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Chapter 27. All Along the Watchtower
by Zula
The odd quartet made its way through the streets of Evnakt, the vast mansion behind them gradually sinking below a sea of increasingly grottier rooftops. Brull led the pack, though Zula often trotted out in front and had to be called back with urgent hisses.
"You do know that the beasts that took your mother away from you are the ones that still control this town, yes?" Pearl said patiently after dragging the vixen back by the collar of her grimy vest for the umpteenth time.
"Ah, don't worry, Miz Pearl, they're not all bad. Besides, me shortcut should take us right t' the tower with no worries, it should."
"You're sure we're still going the right way, then?" Brull asked.
"Sure I'm sure, sure as puddin'," Zula said, pointing at the tall structure poking up into sky. "We're headed for that giant thing, aren't we?"
"Mind your cheek," Pearl scolded. "Let's not dally here any longer than we have to."
"Yez," Rekkua added sibilantly. "I not truzt t'eze ztreetz."
They set off again, Zula directing them where to go. Once or twice they took cover in an abandoned hovel as a patrol of woodlanders marched by, but after some tense moments they reached Nakat's tower unscathed. The ladder seemed to stretch right up into the sky; it made Zula dizzy just looking at it.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Brull asked. "Let's go."
He stepped forward, as did Pearl and Rekkua. Zula found that either her footpaws weren't obeying her brain or that her brain had suddenly developed a shrewd sense of self-preservation. Whatever the case, she wasn't budging.
"Miss Higgins, come on, we can't stay down here if we hope to see anything," Pearl urged.
The young vixen's bespectacled eyes were wide as saucers and rooted on the tower. "But it's...so high..."
Brull's patience with the vixen was rapidly wearing thin. "Zula, you said you were going to be helpful," the rat growled. "This...this is not helpful."
"Don't be so hard on her just for being afraid of heights," said Pearl, her motherly instincts kicking in. "She is still a child."
"Hardly," Brull chuckled. "She looks old enough to take on some actual responsibility. She only acts like a child."
"I agree wit' Brull," Rekkua added. "If she not coming, let uz leave her. We have ot'er t'ingz to do."
The sound of breaking glass in the distance sold Pearl on the idea. They mounted the ladder in turn and began to climb, slowly ascending the tower. Zula watched them nervously. Maybe she would just stay down here and keep watch until they came back. Now wouldn't that be responsible of her?
Her eyes were drawn to a blob of paint that had been dribbled onto the metal weight at the bottom of the rope ladder goodness knows how long ago. Zula reached down and scraped at it with a claw, but there was no removing it. Her claws made a rather chilling noise against the metal, though. The fox wiggled her claws all over its surface, shivering with delight. She wondered how Rekkua's scales must sound against it.
"Hey! Hey Rekkua!" she called.
But the monitor was either too high up or too concentrated on her climbing to hear her. Zula frowned; she supposed there was only one way to get the lizard's attention. She gripped the ladder tightly with both paws, shut her eyes, and took a step up.
Opening one eye cautiously, as if opening the other would surely mean certain death, the fox inspected her situation. She was off the ground, and it didn't hurt, didn't make her sick, and, most importantly, didn't make her dead. In fact, she felt fine, and arguably more than fine. The fox took a few more experimental steps up the ladder, saw the climb still had not killed her in any sort of nasty way, and suddenly she giggled with glee and began to scamper upward, watching the rooftops fall away.
Not once during her mad climb did she look up, which didn't bother her unduly until her head collided painfully with Pearl's heel. The older vixen paused and looked down.
"Zula? What are you doing here? I thought you were afraid of heights."
"I were," she said, "but then I gave 'em a chance, Miz Pearl. They're not as mean as they look."
"Well, I'm just over the moon that you're having so much fun down there, but keep moving," Brull called down to them. "We're almost to the top."
A short while later they made it to the observation deck, an open area with a railing that wrapped all around the watchtower. The four of them rested from the climb, rubbing their arms and groaning.
"What's in there?" Zula asked, pointing at the watchtower building at the center.
"I think that may be where the telescopes are," said Pearl. "Shall we take a look?"
"Sure an' I'm already ahead of you there, mam!" Zula grinned before leaping up and scurrying to the door.
"Wait!" Rekkua hissed warningly. "Maybe not zafe to—"
Zula slid the door open and a pair of paws shot out, dragging her inside. The others cried out in alarm, drawing weapons and hurrying after her, only to find themselves at the points of about half a dozen Long Patrol weapons. One of the long-eared creatures had a tight hold of Zula, her sword blade at the fox's neck. Zula stared up into the strange face of her captor, watching her oversized front teeth slide in and out of view as she barked a command to the vixen's three friends.
"Don't even think about movin', scum, unless you'd like to see your little friend become..."
Major Regaworth looked down at the vixen, a most puzzled expression on her face. Was her captive...laughing?
Zula shook with silent mirth, tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry, 'm so sorry, I don't mean t' laugh, it's just...Yer ears! They're ridiculous!"
She burst out laughing at the odd creatures, and for a moment everyone looked so puzzled they didn't know what to do next. No doubt partially out of the indignity of having her ears insulted, Regaworth pressed her sword blade tighter against Zula's neck. The vixen's laughter turned to a panicked yelp as the hare was rewarded with a tiny trickle of blood.
"Horrible creature! You'd kill a child?" Pearl spat.
"I will if you don't tell me what you're bloody well doing up here," the Major growled.
Zula whimpered in pain. She could barely swallow around the sword blade against her windpipe. She could understand objecting to comments about one's physical appearance, but certainly not to this extent. As far as she was concerned, the long-eared thing had no right to hurt her or threaten her friends.
"Major, look out, she's got a—"
It was Regaworth's turn to yelp as Zula jabbed her knife into her leg. The hare released her and she scurried away, just as Brull and Rekkua instinctively seized the moment of distraction and ducked under the Long Patrollers' weapons, taking the fight to them with a vengeance. The already relatively cramped space was now a roiling mass of brawling creatures, weapons and limbs flailing in a deadly dance.
Zula crouched under a table, watching her three friends grapple with the hares. They were hopelessly outnumbered and she knew she had to help them somehow. Exactly how, she had no idea, unaccustomed as she was to any kind of fighting. Then she noticed a tantalizing opportunity when a pair of ridiculously large footpaws sprinted by the table. She dove forward and managed to grab one, its owner yelling his dismay as he crashed to the floor. He rolled over, his angry eyes falling on Zula.
"Oh, you bally insolent..."
He grabbed one of her large ears and yanked her forward. Zula squealed and twisted her head desperately, sinking needle-sharp teeth into the hare's paw. She saw a blur of metal and felt the crack of a sword handle connecting solidly with her skull. Half-conscious, she slumped back and watched the hare sheath his sword, clutching at his bleeding paw. Her eyelids drooped and the whole scene drifted out of focus before fading to black.
"Zula? Zula?"
"Get away from her, fox. Don't give me an excuse!"
"But she's been bashed over the head, you creep!"
"Fox, I'm warning you, another word and you'll get the same as her!"
"Oh, leave her alone, you great long-eared trollop."
"I've heard just about enough out of you, too, rat..."
The first solid fact that came to Zula's mind was that her head hurt.
The second was that her head really, really hurt.
The third, fourth and fifth were all variations of the first two, but the sixth was that she couldn't move. The vixen opened her eyes and was rewarded with—surprise—yet more stabbing pain in her skull as the light hit her retinas. Blinking slowly, she looked around. Curse it all, why did everything she did have to hurt so badly? Pearl, Rekkua and Brull had all been bound and were shoved up against the wall next to her, though Pearl had shuffled close to her to see if she was all right. The hares stood over them; the mean female one that had cut her neck seemed to be the boss. The one that had knocked her out seemed to be a sort of second in command or something, with the way he hovered at her side with a decidedly servile demeanor.
"Major Regaworth, Marm," the bloody-pawed one said, "what're we goin' to do to these beasts, eh? Same thing we did to the ones we found up here earlier?"
The Major pursed her lips shrewdly. "No, Woxley, not without some answers."
"Why don't you start by answering some of our questions first, eh?" Brull asked. "Like what the ruddy hell you're doing here, and why you seem to enjoy bullying children?"
"Child?" Woxley spluttered indignantly. "That's no child, that's the bally spawn of Vulpuz himself! She stabbed the Major and bit my paw clear to the bone!" He pointed to the bandages on Regaworth's leg and his own paw.
"Enough, Captain," Regaworth said. She turned to Brull. "So, to answer your question, my good chap, we're here because a certain ferret from your town led us here. A certain ferret we were expecting back over an hour ago, which is why we had left one of the ladders down. Normally we would have pulled it up at the first sign of anyone approaching the tower, but I must say we were positively intrigued by the starting point of your little journey, as it were."
"Why you care about ztarting point?" Rekkua hissed.
"Well," Regaworth said with a faint smile, "you came from the mansion of a marten called Sarkleyet. Let's just say he's a beast of interest to us. So now that we've answered your questions, we'd like you to tell us why you—"
"Beggin' yer pardon, mam," Zula said, "but y' didn't answer all of 'is questions."
"Shut your gob, fox," Woxley snapped.
Regaworth sighed. "Easy, Captain. You're right, it may have been a bit unfair of me to use you like that, child, but as you may have noticed, these are dangerous times we live in. And now, finally, why are you here? Why has Sarkleyet sent you?"
"No one sent us," Brull answered. "We just...wanted to get a better view of the town."
Regaworth laughed. "That's a jolly poor excuse, lad. You're going to have to do better than that, I'm afraid, and you've got precious little time to do it."
"Major Regaworth, Marm!" a hare called, scurrying over from a telescope at one of the windows. "Some more of them from Sarkleyet's mansion just entered a warehouse nearby."
"Yes, very good, Harvey," she said, momentarily forgetting about the prisoners. Zula could almost see the cogs working behind Sheriff Brull's eyes as he tried to think of an acceptable yet completely innocent sounding answer to the hare's question.
"Brigton, Fentip," the Major barked. Two of the hares sprang to attention. "Go investigate. I want to know what those beasts are up to."
"Yes, Major!" the hares barked automatically, marching out the door. Moments later a very confused Greenclaw entered, a bag of scavenged rations in his claws.
"Er, right. What'd I miss?" he asked.
Brigton and Fentip trotted through the streets of Evnakt, eyes peeled for suspicious activity but their conversation deceptively casual.
"Ohoho, Fen, I tell you, I positively cannot put up with this dump much longer."
"I concur, Brig, it's a bit of a pong, wot?"
"I definitely won't be sad to leave. I hope the Major finds what she's jolly well lookin' for soon so we can get out of here. Hush now, Fen, we're almost there."
The two hares turned the corner to go down the last side street that would take them straight to the warehouse.
Only, they would never reach it.
