Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,12

his blood was certainly on the hands of Gahris Bedwyr.

But why? Luthien could not understand the reason, the possible gain. He imagined all sorts of wild possibilities—perhaps word had come that the Huegoth barbarians were planning a raid upon Bedwydrin, and it had been learned that Garth Rogar had been acting as a spy. Perhaps Gahris had even uncovered a report that Garth Rogar was planning to assassinate him!

Luthien shook his head and discarded the ridiculous thoughts. He had known Garth Rogar for several years. The noble fighter was no spy and certainly no assassin.

Then why?

“Many in the town are worrying about you,” came a quiet voice from behind. Luthien didn’t have to turn to know that it belonged to Katerin O’Hale. “Your father among them, I would guess.”

Luthien continued his silent stare across the still waters of the harbor toward the darkening town. He did not move even when Katerin came over to stand beside him and took his arm in her own, as she had done in the arena.

“Will you come back now?”

“Vengeance is not dishonor,” Luthien replied with a growl. He deliberately turned his head to stare into Katerin’s face, though he could barely see her in the gloom of the deepening night.

A long moment of silence passed before Katerin answered.

“No,” she agreed. “But proclaiming vengeance openly, in the middle of the arena, against one who names the duke of Montfort as his friend and relative would be a foolish thing. Would you give the man an excuse to kill you, and replace your father, for a moment of outrage?”

Luthien pulled away from her, his anger now showing that he could not honestly disagree.

“Then I make the vow now,” he said, “openly to you alone. On the grave of my dead mother, I’ll repay he who killed Garth Rogar. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequences to me, to my father, to Bedwydrin.”

Katerin could hardly believe what she had just heard, but neither could she rightly berate the man for his honorable words. She, too, burned with helpless rage, feeling like a captive for the first time in her life. She had been raised in Hale, on the open Avon Sea. Her life was spent in danger in small fishing craft braving the swells and the fierce whales, living on the very edge of disaster. But Hale was a private place and a self-sufficient one, rarely visited. Whatever the news of Bedwydrin, or of Eriador and Avon beyond that, Hale was oblivious; and so in their ignorance were the proud folk of Hale free.

But now Katerin had seen the politics of the land, and the taste in her mouth was no less bitter than the taste in Luthien’s. She turned the young man toward her fully and moved closer to him, using the warmth of their bodies to ward off the chill winds of the August night.

On the morning winds of the next dawn, the black-sailed ship, proudly flying its pennants of Montfort and Avon, its prow lifting sheets of water high into the crystalline air, charged out of Dun Varna’s harbor.

Katerin had returned to her barracks, but Luthien still watched from the wooded ridge. Long indeed would be his travels if he planned to keep his vow of revenge, he realized as the sails diminished. But he was a young man with a long memory, and up there on that ridge, watching the ship depart, Luthien vowed again that he would not forget Garth Rogar.

He would have liked to remain out of Dun Varna for many more days; he had no desire at all to face his father, for what explanation might the man offer? But Luthien was hungry and cold, and the nearest town, where he certainly would be recognized, was fully a day’s march away.

He had barely walked through the doors of House Bedwyr when two cyclopians came upon him. “Your father would see you,” one of them announced gruffly.

Luthien kept on walking, and nearly got past the two before they crossed their long halberds in his path. The young man’s hand immediately went to his hip, but he wasn’t wearing any weapons.

“Your father would see you,” the cyclopian reiterated, and he reached up with his free hand and grabbed Luthien’s upper arm hard. “He said to bring you, even if we have to drag you.”

Luthien roughly pulled away and kept his unrelenting stare on the brute. He thought of punching the cyclopian in the face, or of just pushing through the two, but the