The Lioness

Kerian kept to the outside of the circle. If Bueren saw her, all the better, for she imagined the taverner’s daughter would like to see a friendly face in this strange place. Elder lifted her hand.

Iydahar left his wife’s side and parted the circle. He did not stand before the old woman. Rather, he kept his back to her. Head high, he looked into a middle distance, some place no one else could see.

“Hear!” Iydahar’s voice started Kerian. Strong and deep, the one word was weighty as stone. Those gathered grew even more still, and it seemed to Kerian that no one breathed. “Hear, for a thing has been said, and a thing has been done, and all must know.”

Kerian stood still. Around her the outlaws did the same, attentive.

“It is commanded!”

In the sky, a red tailed hawk sailed, its shadow rounding on the stone.

In a voice his own and not, Iydahar said, “By order of the invader, my lord Sir Eamutt Thagol, he of Neraka and lately of the Monastery Bone, for crimes of murder and insurrection, the woman Kerianseray, a Kagonesti servant late of the household of Senator Rashas of Qualinost, is declared outside the law.”

Those in the circle murmured, their voices like small echoes of the thundering falls beyond their shelter.

“By the invader’s order,” Iydahar intoned, “with Senator Rashas’s agreement, such decree renders her a person deprived of any consideration under the laws of her king. Neither will she receive the grace or benefit of the laws of green Beryl, the dragon who rules here.”

Someone snorted, commentary on the benefit of the laws of green Beryl.

“All who see this woman are commanded to refuse her succor, refusing her aid of food or weapon or shelter. All who see her are ordered to capture her by any means necessary, and to bring her alive to Lord Thagol in Qualinost. There she will be beheaded, this sentence to be executed in the sight of the citizenry of city.

“All who are so foolish as to aid her will share in her crime and so in her sentence.

“It is commanded!”

A shocked Kerian stood still as stone as Bueren Rose stepped forward to speak. She spoke of the death of her father and other luckless citizens of her village.

Her voice strained, as though freezing to ice, she said, “My father fell to a Knight’s beheading sword.”

The news struck Kerian hard. A woman near Kerian sighed. Bueren flung back her head, wailed to the deepening sky, “By Thagol’s command, my father was murdered by a Knight his fellows named the Headsman!”

Jeratt’s voice cut like a blade. “The bastard! Ah, Rosie—”

Bueren Rose looked up, her tears flowing. Her lips moved, but Kerian couldn’t catch the words.

Voices rose in outrage, thunder rolling around the stony basin, up the hill and rumbling down like storm coming. Elder shouted high, keening and bitter anger. Men and Women reached for weapons. The hair lifted on the hack of Kerian’s neck. She felt ashamed of the trouble she had caused. Worse, Kerianseray of Qualinost, the runaway servant of Senator Rashas, was to be hunted and brought back for public execution.

She looked around, her hand on the dwarf-given knife, fingers curling round the hone grip of the little weapon that had both saved Ayensha and made an orphan of Bueren Rose. In the purpling light, she saw neither sympathy nor lack of it on the faces of the gathered outlaws.

“You,” said Iydahar, pointing across the circle to her. “Come here.”

Almost she thought, That isn’t my brother! So fierce his eyes, so hard his expression, she did not recognize even the shape of his features.

Narrow-eyed, angry, she lifted her head and the breath she drew cut sharply into the silence. Before she could speak, a finger poked her ribs, hard, and Jeratt growled, “Go, Kerianseray. Don’t argue.”

She saw, behind her brother, Bueren Rose’s face, wet with tears. Ayensha took Bueren into her arms, hushed her, and held her.

Her voice even and cool, Kerian said, “Brother, do you wish to speak with me?”

His expression did not soften, and he spilled into his hand something shining from the little pouch at his belt Gil’s ring! In her brother’s hand lay the half of the topaz ring the king had retained.

Dar spoke, and the flintiness of his voice caused her to shiver. “Two elves of Qualinost are dead, and they should not have been killed, but feelings are high in the forest now. I wish it hadn’t happened. You, too, might regret their deaths, sister. They came to tell you your master calls.”

Master!

The word stung like a slap. Once out of Iydahar’s mouth, it ran round the circle, growling, until, again, Kerian flung up her head. She spoke now, and not as her brother’s small sister, not as a child or even a woman he knew.

“You speak, brother, without knowing what you’re talking about. You make assumptions about things you don’t understand. If you wish to talk with me, find a place apart and we will talk.”

The circle shifted, men and women looked at each other, wondering what Iydahar, so clearly used to deference, would say to his sister’s reply.