Gilthas closed his book, his heart loud in his ears. The breath of the fire in the hearth was a roaring. The red glow of the tame flames made Planchet’s face shine whiter.
“Nayla Firethorn and Haugh Daggerhart. Dead in the ashes of a burnt tavern. The burning, it was the work of Sir Eamutt’s men. The killing of your mother’s folk …” Planchet’s eyes glittered. “My lord king, that was the work of others. Kagonesti, they say.”
“Kerian-”
“The burning was of the Hare and Hound in Sliath-nost, and many houses in Sliathnost were also burnt. In payment for a Knight’s life, they say. Two other taverns have been burnt, one at Ealanost, another ten miles south at the waycross where the north-south road from Ealanost meets the road to Qualinost. In all cases, it is said by survivors that Knights have come to demand that Kerian be hunted and captured and brought to Qualinost for-” he stopped, then swallowed hard- “for beheading, my lord king.”
Planchet, faithful servant, winced to see his king take each word in, winced to see his poet king’s eyes fill with dread.
“Find her,” said the king, his voice grating, hoarse and thin. “Send more men to find her.”
Gilthas turned his back on the library, on his servant then leaving to do his king’s bidding. He opened the glass-paned doors to the balcony and stepped into the night.
Upon the bridges of the elven capital, the silvery spans that had stood to ward a fabled kingdom for centuries, the king saw that no guard walked. Beneath the starred sky, the moon just rising, no black armored Knight marched. The towers stood dark, no light of brazier gleaming from slitted windows, yet in the misty moonlight, he imagined he saw subtle motion, drifting images of ancient Forest Keepers. He imagined-it seemed so clear to him!-that he heard the tread of their booted feet, the rattle of their armor.
Gilthas shook himself, banishing the fantasy.
Behind him, Gilthas was aware of Planchet returning to the library, the chime of a crystal carafe against a crystal goblet. The king did not turn but remained looking out to the bridges. The severed heads of elves perched upon the eastern bridge. His belly turned as he smelled the stench of rotting flesh brought to him on an unkind breeze. He wondered where Thagol’s Knights were, the ever-present patrols used to marching above the captured city.
Across the city, a tall dark figure walked out from the unlighted eastern tower, illumined by starlight and the new-risen moon. The elf king’s eyes narrowed. The figure stood at the inner parapet, leaning upon the wall with a hand on either side of a severed head. He didn’t seem to notice them or care that he breathed the stench of decay. The night breeze caught the figure’s cloak and tugged it back from his shoulders, flaring like wings. In the starlight, the man’s face shone white as a scar.
The king’s face flushed with anger, his pulse thundered hard, high in his throat. He formed the Knight’s name in thought-Eamutt Thagol!-and the man turned, as though he heard himself called.
Gilthas blinked. Behind his eyes, fire flashed, torches and flames, and smoke roiled up to the sky, blotting out stars. In his ears were the voices of elves screaming, men and women. He heard a child shriek, and the shriek suddenly cut off, as though by a knife.
Anger became mounting fear as Gil saw the evil in the eyes of Sir Eamutt Thagol. For a moment, his stomach lurched. The elf king drew a settling breath then heard the thunder of a draconian march. The air filled with the clank of steel and mail, the hissing laughter like poison on the air. The puppet king and the Skull Knight stood eye to eye across the distance, and when they broke, it was the elf king who broke first. Head high, Gilthas nodded, once, curtly as to dismiss. He turned and went into his library. In his ears still rang the sound of draconian feet. He thought of Kerian, his heart heavy with fear for her.
He called, “Planchet, I have changed my mind. Recall what men you sent after Kerian.”
Planchet reappeared, his eyes widening a little in surprise. “My lord king?”
“Recall them. We will not pursue her; we will not seek her.” He looked back into the night at the Skull Knight in his wind-caught cloak. “We will not lead Thagol to her.”
We will leave her to her fate, thought the king. Bitterly, he thought, we must leave her and hope some god finds her.
Time passed, and in this season, more quickly than in others, for autumn is short-lived. At the end of Kerian’s second week among the outlaws, she smelled cruel frost on the morning air. In the morning, watching hunters come down the slopes with braces of hares and fat quails, Kerian poked the central fire awake, scooting close for warmth as she slipped her knife from its sheath. She was not permitted to go out with the hunters, not even to set or check traps. She was, however, expected to clean and prepare their catch.
“Workin’ fer your supper,” Jeratt said, twisting a smile. She had grown used to his companionable jibes.
One after another, trappers and hunters dropped their catch beside her. This cold morning, Kerian scented snow in the winds crossing the Stonelands to the east. That morning and all the day she sensed change. Later, sunlight fading before purple shadows, the outcasts, all the folk who sheltered in the rocky fastness behind Lightning Falls gathered round the old woman they named Elder.
One other came to the council circle with them, and sight of her filled Kerian with astonishment. She was Bueren Rose, white as a winter moon. In her eyes shone a light like funeral fires ablaze. Kerian drew breath to call her name, moved to take a step toward her old friend, to ask how she had come to be there. Jeratt’s hard hand held her.
“No,” he said. “Be still, Kerianseray. Let her be.”
The sky above grew deeply blue and a thin crescent moon, ghostly yet, rose early over the trees. Bueren didn’t look around or try to see the people she stood among. She did not seem to care about more than whatever consumed her.
Kerian kept to the outside of the circle. If Bueren saw her, all the better, for she imagined the taverner’s daughter would like to see a friendly face in this strange place. Elder lifted her hand.
Iydahar left his wife’s side and parted the circle. He did not stand before the old woman. Rather, he kept his back to her. Head high, he looked into a middle distance, some place no one else could see.
“Hear!” Iydahar’s voice started Kerian. Strong and deep, the one word was weighty as stone. Those gathered grew even more still, and it seemed to Kerian that no one breathed. “Hear, for a thing has been said, and a thing has been done, and all must know.”
Kerian stood still. Around her the outlaws did the same, attentive.
“It is commanded!”
In the sky, a red tailed hawk sailed, its shadow rounding on the stone.
In a voice his own and not, Iydahar said, “By order of the invader, my lord Sir Eamutt Thagol, he of Neraka and lately of the Monastery Bone, for crimes of murder and insurrection, the woman Kerianseray, a Kagonesti servant late of the household of Senator Rashas of Qualmost, is declared outside the law.”
Those in the circle murmured, their voices like small echoes of the thundering falls beyond their shelter.
“By the invader’s order,” Iydahar intoned, “with Senator Rashas’s agreement, such decree renders her a person deprived of any consideration under the laws of her king. Neither will she receive the grace or benefit of the laws of green Beryl, the dragon who rules here.”
Someone snorted, commentary on the benefit of the laws of green Beryl.
“All who see this woman are commanded to refuse her succor, refusing her aid of food or weapon or shelter. All who see her are ordered to capture her by any means necessary, and to bring her alive to Lord Thagol in Qualinost. There she will be beheaded, this sentence to be executed in the sight of the citizenry of city.