Watersmeet (12 page)

On the night the rain stopped, the dripping leaves prevented Abisina from drying out. After coming through a particularly squelchy part of the woods, she paused at the edge of a clearing to empty out her boots. Before she could pull the first one off, Haret looked at her urgently, pressing his finger to his lips.

Centaurs?
she wondered.
Or minotaurs?

She saw nothing. But then the clouds moved off the face of the full moon. The wet grass of the clearing shone like silver, and shadows flitted at the edge of the trees. Haret grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward a huge oak, his finger remaining sternly on his lips. Abisina followed him behind the tree and crouched down in the waves of roots rippling from the trunk.

He leaned around the tree, trying to get a better view of the clearing. Abisina did not move.

Haret glanced back at her and pointed to the other side of the tree. “Fauns! Over there. Watch! Even you might learn something of beauty.”

Beauty?
Images of fauns ran through her head, fed to her by the Elders: diabolical creatures, perversions with cloven hooves and goat horns.

But she, too, peered around the side of the tree. A whistle came from the right of the clearing. A whistle from the left answered. Suddenly, the whistling swelled from all sides and the clearing filled with dancing shapes. For the first few moments, Abisina saw only a blur of bodies, but soon she began to pick out individual fauns with sinewy arms, hairy legs, and horned, curly heads. Some were as fair as an ideal Vranian, while others were darker than Abisina or Haret. The women wore garlands of flowers in their hair; the men wore them as sashes across their chests. A few blew into wooden pipes while others sang in high-pitched, melodious voices, tracing intricate harmonies that made her skin tingle, though she didn’t understand the words. And their feet never stopped moving—they wove in and out of one another in choreo- graphy with no beginning or end.

Abisina caught her breath. The wood itself seemed to be closing in on the dance, trees moving with the music, although no wind touched Abisina’s face. Haret turned to her, face shining, a half-smile pulling at his lips. She looked back at the swaying—
dancing
—trees and imagined great faces in theirtrunks—deep-set eyes, crooked mouths, knobby noses. Their branches looked like spikes of hair sprouting from their foreheads.

She sat transfixed, unaware of the rough bark biting into her shins. The fauns’ song spiraled higher and higher until Abisina thought her heart would break with joy. Then, the ritual stopped. The fauns disappeared and the trees stood still again. A deafening silence filled the clearing. Blinking as if just awakening, Abisina realized that the sun had peeked over the tops of the trees. She sank back onto her heels.

Haret’s eyes were moist, his cheeks flushed.

Abisina had no words to describe her feelings, and a look at Haret’s face told her he felt the same way. They both sat for several moments, joined in awed silence.

He finally shook himself and broke the spell. Abisina got stiffly to her feet while Haret shouldered his bag.

“Day is here, but we must go farther before we can stop. Hurry,” he said gruffly. But the hunger around his eyes—appearing deepest when he stroked Sina’s necklace—had eased. He looked more whole.

Abisina lifted her own bag, and with one last glance at the empty clearing, followed Haret into the trees.

It felt strange to be walking in daylight, though Haret stuck to deeply shaded places where the trees grew very close together. It was also warmer, and after half an hour, Abisina took off her cloak and draped it over her bag. The fauns’ music still played in her head as she walked.

Haret stopped in front of her, squinting up toward the sun, touching the mossy side of a tree. Abisina glanced around. Behind them lay forest as thick as any they had moved through, but ahead there was more space between the trees, mounds of rock jutting from the earth, and boulders dotting the forest floor. Patches of sunlight now reached a carpet of fallen leaves, dotted with wildflowers. She noticed that the land sloped upward more steeply, and she was wondering if this might be the foothills of the Obrun Mountains when the woods filled with shouts and the snaps of breaking branches.

Something grabbed her around her waist and yanked her off her feet. She heard Haret shout, but then the world turned upside down. Abisina’s head flopped toward the ground, which was rushing by below her. The thick, muscled legs of a horse flashed in and out of view.

She had been captured by a centaur!

Abisina pulled and struggled, but her bag and cloak hung around her head, tangling her arms. She shook them off and fought like a wild thing, twisting, clawing at the strong arm that held her, trying to sink her teeth into any body part she could. But the arm pinned her tighter, the drum of the hooves never faltering.

Abisina hung there, trying to collect herself. To her left, she saw the centaur’s muscular human abdomen, flecked with mud and sweat, disappearing into the gray hips of a horse. Gathering her strength, she tried to fight again, but the centaur swung her away from its body and shook her hard. Her teeth clattered together and her bones grated in their joints. She went limp, and it held her again by its side.

She had to think! Had to get away! Clenching her teeth, she reached out a third time to scratch its belly or kick at its sides. But it shook her again, and Abisina’s neck snapped, and all went black.

A hard smack against her cheek woke her.

She opened her eyes to find the cold, blue stare of a female centaur on her. Matted gray hair hung over the creature’s breasts, her mouth twisted in a cruel grin. Abisina sat on a high tree branch, arms pinned to her sides, as the centaur held her waist.

“What’s this?” the centaur mocked, examining her up and down. “A human takin’ up with mudmen?”

Abisina tried to get her bearings, but her head pounded and moving her neck sent a stabbing pain through her shoulders.

“And what kind of human are you? You’re as brown as the mudman! And this hair!” She yanked down the braid Abisina had taken to wearing and stepped closer so that Abisina could see her broken teeth and smell her foul breath. “Are you
all
human, girlie?”

Abisina swallowed hard and tried to look past the leering face.

“Lookin’ for your friend? Don’t worry. My brother has him, and you’ll soon be together!”

A brown centaur galloped up in a rush of hooves. He was shorter and stockier than the female, his eyes dull, his features thick.

“Where’s the mudman?” the gray centaur asked sharply.

“Surl, don’t be mad!” The brown one put his hands up to defend his chest. “He kicked me in the face—look!” He pointed to his lip, split and bleeding. “I dropped him, and he was duckin’ under trees before I knew what’d happened. I chased him for leagues, but he got away,” he finished, taking a step back.

“For leagues, you chased him,” Surl sneered.

“Well, far, but—but he’s quick and stuck to low places.”

“I should’ve known you’d lose him, Drolf. But I thought even you could handle a mudman.” She released Abisina with her right hand as if ready to strike her brother, and Drolf cringed.

“I told you—he kicked me!” he pleaded. “And we got the human.”

Surl appraised Abisina. “But will she please?”

“She looks, er, different,” Drolf noted, with a wary glance toward his sister’s free hand. “Was the mudman her
sire
?” he asked, impressed with his cleverness.

The blow came. Surl struck Drolf’s chin, without looking in his direction. “Don’t be thick. Look at the fine bones in her face and hands.” She leaned in closer. “And the eyes. Green.” Surl paused, thinking. “It’s a risk. . . . If he doesn’t like her—remember what he did to Lachlin?” Drolf, massaging his jaw, shuddered. Surl reached down and removed the boots Hoysta had made and flung them aside. She took Abisina’s bare feet in her rough hands and stroked them. “We’ll do it,” she murmured as she straightened up. “We’ll tell him she’s rare, not like the yellow-haired ones. Better.”

Drolf had been waiting for his sister’s decision. “If they let us in the herd,” he said eagerly, “we’ll have all the meat we can eat. And the mead.”

“Stop thinkin’ about your belly!” Surl reached out to cuff her brother again, but, ready this time, he dodged the blow. “Now shut up so I can think how to present her. . . . I’ll do it in front of the whole herd,” she said slowly. “Murklern and his guard’ll try and stop me from gettin’ to Icksyon. But I’ll tell them I’ve a gift. The herd’ll come back to camp just before nightfall. But all they’ll be thinkin’ about is meat and mead. I’ll come after their bellies’re full and—”

“But if we get there early, we can eat, too!” Drolf licked his lips.

Surl ignored him. “You’ll have to hold her while I talk to the herd.”

“Yeah, I’ll hold the human,” Drolf agreed.

“But can I trust you with her?” Surl turned on her brother.

“Surl, I can hold a human!”

“Like you held the mudman?”

“He was strong!” Drolf protested. “Not like this puny one.”

With Surl distracted by Drolf, Abisina tried to gather her scattered thoughts. They were taking her to Icksyon, a herd leader. And
they
were afraid of him. She had to get away!

She stole a glance into the branches above her, but the next one was at least two body lengths away along a smooth trunk. The ground was a similar distance below—but that was her only hope. If she dropped to the ground, she could run.

But where? They’ll be right after me.
Twenty-five paces away was a tree she thought she could climb. If she could get up it, she’d be safe.
And trapped like a raccoon with wolves on his tail!
Still, it was her one chance. She got ready to drop the instant Surl relaxed her grip.

“That’s right, teach
me
a lesson!” Surl was mocking her brother. Drolf’s face was red with fury, his fists clenched. Surl looked at ease, but one of her back legs pawed the ground. “Come on!” she taunted until Drolf rushed her. Surl jumped aside, releasing her hold on Abisina.

Seizing her chance, Abisina dropped to the ground.

But as she took her first running step, her feet slipped from under her. Pushing herself up, she tried again to run, but something slammed into her. She felt a sharp pain in her head and another in her nose as she rolled over and over.

“The human!” Surl cried above her, and the buffeting blows stopped. “You clumsy bastard! You almost killed her! Icksyon’ll want her alive.”

“She was runnin’ away!”

Surl snatched Abisina off the ground. Abisina could feel the bruises growing under the centaur’s fingers. Surl shook her, hard.

“Tryin’ to run!” she spat. “Drolf, get some vine to tie her up.” Surl slammed Abisina back onto the branch but did not release her grip. “You won’t try that again, girlie!”

It seemed to take hours for Drolf to get back with the vine. Abisina sat silently, the centaur’s blue eyes boring into hers. When Drolf returned at last, Surl ordered, “Tie her tight.” Drolf passed lengths of vine around Abisina’s chest and arms, pulling it so that the vine cut into her skin through her under-shirt.

“Turn ’round,” Surl barked at her brother when Abisina was tied. Despite Abisina’s struggle, Surl forced her onto Drolf—her legs uncomfortably straddling his wide back—and lashed her to Drolf’s torso, her cheek pressed against his back, the smell of his body in her nose.

Abisina now faced the tree where she had been held, where she’d thought she might escape. On the ground, she saw a patch of mushrooms, red caps flecked with white; a swath through the middle of the patch was crushed where she had slipped.

She knew those mushrooms! Her mother had warned her about them. Eating even a tiny bit would bring sickness, horrifying visions, and finally death-like sleep. Eat too much, and you would never awake.
If only I had one of them now.
Anything—even death—had to be better than what the centaurs had planned for her.

“You’ve cost me time,” Surl told her brother. “We’re goin’ hard to Giant’s Cairn. And you’d better hold the human.”

Drolf’s body lurched below Abisina as he began to gallop, taking her to Icksyon.

Abisina endured the next hours in a haze of pain and fear as the centaurs cantered on—sometimes among scattered trees, other times on open, rocky hilltops—but never with any sign of stopping. Her thighs ached; the vines cut into her arms so that her hands tingled and then went numb; her face and chest ran with the centaur’s sweat; her head throbbed where Drolf had kicked her, and sticky blood dripped from her nose. But the terror of what lay ahead was worse than any pain.

The sun had gone beneath the horizon and the air was cool by the time the centaurs slowed to a trot and then a walk.

“Get over here!” Surl barked. “I’m goin’ to cut her off.”

“Why?” Drolf’s words rumbled against Abisina’s cheek.

“Do it!”

Drolf took a few steps, and some of the vines around her tightened and then released. She was lifted off and again faced Surl.

“Did we have a nice ride, girlie?” Surl asked.

Abisina could barely hold her head up.