by Simon Archer
Changing the shotgun to fire-shot, I shot him in the area around his head again. His mangy and patchy fur caught fire along his shoulders and back, coating him just like the hide was before as the smell of charred flesh and hair flooded my nostrils. The screams from Paw- Paw were louder now and made me thankful that I was wearing hearing protection. Once I completed the half-circle, I addressed him again, taking the screaming as a sign he was still alive.
“Now, what were you talking about?” I tilted my head over, observing that the screaming hadn’t stopped. “Hey, I asked you a question.” I watched as he kept screaming from the shock, as it would have been expected of him to do after so many firearms had been used on his person. “If you don’t stop making such a fuss, I’ll rub this cufflink on my wrist, and that will activate a hidden muscle reflex in my finger that will make me shoot you with this special dragon musket. Are we clear? And, see, I’ve actually shown you how viable my threat is, so you know that I’m absolutely serious about following up on it. No need for me to fluff about it.”
“You…” His breaths were shallow now that his lungs had partially frozen over, “you’re… not… from… here… are… you…? You’re… no… hare…”
“No.” He was getting at something more than just being from out of town. I knelt down by his head.
“Are…” The crime lord muscled to give himself a few more last breaths, “you… from… the… Hun… ter’s… world…? Are… you… like… him…?”
“I’m nearby.” I didn’t care to be specific as to what I was answering.
“What… is… your… home… called…?”
“Tennessee.” I put the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger a number of times, filling his insides with crispy fire that blew out through his legs like the world’s worst diarrhea. Like most smells that Wolves made, it wasn’t nice to live in, but there was a sweetness to it that I could have only called victory. I hoped that he went to whatever afterlife there was for Wolves to ponder forever what Tennessee was.
Somebody had been reading up on one of my favorite series from out of this world. Too bad, he burnt one book in the set to a crisp. Now I couldn’t complete the set. But he had a limited edition somewhere around here. Confirmation of what I already suspected, but it was nice to hear, nonetheless. Also nice to think about what other goodies he’s got stored away for us to work with. Once we scavenged those, who knew what we’d find? First, I’d need some proof to bring to the thugs so I could rummage without interruption.
Also, I had to deal with the aftermath of Preymeister’s death. Right.
“Come on, girls.” I waved them over as I put my guns away, taking machete out to cut off Paw-Paw’s ears. “We’ve got some shit to clean up. If Preymeister died in an unrecognized ‘sneak-attack,’ then we’re going to be here for another day or two recapturing all of his assets by hand. We’ll have some backup with the syndicate thugs, and we can send the boys back to gather back everyone else here to set up in Paw-Paw’s place in the meantime, but it’ll still be a casualty game the whole time. We’ll focus on containment. Wherever the boys wrangled everyone up, we’ll make a perimeter of a couple of blocks to bottleneck this. We’re not done yet.”
“No festival for us?” Hopper held onto Beau’s reins as she walked him up to me.
“You didn’t miss much.” Tinker walked beside us as I finished cutting the ears to take as a sign of my win. “First half was a snooze. Then I hit Paw-Paw with my hammer, and then that’s when things picked up. Wine everywhere, a fifty-Wolf wrestling match, Preymeister threw a giant barrel, and then Paw-Paw ruined it.”
“Buzzkill, I’m telling ya.” I clucked with my tongue in my teeth. “I should have just shot him as soon as I got in the square, but all of those thugs would have been a drag to wrangle, and a lot of dead bodies I’d have liked to preserve instead. Let’s get a move on.”
I helped Tinker up, Hopper next, then I took up the rear on Beau’s back, the four of us trotting along back to the square to evaluate the damage.
At the square, the property damage was extensive. The craters from my bullets in the ground were the least severe, and some of the stone debris from that alone was the size of a basketball. Speaking of debris, it was everywhere. Wood, alcohol stains, stone, all over the place, like a mosaic of destruction.
Out of one of the buildings on the side of the square, the door opened as Scooby looked out to see us, smiling as much as was physically possible for a dog’s face. He left the door open, waving with a hand as he walked out, followed by several other Wolves of varying colors, including city guards, along with various hares and a few bunnies. The same happened in other buildings, as various others, a few of my boys, the guards, and the Rabbits, all poured.
From two at the side opposite of the castle, Foxhound and Old Yeller had popped out, followed by a series of Paw-Paw’s old thugs. They were scuffed up, claw marks and blood, but weren’t fighting each other at the moment. From a casual glance, I could have easily seen that the two groups made up most, if not all of them. Confused, I decided to debrief the duo to see what was happening.
“Hey, boss!” Old Yeller shouted over to me in his indoor voice, “You survived! We knew you’d pull through with that big guy.” He looked over to the big group of thugs. “See, I told you he’d be the winner. See?”
“You brought some proof, right?” Foxhound asked.
“If these ears aren’t enough for them,” I held up the ears, “you can find the body a few blocks away. I can take you. It looks like they were just fighting. Did they attack some people?”
“Well, at first, when the big guy left, they were trying to get us,” Foxhound explained, “The group of us were doing what we could to hold them off, but you see how many of them there are. We were getting pretty close to losing someone. Then we found out Preymeister was actually alive, and that was confusing, but the guards started helping us out from there, and that was good. But, you’re still seeing it, there was just a bunch of them. We weren’t doing too well again, but then Old Yeller started shouting at them.”
“Well, yeah, I was just doing what you do, boss,” Old Yeller said, to which I raised an eyebrow, “You know, you talk to them to get them to do things that help out or something. Except I wasn’t saying all of the inspiring or the tricky stuff. And that wasn’t shouting, you all are just super quiet during battles.”
“Wait, are you asking me to believe that my obnoxious, blonde buffoon Old Yeller actually convinced a horde of thugs to not fight?” My jaw dropped at the unbelievable news. “With his words? Using full sentences and reason? Did you come up with that idea yourself?”
“Are you sure it wasn’t something Scooby accidentally said during one of his vocab episodes?” Tinker giggled, “I guess he wouldn’t know then, would he?”
“What did you even say to them?” Hopper asked, “Do you even know what the difference between words and screams are?”
“It’s not that unbelievable, alright!” Old Yeller was visibly feeling attacked. “I wasn’t lying or anything fancy. I was just saying, you know, since you guys disappeared into the city with the big guy, that nobody could see who was winning. If none of us saw it, then we didn’t know who was winning, or if someone already won or not.”
“Yeah, and you’ve won all of your fights so far,” Foxhound jumped in, “and they were all about as tough as this, on a scale. When you get new stuff, the nobles you fight get new stuff, and it’s always stacked against you, but you always end up winning anyway. Maybe the big arms and the vortex thing were new, but this wasn’t the first time you’d fought something crazy like that.”
“So, since no one knew what was happening in the fight,” Old Yeller reasoned, “I just suggested that it was easier to just wait to see who won and then keep fighting once their boss got back. So we helped them hide in the buildings like everyone else until you came back and proved you won.”
“They were so convinced you’d won the fight,” One of the thugs spoke f
or the crowd of them, “And they were holding us off with only the six of them. And they kept calling each other by names, so we thought they were a group of nobles. A group like ours wasn’t going to win against a team of nobles. Then the guards joined in right when we thought they were winning, and then they were saying how you were so much stronger than everyone you’ve fought, including them, and we just thought they were saying some smart stuff. We only learned after we were inside the houses that they were getting as tired as we were, but we still wanted to take a break.”
“So, we all swear loyalty, then?” I asked the group. “For real, this time? Everyone, group up. Sit, kneel, squat, or stand, whatever you need to, I just need to see all of your faces when you make the oath.”
The thugs scrambled together, doing exactly as I said, and reciting their oaths to me as a giant choir of new recruits, this time without faking it. That was nice. Like most people, I appreciated not getting stabbed in the back. They were all going to need names, and I was quickly running out. But, one bit of business, first.
“Old Yeller, color me impressed.” I patted the yellow Wolf on the shoulder. “That was some smooth thinking. I’m impressed with all of my boys today. Also, rewinding to something you said earlier, Preymeister’s alive? Where is he?”
“You’re going to want to sit down for this one, boss.” Foxhound looked over to Scooby’s shelter. “It’s going to get a little-- Oh, there’s the big guy now!”
Out of Scooby’s building, two guards carried the giant of a baron out by a makeshift gurney, his usually boisterous muscles decreased, but his massive size still making him look like a very toned and bare dog man. His guards carried him towards me as they saw me, and I walked up to him.
“Is he awake?” I asked, “Do we know if he’s going to be okay?”
“Preymeister’s fine, yeah,” One of the guards said, “Actually, he wanted to speak with you, so we brought him over.”
“Hello, Baron Preymeister,” I bowed as I started the conversation, “I see that you’re not in the best fighting shape to duel me, so I’ll just have to wait until you get back to it before I formally challenge you. Would it be okay if I reserved the first spot once you recover? Do you have a time you think that’ll be? I don’t want to rush you. I’m just curious.”
“Please go easy on me!” A squeaky voice spoke up from seemingly nowhere, “Don’t hurt me too badly!”
I swear, if this was magic-related…
20
It wasn’t Preymeister who spoke in that squeaky voice. At least, his mouth didn’t move when it was said. Unless he became some kind of ventriloquist and his voice was changed along with his stolen muscle powers. And it wasn’t any of the Wolves beside him or behind him. And it wasn’t the Rabbits around him or the Rabbits around me. It wasn’t Tinker, and it wasn’t Hopper. Was it Beau? Others might have thought that a talking mount was silly, but I thought it was silly not to consider the possibility after everything that had happened so far. That was how magic pulled the wool over your eyes and made you look like a fool.
“I have very sensitive skin!” The voice spoke again, “I bruise easily! At least stay away from the face!”
Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one hearing it. My girls were looking for the source of the voice, the same as I was, though the only place it could have come from was the gurney.
“Preymeister?” I asked him, though he seemed a little too unconscious to answer, “Is that your voice? Did Paw-Paw’s drain do this to you?” I was fairly certain that Preymeister wasn’t with us and wondered why everyone was pulling my leg right now.
“Well, the jig was gonna be up one day, anyway,” The squeaky voice sighed, “Ol’ Suicide Dog up here was determined to get himself killed. I just didn’t think it would be this soon. And Gingerclaw? That’s a low blow. Didn’t even let him fight for real. I’m coming out, hold on.” The baron’s kilt rustle and shimmied, then shimmied and shook some more. “Hang on.” More shimmying. “Almost out, just gotta get a foot down. I’m really close, just wait.”
It was disturbing, like watching a joey get lost in its own kangaroo mother’s pouch. As the lump of shifting leather moved about in the cape, the obvious truth came to me. The look on my face must have been ridiculous. I almost didn’t believe it. But it was the only reasonable conclusion that fit all of the evidence. My unusual nobility wasn’t a true trendsetter in this world of Wolves. I had to know how it happened.
Two long, wide, white ears poked out of a hidden flap, hidden in the patterning of the stitches. After the ears popped out a fluffy white Rabbit head, nose twitching around as he looked around. Soon as he looked up at me, he yelped.
“What?!” the hare screamed at me, “What the heck are you? I thought you were a Wolf! Have you been mana juicing your whole life? Holy Rabbit’s Foot, how are you out in the open like this? There’s, like, a bajillion Wolves! Aren’t you afraid of them? Um, uh, guards, please don’t eat these Rabbits. Even if they’re foreign, the rule is still in effect.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I think it would help a lot of us out if you introduced yourself first. Seems that some of us are a bit confused by what you’re saying.”
“Oh, forgive me,” the little Rabbit bowed his head, “I am Baron Preymeister. The real Baron Preymeister. This big, lovable musclehead I’m riding around with is… was my vassal champion and bodyguard.”
The crowd was silent. Every guard’s face was deadly serious, confirming his statement. Hopper’s, Tinker’s, and maybe even Beau’s jaws dropped, and there was an air of uneasiness. The girls couldn’t fathom the knowledge, the very idea that was just foisted upon us. I suspected this as soon after the voice spoke out, but I was no less floored by the revelation. He was a tiny thing. Adorable, even, like he was ripped straight out of a children’s story or a cartoon movie. There was a sickness in me stirring at the thought that anyone would think of fighting this precious little cotton ball in bloody combat. And that ‘anyone’ was actually me.
“That sounds like a thing that needs explaining.” Tinker jostled the cogs in her mind by hitting her head with the pole of her hammer. “I can’t live without one right now. Every bit of reason in my body is screaming at me for an explanation.”
“You must have kicked his heart from the inside when he swallowed you whole, right?” Hopper asked, “I could see that working.”
“He’s a Rabbit, though!” Tinker highlighted, “Why would Preymeister even accept-- Wait, is his name Preymeister?”
“He used to be the champion challenger Chompfist before I defeated him.” The little Rabbit Preymeister’s swiveled as he looked at each speaker. “He wanted me to come up with a new one when I became the baron which is good because I thought that one was a bit icky. Preymeister was a bit more dignified and less gross. I don’t quite know what a ‘meister’ is, I just heard it in a story, once, but I know that ‘prey’ is what the Wolves call us a lot. It seemed to fit for me.”
“Judging by your special palanquin in the little pouch in the man-dress,” I clarified, “I take it you’re not quite as competent as ‘Chompfist’ in combat, and the challenge wasn’t won in the most classical sense.”
“Yeah, it was kind of an accident,” Lil’ Preymeister admitted, “I was checking on him while he was shocking himself in his room. It’s related to that fancy Mana Crusher thing, with the mana muscles. Anyway, I was going to ask him about some daily business matters, and I accidentally bumped into something on the big magic machine he was hooked up to, and it shocked him a bunch, and then he stopped moving. I panicked a bit and tried to revive him, but he was out like a light. Then I bumped into the same thing I bumped into last time, and he came back to life. When he got up, he asked me what happened, and I explained it to him, and he said that I killed him, so I got to take his spot.”
“Wouldn’t that count as a sneak attack?” Hopper asked, “If you aren’t a Wolf, you have to go out of your way to be recognized as a challenger. Plus, weren’t you his sla
ve?”
“That’s what I was thinking!” The real Preymeister agreed, “But he was insistent. He was going on and on about honor and duty. Since I saved his life after killing him, according to him, I held his life and his death in my hand, and I had found his weakness, apparently.”
“He must have known that the Regent wouldn’t have taken that sitting down,” I raised an eyebrow, “You’re telling us that he just let a tiny hare take the barony out from under him on a thinly substantiated technicality? No official challenge, no fight, not even a prior friendship or a previous life-debt? Nothing?”
“Again, none of this was my idea.” His little furry hands, significantly more like Earth rabbit paws than any I’d ever seen on this world’s Rabbits, poked out of the hidden kangaroo pouch. “You think I was ready to take on being a baron? I was his personal masseur just before that. I had no idea what I was doing! I didn’t know how to squash a bug without screaming, let alone kill anyone if they were going to challenge me! When he asked me what I wanted for myself, I told him, and he thought it was a great idea. We had the idea to keep the whole challenge a secret, but he was still going to refer to me as the baron. I gave him permission to act on my behalf, so now it just sounded like he talked in the third person a lot. One of the slaves had the pocket made inside the kilt, and then I was around to hear everything that he did. Then he actually tried to carry out the things I told him before that I wanted, and everything just got crazier from there.”
“What did you want?” Tinker asked before I could.
“I wanted a place where I didn’t have to be afraid of dying,” he told us, “I wanted a place where I didn’t have to watch bunnies I worked with, some I even loved, get taken and eaten by Wolves, and hares got worked half to death on a good day. He laughed at me when I said all of that at first, so I thought he was just curious about it. I didn’t think he’d actually do something about it!”
