The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1

Would the secret be told or would he forever be denied to know? His ears perked up to hear.

“Because I don’t want to tell you,” Leradien answered. “Besides!” she added then, looking away. “The person is of no account to you, anyway.”

The boy raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. “Was it a girl?”

“What difference does that make?”

“It was a girl, wasn’t it?”

Leradien’s cheeks flushed slightly, a hint of embarrassment coloring her face. “So what if it was?”

“So it makes me curious to know what elf girl would like a satyr?” he said.

“What makes you think it was an elf girl?”

“Because I only know elf girls,” he replied, then asked with a frown. “So some elf girl likes me and I don’t get to know who it is?”

“No. I guess you don’t,” she said. “So where’d you go last night?”

“Some of the other fellows and I, we formed a gang.”

“Oh! Good!” Leradien said, brightening to hear it. “I like the sound of that!”

“Yeah.” The boy proudly boasted. “And they elected me captain!”

The ruby red glow of her eyes increased with interest.

“Oh! You’d make a good captain!” she quickly agreed, desiring to hear more. “What’s the gang going to do?”

“Rob, murder, and kidnap mostly.”

Her enthusiasm showed in her eager smile. “Oh! I can do that! Can I be a member?”

“Well! To be honest, I sort of raised the point already, but they were kind of opposed.”

“How so?” she wanted to know with a sudden downcast of her eyebrows and a frown of suspicion.

Now the boys were opposed to her being a girl but mostly opposed to her being a drider. The boy thought of how to best explain that. He remembered what Ronthiel said.

“Somebody said you’re not only drider but a black widow,” the boy remembered from class.

“And what’s wrong with that?”

He noticed she didn’t disagree, a subtle acknowledgment of the truth in his words.

“They kill their own mates,” he said, “and they say Lolth’s a black widow, too.”

“So they think that makes me the same as her?”

“I don’t know. Nobody said more than that.”

“Let me guess? Ronthiel told you this? Probably right after he told you I tried to kill him?”

The boy squirmed and fidgeted, feeling like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a hunting owl. It was hard to lie, even as a satyr, to someone who has ruby red eyes. He figured she could tell when he was lying, so he steered away from that choice. The boy nodded instead.

“I knew I should have let that displacer beast kill him. I knew it!” she snapped in disgusted regret.

“I’m here, aren’t I? I didn’t believe him. I told him so as soon as he said it.”

“I’m not a member of your gang either, am I?”

“Well! I brought that up with the fellows, but they weren’t too keen on having a girl in the gang.”

“I’m a drider. I'm not just a girl!”

“I told them that.”

“Let me guess. They didn’t like that either? They thought I’d kill them? That I’m another Lolth?”

Yeah. Pretty much. The boy slowly nodded.

“If your friends are that stupid, I don’t want to be a member of your gang, anyway!” she retorted. “If I was going around killing people, everyone would have figured it out by now. There’d be people missing! Or bodies found with all their blood gone!”

“Hey!” the boy brightened. “That’s right! There would be! I can point that out and maybe they’d let you join. I got them to agree to at least thinking about letting you join. That point of yours might get you in.”

“That’s okay. I don’t want to join now.”

“Why not?” asked the disappointed boy.

“I’m assuming Ronthiel is a member? Because I won’t join if he is.”

“No. He’s not a member.”

“Okay,” she decided. “In that case, I’ll join.”

“Well! There’s something you ought to know first. If you joined, you’d be our cavalry and I’m the captain of the cavalry.”

“So what does that mean?” she asked. “I thought you said you were the captain of the gang?”

“I’m the captain of all the captains plus captain of the cavalry, too.”

“What cavalry?” Leradien asked suspiciously. “Have you got any horses, riding lizards, or steeders?”

“No. We don’t have any of those.”

“So you mean I’m the cavalry and you’re my captain? And you plan on riding me?”

“Yeah. You’d join and let me ride you into battle.”

Leradien took offense. “What do think I am? A steeder? I’m a drider!” she said. “Have you ever heard of anyone riding a drider into battle? You said rob, murder, and kidnap and not charge into battle! We don’t do that. And no one rides me unless I wish it! Besides! Drow women do not take orders from men. You have it backward. We give them!”

Seemed she had had bunch of objections. But he only heard the first; “We don’t do that.”

“Why won’t you let me ride you into battle?”

“And get us both killed? Where’s the fun in that?”

The boy rolled his eyes. The fun was in not getting killed. Leave it to a girl to miss that part.

“Well, that was the only way I could get them to agree to vote to let you in.”

“I thought you said they wouldn’t let me in?”

“They wouldn’t,” said the boy. “But I got them to at least think about it with that displacer beast about.”

“Clever of you,” she said with a nod of approval. “You fooled them into thinking I’d protect them when I won’t and for that, they’ll let me in?”

“Well–no! Not yet,” said the boy.

Now it was Leradien's turn to roll her eyes upwards in exasperation. “You make a girl’s head hurt!”

“I only got them to consider letting you join.”

“So what do I have to do to join?”

“Well! You have to take the same oath as the others and they’d want an additional vow from you that you won’t kill them and will fight for them.”

“Wait, just a second,” she said. “You aren’t serious, are you? You don’t actually think I’d protect them, do you?”

“That’s what you do in a gang. It’s all for one and one for all.”

“Well! They wouldn’t do it for me no matter what their vows are, so I won’t do it for them, either. I’ll do it for you but nobody else!”

“You protected Ronthiel for me.”

“Yes! And look where it got me! Don’t expect me to be so foolish as to do that again. Besides, your friends will know a drow can break its vows. And I won’t be seen publicly taking orders from you when they should all see you taking orders from me. And if anyone thinks me or calls me a steeder, I’ll bite them so hard they’ll be paralyzed for a week!”

“You can’t join the gang if you won’t take orders or vows.”

“Then I guess I’m not joining.”

That’s not fair, thought the boy. Girls are supposed to do what you tell them.

The problem, obviously, was that Leradien hadn’t gone to school. No, he didn’t mean the school he attended. The boy meant the school that the girls attended when the boys’ teachings ended. No one had ever properly taught her that men were the boss. He wished now he knew how they were trained in this, because this drider needed some serious instruction. Unless she changed her ways, there was no way she was ever going to get a husband or be admitted to the gang. It simply just wasn’t going to happen. Somebody ought to tell her.

And someday, from a safe distance, maybe he would.

But not today—today he had more important things to take care of. Leradien’s life not being in any danger, he decided to head home where certain glory and punishment awaited him for not coming home last night.

He set aside his defeat and the loss of his share as captain of the cavalry to seek victory elsewhere. Leradien had said one elf girl had missed him. That could only mean Rebecca.

He set his mind to finding out. Nothing would deter him from his quest. He'd let nothing stand between him and his one, true beloved. Nothing! Not even an army of trolls!

Except first he wanted to see if his aunt missed him.

And Sith.

And everybody else.

But after that, he'd find out. Maybe after supper.