Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  Spoiler alert: they often did, and my teeth and claws tended to make them get more out of hand, which then required even more teeth and claws, until I was either banished from the room or yelled at sternly.

  Tonight, though, most things were calm. Until a fist came out of the blankets and narrowly missed the manservant’s face.

  I took my opportunity to attack, latching onto the hand with all ten claws and all my teeth.

  And the night began anew.

  NH Paxton is an indie author who loves genre fantasy, cats, and all sorts of shiny things.

  36

  Of Fire and Furry

  By Ben Wolf

  Legendary warrior Garrick Shatterstone sets out to rescue a Hellcat from a notorious warlord bent on using it to usher in a cat-astrophe of feline proportions!

  A Blood Mercenaries Short Story

  Chapter One

  Ronin Shroud wasn’t the last person Garrick wanted to see, but he wasn’t far from it, either.

  Clad in a brown and gray cloak, dingy and dull against the tropical décor lining the tavern’s interior, Ronin approached Garrick’s table.

  Great. Garrick downed the rest of his ale in three gulps.

  “Thought I might find you here.” Ronin took a seat in the chair opposite of him. “The legendary Garrick Shatterstone. One of the infamous Blood Mercenaries.”

  Garrick grunted and set his pewter tankard on the edge of the table, trying to meet the eyes of one of the barmaids scurrying about the place rather than interact with Ronin. If he had to have this conversation now, he needed more ale to lubricate his mood.

  “We’re on the island of Caclos, after all, and you’ve got coin to spare.” Ronin rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Tropical paradise. Fruity drinks. Tan-skinned beauties on beaches…”

  “What do you want?” Garrick grumbled. Even sitting, he had to look down at Ronin. Standing, Garrick was close to seven feet tall, whereas Ronin barely scraped six feet. Then again, Garrick supposed six feet was a decent height for someone fully human.

  Ronin’s face crinkled. “Hardly a cordial way to greet the man who delivered your long-awaited vengeance.”

  “Get to the point, bounty hunter,” Garrick said. “Unless I’m the quarry you seek. And if that’s the case, we’d better take this outside. I like this place and don’t want it flattened.”

  A sun-tanned barmaid scooped up Garrick’s empty tankard, splashed fresh ale into it from her pitcher, and set it back on the table while giving Garrick an obviously forced smile. When he produced a gold coin and flipped it to her, her smile widened with genuine appreciation.

  When she noticed Ronin’s handsome face, her smile shifted again, this time with interest.

  He waved her away and refocused on Garrick.

  “Wouldn’t dream of coming after someone like you.” Ronin leaned back in his chair. “Although you’re the easiest mark I could ever hope to chase. Hard to miss a guy your size with bright blue hair and dark-green skin.”

  Garrick’s frown returned, and he scowled. Had Ronin not delivered on his promise a few months earlier, Garrick would’ve put his blond head through the table for his remarks.

  Instead, he took the tankard into his huge hand and took another gulp of ale. It had a sweet edge to it with a touch of pineapple, a fruit that grew on Caclos but nowhere else on the continent of Aletia.

  “In any case, you know why I’m here,” Ronin continued.

  Garrick grunted again. “Usually when I owe people favors, they have the decency to wait a few years to collect. I’m on vacation.”

  “Afraid this can’t wait,” Ronin said. “Need your help with a bounty.”

  “Not interested.” Garrick took another big swig and found his tankard empty again. At the rate he was drinking, he probably ought to buy the entire tavern outright. Gods knew he had enough coin to do it…for once in his life.

  “I’m not asking,” Ronin asserted.

  Garrick set the tankard down again, this time in front of him rather than at the edge of the table. He met Ronin’s stern green eyes. “Kent said you had balls like boulders. Guess he wasn’t lying.”

  “Comes with being a bounty hunter.” Ronin leaned forward again. “And you gave me your word.”

  That had been Garrick’s mistake.

  Months earlier, Ronin had led Garrick to Noraff, the traitorous Onni who’d murdered Garrick’s mercenary partners and left him for dead in an Aletian vault. Garrick had come up short in his own searches for the traitorous, long-limbed bastard, and so Kent Etheridge, one of Garrick’s fellow Blood Mercenaries, had recommended he work with Ronin Shroud to find him once and for all.

  It had worked, and Garrick had taken his sweet, sweet revenge on Noraff.

  Rather than accepting payment, Ronin had requested that Garrick “owe him one.” Now Garrick wished he’d slung Ronin a bag of gold instead. Then, at least, he would’ve been left alone in paradise to fulfill his lifelong ambition of living like a king.

  Well, king of the island’s taverns, anyway.

  Garrick picked up the pewter tankard, and a litany of mumbled curses spilled out of his mouth. He squeezed the tankard so hard that it crumpled in his hand.

  “Beg your pardon?” Ronin asked.

  “I said…I’m in. I’m a man of my word.” Garrick’s eyes met Ronin’s again, and he dropped the tankard to the table, where it wobbled on its new misshapen angles. “But after this, we’re even, right?”

  Ronin grinned. “I may even owe you one, in fact.”

  “Payment?” Garrick asked.

  Ronin shook his head. “Wouldn’t really be a favor, would it? And besides, you’ve got more coin than you could ever possibly spend already.”

  “Leave me alone, and I’ll gladly prove you wrong on that count.”

  “You already agreed.” Ronin’s grin widened. “And like you said, you’re a man of your word.”

  Garrick grumbled. He was starting to wish he wasn’t.

  As Garrick considered Ronin’s words, a wild chicken fluttered in through one of the tavern windows, landed on the table, and started pecking at invisible crumbs. Caclos was great, but these wild chickens were everywhere—the very definition of a nuisance.

  In the absence of a natural predator, the chicken population had exploded, and neither locals nor tourists wanted to eat them since their diets consisted mainly of insects, spiders, and whatever food got tossed in the rubbish pile. The old saying was that locals would boil a chicken with a lava rock, throw out the chicken, and then eat the rock.

  Garrick shooed the chicken off the table, and it flitted to the tavern floor where it set out to eating its fill. “What’s the job?”

  From his pack, Ronin produced a coil of black rope and a small box lacquered with shining crimson. He set both of them on the table.

  “What’s this?” Garrick asked.

  Ronin gave no answer, so Garrick studied the two objects. A braid of bright green strands accented the black rope and gave off faint green light—probably some sort of magic-imbued rope. How Ronin had gotten ahold of such a thing, Garrick didn’t want to imagine.

  A golden clasp kept the red box shut. Other than its petite size, it looked like a normal wooden box. Garrick picked it up, little more than a toy in his hands, and started to work the clasp.

  “Ah, ah!” Ronin held up his hand. “Not until we’re ready.”

  “Ready for what?” Garrick asked. “What is this stuff?”

  “We are to use these tools to capture our quarry.”

  “Which is…?”

  “The rope is used as a restraint, and the box is…well, I’m not totally sure what it’s for. I was told to open it at the right moment, and everything would make sense.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Garrick said. “And how will you know when it’s the ‘right moment?’”

  “My client told me that when the time came, I would know,” Ronin explained. “But I’m not supposed to open it beforehand. Apparently
, we’ve only got one shot at this.”

  “One shot at what?” Garrick pressed. “And who’s your client? I need straight answers, or I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Can’t divulge my client’s identity. I’m being paid extra to keep them anonymous,” Ronin replied. “As for your other questions, let me ask you something first.”

  Garrick’s patience continued to thin. “What?”

  “Have you ever heard of Ravzar, the God of Beasts?”

  Garrick scoffed, and he couldn’t help but grin. “Yes.”

  “Legend has it he created a special breed of feline—that’s another name for ‘cat’—”

  “I know what it means.”

  “Anyway, he created a special breed of cat that has wings, breathes fire, and can fly,” Ronin continued. “They’re called hellcats.”

  Garrick envisioned a sleek, cunning panther, black as the night sky, with batwings sprouting from its shoulder blades and liquid fire pouring from its fanged, gaping mouth. The term “hellcat” seemed apt, considering that imagery.

  “Apparently, Ravzar does this sort of thing to keep busy these days,” Ronin said. “Just mashes different beasts and animals together to see what happens.”

  You don’t know the half of it. Garrick continued smirking.

  Months earlier, in the midst of the frost dragon incident, he’d first encountered Ravzar. Thanks to the troll blood in Garrick’s veins, Ravzar’s blessing had darkened Garrick’s already green skin and brightened his hair to an even more vibrant shade of blue.

  But his strength had multiplied, and his skin had hardened to a thick, nearly impenetrable hide, like he was constantly wearing armor. Despite his wretched appearance, Garrick decided he could live with the tradeoff of looking more like a troll than ever, given his newfound durability and power. But he’d also decided he didn’t have to like the way he looked.

  “Anyway, apparently one of the hellcats got loose.”

  “Of course it did.” Garrick cursed Ravzar. He was careless, and his recklessness had almost doomed the continent once before.

  “My client heard about it and hired me to find it and bring it back,” Ronin explained. “Like I said, the rope is to restrain it. The box is… I have no idea what the box is for, but my client was adamant that I’d figure it out eventually, so I guess I’m going with that for now. But…”

  Garrick’s scowl returned. More twists? “But what?”

  “The hellcat has already been found and captured,” Ronin said. “By an Urthian warlord.”

  Now it made sense. Ronin could wield anima, or nature-based, magic like Kent. That’s why he wore all those pouches around his belt—each of them contained some bit of nature, whether stones, leaves, wood, and metal, all of which he could manipulate with his magic in lieu of using proper weapons. But against a warlord, he would need Garrick for additional muscle.

  Garrick hadn’t cracked any skulls in a long time, and the thought of wrecking a warlord and his goons sounded pretty fun, all things considered. Might be good to stretch his limbs and get a workout in.

  “The guy’s name is Zoljin Hamedi, head of the Bronze Skulls, and he intends to sell the hellcat at an auction in less than two week’s time. In the wrong hands, the hellcat could raze an entire city, and my client thinks that if it gets into the wild and breeds with normal felines, the offspring could potentially turn the continent to ash.”

  The chicken from earlier pecked at the floor near Garrick’s boots. He nudged it with his toe, and it clucked and fluttered away in a tizzy.

  As much as they annoyed him, he could deal with an infestation of chickens, but the thought of hundreds of flying fire-breathing panthers across Aletia came far too close to the thought of hundreds of frost dragons ushering in an eternal winter. Why did everything always lead to a cataclysm unless Garrick intervened?

  He groaned. “So what are we supposed to do about it?”

  Ronin grinned. “We’re gonna steal it from the Bronze Skulls before it ever reaches the auction.”

  Chapter Two

  Almost two weeks later

  At nightfall, the Bronze Skull caravan would cross from Xenthan to Urthia at Wightsbridge, a modest city on the Urthian side that surrounded the large bridge spanning the Liparulo River. According to Ronin’s information, the hellcat would be with them.

  Garrick had passed through Wightsbridge dozens of times before. A slew of one- and two-story buildings made of wood and stone spread outward from the bridge like a noblewoman’s fan.

  It was as good a place as any to live, Garrick supposed, with plenty of farmland surrounding it and ample trade passing through via merchant caravans between Xenthan and Urthia. Wightsbridge served as the gateway to the lower, more populous half of Aletia, both for people and for the goods they brought with them.

  As the setting sun sought to conclude another warm spring day, Ronin led Garrick into a building made of brown bricks.

  “We’re only about a mile from the bridge,” Ronin said. “Sun’s about to set. The Bronze Skulls’ caravan is due within an hour or two afterward. We’ll come at them from under the bridge.”

  Garrick frowned at him. “That supposed to be some kind of joke?”

  “What?”

  “I’m part-troll. And we’re coming at them from under the bridge. So now I’m a bridge troll.” The more Garrick tried to explain, the more confusion spread across Ronin’s face.

  “I…have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ronin shook his head.

  “Forget it.” At least it wasn’t an insult. “And when we find the hellcat?”

  “That’s where the rope comes in.” Ronin pulled it from his pack. “I’ll need you to hold the beast while I tie it up.”

  Garrick stared at him, fury rising in his chest. “You’re just now telling me this?”

  “Well, I can’t hold it down.”

  “You’re a mage. Magic-up some rocks or something.”

  “Won’t work.”

  Garrick scoffed. “So I’m supposed to hold this killer thing with my bare hands while you tie it up with…what, a ‘magic’ rope? This isn’t a plan. This is barely an idea, and it’s a festering pile of garbage, at that. You’re making this up as you go along.”

  “I am not. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and—”

  “And this is the best you could come up with?” Garrick chortled. “At this rate, I might as well kill them all. Then, at least, we can take our time with the hellcat.”

  “Look…” Ronin pointed an accusing finger at Garrick, but upon seeing Garrick’s surly reaction, he retracted it immediately. “This is not how this is supposed to go. We’re supposed to be a team.”

  Garrick sighed. “Just watch my back when we’re up there. I’m not dying over a favor.”

  Despite the absence of a workable plan to get ahold of the hellcat, Ronin had actually planned everything up until that point pretty well. A small rowboat awaited them down at the river’s edge, ready to carry them into the gently flowing river beneath the bridge.

  When Garrick sat down and picked up one of the oars to row, Ronin hissed something unintelligible at him. Then Ronin stuck his hand into the water behind the boat. A soft blue glow—the color of magic—radiated from his hand, and the boat lurched forward.

  Garrick hadn’t expected that. Kent had scarcely used his magic to influence water, but here Ronin had somehow managed to use it to propel the rowboat forward. A bit of steam billowed from above his hand in the water, but the boat cruised forward all the same.

  Within two minutes, the rowboat reached the base of one of the two guard towers about a quarter of the way along the bridge. In the hazy distance loomed a matching pair of guard towers about a quarter of the way in from the Xenthanian side.

  Ronin exhaled quick, labored breaths from the exertion of using his magic while he secured the rowboat to a beam of wood at the base of the guard tower.

  Garrick looked up. The bridge loomed overhead by twenty or thirty feet; in the mo
onlight, he couldn’t tell exactly how high it was. A latticework of crisscrossed wooden beams, metal brackets, and huge bolts formed the structure of the bridge, except for the pillars of stone supporting it from within the river.

  Someone with a brain had designed this bridge, and they’d built it to last.

  “Up.” Ronin, still breathing hard, pointed at the guard tower. “Gotta climb.”

  “You sure you can make it?” Garrick’s concern wasn’t so much for Ronin’s wellbeing as for his own. Without Ronin up there, he’d be working the job alone, with no one to watch his back. He’d probably be fine, but it was better to be able to count on someone else in these kinds of situations.

  “I’ll be fine,” Ronin replied. “Just gotta let my magic regenerate.”

  Even after watching Kent do all the miraculous things he’d done, Garrick still didn’t fully understand how magic worked, and he supposed he never would. After all, the gods had seen fit to bless him with physical traits instead of magic. Perhaps he wasn’t meant to understand.

  “Hurry.” Ronin motioned toward the first rung of the latticework forming the guard tower. His breathing had already started to slow. “The Bronze Skulls have to be only minutes away. There isn’t much time.”

  Garrick took to climbing.

  More than once, he found himself grabbing onto loose beams, only to have to step on them again when he climbed past them, but they all held in place. The bolts securing them to the rest of the structure refused to give.

  The process was slow and creaky. While strong, Garrick didn’t pride himself on his climbing abilities. Why climb when he could find another way to get where he wanted to be?

  Like a beach on Caclos, he mused. That’s where he wanted to be.

  As he did, a cool night breeze tingled across his skin. It wasn’t cold per se, but it was colder than he would’ve liked. Certainly colder than a breeze down on Caclos. Wild chicken infestation aside, it was the perfect place. He could almost smell the fragrance of tropical flowers now…