“‘Drow. Have you read these papers? Do you know of the invasion?’”
“Tell him I cannot read the papers and that telling me the contents makes that fact irrelevant.”
The indignant anger across the centaur’s face told her that her point had been carried across. Or at least that whatever was said had the reaction she hoped her words would. He barked again at Aile, before waiting patiently for the words to be translated. She tried not to laugh at it, but failed. A pleasant surprise to learn that a centaur would be patient enough to allow his rage to be translated.
“‘Tell me why I should not kill you?’”
“I could not care if he tried. So large and stupid as he is, his death would likely be a boon to the entire race. What the centaur do with the elves does not concern me.”
Ilkea began relaying the message and the smaller centaur began to bristle beside his warlord. In truth, she would prefer the elves to the horsefolk if only for the sake of her tongue. Perhaps the faun would take to cooking as a means of enriching themselves if the elves fell. They could likely be taught at least. The largest had become loud and was stamping the dirt as if to make a point of his upset.
“‘The Battle will find black forest when the rest have gone,’ he says.”
She laughed. “It seems you horsefolk assume that birth means loyalty. Burn the Blackwood for all I care. And if you mean to shackle me, then at least be sure to send something large enough that I recognize it as a centaur.”
She looked hard at the smallest of the three and smiled wryly. He began shifting in place, moving his eyes from Aile to Ilkea and back waiting for the words to come. The sounds from the satyr had barely ceased when a roar was let out.
Aile pulled her longest blade and a short plunging dagger from her hip, taking a few steps forward. The centaur had pulled an axe of his own and readied it. He was on her in seconds, the axe plunging toward her. He had swung shallow, though, used to fighting elves and she ducked the dull weapon neatly, pushing the short blade into the joint of her attacker’s left foreleg. A great wave of dirt pushed out away from the centaur as he crashed to the ground, his limbs locked in place. She heard the rustle of hooves behind her and turned to see. The woman had grown restless now.
She stood at the belly of the beast, looking him up and down. There was a small shuddering through his body from time to time, but no movement otherwise. She buried her foot in the abdomen of his lower body, angered that the rush of the attack had already begun to fade. His eyes were locked to her, the only thing he could manage to move.
“Your pride is so easily wounded is it?” She scoffed, pulling out the blade. “Perhaps I can help. You see, it is hard to wound pride when you have so little of it left.”
Aile turned toward the hind end of the centaur and swiftly plunged her blade deep into the fold that held his cock. A shudder ran through him again and she pulled the blade, plunging it back. Deep red poured out in thick, throbbing streams. Another roar rang out, this one more feminine, but only just. She looked to see the female centaur rear to charge only to have her stopped by the warlord. He gave a guttural laugh and spoke. Ilkea gave her the words.
“‘You are a worthy prey. I will take pleasure in your death, but now you have work.’”
He spoke again and pointed. The female centaur began to move ahead.
“They will collect him,” Ilkea explained.
Aile took a few steps back as the female came forward and secured the hind legs of the other. She scowled at Aile as she did her work but turned when she was done and began to drag him away across the field. The warlord waited behind and spoke one last time to Aile.
“He says ‘Drow. If you have not killed him, you are a cruel creature indeed. The Old must have made you for us.’”
She knew just enough to understand what he had meant. A compliment, worthless as any other and self-service besides. If The Old, dead warlords who the centaur revered as gods, had made her for them, it was a wonder they had made a society where a loss to her was more shameful than death. It likely made enough sense to the centaur, though. God worship had that way about it, turning non-sense into sense for only the zealous.
When the centaur had gone, Ilkea breathed a sigh of relief. She opened her mouth to speak but a glance from Aile quieted her before any words formed. The chariots were mounted and they began to move away from the mountains. Ilkea directed them nearly due west before pulling up aside Aile.
“We go to the west. In the plains.”
The word invasion had been in the air and Aile now assumed that Ilkea had been with a horde rather than a scouting party. She knew little of Ilkea’s status among them, though the camp she had delivered their hero to was not so fond of her. The gold had kept her from concerning herself overmuch with the particulars but with so much time ahead of her she felt that an examination would prove fruitful. The clearest thing was why they had sought her out. The faun had ideas
