Disclaimer: I do not own Scratchnail or Skinwretch. I do not own Tailchaser or any of the other characters mention. If/When a character that IS mine appears, I will STATE so. Meanwhile, the story and the plot and all that dandy crap is MINE. XD enjoy, those few people in the world that have read Tailchaser's Song and habitually check up on the fanfiction section for it lolol… anyway. Please, if there IS such a random crazy person, a review would be appreciated xD thanks.
Chapter Two- light.
The Scalding Flume was muffled by the walls and heaps of crumbled stone around them—it was pure chance that neither of them had been crushed, and that the rock had fallen in such a way as to shelter them from the thousands of tons of earth crumbled above them. The underground waterfall was curiously quiet, and when Scratchnail finally pulled his naked companion from the rubble, it became obvious why.
The river itself had been filled with the talus the collapse had brought down, creating a land-dam that had made the depths overflow. There was now a black, gleaming underground lake; and the waterfall itself had been crushed by a massive pillar of granite. The water from the spring now plunged strangely from the sides, trickling down through hundreds of feet of broken rock into the massive stretch of water.
It must have been the Claw's hiss of dismay that alerted the blind beast, or perhaps it was that the massive, trembling vibrations in the earth were gone. "What has happened?" Skinwretch shrieked, stumbling forward with his disklike ears fanning out from his head, "What has happened to our home, Scratchnail?"
The guttural snarl that tore loose from the black beast's mouth made the Toothguard flinch. "Collapsed," he forced out through gritted teeth, "Collapsed and broken. We were right when we said we were the only ones left." The creature turned his blunt muzzle, shrewd eyes crossing each and every collapsed tunnel around the inky waters. "All the tunnels are gone, Skinwretch!"
"Then how will we get out?" the bald, wrinkled creature exclaimed in dismay, extending one grossly distorted paw in entreaty to his fierce companion, "We may have gotten out of the rockslide, but we have no chance of escaping the Mound when there are no tunnels to the surface and no slaves to dig any!"
A short time passed before a hiss colored the air and Scratchnail turned his blunt head. Screeching noises that his blood-red claws made as they scraped the slate earth made the Toothguard's ears flatten in anger. "Then we shall look," the Claw snapped, "And if there are no tunnels, we will DIG some ourselves! We have a destiny, blind worm, and nothing—earth or stone—will stop us."
Skinwretch had nothing to say to that, but when the black animal padded away, the eelike creature slid after it, his thin, grossly hairless body shivering as those great ears oriented on his companion. Scratchnail might be gruff and vicious, but in his own corrupted way he had honor—and he knew that the only reason he was alive now was because of the Toothguard, a creature he and his kind had scorned and mocked until now. For all his strength, the former-chieftain would have died after the Hearteater had punished him, had it not been for the wrinkled tomcat who found him by the Flume.
Scratchnail would not forget that. Not until he'd repaid the blind, mewling creature—he hoped getting the thing out of here would be enough. And then, in turn, the Tooth would help him—Tooth and Claw, they would take down the sun-rat who'd taken it all away. He would hurt after they were done, and he would beg for death…
The two moved in silence for a time, the pantherlike being sniffing at the entrances to ruined tunnels, occasionally turning to nose the stumbling Toothguard across stretches of water. After a time, Skinwretch began to sing, and Scratchnail joined along. Strangely, it seemed still hopeful even after their whole world had been shattered, destroyed—it seemed hopeful still to sing of the sun's fall, and the creatures of the earth walking upon the surface. Even though they were the only two left.
With luck, they would be on the surface soon as well…
Scratchnail wished, more than many things, that Skinwretch's phenomenal nose was working. He would be able to scent the place closest to the surface by the scent of the air on the other side, or know which tunnel was blocked the least by the currents that whispered through it. As it was, the blind animal was working by sound, and it was only he—Scratchnail of the Clawguard—who had to try and use his nose and eyes to see.
A spur tunnel twisted off to the side, and Scratchnail could hardly believe his luck. He stopped, stunned, and Skinwretch ran into him. "Ow!"
"Shut up, vermin. I think I found a way out. You don't have to dig after all, lucky you…"
"You would have been digging just as much, getting those pretty red claws all mucked up," the Toothguard reminded him, shaking his leathery head. "Where is it?"
Slowly, deep in his throat, the Clawguard laughed. "It's the old exit tunnel. The FIRST one, before the mound grew. It's the tunnel that the little worm escaped out of in the first place, and the one he led the Firsthome vermin through as well—of course it's still intact." The animal threw back his head and laughed, a high, screeching sound in painful, rusty counterpoint to that harsh, guttural voice.
Slowly, a fanged smile appeared on his companion's face. "Well then," he said softly, "Let us be going, then!"
"Wait," Scratchnail cautioned, moving his tail before the hairless tomcat before the animal could brush past, "Above the ground, there are two-times; when the Eye is open, and when the Eye is closed. In daylight I cannot walk, worm."
"And because of your infirmities I am expected to wait?" Skinwretch demanded, whipping around to bear teeth at the larger animal, "I have been waiting in that hole with your accursed vomit for too long already, and my stomach cries for blood, friend!"
"I wait for you, crippled worm, do I not?" Scratchnail growled, "Stumbling along. My eyes cannot face the light, for I am a creature of darkness—if you wish for me to guide you, we must run by the same. If your belly hungers, why, I imagine the carcasses of slaves are plenty beneath the rock."
"Very well then," the Toothguard hissed, curling that bony tail around his leathery toes, "We will wait until this closed-eye-time, and then we will walk the surface. Care to dine with me, Scratchnail?"
Yes, they were cruel—they snapped at one another and spoke of cruel insults, but in the end, the two were friends. They'd stuck together all through the weeks of punishment, healing, caring for one another—and they were not about to stop now. There was the body of a young fela, hardly out of kittenhood, crushed in the next tunnel over—her flesh was a fine meal for the Clawguard, and then the hairless creature went through and meticulously picked through the bones, wishing they still burned hot with life…
Creepy silence dot dot dot… wow creepy… sorry about that…
***
The fresh air was as jolting to the Toothguard as was the last few dying rays of the sun to the Claw when they poked their two heads; black and mottled pink, from the mouth of the gaping burrow. "Ahhhh," Skinwretch heard his companion say, a sound of pain, and his wide ears picked up the sounds of the dark creature withdrawing into himself. "The eye is closing now… but how it burns…"
"The air is cold," the creature shivered, "So cold…" Compared to the oppressive heat from within the earth, the outside world was a glacier—it was spring-verging-on-summer, but the furless skin was now no longer merely a feature of disgust—it was a problem.
"Didn't think your naked hide could last long out here," Scratchnail taunted, shielding his fierce, burning yellow eyes with a paw. His stomach, mottled with sickly, pale dots, slid along the bottom of the burrow as he slid out, looking around. "Hey, if those big flimsy ears pick up anyone watching, let me know. I do not want our presence about just yet."
"My big flimsy ears pick up nothing but the ugly sound of your voice," Skinwretch snapped as he too slunk from the mouth of the burrow, shivering. He edged slightly closer to the warm pelt of Scratchnail, and the Clawguard scooted away. "Keep your distance, worm," the black beast snapped, eyes glittering with impotent fury. "If you had a nose, we could sniff out Starface's scent—now what can we do?"
"We'll have to ask for information," Skinwretch pointed out, "Surely, if Tailchaser is as famous as you make him seem, there will be creatures here in the forest who know of him?"
"Very good," Scratchnail admitted grudgingly, "Yet they will not wish to speak—we hardly seem innocent; a giant, blind rat and a red-clawed monster searching for the me'mere to destroy our home."
"All the better, then!" the Tooth pointed out, turning his eyes, sealed shut, onto his companion. "Let the giant, blind rat and the red-clawed monster seek for information—and let it be known we shall kill any that get in our way. I have heard the pleading of the slaves in the pit, and smelled their terror of us—we should have no problem."
"A meal would not be bad, either," Scratchnail agreed, a smile etching onto his face. "You know, I could get to like you, with ideas like that. Blind worm."
"Thank you!"
The light, above all, was the most disorienting—even at night, the pricks of starry flame above them were misleading, disorienting—even the blind creature seemed to feel them, between his shivering, as silently they slid through the forest.
The trees were tall peaks of shadow that the dark tomcat slid between and through, speckled belly sliding against the cold earth. At his side slipped a thin, bony figure, wrinkled and formed of skin, blind eyes strange counterpoint to the mass of healing tissue where the 'cat' should have carried his nose. Though one was pale and the other shadow, they both stepped with utter silence—and in their wake the birds ceased to chirp, the insects grew quiet.
No creature, be they of the Folk or not, wanted to be caught by the two monsters. Hence the chase that they entered once Scratchnail's huge, flickering eyes picked out the shape of the tomcat before he broke into a run, hence the beating of the paws against the ground as Skinwretch closed in on the sound of the sun-rat's terrified gasps of breath. Hence the screams that tore loose from the tabby's throat as crimson talons brought him down as easily as a cat might catch a beetle and the tom looked up, eyes dilated in terror, at the two animals looming over him.
"Tailchaser." Skinwretch said softly. "You know him."
The cat gibbered in terror, wiggling and sobbing. "No! No I don't!" Scratchnail shoved his blunt muzzle into the creature's face, yellow teeth bared in a thousand spikes of cold fury. "TAILCHASER! TELL ME WHERE HE IS!" he roared, the force of his voice sending fur flying back from his helpless victim.
Sobbing, the cat meowed, "I don't know! I don't know! He parted from his friends two eye-turns back! Don't hurt me! Don't kill me! Please!"
"I care not for your gibbering and pleading, scum," Scratchnail snarled, digging his claws in deeper into the tiny creature. "WHERE DID HE GO?! Tell me, and I may not eat you while still you live!"
"I-I-I-know not!" the little tom cried. "But they say he follows the track of a fela, and that he left his home just to find her…! I know no more, I swear by Tangaloor himself!"
"Very well," Skinwretch said coldly, turning those sealed, grossly distorted eyes on the creature, which shrank back in fear and disgust. "We shall end your life quickly, then. May I, Scratchnail?" his purr was silky, succulent, and the creature quailed between the Clawguard's massive paws.
"Wait!" the cat cried just as the teeth of the bald cat touched his soft throat and he struggled. Skinwretch paused, reculantly, a drop of saliva slithering onto the tomcat's open neck. "Her name," the cat gasped, chest heaving with breath and terror, "is Hushpad. Perhaps someone knows of her—I know not! But he is gone from our forest, and he kept the sun at his shoulder."
"So you DID know where he went," the Toothguard hissed, withdrawing, to which the cat quailed. "You swore by the name of one of the Firstborn, sun-rat. You are a liar and a traitor to your kind, for you have betrayed them and your Lord. We, at least, lived by the word of Hearteater." The pity and disgust in the cat's tone were obvious and the cat grew limp.
"I care not to soil my tongue with the flesh of such as his," Scratchnail said coldly, with boredom, and loosened the cat from his grasp. "Let him live, knowing that it is because of he that his kind's hero shall be slaughtered—let him live, knowing the worm he is." Those fierce yellow eyes bored into the trembling tomcat and speared his soul. "Spread the name of us, worthless scum, and know you are too vile even for monsters such as us to devour. You will spend your days at Hearteater's Throne, for he is the only one who will accept you now."
The tabby did not move, even after they'd turned and slipped away into the darkness, did not move even though they were long gone. He merely sat limp, a slow tear tracking down his face, knowing they were truly right, and the destruction of the surface had begun from his cowardly soul.
Read? Review? This was a fun chapter to write, sorry they're so bloodthirsty, it's just how monster-cats are. I really love them, lol, especially Skinwretch. He's adorable. Anyway, xD, end of chapter two!