Pomu clutched the rake more tightly as he picked his way through the woodland. The nights silence was vast and almost taunt him as he snuck through the trees. It was inviting his mistakes. He quivered silently as he held his breath, placing each foot carefully. Waiting. Testing his footing before committing. With each step he would wince and wait for the snap of a dried branch or loose stone to betraying him. He sighed as his foot found soft, silent, yielding moss. He exhaled slowly and continued onwards.
_____________________________________________
“Look, I’m just saying, I don’t think we are really sowing an
appropriate level of terror on this farmstead.”
“Why do say such things bloodkin, this is most unwarrior
like of you”
“She offered us tea”
“Tea is a noble drink, and hydration is important to all
champions who walk the path. Your enemies will be well hydrated. Their urine
will run clear – the colour of freedom and victory, and yours will be a mustard
yellow, the colour of cowardice.”
“Point taken about yellow, but I don’t think the colour of
victory is “clear”, I think you made that up. I don’t even think “clear” is even
a colour really. You can’t paint a war-shield “clear” brother. But what about
the biscuits? The little wafer ones with chocolate on one side. Every day we
stray further the hoofspringa.”
“… The great Khan and the heroes of suboptima need us
fighting fit. That includes maintaining our blood sugar”
“blood sugar … that sounds …. Suitably … barbaric ”
“I think it’s a type of hero-drink, created from fallen
enemies and sweetened with the tears of their keening women folk. I think I
heard Gritgoz mention it.”
“And its in these biscuits”
“I think so brother, the main ingredient after chocolate.”
Bathed in the blood red light of the moon, the centaur encampment lay at the edge of a tidy grove of pine trees, overlooking the old cottage. Only a few hundred feet now from him.
_____________________________________________
Pomu had grown onions predominantly (protip: they would grow in just about anything but thrived in owlbear dung. Expensive, but worth it.). Award winning onions at that, until his title had been robbed by previously unheard-of grower, known only by the mysterious moniker “Farmer Baggot”. Pomus heart pounded in his ears at the thought of the pimple faced weasel … he knew he was cheating but each time he confronted him at the annual fair he was laughed off and suffered a barrage of abuse and onion shaming. This year he was mounting a comeback, he had a secret weapon. Oh yes. He was going to beat Baggot at his own game. Or that was the plan. Until he awoke yesterday morning to find 30 steaming centaurs standing in his vegetable patch arguing about the best way to torture him. After a few minutes of cowering under this bed, he had mustered up the courage to open the door only to be promptly lifted clean off the ground by the scruff of his neck and placed back inside by an enormous trunk-thick hand. He was told to wait patiently as they decided the best way to interrogate him. He screamed in terror at them, explaining he had nothing to hide and would gladly talk at length on any subject but was silenced immediately. This had nothing to do with him apparently, he had best keep quite while they worked out how to make him talk. After some time, the consensus emerged that it might be more effective to break his limbs first to prevent escape, but the counterpoint was raised that he may not have had the constitution to maintain consciousness and answer questions. As Pomu finished his second breakfast ( toast and onion jam, he hadn’t the stomach for his usual onion omlette) the herd found itself at an impasse – split between a) breaking one hand to demonstrate how serious they were about extracting intel, or b) some gentle rough housing instead to get his adrenaline going and warm him up, so that he would be better able to withstand to impending broken feet. He was silenced again when he volunteered that he would in fact, tell them everything they wanted to know, and he was once more placed back inside his kitchen. After a handful of duels and three races to determine the new leader of the herd, they broke for tea and biscuits and retreated back to the forest. His onions were ruined. His life was over. As he sobbed in the mud, a familiar caring voice began to comfort him. Pomu grabbed his rake.
_____________________________________________
“Look brother, I strongly disagree. The orders were extremely
explicit – soften the place up for the impending invasion. We take this land by
force of arms”
“Respectfully bloodkin, I think silver tongued Clink will
have planned something a bit more subtle than that. We are reconnaissance, not
a vanguard”
“You would say that, you’re a total Clink fanboy. Mes is the
real powerhouse and if she decides to unite the workers here and build
affordable housing then were looking at a popular uprising”
“ Listen, I don’t want to get political. Im just saying that
Clink is alot more interesting than that walking sword rack”
A spearpoint flashed in the moonlight
“You take that back, Camelot has a singular focus and deep
passion, I respect him as a professional, nothing more. His looks are
irrelevant”
Sensing the changing mood and
impending arguement, the youngest of the centaurs carefully adjusted his
pauldron to obscure his Ernodal tattoo and attempted to wipe away his eye
liner. As he adjusted his officially licenced replica “Ernodal cape” he felt a surge
of pain race down his left arm. In a flash he span and ripped the rake his shoulder,
whipping an arc of blood across the campfire. His scimitar was in already in his
hand in and he instinctively flung it at the shadow as it crashed away from him
through the undergrowth. There was a thick meaty crunch it found its target.
The phalanx had already formed around him, a wall of spears unified and facing
the darkness.
“We all miss sometimes bloodkin. Even Ernodal.”
“I didn’t miss”
The scimitar was buried deep into the earth admist a patch
of delicate white flowers, like tiny cotton moons themselves. The young centaur
reached down and pulled the scimitar free, uprooting the plant. Something was
stuck to the blade. He lifted the steel to his face to inpsect, and his eyes
began to water.
“Onions”
