Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,334

very still, praying again for guidance. He breathed a profound sigh when the group swept back out of the chapel.

That relief was short-lived, though, for it didn’t take the priest long to understand the implications of Allaberksis’s actions.

Pipery was being deserted as a sacrifice. King Greensparrow’s elite soldiers did not consider the small village worth saving.

The Eriadoran army camped within sight of Pipery, swinging lines far to the east and west, even launching cavalry patrols across the ground south of the village to make sure that very few one-eyes escaped. Brind’Amour had no intention of allowing Greensparrow’s disorganized northern army to run all the way back to Carlisle, or to Warchester, perhaps, where they might regroup behind the protection of the city’s high walls.

On one such expedition, Luthien’s swift cavalry group had come upon a curious band of Praetorian Guards, led by the oldest one-eye the young Bedwyr had ever seen. The cyclopians were summarily routed, and in picking through their bodies, Luthien had found a purse clearly marked as contributions for the town’s common good.

The young Bedwyr thought that significant, and was beginning to discern a possibility here, a hope for an easier march. He said nothing about it on his return to the camp, though, wanting to sort things out more fully before presenting his suspicions to Brind’Amour, who, for some reason that Luthien couldn’t discern, seemed more than a bit distracted this evening.

“You fear the coming battle?” Luthien asked, prodding his old friend, as the pair walked across the central area of the large camp.

Brind’Amour scoffed at that notion. “If I feared Pipery, I never would have come south, knowing that Warchester and Carlisle lay ahead!” the wizard replied. He stopped by a water trough then and bent low to splash his face. He paused before his hand touched the water, and stood very still, for in that trough, Brind’Amour saw a curious scene, a now-familiar narrow and tall, flat-topped pillar of stone.

Brind’Amour.

The call floated in on the wind. Brind’Amour glanced all about, looking for the rocks that might have made such a reflection in the water, but no such tower loomed anywhere near.

“What is it?” Luthien asked, concerned. He, too, glanced all about, though he had no idea what he might be looking for.

Brind’Amour waved his hand in the empty air, all the answer Luthien would get from him at that time. The wizard considered the call, the subtle and personal call, considered the owl and now the trough, and suddenly thought that he had sorted out the answer.

And hoped that he did, for if his guess was correct, these curious events might well alter the course of the coming battle.

“Keep a good eye to the perimeter,” the old wizard instructed as he briskly walked away from Luthien.

Luthien called after him, but it was useless; Brind’Amour would not even slow his swift pace.

Back in his tent, the wizard wasted no time in taking out his crystal ball. The image of the strange rock formation was clear in his mind, and after nearly an hour of exhausting divining, he managed to replicate it in the crystal ball. Then Brind’Amour let the conjured image become a true scene and he slowly altered the perspective within the ball, searching out landmarks near the tower that might guide him. Soon he was convinced that the formation was in the Iron Cross, not so far to the north and west, closer to the coast, surely.

The wizard released the image from the ball and relaxed. He considered his course carefully, realizing that this might well be a trap. Perhaps it was one of his peers from that long-past age, awake again and ready to join in with Eriador’s just cause. Perhaps it was Greensparrow, luring him to his doom that Eriador continue without a king, and without a wizard to counter the magics of the dukes and duchess and king of Avon.

“Now is not the time for caution,” Brind’Amour said aloud, bolstering his resolve. “Now is not the time for cowards!”

Brind’Amour considered again the desperation of this war, the complete gamble that had been accepted by all the brave folk of Eriador with the prize of true freedom dangling before them.

The old wizard knew what he must do.

CHAPTER 22

TRAPPING THE TRAPPERS

BRIND’AMOUR SLIPPED quietly from his tent later that night. The moon had already set and the stars were crisp, in those spots where they showed through the broken canopy of rushing black clouds. The wizard, energized by thoughts of the crucial task