Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,274

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.

“I believe they were running for aid,” Wallach explained, pointing out to starboard, where yet another longship was coming into sight, sailing around the island.

“Convenient that another was out and about and apparently expecting us,” Luthien remarked. “Convenient.”

“Ambushes usually are,” Wallach replied.

A third Huegoth ship was soon spotted rowing in hard from port, and a fourth behind it, and the first vessel put up one bank of oars and turned about hard.

“We do not know how they will play it,” Luthien was quick to say. “Perhaps now that the longship has its allies nearby, the Huegoths will agree to the parley.”

“I’ll allow no more than one of them to get close,” Wallach insisted. “And that only under a similar flag of truce.” He called up to his catapult crew then, ordering them to measure their aim on the lone ship to starboard. If a fight came, Wallach meant to sink that one first, giving The Stratton Weaver an open route out to deeper waters.

Luthien couldn’t disagree, despite his desire to end these raids peacefully. He remembered Garth Rogar, his dearest of friends, a Huegoth who had been shipwrecked at a young age and washed up on the shores of Isle Bedwydrin. Luthien had unintentionally played a hand in Garth’s death by defeating the huge man in the arena. If it had been Luthien who had gone down, Gahris would never have allowed the down-pointing-thumb signal that the defeated be vanquished.

Logically, Luthien Bedwyr held no fault in Garth Rogar’s death, but guilt was never a slave to logic.

And so Luthien had determined to honor Garth Rogar’s memory in this trip to Gybi and out onto the waters of the Dorsal Sea by resolving the conflict with the Huegoths as peacefully as