Chapter 2:
"I Give 'Im Three Weeks"
Hellsfire...How long is she gonna drone on? She sounds like a bloody bee tryin' t' make honey with a flower. Cor, I'm gonna fall asleep, I know it. Just make th' blinkin' toast an' be done with it!
Bowflogg's secret thoughts were hidden by a sleepily smiling exterior. Seated at table under a broad (if tatty) canvas shade, the badger Widecatt was rambling on the virtues of having good food from the earth and honest working beasts in the land to bring it to them. Yes. How wonderful that we live in such a prosperous and generous wood, with oak and fruit trees and bounteous meadows and--
THONKK!
One of the baby squirrels dropped off, right off of the soup bowl he was leaning his chin against. The badgermaid appeared shocked for a minute and mildly confused as to what made the noise. She looked left then right, right over the squirrelmite, for the cause.
"Ooh, messy beastie," Nayda scooped up her youngest son and dabbed a towel over his head, waking him to a sniffle of vegetable broth up the nostril. He jerked his head and sneezed onto the white linen tablecloth covering the stone that served as table. The more tightly would creatures of the band stiffened their lips and turned away with little gags at the result.
Bowflogg snickered, unbuckling his belt slightly so he could get at an itch to the groin. So much more attention was being paid to the new stoat fellow that he could get away with more of the rude gestures and taboo actions that only came natural to a young creature. Or an old creature, for that matter. The youngbeast never missed the lecherous stare that old Fingle the watervole always gave whenever a mousemaid or volemaiden passed by. Or the fact that he always offered to take chores off their paws. It was clear as ivy physic, and about as nasty.
He turned over to Falcontooth, the great drawer of suspicious eyes. The stoat was picking at the next-to-new tabard-style shirt that Nayda had graciously held him down and forced on him after his first bath. It was pale blue and smelled a bit like lye, a bit too much like lye. The stoat frowned as the fabric pinched his fur under his sweating armpits once again. Blasted thing, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. What was wrong with baring one's chest? Otters did it. All the time! Nobeast fussed at them. And the leggings! So tight they seemed designed for the torture of anybeast a sliver over the size of a dainty squirrel maiden. They pressed down so much on his fur he thought he might have marks for seasons to come. And it added to the stink in that he sweated there too. And the wet couldn't escape. How these creatures lived with such constraints boggled the mind!
However, the food was good. He was so busy stuffing his face the next moment that he hardly noticed the chafing anymore. Or indeed, had the attention spare for becoming concerned at the lack of meat on the table.
But Daraga noticed. And he was concerned.
A dark shade in the fronds of a willow tree some distance away and across the road, the stoat's brother hissed to himself at the sight of the creatures in their bonnets and gowns and flop hats and nice new sandals. He seethed at the sight of his little brother joining them, pawing uneasily at the ridiculous shirt he had never wanted to wear and shifting in annoyance as the tight black stockings caught a chunk of his fur one more time. Daraga breathed ragged breaths, unable to control his disbelief at the abandonment of his blood. He had to turn away to stop the powerful paw at his knife from clenching it until the blood was forced from the limb.
Crouching there in the broad trellis of the great tree, Daraga stared down at his knife, the signature multi-use weapon of his clan and the other verminbeast clans that made up the loosely formed Southern Mossflower tribe. The hilt was smooth as bone--largely because it was bone, the bone of some long-dead bird, the hollow part of which had been filled with molten metal and swiftly cooled to make a well-weighted handle. The blade was blueish-gray steel, meticulously sharpened and slightly curved. There was but one edge, but the point was strong and well-honed. It was a very beautiful weapon even though it was so very simple. Daraga liked it's honesty. There was no doubt what it was made for.
"No brother of mine will be given up so easily..." The stoat warrior made himself the solemn promise, his breath forming fog upon the blade of his knife, "I give 'im three weeks... If he hasn't come back to his roots by then... I'll have t' show 'im how t' come back..."