The Crimson Shadow

by R. A. Salvatore

  Early victories, easily won, but that had been an assumption before the invasion had ever started. It would be a foolish thing indeed for the Eriadorans and their allies to grow overly confident now that those expected victories had been realized.

  Because, the wizard knew, the road ahead grew ever darker.

  Brind’Amour’s own central forces would soon be pressing down the Dunkery River, into the heartland of Avon, on their march to Warchester.

  “Warchester,” Brind’Amour said aloud. Aptly named, he knew, for he had been to the city often in times long past. The place was more a fortress than a city, with walls as high as those of Carlisle itself.

  That run down the banks of the Dunkery would make this one battle with the Praetorian Guards seem as no more than a minor skirmish, for when they met organized resistance, Brind’Amour’s army would likely be sorely outnumbered. Even if they struggled through, even if Warchester was taken, the weary Eriadorans would have another two hundred miles of hostile ground to cross before they ever reached the high walls of fortified Carlisle.

  And the prospects for the western Eriadoran fleet seemed equally grim. Would the forty galleons and their fishing boat escorts survive their trek through the narrow Straits of Mann, right between the powers of Mannington and Eornfast? Baranduine had figured little into the preparations for war, but in truth, the wild green island to the west possessed a flotilla stronger than Eriador’s, if all of Eriador’s warships had been gathered together.

  Even worse, by Brind’Amour’s calculations, loomed the magical disadvantage. He was alone, and his type of magic, the powers gained through use of the natural elements—the fiery sun and the wind, the strength of a storm or a tree—had passed its zenith centuries before. Brind’Amour had battled Duke Paragor and Paragor’s familiar demon, and had barely survived the encounter. How would he fare against Greensparrow’s other allies, fresh with their hellish powers? And how would he fare against Greensparrow, who was as old as he, who had remained awake through the centuries, garnering his powers?

  Indeed it seemed a desperate war to Brind’Amour, but he realized that, in truth, he had been given little choice. As he had openly proclaimed in Caer MacDonald, as long as Greensparrow sat in place on Avon’s throne, there could be no peace. With Dukes Morkney and Paragor dead, Resmore broken in a dungeon in Caer MacDonald, and with Princetown still reeling and helpless from the last war, now was the time, perhaps the last true chance for Eriador to shake the lurking specter of King Greensparrow.

  Brind’Amour sat on his cot and rubbed his tired eyes. He thought he was seeing things a moment later, when a great bird turned its wings perpendicular to the ground and slipped silently through the folds of his tent flap.

  An owl?

  The bird fluttered to a perch on the lantern holder, set halfway up the center tent pole. It eyed Brind’Amour directly, knowingly, and he understood that this was no chance meeting.

  “Well, what are you about?” the wizard asked, wondering if his nemesis Greensparrow had personally come a’calling.

  The owl turned its head slightly and Brind’Amour’s next comment was lost by the image he saw in the owl’s huge eyes. Not a reflection, but an image of a tower of stone, high and narrow and flat, set within the rugged mountains. A singular pillar of windblown rock.

  Brind’Amour.

  The call was distant, far removed, a whisper on the night breeze.

  “What are you about?” the old wizard asked the bird again, this time breathlessly.

  The owl swooped off the perch and out the flap, silent in flight.

  Brind’Amour rubbed his eyes again and looked about his tent, wondering if it had been no more than a dream. He looked to his crystal ball, thinking that perhaps he might find some answers, but he shook his head. He had spent hours contacting his generals, east and west, and was too exhausted to consider sending his thoughts into the ball once again.

  He lay back on his cot and soon fell into a deep slumber.

  When he awoke the next morning, he was convinced that the incident with the bird had been no more than the dreaming delusions of a weary old man.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE SEEDS OF REVOLT

  HOW GOOD IT FELT to Luthien: the wind in his face, the rush of ground beneath Riverdancer’s pounding hooves! They were coming out of the mountains, back onto terrain where Luthien could ride his precious Morgan Highlander.

  Riverdancer, after so many miles of plodding along painful, rocky ground, seemed to enjoy the jaunt even more than his rider. Luthien constantly had to hold the powerful white stallion back, else he would have easily outdistanced the other riders coming down from the foothills beside him, mostly Siobhan and the other Cutters.

  As usual, they were the lead group, the spearhead for the Eriadoran army, and the single cavalry unit. Because of the difficult mountain terrain, only two hundred horses had been brought along, and more than a third of them could not now be ridden because of problems they had developed during the difficult trek, mostly with their hooves.

  Riverdancer was fine, though, ready and eager to run on. Luthien tightened up on the reins, easing the horse into a steady, solid trot as they came to one last sloping expanse. Siobhan, astride a tall and slender chestnut, caught up to him then, and wasted no time in pointing out the smoke from a village not far distant to the south. Beside it wound a great silvery snake, the Dunkery River.

  “It is called Pipery, according to Brind’Amour’s map,” Luthien informed her. “The northernmost of a series of mill towns set along the Dunkery.”

  “Our next target,” Siobhan said grimly. She looked to both sides, to the hundred or so riders sweeping down beside her, then turned to Luthien. “Are we to split into smaller forces, or remain as one group?”

  Luthien considered the options for just a moment. He had thought to break the unit into several scouting groups, but with Pipery in sight, the line for the army seemed obvious. “Together,” he said at length. “We’ll go south, then cut back northeast, to meet the Dunkery where it comes out of the foothills. Then south again along the river, scouting the path all the way to the town.”

  Siobhan peered into the rolling southland, confirming the course, and nodded her agreement. “The cyclopians will not wait for us to get to the town,” she reasoned.

  The thought did not seem to bother Luthien in the least.

  The group moved south for a couple of miles, coming directly to the west of Pipery. In the shade of a pine grove, they gave their mounts a much-needed break, with Luthien dispatching several riders to scout out the area, particularly the trail back to the northeast, which they would soon be riding.

  Those scouts moving directly east, toward the village, returned after only a few minutes, reporting that a group of two to three hundred cyclopians, including two-score cavalry riding fierce ponypigs, were fast approaching.

  “We could outrun them back to the mountains,” the scout reminded.

  “We could outrun them all the way to Pipery,” an eager Siobhan suggested.

  Luthien’s thoughts were moving somewhere in the middle of the two propositions. His group was outnumbered, but held a tremendous advantage of maneuverability. Ponypigs, resembling warthogs the size of large ponies, were brutal opponents, with strong kicking legs and nasty tusks, and cyclopians could ride them well, but they were not as swift as horses.

  “We cannot afford to lose any riders,” Luthien said to Siobhan, “but if this is part of Pipery’s militia, then better to sting them out in the open than to let them get back behind the village’s fortifications.”

  “No doubt they think us an advance scouting unit,” Siobhan replied, “with little heart for battle.”

  “Let us teach them differently,” Luthien said determinedly.

  The young Bedwyr sent nearly half of his force to the north then, on a long roundabout, while he and Siobhan led the remaining riders straight on toward the approaching cyclopians. He spread them out in a line across a ridge when the en
emy force was in sight, letting the one-eyes take a full measure, while he took the measure of them.

  The scouts’ information was right on the mark. The cavalry groups seemed roughly equal in strength, by Luthien’s design. What the cyclopians didn’t know was that they were facing a force of mostly Fairborn, with a well-earned reputation for riding and for archery.

  Luthien scanned the green fields to the north, but his other forces were not yet in sight. He had to hope that they had not encountered resistance, else his entire plan might fall apart.

  “With the cavalry in front,” Siobhan remarked, referring to the fast-forming cyclopian ranks, riders on ponypigs forming a line in front of the foot soldiers. The half-elf smiled as she spoke, for this was exactly what Luthien had predicted.

  Time to go, the young Bedwyr realized, and he drew out Blind-Striker, raising the sword high into the sky. Out came more than fifty blades in response, all lifted high.

  A few quiet seconds slipped by, the very air tingling with anticipation.

  Luthien jabbed Blind-Striker toward the sky before him and the charge from the ridge was on.

  The cyclopians howled in response and the thunder of surging horses was more than matched by the thunder of charging ponypigs.

  The elvish swords and Blind-Striker unexpectedly came down, the skilled Eriadoran riders deftly slipping them back into their sheaths. The close-melee weapons had been but a ruse, a teasing challenge to the savage cyclopians, for the Eriadorans never intended to battle in close combat. On Luthien’s command, up came the bows.

  A cyclopian’s eye was a large and bulbous thing, and wider still seemed the eyes of the charging Praetorian Guards when they realized the ruse and understood that they would be under heavy assault before they ever got near their enemy.

  Luthien Bedwyr felt like a rank amateur over the next few moments. He got his bow up and fired off a shot, barely missing, but though he was a fine horseman and a fine archer, by the time he got his second arrow in place, most of the Fairborn riding beside him had already let fly three, or even four.

  And the majority of those had hit their mark.

  Chaos hit the cyclopian ranks as ponypigs stumbled and fell, or reared in agony. Stinging arrows zipped through, felling rider and mount, dismantling the order of the cyclopian charge. Some one-eyes continued on; others turned about and fled.

  And then a new rumble came over the field as the remaining Eriadoran riders swept down from the north, firing bows at the cyclopian foot soldiers as they charged.

  Luthien drew out Blind-Striker again as he neared the leading cyclopian riders. He angled Riverdancer for a close pass on one, but an arrow beat him to the mark, taking down the one-eye cleanly. Luthien easily veered past the now-walking ponypig, crossing behind yet another cyclopian. The one-eye turned in its seat, trying to get its blocking sword out behind, but Luthien smacked the blade aside and stuck the brute in the kidney as he passed.

  With a groan, the cyclopian slumped forward, leaning heavily on the ponypig’s muscled neck.

  Luthien spotted another target and charged on, his crimson cape flying out wildly behind him. The cyclopian, like most of its companions, had other ideas, though, and turned about and fled.

  Luthien coaxed Riverdancer into a full gallop and ran the brute down, hacking his sword across the back of the one-eye’s thick neck. He moved away quickly, not wanting to get tangled up in the ponypig as its rider slipped to the ground.

  Many of the cyclopian foot soldiers turned to flee as well, but others formed up into a square, heavy shields blocking every side, long pikes ready to prod at any horsemen who ventured too near. That square marched double-time, right back the way they had come, toward Pipery.

  The Eriadorans continued to nip at the one-eyes, particularly interested in running down any cyclopian rider who strayed too far from the main group, but when those Fairborn scouts watching the roads further to the east announced that a second force was coming from Pipery to reinforce the first, Luthien knew that the time had come to break off and await the approach of the larger Eriadoran army.

  He eyed the field, satisfied, as he and his riders crossed back to the west. A couple of horses had been downed, with three riders injured, but only one seriously. The cyclopians had not gotten off so easily. More than a dozen ponypigs lay dead, or quickly dying, on the grass, and another twenty wandered riderless. Less than a quarter of the two-score cyclopian cavalry had escaped unscathed, with nearly half lying dead on the field, along with a handful of the foot soldiers.

  More important than the actual numbers, Luthien’s group had met the enemy again, on the enemy’s home ground this time, and had sent them running in full flight. Luthien would continue with the scouting mission now, but he held few doubts that the larger Eriadoran army would roll through this part of their course. The road to Pipery, at least, would be an easy march.

  Brother Solomon Keyes knelt in prayer, hands clasped, head bowed, in the small chapel of Pipery. A far cry from the tremendous cathedrals of the larger cities of Avonsea, the place had but two rooms: a common meeting room, and Solomon Keyes’s private living area. It was a square, stone, unremarkable place; the pews were no more than single-board benches, the altar merely a table donated after the death of one of Pipery’s more well-to-do widows. Still, to many in the humble village, that chapel was as much a source of pride as the great cathedrals were to the inhabitants of Princetown or Carlisle. Despite the fact that Greensparrow’s cyclopian tax collectors, including one particularly nasty old one-eye named Allaberksis, utilized the chapel as a meeting house, Solomon Keyes had worked hard to preserve the sanctity of the place.

  He hoped, he prayed, that his efforts would be rewarded now, that the invading army rumored to be fast approaching would spare the goodly folks of his small community. Keyes was only in his mid-twenties. He had lived practically all of his life under the court of King Greensparrow, and thus he, and most of the people of Pipery, had never before met an Eriadoran. They had heard the stories of the savage northlanders, though, of how Eriadorans had been known to eat the children of conquered villages right before parents’ eyes. Keyes had also heard of the wicked dwarfs—the “head-bashers,” they were called in Avon—for their reputed propensity for using their boots to cave in the heads of enemy dead and wounded. And he had heard of the elves, the Fairborn, the “devil’s-spawn,” disguising their horns as ears, running naked under the stars in unholy tribute to the evil gods.

  And Keyes had heard whispered tales of the Crimson Shadow, and that one, most of all, had the people of his village trembling with terror. The Crimson Shadow, the murderer who came silently in the night, like Death itself.

  Solomon Keyes was wise enough to understand that many of the rumors he had heard of his king’s hated foes were likely untrue or, at least, exaggerations. Still, it was widely reported that somewhere around ten thousand of these enemies were nearing Pipery, whose militia, including the few Praetorian Guards who had come down from the mountains, numbered no more than three hundred. Whatever monster this force of combined enemies might truly be, Pipery was in dire trouble.

  Keyes was rocked from his contemplations as the chapel door burst open and a handful of one-eyes stormed in. Praetorian Guards, the priest realized immediately, and not Pipery’s regular militia.

  “All is in place for the hospital,” the priest said quietly, looking down to the floor.

  “We have come for tithes,” replied Allaberksis, coming in on the heels of the burly guards. The group never slowed, crossing the room and kicking aside benches.

  Solomon Keyes looked up incredulously, staring at the withered old cyclopian, the oldest and most wrinkled one-eye anyone in these parts had ever known. Its eye was bloodshot and grayish in hue, its general luster long gone. There was a particular sparkle in the eye of Allaberksis now, though, one that Solomon Keyes recognized as pure greed.

  “I have bandages,” Keyes pleaded after a stunned pause. “Of what use is money?”

&n
bsp; One of the Praetorian Guards stepped right up and shoved the priest to the floor.

  “There is a box at the back of the altar,” instructed Allaberksis. “And you,” he said to another of the brutes, “check the fool priest’s private room.”

  “That is the common grain money!” Keyes roared in protest, leaping to his feet. He was met by another of the brutes and pounded down, then kicked several times as he squirmed on the floor.

  Solomon Keyes realized the truth of the intruders. This group, like so many of the Praetorian Guards who had come down from the Iron Cross, was planning to flee to the south, probably on wretched Allaberksis’s orders.

  Keyes could not fight them, and so he lay very still, praying again for guidance. He breathed a profound sigh when the group swept back out of the chapel.

  That relief was short-lived, though, for it didn’t take the priest long to understand the implications of Allaberksis’s actions.

  Pipery was being deserted as a sacrifice. King Greensparrow’s elite soldiers did not consider the small village worth saving.

  The Eriadoran army camped within sight of Pipery, swinging lines far to the east and west, even launching cavalry patrols across the ground south of the village to make sure that very few one-eyes escaped. Brind’Amour had no intention of allowing Greensparrow’s disorganized northern army to run all the way back to Carlisle, or to Warchester, perhaps, where they might regroup behind the protection of the city’s high walls.

  On one such expedition, Luthien’s swift cavalry group had come upon a curious band of Praetorian Guards, led by the oldest one-eye the young Bedwyr had ever seen. The cyclopians were summarily routed, and in picking through their bodies, Luthien had found a purse clearly marked as contributions for the town’s common good.

  The young Bedwyr thought that significant, and was beginning to discern a possibility here, a hope for an easier march. He said nothing about it on his return to the camp, though, wanting to sort things out more fully before presenting his suspicions to Brind’Amour, who, for some reason that Luthien couldn’t discern, seemed more than a bit distracted this evening.