by Simon Archer
“Here we are, my lord,” Hopper whispered and whipped her ponytail back.
“Why did we walk at my pace anywhere?” I asked myself quietly. “Like our big trip to the Port? That could have been much faster. I feel so slow now.”
“You never asked, my lord.” Hopper hushed. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. You’ve beaten a lot of fast Wolves and become a lord. That’s more than I’ve done.”
“I’m not looking for a pity party, just rethinking how I might have done things differently.” I sighed. “But I don’t think you could have done that the whole time. You’d have been just as tired as the Wolves, and then you couldn’t have helped keep them from eating us. And sure as hell they weren’t being cooperative. Would have just been bucking broncos the whole time. Plus, I’d have crashed us more times than my head could handle.”
“Check on the others.” I heard a muffled and gravelly voice on the other side of the door. “See what they know about this.”
“Company,” I whispered. “Stick to the wall by the hinges. When a few of them step through, kick it closed.” Loading up the shotgun and switching to the pistol, I took my position at the other side of the door.
She plunked against the side I said as the door opened. Two spears jabbed through in a probing motion, then retreated. Shortly afterward, two Wolf grunts slowly tiptoed through the opening, looking everywhere except where we were for intruders.
Hopper slammed the door closed, and I popped the two of them in the smalls of the back easily. Neither of them made a peep as they fell down effortlessly, convulsing as they fell unconscious. With that out of the way, we prepared for more to step through.
“We’re only killing the elite,” I told Hopper. “If I can get the other two grunts away, we can get four more Wolves out of this. Be gentle. Or, well, gentler.” Hopper nodded her head.
“Cowards!” The voice spoke again, now very, very miffed with our behavior. “Come face me. Your ‘popping’ trick won’t work so easily on the strong!”
“Can you believe the nerve of this guy?” I asked Hopper.
“May I go in first, my lord?” Hopper beseeched. “To call me a coward is one thing, but you, my master, Timberpine Slayer?” She took a deep, fuming breath in. “I am not happy.” She positioned herself farther back, giving herself a headstart for a grand entrance.
“By all means,” I allowed, loading my shotgun up. “I have some things of my own to discuss with the gentleman.” I opened the door for her.
With a runner’s stance, she flexed her legs, popping her neck. Then, as if her launch was the gun, she boomed through the door as she leaped inside to make her opinion of the Wolf’s comment very clear. Flipping my shotgun to have the butt out like a club, I entered right after to make a similar argument.
25
“And then we saved you, but you were there for that,” I said, wrapping my story as we headed down the next stretch of tunnel. “I probably should have asked this earlier, but what would Timberpine have you do for him when he came to see you?”
“He wanted me to help keep his charms working,” Tinker said. “He said that they kept cracking, and he learned I taught myself how to read, so he had me learn how to fix them while I was tied up here. Prove I’m still useful. I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t know that they would do those horrible things to him.”
“I might have done the same thing in your position,” I assured her with a stroke of her hair. “It is more than fine. He’s dead. More importantly, you fix charms?”
“Yeah,” she said. “If you have too many charms on a single object, the energies bounce off each other and start breaking them, so I fix them. He had five on each leg, and since he wanted them permanently on his legs, it was like ten charms were pushing their energies through him.”
“Do you…” I started to ask. “… make them?” I was putting a lot of emotional charge in the hope bank here.
“Yes,” she answered. “I’ve actually been working on the casings for a few charms as you were telling your story, using the stuff from your bag.” She showed several little flat stones, like the charms I’ve been using, but without any glowing parts. “There’s still a lot of work to do to make it an actual charm, but this should save us a little time when I have some blueprints.”
“Last question,” I said to her with a grave look in my eye. “Can you take charms off of things and put them on other things?”
“Yeah, it’s easy,” she said as my heart skipped. “Do you have any you need to be removed?”
“We’re in business!” My voice echoed through the cavern as I clapped once in victory. I picked her up and twirled her around. “You can read, you can fix them, you can make them, and you can move them! You are just the whole package!”
“Oh my!” Tinker was at a loss for words as I kept her spinning around. “I’m so happy that you’re happy, sir! I can make as many charms as you need! I’ll get started as soon as I get some blueprints!”
“I’m getting my jerky!” I set her down, going over to Hopper and picking her up. “All the jerky! Everybody gets jerky! We’ll be drowning in it! I’m gonna shower in that jerky every morning! Jerky!”
“And now that Hopper’s fixed, we can go wherever we want!” Tinker jumped up for joy. I set Hopper down with a bit of a dour look on my face. Hopper’s face was much more so. “What happened? Did shutting down the generator not get the portals back up?”
“No,” I said to her. “We wouldn’t have walked this tunnel if they did. Don’t get me wrong, it’s better, but it’s not quite working.”
Hopper placed her hands out in front of herself, channeling her power to make a portal. A faint thin oval of purplish energy, almost completely transparent, tried to come into existence but didn’t get any clearer, no matter how hard Hopper tried to bring it about. After a moment, she let out a breath, and the faded portal disappeared. She didn’t lift up her head, even after the portal closed, as she rested in her supposed defeat.
“We’re getting close, though,” I pointed out. “We weren’t able to do even that before. Once we get that other generator, we’ll be able to go wherever we like.”
“My lord, I’m--” Hopper tried to apologize before my fingers were on her lips, closing them.
“We’re doing just fine without portals,” I told Tinker. “We’re kicking ass, and contributing equally, even without magical powers.”
“But what if you didn’t have to?” Tinker said, the cogs turning in her mind.
“Do you have something for us?” I asked her, seeing those cogs turning.
“I think I do!” She bounced excitedly. “I think I have a lot of things for you, sir!”
“Glad to hear it!” I said. “But first, you get to meet the boys.”
We had finally reached the ladder after our long travel and riveting stories. Before we got on, I made sure we were all prepared in case things were bad up there. If those boys were as literal as I knew they were, and something happened to Scooby, the rest of them would have kept fighting all the way to their deaths instead of thinking to find me to help. We could have been coming up to a face full of spears and musket-fire as soon as that hatch lifted. With my gun and machete ready to unsheathe as soon as I was out, I went on up first, not being one to presume to take a position below a woman, and we all headed up.
Getting up to the hatch itself, I prepared myself for the worst, taking a quick peek as quietly as I could. There was Toby’s pale grey fur, along with Old Yeller’s blond, and Scooby’s spots, Foxhound’s dark red, all calmly shuffling about. No sounds of battle. It seemed safe enough. I lifted the lid all the way, climbing out of the metal tube to breathe some fresh air again, bringing up the girls with me.
Going through the mental tally in my head of names, all of the wolves were accounted for, plus the four we got from the generator. Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde seemed to be fitting in just fine, and I was running out of names. While I noticed something particularly a
larming, they greeted us with Wolfish hospitality.
“Hey, boss!” Lassie shouted. “Glad you’re back.”
“Is that the bunny?” Old Yeller shouted. “Hello, new girl! My name is Old Yeller. I don’t yell at old people.”
“I was a shepherd before I was a Shepherd,” Shepherd countered. “I don’t think that was related, though. Hello!”
“Um, boys?” I inquired about the alarming thing I noticed, hands together like I was praying and pressed against my nose. “Did you guys howl for me?”
“No, why?” Poodle answered, oblivious to my implication.
“Can you tell me what this is about?” I said as I gestured towards the alarming thing.
“What is what about, boss?” Toby asked as if it wasn’t obvious.
On the ground below us, there were the ten bodies of the elites we had fought before. That wasn’t confusing. I was there for that. I was not there for the other few dozen bodies of city guards and keep guards on the ground around those first bodies, lining up the mound as if it was some kind of decorative pattern on a macabre picnic blanket. They were all dead, of course, but that was not the point. The point was that there was an army of them, going all the way down to the edge of the stump line, and at no point was I given any indication of this event occurring, even though I had specifically instructed these Wolves to provide such indication should an event such as this occur. Such specific instructions were ignored. I took a deep breath.
“Scooby, Toby, Snoopy,” I called each of them by name specifically to get them to pay attention. “Were there other Wolves besides my pack members up here when you got here?”
“Yeah, there were a bunch of them,” Toby said. “They were charging up the hill on all the sides and everything.”
“Scooby.” I addressed him specifically now, hands still up on my face. “Did I not tell you to come to me if there was fighting?”
“No.” He answered. “You said to report to you if there was a problem.” My eyes widened in my subdued frustration.
“Are you telling me that you didn’t see the encroaching armies of the Baron on the tube as a problem, Scooby?”
“Well, at first, they almost were.” Foxhound defended Scooby. “There were a bunch of them, so we were going to howl for you, but then the first three showed up. So we thought you knew about it, and we just kept going. But then there were even more of them, and we were going to howl for you, but then four more Wolves came up from the tube, saying you sent them up. We thought you knew about that, too.”
“Um,” He made a compelling case for their innocence. In fact, I would have been the incriminated party here, giving the wording and the reinforcements timing. “Alright. Let’s head out, then. We’ve got a lot to do.”
Back at the mansion, I saw that Wolves and Rabbits were still working around each other, preparing the mansion for battle. Strangely, it seemed that the barricading and reinforcement work had not progressed since I left, even though there were clearly bunnies and Wolves working to put more boards down. Everyone seemed to be working just as hard as before, much to my pleasure. It seemed I didn’t miss any skirmishes yet. Hopefully, we wouldn’t have anything to worry about until we were ready to strike back. For now, I was counting my blessings. My Wolves took jobs as soon as they were inside the courtyard, including the four new ones, taking cues from the others as to where to be helpful.
We had barely made it through the door before I found myself stripped of my guns and my supplies, only to see them rushed off on two little bunny legs as they charged through the hallways.
“I’ll-bring-these-right-back-I-promise-although-some-of-it-might-be-used-up-I’m-so-sorry-sir!” Tinker blurted out in one word, disappearing into the corridors.
“Show her where the blueprints are, Hopper.” I lean over to her. “She’s got a lot of steel beams and no house to build right there.”
“Yes, my lord.” She followed after the little kleptomaniac. “I can’t wait to see what she finds! I hope we find something fun!”
“Will you be needing those retrieved, your grace?” Bugs hopped over to me as I rolled my shoulders.
“No need, Bugs,” I instructed him. “Give her free reign of the place. Anything she needs for her work, she gets. Keep her away from the healers and their things, though. She needs those supplies, so have her come ask me.”
“Are you sure, your grace?” Bugs asked. “Do you know what she may inquire about? What she might take? She seems to be quite… forward, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“That’s a common trait among bunnies, Bugs.” I reminded him. “Never a dull moment with them. And this place is going to be converted into another structure once I take the castle. No one person needs this much space just for them.”
“Oh.” Bugs seemed a little solemn. “And, will you still be needing the servants here, your grace, or are they…?”
“Of course!” I told him. “First of all, I’ll need people to get this reworked into something the city needs. Secondly, I’ll be needing people to staff whatever I decide to build here. Thirdly, I’m taking almost everyone here with me to the castle, save for whoever would fit best working at the place I come up with. Don’t you worry, Bugs. That’s an order.”
“It will be done, your grace.” Bugs bowed.
“How are the preparations coming along?” I asked, taking a look around. “Do we have an estimated time we’d be finished?”
“We had a bit of a hiccup come along when the City Guard paid us a rather hostile visit, your grace.” He reported grimly. “We were much further along before their assault.”
“How many dead or wounded?”
“No dead, your grace.” Bugs informed me to my relief. “The Wolf you have named Balto organized quite the defensive effort. In fact, his leadership caused quite some confusion in the ranks of the Guard, as they were strategizing specifically to kill him and dissolve our defensive effort. They managed to capture him, having burnt through more than half of the forces they rallied to do it.”
“Shit.” I stroked my hair with the stress. “But he’s still alive, then? Do we know where they’re keeping him, or why?”
“Oh, no, they released him shortly after,” Bugs continued. “When they realized the error that they made in thinking he was a pack leader, they retreated. Turns out, their whole plan was to retake the estate by taking the pack leader they thought you would have left in charge of it. He’s still helping reorganize the defenses if you’d like to see him.”
“I’ll get to him in my rounds,” I told him. “So that’s why we’re still barricading, then? You guys cleaned up the war debris like it was never here, I was puzzling about why we weren’t further along. Good to know you’ve held the fort just as well as I could have hoped.”
“I would hope that our efforts would always please you, your grace.” Bugs bowed again. “We live to serve as you need.”
“You can tell them I am very pleased with all of their efforts,” I commanded. “You’re all doing amazing work. What about the wounded, though?”
“Yes, we have quite a few of those.” Bugs sighed. “Even a few of our more foolhardy Rabbits decided to take up a fighting stance, despite warnings from myself and many others. We are near capacity for the healers in your master bedroom.”
“Have the servant’s quarters converted into an emergency clinic for now,” I directed. “Give them all the space they need and make sure every healer has an able-bodied assistant if they need one. Anything else they need, make sure they get it.”
“Of course, your grace,” he complied. “Anything else?”
“That will be all, Bugs,” I dismissed him. “Thank you, as well. You’ve done great work with not much to work with.”
“I live to serve, your grace.” Bugs hopped along to carry out my orders as faithfully as always.
They really were the cream of the crop. I’d been putting everyone in danger from the moment I stepped into this world, and everyone I worked with was top notch
at helping me rectify that.
You didn’t need a lot of people if every last one you had was the best of the best. They’d really saved my ass. Every single one of them served me faithfully, assisting me personally, fighting for me, helping those I was sworn to protect, or otherwise advancing my goals, even those like Gmork. Maybe it was time I paid him a visit, see how he was doing.
He was still an asshole.
26
After visiting Gmork, who was still being an asshole, I gathered that my tough love had been working on him, albeit slowly. He was prone to snapping at the healers attending him, but Apgar was quick to knock that out of him whenever he started. But, according to Apgar, he’d actually said ‘thank you’ to one of the healers earlier. We weren’t quite at the standard yet, but progress was key. But, that growing act of kindness was also without the looming threat of banishment and death looming over his head. I took that as a sign that he was changing.
And if he was acting, I could have just as easily broken him again.
I went to see Balto next to give him my thanks personally. I’m glad I discovered him right before the assault. Although not to diminish any of Balto’s accomplishments, many of the Wolves I’d worked with longer could have done the job with similar effectiveness, if only because the critical factor was the fact that they thought he was a pack leader. But he was fiercely loyal to what could have very well been his end. The Wolf society taught that all of the pack members were to have been loyal until they died, but that last bit of effort was always lacking when they thought they were going to switch over to another pack leader. If I was going to keep winning all the way to the top, everyone who worked for me had to fight harder and longer than the enemy. Any time I brought Wolves and Rabbits over to my side, they’d have been better for it, and I would have been able to trounce any force of equal number.