Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,127

you.”

Luthien was worried, too. He didn’t know what he was feeling, for either Katerin or for Siobhan. He cared for them both—no man could ask for a dearer friend or lover than either woman—and that made it all the more confusing. He was a young man trying to explore emotions he did not understand. And at the same time, he was the Crimson Shadow, leader of a revolution . . . and a thousand lives, ten thousand lives, might hinge on his every decision.

Oliver started for the door and motioned for Luthien to follow. The young man took a deep and steadying breath and readily complied.

It was good to let someone else lead.

CHAPTER 3

BREAKOUT

HALF A DOZEN CYCLOPIANS, the leaders of the operation at the Montfort mines, turned dumbfounded stares to the door of their side cave—a door that they thought had been locked—when the man and the halfling casually strode in, smiles wide, as though they had been invited. The two even closed the door behind them, and the halfling stuck a pick into the lock opening and gave a quick twist, nodding as the tumblers clicked again.

The closest brute scrambled for its spear, which was lying across hooks set into the squared cave’s right-hand wall, but faster than its one eye could follow, the man hopped to the side, whipped a magnificent sword from its sheath on his hip, and brought it swinging down across the spear shaft, pinning the weapon. The cyclopian shifted, meaning to run the man down. But it paused, confused, at the sight of the man standing calmly, unthreateningly, his hand held up as though he wanted no fight.

Before another cyclopian could react, the halfling rushed between the closest two chairs and leaped atop the table, rapier in hand. He didn’t threaten any of the brutes, though. Rather, he struck a heroic pose.

A chair skidded from behind the table and one cyclopian, the largest of the group, stood tall and ominous. Like Luthien over to the side, Oliver waved his hand in the air as though to calm the brute.

“Greetings,” the halfling said. “I am Oliver deBurrows, highwayhalfling, and my friend here is Luthien Bedwyr, son of Eorl Gahris of Bedwydrin.”

The cyclopians obviously didn’t know how to react, didn’t understand what was going on. The Montfort mines were some distance south of the city itself, nestled deep in the towering mountains. The place was perfectly secluded; the brutes didn’t even know that the battle for Montfort was raging, for they had heard nothing from the city since before the first snows. Except for the prisoner caravans, which wouldn’t resume until the spring melt, no one visited the Montfort mines.

“Of course, you would know him better as the Crimson Shadow,” Oliver went on.

The large cyclopian at the end of the table narrowed its one eye dangerously. There had been a breakout at the mines just a few months before, when two invaders, rumored to be a human and a halfling, had slipped in, killed more than a few cyclopians, and freed three dwarven prisoners. The entire group of guards in this small side room had been on a shift far underground on that occasion, but these two certainly fit the descriptions of the perpetrators. The cyclopian and its allies couldn’t be sure of anything, though, for this sudden intrusion was too unexpected, too strange.

“Now I wanted for me and my friend here, and for our two hundred other friends outside”—that turned more than one cyclopian’s head toward the closed door—“to just come in here and kill you very dead,” Oliver explained. “But my gentle friend, he wanted to give you a chance to surrender.”

It took a moment for the words to register, and the large cyclopian caught on first. The brute roared, overturning the table.

Oliver whirled away from the brute on his heel, expecting the move. He scrambled and leaped, flicking his rapier to the left, then to the right, slicing the two closest cyclopians across their faces.

“I will consider that a no,” the halfling said dryly, falling into a roll as he landed and turning a complete somersault to find his center of balance.

The cyclopian nearest to Luthien growled and lowered its shoulder to charge, but Luthien pointed toward the trapped spear. “Look!” the young Bedwyr cried.

The stupid brute complied, turning to see Luthien’s sword rapidly ascending, as Luthien snapped a wicked backhand. Blind-Striker’s heavy, fine-edged blade cracked through the brute’s forehead.

Luthien leaped over the corpse as it crumbled.

“I told you they would not surrender!”