The Crimson Shadow

by R. A. Salvatore

  “They are our enemies,” Selna insisted. “Sympathy for Eriador . . .”

  “Decency for fellow humans,” Deanna corrected.

  “Some might see it as weakness, however you describe it,” the handmaid answered without hesitation.

  Again Deanna was at a loss for a reply. What was Selna implying here? The older woman had often served as Deanna’s confidante, but this time Selna seemed removed from the conversation, as though she knew something Deanna did not. Suddenly, Deanna found that she didn’t trust the woman, and feared that she had already revealed too much.

  The water was cooling by this time, so Deanna rose up and allowed Selna to wrap her in the thick blanket. She dressed under cover of the pine grove and went to her tent, Selna following close behind.

  The duchess’s sleep was fitful, full of images that she could not block out or explain away. She felt a coldness creeping over her, a darkness deeper than the night.

  She awoke in a cold sweat, to see a pair of red-glowing eyes staring down at her.

  “Mistress,” came a rasping, familiar voice, the voice of Taknapotin, Deanna’s familiar demon.

  The groggy duchess relaxed at once, but her relief lasted only as long as the second it took her to realize that she had not summoned the demon. Apparently, the beast had come from the fires of Hell of its own accord!

  She saw Taknapotin’s considerable array of gleaming teeth as the demon, apparently recognizing her concern, smiled widely.

  No, not of its own accord, Deanna realized, for that simply could not be. Demons were creatures brought to the world by human desires, but who, other than Deanna Wellworth, could so summon Taknapotin? For a moment, Deanna wondered if she had somehow called to the fiend in her sleep, but she quickly dismissed that possibility. Bringing a demon to the material world was never that easy.

  There could be only one answer then, and it was confirmed when next Taknapotin spoke.

  “You are relieved of your duties here,” the beast explained. “Go back to your place in Mannington.”

  Greensparrow. Only Greensparrow was powerful enough to summon Deanna’s familiar demon without the duchess knowing about it.

  “Duke Resmore of Newcastle will guide the cyclopian raiders,” Taknapotin went on.

  “By whose command?” Deanna asked, just because she needed to hear the name out loud.

  Taknapotin laughed at her. “Greensparrow knows that you have little heart for this,” the fiend said.

  Selna, Deanna realized. Her handmaid, among her most trusted confidantes for the last twenty years, had wasted no time in reporting her sympathies to Greensparrow. The notion unsettled Deanna, but she was pragmatic enough to set her emotions aside and realize that her knowledge of the informant might be put to profitable use.

  “When may I leave this wretched place?” Deanna asked firmly. She worked hard to compose herself, not wanting to appear as though she had been caught at anything treasonous. Of course it was perfectly logical that she would not want to be here with the one-eyes—she had protested the assignment vehemently when Greensparrow had given it to her.

  “Resmore is outside, talking with Muckles,” the fiend answered with a snicker.

  “If you are finished with the task for which you were summoned, then be gone,” Deanna growled.

  “I would help you dress,” Taknapotin replied, grinning evilly.

  “Be gone!”

  Instantly the beast vanished, in a crackling flash that stole Deanna’s eyesight and filled her nostrils with the thick scent of sulfur.

  When the smoke, and Deanna’s vision, cleared, she found Selna at the tent flap, holding Deanna’s clothing over her arm. How much this one already knew, the duchess mused.

  Within the hour, Deanna had wished Resmore well and had departed the mountains, via a magical tunnel the duke of Newcastle had conveniently created for her. Trying to act as if nothing out of place had happened, indeed, trying to seem as though the world was better now that she was in her proper quarters in Mannington’s palace, she dismissed Selna and sat alone on the great canopy bed in her private room.

  Her gaze drifted to the bureau, where sat her bejeweled crown, her trace to the old royal family. She thought back again to that day so long ago, when drunk with the promise of magical power she had made her fateful choice.

  Her thoughts wound their way quickly through the years, to this point. A logical procession, Deanna realized, leading even to the potential trouble that lay ahead for her. The cyclopians were not happy with her performance in the mountains, and rightly so. Likely, Muckles had complained behind her back to every emissary that came out of Avon. When Cresis, the cyclopian duke of Carlisle, heard the grumbles, he had probably appealed to Greensparrow, who had little trouble getting to Selna and confirming the problem.

  “As it is,” Deanna said aloud, her voice full of grim resignation, “let Resmore have the one-eyes and all their wretchedness.” She knew that she would be disciplined by Greensparrow, perhaps even forced to surrender her body to Taknapotin for a time, always a painful and exhausting possession.

  Deanna only shrugged. For the time being, there was little she could do except shrug and accept the judgments of Greensparrow, her king and master. But this was not the life Deanna Wellworth had envisioned. For those first years after her family’s demise, she had been left alone by Greensparrow, visited rarely, and asked to perform no duties beyond the mostly boring day-to-day routines of serving the primarily figurehead position as duchess of Mannington. She had been thrilled indeed when Greensparrow had called her to a greater service, to serve in his stead and sign the peace accord with Brind’Amour in Princetown. Now her life would change, she had told herself after delivering the agreement to her king. And so it had, for soon after Greensparrow had sent her to the mountains, to the cyclopians, staining her hands with blood and shadowing her heart in treachery.

  She focused again on the crown, its glistening gemstones, its unkept promises.

  The dwarf howled in pain and tried to scamper, but the hole he was in was not wide and the dozen cyclopians prodding down at him with long spears scored hit after stinging hit.

  Soon the dwarf was on the ground. He tried to struggle to his knees, but a spear jabbed him in the face and laid him out straight. The cyclopians took their time in finishing the task.

  “Ah, my devious Muckles!” roared Duke Resmore, a broad-shouldered, rotund man, with thick gray hair and a deceivingly cheery face. “You do so know how to have fun!”

  Muckles returned the laugh and clapped the huge man on the back. For the brutal cyclopian, life had just gotten a little better.

  CHAPTER 7

  MASTERS OF THE DORSAL SEA

  HUEGOTH!” cried one of the crewmen, a call seconded by another man who was standing on the crosspiece of the warship’s mainmast.

  “She’s got up half a sail, and both banks pulling hard!” the man on the crosspiece added.

  Luthien leaned over the forward rail, peering out to sea, amazed at how good these full-time seagoers were at discerning the smallest details in what remained no more than a gray haze to his own eyes.

  “I do not see,” remarked Oliver, standing beside Luthien.

  “It can take years to train your eyes for the sea,” Luthien tried to explain. (And your stomach, he wanted to add, for Oliver had spent the better part of the week and a half out of Gybi at the rail.) They were aboard The Stratton Weaver, one of the great war galleons captured from the Avon fleet in Port Charley now flying under Eriador’s flag. In favorable winds, the three-masted Weaver could outrun any Huegoth longship, and in any condition could outfight three of the Huegoth vessels combined. With a keel length of nearly a hundred feet and a seasoned crew of more than two hundred, the galleon carried large weaponry that could take out a longship at three hundred yards. Already the crew at the heavy catapult located on the Weaver’s higher stern deck were loading balls of pitch into the basket, while those men working the large swiveling ballistae on the rail b
ehind the foremast checked their sights and the straightness of the huge spears they would soon launch the barbarians’ way.

  “I do not see,” Oliver said again.

  “Fear not, Oliver, for Luthien is right,” agreed Katerin, whose eyes were more accustomed to the open waters. “It can take years to season one’s eyes to the sea. It is a Huegoth, though—that is evident even to me, though I have not been on the open sea in many months.”

  “Trust in the eyes of our guides,” Luthien said to the halfling, who appeared thoroughly flustered by this point, tap-tapping his polished black shoe on the deck. “If they call the approaching vessel as a Huegoth, then a Huegoth it is!”

  “I do not see,” Oliver said for the third time, “because I have two so very big monkey-types blocking the rail in front of me!”

  Luthien and Katerin looked to each other and snorted, glad for the relief that was Oliver deBurrows when battle appeared so imminent. Then, with great ceremony, they parted for the halfling.

  Oliver immediately scrambled up to the rail, standing atop it with one hand grasping a guide rope, the other cupped over his eyes—which seemed pointless, since the brim of his huge hat shaded his face well enough.

  “Ah yes,” the halfling began. “So that is a Huegoth. Curious ship. One, two, three . . . eighteen, nineteen, twenty oars on each side, moving in harmony. Dip and up, dip and up.”

  Luthien and Katerin stared open-mouthed at each other, then at the tiny spot on the horizon.

  “Oh, and who is that big fellow standing tall on the prow?” Oliver asked, and shuddered visibly. The exaggerated movement tipped Luthien off, and he sighed and turned a doubting expression upon Katerin.

  “I would not want to fight with that one,” the halfling went on. “His yellow beard alone seems as if it might scrape the tender skin from my halfling bones!”

  “Indeed,” Luthien agreed. “But it is the ring upon his finger that I most fear. See how it resembles the lion’s paw?” Now it was Luthien’s turn to feign a shudder. “Knowing Huegoth savagery and cunning, it is likely that the claws can be extended to tear the face from an adversary.” He shuddered again, and with a grinning Katerin beside him, began to walk away.

  Katerin gave him a congratulatory wink, thinking that he had properly called Oliver’s bluff.

  “Silly boy,” the irrepressible halfling shouted after them. “Can you not see that the ring has no more than jew-wels where the retracted claws should be? Ah, but the earring . . .” he said, holding a finger up in the air.

  Luthien turned, meaning to respond, but saw Katerin shaking her head and realized that he could not win.

  “Fine eyes,” remarked Wallach, the captain of The Stratton Weaver. He aimed his sarcasm squarely at Oliver as he and Brother Jamesis of Gybi walked over to join Luthien and Katerin.

  “Fine wit,” Katerin corrected.

  “How long until we close?” Luthien asked.

  Wallach looked out to the horizon, then shrugged noncommittally. “Could be half an hour, could be the rest of the day,” he said. “Our friends in the longship are not running straight for us. They travel to the southeast.”

  “Do they fear us?” Luthien asked.

  “We would overmatch them,” replied Wallach confidently. “But I’ve never known Huegoths to run from any fight. More likely, they’re wanting to take us near to Colonsey, into shallower waters where they might beach us, or at least outmaneuver us.”

  Luthien smiled knowingly at Wallach. This captain had been chosen to lead The Stratton Weaver out of Gybi because he, more than any other commanding one of the warships, was familiar with these waters. Wallach had lived in the settlement of Land’s End on Colonsey for more than a dozen of his fifty years, and had spent nearly every day of that decade-and-two upon the waters of the Dorsal.

  “They will think they have the advantage as we near the island,” Katerin remarked slyly.

  Wallach chuckled.

  “We do not wish to fight them,” Luthien reminded them both. “We have come out alone to parley, if that is possible.” That was indeed the plan, for The Stratton Weaver had left her support fleet of thirty galleons in Bae Colthwyn.

  “Huegoths aren’t much for talking,” Katerin remarked.

  “And they respect only force,” added Wallach.

  “If we have to cripple the longship, then so be it,” said Luthien. “We’ll take them as bloodlessly as possible, but on no account will we let them slip from our grasp.”

  “Never that,” said Jamesis, whose face had become perpetually grim since the arrival of the fierce Huegoths in the bay, since his peaceful existence in the quiet monastery had been turned upside down.

  Luthien carefully studied the monk. He thought the folk of Gybi quite impressive for allowing him to execute his plan of parley. With thirty galleons at their disposal, the folk wanted nothing more than to exact revenge on the Huegoths for the loss of so many good men in Bae Colthwyn. But whatever their desires, the bell tower in Gybi had tolled wildly when Luthien and his companions had arrived, answering the call from Gybi to the new king. And the celebration had exploded yet again when the Eriadoran fleet had come into view north of the bay, rushing hard under full sail. Thus, Proctor Byllewyn had gone along with Luthien’s desires and The Stratton Weaver had put out to sea, an armed and capable emissary, a diplomat first, a warship second.

  “Run up the flag of parley,” Luthien instructed Wallach. The young Bedwyr’s gaze never left Jamesis as he spoke, searching for the monk’s approval. Jamesis had argued against Luthien coming out here, and had found much support in the debate, even from Katerin and Oliver.

  “The white flag edged in blue is known even to the Huegoths,” Jamesis said grimly. “An international signal of parley, though Huegoths have been known to use it to get advantageously near to their opponent.”

  “The man’s eyes, they are so blue!” exclaimed Oliver from the rail, the perfect timing to break the tension. Jamesis and Wallach cast the halfling a sidelong glance, but Luthien and Katerin only chuckled knowingly. Oliver couldn’t see the Huegoth’s eyes, they knew, couldn’t see the oars of the longship, could hardly make out the vessel at all within the gray haze. But how wonderfully the halfling could play the game! Luthien had come to calling Oliver “the perfection of bluff” for good reason indeed.

  A few minutes later, the flag of parley went up high on the mainmast of The Stratton Weaver. Wallach and the others watched carefully as more minutes slipped by, but, though the lookouts assured the captain that the Huegoths were close enough to discern the flag, the longship didn’t alter her course or slow in the least.

  “Running for Colonsey,” Wallach repeated.

  “Follow her in, then,” Luthien instructed.

  The captain cocked an eyebrow the young Bedwyr’s way.

  “You fear to give chase?” Luthien asked him.

  “I would feel better about it if my king’s second wasn’t aboard,” Wallach replied.

  Luthien glanced nervously about.

  Wallach knew that his simple logic had stung the young man, but that didn’t stop him from ramming home his point. “If the Huegoths are in league with Greensparrow, as we fear, then wouldn’t Luthien Bedwyr be a prize to give to the man? I’ll not want to see Greensparrow’s expression when the Crimson Shadow is handed over to him.”

  The argument was growing tedious to Luthien, one he had been waging since the meeting at Gybi when it was decided that the first course would be an attempt of parley with the Huegoths. Luthien had insisted that he be on the lone ship running out of the harbor. Even Katerin, so loyal to the young Bedwyr, had argued against that course, insisting that Luthien was too valuable to the kingdom to take such risks.

  “The Crimson Shadow was a prize that Morkney of Montfort wanted to give to Greensparrow,” Luthien replied. “The Crimson Shadow was a prize that General Belsen’Krieg promised to the evil king of Avon. The Crimson Shadow was a prize that Duke Paragor of Princetown coveted above all else.” />
  “And they are all dead for their efforts,” Brother Jamesis finished for him. “And thus you feel that you are immortal.”

  Luthien started to protest, but Oliver beat him to it.

  “Can you not see?” the halfling asked, scrambling down to Luthien’s side. “You say that my sometimes so unwise friend here is too valuable, but his value is exactly that which you wish to protect him from!”

  “Oliver is right,” added Katerin, another unexpected ally. “If Luthien hides behind the robes of Brind’Amour, if the cape is not seen where it is needed most, then the value of the Crimson Shadow is no more.”

  Wallach looked to Jamesis and threw up his hands in defeat. “Your fate is not ours to decide,” the monk admitted.

  “To Colonsey, then,” said Wallach and he turned for the helm.

  “Only if you think that the wisest course for your ship,” Luthien said abruptly, turning the captain about. “I would not have you sailing into danger by my words. The Stratton Weaver is yours, and yours alone, to command.”

  Wallach nodded his appreciation of the sentiment. “We knew the danger when we came out,” he reminded Luthien. “And every person aboard volunteered, myself chief among them. To a man and woman, we understand the perils facing our Eriador, and are willing to die in defense of our freedom. If you were not aboard, my friend, I would not hesitate to give chase to the longship, to force the parley, even if all the Huegoth fleet lay in wait!”

  “Then sail on,” Luthien bade him. With nods, both Wallach and Jamesis took their leave.

  The Stratton Weaver angled inside the longship, turning to the east, but the Huegoths rowed fiercely and the galleon could not cut her off. Still, they got close enough for the barbarians to get a clear glimpse of the flag of parley, and the Huegoth reaction proved telling.

  The longship never slowed, continuing on her way to the southeast. The great galleon took up the chase, and soon the gray tips of Colonsey’s mountainous skyline were in plain sight.

  “You still believe they are trying to beach us?” Luthien asked Wallach sometime later.