Luthien's Gamble

by R. A. Salvatore

  Early that afternoon, Luthien finally caught sight of Siobahn again, the half-elf walking determinedly his way.

  “Come with me,” she ordered, and Luthien recognized the urgency in her voice.

  From across the courtyard, Katerin and Oliver watched him go.

  “It is business, that is all,” Oliver said to the woman.

  Katerin scowled at him. “What makes you believe that I care?” she asked, and walked away.

  Oliver shook his head, and admired Luthien more at that moment than ever before.

  “This is the most dangerous time,” Siobahn said to Luthien after she had escorted him far away from the crowd. She went on to tell of the looting and of dissatisfied murmurs among the rebels.

  Luthien didn’t understand the seemingly illogical reactions, but he saw what was happening around him and could not deny Siobahn’s fears. This should have been their moment of glory, and indeed it was, but mingled with that glory was a tumult of confusing emotions. The rebel mob did not move with a unified purpose, now that the actual battle had ended.

  “The fighting will ebb for many weeks perhaps,” Siobahn said.

  “Our only strength is in unity,” Luthien replied, beginning to catch on to her reasoning. Their goals had been met; even the Ministry could hold out only as long as the food inside lasted. The cyclopians bottled within the massive cathedral could not threaten them in any substantial way, for the rebels held strong defensive positions across the open plazas that surrounded the Ministry. If the cyclopians came charging out, their numbers would be decimated by archers before they ever engaged in close combat.

  So Montfort had been taken, but what did that mean? In the weeks before the final attack, Luthien and the other leaders had clearly defined the goal, but they had not devised a plan for what would follow.

  Luthien looked away from the open plaza, westward over the merchant section, and the plume of black smoke from the torched houses showed him beyond doubt that this was indeed a dangerous time. He understood the responsibilities before him and realized that he had to act quickly. They had taken Montfort, but that would mean nothing if the city now fell into disarray and anarchy.

  The young Bedwyr inspected himself carefully, noted the muck from the sewer and the blood of enemy and friend alike. The magnificent crimson cape, though, showed no stains, as if its magic would tolerate no blemishes.

  “I have to clean up,” Luthien said to Siobahn.

  She nodded. “A washbasin and a clean change of clothes have already been prepared.”

  Luthien looked at her curiously. Somehow he was not surprised.

  Less than an hour later, with less time to prepare than he would have liked, but with the breakdown of order growing among the celebrating populace, Luthien Bedwyr walked out into the middle of the plaza in front of the Ministry. The young man’s head swirled as he considered the mass of onlookers: every one of his rebel warriors, every one of Shuglin’s kin, the Cutters, and thousands of others, had all come to hear the Crimson Shadow, all come to learn their fate, as though Luthien served as the mouth of God.

  He tried not to look at their faces, at the want and need in their eyes. He was not comfortable in this role and hadn’t the slightest idea of how or why this responsibility had befallen him. He should get Oliver to address them, he thought suddenly. Oliver could talk, could read the needs of an audience.

  Or Siobahn. Luthien looked at her closely as she guided him along to the steps of a gallows that was under construction for those captured cyclopians or merchants who were deemed worthy of such an end. Perhaps he could get Siobahn to speak.

  Luthien dismissed the thought. Siobahn was half-elven and more akin to elves than to men. Yet if ten thousand people were now gathered about the plaza, watching from the streets, the wall, and no doubt even below the wall in the lower section, where they could not see but could hear the relayed whispers, not seven hundred of them had any blood other than human.

  He walked up the steps beside Siobahn and took some comfort in the familiar faces of Oliver, Katerin, and Shuglin standing in the front row. They looked expectant and confident; they believed in him.

  “Do not forget the city’s true name,” Siobahn whispered in his ear, and then she stepped to the side of the platform. Luthien, the Crimson Shadow, stood alone.

  He had prepared a short speech, but the first words of it would not come to him now. He saw cyclopians in the windows of the Ministry, staring down at him as eagerly as the gathered crowd, and he realized that their fate, and the fate of all Eriador and all of Avon, was held in this moment.

  That notion did little to calm the young man.

  He looked to his friends below him. Oliver tipped his monstrous hat, Katerin threw Luthien a wink and a determined nod. But it was Shuglin, standing patiently, almost impassive, burly arms across his chest and no telling expression on his bearded face, who gave Luthien the heart he needed. Shuglin, whose people had suffered so horribly in slavery under the tyranny of Duke Morkney. Indomitable Shuglin, who had led the way to the mines and would hear no talk of ending the fight for Montfort until the job was done.

  Until the job was done.

  His cinnamon eyes steeled, Luthien looked out to the crowd. No longer did he try to recall the words of his speech, rather he tried to decipher the feelings in his heart.

  “My allies!” he shouted. “My friends! I see before me not a city conquered.”

  A long pause, and not a whisper rippled about the gathering.

  “But a city freed!” Luthien proclaimed, and a huge roar went up. While he waited for the crowd to quiet, Luthien glanced over at Siobahn, who seemed perfectly at ease, perfectly confident.

  “We have taken back a small part of what is rightfully ours,” the young Bedwyr went on, gaining momentum, gaining heart. He held up his hand, thumb and finger barely an inch apart. “A small part,” he reiterated loudly, angrily.

  “Montfort!” someone yelled.

  “No!” Luthien quickly interjected, before any chant could begin.

  “No,” the young Bedwyr went on. “Montfort is just a place on a map, a map in the halls of King Greensparrow.” That name brought more than a few hisses. “It is a place to conquer, and to burn.” Luthien swept his hand around to the plume of smoke behind him, diminished now, but still rising.

  “What gain in taking Montfort and burning Montfort?” he called out above the confused murmurs. “What gain in possessing buildings and items, in holding things, simple things, that Greensparrow can come back and take from us?

  “No gain, I say,” Luthien continued. “If it was Montfort that we conquered, then we have accomplished nothing!”

  A thousand shrugs, a thousand whispers, and a thousand curious questions filtered back to Luthien as he paused and held his conclusion, baiting the crowd, building their anxiety.

  “But it was not Montfort!” he cried at last, and the whispers diminished, though the curious, confused expressions did not. “It was nothing that King Greensparrow—no, simply Greensparrow, for he is no king of mine!—can take from us. It was not Montfort, I say. Not something to conquer and to burn. It was Caer MacDonald that we took back!”

  The plaza exploded in roars, in cheers—for Luthien, for Caer MacDonald. The young Bedwyr looked at the beaming Siobahn. Remember the city’s true name, she had coached him, and now that he had spoken the words, Siobahn looked different to Luthien. She seemed as if the cloud had passed from her face, she seemed vindicated and confident. No, more than confident, he realized. She seemed secure.

  Siobahn, who had been a merchant’s slave, who had fought secretly against the ruling class for years and who had stood beside Luthien since his rise in the underground hierarchy, seemed free at last.

  “Caer MacDonald!” Luthien yelled when the gathering had quieted somewhat. “And what does that mean? Bruce MacDonald, who fought the cyclopians, what did he fight for?”

  “Freedom!” came a cry directly below the platform, and Luthien did not have
to look down to know that it was the voice of Katerin O’Hale.

  The call was echoed from every corner of the plaza, around the city’s dividing wall, and through the streets of the city’s lower section. It came to the ears of those who were even then looting the wealthiest houses of the city, and to those who had burned the merchants’ houses, and they were ashamed.

  “We have taken back not a place, but an ideal,” Luthien explained. “We have taken back what we were, and what we must be. In Caer MacDonald, we have found the heart of our hero of old, but it is no more than a small piece, a tiny gain, a candle’s flicker in a field of darkness. And in taking that, in raising the flag of Caer MacDonald over the Ministry once more . . .” He paused, giving the crowd the moment to glance at the great structure’s tall tower, where some figures were stirring.

  “And we shall!” Luthien promised them when they looked back, and he had to pause again until the cheering died down.

  “In taking back this piece of our heritage, we have accepted a responsibility,” he went on. “We have lit a flame, and now we must fan that flame and share its light. To Port Charley, in the west. To the isles, Bedwydrin, Marvis, and Caryth, in the north. To Bronegan, south of the northern range, and to Rrohlwyn and their northern tip. To Chalmbers and the Fields of Eradoch in the east and to Dun Caryth, until all the dark veil of Greensparrow is lifted, until the Iron Cross and Malpuissant’s Wall divide more than land. Until Eriador is free!”

  It was the perfect ending, Luthien thought, played to the perfect syllable and perfect emphasis. He felt exhausted but euphoric, as tired as if he had just waged a single-handed battle against a hundred cyclopians, and as satisfied as if he had won that fight.

  The thrill, the comradery, was back within the swelled ranks of the rebels. Luthien knew, and Siobahn knew, that the danger had passed at least for the moment.

  The armies of Greensparrow would come, but if Luthien and his friends could maintain the sense of higher purpose, could hold fast to the truths that lay in their hearts, they could not lose.

  Whatever ground Greensparrow reclaimed, whatever lives his army claimed, they could not lose.

  The rally did not lose momentum as the minutes slipped past; it would have gone on all the day, it seemed, and long into the night. But a voice sounded from the top of the Ministry, an answer to the claims of Luthien Bedwyr.

  “Fools, all!” cried a figure standing tall atop the tower’s battlements, and even from this distance, some four hundred feet, Luthien knew it to be Viscount Aubrey. “What have you taken but a piece of land? What have you won but a moment’s reprieve and the promise of swift and terrible vengeance?”

  That stole more than a little of the mirth and hope.

  Luthien considered the man, his adversary. Even with all that had transpired, Aubrey appeared unshaken, still meticulously groomed and powdered, still the picture of royalty and strength.

  Feigned strength, the battle-toughened Luthien pointedly told himself, for though Aubrey wore the weapons and ribbons of a warrior, he was better at ducking a fight than waging one.

  Luthien hated him, hated everything he stood for, but could not deny the man’s influence over the crowd, which did not recognize the ruse for what it was.

  “Do you think that you can win?” Aubrey spat with a derisive snicker. “Do you think that King Greensparrow, who has conquered countries, who even now wages war in lands south of Gascony, and who has ruled for twenty years, is even concerned? Fools, all! Your winter snows will not protect you! Bask in the glories of victory, but know that this victory is a fleeting thing, and know that you, every one, will pay with your very souls for your audacity!”

  Oliver called up to Luthien, getting the man’s attention. “Tell him that he was stupid for not better blocking the sewers,” the halfling said.

  Luthien understood Oliver’s motives, but doubted the value of his methods. Aubrey had a powerful weapon here, a very real fear among the rebels that they had started something they could not hope to finish. Montfort—Caer MacDonald—was free, but the rest of their world was not, and the force they had beaten in this city was a tiny fraction of the might Greensparrow could hurl at them.

  They all knew it, and so did confident Aubrey, standing tall atop the impervious tower, apparently beyond their reach.

  When Luthien did not move to answer, Oliver did. “You talk so brave, but fight so stupid!” the halfling yelled out. A few half-hearted cheers arose, but did not seem to faze the viscount.

  “He didn’t even block the sewers,” Oliver explained loudly. “If his king fights with equal wisdom, then we will dine in the palace of Avon by summer’s end!”

  That brought a cheer, but Aubrey promptly quenched it. “The same king who conquered all of Eriador,” he reminded the gathering.

  It could not go on, Luthien realized. They could gain nothing by their banter with Aubrey and would only continually be reminded of the enormity of the task before them. Oliver, sharp-witted as he was, had no ammunition to use against the viscount, no verbal barbs which could stick the man and no verbal salves to soothe the fears that Aubrey was inciting.

  Luthien realized then that Siobahn had moved to stand beside him.

  “Finish your speech,” the half-elf said to him, lifting a curious arrow out of her quiver. It looked different from her other bolts, its shaft a bright red hue, its fletching made not of feathers but of some material even the half-elf did not know. She had discovered the arrow that morning, and as soon as she had touched it, it had imparted distinct telepathic instructions, had told her its purpose, and for some reason that she did not understand, the telepathic voice seemed familiar to her.

  With her elven blood, Siobahn understood the means and ways of wizards, and so she had not questioned the arrow’s presence or its conveyed message, though she remained suspicious of its origins. The only known wizards in all of the Avonsea Islands, after all, were certainly not allies of the rebels!

  Siobahn kept the arrow with her, though, and now, seeing this situation, the exact scene which had been carried on telepathic waves, her trust in the arrow and in the wizard who had delivered it to her was complete. A name magically came into her head when Luthien took the arrow from her, a name that the half-elf didn’t recognize.

  Luthien eyed the bolt. Its shaft was bright red, its fletchings the whitish yellow of a lightning bolt. It possessed a tingle within its seemingly fragile shaft, a subtle vibration that Luthien did not understand. He looked at Siobahn, saw her angry glower turned to the tall tower, and understood what she meant for him to do.

  It struck Luthien then how influential this quiet half-elf had been, both to him and to the greater cause. Siobahn had been fighting against the merchants and the cyclopians, against the reign of Greensparrow, much longer than Luthien. Along with the Cutters, she had been stealing and building the network that became Luthien’s army. Siobahn had embraced Luthien, the Crimson Shadow, and had prodded him along. It was she, Luthien recalled, who had informed him that Shuglin had been captured after the dwarf had helped Oliver and Luthien escape a failed burglary. It was Siobahn who had pointed Luthien toward the Ministry, and then to the mines, and the Cutters had arrived at those mines when Luthien and Oliver went to rescue Shuglin.

  It was Siobahn’s own trial that had brought Luthien to the Ministry again, on that fateful day when he killed Duke Morkney, and she had followed him all the way up the tower in pursuit of the evil man.

  And now Siobahn had given Luthien this arrow, which he somehow knew would reach its mark. Siobahn had led him to his speech and now she had told him to end that speech. Yet she carried a longbow on her shoulder, a greater bow than Luthien’s, and she was a better archer than he. If this arrow was what Luthien suspected, somehow crafted or enchanted beyond the norm, Siobahn could have made the shot easier than he.

  That wasn’t the point. There was more at stake here than the life of a foolish viscount. Siobahn was propagating a legend; by allowing Luthien to take the sho
t, she was holding him forward as the unmistakable hero of the battle for Caer MacDonald.

  Luthien realized then just how great a player Siobahn had been in all of this, and he realized, too, something about his own relationship with the half-elf. Something that scared him.

  But he had no time for that now, and she wouldn’t answer the questions even if he posed them. He looked back at the crowd and Aubrey and focused on the continuing banter between the viscount and Oliver.

  Oliver drew occasional laughter from those around him with his taunts, but in truth, he had no practical responses to the fears that Aubrey’s threats inspired. Only a show of strength now could keep the rebels’ hearts.

  Luthien pinned open his folding bow, a gift from the wizard Brind’Amour, and fitted the arrow to its string. He brought it in line with Aubrey and bent the bow back as far as it would go.

  Four hundred feet was too far to shoot. How much lift should he allow over such a distance and in shooting at such a steep angle? And what of the winds?

  And what if he missed?

  “For the heart.” Siobahn answered his doubts in an even, unshakable tone. “Straight for the heart.”

  Luthien looked down the shaft at his foe. “Aubrey!” he cried, commanding the attention of all. “There is no place in Caer MacDonald for the lies and the threats of Greensparrow!”

  “Threats you should heed well, foolish son of Gahris Bedwyr!” Aubrey retorted, and Luthien winced to think that his true identity was so well-known.

  He had a moment of mixed feelings then, a moment of doubt about killing the man and the role he had unintentionally assumed.

  “I speak the truth!” Aubrey shouted to the general gathering. “You cannot win but can, perhaps, bargain for your lives.”

  Just a moment of doubt. It was Aubrey who had come to Isle Bedwydrin along with that wretched Avonese. It was Aubrey who had brought the woman who had called for Garth Rogar’s death in the arena, who had changed Luthien’s life so dramatically. And now it was Aubrey, the symbol of Greensparrow, the pawn of an unlawful king, who stood as the next tyrant in line to terrorize the good folk of Montfort.