The sun rose from behind the Chainsaw
Mountains shedding light on This Place. People were quick to work as the first rays fell upon the dirty
road. Workers disappeared over the edge
of the pit into the mine; shopkeepers pulled the curtains open on their shop
doors and placed a piece of wood marked "open" in the window; children ran
scampering about in the early hours before school began. In a shaded area near the tavern, Morgan
Fritz was gathered with a group of men dressed in traveling garb.
"All right," he said to the men, "now that
we're all here, we can prepare for the Outtaking."
The Outtaking was a ritualistic mission
taken on every five years by a group of six men from the town of This
Place. Hidden in the dark reaches of
the Chainsaw Mountains was a race of mountain goat that could be found in no
other mountain ranges known to the land. These goats were known as Hobbles, and had one strange attribute that
made them quite extraordinary. Hobbles,
though mountain goat in origin, they shared a chromosome or two with chickens
and could be identified by the distinct sound of gobbling.
The six men were selected by the town's
leader and sent into the mountains to hunt and retrieve six live Hobbles for
the occasion. Six days after the
Outtaking began, there was a massive festive gathering in the town square where
the people of This Place would watch as the Hobbles were pitted against pigs in
a vast arena, which was nothing more than a very shallow pool.
The Hobble-Gobble Hogwash, as the ceremony
had become known, was originally done with chickens against chickens, and for
that reason had been known as cockfighting. But, to the dismay of chicken farmers in the area, people began to feel sorry
for the chickens and so cockfighting was deemed unfit for their society. Desperate to find something new to use
instead of chickens, six such farmers headed off into the heights of the
Chainsaw Mountains in search of the mythical Hobble, which soon became less
mythical and more endangered as six Hobbles were caught and brought back to
town.
The men then constructed an arena for the
Hobbles to fight in, which wasn't originally filled with water. Fearing that the townspeople would object to
the usage of chickens as opponents for each Hobble, the farmers brought a large
pig for each to battle. The event, then
known as the Hobble Wars, was a great success.
The next year, the farmers decided to return
to the place in the mountains where they had found their prey, since they had
been forced to eat their first catches out of pure curiosity. To their dismay, they found no Hobbles. They searched and searched for six days before
giving up the search. They returned to
the town empty handed and the town was disappointed by not having another
Hobble Wars.
The men didn't bother returning to the spot
the following year. Their
disappointment and shame from the year before was enough to throw them off
entirely. No one returned to the spot
in the Chainsaw Mountains for two years until one day, five years after the
first event, when a group of curious young men ventured up into the mountains
looking for mischief. Instead, they
stumbled upon a herd of Hobbles, which they caught.
The old arena was pulled out of an old barn
and placed in Town Square where people gathered to watch the Hobbles battle a
handful of pigs, which had been eagerly donated by the farmers who had founded
the original game.
The day of the event was cold and
muggy. The sky had clouded over and
soon it began to rain. By midday, the
rain subsided and the clouds parted to let the sun shine through. Gleeful at the sign of sunlight, the
townspeople rushed to the square in hopes of having the Hobble Wars. When they arrived, they found that the arena
had filled with rainwater and was now a pond in the centre of Town Square.
At first, people were disappointed and the
six young men were confused as to what they would do. Finally, one of them said, "Who cares about the water," and
placed his captive Hobble into the water. The other five men followed in the first's footsteps and the pigs were
set into the pond as well. The people
gathered once more and found that the Hobble Wars were much more entertaining
in the water than out.
Five years later, a different group of men
ventured into the mountains and returned with six more Hobbles for the
wars. The arena was set up and filled
with water, as it had been, five years earlier, by the rain. The tradition was forged.
"Have you all got your sacks?" asked Morgan
Fritz.
There was a grunt of responses from the five
men around him as they confirmed the fact that they each had a sack. "Well then," Morgan said, "that's all the
preparation I need. Let's go catch some
Hobbles."
The six men turned and followed the streets
to the edge of town. Following Morgan
Fritz's lead, the company plunged into the forest, full of determination for
their six-day expedition into the high cliffs of the Chainsaw Mountains.
