The Lioness

Chapter Eleven

“Practice with borrowed bow and targets drawn on trees,” Jeratt ordered her, “but you’re not gonna step a foot out to hunt until y’ve made your own bow, strung it with your own string, and fletched your own arrows. Till then, y’sit and clean the catch.”

So over the weeks of winter Kerian practiced, savaging the trunks of trees with skill that grew from both practice and the return of memories of her Kagonesti childhood. Those memories, it seemed, resided in muscle and bone, in the sure understanding how to draw a bow, how to sight a target. She remembered how to account for even the slightest breeze when preparing to loose her arrow, how to sight only a little bit higher than one would imagine must be correct. With delight, she knew again the swift satisfaction of seeing her arrows hit where she sent them, and if this required yet another set of muscles to become used to long-forgotten work, she stretched these sore muscles with the contentment of one who has earned the right to grin and groan.

All the while, she strove to make her own bow, a thing she’d at first thought impossible without the tools available to even the poorest bowyer in Qualinost. With Jeratt’s guidance, she’d found a fine yew tree, assured herself of the goodness of the wood by testing both its strength and its ability to yield. Under Jeratt’s direction, with borrowed tools crudely made but well kept, Kerian freed the heart of the wood, the strong dark center.

“No one around here uses anything else but yew-heart for bow-wood,” he’d said. Then he’d laughed, as though over a fine joke. “Unless we can get a bow for free.” Stolen bows, reclaimed arrows, a sword taken from the hand of one it had failed to defend—these were free weapons not always the most trusted. “We like the yews from our own hands better.”

Kerian had accepted that for the sake of learning but wondered why a bow crafted in the forest would be better than one made by an elf who had learned his craft from his father. Jeratt had only told her that in time she’d know the difference.

Kerian planed the wood until it became a stave, one long enough for her reach. She bound a stop onto the stave in the middle, a piece of wood no thicker than her finger, only enough for an arrow to rest before flight. This she placed just a bit higher than the exact center of the belly of the bow. In the making of the bow, she learned the names of all the parts.

“Know your weapon,” the half-elf told her, “the way you know a lover. You’ll be counting on it like a lover.”

In the making, Kerian learned to twine gut and make a strong bowstring. No one had to tell her how to keep her bow polished and clean and dry. Memory of things like this came back to her with dawning delight. Over the weeks of winter, she studied the craft of arrow making until she began to know it for an art—the making of the slender shaft, the crafting of the deadly point. She learned to survey closely the small bodies of the fowl she had to clean and to salvage especially the feathers of geese for fletching her arrows.

A drop of blood sprang from her finger, splashing onto the white snow. With all she had learned, and that had been much, Kerian had not managed to learn the art of fletching.

“It’s because you’re slitting the arrow too wide,” Jeratt told her scornfully, around a mouthful of breakfast. “Y’got no patience here, Kerian. Here’s where you need it” Swiftly he reached across the fire and snatched the failed arrow from her hand. He tossed it into the fire and handed her another naked shaft. “The arrow’s always going to bite your finger when you try to fletch into slits too wide. Try again.”

The stink of burning feathers stung her nose. Kerian took out a small-bladed knife and began the work of etching the slits the feathers would sit in. Too narrow, the feathers would fail to settle, too wide... well, she knew about that already.

Around them, outlaws came and went, men and women going about the business of hunting, fishing, and trapping. Some had other missions, and now and then one would call Jeratt aside. These conversations were short, out of Kerian’s hearing. They always resulted in a handful of outlaws drifting out of the basin, up the hill and away from the falls.

Once, when they came back, she’d noted their flush of victory. A ringing pouch of steel coin hung at a hip, an ornately decorated sword over the back of another, and two pairs of gleaming leather boots roped and slung round the neck of a third. Later she learned that two Dark Knights lay dead in the forest, ambushed and killed by these outlawed elves.

A black cock feather slipped neatly into the top slit; Kerian did not stop to rejoice. She settled in the two gray hen feathers on either side. As though casually, she lifted the arrow to inspect it. Jeratt watched a moment, then snatched it from her hand.

“What?” she demanded. “It’s perfect!”

“Maybe for someone else.” He held it close to the snapping fire. “But shouldn’t Kagonesti choose white feathers in winter?”

Kerian lunged and grabbed back her arrow. She jerked her chin at the feathers and said, “I’ll do that when your hunters fetch me white geese.”

Jeratt’s laughter rang around the stony basin. Here and there, outlaws looked up to see what amused him.

“All right then, Kerianseray of Qualinost. The snowy geese are gone away to warmer places now, but you go fletch yerself a full quiver of arrows, and day after tomorrow we’ll go see if we can find something else to take down and make you a hunter.”

Wind blew a scattering of old snow across the stony distance between Kerian and Jeratt. The wind bit her cheeks, stung the tips of her ears red. She wore a tight-sleeved, long-cuffed bleached woolen shirt, which she had got from one of the smaller men in exchange for first cut of whatever she brought down this day. Her coat of tanned elk hide, warmly lined with the beast’s own fur, came from an end of autumn raid on a trader’s cart headed into Qualinost. Had they been outlanders or Knights, the traders would have fared hard, but the man and his two sons were elves, and so Jeratt’s outlaws left them roughed up and bruised, one a little cut, and all angry.

“Ought to know better than to bring that kind of thing through here,” Jeratt had laughed, displaying the plunder. “Outlaws all over the Qualinost road. Didn’t the fools know that? Nice of ’em, though, to come by with supplies.”

Warmly outfitted, still Kerian shivered and longed to slip her stiffening fingers into the sleeves of her coat for warmth, hut she did not. A silver ribbon of water streamed between her and Jeratt, leaping over rocks and lapping the dark lines of mud at either side. The mud on both sides of the water was churned by tracks, the marks of a deer’s passage, Kerian had said upon spotting them. Jeratt had nodded agreement and positioned her deep in shadow on one side of the stream, himself concealed on the other, and said no more.

Wind-whipped, Kerian watched the stream. A blue kingfisher darted down and came up with a flash of silver in its beak. In the forest, a jackdaw called, its raucous voice drowning out smaller birds, and another answered. Kerian did not so much as glance in the direction of the sounds. She was held in aching stillness by the thought of Jeratt’s mockery, his own jackdaw laughter should she so much as shift her weight from one foot to another.

“Dancey-footed folk go hungry,” he’d snarled the first time he’d seen her do that. “Find your place and stay.” He sounded like Dar when he said that. She could almost conjure up a memory of the ancient days when he let her come along while he hunted. She had not hunted to kill then—in those days she was just learning her bow skills—but here, in this place far from home, she heard an echo of Dar’s gruff tones and frustration with her impatience.

It felt like a week of waiting, listening to the wind in the forest, the stream purling over stone, the rustlings of small animals in the fern brakes. She had a boulder at her back, one upon which she could sit with some ease. Even so, it seemed to Kerian that every muscle rebelled at stillness. Her left leg cramped, her right foot itched….

She shifted her gaze from the half-elf to the forest beyond. She thought she saw something move in the green darkness, then the illusion vanished as the wind dropped. Very slightly, Jeratt lifted his head, for all the world like an old dog sniffing the air. He sniffed again, then resumed his stillness, his back against an old high pine, his bow strung loosely, heel on the ground, head against his hip. Kerian kept stone still.

The iron sky shifted, clouds parting, and she squinted as Jeratt seemed to vanish in a sudden flash of sunlight, then reappear when the clouds shifted again. In the after-glare, Kerian widened her eyes to adjust her vision to the change of light. Above, the sky resumed its lowering, clouds growing thicker. Now she smelled what Jeratt must have, the sharpening of the air that heralded the coming of snow.

The forest grew quiet, birds stilled, squirrels fell silent. Kerian looked to Jeratt, but he, as she, heard only the stilling, not the cause.

She lifted her head in question: What?

He lifted a hand to signal silence. In the same gesture, he took up his bow.

Kerian slipped an arrow from the quiver at her hip, nocked it neatly to the bowstring. Along her shoulder, down her arm, her muscles quivered with excitement. She drew a calming breath.

Behind her, the forest erupted in the crashing sounds of something heavy and swift tearing through the underbrush.,

In one flashing instant, Kerian saw Jeratt lift his bow, an arrow ready to fly. She turned, heart crashing against her ribs, and saw a low, thick body coming toward her.

Wolf!

She lifted her own bow, pulled, and saw what came behind the headlong beast—a boy.

“Ulf!” the boy called, his cry ringing through the forest.

Kerian shouted, “Jeratt, no!”

An arrow wasped past Kerian’s cheek just as she shouted, “Boy! Down!”

Whether he dropped or stumbled, Kerian wasn’t sure. Relief washed through her to see him go down, to hear the thock! of Jeratt’s arrow hitting the pine just above him.

Jeratt cursed, the dog shot past Kerian, fangs white and glistening. She heard the hiss of another arrow coming from Jeratt’s quiver.

“Boy!”

From the ground, his face covered in blood and dirt, the boy screamed, “Ulf! Drop! Drop!”

The dog fell, a bright splash of blood on the stone beneath him.

Leaping to his feet, the boy cursed. He flung himself past Kerian and past the dog itself. Startled, Kerian realized he was heading for Jeratt and that the half-elf had another arrow in hand. She reached to grab the boy’s shoulder and jerked him hard behind her.

“Jeratt—”

“Get back,” he snapped.

“He’s a boy. Look—he’s no threat.”

Out the corner of her eye, she saw the boy draw a gleaming knife from his belt. Whirling, she grabbed his wrist, twisted it until the knife fell ringing onto stone. She kicked it away, cursing.

Jeratt snatched up the knife, the boy snarled a curse, and Kerian jerked hard on his wrist. She saw now he was not so much a boy as she’d first thought. Still gangly with youth, dressed in warm clothes and high leather boots only a little down at the heel, he looked like a villager’s son. Half-grown, he couldn’t have had more than sixty years.

“Where you from?” Jeratt demanded.

The young elf glared without answering. In the stillness, the dog whimpered, struggling to rise. The elf turned, alarmed.

Kerian increased pressure on his wrist. “It’s not all decided yet, boy. Where are you from?”

The dog’s fate weighed heavier than his own. His eyes on Ulf, the boy said, “Down west in the valley.”

“Bailnost?”

He nodded sullenly.

“Your name?”

The boy didn’t answer, watching as the dog staggered to its feet and moved stiffly toward him. Jeratt’s arrow had scored a painful path across the dog’s shoulder, but luckily the dog was not hurt badly.

Ulf put his head under his master’s hand, and the boy said, “My name is Ander. I’m the miller’s son.” His long eyes narrowed, taking in their rough clothing, patched and mismatched. “You’d better let me go or I’ll be telling my father and all who’ll listen about the outlaws up here.”

Jeratt’s laughter rang out, harsh and unfeeling. “Boy, you ain’t going to be alive long enough.”

Ander’s face paled, his bravado flown.

“Stop,” said Kerian, to Jeratt and to Ander. She looked from one to the other. “Ander didn’t offer us any harm. We injured his dog and almost killed the boy himself. Let it go now.”

Jeratt frowned. Before he could speak, she turned to the boy. “Go on. Your dog should make it home.”

Ander eyed her narrowly, then nodded. He muttered something that sounded like thanks and turned his back on them, walking away.

“Addle-headed fool,” Jeratt growled.

Kerian shook her head. “Why, just because he—?”

Jeratt snorted. “Not him. You. That boy knows we’re from no village around here, he knows what we look like—we’re either ragged outlaws hunting dinner. Or trouble.” He looked up at the sky, the lowering clouds. “It’s worse than that. He knows what you look like, and there’s Knights around would pay him to learn where you are, Kerianseray. You know for sure he’s off home and not off to settle a score with us and get him a handful of steel coins to boot?”

She didn’t know that. Cold wind whirled snow on the ground, and now snow began to sift down from the darkening sky. Dry in the mouth, Kerian said, “What should we do, Jeratt?”

“Go kill him. Throw him down the hill, make it look like an accident. Kill the dog too, make it look like whatever you like.”

She stared.

He spat. “Still a little squeamish from your last killing?”

“I—he’s a child!”

“Child could be the death of you. Of all of us if he gets to talking.” In the cold and the darkening day, he looked older.

“He won’t find us, Jeratt. The Knights won’t.” She looked around, at the forest and the ways down the west side of the hill. “He saw us here; we could be miles from where we normally are for all he knows. By the time he tells this story to anyone, we will be miles away.”

He looked at her long, but said only that they’d missed their chance for first cuts at a good supper tonight and that it was time they moved on. “Ain’t goin’ back empty-handed,” he muttered. Then, darkly, “Ain’t leading no Knights or nosy villagers to the falls, either.”

They followed the silver stream through the rising forest to a place just below the tree line where tall boulders and embracing trees would shelter them from the wind. The stream ran swift and wide here, and Kerian took out nets from her pack and caught enough pink-sided trout to feed them well. They sat in silence while they cleaned and cooked her catch, in silence while they ate. Kerian took the first watch, keeping the fire hot and high while snow spat down fitfully. To her surprise, she slept deeply when Jeratt relieved her watch.

When she woke in the night from a chilling dream of the half-elf’s steely eyes, cold as blades when he’d said he’d have killed the boy if it were his to do, Kerian found she was alone. The moon had set. Between the tops of tall trees she saw night fading from the sky. Kerian waited a moment, building up the fire, to see if Jeratt had gone into the forest for good reason. She did not hear him moving around. Breath held, heart hammering in her chest, she listened. She heard an owl, the cry of a killed rabbit, and nothing more.

Jeratt had deserted his watch for some purpose she couldn’t fathom.

Kerian hung between concern and anger. Finally, anger won, burning her cheek with memory of her dream and of his determination that he’d have killed the boy to protect himself. She rose quickly, felt the knife in her hand that had killed a Knight.

Behind her, a footfall.

Kerian whirled. Firelight glinted in tiny spears of light from the honed edge of her knife, ran like ghosty blood on the polished flat.

“Nah, nah,” Jeratt said. “Put it up, Kerianseray.”

She frowned, not understanding. One long stride put him between her and the low flames and embers. Swiftly, he kicked up the dirt, covering the fire.

“What are you doing? Jeratt, you didn’t kill—?”

“That boy?” He hefted his pack and slung it across his shoulder; he kicked hers toward her. “Should have, I told you. We should have killed him. The whole damn valley is up and hunting. Moon’s down, night’s goin’—and the place is filled with torches. You tell me, what do you think is goin’ on down there?” He sneered. “You think it just might be that a whole village is tryin’ to find you and buy a little peace from the Knights?”

Kerian slung the pack over her shoulder, picked up her bow and quiver, and said more evenly than she felt, “Right. It’s probably a good idea to split up. You go one way, I’ll go another. Go back to the falls when you think it’s safe, but I won’t. I’ll lead them elsewhere.”

He snorted. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

He laughed to hear that, and some of the steel had gone from his voice.

“We’ll split up—that does make good sense. We’ll meet at King’s Haunting, on the edge of the Stonelands. You know where that is?”

She’d heard of it, and she’d seen it from a distance, a staggered line of stony hills east beyond the ravines that scored the earth down the length of the border between Qualinesti and the barren land that lay between the kingdom of the elves and Thorbardin.

“Get there as best you can, and drop south but try to keep going east. I’ll see you there when the moon is dark.”

Four days.

“And the others? At the falls?”

“Fine time to worry about them now,” he growled. “Leave it to me. You just get going, and keep away from the roads.”

That much he didn’t have to tell her.

“Jeratt—”

“Get going,” he snapped. “No need to die for stupidity, Kerianseray, not yet anyway. You’ve got plenty of time for that if you make it out of this.”

Kerian left him with no word for luck and no word of apology. No matter what occurred because of her deed, she would not apologize for sparing a child’s life. With no backward glance, she faded into the dawning day, trying to remember where the road lay so she could take care to keep away from it.

Cold wind chased her through the woodland, nipping at her heels, moaning in her ears. She had nothing to eat the first day, for she dared not take time to hunt and could make no fire for cooking if lean winter hares had leaped into her hands. Along the way, she kept an eye out for what she could forage, but there wasn’t much. The finest nuts of autumn had been gathered by squirrels and the few farmers and villagers who ventured into the forest. What she found was broken shells, the nutmeats gone. She gathered pine cones and could not carry many. She took to stripping them of their small nuts, eating some and putting the rest in a small pouch. All the while, she longed for something more substantial.

On the second morning, Kerian woke in her cold camp, sheltered from the wind by three rising boulders. She went to drink from the rushing stream, and in the soft earth beside the water she saw boot prints. The marks indicated someone had knelt here to drink in the night. Suddenly afraid, she looked around her, listening. She heard only the wind. She glanced over her shoulder at the cluster of boulders that had sheltered her sleep. From here, one might not be able to see that a traveler had made camp, but one would surely see signs at the water’s edge that she had been here to drink.

Kerian drew a steadying breath. If the visitor to the stream had meant her harm, the harm would have been attempted. If he had moved on, she’d have seen signs of that. She slipped her knife from her belt, regretting the weapons left at the campsite. Arrows and bow sat snugly beside her pack. She made to rise slowly, silently, then caught sight of the prints again.

The boot prints showed sign of wear at the outside of the heels. It was the young elf Ander. Kerian looked again but saw no sign of his dog, not any print or droppings or the telltale tufts of fur a thick-coated animal leaves clinging to brush or tree.

Interesting, she thought.

Neither did she see tracks to indicate that Ander had gone north or south along the stream. He hadn’t crossed the water, and she saw no trail of broken branches or crushed vines to indicate that he’d slipped farther into the trees.

Quickly, Kerian made up her mind. Where she had slept cold and hungry last night, this morning she gathered kindling and wood, struck flint to steel, and had a fire among the sheltering boulders. From her pack she took her fishing line and a hook and cut a supple wand from a sapling for a rod. She found a sunny spot on the stream’s bank and settled to wait for breakfast. The morning warmed slightly, Kerian watched the forest across the stream and listened to the woods behind her. She heard only the waking birds, the purling water, and once the sudden rustle of a fox who’d come upon her from upwind and darted away.

Kerian caught three fat trout. By the time the rich scent of cooking began to waft across the stream, her patience had its reward. Ander trudged out of the forest and stood on the far side of the stream, and now she saw that he’d been in some scrapes since last they’d met. Bruises discolored his face, and his lower lip was split and swollen.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, nodding to the trout baking on the flat stone heated in the embers of her fire.

Ander stared at her. “Aren’t you worried I’ve brought half the village with me?

She laughed and gestured for him to cross the water.

“I’m supposed to believe all those people waited in silence through the night till I could catch them breakfast?”

Ander flushed, looking down at his scuffed boots.

Kerian poked the trout, releasing the mouthwatering scent of them into the air again. “Come and eat” She gave him a long, level look. “Tell me where your dog is.”

He crossed the stream in one long-legged leap.

Ander had a ball of hard cheese the size of his fist and a hunk of dark bread going dry and stale to add to their breakfast, “The last of what I came out with.” He showed her the tangle of his snares and told her ruefully that he hadn’t had much luck trying to catch food at night. The rabbits all seemed to hear him coming.

“You’re a miller’s son,” Kerian said, remembering what he’d told her when they’d first met.

“Well, the stepson of a miller.” His widowed mother had married soon after his father’s death. Ander thought about the word “death” for a moment, chewing a mouthful of the dry bread, then added, “My father’s murder.”

His eyes glittered. Startled, Kerian saw an expression hard as any she’d seen on the face of the bitterest exile in Jeratt’s camp.

“Who murdered him?”

Among any answer he could have given was surely an accusation against outlaws, robbers, or bandits. Very suddenly, all her senses grew sharp. Had she invited a vengeance-seeker to share her fire? Kerian didn’t move, but she knew right where her knife was, how quickly she could reach it should she have to defend herself.

“A Knight. A Knight murdered him.”

Kerian didn’t relax. “I’m sorry.”

Ander grunted. “I hate them.” He took another bite of trout, then looked up. “I know who you are. They went around in winter telling everyone about you, telling everyone how they wanted to kill you.”

She kept still.

“They said you killed a Knight in Sliathnost.” He looked up, long eyes flashing. “Did you?”

“Yes. He needed killing.”

“Are you an outlaw?”

“I don’t know.” Kerian poked at the fire, encouraging its warmth. “I certainly am a fugitive, aren’t I? I am outside the dragon’s law now.”

“And the king’s.”

Kerian considered that ruefully. “Yes, I suppose I’m outside the king’s law, too.”

“Because he lets the Knights do what they want.”

Kerian shrugged. “I don’t know much about kings.”

The fire hissed, the embers getting low. The scent of baked trout hung in the air, fading. Ander said, “What about him, the other one? That half-elf.”

“You mean Jeratt?”

“The one who wanted to kill me.”

Surprised, she could only say, “You heard that?”

“I’m not deaf. Where is he now? Did he leave you because you wouldn’t let him kill me?”

That amused Kerian. “Well meet up again. We just thought it was safer to give your neighbors two sets of tracks to follow.”

In the silence between them, the sounds of the forest seemed loud. They heard the call of a raven, the sudden trumpeting of a stag from far up the hill. Kerian rose and began to break camp; Ander wasn’t long in helping. They buried what was left of the trout, only bones and heads, tails and a few strips of skin. They killed the fire, and when they’d done all that, Ander asked her whether she still wanted to know what happened to his dog.

“Yes, I do.” Kerian checked her pack, tied it closed, and leaned against one of the boulders that had made her shelter snug.

“He’s dead.” He stopped, looking down at his feet, then swiftly up at her. “They wanted me to tell them where you were. In the village, some of them wanted to find you and turn you in to the Knights. I wouldn’t tell them. You could have killed me. The other one, that Jeratt, he wanted to, but you wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t tell them where you were after that, and they—” He fingered his split lip. “They tried to make me tell, and Ulf …”

Ulf had gone to the defense of his master, and he’d paid the ultimate price for his loyalty.

“Do you have any place to go, Ander?”

He shook his head. “I came to warn you, but... now there’s nowhere to go.”

Kerian made her decision quickly.

“Go get your pack,” she said, nodding toward the fire. “I have a place to go, and you can come along with me as far as you like.”