Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,365

charge.

Luthien wasn’t convinced. He tried questioning the bird along different lines: “Are we to go to Princetown?” and “Has Princetown claimed allegiance with Eriador?” but all that the bird would reply was that one word.

Until Luthien and the other two turned to leave. Then the owl said suddenly, “Glen Durritch.”

As one, the three turned back to the bird. “Princetown, Glen Durritch,” grumbled Bellick, not catching on.

“Left, right, straight ahead,” said the bird, and then, as though the enchantment put over the creature had expired, the owl silently flew off into the darkness.

Luthien’s face brightened.

“What do you know?” Siobhan asked him.

“Only once have we gone against a fortified Avon city,” Luthien replied. “And we won a smashing victory.”

“Princetown,” Bellick put in.

“But we did not actually battle against the city,” Siobhan objected.

“We fought in Glen Durritch,” said Luthien. Siobhan’s face brightened next, but Bellick, who had come on the scene in Princetown near the end of the battle and really didn’t know how things had fallen out so favorably, remained in the dark.

“Brind’Amour took the form of Princetown’s Duke Paragor and sent the city’s garrison out from behind the high walls,” Luthien explained.

Bellick’s gaze snapped to the south, toward Warchester. “You’re not thinking . . .” the dwarf began.

“That is exactly what I am thinking,” Luthien replied.

Siobhan called for the scouts to go out in force, and for the camp to be roused and readied for battle.

“This was a warning from Brind’Amour,” Luthien insisted, joining Bellick as the dwarf continued to stare out to the south. “The garrison is coming out, and we must be ready for them.”

For the three cyclopian groups, the one crossing the swift Dunkery had the most difficult time.

Even worse for the one-eyes, Bellick had realized that they would.

The cyclopian flank was split, a third already across the river, a third in the water, and the rest lining the eastern bank, preparing to cross, when the Eriadorans hit. The cavalry, led by Luthien and Siobhan, sliced down the eastern bank, while archers opened mercilessly on those brutes struggling in the water, their thrashing forms clearly illuminated by the full moon. At the same time, Bellick’s dwarven charges overwhelmed those on the western bank, pushing them back into the river.

The waters ran red with cyclopian blood; even more brutes drowned in the swift current, their support lines chopped by dwarvish axes. Those one-eyes on the eastern bank were the most fortunate, for some of them, anyway, managed to run off into the night, screaming and without any semblance of order.

It was over quickly.

But though the rout was in full spate, the Eriadorans had just begun this night’s work. Spearheaded by Luthien’s cavalry, the force charged off to the south, determined to get to Warchester ahead of the remaining two cyclopian groups, to ambush them out on the field.

“It is empty!” Akrass roared, kicking at a bedroll—a bedroll stuffed with leaves and stones so as to appear full. Every fire in the vast encampment burned low, every blanket, every bedroll, covered nothing more than inanimate stuffing.

Before the cyclopian could even begin to express its outrage, the sounds of battle drifted in from the east, from the Dunkery.

“They have gone out to meet our flank!” yelled Brind’Amour, still in Theredon’s guise but growing more weary by the moment.

Akrass called for formations, thinking to charge right off to the east and ambush the ambushers. With his duke’s blessing, the undercommander did just that, so he thought.

The moon could be a curious thing when wizards were nearby. Simple spells of reflection could make the pale orb seem to shift its position. Similarly, spells of echo reflection could alter the apparent source of clear noise. And so the disoriented Akrass led his four thousand straight to the north instead of the east.

“Nice moon,” Brind’Amour remarked to Deanna as they put their horses in line for the march, as the old wizard realized just how well Deanna had executed the enchantment.

“Simple trick,” the woman replied humbly.

Brind’Amour was truly pleased. “Simple but effective.”

The last of the Warchester formations trudged across the low and muddy Eorn without incident. They were too far away to hear the sounds of battle, or the rumble of the cyclopian thrust to the north, and so they, like Akrass’s group, were caught completely by surprise when they happened upon the Eriadoran encampment, expecting to find the battle underway, but discovering nothing but empty bedrolls.

By that time, the fields to the east were quiet once more.

The cyclopian leader of this group, without Theredon