The Lioness

Howling, their voices like demons, the five Knights then spurred their chargers, torches whirling over their heads. Hooves tearing up the ground, the largest of the horses, that of the Headsman, sprang directly toward Bueren. She screamed, clutching her father. The great beast plunged between them, breaking her hold, flinging both aside. A sword flashed like lightning. Sir Chance spurred past them, and Bueren scrambled for her father, for the old elf was lying still upon the ground. The cries of the villagers became distant to her; they had no more voice man a breeze in the trees as Bueren lifted her father from the dusty dooryard. Blood ran in a thin line on his neck, all the way from ear to ear.

“Father,” she whispered. She lifted him, and her scream rang in the tavern yard, louder than the pounding of hooves, louder than the yowling of Knights. Her father’s head rolled from his shoulders and fell bloody into the dust. Her wails of woe were heard over the crackling of flames, the roar of fire as Chance Headsman’s men proceeded to put the Hare and Hound to the torch.

Firthing, the potboy, dropped to his knees beside Bueren. White in the face, his eyes glittering like polished stone, he took her hard by the shoulders. Thin, not half-grown into manhood, still he was strong, and his grip hurt. In her ear his voice grated.

“Come away, Bueren Rose. Come away!”

All around her, people panicked, Knights yelled, horses thundered. Villagers cried out, children wailed, and somewhere in the sky, ravens gathered. Firthing pulled at her now, on his feet, urgent. He jerked her to her feet. She followed Firthing, running out of the dooryard, away from the fire, the screams and her dead father.

On the third morning since her flight from the Hare and Hound, after two days of hiding in the little cave to allow Ayensha to rest in stillness and begin to heal, Kerian went walking in the forest to check her snares. These she’d set using skills she only half-recalled from childhood, but the best hunters last night had been owls. Her snares were empty this morning. She sighed, hungry, and began a search for pinecones to free of their nuts. These she found in plenty, and a good stout branch to strip of twigs. She gave this to Ayensha for walking. She gave her most of the pine nuts, too, sweet and rich with oil.

“It isn’t much,” she said, “but I’ll find a way to feed us better soon.”

Leaning upon the sap-scented staff, Ayensha accepted the food and hobbled round the shelter to take water for herself. It was clear to both women that Ayensha would not lead today.

“Tell me the way,” Kerian said. “Speak the map.”

Ayensha lifted an eyebrow. “So. You remember the old phrase.”

Kerian said stiffly, “Yes, I remember things, Ayensha. Speak the map.”

In a voice small with pain, Ayensha did, with words painting a map upon which hills ran crowned by tall piles of stone, of pine marching on eastern ridges, and a narrow river in a deep chasm running south and then veering suddenly east. In all lands and at all times, this was the manner in which Kagonesti relayed information, be it a message carried upon the lips from one tribe to another, a tale as ancient as the time before the Cataclysm, or the safest path to a meeting site. Ayensha spoke the way to the eastern border of the Qualinesti forest, where the Stonelands lay between the kingdom of the elves and fabled Thorbardin, the hidden realm of dwarves.

They made their way through the stony forest. Though Ayensha directed and Kerian led, Kerian did not imagine them safe. They traveled deep into the wood, far from the road, and the Qualinesti Forest seemed as well behaved as it ever had.

“I think we’ve come away from whatever it was that affected the forest,” she said to Ayensha.

Ayensha shrugged. “Do you think so?”

Despite her rescue from Lord Thagol’s Knights, Ayensha evidently didn’t trust Kerian nor seem to think much of her, but the woman knew something about the oddity of the forest’s behavior or suspected a truth she was not willing to share. Of that much, Kerian felt certain.