Art by HE THONG

Melagar 's roar filled the marble palace as his limbs locked in place the prostated Minister. This carnal act was their forging of a sacred union, one which consummated the noble Minister's commitment to Prince Melagar and his Royal House. This was the hallowed conciliation of which the Centaur poets sang. Arranged around the mighty, heavying Centaurs, a halo of unworthy man beasts cowered in silence. Each slave bent its bare head to the ground in respect and called upon all the muscles of its face to keep its eyes crammed shut. Each slave knew deep in its bones that their kind are forbidden to witness such a sight. Yet protocol cruelly dictates the slaves must remain nearby, lest their services be required. Prince Melagar was especially feared, as in the thralls of passion he had been known to indiscriminately kick a slave on the charges that  "it might have been looking."  It is said that on the night of the Prince's very conception, his revered father, King Agr...

Melagar gave a mighty bellow of a yawn as he greeted the new day. Around him, a team of nameless slave animals hurried about their grooming tasks. They tended to his coat, supplied his mountain spring water, and collected his urine, all working in total silence and with the greatest diligence lest they incur the Centaur Prince’s wrath in the form of a bone-shattering kick or getting thrown across the hall. Their welfare was of little consequence to him. If one fell, the next day another of the queer bipedal creatures would take its place.  The Centaur looked down in contempt at their docile behavior and deep-seated aversion to looking him in the eyes. Pitiful, but not unexpected. After all, these animals were stable-born, descendant from wild stock his dear father had victoriously brought home, in chains, from raids carried out in the King’s younger days. Compared to those savages, these colts had been broken in and put to work as soon as they could walk on their two weak legs...

As soon as the young Kaxtor received his first two human slaves as a present for the celebration of reaching adulthood on his sixth birthday, he undertook a much longed-for travel to the Northern lands, of which he had heard so many marvels from his late grandfather. A couple of beasts of burden, in fact, was the only thing needed to complete his equipment for the long journey from his home in Hellades.  Kaxtor has now reached the mountains of the barbaric Teuxlands. Here, for the first time in his life, he admires in awe those endless landscapes covered by snow.  As the ice-cold air fills his powerful chest, he promises himself to come back as a famous warrior, and conquer these countries, and enslave their people, to the glory of the Centaur nation.