Underground Slavers

Fort Ruddler Mission

Footpaws padded on cold stone, claws tapping lightly on the worn floors of the winding tunnel. The soft pawsteps stopped as the squirrel who caused them slowed to a halt. A rust-gold tailbrush flicked away a cobweb in the darkness of the dimly lit caverns, and then resumed its restless, erratic lashing of the cool underground air. Gold-brown eyes reflected a distant torchlight, narrowed as the creature that bore the flame drew closer still. As silent as the shadows cast by that flickering light, the squirrel stepped lightly and quickly into a sheltered side tunnel, watching with wary eyes as the nimbus of revealing light reached her hiding place.

Her paw shot out without warning, drawing the creature into the tunnel with surprising force. One scarred paw clamped down on the otherbeast's muzzle, the other slamming the torch flame into the ground, extinguishing it in a single movement. The musky scent permeating the air made it clear that the torch-bearer was a ferret.

"Stop struggling!" the squirrel hissed, gripping the ferret's snout tighter.

The otherbeast's frantic attempts to get free ceased abruptly at the sound of his captor's voice. "Goldentail?" he whispered.

"Aye. What news?" Riala Goldentail released her captive and waited, invisible in the thick shadows.

"The ruse is workin' – so far, anyhow," the ferret reported. "Nobeast's noticed a few extra slaves 'cept th' slaves themselves, an' those posin' as slaves claim t' be new caught. Usn's pretendin' t'be slaver guards're doin' all right, 'cept when we has t'do o'erseer duties. Th' lurkers like y'self 'aven't been discov'red yet, not so far as I've heard."

The squirrel nodded slowly, digesting the information. "Anybeast able to get close to Kerno yet?"

"Nay, not yet," the ferret said ruefully. "He don't trust many. Don't e'en go near the slaves, jes' stays out of range of e'en rocks bein' thrown when 'e comes t' watch or sell."

"We'll have to fix that, then…" Riala ran a calloused paw along the worn stick in her belt, thinking hard. "I may have a plan. Is there anybeast of ours who's gained much rank or respect yet?"

"Shairil. She'd been born in a group like this'n an' knows what t'do t'get respect."

The squirrel turned the name over in her mind, trying to match it with a face. "Shairil… The weasel fem, right?"

"That's th' one," the ferret agreed.

"Trustworthy?" A nod was her answer, sure and unhesitating. "Get word to her. Tell her I'll be in tunnel nine all night, and to meet me there when she can."

A shrill whistle resounded through the caverns, piercing the air three ear-splitting times. "That's th' change of guard," Riala's informer whispered hastily. "'Luck, Lieutenant Gen'ral." With a quick salute barely visible in the dim light, the ferret hurried from the dark side tunnel and back to the main one.

Riala waited, listening as footsteps and the clink of weapons and armor announced the passing of vermin going to and from the slave pit, some returning from guard duty, others going to it. She crept down the side tunnel on velvet paws, away from the hustle-and-bustle of the main caverns, her mind churning.

It had been a full season since she'd first stepped into this maze of underground tunnels, found quite by accident by herself and two hares, Mackbry Taffellappen and Teltoli Riverbuck. They had been looking for several dibbuns and elderbeasts that had gone missing while on a picnic, when they fell through the soft earth into an icy river far beneath the ground. Riala had been knocked unconscious by the fall and captured by the slavers that resided within the tunnels. It turned out that this was no ordinary band of slavers, but a veritable army, separated into smaller groups that scoured the Northlands for slaves. It was here that the slaves were gathered and exercised by moving large stones and small boulders from one pile of rocks to another before they could be sold. When they weren't working, they were kept in a deep pit, heavily guarded by vermin.

With the help of an escaped slave named Birnen, Mackbry and Teltoli were able to free Riala and the picnickers from Fort Ruddler that they'd been searching for, but they were unable to do more than that. Once back at the fort, however, Birnen was persuaded to draw a detailed map of the labyrinth and all its secret passages that he knew so well. Gradually a plan had been put into action, and Riala had inserted herself into the thick of things, determined to repay the leader of this slave trade, the weasel Kerno, for her stay in his slave pit.

Little by little, Kerno's forces had been infiltrated by Fort Ruddler. Those few fortbeasts that were stereotypically vermin species came a few at a time to "join" the weasel's slavers, gathering information, gaining trust and allies, spreading rumors and causing general division within the ranks of vermin. Otherbeasts, such as Riala, lurked in the shadows, using their knowledge of the tunnels to avoid slaver guards. And in the past few weeks, others had begun to pose as slaves, gleaning information almost more than any. Nobeast noticed slaves, and so talked freely while being waited on by a closely listening, apparently subservient slavebeast.

Riala thought of Birnen's map, examining it in her memory. Each tunnel had been either numbered or named for reference when sending messages along the vine of spies. Tunnel nine hardly deserved the name. It was little more than a narrow connecting passage, deep within the labyrinth and never used by the slavers. Rumor stated that the area tunnel nine was in held ghosts, vengeful and terrible, and the superstitious vermin believed in those ghosts with whole-hearted fear. It was a rumor begun by the creatures of Fort Ruddler, and a useful one.

The squirrel padded quietly into tunnel nine, flattening herself into a nook near the passage entrance. Her gray-black tunic, replacing her usual forest-hued one, helped her to blend into the inky shadows. A cloak of the same shade secured around her shoulders aided in the deception, covering tufted ears, distinctive bushy tail, and throwing her features into indecipherable black. She leaned her head against one cool stone and closed her eyes, drifting off into a feather-light state of sleep.

Pawsteps pulled her out of her nap, gold-brown eyes flying open, one paw closing around her dagger hilt. Riala immediately let out a high, ghostly chitter, one that echoed down the tunnel, rock distorting the sound so that it seemed to come from all directions and none. An unearthly hiss answered the call, and the squirrel relaxed minutely. It was a fortbeast, not a slaver braving the "haunted" tunnels.

Her nose twitched at the rank scent of weasel. "Shairil," she called softly.

"I am here," was the calm reply. "Why did you have me come?"

"I've a plan to end this for good." Quickly, wasting neither time nor words, the squirrel outlined her idea. "I'm going to pose as a slave. When you seem me in the quarry while Kerno's there, position yourself near him. I'll attack the slaver – you stop me. Use whatever force you need, but stop me. I won't go down easily," Riala warned. "It will have to be real in order to look real. Hopefully that'll earn you some big points with Kerno, maybe convince him to let you into his little council of slavers."

"You could get killed for it," Shairil pointed out, her voice as emotionless and businesslike as the squirrel's.

"Perhaps, but perhaps not. Hand me over to a guard, preferably one of ours. I'll escape, and there should be enough confusion to cover me. You work on earning Kerno's trust and respect however you can." She emphasized those three last words carefully, hoping that the weasel fem understood and would comply.

Clothing rustled in the dark as Shairil shifted, perhaps nodded. "And then?"

"You'll get word from one of ours. Do this first."

Silence from the tunnel's entrance, and finally the Fort Ruddler weasel spoke. "Seasons bless, Goldentail."

"Aye, to you too. We'll all need whatever help we can get," Riala returned grimly, and then fading pawsteps told of Shairil's departure.

Riala Goldentail sat in one corner of the slave pit, gold-brown eyes narrowed, muscles tensed, fury boiling behind her shadowed gaze. She'd seen the slaves working before, even been in the pit before, but never had she been forced to just sit and do nothing. To merely watch the crying young ones, the blank-faced elders, the deadened eyes of broken slaves… There were those whose spirits blazed within them like a torch, those with hatred in their eyes, a will still strong and a spirit still uncrushed. These last she understood and viewed with grim respect. But how long would it take until they were broken? How long until they were nothing more than the soulless bodies that moved uncaring to wherever they were directed? And the others… even if they were freed, could they ever be healed in body, mind, and spirit?

I'm not cut out for this, the squirrel thought. I can't just sit here and watch! I want to fight, to kill the vermin scum who have done this, to- No, she told herself firmly. You're doing something. You're fighting. It's just not what you're used to…

Cutting through the despair that shadowed the slaves sounded a clear note, achingly pure, seemingly alien to this dark place. The sound hovered in the air for a single golden moment, and then cascaded down the scale. The thread of sound flowed softly upwards in pitch, and then down, a song of sorrow and of grief, one that could cause the stones to weep. The melancholy tune mirrored the despairing mood in the pit, but then subtly changed to make it less despair and more sorrow for innocence lost, love lost, life lost. Slowly it built in volume and rose in pitch, a lame eagle discovering that it had wings, that the loss of legs was only a push through a doorway to greater things… to soar. Swooping down the scale, climbing back up with effortless ease, letting the dreaming spirits of everybeast listening to carry the tune like rising thermals, piercing the stormy clouds to burst into the sun, a clear high note, vibrating in the air, leaving all who listened waiting for more life-giving melody.

Ending- but with the promise of more to come, the hint of life still waiting to continue on, the hope of freedom.

Riala stared at the slaves around her. Where she'd thought no soul existed was now a flicker of life in once-dulled eyes. Dibbuns had ceased their frightened wails. Elderbeasts smiled slightly, eyes closed, remembering long-ago memories. Even the vermin guards seemed at peace, far- off looks on their faces as they contemplated some light within the darkness of their past.

The squirrel rose from her seat and walked slowly through the crowded pit, towards the source of the music. She didn't know what manner of creature she was expecting to find. It certainly wasn't a young field mouse, barely older than a dibun, eyes closed, a contented smile on her black-brown face. She held what looked like a clay pendant in one delicate paw, strung on a cord about her neck.

"Hello, little one," Riala said softly, kneeling beside the mouse child.

The field mouse's black button eyes opened, regarding her curiously. She put her pendant to her mouth shyly and arranged her paws on the four holes on top of it, and then piped three clear notes. They sounded almost like a greeting, cheerful and welcoming.

There was a slightly older hedgehog with salt-and-pepper colored quills sitting beside the young mouse. She looked at Riala with a smile. "She doesn't talk," the hogmaid explained, unasked. "Just plays her oc-ar-i- na." She sounded out the word carefully, but with respect. "We calls her Hope, seein' as we doesn't know her real name. I'm Pepperquill," she added as an afterthought.

"Hope…" The squirrel watched the mouselet closely, remembering the earlier melody. "A fitting name." She looked at the round, russet-brown pendant that the mouse child still held. A clear blue stone, though no jewel Riala had ever seen, rested in the center of a symmetrical flower design. "Is that the … ocarina, did you say?"

Pepperquill nodded, happy to talk to somebeast. "Yup! It's purty! See, it gots four holes in th' top, an' one in th' side, where ya blow in, an' two on th' bottom. One's just f'r sound t'come out, an' t'other's s'posed t'be covered most of th' time," she explained.

"Thank you, Pepperquill," the squirrel said to the hogmaid, smiling despite herself at the irrepressible youngster. Smiling… Not something she did very often. She looked curiously at Hope, wondering at the effects of the youngling's music. "You're very good with that," she told the mouse.

Hope returned her curious gaze with an intense, puzzled one of her own. It seemed to go straight through all the shields, walls, and layers Riala had built around herself, straight to the very heart of her being, to the innermost protected part of her. She tilted her head, questioning, and then blew into her ocarina. This time her song held a note of panic, meandering about, whirling through a confusing maze as if pursued by a nameless fear… and then stopping at a last note, pitched high like the end of a question.

"She wants t'know why y'r hidin'," Pepper said, translating. "She does this lots. Wants t'know things 'bout people an' she's only just met 'em. I think she c'n read hearts," the hogmaid confided.

"Why I'm… hiding?" Riala stared at the mouse child in shock, the tune having affected her in ways she could hardly comprehend, the question holding a ring of truth that she didn't want to think about. "But I'm not hiding from anything…"

Hope shook her head in something very close to exasperation, piping again, the tune drawing pictures in Riala's mind. It began with melancholy minors, cut short by a jarring blast of angry notes, sharp and disharmonious. The tune flowed into a rising chromatic scale, a burning and smoldering hatred building like a while. And then that meandering tune again, panicked and lost, running from an unseen foe.

"She says you're – sad… angry… uhm…" Pepper faltered and glared with mock ire at Hope. "It's so confusing, Hope! I can't figure it out!"

"That's okay, Pepperquill," the squirrel said, her normally emotionless voice strangely soft. Gold-brown eyes held pain as she withdrew into herself, the mouselet's tune bringing forth long-buried memories. She understood what Hope was telling her, that she was lost in a maze of walls meant to protect, hiding behind grief and rage and hate. Somehow this little mouse had reached deep into the very heart of her and seen past the masks, the façades, the lies- straight to the all-too-simple truth.

Riala looked away, breaking eye contact with that dark, wise, intense gaze that saw far too much. "I lost somebeasts close to me," she explained slowly, quietly. "They were killed by vermin, but… I got my revenge."

Hope's eyes held a sympathizing sadness, an intense grief of her own. Another grieving melody trickled from the ocarina, yet untainted by hate as Riala's was. "Hope's mommy an' daddy was slaves here, once," Pepperquill explained. "But they's been solded, mebbe deadbeasts now…" The melody stopped, and the field mouse watched the squirrel closely before playing again, this time an angry song of hate and fury, unforgiving and unforgetting, ending with a question's pitch. "An' now she wants t'know ifn' y''killed th' vermin, why're you still mad?"

The squirrel watched an ant climb over her paw, laboring to the top of the scarred mountain, needless toil when it could just go around. "Because that's all I know," she answered finally. "Because I can't stop…" Riala scowled, suddenly angry at herself for revealing so much, pushing away the memories and thoughts and emotions that had been coaxed to the fore by the little mouse's melody. "I don't have time for this." Her voice was toneless, brusque, and she stood with one quick and savage movement. Not trusting her mental and emotional walls to stand firm against the knowing intensity of Hope's dark eyes, she didn't look back as she strode away through the crowd of slaves.

But Hope didn't need eye contact for her sharp insight to strike true. The melody that followed Riala was soft, fearful, and the golden- tailed squirrel needed no interpreter to know that she was being told she was afraid… afraid to trust, afraid to let go of her ever-present anger and hate, afraid to let loose her past, to drop all the walls so painfully built, afraid to expose the one part of her that was not lifeless, soulless stone to the world's harsh gusts.

Riala built up anger against that song of truth, stoked it with fury and hate, even as the melody changed to a cheerful and lively dance, the pure joy of living only intensified by the memory of trials and pain and grief. The squirrel gritted her teeth and pressed her paws to her ears, fighting it off with the thoughts of her past. Remembering how trust led only to death, how mercy led only to defeat. Reminding herself how loving ended in loss, and remembering the lessons a life of pain and loss and betrayal and grief had taught her.

Hope's melody slowed, a music box winding to its end, fading to silence. Riala let her paws fall to the ground, not wondering when she'd fallen to her knees. She had won this strange battle for her innermost self… so why did she feel as if she had so completely lost?

The days dragged by, the only light in the tunnels and slave pit being that of torchfires and cookfires. It was impossible to determine night and day; time was marked by the shrill blast of the whistle that signified a change in guard, a meal, or a change in the work shift. Riala watched and waited for the perfect chance- for Kerno and Shairil to be in the quarry during Riala's shift.

It seemed to take forever. Either Kerno was there and Shairil wasn't, or Shairil was there and the head slaver wasn't. The squirrel began to consider alternate plans- a different beast posing as a guard, perhaps even a different creature posing as a slave. But she trusted only herself for the job. As for Shairil… well, the weasel fem was the best one for that part of the mission. She only wished she could be sure that the ex-slaver was trustworthy!

Meanwhile, life on the lash was wearing Riala down physically. She almost regretted the fact that she had come to the pit as physically fit as she was- some extra fat would have helped her through this period as a slave. Fortunately, Kerno's minions treated the slaves decently, considering the fact that they were slaves. They were fed well and not beaten excessively, for a slave in poor condition would not sell. As much as Riala tried, however, she couldn't dampen her anger and indignation at the low-handed treatment enough for it not to be noticed. She gained several new scars on her already whip-scarred back and shoulders.

Yet what took the heaviest toll on the golden-tailed squirrel was the purely menial nature of the work. Carting rocks and rubble from one pile to another, day after day, was both insult and torture. There was no purpose in what she did, and it required no thought whatsoever. Boredom wore more on her restless spirit than the gloomy atmosphere of despair in the damp, subterranean air.

The highlight of each day, the one bright spot in an endless stretch of night, was when Hope played her little pendant ocarina. Only then could the trials of the day be forgotten, the despair and depression lifted for a brief moment. And yet, listenin to the clear, soaring voice of the little instrument never failed to make Riala uncomfortable, wary of the power it held over her spirit.

A low, soft series of cautionary notes sounded in Riala's tufted ears, and she turned quickly to see Hope, sitting calmly behind her. Somehow the field mouse had crept up to the squirrel without attracting notice- an admirable feat. "Hello," she greeted the mouse child.

Brown-black eyes observed her intently, and then Hope let her pendant fall from her paw, resting on the cord about her neck. "Ye be leaving, soon." Her voice was soft, oddly accented, the words archaic.

The squirrel jerked with startled surprise. "You talk!?"

A nod, quick and fleeting. "Music be a clearer voice," she said. "Words do bring confusion and strife, yet words be the only way to say some things."

"Things?" Riala echoed. "Such as?"

"Ye'll be leaving soon, truth?" It was more a statement than a question, knowing and certain.

"Aye, but how did you-"

Hope ignored her half-spoken question of confused realization. "I do hope ye have friends who shall lay siege to the walls ye have built about thineself," she murmured. "Else ye shall be naught but one of these- thine soul dead, replaced only by hate and anger and bloodlust."

Riala shivered at the calm, clear voice of the little mouse that spoke the dire prediction in a very matter-of-fact manner. "That's… doubtful," she said unconvincingly. "Merely being cautious about who I trust can't possibly…"

"Ye see now what I mean about words, do ye not?" Hope interrupted with a sad smile. "Ye say cautious, yet that be not adequate to describe thine withdrawal from all emotion save anger. A flame shut away from the air shall sputter and die. Thine is flickering now, and will soon be extinguished. Only the walls shall exist."

The squirrel looked away, gold-brown eyes shadowed. Her voice was cold when she finally spoke again. "So say you," she told the mouse, not meeting that soul-piercing gaze. "But I've never shied from danger before, and I don't even see danger here."

The mouselet played a short, dark tune, angry and frustrated. "Aye, ye've never run from danger!" The harshness in her soft voice was startling, seemingly alien in one who appeared so gentle of spirit. "Ye've always run to it, have ye not? And why? Not to prove thine courage, for ye've proved it many times over. Be it because ye've no wish to live?"

The plain, unsoftened words shook Riala too her core, even more so for the truth they held. But something did not quite ring true, even so… "No," she said finally, still uncertain. "I don't think that's right…"

"Nay?" Hope watched her closely, dark eyes narrowed in thought. "Maybe not entirely true, yet ye do feel some truth in mine words."

The squirrel shook her head slowly, denying it, steeling herself against the web of softly voiced words that the mouse child sought o entrap her in. Hope sensed the new resistance and backed off, taking up her ocarina in place of a voice. She played a simple melody of the sun's rising on the aftermath of a battle victorious- grief mingled with exhausted rejoicing. Riala listened silently, feeling that the tune did not deal with her, not directly, not this time. It was the manifestation of a shadow on the gentle mouse's spirit.

"What's wrong?" she asked as the melody drew to a close.

Hope shook her head with a sad smile. "Ye will understand within the month," the mouse replied, gazing upwards at the baleful torchlight that rimmed the shadowed pit. "As for now, farewell, and seasons bless."

"What do you…" Riala followed the field mouse's dark gaze to the ring and suddenly saw the reason for Hope's farewell. Illuminated by the light of the torches carried by his guards was the slave king Kerno, and not far away stood Shairil. The whistle blew thrice, and twice more, announcing the arrival of vermin looking to buy slaves.

They were brought up ten at a time for the slave buyer to inspect. Occasionally she would point to one prisoner, haggle with Kerno for a brief time, and then the newly bought slave was led to a miserable, steadily growing group of closely guarded slavebeasts. Riala immediately began to put her plan into motion. She schooled the fire from her gold-brown eyes, making them appear dull and lifeless, let her tail droop, worked up what sounded like a nasty cough.

When it was the squirrel's turn to be inspected, she doubled over with a racking cough that shook her entire frame for ten long seconds. The vulpine slave buyer spared her barely a glance before moving on down the line. Riala's gaze flicked to the guards that watched the slaves to make sure none misbehaved, and then her eyes widened. All but two of the six guards were fortbeasts! Now how did they manage that…?

No time to think, no time to speculate. She collapsed, coughing, falling to her knees and retching convincing dry heaves. One of the guards rapped her on the arm with the butt of his spear, a silent command to get up. Gold-brown eyes lanced upwards, noting dispassionately that he was the ferret who'd reported to her at what seemed an age ago. Then her muscles tightened, tensed, released. She leapt at the ferret, whispering a brief apology as she toppled him over and wrenched away his spear.

The guards were taken by surprise at first, a brief seconds-long space of stunned inaction that Riala took advantage of, racing towards Kerno with all the speed and agility of her kind. When they finally rallied, spurred into action, it was with a chaotic jumble of contradicting orders, the fortbeasts posing as guards working to add to the confusion.

The red-brown squirrel sped onwards, a chestnut blur dodging paws and blades as scarred footpaws carried her inexorably onwards to the weasel Kerno. Hate flared in gold-brown eyes, and she began to let instinct take over her mind, erasing conscious thought, slipping into the red-misted state of battle-mind, of bloodwrath, where action responded to action with impossible, unthinking speed…

No!

Remembering a stars-crossed sparring match with a friend, her first spar since childhood, remembering the slip from friendly practice into battle-mind, into instinct-directed action that did not care the opponent was a friend, remembering only the bloodlust, the drive to defeat, to destroy, to kill… remembering how close she'd come to killing a friend.

And those memories, that hesitation nearly cost the squirrel both life and freedom. Shairil drove her spear at Riala's paws, tripping her up for the barest instant, enough to put her off balance for a crucial second. The rasp of steel hissing from its sheath preceded the flash of a short sword, expertly wielded in the weasel fem's paw. The squirrel leapt backwards, swinging with the spear, unused to wielding a polearm.

Can't lose control! she thought frantically, an unfamiliar sensation turning her cold. Fear… fear of losing what little she had to that savage, unforgiving, unmerciful darkness within her. But she'd never fought any other way than with an all-out, instinctive, unthinking desire to kill. She didn't know how to fight without that mental state… but she didn't dare fall into it! Too dangerous, too easy to kill an ally or an innocent…

She narrowly ducked a side-long slash from Shairil's blade, fumbling with the unwieldy spear, so different from her cord-strung stick… Inspiration struck her, gold-brown eyes darting to the shimmering blade that tipped the long shaft. Perhaps it wasn't her roce, but she could use it in a similar fashion…

She took hold of the butt end of the spear and swung it, spinning into a tight circle, letting the blade fly outwards. More lightweight than her stick, but the blade made up for that, slashing those who were too close. Shairil moved quickly, with a waesel's lithe grace, deflecting the spear just in time as Riala thrust it in Kerno's direction.

"Get clear, chief!" the weasel fem shouted, lashing out with her sword, closing in on the squirrel, inside the spear's reach.

Riala cursed her foolishness for having forgotten about the shortcomings of polearms. She changed her grip to the middle of the spear, holding it like a quarterstaff, twisting to catch Shairil in the midriff. The weasel grunted with the blow but didn't back off, bringing her sword downwards towards Riala's head. The squirrel leapt back, bringing up the spear to block, and the sword lodged deep in the wood. Not hesitating, Riala yanked on the spear, purposely falling to her back and kicking out with both footpaws. Shairil tumbled overhead, jerked into a somersault. The sword came free with an audible snap, that of the spear breaking in half.

The squirrel used the momentum from the abrupt release to push herself to her footpaws, the two halves of the spear in her paws. It was far more manageable now, and to her thinking more effective. One paw hurled what had been the spear butt at Shairil as a distraction, and then she pivoted on one paw, springing for Kerno in a last attempt to kill. But the weasel fem had not been taken too much by surprise. She actually caught the hard-flung wood and threw it, arrow-straight, at Riala. Pain lanced through her as the sharp broken end lodged in her lower arm, throwing off her momentum, causing her to falter. Two quick-thinking guards rushed in and seized her arms, pinning them to her side and sending fresh pain in waves from the injured one. A spear swept her legs out from under her, and she was well and truly caught.

Shairil limped up to the chief slaver, one arm dangling limp at her side. She hadn't caught the lower half of the spear without injury. "You injured, chief?" she asked, teeth gritted past the pain that caused her teeth to clench.

"Not a bit, thanks t'you," Kerno replied, looking her over admiringly. "Y'r a good 'un with th' blade. D'you be new 'ere?"

"Aye," Shairil said, slipping easily into the slang that the other weasel used. "Th' name's Slyreel."

"Y've proved y'self a loyal goodbeast, Slyreel," he told her with a grin. "Oy, Marshpad! Get me new captain a healer!"

Riala smiled grimly for a fleeting instant and then glanced at her two captors. They were intent on the rare scene before them, only partially focused on the squirrel. She'd have to act now, before Kerno got around to punishing his attempted assassin… One footpaw lashed out, tripping a guard, and she wrenched her uninjured arm away from the other guard. She was off in a flash of red-brown fur, ignoring the yells of outrage in her wake. The tunnel was right before her, and she raced into it as arrows clattered at the tunnel mouth.

Down the long main tunnel, turning to a side tunnel, she kept moving, kept running, the labyrinth's stone floors retaining no sign of her passage. Hurrying through the winding hallways and chambers, she reached tunnel nine at last- exhausted, bleeding, half blind with pain, and victorious. The moment her pawsteps and rapid breathing sounded in the darkness, a wild cry rent the air, echoing off the walls.

"You sound very ghostly, Mackbry," Riala commented to the shadows, a tight grin flitting across her face despite herself, "but I'm afraid your voice was wasted. I'm no vermin."

"Riala?" There was the rasp of flint on steel, and a candle sputtered to life, enough light to reveal the face of a hare. He laughed in delighted surprise. "Well by m'fur! It is you! How'd it go?"

"Well enough," the squirrel replied. "Shairil's earned Kerno's trust, and he's made her a captain. We can move at any time- in fact, the sooner the better, because I think these tunnels are going to be infested with vermin searching for my head fairly soon."

"An' that's why y'told all us lurkers t'gather here, right?" The hare grinned, a jovial expression turned grotesque by the distortions of the dancing candle flame.

A paw touched her injured arm from behind, and she couldn't choke back a gasp of startled pain. "Aye, I thought as much!" Riala recognized the voice of Bailey, a fleet otter. "Ye've been injured, mate. Y'won't do anybeast any good wi' out yore arm workin'!"

The squirrel shrugged, then winced as the movement sent fresh waves of pain up from her arm. "But I have to get word to Fort Ruddler…"

"We c'n do that well enough, y'know," Mack chided, not having seen the blood in the dim and unsteady light of the candle flame, but . "Y'll 'ave t'heal first."

"C'mon, matey," Bailey said. "I'll take ya t'the 'ealer."

Riala's wound healed quickly, and she was soon restless in the darkness of the tunnels, tired of waiting and doing nothing but that. Kerno's slave trade would finally be shut down in one last move. Fort Ruddler had the word of impending action and was ready to go. The creatures posing as slaves and guards were as restless as the lurkers, waiting for the command to strike… but first they needed the go-ahead from Shairil.

A low hiss echoed from the opening of tunnel nine, and Riala chittered back, high and unearthly. The signals recognized, both creatures moved towards each other in near silence. "From Shairil," a low voice said, and clothing rustled as the otherbeast stretched forth a paw. Tufted ears twitched at the crinkle of paper, and the squirrel took the note silently. They parted ways without a word, and Riala waited for several long minutes before striking a candle.

The flickering light illuminated the only three words on the small scrap of aged parchment. "Tomorrow. Third shift."

The squirrel nodded grimly, letting the paper catch fire. It blazed brightly for a brief instant and then faded to ash on the shadowed stone floor. The waiting, the planning, the subtle maneuvering was over at last. Now came the time for action.

Rapping on a thick wooden door, sharp and business-like. "Who's there?" Kerno demanded, a paw automatically gripping the hilt of one throwing dagger.

"Slyreel," a familiar voice replied, firm steel sheathed in a low tone.

The weasel chief relaxed, a slow grin taking over his uncomely features. "Aye, you're welcome t'come in an' y'know it. No need t'knock."

The door creaked open, the rusty hinges purposely kept from oil so as to be a warning to the slaver of would-be assassins. His weasel captain stepped in with a warrior's sinewy grace, glancing about the room out of cautionary habit before finally settling on the slaver chief. "An' get a dagger in m'throat 'cos y'don't look before y'throw? I'll knock, thank yew." Slyreel laughed lightly at the idea.

Kerno returned the chuckle with one of his own. "Aye, yer right on that count, Slyreel. What're y'here f'r?"

"It's about th' slaves," the ginger-furred weasel fem said, leaning against a nearby wall. "They…" She paused, glanced quickly at the door, red- brown eyes narrowed sharply.

The slaver chief took no chances, and he had learned to trust his captain's sharp senses. He crept up to the door, dagger in paw, ready to throw it open and kill the one who lurked behind it. But the danger was behind him… A low voice hissed the completion of the sentence in his ear as steel rasped from its sheath. "They're rebelling." He turned as Shairil's short sword drove up under his ribs, through his lungs, to his heart… but he had enough seconds left of life to plunge his dagger into her chest.

Riala watched from the natural peephole in Kerno's bedroom wall, grim and silent at the grisly scene. The first casualty of the battle to free the slaves had just been taken. "We'll meet again in Dark Forest, Shairil," she murmured, a grim farewell. She turned to join the battle as the whistle blew for the change of guard and the first death cries rent the air of the slaver base.

It was chaos, pure and unadorned chaos. Guards turned to their fellows and drove blades into their hearts, an abrupt end to a casual conversation. Warriors appeared from the shadowed tunnels and slashed unwary throats. Slavebeasts produced hidden weapons and attacked their overseers with a vengeance. And then the earth-shattering warcries of two score fortbeasts rent the air, forty warriors flooding into the passages from the upper world, overwhelming the surprised slavers.

Riala fought systematically, reflexes slowed by her refusal to let her instincts take control. Wounds hampered her fighting, slowed her reactions, left her vulnerable. She blocked a downward slice with her blade-scarred roce, the thick hardwood gaining another notch before she slashed the foebeast's throat with her dagger. She saw the spear lancing in too late, adding yet another stain of blood to her tunic, growing more encumbered by pain with every added wound. But she wouldn't give in to the bloodwrath that reddened the edges of her vision and nibbled at her mind, demanding control.

She fought two battles at once, one within and one without, her consciousness steadily declining, her progress through the mass of slavers a blur in a pain-fogged mind. It wasn't until she was staring into an intense dark gaze that she realize she'd reached the quarry, that Hope was sheltering there… and then time stopped as a bow twanged, the sound ringing in the air, the only sound in Riala's ears. Deadly, prophetic, a harbinger of death. The arrow seemed to hang in the air, pointing to the gold-tailed squirrel… but Hope was between the arrow and Riala.

Time resumed its normal course, Riala's perceptions snapping to normal, the arrow speeding to a nearly imperceptible blur until it struck the field mouse with a sickening thud. And then the squirrel had reached Hope's side, mind frozen, heart frozen, unable to think or realize what had happened…

The mouse child pressed her ocarina into Riala's paw. Somehow she'd taken it off, somehow she was still alive. "Let it… help you… live…" she spoke, struggling past the pain, voice so soft as to be almost inaudible over the battle's din. "Don't hide… anymore…"

Breath hissing from a broken throat, knowing gaze turned blank with death, life gone, soul gone… Riala slipped the ocarina over her head with something akin to reverence, a gentle gesture, not speaking, eyes dry. Bloodwrath clamored at the battered walls she held up against it. She rose, one paw gripping her roce, the other tight on her dagger… and then she let her instincts consume her.

It was over.

Blood stained the smooth stone tunnels, that of slavers and slaves and fortbeasts. Bodies littered the ground, cast into grotesque shadow by the flickering light of the last stubborn torches. Wounded and exhausted fighters leaned against walls, collapsed on the ground, stood with fatigue written across bloodstained faces. Riala fell to her knees, the driving force of bloodwrath finally subsiding, letting exhaustion and pain flood in to assuage her numbed mind. She buried her face in her bloodstained paws, memory winding its merciless way through her mind of the victory's terrible cost. Then her ears pricked, her head lifted, her eyes probed the shadows, her paw closed gently on the ocarina pendant about her neck.

It may have been only her imagination, only a trick of the flickering torchlight, but she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of wise dark eyes gazing at her from the shadows. And in the air hovered the echo of a melody, aching grief for the loss of life mingled with the exhausted rejoicing of a battle victorious, always in the shadows of despair lingering a note of ever-present, undying hope.