They were travelling in the wrong direction, but now was not the time to point that out. Richard was too busy hanging on to the distraught centaur, dodging low branches and balancing his weight against sudden changes in direction. Jericho's current breakneck speed was even faster than when he'd raced the deer, and without the benefit of being in an open field; Richard could only hope that he didn't lose his footing and send them all flying.
The growing roar of falling water alerted him to their location. They were approaching Misty Hollow from the high side of Seven Falls, where the Gotham River was divided by boulders into smaller streams before plunging three hundred feet straight down. Unless Jericho decided to stop or turn back, they too would be making a swift vertical descent.
The stallion was brought up short as his path ended, hemmed in between the impassible cliff and the treacherous rapids. He pawed the ground angrily, casting about for a new direction but seeing none. The brief spell of immobility was enough to allow despair to overwhelm his fury, and he sank to the ground in dazed disbelief, ignoring the two humans as they slid off his back.
Coming around to face their friend, they were both shocked to see that his face was wet, and it wasn't from the spray of the waterfall. Richard looked away, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach; the last time he'd seen a centaur cry --
No. He wouldn't even think of it, much less mention it. Jericho had reason enough to toss them both over the cliff as it was; no sense in adding insult to injury, although he hoped to be able to redress both in the near future.
A shadow overhead descended silently, coalescing into the obsidian harpy, Raven. She landed at the edge of the cliff and looked at Jericho, who ignored her presence as he had that of Richard and Roy.
"He brought us to his herd," Roy told her, understanding her quiet concern. "It ended up in a big stink."
"I should think so," Raven agreed, moving closer to them. "Centaurs and humans rarely cross paths, but when they do, it bodes ill for one or the other of them."
"Why?" he asked, crouching down so that he was at eye level with her. "His sire wanted to kill us, having never set eyes on us before. What engenders that sort of hatred?"
"We put them in cages," Richard whispered. "We treat them like animals, like exotic trophies. I've... seen it happen."
Raven nodded. "This herd has suffered large losses to humans, among them Jericho's mate and elder sibling. No one else would be so forgiving, but Jericho..." She smiled up at the stallion and stroked his cheek with the edges of her feathers, though he didn't seem to notice. "He is too gentle for such a warrior species. He should have been born a harpy; he would have been much happier."
"This is permanent, isn't it?" Roy asked, somewhat rhetorically. "He isn't allowed to go back to his herd anymore."
Raven's wings drooped. "No," she sighed sadly. "Unless his sire reverses the edict, but such an action is... uncommon."
Roy put his hand on Jericho's shoulder, which got no more of a response than anything else had. "Hey, I understand that kind of rejection, Jericho. My mom decided she didn't want a kid tying her down and dumped me off with my dad and his new wife. Dinah wasn't thrilled to be suddenly playing mommy to someone else's kid, but she put up with me when even I wouldn't have put up with me any longer. But I knew she didn't really want me, just like mom hadn't wanted me, and it hurt. A lot. I only managed to get back on speaking terms with my mom a few years ago, but hey, better late than never, you know?" He met Jericho's eyes as the centaur turned to look at him. "There's always hope."
Slowly, the centaur's hand reached up to cover Roy's, squeezing it in gentle thanks before dropping back to his side. He didn't look any less depressed, but at least Roy was assured that the stallion wouldn't be hurling himself over the nearby ledge any time soon.
It was evident that Jericho was in no mood to continue their journey, so Roy and Richard left him by the falls to go out hunting. They meticulously avoided the centaur herd's location, hoping that their scent wasn't enough to bring out a war party; without Jericho to give the other centaurs pause, they didn't stand any better chance against the angry herd than they did against the hungry catclan.
They were in luck; Richard spotted a deer and Roy brought it down with one well-aimed arrow. Upon inspection, it looked to Richard to be the same buck they had raced earlier in the day -- an unfortunate coincidence, but they had to eat. The meat from the deer, once cooked, would last them several days unless the weather turned too hot. Local scavengers would be more than happy to finish up the rest.
Using Jericho's rain tarp as a sled, they dragged the deer carcass back to their campsite by the falls. Belatedly, Richard hoped that the smells of blood and cooking meat weren't repulsive to centaurs or harpies, but it would have been too messy to butcher the carcass where they'd landed it and drag back the raw chunks -- not to mention ruinous of the tarp.
Richard's arm was a little better today, but he left Roy the difficult task of cleaning the deer in favor of gathering nuts and berries for Jericho. The centaur hadn't moved the entire time they had been gone, and showed no indication of moving even now. Richard sat down next to the stallion, spreading a mat of leaves on the ground and piling the nuts and berries on top of them. "I thought I'd return the favor of this morning," he grinned. Had it really only been that morning? In less than a day everything had been turned on its head. It wasn't the first time on this trip, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Azar willing, they would all survive these setbacks intact.
Jericho touched his chin and swung his hand down and out. Richard thought perhaps he wasn't hungry, but Raven, sitting on the other side of the centaur, translated. "He said 'thank you'."
As if to reinforce the words, he picked up one of the nuts and ate it, shell and all. It was a habitual motion; he didn't appear to have any real interest in the food. Well, as long as he ate, it didn't matter if he was interested or not; the last thing they needed was for him to faint from hunger. Richard went to gather another round of nuts and berries, in case Raven wanted some, too, and returned a short time later to find the original pile gone, along with the mat of leaves he'd put down.
He left the second pile with them and retreated to the fire Roy had built, where his own dinner was cooking. "Man, you're handy to have on a journey," Richard laughed, indicating everything Roy had done with a wave of his hand. "And here I thought I was efficient!"
Roy smiled at the compliment. "Well, you were gone longer than you thought in search of all those berries." He shot a glance at Jericho as Richard sat down next to him. "Think he'll be OK, Robbie?" he whispered.
Richard shrugged, concern that he hadn't allowed to show before crossing his face. "I hope so. I feel terrible about what happened, but I don't know what to do about it. I'm not sure there's anything we can do. But after we rescue Donna, I'm going to do whatever's within my power to put this right."
Silence reigned as Roy stared off into the horizon at the setting sun. "Robbie... do you think... I mean, what if Donna's not..." He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
Richard punched him playfully on the arm. "Hey, hey, none of that! Of course she's OK, Roy; her pendant would have gone black if she'd been killed. What, you don't have any faith in our ability to rescue her?"
Roy cut a slice of meat from the section roasting over the fire and handed it to Richard before cutting another strip for himself. "I'm sure our horses wouldn't have a high opinion of our abilities right about now."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Richard sighed and tried not to scratch his healing arm, which itched like mad. "I'm worried about Donna too, but I can't think about that, I can't let it overwhelm me -- I'd be useless, then. It's the same with Jericho; I've got to get him focused on something else, and soon, or all he'll do is sit there like a stone."
"So what distracts a centaur?"
"You got me." Richard tossed a bone into the fire. "I suppose I could tell him stories about you and Donna, like the time by the crystal fountain when you guys thought you were alone and --"
"Don't even try it, Robbie," Roy warned with a grin he couldn't suppress, "or I'll counter with the time you met Prince Clark's daughter Kory, and the complete fool you made of yourself fawning all over her."
"Donna told you about that??"
Roy nodded smugly.
"I wasn't 'fawning'," Richard muttered. "I was being courteous. Donna was just jealous that Kory was getting more attention than she was."
"Uh-huh," Roy said knowingly. "That must be why she and Kory are such good friends now."
"You know, I'm beginning to see the merits in being an only child... and Donna always told me she could take care of herself..."
"You lie like a cheap rug, Robbie. You know you'd throw yourself over these falls before you'd let Donna be hurt."
"Well, I'd have company," he grinned, getting to his feet and walking over to what was left of the deer carcass. He looked around, uncertain as to where he should take it; over the falls would be easiest, but it would pollute the water downstream with bacteria as it decayed, and the river was the source of drinking water for the Gotham Valley. Dragging it back into the woods would be more arduous, but it beat leaving the carcass where it was and inviting scavengers into their campsite. He took a hold of one hindleg and began to pull.
"If I may be of assistance?" a soft voice asked from behind. He whirled to see Raven standing there, only a few feet away. He hadn't heard her approach, so either her flight was silent or she had teleported the short distance to his side.
"Sure; if you could teleport this thing someplace where the scavengers won't interrupt us with their feast, I really appreciate it."
"I do not 'teleport'; I move between dimensions," she explained, hopping on top of the deer's head. "But yes, I can remove it for you." In a puff of smoke, she was gone.
Richard shook his head. "Something about her is very... unsettling. I can't pinpoint it, though."
"It's the way she always seems to know what you're thinking," Roy said, handing him a tent pole. "It's creepy, even if it is useful."
"Maybe," Richard agreed. They set to work erecting the tent, a swift task for two people. Raven was taking her time returning, assuming she planned to return; she'd left at nightfall before, too, so they probably wouldn't see her again until the morning.
He turned to Jericho, who was in the same pose he'd been in for hours. Richard wondered if the stallion's legs were cramped, but he didn't look uncomfortable -- just depressed. He walked over to the centaur, removed the blanket from his travel bag, and spread it over him, wrapping it tightly over his shoulders. "It'll be all right," he said gently, massaging Jericho's shoulders. It was like massaging steel, with all the tension in the already-powerful frame. "Your sire will get over his temper; maybe we can send him some kind of gifts when we get back to Castle Wayne. But right now, you need to get some sleep."
The stallion nodded, but that was the extent of his motion; he still sat rigidly in place. Richard sighed, patted him on the shoulder, and retreated to the tent, feeling mightily depressed himself.
Jericho was still listless the next morning. He didn't eat anything, which in itself was a bad sign, and made no response to anything less than a direct question. When they were ready to leave, he set off at a walk, as though his legs were too leaden to manage a trot, much less a cantor or gallop. Eventually, their course took them out of the woods and along a road, but even then he showed no qualms about travelling in the midst of humans who had never seen his like, who jerked their horses to the other side of the road or simply stopped and stared as he passed. He was oblivious to the trail of shocked humans in his wake as he stepped off the road and vanished back into the woods, following the course laid down by the glowing eagle pendant.
He stopped when Richard or Roy requested it, pausing to stretch their legs or attend to personal business. Richard made a point of gathering food for him whenever they paused, and he ate with the same unthinking reflex as before. So far, Richard had been unable to devise any feasible plan for lifting the centaur's spirits. Roy, equally concerned, was at a similar loss, so they pressed on, hoping that the task of locating Donna would be enough distraction, for now.
They came upon a vast clearing, where the domino effect from the fall of a large tree had taken down enough of its equally-large neighbors to bathe the forest floor in direct sunlight. The resulting mass of underbrush that sprang up to take advantage of the light appeared impenetrable, except for a narrow deer trail that wound through the heart of it. Going around it was impossible on one side, with the presence of the river, and arduous on the other, with the ground rising steeply to become Hawthorn Hill. The glow of the eagle pendant indicated that their destination was not too far on the other side of the bushes; perhaps they would see an end to their journey by sundown. Sensing the eagerness of the humans to continue, Jericho stepped onto the thin, uneven trail.
A metallic scream pierced the air and Jericho reared back, throwing both of his riders to the ground. As he fell, Richard saw that one of the golden stallion's forelimbs had been caught in a steel leghold trap. He had no time to look at anything else before rolling out of the path of the massive hooves as they pawed the ground, desperately trying to pull free of the painful snare.
Yanking Roy out of harm's way, he was nearly trampled again when a dozen people burst from the concealing shrubbery to rush at the trapped centaur. A weighted net flew through the air, tangling Jericho in the mesh and hampering his efforts to strike out at his attackers. A large black man with armor-clad limbs managed to loop a rope around his neck and pulled with all his strength in an attempt to bring the stallion down while keeping out of range of the sharp, deadly hooves. His limbs must have been cybernetic instead of just armored, for he succeeded in pulling Jericho's head down, which was more than any normal human could achieve against a centaur's strength. Others tightened the net with the trailing anchor leads, pinning Jericho's arms uselessly to his sides, while two more locked a chain-link hobble around his hind pasterns.
Roy struggled to his feet as a petite, golden-skinned woman leapt onto Jericho's back, locking her legs around his torso to prevent him from throwing her off. Slipping her hands between the links of the net, she reached forward and forced a metal bit into his mouth, deftly securing the bridle with hands made swift by frequent practice. He thrashed about violently in an effort to dislodge her, and she responded by pulling sharply on the reins until the pain compelled him to settle down.
"We have him, Victor," she called to the black man, a smile lighting up her face. "This one will bring in a king's ransom once he's been properly tamed!"
"No!" Roy called, reaching out to the woman. "Leave him alone! He's my friend!"
She turned, her dark, almond-shaped eyes staring down at him in stunned surprise. "Roy?" she breathed, with more than a hint of affection in her voice. "What are you doing here?"
Roy looked over at Richard, who had picked himself up off the ground and was brushing the dirt from his expensive clothes yet again. He needed no introduction to the woman; no one did. Jade Harper was the world-famous hunter Cheshire, who specialized in live-capture of exotics for the personal menageries of royalty and nobility. He'd never had reason to be embarrassed of that before.
"Jade..." he began, then stopped. Be honest, Roy, he told himself. Donna's mother can't like you any less than she does, anyway. "Mom, this is my friend Richard. He's Donna's brother. She's been kidnapped, and we're trying to find her."
"By yourselves?" Jade looked appalled. "Azar preserve me, Roy, you're no knight -- and, I'll wager, neither is your friend. Why isn't the girl's father doing this?"
"He's away," Roy explained, more defensively than even he had expected. "We were doing fine, until we were attacked by Catwoman's clan. Jericho," he indicated the centaur with a nod of his head, "saved us; we owe him our lives. And our only other setback has been you."
Jade tossed the reins to one of her men and slid down from Jericho's back. She watched silently as her assistant tied the reins to a nearby tree before stooping to dig the leghold trap's anchor post out of the ground. "You're asking me to give up a lot of money for your gratitude," she said quietly. "His coloration alone would bring double the usual price."
"He's not an animal, mom," Roy countered. "He deserves better than some lordling's gilded cage."
Jade stared hard at her son. "Any other centaur would have fought the catclan for the chance to rip you to pieces. They're a dangerous, bloodthirsty lot, and they have no love of humans."
And you wonder why that is? he thought bitterly. I'll bet they didn't start attacking humans until we decided they looked good in zoos. Aloud he said, "He's not just any centaur."
"Apparently not." She turned to her men. "Release him."
"Yer kiddin', right?" Victor warned, "'cause if we free him now --"
Jade flung an arm in the direction of her son. "He claims we'll be safe. If he's wrong, he'll have to live with our souls haunting him. Release the centaur."
Jericho stood immobile as the various restraints were removed. Roy sighed in silent relief; he hadn't really known how the centaur would react, but his gamble paid off.
Jade had mounted her horse as her men packed up the tools of their trade. "If you come to your senses on this issue, Roy, have Oliver send me a message. And don't get into the habit of trusting your life to anything less than human." With that, she turned her steed and rode off, her men scrambling to follow. In minutes, they were once again alone in the woods.
"Why didn't you tell us she's your mother?" Richard asked, startling Roy from his reverie.
He blushed. "Well, I... um... it never really came up." He picked up his quiver and began retrieving the arrows that had scattered when he'd fallen. "I mean, everyone knows that Dinah isn't my birth mother. Everyone just assumed my mother was dead, or that I didn't know who she was." He slung the quiver over his shoulder. "If you were so curious, Robbie, why didn't you ever ask?"
"I figured it out a long time ago." Roy's eyebrows twitched upward in surprise. Richard smiled. "But the information might impress my mother; she holds Jade's skills in high regard -- almost as much as Thia's."
"Yeah, well, don't say that where he can hear." They both turned to look at Jericho, who still hadn't moved since the attack. With a glance at Roy, Richard approached the centaur and put his hand on the stallion's arm. "You OK, pal?"
With a panicked snort, Jericho wheeled around on his hindlegs and took off at a gallop -- or tried to. His injured foreleg gave out from under him and he fell heavily, nearly crushing Roy. Terror filled the stallion's sea-green eyes as he realized he was helpless in the face of a very real threat to his freedom and possibly even his life.
"It's all right," Richard told him, keeping his voice gentle and his motions slow. The centaur's eyes were wild, his whole body trembling as the human moved closer. It struck Richard that for all his intimidating size, Jericho was probably no older than he was. "We're your friends, remember? Roy convinced the others to let you go. You're safe; you're free."
Plus you're hurt, you're scared, and you're alone , he thought. We've got to regain his trust, and not just for his sake -- Azar knows we'll need all the help we can get to save Donna.
A cloud of smoke heralded the return of Raven. She flew directly to Jericho and landed on his haunches, looking relieved. "I am glad you are safe," she began, then stopped, peering at his face. One long wing reached out, the tips of her primaries touching the blood that trickled from the corners of his mouth where the metal bit had torn his flesh. Turning to Roy, she added softly, "Now do you understand the enmity the centaurs hold for your people?"
"If you were so concerned, why didn't you help?" he lashed out at the ebon harpy. "Some friend you are, flitting off when others are in danger!"
If anything ever perturbed the bird-woman, it certainly didn't show. "Such battles are not for harpies," she replied calmly. "We are pacifists, and even were we not, we are poorly suited for conflict, with no means of carrying weapons nor any defense against them. My remaining would have only meant placing myself in danger, which would have done nothing to further your cause."
Richard ignored them both and knelt down beside Jericho, feeling along his injured forelimb for any sign of a break in the bone. The trap had caught him just above the fetlock; two inches lower and it would have shattered the joint. As it was the leg was swollen and bruised, though the cuts where the metal sliced the skin had stopped bleeding. Thank Azar it hadn't been a toothed trap -- that would have ruined the leg for sure.
He tore the remaining sleeve off his already-ruined shirt and used it to bandage Jericho's leg. The centaur was noticeably calmer now that Raven had returned; Richard hoped that meant they were all still friends. Roy found Jericho's staff lying among the trampled bushes, and the stallion used it to regain his footing, standing awkwardly on three feet.
"That's the end of the cushy life," Roy sighed, brushing off the blanket and folding it so that Jericho could pack it in his travel bag. "Looks like we'll be hoofing it -- so to speak -- the rest of the way, Robbie."
Richard glanced at Jericho. "Can you walk?"
The stallion nodded, though 'limp' was a better description of his motion. The leg was too painful to support much weight, so his gait was slower than his usual pace, but now that the two humans were on foot, it meant they didn't have to run to keep up with him.
Richard took the lead, using his sword to hack open the deer trail into a larger path. Jericho followed, and Roy brought up the rear. It wasn't an ideal arrangement for travel through a narrow corridor, but it made Jericho feel safer. Even then, he started at every unexpected sound or movement.
The forest continued on the other side of the clearing, but now the trees were thinning out, and the breeze that blew in their faces smelled strongly of saltwater. Richard had to use his sword as a machete to fight his way through underbrush as the deer trail diverged from their intended course. Jericho's hooves beat down the plants, making the passage effortless for Roy -- which was almost enough to compensate for having to stare at a horse's hindquarters for hours on end.
Rocky outcroppings defined the boundary between land and sea, the waves crashing up and over the boulders to create a constant misty spray of water. Richard sank onto one of the drier stones to catch his breath.
"Want me to sharpen that for you?" Roy asked, looking down at his friend's blunted sword. "No shortage of whetstones here."
"Sure." He handed the sword to Roy, wincing at the movement. No amount of gentlemanly swordplay was more strenuous than the honest hard work of chopping one's way through a forest. Belatedly, he realized he should have had Roy take the lead, since he was well familiar with that sort of manual labor, and would not have been made stiff and sore by it. Too late now.
Raven swooped down from the sky to land on the rock next to Richard. "There is a sandy delta a quarter mile west of here, where the river empties into the sea," she told him. "I think that would be our best course of action."
Richard checked Donna's pendant. "That's not the right direction; we need to head northeast, toward that island out there." He pointed to a small forested island several miles offshore.
Raven nodded. "The island is your destination, but to get there, you will require assistance. For me to summon the help you will need, I must have gentle access to the ocean, and the treacherous waves about these boulders are not it."
Grudgingly, Richard hauled himself to his feet. Donna had waited long enough for them; he couldn't, in good conscience, make her wait longer than necessary. "Lead on," he said, catching Roy's eye and pointing toward their goal.
The trek to the river's mouth was short but rugged, with driftwood barring their progress when the slick stones weren't. The two humans had an easier time of it than the centaur, who normally could have jumped over such minor obstacles. He chose to retreat back into the woods, much to the probable dissatisfaction of the plants he left trampled in his wake. Roy and Richard were having too much fun clambering over the rocks to follow the easier path behind Jericho.
When they reached the delta, Raven waded into the water up to her chest, careful to stay out of the powerful current in the river's center. Taking a deep breath, she ducked her head underwater and stayed there. Richard saw her mouth moving, but if she was talking, it was only to herself, for nothing else was in the river with her. Hopping out of the water, Raven shook her feathers dry and spread her wings in the sunlight. She didn't act like anything was amiss; nor did Jericho, who gazed out over the waters as though trying to catch the first glimpse of something neither Richard nor Roy could see.
The glimmer of red in the waves caught everyone's attention. Richard stared as the most exotic, beautiful creature he'd ever seen approached the shore. From the waist up, he looked like a man, with pale pink skin and short dark hair. From the waist down, he was a fish, the bold red and black pattern of his scales offset by the diaphanous, inky black fins that trailed in the water around and behind him. Tiny rainbows of iridescence flashed across his body when he moved, belying the fact that the 'skin' and 'hair' were anything remotely human; they were simply more scales. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the merman's hands were also quite fin-like, with elongated, webbed fingers that resembled the spiny rays which allowed his other fins to be held erect from his body if he so chose. Large gill flaps fluttered on either side of his neck in an oddly hypnotic motion.
He wasn't the only one who thought so, apparently. "Wow," Roy breathed, awestruck.
Clearly, the fascination was mutual. The merman took a deep breath of water and stuck his head out into the air, his glittering purple eyes taking in the sight of surface dwellers the likes of which he had never before seen.