Madder Barrow

[Aldridge Moor]

The village of Madder Barrow looked as though it had been spilled onto the land. A hotch-potch of thatched and tiled roofs, bordered by ten strides of lumpy grass, surrounded by thick, old forest.

A squirrel scudded along the treeline, a tiny red-furred stormcloud in the restless branches. He reached a point out of sight of the beasts arraigned at the widest entryway, hurled himself down branch-by-branch from the canopy, bolted from the base of the oak and into a tight walkway between two buildings drooping under the weight of time and subsidence. He tripped over a small and long-forgotten pile of firewood - or rather, it exploded into dust and woodlice as he ran straight through it and into the village proper.

"Make passage, make passage!" He darted this way and that, dodging between villagers, wagons and shop-fronts as he ran pell-mell through the village, to the beasts at the widest entryway. He arrived in a flurry of tailfur and limbs, taking a few seconds to catch his breath and slowly losing the appearance of an angry raspberry bush. "Sirs... a report. These beasts... with the blue jerkins - there are more... hiding... in the trees."

Blacksmith Ulrich swore. "How many?"

Between gasps for air, the squirrel managed a few more words. "Two-score... perhaps... as many... as three."

"Well done," Ulrich said. "Now go, back into the village. Anybeast not confident in paw-to-paw fighting should string their bows and get up high - top floors, rooftops, rafters. Tell them not to fire unless they attack the village proper. If they only take the stoat then we?ve no need to strike.?

Aldridge Moor remembered a foul-smelling ale tent in the distant past. A stoat had shoved a rat over a spilled drink, a ferret had taken a swing at a weasel for some insult to his heritage, a brawl had burst out like a freshly kicked anthill. And at the opposite edge of the tent, a female stoat had sat drinking, sneering at the fight ? until somebeast had thrown an angry rat at her.

She'd shoved the corpulent rat off her as though he were half as fat and half as old, surged upright, snarled, pinned the rat to the table and driven her fist into his throat, once, twice ? fifteen times until the strength had finally gone from her paws. He had started to twitch after the third blow, and had stopped moving on the seventh. And she had pulled the corpse to its feet and shoved it aside, and had gone to the barkeep for another drink. And in the chaos of the brawl, only Aldridge had seen it all.

Jossia's snarl hadn't changed in fifteen years. She had the chained and helpless Komi in her sights, and Aldridge feared for her life.

He raised his bow and levelled it at the female stoat who had called herself sister to Galleran.

?She?s not our concern.? Ulrich?s voice cut through his thoughts, confounded him.

Jossia?s body twisted as she drove a heavy punch into the pile of stoat and chains that was Komi, and Aldridge snarled in sympathy. ?She is mine.? he replied, one furious split second away from loosing.

"Do not fire. We need you back in the real world, right now."

With supreme effort, Aldridge turned to Ulrich and Cricken, shoving everything into a tiny corner of his mind to be dealt with later. The feeling of dirt beneath his paws came back to him. The scent of the village recrystallised: wet grass and fresh bread and aged thatch. He breathed; he had even forgotten the coolness and humidity of the air. The situation returned to his mind as though it had been at sea too long; incomplete, without even knowing what was gone.

He spoke. "Apprentice Bowyer Aera should be back from my house by now. Have her distribute a full quiver to each beast who's stationing up high. Other than that, Ulrich?s word is true.?

Cricken ran back into the village.

Aldridge let out a long sigh, pushing the stale air out of his lungs and replacing it with clean. He looked over at Ulrich, who was glaring at him intently, and he forced words out of his mouth, heedless of whether they made sense or not. Ulrich would forgive that of him. "I?m sorry. This is all quite overwhelming. I?m? having great trouble, keeping myself out of the past."

"Then it?s a good thing that we live here and now. Get your regrets under control - it's your experience that I need." Ulrich's voice was harder than his eyes. It had taken Aldridge six seasons of knowing the mouse to realise that that was just his way.

The stoat centred himself, as he taught every archery student to do before their first shot. It was becoming easier, to think of the defence plan and the villagers and the here and now. "These Beasts in Blue - they have sixty, we have ninety. They're well-trained, we're less so. How are they armed?"

"Short blades, truncheons, darts. We know they abduct, so we know they'll start with non-lethal measures if they want to take us all." Ulrich growled, and Aldridge remembered what the mouse had done to the slave-keeping ferret who had happened across the village eight seasons ago. "We can at least take some of them."

"And everybeast in the Barrow is still armed?"

"Aye. The scare of that recent sighting hasn't faded yet - only a few beasts had stopped carrying their weapons at all times, by the time these beasts came to our door."

"Then we're ready." A grim certainty fell about Aldridge's shoulders - a thick velvet cloak still drenched from the last night's snow.

"It was always going to happen, Bowyer." Ulrich's voice, oddly gentle. "Every beast's past catches up to them eventually. In a village like ours, with beasts like us? It was always going to be a rockier time than most."

"Maybe so. Always hoped it would be tomorrow." Aldridge stood a little taller, as though he could brace himself against what was to come.

"Never believed it though, did we? Otherwise we?d never have taught the rest of them how to fight. We've given them a chance - that's the greatest gift of all. Stand ready, Bowyer."

"It is. Stand ready, Blacksmith." Aldridge tightened his paw around his bow, ready to raise. He felt himself speeding up, right at his core - like a little cloth puppet filled with lightning. His eyes darted from beast to beast, watching, noticing.

...the captain, a pine marten, occasionally raising her left heel from the ground and bringing it down with a silent thump. Fatigue.

...the first lieutenant, a weasel, massaging his right forepaw with his left. Minor injury.

...the second lieutenant, a rat, both sets of claws tapping an idle rhythm silently against her hips ? precisely in time. Two-pawed. Dangerous.

...a lower-ranked beast, tensing and releasing his jaw. Toothache.

...a patch of darkness in the canopy, swaying from side to side. Impatience.

...Jossia, kicking Komi for what must have been the third or fourth time. Brutality.

"Ulrich. I'm about do something extremely foolish." Aldridge raised his bow, arrow nocked, decision made.

"...is it for her?" The mouse?s voice, cynical but somehow without the edge.

Another vicious kick, a deepening of the snarl. Aldridge moved slightly, to account for the northward wind shown him by the branches of the trees.

"No. It?s for me."

"Understood."

The arrow punched a dead-straight path through the air and embedded itself in the leg Jossia had been using to kick Komi, with a sound halfway between a whack and a crunch. The stoat fell to the ground, howling and cursing and clutching at the wound.

?Stand ready!? Ulrich?s voice boomed through Madder Barrow.

The Beasts in Blue came to a halt.

The Marteness Captain's head barely turned, but the smirk was clear. Her mouth moved - she spoke only three words. Her seconds nodded, raised bows to the sky, fired two red signal arrows into the air.

The assault began.



-----



"Eleven. We killed eleven of them." Aldridge croaked out, through dry lips. He had been tied down on his back, limbs splayed across what must have been the roof of a wagon.  The limb of a chestnut tree whacked him on the shoulder, and bounced off the vole who had just given him the bad news.

"Six of you killed eleven of them." The vole looked down at him. ?That?s not bad. Some of you might stand a chance in the Crater.?

"Let's see." Aldridge closed his eyes, pained at many things. The dehydration, the pounding headache, and not least of all, the appalling combat record. "Ulrich and I put down the beasts who fired the signal arrows. That's two. Komi killed at least one of the beasts who tried to snatch her. Who else?"

The vole looked off to the side. ?I could not say. But all of the beasts who managed a kill have been trussed down to the wagon roofs, just like you. I will tell you what they look like, and then perhaps you will know. I see two mice ? one old and male, one young and female. One stoat, female. Two voles, male.?

?Ulrich, Young Aera, Komi, Ennis and Tevar. That follows. Ulrich and Komi, I knew about. Young Aera was stationed rooftop and I?ve been teaching her to shoot for two years now. Ennis and Tevar? I really don?t know how they could have done it. But well done to them too.? The wagon went over a lump in the road and the air was driven from Aldridge?s chest. He groaned in discomfort.

The vole finished writing down the names, tucked her quill back behind her ear. ?I suppose you gave me their names in the same order I gave you their appearances. In which case I can also tell you that your voles were not affected by the sleep darts that these beasts use in the capture. I heard a loose tongue bragging about how he was the first to think of trying a stronger sleep dart ? but only after three of his group had been felled. Apparently it is quite embarrassing among the beasts of this train to die to a vole.? She gazed down, away off the side of the wagon, and her gaze wandered for a little while.

Aldridge could only suppose that she was looking at the guards she?d considered killing at some point or another. His throat started to scratch unbearably, and he let out a pitiful choking cough. ?I don?t suppose that you?re allowed to give me water??

The vole looked back at him. ?I would be trussed up on top of some other wagon for doing so, and both of our punishments would be doubled. Best to wait until your day is done, then recover afterwards.?

Aldridge nodded weakly, and let his head fall back onto the wagon roof. He stared at the sky. An oak branch wheeled overhead, discarding a small twig directly into his face. He spat it out.

?Perhaps it will help to know that none of your friends died in the taking.?

Relief washed over him. ?It will.? He didn?t have the strength to nod again. ?Thank you, ma?am? what should I call you??

She paused, just a little longer than usual. ?Adeen Tullus. And I you??

?Aldridge Moor.?

?Well then, Mister Moor,? the vole said. ?I shall see you when they let you down.?

He listened as she clambered down the side of the wagon and away, and thought about what she had said.

Blow-darts. So the truncheons... hadn't been truncheons at all, had they? The memory came back to him in snippets and shreds, as though remembered through two full skins of wine and a bar-fight.

He had put an arrow through the throat of one of the signalbeasts whose red arrows had started the attack. A beast next to his target had raised his truncheon to his lips. Something had slammed into Aldridge's thigh. He had looked down, seen a dart with bright yellow feather sticking out of his leg. He had started trying to remove it with his left paw even as his right paw had lost the strength to hold his bow. And then the dirt had rushed up to meet his face, and that had been it.

He stared at the sky. He missed his house. They'd all worked together to expand the work area last autumn, and Apprentice Bowyer Aera had carved her Mark into the wall alongside the others. He missed the town square, the Mark Walls, the bell tower.

He closed his eyes, and yearned for home. And in among all the images rushing through his head, he saw a new beast. A flurry of white and brown fur on Potter's Lane, a beautiful bowl being pressed into her paws as payment for the songs and joy she gave them. A old familiar scent in the luthier's workshop, watching fretfully as a cracked flute came back to life. A few words in that voice, carrying over the hubbub of the town square.

But all of Aldridge's willpower could not stop the caravan. It moved resolutely on, and left the village of Madder Barrow at rest behind them.