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White-Furred Phoenix

The stoat called Faraf held up a paw to the breeze, wetted with melting snows. The wind had stilled, and the day grew warm, destroying the white-gray coating beneath the feet of the small band of rogue creatures. With a frown Faraf eyed the back of their tumultuous leader; he trudged rapidly ahead, making slush and slick leaves fly from under his paws, darting like he was seized with the spirit of mission.

The stoat had doubts, and the melting snow was heating them up. Their pawmarks were so easy to follow in these conditions—surely Chief Mogja's warriors would be following them soon. Most of the creatures that had elected to come along with Dankwood were young, adventurous, inexperienced. Fired with anger and jaded by the pinprick after pinprick of oppression in this world. The only lives they had taken had been those of insect, fish and fowl, and that for hunting and without cruel, dishonorable methods.

Not like now.

"Hurry up! The Lethal One may be on our trail by now!"

The stoat heard the grating call and sped back into a lope, sliding after the last weasel in the score of traitors.

Before the hour was up the weasel leader called a halt and beckoned two ferrets to him. They were armed with bows, long recurved things of dark wood and well-waxed strings.

"See there—that gap in the trees?" Dankwood pointed a claw upwards towards the rising sunlight. The female of the two ferrets traced his paw's path and spotted the squirrel in the upper boughs of a skeleton-white sycamore.

"Squirrel archer," the ferret confirmed. "I thought they wouldst not know we were coming?"

"They must have been warned—perhaps some inconspicuous woodlander to the side of our path told them." Dankwood growled. "Can either of you get a clean shot from this distance?"

"The distance is no issue. The angle is odd, but I can do it," the other ferret said as he strung up his bow. The female licked her lips and stared long and hard at the lone figure, her eyes wide and nervous.

"Scruffy thing has not even spotted us from there," Dankwood let out a low laugh. "In my thought, it deserves to die."

At that moment, the male ferret loosed his arrow with a slither of fletching over the bowstring. The missile whistled in the air for a second, seeming to hang in the breezeless air, then zoomed in an arc for the arboreal animal. The squirrel guard turned his head, but not in time.

Dankwood ran forward at the startled shriek that had been cut short as the wounded rodent struck the ground. The entire band followed him in the absence of any commands. The squirrel had almost levered himself up onto one of his elbows, grunting in pain as the tip of the arrow that protruded from his flank scrapped against the loamy soil—but then the weasel reached him.

"Hyaah!" With a single stroke and a damp thump the squirrel's head rolled until it was stopped by the roots of the scaly tree. Panting at his sudden exertion, Dankwood turned to see the majority of the traitor band drawing up short and staring in silent horror at what he'd just done.

"It's only a squirrel." He stepped over the headless carcass, "Only a squirrel, and an armed one at that. Did you want it to alert those cowards, the woodlanders? We'd be the ones dying then!"

Faraf kicked leaves over the severed head, disguising the respectful gesture as a contemptible one with an exposed fang. Dankwood waved the crimson-flecked sword towards a rundown fence and the humped shapes of cottages that had become visible at the edges of Withersfield.

"Quickly, before we're spotted by another one, make fire. We will burn them first… and when they run for cover, that's when we will take our revenge!"

Meelain and Torby were padding along together outside of the smith's workshop, two hefty canvas bags each of freshly sharpened, honed, repaired, or otherwise upgraded blades and arrows over each of their shoulders. Chatting amongst themselves, they did not heed the cloud of silty grey smoke until they had wandered into the edge of it.

"Whoa now," Torby staggered, coughing into one of his sleeves. "What's going on now? Is Goody Fleetstik burning those breakfasts for the watch?"

Meelain stepped back out of the low drift of stifling fumes. Before her and covering the remainder of the cottages on the south end was what looked like a fogbank, but this was obviously woodsmoke and noxious woodsmoke at that. Instinctual terror gripped her as she smelled burning lilac and a rank whiff of steaming wool garments amongst the ordinary smoke.

"I think somebeast's home's afire!" She gasped but try as she might she could see nothing of the last few rows of houses. Torby dithered in the edges of the cloud, panicked by the suggestion and searching his flighty brain for protocol on who to inform.

"Er, er, in that case, run and fetch some of Dochunn's hogs or Nemria's squirrels—quick, quick! They can sort it out, I think, maybe."

The young mousemaid did as she was told, turning and dropping the cumbersome bags of armaments and dashing away with all speed towards the closest watch station. In this case, this station was one of the communal water barrels set out for travelers. Meelain was almost to it when she gave a start; there was no hedgehog warrior or squirrel archer to be seen near the barrel.

She froze as she heard the sky split with a distant scream—an older female beast. Was she the one whose cottage was in flames, and was this shriek announcing her discovery of this? Meelain had no time to think about this, for as she turned towards the north of town and the Withersfield House of hares, she was grabbed around the back of the neck by a calloused claw.

There were more shouts now, including her own as she was pushed towards the water barrel and forced to the icy ground. Whatever creature was attacking her clutched at her headfur in one paw and used the other to flip her over onto her back.

She was looking up into the face of a tattooed stoat with narrowed eyes.

"Stay on the ground, mouse, or mine comrades will slay thee." He said through bared fangs, tugging none too gently on her twisted fur, "Pretend to be dead."

With no more words, the stoat released her with a flick of the claw and drew a long curved knife in the same movement. Meelain screwed her eyes shut in deafened horror but opened them once again as she felt the heavier beast's footfalls stamping away. Gazing on the scene, she wondered how it could be anything but a nightmare, or the scenes in an old tome swirling in her imagination: Creatures were everywhere, darting in and out of growing flumes of whitish-grey smoke which gave the winter glade a nebulous air. Most of them were her neighbors, a variety of goodbeast, but some were leaping, climbing, chasing with purpose through the smoke as phantoms. They were vermin—how she knew this, having never seen any type of vermin creature before in the flesh, she did not know, though she suspected the stories by the campfire had something to do with it. The fire! Now the orange light was leaping around the roofs of two or three of the nearest homes, crackling like evil laughter amongst the shrill noise of panicking woodlanders and the war-cries of weasels and ferrets.

Ferrets. One of that species had stopped by her footpaw, on the other side of the water barrel. She, for it was a female, had an arrow drawn back to her cheek on a tall yew bow. Meelain had one more second to marvel at the sinewy creature's simple barbaric kilt garment and swirling ruddy chest tattoos before the ferret growled and loosed her arrow, and all things went dark.

"Hurry, hurry!"

The hunting party had been chosen and they poured out of the tribal campground like furious fire ants from their disturbed nest. They were painted freshly for war, ferrous lines enhancing the old rusty line tattoos upon each beast's chest, a fury of red and violet paint streaks on their faces. Weasels, stoats and ferrets, all armed well with the tribe's own notoriously good arms: Longbows were plentiful, knives sharp, swords in their leather scabbards swung lightly and a scattering of hunting spears, slings and bolas made of crude iron scraps and sinew-rope were all present. Klavis strove at the front parallel to his gigantic father. Mogja could not help but ignore his son's disrespectful gesture out of an understanding that only a fellow beast of his tribe could come to; ordinarily he would have flogged and chastised a warrior that attempted to lead along with or run in front of his Chieftain when on the warpath, but here was different. The Code of Vengeance was clear—Klavis had every right to be the one who took Dankwood's head.

Like thunder in the wooded hills, the war party stopped all the commotions of the morning birds and sometimes shook the frosty debris from the thin branches if they passed too close to swinging alders and persimmon. Abundant quail and turtledoves flew up in bunches as the band swept by them, panicked by the sudden sight of so many of their common predators. But the birds were safe today—today sixty mustelids were tracking their own.

Ahead, pluming out of the woods like the unfurling wings of some great and terrible bird, a cloud of ashen smoke rose. The sight set up a murmur among the racing creatures, and several ferret archers began selecting arrows for their first shots.

"Faster!" Mogja roared back into the warband. The tempo of the footfalls increased from a run to a headlong sprint.

Klavis leaped a log that had sprung up in his path, his left footpaw barely missing a grisly severed head of a squirrel during his descent. With a grimace, the young ferret staggered to avoid the awful debris and cried hoarsely across to his parent:

"Dankwood hath been here—there lay one of the woodlander town dead!"

"Kye aaaar! The town is very close!" Mogja cursed with a snarling voice not unlike some largebeast—a boar, a badger, a bear, "Be ready, warriors! The smoke is thick! Do not forget who is of our party, or we'll be hacking at each other in the confusion!"

Stoats, ferrets and weasels fanned out, surrounding the southeast side of the town's hazy borders like a fist about to crush ripe berries. Klavis saw a wild tongue of fire leaping from a distant point in the village. A bellow issued from his open jaws, and he plunged into the smoke clouds with an arrow drawn over his longbow. He was pursued by the shouts of Chief Mogja and several veteran fighters.

"Klavis!" The silvery ferret paused at the edge of the now noxious-smelling blaze, "Stop! We must stay together! Stop, we must—"

Klavis could no longer hear his father's admonishments, the din of battle drowning out all things except the deep rumble of cottage roof frames collapsing under the teeth of the flames. Ducking and weaving wherever he thought he saw a paw or weapon appearing from the mists towards him, he was soon disoriented and lost. Suddenly a hedgehog in a pinafore and pair of mud-soiled slippers blundered into him, spiking him painfully in the flank with some of her backspikes. She turned, laid eyes on him for one moment, and then tore away in the opposite direction, screaming.

With a grunt of desperation, Klavis trotted after her for several paces. Then something wet and rank-smelling flopped into his face. He clawed the air to release his snout from the smothering grip, pawing the object to find that it was a damp washcloth. A thin line woven of willow bark twanged innocent in the fire-fanned breeze nearby. With a look down at his discovery, Klavis bared his teeth at the unpleasantness of the smoke and used his ready arrowhead to snip the line free in a short length. In a moment he had tied the damp cloth about his mouth and nose, a temporary protection against breathing the fumes.

A house nearby gave a belch of black smoke and began to creak and snap. Diving headlong into the shadow of another blazing edifice, Klavis only just avoided being half-crushed underneath the charred rubble as the entire building's side collapsed in on itself. Panting, he rose and gripped his bow tighter.

He must find Dankwood. And when he did… Oh, the ferret gave a ferocious growl from under the smelly cloth. Ignoring a pair of wailing mice cowering under the collapsed house's porch, he pressed deeper into the chaos.

Dochunn and Nemria's furious paw-beating on the paths of town halted at the edge of the waves of ever-expanding smoke. The squirrel cursed and shook her head.

"I can't pick out a target right in all that!" She shook with rage, clutching her bow. Dochunn's own grip tightened as he slung his own weapon back across his shoulders, reaching instead for a short sword which he kept as backup. Behind him, ten hefty hogwarriors panted and puffed to catch up, all armed with blade or cudgel and bristling with shock.

"We shall have to wade in carefully—don't swing unless it's clearly vermin." He spat towards sparks being swept towards him with the breeze, "Scum who use fire as a weapon—blackguards! They knew it'd be hard t' fight in."

Nemria's squirrels split into two groups, some tucking away their bows and clutching javelins in both paws or drawing out short daggers or loaded slings, and the others stepping back with their brushes flicking and bows at the ready. Nemria twirled a javelin and growled:

"You lot can watch for filthy vermin popping out this way from the safe rooftops—the rest of you, you're with us. As Dochunn said! Stab only at vermin!"

The two veteran battlers led their creatures into the cloud with a resonant rallying cry:

"Hooyaaaah! Hiiiyaaaaah! Death to vermin! Whump whump whump!"