Eight. She thanked the boy and sent him out through the falls. She called six outlaws to her, three down from the hills, and sent them out with word to gather in all the leaders of her scattered bands. Last she turned to Stanach, and she said, “It’s time now, Stanach Hammerfell. I’m going out to kill some Knights.”
His eyes grew wide. “You’re mad. You said yourself that the next time you kill you’ll draw Thagol to you like steel to a lodestone.”
“Yes,” she said, “and I’m going to do just that. He’s going to chase me right to the place where I will kill him.”
“Ach, lass, you’re mad.”
She smiled and took up the sword she liked to wear. She sighted along the edge, decided it needed honing, and sat down to work. He watched her, and she let him. When she was finished with the sword, she took out the knife he’d given her long ago at the Hare and Hound. This, too, she honed with long singing strokes.
As she did, her eye on steel and stone, she said, “Of course there’ll always be a safe place for you here, Stanach. I’ll keep men back to ward you. When it’s over, and Thagol is dead-”
He snorted. “You’re a cocky one, aren’t you Mistress Lioness?”
She smiled, stroking the steel with the stone. “When it’s over and Thagol is dead, I will take you to Qualinost myself, and you can let my king know what you think about his chances for a treaty.”
The dwarf shook his head and merely said again, “You’re mad.”
When she finished with the stone, he took it up and sat to work on the edge of his axe’s blade. He set the axe head on his knee, the edge out, bracing with his right forearm while he worked with his left hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Going with you.”
“No. You’re not.”
“Yes.” He didn’t look up, good at her own game. “I am. Fm here on my thane’s business, Mistress Lioness, and that means I go where I think he is best served.” He looked up then, his blue-flecked black eyes hard and bright. “Will you be trying to stop me?”
She drew a slow, wry smiled. “If you’re killed, there will be two kings I’ll have to answer to.”
Stanach returned to his work. “In that case, you won’t be the one many people envy, will you?”
She said nothing more, seeing he wouldn’t be moved. He kept quiet, listening to the voices of stone and steel with the air of one who hears a long forgotten song.
They did not go quietly through the forest, the Knights and the draconians. They went as though they were lords of the place, crashing through the brush, the broad-chested horses tearing up the little road across the top of Kellian Ridge. A drover’s path, the way a farmer took his sheep or cattle to market, it wandered up through the trees, over the stony crest, and down again. They went laughing, and one bore a sack of heads dangling from his saddlebag.
Kerian smelled the blood, and she knew this one at last was Headsman Chance. So did the nine men and women concealed in ambush. Beside her, Stanach balanced his throwing axe, testing. In the shadows, his teeth shone white in a hard grin. Kerian shook her head, pointing to the two draconians. Scales the color of greening copper, the creatures marched behind. One spat. The stone his spittle hit sizzled then melted. Another, as though challenged, imitated his companion. The acrid stink of acid stung Kerian’s nostrils.
She gestured to her warriors, her fingers speaking her mind: Draconians first, then Knights.
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 hrush 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. Kenan’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, Kenan’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.