“Idiot! Centaurs murder travelers! Some of them are cannibals!”
“Ho,” rumbled the nearest centaur. “Only eat ugly two-legs.”
She almost dropped her sword in surprise. “You speak Elven?”
“Some.” On Verhanna’s left and right, half-man, half-horse creatures pressed in toward the fire. She counted seven of them, five brown and two black. They carried rusty iron swords and spears or crude clubs made from small tree trunks. The one who had spoken to Verhanna carried a bow and quiver of arrows slung across his body.
“You do not fight, we do not fight,” he said, cocking his brown head at her. Verhanna put her back against the boulder and kept her sword ready. Above her, Rufus loaded his sling.
“What do you want?” asked the warrior maiden.
“I am Koth, leader of this band. We follow the jerda, we hunt them,” said the centaur. He held up hairy brown fingers to his forehead to imitate horns. Understanding dawned on Verhanna. He meant the elk herd. “Jerda ran hard, and we lost them. Kothlolo are very hungry.”
Kothlolo must be the centaur word for “centaur,” Verhanna decided. “We haven’t much food ourselves,” she said. “We did see the elk herd. It was heading toward the Astradine River.”
A black-coated centaur picked up her saddlebags and pawed through them. He found a lump of bacon and shoved it in his mouth. Immediately those nearest him swarmed over him, trying to snatch the smoked meat from his lips. The centaurs dissolved into a bucking, scrabbling fight, with only the bass-voiced Koth remaining aloof.
“They are pretty hungry,” Rufus observed.
“And numerous,” mumbled Verhanna. She couldn’t very well start a fight with so many centaurs. She and Rufus might well end up as the main course at a losers’ banquet.
“Where’s Greenhands?” she said softly, looking around.
Through all the talking and squabbling over food, Greenhands had sat unmoving, lost in slumber. So complete was his sleep, Verhanna felt obliged to see if he was breathing. He was.
“By Astra, when he sleeps, he sleeps,” she muttered.
A centaur found Rufus’s store of walnuts in his ration bag. The others tore at his hand, scattering the nuts over the campsite. A few landed on Greenhands’ head, and he finally stirred.
“You’re alive,” Verhanna said caustically. “I thought I was going to have to beat a gong.”
The elf’s face was blank. He licked his dry lips and said, “I’ve been away. Far away. I saw my mother and spoke to her.” Looking up at Verhanna, he added, “You were with me for a time. In the forest, with others I did not know.”
Had they been sharing the same dream? At another time, Verhanna might have been curious, but just now she had other worries. “Never mind that now,” she said to the elf. “We’ve got a camp full of wild, starving centaurs.”
Greenhands started in surprise. He jumped to his feet and walked right up to the centaur leader.
“Greetings, uncle,” he said. “How fare you?”
As Rufus and Verhanna exchanged looks of consternation, Koth bowed and replied, “I am a dried gourd, my cousin. And my cousins here are likewise empty.”
“My friends have little to eat, uncle. May I show you to a stand of mountain apples? They are nearby and very sweet.”
The centaur laughed, showing fearsome yellow teeth. “Ho, little cousin! I am not so young in the world that I think there are apples in early summer!”
Greenhands pressed a hand to his heart. “They are there, uncle. Will you come?”
The sincerity of his manner won over the centaur’s natural skepticism. He snapped an order to his squabbling comrades, and the band of centaurs formed behind Greenhands. Then, without a brand to light the way, he stepped into the darkness, up the far slope. The centaurs followed, their small, worn hooves fitting deftly into the clefts in the rocks.
Rufus jumped off his boulder and started after them. “You, too?” snorted the warrior woman.
“My captain, I doubt nothing about that elf.”
Sheathing her sword, Verhanna found herself alone by the campfire. With a long-suffering sigh, she reluctantly followed the troop. Rufus made his way easily up the slope; the going was less easy for her, being larger and burdened with armor. Soon Rufus pulled away from her, and the only sign she had of him was the steady trickle of pebbles he dislodged on his way up.
The slope ended suddenly. A ravine plunged down in front of Verhanna, and she almost fell face first into it. She flung her hands wide on the crumbling, gravelly soil and cursed herself for following Greenhands in the middle of the night. Once she’d gotten to her feet and dusted the dirt from her palms, Verhanna looked down into the shallow ravine. She was amazed by what she saw. There, nestled close to the sheer wall of the rising mountain, was a stand of apple trees, heavy with fruit. The Qualinesti princess moved down for a closer look.
The ground around the trees was littered with fallen apples, some rotten-soft, and the air was spiced by their fermented odor. The centaurs appeared to esteem these, for they galloped up and down the ravine, filling their arms with the fallen fruit. Greenhands, Rufus, and Koth, the centaur leader, were standing together under the largest apple tree. The ancient tree was warped by wind and frost, yet its gnarled roots gripped the stony earth tenaciously.
“How did you know these were here?” Verhanna asked.
Greenhands looked at the laden branches close to his head. “I heard them. Old trees have loud voices,” he said.
Verhanna was speechless. His words seemed completely ridiculous to her, yet she couldn’t dispute the find.
Rufus went to the tree and climbed up to a triple fork of branches. He inched out on a branch until he could just reach a ripe fruit still hanging from the tree. Before his fingers could close on it, Greenhands was there, his moss-colored fingers wrapping tightly around the kender’s wrist.
“No, little friend,” he chided. “You mustn’t take what the tree has not offered!”
Koth popped a whole apple in his mouth and chewed it up—stem, seeds, skin, and all. He grinned at Verhanna. “Your cousin with the green fingers is one of the old ones,” he said.
“Old ones” was a common epithet given to members of the elven race. Verhanna, still ill-at-ease around the centaur band, said, “He’s not my cousin.”
“All peoples are cousins,” answered Koth. Bits of overripe apple flew from his mouth. The other centaurs were racing around the ravine, yelling and dancing. Verhanna realized that the fermented fruit was making them tipsy. Soon the centaurs were singing, arms looped around their fellows’ shoulders. Their bass and baritone voices sounded surprisingly harmonious.
Koth sang:
“You made up a song about Greenhands,” Rufus said admiringly. “That part about crowns, though—”
“It is a very sad song,” Koth interrupted. “My grandfather’s grandfather sang it, and ’twas ancient then.”
Verhanna was growing tired of the drunken, bumptious centaurs. When one thumped into her for the second time, she announced she was going back to get some sleep. She strongly hinted that Rufus and Greenhands should do likewise.
“Cousin,” said Koth to Greenhands, “You travel far?”
The centaurs quieted down and gathered around the green-fingered elf. “Yes, uncle. My father awaits me in a high place of stone,” replied Greenhands.
“Then take this with you, gentle cousin.” Koth took a ram’s horn that hung by a strap around his neck and gave it to the elf. “If ever you need the Sons of the Wind, blow hard on this horn and we shall come.”