Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott

in time. Now even she could hear the rustling of branches and the thud of hooves.
    “Human!” Haret was at her elbow. “I think there’s cover enough for you there!” He pointed to some brush.
    “You take it! I’ll go up!” And she scrambled up the trunk before Haret could react. As she reached the first row of branches, she saw Haret slip into the brush just as a centaur came into sight. She risked one more swing upward to give her a little more shelter. She wasn’t as high as she’d like to be, but any more movement would catch the centaurs’ attention. From her perch she watched the herd canter past, only a pace from Haret’s hiding spot. She stared at their powerful haunches and broad shoulders thick with muscle, their tangled tails, matted winter coats, the women’s bare breasts, and the men’s snarled beards. Their foreheads were heavy, their eyes deep-set. They didn’t speak but there was a menace about them, their heads swinging from side to side, searching for signs of prey.
    I need a bow! Abisina reminded herself to badger Haret for the sinew she knew he had in his bag.
    After the centaurs passed, Abisina let out her breath. But neither she nor Haret moved for a long time. When she climbed back down, Haret was waiting for her, an amazed expression on his face. “Going up! I never would have thought of it! And it’s a good thing you did, human, because you would have stuck out like a gem in coals down here. None of this cover was enough for someone as poor at blending in as you are!”
    Abisina decided to take the compliment and ignore the insult.
    Haret refused to give Abisina the sinew to make a bow, however. “I swore I would protect you, human!” seemed to be his only real argument. And it was true that whenever they were on the move, Haret stayed within several feet of her. But one evening, as they broke camp, a rabbit dashed past the entrance to the cave and Haret went after it. “Stay where you are,” he shouted over his shoulder as he drew an arrow from his quiver. “I’ll have this one in the shake of a mole’s tail!”
    Abisina sighed and sank to the ground. I could have it in less than “the shake of a mole’s tail,” she thought.
    She sat watching the full moon rise over the darkening trees, but then something thrashed in the underbrush opposite where Haret had disappeared. She scrambled to her feet. Centaurs? Grabbing their bags, Abisina darted back into the mouth of the cave. She needed a weapon! A dead branch lay nearby. It wouldn’t do much, but it was all she had. She grabbed it and crouched in the cave’s shadows, ready to use her club on anything that moved.
    She had never seen anything like the three figures that lumbered into the small clearing before the cave. Horns longer than her arm protruded from heavy, bony brows over wide-set eyes. Their faces were all nose, ending in fat, wet nostrils that belched steam in the cold air. The moonlight gleamed off hulking shoulders, massive legs, and thick arms. They had the heads of bulls and the bodies of men, their limbs and chests covered with thick hair. Abisina could hear their teeth grinding as their malicious eyes raked their surroundings.
    “Why have you stopped?” a thin, grating voice said from the darkness behind the creatures. A smaller figure stepped into the moonlight—a human woman, stooped with age, carrying a gnarled staff. She looked tiny, frail, with strings of tangled hair, but she spoke to the bull-headed men as if they were her inferiors.
    “Smell,” one of them grunted.
    “Ignore it. Keep moving.” She prodded the back of one of the beasts with her staff, and it snorted and ran a few steps. The other two followed, herded by the threat of the staff, and crashed into the forest.
    When Haret returned, he found Abisina studying the tracks, trying to make sense of what she had seen. He dropped the rabbit that he’d been holding up in triumph. “What is it? What did you see?”
    “I don’t know.”