Running of the Boars

[Komi Banton]

Komi stumbled out of the arena as the crowd around her continued roaring their approval at ?the Coward?s victory.? Two toads lay dead in the sand behind her. The fur on her right side clung damply to her skin with toad?s blood. She handed her spear and shield to the blue-uniformed beast guarding the door and limped past. One toad had gotten a prong of his trident in her thigh. It hurt and oozed, but she didn?t have time to deal with that right now.

Kentrith?s voice echoed in her head. ?Komi, you win that fight, and you get the boars free as soon as it?s over.?

It was over and if things went according to plan, she?d never have to set paw on those sands again. She?d either be free or dead after today. If all worked well, Minerva, Fable, and all the other children would be free, too.

One more time, she allowed herself to wonder if Hapley had told her the truth about Tavin. He could have just had Tavin?s dagger by chance. If he?d been at Redwall, maybe someone had gathered it off the battle field? Maybe he just happened to have it with him from there? Maybe he?d found one that looked similar to hers, though how had he known that Tavin had a dagger just like hers?

The sooner she got out of the Crater, the sooner she?d know the truth.

She passed a trio of slaves under guard. All three carried yokes with buckets full of water from the lower levels that were still flooded from the deluge the night before. Komi?s own neck and shoulders ached from carrying water in the dead of night. She also skirted around the bath house, where the sluice had stopped working as well. Everybeast must take bucket baths, but she didn?t have time for that. Komi would get clean as a free beast. A little blood had never stopped her before.

Even though she?d planned everything, she still felt a sick drop in her stomach as she trotted across the sodden sand of the empty training ground towards Alder?s workshop. She hadn?t been to the bowyery since he?d died. She hadn?t been able to bear it. But today, she didn?t have time to be sentimental. She?d cry later when she was free, or she?d see Aldridge in the Dark Forest if she failed.

She eased the door open and slipped inside. Foxglove was absent. Probably either carrying water or watching the fights. She picked up an empty sack from a basket near the woodpile and hurried to the cupboard where her drum and knife had been hidden.

Blood and rainwater pooled at her feet as she uncovered the drum. She double checked to make sure the drumhead?s ties were loose so it wouldn?t make noise, then she eased her drum into the sack. She slid her dagger in her vanbrace once more. She hurried to another cupboard where Aldridge had kept flint and steel for lighting fires. She put those in the bag, being careful of her drum all the while.

Supplies in paw, she checked carefully for guards or other slaves before slipping out of the room. The crowd roared from the other side of the wall that divided the training area from the center ring. Quickly, Komi began circling the Crater, using all of the nooks and crannies she?d observed as hiding places, back when she?d plotted an escape for herself. The boars? pen was opposite the bowyery, so it was a long, tense walk. The events in the arena kept eyes and attention inward, and if Komi was noticed, no beast stopped her.

Yet, when she reached the stables, she found a lone guard near the doorway. Keeping well back, she studied him. He stared towards the center of the Crater, where Komi heard the crash of steel on steel.

She circled behind him, going along the wall of the stable, open and unhidden should he turn his head and look the wrong way. She set her sack down on a dry hay bale, every muscle tense as she crept. She drew her dagger. A long scream echoed in the air from the arena and using the sound as cover, Komi leaped. One paw in front clamped down his muzzle. The other dragged the knife across his throat. He threw his body back against hers. Blood sprayed scarlet across the wood and stone near the stable. She allowed his momentum to carry them both back through the doorway. She let his body fall, ignored it as he twitched his life away on the ground. She quickly wiped her dagger on her tunic edge out of habit, slid it back in her vanbrace. She ducked back outside to grab her sack before it got wet, and closed the door.

Komi hadn?t dealt with the boars since they?d been brought to the Crater so many weeks before. The long wooden building that housed them was pleasantly warm after the cold, dreary rain outside. A few of the boars snorted at the smell of the guard?s blood. One butted tusks against the door to his stall. She heard the wood crunch.

She hurried down the length of the stable, scoping it out. Row after row of solid wood stables lined the right side of the room. Quick glances in the small doors on the left revealed rooms of tack for the riders or sacks of feed. At the big double doors on the far end, Komi peeped through a crack in one and saw the back of a blue guard on the opposite side. Beyond him, she saw a street that led away into Northvale. Quietly, she backed away.

A cacophony had been building from the bleachers around the arena. Voices all talked loudly and excitedly. Guards yelled in the upper levels. Whatever else the FTN had planned, it must have started. Time was short. She looked around her, in that large space at the entrance to the stable, and saw a ladder heading up to a second floor.

The floor above the stalls was a dark hayloft, piled high with sweet smelling hay and straw. Komi grinned and hoisted herself the rest of the way through the hole in the floor. She limped to the far end, picked a haystack, and pulled the flint and steel out of the bag. No need for tinder here. This whole room was tinder, waiting to be lit.

She heard the door creak open below and she froze. Waited for the shout of alarm.

The door closed. ?You didn?t waste any time,? Thrayjen said softly underneath her.

She didn?t reply, but stayed where she was, completely silent.

?There?s wet, bloody pawprints on the floor,? he said. ?The boars are still here, so you must be, too.?

Komi?s nose twitched from the dust in the hayloft, but she still didn?t move.

?The banner?s been unfurled. The rebellion damaged it and Lord Nire is livid. He knows something is going on. Your time is running out.? Thrayjen paused and Komi heard him move, though she still did not.

?Beasts die when chaos reigns, Komi. If you go through with this plan, driving the boars out among the innocent, what will be the cost? But I?ve played the passive side before. I know we can?t do nothing. There can be another way. You don?t have to do this.?

A boar snorted. Outside, the clamor continued.

?Rebellions are bloodier than war,? the rat finally said.

The door to the stable opened and closed and Komi heard no more from Thrayjen.

She whispered, ?Sorry, Thrayjen, but the kits are counting on me.? She struck flint to steel, sending a spray of sparks into the hay. The fine, dry stalks caught and began burning, illuminating that corner of the hayloft. Swiftly, Komi moved down a few lengths and did it again, starting another fire.

By the time she?d started four fires, the first was crackling merrily and the boars below were beginning to snort and stamp in their stalls. Komi dropped the flint and steel in her sack and slid down the ladder. Back down the row she ran, wincing at the twinges in her injured leg. A haze of smoke drifted down from the cracks in the hayloft above.

As she ran past it?s stall, the one boar who?d smashed against the door earlier gave a ear splitting squeal and slammed it?s shoulder against the door. Wood splintered and cracked.

?Right, piggy,? Komi said, climbing up onto the unsplintered door of his neighbor. ?You first.?

The heavy wooden fronts of the stalls were easily wide enough for Komi to walk across. She held onto the wooden pillar where the front and side walls of the two pens joined and reached over to unlatch the damaged gate. The boar slammed up against it again as she did so and the door crashed open with a splintering crunch. The boar went stamping and bucking into the open corridor, trampling the dead guard as he went. Komi leaned over the opposite side and unlatched his neighbor?s stall. Coughing from the smoke, she worked her way down the long line of stalls as the boars grew more and more agitated.

Those freed in the open floor of the stable jostled each other and stamped near the doorways. They knew where the ways out were, but lacked the paws to undo the latches.

Then she heard shouting from outside, along with cries of, ?Fire! Fire!?

The big doors to the stable suddenly swung open. Komi dropped down into an empty stall, hiding behind the wall as the boars made a mad rush out of the smoky stable and into the rain. The guard who?d opened the door screamed as he was trampled.

Komi peered around the edge of the stable, staring at the outside. Freedom, just a short sprint away. There were guards and boars out there, but less guards than inside the Crater. A few steps, and she?d have the Crater behind her, the road before her, and she?d be free.

What about Minerva? And Fable? Kentrith and the kits?

Ash fell around her.

Kali? All the slaves escaping now with the FTN?s help?

Her paws tightened. She remembered Kentrith?s words. ?We?ll all get out together.?

Together.

She left freedom behind and returned to the Crater.

Komi waited until most beasts in blue were running away with buckets, then she darted back out the door she?d come in, eyes streaming from the smoke. She ducked into a small alcove near the stairs to another level of the building, trying to clear her lungs without coughing too loudly.

Kentrith had told her to get to the kitchen entrance when she?d set the boars free. Now Komi just had to do that without drawing attention to her wet, bloody, hay-strewn form. She was just about to start up a flight of stairs when she heard Hargorn?s unmistakable snarl echoing from above. She stayed hidden, then heard the cry of a youngster, followed by Minerva?s voice!

She almost broke cover right then, but then Hargorn and some guards came into view. Hargorn carried Fable, while the guards dragged Minerva behind the weasel. She waited while they passed by, drawing her dagger from her vanbrace.

Hargorn said, ?Knew ye was stupid, but tellin' Nire all that useless info about boars an' escapin' slaves?? He spat to one side of the stone floor. ?Some spy ye turned out t' be.?

Komi froze, her dagger in her paw. Minerva? A spy?

No! Oh, no, no, no!

She fell back into the shadows once more, unable to breath, tears pricking in her eyes.

I trusted her. I told her everything. All the FTN plans I knew. And she betrayed me. She betrayed us all!

Why?

But even as she wondered that, she knew the answer. She saw it, in the form of a little otter pup, staring tearfully back at her mother.

Then they rounded a corner and were gone, leaving Komi more alone than ever before.