The Dragon King

12 Living Proof

Luthien and Oliver eased up side by side toward the top of the boulder. They could hear the bustle of the cyclopian encampment below, in a stony clearing surrounded by pines, boulders, and cliff walls. Luthien glanced to the side as he neared the rim, then moved quickly to pull the wide-brimmed hat from Oliver’s head.

Oliver started to cry out in protest, but Luthien anticipated such a reaction and put his hand over the halfling’s mouth, motioning with the other hand for Oliver to remain quiet.

“I tell you once to give me back my hat,” the halfling whispered.

Luthien handed it over.

“And for you,” the halfling went on, “and your woman friend,” he added quickly, recalling all the times Katerin had also so bullied him, “if you ever put your dirty hand over my mouth again, I will bite you hard.”

Luthien put his finger to pursed lips, then pointed in the direction of the cyclopian encampment.

Up rose the pair, Luthien merely extending to his full height, Oliver having to find one more foothold. They eased over the boulder’s rim together, looking down on their adversaries. From this angle, the camp seemed almost surreal, too vivid with its brightness against the backdrop of the dark night. The companions spotted several small campfires, but these could not account for the almost daylight brilliance within the encampment, or for the fact that the light had not been so visible from any other vantage point, as though it was somehow contained within the perimeter of the camp.

Luthien immediately understood that magic had to be its source, but he knew that cyclopians did not use magic. The one-eyed brutes certainly were not smart enough to unravel the mysteries of the magical arts.

But Luthien could not deny what he saw. Everything in the clearing, the scores of cyclopians milling about, the uneven shapes of the many stones, the rack of weapons against the cliff wall opposite his perch, was vividly clear, stark in outline.

Luthien looked to Oliver, who only shrugged, similarly mystified. “Cyclopian wizard?” the halfling mouthed.

Both turned back to the encampment and found their answer as a broad-shouldered, large-bellied man walked into view, laughing cheerily as he talked with a large cyclopian. He wore a dark-colored tabard, richly embroidered, that hung to his knees. Even from this distance, Luthien could see the sheen on his hose, indicating that they were silk, or some other exotic and expensive material, and the buckles of his shoes gleamed as only the purest silver could.

“I count two eyes on that one,” Oliver whispered.

Luthien was nodding. He didn’t recognize the man, but the presence of magic and the rich, regal dressings led him to believe that he could guess the man’s title. This was one of Greensparrow’s dukes; this was all the proof that Brind’Amour would need.

The man, laughing still, clapped his cyclopian companion hard on the back, then reached up and put a fur-trimmed cap with a golden insignia sewn into its front atop his thick gray hair. Another cyclopian came by and handed him a huge mug, which he lifted to his beardless face and nearly drained in one gulp.

Some of the contents spilled out, running down the man’s considerable jowls, and the cyclopian burst out in laughter. The man followed suit, roaring wildly.

“Brind’Amour will laugh louder than he when we deliver this one to Caer MacDonald,” Luthien whispered.

“How are we to get to him?” Oliver asked the obvious question. If this was indeed a wizard, then capturing him in the impending battle would be near to impossible.

Luthien smiled wryly and held out the edge of his marvelous crimson cape. The Crimson Shadow could get into that encampment undetected, no matter how bright the light!

“You mean to sneak in and steal him away?” Oliver asked incredulously.

“We can do it,” Luthien replied.

Oliver groaned softly, rolled over to put his back against the boulder, and slumped down from the rim. “Why is it always ‘we’?” he asked. “Perhaps you should find another to go with you.”

“But Oliver,” Luthien protested, coming down beside his friend, his smile still wide, “you are the only one who will fit under the cape.”

“Oh, lucky Oliver,” grumbled the halfling.

They moved away from the camp, to inform the nearest elves of their plan. More than two hundred dwarfs were in the area, along with the forty elves and half-elves, including Siobhan, that now comprised the spying band known as the Cutters. The original plan was to go in hard and fast under the cries of “Sougles’s Glen!” and slaughter every cyclopian. Luthien, with help from Siobhan, had convinced the fierce dwarfs otherwise, had shown them the potential for greater good by exercising restraint until the proof they needed could be found.

Luthien and Oliver were back at their high perch soon after, waiting for the majority of one-eyes to drift off to sleep, or at least for the light to go down somewhat. An hour passed, then another. The sliver of the waning moon moved low in the western sky, and was soon swallowed up by turbulent black clouds. The rumble of distant thunder tingled under their feet.

The man Luthien had targeted as a duke continued to laugh and to drink, sitting about a fire, throwing bones with a handful of brutish cyclopians. Even with the magical cape, there was no way that Luthien could get near to him without a fight.

But then came a break. The man belched loudly and stood up, brushing the dust and twigs from his tabard. He drained the rest of his mug, belched again, and walked away, toward the perimeter of the encampment, just to the right and below the watching companions.

“Whatever goes in . . .” Oliver whispered.

He and Luthien slipped down the back side of the boulder and crept along in the darkness, inching their way in the general direction to intercept the man. Soon they were following a steady stream of sound, and spotted the man standing beside a tree, supporting himself with one hand, while the other held up the front of his tabard. He was fully twenty yards from the encampment, with most of that distance blocked by tangled trees and shrubs.

“Do not get too close,” Oliver warned. “It seems that he has a missile weapon.”

Luthien stifled a nervous chuckle and inched his way in. He froze as he stepped on one stick, which cracked apart loudly. Oliver froze in place, too, a horrified expression on his face.

The companions soon realized that they had nothing to worry about. The drunken man was oblivious to them, though he was barely ten feet away. Luthien considered his options. If he rushed up and punched hard but did not lay the man low, his cry would surely alert the cyclopians. Certainly Luthien couldn’t strike with his sword, for he wanted the man alive.

The threat should suffice, Luthien decided, and with a look about for Oliver, who was suddenly not to be seen, the young Bedwyr drew out Blind-Striker. Luthien couldn’t dare call out for his missing halfling friend, so he took a deep and steadying breath, rushed the last few feet, and lifted his blade up before the man’s face.

“Silence!” Luthien instructed in a harsh whisper, bringing the finger of his free hand to pursed lips.

The man looked at him curiously and continued his business, as though the possibility of capture hadn’t yet occurred to him.

Luthien wagged the blade in the air. The man, startled from his stupor, widened his eyes suddenly and straightened. Thinking that he was about to cry out, Luthien lunged forward, meaning to put his swordtip right to the man’s throat.

But the man was faster, his motion simpler. His hand moved from the tree and in a single arc, yanked a talisman from his tabard and swished in a downward swipe. A field of shimmering blue came up before him.

Luthien’s momentum was too great for him to react. Blind-Striker’s tip hit the field and threw sparks, and the sword was violently repelled, flying back over Luthien’s head, yanking his arm painfully. Luthien, though, was still moving forward, and he, too, couldn’t avoid the shield. He yelped and rolled his shoulder defensively, barely brushing the bluish light. But that was all the repelling magic needed, and the young Bedwyr found himself flying backward, off his feet, to crash into the trees.

The jolly wizard’s laugh was stifled before it ever began, as he felt a sting in his belly. He looked down to see Oliver, standing on his side of the repelling field, rapier drawn and poking.

“Aha!” said the halfling. “I have gone around your silly magics and am inside your so clever barrier.” Oliver’s beaming expression suddenly turned sour and he looked down. “And my so fine shoes are wet!” he wailed.

The man moved fast; so did Oliver, meaning to stick him more forcefully. But to the halfling’s horror, a single word from the wizard transformed his rapier blade into a living serpent, and it immediately turned back on him!

And the wizard’s huge and strong hands were coming for him as well! Right for his throat.

Oliver cried out and threw his rapier over his head, then moved to dodge. The attack never came, though, for the blade-turned-serpent struck the repelling shield and rebounded straight out, hitting the wizard square in the face. Now it was Duke Resmore’s turn to cry out, reaching frantically for the writhing snake.

Oliver darted between the man’s legs, turned about and grabbed the edges of his tabard. Up the halfling scrambled, taking the serpent’s place as the man threw it to the ground. Oliver grabbed on to one ear for support, and the man’s head jerked backward, his mouth opening to cry out. Oliver promptly stuffed his free hand into that mouth.

Luthien came around the edge of the shield, Blind-Striker in hand. Some of the cyclopians the duke had left behind were heading in their direction and calling out the name of “Resmore.” They had to go, and quickly, Luthien knew, and if this wizard, Resmore, would not cooperate, Luthien meant to strike him dead.

“My gauntlets, they are leather, yes?” Oliver asked.

“Yes.”

“But he is biting right through them!” Oliver squealed. Out came the hand, and the wizard-duke wasted no time.

“A’ta’arrefi!” he cried.

Barely twenty yards away, a host of cyclopians cried out.

Two running strides brought Luthien up to the man, and a solid right cross to the jaw dropped him where he stood, forcing Oliver to leap away, rolling in the twigs.

“One-eyes!” the halfling groaned as he came up, but he found some hope when he spotted his rapier, the blade whole again. “Take his silly cap, and let us go!”

Luthien shook the pains out of his bruised hand and moved to comply, realizing that the insignia on that cap might suffice. He stopped, though, as Oliver spoke again.

“Do you smell what I smell?” the halfling asked.

Luthien paused, and indeed he did, an all-too-familiar odor. Sulfurous, noxious. The young Bedwyr looked to Oliver, then turned to follow Oliver’s gaze, back over his shoulder, to a spinning ball of orange flames, quickly taking the shape of a bipedal canine with goatlike horns atop its head and eyes that blazed with the red hue of demonic fires.

“Oh, not again,” the beleaguered halfling moaned.

The monster’s howl split the night.

“Let me guess,” Oliver said dryly. “You are A’ta’arrefi?”

The creature was not large, no more than four feet from head to tail, but its aura, that sensation of might that surrounded every demon, was nearly overwhelming. Luthien and Oliver had battled enough of the fiends to know that they were in serious trouble, a fact made all the more obvious when A’ta’arrefi opened wide its fanged maw, wide enough, it seemed, to swallow Oliver whole!

Above them all, a bolt of lightning crackled through the rushing black clouds, a fitting touch, it seemed, to this hellish scenario. The sudden light showed the companions that cyclopians were all about them now, fanning out in the woods and keeping a respectable distance, whispering that this was the Crimson Shadow.

Luthien hardly gave the brutes a thought, focusing, as he had to, on the caninelike demon.

Out of that huge maw came a forked tongue, a hissing bark, and A’ta’arrefi, with speed that stunned the companions, leaped forward, dancing in the unholy symphony of the angry storm.

Oliver screamed. Luthien did, too, and raised Blind-Striker, though he knew that he could not be quick enough to intercept the charge.

And then he was blinded, and so was Oliver, and so were the cyclopians, as a lightning stroke came down right in front of him. Luthien felt his muscles jerking wildly, felt his hair dancing, and realized that he had been lifted right off the ground by the terrific impact. Somehow he came back down on his feet and held his tentative balance, though he soon enough realized that, with the demon charging, he might have been wiser to fall to the side.

But the expected attack never came, and Luthien heard before he saw, that battle had been joined in the woods about him. He heard the twang of elvish bows, the thunder of a dwarven charge, the cries of surprised and quickly dying cyclopians.

Finally, Luthien’s vision cleared, and he saw that A’ta’arrefi was no more—no more than a blackened forked tongue lying on the ground at Luthien’s feet.

As abrupt as the lightning bolt came the downpour, a torrent of rain hissing through the trees. Luthien pulled the hood of his crimson cape over his head, purely an instinctual movement, made with hardly a thought, for the young man was surely dazed.

Resmore’s groan brought Luthien back to the situation at hand. He shook the dizziness from his head and turned to the prone duke. He couldn’t stifle a burst of laughter as he spotted Oliver, sitting beside the man, the halfling’s usually curly hair straightened and standing on end.

“Boom,” the foppish halfling muttered and toppled to lie across the duke. The jarring woke the man.

Luthien skidded down atop him to hold him in place.

“I will deliver you personally to King Greensparrow,” the dazed and drunken Resmore slurred.

Luthien slugged him again to silence him, and when the man went still, Luthien lay atop the pile, spreading his shielding crimson cape to hide them all. He wanted to get up and join in the fight, but he understood the importance of his inaction, both to safeguard his all-valuable prisoner and to ensure that the magic-wielder could not wake up again and get into the fray.

Besides, Luthien soon realized, it was all going the way of the dwarfs and elves. Vengeance fueled the chopping axes and pounding hammers, and none could fight better in the darkness than elves, and none were better with deadly bows. The cyclopians had been caught by surprise, and even worse for them, they had been sitting within a brightly lit encampment and were now perfectly blind to the night.

Luthien thought he would have to fight, though, when he heard one terrified one-eye come rushing out of the brush, sloshing through the growing mud puddles, running straight for the unseen pile of bodies. The young Bedwyr turned slowly, so as not to give up the camouflage, and he spotted the cyclopian, looking back desperately over its shoulder, at about the same instant it ran smack into Resmore’s repelling shield.

Back the one-eye flew, meeting up with a pair of dwarfs as they burst out of the brush.

“I didn’t think he’d have the guts to charge!” one of the dwarfs roared, coming to his feet and promptly bringing his axe into the stunned cyclopian’s backbone.

“Nor did myself!” howled the other, caving in the one-eye’s skull with his heavy hammer.

“His children should be proud!” the first dwarf proclaimed.

“His children should be orphans!” cried the second, and off they ran, happily, looking for more one-eyes to smack.

Luthien eased his head back down, shifted himself more completely under the cape. It was better to stay out of this one, he decided.