WITHOUT LOOKING BACK.

Luthien left Dun Varna on the northern road soon after upon his favorite mount, Riverdancer. The steed was a Morgan Highlander, a short-legged, thickly muscled white stallion that could plow through the soft turf of Eriador's perpetually wet ground as well as any beast alive. The Highlander horses had been bred with long, s.h.a.ggy coats to ward off the chill winds and drizzle. On many Highlanders, this hair was perpetually p.r.i.c.kly and snarled, but Riverdancer's coat was smooth as fine silk and glistened with every movement, like the sparkles of a dancing river on a sunny spring day.

Riverdancer carried a heavy load this day, laden with the supplies Luthien would need for the road and, displayed more openly, with fishing gear, including heavy pole-nets. It was not an unusual thing for the young Bedwyr to go off in this fashion, especially considering there had been little training in the arena since the Garth Rogar incident. Certainly few in Dun Varna would expect Luthien to go right back to his fighting.

Few took notice of him as he walked his way through the dirt and cobblestone avenues. He did slow and speak with one man, a captain of a fishing boat, just to ask him what was running north of the bay and whether the sea was calm enough for the pole-nets or if he should try a long line. It was all very cordial, very normal. Just the way Luthien wanted it to be.

When he had gone beyond the bluffs, though, out of sight of the stone-and-thatch houses, he broke Riverdancer into a run. Five miles out of town, he veered down toward the sh.o.r.e to one of this favored fishing spots. There he left his gear, net and pole, and one of his wet boots lying on the stones right near the water. Better to give them as many riddles as possible, he thought, though he cringed when he considered his father's pain if Gahris truly thought he had been swept out into the fierce Dorsal.

It couldn't be helped, Luthien decided. Back on Riverdancer, he picked his way carefully among the stones, trying to leave as little visible trail as possible-he sighed deeply when the horse lifted its tail and dropped some obvious signs of pa.s.sage.

Away from the sh.o.r.e, Luthien turned to the west, riding toward Hale, and then swung back to the south. By early afternoon, he was pa.s.sing Dun Varna again, several miles inland and far out of sight. He wondered what commotion his actions had brought. What had Gahris and especially Avonese thought when they had gone into the study and found the dead cyclopian? Had Gahris noticed the bloodied sword on the wall?

Certainly by this time somebody had gone north in search of Luthien. Perhaps they had even found his gear and boot, though he doubted that word had gotten back to his father.

Again, the young Bedwyr decided that it couldn't be helped. He had followed the course his heart demanded. In truth, Luthien had only defended himself against the armed cyclopian. He could have stayed in House Bedwyr and been exonerated: even after all that Ethan had told him, Luthien did not believe that his father would turn against him. And so it was not actually fear of the law that sent Luthien away. He only realized that now, pa.s.sing his home for what might be the very last time. Ethan had brought doubts to him, deep-rooted doubts that made Luthien question the worth of his very existence. What was the truth of the kingdom and the king? And was he truly free, as he had always believed?

Only the road could give him his answers.

The Diamondgate ferry was normally a three-day ride from Dun Varna, but Luthien thought he could make it in two if he pushed Riverdancer hard. The horse responded eagerly, happy for the run, as they charged down the island's central lowlands, and Luthien was far from Dun Varna when he broke for camp. It rained hard that first night. Luthien huddled under his blanket near a fire that was more hiss and spit than flame. He hardly felt the chill and the wetness, though, too consumed by the questions that rolled over and over in his thoughts. He remembered the salty smell of sweet Katerin and the look in her green eyes when they had made love. He should have told her, perhaps.

He did fall asleep sometime not long before the dawn, but he was up early anyway, greeted by a glistening sunny day.

It was a marvelous day, and Luthien felt delight in every bit of it as he mounted Riverdancer and started off once more. Not a cloud showed itself in the blue sky-a rare occurrence, indeed, on Bedwydrin!-and a sense of euphoria came over Luthien, a sense of being more alive than he had ever been. It was more than the sun, he knew, and the birds and animals skittering about on one of the last truly wondrous days before the gloomy fall and chill winter. Luthien had rarely been out of Dun Varna all his life, and then always with the knowledge that he would not be gone for long.

Now the wide road lay before him leading eventually to the mainland, to Avon, even to Gascony and all the way to Duree if he could catch up with his brother. The world seemed so much bigger and scarier, suddenly, and excitement welled up in the young man, pushing away his grief for Garth Rogar and his fears for his father. He wished that Katerin was there beside him, riding hard for freedom and excitement.

He was more than two-thirds of the way to the ferry by midday, Riverdancer running easily, as though he would never tire. The road veered back toward the southeast, pa.s.sing through a small wooded region and across the field just out the wood's southern end. There Luthien came upon a narrow log bridge crossing a strong-running river, with another small forest on the other side.

At the same time, a merchant wagon came out of the trees and upon the bridge from the other end. Its cyclopian driver certainly saw Luthien and could have stopped short of the bridge, allowing the horseman to scramble across and out of the way, but with typical cyclopian bravado and discourtesy, the brute moved the wagon onto the logs.

"Turn about!" the one-eye growled, as its team came face-to-face with Riverdancer.

"You could have stopped," Luthien protested. "I was onto the bridge before you and could have gotten off the bridge more quickly than you!" He noted that the cyclopian was not too well-armed and wearing no special insignia. This brute was a private guard, not Praetorian, and any pa.s.sengers in the coach were surely merchants, not n.o.blemen. Still, Luthien had every intention of turning about-it was easier to turn a single horse, after all, than a team and wagon.

A fat-jowled face, blotchy and pimpled, popped out of the coach's window. "Run the fool down if he does not move!" the merchant ordered brusquely, and he disappeared back into the privacy of his coach.

Luthien almost proclaimed himself to be the son of the eorl of Bedwydrin, almost drew weapon and ordered the cyclopian to back the wagon all the way to the ferry. Instead he wisely swallowed his pride, reminding himself that it would not be the smartest move to identify himself at this time. He was a simple fisherman or farmer, nothing more.

"Well, do you move, or do I put you into the water?" the cyclopian asked, and it gave a short snap of the reins just to jostle its two-horse team and move them a step closer to Riverdancer. All three horses snorted uncomfortably.

Several possible scenarios rushed through Luthien's thoughts, most of them ending rather unpleasantly for the cyclopian and its ugly master. Pragmatism held, however, and Luthien, never taking his stare off the one-eyed driver, urged Riverdancer into a slow backward walk, off the bridge, and moved aside.

The wagon rambled past, stopping long enough for the fat merchant to stick his head out and declare, "If I had more time, I would stop and teach you some manners, you dirty little boy!" He gave a wave of his soft, plump hand and the cyclopian driver cracked a whip, sending the team into a charge.

It took many deep breaths and a count of fifty for Luthien to accept that insult. He shook his head, then, and laughed aloud, reclaiming a welcome sense of euphoria. What did it count for, after all? He knew who he was, and why he had allowed himself to be faced down, and that was all that truly mattered.

Riverdancer trotted across the bridge and along the road, which looped back to the north to avoid a steep hillock, and Luthien quickly put the incident out of his mind. Until a few minutes later, that is, when he looked back across the river from higher ground down at the merchant's coach moving parallel to him and only a couple of hundred feet away. The wagon had stopped again, and this time the cyclopian driver faced the most curious-looking individual Luthien Bedwyr had ever seen.

He was obviously a halfling, a somewhat rare sight this far north in Eriador, riding a yellow mount that looked more like a donkey than a pony, with an almost hairless tail sticking straight out behind the beast. The halfling's dress was more remarkable than his mount, though, for though his clothes appeared a bit threadbare, he seemed to Luthien the pinnacle of fashion. A purple velvet cape, which flowed back from his shoulders out from under his long and curly brown locks, was opened in front to reveal a blue sleeveless doublet, showing the puffy white sleeves of his silken undertunic, tied tightly at the wrists. A brocade baldric laced in gold and ta.s.seled all the way crossed his chest, right to left, ending in more ta.s.sels, bells and a loop on which to hang his rapier, which was now being held in readiness in one of his green-gauntleted hands.

His breeches, like his cape, were purple velvet, and were met halfway up the halfling's shin by green hose, topped with silk and tied by ribbons at the back of his calf. A huge hat completed the picture, its wide brim curled up on one side and a large orange feather poking out behind. Luthien couldn't make out all of his features, but he saw that the halfling wore a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee.

He had never heard of a halfling with face hair and had never imagined one dressed in that manner, or sitting on a donkey, or pony, or whatever that thing was, and robbing a merchant wagon at rapier point. He pulled Riverdancer down the bank, slipping in behind the cover of some low brush, and watched the show.

"Out of the way, I tell you, or I'll trample you down!" growled the burly cyclopian driver.

The halfling laughed at him, bringing a smile to Luthien's lips as well. "Do you not know who I am?" the little one asked incredulously, and his thick brogue told Luthien that he was not from Bedwydrin, or from anywhere in Eriador. From the halfling's lips, "you" sounded more like "yee-oo" and "not" became a two-syllable word: "nau-te."

"I am Oliver deBurrows," the halfling proclaimed, "highwayman. You are caught fairly and defeated without a fight. I will your lives give to you, but your co-ins and jew-wels I claim as my own!"

A Gascon, Luthien decided, for he had heard many jokes about the people of Gascony in which the teller imitated a similar accent.

"What is it?" demanded the impatient merchant, popping his fat-jowled head out of the coach. "What is it?" he asked in a different tone when he looked upon Oliver deBurrows, highwayman.

"An inconvenience, my lord," the cyclopian answered, staring dangerously at Oliver. "Nothing more."

"See to it, then!" cried the merchant.

The cyclopian continued to stare over its shoulder as the merchant pulled his head into the coach. When the brute did turn back, it came about suddenly and viciously, producing from nowhere, it seemed, a huge sword and cutting it in a wicked chop at the halfling's head. Luthien sucked in his breath, thinking this extraordinary Oliver deBurrows about to die, but quicker than he believed possible, the halfling's left hand came out, holding a large-bladed dagger with a protective, basket hilt-a main gauche, the weapon was called.

Oliver snapped the main gauche in a circular movement, catching the sword firmly in its hilt. He continued the fast rotation, twisting the sword, and then with a sudden jerk, sent the weapon flying from the cyclopian's hand to land sticking point-first into the turf a dozen feet away. Oliver's rapier darted forward, its tip catching the top of the cyclopian's leather tunic. The blade bent dangerously, just an inch below the brute's exposed neck.

"Rodent," growled the impudent cyclopian.

The highwayman laughed again. "My papa halfling, he always say, that a halfling's pride is inversely proportional to his height," Oliver replied.

"And I a.s.sure you," the halfling continued after a dramatic pause, "I am very short!"

For once, the cyclopian driver seemed to have no reply. It probably didn't even understand what the halfling had just said, Luthien realized, squatting in the brush, trying hard not to burst out in laughter.

"How far do you think my so fine blade will bend?" Oliver asked with a short chuckle. "Now, I have won the day and your precious co-ins and jew-wels."

To Oliver's surprise, though, the single cyclopian guard became six, as soldiers burst out of the coach door and rolled from every conceivable nook in the large wagon, two even coming out from underneath. The highwayman considered the new odds, eased the pressure on his bending rapier, and gave a new finish to his previous thought.

"I could be wrong."

Chapter 6.

OLIVER deBURROWS.

The fashionable highwayman was about eye level with the cyclopian soldiers as he looked at them from atop his yellow mount. He parried a spear thrust from one direction, yanked the bridle to bring his mount back on two legs and swing the beast about just in time, to defeat a slashing sword from behind. He was a flurry of activity, but the cyclopian driver, smiling wickedly, pulled out another weapon: a loaded crossbow.

That would have been the end of the legendary (at least in his own mind) Oliver deBurrows, but a short distance away, in the thicket across the river, young Luthien Bedwyr had found his courage and his heart. Luthien had never been fond of the ever-present greedy merchants, placing them in a category just above cyclopians. The halfling was a thief-that could not be denied-but to Luthien so was the merchant. He didn't acknowledge the emotions guiding his actions in that critical moment; he only did as his heart dictated.

He was no less surprised than the cyclopian driver when an arrow, Luthien's arrow, took the brute in the chest and pushed it back down in its seat, his crossbow slipping from its weakening grasp.

If Oliver even saw the shot, he didn't show it. "Yes, do come on, you with one eye who looks so much like the back end of a cat!" he bellowed at one cyclopian, spinning his rapier in such a dazzling (though totally ineffective) display that the cyclopian took two steps back from the yellow mount and scratched its sloped forehead.

Luthien walked Riverdancer out of the thicket and down the steep bank, the strong horse gaining enough momentum to leap out, barely touching the water, crossing with one running stride. Across the field charged Luthien, bow in hand, shooting as he went.

The cyclopians roared in protest. One grabbed a long halberd from the side of the coach and darted out to meet Luthien, then changed its mind amidst the stream of soaring arrows and slipped in behind the coach's horses instead. Oliver, entangled in fending attacks from three different positions, didn't even know what his enemies were yelling about. The halfling did note, though, that the cyclopian now behind his turning mount became distracted.

"Pardon," he said to the brute in front of him, and he hurled his main gauche so that the opponent had to fall back a step, getting tangled but not hurt as it pushed away the halfheartedly tossed weapon. In the same movement, Oliver swooped off his wide hat and placed it over his mount's rump, and the pony responded immediately by rearing up and kicking out, straight into the ribs of the distracted cyclopian behind. Oliver, meanwhile, now saw Luthien, riding and shooting. The composed halfling simply shrugged and turned back to the more pressing situation.

It was still two against one, though, and the halfling found himself immediately hard-pressed, even more so because now he held only one weapon.

Another crossbowman, lying flat on top of the coach, changed its target from Oliver to the newest foe. The cyclopian leveled the weapon, but could not get a clear shot as Luthien bent low to the side of his running horse, using Riverdancer as a shield. The cyclopian fired and missed badly, and Luthien came up high enough to return the shot, his arrow knocking into the wood just below the p.r.o.ne cyclopian's face. Even on the running mount, Luthien managed to reload before the cyclopian, and his second shot, fired no more than twenty feet from the coach, nailed the brute in the face.

Then a halberd was thrust in front of Luthien's face as the next soldier darted out from behind the horse team. The only defense offered to Luthien was to fall back and to the side, right off of Riverdancer. He landed hard, and only by reminding himself through every inch of the brutal tumble that if he did not get right back up he would soon be skewered did he manage to keep his wits about him. He also wisely held onto the bow, and he whipped it across in front as he finally managed to put his feet under him just in time to bat aside the next thrusting attack.

Oliver was able to line up his pony so that both remaining cyclopians were facing him. His rapier snapped back and forth over the pony's low-hung head, intercepting cut after cut. The halfling tried to appear nonchalant, even bored, but in truth he was more than a little concerned. These cyclopians were pretty good and their weapons finely made. Still, Oliver had not survived two decades as a highwayman without a few tricks up his puffy white sleeve.

"Behind you!" he cried suddenly, and one of the cyclopians almost fell for the obvious ruse, almost turned its head to look over its shoulder-not an easy feat when you have only one eye located in the middle of your face!

The other cyclopian kept up its attack without a blink, and the foolish one came back doubly hard as soon as it realized how stupid it looked.

But not only did Oliver guess that the brutes wouldn't fall for the ruse, he hoped they wouldn't. "Behind you!" he cried again, just to egg them on a bit more, just to make them think that he thought they were stupid. Predictably, both cyclopians growled and pressed harder.

Oliver kicked his heels and his yellow pony leaped forward, right between the brutes. So intent were they on their offensive posture, the cyclopians didn't even mark Oliver's swift maneuver as the halfling let go the bridle and rolled off the back end of the pony, turning a complete somersault and landing easily on his feet. The cyclopians swung about as the horse cut between them, and Oliver promptly jabbed, his rapier blade deep into the rump of one.

The cyclopian howled and whipped about, and a snap of Oliver's rapier sent the outraged brute's sword falling free.

"Foolish one-eyed sniffer of barnyard animals!" the halfling snorted, holding his hands out wide in disbelief. "I, polite Oliver deBurrows, even told you that it would come from behind!" The halfling then a.s.sumed his best fencing posture, free hand on hip. He yelled and leaped forward as if to strike, and the wounded cyclopian turned and fled, howling and fiercely rubbing its stuck b.u.t.t.

The other cyclopian came on, though, viciously.

"You should be so wise as your friend," Oliver taunted, parrying one swing, ducking a second, and hopping over a third. "You are no match for Oliver deBurrows!"

In response, the cyclopian came on with such a vicious flurry that Oliver was put back on his heels, and though he could have poked his rapier home a dozen times, any offensive strike would surely have allowed the cyclopian a solid hit at him, as well. The creature was strong and its sword nearly as heavy as the halfling, and Oliver wanted no part of that trade.

"I could be wrong," the halfling admitted again, working furiously to keep the brute off of him. He gave a short and sharp whistle then, but the cyclopian took no note of it.

An instant later, Oliver's yellow pony slammed into the brute's back, throwing it facedown on the turf, and the pony continued forward, clambering atop the groaning cyclopian. The curious-looking and curiously trained pony then began hopping up and down, crunching bones with every short jump.

"Have you met my horse?" Oliver asked politely.

The cyclopian roared and tried to rise, but a hoof crushed the side of its face.

Luthien was hurt more than he cared to admit. The wounds wouldn't have been serious, except that he was engaged in a brutal fight at the moment and his head was pounding so badly that he could hardly see straight.

In fact, he saw not one but two halberd tips continually darting his way. He whipped the bow back and forth and backpedaled.

He walked right into a tree, and lost his breath in the surprise. The agile young Bedwyr fell to the side as the cyclopian, thinking him caught, jabbed straight ahead, the wicked halberd tip digging a fair-sized hole in the wood.

Luthien responded with a swing of his own, but he missed and cringed when he heard the bow crack as it struck the tree. He brought it back out in front of him: half of it was hanging by a splinter.

The cyclopian bellowed with laughter; Luthien threw the bow at it. The brute batted it aside and its laugh turned to a growl, but when it began to advance once more, the cyclopian found that its opponent now carried a sword.

Oliver's pony was still dancing atop the groaning cyclopian when the halfling swung into the saddle. He meant to turn about and go help the young man who had come to his aid, but he paused, hearing whispers from inside the coach.

"Shoot him!" he heard a woman say ."Are you a coward?"

Oliver nodded in confirmation, guessing that she was talking to the merchant. Most merchants were cowards, the halfling believed. He hopped to a standing position atop his saddle, turned his pony beside the coach, and stepped lightly onto its roof, nearly tripping over the body of a cyclopian, a long arrow stuck deep into its face. Oliver looked down at his shoe, streaked with the cyclopian's blood, and crinkled his face in disgust. A huge hand shot out suddenly, grabbing the halfling's ankle and nearly knocking him over.

The cyclopian driver held on stubbornly, despite the arrow sticking into his chest. Oliver whipped him atop the head with the side of his rapier blade, and when the brute let go of the halfling's ankle to grasp at its newest wound, Oliver kicked it in the eye. The cyclopian gurgled, trying to scream, and tumbled backward off its seat, falling in a heap behind the nervous horse team.

"Count your luck that you did not mess my fine and stolen clothes," the halfling said to him. "For then I would surely have killed you!"

With a derisive snort, the halfling picked his way to the other side of the coach's roof and knelt down on one knee. A moment later, the plump arms and head of the merchant appeared, holding a crossbow and pointing it in the general direction of Luthien and the last remaining soldier.

Something tapped the merchant on top of his head.

"I do not think that would be such a wise idea," he heard from above. Slowly the merchant turned his head upward to regard the halfling, on one knee still, with his elbow propped against his other knee, green-gloved hand, holding the rapier, against the side of his face, with his index finger tap-tapping against the side of his nose.

"I do not know for sure, of course," the halfling went on casually, "but I think he might be a friend of mine."

The merchant screamed and tried to wheel about and bring the crossbow to bear on this new foe. The rapier snapped suddenly, flashing before the fat man's eyes, and he froze in shock. As soon as his senses recovered and he realized that he hadn't been hit, he tried to finish the move, even going so far as to pull the crossbow's trigger, before he realized that the quarrel was no longer in place along the weapon's shaft, plucked cleanly away by the well-aimed rapier.

Oliver held out his hands and shrugged. "I am good, you must admit," he said. The merchant screamed again and disappeared into the coach, whereupon the woman set upon him, calling him "coward" repeatedly, and many other worse names.

Oliver sat in a comfortable crouch on the roof, enjoying it all thoroughly, and turned his gaze back to the continuing fight.

The cyclopian was working the long halberd fiercely, whipping it to and fro and straight ahead. The young man, to his credit, hadn't been hit, but he was tumbling wildly and snapping his blade all about, apparently unaccustomed to facing so long a weapon.

"You must move straight ahead when he moves ahead!" Oliver called out.

Luthien heard him, but the strategy made no sense. He had fought against spear wielders in the arena, but those weapons were no more than eight feet long. The shaft of this halberd nearly doubled that.

Luthien started forward, as instructed, on the cyclopian's next thrust, and he caught the tip of the halberd on his right shoulder for his effort. With a yelp, the young man fell back, grabbing his sword in his left hand and favoring the stung shoulder.

"Not like that!" Oliver scolded. "Do not thrust in an angle that is complementary to your enemy's line of attack!"

Still hard-pressed, Luthien and the cyclopian paused for an instant to wonder what in the world this curious halfling was talking about.

"Do not line up your body with the enemy's closest tip," Oliver instructed. "Only a silly viper snake would do that, and are you not smarter than a silly viper snake?" The halfling then launched into a long dissertation about the proper methods of parrying long weapons, and of fighting silly viper snakes, but Luthien was no longer listening. A sweeping cut forced him to spin away to the side; a straight thrust for his abdomen had him jerking his rump far out behind him, doubling over. The cyclopian retracted and poked ahead again, thinking he had the young man off balance. He did, indeed, except that Luthien hurled himself facedown to the ground right behind the retracting blade. The halberd's tip as it came jabbing back scratched Luthien's behind but caused no serious damage, and Luthien spun about on the ground and scrambled ahead, grabbing the halberd shaft in his right hand and pulling it down as his sword came whipping up. The long weapon cracked apart.

"Well done!" came the halfling's cry from the top of the coach.

The cyclopian was not unarmed, though, still holding a broken shaft that now effectively served as a spear. Oliver's cheer had barely left his mouth when the one-eyed brute growled and pushed ahead, catching Luthien as he tried to stand. Down went the young man, apparently impaled.

"Oh," the halfling groaned as the roaring cyclopian put his weight behind the spear and began to grind and twist it mercilessly. On the ground, Luthien squirmed and squealed.