With camp made, Ilkea returned and sat on the far side of the fire. She did not speak for hours, not until the sun was nearly down, though she looked at Aile often. At her hands, especially.
“Do you…” Ilkea caught herself and quieted.
Aile looked her over. “Go on. I will indulge you only once. Two questions.”
“Do you feel… regret? For killing your own?”
“My own? Drow? No.”
“Have you ever had friendship?”
Aile softened her voice and put on a half-smile. “Of course, I have. You are a precious friend, Ilkea. My partner.”
The satyr’s eyes opened wide and her mouth did the same. She looked around the camp as if trying to find an explanation for the answer. It had made her restless.
“What—”
“Two questions.”
There was quiet until the fire had burned down and Ilkea excused herself to go to her tent. Aile stood and went to her own, taking her cleaning supplies along with. She saw to her ritual slowly and methodically. A skin of wine was all she had for entertainment when the work was done, even that had soured. Aile’s patience for this play with the horsefolk had truly run out. Weeks of being subjected to one presumptuous, smelly fool after another. It was past time for a return to plush beds and edible food. And smells. Goddess, to smell something appetizing or pleasant. She flung the wine skin across the tent and it slapped pathetically against the canvas. She could hear the satyr sleep, even at the distance she had put between them.
She left her tent and walked without a sound toward the horse. It shook its head and shifted as she came near, annoyed to be approached at night by something not shaped like a satyr. Even the horse annoyed her. The chariot as well. She went for the pack and the horse shifted again, making a noise. Aile pulled her long blade and shoved it into the horse’s neck. Before it could buck or complain the horse fell to its knees, breathing ragged and eyes rolled back. She went back to the pack she wanted and pulled the one sheet of paper clear from it. It was the shorter letter. Aile gritted her teeth as she looked over the paper. She pulled the blade from the horse’s neck and slammed it back into the thick meat time and again. There was no sound but the quiet, slick pop of the dagger exiting a newly formed hole time after time and the increasingly panicked but slowly fading breath of the dying animal.
It fell after only a pair of minutes with a quiet thud. She stopped still to listen for the satyr’s breathing and heard it. She kicked the horse in the throat and turned to face the tent.
The flaps had been tied on the inside. Something of a futile gesture. Perhaps Ilkea hoped they would somehow cause her to make more noise. The goat clearly did not understand how loudly she slept. The straps held no metal and were cut through with hardly any resistance to speak of. A metal clasp would have made it all the easier given Aile’s abilities but it was all the same in the end.
A cot sat in the middle of the space with Ilkea on it, facing away from the door. Aile walked over and looked up and down the creature. She seemed smaller now than when she was standing. Aile crouched next to the bed and surveyed Ilkea’s back. She let her hands run over the hilt of each of her weapons before settling on a flat, wide plunging knife. She pulled it free and held it out, aimed dead center of the girl’s exposed lower back. Aile took a deep breath and forced the blade in as far as it would go.
The satyr jerked in the bed only once, but her eyes shot open, trying as best they could to see what was at her back. Aile would oblige her curiosity. She stood and came around to face Ilkea.
“I lied about us being friends. I expect you knew that though.” Aile sighed. “I have found everything about this work so disappointing. Instead of a fight with satyr who meant to kill me, I got shown a turgid cock and fed spiced refuse. And you.” She pulled the satyr’s mouth open and spit into it. “Pathetic little coward. So proud of your honor. Just like the centaur you hate, only lacking the conviction.”
She slapped Ilkea’s jaw shut and splinters of teeth popped out as her mouth rebounded. Tears streamed soundlessly from bloodshot eyes.
“I put up with your stink and your pathetic excuse for culture and rambling odes to your people’s greatness. And for what? For an obvious ploy and poorly forged gold.” Aile took a deep breath. “I cannot stand to talk so much. You’ve drawn it out of me. And for that, I hate you all the more. Still, it is rare I have a satyr all to myself like this.” Aile crouched down to look directly into Ilkea’s eyes. “This will be unpleasant for you.”
Aile walked slowly to the end of the bed and took a long look at the hooves in front of her. She placed the flat of her hand against the top one and closed her eyes. An orange glow surrounded her palm and soon the hoof itself began to turn red and then orange. The bone that fed into it began to glow beneath the surface of her leg and
