R. Salvatore - The Dragon King

Wallach nodded his appreciation of the sentiment. “We knew the danger when we came out,” he reminded Luthien. “And every person aboard volunteered, myself chief among them. To a man and woman, we understand the perils facing our Eriador, and are willing to die in defense of our freedom. If you were not aboard, my friend, I would not hesitate to give chase to the longship, to force the parley, even if all the Huegoth fleet lay in wait!”

“Then sail on,” Luthien bade him. With nods, both Wallach and Jamesis took their leave.

The Stratton Weaver angled inside the longship, turning to the east, but the Huegoths rowed fiercely and the galleon could not cut her off. Still, they got close enough for the barbarians to get a clear glimpse of the flag of parley, and the Huegoth reaction proved telling.

The longship never slowed, continuing on her way to the southeast. The great galleon took up the chase, and soon the gray tips of Colonsey’s mountainous skyline were in plain sight.

“You still believe they are trying to beach us?” Luthien asked Wallach sometime later.

“I believe they were running for aid,” Wallach explained, pointing out to starboard, where yet another longship was coming into sight, sailing around the island.

“Convenient that another was out and about and apparently expecting us,” Luthien remarked. “Convenient.”

“Ambushes usually are,” Wallach replied.

A third Huegoth ship was soon spotted rowing in hard from port, and a fourth behind it, and the first vessel put up one bank of oars and turned about hard.

“We do not know how they will play it,” Luthien was quick to say. “Perhaps now that the longship has its allies nearby, the Huegoths will agree to the parley.”

“I’ll allow no more than one of them to get close,” Wallach insisted. “And that only under a similar flag of truce.” He called up to his catapult crew then, ordering them to measure their aim on the lone ship to starboard. If a fight came, Wallach meant to sink that one first, giving The Stratton Weaver an open route out to deeper waters.

Luthien couldn’t disagree, despite his desire to end these raids peacefully. He remembered Garth Rogar, his dearest of friends, a Huegoth who had been shipwrecked at a young age and washed up on the shores of Isle Bedwydrin. Luthien had unintentionally played a hand in Garth’s death by defeating the huge man in the arena. If it had been Luthien who had gone down, Gahris would never have allowed the down-pointing-thumb signal that the defeated be vanquished.

Logically, Luthien Bedwyr held no fault in Garth Rogar’s death, but guilt was never a slave to logic.

And so Luthien had determined to honor Garth Rogar’s memory in this trip to Gybi and out onto the waters of the Dorsal Sea by resolving the conflict with the Huegoths as peacefully as possible. Despite those desires, Luthien could not expect the men and women who crewed The Stratton Weaver to leave themselves defenseless in the face of four longships. Wallach and his crew had been brave beyond the call of duty in merely agreeing to come out here alone.

“We could be in for a fight,” Luthien said to Katerin and Oliver when he returned to their side at the forward rail.

Oliver looked out at the longships, white froth at their sides from the hard pull of oars. Then he looked about the galleon, particularly at the catapult crew astern. “I do so hope they are good shots,” the halfling remarked.

With the odds suddenly turning against them, both Luthien and Katerin hoped so as well.

A call from above told them that a fifth longship had been spotted, and then a sixth, both following in the wake of the ship to starboard.

“Perhaps it was not so good an idea for the king’s closest advisor to personally come out this far,” Oliver remarked.

“I had to come out,” replied Luthien.

“I was talking about myself,” Oliver explained dryly.

“We’ve never run from a fight,” Katerin said with as much resolve as she could muster.

Luthien looked into her green eyes and saw trepidation there. The young man understood completely. Katerin was not afraid of battle, never that, but this time, unlike all of the battles of Eriador’s revolution, unlike all of the real battles that either she, or he, had ever fought, the enemy would not be cyclopian, but human. Katerin was as worried about killing as she was about being killed.

Captain Wallach verily raced the length of the deck, readying his crew. “Point her to the forward ship,” he instructed the catapult gunners, for the longship coming straight at the galleon was the closest, and the fastest closing.

“Damn you, put up your flag of parley,” the captain muttered, finally coming to the forward rail alongside the three companions.

As if on cue, the approaching longship’s banks of oars lifted out of the water, the long and slender craft quickly losing momentum in the rough seas. Then a horn blew, a note clear and loud, careening across the water to the ears of The Stratton Weaver ’s anxious crew.

“War horn,” Katerin said to Wallach. “They’re not up for parley.”

Horns rang out from the other five longships, followed soon after by howls and yells. On came the vessels, save the first, which sat in the water, as if waiting for the galleon to make the first move.

“We cannot wait,” Wallach said to an obviously disappointed Luthien.

“Three more to port!” came a cry from above.

“We’ll not run out of here,” remarked Katerin, studying the situation, seeing the noose of the trap drawing tight about the galleon.

Wallach turned back to the main deck, ordering the sails dropped to battle-sail, tying them down so that the ship could still maneuver without presenting too large a target for the Huegoth archers and their flaming arrows.

Luthien turned with him, and noticed Brother Jamesis approaching, his expression as grim as ever. Luthien matched the man’s stare for a short while, but in truth it had been Luthien’s decision to parley, it had been Luthien’s doing that had put the crew in jeopardy. The young Bedwyr turned back to the water, then felt Jamesis’s hand on his shoulder.

“We tried as we had to try,” the monk said unexpectedly, “else we would have been no better than those we now, it would seem, must fight. But fear not, my Lord Bedwyr, and know that every longship we sink this day . . .”

“And there will be many,” Wallach put in determinedly.

“. . . will be one less to terrorize the coast of Bae Colthwyn,” Jamesis finished.

Wallach looked to Luthien then, and motioned to the nearest longship, as if seeking the young man’s approval.

It was not an easy choice for a man of conscience such as Luthien Bedwyr, but the Huegoths had made it clear that they were up for a battle. On the waters all about The Stratton Weaver horns were blowing wildly and calls to the Huegoth god of war drifted across the waves.

“They view battle as an honorable thing,” Katerin remarked.

“And that is what damns them,” said Luthien.

The ball of flaming pitch soared majestically through the afternoon sky, arcing delicately and then diving like a hunting bird that has spotted its quarry. The longship tried to respond—one bank of oars fell into the water and began to churn the ship about.

Too late. The gunners aboard the galleon had taken a full ten minutes to align the not-so-difficult shot. The longship did a quarter-turn before the missile slammed in, catching it square amidships, nearly knocking it right over.

Luthien saw several Huegoths, their furred clothing ablaze, leap overboard. He heard the screams of those others who could not get away. But the longship, though damaged, was not finished, and the oars fell back into the water and on it came.