Disclaimer: Most characters herein are, naturally, not my own.
A Throne of One's Own
3. The Queen's Gambit
Shadow huffed and puffed as he struggled to keep pace with Hunni on their march through Dalriada, bound for Queen Rouge's mead hall. The bumpy chariot back from the Iblisian encampment had taken a toll on his body. Silver had gotten them home in close to record time, but speed had come at the expense of comfort. His iron breastplate wasn't helping, either.
Shadow slipped a hand under the piece of armor, scratching the black fur beneath its embossed abs. He was aching to take the metal encumbrance off. However, the queen liked her warriors to look the part in her presence. How Hunni was maintaining such speed in her breastplate and greaves was a marvel.
The flaxen-furred feline seemed to have chosen the quickest possible route through the hillfort. This meant eschewing the path in favor of cutting between thatched roundhouses, many with lupine thralls toiling in their yards. Shadow had left Lobo back at the stables. The idea of dragging him up to the mead hall felt almost callous.
At length, the walking warriors reached the steep mound at the northern tip of the hillfort. They passed through a palisade at the foot of the slope and climbed. A spear-toting white rabbit stood guard at the entrance to a second palisade encircling the top of the mound.
"Welcome, my lord," she said, standing to attention as the cat and hedgehog passed by.
Shadow ignored her. He could bear Lobo calling him that — anything was better than 'master' — but anyone else using it made him want to scoff. He hadn't been a lord of anywhere for a long time. His courtship with Amaranth had made sure of that.
With only a skeletal watchtower, the mead hall dominated the top of the mound. With its steeply humped roof, the oblong wooden structure stood three times taller than Dalriada's tallest roundhouse. Its unassuming entranceway stood in stark contrast to its ornate interior.
The high-ceilinged main chamber's walls were festooned with woven hangings, impractical ceremonial weapons, and other trophies of Rouge's bountiful reign. In the middle of the chamber, there was a sunken firepit in which two wolf cubs stood turning a calf on a spit.
As Hunni and Shadow passed the firepit, the clarity of the piercing noise of metal grinding against metal took the hedgehog by surprise. He was unaccustomed to seeing this quiet or empty. Then again, he'd been a far less frequent visitor up here in recent times, outside of his official duties and the obligatory lunar banquets.
At the back of the chamber, Queen Rouge sat lounging upon a wooden throne with a carved set of oversized bat wings protruding from the backrest. Legs draped over one armrest, goblet in hand, she was watching a rubicund echidna and lavender-furred cat play chess on the throne's stone dais. Both players wore iron breastplates and sword-belts over their woolen tunics.
Shadow knew the chess set they were using well. Almost every piece on the board — the Queens, Druids, Chariots, Towers, and Thralls — were carved in Rouge's image, whilst the Kings resembled her long-dead husband, the late King Aero.
"My queen," said Hunni, striking the floor with the butt of her spear. The thud echoed around the hall.
Rouge looked up. She smiled at Shadow.
"Our pilgrim returns," she said, "A worthwhile journey?"
"Hardly, my queen," said Shadow.
He ignored the glare the lavender-furred cat fixed him with.
Rouge smirked. "No more than we expected, then."
The cat gasped.
"My queen!" she said woundedly, turning her amber gaze on the bat.
Rouge dismissed the indignation with a flick of her hand.
"Well, Shadow, let's hear whatever it was Iblis had to tell you."
Suppressing a sigh, Shadow cleared his throat:
The road that you walk
Is fraught with dangers unseen
Walk it warily
"Iblis has spoken," murmured Blaze as the hedgehog finished his recitation.
"Hardly what I would call bad advice," remarked Rouge, swilling the mead in her goblet thoughtfully, "It certainly doesn't sound like he was encouraging you to stay home."
"I…suppose not, my queen," said Shadow guardedly.
"In which case, you shouldn't have any objections to setting out for Arkadia at, say, dawn?"
"My queen?!" blurted the echidna.
He sprang to his feet and stepped away from the throne, almost backing into Shadow.
"What the matter, Knuxahuatl?" asked Rouge earnestly, "I would've expected you to be the most eager of us all to visit Laputa."
"I am, my queen," said the echidna meekly, "But…an attack? So soon?"
Rouge tossed her head back in laughter.
"There will be no attack, Knuxahuatl," she said, "Merely an embassy."
"To what end, my queen?" said Shadow.
"What do you think?" said Rouge flatly, "You're to tell that usurper Iximche his days on Pachacamac's old throne are numbered, and that if he's willing to go quietly, Dalriada's warriors stand ready to help him safely into exile."
The bat went for another mouthful of mead, only to find her goblet empty. Sitting up straight on the throne, she looked to her left.
"Lupe, fill this and fetch three more."
"Yes, mistress," said a gray she-wolf in a sackcloth tunic. Approaching the throne with her head bowed, the thrall took the queen's goblet and scampered off out a side-door.
At Hunni's command, the wolf cubs tending the spit-roast clambered out of the firepit and carried over a table. They placed it in front of Shadow and Knuxahuatl, then withdrew as Rouge stood.
"On your feet, Blaze," she said, carefully stepping over the incomplete chess game, "Join us."
Shadow's red eyes tracked the cat as she hesitantly made her way around the table to stand at his side. He had a sinking feeling his wife was going to hate what was coming.
"Lupe?" Rouge called out, "Where are you?"
"Right here, mistress!" Lupe called back, bursting into the chamber bearing a tray of goblets.
Rushing to the queen's side, the she-wolf tripped on the lip of the throne's dais. She stumbled forward but kept her feet. One of the goblets wasn't so lucky. The ill-fated vessel toppled off the tray, splattering Rouge's green linen gown with mead.
Blaze inhaled so sharply, Shadow looked at her instead of the spill. The cat stared aghast at the mead, as if it were blood.
Lupe trembled as she watched Rouge gaze impassively at her dirtied dress. Looking up, she gently relieved the thrall of her tray and placed it on the table. Lupe trembled even more as the bat extended a hand and…patted her on the side of her muzzle.
"You silly pup," sighed Rouge.
Shadow and Knuxahuatl winced as Hunni grabbed the scruff of Lupe's neck and dragged her away.
"Take one, then, my emissaries," urged Rouge, gesturing to the goblets on the table.
Blaze and Knuxahuatl complied. Shadow did not, too distracted by the desperate skitter of Lupe's toe-claws on the flagstones. Hunni soon forced the thrall through a side-door.
"My queen?" he said, turning to Rouge, ignoring the sole remaining goblet.
The bat smiled knowingly.
"I should've known you'd refuse," she said, claiming the lonely goblet, "What ever happened to that appetite of yours?"
Shadow furrowed his brow.
"Drink deep, my emissaries," said Rouge, raising her drink in toast, "Tomorrow promises to be a fine day indeed for Dalriada."
With that, she set about draining her goblet. Dazzled by the sight of the queen upending her vessel, Knuxahuatl was slow in drinking his own. As the goblet reached his lips, a sharp canine yelp filled the hall.
The echidna fumbled his mead, then dropped it, much to Blaze's consternation. Across the table, Rouge coolly went on glugging as a second yelp, then a third echoed around the hall.
"My queen?" said Shadow.
A fourth yelp.
"My queen."
A fifth yelp.
"My queen!" barked the hedgehog, slapping the table with his hands.
In the background, the creak of the rotating spit-roast paused. Blaze and Knuxahuatl looked on, hands hovering on sword hilts, as Rouge gradually lowered her goblet and drew a wrist across her mouth.
"Why, Shadow" — a sixth yelp — "It's as if Amaranth herself were here."
Shadow kept his hands planted firmly on the table, mindful of his fellow warriors' eagerness to curry favor with the queen. What better way than to strike down a rebellious rival?
"My queen…" — a seventh yelp — "I would likely still be traveling, if not for Lobo's help today. If it pleases you, I would seek to reward—"
Rouge tutted.
"Now, Shadow, since when was it the Dalriada way for warriors to bargain with their queen?"
An eighth yelp.
"Simply ask, and you may receive."
Shadow dropped his head. This would've been so much easier with Amaranth at his side. On the other hand, if she were here, she or Hunni might already be dead by now.
"My queen, let me take Lupe for the night…" — a ninth yelp — "Please!"
Rouge smiled a tight smile.
"Hunni, enough! Bring her out!"
The flaxen-furred feline duly reentered the chamber. A hunched-over Lupe staggered along behind her, towed by a leather cord binding her wrists.
"My queen?" said Hunni.
"Give Lupe to Shadow," said Rouge, "He'll keep her until dawn."
The she-wolf's head snapped up in spite of her scourged back. With glistening green eyes, she watched the hedgehog nudge Knuxahuatl aside as he rounded the table to snatch the leather cord out Hunni's paws. Then, he stormed out of the mead hall. Lupe scrambled to keep up.
"Blaze, Knuxahuatl," said Rouge, drawing the warriors' attention back to the chessboard on the throne's dais, "Shall we finish our game?"
Outside the mead hall, the guard on the inner palisade was slow to notice Shadow's reemergence.
"M-my lor—ugh!"
The white rabbit grunted as she was pushed onto her backside.
On the way down the slope, the shambling she-wolf's foot caught on a stray tussock.
"Master?" she wheezed, landing on her front.
Shadow stopped dead in his tracks. He whirled around, baring his teeth as the fallen thrall.
"Do not call me that!" he spat, stabbing an index finger at the she-wolf.
Lupe nodded frantically, watching his finger as if were a drawn blade. Shadow promptly returned the offending hand to his sword's pommel. He was struggling not to see Susi cowering on the grass.
"Call me by my name. Call me 'lord'. Call me what you will," he said quietly, dropping to one knee, "Just…do not call me that."
Lupe flinched as he drew his sword, only for him to cut the cord binding her wrists.
"Come," said Shadow, offering her his free hand, "If we're lucky, Lobo should be about done with the horses by now."