“You mean to sneak in and steal him away?” Oliver asked incredulously.
“We can do it,” Luthien replied.
Oliver groaned softly, rolled over to put his back against the boulder, and slumped down from the rim. “Why is it always ‘we’?” he asked. “Perhaps you should find another to go with you.”
“But Oliver,” Luthien protested, coming down beside his friend, his smile still wide, “you are the only one who will fit under the cape.”
“Oh, lucky Oliver,” grumbled the halfling.
They moved away from the camp, to inform the nearest elves of their plan. More than two hundred dwarfs were in the area, along with the forty elves and half-elves, including Siobhan, that now comprised the spying band known as the Cutters. The original plan was to go in hard and fast under the cries of “Sougles’s Glen!” and slaughter every cyclopian. Luthien, with help from Siobhan, had convinced the fierce dwarfs otherwise, had shown them the potential for greater good by exercising restraint until the proof they needed could be found.
Luthien and Oliver were back at their high perch soon after, waiting for the majority of one-eyes to drift off to sleep, or at least for the light to go down somewhat. An hour passed, then another. The sliver of the waning moon moved low in the western sky, and was soon swallowed up by turbulent black clouds. The rumble of distant thunder tingled under their feet.
The man Luthien had targeted as a duke continued to laugh and to drink, sitting about a fire, throwing bones with a handful of brutish cyclopians. Even with the magical cape, there was no way that Luthien could get near to him without a fight.
But then came a break. The man belched loudly and stood up, brushing the dust and twigs from his tabard. He drained the rest of his mug, belched again, and walked away, toward the perimeter of the encampment, just to the right and below the watching companions.
“Whatever goes in . . .” Oliver whispered.
He and Luthien slipped down the back side of the boulder and crept along in the darkness, inching their way in the general direction to intercept the man. Soon they were following a steady stream of sound, and spotted the man standing beside a tree, supporting himself with one hand, while the other held up the front of his tabard. He was fully twenty yards from the encampment, with most of that distance blocked by tangled trees and shrubs.
“Do not get too close,” Oliver warned. “It seems that he has a missile weapon.”
Luthien stifled a nervous chuckle and inched his way in. He froze as he stepped on one stick, which cracked apart loudly. Oliver froze in place, too, a horrified expression on his face.
The companions soon realized that they had nothing to worry about. The drunken man was oblivious to them, though he was barely ten feet away. Luthien considered his options. If he rushed up and punched hard but did not lay the man low, his cry would surely alert the cyclopians. Certainly Luthien couldn’t strike with his sword, for he wanted the man alive.
The threat should suffice, Luthien decided, and with a look about for Oliver, who was suddenly not to be seen, the young Bedwyr drew out Blind-Striker. Luthien couldn’t dare call out for his missing halfling friend, so he took a deep and steadying breath, rushed the last few feet, and lifted his blade up before the man’s face.
“Silence!” Luthien instructed in a harsh whisper, bringing the finger of his free hand to pursed lips.
The man looked at him curiously and continued his business, as though the possibility of capture hadn’t yet occurred to him.
Luthien wagged the blade in the air. The man, startled from his stupor, widened his eyes suddenly and straightened. Thinking that he was about to cry out, Luthien lunged forward, meaning to put his swordtip right to the man’s throat.
But the man was faster, his motion simpler. His hand moved from the tree and in a single arc, yanked a talisman from his tabard and swished in a downward swipe. A field of shimmering blue came up before him.
Luthien’s momentum was too great for him to react. Blind-Striker’s tip hit the field and threw sparks, and the sword was violently repelled, flying back over Luthien’s head, yanking his arm painfully. Luthien, though, was still moving forward, and he, too, couldn’t avoid the shield. He yelped and rolled his shoulder defensively, barely brushing the bluish light. But that was all the repelling magic needed, and the young Bedwyr found himself flying backward, off his feet, to crash into the trees.
The jolly wizard’s laugh was stifled before it ever began, as he felt a sting in his belly. He looked down to see Oliver, standing on his side of the repelling field, rapier drawn and poking.
“Aha!” said the halfling. “I have gone around your silly magics and am inside your so clever barrier.” Oliver’s beaming expression suddenly turned sour and he looked down. “And my so fine shoes are wet!” he wailed.
The man moved fast; so did Oliver, meaning to stick him more forcefully. But to the halfling’s horror, a single word from the wizard transformed his rapier blade into a living serpent, and it immediately turned back on him!
And the wizard’s huge and strong hands were coming for him as well! Right for his throat.
Oliver cried out and threw his rapier over his head, then moved to dodge. The attack never came, though, for the blade-turned-serpent struck the repelling shield and rebounded straight out, hitting the wizard square in the face. Now it was Duke Resmore’s turn to cry out, reaching frantically for the writhing snake.
Oliver darted between the man’s legs, turned about and grabbed the edges of his tabard. Up the halfling scrambled, taking the serpent’s place as the man threw it to the ground. Oliver grabbed on to one ear for support, and the man’s head jerked backward, his mouth opening to cry out. Oliver promptly stuffed his free hand into that mouth.
Luthien came around the edge of the shield, Blind-Striker in hand. Some of the cyclopians the duke had left behind were heading in their direction and calling out the name of “Resmore.” They had to go, and quickly, Luthien knew, and if this wizard, Resmore, would not cooperate, Luthien meant to strike him dead.
“My gauntlets, they are leather, yes?” Oliver asked.
“Yes.”
“But he is biting right through them!” Oliver squealed. Out came the hand, and the wizard-duke wasted no time.
“A’ta’arrefi!” he cried.
Barely twenty yards away, a host of cyclopians cried out.
Two running strides brought Luthien up to the man, and a solid right cross to the jaw dropped him where he stood, forcing Oliver to leap away, rolling in the twigs.
“One-eyes!” the halfling groaned as he came up, but he found some hope when he spotted his rapier, the blade whole again. “Take his silly cap, and let us go!”
Luthien shook the pains out of his bruised hand and moved to comply, realizing that the insignia on that cap might suffice. He stopped, though, as Oliver spoke again.
“Do you smell what I smell?” the halfling asked.
Luthien paused, and indeed he did, an all-too-familiar odor. Sulfurous, noxious. The young Bedwyr looked to Oliver, then turned to follow Oliver’s gaze, back over his shoulder, to a spinning ball of orange flames, quickly taking the shape of a bipedal canine with goatlike horns atop its head and eyes that blazed with the red hue of demonic fires.
“Oh, not again,” the beleaguered halfling moaned.
The monster’s howl split the night.
“Let me guess,” Oliver said dryly. “You are A’ta’arrefi?”
The creature was not large, no more than four feet from head to tail, but its aura, that sensation of might that surrounded every demon, was nearly overwhelming. Luthien and Oliver had battled enough of the fiends to know that they were in serious trouble, a fact made all the more obvious when A’ta’arrefi opened wide its fanged maw, wide enough, it seemed, to swallow Oliver whole!
Above them all, a bolt of lightning crackled through the rushing black clouds, a fitting touch, it seemed, to this hellish scenario. The sudden light showed the companions that cyclopians were all about them now, fanning out in the woods and keeping a respectable distance, whispering that this was the Crimson Shadow.