Nancy Berberick - The Lioness

Tarn Bellowgranite shouted, “Enough!”

Ragnar’s eyes went wide, and his face flushed. Ebon of the Theiwar sat forward, thin hands folded one over the other. These were, Kerian knew, the dangerous ones, the lords of dark-hearted clans.

“What wars they have in Thorbardin,” Gil had said, “are generally started by Theiwar, soldiered by Daewar, and ended by Hylar.”

Not this time, Kerian thought. This time Theiwar and Daewar find themselves shoulder to shoulder with a Hylar thane.

Donnal of the Daergar exchanged veiled glances with Shale of the Klar. In the corner of his high seat, the throne of a thane, the gully dwarf Bluph curled up, snoring with a cracked marrowbone tucked under his arm. Ten years this treaty had been in the making, the work of Tanis Half-Elven and Princess Laurana, the hope of their son’s embattled kingdom.

By all the gone gods, Kerian thought, not sure if she would laugh at the irony, will it all hang upon a snoring gully dwarf and a high king who has so far remained undeclared?

“Enough,” Tarn said, a note of weariness underlying the firmness of his voice. “We’ve gone around the hall and a dozen times back with this. For days and weeks, we’ve gone around. For longer than that, it’s been in our minds. Enough now. There is a man with a pressing need. We’ve left him standing on one foot long enough.

“Too long,” he said, darkly, “too long for honor.”

The Daewar snorted, but not loudly. He was not chastened, not he, but to Kerian it seemed he was, indeed, warned.

Tarn rested his hands on the arms of his throne, his fingers curving gently over the smooth black obsidian. “My brother thanes, this young woman represents the reason for the council.” He glared at Ragnar. “I bid her speak.”

Speak! Kerian’s heart rose to the chance to present her king’s need. At last! She stood before them all in the very hall whose tapestried history was part of the legend of her own lover’s family.

“My lord thanes,” she began, no louder than before. Let them be quiet now to hear. Let them lean forward, yes, and cock their ears. “My lord thanes, I stand here in this hall, this storied chamber, and it won’t surprise you to know how much of my king’s own history is woven in the wondrous tale of this place.

“I won’t tell you what you know or speak of ancient friendships and long-ago treaties. You have only lately honored one, the old pact that made a fortress rise up again to bestride the mountains. Pax Tharkas! It stands whole once more because you and the elves of Qualinesti remembered the pact made long ago.” She smiled, a little. “A pact between dwarves, elves, and humans.”

Ragnar snorted, the gully dwarf snored. Skarr of the Hylar sat a little forward.

“That pact stood you all in good stead, I’m told, firm friends, allies true. There was another time, wasn’t there? There was a time when my king’s own father stood here.” Her eyes met those of the Hylar thane. “You will remember that, perhaps, many of you. It wasn’t so long ago that Tanis Half-Elven and the lady Goldmoon herself—god-touched Goldmoon!—prevailed upon Thane Hornfel to grant asylum to human refugees from a dragon highlord’s cruelty. This grace he granted from his heart, and his heart served him well.”

She paused, listening to the fires breathe, to the rustling of old ghosts, old hopes and old fears. Clear-eyed warrior, canny outlaw, no one in the room was unimpressed by her speech.

In that breathing silence, the high king looked at her long. Quietly as she, he said, “Tell me, Mistress Kerianseray, why a Kagonesti woman stands here to champion the king of those who enslave her people.”

A startled murmur rippled round the dais, and the Hylar’s brows drew together in a dark and scornful vee above his hawkish nose. “Slaves,” Skarr of the Hylar said, looking as though he wanted to spit. “They enslave their own kind, those elves.”

So said her brother, Iydahar with whom she seldom agreed these days. That argument of his Kerian had never managed to refute. How could she? She knew what was said in the halls of elf lords about the relationship between her people and Gil’s. She knew, too, how she’d come to Qualinesti.

Calmly, not rising to the bait, she nodded. “Your high king is not mistaken. I am not Qualinesti, my lord thanes. You can see the truth of that on me—” She tossed her head proudly, exposing the tattoos on her neck. “I’m Kagonesti, and it isn’t always easy for us in the land of the Qualinesti.”

The Klar picked up his head, interested. He knew about hardship. They did not have a servitor class in Thorbardin, but they had the Klar, the Neidar who’d stayed within the gates of Thorbardin during the Dwarfgate War. They were not beloved of the mountain dwarves; they were not beloved of their hill dwarf kin. It was a Klar you saw fetching and carrying, a Klar doing char work, doing service.

“It is not easy to be a Wilder Elf in the elf kingdom, and it grows, in some ways, harder, but I will tell you this, my lord thanes, I am a Kagonesti here before you, championing the cause of the Qualinesti king because I know his cause is right. I’m not sure it is for me to try to convince you of that rightness. I don’t know your hearts, and you don’t know his, but I do know this …”

She stopped and looked at each of them in turn, from the high king himself twining his fingers thoughtfully in his iron beard right to the snoring gully dwarf.

“I know, my lord thanes, that if you say no to my king”—she lifted her voice now, not high to shout, but strongly to carry “—if you say no to the alliance, you assure the day of your own destruction.”

The word rang like a war cry. Kerian didn’t back down from it.

Ragnar bellowed. He leaped to his feet, pointing a long scarred finger not at Kerian but at Tarn. “Do you hear her, High King? She dares threaten us!”

Ebon the Theiwar, a long time silent, looked around at his brother thanes, all of whom seemed troubled now, to one degree or another made unhappy by Kerian’s words. Seeing this, he sighed.

“I’ve always wondered whether wisdom or madness would be found in this foreign alliance. Now we see. She stands here and threatens us in the name of her king.”

Tarn glanced at Kerian, who did not move or look away. She gave no credence to Ragnar or Ebon. “You know the portents, Your Majesty. You are a king. You know.”

She declared this a matter for kings, and Tarn Bellowgranite accepted that. The hall filled with a grim, troubled silence of the living, and there were ghosts in the smoke, their voices almost heard in the embers settling in the braziers. Daewar, Theiwar, Hylar. Tarn looked to the Klar, the thanes of the Neidar, the Daergar, and the Aghar, the gully dwarf just then rolling over to scratch himself and settle back to sleep. There was an eighth kingdom in Thorbardin, an eighth clan. Its throne stood removed from those of the thanes of the other clans and that of the high king himself. At the back of the dais, draped in shadow, this dark throne had never felt the presence of a living dwarf, and it held the memory of all the dwarves who had ever lived, who had ever died.

His eyes warily on that throne, his own attention drawing the attention of all in the room to that place, Tarn Bellowgranite rose.

“Brother thanes, Kerianseray of Qualinesti does not threaten. She reminds. She knows what her king knows, what the humans in the Free Realms know.” He looked at them all, drawing back their glances. “She knows what I know, and what you should know.

“The elf king cannot threaten us. You should know that. He cannot harm us; you should know that, too. A dragon holds his kingdom and bleeds it of its treasure. He has no army. If you don’t know that, you are fools. A Skull Knight abuses his people—”