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.