The Lioness

He said again, “My lord.”

At the bar, the taverner looked up, an old elf with thickening jowls and thinning silver hair. No one but these four, taverner, Knight, draconian, and Felan, occupied the large common room. Lord Thagol had taken up residence here and made it his command post for the region. If this were another Knight, Felan might have wondered whether the human missed the comforts of the capital, the glittering towers, the good food and quarters. This Knight out of Monastery Bone, though, bore the look of one used to the lack of comfort and the imposition of discipline. Here, in the Waycross, he looked like a man in his element, poring over maps and messages, wailing for the reports from soldiers. He’d been here all the summer long, the winter before, and back to the end of autumn. In all that time, the owner of the tavern hadn’t had payment for the food and wine Lord Thagol demanded for his Knights and draconians, and no elf for miles around came to dine at his tables or drink at his bar. The poor taverner had the pinched, white-eyed look of a man who sees ruin ahead of him.

Felan waited, and Sir Eamutt Thagol put another check mark on the map, his face white in the flickering firelight and shadow. His lips compressed in a thin, hard line. Beside his hand the crystal inkpot looked like a small carafe of blood. Now he set aside the quill pen, moved the inkpot aside with the side of his little finger. When he finally looked up and met Felan’s eyes, the elf’s knees wobbled. His blood changed to ice, washing through him so that he thought the horrible cold would stop his heart.

“Remind me. Do I know you?” the Knight asked.

In his mind Felan heard a sound like footsteps so clearly he almost turned to see who’d come up behind him. He swallowed again, this time harder.

“I am Felan of the Northern Dales, my lord. I—I don’t—we have never met. I have brought a letter—a paper.”

Sweat ran on him now, soaking his shirt. In his mind, he heard the footsteps coming again. He looked over his shoulder, very carefully. No, the draconian stood at its post, a tall, reeking presence in the shadows by the door.

Felan held up the paper, in the dim light seeing the sweat stains on it. None of the ink had been smeared though. He’d taken care to preserve it in a condition to be read. When Thagol took the paper, his fingers brushed against Felan’s.

“M-my lord,” the elf gasped.

Lord Thagol read. The lines were few, the message clear. The bearer was to receive compensation according to the measure of his worth.

“What,” the Knight asked, “shall I use to measure your worth?”

Felan regretted coming. He wanted to run, to risk that bolting the room, flinging past the draconian and out the door. He held still. “I have valuable information, my lord.”

Thagol looked up. Felan thought, as others before had thought, that the man’s face was so pale it looked like a burn scar. The Knight’s eyes seemed flat, dead, and empty. Felan had to lock his knees to stay standing in place. In his head the footsteps stopped, as though a searcher had come close to what he was looking for.

“And that information is …?”

“The outlaws... the ones they call the Night People. I—I know about them.”

The Knight remained silent, staring.

“I—I have entered their trust, my lord. I know how they work. I know—” He stopped and swallowed, trying to ease his parched throat. “I know that they sweep out of the forest and do their foul work, and I know they vanish into it again, invisible. They are not invisible, my lord, and they are not such an army. The leaders, at the core, are only four.”

Lord Thagol raised a pale brow, interested now. “Four?”

“Only that, my lord. These four are the heart of the trouble in the forest. They plot, and they plan, and they are the ones who call for other men and women to fight and then send them all away again when the work is done.” He looked around nervously. “I know where they are tonight, my lord, and I know they’ll stay there for a day or two.” Emboldened, he moved closer to the table and put a finger on the place a little north of the Brightflow. “There is a glade here, surrounded by tall pines. You wouldn’t think to look for it. From any direction it looks like more forest with no clearing to see unless you stumble upon it. This is their hiding place for now. They will move again soon, either to gather a force to strike or simply to move. For now, they are there, planning. Hiding. Just the four.”

Just the four. Cut off the head, and the twisty, slippery creature preying on this once-quiet corner of Beryl’s captive kingdom would die. Lord Thagol smiled. Felan heard the hiss and sigh of the hearth fire. He glanced at the taverner who did not meet his eye.

“You know this,” Thagol said, “because you have gained their trust? How?”

“I—I worked with them. For a time. For a while.” He spoke hastily now. “Until I saw how wrong they are. Now I am here.”

Lord Thagol tapped the parchment. “With this.”