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.
CHAPTER 3
BREAKOUT
HALF A DOZEN CYCLOPIANS, the leaders of the operation at the Montfort mines, turned dumbfounded stares to the door of their side cave—a door that they thought had been locked—when the man and the halfling casually strode in, smiles wide, as though they had been invited. The two even closed the door behind them, and the halfling stuck a pick into the lock opening and gave a quick twist, nodding as the tumblers clicked again.
The closest brute scrambled for its spear, which was lying across hooks set into the squared cave’s right-hand wall, but faster than its one eye could follow, the man hopped to the side, whipped a magnificent sword from its sheath on his hip, and brought it swinging down across the spear shaft, pinning the weapon. The cyclopian shifted, meaning to run the man down. But it paused, confused, at the sight of the man standing calmly, unthreateningly, his hand held up as though he wanted no fight.
Before another cyclopian could react, the halfling rushed between the closest two chairs and leaped atop the table, rapier in hand. He didn’t threaten any of the brutes, though. Rather, he struck a heroic pose.
A chair skidded from behind the table and one cyclopian, the largest of the group, stood tall and ominous. Like Luthien over to the side, Oliver waved his hand in the air as though to calm the brute.
“Greetings,” the halfling said. “I am Oliver deBurrows, highwayhalfling, and my friend here is Luthien Bedwyr, son of Eorl Gahris of Bedwydrin.”
The cyclopians obviously didn’t know how to react, didn’t understand what was going on. The Montfort mines were some distance south of the city itself, nestled deep in the towering mountains. The place was perfectly secluded; the brutes didn’t even know that the battle for Montfort was raging, for they had heard nothing from the city since before the first snows. Except for the prisoner caravans, which wouldn’t resume until the spring melt, no one visited the Montfort mines.
“Of course, you would know him better as the Crimson Shadow,” Oliver went on.
The large cyclopian at the end of the table narrowed its one eye dangerously. There had been a breakout at the mines just a few months before, when two invaders, rumored to be a human and a halfling, had slipped in, killed more than a few cyclopians, and freed three dwarven prisoners. The entire group of guards in this small side room had been on a shift far underground on that occasion, but these two certainly fit the descriptions of the perpetrators. The cyclopian and its allies couldn’t be sure of anything, though, for this sudden intrusion was too unexpected, too strange.
“Now I wanted for me and my friend here, and for our two hundred other friends outside”—that turned more than one cyclopian’s head toward the closed door—“to just come in here and kill you very dead,” Oliver explained. “But my gentle friend, he wanted to give you a chance to surrender.”
It took a moment for the words to register, and the large cyclopian caught on first. The brute roared, overturning the table.
Oliver whirled away from the brute on his heel, expecting the move. He scrambled and leaped, flicking his rapier to the left, then to the right, slicing the two closest cyclopians across their faces.
“I will consider that a no,” the halfling said dryly, falling into a roll as he landed and turning a complete somersault to find his center of balance.
The cyclopian nearest to Luthien growled and lowered its shoulder to charge, but Luthien pointed toward the trapped spear. “Look!” the young Bedwyr cried.
The stupid brute complied, turning to see Luthien’s sword rapidly ascending, as Luthien snapped a wicked backhand. Blind-Striker’s heavy, fine-edged blade cracked through the brute’s forehead.
Luthien leaped over the corpse as it crumbled.
“I told you they would not surrender!” yelled Oliver, who was engaged with two cyclopians, including one of the two he had stabbed in the face. The halfling’s aim on the other had been better, his rapier taking the creature directly in the eye. Like its companion, the brute had stumbled out of its chair, but had then tripped over the chair, and it squirmed about on the floor, flailing its arms wildly.
Luthien charged the side of the tipped table, lowering his shoulder as though he meant to ram it and knock it into the cyclopia
n across the way. The one-eye, outweighing the man considerably, likewise dropped its massive shoulder, more than willing to oblige. At the last moment, Luthien cut to the side, behind the upturned table, and the brute hit the furniture alone. Overbalanced, the cyclopian came skidding by, and Luthien hardly gave it a thought as he snapped Blind-Striker once to the side, into the cyclopian’s ribs.
The young Bedwyr cleared the jumble and squared his footing, facing evenly against the largest brute, who had retrieved a huge battle-ax.
“One against one,” he muttered, but in truth Luthien figured that this particular cyclopian, seven feet tall, at least, and weighing near to four hundred pounds, counted for one and a half.
The two facing Oliver, neither holding any weapon, gingerly hopped and skittered from side to side, looking for an opening so that they could grab the miserable rat and his stinging blade.
Oliver casually shifted and turned, poking his rapier’s tip into grasping hands and seeming as though he was truly enjoying every moment of this fight.
“And I haven’t even drawn my second blade,” the halfling taunted. One of the cyclopians lurched for him, and he responded by sinking his rapier through its palm, the tip sliding several inches deep into the brute’s forearm.
The cyclopian howled and grasped its wrist, falling to its knees with the pain, and the movement temporarily trapped the rapier. Quick-thinking, Oliver drew out his main gauche, but he found that the other cyclopian was not coming for him. The brute had rushed to the side to retrieve a nasty-looking ax.
In it charged, and Oliver sprang atop the shoulders of the kneeling cyclopian and squared to meet the attack, eyes-to-eye.
The halfling sprang away, though, as the kneeling cyclopian reached up to grab at his feet and the charging brute launched a wicked overhead chop.
The descending ax missed—missed Oliver, at least—and the attacking cyclopian groaned as the head of its kneeling fellow split apart.
“Oh, I bet that hurt,” the fleeing halfling remarked.
Luthien pivoted to retreat from a sidelong swipe. He went right down to one knee and lurched forward in a thrust, scoring a hit on the advancing brute’s thigh.
It was a grazing blow, though, and did not halt the giant cyclopian’s charge; Luthien had to dive forward in a headlong roll to avoid the next swipe.
He came up to his feet, spiraling back the other way, and scored another hit on his opponent, this time slashing the one-eye’s rump. The monster growled and spun, and the heavy ax knocked Blind-Striker aside.
“Remember not to parry,” Luthien told himself, his hand stinging from the sheer weight of the hit. He raised his sword in both hands then, and hopped back into a defensive crouch.
“We told you that you should surrender,” Luthien teased, and in looking around at the carnage, the large brute could hardly argue. Three of its comrades were dead or dying, a fourth was blinded, struggling to regain its feet and swiping wildly at the empty air. Even as the largest brute started to yell out a warning, Oliver stuck the blind cyclopian in the butt as he rushed past.
The blind brute wheeled, turning the wrong way around, and was promptly knocked flat by the cyclopian chasing Oliver. The charging brute stumbled over its falling companion, but lurched forward in an impromptu attack, swinging with all its might.
Oliver skipped aside and the ax drove deep into the upturned table.
On its knees, off balance and fully extended, with its blind comrade grabbing at its waist, the outraged cyclopian had no leverage to extract the stuck blade.
“Do let me help you,” Oliver offered, rushing up and slipping his main gauche into his belt. He reached for the ax, but shifted direction and thrust his rapier through the cyclopian’s throat instead.
“I changed my mind,” Oliver announced as the gurgling cyclopian slipped to the floor.
Luthien’s sword went up high as his monstrous opponent brought its ax overhead. The young man rushed forward, knowing that he had to move quickly before the huge one-eye gained any momentum. He slammed hard into his adversary. Blind-Striker struck against the ax handle and took a finger from the brute’s right hand, and the attack was stopped before it ever truly began.
Still clutching the sword hilt in both hands, Luthien spun to his right and took a glancing blow on the hip from a thrusting knee. Luthien kept his back in close to the brute as he rotated; he knew that this routine would bring victory or defeat, and nothing in between. He dropped his blade over his right shoulder and bent low, then came up straight hard, slicing his blade right to left.
Blind-Striker caught the one-eye under its upraised left arm, tearing muscle and bone and nearly severing the limb.
The cyclopian’s ax banged off its shoulder and fell to the floor. The brute stood a moment longer, staring blankly at its wound and at Luthien. Then it staggered a step to the side and fell heavily against the wall, its lifeblood pouring freely.
Luthien turned away to see Oliver tormenting the blind cyclopian, the halfling darting this way and that, poking the helpless creature repeatedly.
“Oliver!” Luthien scolded.
“Oh, very well,” the halfling grumbled. He skipped in front of the brute, waited for its flailing arms to present an opening, then rushed in with a two-handed thrust, his rapier sliding between cyclopian ribs to find the creature’s heart, his main gauche scoring solidly on its neck.
“You really should grow another eye,” Oliver remarked, skipping back as the brute fell headlong, dead before it hit the floor.
Oliver looked at Luthien almost apologetically. “They really should.”
A hundred feet east along the mountain wall from the side cave Luthien and Oliver had entered, Katerin O’Hale came running out of a tunnel in full flight, more than a dozen drooling cyclopians close behind.
The woman, her sword dripping blood from her first kill inside, started as though she meant to run down the road toward Montfort, but turned instead and rushed at a snow berm.
A spear narrowly missed her, diving deep into the snow, and Katerin was glad that cyclopians, with one eye and little depth perception, were not good at range weapons. Elves were much better.
Over the berm she went, diving headlong, the brutes howling only a couple of dozen feet behind her.
How they skidded and scrambled when Siobhan and the rest of the Cutters popped up over the lip of that banking, their great longbows bent back! Like stinging bees, the elvish arrows swarmed upon the cyclopians; one fell with eight arrows protruding from its bulky chest. A handful managed to turn and run back toward the mine entrance, but more arrows followed to strike them.
Only one cyclopian limped on, several arrows sticking from its back and legs. Another bolt got it in the back of the shoulder as it neared the cave, but it stubbornly plowed on and got inside.
Shuglin the dwarf and a host of rebels, mostly human, but with several other drawfs among them, were fast in pursuit. Soon after the blue-bearded Shuglin dashed into the cave, the wounded cyclopian shrieked a death cry.
Behind the berm, Katerin squinted against the glare off the white snow and looked to the west. The door of the side cave was open again, just a bit, and an arm waved up and down, holding Oliver’s huge hat.
“No need to fear for those two when they are together,” Siobhan remarked, standing at Katerin’s side.
Katerin looked at the half-elf, her rival for Luthien’s attention. She was undeniably beautiful, with long and lustrous wheat-colored hair that made Katerin self-conscious of her own red topping.
“They have more than their share of skill, and more than their share of luck,” Siobhan finished, flashing a disarming grin. There was something detached about her, Katerin recognized, something removed and superior. Still, Katerin felt no condescension directed toward her personally. All the elves and half-elves shared that cool demeanor, and Siobhan was among the most outgoing of the lot. Even their obvious rivalry over Luthien seemed less bitter than it could have been, or would have been, Katerin k
new, had her rival been another proud woman from her homeland.
Siobhan and her band filtered over the snow berm, following the others into the mine entrance. Siobhan paused and waited, looking back at Katerin.
“Well done,” the half-elf said as she stood among the cyclopian corpses, her sudden words catching Katerin off guard. “You baited the brutes perfectly.”
Katerin nodded and rolled over the banking, sliding to her feet on the other side. She hated to admit it, but she had to, at least to herself: she liked Siobhan.
They went into the cave side by side.
Much farther down the tunnel, Shuglin and his charging band had met with stiff resistance. A barricade was up, slitted so that crossbows could be fired from behind it. Cyclopians were terrible shots, but the tunnel was neither high nor wide, and the law of averages made any approach down the long and straight run to the barricade treacherous.
Shuglin and his companions crouched around the closest corner, angered at being bottled up.
“We must wait for the elven archers,” one man urged.
Shuglin didn’t see the point, didn’t see what good Siobhan’s band might do. The cyclopians were too protected by their barricade; one or two shots might be found, but even skilled elves would not do much damage with bows.
“We got to charge,” the dwarf grumbled, and the chorus around him was predictably grim.
Shuglin peeked around the bend, and nearly lost his nose to a skipping bolt. By the number of quarrels coming out and the briefness of the delay between volleys, he figured that there must be at least a dozen cyclopians on the other side of the barrier. Three times that number of fighters stood beside the dwarf, and twenty times that number would soon filter in, but the thought of losing even a few allies here, barely into the mines, didn’t sit well.
The dwarf pushed his way back from the corner, coming up to a man who carried a great shield. “Give it to me,” Shuglin instructed, and the man eyed him curiously for only a moment before he complied.
The shield practically covered the dwarf from head to toe. He moved back to the corner, thinking to spearhead the charge.
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