She shoved at the Knight hard, her weight no proof against his. Nimble-footed, she leaped a little aside, got around him, and tangled her feet in his legs. He fell. She stamped on his neck, her boot heel crushing his larynx through gorget and mail. She jerked off his helm and threw it into the brush. With one swift stab, Kerian killed, pinning him to the earth with her sword.
Panting, sweat running on her, she stood with arms trembling from the effort, hearing the cries of her wounded and a sudden thunder.
Someone shouted, “Kerian!”
She turned, saw the sword of Chance Headsman flashing high, the blood-red nostrils of his war-horse, the Knight’s visored face, the face of death. She saw the hand gripping the sword fly out, fly off the man’s arm, fingers still clutching, the sword tumbling, and Stanach’s throwing axe landed on the ground, nearly at her feet.
They fell on the Headsman like wolves, the surviving Night People. They tore him from his horse and flung him to the ground. They held him, ripped his helm from him and one-a young woman with fierce green eyes, picked up his own sword, prying the dead hand from the grip.
The glances of warrior and Lioness met like steel sparking.
Kerian nodded.
In the dust, in the forest he had terrorized, Chance Headsman lost his head, and out near the Stonelands, Lord Thagol felt a jolt and knew he had found his prey, his enemy, at last.
Eamutt Thagol gathered all his forces, every Knight he could spare. He marched them into the forest, he marched them after the Lioness. He flanked his column with blood-lusting draconians, and these he let range out into the forest, searching for outlaw prey. They went like a bludgeon tearing down the roads, ripping through the villages, and they never got very far.
Kerian had all she needed, a canny force of warriors and farmers who knew their territory well. Sometimes they surrounded a column, hitting hard, killing mostly horses in the first wave, then retreating. “Until six breaths after they think we are gone,” she’d say, then the elves would fall upon them again, this time from the rear.
In this way, for Kerian’s well-planned strikes seeming random as lightning, the Night People wreaked havoc upon the Knights. They fought a battle of harassment, Kerian’s forces splitting when she needed them to, coalescing again, and harrying again. She came at the Knights from behind, killing the rearguard. She fell upon them on every side, savaging the flanks, and there was not a bridge for them to use between Qualinost and the Stonelands, not before or behind. The roads were blocked with felled trees.
Kerian drove her enemy deep into the thickest part of the forest, but Thagol would not turn back. He would not give up. He smelled her, he tasted her thoughts, he knew what her blood would feel like on his hands. He hated her with a passion as strong as fire. He dreamed of killing her, waking and sleeping, he had the thousand images of her thousand deaths in his mind.
He would not give up. All around him Knights died, elves died, and Sir Thagol would not give up. Fierce, furious, he drove his men, and one night he saw Kerian’s plan. He looked into her mind and read it as though it were a book. He saw not as a Skull Knight, for she had the ward of an ancient elf woman’s ancient magic on her. He saw as a general. He realized what she would do because he knew what he would do in her place. She wanted to drive him to the eastern edge of the forest, and he thought that was a good idea. A little at a time, he let his men bleed away from him in numbers she wouldn’t notice. He sent them with orders, he ranged them in careful position. He let Kerian harry him on. He didn’t make it too easy for her, but he was eager to put the Stonelands at his back. From there, he would fight her back into the forest and-by vanished Takhisis!-he would drive her into the arms of his waiting reserves.
He would return to Qualinost with the head of a Lioness to hang.
Kerian gathered her warriors, Jeratt, Feather’s Flight, all of them. They came one by one to her fire, rough and bloodied, hard-eyed and weary. They came, and the leader of each band of Night People told their weapons, each speaking the count of sword and dagger, of bows and arrows, of axes, of mail shirts and helms. Each told the names of the men and women in their bands.
Jeratt, who went last, said, “That bastard Knight has the border at his back, and he isn’t going to flee now. Once out of me forest, he’s lost. He won’t get past the border and into the kingdom again. He’ll fight and be trapped, just like you want”
She thought so, too. Across the fire, near Feather’s Flight, the dwarf Stanach stood, his eyes on her. To Mm, Kenan said, “You can go now. ThagoVs not guarding the roads to Qualinost I’ll send warriors to guide you to a safe place.”
He shook his head. “No need to.”
“If you go into battle-”
Stanach laughed, a harsh, bitter bark. He lifted his hand, his right, ruined and the fingers twisted. “Nay, no need to tell me what can happen, Mistress Lioness. I’m with you.”
She looked around at them all, the dwarven ambassador, the half-elf who was her friend and her second. She looked at her captains and her good and trusty outlaws. Their numbers had grown while, by last count, Thagol had lost a good part of his force, run off or killed.
“Remember Jeratt,” she said, “ThagoFs mine. No one else gets him, and no one else tries. Now post watch, get some sleep, and we go at him-” She grinned to match Jeratt’s own. “We go at him when the moon sets.”
She watched them go, each of her Night People back to his or her own band. She watched until they became part of the night Beside her, Stanach said he thought she would do well to sleep. She looked at him long in the firelight and shadows.
“Do you know,” she said, musing, “I used to sleep in silk and satin. I used to sleep in a high bedroom and my lover would wake me gently with kisses and whisper to ask if he could send for my breakfast.”
He is a king, she thought.
“I used to sleep above a tavern,” Stanach said, “with the clatter of the cooks in the kitchen below. Getting hard to remember that, eh?”
“A little.”
“Go,” he said. “Get some sleep. After, I will, then we fight.”
She curled up, her arms wrapped tightly around herself for warmth, the bloodstone amulet in her hand, but she didn’t sleep. This night, her plan was nearly ready to spring, and she dared not dream for fear Lord Thagol would be listening.
A storm roared out of the forest, falling upon the Knights like lightning from the night sky, thunder screaming. Blades shrieking, elf warriors howling for the deaths of their enemies overwhelmed the watch, tearing through them. The Knights leaped up from their bedrolls, naked of their armor, scrambling for weapons, and Lord Thagol’s voice roared over all, cursing. His draconians came in from the outer parts of the camp and met a wall of arrows, a hail of swords, and the forest reeked with their deaths, rang with the shrieks of elves who had fallen to their talons, their fangs, their poison.
All the forest smelled of blood and poisonous acid, all the forest echoed with the clang and clash of steel. Kerian threw all her forces at the Knights, believing them helpless. She flung herself furuiously into the fray. She strode the slaughter field and spilled the blood of her enemies. All around her, her warriors gave good accounting, no more than the good and simple folk who had come to fight beside them. The outrages of the seasons past carried them-the killings, the burnings, the savageries of Thagol’s Knights.