With her belt, the woman was easily the fastest of the group. The two centaurs were not even close to half her speed, but slowest of all was the she-wolf, just trotting gently along, death-black tail bouncing with every step. The hunters all kept their paths bent or zigzagging so that in spite of their different speeds, they would all stick together, keep eyes upon one another. It wouldn’t do at all for one of them to simply race off in some other direction, fall asleepbeneath a tree, and then come back a long time later and claim to have been running hard the whole while.
The woman had run at incredible speeds before— for years and years, now she had been running at incredible speeds with the power of her pearl-studded belt. And running at incredible speeds, she had been able to cover incredible distances with hardly a problem, just a few minutes from one side of the mountain to the other. But it had only ever been just a few minutes— just a few minutes to anywhere. She had never needed to run for any longer than that, not getting from place to place, not chasing down her quarry during a hunt; there was nothing that could outrun her, so she never had to keep up the chase for long. The contest had only barely started, and already the woman had been running for longer than she’d run since she was just half an adult. Already, her body was past the point that it was used to. Her legs were aching a bit, her thighs beginning to stiffen. Her feet slapping against the Earth felt as though they might start bruising soon. Even her arms, swinging as she went, began to feel heavy. But it was her lungs that were really protesting. She was gasping, heaving with every step. It felt like each breath she took, she was tearing her lungs off of the inner walls of her chest, it felt like she was tearing them from her own corpse with her clenched teeth.
But the she-wolf was the first to stop. Just like that. She slowed to a walk. And then she slowed even further. She sat on her haunches. She lowered herself down onto her side. She curled herself into a circle. She closed her eyes. She’d had enough of this. Whatever favor the winner asked of her later, she would do. Better than carrying on. The woman, though, was not ready to give up. It had been nearly ten minutes. She wanted to give up. Her body wanted her to give up, it was begging for her to give up— her arms and legs, her lungs, her pounding heart, there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to stop except for two things; to kill the shadow, and to keep going, and so she kept going.
The centaurs, for their part, were hardly even noticing the exertion. They had chosen this contest for a reason. Not only were they more practiced in this sort of running, they had been built from birth for it; this contest was their birthright. In their human torsos, they each carried a pair of sturdy human lungs, but more than that, below their hips, where their horse-bodies began, they had a great pair of sturdy horse lungs as well. To run and run and run without end was nothing for them. It was only the endurance of the other that could match either’s stamina; another two minutes and the woman dropped out. She collapsed to the ground panting, trembling. Her legs were flimsy grass. Her heart was a frantic drumbeat.She was a sea of sweat and soreness, and it was only getting worse now that she had stopped, the excitement had worn off. But she was happy, never mind that she had lost. She had carried on longer than she’d expected to have been able. And on top of that, she’d learned something new about herself, she’d found a new edge of herself, and her shape was a bit more clearly defined for it. This had been a lovely game to play. She sat down beside the napping she-wolf and watched on with a smile as the centaurs chased each other around and around and around her, in great winding circles. On and on and on with their bottomless lungs, they ran— and ran and ran and ran. It was well into the early evening before Rhoecus finally began to flicker.
“Do you tire, friend?” Hylaios called out, hardly breaking stride. The two of them were on opposite sides of the woman as they ran, one ahead and one behind, and then one behind and ahead, to the left and the right, one to the right and one to the left, around and around and around, like the outstretched hands of a twirling dancer. “I would think your breath so much greater than this,” taunted Hylaios, “for all of the endless wind you spit about this and that and everything!”
But Rhoecus did not answer. Rhoecus did not dare do anything but breathe and run— when exhaustion finally came on for him, it came on fast, his legs and his arms and his lungs were feeling much like the woman’s had right before her body had caved, and it was all he could do now to just keep going. The younger Hylaios had a bit more left in him than that. He taunted again.
“Was not your wish greater than mine, oh haughty Rhoecus? Such fatigue takes you! What is even the point of continuing, for you, Rhoecus? What sake has it? What is the point even of winning, if by some miracle, somehow, you manage to win?— and then what? Of what use is your prize? Sure, have your way with the beautiful maiden, you’ll have earned it— but your body will also go tumbling over into an elderly sleep before you even get started upon hers! Best to leave her to me, who can actually stay awake to enjoy his reward!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Foolish. He realized the moment he said it. An abysmal error. Hylaios’s eyes widened into a shocked glare at himself— how could he have said something so stupid?
“‘Have your way with the beautiful maiden’…?” the woman echoed. “‘Have your way’… with me?”
She had no confusion or false guesses for what the centaur had meant. There were many things her mothers had taught her before her first mensis, to prepare her, and many more things atop that they’d taught her after those people had brought their infant to die. There were no questions in her about what this was, this was a thing she’d been warned of by the Half Moon— and a thing that the Half Moon had promised her she’d always be safe from, always be protected from by Herself and the old she-bear, both of the woman’s mothers would always protect her.
So many things had changed. One of those protectors was naught but stars above. The other was spurned and insulted, surely, surely She would no longer intervene. All the creatures of the mountainside and the wilderness beyond had either seen it or heard of it, all knew it— surely; the woman was fair game, now.
Rhoecus did not bother scolding his companion, or trying to weave together pretty words to undo the damage. He did not bother saying anything at all— still, he was teetering on the edge of exhaustion, and so still, he was silent. He had just enough energy left in him to come charging inwards from the path he’d been running, around and around and around— inwards, he charged from the rim of his circle, and by unspoken agreement Hylaios came charging in as well, at the same moment. Before the woman could react, they had both seized hold of her, arms and legs, and there was nothing for her to do but writhe and scream and try to bite at them without much use.
“We will have to take turns,” said Hylaios, careful to keep all his parts away from the woman’s gnashing mouth. “This was my mistake, I’m willing to own that— so I’ll let you have the first go. That’s what’s right.”
She was exhausted, drained down to empty, of course she was; she had pushed herself entirely on purpose past the point of collapse. That had been the centaurs’ aim from the start. Perhaps at a different moment, she might have had enough strength in the muscles of her arms or legs to wrench free, but like this, she was helpless, except for those tries at biting, and her screams— and the centaurs immediately grew tired of this as well. Rhoecus let go of the woman’s right wrist just barely long enough to peel off a thick strip of bark from a nearby tree-trunk and wedge it into her mouth— and then, an instant later, he seized hold of her again, simple as that.
“We’ll have to find something else, too, to properly tie her down with,” supposed Rhoecus. “Or else break her legs so that one of us need only hold down her arms while the other of us takes his turn.”
“Let’s not break her legs,” Hylaios answered. “She’s still making plenty of noise as it is, even through the tree-bark. We don’t need her howling in pain on top of that.”
Rhoecus nodded. “True enough. We— gah!!”
He let out a sudden yelp at a sudden pain in his left forearm. Teeth!— but he was sure that the woman couldn’t have been biting him, she still had that strip of bark in her mouth, no, and when his panicked eyes went darting to the spot, sure enough, it wasn’t her teeth sunk into him but the she-wolf’s! She had awoken in the commotion. Or perhaps she had never been sleeping in the first place. All the way up to the hinge of her jaw, she had his arm, and all the way down to her gums, he had her teeth, sharp and wicked. An awful, stinging, throbbing, tearing pain— Rhoecus let go with his left hand and began thrashing the arm all about, desperate to shake loose the biting wolf. But her grip did not falter. He let go then with his right hand as well, trying to strike the she-wolf, smash down his fist onto her snout, force her to let go.
Foolish. An abysmal error. By the time he realized his mistake, it was already too late. Both of the woman’s hands were free to move, now, and she didn’t waste even a heartbeat— it didn’t matter how exhausted she still was, the sheer frenzy of the situation, the spark of the opportunity filled her with enough strength to fold over her body towards the other centaur, Hylaios, restraining her feet, and with both of those hands she took tight hold of the dark, thickly-grown hair of his forearms, and she yanked and twisted and ripped until he was yowling and thrashing just the same as his companion, grabbing at her hands, trying to pry them off of him. But he wasn’t holding her legs anymore. That was all it took. The woman delivered him a stiff kick in the chin before scuttling backwards across the dirt away from him. By now, Rhoecus had finally managed to batter the she-wolf’s nose hard enough to force her to release him— deep red gashes the whole way down his forearm, fresh blood raining to the soil, wounds that would take weeks and weeks to heal.
The woman scrambled up onto her feet, tearing the bark free from her mouth, still screaming, just screaming— her mind was nothing but frantic, racing, her heart was pounding between her ears. She couldn’t hear herself think. Her body was pulsing with horrid energy. It was as though she had never gotten tired at all.
She had her tunic still on. She had her bow tied to her belt, and a few arrows. She had her silver knifed tucked in beside it. She had her arms free. And her legs. The she-wolf stood back a few feet, on the opposite side of the clearing— a bit of a bruise on her snout, but otherwise still snarling, spine curved and ready to spring again. Ready to fight. They had the centaurs trapped between them.
The woman turned and ran.
