The Lioness by Nancy Varian Berberick

Author:Nancy Varian Berberick [Berberick, Nancy Varian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780786927524
Google: X1FVGwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0786927526
Goodreads: 478760
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2002-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

“Look! Damn Knights.”

Ander slipped closer to Kerian, his breath warm on her cheek. In his throat, his pulse jumped. Sweat glistened on his cheeks, and in that he was not so different from Kerian or Jeratt. The sun of late summer shone down hot and the canopy of the forest provided shade but did nothing to cool the air. That certainly accounted for some of the sweat. The rest... the boy was coming close to what Jeratt called “first blood,” his first battle. Today, or another day soon, Ander would do his best to kill another.

“First blood,” Jeratt had said to Ander when they began to draw together resolve and make plans. He drew upon the earth, as he liked to do, sketching maps real and imagined, laying out the strategy of the forest-fighter whose best plan is to use the wood for cover, to dart out and kill and dart back again. In this, he found that Ander had a keen mind, a quick wit for understanding and for seeing how such plans worked. Between the two, the half-elf and the boy, growing respect began to replace grudging acceptance.

Though he spoke most often of tactics, most forcefully, Jeratt also spoke to Kerian and Ander, the untried warriors, of risk. “You spill someone else’s, or he spills yours.”

Ander pointed to the road again, a thin winding branch of the broader Qualinost Road. Kerian nodded to let him know she saw what he did. The narrow road ran beside a broad stream. The jingling of bridles and bits hung in the air, two Knights riding side by side. Behind came a heavily laden cart drawn by two mules. An elf drove the cart, man or woman Kerian couldn’t tell from where she crouched. It was as, only the day before, Felan had told them it would be: two Knights and a cart full of swords, battle-axes, and daggers.

“Sometimes it’s that, got from the smithies in this part of the country, made to Thagol’s order to arm his men, here and in the city. Sometimes it’s gold or jewels taken at the border from traders, hill dwarves from down southern ways who take their pay at our border and don’t set a step into the kingdom. Other times, in season, it’s harvest, most of it going to feed the Knights in the capital.” Bitterly, he said, “We keep enough to seed the next year, barely enough to feed ourselves through winter, no more, and nothing to trade for pots and pans, plough shares, and belt buckles. We don’t trade much for wine now, not for cloth, wool, or boots.”

It was beginning to be here as it was in the eastern part of the kingdom—the elves were made to arm and feed their oppressors while they themselves plunged deeper into poverty. Felan, Bayel, and other dalemen bitterly felt this insult. It hadn’t been difficult to convince them to keep an eye out, an ear to the ground, for the purpose of letting Kerian know when a Knights’ cart or wagon would set out on the road to Acris.

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