by Simon Archer
While, during the old Baron’s era of leadership in Thumperton Port, the sight of Wolves handling Rabbits on chains was rather common, it was done with a bit of casual cruelty towards the lowest caste in the system. The Rabbits were strictly slaves, to be worked to death and then eaten. In this place, though, they were treated a lot more like pets. A few were carried in giant satchel bags with their heads poking out, covered in glitter and rainbow makeup to make them look like clowns. Other hares were on leashes, walking on their hands and feet while Wolf masters held their leashes. There were also bunnies around here, though they weren’t nearly as populous as the hares, and they were treated in far better respects on average here. In fact, I hadn’t even seen a bunny outside of a purse. I took a deep breath of that lightly rotten air, hoping that no Wolf here would have done anything rash to force me to cause a stir in the street. A low profile wasn’t worth ignoring more preventable death, especially when there were far more lives, and now bunny lives, at risk.
The familiar stare of a hundred Wolves judging a non-Wolf as a lord clung to me, turning the heads of several snobbish nobles as they gave me a wide berth on the sidewalk. A few Wolves even crossed over to the other side of the street as I approached. If I had wanted animals like this to think of me as their equal, I’d have taken up shit-eating a few years back. They weren’t my concern. Or at least, they weren’t supposed to be.
One guy didn’t stick with the program of avoiding the Rabbit lord like the plague. He insisted on being a problem, coming straight up to us.
12
“What are you doing off your leash, pet?” A wolf with a bluish tint to his grey fur, wearing a fabulously brown coat, approached me with a derisive and belittling tone. He was followed by two thugs with harpoon-like spears in blackish leathers, big brutish types, and wore very thin pants to cover his equally thin hindlegs. He wore one extravagantly etched and shaped gauntlet with a magic charm on it. “Did you chew it off yourself? Maybe you should run along, little hare. I don’t know what podunk town let a Rabbit think he could be a noble, but it ain’t here. Here, you might as well be a stray.”
A brown coat? That’s not the lordly color I’d been told was a sign of nobility. Was each city color-specific in its lordship colors? No, this guy knew I was a noble. And the look in his eye was angry. Wolf expressions were harder to read than a human’s or Rabbit’s, but I’d seen enough of them now to get the subtleties of the movements in their faces. He was jealous. Blue was the most expensive color, after all. My coat was more prestigious than his, and I was a lesser breed in his eyes. That burned in him. That was my first impression of him, anyway.
Every time I was called a Rabbit or a hare, I always wondered if it was worth trying to correct them. It would have taken a lot more energy to explain a new species and a new world to these simpletons for literally no real gain when I could just beat some humility into them with their own assumptions.
Also, I really wanted that gauntlet. I didn’t even know what it did yet, but it had to be mine. And this was probably the best I was going to get to be able to ask a local for directions, and I was going to make the most of it. Just had to keep things relatively quiet and official. He couldn’t have had enough to cause much trouble if I took it from.
“You know what?” I took in another deep breath of the city air. “Despite your rude behavior, you’ve recognized me as a noble, and I’m in a hurry to find this city’s baron. I can appreciate that modicum of respect. If you could be so kind as to tell me where your baron is, or where he spends most of his time, or even where he lives, I’d appreciate it even more. I will settle for his current location.”
“What are you going to do if I don’t, little pet?” He leaned down over me, being a bit taller as a hulking monster of fur. “You can’t whimper your way to power with me. And there’s no chance in hell you’d survive so much as looking at the baron Preymeister the wrong way.”
“You seem like a knowledgeable fellow, so maybe you can tell me.” My interest had been garnered. Therefore his life expectancy was extended until he told me everything I could get out of him. “There have been some very strange rumors floating around that I’d love to have cleared up. You wouldn’t believe the gossip. I even heard that he could breathe fire, and his blood was acid. Those aren’t true, are they?”
Yes, that was all a lie, and it did make me look stupid, but that was the point. Anyone could have outright refused a straight question, but people were always eager to correct someone on a topic they thought they knew more about. Everyone wanted to feel smarter than their fellows.
“Dear me, you are pathetic.” The brown-coated Wolf clucked as he shook his head. “Or is your property all underneath a rock somewhere? Preymeister was one of the greatest of the champion challengers the Regent ever employed. He uprooted the last baron on the Regent’s behalf, but, over time, grew to think that he was far more powerful than him. He held the city ransom and threatened to raid the Mana Crusher, taking on his new name and status as an independent noble. Now the two are in a detente, leaving each other alone so long as the Mana Crusher isn’t jeopardized, but the Regent can’t hope to touch our baron for fear of losing the Mana Crusher in the process. You can’t hope to survive one second in his presence. He’s strong enough to carry this whole city on his back. His skin’s indestructible by any weapon, musket, or magic that he’s ever come across. He doesn’t bother to wear armor since no one’s been able to make him bleed since he claimed the blessing and his rightful place as baron. With all of his power, he could become the new Regent right now, but there’s no point. He’s already got the Regent under his thumb and free reign within this city to do as he pleases without official orders from above. He might as well be the Utmost Highest himself.”
I loved it when I was right. Though what he had told me was a mixed bag of news. Hurray, the Regent didn’t want to come near here because of the detente. Crap, as soon as I took the place, that detente was null and void. Hurray, I was more right about operating with greater freedom in the city than I realized. Crap, Preymeister sounded like a tough son of a gun. Hurray, this lord was a dumbass and easily manipulated into giving me what I wanted. Crap, maybe a little too easily manipulated. Not that I distrusted his information, but the way the inkling of spite flavored his speech had me thinking that this guy wasn’t as onboard with his baron as he’d have liked me to believe.
It didn’t matter much, though. That was everything I needed or expected from him besides directions, so I was about done with him. I’d have used him for point-blank target practice right then, but killing this lord outright was a bit more heat than I wanted before I’d even seen this Preymeister in person. It wasn’t like I couldn’t have afforded the five minutes it was going to take to prepare for a quieter kill anyway, and I wanted to see what else I could glean from him, like those directions, and maybe all of his property as a lord. Hopefully, it was a small enough amount to not raise suspicion.
“Sweet mercy, I had no idea what a monster he is.” I backed away and prostrated myself quietly and one-hundred-percent, absolutely, completely genuinely, all the while unhooking my pistol and placing it behind my back to show Tinker. “A silly little noble like me shouldn’t have even thought about getting mixed up with such a big, bad baron. I’m certainly in over my head. Gosh, I’ve just been so misinformed by my sources that I must correct it immediately. Anything else you can tell me about him before I run for the hills from such a vicious brute? I’d hate to stumble into any old place under his protection like a castle or a fortress, or into any of his powerful pack members, or even into any of his enemies, so he doesn’t think I was trying to get on his bad side.”
“I think I’ll save Preymeister the trouble.” He showed me his green-colored teeth, nasty and gunk-filled, as he quietly snarled a wicked smile at me. “Too bad that your coat is much too small for me. Of course, your six total pack members and two bunnies won’t be much of an upgrade, but the blue would have been nice to add to the wardro
be. Maybe I can still use it as a rag for my ass.”
Tinker took the hint as I touched the bounce charm on the pistol and the silence charm on the rifle, fiddling with the two of them and switching them for me while the brown-coated lord threatened me. As she worked her magic and her magic, I kept the Wolf distracted with a very stern, but very subdued confrontation. Too much attention, and we’d have the Preymeister coming for us before we were ready, but I couldn’t just kill him without it being in a fight if I wanted his stuff. Plus, this was fun for me.
“Oh, yeah?” I put my hands to my hips in a dramatic fashion, having felt Tinker’s double tap on my wrist to signal that she was done. “You think you’re so tough? You think you’ve got the stuff it takes to take me on, fella? How dare you insinuate with your harsh words that I am so lowly and weak and piddly?! How dare you! If you’re all that and a bag of… mutton, then what kind of property do you have, you big palooka?”
“I have fifteen other pack members and a mansion in the city,” the idiot lord bragged, “along with a host of Rabbits, including a fair amount of bunnies. It takes a bit of influence and presence to be allowed to keep bunnies before a Blood Moon, even with Preymeister’s lax rules about them. Then again, you wouldn’t really know about that, with your sub-century lifespan, and the fact that you were only allowed the two practically manaless bunnies about. And don’t tell me I’m lying. It’s shameful to try to hide the fact by dressing them up in these tacky and overdone outfits you’ve given them. Along with your Wolves, too. Are those even real metal plates on their ‘armor,’ or are they a tin knockoff you’ve managed to buff out into a shine?”
Hopper’s and Tinker’s palpable fury burned my back from the emotional radiation. I had to put my arms out to stop them from making things a bit messier than I’d have liked. They deserved to make that mess, and I would have given it to them in many other scenarios. In this particular instance, though, I couldn’t get comfortable. I felt eyes.
Now, Wolves and arrogance were like grass and green; they just went together. Of course, the dumbass lord would tell me about all of his properties to make himself seem better than me. That wasn’t the problem. It was his two lackeys. The thugs behind him didn’t respond to anything we said until a fraction of a second after it was natural. They didn’t really seem to react to anything normally, as if they were focusing on something in their heads, and watching me the whole time as they did.
Plus, what self-respecting noble had that much property and still wore brown? I owned a spa resort with cows, and I was the wrong species to be a regular noble, but I still was sporting the classic blue. There was a scam afoot here, but I couldn’t have named it yet.
“You are very rude, sir.” I wagged my finger at him. “I sure hope you are very ready for quite the tussle. I’m no pushover, friend.”
“Of course you are.” The brown-coated lord gave me a wolfish pout. “You are just adorable. I assume you’re going to try to use whatever excuse for rune magic you have, right? Pitiful. Tell me, have you ever seen a magical rune do something like this?”
He pressed the charm on his gauntlet, and it grew at least three sizes in all dimensions like a balloon. The inflation didn’t move past the elbow, leaving him with one Popeye fist. Alright, so he was somewhat ready for a fight. Did he think I was an easy mark for a shakedown? Was that the scam?
“You seem surprised.” More smug, demeaning looks from the browncoat. “This is what magical power truly looks like. I hope your souvenir was worth every last piece of eight. That’ll make it sweeter for me when I take it from you.”
Piece of eight, like the Spanish dollar back in colonial times? That King Steve took money from my old world, too? How the hell did he know about currency? Maybe that was just a term passing over. But wouldn’t they have been using American currency from the time period if King Steve was poking around in the thirteen colonies and running into the first Hunter? Eh, I should have paid more attention in history class. Then I could have been better prepared to investigate a worldwide mystery in a completely different dimension with two whole different species entirely, separated from our history by an eternity of miles and a timewarp thing, yet inexplicably connected by magical nonsense. Okay, maybe there was no predicting any of that ahead of time.
And none of it was relevant to killing this guy.
“Good luck with that.” Like a painful hand-massager, the pistol vibrated in my hand, completely silenced as it sent more than a half-dozen lightning bolts straight into the brown-coated Wolf’s neck. Only the sound of its gurgling breaths signaled that anything had actually happened to him before he simply fell over, his blood spilling out from the bottom of his head. Like anyone who respected the dead, I didn’t squander a single second to wait before looting that glove, shrinking it back down to its regular size.
“Oh, no! Boss! He’s dead.” One of the thugs put his free hand out to catch his former pack leader after he’d already started falling, only to fail miserably and just watch as he fell over.
“Tinker, this is for you. Go nuts.” I gave the little inventor the gauntlet, then turned around to the two new recruits. “Your boss is dead, in fact. I killed him. I know it may not seem that way, but I did. I killed your boss, so you work for me now, right?”
“Oh, uh, sure, I guess, New Boss.” The other thug awkwardly shrugged with his hands. “Are you gonna fight Preymeister for real?”
After a challenge and succession, at least one Wolf recites an oath of loyalty almost immediately. Not these guys, though. And I never said I was going to fight Preymeister. That may have been easy to suspect from context, given the culture, but conclusions based on non-tangibles took abstract thinking that I knew had to be drilled into a Wolf over time. No noble was going to take that kind of time for their brainwashed pack members. Someone had prepared him to say that.
I didn’t like this. Couldn’t have told you why, but I didn’t like it. I was still getting scammed. They weren’t getting anything of mine.
“I need to see the guy, for sure,” I said vaguely, shrugging back, “We’re just having problems finding out--”
A shriek pierced through the streets, definitely of a young woman, as my head whipped around to find her. Tinker quickly handed me my guns back, and Hopper twitched the bunny ears on her head, scanning for the damsel far more effectively than I could. However, I didn’t need fancy ears to find exactly where she was. Down the alley right next to us, a Wolf’s shape, obscured by the shadows, held a smaller figure and brought a hand into the light to taunt us with a curling finger to come towards him.
I had a trigger finger twitching like an earthworm in a seizure, but something in me wouldn’t let the pistol fire. My freshwater salmon instincts were kicking in: there was bait afoot. As calmly as I could, I raised my hand to stop the rest of the group from springing into action. In my peripheral vision, the two new recruits were still looking right at me.
Hm.
I took a shot, sending a rod of light into the darkness, followed by a thud and a wooden clacking, like a hollow set of blocks. No other noises rang out, specifically no ricocheting bullets or cries, moans, sighs, or other auditory cues of a bunny falling to the ground. Did I even shoot someone? What was with all of these misdirections? My eyes looked over to the new blood.
“You two, go get the bunny for me.” I gestured their directions with my gun. “That’s an order.”
“Oh, us?” The first thug jumped as I commanded him. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, why don’t we all go together?” the second suggested. “Strength in numbers, right? We can guard the rear.”
Wrong answer.
“Look, I don’t know who set you up to this,” I pointed my pistol at the two thugs in black, who pointed their harpoon spears at me in return, “but if you tell me now, you don’t have to die along with him. He is making a very big mistake if there’s an actual bunny in danger.”
“Oh, there’s a bunny in danger, alright.” A voice came out from
the alley, preceding broad-chested Wolf in a buttoned waistcoat under another, more extravagant coat, stepped out into the street with a gold-tipped cane, followed by a few dozen more Wolf thugs in black leathers. Our criminal mastermind, it seemed. What was that I was saying about dealing with a more capable noble? A damn jinx on myself, right. “There’s a few dozen, in fact. If you want them or yourselves to live, you’ll do exactly as I say.”
13
“I’m telling you right now, I’m not so good with demands and authority,” I addressed the arrogant bitch’s son leading the pack of thugs. “Pretty sure I’m actually allergic to ultimatums, and I really, really don’t take kindly to threats.”
“Oh, how rude, sir Rabbit.” The Wolf in the two coats smirked as he wandered to the side by the thugs encircling this part of the street. “Of course, what am I to expect from someone who killed two of my men in cold blood? And you’re going to comply with everything I ask of you if you want to save yourself and your fellow broodlings from death.”
“Unless you’ve got a bomb secretly implanted in your head right now,” I kept my peripheral focus on the thugs, including the two traitors who had joined their real pack again, “I do not see a single reason why I should.”
“Close! Here is your reason.” The Wolf pulled on his sleeve, showing the cuff of his shirt. More importantly, I saw the charm he used as a cufflink, glowing a sickly dark pink.
