Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,180

thousand already lying dead, but suddenly it all seemed to be a personal struggle to Luthien, as it had out by Felling Run. The ugly cyclopian against him.

And if he lost, then all of Caer MacDonald would pay the dear price.

CHAPTER 14

TWILIGHT

IT WILL SNOW TONIGHT,” Siobhan remarked to Luthien and the others manning the wall around them. In the city behind them, several fires raged. Many cyclopians had been hunted down during the course of that afternoon, but others were still out there, prowling the shadows.

“He’ll not wait,” Luthien assured her.

The half-elf looked at the young man. The way he had spoken the words, and his referral to the enemy leader, and not to the Avon army, gave her insight into what the young Bedwyr might be thinking.

Siobhan looked over her shoulder, back toward the city, and saw another group of warriors, their faces covered in soot, emerging from one lane, heading for the wall. Below her, Shuglin’s dwarfs worked hard at reinforcing the gate, but it had never been designed as a ward against so large a force. Up to now, battles for the city had usually been relatively small-scale, mostly against rogue cyclopian tribes. The main doors, though large, were not even bolstered by a portcullis, and though the plans had been drawn up to put one in place, the other defensive preparations, such as rigging the outer wall for collapse, had taken precedence.

“Replace them on the wall,” Luthien instructed another man near to him, referring to the group coming out of the city. “And send a like number back into the city to hunt and join with the children and the elderly in battling the fires.” The man, his face grim, nodded and left.

“March on,” Luthien whispered into the biting wind as he looked back out over the fields, and Siobhan knew that he was calling to his enemy. This was a brutal battle, and only growing worse. All the able-bodied men and women had been fighting at the walls, but now even the children and the elderly, even those fighters who had been sorely wounded, had been forced to join in to fight cyclopians, or to fight flames. “Let us be with it.”

“You are so certain that the one-eyes will come,” Siobhan stated.

“The storm will be a big one,” Luthien replied. “He knows. Their march to the city will be more difficult in the morning, if they can even come through the storm. Uphill and through blowing snow.” Luthien shook his head. “No,” he assured those around him. “Our enemy will not wait. The time to strike is now, with the sun still in the sky and the fires burning behind us, with our position weakened at the wall and the doors still hanging loose from the last assault.”

“The dwarfs work well,” one other man remarked, needing to report on some positive news.

Luthien didn’t argue the point.

“They will come on,” Siobhan agreed. “But can we hold?”

Luthien looked at her for just a moment, then glanced all around, at the faces of those nearby who had suddenly become quite interested in the conversation. “We will hold,” Luthien said determinedly, teeth clenched. “We will drive them from our gates once more, kill them in the field, and then let the storm stop them and freeze what few are left alive. Eriador free!”

An impromptu cheer erupted from that section of the wall. Siobhan didn’t join in. She stared long and hard at Luthien, though he, looking over the fields, didn’t seem to notice her. She knew the truth of his little speech, knew that any apparent conviction in his words was for the sake of the others nearby. Luthien was no fool. Three, four, maybe even five thousand cyclopians were dead or wounded too badly to continue to fight, but between the defenders’ dead and those who were within the city’s interior, hunting cyclopians and battling flames, the force along the wall was at least as badly depleted, and every defender lost, every lost archer, who might fire a dozen arrows before the brutes even got near to the wall, was worth several cyclopians.

They had almost lost the wall in the last attack, and the odds then had been much more in their favor, the defenses more solid.

Luthien directed a sharp glance at the half-elf, as though he had somehow heard her silent reasoning. “Send the word throughout the city,” he instructed. “Get everyone who is not at the wall or otherwise engaged, within the walls of the merchant