Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,277

staring in horror, as one Huegoth impaled the captain with the sharp prong of a grapnel. The rope went taut immediately, hurling the screaming Wallach over the rail.

Luthien jumped, startled, as a Huegoth bore down on him from the side. He knew the barbarian had him, that his hesitation in the face of such brutality had cost him his life.

But then the barbarian stopped short and turned to look curiously at a foppishly dressed halfling balancing along the rail, or more particularly, at the halfling’s rapier, its slender blade piercing the man’s ribs.

The Huegoth howled and leaped up, meaning to catch hold of Oliver and take the halfling over with him, but even as he found his footing, it was knocked away by the sure swipe of a belaying pin, cracking hard against the side of the man’s knee. Over the rail he tumbled, and Katerin managed to pop him again, right in the head, before he disappeared from sight.

“I do so like fighting better atop my dear Threadbare,” Oliver remarked.

“Think of the battle in the Ministry,” Luthien said to them both. “Our only chance is to get as many together in a defensive group as possible.”

Katerin nodded, but Oliver shook his head. “My friend,” he said evenly, “in the Ministry, we survived because we ran away.” Oliver looked around, and the others didn’t have to follow his gaze to understand that this time, out on the open sea, there could be no retreat.

The valiant crew of The Stratton Weaver fought on for more than an hour, finding their first break when they came to a stand-off. Luthien, Katerin, Oliver, and fifty men and women held the high stern deck, while a hundred Huegoths on the main deck below pulled prisoners and cargo off the badly listing galleon. The prospects for the Huegoths fighting their way up the two small ladders to the higher deck were not good, but then, with their ships fast filling with captured booty and prisoners and The Stratton Weaver fast filling with water, they really didn’t have to.

Luthien saw this, as did the others, and so they had to come up with the strength for a last desperate charge. There was no hope of winning, they all knew, and no chance of escape.

Then a brown-robed figure was brought forward and thrown to the deck by a huge Huegoth.

“Brother Jamesis!” Luthien cried.

The monk pulled himself up to his knees. “Surrender your sword, my friend,” he said to Luthien. “Rennir of Isenland has assured me that he will accept it.”

Luthien looked around doubtfully to his fellows.

“Better the life of a galley slave than the watery death!” peaceable Jamesis pleaded.

“Not so!” cried one Eriadoran, and the woman untied a guide rope, took it under her arm and leaped out, soaring heroically into the Huegoth throng. Before her companions could move to follow or to stop her, though, a long spear came up and stabbed her hard, dropping her to the deck. Huegoths fell over her like wolves. Finally she came out of the tangle, in the grasp of one huge barbarian who ran her to the rail and slammed her face hard upon it.

He let go then, and somehow the woman managed to hold her footing, but just long enough for another barbarian to skewer her through the belly with a long trident. The muscled man lifted her trembling form high off the deck and held the macabre pose for a long moment before tossing her overboard.

“Damn you!” Luthien cried, starting down the ladder, his knuckles white with rage as he clutched his mighty sword.

“No more!” wailed Jamesis, the monk’s desperation bringing Luthien from his outrage. “I beseech you, son of Bedwyr, for the lives of those who follow you!”

“Bedwyr?” mumbled a curious Rennin, too low for anyone to hear.

Looking back at the fifty men and women in his wake, Luthien ran out of arguments. He was partly responsible for this disaster, he believed, since he had been one of the chief proponents of sending a lone ship out to parley. The entirety of Luthien’s previous experience with Huegoths had been beside his friend Garth Rogar in Dun Varna, and that man was among the most honorable and reasonable warriors the young Bedwyr had ever known.

Perhaps due to that friendship, Luthien hadn’t been prepared for the savage men of Isenland. Now a hundred Eriadorans, or even more, were dead, and half that number had already been hauled aboard the longships as prisoners. His cinnamon eyes moist with frustration,