The Crimson Shadow Read online

  “Have you met my horse?” Oliver asked politely.

  The cyclopian roared and tried to rise, but a hoof crushed the side of its face.

  Luthien was hurt more than he cared to admit. The wounds wouldn’t have been serious, except that he was engaged in a brutal fight at the moment and his head was pounding so badly that he could hardly see straight.

  In fact, he saw not one but two halberd tips continually darting his way. He whipped the bow back and forth and backpedaled.

  He walked right into a tree, and lost his breath in the surprise. The agile young Bedwyr fell to the side as the cyclopian, thinking him caught, jabbed straight ahead, the wicked halberd tip digging a fair-sized hole in the wood.

  Luthien responded with a swing of his own, but he missed and cringed when he heard the bow crack as it struck the tree. He brought it back out in front of him: half of it was hanging by a splinter.

  The cyclopian bellowed with laughter; Luthien threw the bow at it. The brute batted it aside and its laugh turned to a growl, but when it began to advance once more, the cyclopian found that its opponent now carried a sword.

  Oliver’s pony was still dancing atop the groaning cyclopian when the halfling swung into the saddle. He meant to turn about and go help the young man who had come to his aid, but he paused, hearing whispers from inside the coach.

  “Shoot him!” he heard a woman say. “Are you a coward?”

  Oliver nodded in confirmation, guessing that she was talking to the merchant. Most merchants were cowards, the halfling believed. He hopped to a standing position atop his saddle, turned his pony beside the coach, and stepped lightly onto its roof, nearly tripping over the body of a cyclopian, a long arrow stuck deep into its face. Oliver looked down at his shoe, streaked with the cyclopian’s blood, and crinkled his face in disgust. A huge hand shot out suddenly, gabbing the halfling’s ankle and nearly knocking him over.

  The cyclopian driver held on stubbornly, despite the arrow sticking into his chest. Oliver whipped him atop the head with the side of his rapier blade, and when the brute let go of the halfling’s ankle to grasp at its newest wound, Oliver kicked it in the eye. The cyclopian gurgled, trying to scream, and tumbled backward off its seat, falling in a heap behind the nervous horse team.

  “Count your luck that you did not mess my fine and stolen clothes,” the halfling said to him. “For then I would surely have killed you!”

  With a derisive snort, the halfling picked his way to the other side of the coach’s roof and knelt down on one knee. A moment later, the plump arms and head of the merchant appeared, holding a crossbow and pointing it in the general direction of Luthien and the last remaining soldier.

  Something tapped the merchant on top of his head.

  “I do not think that would be such a wise idea,” he heard from above. Slowly the merchant turned his head upward to regard the halfling, on one knee still, with his elbow propped against his other knee, green-gloved hand, holding the rapier, against the side of his face, with his index finger tap-tapping against the side of his nose.

  “I do not know for sure, of course,” the halfling went on casually, “but I think he might be a friend of mine.”

  The merchant screamed and tried to wheel about and bring the crossbow to bear on this new foe. The rapier snapped suddenly, flashing before the fat man’s eyes, and he froze in shock. As soon as his senses recovered and he realized that he hadn’t been hit, he tried to finish the move, even going so far as to pull the crossbow’s trigger, before he realized that the quarrel was no longer in place along the weapon’s shaft, plucked cleanly away by the well-aimed rapier.

  Oliver held out his hands and shrugged. “I am good, you must admit,” he said. The merchant screamed again and disappeared into the coach, whereupon the woman set upon him, calling him “coward” repeatedly, and many other worse names.

  Oliver sat in a comfortable crouch on the roof, enjoying it all thoroughly, and turned his gaze back to the continuing fight.

  The cyclopian was working the long halberd fiercely, whipping it to and fro and straight ahead. The young man, to his credit, hadn’t been hit, but he was tumbling wildly and snapping his blade all about, apparently unaccustomed to facing so long a weapon.

  “You must move straight ahead when he moves ahead!” Oliver called out.

  Luthien heard him, but the strategy made no sense. He had fought against spear wielders in the arena, but those weapons were no more than eight feet long. The shaft of this halberd nearly doubled that.

  Luthien started forward, as instructed, on the cyclopian’s next thrust, and he caught the tip of the halberd on his right shoulder for his effort. With a yelp, the young man fell back, grabbing his sword in his left hand and favoring the stung shoulder.

  “Not like that!” Oliver scolded. “Do not thrust in an angle that is complementary to your enemy’s line of attack!”

  Still hard-pressed, Luthien and the cyclopian paused for an instant to wonder what in the world this curious halfling was talking about.

  “Do not line up your body with the enemy’s closest tip,” Oliver instructed. “Only a silly viper snake would do that, and are you not smarter than a silly viper snake?” The halfling then launched into a long dissertation about the proper methods of parrying long weapons, and of fighting silly viper snakes, but Luthien was no longer listening. A sweeping cut forced him to spin away to the side; a straight thrust for his abdomen had him jerking his rump far out behind him, doubling over. The cyclopian retracted and poked ahead again, thinking he had the young man off balance. He did, indeed, except that Luthien hurled himself facedown to the ground right behind the retracting blade. The halberd’s tip as it came jabbing back scratched Luthien’s behind but caused no serious damage, and Luthien spun about on the ground and scrambled ahead, grabbing the halberd shaft in his right hand and pulling it down as his sword came whipping up. The long weapon cracked apart.

  “Well done!” came the halfling’s cry from the top of the coach.

  The cyclopian was not unarmed, though, still holding a broken shaft that now effectively served as a spear. Oliver’s cheer had barely left his mouth when the one-eyed brute growled and pushed ahead, catching Luthien as he tried to stand. Down went the young man, apparently impaled.

  “Oh,” the halfling groaned as the roaring cyclopian put his weight behind the spear and began to grind and twist it mercilessly. On the ground, Luthien squirmed and squealed.

  Oliver put his grand hat over his heart and lowered his head in respect. But then the cyclopian jerked suddenly and straightened, letting go of his weapon. He stumbled backward several steps and tried to turn, and Oliver saw that he was grabbing his belly, trying to hold in his spilling guts. Back on the ground, Luthien’s sword, the top half of the blade bloodied, was sticking straight up. Luthien sat up, tossing the spear aside, and Oliver laughed loudly as he recognized the truth of the matter. Luthien hadn’t been impaled; he had caught the cyclopian’s blade under his arm and rolled to the side as he fell to disguise the ruse.

  “Oh, I do think that I am going to like this one,” the halfling said, and he tipped his hat to the victorious Luthien.

  “Now, cowardly fat merchant-type, will you admit that you are defeated?” Oliver called, rapping the coach door with his rapier. “You may get out now, or come out at the end of my so fine rapier blade!”

  The door creaked open and the merchant came out, followed by a painted and perfumed lady wearing a low-cut-up-high and high-cut-down-low silken crimson gown. The woman eyed the halfling incredulously, but her expression changed when she noticed the handsome young Bedwyr as he walked over to join the group.

  Luthien caught her lewd gaze and returned it with an incredulous smirk. He immediately thought of Avonese, and his left hand unconsciously tightened on the hilt of his bloody sword.

  Three graceful hops—to the seat, to the horse’s rump, and to the ground—brought Oliver down to them, and he walked around the two prisoners. A yank of his free
hand took the merchant’s belt purse, and a flick of his rapier took the woman’s jeweled necklace over her head.

  “Go and search the coach,” he instructed Luthien. “I did not ask for your help, but I will graciously split the wealth.” He paused and thought for a moment, counting kills. At first, he gave Luthien credit for three of the cyclopians, half the enemy, but then he convinced himself that the driver belonged to him. “You defeated two of the six,” he announced. “So four of six items are mine.”

  Luthien stood up straight, indignant.

  “You think you get half?” the highwayman balked.

  “I am no thief!” Luthien proclaimed. All three—Oliver, the merchant, and the lady—looked about the carnage and the dead and wounded cyclopians lying in the muck.

  “You are now,” they all said together, and Luthien winced.

  “The coach?” Oliver prompted after a long and silent minute slipped past. Luthien shrugged and moved by them, entering the coach. It had many compartments, most filled with food or handkerchiefs, perfume and other items for the journey. After some minutes of searching, though, Luthien found a small iron chest under the seat. He pulled it out to the open floor and hoisted it, then moved back outside.

  Oliver had the merchant on his knees, stripped to his underwear and whimpering.

  “So many pockets,” the halfling explained to Luthien, going through the man’s huge waistcoat.

  “You may search me,” the woman purred at Luthien, and he fell back a step, banging against the coach’s open door.

  “If you are hiding anything precious under there,” the halfling said to her, indicating her skintight, revealing gown, “then you are not half the woman you pretend to be!”

  He was laughing at his own joke until he noticed the iron box in Luthien’s hands. Then Oliver’s eyes lit up.

  “I see that it is time to go,” he said, and tossed the waistcoat away.

  “What about them?” Luthien asked.

  “We must kill them,” Oliver said casually, “or they will bring the whole Praetorian Guard down upon us.”

  Luthien scowled fiercely. Killing armed cyclopians was one thing, but a defenseless man and woman, and wounded enemies (even if they were cyclopian) defeated on the field of honor, was something entirely different. Before the young man could begin to protest, though, the halfling moaned and slapped a hand across his face.

  “Ah, but one of the one-eyes got away,” Oliver said in feigned distress, “so we cannot eliminate all witnesses. It would seem, then, that mercy would serve us well.” He looked around at the groaning cyclopians: the driver behind the team; the one trampled into the ground by Oliver’s pony, propped on one elbow now and watching the proceedings; the one that Luthien had stabbed still kneeling and holding his belly; and the one that Oliver’s horse had sent flying away standing again, though unsteadily, and making no move to come back near the robbers. With the one Oliver had sent running away, rubbing his behind, that left only the dead crossbowman atop the coach.

  “Besides,” the halfling added with a smirk, “you are the only one who actually killed anybody.”

  “Take me with you!” the lady screamed suddenly, launching herself at Luthien. She crashed into him, and Luthien dropped the iron box—right on both of his own feet. Inspired by the pain, the overpowering stench of the lady’s perfume, and his memories of Avonese, Luthien growled and pushed her back, and before he could think of what he was doing, he punched her right in the face, dropping her heavily to the ground.

  “We must work on your manners,” Oliver noted, shaking his head. “And your chivalry,” he remarked to the merchant, who made not the slightest protest about the punch.

  “But that, like the chest of treasure, can wait,” the halfling explained. “To the road, my friend!”

  Luthien shrugged, not knowing what to do, not even understanding what he had done.

  “Threadbare!” Oliver called, a fitting name if Luthien had ever heard one. Oliver’s ugly yellow pony trotted around the coach horses and kneeled so that the halfling could better gain his seat.

  “Put the chest upon your own horse,” Oliver instructed, “and I will go and find my main gauche. And you,” he said, tapping the quivering merchant atop the head with the side of his rapier blade. “Count as you would count your own co-ins. And do not stop until you have counted them, every one, a thousand times!”

  Luthien retrieved Riverdancer and secured the chest behind the horse’s saddle. Then he walked over and helped the woman back to her feet. He meant to offer a sincere apology—this was not Avonese, after all, and he and the halfling had just robbed her—but she immediately wrapped herself around him once more, biting at his earlobe. With great effort (and nearly at the cost of that ear), Luthien managed to pull her back to arm’s length.

  “So strong,” she purred.

  “Your lady?” Oliver began, walking Threadbare past the kneeling merchant.

  “My wife,” the merchant replied sourly.

  “A loyal type, I can see,” Oliver said. “But then, now we have the money!”

  Luthien shoved off and ran away from the woman, getting into his saddle so quickly that he nearly tumbled off the other side. He kicked Riverdancer into a short gallop, seeing the woman running fast after him, and rushed right past Oliver, toward the bridge.

  Oliver watched him with amusement, then wheeled Threadbare around to face the merchant and his woman. “Now you may tell all your fat merchant-type friends that you were robbed by Oliver deBurrows,” he said, as though that should carry some significance.

  Threadbare reared on his hind legs, and with a tip of his hat, Oliver was off.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE DIAMONDGATE FERRY

  I AM OLIVER DEBURROWS,” the halfling said, bringing his pony to a trot after the two had put more than a mile behind them. “Highwayman,” he added, sweeping his hat off gracefully.

  Luthien started to likewise introduce himself, but the halfling was not finished. “I used to say ‘highwayhalfling,’” he explained, “but the merchants did not take that so seriously and I had to more often use my rapier blade. To make my point, if you understand my meaning.” As he spoke, he snapped the rapier from the loop on his baldric and thrust it Luthien’s way.

  “I understand,” Luthien assured him, gently pushing the dangerous weapon away. He tried to introduce himself but was promptly cut off.

  “And this is my fine horse, Threadbare,” Oliver said, patting the yellow pony. “Not the prettiest, of course, but smarter than any horse, and most men, as well.”

  Luthien patted his own shaggy mount and started to say, “Riverda—”

  “I do appreciate your unexpected help,” Oliver went on, oblivious to Luthien’s attempt to speak. “Of course, I could have defeated them by myself—there were only six, you see. But take help where you find help, my papa halfling always say, and so I am grateful to . . .”

  “Luth—” Luthien began.

  “Of course, my gratitude will not carry beyond the split of the profits,” Oliver quickly added. “One in four for you.” He eyed Luthien’s rather plain dress with obvious disdain. “And that will probably be more wealth than you have ever seen.”

  “Probably,” the son of the eorl of Bedwydrin said immediately, trying to hide his smirk. Luthien did realize, though, that he had left his home without taking much in the way of wealth. He had enough to cross on the ferry and support himself for a few days, but when he had left Dun Varna, he hadn’t really thought much beyond that.

  “Not in debt, then,” Oliver said, barely pausing for a breath, before Luthien, for the fourth time, could offer his name. “But I will allow you to ride beside me, if you wish. That merchant-type was not surprised to see me—and he knew all along that he could have kept me away by showing his six guards openly. Yet he hid them,” the halfling reasoned, seeming as if he was speaking to himself. Then he snapped his fingers and looked straight at Luthien so quickly that he startled the young man.


  “I do think that he hid the one-eyes in the hopes of luring me in!” Oliver exclaimed. He paused for just an instant, stroking his goatee with one of his green-gloved hands.

  “Yes, yes,” he went on. “The merchant-type knew I was on the road—this is not the first time I have robbed him at rapier point. I got him outside of Princetown once, I do believe.” He looked up at Luthien, nodding his head. “And of course, the merchant-type would have heard my name in any case. So you may ride with me,” he offered, “for a while. Until we are beyond the traps this merchant-type has no doubt set.”

  “You think that the danger is not behind us?”

  “I just said that.”

  Luthien again hid his smirk, amazed at how the little one had just pumped himself up to be some sort of legendary highwayman. Luthien had never heard of Oliver deBurrows before, though the merchants traveling to his father’s house in Dun Varna often brought tales of thieves along the road.

  “I assure you,” Oliver began, but he stopped and looked at Luthien curiously. “You know,” he said, seeming somewhat perturbed, “you really should properly introduce yourself when traveling beside someone you have never met. There are codes of etiquette, particularly for those who would be known as proper highwaymen. Ah well,” he finished with a great sigh, “perhaps you will learn better in your time beside Oliver deBurrows.”

  “I am Luthien,” the young Bedwyr shouted quickly, before Oliver could interrupt him once more. He wondered if he should, perhaps, go by an alias. But he couldn’t think of one at that moment, and he really didn’t see the point. “Luthien Bedwyr of Dun Varna. And this is Riverdancer,” he added, giving the horse another pat.

  Oliver tipped his hat, then pulled up short on his pony. “Bedwyr?” he asked, as much to himself as to Luthien, as though he wanted to hear the ring of the name again. “Bedwyr. This name is not unknown to me.”

  “Gahris Bedwyr is the eorl of Bedwydrin,” Luthien said.

  “Ah!” Oliver agreed, pointing one finger up into the air and smiling widely in recognition. That smile went away in an incredulous blink. “Family?”