by Simon Archer
“More of anything, boys,” I clarified. “You might not push this chair. You might have to cook or clean or guard a place. Heck, you might not ever push this chair again. Or, you might have to push this chair every day. Depends on what I need.”
“Yeah, that’s part of what makes working with Lord Dragonoak so great!” Scooby said, still pushing with his whole body. “You always have something to do, and it helps him out with what he needs. Sometimes, you get to do stuff that he doesn’t tell you to do, but he told you what he needs from you, so you can do what you need to do to get him what he said he needs.”
“What if he doesn’t like something that we do?” Tweedle Dee asked Scooby. “How do we know if we’re doing what he wants us to do if he doesn’t tell us to do it?”
“He’s only got a few rules for that,” Scooby answered them. “Always listen and obey him if he wants something, don’t harm or talk bad about Rabbits ever, don’t harm any other pack members. It’s easy. Also, you gotta respond to your name. That’s a tricky one, but I think I got it down now. Don’t worry if you don’t get it at first.”
“But that’s…” Tweedle Dum tried to formulate a thought. “You don’t… How… What are we supposed to do? What is our job?”
“How about you just listen in for a little while to what I tell you?” I said to them. “You just do the things I ask, keep those rules Scooby said in mind, and maybe you’ll get the hang of things once you’ve been listening long enough.”
The two Tweedles looked down at the ground as they thought all of these things over, trying to fit it into their little headspaces.
“Good job, Scooby.” I congratulated his odd string of coherent thoughts. “That’s probably some of the smartest stuff you’ve ever said.”
“Thank you, boss,” he said, putting his head down to keep pushing. We were all left to contemplate the different things we just experienced as we headed up the rest of the hill.
Just seeing the walls of the estate made the whole ordeal worth it. The place was enormous, with walls spanning out past where I could see and raised up at least thirty feet. It was a city estate, so it had houses on either side that just served to make the place that much larger to take in. It wasn’t the most eventful thing to look at, being mostly large walls on the outside, save for a few banners. They were emblazoned with an emblem of three trees arranged in a triangle, pointed towards the top along with the tree trunks themselves. A giant wolf’s skull in the middle, mouth open with an intricate snowflake inside, rested between the three trees, and the whole emblem, giving the image an unwelcoming feel to it.
That’d be coming down as soon as I could get someone to do it, but it did get me thinking about my own emblem to have. Something that took into account everything I was trying to do here. Not that it needed to be majestic or fancy, just something that could let people know what they were up against if they were fighting us, and who was coming to help if they were under our protection.
Coming up to those wide and mighty black doors, I put the Tweedles in front.
“Here’s your job for right now, boys,” I told them. “Get all of the Estate guards out here so we can explain the situation.”
“Are we your heralds now?” Tweedle Dee asked.
“For right now, maybe not later,” I said to them. “Call them up.”
With a howl, the Tweedles signaled the guards to come to the door as we watched them creak open. Like grains of furry sand, they poured out and lined up in front to greet us. All in all, it looked like we had fifty total here. After the fairly expected ordeal of explaining that Timberpine was dead, naming them all, and explaining the expectations of Rabbit treatment, Scooby finally wheeled Hopper and me through those doors to see the fruits of all our labors.
For an evil shitbag, the late Timberpine sure had some expensive and beautiful architecture. Stonework lining up and down the walls, with some craftsmanship that probably took months to get done. Flowers and trees, perfectly symmetrical in the garden, were segmented by pathways crisscrossing through them, framing the whole greenery like a mosaic.
“You can stop pushing, Scooby,” I informed the chair valet. “Put that off to the side, out of the rain, for now. If someone needs it, we’ll have a spare. Send the rest of them in once you’re done. Make sure any wounded find their way to beds and medical care.”
Now that we were finally here, I figured it was time to get up and start moving around. As the Wolves and slaves all came into the courtyard to settle in, pouring through the courtyard into the various hallways. I gently woke up Hopper and set her to her feet. She blinked, yawned, and stretched as she came out of her peaceful rest. We both took a few steps as we took a moment to settle.
“It’s so…” Hopper took a look around at the place she’d called home for so many years.
“Yeah, I’d imagine,” I said, knowing what she was probably thinking. “Must be like a faint dream, coming back here like nothing changed. Unless it has changed. Anyway, it must be intense. We can take it as slow as you need. Just be ready for some big changes.”
“We have the room prepared for the new lord.” A voice with a slight warble chirped from nowhere. “We look forward to serving as we did before.”
A smaller, older hare slave, very much rabbit-like, coated in brown fur with grey stripes and wearing a meek outfit, a brown tunic and slacks, shuffled up to us. I stifled a yelp. Where he came from, I had no idea. I didn’t even notice him approach. Maybe I was just tired.
“Thank you, good sir,” I said to him. “Very much appreciated. I have some questions for you if you didn’t mind answering.”
He didn’t acknowledge me. His jaw dropped open as he looked at Hopper, who was just as confused as I was at his sight. After a bit of a pause, I finally broke the tension.
“Excuse me?” I said to him, to no response. “Hello? Sir? Are you okay?”
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember ever meeting you.” She looked at the strange striped hare. “Did you hear about me running away?”
“When I look at you, it seems like it was just yesterday.” He went to touch Hopper’s face. “All of these years and you haven’t aged one day.”
“Years?” Hopper said. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”
“How long ago did Hopper leave?” I asked the elderly hare, already suspecting who he was from Hopper’s escape story.
“By now, it’s been about fifty years,” he answered. “I was just a young housekeeper under you, tripping over my own feet. Then one night after one of Timberpine’s parties, you just disappeared. We thought the Wolves had eaten you.”
“Oh, my goodness.” She gave the older servant a hug. “I can’t believe it’s you! Are you sure it’s been fifty years? Not that I don’t think you’re right, it’s just hard to think about.”
The implications were definitely not fun to think about. Maybe the boys weren’t so wrong after all in thinking Wolves were unaging. That just raised a thousand questions and answered only the one. I didn’t have the information to even begin to work that out without just guessing. Like any person, I had a few hunches, but they had no real substance at all to them, and it really didn’t matter, since they were killable with bullets all the same.
“I don’t know how you got here with your youth, but I had to take the long way around.” He giggled. “Timberpine was never the same after that night. He became more vicious, crueler. He eventually stopped having those parties he was so fond of, slaughtered many of the nobles who used to attend and took their land. I thought it would never end. He insisted he was immortal and would recover from mortal wounds as if they were just a bad night of drinking.”
“Yeah, that was a real pain to work around,” I told him. “We got it taken care of, though, and now I’d like to have a few questions answered.”
“You’re the new lord?” He scoffed, then resumed a polite posture as soon as he was abl
e to. “Forgive me, my lord. I was just under the impression that the Wolf lord was still waiting outside. I should have seen your regality by your illustrious blue coat. It comes as quite a surprise to many that a hare would be able to even survive a challenge with a regular Wolf grunt, let alone a noble as powerful as Timberpine. Though I see that you are no regular hare. May I just say that I sincerely look forward to working under you, the most esteemed lord amongst hares?”
“I appreciate the thought, but you can just stick with ‘sir’ or ‘lord’ or whatever fits your fancy,” I said. “So, I’ve got questions, doc. Can you answer them?”
“I will do my best, my liege.” He said. “I only know what these ears can hear, so I can’t guarantee you any answers.”
“What can you tell me about the missing bunnies?” I asked. “I haven’t seen a single one since entering the city. What happened to them?”
“The Baron gave a high price for selling bunnies to him, and many accepted.” He answered. “The only bunnies left will be inside the breeding stables. A representative from the Baron comes at the end of the week to check on Timberpine, make sure that he isn’t doing anything to try to supplant him. He’ll be here in a couple of days, and he will want your, er, hopping slave for his master.”
“If I may ask a weird question,” I started another line of query. “Do you have anyone here who knows how to read?”
“Well, I myself can read a few dozen words or so, but not terribly well,” the housekeeper butler admitted. “I think I’m the most adept of all the servants here, unfortunately.”
“What about the bunnies?”
“There was one.” The butler said as he thought about it. “She was a sharp carrot. Always curious. It got her in a lot of trouble, too. But she was taken with the rest of them to the Baron’s keep.”
“All the more reason to make an assault on the castle sooner than later,” I said. “We can’t make solid plans until tomorrow, so we’ll have to hope that whatever the Baron’s been collecting them for doesn’t happen soon. If the unaging Wolf theory holds, the Baron has had every opportunity to make a collection like this before. There’s something special going on, which means the bunnies are going to be saved for it. If we can find out what that special event is, we can plan accordingly and hopefully stop it.”
“What does a hopper do?” the butler inquired of me with a burning curiosity. “If I have the permission to inquire, of course.”
“I’ve given her a name,” I told him. “She’s called ‘Hopper,’ just like everyone else has a name.” I pointed out to some of the new Wolves in the pack moving about the house. “There’s Marmaduke, Snoopy, Krypto, Hachiko, Balto, Pluto, Odie, they all have names.”
“Are you to make all of the Wolves into lords, my lord?” The old servant bowed his head a bit. “I had hoped that we wouldn’t have to worry about Wolves and their authority as much with a hare as a lord, but if you deem it wise--”
“Call in the Rabbit servants,” I said to him. “Bring them all out here. Everyone gets a name. Hopper’s just the only Rabbit servant I’ve had until very recently. I don’t like calling people ‘maid’ or ‘butler’ or ‘slave.’ Everyone gets a name. It’s just easier.”
“Surely you don’t mean to make us all nobility, my liege?” he said incredulously.
“No, I don’t, Bugs.” I gave him his name. “But I do plan on treating everyone like they deserve to be identified as a person, Rabbit and Wolf alike.”
“Who is ‘Bugs,’ my liege?” he asked, the discovery stretching his eyes open. “Is that me?”
“Sure is, Bugs,” I told him. “Get the rest of them out here. All of them.”
“My name is Bugs,” Bugs said, mostly to himself. “I am in service to a hare lord, and I have a name. My name is Bugs…” Bugs hopped off, mumbling his new name to himself as he went to fetch the other slaves.
“Since you already have a name, Hopper, why don’t you take the time you need to get settled?” I said to her. “Feel free to go anywhere you like. Nothing is off-limits. Tell me if you find something interesting or want to show me something after I’m done naming.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Hopper gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t take too long.”
“Depends on how many I’m going through.” I rubbed her cheek with my fingers. “I’ll try to make it quick.”
Hopper slowly walked through the nearby hallway, taking in every inch like a cat would, looking up and down at all of the visible things. She disappeared around the corner as she swayed down Memory Lane.
After she left, a few estate guard Wolves came into the courtyard, taking positions at each of the four walls. Without any words between us, the malicious intent was in the air like a humid fog, stinking up the place. These guards were not happy with the loss of their previous lord, and they weren’t afraid to show it. It would have been an annoying and heartbreaking process to weed out all of the Wolves who were going to be a problem.
I couldn’t afford that now, or a lot of people would die.
21
Like a dull roar of thunder, the bunnies all hopped into the courtyard, like a panoply of different rabbits and subspecies of rabbit. Every possible rodent color found a home here as they all lined up, wiggling their noses and shifting in their places nervously.
“If you don’t mind, my liege,” Bugs began as he hopped beside me, “I took the liberty of calling in the breeding slaves as well as the new slaves that had come by earlier today.”
“I would have been upset if you hadn’t,” I congratulated him. “Did Timberpine get regular shipments of them or something?” Just the thought of treating anyone like a battery or coffee filter to be replaced regularly was enough to get me worked up.
“Not quite, my liege,” he answered. At least we didn’t have to add that to Timberpine’s list of horrendous evils that’d make a demon sick. “These ones had come in just earlier today before you arrived, during the commotion in the city. A few Wolves, directed by a bunny I know now as Hopper, were directing them up here away from the chaos. We accepted them under the impression that other lords wouldn’t have noticed them gone under the chaos, and perhaps we would have been rewarded when Timberpine returned. He was always looking for ways to increase his power and property.”
Huh, would you look at that? Maybe that’s what got Scooby all excited before, talking about ‘doing things without being told to.’ Almost brought a tear to my eye.
Out of the crowd, one of them hopped high above the crowd, shouting and pointing at me. Looking at him, I realized he was the one I ran into before, the one hiding inside the building when Timberpine first turned into a fireball of tentacles. I honestly thought he was too scared to listen before but was happy to see him all the same.
“That’s him!” He shouted into the crowd. “That’s the one who told me to come here. He’ll vouch for me with the master! You’ll see! He’ll tell him to let me stay!”
“You’ve been telling them about me?” I said to him.
“Yeah, you were amazing!” He kept bouncing in the air. “He was fighting with that crazy flying magic Wolf that turned into some kind of hairy fireball! Oh, you guys should have seen it, he’s got a little musket that shoots out lightning!”
“Wait, the Wolf was flying?” Another one, an orangish-brown one with very wide ears on his head in the crowd, said. “Was his hair white?”
“Yeah, it used to be,” the bouncy rabbit said. “Before it got burned off with the fire. Why?”
“That’s how Lord Timberpine duels!” A third in the crowd, a dark brown jackrabbit of manlier proportions, spoke out. “I’ve spied on some of the secret duels he had. He leaves the chair and flies around, slashing the other nobles from the air. I don’t remember any fire, though.”
“Maybe the fire’s another way he fights when things get rough.” A fourth chipped into the debate. “He was a powerful noble. Why wouldn’t he be able to do that, too?”
“But if he fought Timberpine
in a duel, then…” the orangish one started, prompting every last one to look at me with open jaws, waiting for me to respond in anxious anticipation. I swear, a pigeon could have gotten tangled up, flying through all the tension in the air.
“Well, yes, but--” I raised my hands from my sides in a dismissive gesture meant to calm things down. My word did the opposite, as every hare whooped and hollered, bouncing just as excitedly as the first one with a continuous roll of thunder.
“Hey, settle down!” They didn’t listen, still celebrating my victory over Timberpine as hard as they possibly could. “It’s not that big of a deal, let’s all quiet down.”
I learned quickly that my words were absolutely useless at piercing through the noise, especially since I wasn’t putting much effort into stopping them. It was probably super exciting for them to see a hare defeating a Wolf noble people thought was unkillable. It wasn’t a bad idea to let them celebrate.
“SHUT UP, YOU INGRATES!” a graveled voice roared over the crowd, stopping all of the celebrating as they slapped back into upright, at-attention positions, fear in all of their eyes. Some of them were fighting back some tears as they all shook in their spots.
I saw the source of the voice, Gmork, one of the estate guards I had just recently named, midnight black fur, with some mangy, bare spots here and there, especially on his face. He looked like something out of a nightmare, so I gave him a name that scared me when I was a kid. His breathing was heavy from his explosive yell, still amped from all of the tension that was in the room, that he just added to in buckets.
“No one wants to hear a bunch of vermin wailing about like dying prey!” He continued his angry tirade. “You think that just because another dirty vermin managed to crush a weakling lord in a challenge, you all can forget where you belong? I ought to--!” He had raised a hand to backhand a nearby slave with his fist.
“Over here,” I interrupted him, waving him over. “Now. I will not repeat myself.”