The Lioness

He didn’t say more, for she left him and went into the ruin. She stood there in the center where the common room used to be. She looked around while Pounce and Wrestle poked among the debris. Watching her, Haugh heard nothing, not even crows in the sky. He thought that was strange. It couldn’t have been two days since the fires were set, the burning done. Embers still glowed beneath the collapsed walls like malevolent eyes, red and glaring, yet no crow or raven came, no wolf hunted the empty streets or the fallen houses.

He wondered why, how the carrion eaters could be turned from the will of their nature. The place should be hung with crows, dangerous with wolves. Only wind moved and not much of it.

“Nayla, I don’t like—”

She held up her hand, hissed him to silence.

Out from behind a pile of stone that had once been two chimneys a tall figure stepped. Brown as summer, his silver hair on his shoulders, the newcomer seemed like a spirit of the forest itself. He wore tattoos upon his arms, across his chest. He had the eyes that always chilled Haugh to the heart—the eyes of a Kagonesti in the wild.

Nayla’s hand slipped to the knife in her belt, a broad-bladed glinting knife good for skinning a deer or killing a foe. The Wilder Elf didn’t so much as quirk a brow.

“You,” Haugh demanded. “Who are you and what are you doing here in this ruin?”

The accents of Qualinost, cultured tones no rough garb could disguise, did not impress the Wilder Elf. He looked past Haugh, up the road to the savaged village. When he had completed his survey—a leisurely one, Haugh thought—he looked at Haugh again.

“The same thing you are doing,” he said. “I’m looking.”

Nayla was in no mood. “We’ve been hearing things about the goings on in the forest, Kagonesti. We’ve been hearing about magic and hearing it might have to do with your kind.”

The Kagonesti shrugged and looked away. In his eyes Haugh saw a sly light, a baiting gleam. “Qualinesti,” the Wilder Elf said, “does your woman speak as loudly in the halls of your family as she does in the halls of the forest?”

Something like lightning crackled in the air between the three.

“Kagonesti,” Haugh replied, striving to keep his voice level. “Many of our people have died here, and many of those were our friends. We don’t know who lives, we don’t know who is dead. We’ve come into the forest searching for a friend, a young Wilder Elf woman.”

“A Kagonesti? A friend of yours, eh?” The Wilder Elf spoke as though in disbelief. “You seek her out, and yet you think that maybe Kagonesti had to do with this great burning?”

“No.” Haugh looked around the ruin, the wreckage of homes and hopes where nothing moved but sniffing dogs. Crows called from the forest, from high up the hill. “We think the Nerakan Knights did this.”

The Kagonesti nodded. “You think well. We saw them.” He spat into ash. “They are wolves.”

We saw them.

We…

“Kagonesti,” Nayla snarled, “you saw this happen?”

He nodded. “I have said so.”

“And you did nothing?”

“To prevent? No, we did not. We were only a band of four. We do not have armies, woman. We do not interfere in the business of the city elves and the Knights they allow in their kingdom.”

She flared, filled with grief for deaths, filled with rage. “Kagonesti, you want a better tone with your betters.”

A small smile twitched the corners of the Wilder Elf’s lips. It had nothing at all to do with amusement. “Woman, you want a more courteous tone with anyone.”

Two strides put Haugh between the Kagonesti and Nayla. His hand was out, away from his weapons. The Kagonesti turned.

In the instant, sunlight slipped like fire along Nayla’s blade.

The Kagonesti shouted, “No!” Then again, “No!”

Haugh felt the shock of an arrow in his back. He fell among ashes of the Hare and Hound, stunned by pain and watching his blood run out of him. All the world erupted in storm-wind and thunder, his pulse rushing blood from his body, pounding in his ears. Through the storm of his dying, he heard the roar of a hound—Pounce? was it Pounce?—cut off by its own death-scream.

A hand touched his shoulder, gently. “Hold still,” the Kagonesti said. “Hold still.”

Haugh heard voices now, a man’s, a woman’s, another man’s. The Kagonesti said something to one of them, his voice like an angry whip crack. What he said, Haugh couldn’t tell. His words were simply sounds. In his mind, in his heart he heard other words, those of his king, Gilthas who had said, “Find her, Haugh. Show her the way to me….”

Haugh said, “Listen—”

The Kagonesti leaned close.

“The woman—Kerianseray—”

The Kagonesti leaned closer, and Haugh heard his breathing roughen.

“My pouch—get me my—”

The Kagonesti took the pouch from within Haugh’s shirt. He opened it and spilled its contents into Haugh’s twitching hand, the golden half of a royal ring. “It is the king’s. Find the match—the girl—she will—know what it means—”

The air on his skin felt cold, cold. He felt the tide of his life withdraw, taking all warmth and will. His lips formed a word, shaped a name.

Nayla.