"We could not win," Oliver went on. "We were two hundred against several thousand, and not one of us thought that we would come out of there alive."

"And what did you do?" Luthien asked after a long and dramatic pause, giving the halfling the necessary prompt.

Oliver snapped his fingers in the air and blew a cocky whistle. "We attacked, of course."

"He speaks truly," Brind'Amour interjected before the expressions of profound doubt could grow on the faces of the other four. "DeBoise spread his line along the foliage marking the perimeter of the enemy encampment, each man with a drum. They used sticks to bang against trees, imitated the calls of huge elephants and other such warbeasts, all to make their enemy believe that they were many more, an entire army."

"The Red Lancers were weary of battle," Oliver added. "And they had no good ground to wage such a fight. And so they retreated to a mountain."

"DeBoise watched them and dogged them with empty threats, every step," Brind'Amour finished. "By the time the leaders of the Red Lancers came to understand the bluff, the Fourth had found the reinforcements it needed. The Red Lancers of Angarothe came off the mountain, thinking to overwhelm the small force, but were themselves overwhelmed. The only Gascon victory of the campaign."

Oliver turned a sour look on the old man at that last statement, but it melted away quickly, the halfling too eager to announce his own part in the strategic coup. "They wanted to call it Oliver's Bluff," he asserted.

Brind'Amour did well to hide his chuckle.

"A fine tale," Shuglin said, obviously not too impressed.

"But does it have a point?" Katerin wanted to know.

Oliver huffed and shook his head as though the question was ridiculous. "Are we not like the Fourth Regiment of Cabalaise?" he asked.

"Say it plainly," Shuglin demanded.

"We attack, of course," Oliver replied without hesitation. That widened more than a few eyes! Oliver paid no heed to their incredulity, but looked at the wizard, where he suspected he would find some support.

Brind'Amour nodded and smiled-he had been hoping all along that one of the others would make that very suggestion and save him the trouble. The wizard realized that he was more valuable agreeing with plans than in convincing the rebels to follow plans he had constructed.

Katerin rose from the hearth and slapped her hands against the back of her dusty breeches. "Attack where?" she demanded, obviously thinking the whole notion ridiculous.

"Attack the wall," Brind'Amour answered. "Malpuissant's Wall, before Greensparrow can run his army of Princetown north."

Suddenly the prospect didn't seem so absurd to Luthien. "Take Dun Caryth and cut the land in half," he put in. "With the mountains and the wall, and a fleet to guard our ports, we will force Greensparrow to attack us on ground of our choosing."

"And the daring conquest will make him think that we are stronger than we are," Oliver added slyly.

Siobhan's green eyes sparkled with hope. "And stronger we shall be," she asserted, "when the northern lands learn of our victory here, when all of Eriador realizes the truth of the rebellion." She looked around at the others, practically snarling with eagerness. "When all of Eriador comes to hope."

"Oliver's Bluff?" Brind'Amour offered.

No one disagreed and the halfling beamed-for just a moment. Suddenly it occurred to Oliver, who of course had not really been with deBoise in Angarothe, that he had set them all on a most daring and dangerous course. He cleared his throat, and his expression revealed his anxiety. "I do fear," he admitted, and felt the weight of Luthien's gaze, and Siobhan's, Shuglin's, and Katerin's as well, upon his little round shoulders. "They have wizard types," the halfling went on, trying to justify his sudden turn. He felt that he had to show some doubt to avoid blame in the face of potential disaster. But if this did go off, and especially if it proved successful, the halfling dearly wanted it to be known as Oliver's Bluff. "I am not so keen on the idea of daring a group of wizard-types."

Brind'Amour waved the argument away. "Magic is not what it used to be, my dear Oliver," he assured the halfling, assured them all. "Else Morkney would have left Luthien in ashes atop the Ministry and left you frozen as a gargoyle on the side of the tower! And I would have been of more use on the field, I promise." There was conviction in the wizard's words. Ever since he had left the cave that had served for so long as his home, Brind'Amour had realized that the essence of magic had changed. It was still there, tingling in the air, though not nearly as strong as it had once been. The wizard understood the reason. Greensparrow's dealing with demons had perverted the art, had made it something dark and evil, and that, in turn, had weakened the very fabric of the universal tapestry, the source of magical power. Brind'Amour felt a deep lament at the loss, a nostalgia for the old days when a skilled wizard was so very powerful, when the finest of wizards could take on an entire army in the field and send them running. But Brind'Amour understood well enough that in this war with Greensparrow and the king's wizard-dukes, where he was the only wizard north of the mountains, an apparent lack of magical strength might be Eriador's only hope.

"To the wall, then," he said.

Luthien looked at Katerin, then to Shuglin, and finally, to Siobhan, but he needed no confirmation from his friends this time. Caer MacDonald was free, but it could not remain so if they waited for Greensparrow to make the next move. The war was a chess game and they were playing white.

It was time to move.

CHAPTER 18.

WARM W WELCOME.

THE SNOW LET UP the next day, leaving a blanket twenty inches deep across the southern fields of Eriador, with drifts that could swallow a man and his horse whole, without a trace. the next day, leaving a blanket twenty inches deep across the southern fields of Eriador, with drifts that could swallow a man and his horse whole, without a trace.

A huge force left Caer MacDonald anyway, mostly comprised of the folk from Port Charley, in pursuit of those seven thousand Praetorian Guards who had fled the battle. Wearing sheepskin mittens and thick woollen cloaks, with many layers of stockings under their treated doeskin boots and carrying sacks of dry kindling, the Eriadorans were well equipped for the wintry weather, but those cyclopians who had run off most certainly were not. Tired and hungry, many of them wounded and weak from loss of blood, that first frozen and snowy night took a horrible toll. Before they had gone two miles from Caer MacDonald's gates, the Eriadorans came upon lines of frozen bodies and shivering, blue-lipped cyclopians, their hands too numb and swollen for them even to hold a weapon.

And so it began, a trail of prisoners soon stretching several miles back to Caer MacDonald's gates. By midafternoon, more than a thousand had come in, and returning couriers estimated that two or three times that number were dead on the snowy fields. Still, a large force remained, making a direct line for Port Charley.

Brind'Amour used his magical sight to locate them, and with the wizard directing the pursuers, many cyclopians were caught and slaughtered.

Undercommander Longsleeves, still carrying wounds from the bridge collapse and with the head of an elvish arrow stuck deep in his shoulder, led the main host of some three thousand Praetorian Guards. They were dogged every step and had not the strength to respond to the attack in any way. Somehow they persevered and trudged on, cannibalizing their own dead and hunching their backs against the stinging, blowing snow.

Soon they were down to two thousand, their numbers barely larger than the force pursuing them, but the weather improved steadily and the snow diminished by the hour. Purely out of fear, Longsleeves kept them moving, kept them driving, until at last the tall masts of the Avon ships in the harbor of Port Charley came into view.

Among the cyclopian ranks there was much rejoicing, though every one of them understood that with the city in sight the force pursuing them would likely come on in full.

What the Avon soldiers didn't realize was that, while they were eyeing the masts for salvation, spotters among the folk within Port Charley were eyeing the cyclopians, locating shots for the crews, who had become quite proficient with the catapults on the captured ships.

One by one, the vessels loosed their flaming pitch and baskets of sharpened stones. Longsleeves would have called out a command to charge the city, but as fate would have it, the very first volley, a burning ball of sticky black tar, buried the undercommander where he stood, burned away his pretty hair, pretty sleeves, and his muttonchops.

Confused and frightened, the leaderless one-eyed brutes ran every which way, some charging Port Charley, others turning back east, only to meet old Dozier and his army. The slaughter was over within the hour, and it took only one of the captured ships to sail the remaining cyclopians to the north, where the Diamondgate would serve as their prison.

Back in Caer MacDonald, the preparations for the march to Malpuissant's Wall were well under way. A two-pronged movement was decided upon. Shuglin and his kin would go into the Iron Cross to guard the passes and hopefully to locate more of their own to bring into the rebellion. The main force, led by Brind'Amour himself, would strike out around the perimeter of the mountains.

The sheer daring of the move became apparent as those days of preparation slipped by. The force would not be so large, with the folk of Port Charley back in their city, and with so many dead and wounded. The Praetorian Guards, in such numbers, were simply too dangerous to be kept within the city, and so they, like their kin who had been caught on the field outside of Port Charley, would be carted west and then shipped north to the Diamondgate, from which there could be no escape.

That gave Luthien and Brind'Amour only a few thousand soldiers to work with, and it became quite apparent that Oliver's Bluff would depend upon how many reinforcements the Eriadorans might find as the days wore on. Word was spreading to the more northern towns, they knew, and cheers reverberated across the countryside for the freeing of Caer MacDonald. But they were asking much if they expected many farmers to come and join in the cause. The planting season was fast approaching, as was the prime fishing season for those Eriadorans who made their living at sea. And even with the stunning victories, both in taking the city, then in holding it against an army of Praetonian Guards, the Eriadorans had lived long enough under the evil Greensparrow's rule to understand that this fight was a long way from won.

"Oliver and I will go," Luthien announced to Brind'Amour one morning as the two walked the city wall, observing the preparations, overseeing the assembly of wagons and the mounds of supplies.

The wizard turned a curious eye on the young man. "Go?" he asked.

"Out before the army," Luthien explained. "On a more northerly arc."

"To roust up support," the wizard reasoned, then went very quiet, considering the notion.

"I will not be secretive about who I am," Luthien said. "I go openly as the Crimson Shadow, an enemy of the throne."

"There are many cyclopians scattered among those hamlets," Brind'Amour reminded. "And many merchants and knights sympathetic to Greensparrow."

"Only because they prosper under the evil king while the rest of Eriador suffers!" Luthien said, his jaw tight, his expression almost feral.

"Whatever the reason," Brind'Amour replied.

"I know the folk of Eriador," Luthien declared. "The true folk of Eriador. If they do not kill the cyclopians, or the merchants, it is only because they have no hope, because they believe that no matter how many they kill, many more will come to exact punishment upon them and their families."

"Not so unreasonable a fear," Brind'Amour said. The wizard was merely playing the role of nay-sayer now; he had already come to the conclusion that Luthien's little addition to the march was a fine move, a daring addendum to a daring plan. And they would likely need the help. Malpuissant's Wall had been built by the Gascons centuries before to guard against just such a rebellion, when the southern kingdom, after conquering Avon, had decided that it could not tame savage Eriador. The wall had been built for defense against the northern tribes, and would be no easy target!

"But now they will know hope," Luthien reasoned. "That is the measure of the Crimson Shadow, nothing more. What I do while wearing the cape long ago became unimportant. All that matters is that I wear the cape, that I let them think I am some hero of old returned to lead them to their freedom."

Brind'Amour stared long and hard at Luthien, and the young man became uncomfortable under that familiar scrutiny. Gradually the wizard's face brightened, and he seemed to Luthien then like a father, as Luthien hoped his father would be.

In all the excitement of the last few weeks, Luthien realized that he had hardly considered Gahris Bedwyr since Katerin's arrival with Blind-Striker Blind-Striker, the Bedwyr family sword, bearing news that the rebellion was on in full on Isle Bedwydrin. How fared Gahris now? Luthien had to wonder. Homesickness tugged at him, but a mere thought of Ethan, his brother whom Gahris had sent away to die, and of Garth Rogar, Luthien's barbarian friend, ordered slain in the arena after Luthien had defeated him, stole that notion. Luthien had left Isle Bedwydrin, had left Gahris, for good reason, and now frantic events gave him little time to worry about the man he no longer considered to be his father.

He looked at Brind'Amour in a different light. Suddenly the young Bedwyr needed this wise old man's approval, needed to see him smile as Gahris had smiled whenever Luthien won in the arena.

And Brind'Amour did just that, and put his hand on Luthien's shoulder. "Ride out this day," he bade the young man.

"I will go to Bronegan, and all the way to the Fields of Eradoch," Luthien promised. "And when I return to you on the eastern edges of Glen Albyn, I will carry in my wake a force larger than the force which soon departs Caer MacDonald."

Brind'Amour nodded and clapped the younger Bedwyr on the back as Luthien sped off to find Oliver and their mounts that they might head out on the road.

The old wizard stood on the wall for some time watching Luthien, then watching nothing at all. He had set Luthien on this course long ago, the day in the dragon's cave when he had given the young man the crimson cape. He was responsible, in part at least, for the return of the Crimson Shadow, and when he considered Luthien now, so willing to take on the responsibility that had been thrust his way, Brind'Amour's old and wheezy chest swelled with pride.

The pride a father might have for his son.

CHAPTER 19.

PASSAGE OF S SPRING.

HE DOES THE RIGHT THING," Siobhan remarked, coming up on the wall beside Katerin. Katerin didn't turn to regard the half-elf, though she was surprised that Siobhan had chosen this particular section of the wall, so near to her. Siobhan remarked, coming up on the wall beside Katerin. Katerin didn't turn to regard the half-elf, though she was surprised that Siobhan had chosen this particular section of the wall, so near to her.

Below the pair, Oliver and Luthien rode out from the gates, Oliver on his yellow pony and Luthien tall and proud on the shining white Riverdancer. They had already said their farewells, all that they had cared to make, and so they did not look back. Side by side, they trotted their mounts across the courtyard to the fallen outer wall, the area still dotted with several cyclopian corpses that the burial details hadn't been able to clear away, black-and-silver lumps in the diminishing snow.

"They have a long ride ahead of them," Siobhan remarked.

"Who?" Katerin asked.

Siobhan glanced at her skeptically and took note that her gaze was away to the east, to the horizon still pink with the new dawn. Pointedly, the proud woman did not look at Luthien.

"Our friends," Siobhan answered, playing the foolish, adolescent game.

Now Katerin did look to Luthien and Oliver, just a casual glance. "Luthien is always on the road," she answered. "This way and that, wherever his horse takes him."

Siobhan continued to study the woman, trying to fathom her purpose.

"That is his way," Katerin stated firmly, turning to look at the half-elf directly. "He goes where he chooses, when he chooses, and let no woman be fool enough to think that he will remain for her, or by her." Katerin looked away quickly, and that revealed more than she intended. "Let no woman be fool enough to think that she can change the ways of Luthien Bedwyr."

The words were said with perfect calm and control, but Siobhan easily read the underlying bitterness there. Katerin was hurting, and her cool demeanor was a complete facade, while her words had been uttered in just the right tones to make them a barbed arrow, shooting straight for the half-elf's heart. Rationally, Siobhan understood and knew that Katerin had spoken out of pain. In truth, the half-elf was not insulted or wounded in any way by Luthien's departure, for in her mind, she and the young Bedwyr had come to terms with the realities of their relationship.

Siobhan remained silent for a long moment, considered her sympathy for Katerin and the words the woman had just thrown her way. The verbal volley had been strictly out of self-defense, Siobhan knew, but still she was surprised that Katerin would attack her so, would go to the trouble of trying to make her feel worse about Luthien's departure.

"They have a long ride ahead of them," Siobhan said once again. "But fear not," she added, with enough dramatic emphasis to grab Katerin's gaze. "I do know that Luthien does well on long rides."

Katerin's jaw slackened at the half-elf's uncharacteristic use of double entendre and Siobhan's sly, even lewd, tone.

Siobhan turned and slipped easily down the ladder, leaving Katerin, and the specter of Luthien and Oliver riding away to the north and east.

Katerin looked back to the now-distant riders, to Luthien, her companion all those years back in Bedwydrin, where they had lost their innocence together, in the ways of the world and in the ways of love. She had wanted to hurt Siobhan, verbally if not physically. She cared for the half-elf, deeply respected her and in many ways called Siobhan a friend. But she could not ignore her feelings of jealousy.

She had lost the verbal joust. She knew that, standing up on Caer MacDonald's wall in the chill of an early spring day, watching Luthien ride away, her face scrunched in a feeble attempt to hold back the tears that welled in her shining green eyes.

"You are so very good at running from problems," Oliver remarked to Luthien when the two were far from Caer MacDonald's wall.

Luthien eyed his diminutive companion curiously, not understanding the comment. "Likely, we're running into trouble," he replied. "Not away from it."

"A fight with cyclopians is never trouble," Oliver explained. "Not the kind that you fear, at least."

Luthien eyed him suspiciously, guessing what was to come.

"But you have done so very well in avoiding the other kind, the more subtle and painful kind," Oliver explained. "First you send Katerin running off to Port Charley-"

"She volunteered," Luthien protested. "She demanded to go!"

"And now, you have arranged to be away for perhaps two weeks," the halfling continued without hesitation, ignoring Luthien's protests.

Those protests did not continue, for Luthien realized that he was guilty as charged.

"Ah, yes," Oliver chided. "Quite the hero with the sword, but in love, alas."

Luthien started to ask what the halfling might be gibbering about and deflect Oliver's intrusions, but he was wise enough to know that it was already too late for that. "How dare you?" the young Bedwyr asked sharply, and Oliver recognized that he had opened a wound. "What do you know of it?" Luthien demanded. "What do you know of anything?"

"I am so skilled and practiced in the ways of amour amour," the halfling replied coolly.

Luthien eyed his three-foot-tall companion, the young Bedwyr's expression clearly relating his doubts.

Oliver snorted indignantly. "Foolish boy," he said, snapping his fingers in the air. "In Gascony, it is said, a merchant is only as good as his purse, a warrior is only as good as his weapon, and a lover is only as good as-"

"Oliver!" Luthien interrupted, blushing fiercely.

"His heart," the halfling finished, looking curiously at his shocked companion. "Oh, you have become such a gutter-crawler!" Oliver scolded.

"I just thought . . ." Luthien stammered, but he stopped and waved his hand hopelessly. With a shake of his head, he kicked Riverdancer into a faster canter, and the horse leaped ahead of Threadbare.

Oliver persisted and moved his pony to match the Morgan highlander's speed. "Your heart is not known to you, my friend," he said as he came up alongside Luthien. "So you run, but yet, you cannot!"