Lioness Rampant

Alanna shut up.

  Her curiosity didn’t desert her for long. “How long have you been doing this?” she asked when they’d been riding for several hours.

  Liam had to think a moment. “Thirty years, give or take a month.”

  “Thirty years!”

  He nodded. “I was four when the Shang Bear came to our village and looked us young ones over. Of us all, he said I ’might do.’ I wouldn’t let my dadda alone until he sent me. Lucky I wasn’t the oldest, or I’d be a farmer now.” He looked at her and smiled. “Then I wouldn’t have met you.”

  Alanna looked away. When he turned all of his charm on her, she could feel her insides melt.

  Think about what you’re getting into, Faithful advised.

  Alanna glared at him. “I’m not ’getting into’ anything, and I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself!” she snapped. Seeing Liam’s stare, she turned red.

  “Is that a cute habit of yours, or did he really speak?” His face had an odd, tight look; his eyes were pale crystal in color.

  “He talks. Sometimes other people understand him. Most of the time they don’t. Faithful is the one who decides.”

  “Magic.” Liam frowned. “That’s right—you have it.”

  “You have something against people with the Gift?” She suddenly felt defensive.

  Their eyes met and held, until he grinned and pinched her nose. Crystal was replaced by blue-green. “Since it’s you, kitten, I’ll make an exception.”

  Alanna decided it was time Moonlight had a gallop. Kicking the mare lightly, they leaped ahead, leaving the Dragon behind—for a little while.

  There’s so much we don’t know about each other, she reflected as she watched Liam cook their night’s meal. I know he’s the Dragon, which means he’s brave and adventurous and probably has a temper—dragons are supposed to be fierce and protective. It means he’s a hero if ever there are real heroes.

  She sighed. Will he come to the Roof with us? I’d feel a lot easier if I knew I had a Dragon at my back up there.

  “Do you plan to marry?” Liam asked suddenly.

  “What?” she cried, startled.

  “You heard me. Your plans for the future—do they include a husband? Children?”

  She fingered her emberstone. “Give up my shield after working so hard? Spend my time at court or on my husband’s lands? I have no patience for that kind of life. Besides—I don’t know anything about children younger than ten.”

  “Have you ever tried to learn?”

  “When did I have a chance?” she wanted to know. “Child care is one of the few duties a squire isn’t expected to perform, Ironarm! The Bazhir never asked me to, unless a child was sick. Then I was a healer, not a nanny.” Why was he asking such uncomfortable questions?

  “I just wondered why you feel you have to be all warrior or all woman. Can’t you be both?”

  Coram came back from washing, sparing Alanna the need to answer Liam’s question. It was just as well—she had no answer.

  How did Liam unsettle her in so many different ways? Neither Jonathan nor George had laid siege to her as he did. I wish he’d stop putting me off balance, but he doesn’t seem to want to do that, either. Liam glanced up; their eyes met and held.

  Coram broke the silence, kicking the Dragon gently. “Kindly wait t’romance her ’til I’m not here,” he advised. “I’ve a father’s interest in my lady still. And go easy on her. She’s not used to the game ye’re playin’.”

  Liam grinned; Alanna blushed. “I can speak for myself,” she protested.

  If you wanted to, Faithful put in. Coram guffawed, and Alanna decided to go for a walk rather than stay to be teased.

  When she returned, Coram looked up hopefully. She’d been too tired the preceding night to show him Rispah in the fire. Now she crouched and held her palms out to the flames, reaching for her Gift. Her fingers glowed with purple fire: she sent it into the flames, until they matched the color of her Gift. Rispah’s image took shape, and Coram drew close, his eyes riveted on her.

  She walked away, leaving Coram in private. Where was Liam? Why had he left—because he didn’t want to intrude? Or did it have something to do with her Gift? He’d sounded very odd when he mentioned it that morning.

  She checked the horses and the spring, with no luck. At last she found him in a clearing near the stream, lying under a willow.

  “You use your magic a lot,” he said flatly as she drew near.

  “I’ve had it all my life. I’m used to it by now.” She sat beside him, puzzled by the odd tone of his voice. “You must have seen plenty of sorcery, roaming the way you do.”

  His smoky voice was quiet. “No one is Gifted in Shang.”

  Reaching to pluck a stalk of wildgrass, she stopped. She couldn’t have heard correctly. “You keep us out on purpose? Why?”

  He wouldn’t look at her. “The Gifted use magic for a crutch. They won’t surrender to Shang study, because they know the Gift can always win them an escape.”

  “We cheat, you mean.” She bit back other angry words.

  “You’d be helpless, if your Gift was taken,” he challenged.

  “Of course not!”

  “How do you know?”

  That silenced her. She didn’t know. All her life she’d had magic, even when she’d tried to ignore it. “I can’t help being Gifted,” she replied at last. “I tried to fight it, when I was a page. Then the Sweating Sickness came and a lot of people died. Prince Jonathan would have died, too, if I hadn’t used my Gift.”

  “I just told you what we’re taught.”

  She wished she could see his face. “Tell me—where would your great Shang masters be without healers and their magic? Where would you be?” He didn’t answer, so she went on. “My Gift brings Coram pleasure—how else could he see Rispah?”

  “Maybe the lady doesn’t want to be spied on.” There was a dangerous rumble in his voice.

  “Nonsense! She agreed to it. Would you like to see the letter?” Alanna demanded sharply, her temper rising. “My tribe would’ve fallen to hillmen, without my Gift and the Gifts of my students. I use my magic to heal, to pay back for some of the lives I take. What do you do to repay?”

  “Whatever it is I do, Lady Pry, I do it with my own two hands!” She started to get up, and Liam held her back. “Alanna, wait! I didn’t mean—I have a temper.”

  “So do I,” she snapped. She let him pull her down beside him again.

  “Shang allows healers to work on us, it’s true. The students are Giftless. Not so much because the masters think people use it for a crutch as because they know training a Gift takes the student’s attention away from other things. When you follow Shang, you follow only Shang—if you’re to succeed.” He stroked Alanna’s hair. “Don’t scowl so, kitten. You’ve got me shaking in my boots.”

  “I can’t change what I am,” she told him, cooling off. “I never asked to be half witch and half warrior.”

  “I know.” The Dragon sighed. “Listen. I got heated up because I’m—because I’m afraid of magic.”

  Was he teasing? She was in no mood for it! “You aren’t afraid of anything.”

  “Everyone’s afraid of something.” He had a point, and she knew it. “I fear dying for nothing. I fear being sick—my grandda took a wound and rotted to death.” She patted his arm in sympathy but didn’t interrupt. “I hate being helpless. Then what’s the good of being a Dragon?”

  “Or a Lioness,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “But I’m also afraid of the Gift—I don’t even let healers use magic on me. Some folk are afraid of spiders—with me, it’s that.”

  Alanna shuddered; she hated spiders with a passion! “I never heard of someone fearing magic, not like that. Disliking it, yes.”

  “Well, I’m afraid of it.”

  She fingered the stone at her throat. “Liam?”

  “What?”

  “How...” She felt herself blush and was grateful for the dark. “How can we be—
well, anything—if you fear my Gift?”

  He put his arms around her, gathering her close. “I want to try anyway. What about you?”

  “I don’t know you very well at all,” she whispered, half complaining. “You don’t know me.”

  He was smiling. “That’s the fun of it, kitten.” He kissed her gently, then passionately, and Alanna surrendered. Any misgivings she had were put away for thought at another, less interesting, time.

  Liam was shaking her gently. From the other side of their banked campfire she heard Coram’s snore. “Let’s go,” the Dragon whispered.

  “Go where?” she yawned.

  “You won’t learn Shang fighting in bed.”

  She started to protest, and thought the better of it. Even at this hour she wanted his good opinion. Never mind that her arms felt as if they weighed triple what they usually did. He’d probably felt worse and still had gone about his morning routine. This was my idea, she prodded herself. Stifling a moan—Coram at least would have his sleep!—she obeyed.

  Fortress Jirokan was a well-fortified town, with a tent city outside its walls. Coram pointed at the river where a barge filled with people made its way downstream. “They’re fleein’ the Saren War,” he explained to Alanna as they rode toward the town gates. “Like as not their farms were burned or looted. Now they hope Maren’ll grant a place for them to start again.

  “The boats take them south. The King’s too smart to keep all these rootless folk in one spot.” The Dragon nodded in the direction of the tent city. Now that she was closer, Alanna saw furniture piled in the mud and a wide variety of animals: cows, dogs, goats, horses, pigs, and chickens. People dressed in tattered, dirty clothes stared at the travelers on the road. “These camps are trouble. They breed thieves and killers. South Maren has room to feed them and land for new farms.”

  Alanna was silent as they entered the city and made for the inn Liam recommended. There was nothing she or Liam could do for the Saren refugees. Poverty was an illness she couldn’t cure; a civil war could not be stopped by just one knight. That’s something Liam and I have in common, she told herself. I don’t like feeling helpless, either.

  The inn was the Mongrel Cur; it lived up to Liam’s recommendation. She spent the afternoon bathing, washing her hair, mending her clothes—simply relaxing. She wrote to Myles, Halef Seif, and Thom, although it would be weeks before she could hear from them. At last cooking smells called her to the common room and her dinner.

  Liam suggested that they avoid notice in this restless town: he would not wear Shang insignia, and she and Coram should leave in their rooms anything to suggest that Alanna was a knight. That suited Alanna, who wanted to spend her time in Jirokan quietly. She dressed in boy’s clothes, but to be safe, tucked a dagger at the small of her back. Whistling cheerfully, she slung Faithful over a shoulder and went downstairs.

  Liam and Coram had waited for her. As soon as she joined them, the waiters brought their food. A charmed serving girl bore Faithful away “to see what we might get a handsome fellow like you.” The cat shamelessly played up to his admirer.

  Marenite Guardsmen and their women arrived to begin a night of drinking as the travelers finished their meal. Ignoring the soldiers, Coram and Liam played chess; Alanna divided her attention between the game and the Guards. Faithful rejoined them, his stomach full after his kitchen excursion.

  The biggest of the Guards was a sergeant who looked as ill-tempered as he behaved. Clearly his men knew he was in a foul mood; they kept away from him. His lady, however, was bored by his sulks and didn’t care who knew it. Alanna watched as the lady tried to tease her sergeant into a better frame of mind. When this tactic failed, her eye began to rove until she saw Liam. Until that point Alanna had no personal involvement in the woman’s behavior. Forgetting that she was dressed like a boy—and that in the ill-lit room it would be hard to see the feminine shape under her clothes—she glared a warning. The lady didn’t notice.

  The sergeant wasn’t aware that his companion’s attention had strayed. “Back in a minute, darlin’,” he belched. Getting up, he made for the privy.

  The moment the huge Guard was out of sight, his lady came to Alanna’s table. It was Liam’s turn to move: his attention was locked onto the chessboard. Coram saw the expression on his knight-mistress’s face. He looked up to see the reason for Alanna’s scowl and grinned.

  “So quiet ye lads are,” the woman purred as she put a hand on Liam’s shoulder. The Dragon glanced up, surprised. “Don’t ye care for female...companions?”

  Alanna rose and hissed, “Where I come from, it’s considered polite to keep to the man you’re with.”

  Startled, the woman glanced at her: she hadn’t noticed anyone but the big fellow. Why did this youth interfere? “What—the boy’s in love wiv’ ye, then?” she asked Liam. Liam chuckled and looked the woman over.

  Coram clapped a hand over Alanna’s mouth, pushing her into her seat. “She can’t see ye’re a girl!” he whispered into her ear. “Liam can take care of himself!”

  Coram took his hand away too soon. Alanna snapped, “What’re you looking for, Liam, fleas?” Her guardian sighed and corked his knight-mistress up again.

  The lady ran scarlet nails through Liam’s hair. “Lads’re no fun, and this one don’t look like he knows much. Now me, I appreciate a man.”

  Liam grinned at her as a muffled yell burst from Alanna. Coram put his lips close to the struggling knight’s ear. “D’ye want him t’think ye’re jealous? Ye’re givin’ a fair imitation of it.”

  His words nettled Alanna. She didn’t want Liam Ironarm thinking any such thing! She quieted, and Coram loosened his grip. “I just don’t like people who’re so obvious!” she whispered back, knowing she was jealous.

  A roar of fury split the air—the sergeant had returned. Anyone who thought he might be in the middle when battle lines were drawn moved quickly. The lady backed away from Liam.

  Alanna saw the Dragon’s eyes turn a pale green before he turned to face the enraged Guard. “This isn’t what you think,” he said quietly.

  The sergeant wasn’t interested. “On your feet!” He grabbed the Dragon’s tunic.

  Liam grasped the sergeant’s wrist. “Forget this. I’m Liam Ironarm, the Shang Dragon—you’ll get hurt.”

  The other man laughed. “Expect me t’think a Shang warrior’d sit with us ordinary folk?” His muscles bulged as he tried to lever his victim up.

  Liam’s hands tightened. For a second nothing happened, then the bigger man howled in pain. Liam stood, and the Guard was forced to back away, unable to break his hold. Finally the Dragon released him. “The next time you’re told someone is Shang, pay attention.” He faced Alanna and Coram. “This place is too lively for me.”

  The sergeant threw himself at Liam’s back. Alanna started to her feet, reaching for her knife; Coram tugged her down.

  Liam dropped and twisted, boosting the bigger man over his shoulder. The Guard crashed into a table, to the fury of its occupants. He threw them aside with a curse and charged Liam. The Dragon pivoted, driving his left foot out into his attacker’s belly, then his chin. The sergeant dropped like a stone.

  Two of the Guards rushed to help their comrade. Liam kicked a sword out of one Guard’s hand and flipped the other onto a table, then waited for the next attack—none came. He picked up the sergeant, asking, “Anything broken?”

  “Hunh?” The Marenite was dazed.

  Professionally, the Dragon checked his victim, then let him slide back to the floor. “You’ll live.” He glanced at the others, who seemed well enough, then beckoned to Alanna and Coram. “Let’s find someplace quieter.”

  The crowd backed away as they made for the door. Alanna peered back: the troublesome lady knelt by her sergeant, cooing to him. Grinning, she followed her friends.

  Midnight found Alanna and Liam seated on a wall overlooking the Shappa River. Coram had left in search of a card or dice game; Faithful went to meet a lady cat yowling in
her master’s garden. Alanna and Liam had visited the tent city to question the refugees about conditions in Sarain. Now they listened to the river and the distant howl of a wolf.

  “I like how you fought back there,” Alanna said sleepily. “No mess, no broken bones, no dead. Nice.”

  “I’m glad they took the hint,” yawned Liam.

  “Traveling with you is fun.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did Coram tell you why we’re bound for the Roof of the World?”

  “He said you had a map for some treasure. It makes no sense, risking your lives for gold that might or mightn’t be there. But you have no better plans—”

  “It isn’t gold,” she interrupted quietly. “It’s the Dominion Jewel. I want to find it and bring it home, for the glory of Tortall.”

  He smoothed his mustache, as he often did when he was thinking. “Not to mention that the deed would prove you’re worthy of your shield.” He jumped down and held his hands up to her. She slid into his grasp, and they kissed. “Gifted one, when it comes to a hero’s deed, you don’t think small.”

  “Liam?” She tried not to plead. “What’re you doing next?”

  “Riding with you and Coram, I expect.”

  It was barely dawn. Liam was dressed when he woke Alanna. “You want to learn Shang, you keep Shang hours! Up!” He reached for the water pitcher.

  She tumbled out of bed. “I’m up!”

  “The stableyard, five minutes,” he commanded. He slammed the door behind him. Alanna lurched to her feet.

  You’re ruining my rest, Faithful grumbled.

  Alanna dashed cold water on her face. “Good!” Dressing, she wailed, “Why did I pick a man who’s a grouch in the morning?”

  The Marenite Guardsmen said they were crazy to enter Sarain, but they let Alanna’s party through. The difference between the nations was soon clear: healthy Marenite farms gave way to burned-out homesteads. Often they found the leavings of refugees who’d camped on the Great Road before crossing into Maren. The road was deserted.

  Alanna worked at her lessons. Liam grew less gruff at exercise time when he saw she practiced longer than she had to and complained less than most beginners. He taught her only a few hand blows, the arm blocks, and two kicks. But in these he drilled her endlessly, watching for the tiniest flaw. At night they shared a bedroll, with Coram’s unspoken approval.