Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,238

found in a wardrobe. It was low cut, and really too small for her, riding high on her smooth legs.

An altogether alluring outfit on one as beautiful as Katerin, but there was nothing inviting about the way the woman sat now, back straight, hands resting in her lap, impassive, indifferent.

She had not been wounded badly in the fight and had not suffered at the hands of Duke Paragor. No doubt the abduction had been traumatic, but certainly Katerin had been through worse. Since the fight, though, after those first few moments of elation, the woman had become quiet and distant. She had reacted to Luthien as her savior for just a moment, then moved away from him and kept away from him.

She was afraid, Luthien knew, and probably just as afraid that he would come to her this night as that he would not. Until this moment, Luthien had not truly considered the implications of his relationship with Siobhan. Katerin’s jealousy, her sudden outburst that night at the Dwelf, had been an exciting thing for Luthien, a flattering thing. But those outbursts were gone now, replaced by a resignation in the woman, a stealing of her spirit, that Luthien could not stand to see.

“I care for Siobhan,” he began, searching for some starting point. Katerin looked away.

“But not as I love you,” the young man quickly added, taking a hopeful stride forward.

Katerin did not turn back to him.

“Do you understand?” Luthien asked.

No response.

“I have to make you understand,” he said emphatically. “When I was in Montfort . . . I needed . . .”

He paused as Katerin did turn back, her green eyes rimmed with tears; her jaw tightened.

“Siobhan is my friend and nothing more,” Luthien said.

Katerin’s expression turned sour.

“She was more than my friend,” Luthien admitted. “And I do not regret . . .” Again he paused, seeing that he was going in the wrong direction. “I do regret hurting you,” he said softly. “And if I have done irreparable harm to our love, then I shall forever grieve, and then all of this, the victories and the glory, shall be a hollow thing.”

“You are the Crimson Shadow,” Katerin said evenly.

“I am Luthien Bedwyr,” the young man corrected. “Who loves Katerin O’Hale, only Katerin O’Hale.”

Katerin did not blink, did not offer any response, verbal or otherwise. A long, uncomfortable moment passed, and then Luthien, defeated, turned toward the door.

“I am sorry,” he whispered, and went out into the hall.

He was down at the other end, nearing his door, when Katerin called out his name behind him. He turned and saw her standing there, just outside of her door, tall and beautiful and with a hint of a smile on her fairest of faces.

He moved back to her slowly, guardedly, not wanting to push her too far, not wanting to scare her away from whatever course she had chosen.

“Don’t go,” she said to him, and she took his hand and pulled him close. “Don’t ever go.”

From a door across the hall, barely cracked open, a teary-eyed Oliver watched the scene. “Ah, to be young and in Princetown in the spring,” the sentimental halfling said as he closed his door after Luthien and Katerin had disappeared.

The halfling waited a moment, then opened the door again and exited his room, dressed in his finest traveling clothes and with a full pack over his shoulder, for though it was night, Oliver had a meeting with Brind’Amour, and then a long, but impossibly quick, road ahead.

The next morning, the proud Princetown garrison marched out of the city to much fanfare. The long line moved swiftly, out to the east and south, meaning to swing through the easy trails of Glen Durritch and then turn north to Malpuissant’s Wall, where they would put down the rebels.

But the rebels were not at the wall. They were waiting, entrenched in the higher ground of the glen, and the Princetown garrison never made it out the other side.

The length of the cyclopian line was barraged with missile fire, elvish bowstrings humming, each archer putting three arrows in the air before the first had ever hit its mark. After the first few terrible moments, the cyclopians tried to form up into defensive position, and the Riders of Eradoch came rushing down upon them, cutting great swaths through their lines, heightening the confusion.

Then there was no defense, no organized counterattack, and the slaughter became wholesale. Some cyclopians tried to run out the eastern end of the glen, but the jaws