Morlocks

[Venril]

?Prakvi!  Pratcha Vikvi!  Where get yi??  The undersized little rat reached out for the third time that night and tried to yank Venril?s saber off his belt, and for the third time, Venril swatted his paw away.  Undeterred, the rat resumed chattering in that peculiar dialect the cavebeasts had.  ?Prakvi ihn talky?  Talktalk, Prakvi!?

??Prakvi? is trying to keep down the food you gave him by taking a walk after dinner.  ?Prakvi? is in a bad mood because he?s stuck underground where there?s no light and nobody speaks normally and his remaining hordebeast is a cad who??  Venril broke off his complaint as the runty rodent began to giggle. 

?Now Prakvi talktalk!  Prakvi iv talky!  Where get yi??  The rodent?s next act was to yet again try to take Venril?s saber.  Venril twisted away again, scowling.

?Look?if I show you the saber, will you stop trying to steal it from me??  The rat looked eager but not like he understood, so Venril tried again. 

?I...show?you?the yi?? the stoat said slowly, pointing to himself, the rat and the saber in sequence.

The rodent began to clap  ?Prakvi??

Venril held up a paw.  ?Then you?no stealsteal.? Venril pantomimed reaching out to take something, but then snatched his paw back.  This time, the rat seemed to get the idea.  Venril unhooked the saber and its scabbard from his belt and handed it to the rat, who struggled to lift it with his underdeveloped arms. 

Looking more closely at the rat?s face, Venril was surprised to see that he seemed to be in his juvenile years.  When the rat had first jumped into the seat next to Venril?s at the feast and started peppering him with unintelligible chatter, Venril had assumed him to be only a small kit, but it seemed as though the cavedwellers were just small and poorly fed.  Although if he has to eat food like that every day, it?s no wonder he?s small.  The rat had started to get up from the table when Venril had gone to comfort Liza, but an elder had grabbed onto his arm and the rat had sat back down.  He had still been at the table when Venril came back.

The rat was currently touching and sniffing the holstered saber, looking at it closely.  Venril decided to try some more rudimentary communication.  Venril pointed at himself.  ?Venril.  Veeennnnrrriillll,? he said, saying it more slowly the second time and dragging out syllables. 

The rat shook his head and handed back the saber, chittering and pointing at Venril.  ?Iy Pratcha Vikvi!  Pratcha...Vikvi.?  As he said the first word, the rat held his paw a short ways over the ground, and at the second word pointed at Venril, and then at a cavedweller stoat some ways away from them.  ?Pratcha Vikvi iy Prakvi!?

Venril nodded, finally understanding what ?Prakvi? meant.  It was a contraction, probably meant something like ?Little Stoat? judging from the rat?s gestures.  Venril found himself not minding the title as much as he normally would have.  It wasn?t the worst thing another beast had ever called him.?

The rat pointed to himself. ?Iy Mripat.? 

Venril finally felt like he was getting somewhere.  He gestured widely at the dwellings of the cavebeasts.  ?Iy????  He allowed his voice to trail off exaggeratedly, hoping to convey a question.


BoomboomBOOM! 

Before Mripat could answer, there  was a sudden pair of drumbeats followed very quickly by a much louder drumbeat.  BoomboomBOOM!  Another sequence of drumbeats, followed closely by another.  Then came the sound of beasts yelling and running to another area of the cavebeast city, near where the survivors of the cavein had entered.  Venril ran with the others, and Mripat followed closely on his heels.

Coming to where everybody was gathered, Venril noticed the rest of the survivors, including Eliza and Verand.  The ferret was hovering practically right over the marten?s shoulder, and Venril felt a surge of irritation that was strengthened by how much Liza seemed to be trying to ignore or avoid Verand.  However, Venril was quickly distracted from his vexing subordinate by a rapidly brightening light in the tunnel up ahead.  It started out fairly dim, but quickly grew so bright that it was almost painful to look at it.  At the same time, the drumbeats grew louder and more frequent.

BoomboomBOOM!  BoomboomBOOM!  BoomboomBOOM!

Venril chanced a glance down, pushing through the crowd to get to Liza and Verand.  Clapping his paw on Verand?s shoulder, he whispered  into the ferret?s ear.  ?Verand, please leave her alone.  We don?t want any more trou??

The stoat was caught totally surprised when Verand grabbed his paw and wrenched it down, hard, almost flooring Venril.  The ferret leaned in and whispered back.  ?No warlords here, Venril.  You?re only captain when you?re in a horde.?  He shoved the stoat back, causing him to bump into several cavebeasts, and stalked away.

Venril gave Liza an apologetic glance as he righted himself.  The almost-but-not-quite invisible sigh she gave in response gave Venril a cold, tight feeling in his stomach that didn't lift even when she made a pretty decent effort at looking appreciative.  "Thank you for trying anyway, Captain Venril."

Most of the other beasts in the crowd barely noticed the whole spectacle, distracted as they were with the light and noise in the tunnel.  Venril, however, noticed that one beast, Rath, seemed suspicious of something.  The scarred ferret was looking at the tunnel like the rest of the crowd, but every so often he would glance around, as though expecting to see something elsewhere.  Before Venril could question him, however, there was a sudden sharp scream from the rear of the crowd, followed quickly by another, along with several from the village itself.

?Srechrrl!  Srechrrl!?  Someone in the crowd began screaming the same word again and again, and the entire crowd instantly devolved into anarchy.  Beasts began to scatter in all directions, pushing each other out of the way in an attempt to escape.

Venril felt Mripat grab his paw.  ?Srechrrl!  Prakvi pyr Mripat RUN!?  Venril still had no idea what a Srechrrl was, but he decided to just comply.  As he and the rat began to run, he noticed that the drumbeats had gotten even faster and louder and were now almost deafening.  The stoat barely noticed as the dormouse officer Bellona came running out of a side tunnel, robin bard in tow, screaming her head off in an attempt to warn everybeast about the threat most of them were already fleeing.  She seemed much more panicked than he would have predicted given her tough, no-nonsense attitude when they had first met, and Venril wondered what had happened to put such fear into her.  He shoved the thought away and focused on running to wherever Mripat was taking him.

Up ahead of himself and Mripat, Venril finally saw what the commotion was about as a dark shape suddenly leapt out and tackled a cavedweller weasel to the ground, stabbing the weasel in the stomach with a crude spear and then tearing into the unfortunate beast?s neck with its fangs.  Venril let out a cry and the shape looked up.  Venril was shocked to see that it was a stoat like himself, light-colored and wiry, with a build more muscular than that of the cavedwellers.  It gave a snarl that seemed feral, but Venril was sure that there was something more than animal ferocity in its eyes.  Something like?amusement?

Venril had no more time to ponder, as the beast suddenly yanked its spear from the abdomen of the dying weasel, leapt up and began to run at Venril and Mripat.  The two promptly turned tail and ran.  Out of the corner of his eye, Venril saw one of the blindfolded tribe leaders run right into a pair of ferals, who just kept still and waited for him to blunder into them.  He suddenly understood what the drums were for.  They want to make them blind AND deaf too.

As Venril and Mripat ran, the undersized rodent suddenly tripped on a rock and sprawled out.  Venril barely noticed, continuing to run.  However, the rat yelled out for him.

?Helpme Prakvi, helphelp!?

Venril turned around to see Mripat staring at him in absolute terror and desperation, the feral stoat bearing down on him.  The rat reached out a paw for him, and something in Venril went taut.  The stoat pulled out his saber and began to jog back towards the rat and the feral stoat.  The feral halted as it saw Venril, then redirected its charge towards him.  Venril barely got out of the way in time, but managed to slice it across the shoulder, eliciting a shriek of pain.  Venril didn?t let it recover.  He ran up to it, and wielding his saber more like a club than a sword, began to hit it again and again with the blade.  The feral tried to stab him several times with the stone-headed spear it carried, but the spear didn't even scratch Venril's chainmail vest, marking the first time the heavy, uncomfortable garment had done anything useful.  Venril continued to bludgeon the creature with his sword, compensating for his lack of polish with zeal.  Finally, after what seemed like a long time, the thing went still.

Venril let out a shout as something collided with him, but it was just Mripat, who hugged the stoat with surprising firmness.  ?Prakvi helphelp Mripat!  Prakvi??  That was the end of what Venril could understand, as the rat began to chatter on in his own language far too quickly for Venril to keep up.  However, Vernil tried not to get too caught up.  He tapped Mripat on the shoulder, looking around for any more ferals. 

?Mripat, we need to hide!?  The rat didn?t seem to understand, so Venril pantomimed hiding.  The rat grabbed his paw and pulled him after him, presumably to some pre-arranged hiding place.  As he ran, watching for any more ferals, Venril noticed a whole group of the beasts dragging a pair of bodies away.  He shuddered and refocused on trying to avoid their fate.  Mripat led him into a dwelling, where there was a large pile of firewood.  The two hid behind it, waiting for the noises from outside to subside.

As he hid, Venril tried to figure out why he had turned around to fight off the feral stoat.  He had won the fight, but he had really gotten lucky that the feral hadn't been quicker on the uptake about swords and armor.  Maybe it was just that for the first time someone had asked him for help and really meant it, and had actually thought that he could be useful.

After some time had passed, and there were no more sounds of screaming or drums from outside, Venril and Mripat emerged from hiding and wandered back out into the courtyard.  Looking around, Venril didn't notice any of the cave-in survivors as being missing.  He saw Liza, looking unhappy but safe, and felt a twinge of guilt for not grabbing her and taking her to go hide someplace.

The stoat jumped as wad of saliva hit the ground next to his footpaw.  He looked up to see Rath scowling down at him.  "And where were you hiding this whole time?"

Venril felt a wave of indignation wash over him.  "Hey!  I wasn't hi--I wasn't JUST hiding.  If I had been, I wouldn't have these!"  He pulled out his saber and showed Rath the bloodstains, and also gestured to the spots of blood on his clothing.

Rath looked less than impressed, but the edge of his contempt was softened.  "Guess that's the best we're gonna get out of you, stoat."

The stoat bristled. "Well, I know I'm not a famous gladiator, but I'm not supposed to be!  I'm a clerk!"  He hadn't quite planned to blurt out the last bit, but now he couldn't seem to stop, even though a few beasts had started to glance over at him.  "I'm not a proper hordebeast!  I never had any training!  I sat around with a quill and wrote things down until that stupid, stupid captain got drunk and made  the Baron mad and now I'm supposed to magically be a captain!"  The stoat's anger was starting to change to frustration and sadness.  "It doesn't make sense, but I'm doing the best I can here."

"We done with the self-pity here?"  Rath asked gruffly.  However, the ferret's expression then softened just a pit.  "You could be doing worse'n' you are, I guess."

"Really?"  The stoat had meant for this to sound as desperate as it did.  However, he decided to swallow his pride and just ask the question that had been on his mind for a while now.  "Err, Rath?  Would you, uh, would you be willing to help me learn to fight?"