“I have not been able to contact him since . . . since Selna . . .”
Greensparrow’s eyes widened—too much, Deanna realized, for the name of Selna had struck him profoundly, confirming to the duchess that her handmaid was indeed yet another of Greensparrow’s spies.
“. . . since Selna broke my crown,” Deanna lied. “I fear that Taknapotin took offense, for the demon has been beyond my call—”
“Broke your crown?” Greensparrow interrupted, speaking each word slowly and evenly.
For a moment, Deanna expected the man to fly into a fit of rage, but he composed himself and relaxed in his chair, settling comfortably.
He is angry about Selna and the crown, Deanna told herself, but he is relieved, for he believes the lie, and now thinks that I am still his willing puppet.
“The crown was indeed a link between you and your demon,” Greensparrow confirmed.
And between you and my demon, Deanna silently responded.
“I enchanted it those years ago, when first you came into your power,” Greensparrow said.
When you murdered my family, came Deanna’s angry thoughts.
“I will find another way back to Taknapotin,” the king offered. “Or to another fiend, equally malicious.”
Deanna wanted to divert him from that course, but she realized that she would be walking dangerous ground. “I will not wait,” she said. “I can destroy Brind’Amour without Taknapotin, for I have my brother wizards and their fiends at my call.”
“You must not fail in this!” Greensparrow said suddenly, forcefully, coming forward in the throne, so close to his mirror that his appearance became distorted, his pointy nose and cheeks looming larger and more ominous. “It will all dissolve when Brind’Amour is dead. Eriador’s armies will fall into disarray that we might destroy them one by one.”
“Brind’Amour will die within the week,” Deanna promised, and she feared that she might be correct.
A wave of Greensparrow’s hand broke the contact then, to Deanna’s ultimate relief.
Back in Carlisle’s throne room, the king motioned for the two huge and ugly one-eyed cyclopians holding the enchanted mirror to be gone, then turned to Duke Cresis. DeJulienne, returned from Caer MacDonald, stood beside the brute, twitching nervously. He had been the bearer of ill tidings, after all, not an enviable position in Greensparrow’s court!
Greensparrow’s laugh put the ambassador at ease; even militant Cresis seemed to relax somewhat.
“You do not trust her?” Cresis reasoned.
“Deanna?” Greensparrow answered lightly. “Harmless Deanna?” Another burst of laughter followed, and deJulienne chimed in, but stopped and cleared his throat nervously when Greensparrow sat up abruptly, his face going stern. “Deanna Wellworth is too filled with guilt to be a threat,” Greensparrow explained. “And rightly so. To turn against me, she must explore her own past, wherein she will discover the truth.”
Cresis was nodding at every word, deJulienne noticed, and he realized that the brutish duke of Carlisle had obviously heard all of this before. DeJulienne had not, though, and he was perplexed as to what his king might be hinting.
“Deanna was my link to the throne,” Greensparrow said bluntly, looking deJulienne right in the eye. “She unwittingly betrayed her own family, giving me personal items from each of them.”
DeJulienne started to ask the obvious question, but stopped short, realizing that if what Greensparrow was hinting at was the truth of Avon’s past, then his king was a usurper and murderer.
“All that I feared from Deanna was the loss of Taknapotin,” Greensparrow explained, looking back to Cresis. “But if that fool handmaid broke the crown, then I understand why I have not been able to make contact, a situation that should be easily rectified.”
“What of the coming war?” Cresis asked. “The Eriadorans will soon march, and sail.”
“Fear Eriador?” Greensparrow scoffed. “The ragtag farmers and fisherfolk?”
“Who won the last war,” deJulienne reminded, and he regretted the words as soon as he spoke them, as soon as he saw the dangerous scowl cross Greensparrow’s hawkish features.
“Only because of my absence!” the king roared angrily. Greensparrow sat trembling, his bony knuckles turning white as he clasped the edges of his throne.
“Indeed, my mighty King,” deJulienne said with a submissive bow, but it was too late for the man.
Greensparrow snapped a fist into the air, then extended his long fingers. Beams of light, a rainbow of hues, shot out from each of them, joining and swirling into one white column, roughly the length and breadth of a sword blade.
The king sliced his arm down, the magical blade following.
DeJulienne’s left arm fell to the floor, severed at the shoulder.
The man howled. “My King!” he gasped, clutching at the spurting blood.
With a growl, Greensparrow brought his hand in a straight-across cut down low.
Off came deJulienne’s left leg and the man toppled to the floor, his lifeblood gushing out from the garish wounds. He tried to call out again, but only managed a gurgle. He did lift his remaining arm in a feeble attempt to block the next strike.
It was taken off at the elbow.
“My absence was the cause of our defeat,” Greensparrow said to Cresis, ignoring the squirming, shivering man on the floor. “That, and the incompetence of those I left in charge!
“And because of Gascony,” Greensparrow reasoned. “The Gascons thought a free Eriador would profit them greatly; little did they realize the importance of Carlisle’s protection from Huegoths and other such troubles.
“This time,” Greensparrow went on, coming right out of his seat and pointing a finger to the air, “this time, the Gascons understand the truth of pitiful Eriador and will not ask that we make peace.” The king gingerly stepped over the now-dead deJulienne. He noticed Cresis then, noting particularly the worried look on the ugly face of his duke.
“This is exactly what we wanted!” Greensparrow yelled, and howled with laughter. “We prodded Eriador and foolish Brind’Amour declared war.”
Cresis relaxed somewhat, remembering that this was indeed the outcome that he and Greensparrow had plotted when they had sent the cyclopian tribes into raiding actions against Eriador and DunDarrow.
“They have perhaps fifty of our ships remaining,” Greensparrow went on, accounting for the twenty the Huegoths had reportedly sent to the bottom. “The mere fact that so many of our fine warships were lost to those savages only confirms that the Eriadoran fisherfolk can hardly sail the great galleons.” Greensparrow flashed Cresis a wild, maniacal look. “Yet we have more than a hundred, crewed by experienced sailors and cyclopian warriors. Half the Eriadoran fleet will soon enter the Straits of Mann. I have a like number of warships waiting to scuttle them.”
“It could be a costly battle,” pragmatic Cresis dared to interrupt.
“Not so!” yelled Greensparrow. “When the ships of Baranduine join in, another hundred strong, then that threat is ended.”
The eager king grew more excited with every word, savoring the anticipation of complete victory. “Brind’Amour will then think himself vulnerable on his western shore and he will have to turn his forces about for Montfort before he ever gets out of the mountains.”
It seemed perfectly easy and logical, and so Cresis again allowed himself to relax. Greensparrow came right up to him, put a hand on his shoulder.
“That is assuming that the old wizard is even alive at that time,” he whispered in the cyclopian’s ear. Then he leaped away, taking care to avoid the gore that had been his ambassador to Caer MacDonald.
“Do not underestimate Deanna Wellworth, my one-eyed friend,” Greensparrow explained. “With the powers of my dukes and their demons at her bidding, Deanna will catch the old wizard and show him that the time of his magics are long past.”
Greensparrow stopped suddenly and went silent. He had to find a way to contact Taknapotin once more
. Or to get Deanna another demon, if that was his only choice.
“Easy enough!” he shouted, though Cresis had no idea what he was talking about.
The cyclopian was comforted anyway. Cresis had been with Greensparrow all the score-and-two years of the king’s reign. In fact, Cresis, once an ambassador from the cyclopian tribes to Avon’s rightful king, had been an instrument of Greensparrow’s rise. The brute had personally murdered four of the five sons of the king, Deanna Wellworth’s brothers. His reward had been a position as Carlisle’s duke, and in the years of his service, Cresis had learned to trust in Greensparrow’s merciless power. Well-advised were those who feared the king of Avon.
DeJulienne was yet another testament to that truth.
The next time Luthien saw Brind’Amour, the wizard was again at work evoking a magical tunnel. This time the destination was due west, not east, to Port Charley.
This parting would be no less difficult for Luthien than the last. Oliver and Katerin stood patiently by as the gray wall transformed into a bluish fog and gradually began to swirl. To Luthien’s surprise, Oliver held Threadbare’s reins in hand, the ugly yellow pony standing quietly.
Oliver’s gaze kept drifting to the back of the room, where stood Siobhan, the half-elf seeming cool and impassive. It took Oliver a long while to even get her attention. Then, he merely offered her a resigned look, and lifted his hand, in which he held both of his green gauntlets, to the tip of his wide brim in salute.
Siobhan nodded slightly, and Oliver’s heart skipped a beat as he caught a glimpse of the true pain in Siobhan’s green eyes. She was sad that he was leaving!
Bolstered by that thought, the romantic halfling stood tall—relatively speaking—and stared resolutely at the widening passageway.
Katerin caught it all, and managed a slight, confused smile. She moved away from Oliver and over to Luthien, sweeping him up in her wake and going to the furthest corner from the others.
“Oliver and Siobhan?” she whispered incredulously.
“I know nothing,” Luthien answered truthfully.
“The way she looked at him,” Katerin remarked.
“The way I look at you,” Luthien added.
That gave Katerin pause. She had been so caught up in the tumultuous events preceding the war, she hadn’t even realized the pain her lover was feeling. Studying Luthien’s expression now, she finally understood. He had found Ethan, only to lose Ethan again, and now she, too, was going from his side—and all of them were walking into danger.
“You needn’t go,” Luthien pleaded. “Oliver could serve as Brind’Amour’s eyes.”
“Then all that our king will see is a ship’s rail and the water below it,” Katerin quipped, a not-so-subtle reminder that the halfling wasn’t the most seasoned of sailors.
A long moment of silence passed between them as they stood, staring deeply at one another. They could find another emissary for Brind’Amour, they both knew that, and Katerin could remain at Luthien’s side. But it was not to be. Among Brind’Amour’s tight court, Katerin was best suited for this most-important mission. These few had been the leaders of the revolution, and now were taking their rightful places as the generals of the war. Their duty was to Eriador, and personal feelings would have to wait.
Both Luthien and Katerin came to this complete understanding together, silently and separately.
“Perhaps I could go with you, then,” Luthien offered on a sudden impulse. “I, too, am of Isle Bedwydrin, and familiar with the ways of the sea.”
“And then again I would have a Bedwyr son by my side, protecting me,” Katerin remarked, a bit of sarcasm creeping into her soft tone. “Perhaps Brind’Amour could recall Ethan, for he, too, is of our island home.”
A twang of jealousy came over Luthien, showing clearly on his face.
“And Ethan’s surely the cuter,” Katerin continued.
Luthien’s eyes widened; he didn’t even realize that he had been taken until Katerin burst out in laughter and kissed him hard on the cheek.
Her face grew serious once more as she moved back from the man, though. “Your place is with our king,” she explained firmly. “You are the Crimson Shadow, the symbol of Eriador free. In truth, I believe that Oliver, your most-noted sidekick, should remain with you and Brind’Amour as well, but perhaps his absence will not detract from your presence, and his presence on the ships should help me keep the coastal folk from forgetting their king.”
Her words ended the debate once and for all, clearly spelling out to Luthien the duty before him, and before Katerin. As she went on, though, Katerin’s face grew grim, and she offered more than one glance at Siobhan, standing still by the door at the back of the room.
“You will march across the land in the company of Siobhan,” Katerin said.
Luthien sighed and tried to empathize with the emotions he knew Katerin must be feeling. Siobhan was his old lover, after all, and Katerin knew that all too well. But Luthien had thought that painful situation a thing of the past, had thought that he and Katerin had resolved Siobhan’s rightful place as their common friend.
He started to protest, gently, but again Katerin burst out in laughter and kissed him hard, this time staying close and moving her lips to his.
“Let us hope you are not so gullible when facing an emissary of Greensparrow’s,” the woman whispered.
Luthien held her all the tighter, squeezed her close until Brind’Amour announced that the tunnel was complete, that it was time for Oliver and Katerin to go.
“You mean to take the pony?” Brind’Amour asked Oliver, and from his weary tone it seemed to Luthien that he had asked that question many times already.
“My Threadbare likes boats,” Oliver replied. He looked to Luthien and snapped his fingers in the air. “And you did not believe me when I said that I rode my horse all the way from Gascony!” he declared. Then he motioned and whispered to the yellow pony, and Threadbare knelt down so that little Oliver could climb up into the saddle. With one last look to Siobhan, Oliver entered the tunnel, and with one last look to Luthien, Katerin followed.
And so it began, that same day, the gathering clouds, moving into their respective positions east of the Five Sentinels, along Malpuissant’s Wall, outside of Caer MacDonald’s southern gate, and along the docks of Port Charley.
The proper declarations had been sent; the invasion of Avon began.
FRONT-RUNNERS
Of all the paths to be taken by Eriador’s forces, the one looming before Luthien’s group was by far the most uncertain. In the east and the west, the army moved by sea, along routes often traveled and well-defined. From Malpuissant’s Wall, the Riders of Eradoch and Proctor Byllewyn’s militia swept across open, easy terrain. But within the hour of departing Caer MacDonald’s southern gate, the forerunners of Luthien’s group, including Luthien, Siobhan, and the other Cutters, were picking their careful way among boulder tumbles and treacherous trails, often with a sheer cliff on one side, rising high and perfectly straight, and a drop, just as sheer, on the other.
The force, nearly six thousand strong, could not move as a whole in the narrow and difficult terrain, but rather, as a plodding mass flanked by a series of coordinated patrols. Organization was critical here; if the scouting patrols were not thorough, if they missed even one unremarkable trail in the crisscrossing mountains, disaster could come swiftly. The main group, nearly a third of the soldiers with their king among them, all of the supply carts and horses, including Luthien’s shining stallion, Riverdancer, would be vulnerable indeed to ambush. Most of the soldiers were more concerned with getting their supplies and horses through the impossible trails and with building impromptu bridges and shoring up the crumbling trails than with watching for enemies. Most of them carried shovels and hammers, not swords, and if some of the cyclopian enemies, particularly the highly trained Praetorian Guards, managed to slip through the front groups unopposed, the march of the entire force might be suddenly stalled.
It was Luth
ien’s job to make sure that didn’t happen. He had dispersed the remaining four thousand into groups of varying sizes. Five hundred spearheaded the main group’s march, marking the trails Brind’Amour would follow; five hundred others followed the plodding force, leaving open no back door. In the rougher terrain off the main trail, things were less structured. Patrol groups ranged from single scouts (mostly reclusive men who had lived for many years in these parts of the Iron Cross) to supporting groups of a hundred warriors, sweeping designated areas, improvising as they learned each section of these rarely traveled mountains. Luthien and Siobhan moved together, along with a dozen elven Cutters. Sometimes the pair were in sight of all their twelve companions, other times they felt so completely alone in the vast and majestic mountains.
“I will feel all the better when we have met with Bellick’s folk,” Luthien remarked as they traveled along one open area, picking their way across the curving sides of great slabs of stone. Looking above him, a hundred feet higher on the face of the mountain, Luthien saw two elves emerge from a small copse of trees, nimbly running along the steep stone. He marveled at their grace and wished, as he stumbled for the hundredth time, that he had a bit of the elvish blood in him!
Siobhan, following the young Bedwyr’s steps, didn’t disagree, but her response was halfhearted at best, and made Luthien turn about to regard her. She, too, stopped, matching his stare.
The nearly two hundred elves accompanying Caer MacDonald’s army had made no secret of their trepidations concerning the route that might come before them when they linked with the dwarvish army. King Bellick had explained that his dwarfs were hard at work in trying to open tunnels to get the force more easily through the Iron Cross. While elves and dwarfs got along well, the Fairborn had little desire to stalk through deep and dark tunnels. That simply was not their nature.
Siobhan had argued that point during the final preparations—successfully, Luthien had thought. Even if Bellick’s folk could open a tunnel, it was decided that only the main group, laden as they were with carts and supplies, would go underground, while the rest continued their overland sweep to the south. So it confused Luthien now, for just a moment, that Siobhan appeared so glum.