The Crimson Shadow Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The Sword of Bedwyr copyright © 1995 by R. A. Salvatore

  Luthien’s Gamble copyright © 1996 by R. A. Salvatore

  The Dragon King copyright © 1996 by R. A. Salvatore

  Compilation copyright © 2006 by R. A. Salvatore

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books

  Hachette Book Group USA

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

  The Sword of Bedwyr, Luthien’s Gamble, and The Dragon King were each originally published in hardcover by Warner Books.

  First eBook Edition: October 2006

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2434-7

  Contents

  THE CRIMSON SHADOW

  BOOKS BY R. A. SALVATORE

  THE SWORD OF BEDWYR

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1: ETHAN’S DOUBTS

  CHAPTER 2: TWO NOBLES AND THEIR LADIES

  CHAPTER 3: FAREWELL, MY BROTHER

  CHAPTER 4: WET WITH THE BLOOD OF A FALLEN ENEMY

  CHAPTER 5: WITHOUT LOOKING BACK

  CHAPTER 6: OLIVER DEBURROWS

  CHAPTER 7: THE DIAMONDGATE FERRY

  CHAPTER 8: A ROAD WELL TAKEN

  CHAPTER 9: BRIND’AMOUR

  CHAPTER 10: WHITE LIES?

  CHAPTER 11: BALTHAZAR

  CHAPTER 12: TALES FROM BETTER DAYS

  CHAPTER 13: MONTFORT

  CHAPTER 14: THE FIRST JOB

  CHAPTER 15: THE LETTER

  CHAPTER 16: THE PERILS OF REPUTATION

  CHAPTER 17: OUTRAGE

  CHAPTER 18: NOT SO MUCH A SLAVE

  CHAPTER 19: IN HALLOWED HALLS

  CHAPTER 20: THE VALUE OF A KISS

  CHAPTER 21: UNWANTED ATTENTION

  CHAPTER 22: BAIT

  CHAPTER 23: TELL THEM!

  CHAPTER 24: THE DEMON

  EPILOGUE

  LUTHIEN’S GAMBLE

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1: THE MINISTRY

  CHAPTER 2: TO THE BITTER END

  CHAPTER 3: BREAKOUT

  CHAPTER 4: A WISE MAN’S EYES

  CHAPTER 5: INCH BY INCH

  CHAPTER 6: OUT OF HIS ELEMENT

  CHAPTER 7: THE CRIMSON SHADOW

  CHAPTER 8: PORT CHARLEY

  CHAPTER 9: PREPARATIONS

  CHAPTER 10: MOSQUITOES

  CHAPTER 11: TAINTED

  CHAPTER 12: FELLING DOWNS

  CHAPTER 13: AGAINST THE WALL

  CHAPTER 14: TWILIGHT

  CHAPTER 15: CHESS GAME

  CHAPTER 16: LUTHIEN’S GAMBLE

  CHAPTER 17: IMPLICATIONS

  CHAPTER 18: WARM WELCOME

  CHAPTER 19: PASSAGE OF SPRING

  CHAPTER 20: THE FIELDS OF ERADOCH

  CHAPTER 21: GLEN ALBYN

  CHAPTER 22: EYES FROM AFAR

  CHAPTER 23: COLLECTING ALLIES

  CHAPTER 24: BECAUSE HE MUST

  CHAPTER 25: GHOSTS

  CHAPTER 26: THE DEMON AND THE PALADIN

  CHAPTER 27: DIPLOMACY

  CHAPTER 28: THE WORD

  EPILOGUE

  THE DRAGON KING

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1: ENEMY OLD, ENEMY NEW

  CHAPTER 2: DIPLOMACY

  CHAPTER 3: BITTERSWEET

  CHAPTER 4: GYBI

  CHAPTER 5: SOUGLES’S GLEN

  CHAPTER 6: THE DUCHESS OF MANNINGTON

  CHAPTER 7: MASTERS OF THE DORSAL SEA

  CHAPTER 8: PROSPECTS

  CHAPTER 9: THE ERIADORAN TIE

  CHAPTER 10: SIBLING RIVALRY

  CHAPTER 11: POLITICS

  CHAPTER 12: LIVING PROOF

  CHAPTER 13: EVIDENCE AND ERROR PAST

  CHAPTER 14: THE PRINCESS AND HER CROWN

  CHAPTER 15: DRESSED FOR BATTLE

  CHAPTER 16: THE DECLARATION

  CHAPTER 17: OPENING MOVES

  CHAPTER 18: FRONT-RUNNERS

  CHAPTER 19: THE VALLEY OF DEATH

  CHAPTER 20: VISIONS

  CHAPTER 21: THE SEEDS OF REVOLT

  CHAPTER 22: TRAPPING THE TRAPPERS

  CHAPTER 23: TO KNOW YOUR ENEMIES

  CHAPTER 24: FOR THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE

  CHAPTER 25: THE STRAITS OF MANN

  CHAPTER 26: THE NIGHT OF THREE ROUTS

  CHAPTER 27: THE WALLS OF WARCHESTER

  CHAPTER 28: CAUGHT

  CHAPTER 29: THE SIEGE OF CARLISLE

  CHAPTER 30: THE DRAGON KING

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  STRAIGHT FROM THE AUTHOR

  ACCLAIM FOR

  THE CRIMSON SHADOW

  A Thrilling Epic of Magic, Adventure, and Romance

  “I admire Bob Salvatore tremendously . . . He gives us a world of depth and humanity, filled with color and sound and feeling and with heroes we can’t help but admire.”

  —Tracy Hickman, New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Bronze Canticles Trilogy and the Deathgate Cycle

  “Packed from cover to cover with high-spirited derring-do and the ring of crossed steel.”

  —James Lowder, author of Prince of Lies

  “Salvatore tells a story with exciting action scenes that contain great bantering dialogue reminiscent of Indiana Jones.”

  —Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

  “A worthy, entertaining addition to fantasy literature.”

  —Starlog

  “R. A. Salvatore makes a solid mark on the world of fantasy writing. The characters are rich, vibrant, and full of life. The story line is quick-paced and flowing.”

  —Cryptych

  BOOKS BY R. A. SALVATORE

  Forgotten Realms® Book Series

  Author of more than 20 novels including:

  The Crystal Shard

  Homeland

  The Two Swords

  Promise of the Witch King

  DemonWars Series

  The Demon Awakens

  The Demon Spirit

  The Demon Apostle

  Mortalis

  Ascendance

  Transcendence

  Immortalis

  The Highwayman

  Spearwielder’s Tale

  Star Wars: Vector Prime

  THE SWORD OF BEDWYR

  To Betsy Mitchell, for all of her support and input, for showing me new potential and new directions. Enthusiasm truly is infectious.

  And a special thank you to Wayne Chang, Donald Puckey, and Nancy Hanger. In a business as tough and competitive as this, it’s comforting to be working with such talented and dedicated people.

  PROLOGUE

  THESE ARE THE AVONSEA ISLANDS, rugged peaks and rolling hills, gentle rains and fierce winds blowing down from the glaciers across the Dorsal Sea. They are quiet Baranduine, land of folk and Fairborn, land of green and rainbows. They are the Five Sentinels, the Windbreakers, barren peaks, huge, horned sheep, and multicolored lichen that grows eerily when the sun has set. Let all seafarers beware the rocks of the channels near to the five!

  They are Praetoria, most populous and civilized of the islands, where trade with the mainland is the way and cities dot the countryside.

  And they are Eriador, untamed. She is a land of war, of hardy folk as familiar with sword as with plow. A land of clans, where loyalties run as deep as blood and to fight a man is to fight all his kin.

  Eriador, untamed. Where the clouds hang low over rolling hills thick with green and the wind blows chill, even in the height of summer. Whe
re the Fairborn, the elves, dance atop secret hills and rugged dwarves forge weapons that will inevitably taste of an enemy’s blood within a year.

  The tales of barbarian raiders, the Huegoths, are long indeed, and many are the influences of that warlike people on the folk of Eriador. But never did the Huegoths hold the land, never did they enslave the folk of Eriador. It is said among the clans of both Eriador and the barbarian islands that one Eriadoran was killed for every slain Huegoth, a score that no other civilized people could claim against the mighty barbarians.

  Down from the holes of the Iron Cross came the cyclopians, one-eyed brutes, savage and merciless. They swept across the land, burning and pillaging, murdering any who could not escape the thunder of their charge. And there arose in Eriador a leader among the clans, Bruce MacDonald, the Unifier, who brought together the men and women of the land and turned the tide of war. And when the western fields were clear, it is said that Bruce MacDonald himself carved a swath through the northern leg of the Iron Cross so that his armies could roll into the eastern lands and crush the cyclopians.

  That was six hundred years ago.

  From the sea came the armies of Gascony, vast kingdom south of the islands. And so Avon, the land that was Elkinador, was conquered and “civilized.” But never did the Gascons claim rule of Eriador in the north. The great swells and breakers of the Dorsal Sea swept one fleet aground, smashing the wooden ships to driftwood, and the great whales destroyed another fleet. Behind the rallying cries of “Bruce MacDonald!” their hero of old, did the folk of Eriador battle every inch for their precious land. So fierce was their resistance that the Gascons not only retreated but built a wall to seal off the northern lands, lands the Gascons finally declared untamable.

  And with Eriador’s continued resistance, and with war brewing among some of the other southern lands, the Gascons eventually lost interest in the islands and departed. Their legacy remains in the language and religion and dress of the people of Avon, but not in Eriador, not in the untamable land, where the religion is older than Gascony and where loyalty runs as deep as blood.

  That was three hundred years ago.

  There arose in Avon, in Carlisle on the River Stratton, a wizard-king of great power who would see all the islands under his rule. Greensparrow was his name, is his name, a fierce man of high ambition and evil means. And evil was the pact that Greensparrow signed with Cresis who ruled the cyclopians, appointing Cresis as his first duke and bringing the warlike one-eyes into Greensparrow’s army. Avon became his in a fortnight, all opposition crushed, and then did he turn his sights on Eriador. His armies fared no better than the barbarians, than the cyclopians, than the Gascons.

  But then there swept across Eriador a darkness that no sword could cut, that no courage could chase away: a plague that whispers hinted was inspired by black sorcery. None in Avon felt its ravages, but in all of free Eriador, mainland and islands, two of every three perished, and two of every three who lived were rendered too weak to do battle.

  Thus did Greensparrow gain his rule, imposing a truce that gave unto him all the lands north of the Iron Cross. He appointed his eighth duke in the mining city of Montfort, which had been called Caer MacDonald, in honor of the Unifier.

  Dark times there were in Eriador; the Fairborn retreated and the dwarves were enslaved.

  That was twenty years ago. That was when Luthien Bedwyr was born.

  This is his tale.

  CHAPTER 1

  ETHAN’S DOUBTS

  ETHAN BEDWYR, eldest son of the Eorl of Bedwydrin, stood tall on the balcony of the great house in Dun Varna, watching as the two-masted, black-sailed ship lazily glided into the harbor. The proud man wore a frown even before the expected standard, crossed open palms above a bloodshot eye, came into view. Only ships of the king or the barbarians to the northeast would sail openly upon the dark and cold waters of the Dorsal Sea, so named for the eerie black fins of the flesh-eating whales that roamed the waters in ravenous packs, and barbarians did not sail alone.

  A second standard—a strong arm, bent at the elbow and holding a miner’s pick—soon appeared.

  “Visitors?” came a question from behind.

  Recognizing the voice as his father’s, Ethan did not turn. “Flying the duke of Montfort’s pennant,” he answered, and his disdain was obvious.

  Gahris Bedwyr moved to the balcony beside his son and Ethan winced when he looked upon the man, who appeared proud and strong, as Ethan distantly remembered him. With the light of the rising sun in his face, Gahris’s cinnamon eyes shone brightly, and the stiff ocean breeze blew his thick shock of silvery white hair back from his ruddy, creased face, a face that had weathered under the sun during countless hours in small fishing craft out on the dangerous Dorsal. Gahris was as tall as Ethan, and that was taller than most men on Isle Bedwydrin, who in turn were taller than most other men of the kingdom. His shoulders remained broader than his belly, and his arms were corded from a youth spent in tireless work.

  But as the black-sailed ship drifted closer to the docks, the coarse shouts of the brutish cyclopian crew urging the islanders into subservient action, Gahris’s eyes betrayed his apparent stature.

  Ethan turned his gaze back to the harbor, having no desire to look upon his broken father.

  “It is the duke’s cousin, I believe,” Gahris remarked. “I had heard that he was touring the northern isles on holiday. Ah well, we must see to his pleasures.” Gahris turned as if to leave, then stopped, seeing that stubborn Ethan had not loosed his grip on the balcony rail.

  “Will you fight in the arena for the pleasure of our guest?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Only if the duke’s cousin is my opponent,” Ethan replied in all seriousness, “and the fight is to the death.”

  “You must learn to accept what is,” Gahris Bedwyr chided.

  Ethan turned an angry gaze on him, a look that might have been Gahris’s own a quarter of a century before, before independent Eriador had fallen under the iron rule of King Greensparrow of Avon. It took the elder Bedwyr a long moment to compose himself, to remind himself of all that he and his people stood to lose. Things were not so bad for the folk of Bedwydrin, or for those on any of the isles. Greensparrow was mostly concerned with those lands in Avon proper, south of the mountains called the Iron Cross, and though Morkney, the duke of Montfort, had exacted rigid control over the folk of the Eriadoran mainland, he left the islanders fairly alone—as long as he received his tithes and his emissaries were granted proper treatment whenever they happened onto one of the isles.

  “Our life is not so bad,” Gahris remarked, trying to soothe the burning fires in his dangerously proud son. The eorl would not be shocked if later that day he learned that Ethan had attacked the duke’s cousin in broad daylight, before a hundred witnesses and a score of Praetorian Guards!

  “Not if one aspires to subservience,” Ethan growled back, his ire unrelenting.

  “You’re a great-grand,” Gahris muttered under his breath, meaning that Ethan was one of those throwbacks to the days of fierce independence, when Bedwydrin had fought against any who would call themselves rulers. The island’s history was filled with tales of war—against raiding barbarians, cyclopian hordes, self-proclaimed Eriadoran kings who would have, by force, united the land, and even against the mighty Gascon fleet, when that vast southern kingdom had attempted to conquer all of the lands in the frigid northern waters. Avon had fallen to the Gascons, but the hardened warriors of Eriador had made life so miserable for the invaders that they had built a wall to seal off the northern province, proclaiming the land too wild to be tamed. It was Bedwydrin’s boast during those valorous times that no Gascon soldier had stepped upon the island and lived.

  But that was ancient history now, seven generations removed, and Gahris Bedwyr had been forced to yield to the winds of change.

  “I am Bedwydrin,” Ethan muttered back, as if that claim should explain everything.

  “Always the angry rebel!
” the frustrated Gahris snapped at him. “Damn the consequences of your actions! Your pride has not the foresight—”

  “My pride marks me as Bedwydrin,” Ethan interrupted, his cinnamon eyes, the trademark of the Bedwyr clan, flashing dangerously in the morning sunlight.

  The set of those eyes forestalled the eorl’s retort. “At least your brother will properly entertain our guests,” Gahris said calmly, and walked away.

  Ethan looked back to the harbor—the ship was in now, with burly, one-eyed cyclopians rushing about to tie her up, pushing aside any islanders who happened in their way, and even a few who took pains not to. These brutes did not wear the silver-and-black uniforms of the Praetorian Guards but were the house guard escorts kept by every noble. Even Gahris had a score of them, gifts from the duke of Montfort.

  With a disgusted shake of his head, Ethan shifted his gaze to the training yard below and to the left of the balcony, where he knew that he would find Luthien, his only sibling, fifteen years his junior. Luthien was always there, practicing his swordplay and his archery. Training, always training. He was his father’s pride and joy, that one, and even Ethan had to admit that if there was a finer fighter in all the lands, he had never seen him.

  He spotted his brother immediately by the reddish tint of his long and wavy hair, just a shade darker than Ethan’s blond locks. Even from this distance, Luthien cut an impressive figure. He stood two inches above six feet, with a broad chest and muscled arms, his skin golden brown, a testament for his love of the outdoors on this isle, which saw more rain than sun.

  Ethan scowled as he watched Luthien easily dispatch his latest sparring partner, then pivot immediately and with a single thrust, twist, and leg-sweep maneuver take down the opponent who rushed in at his back, trying to take him by surprise.

  Those warriors watching in the training yard gave a cheer of approval, and Luthien politely stood and bowed.

  Yes, Ethan knew, Luthien would properly entertain their “guests,” and the thought brought bile into the proud man’s throat. He didn’t really blame Luthien, though; his brother was young and ignorant. In Luthien’s twenty years, he had never known true freedom, had never known Gahris before the rise of the Wizard-King Greensparrow.