The Lioness

“We are six bands,” said Feather’s Flight. Kerian withheld a satisfied smile as she realized she’d calculated correctly and called out the woman who best represented the others. “We are from the mountains in the western part of the kingdom, past the dales. Even there heads grow on pikes like evil fruit. Some of us did know the lost prince, Porthios, whom some say perished in dragon-fire.” She stood taller. “I came from Silvanesti with him, and we cleaned the green dragons out of the Sylvan Land. I don’t know his nephew, I haven’t heard good of him, but I see you, Kerianseray. I have heard good of you. In the name of the dead, we will join you.”

The others nodded silently. Bueren thumped her shoulder, and Jeratt grinned wide. Beside the half-elf, Stanach Hammerfell had the look of a dwarf who wasn’t quite ready to relax. Kerian caught his eye and winked.

“Ay, Jeratt,” she said. “The dwarf looks like he could use a meal. Me too, for that matter. Anyone been hunting lately, or is it all bone and stone soup?”

On the hills, elves kept watch. No one counted on magic now, for with her going it seemed Elder had taken all her useful confusions. The dwarf Stanach volunteered to take his own turn at watch, and Kerian didn’t refuse him.

What will he say to his thane about all this? Kerian wondered. How will I get him to Gil so he can form some kind of opinion?

Ah, well, that was for another day’s thinking. She looked at Jeratt. Firelight made him seem older; shadows sculpted his face till Kerian might have imagined him twice his age.

“You know,” Jeratt said, “no matter how well you plan our raids, Kerian, Thagol’s going to find you the first time you kill someone. He’s like a dog sniffing down the road.”

She remembered. Absently, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. There was the old pain forming. From old habit, she gauged the headache, trying to know it for what it was. Not Thagol, hunting. Not yet. This time the throbbing behind her eyes was weariness.

“Before we fell apart, we were all over the place, several bands striking at will and no one for him to grab or follow.” He shook his head grimly. “It’s why he started this slash and burn campaign. Figured he’d cut us off from the villagers and the farmers. He did that right. No one was going to risk his life to feed us, no one would shelter us or even give us news for fear of their own lives. Let me tell you, Kerian, it all fell apart fast.”

Kerian nodded, thinking.

“The first time you kill, though,” Jeratt continued, “he’ll catch up with us, Kerian. The first time you kill, hell know it.”

Yes, he would. She’d thought of that. She was considering it very carefully. Her outlaw bands would begin a stealthy campaign. At dawn they would scatter through the forest, making a noose around the capital. They would continue Jeratt’s plan of random strikes, each band falling on targets as they would, in no discernible pattern. Tribute wagons, supply wagons, these were of no moment now.

Now the struggle would intensify. Bridges would be thrown down, roads would be blocked with fallen trees.

Streams and rivers would be clogged. “We will not go so far as to fire the woods,” Kerian said. “That is forbidden, but we will fall on his work details as he rebuilds the bridges and clears the roads, we will kill all the Knights who guard those details. We will give the bastard no quarter!”

They would strike hard and strike without mercy. Slowly, in no obvious way, they would move farther out from the city, farther out into the forest, drawing Thagol’s forces into the deeper woods.

“Jeratt,” she said, still rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I’m not going to be at any one of those raids. I’m not going to kill any of the enemy. When I next come to kill, I’ll kill Eamutt Thagol. If I join a raid, it will be to lop the head off Headsman Chance.”

She paused, gave him a moment to digest that, then said, “Jeratt, where is my brother?”

The question surprised him; she saw it on his face. “I don’t know.”

Kerian shook her head. “Yes, you do. Ayensha isn’t here, and you know where she is, so you know where my brother is. Where is Dar?”

She watched him thinking and watched him choose. He’d held faithful to her trust after she’d gone, without notice, to Thorbardin. He’d done better than that: He’d tried to build the core of what would now become—if all gone gods were good!—the terror of Thagol’s Knights. Yet she saw it now, again as she had a year ago. Jeratt had a deeper allegiance to her brother, to Iydahar who did not trust her or like her king.

“Who is he to you, Jeratt?”

The question surprised him. “Dar? He’s my friend.”

She snorted, unbelieving. “He’s more than that. I’ve seen how you are when he’s around—all of you. It’s like he’s a … I don’t know, priest or shaman.”

Jeratt sat a long time quiet, poking at the fire, chasing bright orange cinders up to the sky. Kerian watched him; she looked at the guards on the hill, then at Jeratt again.