R. Salvatore - Luthien's Gamble

“Well, no matter,” Estabrooke said at length. “I have prayed. You may state your name and kill me now.” He took a deep breath and locked his dark brown eyes on Luthien’s cinnamon-colored orbs. “Have at it,” he said matter-of-factly.

Luthien looked all around. Of course he would not kill this man, but he wanted to figure out how his action, or inaction, might be viewed by the rugged highlanders ringing him.

“I never heard the claim of a challenge to the death,” Luthien said, stepping aside and extending his hand. The Dark Knight looked at him skeptically for a moment, then accepted the grasp, and Luthien helped him to his feet.

“I will see to our horses,” Estabrooke offered, walking away as he noticed Oliver’s approach.

Luthien saw the halfling, too, and with the blood still running from his bent nose, he wasn’t very pleased. “You said that you would charge right in,” the young Bedwyr scolded.

“I never said that,” Oliver corrected.

“You implied it!” Luthien growled.

Oliver blew a deep breath and shrugged. “I changed my mind.”

Their conversation came to an abrupt end a moment later when the ring of mounted highlanders suddenly converged, huge horsemen and wicked weapons, two-headed spears and axes with blades the size of a large man’s chest, pinning the pair helplessly together.

Luthien cleared his throat. “Good sir Estabrooke,” he began. “Might you talk to your . . . friends?”

Excited whispers circulated among the Eriadoran soldiers as they set their camp in the wide vale of Glen Albyn, northeast of the Iron Cross. They had nearly crossed the glen; Dun Caryth, the anchoring point of Malpuissant’s Wall, was not yet in sight, but the mountain that harbored the fortress certainly was. The battle was no more than two days away, might even be fought on the next afternoon.

The Eriadorans believed that they could take Dun Caryth and all the wall with just the force from Caer MacDonald, the five thousand that had settled into Glen Albyn. Their hopes soared higher, for the whispers spoke of more allies. Luthien was on the way back to them, it was said, along with a thousand fierce riders of Eradoch and a like number of farmers-turned-warriors from the smaller hamlets of central Eriador. All the land had risen against Greensparrow, so it seemed to the soldiers as they set their camp that night.

Too many issues swarmed Katerin’s thoughts and she could not sleep. Eriador had risen and would fight for freedom, or for death. It was something the proud woman of Hale had dreamed of since her youngest days, and yet, with the possibility of this fantasy looming right before her eyes, Katerin felt the joy tainted.

She had lost Luthien. She heard the whispers of friends talking behind her back, and though there was no malice, only sympathy in their quiet words, that stung Katerin all the more. She knew that Luthien and Siobhan were lovers, had known it for some time, but only now, with the rebellion nearing its end and the prospects of life after the war, did Katerin come to appreciate the weight of that truth.

She walked alone, quietly, past the guards and the groups huddled about campfires, many engaged in games of chance, or in soft songs from Eriador of old. Some took notice of her passing and waved, smiling broadly, but they understood from Katerin’s expression that she meant to be alone this night, and so they granted her the desired solitude. Katerin walked right out of the northern perimeter of the encampment, out into the dark fields where the stars seemed closer suddenly, and there she stood alone with her thoughts.

The war was barely six months old, would likely not last another six months, and what, then, would be left for Katerin O’Hale? Win or lose against Avon, it seemed to Katerin that life without Luthien would not be complete. She had traveled nearly two hundred miles to be with him, and had gone nearly two hundred more on missions, including this march, for his army and his cause, and now it seemed to the young woman that all her efforts would be for naught.

Her sniffle was the only sound, and that was taken from her by the wind.

She was surprised, and yet, deep in her heart, she was not, when a slender form, much smaller than her own, walked quietly up beside her.

Katerin didn’t know what to say. She had come out here to think of what could not be, to come to terms with the realities of her life, and here was Siobhan, apparently following her right out of the camp.

Siobhan!

Katerin didn’t look at her, couldn’t look at her. She sniffled again and cleared her throat, then turned abruptly back for the encampment.

“How very stubborn and very stupid you will be if you let the man who loves you, and the man whom you love, get away,” Siobhan said suddenly, stopping Katerin dead in her tracks.

The red-haired woman wheeled about, eyeing her adversary skeptically. How stupid will you be to let me have him? she wondered, but she did not speak, too confused by what Siobhan might be hinting at.

Siobhan tossed her long and lustrous wheat-colored tresses over her shoulder, looked up at the stars, and then back at Katerin. “He is not the first man I have loved,” she said.

Katerin could not hide the pain on her face at hearing the confirmation of their passion. She had known it was true, but in her heart had held out some last vestige of hope.

“And he will not be the last,” Siobhan went on. Her gaze drifted back up to the stars, and Katerin didn’t hate her quite so much in that moment, recognizing the sincere pain that had washed over her fair, angular features. “I will never forget Luthien Bedwyr,” the half-elf said, her voice barely a whisper. “Nor you, Katerin O’Hale, and when you are both buried deep in the earth, I, young still by the measures of my race, will try to visit your graves, or at least to pause and remember.”

She turned back to Katerin, who stood, mouth agape. Tears rimmed Siobhan’s green eyes; Katerin could see the glistening lines that had crossed the half-elf’s high cheekbones.

“Yes,” Siobhan continued, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, feeling the warm breeze and tasting the first subtle scents of the coming spring. “I will mark this very night,” she explained. “The smells and the sights, the warmth of the air, the world reawakening, and when in the centuries to come I feel a night such as this, it will remind me of Luthien and Katerin, the two lovers, the folk of legend.”

Katerin stared at her, not knowing what to make of the unexpected speech and uncharacteristic openness.

Siobhan locked that stare with her own and firmed her jaw. “It should pain you that Luthien and I have loved,” the half-elf said bluntly, catching Katerin off her guard, turning her emotions over once again. “And yet,” Siobhan continued unabashedly, “I take some of the credit, much of the credit, for the person the young Luthien Bedwyr has become. This person can understand love now, and he can look at Katerin O’Hale through the eyes of a man, not the starry orbs of a lustful boy.”

Katerin looked away, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Deny it if you will,” Siobhan said, moving about so that the young woman had to look at her. “Let your foolish pride encase your heart in coldness if that is what you must do. But know that Luthien Bedwyr loves you, only you, and know that I am no threat.”

Siobhan smiled warmly then, a necessary ending, and walked away, leaving Katerin alone with her thoughts, alone with the night.

Luthien and Oliver were camped on the fields south of Bronegan that night, part of a force nearly half the size of the army in Glen Albyn. After the victory over the Dark Knight, Estabrooke had indeed talked to his “friends” as Luthien had asked, giving Oliver and Luthien some breathing room and some time.