For a split second, he thought she had launched herself in flight above the cliff. It was so fast, and at the same time terribly slow as the moment in which she was suspended in the air with her face contorted in fear seared into his mind before she disappeared over the ledge. Dimly he recognised the thump of hooves behind him, as shock swept him up and numbed him.

He made a strangled noise as he uselessly reached his arm. A wave of something he never felt before washed over him - like static that sifted through him and begged him to take hold. It disoriented him, and he did not have time to move before a pair of large, hairy arms grabbed him by the waist and threw him over the back of a horse as if he were a sack of grain. A wolf-like muzzle snuffled over him for a second. 

“No injuries I can see, no smell of blood. The forest is swimming in mages,” the wolf beast growled. “Take him to Donthan. Don’t stop until you reach the Sage. Go!”

And then the world was sweeping by, a blur of green and brown. Small branches slapped his swinging arms and legs. Confused and astonished as he was, a part of him kicked in that moved him without conscious thought. He pressed his knees against the flank of the horse and leveraged himself up on its back before pressing away.

He fell into the greenery and moss, and as he tumbled over the ground he thanked whatever passed as a deity in this unknown place for keeping his head from rocks. For the briefest of instances he wondered how he knew what a deity was without knowing any names of deities before his breath was slammed out of him by the trunk of a young evergreen.

He rolled onto his back, gasping for breath. As he regained his bearings, he realized that the thump of the horse had slowed and was coming near. He felt a rustle to the left of him and the branches immediately above him were pushed out of the way to reveal the head and torso of a very tall man in a black leather jerkin with a significant black beard and thick hair swept in a braid that trailed down his back. Only, it was not a man, he realized. From the waist down, the creature’s form expanded in a thick set of flanks covered in smooth black fur. The man shifted his head, following the line of the creature’s legs down to his hooves. Centaur was the word that popped in his head. 

“You alright there?” The concern crinkling the centaur’s dark gold eyes seemed sincere.

The man sat up and croaked, “yeah” as he rubbed his ribs. “Were you who I was riding on?”

“‘Course,” the centaur replied, his legs moving restlessly. “Now get back on - the fetid stench of mages still lingers in the air. We are not safe until we reach Donthan.”

“Okay, first, no.” The man staggered to his feet and leaned against the tree. “I don’t know who you are, or what you want to do with me. I watched a wolf guy throw a woman off a cliff, and you seem to be together, so I’m going to have to ask you to get the fuck away from me.”

The centaur shifted uneasily, but did not approach the man, which was a point in favor of the creature not necessarily wanting to kidnap him outright.

“The Sage said you might be like this,” the centaur said gruffly. “You really don’t know where you are? Who you are?”

“How do you know that I don't?” The man pushed off the tree and stepped away from the centaur into what part of him realized was a defensive stance. He held himself at an angle to the centaur, his arms lifted close to his chest. 

“Steady now.” The centaur held up his hands, moving one slowly to a set of packs that hung behind his torso. He grabbed a flask from the packs and held it up, giving it a shake. “You thirsty? By the looks of you, you’ve been stumbling through the forest all day.”

The man thought a moment, then nodded. There was no reason for the centaur to be carrying a flask of something dangerous just in case he happened to run into a strange man. The centaur threw flask, and the man caught it easily with his left hand. He popped the plug and drank from it greedily, suddenly realizing how much he also craved something to eat. 

“Thank you,” he said, wiping his lips. 

“The name’s Tova. Iron Clan. Captain of Namilun’s Shades.”

“That’s nice,” the man said, tossing back the flask. “But I don’t know what that means.”

“This is really something.” Tova looped the strap of his flask back on the belt of his packs. “I never thought I’d be the one who’d have to explain all this to you. This is for sages, not an old soldier. And you don’t have a name?”

“I’m sure I do, but I don’t know what it is.” The man relaxed his stance. “You obviously think I’m someone important. Who do you think I am?”

Tova cleared his throat as embarrassment settled around his shoulders.

“I suppose you’re Namilun’s prophet. The Herald of the new era.” He ran a hand through his beard. “It’s not that I’m not a believer, you know. It’s just that you never expect to be one of those swept up in miraculous times. The stuff of future epics, you know.”

“You think I’m a prophet.” The man marveled, yet again, on how calm he was with this obviously strange information. He knew that could not be the usual reaction. Something was suppressing his stronger emotions, and it was starting to irritate him. “I don’t know about that. What I do know is that the one person I started this morning with was just killed by a friend of yours.”

“You mean the mage?” Tova’s voice grew hard. “That thing was dangerous and needed to be eliminated before it killed you.”

The man scoffed. “You think that woman was going to kill me? She woke up in the same place I did in the same state - no memories, no clue how she got there. And if she wanted to kill me, she had most of the day to try.”

“Then she was likely trying to lure you into capture.”

The man laughed. “I was the one who chose what direction we were walking!”

Tova sighed heavily. He scanned the forest, as if assuring himself that they had no pursuers.

“I understand she may have seemed harmless, but if you can give me the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Centaurs’ senses are better than the usual human’s, so I’d ask you to believe me when I say the woman smelled of mage power. More like reeked of it, actually. It was overpowering. That’s probably why Arhad moved so quickly to get her away from you.”

“Arhad’s the wolf guy?”

“He’s of the Lupine, yes.”

“And I assume, to you, mages are bad?”

“Not just to me.”  Tova’s voice hardened again. “The mages are the scourge of Medoreno. Whether that woman was working directly with the mages or was a wanderer, if she gets her power from Pailon then you were not safe.”

The man rubbed his head. “You’re just making more questions for me.”

“Because I’m not the one who should explain this to you.” The centaur gestured to his back. “Please let me take you to Donthan. Sage Ossar will tell you everything that you need to know. At the very least, come and be fed. You’ve been walking in the forest all day, yes? Then you must need to eat.” 

He dug in one of his packs and pulled out something wrapped in a thin cloth and tossed it to the man. The man unwrapped it carefully, and found a sandwich of bread, cheese and thick slices of mushroom. He bit into it gratefully.

“Okay, I’ll go with you,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t really have another option, do I?”