The thief was inside it, without a doubt.
I strained my ears and could hear a faint conversation going on inside the house.
“Come on, I was just talking to her, doesn’t mean I like her or have anything to do with her,” the voice of a male dogman was saying.
“People say the two of you have a child together,” the voice of a female said, and she sounded rather depressed.
“Nonsense! People say a lot of things,” the male said. “You cannot trust them all. I am the only one you should trust.”
“You left your last wife for me,” the female continued ,” what chance is there that you would not leave me if you find a more attractive female?”
I exchanged glances with Junaki. She rolled her eyes, apparently listening to the conversation too.
“Ah, thieves and their lovers!’ she said.
There was a window that was open. And since it would be a bit unwise to break open the door to go inside, we decided to go through the window. It wasn’t that hard to enter the house. Or it at least seemed easy, until Junaki slipped on the window sill and fell face first on the floor in the inside of the house with a considerably loud ‘thud.’
“Did you hear that?” the female in the other room said to the male.
“Come on, you are hearing things, my love. It’s just me and you tonight. Hopefully there would be a third little person… or more in a short time.”
Junaki’s eyes had meanwhile gone wide and she had frozen in her falling position. I had frozen as well because I was too scared to move. What if the dogmen heard us?
The two lovers continued with their conversation, which mostly involved the female accusing the thief of associating with other female dogmen and warning him that if she ever saw him talking to another female dogman in the future then she would leave him and go to another village.
Junaki and I finally allowed ourselves the freedom to move. I helped her to stand up.
“So what do we do next?” she mouthed to me. It was considerably dark, but since we were cats it was possible to see things clearly to a certain extent despite the blackness.
“Let’s just ask him where the stone is,” I said, making up my mind. If we happened to go searching the house hoping the two dogmen would eventually fall asleep, then it was very likely that we would make some noise and then the dogmen would come to know about us anyway. It would be a better idea to demand the thief to give up the stone.
Junaki nodded, though she looked uncertain in her eyes.
“But what if something goes wrong?” she asked me.
“Simple,” I said. “You paralyse them and then we run.”
“Can you smell that?” I heard the female dogman say.
“What?” the male said. I heard him sniffing audibly. “Hell, yes. That’s one odd smell. I have never smelled anything of that kind in my life!”
I decided it was time to reveal ourselves.
“Return the stone, thief,” I said aloud. Junaki and I next went to the bedroom of the house where the thief and his wife were sleeping. His wife had a large stomach and I reckoned the couple were expecting babies soon. I pitied the babies for their father was a thief—and possibly a womaniser as well.
Both the thief and his wife looked at us in utter shock. Finally they were able to shake it off, and by that time Junaki had pulled out her sword from its scabbard and I too took out my knife after having deployed the Human Hands spell.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my house!” the thief cried, his face convulsing with anger. He was a slim dogman, while his wife was almost twice his size.
“We are just here to take back the stone of the wizard that you stole,” I said. I put enough threat in my voice to let the thief and his wife understand that we were ready to get violent to achieve our goal.
“Why are they calling you a thief?” the wife looked at him quizzically. “And what stone are they talking about? The sparkling one that you showed me the other day? You told me that you earned it by defeating someone in a fight.”
I let out a laugh.
“Fight? He stole it,” I said.
“I don’t know of any such stone that I stole,” the thief said. “What proof do you have? Get out of my house or I will have to call my fellow dogmen. They will tear you into pieces.” He bared his teeth. I motioned Junaki and she went closer to the thief, the tip of her sword mere inches away from his neck.
I pointed at the compass.
“This compass belongs to the wizard and it is pointing at you. Accept your crime, give us the stone and we would go away from here. No harm done to anybody.” I gestured at the wife with my small knife. “You don’t want your kids to know that their father was a thief who died because he refused to accept his guilt, do you?”
The thief made a growling sound.
“Fine,” he said finally, “I accept it. But I’ll give you the stone only if you put the sword away from my neck,” he told Junaki. Junaki looked at me and I nodded at her. She backed away from the thief. The latter jumped down from the bed. There was a small chest in the corner and he picked it up. He opened it. Immediately the dark room was filled with a sparkling light that was coming from the stone. He took it out and was about to hand it to me when his wife let out a shriek.
“Are you an idiot? Doesn’t matter you stole it, don’t give it to them!” She lunged forward. But I was quicker than her. I snatched the stone. The vile wife was exasperated and landed a punch on my stomach. She had a fat hand and boy did it hurt. I was thrown backwards. I fell on some pottery on the floor, which turned to pieces.
At that moment, Junaki sent an air arrow at the wife. It hit her head and she was immediately stunned. She fell backwards on the bed with massive force. I was surprised that the bed didn’t break with the force of her body hitting it.
“Oh, what have you don’t to her!’ the male cried, springing to the stunned wife. He tapped her cheeks. “Why isn’t she speaking? What did you do to her?”
Apparently the thief didn’t know about the existence of air arrow spells.
“Don’t worry,” Junaki said, but there wasn’t any trace of kindness in her voice, “she is only stunned. She will revive shortly. But that's one idiot wife you got. You should rather stick with the other women.”
The thief began to wail. Apparently he thought that his wife was dead.
“Oh shut up,” I said as I pulled myself back up to my feet. Falling on the pottery had robbed me of some health. Plus the wails would alert the dogmen of the nearby homes. And as if matters weren’t going out of hand already, someone began to rap on the main door of the house.
“Hey, did you bring something weird to your house? Were you out of the village at night? You know that’s not allowed,” a stout voice said. Could it be one of the guards?
The thief opened his mouth wide, perhaps to call for help. I leapt to the bed and grabbed his jaws at the very moment and shut them tight together. Meanwhile, Junaki grabbed his limbs to prevent him from struggling.
“Keep your mouth shut if you want to be alive,” I whispered to the thief. But tears were streaming out of his eyes perhaps due to the belief that his wife was dead, and he seemed not in control of himself. “Look she’s not dead!”
The thief shook his head with all the force he could muster, so that I was finding it hard to hold his jaws together.
“Did you fall asleep?” the dogman outside said again. “If you haven’t and if you are not going to answer us then you would have to pay for not answering a soldier’s question. Too many have accused you of stealing things anyway. Open your goddamn door. We know you have brought something inside. Do you want us to break in?”
Darn it, I thought. The thief apparently had a bad reputation in his own village, and if we kept him quiet the soldiers would come in anyway. I just hoped even as I struggled to hold together the jaws of the thief that the soldiers would think that the thief was truly asleep.
I heard moaning sounds and turned to see that
the wife was stirring.
Shit!
Perhaps it was the moment but my hold on the jaws of the thief became loose. With a massive amount of energy the thief pulled his head back, becoming free from my hands.
“Help me!” he cried.
And as if that wasn’t enough. He bit my hands.
You have been bitten!
You receive -50 health.
Your health will continue to fall as long as you are being bitten!
“You heard that?” the soldiers outside said, “someone inside is in need of help.”
And they began to kick on the door to break it.
I did what was the only possible thing for me to do at that moment. I bit the dogman’s nose with my canines. He yelped and let go of my hands. They were bleeding.
“Run!” I said to Junaki.
We fled towards the room with the open window. Right then the soldiers were able to break open the main door. They saw us.
“Cats!” they yelled, their eyes almost popping out.
“This is going bad,” Junaki said. The two of us leapt over the window sill and were out of the house the next moment. But the soldiers were in hot pursuit of us. The window was rather small for them, but they still squeezed themselves out of it, though it wasn’t a very wise thing to do as they could have just used the door.
You are bleeding!
Injuries are moderate.
You will lose 5 health every ten minutes for the next hour unless you apply health herbs before that.
I shook my head. What was the problem with these notifications, eh? You certainly didn’t need them blocking your vision in a situation like this. I slowed down, irritated with the notifications, and the next moment I realised that Junaki who had been earlier behind me was now in front and the soldiers were mere feet behind me.
“Shit, shit!” I cried. I put all my energy into my legs.
It wasn’t very useful. There was some wet mud that I failed to notice and I slipped on it. I went sliding a few metres. Junaki was glancing back every few moments wanting to pull me along, but perhaps I was just unlucky that day.
I felt a strong hand grab hold of my tail.
Shit, was there a more dishonourable way to touch a cat?
I had a sudden fit of anger.
“Meow!” I yelled as I turned to face my assailant. My knife was still in my hands, and buried it in the dogman’s stomach without a second thought.
The dogman grunted and squatted down in pain, my knife embedded in his stomach. I pulled out the knife from his stomach as the other dogmen came nearer.
“Come fast, Kitty!” Junaki said to me.
Chapter 10
Junaki shot air arrows at some of the dogmen, but she missed most of the times. She hit one of the guards only once. The wall was still a good distance away from us and the dogmen with their longer legs were gaining on us. I realised that we had to fight, there was just no other way out.
“We’ll have to either kill or stun them,” I said to Junaki, slowing down.
“Are you crazy?” she said, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me. I shook away her hands, her face convulsed with anger. “This is not the time for this, Kitty. We have no chance against them.”
“Give me your sword, Junaki,” I said.
I had slowed down and so the dogmen had gained even more on us. Perhaps Junaki realised that the only way out of the situation was with a fight. She sighed and nodded at me. She handed me her sword, her brows coming together in determination.
“We can do this, Kitty,” she said. Barely had she said this that one of the guards lunged at us. I swung the sword. The guard tried to dodge it, and though he was successful mostly (he did receive a small cut from the tip of my sword on his shoulder) he tripped on his own foot and fell.
I could have killed him by striking his neck. I stared at him for too long, trying to make up my mind to go for the kill. But by the time I actually decided to behead him, he was already up, baring his teeth at me. He pulled out his own sword. From the corner of my eyes, I saw the other three soldiers corner Junaki. I wondered if staying to fight had been a good idea.
The dogman roared. He was a pack of muscles, and I saw his massive muscles move underneath his bare skin as he raised his sword to strike me. He brought it down upon me. I held up my own sword just in time. The two swords collided. Mine was much smaller than his but my sword was able to take the hit. The power from the blow coursed through me and I felt my core shake.
There was no way I could take down the Dogman with sheer strength. I had to use my brains.
I leapt away from him.
“Where are you running now, pesky thing?” the Dogman said. “I’ll chop you, cook you and serve you to my kids.”
I picked up a stone from the ground. I threw it with all my might at the Dogman. It hit him square on the forehead and he let out a grunt as blood oozed out from the spot where the stone had hit him. I focussed at him and was glad to see that his health had dropped.
I picked up another stone. But before I could throw it, the Dogman came running towards me, waving his sword like mad. Just before he could hit me, however, I was able to leap and rolled away. Before I could stand up, he came and began to swing his sword at me. I blocked his sword twice.
My position was such that my legs were just below his groin. Damn, I didn’t want to do it. But it was a do or die situation for me. I kicked his groin. He yelped. It was my moment. I could have killed him right then, but I felt guilty. Instead, I snatched his sword from him since he wasn’t holding his sword with a tight grasp. I kicked him on the chest and he went a couple of steps backwards.
“You will pay for that,” he said.
“Enough!” I heard a cry.
I turned around. It was Junaki. She had so far been able to stun one of the Dogmen, while the other three were still up but they had so far failed to do any harm to her. She muttered the magic words, and the next moment all the guards froze, including the one from whom I had snatched the sword.
“Couldn’t you have done it earlier?” I demanded Junaki.
“I wanted to save my mana. Now don’t stand there like an idiot. Run!”
But just as I prepared to run, the door of the house closest to us opened. The next moment doors of a few more houses near us opened and out stepped dogmen. They all looked quite sleepy, but the moment their eyes fell on us, their brows shot high up their foreheads.
Shit.
My stamina had almost turned to zero by the time we were able to jump over the wall. Behind the wall, I could hear the movement of tens if not hundreds of dogmen feet. The entire village was chasing us!
“Okay,” I said to Junaki as we trotted towards the higher grounds, “this didn’t go as planned.”
“Don’t expect any paralysis spell from me for a good long while even if they catch us,” Junaki replied, timid.
I glanced back. Many of the dogmen had also crossed the wall. Oh boy! So much for helping a lady turning to stone because she had failed to keep a promise of hers.
“At least both of us have swords now,” I said as I realised that I had been carrying two swords, one of Junaki and the other of the dogman. I gave Junaki’s to her.
“Two swords against a village won’t work, Kitty.”
“We need to get this scent off ourselves,” I said as we entered the woods. The darkness was our ally, but the very mixture of scents that we had thought would help us might now turn against us.
“No time for that,” Junaki said, “We’ll have to do some tree hopping like the last time.”
We climbed up a tree. By the time we reached the top, the shouts of the dogmen reached us. Damn, they probably planned to hunt us to the ends of this world. Couldn’t they just give up? We were already out of their village after all. And weren’t they scared of monsters in the forests? Weren’t there wolves in these parts?
I could see the torches of the dogmen.
“Jump to that tree,” I said to Junaki, pointing to a tree
with branches that looked strong enough to support us.
“Okay—”
The branch Junaki had been standing on until then broke. And she fell. Time froze for me.
“There they are!” I head the dogmen cry in slow motion.
My vision blurred. A fragment of a memory came in front of my eyes. There was a great drop between me and my friend on the other side of the drop. My friend was a slightly obese cat. He had many cuts all over his body. He was also slightly aged than me.
“You go on without me,” he said.
“You can do it,” I begged him. “Jump!”
In the distance behind him, I could see an entire army of Dogmen approaching. He too turned to have a look at the Dogmen.
“Oh boy,” he said, “this is bad.”
“Jump, please!” I yelled at him.
He nodded. But he didn’t look like he thought he could make the jump. He looked more like he preferred a death falling into the drop than on the hands of vile dogmen.
He took a dozen steps backwards and then he came running with all the speed he could muster. He jumped. Time froze, his arms flailed as he came. Closer and closer he came. And then gravity seemed to reclaim control over him. He started to go down.
I threw out my hands to get him. Our hands met. He smiled.
“Bye,” he said. A tear rolled down my cheeks as the tips of our fingers met. I knew that I could never save him. The tips of our fingers parted. He went down and he kept going down. I didn’t dare to see his dead body at the very bottom of the drop. I fell to my knees and I cried like I had never before.
Suddenly the fragment of the memory ended. I found myself back in the present. I saw in wonder as Junaki spun in mid air just before she hit the ground and she was able to successfully land on all fours. She was a cat after all, wasn’t she? I then thought of my friend. Had he also landed on all fours at the bottom of the drop? Had he survived? Who was he anyway and why were the dogmen trying to kill us. But no, he could have never survived such a great drop. It was impossible to survive, even for a cat. I shook my head, forcing myself to return to the present.
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