Terrible Names


Part II


Bowflogg took his anger out on the tall stands of goldenrod flowers that blocked his way into the green-tinted forests. True, it had been him that had demanded a sudden veer to the left to avoid a tree's root slipping into the path... Only to bring the wagon he and the other refugees were fleeing in to a crashing halt in a sun-hardened rut. Still, flowers could not fight back, and they couldn't scold either. Bowflogg picked up a sizable walnut branch from the ground and wound up his good paw.

"Bally governess, she is. Hmph!" The young hare swished the bit of wood angrily downwards, severing the bobbing yellow heads from three of the wildflowers, "Who gave her th' bleedin' right to order around a..."

Bowflogg stopped in mid-thrash, staring slack-jawed with his ears twitching and erect. There was something moving slowly nearby, something much bigger than a harmless finch or undergrowth beetle. Whatever it was had to be nearly as big as him. Not as stealthy, though.

He picked his way over to the trunk of a walnut, probably the same one which had loosed his stick weapon seasons ago. His ears twitched periodically, in exact time to the sounds of the rambling crunches of leaves. As the sounds grew closer the hare began to hear a voice blubbering and whimpering.

"Why's he gotta leave me... I kin stealth too. I was just pointin' out to him where it was, why's he gotta shove me down?" There was a clunk and a quiet curse. A pine cone came rolling around the corner of the walnut, "An' then he shoves leaves in me mouth... Not very nice, not fair either! Why, if I 'ad two minutes alone with 'im I'd-"

"You'd wot?"

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaagh!"

Bowflogg had popped around the side of the tree trunk, startling what appeared to be either a stoat or a tall weasel. The verminous beast lay panting on the ground where he had stumbled back and fallen, and he was glaring pure hatred at the lagomorph.

"I say, ol' bag o' fleas, what's th' mattah?" The hare gave a cheeky grin, drawing back behind the massive tree just a bit. The stoat leapt upright and shook a clenched paw, but the rest of him was shaking too.

"What's wrong with ya, you floppy-eared lunatic!", he huffed. "Ya don't pop out at folks mindin' their own business! I'm a ruthless warrior, see! I coulda dropped you where ya stand!"

"Could you?" Bowflogg rubbed the side of his nose with one paw in an insulting gesture, "I'd pay twenty bushels o' barley t' see that from a low-life shadow-creeping woodland vermin as y'self."

"I could, an' I will if ya gets me mad enough!" The stoat reached for a sling hanging across his back, but drew back his paw and took on a puzzled look when he discovered that it was empty, "What th... Why, you stinkin' coward! Whaddja do with me knife? Come on!"

"Ooh, I didn't do nothing!" The hare cackled, bringing his paws up in boxing stance. He jabbed one, two and three straight across, taunting the stoat while never coming within grabbing distance. He was no warrior either, just a youngbeast taking full advantage of a sweet opportunity for fun, "Maybe it up an' ran out of shame of being used by a milksop instead of a real fighter!"

"Why you, you..." The stoat gasped, finding that his insult vocabulary was running on low, "You... you rabbit!"

Bowflogg stood back, his ears reddened and upright. He'd been called a rabbit by accident before-old hedgehogs loosing their sight, babes who had never seen a hare in the flesh-but to be called one intentionally! And by a skulking vermin nonetheless! It wasn't just his short life on the line anymore-his family honor was at stake!

"I will make y' spit blood!"

The hare took a flying leap over the tangled roots that separated them, plowing right into the mustelid's gut as he dropped down. The stoat's breath left him in a whoosh and his shoulder slammed hard against a stone buried under the deep leaves. He got over his shock almost as soon as the hare's thin fists came pummeling down, stunning the stoat but barely harming him. Twisting to find leverage against the similarly sized creature the stoat kicked out and instead of dislodging the hare tore a chunk from his tunic with sharp musteline toeclaws. The hare spotted the tattered bits of fabric raining down beside him and immediately had a change of plans. The beast hopped up with all the agility hares were praised for, but tripped backwards on a root with all the bumbling inattention they were supposed to lack.

Coughing, the stoat spit out several bits of leaf matter that had ended up in his mouth in the course of the scuffle. He scurried to his footpaws at the same time Bowflogg did. They stopped. Then they stared.

"Go on, make a move, vermin." Bowflogg's eyes were like flint.

"Nah, you move first, you gringing little bunny." The stoat's shone like garnets.

"Call me bunny again, and I'll kill you in such a way that your spirit will be dishonored and never find Dark Forest Gates!"

"As if ya could kill me! And as if you even know how t' do that!"

"I do! It's a Beltwood family secret!"

"Oh, sure, I'll believe that when geese grow fins-" The stoat paused, his mouth open slightly, "Wait, what?"

"What what?"

"Ahh, don't do that stupid rabbit 'wotwot' thing!"

"I wasn't, I was askin' what what!"

"What didja say before?"

"What, that it's a secret?"

"No! The... the name..."

Bowflogg became the color of radishes in a tub of beet juice. Though not entirely sure why, the stoat broke out into a fit of silly giggling.

"It's not funny!" Bowflogg took a step forward, "'Beltwood' is a family name and I happened t' be born into it! Stop laughin' like a gassed gannet!"

"Seriously? Yore name is... is..." The stoat crumpled on the ground, holding his sides and letting out a mute scream from the depths of his sense of humor, "Yore name is... h-heehee! It's really... hee... Beltwood?"

"Yeah, yeah, go on! Laugh it up!" The hare bit his lip in anger and embarrassment, beginning to stomp off, "It's not like it's the worst name in the world-yours is bound t' be stupider."

"H-hey, ya don't even know my name!"

"Don't know, don't wanna!"

"You sure? It's pretty awesome!"

The hare turned, his face sour.

"Fine, tell me. I'll forget it in a bit anyhow."

Daraga's brother stood up fully, posing in a noble and brave fashion from atop a small leafy hillock. Sniffing the air fondly, the beast uttered his name...

"I... am Falcontooth!"

"Uhh..."

"I know. It's fair mighty-soundin'!"

"N-hee-no... No it isn't."

"Wh-what?" Falcontooth came down from his pedestal of soil and dead plant matter, striding over to the hare in a bad temper, "What gives ya th' right to say how good or bad me name is, bunny rabbit?"

"The fact that th' name is simply factually unsound!" The hare chuckled, jumping back over a log to lengthen the distance between him and the steamed stoat, "How many teeth d'you suppose th' average falcon has, eh?"

"I-It's not supposed to be literal!" Falcontooth stomped the ground and felt around in the weapon sling one more time, hoping that he had simply missed the knife-handle before, "It's th' concept, not th' reality! There's no such wood as a Beltwood either!"

"Oh, but there's something..!" Bowflogg Beltwood winked. The stoat left off his search for a weapon and cocked his head to the side with one eye narrowed.

"Ew."

"What's 'ew'? C'mon, ol' chap, everybeast has one!"

"Not th' females, ya nitbrain."

"Well, besides them, obviously," Bowflogg said with an exasperated sigh through his whiskers. "For a bally vermin, you're one prudish stoat, wot."

"I ain't no prude! I just ain't a shameless grassjumper like you either!"

"I'm not shameless! If I were half as shameless as some of th' harejacks around, why then, I'd have brought up th' nuances of love-and-Dibbun-mak-"

"Ack! No, no, no, not listenin'!" Falcontooth shied away, his countenance as soiled as his innocence, "Gah! So me name is stupid an' yores is that of a little perver-er... shameless bachelor 'are. Agree t' disagree..?"

The hare raised one eyebrow.

"So we can hurry up an' part ways?"

"Yes." The stoat thrust out a paw, grimacing.

"Right-o, then." The hare grasped it firmly, thoroughly enjoying the squicky look on the mustelid's face as they touched.

"Ya know, us two gents aren't all that different when y' think about it."

"Aside from th'...perverted thing..."

"Know any good taverns 'ereabouts?"

"I dunno. What's 'ereabouts? A league? Twenty?"

"Oh, y'know. Close enough t' walk to before sundown. I can slip away from th' lads an' th' ol' badgerlady taskmaster, an' we can chat about ale an' fillies an' Beltwoods..."

"Ennhhhh..."

There was a sound thrumming in the air between the treetrunks as the goodbeast and vermin loosed their hold on each others' paws. Falcontooth turned to ask what the sound was, but the words were drowned out by a colossal roar.

"EEEEEEEUUULAAAALIAAAAAA!"

The thrumming grew to a crashing as the matriarchal badger surged out of the surrounding undergrowth with her clubbing paw raised high over her head. Bowflogg and Falcontooth stood speechless for two tenths of a second, watching the enraged beast bolt towards them in slowed time.

But especially towards the stoat.

"My...me kilt is ruined..." He whimpered, frozen to the spot and crossing his legs with his bushy tail. Bowflogg tried to think of a heroic catchphrase, something the armored warrior would say to the charging force of nature to send it screeching to a halt before it struck the unjustly targeted creature down. But now that he thought he needed one they had all gone to hide in the dark inaccessible reaches of his brain. Also hiding? His courage. His legs gave out under him and he stared like an infant rabbit at the badger closing in, ears clutched tightly in his paws.

"Die, vermin scum!" The badger was mere paces away now. Falcontooth went to scream, but all that came out was a sound very like a falcon (whose beak was blocked with unneeded teeth). Daraga's brother cowered.

The badger maiden made a final leap, hurtling over several deadfall alders and on course to land on top of the quivering vermin beast.

A heavy limb from the walnut tree interrupted her flight. She had time only to look up and have her mouth filled with dead leaves before she was knocked to the ground. Groaning, she flailed at the smaller branches and the wood weight that was keeping her down. Bowflogg stood up again and blinked.

"Leave my idiot alone!"

The badger snarled and finally tossed the bruising branch aside on sight of another stoat, this one sliding down the bark of the tree's trunk on his claws and bearing a grimace of a fighter on his face. He hit the ground in a well-formed stance, a long knife with worn wooden handle grasped in his paw pointing out at his much larger opponent. Falcontooth's face lit up with joy on sight of his brother Daraga.

"Daraga, mate! Am I glad t' see ya or what!" He choked on his own sobbing breath, "I... I'd get up an' hug ya, but... I got scared when th' badger came and..."

Daraga glared at his sniveling sibling, signalling him to shut his mouth. As the less composed brother complied Daraga shifted his stance, flipping the knife several times over his paw in a stunning display of skill. At the last he took hold of it overhand, ready to stab or backlash.

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

The badger's grip on her cudgel tightened, threatening to crack the old wood it was made of. Her coal black eyes followed the stoat as he shuffled forward and around her side a few steps, aligning himself with weak spots.

In the background young hare and cowardly stoat looked at each other with wide eyes.

To Be Continued...