The rain had lightened up at least. That was something.
Jenny stumbled over roots and stray twigs as she raced through the forest back to where she’d left Barb. So much for asking the Yodha for help. She would have been better off spending the time digging for more moss or herbs to extract the venom from Barb’s wound.
Tears dripped down her cheeks.
It would have been so much easier if the Yodha would have helped.
A Centaur hunting horn blasted so loud that it shook the treetops. So close. Too close.
She would make it back to Barb, hopefully before the Centaurs did. They’d fight as best they could, but with her makeshift bow and arrow their only real weapon, it didn’t look positive.
Oh well. Who needed positivity? She’d grown up around the least positive people on the face of the planet, and she still could find something to laugh about. Positivity could pound sand. She’d keep laughing.
Unless that made her a positive person, because laughing in spite of the nightmare all around her seemed like a really positive response to a negative situation. Not that being a positive person was negative. It just wasn’t helpful. Which was a really negative thing to say about being positive.
Jenny stopped and sagged in the middle of the forest. “Now I’m confused.”
Positive. Negative. Whatever. She needed to find the Chicken Rock and get to Barb before the Centaurs did.
Jenny scrambled over a fallen log and winced as the sharp rocks on the ground cut into her bare feet. Shocking how long it was taking the Centaurs to find them. Both she and Barb had left an obvious trail of bloody footprints down the side of the mountain and into the forest. If the Centaurs had one brain cell among them, they could find it easily.
A loud thump shook the ground.
Jenny spun and gaped at the giant hulk of a Centaur standing on the other side of the fallen log. It snarled at her with broken yellowed teeth and beady black eyes full of murder.
“Oh.” She squeaked. “Hi.”
Apparently they did have a brain cell to share.
The Centaur shrieked and raised a rusty scimitar as it reared back on its hind legs, kicking its forelegs in challenge.
Jenny waved at the Centaur with a friendly smile before she bolted through the underbrush. Branches scraped at her face and caught at what little remained of her tunic. Where was the Chicken Rock? She was sure it was here somewhere.
The horn sounded again. Five deafening blasts in fast order, followed by an outburst of Centaur screams. How many were searching for them? How many were close?
She burst out of the underbrush and skidded to a stop as a Centaur galloped out of the darkness with a spearhead thrusting toward her. She dove between his legs, and he stumbled in the act of trying to turn around and stab her at the same time.
Chicken rock. Chicken rock. Chicken rock.
Jenny snatched up a sharp handful of gravel off the forest floor and hurled it at the Centaur with the spear. It pinged and clanged off the Centaur’s breastplate. Jenny ran deeper into the forest, eyes peeled for any sign of the misshapen boulder in the clearing where she’d left Barb.
The Centaur pounded after her, his hooves a thunderous chorus against the earth. Surely the trees didn’t appreciate all this noise. And any of the cute little field mice who lived in the bushes had to just hate it when the Centaurs made such a mess.
The Centaur closed in on her. His breath came in shallow gasps interspersed between the strike of his hooves against the loam. Jenny dove under a low-hanging branch, grabbed its rough bark in her hands and yanked it along after her as she circled the tree. The Centaur followed, and she released the branch.
The limb struck the Centaur in the ribs and knocked his feet out from under him. His jaw cracked on the branch as he fell forward, and his scimitar clattered to the ground.
Jenny didn’t stop to see if he was getting up. She ran ahead.
Chicken rock? Where was the Chicken Rock?
If she told Barb she could find the chicken rock again and then she couldn’t actually do it, she’d never live it down. Granted, she’d never live it down if she managed to live, and that seemed less and less likely as the day went on.
She ducked under another low-hanging branch and squealed as she stepped on a pine cone, its sharp edges digging deeply into her bare bleeding feet. She tumbled sideways, gripping the pine-cone-shaped stab wound on the bottom of her foot, tears squeezing out of her eyes.
“Now that’s just not okay.” She whimpered. “What did I ever do to you? Silly pine cone. Silly spruce tree.”
She rolled over and froze as another Centaur barreled out of the forest.
“Why don’t they step on pine cones?” She grabbed one and hurled it at the Centaur. It didn’t even slow him down. How was that even fair?
She rolled again and crawled out from under the dubious protection of the spruce’s limbs and gasped.
There.
Just ahead.
The Chicken Rock!
“Barb!” Jenny yelped and ran forward.
She’d made it. She’d found Barb again. Before the Centaurs! Now all they had to do was get to cover and wait quietly, and maybe the Centaurs wouldn’t find them. Maybe she could dig up some pennywort root too and get the venom out of Barb’s system. Maybe they could make it to Atama Village after all, and Meg would find them, and they could go home and drink a big frothy mug of hot chocolate around the hearth while Danny played his dulcimer and Mickey braided flowers into her hair by the fire.
The Centaur behind her crashed through the underbrush, screaming something in his language while he shook a spear at her. What happened the scimitar-wielding Centaur? Had she knocked him out? Maybe he broke his jaw and all his teeth fell out. A gal could hope.
Jenny leaped into the clearing and landed wrong on her wounded foot, grunting as she hit. She fell to one knee and scrambled up again, but the moment she was upright, she froze.
The clearing was full of Centaurs. Eight of them. She recognized T’pau at once, his angry reddened face familiar from all the encounters they’d had over the years, and he stood with a beefy handful of Barb’s red hair where he held her against his breastplate with a sword at her neck.
The color in Barb’s cheeks was high. Her skin shone with sweat and fever, and her eyes were dim and glassy. She fought for air, each breath a rasping, stuttering struggle.
“Barb?”
Barb clenched her teeth and winced as T’pau pressed the sword against her neck.
“Your pitiful friend is helpless,” T’pau snarled. “Just like you.”
“Let her go,” Jenny whispered.
T’pau glanced around the clearing at the other Centaurs, and they all began to laugh.
T’pau chuckled darkly. “No.” He laughed harder. “What will do you about that?”
Jenny set her jaw. She dropped her arms and sank to her knees, lower lip quivering.
So much for that master plan. Great idea. Let her go? How useless was that?
The Centaurs all muttered to each other, shifting on their hoofed feet as they jeered. T’pau’s ugly face twisted in a malicious grin.
“Well, well, well.” He beamed. “Not so brave now, are you?”
Jenny huffed and got her feet under her. She stood up slowly and offered a smile. “I’m not brave at all.” She looked over her shoulder to where the Mountain of Fire colored the afternoon sky with red-orange light, the same color as a maple tree in autumn. “Are you going to take us back to the mountain?”
T’pau shrugged, and Barb snarled as he yanked on her hair.
“Munga-wa-Damu was not fed,” T’pau said. “Perhaps that was his will. Personally, I believe you would upset his stomach.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things,” Jenny said, “but nobody has ever told me I’d give them indigestion.”
Barb snorted with laughter and began to cackle. She leaned her head back to rest against T’pau’s breastplate as she guffawed, laughing so hard her shoulders shook.
T’pau’s nostrils flared in anger, and he pressed the sword edge against her skin more firmly. Barb’s laughter stilled, but she was still chuckling. Her glassy-eyed gaze pinned Jenny to the forest floor. Her eyes shifted to the left purposefully before she returned to staring at Jenny intently, and she winked.
Her half-cocked grin showed blood on her teeth.
Knowing Barb, she’d fought tooth and nail when the Centaurs charged into the clearing. She wouldn’t have gone down easily, even if she was poisoned and wounded and weak.
Jenny focused on T’pau. “So if you don’t want to give Munga-wa-Damu indigestion?”
T’pau sneered. “Perhaps we shall kill you here. You serve no purpose to us. The Great Lord Tiron, the Master of Uzushi, has said as much.”
“Oh, he mastered it, did he?” Jenny shifted to the side. Leftward. The way Barb’s eyes had indicated. She felt the earth beneath the fallen leaves with her toes. “Last time we saw him, he let his little minions do it, and they got vaporized.”
“Only the Great Lord Tiron himself could master the power of darkness.” T’pau lifted his head.
The other Centaurs in the clearing roared in agreement.
“Once we have the Nafsi in our grasp, we will rule all the lands,” T’pau said. “And he will rule over all.”
Another roar of agreement and shaking of fists this time.
Excellent. If T’pau would just keep talking, maybe she could find whatever Barb had pointed her toward. Jenny poked through the leaves with her toes as unobtrusively as possible. Fortunately, T’pau was on a roll. Poke, poke, poke.
“The Great Lord Tiron will smite the First Tribe,” T’pau bellowed. “He will raze the heathen castle of rainbows to the dirt. The ground will be black with the blood of the Celticans!”
Ew. That was just unsanitary.
Poke, poke, poke. What had Barb hidden in the leaves?
“Then we shall march north to Mtufarasi and take back the Granite Throne from the impostors who cast us out!”
The Centaurs in the clearing shouted and cheered, frothing at the mouth. Gracious. This was getting out of hand. If she didn’t hurry, they were going to start eating each other. Although maybe that might be an effective strategy.
“Then, when all the world is ours, we shall destroy even Njano!” The cheers reached a deafening level. “Great Lord Tiron will turn against him for his arrogance, and the Uzushi will strip flesh from bone. Even his mighty armor will not protect him from us!”
Jenny’s toes reached something that wasn’t a leaf or a clod of dirt. It was cold and sharp and stick-like and—
My bow and arrow.
Somehow Barb had hidden the bow and arrow in the leaves before the Centaurs closed in on them.
Jenny met Barb’s gaze. Barb was smirking, even as T’pau ranted and railed.
Jenny blew out her breath. She could do this. It would be close, but it wasn’t impossible. Fortunately T’pau was a moron. He wouldn’t even see it coming. It wouldn’t accomplish much. It might just get Barb free. But that was something. At least T’pau couldn’t use Barb as a bargaining chip, and that was what would matter most to Barb.
Jenny drew in a long, deep breath and blew it out again as the Centaurs roared with furor and rage around her. T’pau threw back his head and laughed before he dropped his chin to sneer something unpleasant at Barb, who hung half-limp in his grasp.
T’pau flashed a menacing smirk at her.
Oh, well why don’t you hand me a bull’s eye, T’pau? Jenny smirked back.
Quick as lightning, Jenny bent, snatched her bow out of the leaves and brought it to bear on T’pau. She nocked the makeshift arrow in place, even as T’pau began to scream, even as the other Centaurs raised their weapons.
“You should have let her go.” Jenny took aim and released.
The arrow plunged into T’pau’s right eye socket, and he screamed in rage and pain. Barb dropped out of his arms, and the other Centaurs in the clearing charged at them when swords drawn.
Jenny snatched up the next sharp rock she could find and chucked it into the closet Centaur’s face. He yelped in pain and stumbled sideways.
Jenny kicked the kneecap of the next closest Centaur, but he didn’t stop and swung his sword at her. She ducked under him and cried out as another Centaur grabbed her by the hair and yanked her off her feet.
The Centaur held her aloft, her scalp stinging with all the weight of her body pulling against it. Tears streamed down her face as she grappled to hold on to his wrist to take the pressure off.
“Foolish child!” The Centaur shook her.
He began to swing his sword, and Jenny fell. Her back hit the ground, the rough edge of a fallen tree limb stabbing her in the back of her ribs. Her vision swam.
What had just happened? Had the Centaur killed her?
The Centaurs were screaming again. Battle cries. What was happening?
She turned her head and frowned at the Centaur’s forearm laying on the ground next to her. She blinked.
Oh.
That’s what happened.
His arm fell off.
Nice.
Something landed close to her with a thunk, and she startled forward, scrambling for the sword the Centaur had dropped. She seized it and spun to attack—and stopped.
A Josharon.
Her mouth went dry. The Josharon standing before her had thick black fur, and he wore chest armor and antler hide trousers. He had two tails, and his blue eyes were the same color as a summer sky. A set of antlers branched from the crown of his head, four points on each, and he smirked at her with one canine fang longer than the other.
Not just a Josharon. A Harna Josharon of the Yodha.
“Peace, Jennifer Mitchell of Prism Castle.” The warrior bowed his head to her. “We come as friends.”
Jenny lowered the sword. “We?”
She cast a quick glance around the clearing as the shouts and cries of the Centaurs began to fade. Centaurs? What Centaurs? There were one or two now laying dead at the edges of the clearing, but there were none alive in sight. And five other Yodha Josharons emerged from the forest, each carrying swords.
“You came to help us?” Jenny turned back to the black Josharon. “I thought the Yodha didn’t have friends.”
The black Josharon’s smirk grew broader. “That is what a poor leader would say.” His blue eyes twinkled.
“Judtha.” A reddish brown Yodha interrupted them by taking the black Josharon’s arm. “The other human is wounded. She needs immediate care.”
The black Josharon nodded.
Jenny watched in surprise as one of the larger Yodha knelt next to Barb and helped her stand. Barb was nearly unconscious, eyes rolling into the back of her head.
“It’s venom from the Centaur dragons,” Jenny said.
“Venom?” The black Josharon held out his hand to her. “Impressive that she yet breathes. We have stores of ahwagadantha which should neutralize the toxin.”
“Winter cherry root.” Jenny gave him the Centaur sword.
“You know your herbs.”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “Can you help her?”
“We will. Will you come with us, Jennifer Mitchell?”
Jenny’s eyes burned. “Of course. Thank you. Thank you for helping us.”
He offered his arm again, and Jenny grasped it at the elbow as his clawed fingers curled around her own elbow. A Josharon greeting . As an equal.
“I am Judtha.” His snout wrinkled in a sunshiny grin. “You need not fear Neetha or her cruel words from before. Allow me to make this right by serving you and your friend.”
Jenny shook her head. “You already helped us.”
He shrugged and stepped back, head tilted slightly so that his ears flopped to the side. “You are fierce, little one.” He gestured to the others, who supported Barb between them as they moved into the forest back toward the village. “And you fight well with the arrow and bow.”
Judtha led her into the trees, one arm around her back to support her as she limped.
Jenny chuckled. “You should see me with a baked chicken.”