Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,253

am I? Servant of Brind’Amour or king of DunDarrow?”

“Both,” said the halfling. “Though never would I call one in the line of Burso Ironhammer a ‘servant.’ No, not that. Ally to Eriador, allowing Brind’Amour to determine all our course through the greater . . . er, larger, though certainly more boring, issues outside of Eriador.”

“Sounds like a servant,” one of the dwarven generals said distastefully.

“Ah, but it all depends upon how you look at it,” Oliver replied. “King Bellick does not want to deal with such diplomatic matters as fishing rights or emissaries from Gascony. No, no, King Bellick would rather spend his days at the forge, I am sure, where any good dwarf belongs.”

“True enough,” admitted the orange-bearded king.

“In that light, it seems to me as if Brind’Amour was King Bellick’s servant, handling all the troublesome pettiness of government while King Bellick beats his hammer, or whatever it is you dwarfs beat.”

“And of course, in any matters that concern DunDarrow directly or indirectly, I would first inform you and seek your counsel and your decision,” Brind’Amour cut in, wanting to keep Oliver’s surprising momentum flowing.

The four dwarfs called for a break, then huddled in the corner, talking excitedly. They came back to the table almost immediately.

“There are details to be defined,” Bellick said. “I would protect the integrity of DunDarrow’s sovereignty.”

Brind’Amour sagged in his chair.

“But,” Bellick added, “I would be loving the expression on ugly Greensparrow’s face when he hears that DunDarrow and Eriador are one!”

“Duocracy!” shouted Oliver.

They adjourned then, with more progress made than Brind’Amour had dared hope for. He left with Oliver and Siobhan, all three in fine spirits, and of course, with Oliver retelling, and embellishing, his inspirational interruption.

“I did notice, though,” Brind’Amour remarked when the breathless halfling paused long enough for him to get a word in, “that in your little speech, you referred to my counterpart as King Bellick, while I was referred to as merely Brind’Amour.”

Oliver started to laugh, but stopped short, seeing the wizard’s serious expression. There were many people in the world whom Oliver did not want for enemies, and mighty Brind’Amour was at the very top of that list.

“It was not a speech,” Oliver stammered, “but a performance. Yes, a performance for our hairy dwarf-type friends. You noticed my subtle error, and so did Bellick . . .”

“King Bellick,” Brind’Amour corrected. “And I noticed that it was but one of your errors.”

Oliver fumbled about for a moment. “Ah, but I knew you before you ever were king,” he reminded the wizard.

Brind’Amour could have kept up the feigned anger all the day, taking pleasure in Oliver’s sweat, but Siobhan’s chuckling soon became infectious, and Oliver howled loudest of all when he realized that the wizard was playing games with him. He had done well, after all, with his improvisation of “duocracy,” and it seemed as if the vital agreement between Bellick and Brind’Amour was all but signed.

Oliver noticed, too, the strange way Siobhan was looking at him.

Respect?

Menster, in the southwestern corner of Glen Albyn, was much like any other tiny Eriadoran community. It had no militia, was in fact little more than a collection of a few houses connected by a defensive wall of piled logs. The people, single men mostly, farmed a little, hunted a lot, and fished the waters of a clear, babbling stream that danced down from the higher reaches of the Iron Cross. Menster’s folk had little contact with the outside world, though two of the hamlet’s younger men had joined the Eriadoran army when that force had marched through Glen Albyn on their way to Princetown. Both those young men had returned with tales of victory when the army came through again, heading west this time, back to Caer MacDonald.

And so there had been much rejoicing in Menster since the war. In years past, the village had been visited often by Greensparrow’s tax collectors, and like most independent-minded Eriadorans, the folk of Menster were never fond of being under the shadow of a foreign king.

With the change in government, with Eriador in the hands of an Eriadoran, their lives could only get better, or so they believed. Perhaps they might even remain invisible to the new king of Eriador, an unnoticed little hamlet, untaxed and unbothered. Just the way they wanted it.

But Menster was not invisible to the growing cyclopian horde, and though the people of Menster were a sturdy folk, surviving in near isolation on the rugged slopes of the Iron Cross, they were not