The Lioness

He could give the word no voice and he knew, in the gasping last breath, it wouldn’t have mattered. She would not have heard, his Nayla lying dead in the ashes.

Kerian squinted. When her vision settled, she saw before her a stony clearing, a space in which four small campfires made a semicircle around a larger one, a clearing like a stone basin. Beyond the clearing rose a wall of climbing ground, all boulders and pines. She felt no more breeze here than she had in the narrow cave, the passage behind the falls. The place was well sheltered, and the only way in was through the passage she and Ayensha had just taken, or down the sides of the hill. All around her, the distant thunder of the falls seemed to flow into the whispering of the wind.

“Who are you, girl?” A man glared at her, his eyes hard and cold. He had silver-streaked hair that might once have been the color of bright chestnuts, once brown and shining with red-gold. He was past his middle years, and though his features were elven, his ears canted, his eyes slightly almond-shaped, the shape of his face showed an alien stamp, a coarsening line of his jaw, a roughness of hair on his cheek and chin, and that thickness in the neck seen in humans and half-elves. The man must have a human parent.

Around him, shadowy voices whispered: Who are you? Who is she? How did she get here?

A spy!

The hissing word sent fear through Kerian’s belly, sharp as knives, and the half-elf said, “Are y’that, then? A spy?”

The hair raised up on the back of Kerian’s neck. She wanted to look around to find the shadowy speakers but dared not take her eyes from those of the half-elf. Ayensha, though she might have, said nothing. She had brought Kerian here, and now she seemed inclined to leave her to what fate might find her.

In a firm and clear voice Kerian said, “I’m not a spy, and whatever it is you’re keeping to yourself, you can have. I came here with Ayensha and—”

The half-elf snapped, “Name your name, girl.”

Kerian’s cheek flushed. Girl, he called her, as the dwarf had called her missy, as Dar used to name her Turtle.

Eyes narrow, voice cool, she said, “I am Kerianseray of White Osprey Kagonesti. My parents were Dallatar and Willowfawn, and Dallatar was a chieftain among my people. Willowfawn bore him two children, a son and a daughter, and all elves know that is great wealth. With my brother Iydahar my people lived here in this forest in the time before the coming of the dragon Beryl, even before men, in the years of the lost prince.”

Kerian lifted her head, not ashamed to speak the next words. “Though my kin have not, I have spent time in Qualinost. Now tell me, what is your name?”

Ayensha stood away from the half-elf. She murmured a word to him that sounded, if not kindly spoken, at least reassuring. The man grunted. His arms closing round her again, he looked at Kerian long. His eyes narrowed as he reckoned her.

“Killed a Knight, did you?”

“Yes, I killed a Knight.” Remembering Ayensha’s injuries and the haunted, hunted look in her eyes when she’d come hobbled and bound into the Hare and Hound, she added, “I killed a pig of a Knight” She narrowed her own eyes in a show of defiance. “It’s a good thing, I think, or you’d be weeping over a corpse now instead of hugging this woman.”

The half-elf raised an eyebrow. A little, the corner of his lips quirked.

“Now it’s time for your name, half-elf.”

The epithet didn’t sting him, it only twisted his mouth into a sneer. “Jeratt,” he said, “Jeratt Trueflight.” He looked around him, at the hills and the passage into the stone of the world behind her. He removed his arm from Ayensha, gently let her go, and he said, “I am of this place.”

“Jeratt Trueflight, I haven’t come here to harm anyone or spy on you. I left Qualinost to find my brother who…” She hesitated, in no hurry to give this man too much information about Iydahar. “I thought my brother might be in trouble, although in five days’ time I find myself in more trouble that I’d imagined he could be in.”

Jeratt snorted. “It gets like that, girl—”

“I told you: my name is Kerianseray.” She took a square stance. “If you like, you can call me Kerian, but if you call me ‘girl’ again, I’ll kick you a good one.”

Jeratt’s eyes widened as though he would suddenly laugh. He held the laughter, though, and cocked his head. “You kick me a good one? How good, girl?”

Swift, hardly thinking, Kerian swept out her leg, caught him with her foot hooked behind the knee and toppled him hard to the ground. His breath whooshed out of him, and she moved again, her heel upon his belly, right over a kidney.

Jeratt laughed then. Right there on the ground, he let go a good-natured bellow. He reached up a hand as if to ask for help up.

Kerian shook her head, not falling for the ruse. She stepped back, gesturing as a courtier. Wryly, she said, “Please, do rise.”

On his feet, the half elf twisted another smile. “Besides Knights on your trail, what brings you here, Kerianseray?”