More armored figures followed the first. The stag backed a few steps, more for his world than for himself. There were only a few creatures, if ugly ones, but their presence in this wood, in this world, meant unthinkable things.
He shook himself and murmured aloud, 'The Royal Peris has a gift for understatement. 'Strangers' indeed.' He tensed his muscles for flight, but stepped forward. 'I greet you.'
Nothing happened. The dragon-men stared in all directions, unhearing and unseeing.
He concentrated and said more loudly, 'I greet you.'
The leader leapt into the air, his wings holding him aloft a moment. Where the pegasi in flight looked graceful, this thing looked foul as it sank back, half-rejected by ground and air alike.
It watched the stag suspiciously. 'Where did you come from?'
The stag shuddered at the hollow, awkward voice that sounded like a dried man, but he answered it bravely. 'From Darken Wood, where you are. Where have you come from?'
The dragon-thing ignored the question. 'Darken Wood?' He held his sword at guard. 'This is an evil place.' He lisped slightly.
The stag wondered, none too happily, if the thing's tongue were forked.
'Evil only to those who bring evil with them.' He added to the ritual response, 'Many have. They do not leave again.' He thought, briefly, of King Peris, of the Forestmaster, and of betrayal. 'But there is much to be gained here, as well as risk.'
'Name the gain.' The dragon-man signaled behind him. The arriving troops moved to the very edges of the trail, not beyond, and formed twin lines, guarding each others' backs without a word. They were well-trained for war.
The stag considered what that meant, but went ahead. 'There is one who watches over this wood.' He hesitated, then amended, 'Who rules this wood. All in it, living and.. human and animal, serve her.' He took a deep breath and finished, 'To take this wood, it is only needed to slay her.'
Treachery neither surprised nor impressed the dragon man. 'And she is?'
'The Forestmaster. The ruler here. A white unicorn.'
Several of the company hissed involuntarily. The leader started. 'A unicorn? You suggest a blood-force of draconians could — »
'Hunt her and slay her, yes.' The stag added drily, 'It appears the moral requirements for such a hunt were exaggerated. That seems sensible, since there is no morality to such a hunt.' He added more plainly, 'You need not be virgins.'
The dragon-man waved a claw. 'We have no capacity for desire.' He made a face that could have been a smile. 'Or for love.'
'You are happier than you know,' the stag said, mainly to himself. Aloud he repeated, 'I have offered you a unicorn hunt. Will you take my offer?'
The dragon-man considered. 'How would we find her?'
'You would not. I would, and you would follow. For the rest — ' The stag shrugged, his shoulders rippling the motion up his well-muscled neck. 'Surely you need not ask me how to hunt and slay animals.' An old ache reminded him what this betrayal meant, to the lover as well as to the loved. For one moment he had a vision of those teeth, those claws, tearing at the shadowless white flesh of the Forestmaster.
The dragon — draconian — had not moved for some time. 'We would do this for conquest, as well as for reasons we will not share.' He smiled, after his kind, with a great many teeth. 'Why would you do this?'
'For reasons I will not share.' He finished more softly. 'For reasons which, apparently, would mean little to you.' More and more, the stag was wondering why scorned love and thwarted desire meant much to himself. 'I was not aware that soldiers needed excuses, or perhaps you do not feel up to your quarry.'
The draconian answered without anger, 'Look in
our faces. We could hunt any creature alive to its death.'
'I see. And beyond?' the stag asked politely, but the joke was lost on them. 'Follow, then. Not too closely.'
As he turned and bounded away, he heard a single command, a word or a language he did not know. Once again he was afraid — for his world, and not for himself.
'Perhaps I grow sentimental. Next I will write bad songs and carry noisy bipeds on my back,' he said aloud.But the joke was flat, and he realized that sarcasm and self parody could no longer protect him from his own feelings. Behind him he heard the rasp of strange and wicked claws, tearing at the wood that was his whole world.
He was more than halfway to the clearing when bulky shapes, half-hidden in leaves, blocked his way. He froze in place, hoping the draconians behind him would do the same.
A voice called, 'Halt.'
'Remarkably alert,' the stag observed, 'if unnecessary.'
'Don't be giving rudeness to those who keep faith.' The deep voice, unbothered at the stag's sarcasm, went on, 'Where does tha go?'
'I have an errand.' He spoke coldly, hoping the sentry would take offense and turn away. 'Is it habitual in this wood to question duty?'
'Not my habit, nor that of my kind.' The figure emerged from the undergrowth. It was, as he had known from the size and voice, a centaur.
Nonetheless, he peered at it curiously.
'Ah,' he said as if in recognition. 'A draft human. Tell me, how is life in harness?'
The centaur regarded him, as always, with the easy contempt that the hooved and human show the merely human or the merely hooved.
'We are not in harness but in service — as others should be,' the centaur said heavily. He tossed his head restlessly. 'I have heard rumors and smelled scents this day, as well. Are more strangers in Darken Wood?'
The stag would not look in the centaur's large, dark eyes. 'Perhaps you smell the strangers from last night. Is there any reason that their smell would cling to you?'
'We bore them on our backs,' he said with dignity. 'As all in this wood know. Are more strangers in Darken Wood?' he repeated.
'Why ask me? Surely you think you know more than I; your breed studies stars as well as any beast of burden could.'
'Mockery. It's all tha has.' He snorted, horselike. 'Try to hide the truth from us both, if tha wishes. I study little, but I know stars. These past nights they tell of battle, and of life and death for a stag. It's a' there — for them as looks close.' He added, 'Maybe tha has not seen these strangers — but tha will.' He turned to go.
The stag watched him. 'I have a retort,' he called, 'timed and well framed, laden with irony and literary allusion — but I refuse to favor you with it. I have my dignity.'
The centaur said nothing, and in the stag's heart he knew that was the best retort of all. The centaur waited a moment longer, then went his way.
A moment later the lead draconian appeared, sword ready, behind the stag. 'He is gone?'
'He is.' The stag was looking where the centaur had been, thinking hard. He tried to imagine the centaurs dead and defeated, bleeding as the wood fell again to strangers. He could not imagine that any centaurs would run, or would turn traitor, or would think at all of themselves.
'Then we remain undiscovered.'
The stag thought over the centaur's words. 'Let us say you remain unseen. Remain so a while longer, by moving behind me again.'
The draconian looked at the stag without love and withdrew. The stag moved slowly, thoughtfully, toward the center of Darken Wood.
He caught himself humming. 'It's that damned song,' he muttered. 'Crude and folkish, but the tune sticks in the mind.'
Actually, it was the words which stuck in his mind. He found himself singing, half-unwillingly:
The stag led on from night to dawn,
from sunrise into morn,
