by Simon Archer
“I wonder if Timberpine does this every time there’s a Blood Moon.” He grabbed my cheeks, turning my head from side to side as if I was a horse on the market. “That would be rather fun, having a hare to watch after they were filled with so much hope. It’d be a shame that it could only happen every two hundred years. That just might make it funnier, actually. It’d be a new face to capture every time, and you could tell a new lie every time. And you could just make it messier and messier every time you let them really know. I’m glad I could take that away from him before I killed him. Thank you for that.”
They’re on a two hundred year loop for this thing, then. That suggested this Blood Moon was a fairly big deal, and an absolute necessity to capitalize on. They’ll be desperate, needy, and greedy for all the bunnies they could find, and only leave the few with weak magic to keep the species alive for the next round. No reserves, no retreating, no mercy. It’d have been all or nothing at every fight until the moment. I bet I could have burnt them dry as a bone of manpower if I played this war right.
And some of these Wolves, I swear, were just fountains of information when you got them talking long enough. Their arrogant asses just couldn’t shut up if it meant putting someone else down and lifting their ego up. Hell, I was wondering if I could have gotten him to tell me where the Mana Crusher generator was. Either way, I was having fun.
“When I was coming here earlier, I thought this would have been difficult to take this barony.” Wildheart let go of my face finally, moving back to the center of the courtyard with his arms out as he kept up his performance. “After all, the Baron of Thumperton Port was supposed to be nearly invincible, a force of nature that was only tolerated because he wasn’t making any overt moves against His Majesty. But now, after coming all this way, I just feel so disappointed that all of the big talk was just a fluke. I almost feel bad that I brought all of this help with me when I could have just gone myself, what with such a weak baron between me and my task.”
“Shut your stupid face, you mangy turdeater!” Hopper shouted from the sidelines, held back by two of my guards. She had already created a portal and was grasping to reach through it to the portal well close to Wildheart. “I’ll kick your snout in if you keep that tone up! You’ll be swallowing your own teeth for weeks, just you wait!”
I raised my hand up, looking at her. She stopped struggling, closing the portal as she grumbled to herself. Wildheart looked over to her with the canine equivalent of a raised eyebrow, walking up to where she stood in the crowd with Tinker, some guards, and Janet, Ruby, and Clover, more of my new girls.
“What the hell is this?” The black Wolf knight looked at the bunny who spoke so shamelessly to him. “Why are these bunnies not in a cage?” His steps led him back as he looked beside her, seeing more of my girls to her left and right, slowly witnessing the magnitude of uncaged bunnies. “Why are none of these bunnies in cages? And what was that hole in the sky? What is going on here?!”
He placed his helmet on and pulled out his sword in the black gauntlet, shifting and unhooking the shield on his back to hold it in the other as he manically twirled in place to see everyone who was gathered around him.
“It’s nothing to get worked up over.” I stretched my back as I got up from my chair, readying myself as I felt the battle getting closer. “The portal’s completely natural here. And we were just preparing for the Blood Moon and going to the Mana Crusher before you mucked about here.”
“And Timberpine would just leave the merchandise unchained?” He rushed over to me, sword waving in the air as he spoke with his arms. “Supervised only by grunts and soldiers? Trekking the three hundred and fifty miles east to Jackalope? There aren't any carts or wagons. The only steeds in this whole city appear to be the ones I brought here. How would you get there in any reasonable time? And the grunts may have weapons, but they can’t possibly hope to take down the Mana Crusher with this meager force. What kind of insanity is that?”
Ha! See, he told us the location of the Mana Crusher. Took just the smallest bit of prompting, too. If you’d ever told someone to calm down before when they were freaking out, you’d have known that they’d have just freaked out more. It made them irrational and, more importantly, prone to being overly focused on one thing to the point of forgetting certain ways they’re supposed to act, like being secretive. And it was hilarious.
One hundred miles west, to a place called Jackalope. The place was heavily fortified, and we’d need a massive invasion force to break the outside, of which we don’t have, according to this champion challenger’s evaluation. Since he worked for the Regent directly, I’m fairly certain he’d have known about the super-important generator, so I could have trusted it. Even if I couldn’t, it was the only clue I had. That’d have taken a couple of weeks to get to unless I used these horses and the Wolves’ faster speed to cut that time down.
Now I just wanted to see how long I could keep this half-charade up. Getting in his head would keep the trained warrior in him from making decisions, letting the savage animal keep him sloppy and vulnerable, if not a little wild.
“This has to be some kind of trick!” His paranoia grew to insane-asylum-worthy heights. “He’s not even here, is he? He lured me here, trapped me inside these walls so that he could go out and attack the Mana Crusher himself! The bunnies were to keep me distracted for that much longer while you planned your real strategy! It’s clever, but I’m onto him. What game is Timberpine playing that he thinks he can take us down? What does he know? Where is he?”
“Bottom of the ocean.” I shrugged. “I already said that, if you bothered to pay attention. And the bunnies are here because they wanted to watch the fight, same as the others. They even helped set up the tarps. Locking them up seems a bit rude.”
“What does a noble Wolf care about manners and respect for a bunch of slaves, bunnies no less!” The knight’s sword and shield exaggerated his expressive movements. “And when did a bunny’s opinion EVER come close to being relevant to anything important? Was Timberpine so desperate for an audience to his own demise? But it’s all a trick. The bunnies must have been put here to fluff up the size of the crowd to make this seem like a convincing fight. Why else would they be out?”
“If you’re not going to believe any of my answers, maybe you should stop asking questions, then.”
“You’re the only one here to ask!” Wildheart’s arms wrapped the air in front of me like he was angrily hugging an invisible barrel. “Everyone else here is either also a slave, or a bunny out of their cage, or a grunt with no sense of direction! The Wolves haven’t beaten you to a pulp for wearing such fancy clothes, so Timberpine must have some sort of use for you! You’re his ambassador, apparently! But how does an impudent rodent hold such a position above Wolves? Is it because you’re too stubborn to abandon your falsehoods? Is it because you’re so loyal? What does he still have on you? I told you that you’re getting nothing at the Blood Moon but bloodshed, slaughter, and satisfied noble faces like mine.”
“That’s not what I’m getting from the Blood Moon.” I was starting to get bored, so I went for my pistol. “I’m getting all of the bunnies.”
“You’re not a Wolf!” He was just losing it now. Why were nobles always so crazy? “You get nothing! I’m wasting my time with a simpleton like you! Timberpine left me with the bunnies here, but why would he do something so reckless as to leave them where I know where they are, where I could nab them myself? It doesn’t make any sense. Where’s the logic? Are these not actually bunnies? Or does he just have so many more that we couldn’t know of that he could afford to use this many to distract me?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I admitted, “He was a piece of work, but he wasn’t any master strategist. However, he did have his fingers in some secretive places that I’m still getting a handle on in my limited research here. But I’ll learn everything that I need to know in due time. I just have to kill you first.”
Wildheart laughed uproariously
at that last comment. It was an insultingly long laughing fit, just like I was expecting from him. He was almost to the point of doggy tears from how much he thought that my comment was funny. I was glad I had given him that before he died.
“You really had me going for a second, Rabbit.” He regathered himself. “The lies were so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but doubt if they were actually fake. A Rabbit killing a noble goes too far. I almost lost myself to your tricks. I can see why he keeps you. You made a fair distraction, but now, I’m afraid I’ve waited far too long.” He raised a hand to give a command. “I’ll be--”
With a bang and a zap, my bullet shot into the helmet’s eye slit, right in his eye socket with a flash of electric light. He recoiled, catching himself with his feet as the bullet curled his head back towards the spot in the crowd with Hopper and Tinker. I was waiting for him to fall over, keeping my gun my gun trained on him in case he tried anything.
With the large red gauntlet under the shield, he flexed his hand into a fist, and a pulse of shimmering energy exploded out of it, washing over the entire keep. Immediately, Tinker fell over, the hammer on her back crashing against the ground beside her, thankfully missing the toe of the guard next to her. Hopper and two guards helped her up, detaching her from the hammer as they tried to lift it up. With both of their combined strength, they couldn’t do anything to make it budge. I looked at the side of my gun, seeing that all of the charms on the side were no longer glowing. I gave them a tap of my finger to turn them back on, changing nothing about the glow as I did so.
Alright, so he shut off the charms in the area. Oh, joy. And he was tough enough to take a lightning bolt to the eye, of which I had no more access to, along with any of the enhanced features of my guns. It now made sense why he was so confident in beating both of those powerful nobles when he could just turn their powers off, fighting them like regular warriors. Good god, I really did become so spoiled by the magic upgrades that I was panicking with palpitations. However, now I was more than glad I decided against the forcefield armor.
And I had a way I thought would end this quickly if I could pull it off.
“You will regret that, slave.” Blood spilled out of the eye slit I shot through. “I don’t know how you were allowed to have charmed weapons, but I no longer care about you or your buffoonery. When I kill you, I’ll find Timberpine, and kill him, and all of the nobles, and then all the grunts, and then the hares, until this whole city is a graveyard. Or maybe I’ll just cut off your legs and make you watch all of that. Then you’ll just have to die after you see me take off with all of the bunnies in tow of my carriage. Or maybe I’ll let you crawl after them until I’m bored with you, then eat you alive from your bloody leg stumps upward. Then you’ll know that the carnage you’re about to witness is all your fault. You should have just gotten your baron for me when I asked.”
“That was aggressive.” I had already reloaded my shotgun with Tinker’s emergency rounds and had just removed the special grenade she made for the magazine slot of my pistol to put an actual magazine in its place. I’d almost forgotten the bomb was there, but now it was going to save my life. “Not to pull hairs, but your mood is telling me that you care a bit more than you say you do.” I looked to the side of him. “Oh, there you are, sir.”
Like an idiot, he looked over to see the imaginary Timberpine I was addressing, moving his shield out of the way of his body. With a gentle toss, I gave him the grenade to him, which he reflexively grabbed as it pinged against the breastplate of his armor. Having never seen a grenade before, he simply stared at it as it went off.
Game, set, and match before we even started.
5
I would have never said that I didn’t believe in Tinker’s prowess with mechanics, magic things, pyrotechnics, or anything like that. However, the explosive yield of her special bomb that fitted in the palm of my hand was surprising. I almost didn’t quite move out of the way in time before it exploded, flinging dusty bits of metal throughout the battlefield. Thankfully, his back was facing Tinker and Hopper, and was closest to the wall they were at, leaving much of the debris to fly into the battlefield and away from the bystanders.
The rowdy knight coughed out as much from the silver cloud as he could, waving it away from his face as the bomb fog danced around his hand. The chest of his black and gold armor had dented inward, laboring the champion’s breathing with tiny inhales and scuffing the shiny off his armor. He tried to take a deeper breath in to pop the dent out from the inside, but the slight gurgling and coughing was a clear sign that wasn’t happening.
After all of that, he was still standing. Tough son of a bitch, I’d have given him that.
“You…” he gasped out. “Are you… are you the… no, that’s… impossible. A Rabbit can’t… have beaten… he would have… they would have… crushed you.”
“Don’t get me wrong.” I took a few shots at him, which he blocked with his shield. Still got his reflexes, I see. Also, how the hell was I going to get another hit in? “The old Baron gave the crushing his best shot. Had two maces you could have curled up inside if they were empty, which they were not, and was fatter than two elephant sumo wrestlers. He was a crushing expert. Still killed him, put the body in the ocean.”
I was tempted to keep shooting at him, but my renewed need for bullets kept me from firing wildly. And I couldn’t even use my new ricochet shot. Looking at his shield, I saw the little black marks leftover from my bullets. That fancy nullifier charm worked both ways, and he was working with normal steel, same as any other Wolf. Problem was that the shield was thick as the dickens. Even modern firearms weren’t going to help against the equivalent of tank armor. Hopefully, the actual armor would have been just a bit thinner.
But I only had to stay alive, really. With that dent in his chest, that armor was going to only slow him down and keep his breathing shallow. All I had to do was wait him out, keep him occupied, and he’d give me an opening I could use, or just die. Anything I could have done to speed that up would only help me.
“Killed…?” More labored breathing from Wildheart. “And… Timberpine?”
“In the goddamn ocean.” I shot at his feet. One bullet managed to dent the greaves heavily while the others disintegrated against the giant shield again. “That’s the third time I’ve had to tell you the same fact. Cut off his stupid wizard legs and shot him until there were more bullets than guts. It’s where I’ll be putting yours, too.”
Thanks to the dent, he was walking with a bit of a limp, so now he’d be slower in everything he did. The armor was thick enough to keep the bullets from shredding through the armor, but not enough to stop it from putting thick knots against his skin. Just had to get around the dinner plate to make as many as I could have, and this challenge was a lock. Still was working out how to do that consistently. I switched over to the shotgun, expecting an angry charge.
“You…” His shoulders tensed. “Tricked me!”
He lunged with his massive blade outward, aimed to turn me into a shish kabob, just like I thought. With a duck and a roll, I narrowly avoided the stab as well as the slicing attack he followed immediately with, coming out behind him as I fired off a few shotgun rounds in his back, riddling his armor with divets. The gauges stuck to the metal, forming circles of craters in the three spots I shot him in.
The third shot was a little greedy on my part, giving Wildheart the time to swing his sword all the way around to the back of his head. That was going to be a sizable gash on my face, I could already feel it. It was worth it, though. That chest had to have felt awfully cramped by now. You couldn’t have filled an ant’s lungs with how much air he was sucking in now.
“Ow! I did nothing of the sort!” I squinted my eye at the pain of the gash. “You’re the one just assuming whatever the hell you wanted. I just played along so that you’d tell me what I wanted to know.”
“What?” He turned himself around, raising his sword into the air slowly. “I told… you… noth
ing!”
“You keep telling yourself that, chief.” I pulled out the pistol to shoot at his shoulder, putting that arm back down as more dents jabbed into his muscles and bones. “Thanks to you, I know everything I need to destroy the generator, take the Regent down, and stop the Blood Moon banquet before a single bunny gets eaten. I’ll be sure to tell the Regent you said something nice and brown-nosy before you died, don’t you worry.”
“That’s… I…” His frustration, coupled with his pain and suffocation, forced his sword to drop from his hand. “Vermin…!” Ah, the go-to insult for a Wolf when they were out of real things to say.
“Please just quit fighting and forfeit.” I shot a few more rounds of the pistol at him, which he put the shield between. “You’ve already lost. Don’t make this any more complicated than it has to be. Concede defeat, and I’ll make this quick.”
There was a venture at a roar of defiance, squeaking out like a puppy’s yawn with what little wind he was pulling in to supply it. Guess that was a no, then.
“Well, then, pull out your trump card already!” I strafed him, shooting at his feet and head to try to sneak something past the shield. Nothing. Even in his state now, he was pushing for survival. “I know you have one. You magic nobles always have something to make my day a pain in the ass.”
Wildheart knelt down, putting his shield up to hide and rest on while he clawed at his shoulder. He peeled off the pauldron holding his cape as both fell to the ground to reveal the latches and straps holding the back and front of his chassis together. Keeping his shield up, he fumbled with the contraption, using fingers to both work the latches and keep his hand up in place of his shoulder.
With a quick jog, I spun a small circle around him. Without that sword, I just had to stay outside of arm's length, and I was in the clear. He was twisting around in his spot, keeping the shield between us the whole time. The tarps at his feet twisted with him, curling up into a swirl.
