Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,351

to her her life, though it will be one far removed from my court.”

“Now only two of Greensparrow’s wizards remain,” Brind’Amour said, satisfied at that, “and one, at least, is on my side, while the other, I would hope, shall remain neutral.”

“On your side?” Deanna asked. “That I never said.”

“Then you are at least against Greensparrow,” the old wizard reasoned.

“I am the rightful queen of Avon,” the woman said bluntly. “Why would I not oppose the man who has stolen my throne?”

Brind’Amour nodded and scratched at his huge beard, trying to figure out exactly how much value Deanna Wellworth would prove to be.

“And do not think that the balance of magical strength has shifted so greatly,” the duchess warned. “Mystigal, Resmore, and Theredon were minor spellcasters, conduits for their demon familiars rather than great powers in themselves, and neither I nor Ashannon hold much power anymore, now that our familiars have been banished.”

Brind’Amour considered the barrier Deanna had enacted on the plateau and thought that she might be underestimating herself, but he held the thought private. “Still,” he said, “I would rather battle Greensparrow alone than with his wizards allied beside him.”

“Our powers were great because of our relationships with our familiars,” Deanna explained. “If we achieved a higher symbiosis with them, even our lives could be extended.”

“As Greensparrow’s was obviously extended.” Brind’Amour realized where Deanna’s reasoning led. Brind’Amour was alive in this time because he had chosen the magical stasis, but Greensparrow had remained awake through the centuries. By now, the man should have died of old age, something even a wizard could not fully escape.

“So Greensparrow and his familiar are very close,” Brind’Amour went on, prompting Deanna to finish her point. “A demon, perhaps a demon lord?”

“So we once thought,” Deanna answered grimly. “But no, Greensparrow’s familiar is not a demon, but another of the magical beasts of the world.”

Brind’Amour scratched his beard again and seemed not to understand.

“He went into the Saltwash those centuries ago to find his power,” Deanna explained. “And so he did find it, with a beast of the highest order.”

Brind’Amour nearly swooned. He knew what creature had long ago dominated the Saltwash, and had thought that his brotherhood had destroyed, or at least had imprisoned, the beasts, as he had sealed the dragon Balthazar deep in a mountain cave.

“A dragon,” he said, all color leaving his face.

Deanna nodded grimly. “And now Greensparrow and the dragon are one.”

“Cyclopians,” Luthien muttered grimly, seeing the slaughtered horses strewn about the fields. A single farmhouse, no more than a shell, stood on a hill in the distance, a plume of black smoke rising from it.

Luthien was walking Riverdancer, alongside Bellick, Shuglin, and Solomon Keyes. He reached up and stroked the horse’s neck, as if offering sympathy to Riverdancer for the scene of carnage all about them.

“It might be that they’re making our task all the easier,” Shuglin remarked.

“The folk of Dunkery Valley have never held love for the one-eyes,” Solomon Keyes explained. “We tolerated them because we were given little choice in the matter.”

“You are not so different from everyone else in Avonsea, then,” Luthien said.

Further ahead on the road, the line parted to let a pair of riders, Siobhan and another of the Cutters, gallop through. They pulled up in front of Bellick and Luthien.

“A village not so different from Pipery,” Siobhan reported. “Four miles ahead.”

“Alanshire,” Solomon Keyes put in.

“How strong a wall?” Bellick asked Siobhan, but again it was Keyes who spoke up.

“No wall,” he said. “The buildings in the central area of town are close together. It would not be a difficult task for the folk to pile crates and stones to connect them.”

Siobhan nodded her agreement with the assessment.

“And how many soldiers?” Bellick asked.

“I can get in there and find out,” Keyes answered. He looked back over his shoulder and motioned to the other men of Pipery who had come along.

Bellick regarded Luthien, and the dwarf’s expression showed that he was suspicious of letting the priest go ahead of them.

“I can enter at dusk,” the young Bedwyr said in answer.

“And I will be there to meet you,” said Keyes. “With a full report of what we might expect from Alanshire.”

“Some would call you a traitor,” Bellick remarked.

Keyes looked at him directly, and did not back down in the least. “I only care that as few men are killed as possible,” he stated flatly.

The Pipery contingent rode off, four men and a woman sharing three horses. Bellick and the others went about the task