The Lioness

Perhaps it was as Iydahar had warned. Perhaps it was true, she had forgotten herself, forgotten how to be Kagonesti. She had lost herself in the city and the servitude that dressed her in fine silk.

She had lost herself, perhaps, even in the high bed of a king.

Ahead, Stanach stopped, and he looked back over his shoulder. Kerian ran to follow.

The way Stanach chose headed up, dappled in sun and shifting shade. Rocky and seemingly pathless, it wound between tall oaks whose wide stands soon gave way to fragrant pines growing closer together. Beneath Kerian’s feet, oak leaves vanished to be replaced by years of brown pine straw, the fallen needles some as long as her forearm.

Kerian followed Stanach as closely as she could, slipping in the pine straw, picking herself up. No matter if she fell, cursed, and lingered over bruised knees and skinned palms, Stanach didn’t stop. She imagined that if she’d tumbled right off the face of Krynn, he would not so much as look over his shoulder.

Kerian was growing no more fond of the dwarf.

Following, she never saw him consult the slant of shadow or the point of the sun in the sky for direction, yet he went faultlessly north and east, seeming to make his way by landmarks Kerian, versed in the winding ways of every street, path and wandering by-way of Qualinost, could not have recognized. The farther east they went, the more often they encountered great gray boulders thrusting up from the earth. Trees made way for the lichen-patched rocks as though, in some long ago fought-out treaty, they had agreed to cede a part of the forest to stone. There had been no treaty between forest and stone, of course. There had been, in fact, a kind of war, the great and terrible Cataclysm, many centuries before. All the face of Krynn had changed then, the world heaving and breaking, the very continents shifting. After the great upheaval, the land between elven kingdom and that of the mountain dwarves had become a wasteland of rising ground, gaping glens, and thrusting boulders.

Kerian, once a wild running child of upland Ergothian forests and shining sea strands, felt the strain of the climbing terrain. She had been too long in Qualinost, where she never endured any walk more difficult than the sweet curling path from the Library of Qualinost to the Temple of Paladine. Her muscles burned, her lungs seemed to shrink with every passing moment until own breathing was loud in her ears.

Seemingly unaware of her distress, Stanach kept a steady pace through what Kerian saw as a trackless forest. Kerian remained dogged in her determination not to fall behind. Sweat rolled down her cheeks, made her blouse stick uncomfortably to her back. Her legs hurt, her ankles turned, and treacherous stones rolled beneath her feet.

Shadows now gathered darkly beneath the canopy of the forest. High up, the sky deepened. The air grew cool, damp with the day’s end. Kerian’s belly rumbled with hunger; her muscles began to tremble with more than exhaustion. She thought of the bread and cheese and meat in her lost wallet. Foxes must have found it by now, or rats or crows.

Kerian looked at the sky and realized it had a long time been strangely quiet. She and Stanach had traveled past what had interested the crows—or the crows had feasted full and gone on. When Kerian thought she couldn’t take another step, that every muscle in her legs and back had turned to stone, Stanach stopped beside a tall boulder.

Kerian put her back to a rough skinned pine, resting her head against the trunk. She wanted no more than to sink to the ground, and she dared not. She would not rise again, of that she was sure. She locked her knees, clenched her jaw, and she stood.

Not giving her so much as a glance, Stanach slipped the leather water bottle from his belt. He drank deeply, politely wiped the bottle’s mouth, and handed it to her. Kerian’s nose told her this was not water. She took the smallest sip of Dwarf Spirits. Her eyes watered immediately, streaming.

“Ah, that’s enough now,” the dwarf said, reclaiming the bottle. “You’re staggering around enough as it is.”

Stanach looked around again, as though looking for a landmark. How could he, a dwarf out of Thorbardin, know of forest landmarks deep in Qualinesti?

Dark-eyed Stanach saw her watching. “It’s not the first time I’ve been here in your green forest, girl. First time, that was a long time ago and maybe your mam and your da were still looking at you in your cradle trying figure out a name for you. I came in from somewhere. This is true, eh? Do you think I didn’t mark my way in so I could figure one or two ways back?”

Kerian pushed away from the tree. She wiped sweat from her face, tucked stray curls back onto the failing braid, and said, “I suppose I’m not thinking about it much at all. If you know your way back, I’m happy for you. If you’ll point me in the direction of Sliathnost, I’ll be happy for me.”

He thumped the boulder with his right hand. “Then climb up.”

Kerian eyed the tall boulder. “Why?”