33

A silence hung over Salamandastron as the hares from all over the mountain were unsure of what to do.

It had started when Oakfur had collapsed at his forge early in the morning. The old badger had never broken his love of being a blacksmith, and he would spend a part of each day hammering away on his anvil.

The forge could be heard from outside, and one could always count on the sound of clanging as the hammer strikes the metal. It almost always ended at the same time of day every day.

But this day had been different, and it had fallen to the young Leaflock to be the one to discover the horrific scene. The leveret had been walking past the room that led to the forge, when the clanging stopped suddenly. Leaflock almost walked along past it, but something told him that something was wrong.

Pausing, the young hare raised his ear towards the closed door, listening anxiously for the resumption of the hammer striking the anvil. He even braced himself to continue on his way once he was reassured of the familiar sound of a Badger Lord at his passion.

Ten seconds went by, and the sound did not resume. Another ten seconds went by, yet still there was no sound for the hare hear. Leaflock grew agitated, as seconds continued to wear on without any return of sound.

But then he heard it. The reason he hadn't heard it before was likely because he had not been listening for it and had focused his ears solely for the clang of metal on metal. At first Leaflock had not been able to recognize what the sound was, but when he did, it was one of the most horrific sounds he had ever heard.

It was the sound of an animal in the worst pain. And there was only one animal in that room who could make that sound.

Oakfur.

Like a little bunny running from a fox, Leaflock fled the scene, terror giving him wings as he rushed for help. Anyone who could undo what had been done, Leaflock didn't care who it was.

The first person he ran into was Major Jackers, heading down to lunch. The hare was sobbing and gasping the story out, and by the end of it, Jackers had turned a pale grey in the face.

Five minutes later, Korari was leading a group of hares towards his father's forge. The young badger didn't bother to open the door properly, but instead smashed forwards with his shoulder. He ran towards the great anvil, where his father grovelled on the ground, unable to get up.

It sickened those to see the sight. Oakfur had been holding a glowing red piece of metal while wearing a thick glove, while he hammered upon the other end of it with the large hammer he had always wielded effortlessly. However, Oakfur had never realized what it meant to grow old and had made no precautions. The best guess one could think up was that the badger had put too much of his weight onto the metal, perhaps out of fatigue. The metal must have slipped, causing the Badger Lord to lose his balance. He had fallen forward, missing the anvil, but due to the fact that the metal had still been in his paw, he had fallen forward and struck his legs with the metal.

The result was devastating. Horrendous burn marks had appeared on the Badger Lord's legs, and it was possible to smell burning flesh when standing close to Oakfur. Some hares had to leave the scene due to the horror and nauseating feeling of the place.

Those who stayed carried their Lord to the infirmary in the mountain. The hare physicians began work immediately, but even as they began work upon the burns he had recieved, the doctors knew that there was no hope for Oakfur to keep his legs without getting the dreaded gangrene that always followed the decay of body tissues.

No one seemed to want to tell Korari the painful truth of what had happened, and what would result from that incident. Korari, for his part, never asked: he seemed to understand that his father's days had been numbered even narrower than before. The old lord would soon become encrypted in a monumental tomb somewhere deep in the mountain.

Korari didn't know what to say or do. He felt completely helpless as he stared at his now-unconscious father. Would he wake up one last time, or was it the beginning of the end? There was little telling yet.

Suddenly a cold voice boomed out, "Let me pass! Let me through!"

Who else could it be, Korari thought angrily. He immediately felt guilty for that thought: he had no right to judge Roaveen when he was in the same situation as Korari himself was.

The older brother certainly looked distressed. He looked grim and angry as he stared at his senseless father on the bed, "How much longer does he have?"

Several of the hares started at Roaveen's bluntness, Korari most of all.

The chief of the physicians spoke timidly, "At most, sire, a season." He was looking at Roaveen with a faint sense of curiosity at Roaveen's question. Was it possible that Roaveen simply could see the extent of the injuries more than the others crowding the Badger Lord?

Roaveen nodded slowly, and he stormed away. Korari watched him leave and wondered to himself when he would find tears for his father's imminent death. Would he only realize it once his father died? Or was he simply letting old wounds fester inside of him and prevent him from lamenting the loss of his father?

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Once he was up in his chamber, Roaveen turned his mirror to the wall. He wanted to grieve without seeing himself, let alone others seeing him.

The badger, in a fit of furious helplessness, dug his powerful claws into the wood of his table, digging until a series of deep scratches ruined the table's fine appearance. Unsatisfied, Roaveen repeated his actions until his paws bled. Using his fists, Roaveen pounded the table to

By the time he was finished, the table was unrecognizable.

He stared at it, all of his anger and grief let out. That aside, he wondered if he was not grieving enough for his own father. Would it convince the others if they saw how he had wantonly destroyed a finely made piece of furniture?

Roaveen wondered why he did not feel more grieving about his father. Yet he could not once think of a time he had spent with his father that was a truly happy time. His father had been distant at best, highly demanding of the eldest son in replacing him as Badger Lord.

That was one thing Roaveen had hated about Thornback. The badger, for all his book smarts, had been completely stupid in not realizing the pressure that the eldest had to be the best, better than his brothers, so that he looked at them not in love but in competition?

Nobody understood, Roaveen thought to himself. That's a lesson you taught me well, father. If nothing else, that is the message you gave to me.

He had decided a long time ago that nobody could understand him: therefore he would not allow himself to be examined. He had distanced himself from the Mountain Regiment in the sense that they looked to him as their superior. That was why he was so bothered when Korari had garnered their friendships. It challenged his system and his authority. But in the end, the Regiment had chosen their proper leader, Roaveen thought, content.

If he would not be manipulated, he would certainly manipulate others to get him what he wanted. Was it not his right, as Badger Lord, to wield this power?

And soon, Roaveen thought, that power would be his for good.