The Crimson Shadow by R. A. Salvatore

Author:R. A. Salvatore
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy - Epic, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy fiction, Fiction - Fantasy, Fiction, Fantasy, General, Epic
ISBN: 9780446698504
Publisher: Grand Central Pub Mass Market
Published: 2005-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

“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,” 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!”

“Oliver the poet,” Luthien said dryly.

“I have been called worse.”

Luthien let it go at that, and so did Oliver, but though the conversation ended, Luthien’s private thoughts on the matter most certainly did not. Truly the young man was torn, full of passion and full of guilt, loving Katerin and Siobhan, but in different ways. He did not regret his affair with the half-elf—how could he ever look upon those beautiful moments with sadness?—and yet, never had he wanted to hurt Katerin. Not in any way, not at any time. He had been swept up in the moment, the excitement of the road, of the city and the budding rebellion. Bedwydrin, and Katerin, too, had seemed a million miles and a million years removed.

But then she had come back to him, a wonderful friend of another time, his first love—and, he had come to realize, his only love.

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