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Chapter 57. Red Spy is In The Base!
by Antonio
The one on the left wouldn't stop scratching. Consequently, he wasn't paying enough attention to Antonio. The one on the right, however, was paying too much attention to Antonio. But he wasn't doing anything save flapping his jaws and giving Antonio a good view of his missing teeth. They had replacements for those now, did they not? Even a peasant could craft a bead or some fishbone into a new tooth and insert it into the cavity. This beast's commanding officer was not doing a good job managing his men's hygiene
"Drop your weapon."
Antonio did not move. He held in one paw a sack of flour, the other a knife.
"Hesitation, gentleman, will be your downfall. For, you see, when one hesitates –"
Slicing a clean cut into the sack, he tossed it upward, raining down thick white upon the guards. The white screen soon mingled with red mist as the beast on the right and then the left had their throats slit. Antonio cleaned the blade as he fled.
It was only at the second hall he had to stop. Thanks be to simplistic peasant architecture; at least he had not wasted his time wandering superfluous verandas and pointless turrets in order to get to his destination. In addition, his two companions had done as instructed and remained in place as he distracted the guards. All things considered this was going well. Too well. The way fate had been behaving lately, Antonio expected to be doused with a sack of excrement at any second.
"No luck?" he asked.
"Not much good at pickin' locks, Mister Tonio. An' I usually lose keys when I have 'em anyhow. Tiny little metal doo-dads're hard t'keep track of, doncha know? Why, this one time –"
"Zula, methinks this moment 'twould be better spent upon a solution than reminiscing."
After silently thanking Silisk, Antonio concentrated on the problem of the door. There was nothing to pick the lock with, an unfortunate fact since it appeared as though the woodlanders had used the dullest of locks to secure it. Good security a big lock did not make. Bigger locks meant bigger keyholes, easier access to what was within. Yet without a lock pick, the sturdy iron brute did its job well. These locks did not break easily.
"The lock shall be impossible to break," said Antonio. He glanced around the room. They were near the prison area. Surely there would be…ah-ha, just as I surmised
The stoat picked up the sturdy bench.
"The door, however, should be a bit easier."
The door chosen to house the prison was not designed for such a task, meaning there was just enough space between the bottom of the floor and the bottom of the door for the bench's legs to snugly fit. Antonio double checked the clearance from the top of the door to the ceiling and, satisfied, pushed down upon the bench.
The guards thought they had heard something earlier, just in the other room. It was dismissed immediately, though. Probably the younger ones, drinking and carrying on like they had the first day they had arrived. You would think they thought they were on a pleasure cruse the way they carried on having a good time even when they were slicing through vermin. This was serious work and the children would soon learn that.
Then echoed the distinct bang of heavy door against ground, so loud that even if a body didn't know what it was, he knew what it signified – intruders. Spears and shields were grabbed in no time flat and before the first termite could escape from the now fallen timbers, the guards were out into the hall.
Five guards, it must have been, barreled down the hall. Antonio stretched his arms and felt wall on either side. He thought as much. Narrow hallways favored one-on-one fights. He had a knife and they five spears, meaning he had the upper paw in weapon choice as well.
"Zula."
The fox got behind him as the first beast charged. A spear tip whistled through the air towards the stoat's midsection, a target which proved much too nimble as the stoat wheeled out of the way, grabbed the spear haft, forced the blunt end into the attacker's chest. Winded, his enemy bent double and relaxed his grip, allowing him to force the weapon up to smack against the beast's chin. Twice. Thrice. A quick glance told him that the beast behind was now in range. Ducking low, Antonio brought the knife's sharp edge raking against the beast's ankles and finished by throwing the now more useless than before soldier into his comrade, bowling him over.
Three more remained.
"Zula!"
The fox, wielding a dagger, peeped out from behind Antonio's leg.
"When I give the command, you rush them." Upon seeing hesitation shivering in her eyes, he added. "Zula, I am counting on you. I cannot do it alone."
The fox wrenched her eyes shut and nodded.
Closer, now, the woodlander's eyes were on the stoat.
"Now."
Antonio lunged, feinted left, then swung, only to score air as a smaller fighter, entirely unexpected by the opposition, hugged the next attacker's legs together, stopping him dead. A kick to his pelvis sent he, too, falling into his comrade quick behind, and a stomp to the second attacker's head insured he would not soon wake.
One beast stood at the other end of the hallway, carrying a saber; a better weapon than a spear. In a breath, Antonio realized that standing between he and this final challenge was Zula. And the last beast was very on edge. On edge beasts make rash decisions, such as rushing their enemy and killing indiscriminately. Shuffling on his shoulders reminded him where Silisk had crawled when Zula had charged. He grabbed her off his neck with his free paw.
"Sir Antonio, of all the impertinent –"
"Silisk, I will throw you at this beast and you will bite him."
"But what of his sword?"
"That shall be of no concern once I have knocked him out of his guard. The key is that you lunge when the time is right and bite him."
Her coils shifted restlessly all around his arm.
"It should not be such a big matter for a queen and less so for a dragon."
This stilled her just a mite but he could still feel hesitancy.
"Silisk, Zula is closer to him."
"…Sir Antonio…"
"Um, Mister Tonio?"
Zula's voice caused both beasts to snap back to reality.
"The small rat thingy's passed out. Must've been too excited."
Not one to deny an opportunity, Antonio retrieved the saber from the unconscious mouse. Here was a weapon with class. An inspection of the blade showed that proper care had not been taken. Well then, perhaps not much class, but more pride. A knife was to a saber as a gardener was to a knight; one was a tool, the other was a weapon.
A heavy lock was nowhere to be found on the door at the center of the hall, though a freshly carved peep hole and a makeshift barricade indicated that this was where one Mister Gericault would be kept. Short work was made of the barricade which greeted them on the other side of the door, although the bulk of it went to Antonio, the only beast with a pair of arms and moreover arms which were strong enough to lift the heavier items. The door creaked ominously on it's hinges.
A beast lunged at Antonio, gripping for his throat. His newly procured saber in paw, he bashed the beast across the head with the hilt. The stoat stood over a panting, agonized otter.
"Mister Gericault, a word of advice; assaulting one's saviors is not a very professional maneuver. In the future, should you find yourself in a similar situation, which probably will easily happen given the manner you have shown us in just moments from breaking down your door –"
"What in Hellgates do you want?" said the otter, clutching his head while his words trickled out pain leaden and sharp.
"We have come to rescue you. Although it is a decision I am beginning to now regret. You should know that we undertook a very sizable risk – "
"Get out!"
"…Pardon?"
"Fool earthcrawler, he speaks the truth. We ventured far from our stronghold to free you from his dungeon. Hist and pray, we have felled yon guardsbeasts beyond this door."
Talk from a snake was under the best circumstances taken with some small level of skepticism. The best circumstances were not ones in which a woodlander was to believe a story given by a vermin and backed up by a natural predator.
"So you've assaulted the Heirs. All the more power to you all, best of wishes in killing Marcion, but if you're going to kill me, best not muck around with my head first with trickery; just kill me."
"But Geri, if we killed you, who would come back with us to our…what word did you use, Silly?"
"Stronghold."
"String-hold."
Zula's intervention captured Gericault's attention.
"Zula?"
"Why, o'course it's me, Geri, who else could I be? Only one me, doncha' know."
The roof panels were suddenly aflutter with activity. A great collection of beasts were stomping upon the floor above.
"Time for reunion must needs be shortened, Miss Zula, Mister Gericault, least we wish to perish here." He looked about the room, distracted by how the color of the lumpy mattress clashed with the walls, how wisps of dust and mites swirled about. "And I can think of better, more sanitary places in which to pass on."
Out into the hallway they ran, with Gericault leaning upon Antonio's shoulder, stepping over the fallen woodlanders. A fallen mouse gave a groan that soon began to increase in volume. Antonio's saber came crashing down into his skull, the point twisting to render him silent.
"You…"
"Please, Mister Gericault, you will tell me that you have sympathy for the beasts who kept you captive, yes? This beast would have killed you without so much remorse as you claim to have. He was threatening to alert them to our prescience. I denied him that opportunity."
Unimpressed, Gericault nearly snarled "Wouldn't the door you knocked over and the racket from your fighting the guards be enough on it's own to alert them?"
"…That is beside the point, I –"
"Scales and fangs, your prattling is useless! Away with us now, before they find us!"
Silisk having brought them back to reality, the quartet rushed out the narrow hall, into the larger, twisting into a network of wooden alleys and passageways.
"Up the stair!"
Despite the extra weight of a practically incapacitated Gericult, they gained on the landing with all the speed of four beasts being persued by an entire army upon their heels, which was probably very well the case. Pawsteps became louder and ceased. They were close now and he could begin to sight most of them.
On the landing now, they charged back towards their entry point only to discover a force a score in number blocking their path. A quick spin around and a retreat lasting four fleet steps revealed the same on their opposite side. Enemies on either flank, empty space and a several foot drop in front and behind, the only difference being a banister in the way of one and a windowpane in the way of another.
Antonio's eyes widened in recognition, although he kept a tight hold on them to keep it from showing. He faced the oncoming hoards and proclaimed, "Typically, this would be the time for a clever retort." Taking Gericault's arm over his shoulder and Zula's paw tightly in his free paw, he turned towards the window. "But these are not typical times."
Smashing glass peeled away all sound as well as some flesh upon the stoat's arms. Then they fell, nay, plunged with stomach wrenching force down into the soft debris the stoat was careful to previously note. Although, he hadn't been expecting the sudden, harsh stop that forced bone into bone and organ into organ.
They staggered to their footpaws, Gericult the last to rise and luckily the least injured of the group. Silisk, too, seemed to have faired reasonably well atop Zula's narrow shoulders. The small vixen in question, however, may have been injured, but it was too dark to tell. Yet, the bag she had been carrying, full of weapons and some supplies, hadn't taken too well to hurtling into a debris pile. Torn fibers announced their discomfort in a grating, ripping tone as they ruptured further to the sound of a few armaments clattering out and onto the ground.
"Leave them, we must make haste away!" shouted Antonio.
Down the alleys they flew. Actually, in all honesty their movement in comparison to flight was more like a disoriented flap, rife with uncoordinated undulations, trips due to injuries and squawked curses from nearly every party excluding Zula, although Antonio was a bit leery when somebeast shouted, "jiminy-lintstick!"
Many twists and turns lead the group to an abandoned building the stoat deemed safe for taking cover within. They were just far enough away from the pursuing woodlanders and the building was just secluded, just dilapidated, just decaying enough so as to allow some small hiding catches. Antonio debated repealing his decision for a moment.
Camp staples were assembled under the stoat's precise scrutiny. Fire was lit in a secluded area, makeshift beds were arranged and supplies were spread out in the warm glow.
"What kind of a beast spends that much time setting a fire?"
Antonio shot the crass otter a glance that could only be shot and not simply given. "A beast who just rescued you from execution."
Besides, was it his fault that none of the tinder he had been able to scrape together consisted of straight figures? How could one be expected to construct a proper, symmetrical lean-to with faulty parts?
Realizing where his current mode of thought was leading, Antonio caged his thoughts, staring into the fire as he heard his urges rattle and groan like the wood in the flame.
"Score."
Eyebrows lifted all around.
"That's how much weapon's we have. A score. I know I heard somebeast use that word and whoever it was, maybe it was Mister Brull or…anyway, it's a fancy way of saying twenty," reported Zula, who had been counting the gathered armaments.
"Are you quite sure?"
"Positive. Counted them meself and there's nobeast I'd trust more than meself! Plus, you gave me a lot of extra time t'count 'em when you took so long with the fire, doncha know."
"…Yes, quite."
Soon, rattling alongside his captive urges were curses and oaths, not at the poor, slightly daft vixen but at the undeniable fact that the weapons they had gathered would only serve a small fraction of the forces they possessed. This was, of course, without considering how many among the weapons could be defects or improperly made.
Still, a thought tugged at the hem of his mind, The woodlanders are poisoned and you have acquired an informant, not to mention a new, formidable weapon.
The stoat weighed the saber in his paws – half-an-ounce off balance. Mildly effective at best.
"Why did you save me?"
This earned the otter a cocked eyebrow from Antonio and a look from Silisk that, though confined to her limited reptilian expression, could have only been one of deep resentment.
"Are you not grateful? Would you rather we left you there to be slain by your so-called comrades?"
"Didn't mean t'rub you the wrong way. I'd rather be out here in the cold, not sure if I was going to live or die then, well, in there in the cold, pretty sure that I was going to die. But I know one thing and that's few beasts do somethin' like riskin' great personal injury without expecting something in return."
"Geri, we were jus' tryin' t'help is all!"
"It was Zula's request that we retrieve you and escort you out of the base," said Antonio "However, if I may be completely honest, you are quite right in your accusation. There was another motive because of which we removed you from that prison." He wished Zula would not look at him with such shocked eyes, made all the more bigger by her thick spectacles. "You were one of the enemy. You could make quite a veritable source of information."
"Supposin' I refuse?"
The stoat remained stone faced.
"Tell me, in which condition do you think the odds of your survival are more favorable; as a willing informant amongst enemy troops or as a prisoner whom we will undoubtedly have to interrogate in order to obtain information?"
Through his worn face burst through a mixture of fear and disgust.
"I'm not about to get my friends killed by –"
"I would ask you to remember who it was who imprisoned you and was about to execute you for crimes you clearly did not commit. And, furthermore, who prevented such a fate from occurring." A pause. "You shall be given time to deliberate. We must remain here for the night."
Only the fire offered any conversation from that point on, although it was always very one-sided and full of annoying clicks and clacks as wood and building parts burst under the heat. Antonio felt himself jarred by the noise, each pop an uneven, random beat, compounded by the overall asymmetrical nature of the fire.
"Sir Antonio."
Silisk had spoken so soft that Antonio had barely heard her.
"There is something that, of late, hast been on my mind."
Antonio, with his best knowing smile, nodded his head and closed his eyes.
"You desire to know why I brutalized that hare, do you not?"
Silisk's silence was answer enough. Antonio opened his eyes and looked at her. One could not read a snake. They were not creatures created with the proper number of muscles in the face or very many mannerisms for that matter. He found, though, that he admired that aspect, if only a mite. Reptiles certainly had an easier time keeping secrets.
"Very well. As I expect that my answer will not leave our present company any time soon,"
And should it, I would hate to imagine the consequences, he hinted with his face more than outright vocalized. He did not vocalize it because he did not need to. Antonio's relationship with the serpent was beyond such tactics, threats and leverage. It had begun to move into genuine trust. Still, the stoat could not repress small shades of his typical habits.
"Rea said that I was a prince. This is true. But, it is not something that I enjoy…I do not like to discuss this. Such information is a personal danger to even tell to a passing stranger and, moreover, I do not enjoy being reminded of what I do not have." His countenance stiffened as he spoke, he notice. Antonio took a breath, tried to relax. "This is something that I have never told anybeast outside of my father's royal guard. And yet she knew. And she seemed to understand how…" He adjusted his abhorrent posture. "Shortly after she told me she felt sorry for what had befallen my father. I was insulted. I needed no pity. Yet, after dwelling upon this, considering what was said and what I felt…it is weakness to admit such things, but I felt, how best to say it…privileged to at last have somebeast who might share what I felt, without the pain of revisiting that moment.
"Sybil left us. And then Rea. I have grown so weary of losing. So, as you can imagine, I was, for lack of a better term, quite peeved at the hare."
Silisk's tail twitched at his response. "Prithee, why not simply execute the hare?"
Antonio straightened up and his ears perked. "Indeed, why did not the hare simply execute Rea if he saw her as an enemy?"
Transparent lids closed over the snake's eyes. She seemed to nod. "I think I understand."
"With all respects, I do not believe that you do."
Antonio found his fist tightening at the very thought. What would she know? How could she sit there on a bed of her own filthy flesh and judge his actions? What knew she of loss?
"You forget, sir Antonio, that I, too, had a kingdom of my own stolen as well."
His fist loosened. "This is true. Forgive me my assumption. Perhaps we have more alike after all."
He stared at the snake for a good while before his eyes returned to the fire, the trembling, asymmetrical wave of energy and heat, swirling about with no direction. Unfocused. Un-harnessed. Lost.
Antonio's back straightened all on its own. There was another thing he and the fire did not have in common. Besides being far more symmetrical and well-put together than the fire – his paws darted to his whiskers suddenly, making sure this statement was true and coming away satisfied – he was focused. He had a goal. He simply needed to wait until everybeast was asleep before he could execute it.
"So, again, I appeal to you, mister Sarkeleyet," said Antonio with drawl measured under an apothecary's scope, "Pray, where would be another place I could find the Brandy?"
His target kept still. Sarkeleyet must have thought himself very clever, with his small smiles and nods and tiny niceties he believed cloaked the cold hostility beneath his hide. It did all the good of a match in a flurry. Lurking just behind his words, in between every sentence, Antonio could tell that he did not trust him. He knew, though, that this lord of a crumbling domain had no choice. Antonio was fast becoming Sarkeleyet's only link to the outside world and his much sought after Brandy. His own guards and mercenaries were much too busy guarding their master or fending off the invading woodlanders. There weren't even any guards in the room with them now, a far cry from how things had been when last he was here.
"I know not of many a place that would be as much of a likely location of the Brandy as the warehouse."
"Surely there is something you could tell, or perhaps, show me that would aid in its retrieval?" Antonio urged, skillfully preventing the marten from sinking again into one of his boorish tirades. His head was still aching from his obscenely long speech about how "unfortunate" it was that poor Dirano had been slain or "what a pitty" it was that "dear Sybil" had befallen such a nasty end. Perhaps, Antonio realized, Aras's reaction to defy Sarkeleyet had been more logical than his own; the stoat's hollow words did nothing to refute the possibility that they were after all just pawns to him.
Still, he reminded himself as Sarkeleyet retrieved a box from beneath this desk, he wasn't here for Sakeleyet's sake. A neat row of quarks poked out from the top of the packing material
"However, if you are in need of a visual aide, look no further." He gestured at the box with a flourish, which was pure amateur technique, really. This was a situation that any simpleton knew had to be played straight.
"Why did you not tell us of this before?" said Antonio, immediately cursing himself for letting even that drop of anger enter into his voice. Still, why all that happened if Sarkeleyet already had his own supply?
The marten shook his head in professor-like manner.
"You presume far too much. These are but the remnants of a prototype line. Distilled as they are, they are a good deal more dangerous than fully processed Red Brandy. One dose and the unfortunate subject is sent into a bloodwrath from which there is no end." Here the marten's eyes slit with macabre satisfaction. "The subject kills everybeast in his sight until he is either slain or else his heart bursts. I would have shown you this before, but then too much would have been presumed. No doubt most of your…colleagues would have misunderstood and thought this was the final product, not realizing that I need the real Brandy."
No, before there had been more than two beasts in the study, more paws moving about, reaching, touching. One could not keep track of that many wandering paws at once, even if he possessed some help in the form of servants. Now, though, it was just he and Antonio and how could Antonio make a move without Sarkeleyet knowing, the marten must have thought.
"As you can see, my stock is limited, which is why it is imperative that you retrieve the original batch."
Antonio stretched a paw toward the box.
"May I?"
Sarkeleyet only nodded.
Retrieving a solitary vial, he held the object up to the light. The vial was filled with a muddy red liquid. There was not even a slight glimmer of brightness on his end. The prototype Brandy was not in the least translucent. He unscrewed the top and sniffed the contents, carefully hiding the disgust in his face at the smell; the raw ingredients of the stuff may have been taken from the sewers themselves. His face a picture of calculated satisfaction, he replaced the vial in the box.
"Are you quite sure there is no other place your colleague may have stored his wares, anywhere else he may have worked?"
Sarkeleyet spent far too much time gazing at the ceiling in thought, four seconds longer than was usual to be precise. At least he had picked an even number, Antonio reflected.
"There is but one area I can think of, a small apothecary shop not far from the headquarters of those Feldoh's Heirs." He chuckled, a very forced sound. "Local gossip had it that there was in fact a large she-lizard taking up residence within the building, but it is a derelict now, as far as I know."
The meeting wound around the usual parameters, a few more niceties given on Antonio's part, a few more questions. Soon, the stoat was able to stand, thank Lord Sarkeleyet ever-so-much for his understanding of the matter, tell him just how glad he was that he was still able to work for him and then leave. A quick glance around the hall assured that nobeast was watching him. Antonio stayed near the door, waiting for a familiar murmuring to occur. He allowed himself a smile when it did.
The door opened soundlessly, that dark slit of light expanding into a window through which the stoat crept. Sarkeleyet was very much absorbed in conversation with himself at the far corner of the room. On thief's paws, he slid across the floor, skillfully removed the lid to the box and retrieved one of the vials. He turned on his heel, leaving the door exactly where it had been a moment ago. If Sarkeleyet even noticed the theft, it was long after Antonio left. It would not matter either way. He would not be returning.
It was not true, his mind screamed, there was no conceivable, rational, possible way. And yet his paws protested, as well as his eyes, the watery traitors, after very plainly seeing what he held. Another box. Another puzzle box, similar to the one they had found before, this one hiding in a compartment in a wall concealed only by a hasty application of plaster. Another puzzle box with no sign of a keyhole, no sign of a latch, but a clear sign of a security device that would destroy whatever was in it if the box were mishandled.
Antonio took a deep breath, his eyes locked on the box though slit eyes. Slowly, carefully, he steadied his arms, took another breath and as uncontrollable rage took him, dashed the box against the ground with both paws.
He opened his eyes to find papers strewn all about the bare second floor room. The papers, it seemed, were not in the least harmed. No trace of scorch or stain showed on their aged yellow faces.
Antonio stopped the building laughter from exploding out of his throat with great difficulty, but stop it he did. Best not to wake anybeast, although the clatter from the box may have already done as much. This box appeared a great deal older. Therefore, the safeguard must have malfunctioned or worn through long ago.
Kneeling down, he surveyed the pages and attempted to pile them into some sort of order. What he found were long equations, lists written in both word and number. If one looked at the pages just carefully enough and perhaps with a hint of madness about him, he would see that the pages bore a recipe, the only recipe this Gate's-damned Nyveer would have hidden behind a wall in an apothecary shop well off the beaten path of any traveler: the recipe for the distillation of Red Brandy. A smile, entirely unauthorized, curled at his lips. Antonio was so happy, he could–
"Hold there!"
A blade pressed at his back.
"Not a move or you will be slain!"