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.
They had their cause; they had their fierce Lioness. She had her king’s need. All this carried them, surging into slaughter, made them redden the earth with blood, made them forget they ever knew the word mercy as the din of battle filled their ears. The sound was so loud it pressed the air from their lungs, and their eyes saw such sights as another day would make their stomachs turn.
Through it all, Kerian ran fighting and searching for Thagol, for the Knight who had unleashed the butchery of the past year. She ran killing, and even before she saw him, sword high and about to plunge it into the breast of an elf, she knew she had him. He withdrew, blood dripping, and she ran at him, roaring. He laughed over the corpse and pointed, somewhere behind her, somewhere over her shoulder. Laughing still, he reached for her.
She ducked, sword staggered, her swing broken. She turned and saw what made the Skull Knight laugh.
From out of the forest, like lightning, like thunder, a band of horsemen, all armored in black, all howling for death. Her warriors fell before them, trampled beneath iron-shod hoofs, slashed, beheaded, speared upon lances and flung aside.
His face like a burn-scar, terrible eyes dark as death, Thagol lunged for her, his sword high. He screamed in her head, and it was the sound he imagined she would make, dying one of the thousand deaths he finally chose for her. Kerian turned and tried to defend. She lifted her own sword and knew the gesture for no more than that. His sword hung, right at the arc of his swing and came down-
– hard upon the skull of a young elf leaping between the Lioness and Dark Knight. She saw the boy’s face- Ander! Blood spurted, white shards of skull tumbling through the air, and in the ruin of his face Kerian she saw the terrible surprise in his eyes as he fell. On the face of the Skull Knight there was fury as he lunged again. Kerian dropped back, hoping his thrust would overbalance him. It did not, and she moved swiftly, brought up her own blade, met his and held. Thagol, the heavier, pressed. Kerian, the lighter, let him. He thrust again, she moved as though to counter, then ducked hard aside. He lost his footing on the blood-slick earth. In the instant that bought her, she turned and screamed, Retreat! Retreat! With all the air in her lungs, every second the boy’s life bought her, she shouted her warriors off the field.