I saw Dougal flush in happy surprise. When Vic finally raised her eyes to meet his, I thought I detected an unaccustomed shyness in her gaze.

“Victoria and I will travel together.” Dougal’s voice sounded strong and confident.

ClanFintan looked pleased that the two centaurs were staying together. “At first light the four of us will travel south until the sun is midway in the sky. Then you and Dougal will branch off to the east. Rhea and I will travel farther south, then we, too, will turn toward the river.”

Dougal and Victoria nodded in agreement.

“The night is still young. Let us rest, my friends.” ClanFintan’s voice was hypnotic in the waning fire. I leaned against him, pleased he sounded like himself. Maybe everything would be okay…

Exhaustion caught up with me and a deep, thankfully dreamless sleep claimed me as its own.

The rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat of a woodpecker woke me.

“God, what an annoying bird.” I grumbled as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

Then I smelled something that was cooking—something that smelled yummy. The three centaurs were standing around the fire. Cooking over it on a spit was a long, thick piece of white meat. I got up and stretched my way over to them.

“Good morning!” Dougal said cheerfully. ClanFintan pulled a leaf out of my hair. Vic nodded.

“Morning,” I grumped. “What is it? It looks too thick to be snake,” I said hopefully.

“No, caiman,” Vic said.

“Oh, good. What’s a caiman?”

“Small crocodile—easier to kill and skin than a large one.” She smiled proudly. “They are a little tricky to catch, but—”

“I know, I know—tastes like chicken.”

They laughed. Were they all morning people/centaurs/whatever?

“Here.” ClanFintan pulled something that looked like a burnt sweet potato out of the coals. With one of Vic’s sharp arrowheads he slit it to expose steaming pulp. I picked a small piece out and blew on it, then popped it into my mouth.

“Not bad, a little bitter and barky tasting, but not bad. What is it?”

“The tuber part of a cattail.” Vic motioned at a grove of cattails just off the far side of our little island.

“You Huntresses are just dang handy to have around.”

“Of course we are,” Vic said with her normal lack of modesty.

The caiman was pretty good, too. What they write in books is the truth—sometimes you get too hungry to care what you’re eating.

Before we left, I checked ClanFintan’s wounds. His head and chest wounds looked good, especially under the definite lack of sterile circumstances. But the sutured slashes on his rump looked ugly. They were weeping bloody fluid. They worried me, especially given the stiff way ClanFintan was hobbling around. I told him to hold still while I rubbed more salve on all of them.

He met my eyes, smiling gently, and pulled me into his arms. “It is normal for the wound to drain.”

“You can hardly walk!”

He laughed. “Perhaps I am simply not a morning centaur.”

“Don’t be a smart aleck, you’re hobbling around worse than Epi did when she went lame.”

“I am older than Epi.”

I put my head against the side of his chest that wasn’t wounded. “Tell me the truth, are you really okay?”

He ruffled my hair. “Yes, I will move more easily when my muscles are warm.”

“Maybe I should ride Vic again.” I peeked over at her where she and Dougal were stomping out the fire. “I don’t think she’d mind.”

“I would mind. I want you close to me.” He kissed the top of my head. “But I would appreciate it if you would refrain from fondling my rump—” he paused and gave me a teasing look “—today.”

I pulled away from him and went back to salving his wounds, muttering, “You probably need a good smack on the rump.”

We left the island and traveled south, into the ever-thickening marshlands. Thankfully, the water stayed at a depth between the centaurs’ knees and their flanks, but it made for slow going. The mud sucked against their hooves like a living thing. Shortly after we had started out, a log drifted past us. I caught sight of movement on it and shouted an alligator warning.

Vic’s crossbow was in her hand, and Dougal and ClanFintan unsheathed their long swords, taking up a defensive stance with their backs to each other. As it floated closer to us we got a better look at it. It wasn’t an alligator; it was a log teeming with writhing snakes.

“Yeesh, that’s disgusting. Are they poisonous?” They made my skin crawl.

“Yes, but they are mating. If we let them drift by without bothering them, they should not bother us.” Vic’s voice mirrored my disgust.

Needless to say, we gave them a wide berth.

Except for all the bugs, crawling things and green, slimy water, I was surprised by the hidden beauty of the marsh. Tall, pointed-nosed birds stood in the water, blinking at us like lazy blue-haired old southern women. High in the moss-dripping cypress trees, brilliant scarlet birds nested.

“That must be a scarlet ibis.” I pointed at one as it floated gracefully to the water.

“Yes.” Vic nodded. “They are a rare bird. Have you seen one before?”

“Only in a story,” I sighed, remembering the poignant coming-of-age story that I read to my freshmen every year entitled The Scarlet Ibis. “Remind me to tell you the story about Doodle some day.”

“I will,” Dougal said with endearing enthusiasm.

A little before midday we came to another patch of dry land, too small to even be called an island. There the centaurs took a break from the constant water. I searched the leaves for more apple snails.

“They only come out at night,” Vic informed me.

“I don’t suppose we have time for a fire anyway.” And I didn’t think I was hungry enough to eat one raw. Yet.

“No,” ClanFintan said. “Victoria and Dougal must be on their way. And so must we.” He turned to Victoria. He clasped her upper arm, and she his. “Take care of each other.” Then he faced Dougal. “If you reach the temple before we do, tell them they must evacuate to the other side of the river. Head to Glen Iorsa. From there we will decide what is to be done.” They clasped arms. “But you must get the humans across the river. It is no longer safe for them, no matter what has become of the other armies.”

His words shocked me, and I could read my shock mirrored in Victoria’s expression, although she didn’t speak. But Dougal simply nodded, as if he had expected the news. I walked over to Vic, and gave her a girlfriend hug.

“Stay safe,” she said.

“Allow yourself to be loved,” I whispered.

Her eyes widened at my words and I was amazed to see a hint of color sneaking into her cheeks.

“I am too old to bother with such nonsense,” she whispered back to me.

“No one is too old for such nonsense.”

Then I went to Dougal, who tried to kiss my hand, but I pulled him down and gave him a hug, kissing him soundly on the cheek.

“Watch out for her—and for yourself.” I turned away so that I wouldn’t have to see them leave. I heard them leap off the dry land and back into the water, but soon the swamp covered all sounds of their departure.

“We will see them again soon.” ClanFintan stood behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders.

“I know,” I said with false bravado.

“We must go.”

I reached up and he swung me onto his back, and we, too, immersed ourselves back in the unending marsh.

It seemed like days instead of hours had passed when ClanFintan finally made an abrupt left turn.

“This should be enough space between us,” he said as he changed direction.

“Good!” I agreed cheerily, to cover up the worry that had begun inside me. ClanFintan’s amazing stamina was beginning to wane. His coat beneath my legs was damp with more than water; it was flecked with white sweat—something I’d never seen on him before. The gashes on his rump were constantly dripping yellowish drainage. I could hear his breathing deepen as he strained against the muddy ground.

“I think I should walk for a while.”

“No,” he said between breaths.

“Really, it’s okay. I’d like to stretch my legs.”

“I said no!” he snapped.

I just sat there, not sure if I should smack his butt and tell him not to yell at me, jump off his back and tell him I’ll damn sure do what I want or just sit there and cry. Confusion won, so I shut my mouth and sat there in a tight ball of emotions.

Soon he came to a halt and wiped the sweat from his brow wearily with the back of his hand.

“Forgive me, love,” he said with a voice that sounded like it came from a grave. “I shame myself by taking my exhaustion out on you.”

I leaned forward, carefully wrapping my arms around his chest. I rested my chin on his shoulder. “You’re forgiven.”

“When the water becomes a little more shallow you may walk, if you would like.”

“I would like.” I kissed his neck. He lay his arms over mine briefly, then took a deep breath and forced his hooves out of the soggy ground. The horrible sucking sound made me want to cringe. We continued to move slowly forward.

When the water had subsided to his knees he halted again.

“How about if I walk for a little while?”

He nodded, and helped me to dismount. My booted feet sank down in the mucky ground until I was standing in water up to my thighs.

“Yuck, this stuff is seriously gross.” I took his hand and we started walking.

“Seriously gross?” he asked.

“Yeah, like that log that was filled with snakes.”

“Oh.” He nodded tired understanding.

We struggled on. After we had only gone a short way, I was breathing heavily. It amazed me that he had been traveling in this mud all day—with me on his back and a butt that was all torn up.

“It can’t be much farther,” I said between breaths.

He didn’t reply. It seemed that he was focusing all of his energy on continuing to move forward.

Soon the water level had noticeably subsided, which would have been wonderful, except that the level of the mud increased. The water came only to my knees, but every time I put a foot down, I sank to mid-calf in mud. In the dwindling light we didn’t see the grass until it was right before us. It was an incredible sight; much of it even towered over ClanFintan.

We stopped, both of us breathing heavily.

“Didn’t Vic say a field of tall grass came right before the edge of the swamp?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes, and she said it was sharp. You should remount me so that I can shield you from its cuts.”

“No, let me try walking through it.” I could see he wanted to argue, so I rested my hand on his arm and said, “If it’s too sharp, I’ll climb back aboard.”

He agreed reluctantly, and we stepped into the forest grass.

As usual, Vic had been right; the grass cut. And now that I thought about it, I remembered seeing red slashes across her skin, but we were all so mud spattered and insect bitten that I had given it little thought.

Well, now that I was walking through the stuff, I gave it lots of thought. I put my arms up to try and shield my face from the worst of the grass. Soon I could feel warm blood trickling down my forearms from the scratches on scratches as the razor-edged grass sliced across my skin like a giant paper cut.

“Rhea, stop. You must ride now.”

“Just a little farther, then I will.” I had managed to draw a small distance ahead of him, and I didn’t even pause to look back, afraid he’d see the blood on my arms. The mud still sucked at my feet, and I knew he didn’t need the burden of my added weight.