“Get the girl before she sprays us all,” Francis growled to his companion, who stumbled past on hasty drunken heels.
Muriel sped down the length of the serving bar to meet them all. “Francis—don’t, they’re only—” He swatted a paw at her, just barely missing her nose.
Dwain climbed to a stand upon his bar stool in an attempt to meet Francis and his oncoming posse mammal-to-mammal. “Oi, then. Wot’s this all about, yeah? Don’t believe us, do ye?” He growled. “Canines did come, and Reggie and I barely made it here alive. Got meself trampled and near-death, forced to hide out in our tavern until help would come, yeah. But none came. But I know folks made it out alive. We were all wise to heed the words of Alexia the Sage, and—”
In a flash, Francis laid Dwain’s back flat out over the serving bar, his little legs dangling over the edge. Francis pinned him there, a single fat paw firm upon his throat, with the other raised close to Dwain’s face, ready to tear the flesh and fur clean off with glinting, readied, claws.
His companion grabbed hold of Regina in a pincer grip around her whole body before she could even get the tip of her tail up. “Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go, let me go, this instant!” Her attacker jammed a paw over Regina’s muzzle. She bit him hard, tried fruitlessly to wrangle out of his grasp.
“Francis, stop it!” Muriel begged. “Leave the kits alone, I’ll go an’ get a peace officer, who can sort all this out proper!”
“Call no one about nothing,” Francis rumbled. “We’ve got this, yeah. We’ll got this all under control. Don’t we boys? Yeah … yeah, we do … Just a couple of lost little lambs. Traitorous lambs. Black sheep who’ve abandoned their flock…” Francis glared deeply down into Dwain’s frightened face. “Who sent ye, then? Why you really here, hog?”
“The bottles,” someone shouted out.
“The bottles!” another resounded.
“The – the bottles?” Muriel gasped with fright. “Yes – ye stuff a cloth down the stem an’ light it up … throw it, and fire touches everything the bottle smashes on…”
Francis purred deeply as he stared into Dwain. “Ohh – yes… bombs. That explains it, then. Bombs. I’ve heard of bombs made from hard liquor, yes…”
“no – please—” Dwain choked out. Regina watched helplessly as he spluttered, struggled against Francis’ firm paw around his throat. “a-alexia—”
“Alexia, the traitor to peace. Alexia, the leader of terrorists. Alexia, the fear-monger.” Francis leered deeply into the hedgehog child’s trembling glare. “You are a fool, boy. Where was your great political blood-letter when your mother and father were cut open where they stood? Where was she, when your brothers and sister were trampled alive by your very neighbours? Where was she, when—”
“Stop it!” Regina screamed.
Francis sneered at her with glee, turned back to Dwain. He licked his chops and leaned in close, whispered just loud enough for the group to hear, “Where was she, when your village fell and left you dying in the basement of a tavern, boy?”
Dwain glared daggers at him, spines aquiver. “…You … you bastard.”
“You’d be wise to heed this warning, lad,” Francis growled. “Chew your tongue and never mention the name Alexia Garbonde, or Altus Village, ever again. Don’t you realize what you speak? Where you speak of it? Your precious Altus is a pile of ash, and so to are you, if the wrong folk catch whiff of your traitorous Retainer hide.”
“What are we gonna do with them, Francis?” asked the cat who wrangled Regina.
“Ye ain’t killin’ ‘em in my tavern, you lot,” Muriel said heatedly. “They’re children for Azna’s sake.”
“They’re a blight on mammality,” said Francis. “Whedakind is better off without the stench of their lot reeking corruption all throughout the place.” He licked the edge of his jagged teeth and sneered between Dwain and Regina again. “Were I not a good mammal, I’d drag you both out to the back alley and slit yer throats, m’self. Hmm. Maybe I should, anyway.”
It was then that Regina bit down hard on the paw of her assailant. She hopped down from the barstool with the feline howling in pain. She lunged at Francis’ leg without a second thought and sank her teeth deep into his ankle.
Francis screamed in agony, instantly forgetting all there was about Dwain Spikeclaw, and Retainers, and Altus Village. He clung to the edge of the bar, shaking his leg with all his very might, but Regina refused to let go. Despite his angered pleas for help, those in his posse hung back in shock, too drunk and stupefied to fully realize what had just happened. Regina clenched her jaws firmer around the sickly-tasting fur. Copper filled her nose and her mouth, and when she felt the presence of others draw towards her, she heard Dwain yell her name. She sprayed the room with the essence of her fear without a moment’s hesitation.
Francis grabbed her by the shoulders and ripped her from his ankle, tearing away tufts of fur and flesh in the process. Regina looked up past Francis’ agony and saw Dwain get up and plough balled paws together into the side of the feline’s face like a wrecking ball. He hopped down from the bar and grabbed Regina by the elbow.
“Come on, yeah!”
They dashed between the screeches and writhing of the other patrons and bashed straight through the exit on the other side of the tavern.
Blinding daylight and semi-fresh summer air embraced Regina as she and Dwain ripped through the busy streets. They knocked past all those in their way without even thinking to excuse themselves, and did not stop to acknowledge the angry curses that followed at their heels.
18. Ministers of Peace
They ducked into an alleyway, sure and safe from sight and sound of their assailants of the Fallen Alder. Dwain dared a glance out into the river of mammals that passed by. He studied a handful of faces, sniffed the mixture of scents off the air. No one resembled or smelled like angry and drunken cats, raccoons, and pigs.
Dwain exhaled relief and turned around to find Regina directly before him, shuddering and shivering with fright as she stroked her bushy skunk tail over and over, nuzzling her cheek into its soft fur in an attempt to dissolve the calamity that embraced their realities now.
“Reggie. Reggie, I’m so sorry.” Dwain pulled her into his arms and held her as she quivered in silence. “Shoulda listened ter ye from the start … Donno what I was thinkin’ yeah … I’m so, so, so sorry…”
“It’s okay,” she mumbled against his chest.
But it wasn’t okay. Dwain cringed against the flood of pain that overwhelmed him then. Venturing into the Fallen Alder – it such a stupid thing to do. Finding the Elder so easily was too good to be true. He thought he heard the maiden from before say Alder instead of Elder but he was too excited and determined to find out what had happened to the remaining villagers that … that …
…that it was simply easier to just ignore the red flags that flew at full mast, and instead ride upon the rushing winds of eager hopefulness. It was easier to put the little skunk he vowed to protect in unnecessary danger – all for the sake of his own ego. All for the sake of his own beliefs in an invisible sage who rallied whedakind against whedakind.
Your Alexia the Sage is but wartime propaganda, and the Zuut is but flesh and blood…! Dwain cringed back tears and nuzzled his cheek into the top of Regina’s head.
“Can … can you ever forgive me, Reggie…?”
Regina sniffled, nodded against his chest.
“Let’s go back, yeah,” Dwain decided. “Looks though Ages was right, after all. We can’t do this on our own, yeah. Might not be anyone left to speak the tale, but us…”
They left the safety of the alleyway and wandered the streets for a time. The roads and buildings all looked the same to both children, and though they attempted to head back towards the marketplace on their own, it was clear that every direction they went led down the wrong path. As the day crept on, and the father sun stretched farther east, Keeto Town glowed with a golden sheen of early evening. Soon, night fall wo
uld come, and they would remain lost.
But Dwain knew Astral would come looking for them. He wasn’t afraid of the old porcine, how he would react. What could he do? The hog promised to bring Dwain and Regina to Keeto Town, and that’s exactly what he’d done.
As far as Dwain was concerned, Astral had fulfilled his promise; never was it his intention to help the lost kits to unearth the remnants of Altus Village, to seek out refuge and discover the whereabouts of those who were lucky enough to escape the carnage with their lives.
But with that knowledge came also a deep realization in Dwain’s heart. A realization he wondered if Regina, also knew – but did not dare to speak. If there were any other survivors, and they made it through the woods and to Keeto Town, if they – like Regina and Dwain – went about asking about those others who may have made it out as well. And if so, did those survivors meet the same angry fate that the patrons of the Fallen Alder were happy to oblige?
Dwain shuddered the thought away.
Someone had said the other towns and villages found themselves victims to a similar fate as Altus, though.
Hewittstown.
That one stood out firmly in Dwain’s mind. Hewittstown, because a flagrant minstrel from Hewittstown once came to Altus Village, and took a liking to Dwain’s mother. One day during the minstrel’s stay, he’d somehow gotten inside the general store while Ma prepped the place before opening. Dwain had forgotten how the minstrel had managed to get inside the store – but it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter, because after a few days of having following Maelin Spikeclaw around town like a singing idiot, attempting to serenade her with songs of adventure and love and lands of distant fantasy, she grabbed the minstrel by the puffed shoulders of his stupidly expensive silk tunic, and launched him straight through the store’s shuttered windows.
The memory caused a fleeting smile to blossom across Dwain’s features. He couldn’t remember if the minstrel had survived. But he did remember just how heartily his father laughed and laughed and laughed at the whole ordeal. Not once did Dryden Spikeclaw step in to protect the sanctity of his woman. Nooo, Dryden Spikeclaw was far smarter than that, and far more easily entertained, than that of any other sort of jealous and possessive mammal.
Only once in their whole marriage did Dryden Spikeclaw attempt to shield his wife from harm.
That night.
Dwain’s heart panged with a piercing stab. He didn’t remember much from that night. But he remembered his father’s shouts. He’d never heard Dryden Spikeclaw shout like that before – “Go and get your fool selves away from here. Go and find the Scythe and Stone. Go and go and never look back this way again!”
Dwain’s father was terrified. Never in a million years was Dryden Spikeclaw ever terrified of anything. But it was the threat of the canines … the threat to his wife and his children…
Canines have broken into the store.
Even though Da hammered the door firm, the mongrels chopped through, anyhow. He leaps over the cash counter, chain sickle at the ready, leaving Ma and me and Tommen and Eddie and August huddled in the shadows.
The open window.
The window is right across from us, yeah, we can almost spit right out it.
Good ol Da cleaves through about three of the bastards before a fourth gets the upper hand …
Gores poor Da with a spear, like a coward from behind.
Never in me life do I hear such a scream like I does from Ma. It’s the screams of anguish, of rage. She’s lost her wits now, and lets us be to fight for her husband, for Da – and none of us can blame her, yeah, for we’d do the very same, were we not so scared and witless, usselves…
She cuts down two more with her own bare bloody claws, the beauty. But the fight’s over before it even really starts. The things they do to her.
The things we can hear them do to her.
Oh, Goddess.
The window. The window over the grains barrels.
We try to escape out the window. Eddie’s idea.
But poor Tommen … Tommen, lagging behind us … we hear him shout a gurgle out, and then there’s nothing but the smell and sneers of the canines right behind, the smell o’ blood, the glint of spearhead…
Eddie and August …
Oh but there is so much chaos about, and arrows flyin’ and friend n’ foe scramblin’ about that we’re just so small and fearful and …
…and then it just me.
An’ somehow I made it into the basement. Slowly dyin’. Slowly fadin’.
…Slowly, with the hint of skunksmell teasin’ at me nostrils…
Dwain shook the memories away. He tugged Regina closer against his side and carefully guided her through the busy Keeton streets. Down the street a ways, a small crowd started to form by the sidelines of an open road, where a great archway led out of the city.
The Westerly exit, he realized. The Westerly Exit, out into the moors.
“What’s going on?” Regina asked.
“We’ve gone the wrong way,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s go see if someone can point us the right direction then, yeah. The market’s some-past this district, yeah, I reckon.”
He and Regina headed towards the commotion. Something had caught the attention of every mammal gathered in the vicinity. The boardwalk was cluttered with town residents and traveling merchants alike. They nearly climbed over one another in a greedy frenzy as though somebody had stumbled upon the last of the cheese roasts Dwain had seen were being trading out back at the marketplace.
“Excuse us – pardon me – Get outta me way, yeah! Where are we, anyhow?!”
“Arks Road, lad!” somebody shouted in his ear, “and just in the nick of time, too! Yippee! Heeere they come!”
Dwain shouldered his way through the crowd, with Regina cradled protectively against the front of his body, in attempts to gain access to what exactly was going on, all the while being pushed, pulled, and spun about on his heels in every direction.
Somewhere in the distance, trumpets sounded. The crowd around Dwain exploded into sudden celebration, crushed him and Regina further against arms, tails, claws … He shoved his way past a glowering father bear supporting his cub on shoulders, nearly tripped over a shrew who also struggled to find his way to the front of the crowd. Dwain begged pardon, backing into a mole and accidentally sent half a dozen onlookers screeching into the air by the stab of his spines.
“Dwain, what’s going on?” Regina whined. “Where are we going?”
The small bear cub who balanced on her father’s shoulders pointed out above the crowd. “Papa! Papa! Here they come! Papa, do you see them? They’re coming! Look! Look! L—”
Her excitement was drowned out by another rush of energy from the encompassing crowd. Dwain found a break between mammals where cobblestone glowed beneath noontime rays. He dove through those in his way, guiding Regina along, and stumbled out street-side, just in time for another heart-pounding hoopla from all those around.
Equestrian hooves, mud-caked and slick with grass, marched before Dwain’s nose in a triumphant parade along Arks Road. He felt Regina’s little arms cling around his waist. The smell of skunk fear was fresh on the air, but nobody seemed to notice.
The hooves directly before the children belonged to strong-legged, brown-haired, fell ponies that carried a fleet of mammals made of steel. There were twenty-one riders in all, each clad in emerald armour. Their features were semi-shielded by helmets fastened with visors adorned with steel tusks and horns, leaving only their muzzles and snouts exposed.
“Poppa, look! Captain Hobbs!”
A feline led the parade with a flowing ivory-coloured cape that flapped about her armoured shoulders. Those who rode with her brought great flags also caught up in the gust. Some were of Keeto’s red and yellow checker colors. Other flags, of diagonally-split emerald and black, bore a strange white emblem that resembled the head of a stallion with a single horn protruding through its fiery mane.
“What
in the blazes is all this, then, yeah?” Dwain whispered.
Amidst the cheers of onlookers, somebody shouted, “All hail the Alliance!”
Dwain blinked. “The Alliance…?”
Others began to chant: “Alliance!! Alliance!! Hup, hup, haw!! … Alliance!! Alliance!! Hup, hup, haw!!”
He was awestruck into dazed breathlessness. These were warriors.
The fleet continued down Arks Road, towards the centre of town, with a slow-burning strength that only brewed further inspiration among the crowd. All the while, more mammals trickled in from the outskirts to greet the much adored marvels as they passed by.
A harsh slap across Dwain’s shoulders brought him back to his senses. He blinked up into the face of an enormous rat whose eyes smiled as wide as his semi-toothless grin.
“Don’t ferget tar breeve thar, son,” said the rat with thin whistles that escaped through gaps where incisors should have been. He chuckled, sent a couple more affectionate pats on Dwain’s shoulder before turning away to hobble off with the rest of the dispersing crowd.
Dwain blinked away stardust, paralyzed where he stood. The ghostly chants of the crowds looped between his ears.
Alliance … Alliance …
Hup, hup, haw!!
Regina tugged at his tunic. He looked down at her, but his eyes betrayed him and returned to that of the empty road. “Reggie, those soldiers … where were they when Altus was in need of aid…?”
19. A Journey to Destiny
Just as the stars and moons had dictated, there was nothing left for the children where tracks fell behind their very heels. This journey they were on, a journey forced by the paw of the Goddess herself, had led them through dark tunnels, and up hills, and across forest roads, into the deepest depths of the psyche – and now, to a new chapter of life that neither of them wished to venture.
But that’s how life works, Astral thought to himself, as they quietly rode across the culvert, back through the Keeton Woods. We never want to move forward if we do not have to. So it is then that life in and of itself flexes and gestates instances of causation, that forces a mammal’s paw. Events happen, and we are forced to act.
The Book of Wind: (The Quest for the Crystals #1) Page 14
