That meant Stanach held back, for he’d lose that weapon if it killed a draconian. The creature would turn to steel-eating acid as it died. He lifted his lip in an impatient snarl. Kerian glared. He stilled.
One Knight went by, then another. The third passed, and nothing moved in the brush on either side of the path. If she had not placed them there herself, Kerian wouldn’t have known her outlaws waited.
A crow called, high. The fourth Knight rode by, and then Chance Headsman with his sack banging on the shoulder of his tall steed. Kerian’s hands itched, her fingers curled around the grip of her sword. Stanach poked her ribs. She smiled wryly and settled.
The first draconian came, a little ahead of the second. Kerian counted three beats and then heard the high whistle of one, two, then three arrows. The first caught the lagging draconian in the eye, right through. The second missed both, and the third fell useless into a hissing pool of acid just as Sir Chance turned.
Kerian shouted, “Go!” and the forest erupted in battle cries, in flashing steel, in wasping arrows. Half her warriors attacked the horses, and the beasts screamed, dying. Knights cursed, falling. The other half went after the last two draconians. Among those, Kerian fought. They fell upon the beast-men with stone from above, heaving crushing boulders from the hilltop, the stone breaking bone. One creature died howling, while the other leaped aside from the path of a stone half its size. Leathery wings rustled, Stanach shouted, and Kerian saw the draconian’s leap turn into a swift glide.
Two arrows flew. One took the creature in the throat, its flight staggered now. Another arrow sped to the draconian’s eye. Screaming, it fell.
Kerian shouted warning to the elves below. Two scrambled, one fell. Stanach leaped to pull the elf up—and Kerian caught him by the back of his shirt as the draconian fell, dead upon the unlucky elf.
Hideous screams rent the forest air as the elf died, his flesh melting from him, his bones rendered to slag.
Kerian cried, “Kill them!” but all around her that work was being done as her warriors gutted the war-horses, toppled the riders, getting the armored Knights down and helpless. Two fell into the road, one fell under his horse. The third slashed about him with singing steel. Another elf died, screaming. Hacking, slashing at the downed Knights, Kerian’s warriors killed three. One remained on horseback, one on foot. Kerian leaped for the unhorsed man, sword high, her steel clashing against his, sparks flying. She fought snarling, she fought cursing, and it had been a long time since she’d killed, but now she longed for blood.
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 the 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 him, Kerian said, “You can go now. Thagol’s 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, “Thagol’s 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.”