R. Salvatore - Luthien's Gamble

As the sky lightened with the approach of dawn, the Port Charley encampment came into sight in the fields to the north, just across Felling Run. Luthien found a high perch and stared long and hard in that direction, looking for some sign of the cyclopians.

Beyond the Port Charley encampment, the field was empty.

Doubts fluttered about the young Bedwyr. What if he was wrong? What if the cyclopians went to Caer MacDonald instead?

Luthien fought them away, concentrated on the chosen course. The ground leveled out just a few hundred yards to the north; a rider could get into the Port Charley encampment within twenty minutes. Luthien dispatched three, with information for Oliver. He told them to pick their way through the remaining rough terrain, then split up as they crossed the field in case cyclopian assassins were about.

Luthien saw those same three riders milling about the still-moving column a short while later. He went to them, confused as to why they were still there, and found that Siobhan had overruled him.

“My scouts near the base of the foothills have spotted cyclopian spies in the field,” the half-elf explained.

Luthien looked again to the north, to the encampment. “Our friends should be informed of our position,” he reasoned.

“We have little enough cover where we are,” Siobhan replied. “If we are found out . . .” She let that notion hang heavily in the air, and Luthien didn’t have to press the point. If his adversary found out about the move before the army of Avon marched, then their target would surely become Caer MacDonald.

Again doubts filled Luthien’s mind. If cyclopian scouts were in the field between his column and the Port Charley encampment, might they already have learned of the march?

Siobhan saw a cloud cross the young man’s face, and she put a comforting hand on Luthien’s forearm.

The entire force took up a position northeast of the Port Charley camp, filtering down to the edge of the fields, out of sight, but ready to charge across and meet the foes. It was good ground, Luthien decided, for their rush, when it came, would be generally downhill into cyclopians marching across slippery, uneven ground.

When it came, Luthien wondered, or if it came? He continued to peer across the whitened fields, empty save the blowing rain.

A long hour passed. The day brightened and the rain turned into a cold drizzle. The folk of the Port Charley encampment were stirring, breaking down their tents, readying their gear.

Another hour, and still no sign.

Siobhan waited with Luthien. “Our allies do not cross the river,” she kept saying, the implication being that Caer MacDonald was not under attack, that the cyclopians hadn’t moved.

This did little to calm Luthien. He had thought that his adversary would attack at first light, hard and fast. He wondered if the cyclopians might be going the other way, around to the east, to come in against the city. If the cyclopians could manage the rough terrain, that would be a fine plan, for then the Avon army would not be caught in between the defenders and the Port Charley group—indeed, the reinforcements from Port Charley would have to swing all the way around the city, or cross through the city itself, just to get into the battle.

Near panic, Luthien looked around at his camp, at the cavalry rubbing down the dripping horses, at the dwarfs, oil-soaking their great logs, at the archers testing the pull of their bows. The young Bedwyr suddenly felt himself a fool, suddenly believed that he had set them all up for disaster. He wanted to break down the camp then, march back swiftly to Caer MacDonald, and he almost called out commands to do just that.

But he could not. They were too fully committed to change their minds. All they could do was sit and wait, and watch.

Another hour, and the rain picked up again, mixing with heavy sleet. Still no word from Caer MacDonald, though a plume of black smoke had risen into the gray sky above the city.

Another single arsonist, Luthien told himself. Not a full-scale battle—certainly not!

He was not comforted.

He looked at Siobhan, and she, too, seemed worried. Time worked against them and their hoped-for ambush, for if the cyclopians were not attacking, they were likely gathering information.

“We should try to get word to the Port Charley group,” Luthien said to her.

“It is risky,” she warned.

“They have to know,” Luthien argued. “And if the cyclopians move against the city, we must be informed immediately to get in at their backs before they overrun the wall.”

Siobhan considered the reasoning. She, like Luthien, knew that if the cyclopians did indeed throw their weight on the city, no amount of forewarning would matter, but she understood the young man’s need to do something. She felt that same need as well.

She was just beginning to nod her agreement when the word came down the line, anxious whisper by anxious whisper.

“To the north!”

Luthien stood tall, as did all of those nearby, peering intently through the driving rain. There was the black-and-silver mass, finally making its way to the south, a course designed to encircle the Port Charley encampment and cut off any retreat to the west.

Luthien’s heart skipped a beat.

Belsen’Krieg thought himself a clever brute. Unlike most of his one-eyed race, the burly cyclopian was able and bold enough to improvise. His goal was Montfort, and if he didn’t get the city, he certainly would have some explaining to do to merciless Greensparrow.

But Belsen’Krieg knew that he could not take Montfort, not now, with this second force on the field, and likely with more rebels flocking in to join the cause. And so the cunning general had improvised. He split his remaining eleven thousand Praetorian Guards, sending three thousand straight south on the eastern side of Felling Run, to use the river as a defensive position as the Port Charley folk had used it against him. This group was not likely to see much fighting this day, but they would hold the encamped army to the western bank, where Belsen’Krieg and his remaining eight thousand would make short work of them.

The cyclopian main group had marched all morning, up to the north, then across Felling Run, and then back to the south, giving the enemy a wide berth so that they would not be discovered until it was too late. There was good ground west of the encampment, the cyclopian leader knew. He would squash this rebel rabble, and then, depending on his losses and the weather, he could make his decision: to go again against Montfort, or to turn back to the west and crush Port Charley.

Now the enemy was in sight; soon they would understand that they could not cross the river, and by the time they recognized the trap and were able to react to it, they would have no time to go in force into the mountains, either. Some might scatter and escape, but Belsen’Krieg had them.

Yes, the cyclopian leader thought himself quite clever that morning, and indeed he was, but unlike Luthien, Belsen’Krieg had not taken into account the cleverness of his adversary. As the cyclopian’s force pivoted to the good ground in the west, another force had even better ground, up above them, in the foothills to the south.

“This is not so good,” Oliver remarked to Katerin when word of the cyclopian move reached them. They stood together under a solitary tree, Threadbare and Riverdancer standing near to them, heads down against the driving sleet.

“Likely they’ve got the river blocked,” Katerin reasoned, and she motioned that way—there was some movement on the fields to the east, across Felling Run. “We have to go into the mountains, and quickly.”

“So smart,” Oliver whispered, honestly surprised. The halfling didn’t like the prospects. If the cyclopians chased them into the broken ground to the south, they could not hold their force together in any reasonable manner. Many would be slain, and many more would wander helplessly in the mountains to starve or freeze to death, or to be hunted down by cyclopian patrols.