Keri can’t catch me!

The old taunt drifted up from memory and present need.

A swathe had been cut through the forest wide enough for a patrol of six Knights on broad battle chargers to ride abreast Jagged stumps of killed trees lined the roadside, beyond lay the ruin of trees that the workmen had not had the decency to dry for firewood but left to rot Tangles of trunks and branches loomed like a barrier between road and forest.

Kerian had a walk of several hours ahead if she wanted to reach the Hare and Hound before nightfall-and she did want that. She wanted to be well off this road with its dead trees like skeletons before dark.

High above, leaves whispered and, higher, crows called; from the middle terrace, softer notes of dove-song drifted down. Shadows gathered here in the wood. Kerian shifted the broad leather strap and the weight of the leather wallet on her shoulder. The will to run like her brother gathered in heart, legs, and lungs.

Under her feet a storm of thunder gathered. The wounded earth groaned beneath the weight of steel shod war-horses.

Knights!

Kerian looked ahead and behind. Quickly, not choosing her direction, she bolted. She ran off the road, scrambling in the stony earth, slipping and sliding down the pitched edge. A rock turned under her foot, her ankle collapsed beneath her. Kerian tumbled to her knees and rolled. She didn’t stop until she fetched up against the barrier of white birches. Hands scraped to bleeding, she pushed up to her feet. Her ankle throbbed, but it took her weight or would for a while. Braced against a white birch, bark peeling under her hand, Kerian stood still, trying to decide how to dare the barrier of broken trees.

On the road, the thunder of horses grew louder. A rough voice shouted something-one vile word in Common. Heart slamming in her chest, Kerian looked around wildly before plunging into the deadfall. Branches tore at her face, at her hair, ripped her shirt as she shouldered through the tangle. Her ankle gave way, she fell, and scrambled up again. On the road, the sound of riding grew, harsh voices shouted to each other. Damning her ankle, her bleeding face, Kerian shoved her way into the thicket of dead trees.

Almost through, the strap of her wallet snagged on the last branch. She pulled, she tried to twist away. On the road the Knights grew closer. Cursing in the language of her childhood, a word her parents had never taught, she yanked her little knife out of the belt sheath and severed the wallet by the strap. She reached for it as it fell-

“Ho!” cried a voice from the road. “Chance, what’s that! Supper, eh?”

Supper: a deer in the thicket, a wild turkey, a covey of quails?

Kerian left the wallet, and heedless of the noise she made now, ran. Tripping, falling, and climbing up again, she put as much distance between herself and the road as she could. Headlong, she splashed through a shallow stream, soaking her boots. She slipped on stones, on patches of fallen leaves.

The last time she fell, she did not rise.

All around her, the forest seemed to waver. Her mouth ran dry; she tried to swallow and failed. The air seemed to press against her ears, against her temples. As from a great distance, she heard the Knights, their voices raised in sharp cries, yet she couldn’t make out their words.

Kerian stood, unsure of her senses. She saw, but not clearly. Blood traced a thin red path down her forehead, her temple, her cheek. She hardly felt that. Most disconcerting, now Kerian heard nothing at all, not the Knights’ faint voices, not even leaves rustling though she dimly saw them sway in the wind.

So it was, bereft of senses, Kerian had no warning before a hard hand grabbed her arm and jerked her down and back.

Flung off her feet, Kerian hit the ground hard. She felt no pain but found herself gasping for breath. A hard hand clamped over her mouth.

Kerian looked up from the ground and right into the eyes of a dwarf. She had a swift impression of dark hair, a thick beard, and the kind of pale face they have who live under the mountains in Thofbardin. Sweat ran on his face, sliding into his black beard. He breathed hard. He had been running, too.

His eyes flashed, strange dark eyes with glinting blue flecks. He pressed harder, but with his free hand he gestured, away past the distant barrier of broken trees. He didn’t jerk a thumb or point a finger; all the fingers of his free hand were oddly twisted, withered and useless, and so it looked like he was shaking his fist at the distant road.

Kerian tried to sit, but the dwarf shifted his grip and pressed her back, his elbow and all his weight behind it keeping her shoulders flat to the stony earth. She became aware, though dimly, of the sharpness of his elbow, the bite of a rough-edged rock between her shoulder blades.

The dwarf said something. Kerian knew he did because she saw his lips move. She frowned; he jerked his chin. Kerian looked to the road again.

A troop of mounted Knights had stopped there, silent as ghosts in nightmare! Through branches and leaves, Kerian saw their black armor. One, the leader, threw back his visor and she recognized the stocky Knight named Sir Chance, he who had decorated the eastern bridge of Quali-nost with ghoulish trophies of murder. Her heart jumped as one of the Knights pointed into the forest The leader shook his head. He spurred his mount, and the others followed silent as phantasms, up the road and gone.

Kerian’s eyes met the dwarfs. He sat back, letting her sit up. She rubbed the place between neck and shoulder where he’d pinned her. She’d just learned a thing about dwarves few realized-not so tall as elves or humans, still they were weightier than they seemed. As Kerian drew breath to speak, the dwarf shook his head. He pressed a finger to his lips. Then he touched his ear.

Listen!

Kerian did, and she realized that her ability to hear was becoming restored to her. She turned to the dwarf. With great relief, she said, “I can hear.”

The dwarf seemed unimpressed. His voice pitched low, he said, “You can, and maybe yon Knights can’t? Might be you’re seeing better now, and they’re not?” He snorted. “D’ye think, missy, you might want to be quiet a while yet, and a little bit still?”

I am not fond of this dwarf, Kerian thought.

Yet she had to admit he was right: The Knights were on the road, and they were not far away. She heard their voices now, some still pressing the point that they should have chased whatever had bolted into the forest. So close, they would hear her if she spoke too loudly, but they could not see her. There was too much of woodland between them. Stiffly, Kerian got to her feet She dusted herself off, picked dirt and brittle leaves out of her hair as best she could.

“Who are you?” she said. She didn’t whisper. As he had, she simply pitched her voice low. Suspicion narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing in the king’s forest?”

The dwarf cocked his head. “The better question is, what’s happened to your king’s forest?”

A chill skittered up Kerian’s spine. She had thought of the phenomenon that had confused her senses as a thing that had happened to her, to the dwarf. She hadn’t thought of it as something that had happened to the forest itself, but again, the dwarf was right.

“Didn’t think of it like that, did you?” The dwarf scowled.

Kerian said stiffly. “You haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?”

The dwarf shrugged. “I could ask the same thing. They’re all kicking up their heels at the autumn party in the city. Not you?” His lips twitched a little in his beard. Not to smile, certainly not. “You don’t look like a hunting girl, and those pretty white hands never planted a field or beat chaff from the grain.”