Steel and Stone

Chapter 1

The scream shredded the night like a broad-axe cleaves the head of an ogre.

Wayfarers in the woods learned to awaken in a hurry, or they didn't awaken at all. In an eyeblink, Tanis Half-Elven leaped into awareness and, with a smoothness born of many nights spent in lonely camps, pulled his longsword from his pallet. He swept sand over the campfire embers with one kick of a bare foot and froze, sword extended diagonally before him. Tanis pivoted slowly and waited, his elven night-vision probing deep into the surrounding underbrush.

Nothing. The breeze barely disturbed the spring leaves of the maple saplings that crowded around him. The wind wafted the scent of mud and decayed plants from the White-rage River to the north but carried no sound beyond the stream's gurgle and the creaking of the ageless oaks overhead. Both moons, silver Solinari and scarlet Lunitari, were waning, and the clearing's darkness would have been nearly impenetrable to anyone but a night-seeing elf.

Then, twanging against Tanis's nerves like fingers on a mistuned lyre, the scream came again. From the north, he realized.

The half-elf caught up bow and quiver and raced through the night, the fringe of his leather shirt snapping with his speed. The night creatures of the inland forest-skunks, opossums, and raccoons-flattened against the ground as the half-elf pounded past. His steps were lighter than those of his human kin, but far heavier than those of the elven brethren he'd left behind weeks earlier in Qualinost.

Tanis paused at a cleft in the path, waiting for a clue to send him down either left or right. The left wandered generally north and west, ending several days' journey away in Haven. The right path eventually ended at the White-rage gorge, pointing, across the river, toward Darken Wood. Rumors were rife of creatures, both alive and not quite alive, that made the forbidding wood their home. There was little in the way of firsthand knowledge about Darken Wood; people who ventured in rarely came out.

At that moment, another scream sent the half-elf sprinting along the left fork. Tanis dashed into a clearing in the oaks and maples in time to see a human, with a shout of satisfaction, plunge a longsword into a hairy behemoth. The victim, wearing blood-red armor, fell with a scream. The creature's weapon, a type of spiked cudgel called a morning star, rolled into the undergrowth.

"Hobgoblins!" the half-elf breathed. He slid to a halt in the decaying litter of the clearing.

Three monsters lay motionless. Three other snarling creatures, a head taller than Tanis, loomed over the slender human. They jabbed spears, twitched whips, and swung morning stars. All boasted the bluish noses of the hobgoblin warriors. One beast leaped forward, the watery moonlight of waning Solinari painting its red-orange skin with a silvery patina.

The hobgoblin waved a cudgel over the human's helmed head. The human deftly sidestepped, and the hobgoblin's eyes glowed yellow under its headpiece. The air reeked of blood, flattened plants, mud, and unwashed hobgoblin. The creatures stank of carrion and a hundred battles. The human, a lithe figure, decapitated the attacking hobgoblin with a slash and an oath, but the creature's fist struck the human a glancing blow as the monster fell, snapping the strap that held the helmet. The helm fell back, revealing a pallid face topped with curly dark hair.

"A woman?" Tanis demanded loudly. The new sound attracted the two remaining hobgoblins, who swung around to look toward Tanis.

The woman cast the half-elf a furious look and switched her sword from her right hand to her left. She straightened the helm on her head, mindless of the broken strap, and flicked the tip of her weapon, slicing an arc across the brawny arm of a monster. "Don't get cocky," she snapped in Common at the hobgoblin. "I could finish you at any time."

The creature grunted and retreated, but its companion continued to peer at the new intruder in the shadows. It abandoned its fight with the human, thundering toward the half-elf. "Turash koblani! Kill!"

Tanis dropped into a fighting stance as the hobgoblin, dogged by its partner, raced across the clearing. The woman stormed a few paces behind.

"Turash koblani!" The hobgoblin raised a sword streaked with what Tanis guessed was blood-and probably human blood; a dark streak smeared one bare leg of the woman, who had leaped onto a stump with another cry. The movement brought her eye level with the monsters.

Tanis swung up his bow and swept an arrow from his quiver with the smooth motion that was second nature to Qualinesti elves.

The human raised her sword and aimed a deadly stroke at one hobgoblin. "Prepare to die, son of a gully dwarf!" she called mockingly, but the hobgoblins, who hated everything elven, remained focused on the half-elf. With their swords, the hobgoblins swatted halfheartedly at the woman. They moved to keep this annoying, deadly female human in their side vision while concentrating on the half-elf.

"Run, girl!" Tanis shouted. "Save yourself!"

She cast him a withering look, one dark brow cocked above a sardonic eye. Then she laughed and slashed the hamstrings of one hobgoblin as Tanis sent an arrow into the breast of the other. The two monsters fell bellowing, and Tanis dropped his bow and finished off the hamstrung hobgoblin with a thrust of his sword. Then he turned to the woman.

Tanis was prepared for any reaction but the one he got. The woman unleashed a string of epithets that would have shriveled the soul of a Caergoth dock-worker. Hatred blazed from her eyes. Tanis had never heard such invective-not, at least, from the mouth of a woman. He froze, hazel eyes wide, and she slammed him with the flat of her sword, sending him

tumbling to the damp earth. His longsword flew out of reach with the unexpectedness of her assault. The half-elf lay immobile atop his quiver, broken arrows strewn around him, as she stood straddling him, laying to the right and left with her sword, chopping plants and snapping sticks with angry motions. Of average height for a human woman, she looked seven feet tall from this angle. And as strong as a minotaur.

While he was but half elf, Tanis was still Qualinesti enough to avoid mortal combat with a woman-even one whose swordplay would put the average man to shame. Although the Qualinesti women were trained in the use of bow and sword, the practice was more ceremonial than practical, and no Qualinesti male really expected to cross weapons with a female of the race. Looking up at the battle-hardened body of his human tormentor, however, Tanis felt his palms grow slick with apprehension. A trickle of perspiration trailed back from his brow and dripped through his rust-red hair. The smell of rotting leaves was thick.

"Idiot! Interferer!" she fumed, decapitating a currant bush. Leaf fragments rained on Tanis. "I had the situation well under control, half-elf!"

"But…" Tanis's right hand cast through the slippery leaves and closed on an arrow; any weapon at all would help if this crazed woman lost her tenuous grip on her temper.

Her blade, dripping hobgoblin blood, swept to the right of Tanis's head and whacked off a trista blossom; the blade found its way unerringly to the bare inch of stem below the ground-hugging white blossom. Tanis marveled at her control.

"How dare you spoil my fun?" she spat out.

Tanis tried again. "Fun? It was six against…"

The sword blade halted above him, and the half-elf

had the notion that the woman was moments away from plunging the weapon into his ribs. He bit off his protest and tensed, ready to fling himself aside if an attack came.

Tanis probed the darkness for anything he could use to vanquish her. His elvensight, sensitive to heat released from objects, showed little but a half-dozen rapidly cooling hobgoblin corpses, two of which were only a few feet away.

"Eight," the woman corrected at last. "It was eight hobgoblins to one. Near-even odds for me. You missed the two by the river." She paused. "Although I'm sure you heard them." A crooked smile creased her face for the first time, and Tanis felt the deadly moment pass.

"Eight hobgoblins," he echoed, swallowing.

"I'm no amateur, half-elf. I've been a mercenary for over half a decade," she said.

How many enemies, Tanis wondered, had heard those silken tones as their life's blood drained away?

But the voice continued, warming again as to an old injury. "And when the day comes," she ranted, "that I can't trounce eight hobgoblins without help from a half-dressed half-man, half-elf, I'll gladly retire!"

She raised her sword in a mock salute to Tanis, wiped the bloody blade on a leg of his fringed breeches, then slid the weapon into a battle-scarred scabbard. Insolently she let her gaze flicker over the supine half-elf. His pointed ears, his most obvious elven heritage, showed through his shoulder-length hair. Her dark eyes also took in the broad shoulders and muscled chest that broadcast his human blood, and her smile grew wider. Tanis felt a flame ripple through him; then he shivered as the dampness of the ground permeated the back of his shirt.

Above him, the woman thrust out a hand. "Kitiara Uth Matar," she proclaimed. "Originally of Solace, most recently of wider horizons. Including the employ of numerous lords who are my business only." She raised a mocking eyebrow and stood back, arm stretched toward him. "Come on, half-elf. Get up!" She gestured impatiently. "Afraid of a woman?" Her smile curved lopsidedly again.

After some hesitation, Tanis met her handclasp, but she dipped forward at the last instant, clenching his forearm with a strong right hand. He, in turn, ended up grasping her arm at the elbow. Then the woman stepped back and began to haul upward, raising the half-elf despite his greater weight. "My name is Tanthalas," he said, letting himself be drawn to a half-seated position. "Also most recently of Solace."

"Tanthalas," she repeated. "A Qualinesti name."

"I was raised there. Most humans call me Tanis."

"Tanis, then."

He returned her smile in what he hoped was a disingenuous manner. Suddenly he tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her toward him. Kitiara's eyes widened in surprise. She began falling forward, and Tanis braced for the impact of her body on his. He would flip her; she deserved it-he'd tip her over and sit on her like a big brother until she cried uncle. He relished the thought.

But Kitiara, after her initial surprise, caught herself. Obviously guessing her opponent's intent, she used her momentum against him. Her right arm still caught in Tanis's grasp, she dove over him into the beginnings of a somersault.

Tanis refused to loosen his grip on Kitiara's arm. Her somersault halted in midflip, and she landed, with an exhalation of breath, on her back.

Tanis released his hold, then rolled onto his left side and leaped to his feet. He scrambled toward the woman and lunged, his body slamming down perpendicular over hers. But she foresaw his movement and balled up a fist before her, bracing her elbow against the earth. She waited, her gaze calm.

Tanis twisted aside and took the fist high, in the gut. He lay on the ground, frozen, struggling to regain his breath as Kitiara shoved him off her, rolled gracefully to her hip, and rose to her feet. Irritably she removed her helm and examined the broken strap. She brushed fragments of slimy leaves off her legs and arms.

She raised a hand in farewell, her expression mocking. "Don't think me ungrateful, Tanthalas. Maybe the next damsel you rush to save will actually need your help."

She watched him a moment, pivoted, and stalked away. The word "weakling" drifted back to him, with a bark of laughter. As soon as her back was turned, however, the half-elf ceased his feigned collapse and rose to his feet, using techniques of stealth perfected through years of living with the forest-wise Qualinesti. He moved carefully through the damp leaves, nearly soundlessly-to a human's ears, at least. Then he dove toward Kitiara, crashing into her shoulder, clasping his arms around her waist, and entwining his leg with hers. He yanked to one side.

One moment he was locked around Kitiara, breathing her odor of sweat and a deeper, musky scent. The next second, Tanis was sailing through the air over her head, flipping like a cat struggling to land on its feet. He hit the ground with a grunt, ripping his leather shirt down the front. Kitiara glanced at his bare chest and nodded appreciatively even as she dropped into a half-crouch. Tanis matched her stance. They circled in the dark, two shadows facing each other, each waiting for an opening. Neither drew a sword.

"Tanis, you begin to annoy me," Kitiara said. Her words were laconic, but her lithe body was tense.

What a magnificent woman, Tanis found himself thinking, but his mind tallied the corpses of hobgoblins. Even as he admired Kitiara, he wondered if anyone could tame her.

"Are you so weak that you descend to attacking someone from the back?" Kitiara taunted. "Wouldn't a brave man have met me face-to-face?" She darted toward him, and the half-elf leaped backward. They resumed their slow circling. Tanis could hear her consciously slowing her breath, seeking equilibrium, finding balance. His nightvision gave him an edge in the dimness, but she didn't appear bothered by the dark. Kitiara's eyes were luminous. Tanis couldn't take his gaze from her oval face. He traded her taunt for taunt. Half-elf and woman continued to circle. Kitiara's foot twisted on a stick, but she caught herself. Her words betrayed no trace of weariness. "I must tell you, Tanis, that I am very used to getting what-or whom-I want." Her gaze was direct.

At that moment, Kitiara stepped directly in front of one of the hobgoblin corpses. Tanis feinted, and Kitiara attempted to counter, but she stumbled against the hobgoblin's outstretched arm and, this time, recovered too slowly. With a lightning move, Tanis tripped her with his heel and let himself fall on top of her.

Her body took the brunt of the impact. Kitiara winced as she struck the packed earth of the clearing, but she didn't cry out. She reached for her sword, but Tanis wrenched her hands away, pinning her wrists to the ground at shoulder level, her elbows bent. He intertwined his legs with hers, immobilizing the proud woman who hurled curses into his face.

Then Tanis stopped, staring at Kitiara. Suddenly he became aware of the curves and hollows of the body beneath his. As she glared up at him, her look of fury gradually changed to amusement.

"Well?" she said, and raised an eyebrow.

"Well," he replied. He pulled himself back a bit.

Her crooked smile snared him. "Here we are."

Tanis breathed musk deep into his lungs. Kitiara raised both brows mockingly and stared pointedly at the muscles gaping through Tanis's torn shirt. Her look dared him. Tanis muttered an old elven oath; Kitiara's smile grew wider. He held himself motionless. No good could come from a union between human and elf, he knew only too well.

Tanis suddenly wished he'd checked this Kitiara Uth Matar for a hidden dagger. But there was no going back now.

Later that night, as Tanis slept on Kitiara's pallet in her camp, the swordswoman eased away from the half-elf and reached for her pack, between pallet and fire. Checking once more to make sure the half-elf was sleeping, Kitiara slipped a hand into the pack, shoving aside spare clothing and provisions as she groped for the catch of the pack's false bottom. Barely breathing, she eased the piece of stiff canvas to one side and peered into the pack. Violet light streamed into the clearing. She let her fingers dance over the source of the glow. "… eight, nine," she murmured. "All there." She sighed and smiled, as with sweet contentment, but her eyes glittered.