The centaur emitted a bellow of sheer impassioned rage. He whipped his bow around with his left hand while his right hand dived for the quiver of arrows hanging on his equine shoulder. But now Bink's staff was tangled in his bow.
The creature threw down the bow. The action ripped the staff out of Bink's hands. The centaur made a huge fist. Bink scurried around to the rear as that fist swung at him. But the rear of the centaur was no safer than the front; one leg licked back violently. Through a freak of timing, it missed Bink and clubbed into the trunk of the needle cactus.
The cactus responded with a barrage of flying needles. Even as the hoof struck, Bink threw himself flat on the ground. The needles overshot him and plunked into the handsome posterior of the centaur. Once more Bink had lucked out: he was miraculously untouched by either hoof or needles.
The centaur neighed with truly amazing volume. Those needles hurt; each one was two inches long, and barbed, and a hundred of them decorated the glistening surface, tacking the tail to the donkey, as it were. Had the creature been facing the cactus, he could have been blinded or killed as the barbs punctured his face and neck; he was lucky, too, though he hardly seemed to appreciate his fortune at the moment.
Now there were no bounds to the centaur's anger. An unholy contortion of utter rage ravaged his homely face. He did a massive prance, his hindquarters rising and descending in an arc, bringing his front part abruptly adjacent to Bink. Two crushingly powerful arms shot out, and two horny hands closed about Bink's relatively puny neck. Slowly they tightened, with viselike deliberation. Bink, lifted off the ground so that his feet dangled, was helpless. He knew he was about to be strangled; he could not even plead for mercy, for his air and much of his blood were cut off.
'Chester!' a female voice cried.
The centaur stiffened. This did Bink no good.
'Chester, you put that man down this instant!' the voice said peremptorily. 'Do you want an interspecies incident?'
'But, Cherie,' Chester protested, his color abating several shades. 'He's an intruder, and he asked for it.'
'He's on the King's path,' Cherie said. 'Travelers are immune to molestation; you know that. Now let him go!'
The lady centaur hardly seemed to be in a position to enforce her demand, but Chester slowly bowed to her authority. 'Can't I just squeeze him a little?' he begged, squeezing a little. Bink's eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.
'If you do, I'll never run with you again. Down!'
'Aaaww?' Reluctantly Chester eased off. Bink slid to the ground, reeling. What a fool he had been to tangle with this brute!
The female centaur caught him as he swayed. 'Poor thing!' she exclaimed, cushioning his head against a plush pillow. 'Are you all right?'
Bink opened his mouth, gagged, and tried again. It seemed that his crushed throat would never unkink. 'Yes,' he croaked.
'Who are you? What happened to your hand? Did Chester-'
'No,' Bink said hastily. 'He didn't bite off my finger. That's a childhood injury. See, it's long since healed over.'
She inspected it carefully, running her surprisingly delicate fingers over it. 'Yes, I see. Still?'
'I-I am Bink of the North Village,' he said. He turned his head to face her-and discovered the nature of the pillow he rested against. Oh no, not again! he thought. Will I always be babied by women? Centaur females were smaller than the males, but still stood somewhat taller than human beings. Their humanoid portions were somewhat better endowed. He jerked his head away from her bare front. It was bad enough being babied by his mother, let alone a lady centaur. 'I am traveling south to see the Magician Humfrey.'
Cherie nodded. She was a beautiful creature, both as horse and as human, with glossy flanks and a remarkable human forefigure. Her face was attractive, only very slightly long of nose in the equine manner. Her brown human hair trailed all the way down to her saddle region, balancing her similarly flowing tail. 'And this ass waylaid you?'
'Well-' Bink looked at Chester, again noting the rippling muscle beneath the deadly glower. What would happen when the filly departed? 'It was-it was a misunderstanding.'
'I'll bet,' Cherie said. But Chester relaxed a trifle. Evidently he did not want to tangle with his girlfriend. Bink could readily appreciate why. If Cherie was not the loveliest and spunkiest centaur of the herd, she was surely close to it.
'I'll just be moving on now,' Bink said. He could have done this at the outset, allowing Chester to run him off in a southerly direction. He had been as much to blame for the altercation as the centaur. 'Sorry about the problem.' He held out his hand to Chester.
Chester showed his teeth, which were more like horse's teeth than human ones. He made a big fist.
'Chester!' Cherie snapped. Then, as the centaur guiltily relaxed his fist: 'What happened to your flank?'
The male's complexion darkened again, but not precisely with rage this time. He trotted his damaged posterior around to avoid the inquiring gaze of the female. Bink had almost forgotten about the needles. They must still be hurting-and it would hurt more to yank them all out. What a pain in the tail! A most awkward locale to discuss in mixed company. He almost felt sympathy for the surly creature.
Chester suppressed his assorted reactions and with fine discipline took Bink's hand. 'I hope everything comes out all right in the end,' Bink said, with a smile that became a bit broader than intended. In fact, he feared it resembled a smirk. And abruptly he knew he shouldn't have chosen those particular words or that particular expression on this particular occasion.
Something homicidal reddened the whites of the centaur's eyes. 'Quite all right,' he gritted through
