Crusade (25 page)

“Is this some kind of trick?” Torg growled.

The herald swished his tail around his chestnut-brown rump to chase away a horsefly that had settled there. Turning at the waist, he glanced behind him, then looked back at the ironlord. “No. That is our tribal leader. He simply wishes to meet you before you move on.”

Torg grumbled a curse in Dwarvish, then let go of the standard. He nodded curtly to the standard-bearer, who signaled the rest of the army to lower their weapons. The army, slowly but steadily broke into small groups and started to set up their tents. Alusair and two guards stayed by Torg. The princess thanked whatever god gave Torg enough sense not to openly insult the chieftain of Lethyr’s centaurs by meeting him with loaded weapons.

As the four centaurs got closer, Alusair saw that three of them were armed. Whereas the herald carried the tall standard of his tribe, the chieftain’s escort hefted long lances. The leader of the centaurs had no weapons himself, but wore a vest of treated animal skins and a broad black belt with a pouch around his waist. A long, thin rod of silver, wrapped with thick twine in the middle, hung from the belt, too.

“Hail, Ironlord of Earthfast,” the centaur chieftain said brightly and clattered to a stop. Alusair, who was herself only average height for a human, noted with some amusement that the man-horses from Lethyr were almost twice as tall as Torg and his soldiers. The grass, which came to the dwarves’ waists, climbed only a little way up the centaurs’ legs.

Torg gave the chieftain a formal, if rather cold, greeting, and the centaur introduced himself as Jad Eyesbright. Before the dwarven lord could say anything in reply, a beautiful falcon dove out of the darkening sky and skimmed the grass a few yards ahead of the ironlord. Alusair held her breath and found her eyes riveted to the beautiful black, gray, and white predator. Torg, too, watched the graceful bird as it gyred back up in the purple evening sky.

The centaur chieftain noted the looks on Torg’s and Alusair’s faces, then smiled. “You have an appreciation for birds of prey,” he noted. “That is good. They are beautiful creatures. That one serves our tribe.” He pointed to the falcon as it wheeled above the army.

“It’s been following us,” Alusair said, her eyes still on the falcon. She let her gaze drift to the centaurs and added, “I noticed it, and another falcon, circling the camp. I thought they followed us for the small birds we frightened into the open.”

Jad Eyesbright shook a lock of his long black hair out of his eyes. He thrust his distinctive, almost square chin forward a little as he studied Alusair closely. “Very observant,” he said. “How do you know that bird was a falcon? Most humans simply call all raptors ‘hawks.’ “

“I grew up in a castle that had a very large mew, with hawks, falcons, and owls,” the princess said. “I spent a lot of time with the falconers, learning about the birds.” A happy memory of helping the hawkmaster train a young black hawk came unbidden to Alusair’s mind, and a slight smile crept to her lips.

Torg crossed his arms and tapped his foot on the ground. Had the dwarf been in a close cave of stone, as he often was, his action would have loudly signaled his impatience. In the field, the ironlord’s steel-shod boot thudded dully and almost silently against the fertile earth.

Jad Eyesbright had launched into an animated discussion of birds of prey with Princess Alusair, so he missed Torg’s none-too-subtle expression of annoyance. The herald, however, did not. The brown-haired centaur cleared his throat noisily, producing a sound much like a whinny.

“The ironlord has been marching all day, Chieftain,” the centaur herald said, bowing his head slightly. “Perhaps it would be best—”

“How thoughtless of me!” Jad Eyesbright exclaimed, tossing his hands into the air. He nodded to Torg. “Forgive me, Ironlord. You must want to rest.”

Torg stopped tapping his foot. “Indeed,” he mumbled. “We have a long march tomorrow, so we’d best get some sleep.” He glanced at Alusair, hoping she would agree. The princess, however, was too pleased to be talking to the centaurs to want the meeting to end so quickly. After days of the dwarves’ silence, the garrulous centaurs were a most welcome change.

Jad grinned a broad, large-toothed smile. He pawed the ground with his front hooves and bowed slightly. “I’ll have some fresh food sent out for your troops. I’m sure you’re tired of rations of dried meat.” He nodded to one of his escorts, who dashed back toward the forest. “Is there anything else you need?”

Torg, who really hadn’t expected the centaur chieftain’s generosity, stood fidgeting. “No,” he said, a bit nonplussed. After dismissing his guards with a wave of his hand, Torg mumbled, “Come, Alusair. We have battle strategies to go over.”

“Alusair?” Jad asked, tilting his head slightly as he looked at the princess. “The daughter of Azoun of Cormyr?”

Frowning slightly, Alusair nodded an affirmation.

“Well,” Jad said happily, “we must have a talk. I’ve heard a great deal about you.” The chieftain turned to his guards. “You may go. I’ll stay here with Torg and the princess awhile.” As the guards braced their lances and cantered about, preparing for the run back to the woods, Jad added, “And make sure that food I asked for gets out here quickly.”

Torg sighed, resigning himself to having a guest in camp, at least for a short time. He, however, was going to beg out of entertaining the centaur. “I have things to see to, Chief,” the dwarven king began.

Before Torg could add any embellishment to his excuse, Jad nodded and smiled. “Of course, Ironlord. No insult taken.” The man-horse twisted at the waist and glanced at Alusair. “I hope, however, that the princess has time to talk.”

“Certainly,” Alusair said quickly. And a bit too enthusiastically, she noted with a twinge of guilt when she saw Torg furrow his brows. The feeling lasted only a second, as the seemingly endless days of silence with the dwarves pushed back into her consciousness.

Torg shuffled his feet uncomfortably for a moment, then bid Jad and Alusair good night and stalked off to his tent.

“Torg is everything I’d been led to believe,” Jad said, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. He looked at Alusair, gauging her reaction. His tail twitched nervously behind him.

The princess smothered a short laugh. “And more, I’m sure,” she noted, her voice lowered to match the chief’s. After pausing for an instant, Alusair tilted her head. “You’ve ‘heard’ quite a lot for someone living in a rather isolated part of the world.”

For a moment, Jad Eyesbright was silent. He removed a large brown glove that hung at his belt and slid it over his left hand. When the glove was in place, he said, “Information is easy to come by. We stop many travelers in and around the forest, and some of them are friendly enough to tell us the news in Faerun.” He motioned toward the ground with his empty right hand.

Alusair understood the gesture and nodded. She took a seat as Jad folded his beautifully muscled black legs under him. The centaur sat with a slight grunt, then squirmed for a moment to get comfortable. “I’ve heard a great deal about your father from various mercenaries and traders, the same folk who warned me about King Torg’s short temper and distrust of anything non-dwarven,” the centaur explained casually.

Alusair swatted away a bug. “And me?” she asked.

“Bounty hunters spoke of you most frequently,” the chieftain replied. He paused again, then lifted his left hand. Putting his right hand to his mouth, Jad whistled. Alusair started, and two dwarven sentries stationed nearby came running at a trot.

“Oh, dear,” Jad said when he noticed them coming toward him. “You’d best tell them there’s nothing—”

Before the centaur chieftain could finish his sentence, the falcon arced down from the twilight and swooped onto his gloved, outstretched left hand. Alusair said a few words in Dwarvish. The two sentries silently returned to their posts, pushing through the tall grass.

As Jad grabbed the jesses attached to the bird’s legs, the falcon tightened its grip on the glove. The centaur deftly snatched the leather straps with his right hand and slid them into the grip of his left. The bird’s sharp talons bit into the leather glove, and it squeaked a short, piercing note. “Yes, yes,” Jad said paternally, moving his face close to the falcon’s. “You’ve done your job well.” He pulled a small piece of food from his pouch and fed it to the bird.

“He’s very beautiful,” Alusair said. She studied the falcon’s plumage—its darkly hooded head and yellow legs. “A peregrine, if I know my hunting birds.”

Jad nodded appreciatively. “Right again, Princess,” he chimed.

“And you can communicate with him somehow, if he’s been spying for you.”

The centaur chieftain held up his right hand. For the first time, Alusair noticed a thin silver bracelet around his wrist. “A present from a mage my tribe once helped. It has a spell on it that lets me talk to, even see through the eyes of, any bird I choose. With the bracelet and the falcons, I’ve been watching the dwarves for the last few days.”

Alusair pulled up a thin stalk of grass and twirled it between her thumb and index finger. She watched the hawk’s bright, steady eyes and wondered what it was like to see the world soar underneath as you lofted over trees and lakes and armies. “The freedom must be wonderful,” she said after a while.

Jad only nodded. “But what of you, Princess?” he asked. “From the stories I’d heard, I didn’t expect to find you going off to fight alongside your father.” When Alusair paused and stopped twirling the grass, the centaur offered an apologetic smile. “Forgive me,” he said sincerely. “I shouldn’t pry.”

Alusair smiled weakly, but the direct question had shocked her into uneasiness. “Now I see how you learn so much,” she said, a bit sarcastically. “You interrogate anyone who’ll talk to you.” When she saw the pained expression on the chieftain’s face, she added, “I never expected to be fighting beside my father either.”

Relief spread over Jad’s face. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small leather hood, decorated with tiny gems. The precious stones reflected the last rays of the setting sun as the centaur held it out to the princess. “Could you help me with this?” he asked.

As Alusair carefully hooded the falcon for the night, Jad reached for the long piece of metal. “And this,” he said when the hood was secure, “is his perch.” The princess took the rod and bent it into a U. She stuck the ends into the ground, and Jad coaxed the falcon onto the twined area, where its talons could find a comfortable purchase.

The centaur rubbed his arms. “Much better,” he sighed. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, marching off to war.”

Alusair and the chieftain talked casually for over an hour, until even the last, faint traces of the sun had disappeared in the western sky. The moon came out, trailed by the cluster of stars that always hung behind it in the sky. The bright orb of Selune lit up the field, casting a frosty radiance over the lines of tents and the dark outline of the forest. Jad’s troops returned with baskets of nuts and berries and even some freshly baked bread. After taking a little for themselves, Jad and Alusair sent the rest of the food to Torg.

As the evening passed, the princess studied the dark-maned centaur chieftain. His friendly, sincere smile and captivatingly dark eyes seemed to reveal him as an honest, kindhearted soul. As they walked slowly around the camp’s perimeter, Alusair found herself discussing much about her father and the upcoming battle, though she certainly never intended to do so. Jad, for his part, listened with interest, asking a few questions and relating the little he knew of the Tuigan.

Eventually the strain of the long day’s march started to show on Alusair’s face. “Perhaps you should get some rest,” Jad told her after her third yawn in as many minutes.

The princess could only agree. “We do have a long march ahead of us. The spot on the Golden Way where we’re meeting my father is some distance from here.”

Jad tossed his head to again remove an unruly lock of hair from his eyes. “I have a wonderful idea,” he said brightly. “I can offer Torg a guide, one who could take you through the forest. There are many more direct routes to your meeting place, and that will cut days off your trek.”

Shaking her head, Alusair frowned slightly. “I don’t think so.” She motioned to the forest. “Torg won’t go through there, with or without a guide. I think it’s a fine idea, too, but Torg simply won’t see past his mistrust of, well, everything.”

“We’ll see about that,” the centaur exclaimed. He trotted off, leaving Alusair to walk briskly in his wake just to catch up. She attempted to stop Jad, but he rushed down the lines of darkened tents toward the open central area. Once there, he easily spotted Torg’s tent, larger than the others, with the standard of Earthfast posted at the door.

The guards wouldn’t let the centaur enter, but Jad made enough of a racket to draw Torg out. When Alusair finally reached the ironlord’s tent, a heated discussion was already underway.

“You’re being a fool,” the centaur said sharply. Jad pranced back and forth, towering over the dwarven king and his two guards. “I can help you.”

Torg pushed the gold-bound black forks of his beard aside and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve tried to be polite about this, centaur. Obviously that doesn’t work.” Spreading his feet apart a little, he said, “Let’s try this, then: the dwarves of Earthfast don’t need help from creatures like you.”

Jad exhaled sharply, making a sound that reminded Alusair of nothing so much as a horse snorting angrily. She was angry herself as she moved to the centaur’s side. “Why, Torg?” she asked. “The centaurs can make this journey easier for us, but you—”

“I won’t have my troops allying with forest-bound riffraff like him,” the ironlord growled, his face growing red beneath his beard.

Jad looked down at Alusair, then at Torg. “Race is no guide to character,” he said, trying to subdue his anger. “I’ve known dwarves who were intelligent and wise. Nothing like you at all.” Without another word, he reared on his hind legs and headed away from Torg at a canter.

“Wait!” Alusair called. She glanced over her shoulder at Torg. The ironlord was scowling into his beard, muttering something in Dwarvish. Alusair raced after the centaur chieftain.