“I am to eat his special meal.” She almost gagged saying the words.
“What is a special meal?”
Aile chose not to answer the question and looked around the place they stood. The satyr passing her by paid curiously little notice to her. Even the elves of port cities were more enamored with her than the horsefolk that moved around her now. It was unnerving to an extent but seemed as though it could work to her advantage. The horses were gone now, as was the paper. There was nothing to check as she stood and waited. An hour passed before Ilkea took a seat in the dirt and began to push at it with her finger. The grass that surrounded the encampment had not survived the traffic of so many hoofed feet. A satyr came and looked to Ilkea, at the ground, and then to Aile. He pointed to her and spoke to Ilkea. The satyr girl nodded and the new satyr spoke again.
“You are to go with him.”
“Where?”
She asked and he replied. “The meal.”
It was a crossroads, but looking across the encampment stirred something deep in her. Aile motioned toward the camp and the satyr sent to guide her to this meal took the cue. The tent was not far from the edge of the camp, though it was large. Half the size of what centaur warlords tended to keep as quarters but not as tall. The guide pulled the tent open and Aile passed through.
She stood a moment, staring around the room, even after the flap had closed behind her. The table was clearly made from redwood, old and thick, well-polished. Stone statues to the Drow Goddess sat in corners of the tent and beneath the harsh odor of heavy spice, she could smell fireweed and fir. A flap at the back side of the tent parted and Harekor came in. He wore a shift she recognized instantly. Deep purple and long, with yellow patterns that came up from the base. It was a holy robe. The Devout wore them. She noticed the small cauldron and watched as he placed it on the table.
“The meal. Make. Maked. We eat!”
He motioned to the chair across the table from him and then took a seat in his own. Aile came hesitantly to her place at the table and sat, watching her host but staying mindful of the exit. She could be through the side wall with a dagger, but the timing would be tight if he set upon her.
He opened the pot and stared at her, smiling. She recognized the dish immediately. A hog’s trotter stew with mushrooms and root vegetables. It was peasant food of the Blackwood, but the smell was all wrong. The odor of copious spice rose from the cauldron and she could see specs of it across everything inside.
“Stew.” He smiled and nodded down at the pot. “Stew.”
“I know what it is.”
He seemed to take the words as a compliment and clapped again, trotting in place. Harekor grabbed a spoon from the edge of the table and slopped a helping into her bowl before seeing to his own. He sat down and picked up the bowl before putting it back down hurriedly.
“No!” He seemed to chastise himself and slapped at the table before calming and grabbing a spoon. He held it up to show her and nodded. “Ah?” He laughed to himself and put the spoon into the bowl, taking a large bite, and squawking a satisfied groan as he swallowed it. “Eat, eat! Most good!”
She waited a moment with him staring. The goat did not seem to die from it. Whatever the flavor, it would be a change of pace. And warm food seemed a pleasant distraction from the abject nonsense of the entire scene around her. She filled the spoon and took a bite. The turnips were not so awful, but the soup itself had all the charm of a mouthful of pungent sand. It was, she had to admit, a far cry from the food she had forced down through the rest of her work with the horsefolk. The thought was a moot one, though, as the only redeeming features of the meal were a cause of its Drow origins. Harekor continued to make words at her while she ate the stew.
“Turnip.” He held one up. “Strange ground meat.” He nodded to himself and ate it.
“By what means did…”
She realized she did not care how he had come to think of it as ground meat and left it there. Still, every word from her lips seemed to please him to the point that he had begun shifting in his seat and watching her as she ate. His breathing became heavy and long and Aile put a hand to the long blade at her back.
“You… beautiful. As Aile…”
The satyr did not mean her, she knew. He meant the Goddess. Had he known her name, she’d have like found herself pounced at once and the subject of fumbled attempts to rape her in a fit of moronic lust.
“You are a disgusting mule.”
He shuddered. She began to wonder if he didn’t understand her and simply enjoyed the insult.
“I love Drow.” He was growing more excited. “Drow beautiful.” He stood and pushed the bowl from the table before lifting his extended cock, letting it fall onto the wood. It gave a meaty slap. “I want you.”
Aile looked at the horse prick on the table and then up to the satyr. She stood quietly and pulled the longest blade from her back, holding it aloft between two fingers.
Harekor looked at her and then to the knife and back again. His face twitched and he looked down at his penis, breathing heavy and unsteady. He was nervous.
“But… But I… meal.”
Aile said nothing but made a proper grip around the knife and stared hard at the satyr in front of her. He looked to his cock and then the knife and then her. He
