Thief!
Fort Ruddler Mission
It was a cold, snowy day in Fort Ruddler when Riala Goldentail received her orders. The red-brown squirrel had been standing on the wall top, exposed to the chill wind and yet taking little note of it. She'd been raised in a climate just as harsh, and had been volunteering for sentry duty for some time now. It wasn't as if there was much else to do… When not on missions, a battle, or training, there was little else Fort Ruddler soldiers did but chat or feast.
Riala never was much of a talker.
The whisper of paws on stone caused the squirrel to turn quickly, and her rust-gold tail flicked sideways in mild surprise at the sight of a young hair in a light-blue, white-trimmed tunic. Her shift wasn't finished yet, though she didn't think this hare was up here to take sentry duty.
"Drill Sergeant Sandfur Dunerunner," Riala acknowledged, coming to attention and saluting.
Amusement tugged at the corners of the drill sergeant's mouth, and he returned the salute. "Lieutenant Major Riala Goldentail," he returned. "At ease. Sentry duty again?"
Surprise flickered in Riala's gold-brown eyes as she relaxed her formal posture. Now this was interesting… *First he comes to the wall top instead of sending a messenger to bring me to his office or to bring me a message, and now it appears there's some sort of dossier on me. Hm…*
"Yessir," the squirrel said, finally answering the half-question, half-statement.
"I see…" Sandfur walked to the parapet and looked out over the frigid land surrounding Fort Ruddler. "You've been volunteering for sentry duty a lot. What for? It's generally viewed as a tedious job."
Riala was silent for a moment as she thought about it. She shrugged wiry shoulders, thinking she might as well be honest. "There's little else to do, sir," she answered, "and at least I'm making use of myself between missions and training rather than lazing about."
The hare's back was turned to her, so she couldn't' see his expression, but his voice gained a slight edge when he spoke again. "Somebeasts call that 'lazing about' socializing, Lieutenant Major," he said quietly. "Any idea why we give Infantry and Fleet so much free time? No?" He didn't wait for an answer, but plowed on in fine hare fashion. "It's because creatures who know each other fight better as a unit than those that are complete strangers. I've seen you when we drill. You're a good fighter, but you focus completely on your own battle and forget entirely about your allies. That could get somebeast killed. You, or somebeast alongside you who depends on you to guard their back. You need to learn to fight with otherbeasts, and so this mission I'm sending you out with Colonel Mackbry Taffellappen."
Riala whirled, a protest springing immediately into the frosty winter air. "What?" she yelped. "On a mission?"
"He's a good soldier, and he's successfully completed several missions as of yet. He's also worked with otherbeasts many times to complete those missions."
"I work best alone," the squirrel insisted. "Having another creature along will be distracting. He might even jeopardize the-"
"Lieutenant Major!" Sandfur's voice cracked like a whip. "This is part of your mission! I expect you to work together to complete it. The colonel has many talents and should prove an asset."
Riala's expression was stormy, and she was seething inwardly, but she remembered protocol nonetheless. "Yes, sir," she grated out.
The drill sergeant turned to face her, his expression softening slightly. "I know you were a wanderer before you came here, and so you're a loner. But you've joined our ranks. That makes you part of an army- part of a unit. You're no longer a single warrior. You're part of a larger body. A paw can't work cut off from the arm, and neither can a single soldier defeat a horde without an army. You have to learn to work with otherbeasts to accomplish your goals."
The hare pulled out a scroll and looked at Riala's still stubborn face. He smiled sadly and shook his head. "If you still want to work alone, then you may do better as a wanderer again. But if you change your mind, and want to be a soldier still…"
Riala looked away, and the rustling of paper reached her keen tufted ears. Pawsteps followed, fading into the howling wind. Finally the squirrel turned, her face dead of expression, shadowed gold-brown eyes fixed on the mission scroll on the stones. Her forest-shaded tunic rustled as one scarred, red-brown paw reached down and closed around the parchment.
* * *
She found Colonel Mackbry Taffellappen in the common room, sitting before a blazing fire. The squirrel's paws made little noise on the swept stone floor, but the long ears of hares were useful for more than conveying emotion. The graying colonel's left ear twitched as she entered the room, but he didn't turn from the warmth of the fire. "'Allo," he said, a casual greeting.
"Hello yourself, Mackbry," Riala returned dryly. *Why did I get paired with him?* She'd been foolish, that night in the tavern. Perhaps the mulled cider she'd been slowly, cautiously sipping had affected her slightly, loosened her tongue enough to tell the story of her dark past to two complete strangers. It was only that the mention of a wolverine had…
Something in her tone must have caught the older hare's attention, for he turned abruptly, gaze fixed on her. From the slight change in his expression as his eyes probed hers, she supposed the shadows of her past were darkening her gold-brown gaze yet again. "Wot is it, Riala?" he asked.
"I don't suppose you feel like going on a mission?" the squirrel said, answering his question with a partial one of her own.
Interest sparked in Mackbry's gaze. "A mission, y'say? On wot?"
Riala had read the scroll enough times to have it memorized. "Somebeast has been stealing weapons from the armory. We're supposed to find the thief and figure out why he or she's stealing stuff. If he's supplying a vermin army, we have to destroy the army, and we can take as many warriors as we need."
"Jolly intriguin' mission, I say!" Mackbry commented. "Wouldn't mind doin' it, m'self…" He broke off mid-sentence, checking himself as he remembered something. The hare gave Riala an odd, curious look. "Say, doncha normally work solo, m'gel?"
Smoldering irritation flared in Riala's eyes at the question. "I was told to take another creature with me," she said stiffly.
"Ohhh…" The word was long and drawn out, realization and sudden understanding packed into the short word. "Well, sounds jolly good t'me! When d'we start?"
Gold-brown eyes flicked to the window of the common room. The sky was shaded gold with the sun's last rays, and gathering clouds hinted at the promise of a storm. "Now, I'd say," Riala said quietly. "A smart creature would steal before a rainfall, so the wet would cover his tracks."
"Right!" Mackbry rose from his fire-warmed seat, joints crackling. He picked up his long spear and grinned at her. "Lead on, missy!"
* * *
Fort Ruddler's army was stocked mostly with arrows, javelins, and other missile weapons. Nearly everybeast at the fort had their own preferred weapon, such as Mackbry's dirk and spear and Riala's throwing club and dagger. However, most creatures could use a bow, sling, or javelin with some proficiency, and a fort could never have enough ammunition. But it wasn't just arrows that had gone missing. Weapons meant for trainees, some weapons made for new soldiers to have as their personal weapon when they decided which they preferred, and some donated weapons had all been stolen. Three times the thief had struck, and he or she had never been seen.
Riala crouched in the rafters, well hidden in the shadowed corner. Mackbry hid below, concealed beneath a cloth-covered table with a display of blades. Squirrel and hare waited with the trained patience of long experience. Their wait was not for nothing.
It was a flickering in her peripheral vision that caught Riala's eye. She remained absolutely still as a shadow as dark as the ones concealing the squirrel crept across the floor with ghostly silence. With the ease of much practice, the creature collected three quivers full of arrows and several small blades with barely the clink of steel on stone to betray him. Still silent, the shadow flowed back out the door. The well-oiled hinges didn't squeal at all as the door soundlessly closed.
Riala counted slowly to thirty before leaping to the ground. "Mack, come on," she whispered.
Cloth rustled as he pushed aside the table's covering, nose wrinkling, his long gray whiskers bristling in distaste. "I say, wot a rotten smell! Th' thievin' chap smelled worse'n an angry skunk!"
The squirrel sniffed the air, and her paw closed immediately on her short, thick throwing club- her roce. "Ferret," she growled. "I'd know that scent anywhere…" Not waiting for Mackbry's rejoinder, she slipped outside, gold-brown eyes intent on the ground and the light paw prints left in the soft earth.
"Wot I wants t'know," the hare said, catching up to her, "is why we didn't just attack th' rotter while he was still in th' bally armory."
"Captured prisoners can lead you astray," Riala replied in a quiet tone that showed she was only partially concentrating on the conversation. The rest of her attention was on the trail. "Besides, I doubt the higher- ups would want me to use torture to pry answers out the thief… Goodbeasts tend to frown on that sort of thing."
The paw steps beside her fell silent as the colonel stared at her in shock. "Y'd really use torture?"
"You see what I mean?" The squirrel's face may have been carved from stone for all the expression it showed. "I use whatever needs to be done to reach my goal. Even if it means using methods normally frowned upon."
"But… doesn't that make y'as bad as a vermin rotter?"
Her eyes turned flat and cold as she continued following the trail. "Perhaps. But I do not go back on my word. I do not enslave otherbeasts. I do not kill young ones or weaponless creatures. But I don't have mercy on those who do." That chilling gold-brown gaze rose from the tracks on the ground to Mackbry's uncertain face. "Does that make me stronger than the vermin I fight, or just as immoral?"
She stopped, not waiting for an answer as they reached the wall. There was a shallow gap between the bottom of the wall and the ground, though not enough for anybeast to get through. Frowning, the squirrel walked towards the gap. Her paws thudded against hollow earth. She knelt by the ground and brushed away dirt to reveal a wooden plank over a tunnel. "So that's how it was done…"
Riala pushed aside the wood and jumped into the hole with her dagger in one paw. She waited in still silence as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, revealing an empty tunnel. "Mack, it's clear," she called softly to the hare above. Dirt cascaded down as he jumped in after her, coughing as dust clouded his lungs.
"Bally dark in here, wot?" he commented once the coughing fit subsided. Silence was his only answer. "Bloody treejumper," he muttered in feigned irritation, hurrying to catch up with the squirrel.
* * *
The tracks were much more clear outside he fort, and the two creatures made good time. They stayed hidden as they trailed the thief, and from time to time caught a glimpse of a sinuous, shadowy form, and moonlight glinting off a naked blade. The thief made his way into the forest, taking a twisting, turning trail barely noticeable if one wasn't looking very hard.
"I'm going to follow from the treetops," Riala murmured to Mackbry. "You keep tracking. If you don't keep up, though, I'm not waiting for you, so don't fall behind." With those brusque words, the squirrel raced up the nearest tree trunk with the faintest scraping of claws on bark.
She stayed as silent as she could while running from limb to limb, her slight weight causing branches to brush each other with a faint clacking noise. Fortunately the wind was brisk, and covered the sound of her movement. The ferret below never saw his pursuer.
Riala trailed the thief to a dense glade, with vines and tree trunks so close together that it was almost impossible to slip between them. The interwoven formed a veritable cage, but walking on them was as easy as moving across the ground. The squirrel crouched over a gap in the limbs, watching the ferret silently.
She could see the thief was female now that she got a good look. She was completely gray, almost black, the color of shadow. Her form-fitting clothes were the same color, mottled with various shades of gray, and they made no sound as she dumped her stolen goods on the ground and let out a high-pitched, chattering call.
From the brush, from the ground, from within the trees themselves came dark forms the same shade as the thief. They were all ferrets, each as silent and stealthy and fluid of motion as the first. Riala recognized the wiry bodies, flowing grace, and electric readiness of expert warriors. These ferrets were dangerous.
"I have morrre weaponsss," the first hissed, voice rasping and chilling. "Therrre isss not much morrrre of use to usss."
"Fortbeastsss not foolisssh," another rasped. "None sssee you yet?"
"Fourrr timesss I go," the thief replied, "fourrr times no one sssee. I sssilent. I am ssshadow."
"Ssshadows moving are sssuspect. I believe you followed…"
That strange chattering cry rang in Riala's ears, and she whirled about, weapons in paw – but too late. A spear pricked her throat. "Move not," the black-gray ferret hissed.
A scrabbling of paws on the vine-circled tree trunks warned of approaching ferrets. Now Riala realized that the branches had been woven. Not by nature, but by dark paws. Ferret paws. But by the fur, she was not going to be captured by foul-smelling ferrets! Without warning, she fell on her back. The ferret thrust with the spear at her sudden motion, but the point flew over her head, and the ferret lost balance. Riala slashed upwards with her dagger and then ran as she felt blood splash onto her fur.
She took the climbing ferrets by surprise when she raced down through their midst, dagger flashing as it sliced through gray-black fur. But they recovered quickly. Fire flashed through Riala's leg as a dirk sliced deep into muscle. She lost her balance for a split second, and then a cudgel cracked across her chest, knocking the wind out of her and sending her flying off of the trunk.
"Gotcha!"
Her fall was broken by fur, and she was enclosed in a firm grip. Mackbry. The squirrel jumped to the ground and took up two bows and two quivers of arrows, still in the pile the thief had placed them in. She hissed in pain as she put weight on her injured leg, but forced it from her mind.
"D'ye ken how tae shoot?" the squirrel shouted to Mackbry, her normally faint northern accent becoming more marked with the tension.
"Aye, but can y'run on that bally hoof?" the hare returned, scooping up a quiver and accepting the bow she offered. He fired an arrow into the oncoming ferrets, face grim as his target fell back with a yell.
"It be naught," Riala answered. "Run!"
They fled before the rush of shadow-furred ferrets, stopping within bowshot of the glade, sheltered by a single boulder in the midst of the forest. Wincing, the squirrel lowered herself to the ground, leaning over the rock. Her tunic was stained dark with both vermin blood and her own. "Make a fire," she told the hare. "There be tools in mae belt pouch. I shall hold yon ferrets off." She nocked an arrow to the bow's string, sighted along the shaft, and let fly. A scream met her shot. Smiling grimly, she pulled another from the quiver.
"Y'mean t'use fire on 'em!" the colonel exclaimed, shocked.
"Aye, an' what else would ye have mae do?" Riala snapped, firing again and hitting her mark. "Two o' use an' a full score o' them. We've noo that many arrows, e'en if each strikes its mark, ye ken. An' I canna run noo more on m'leg, nor find wood for th' fire."
Mackbry stood in silence as she fired off a third arrow and missed. Finally he nodded in reluctant agreement and began a search for wood.
Several minutes later, the hare had a small fire blazing behind the boulder, and Riala's first quiver was empty. She had missed as many as she'd hit. The shadow-colored ferrets were virtually impossible to see in the ever-dimming light, let alone hit. If there wasn't a full moon peeking through the stormy clouds, Riala doubted she'd have hit anybeast.
"Maybe you can do better than me," the squirrel told the colonel, her accent subsiding with the adrenaline rush. She tried to stand, but putting weight on her wounded leg combined with the sudden lightheadedness of blood loss caused her to grimace and collapse.
"Riala!" Mackbry knelt beside her, his attention drawn to the fresh stains of blood on her leg. "Why didn't y'bind this afore shootin' ferrets?" he exclaimed.
"It's nothing," Riala hissed past the pain. "Start shooting. The ferrets will get here if you don't, and then I'll be worse off than just wounded."
The hare glared at her, but recognized the truth of her words. He turned and nocked an arrow to his bow and fired. Over the scream of a dying ferret, he spoke over his shoulder with a voice tight with anger. "Y'fool squirrel! I 'aven't pulled rank yet, y'know, 'cos y'r leadin' this mission, but I'm goin' ter make an exception 'ere! I order y'ter bind that leg of yours afore anythin' else!"
Riala grimaced, knowing he was right. Wordlessly she tore off a strip of her tunic and tightly bandaged the deep cut on her leg. It would do until they got back to the fort- if they got back. That done, she took the quiver Mackbry wasn't using and packed dead, dry grasses around each arrowhead.
The grasses caught fire easily, and the squirrel quickly put arrow to string and let loose. It caught flame in the dry underbrush of the glade, and she reached for another arrow. Ferrets who had been running towards the boulder turned and raced back to their glade in a desperate attempt to save it, but they were too few and too late. Riala shot another fire arrow in an entirely different area of the bone-dry glade, and then another. When the whole quiver was empty, the glade was burning quite well… along with its occupants.
Mackbry turned away from the sight, his expression sickened. "Wot if it gets out o' control?" he asked quietly. "Burns down th' forest?"
"It won't matter," the squirrel replied, pointing upwards. The storm clouds were thick and dark. Rain was only minutes away.
"An' if it's too flippin' cold t'rain?" he asked. "Ice'r snow won't do much good, y'know."
"It's not too cold," Riala said, the fire reflected in her gold-brown eyes. She turned towards Fort Ruddler, her face shadowed with a troubled expression. "And besides… it was the only thing we could do…"
As Mack helped Riala limp back to the fort, the first drops of winter- chilled rain began to fall, hissing on the fire that consumed the glade and the black-gray ferrets within.
Fort Ruddler Mission
It was a cold, snowy day in Fort Ruddler when Riala Goldentail received her orders. The red-brown squirrel had been standing on the wall top, exposed to the chill wind and yet taking little note of it. She'd been raised in a climate just as harsh, and had been volunteering for sentry duty for some time now. It wasn't as if there was much else to do… When not on missions, a battle, or training, there was little else Fort Ruddler soldiers did but chat or feast.
Riala never was much of a talker.
The whisper of paws on stone caused the squirrel to turn quickly, and her rust-gold tail flicked sideways in mild surprise at the sight of a young hair in a light-blue, white-trimmed tunic. Her shift wasn't finished yet, though she didn't think this hare was up here to take sentry duty.
"Drill Sergeant Sandfur Dunerunner," Riala acknowledged, coming to attention and saluting.
Amusement tugged at the corners of the drill sergeant's mouth, and he returned the salute. "Lieutenant Major Riala Goldentail," he returned. "At ease. Sentry duty again?"
Surprise flickered in Riala's gold-brown eyes as she relaxed her formal posture. Now this was interesting… *First he comes to the wall top instead of sending a messenger to bring me to his office or to bring me a message, and now it appears there's some sort of dossier on me. Hm…*
"Yessir," the squirrel said, finally answering the half-question, half-statement.
"I see…" Sandfur walked to the parapet and looked out over the frigid land surrounding Fort Ruddler. "You've been volunteering for sentry duty a lot. What for? It's generally viewed as a tedious job."
Riala was silent for a moment as she thought about it. She shrugged wiry shoulders, thinking she might as well be honest. "There's little else to do, sir," she answered, "and at least I'm making use of myself between missions and training rather than lazing about."
The hare's back was turned to her, so she couldn't' see his expression, but his voice gained a slight edge when he spoke again. "Somebeasts call that 'lazing about' socializing, Lieutenant Major," he said quietly. "Any idea why we give Infantry and Fleet so much free time? No?" He didn't wait for an answer, but plowed on in fine hare fashion. "It's because creatures who know each other fight better as a unit than those that are complete strangers. I've seen you when we drill. You're a good fighter, but you focus completely on your own battle and forget entirely about your allies. That could get somebeast killed. You, or somebeast alongside you who depends on you to guard their back. You need to learn to fight with otherbeasts, and so this mission I'm sending you out with Colonel Mackbry Taffellappen."
Riala whirled, a protest springing immediately into the frosty winter air. "What?" she yelped. "On a mission?"
"He's a good soldier, and he's successfully completed several missions as of yet. He's also worked with otherbeasts many times to complete those missions."
"I work best alone," the squirrel insisted. "Having another creature along will be distracting. He might even jeopardize the-"
"Lieutenant Major!" Sandfur's voice cracked like a whip. "This is part of your mission! I expect you to work together to complete it. The colonel has many talents and should prove an asset."
Riala's expression was stormy, and she was seething inwardly, but she remembered protocol nonetheless. "Yes, sir," she grated out.
The drill sergeant turned to face her, his expression softening slightly. "I know you were a wanderer before you came here, and so you're a loner. But you've joined our ranks. That makes you part of an army- part of a unit. You're no longer a single warrior. You're part of a larger body. A paw can't work cut off from the arm, and neither can a single soldier defeat a horde without an army. You have to learn to work with otherbeasts to accomplish your goals."
The hare pulled out a scroll and looked at Riala's still stubborn face. He smiled sadly and shook his head. "If you still want to work alone, then you may do better as a wanderer again. But if you change your mind, and want to be a soldier still…"
Riala looked away, and the rustling of paper reached her keen tufted ears. Pawsteps followed, fading into the howling wind. Finally the squirrel turned, her face dead of expression, shadowed gold-brown eyes fixed on the mission scroll on the stones. Her forest-shaded tunic rustled as one scarred, red-brown paw reached down and closed around the parchment.
* * *
She found Colonel Mackbry Taffellappen in the common room, sitting before a blazing fire. The squirrel's paws made little noise on the swept stone floor, but the long ears of hares were useful for more than conveying emotion. The graying colonel's left ear twitched as she entered the room, but he didn't turn from the warmth of the fire. "'Allo," he said, a casual greeting.
"Hello yourself, Mackbry," Riala returned dryly. *Why did I get paired with him?* She'd been foolish, that night in the tavern. Perhaps the mulled cider she'd been slowly, cautiously sipping had affected her slightly, loosened her tongue enough to tell the story of her dark past to two complete strangers. It was only that the mention of a wolverine had…
Something in her tone must have caught the older hare's attention, for he turned abruptly, gaze fixed on her. From the slight change in his expression as his eyes probed hers, she supposed the shadows of her past were darkening her gold-brown gaze yet again. "Wot is it, Riala?" he asked.
"I don't suppose you feel like going on a mission?" the squirrel said, answering his question with a partial one of her own.
Interest sparked in Mackbry's gaze. "A mission, y'say? On wot?"
Riala had read the scroll enough times to have it memorized. "Somebeast has been stealing weapons from the armory. We're supposed to find the thief and figure out why he or she's stealing stuff. If he's supplying a vermin army, we have to destroy the army, and we can take as many warriors as we need."
"Jolly intriguin' mission, I say!" Mackbry commented. "Wouldn't mind doin' it, m'self…" He broke off mid-sentence, checking himself as he remembered something. The hare gave Riala an odd, curious look. "Say, doncha normally work solo, m'gel?"
Smoldering irritation flared in Riala's eyes at the question. "I was told to take another creature with me," she said stiffly.
"Ohhh…" The word was long and drawn out, realization and sudden understanding packed into the short word. "Well, sounds jolly good t'me! When d'we start?"
Gold-brown eyes flicked to the window of the common room. The sky was shaded gold with the sun's last rays, and gathering clouds hinted at the promise of a storm. "Now, I'd say," Riala said quietly. "A smart creature would steal before a rainfall, so the wet would cover his tracks."
"Right!" Mackbry rose from his fire-warmed seat, joints crackling. He picked up his long spear and grinned at her. "Lead on, missy!"
* * *
Fort Ruddler's army was stocked mostly with arrows, javelins, and other missile weapons. Nearly everybeast at the fort had their own preferred weapon, such as Mackbry's dirk and spear and Riala's throwing club and dagger. However, most creatures could use a bow, sling, or javelin with some proficiency, and a fort could never have enough ammunition. But it wasn't just arrows that had gone missing. Weapons meant for trainees, some weapons made for new soldiers to have as their personal weapon when they decided which they preferred, and some donated weapons had all been stolen. Three times the thief had struck, and he or she had never been seen.
Riala crouched in the rafters, well hidden in the shadowed corner. Mackbry hid below, concealed beneath a cloth-covered table with a display of blades. Squirrel and hare waited with the trained patience of long experience. Their wait was not for nothing.
It was a flickering in her peripheral vision that caught Riala's eye. She remained absolutely still as a shadow as dark as the ones concealing the squirrel crept across the floor with ghostly silence. With the ease of much practice, the creature collected three quivers full of arrows and several small blades with barely the clink of steel on stone to betray him. Still silent, the shadow flowed back out the door. The well-oiled hinges didn't squeal at all as the door soundlessly closed.
Riala counted slowly to thirty before leaping to the ground. "Mack, come on," she whispered.
Cloth rustled as he pushed aside the table's covering, nose wrinkling, his long gray whiskers bristling in distaste. "I say, wot a rotten smell! Th' thievin' chap smelled worse'n an angry skunk!"
The squirrel sniffed the air, and her paw closed immediately on her short, thick throwing club- her roce. "Ferret," she growled. "I'd know that scent anywhere…" Not waiting for Mackbry's rejoinder, she slipped outside, gold-brown eyes intent on the ground and the light paw prints left in the soft earth.
"Wot I wants t'know," the hare said, catching up to her, "is why we didn't just attack th' rotter while he was still in th' bally armory."
"Captured prisoners can lead you astray," Riala replied in a quiet tone that showed she was only partially concentrating on the conversation. The rest of her attention was on the trail. "Besides, I doubt the higher- ups would want me to use torture to pry answers out the thief… Goodbeasts tend to frown on that sort of thing."
The paw steps beside her fell silent as the colonel stared at her in shock. "Y'd really use torture?"
"You see what I mean?" The squirrel's face may have been carved from stone for all the expression it showed. "I use whatever needs to be done to reach my goal. Even if it means using methods normally frowned upon."
"But… doesn't that make y'as bad as a vermin rotter?"
Her eyes turned flat and cold as she continued following the trail. "Perhaps. But I do not go back on my word. I do not enslave otherbeasts. I do not kill young ones or weaponless creatures. But I don't have mercy on those who do." That chilling gold-brown gaze rose from the tracks on the ground to Mackbry's uncertain face. "Does that make me stronger than the vermin I fight, or just as immoral?"
She stopped, not waiting for an answer as they reached the wall. There was a shallow gap between the bottom of the wall and the ground, though not enough for anybeast to get through. Frowning, the squirrel walked towards the gap. Her paws thudded against hollow earth. She knelt by the ground and brushed away dirt to reveal a wooden plank over a tunnel. "So that's how it was done…"
Riala pushed aside the wood and jumped into the hole with her dagger in one paw. She waited in still silence as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, revealing an empty tunnel. "Mack, it's clear," she called softly to the hare above. Dirt cascaded down as he jumped in after her, coughing as dust clouded his lungs.
"Bally dark in here, wot?" he commented once the coughing fit subsided. Silence was his only answer. "Bloody treejumper," he muttered in feigned irritation, hurrying to catch up with the squirrel.
* * *
The tracks were much more clear outside he fort, and the two creatures made good time. They stayed hidden as they trailed the thief, and from time to time caught a glimpse of a sinuous, shadowy form, and moonlight glinting off a naked blade. The thief made his way into the forest, taking a twisting, turning trail barely noticeable if one wasn't looking very hard.
"I'm going to follow from the treetops," Riala murmured to Mackbry. "You keep tracking. If you don't keep up, though, I'm not waiting for you, so don't fall behind." With those brusque words, the squirrel raced up the nearest tree trunk with the faintest scraping of claws on bark.
She stayed as silent as she could while running from limb to limb, her slight weight causing branches to brush each other with a faint clacking noise. Fortunately the wind was brisk, and covered the sound of her movement. The ferret below never saw his pursuer.
Riala trailed the thief to a dense glade, with vines and tree trunks so close together that it was almost impossible to slip between them. The interwoven formed a veritable cage, but walking on them was as easy as moving across the ground. The squirrel crouched over a gap in the limbs, watching the ferret silently.
She could see the thief was female now that she got a good look. She was completely gray, almost black, the color of shadow. Her form-fitting clothes were the same color, mottled with various shades of gray, and they made no sound as she dumped her stolen goods on the ground and let out a high-pitched, chattering call.
From the brush, from the ground, from within the trees themselves came dark forms the same shade as the thief. They were all ferrets, each as silent and stealthy and fluid of motion as the first. Riala recognized the wiry bodies, flowing grace, and electric readiness of expert warriors. These ferrets were dangerous.
"I have morrre weaponsss," the first hissed, voice rasping and chilling. "Therrre isss not much morrrre of use to usss."
"Fortbeastsss not foolisssh," another rasped. "None sssee you yet?"
"Fourrr timesss I go," the thief replied, "fourrr times no one sssee. I sssilent. I am ssshadow."
"Ssshadows moving are sssuspect. I believe you followed…"
That strange chattering cry rang in Riala's ears, and she whirled about, weapons in paw – but too late. A spear pricked her throat. "Move not," the black-gray ferret hissed.
A scrabbling of paws on the vine-circled tree trunks warned of approaching ferrets. Now Riala realized that the branches had been woven. Not by nature, but by dark paws. Ferret paws. But by the fur, she was not going to be captured by foul-smelling ferrets! Without warning, she fell on her back. The ferret thrust with the spear at her sudden motion, but the point flew over her head, and the ferret lost balance. Riala slashed upwards with her dagger and then ran as she felt blood splash onto her fur.
She took the climbing ferrets by surprise when she raced down through their midst, dagger flashing as it sliced through gray-black fur. But they recovered quickly. Fire flashed through Riala's leg as a dirk sliced deep into muscle. She lost her balance for a split second, and then a cudgel cracked across her chest, knocking the wind out of her and sending her flying off of the trunk.
"Gotcha!"
Her fall was broken by fur, and she was enclosed in a firm grip. Mackbry. The squirrel jumped to the ground and took up two bows and two quivers of arrows, still in the pile the thief had placed them in. She hissed in pain as she put weight on her injured leg, but forced it from her mind.
"D'ye ken how tae shoot?" the squirrel shouted to Mackbry, her normally faint northern accent becoming more marked with the tension.
"Aye, but can y'run on that bally hoof?" the hare returned, scooping up a quiver and accepting the bow she offered. He fired an arrow into the oncoming ferrets, face grim as his target fell back with a yell.
"It be naught," Riala answered. "Run!"
They fled before the rush of shadow-furred ferrets, stopping within bowshot of the glade, sheltered by a single boulder in the midst of the forest. Wincing, the squirrel lowered herself to the ground, leaning over the rock. Her tunic was stained dark with both vermin blood and her own. "Make a fire," she told the hare. "There be tools in mae belt pouch. I shall hold yon ferrets off." She nocked an arrow to the bow's string, sighted along the shaft, and let fly. A scream met her shot. Smiling grimly, she pulled another from the quiver.
"Y'mean t'use fire on 'em!" the colonel exclaimed, shocked.
"Aye, an' what else would ye have mae do?" Riala snapped, firing again and hitting her mark. "Two o' use an' a full score o' them. We've noo that many arrows, e'en if each strikes its mark, ye ken. An' I canna run noo more on m'leg, nor find wood for th' fire."
Mackbry stood in silence as she fired off a third arrow and missed. Finally he nodded in reluctant agreement and began a search for wood.
Several minutes later, the hare had a small fire blazing behind the boulder, and Riala's first quiver was empty. She had missed as many as she'd hit. The shadow-colored ferrets were virtually impossible to see in the ever-dimming light, let alone hit. If there wasn't a full moon peeking through the stormy clouds, Riala doubted she'd have hit anybeast.
"Maybe you can do better than me," the squirrel told the colonel, her accent subsiding with the adrenaline rush. She tried to stand, but putting weight on her wounded leg combined with the sudden lightheadedness of blood loss caused her to grimace and collapse.
"Riala!" Mackbry knelt beside her, his attention drawn to the fresh stains of blood on her leg. "Why didn't y'bind this afore shootin' ferrets?" he exclaimed.
"It's nothing," Riala hissed past the pain. "Start shooting. The ferrets will get here if you don't, and then I'll be worse off than just wounded."
The hare glared at her, but recognized the truth of her words. He turned and nocked an arrow to his bow and fired. Over the scream of a dying ferret, he spoke over his shoulder with a voice tight with anger. "Y'fool squirrel! I 'aven't pulled rank yet, y'know, 'cos y'r leadin' this mission, but I'm goin' ter make an exception 'ere! I order y'ter bind that leg of yours afore anythin' else!"
Riala grimaced, knowing he was right. Wordlessly she tore off a strip of her tunic and tightly bandaged the deep cut on her leg. It would do until they got back to the fort- if they got back. That done, she took the quiver Mackbry wasn't using and packed dead, dry grasses around each arrowhead.
The grasses caught fire easily, and the squirrel quickly put arrow to string and let loose. It caught flame in the dry underbrush of the glade, and she reached for another arrow. Ferrets who had been running towards the boulder turned and raced back to their glade in a desperate attempt to save it, but they were too few and too late. Riala shot another fire arrow in an entirely different area of the bone-dry glade, and then another. When the whole quiver was empty, the glade was burning quite well… along with its occupants.
Mackbry turned away from the sight, his expression sickened. "Wot if it gets out o' control?" he asked quietly. "Burns down th' forest?"
"It won't matter," the squirrel replied, pointing upwards. The storm clouds were thick and dark. Rain was only minutes away.
"An' if it's too flippin' cold t'rain?" he asked. "Ice'r snow won't do much good, y'know."
"It's not too cold," Riala said, the fire reflected in her gold-brown eyes. She turned towards Fort Ruddler, her face shadowed with a troubled expression. "And besides… it was the only thing we could do…"
As Mack helped Riala limp back to the fort, the first drops of winter- chilled rain began to fall, hissing on the fire that consumed the glade and the black-gray ferrets within.
