“Get back,” he snapped.

“He’s a boy. Look-he’s no threat.”

Out the corner of her eye, she saw the boy draw a gleaming knife from his belt. Whirling, she grabbed his wrist, twisted it until the knife fell ringing onto stone. She kicked it away, cursing.

Jeratt snatched up the knife, the boy snarled a curse, and Kerian jerked hard on his wrist. She saw now he was not so much a boy as she’d first thought. Still gangly with youth, dressed in warm clothes and high leather boots only a little down at the heel, he looked like a villager’s son. Half-grown, he couldn’t have had more than sixty years.

“Where you from?” Jeratt demanded.

The young elf glared without answering. In the stillness, the dog whimpered, struggling to rise. The elf turned, alarmed.

Kerian increased pressure on his wrist. “It’s not all decided yet, boy. Where are you from?”

The dog’s fate weighed heavier than his own. His eyes on Ulf, the boy said, “Down west in the valley.”

“Bailnost?”

He nodded sullenly.

“Your name?”

The boy didn’t answer, watching as the dog staggered to its feet and moved stiffly toward him. Jeratt’s arrow had scored a painful path across the dog’s shoulder, but luckily the dog was not hurt badly.

Ulf put his head under his master’s hand, and the boy said, “My name is Ander. I’m the miller’s son.” His long eyes narrowed, taking in their rough clothing, patched and mismatched. “You’d better let me go or I’ll be telling my father and all who’ll listen about the outlaws up here.”

Jeratt’s laughter rang out, harsh and unfeeling. “Boy, you ain’t going to be alive long enough.”

Ander’s face paled, his bravado flown.

“Stop,” said Kerian, to Jeratt and to Ander. She looked from one to the other. “Ander didn’t offer us any harm. We injured his dog and almost killed the boy himself. Let it go now.”

Jeratt frowned. Before he could speak, she turned to the boy. “Go on. Your dog should make it home.”

Ander eyed her narrowly, then nodded. He muttered something that sounded like thanks and turned his back on them, walking away.

“Addle-headed fool,” Jeratt growled.

Kerian shook her head. “Why, just because he-?”

Jeratt snorted. “Not him. You. That boy knows we’re from no village around here, he knows what we look like- we’re either ragged outlaws hunting dinner. Or trouble.” He looked up at the sky, the lowering clouds. “It’s worse than that. He knows what you look like, and there’s Knights around would pay him to learn where you are, Kerianseray. You know for sure he’s offhome and not off to settle a score with us and get him a handful of steel coins to boot?”

She didn’t know that. Cold wind whirled snow on the ground, and now snow began to sift down from the darkening sky. Dry in the mouth, Kerian said, “What should wedojeratt?”

“Go kill him. Throw him down the hill, make it look like an accident. Kill the dog too, make it look like whatever you like.”

She stared.

He spat. “Still a little squeamish from your last killing?”

“I-he’s a child!”

“Child could be the death of you. Of all of us if he gets to talking.” In the cold and the darkening day, he looked older.

“He won’t find us, Jeratt The Knights won’t” She looked around, at the forest and the ways down the west side of the hill. “He saw us here; we could be miles from where we normally are for all he knows. By the time he tells this story to anyone, we will be miles away.”

He looked at her long, but said only that they’d missed their chance for first cuts at a good supper tonight and that it was time they moved on. “Ain’t goin’ back empty-handed,” he muttered. Then, darkly, “Ain’t leading no Knights or nosy villagers to the fafls, either.”

They followed the silver stream through the rising f OTest to a place just below the tree line where tall boulders and embracing trees would shelter them from the wind. The stream ran swift and wide here, and Kerian took out nets from her pack and caught enough pink-sided trout to feed them well. They sat in silence while they cleaned and cooked her catch, in silence while they ate. Kerian took the first watch, keeping the fire hot and high while snow spat down fitfully. To her surprise, she slept deeply when Jeratt relieved her watch.

When she woke in the night from a chilling dream of the half-elfs steely eyes, cold as blades when he’d said he’d have killed the boy if it were his to do, Kerian found she was alone. The moon had set Between the tops of tall trees she saw night fading from the sky. Kerian waited a moment, building up the fire, to see if Jeratt had gone into the forest for good reason. She did not hear him moving around. Breath held, heart hammering in her chest, she listened. She heard an owl, the cry of a killed rabbit, and nothing more.

Jerratt had deserted his watch for some purpose she couldn’t fathom.

Kerian hung between concern and anger. Finally, anger won, burning her cheek with memory of her dream and of his determination that he’d have killed the boy to protect himself. She rose quickly, felt the knife in her hand that had killed a Knight.

Behind her, a footfall.

Kerian whirled. Firelight glinted in tiny spears of light from the honed edge of her knife, ran like ghosty blood on the polished flat.

“Nah, nah,” Jeratt said. “Put it up, Kerianseray.”

She frowned, not understanding. One long stride put him between her and the low flames and embers. Swiftly, he kicked up the dirt, covering the fire.

“What are you doing? Jeratt, you didn’t kill-?”

“That boy?” He hefted his pack and slung it across his shoulder; he kicked hers toward her. “Should have, I told you. We should have killed him. The whole damn valley is up and hunting. Moon’s down, night’s goin’-and the place is filled with torches. You tell me, what do you think is goin’ on down there?” He sneered. “You think it just might he that a whole village is tryin’ to find you and huy a little peace from the Knights?”

Kerian slung the pack over her shoulder, picked up her how and quiver, and said more evenly than she felt, “Right. It’s probably a good idea to split up. You go one way, I’ll go another. Go back to the falls when you think it’s safe, but I won’t. I’ll lead them elsewhere.”

He snorted. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

He laughed to hear that, and some of the steel had gone from his voice.

“We’ll split up-that does make good sense. We’ll meet at King’s Haunting, on the edge of the Stonelands. You know where that is?”

She’d heard of it, and she’d seen it from a distance, a staggered line of stony hills east beyond the ravines that scored the earth down the length of the border between Qualinesti and the barren land that lay between the kingdom of the elves and Thorbardin.

“Get there as best you can, and drop south but try to keep going east. I’ll see you there when the moon is dark.”

Four days.

“And the others? At the falls?”

“Fine time to worry about them now,” he growled. “Leave it to me. You just get going, and keep away from the roads.”

That much he didn’t have to tell her.

“Jeratt-”

“Get going,” he snapped. “No need to die for stupidity, Kerianseray, not yet anyway. You’ve got plenty of time for that if you make it out of this.”

Kerian left him with no word for luck and no word of apology. No matter what occurred because of her deed, she would not apologize for sparing a child’s life. With no backward glance, she faded into the dawning day, trying to remember where the road lay so she could take care to keep away from it.

Cold wind chased her through the woodland, nipping at her heels, moaning in her ears. She had nothing to eat the first day, for she dared not take time to hunt and could make no fire for cooking if lean winter hares had leaped into her hands. Along the way, she kept an eye out for what she could forage, but there wasn’t much. The finest nuts of autumn had been gathered by squirrels and the few farmers and villagers who ventured into the forest. What she found was broken shells, the nutmeats gone. She gathered pine cones and could not carry many. She took to stripping them of their small nuts, eating some and putting the rest in a small pouch. All the while, she longed for something more substantial.