The Lioness

She washed her wound clean of blood, washed her hands and dried them on her shirt. She had only her cupped hands to carry the water, icy and tasting like stone. Still, with two trips, she managed to soothe Ayensha’s thirst. She checked the woman’s injuries and knew at least one of her ribs was broken, maybe more. She could only hope that organs had not been damaged. Across Ayensha’s ribs Kerian saw the distinct print, in black bruising, of a hard boot’s heel.

“Brutes,” she muttered, helping Ayensha to lay straight.

“Worse,” Ayensha whispered, “and I’m glad you killed that bastard Barg.”

Yes, I killed him, thought Kerian, shocked that she had done it so easily and now felt so little regret.

Ayensha didn’t say more. She closed her eyes, and in the instant of closing, fell asleep.

A long time Kerian sat beside the sleeping woman. It seemed to her, there in the misty moonlight and the cold little cave, that she’d been gone from Qualinost for weeks. All her muscles turned to water from weariness.

I will never be able to go home again.

She had killed a Knight, and here in this cave she still smelled his blood on her hands, warm and spilling over the bone handle of the dwarfs knife.

Kerian rose and sat near the opening of their shelter, the little doorway. Wind slid around the stones, small creatures with night habits rustled through the bracken. Kerian sat very still, listening to the tiny sounds of a fox lapping moisture. To test her ability for silence, she slipped her knife from the sheath. The prick-eared fox bolted, slashing away into the dark.

Kerian reached for the golden chain hanging from her neck. She pulled it out, moonlight gleamed on gold, on the topaz of Gil’s ring. Without warning, tears spilled down Kerian’s cheeks, warm when all else was cold. She closed her eyes and saw tossing seas, whitecaps like bent-winged gulls, gulls like the peaks of whitecaps, each reflecting the other. In her ears, the forest breeze changed and became the sound of the sea. The piney scents changed into the achingly beautiful fragrance of home.

A long time ago, his arm around her, holding his little sister close as the sea grew dark and slaty, immense between the fleeing ship and the thinning line of Ergoth’s shore, Iydahar had said, “Turtle, we’ll never be able to go home again, but there will always be you and me. Always.”

Yet Iydahar had gone to the mountains and forests to fight for a prince who had lost his crown, she to live in the city. To be a servant, Dar sneered, to lords who handed over their kingdom piece by piece to a dragon’s Knights. Dar did not know her lover was the king, and grimly, almost with satisfaction, she thought, “Dar! What would you think of me if you knew that?”

She wished she could ask him now, to his face, but Bueren Rose said no one had seen him in a long while. Where was her brother? She wondered, was he well?

Late, an hour past moonset, Ayensha woke and pushed herself to sit. Breathing hard, she asked for water. As she drank it slowly, she asked Kerian about herself. Kerian gave some detail about the life she had left behind, though by no means all. Finally Ayensha, her back resting against a stone, said, “Well, and here we are. I thank you for that. What are you going to do now, Kerian?”

Kerian sat a long time silent, listening to the night. “I’ve come out of Qualinost to find my brother. He is Iydahar of the White Osprey Kagonesti, or so we were called when we lived on Ergoth. Perhaps we—they—perhaps we are still called that.”

Ayensha said she had not heard of the White Osprey tribe. “Nobody knows all the Kagonesti there are. Is he a servant, like you, your brother?”

“No. He never was. He and my parents have always lived wild. Our father is Dallatar. He and my brother fought for Prince Porthios.”

Ayensha moved to find more comfort against cold stone. “You should go back to the city, Kerian. It’s harder out here.”

Kerian looked at her long through narrowed eyes. “It is fair hard in the city these days.” Owls hunted the opportune night. Kerian closed her eyes. In private darkness, she said, “In Qualinost there are four bridges round the city. We have always loved them, for Forest Keepers used to walk watch on the silver spans and cry the hours from the watchtowers: All is well in the East! All is safe in the South! We are watchful in the West! We see all that moves in the North!” She breathed deeply, then opened her eyes. Ayensha’s face was a pale oval an arm’s length away. “All is not well in the east now. Upon the eastern bridge Lord Eamutt Thagol has piked the heads of elves killed by his Knights—”

Again, Ayensha shifted, still trying to find ease, still failing.

“One of the heads piked up on the bridge was that of our cousin. She was Ylania of the White Osprey.”

Ayensha’s breath caught, a hissing of pain as she moved. “Well, I don’t know your brother, and I didn’t know this woman Ylania.”

An owl sailed past the opening of the shelter.