The Lioness

Nancy Varian Berberick The Lioness

Chapter One

Sir Chance Garoll looked ahead at his fellow Knights, five in all, and he the sixth. He looked behind him and sighted down the wide road, flattened earth, dun and sun dappled, straight as a shaft through the woodland. The overarching trees gave him the uncomfortable feeling of riding through a tunnel, one closing behind, opening ahead.

One of his fellows hawked and spat then looked over his shoulder at Chance. “Headsman,” he called, “keep up!”

Headsman. The others laughed, one pulled hard on the reins, making his broad-shouldered mount snort and curvet. “What’s the count, Chance?”

Sir Chance—Headsman Chance—hefted the sack hung from his saddle’s pommel. Blood dripped, staining the ground. When he closed his eyes, Chance could see the killing ground, the sunny green swale in the forest where he and his companions had fallen upon a den of elf highwaymen. The Knights had run through the hapless robbers like death’s own horsemen, swords flashing in whistling descent to swipe off heads.

Sometimes. Chance thought as he recalled the slaughter, the death-scream had howled out of a rolling head’s gaping mouth.

“A dozen,” he said, settling the sack again. His tall mount’s brown shoulder was black with blood. Blood etched a thin trail down the steed’s foreleg. Trained to battle, inured to the scent of death, the great beast flung up his head at the thick, coppery scent, an eager light in his eyes.

Headsman, they had named him. He grinned. Not a bad name. He had not taken all the heads, but he’d taken most of them and collected them all. The orders from Lord Thagol had come to him directly; he considered it his duty to bring back the trophies. Chance shuddered, recalling how the brief moments in the Skull Knight’s presence had seemed like hours. He’d have to spend time with Lord Thagol again, and here, far away from the Knight, he dared hope and wish it wouldn’t be a long time.

Iron-shod hoofs fell heavily on the road. One of the Knights lifted his helm from his head and hung it on his saddle. The other five had a farther road to take than Sir Chance. With the Headsman, they would go down to Qualinost, then they would leave him and ride on to Miranost near the border between Qualinesti and the free land of Abanasinia.

Though the dragon Beryl held the elf kingdom in thrall, there were still ways past the borders of Qualinesti. The main roads had long been warded by Dark Knights who kept the elves in and intruders from any of the Free Realms out. Traders with the proper passes could cross the checkpoints, for these were a source of Qualinesti’s wealth and so a resource for the greedy dragon who had her tribute from every steel coin earned. Other ways in and out of the elf land existed, all those that existed before the Dragon Purge and the coming of the great Green, Beryllinthranox.

Headsman Chance lifted in the stirrups, searching high ahead. He caught sight of a shimmer through the trees hut decided that must he a glimpse of wishful thinking, for they were yet a three hour ride from the capital of the elf kingdom. No shining tower could be seen yet. He settled to ride, moving in unconscious rhythm with his mount’s gait. It was a time before he noticed that in the wake of the passage of the dark Knights, silence flowed.

At the highest point of noon, no birds sang, squirrels did not dart and scold, rabbits did not leap aside and freeze in the bracken. In the sky, far above the arching green canopy of trees, hawks hung, wondering. Six humans armored in ebony steel rode through the Qualinesti Forest, Knights of an order once dedicated to a dark goddess now departed, warriors now in the pay of a dragon just as ruthless. Mail chiming, bridles and bits jingling, the six followed the south-running arm of the White-Rage River.

Though he had been posted to Qualinesti for five years now, Sir Chance had never experienced a silence on these roads like this today. A following silence, as though something he did not see—could never see—came after.

“Anyone hear that?” he said.

The tallest of his companions turned, Grig Gal from out of Neraka itself where lived great garrisons of Dark Knights, ogres, and fierce draconians. Grig sweated in his mail and breastplate, and his thick black gloves hung from his belt.

“Hear what?” he asked, and his voice held an edge like a blade’s. Grig didn’t like the forest, and he didn’t like elves.

“The quiet,” Chance answered, feeling foolish as soon as he did. How do you hear quiet?

Grig was not much of a wordsmith himself, not one to ponder the niceties of phrasing or meaning. “I don’t hear nothing,” he grunted.

The Knights now rode shoulder to shoulder, six in three pairs. Twice on the way, elf farmers with laden carts had to pull off the road. Once a load of fat grain sacks spilled and split, pouring golden wheat into ditches.