“Look! Damn Knights.”

Ander slipped closer to Kerian, his breath warm on her cheek. In his throat, his pulse jumped. Sweat glistened on his cheeks, and in that he was not so different from Kerian or Jeratt. The sun of late summer shone down hot and the canopy of the forest provided shade but did nothing to cool the air. That certainly accounted for some of the sweat. The rest… the boy was coming close to what Jeratt called “first blood,” his first battle. Today, or another day soon, Ander would do his best to kill another.

“First blood,” Jeratt had said to Ander when they began to draw together resolve and make plans. He drew upon the earth, as he liked to do, sketching maps real and imagined, laying out the strategy of the forest-fighter whose best plan is to use the wood for cover, to dart out and kill and dart back again. In this, he found that Ander had a keen mind, a quick wit for understanding and for seeing how such plans worked. Between the two, the half-elf and the boy, growing respect began to replace grudging acceptance.

Though he spoke most often of tactics, most forcefully, Jeratt also spoke to Kerian and Ander, the untried warriors, of risk. “You spill someone else’s, or he spills yours.”

Ander pointed to the road again, a thin winding branch of the broader Qualinost Road. Kerian nodded to let him know she saw what he did. The narrow road ran beside a broad stream. The jingling of bridles and bits hung in the air, two Knights riding side by side. Behind came a heavily laden cart drawn by two mules. An elf drove the cart, man or woman Kerian couldn’t tell from where she crouched. It was as, only the day before, Felan had told them it would be: two Knights and a cart full of swords, battle-axes, and daggers.

“Sometimes it’s that, got from the smithies in this part of the country, made to Thagol’s order to arm his men, here and in the city. Sometimes it’s gold or jewels taken at the border from traders, hill dwarves from down southern ways who take their pay at our border and don’t set a step into the kingdom. Other times, in season, it’s harvest, most of it going to feed the Knights in the capital.” Bitterly, he said, “We keep enough to seed the next year, barely enough to feed ourselves through winter, no more, and nothing to trade for pots and pans, plough shares, and belt buckles. We don’t trade much for wine now, not for cloth, wool, or boots.”

It was beginning to be here as it was in the eastern part of the kingdom-the elves were made to arm and feed their oppressors while they themselves plunged deeper into poverty. Felan, Bayel, and other dalemen bitterly felt this insult. It hadn’t been difficult to convince them to keep an eye out, an ear to the ground, for the purpose of letting Kerian know when a Knights’ cart or wagon would set out on the road to Acris.

“Listen,” Jeratt told her, “and learn, but keep hold of patience, Kerian.”

So Kerian watched patiently as carts and wagons wound the river road. She stopped counting how much tribute was passing and learned to count how many Knights were deployed for a cart, how many for a wagon. She saw that-cart or wagon-the ones most keenly guarded were those bearing weapons. She learned that once on the Qualinost Road, the escort met draconians that saw every load of tribute on to Acris, the crossroads town some miles distant. From there, Felan said, a stronger force of Knights with more draconians escorted small trains of carts and wagons all the way to the capital.

“Acris,” Felan told them, “is where you’ll find Lord Thagol. His Knights are quartered all over in this part of the country, in villages and taverns, but the Lord Knight stays where he is, right in his den and keeping watch over all.”

Felan and Bayel had sworn to find a dozen elves to join them, young men and women who had for more than a year now been chafing under the oppression of the foreign Knights. “We’ll scour the countryside of ‘em,” he’d said. “Drive ‘em right back to Qualinost.”

Kerian refused at once, and Jeratt wholeheartedly agreed.

“That’s your pride talkin’, “ he said. “Not a bad thing, unless it kills you. Ain’t no twelve of you going to send Thagol and his Knights anywhere but to sharpen their swords, but Kerian, me, and Ander, we have a fair bit of experience keepin’ out of trouble. You get to learnin’ that, travelin’ as we do. We got no wives or children, no farms to tend.”

Faran had paled at that, and Bayel stayed silent.

“You let us do what we plan,” Jeratt said gently, “and just keep an eye open now and then for a bit of news you might think we’d like. Later-” He shrugged. “Later, things could change and then we can talk again.”

Later they might he looking around for good men and women to add to their number.

“Look,” said Ander again. “Damn Knights. They ride through as if they own the place.”

Kenan nodded. Behind her, Jeratt slipped out of the deeper gloom. “Three of them ugly draconians ahead on the Qualinost Road,” he said. “Waitin’.”

Kerian pointed to the Knights. Jeratt grunted. ›

“Tidy little package,” he said.

Ander nodded. “Two Knights and an elf who’ll flee or join in our side.”

“Can’t count on him not siding with the Knights.”

The Knights came closer. Now Kerian heard the deep thud of hoofs on the road, human voices speaking roughly in Common. The cartwheels creaked, the mule snorted and pulled a little at the reins when the wheels hit a rut. The cart’s burden sang, steel chiming faintly against steel.

“A cowardly elf and two Knights,” Ander said stubbornly. “We could take them.” Ander glanced from one to the other, in his eyes an eager light.

“Now easy, boy,” Jeratt said. He glanced past Ander to Kerian. “Listen.”

“For what?”

Jeratt pulled a predator’s grin. “For me to tell you when to go.”

Sunlight and shadow swam on the road. The willows hung so close to the ground their boughs brushed the earth. Horses snorted, a Knight cursed and looked back over his shoulder at the elf and the cart. The driver slapped the reins hard against the mule’s rump, but the cart didn’t move. The mule spread its forelegs and lowered its head.

Ah, Kerian thought, now slap those reins one more time….

Which the elf obligingly did.

The mule brayed, and the crash of hoofs against the front of the cart boomed through the forest. The Knights swore in unison as the elf slapped the reins again.

The mule kicked a second time, then a third. The cart wobbled, and the front of it broke away. The driver jumped free, as the cart crashed onto its side, spilling shining weapons all over the road.

“Now,” said Jeratt, nudging Ander.

The boy leaped up, Jeratt beside him. Two arrows flew, and a heart’s beat later, a third. Someone screamed high; a Knight tumbled from his horse, the horse itself bellowing in pain. Kerian’s arrow had pierced its neck. Jeratt let fly a second arrow, taking down the second Knight. Behind him Kerian shot another. The Knight on the road was trying to stand, two arrows in his thigh. Ander, breaking the plan, let go his own second shaft. It struck nothing, not even the horse writhing and squealing in agony.

Jeratt grabbed him hard, shaking him. “No! Do what I told you!” He shoved him toward the slope. He turned to glare at Kerian, shouting “Go!”

She ran, scrambling down the hill to the road, slipping on old leaves and grass, righting herself every time. Heart slamming hard against her ribs, she bolted for the screaming horse. In one swift motion, she slit its throat. Blood spurted from the severed artery, rising like a crimson fountain, splashing Kerian’s hands, her face. Beside the beast lay its master, the Knight with two arrows in his thigh. Kerian saw his eyes wide and white in the shadows across the road. Helpless, he lifted a hand to the blood-soaked elf woman standing over him, to plead for mercy or to ward off a killing stroke.