The Lioness

Kerian’s heart lifted. “It’s Dar,” she said, for she recognized the tactic, the swift charge with filled bows and the equally swift retreat. The foray out from shadows with cudgel to smash a skull, with sword to gut a foe, then slipping away. The newcomers flashed in and out of shadows, striking swiftly, sometimes in silence so that they seemed like ghosts, sometimes howling to chill the blood of their enemies.

“Look!” Stanach cried, even as the confused Knights turned in on themselves, back to the ground they’d tried to flee. The dwarf laughed. “They’re being herded like cattle!”

As they watched, the Kagonesti shifted ground, surrounding the Knights, and indeed, herding them. Hurt, confused, their numbers falling away before their eyes, the Knights tried to break out, tried to find their lord or hear his commands. Kerian didn’t doubt the Lord Knight shouted or tried to direct his men, but no one could hear him above the blood-chilling war cries of Dar and his warriors. A little at a time, though they fought hard and sometimes bravely, the Knights were driven toward the bottom of the hill, forced to mass—in many instances weaponless—to the place Kerian defended.

“Will we just stand here?” Jeratt said.

Kerian flashed him a bright and sudden grin. “I don’t think we’d better or well be overrun by fleeing Knights.”

Shouting, Jeratt waved their warriors down. Behind Kerian the archers filled their bows again.

The Knights, beset from behind, driven from the sides, heard at last the voice of their lord. Thagol’s command ripped through the melee, rallying his men until they formed three forces, one at point, two flanking. One of the flanks turned into the forest eastward, the other westward. The point of the spear, the draconians and the Knights, no longer driven, charged the hill again.

In the wood the air filled with war cries and death-screams as the Kagonesti and the Knights came together. Kerian saw them, the Wilder Elves outflanked, the Knights and draconians rampaging among them, savaging Dar’s band from two sides.

“Go!” she shouted to her warriors. “To the Kagonesti! Go!”

First down the hill was Jeratt, eyes alight, face shining with a warrior’s half-mad laughter. He ran to help an old comrade, the friend who had never forgotten him, and whooped a high and joyous battle cry.

Before her eyes, Jeratt staggered. He stumbled, turned, upon his face the same expression she’d seen on Ander—the utter shock of the dying. He fell, his hands clutching his chest, blood spilling out over his fingers, out around the steel of a Knight’s flung dagger.

Kerian shouted, “No!” and bellowed orders to her warriors to fight on. Someone yelled, “For Jeratt!”

For Ander! For Felan!

For Qualinesti!

They went, and as they did the two flanks of Knights and draconians turned again, wheeling to meet the charge. Outnumbered, still Kerian’s warriors fought, for it was Jeratt at their head, Jeratt, somehow still stumbling forward, unwilling to turn from embattled friends until death stole his last breath. From the hill, commanding her archers, Kerian saw the Wilder Elves and her own warriors falling before the draconians and the Knights like hay before the scythe.

Furious, Kerian turned to the archers. Every one of them stood drained of color, the blood run out of their faces, leaving the flesh ashen. Stanach, halfway down the hill, stood like stone, while blood and battle lapped up the hill. Eyes on the forest where Kerian’s warriors had gone to fight for the Wilder Elves, he shouted:

“There! By Reorx! There!”

The forest trembled. The trees shook. Darkness came, and darkness went as though the wood itself possessed eyes to blink. Shadow and light ran together, not in dappling but in a great whirling force as though they rushed to each other like live beings, long parted and longing for one another’s embrace.

Screams arose from all around, and these were not the shrieks of the dying. These were screams of terror, cries in elven voices and human voices. Somewhere, draconians raged, but their voices sounded small.

The ground heaved, and the trees danced. They lifted root, raised branches like revelers. The earth gaped wide, in places swallowing combatants. Not one of the fallen was an elf, Qualinesti or Wilder, however. Kerian drew breath to call back her warriors and let the breath go. A great howling filled the world, as though from the throat of the earth itself.