The Lioness d-aom-2

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  * * * * *

  Kerian watched the wink and flash of fireflies dancing between the straight tall pines. She sat barely breathing, not eating. Jeratt poked her with his elbow, and when she looked at him he nodded toward the cheese and bread and apples. Provisions from Felan’s wife, the last he’d brought in the fat leather wallet they’d all come to look forward to seeing slung across the farmer’s shoulder. That had been three days ago, a day before he had volunteered to be the one to take her carefully crafted message to the Lord Knight in Acris. He’d been a day gone, and no one expected to see him back here. They had expected to hear from Bayel, or one of the Night People drifting into camp, that he’d returned home to his farm.

  What they’d heard was that Felan’s wife had had no word of him.

  “Eat,” Jeratt said. “It’s a bad habit, not eating before a fight.”

  Kerian nodded as though to agree, but she didn’t eat. She liked her belly feeling light and empty before battle. She liked the edge that hunger gave her.

  The Night People had begun to arrive into the glade like shadows, like night. Fanners and hunters, they knew how to move though the forest so stealthily that they could come upon a doe drinking and get within touching distance. None knew the forest better than these young men and women of the farms and dales. None had a stronger will to fight. They hated Lord Thagol, and they hated the Knights. They loathed the draconians, and here, away from city and the politics of keeping a kingdom whole for as long as possible, they wanted nothing more than to fight, to rid themselves of those who would steal their goods and gains, who would rob them of the dignity they considered a birthright.

  “Listen,” Jeratt said into her musing. She looked up and saw he knew her thoughts. “He volunteered.”

  Kerian nodded, knowing he spoke of Felan.

  “He helped shape the plan.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He did.”

  “You didn’t send him to his death.” The word out, it hung between them. “You know him. You know why he insisted on going.”

  Felan’s wife was childing, the news learned only weeks before. He had been, always, an enthusiastic rebel, happy to do anything for the cause or to pass along information from one farm to another, content to do whatever part came his way. The news of impending fatherhood, though, had fired him with passion. It was not a passion for the kingdom or a kindling at the flame of revenge. Felan wanted only to secure his child’s birthright.

  He’d said, “I want my child to be able to walk this land as I did growing up. I want him to know that the forest and all its bounty are his, that what comes of this farm I will leave him-all of it!-will feed him and his own children. I want him to know who he is-a free elf, not the slave of a thieving dragon’s Knights. I’ll go beard the Skull Knight in his own den, if that’s what it takes.”

  One after another now, her Night People drifted in. None spoke, not even to greet each other. Kerian took the count of them. There were now thirteen in the glade. Bayel went among them, clasping a hand, slapping a back, wordless greetings. She saw him lean close to a young woman, listening to whispered words. He nodded once, curtly, and came to sit beside Jeratt. He ripped a chunk off the loaf of coarse brown bread the half-elf offered.

  “He’s dead.” He looked from Jeratt to Kerian. “Wael at the Waycross saw him die.”

  “How?” Kerian asked, heart plummeting at the news.

  “Skull Knight killed him.” Bayel looked away, then back. “Felan delivered the word, however, just like we planned. The Skull Knight took it, and Wael says he swallowed the bait grinning.”

  “How?” Kerian said again. Her voice grew colder, harder.

  Bayel shook his head, sad and sorry. “The Knight went in for a look, eh? Went into Felan’s mind to see if all he said was true. Wael says Felan held out, showed the bastard nothing to make him suspect we’re diverting his Knights into a trap while the most of us hit the wagons up the Qualinost Road. He let Thagol see nothing but what we wanted him to see.”

  That broke him, body and mind.

  Kerian looked around the glade. More warriors had arrived. She counted again. Twenty-five-no, twenty-eight. “How many Knights are coming?” she asked, distracted.

  “Wael says just the usual detachment that hangs around the Waycross, no more than six. Maybe a draconian or two. Easy pickings. Maybe the Lord Knight himself if he thinks he’s going to cut off the head of us easy, eh?”

  Maybe. Kerian hadn’t counted on it, but she had considered it and would have gotten great pleasure to find Thagol himself in her trap. She sat in silence for a while, thinking sadly of Felan’s sacrifice. There would be thirty-five of her warriors here before long. She looked hard at Bayel. “Tell me again-do you think the Skull Knight suspects nothing?”

  “Kerian,” he said, gently. “You know Felan. He was a stout heart. He held out, for us, for his child, for the future of the kingdom. Six Knights, maybe a few draconians. They’re going to hit here in the dark hour before dawn. They think they’re going to take four heads back to Way-cross and start there what they’ve been doing in the capital. They’re ordering our heads piked so everyone around will know there is no point in resisting.”

  Even so silent, twenty-eight warriors made the glade whisper with their breathing, their small motions. Kerian listened as she cast a glance at the sky. The moon had set, the stars shone brightly, but so thick was the canopy of trees that their light did little to illuminate the world far below. The forest would be deadly dark tonight. She sat forward, feeling Jeratt and Bayel draw closer. Bayel’s eyes shone in the firelight. Jeratt sat still as stone, a seasoned warrior preparing to do battle.

  “Felan’s dead, something’s changed. I don’t know how, I just know it. I smell it.”

  Bayel frowned, not understanding. Jeratt nodded, knowing well what she meant. You feel the danger, you heed the instinct, and you wonder what triggered it later. He winked at her and slapped her knee.

  She said, “ThagoFs not going to send a hunting party after us tonight. He’ll send more.”

  She pointed to the earth before them, the smooth place where they had drawn their plans. Marks still remained, lines and circles and deep marks where Jeratt had stabbed a stick to emphasize some point.

  “We’d planned two hits tonight-one here where Thagol and his men are set to walk into our trap and one here where Jeratt and Bayel plan to hit the wagons camped on the Qualinost Road from north and south.” With one sweep of her foot, Kerian erased the sketches. “Let the bastard Knight come. Let him bring as many Knights as he likes. Hell find the place empty, no one here but the ghosts of our fires.”

  “What are you gonna do, Kerian?” Jeratt asked.

  She told him, and he said this would mean she’d not be able to stay long in this forest now.

  “We didn’t plan to stay forever, you know that Ander’s waiting at the falls. The others are waiting.”

  He knew this, and his approving grin flashed cold and bright. Bayel nodded, and he said he thought the idea was good. Kerian looked past them to the darkness where her Night People stood or sat, checking their weapons.

  “It’s time,” she said. “Jeratt, take your warriors. Bayel, you and yours come with me. We’ll meet back here when it’s done.” She looked keenly at one, then the other. “Any questions?”

  These two, who with her and Felan had been the heart of the Night People, had no questions.

  “Then go,” Kerian said. “Remember who we do this for.”

  Once they were four. Now they were three. This was for Felan.

  * * * * *

  They owned the forest, Kerian and her Night People. They knew every trail, each game path. They knew where the streams ran, where the deer gathered at dawn. They had run here as children, as youths hunting. They flowed through the forest this night like silent dreams, men and women with soot-black faces, warriors dressed in leathers like hunters, hung with the weapons of war. Jeratt divided his force, sending ten into hiding west and east o
f their camp. Seven went south with him, slipping between the trees, and they went so silently that the nine Knights riding by in the opposite direction never saw them. These were not the six Wael had predicted, but Jeratt considered them no threat. The elves knew the air as wolves do, and they kept downwind so the horses picking their way through the night forest didn’t catch their scent. Jeratt watched them go.

  Since the Knights rode by night, they did not go with visors down. They did not go armored, only mailed, for it seemed they wanted to be as quiet as possible. They had dismounted at the head of the trail, where the ground rose and grew stony. They’d led their horses then, with the beasts’ noses wrapped in cloth or covered with a hand to muffle the sound of their snorting. They did not go by with a ringing of bridles and bits tonight. Those had been quieted, too, with slim leather casings on every metal piece that might chime.

  Jeratt noted, too, that these were only human Knights. No draconians were with them, for those creatures had no skill at running quiet. The beast-men were gone to the highway or were perhaps still at the tavern.

  When the Knights came closest, Jeratt marked the first rider and knew him by his white face and his dead eyes. The Knights went up the trail, and the forest settled back to its usual sounds, the rustle of small things in the brush, the sudden flight of an owl, the sound of something caught in sharp talons and dying. Jeratt looked south toward the crossroad and the little village where Lord Thagol had lately come to rule. He was a half-elf, and that meant he shared in much of the heritage of his elf parent As could any elf, he was able to see the outline of a creature walking in darkness, the red glow of the heat of its body. Its life force, some said. In the full darkness of a forest night, Jeratt looked and smiled in satisfaction when he saw the distant flicker-only here and there-of a thin red glow, the outline of other elves. There was Kerian, and with her, her warriors, slipping silently, a force the size of his own running south to the crossroad. As he looked, he saw half their number break away, the light of their bodies gliding around to the west in such a way that the two groups would find themselves in position to attack their prey from front and behind.

  “Good girl,” Jeratt whispered.

  One of his warriors looked up. He shook his head, and they all settled to silence, so still that the high shrill cry of a nightjar startled Jeratt.

  “All right now,” he whispered.

  From the campsite came a harsh curse, sudden shouting. Jeratt held his people still with one gesture. Another cry, more cursing and the sounds of night creatures fleeing. The bright clash of steel, a sudden scream too loud to be human.

  A horse down!

  “Hush,” Jeratt said to the restless warrior beside him. “Wait”

  They saw the faint red flickers of men and women in combat. The forest filled with cries now, bellowing human rage and the eerie banshee cries of the Night People.

  “Watch,” Jeratt whispered, his lips close to the other elf’s ear. “See.”

  See it all, the shape of the battle. Jeratt grinned coldly, and the woman warrior made a small, satisfied sound as, pursued, Thagol’s Knights fled the campsite, all but one on foot. Eager now, Jeratt watched a handful of his men pretend to flight. Swiftly they came through the forest, leaping streamlets, blow downs, boulders, and leading the Knights onto rough ground. In this way, the hunt came crashing through the forest, tearing through the underbrush, the Knights believing themselves in pursuit of ambushing foes. Furious, driven by Thagol’s cursing, the humans tore past Jeratt and the remainder of his warriors, and at the exact moment Thagol passed him, Jeratt sent another nightjar cry into the darkness.

  His eager warriors burst from cover. Voices high and howling, in one swift maneuver they blocked the Knights’ pursuit. Turning, the elves circled the five humans, a noose tightening. Afoot, four had no chance against the greater number. Three died at once, the fourth after a flashing steel struggle.

  The fifth Knight, Thagol, was still mounted. He abandoned the field before the first Knight died.

  * * * * *

  Kerian saw her people slip into position, half in the forest shadows beyond the tavern’s dooryard and half in back, both exits covered. She looked for Bayel and found him coming around the back of the tavern. He dropped to a knee beside her at the overgrown verge of the tavern’s wood lot, never rustling leaf or branch.

  “Seven inside,” he said. “The taverner, two Knights and four draconians.”

  She nodded then leaned close. “We’re ready. Remember the taverner.”

  Bayel’s eyes on the Waycross and the golden light shining out from the windows, front and back, he said, “It’ll be done as you wish, Kerian.”

  Someone-or something-passed before the wide window looking into the tavern’s front yard. Draconian by the shape, Kerian thought. It stood too tall to be an elf, the shape of it too grotesque to be either human or elf. The tavern door opened, and the wind shifted. Two draconians came out into the night. She smelled their dry reptilian stink, the bite of the acid reek of their breath. Here, outside the forest, stars shone brightly. The sky was awash with them. Their silvery light glinted from the harnesses of the draconians, metal buckles, polished leather, a bright length of steel as one unsheathed a long knife.

  “Got it off that elf,” the creature growled. It laughed, a ripping sound. “Right before his head exploded.”

  Bayel moved restlessly. Kerian clamped a hard hand on his arm.

  “No,” the other snarled. “Didn’t explode, did it? Bone and brains all over?”

  The first draconian shrugged. “Might as well have. Blood pouring out of it everywhere, mouth, ears, and eyes. That lord of ours-” It laughed again. “He’s got a searching way about him, eh?”

  They stood for a moment admiring the blade, arguing a little about whether it should have been given over to the Lord Knight and deciding that since Lord Thagol hadn’t asked for it, there was no need to offer. Kerian watched them walk away from the Waycross toward the road. They’d take up guard posts there, she thought. Thagol was gone, probably most of his Knights with him. He was an arrogant bastard, but he wouldn’t leave his headquarters unguarded.

  She was right, and when she saw them settled, one at the north-south road and the other at the east-west, she nodded to Bayel.

  An owl’s rattling cry tore the night’s silence. One of the draconians looked up, expecting to see the raptor bursting up from the woods, a struggling rabbit in its talons. It looked again then turned to its companion. The other shrugged.

  “Bad luck,” it said. “I guess-”

  Four arrows wasped from the forest. The draconian jerked as though yanked to attention. It screamed a curse and fell, dying and filling the night with the sting of acid. Four more arrows tore out of the wood. Two missed and one bounded off the second draconian’s scaled hide. The missile fell into the pool of green acid that had been the body of the first, the wood hissing as the arrow died. The fourth took the draconian in the soft underside of its neck.

  The draconian howled, clawing at the arrow in its throat The front door slammed open, a human voice called a question.

  Kerian slapped Bayel’s shoulder as the clearing around the Waycross erupted in the high keening battle cries Lord Thagol’s men had come to hate.

  * * * * *

  Kerian ran into the howling as her warriors converged on the tavern. She heard someone scream, a high shriek that was no battle cry, and she saw an elf die in the terrible embrace of the draconian he had killed. The stink of acid, of burning flesh, hung on the night, and soon the reek of blood joined it.

  A Knight filled up the front door, golden firelight glaring behind him so that he was faceless. The light ran on his drawn sword, and Kerian leaped up the two stairs to the long porch, her own sword in hand. One downward stroke, and the man’s blood spurted from a severed hand. His sword fell with a dull thud onto the wooden porch, Kerian kicked it aside, the hand still gripping. In horror, the Knight saw that and finally felt the agony. He howled,
and Kerian lunged for him, thrusting. She felt bone scrape her steel, and swiftly she kicked the dead Knight off her blade.

  Another scream came from behind the tavern. Knight or elf, she couldn’t tell and didn’t stop to wonder. The swell of elf voices behind her merged with the shouts inside the tavern. Kerian plunged through the doorway, into the chaos of shouting and ringing steel.

  “Elf bitch!”

  She turned, sword high, and the jolt of a heavy blade striking hers rang all the way up her arm. Kerian fell back a step. The Knight pressed. She let him, moving step and step, maneuvering him until his back was to the door. Behind, she felt the sudden heat of fire, and out of the corner of her eye she saw she was near the hearth. Flames leaped up the walls from behind the bar, roaring and eating the thick oak boards. Even as she saw that, she saw the tav-erner Wael flee out the back.

  The Knight brought his sword down. Again she felt the blow up to her shoulders. She fell back another step, but the Knight’s sword held hers now, pressing her with all his strength. She did not try to match him. She seemed to yield, to weaken before his greater strength. His eyes lit with furious hatred. She stepped back again then swiftly turned, her sword describing a bright circle in the fiery light. Overbalanced by his thrust, the Knight stumbled, and Kerian came about so quickly she thought it likely he never felt her blade slip and turn between his ribs.

  “Kerian!”

  She turned to see Bayel, his eyes wide.

  She turned again and saw a draconian rushing at her from the flames of the burning tavern. The last one, and she dared not engage it, for to kill this thing and be anywhere near it dying was to die herself.