7
The Crimson Shadow
“Could we not have gone in the lower door?” Oliver asked, thoroughly cold and miserable and with still more than a hundred feet of climbing looming before him.
“The door is blocked,” Luthien whispered, his mouth close to Oliver’s ear, the cowl of his crimson cape covering not only his head but the halfling’s as well. “You did not have to come.”
“I did not want to lose my rope,” the stubborn halfling replied.
They were scaling the eastern wall of the Ministry, more than halfway up the tallest tower. The night air was not so cold, but the wind was stiff this high up, biting at them and threatening to shake them free. Luthien huddled tight and checked the fastenings of his magical cape. He couldn’t have it blowing open up here, leaving him and Oliver exposed halfway up the wall!
He had been wearing his cape daily since the rebellion began, for it was the symbol that the common folk of the city had rallied behind. The Crimson Shadow, the legend of old come to life to lead them to freedom. But the cape was much more than a showpiece. Cloistered within its protective magics, the cape tight about him and the cowl pulled low, Luthien was less than a shadow, or merely a shadow blended into other shadows—for all practical measures, completely invisible. He had only used the cape in this camouflaging manner a couple of times during the weeks of fighting to go over the wall and scout out enemy positions. He had thought of trying to find Aubrey, to kill the man in his house, but Siobhan had talked him out of that course, convincing him that the bumbling viscount was, in reality, a blessing to the rebels.
This time, though, Luthien would not be talked out of his plan; in fact, he had told no one except Oliver of his intentions.
So here they were, in the dark of night, almost up the Ministry’s tallest wall. There were cyclopians posted up there, they both knew, but the brutes were likely huddled close around a fire. What would they be on watch against, after all? They could not see the movements of men on the streets below, and they certainly did not expect anyone to come up and join them!
Oliver’s last throw had been good, heaving the magical grapnel up to the end of the rope, but after climbing the fifty feet to the puckered ball, the companions found few places to set themselves. There were no windows this high up on the tower, and the stones had been worn smooth by the incessant wind.
Luthien hooked his fingers tight into a crack, his feet barely holding to a narrow perch. “Hurry,” he bade his companion.
Oliver looked up at him and sighed. The halfling, his feet against the wall, was tucked in tight against Luthien’s belly—the only thing holding Oliver aloft was Luthien. Oliver fumbled with the rope, trying to loop it so that he could fling it up the remaining fifty feet, all the way to the tower’s lip.
“Hurry,” Luthien said more urgently, and Oliver understood that the young man’s hold was not so good. Muttering a curse in his native Gascon tongue, the halfling reached out and tossed the magical grapnel as high as he could. It caught fast, no more than twenty feet above them.
Again came that whispered Gascon curse, but Luthien dismissed it, for he saw something that the halfling did not.
Oliver quieted and held on tight to Luthien, who took up the rope and climbed only a few feet, coming to a stop atop a jutting stone.
“Make the next throw the last throw,” Luthien whispered, planting himself firmly.
Oliver tugged three times on the rope, the signal for the grapnel to loosen. It slipped down silently and Oliver reeled it in. Now, since Luthien had solid footing, so did Oliver, and the halfling took his time and measured his throw.
Perfect: the grapnel hit the wall with the slightest of sounds just a foot below the tower’s lip.
Again Oliver grabbed on and Luthien took up the rope, ready to climb. Oliver grabbed his wrist, though, and when Luthien paused, he, too, heard the movement up above.
Luthien ducked low under the protective cape, sheltering himself and Oliver. After a long moment, the young Bedwyr dared to look up and saw the silhouette of a cyclopian peering over the wall down at him.
Luthien thought the game was up, but the brute made no move and no sound, gave no indication at all that it had seen the companions.
“Nothing,” the cyclopian grumbled, and walked away from the rim, back to the warmth of the fire.
Oliver and Luthien shared a sigh, and then the young Bedwyr hauled them both up the rope to the tower’s lip.
They heard the cyclopians—three, at least—about a dozen feet away.
Oliver’s head came over the lip first, and he confirmed the number and the distance. Luck was with the halfling, then, for he noted, too, the movement of a fourth brute, milling about on the landing just a few stairs down from the tower’s top.
Oliver signaled his intent to Luthien, and then, like a weasel slipping along a riverbank, the halfling picked his way along the top of the wall, around and over the battlements without a sound.
Luthien silently counted; Oliver had asked for a count of fifty. That completed, the young Bedwyr pulled himself up to the tower’s lip, peering at the three brutes huddled about their small fire. Luthien slid up to sit on the wall, gently rolled his legs over, and put a hand to his sword’s hilt. He would have to strike fast and hard and could only hope that Oliver would take care of the one by the stairs—and hopefully, there was only one at the stairs!
No time for those thoughts now, Luthien scolded himself. They were three hundred feet up the tower and fully committed. He slipped down off the wall, took a deep breath as he set his feet firmly, then charged, drawing his blade.
Blind-Striker hit the first cyclopian where it crouched, slashing diagonally across the back of the brute’s shoulder, severing the backbone. The cyclopian fell without a sound, and Luthien whipped the sword across as the second leaped up, spinning to face him. His blade got the creature through the chest—two dead—but snagged on a rib and would not immediately come free at Luthien’s desperate tug.
The third cyclopian did not charge, but turned and fled for the stairs. It jerked weirdly halfway there, then stopped altogether, went to its knees, and fell over on its back, dead. Luthien noted Oliver’s main gauche embedded deeply in its chest, a perfect throw.
Oliver came out of the stairwell and casually stepped over and retrieved his thrown weapon. “What were they eating?” the halfling inquired, walking past the kill toward the small fire. He picked up a stick, a chunk of cooking mutton on its other end.
“Ah, so fine,” the halfling said, delighted, and sat down.
A few moments went by before Oliver looked up to see Luthien staring at him incredulously. “Do hurry,” the halfling bade the young man.
“You are not coming?” Luthien asked.
“I said I would get you up the tower,” Oliver replied, and went back to the mutton feast.
Luthien chuckled. He pulled off his pack and dropped another silken cord, this one as long as the tower was tall, at Oliver’s feet. “Do prepare the descent,” he bade the halfling.
Oliver, face deep in the mutton, waved him away. “Your business will take longer than mine,” he assured Luthien.
Luthien snickered again and started away. It made sense of course, that he should go down alone. Once inside the Ministry, he would have to move quickly, and he could not do that with Oliver tucked under the folds of his cape.
He found the fourth cyclopian, dead of a rapier thrust, on the landing just below the tower level. An involuntary shudder coursed Luthien’s spine as he recognized how efficient his little friend could be. All for the good cause, he reminded himself, and started down the longer, curving stair. He met no resistance all the three hundred steps to the floor, and to his relief found that the door at the bottom of the stair, along the curving wall of the cathedral’s eastern apse, was ajar.
Luthien peered into the vast nave. A few torches burned; he heard the snores of dozens of cyclopians stretched out on the many benches. Only a few of the brutes were up, but they were in groups, talking and keeping a halfhearted watch.