the leader of the rebellion walking into Port Charley, to say nothing of the reaction from the cyclopians already in that town.

“You think that you will impress them with your presence,” Siobhan went on, brutally honest, but her tone in no way condescending. “All that you will impress them with is your foolishness and innocence. Your place is here—the leaders of Port Charley will know that—and if you show up there, you will not strike them as a man wise enough for them to follow into war.”

Luthien, slack-jawed, his shoulders slumped, looked over at Oliver for support.

“She’s not so bad,” the halfling admitted.

Luthien had no way to disagree, no arguments against the simple logic. Again he felt as if Siobhan, and not he, was in control, as if he were a puppet, its strings pulled by that beautiful and sly half-elf. He didn’t like the feeling, not at all, but he was glad that Siobhan was at his side, preventing him from making foolish mistakes. Luthien thought of Brind’Amour then, realizing more clearly than ever that he was out of his element and in desperate need of aid.

“Who will go, then?” Oliver asked Siobhan, for Luthien, by his expression alone, had obviously conceded the floor to her on this matter. “Yourself? I do not think one who is half-elven will make so fine an impression.”

Oliver meant no insult, and Siobhan, concerned only for the success of the rebellion, took none.

“I will go,” Katerin promptly put in. All eyes turned her way, and Luthien leaned forward again on his stool, suddenly very interested and worried.

“I know the people of Port Charley better than anyone here,” Katerin stated.

“Have you ever been there?” Oliver asked.

“I am from Hale, a town not so unlike Port Charley,” Katerin answered. “My people think the same way as those independent folk. We have never succumbed to the rule of Greensparrow. We have never succumbed to any rule save our own, and tolerate kings and dukes only because we do not care about them.”

Luthien was shaking his head. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be away from Katerin right now. And he didn’t want her riding off alone to the west. Word of the fight in Caer MacDonald had spread throughout the southland of Eriador, and none of them knew what dangers might await any emissary on the road.

“There is another reason you cannot go,” Katerin said to Luthien. “If the men of Port Charley do not join in our alliance, they will have all the ransom they need for Greensparrow with the Crimson Shadow delivered into their hands.”

“You doubt their honor?” Luthien asked incredulously.

“I understand their pragmatism,” Katerin replied. “They care nothing for you, not yet.”

Katerin’s point did not make Luthien feel any better about letting her go. She, too, would prove a fine bartering point with the king of Avon!

“Katerin is right,” came word from an unexpected ally for the woman of Hale. “You cannot go, and she can accomplish what we need better than anyone in Caer MacDonald,” Siobhan reasoned.

Katerin looked hard at the half-elf, suspicious of her rival’s motives. For an instant she wondered if Siobhan wanted her to go so that she would perhaps be killed or taken prisoner, but looking into the half-elf’s green eyes—sparkling, intense orbs so like her own—Katerin saw no animosity, only genuine hope and even affection.

Luthien started to protest, but Siobhan stopped him short. “You cannot let your personal feelings block the path to the general good,” the half-elf scolded, turning to glare at the young man. “Katerin is the best choice. You know that as well as anyone.” Siobhan looked back to Katerin, smiled, and nodded, and the woman of Hale did likewise. Then Siobhan turned back to Luthien. “Do I speak truly?”

Luthien sighed, defeated once more by simple logic. “Take Riverdancer,” he bade Katerin, referring to his own horse, a shining highland Morgan, as fine a steed as could be found in all of Eriador. “In the morning.”

“Tonight,” Katerin corrected grimly. “The Avon fleet does not drop sail when the sun sleeps.”

Luthien did not want her to go. He wanted to run across the room and wrap her in a tight hug, wanted to protect her from all of this, from all the evils and all the dangers in the world. But he realized that Katerin and Siobhan were right. Katerin was the best choice, and she needed no protection.

Without another word, she turned and left the Dwelf.

Luthien looked to Oliver. “I will return when I return,” the halfling explained with a tip of his hat, and he moved to follow Katerin.

Luthien eyed Siobhan, expecting her to stop the halfling, dissuade him as she had Luthien.

“Ride well,” was all the half-elf said, and Oliver tipped his hat to her as well, and then he, too, was gone.

Those remaining in the Dwelf had many other things to discuss that night, but they sat quietly, or in small, private conversations. Suddenly a man rushed in.

“The Ministry!” he cried.

It was all he had to say. Luthien leaped down from his stool and practically stumbled headlong for the door. Siobhan caught him by the arm and supported him, and he paused, straightening, and eyed her directly.

Her smile was infectious, and Luthien knew that, despite the fact that Oliver and Katerin were likely already on the road, he would not fight alone this night.

The desperate cyclopians charged out of the Ministry through the north, west, and south doors, roaring and running, trying to get across the plaza and into the shadows of the alleyways. Swarms of arrows met them from every side, and then the rebels didn’t even wait for the cyclopians to charge; they rushed out to meet them, matching desperation with sheer fury.

Luthien and the others from the Dwelf did not go over the wall. Rather, they pounded their way through the eastern wall, where it had been breached before, up from the city’s lower section and back into the Ministry once again. As the slaughter continued in the plaza, more than a few cyclopians thought to turn and flee back into the cathedral. There was still some food remaining, after all, and they figured that if they could get back in and barricade the doors once more, there would be fewer of them left to share it.

But Luthien’s small group met them and kept the cathedral’s main door thrown wide so that rebels, too, could get inside. Once more the hallowed floor of the great cathedral ran deep with blood. Once more a place of prayer became a place of cries, shouts of anger, and shrieks of the wounded.

It was finished that night. Not a single cyclopian remained alive in the city of Caer MacDonald.