Beasts of the South

[Thrayjen]

~~The following post is a collaboration between~~

Adeen Pinebarrow, Aldridge Moor, and Thrayjen

The crowd thrummed overhead - a great instrument under strain.

The door to the arena loomed before four beasts, armed and armored all.

A startling white mouse, fur marred with lightening ink, clad in patchwork leathers with a spear at her feet. Eyes closed, folding her paws and breathing to some unheard rhythm.

A pitch searat in barely-tarnished black leathers, bundled net hooked into his belt, switching a trident from paw to paw to no rhythm at all.

A haremaid riddled with scars, bouncing on her footpaws and throwing punches at the air, fists wrapped in gauze and chains.

A stoat blotched with the past winter?s leftover ermine coat, weighing a large curved knife in his paw.

?So here we are again,? Aldridge said.

?Not just us this time.? The black rat planted his trident in front of himself, rolled his shoulders, looked across to the others. A quick glance was spared to the hare, a lingering one on the mouse. ?Fear not, ladies. Aldridge and I are quite apt at this. We?ll keep an eye on your backs.?

The white mouse?s paw motions hitched, but she carried on.

The haremaid glared at Hracken, then at the underside of the seating as a wave of footpaw pounding worked its way around the Arena. ?Loud blighters, aren?t they??

?Aye.? Aldridge looked up, ears twitching as he tried to take in every nuance of the sound.

?As well they should be! Four against one is a bally good show.? She stepped into a left jab and a right hook, the chains wrapped round her paws clinking as she did. ?I?ve seen you fight before,? gesturing to the other three between swings. ?First time I?ve been behind this door and not feared for my life.?

?No complacency.? Aldridge was still staring at the ceiling. ?Can you hear it? Think back across the Farmer?s fights. He fought the scorpion four days ago, remember? Well, the crowd had seen a scorpion killed recently, and so they expected a fight. But the boar, two days after? They were here for a slaughter. They?re here for a slaughter now - and with four of us here? I have no idea what we?re up against. Be ready.?

The haremaid scowled. ?Always am.?

Rinam?s paw-motions finished and she hefted her spear. ?And ready I shall be, lest a stoat strike me from behind.?

?Is that on the table? My my.? Hracken, a twist of amusement in his voice.

?Our disagreements will have to wait for some other time,? Aldridge said.

?Together, then.? Finality in Rinam?s voice.

?Together.? The same in Aldridge?s. ?Haremaid, your name??

?Kincaid. Mara.?

?Together??

?Do I bally well have a choice??

?Then we?re agreed. Mara, Aldridge, Rinam, Hracken. Whatever lies beyond these doors??

?...we knock its bally block off.?

?...we think, we coordinate.?

?...we bring the dawn crashing down upon it.?

?...we stay alive.?

The sound of the great door?s bar being pulled aside.

The creak of hinges, and a sliver of green fire shone on them.

?After you, ladies,? Hracken quipped as doors opened.

Not a beast in the party raised their heads for the fanfare as they marched into the arena. Emerald shadows painted their faces, the trick of far-off baskets filled with Mortician Muda?s alchemical fire. The crescent moon above waned against the balm of wicked flames, which transformed the packed stands into a throng of starved and leering figures  from beyond dream or even nightmare.

The crowd roared and stamped their paws as the great grey lynx stood. In his box, Nire perched above the rabble and raised a hefty paw. The Lord of the Crater ordered silence, and silence was given. Beasts held their breaths in anticipation, and money paused its migration of paws. The flickering of the coloured flames above the Arena was the only force that dared defy Nire?s will.

?Ladies and gentlebeasts, today I proudly offer you a remarkable set of warriors. Hailing from the far reaches of the world, beyond Southsward and the realms of civilized creatures, a deadly team that knows no fear!

?The Pearl Dawn! A maiden so fierce that even the sand she walks upon flees her step. The mighty Fists of Fire, who can crumble rock with a single punch! The Lowlander, with the sight of a raptor and the instinct of a rank murderer!?

The lynx paused. The audience whispered, the fourth!, anticipating their lord?s words.

?And? introducing a beast so evil, so widely feared and hated that his identity had to be kept secret?? As the lynx trailed off again the crowd began to grow impatient. Cheers and rhythmic clapping began. Nire smiled, looking straight at the rat. Thrayjen met his eye, determinedly holding his gaze.

?The Nightmare of the Breakwastes. The Prince of Fear. You?ve told your children that if they don?t behave, HE?LL come for them?I give you Prince Thrayjen of Muskroarka: The Blackwhiskers!?

?Blackwhiskers? echoed between the party, and only when the crowd erupted anew did anybeast react. Rinam drew her kite shield and spear, Mara widened her stance, and both maids backed away from the newly revealed prince as though he had turned feral. The mouse kept her guard high and firm, but the hare jittered and bucked as a kettle too long at boil.

?Miss Kincaid?? Aldridge placed himself between the maids and Thrayjen, and only when he had broken the hare?s line of sight did she cry out.

?Trent! The Canal ran red because of him!?

?You lived there?? Aldridge raised a placating paw.

?I and hundreds more! And this bally monster poisoned the water with our own dead! Trent lost an entire generation of fighters to him, and you!? She focused on Aldridge. ?You want us to work together??

?Yes, Miss Kincaid, I do. All four of us, here and now, we have to put everything aside, or we won?t make it out. Do you understand?? He stared down the jittering and bucking beast. ?Concentrate on my face, on the sound of my voice, and tell me. Do you understand??

?...yes.? Too quiet, too distant, but it would have to do.

?I didn?t want to tell you this way. I waited too long. You?re angry.? Thrayjen had mustered the courage to speak. The rat looked about the crowded bleachers, his expression level as he quietly watched the roaring spectators.

?Bloody furious,? Aldridge replied. ?At you, for lying. At myself, for not seeing it. But we?ll deal with all of that later. Rinam, are you with us??

?Until our enemy falls.? The mousemaid?s kite shield dropped a claw?s-breadth. ?Rapscallion claws raked more than hares. The prince and I will have words once this is over. Agreed.?

?Agreed.? All humor had fled the large rat?s cadence. He turned his head slightly, bobbing his white chin in first Rinam then Mara?s direction. Unable to meet their eyes; unwilling to see their hate. ?Words with you and many more, I fear.?

Mara opened her maw in protest, but Nire?s grandstanding cut her short.

?And now, ladies and gentlebeasts! These four beasts of the South will fight something that they, and you, have never seen before! A beast from a land foreign and unfathomable, as dangerous as it is unexplored! As big as a badger and five times as deadly! They say he eats the flesh of his enemies but I wouldn?t know - I haven?t stayed close for long enough to find out!?

Laughter peppered the crowd and their roaring.

?But why tell you more when I can just show you! Ladies and gentlebeasts and those about to die, allow me to present? Padoha the Putrid, the Pestiferous, the Perilous! He?s already dug their graves? I give you Padoha the Plague!?

The scent preceded the nightmare; a wash of gravedust, iron, and bile which gushed from the straining North gate and buffeted all. A rolling, undulating sphere of scales carved through the sand, and burst open to reveal a monstrosity more blade and plate than beast. Padoha?s short arms erupted into scythe like claws, each one at least half the mouse?s height. Its curved shell layered as mail, stronger and more flexible than the rat and stoat?s armor combined. And no mailled fighting chain stood before Padoha?s braid of mismatched bones, worn as a half-belt over an otherwise bared body.

A roar of foreign curses, the swish of his thick, scaled tail, and the monster charged.

The maids and males split down the middle as Padoha rolled through where they once stood. Padoha?s short legs and heavy body did not allow for the agility of foes a quarter of his size. Again, the beast uncurled from its roll and swung pendulous in the sand, affording the gladiators precious seconds.

?Band together!? Aldridge called as he dragged Thrayjen towards the maids. ?We follow his next charge and we strike as one!?

Rinam joined the vermin, but Mara kept her ground aside.

?Pish and double posh, I don?t need you blighters.? Mara rewrapped her chain and knelt down for a sprint. ?This great lummox couldn?t catch a cold in winter. Leave a Kincaid to show you how it?s done!?

?No!?

Whether Aldridge, Rinam, or Thrayjen called after the hare mattered not. Mara heard nothing as she launched with her powerful legs and dashed across the sand. Padoha still struggled upright after the misjudged roll, and the hare vaulted up his scaled back as a rock leveret at the foot of Salamandastron. Her chain unfurled, wrapped across the creature?s thick windpipe, and cut in as Mara kicked out against his shoulders.

The crowd cheered as Padoha reeled, exposing the unscaled skin along his front. The trio gawked as the hare unbalanced her foe, and Mara herself cried victory for the Fallen of Trent.

All fell silent as a claw swung too high, too fast for the chain-pulling hare to dodge.

If the first strike did not sunder Mara, then Padoha?s follow-up digging did. The beast tunneled through the hare as a mole tilling fertile soil. When he was sure all the good parts were bared before the sky, a length of meat slunk from Padoha?s tapered muzzle and fished about the weeping bits, a mess of blood and darkness and witchlight.

Silence still as Padoha drank deep with his flickering, spear-like tongue. Only when Mara stopped twitching did anybeast, anywhere, move.

?Wake up.? Thrayjen spoke with nobeast in particular, but both Aldridge and Rinam closed their gaping muzzles and formed together. The rat?s voice was the only sound in all the Arena. ?We face this nightmare next. What is our plan??

?To plan.? Rinam stepped forward and raised her shield and spear. ?I will keep its attention until you find our moment. ?He is but a scorpion before the slaughter.??

Aldridge stuttered a few unformed replies as the mouse raised her laden paws into the air in silent invocation. Jolted from their rare shock, the crowd sparked alive again, betting chants for the bowyer, the pearl, and the prince competing for air. Cheers louder than before begged the furred beasts for victory, for an end to the blood-drunk savage.

?This is mad.? The stoat placed a paw on her shoulder to pull her back, but met resistance. ?You?ll die, as she did.?

?Only if we hesitate.?

It was not Rinam who replied, but Thrayjen, who nodded his agreeance and drew the net from his belt.

The mouse approached in measure, and only when she drove the spear against his armored shell did Padoha rise and roar. The strike pierced nothing, and each repeated thrust was batted aside by the hook of his claws or the steel of his scales. Experience kept Rinam at least two spear lengths away, and his every slash glanced off the curved edge of her shield rather than the flat.

Rinam fought on the retreat as she circled Padoha along the arena?s edge. Though she held his attention, every deflection slowed her stride, the rise of her shield arm.

?The net.?

Aldridge spoke and Thrayjen followed. The vermin approached from behind, flanking Padoha against Rinam?s defense but staying in his blindspot. They jumped over the terror?s sweeping tail, which stilled only when Rinam enacted a riposte. Aldridge counted the motion, studied the whipping sand of the mouse?s martial rhythm, and they launched with her next thrust.

They held the net outstretched, charged along opposite sides, and wrapped about Padoha. The bowyer and prince pulled with all their strength, and though they entangled the foe they could not bring him down.

?Rinam! Now!?

Thrayjen?s command sent the mouse forward, but as she raised the spear so rose the creature. The net split against Padoha?s fury, smashing Rinam and Thrayjen backwards as it swung and tore away the bits of rope. The mouse lay flat on her back, her limbs trembling with exhaustion. The rat curled upon his side, having taken the brunt of a backclaw blow to his stomach.

Only the stoat stood.

But the beast Padoha meandered, his claws wavering between rat and mouse, and before he made his choice a heavy disk of metal slalomed through the air and glanced off his temple. Padoha?s attention snapped up to Aldridge as the stoat?s hurled buckler rolled to a halt somewhere on the Arena floor.

?Come on, you knock-off monitor.? Aldridge shucked off his armour and slung it to one side - and the Marl knife to the other. ?You grave defiler!? He slammed his paws into his chest, roared and danced from side to side, the tricks of his ancestors on display as he thrashed his white underbelly and blotched brown coat at the great beast. ?It?s me you want! Tasty morsel right here, dancing for your entertainment! Dinner and a show! Come on, you failed badger, you half-shattered golem, you-?

Padoha obliged. The creature scooped Aldridge from the air mid jump with but one claw. The stoat, with the flexibility of his kind, pulled himself around to the outside of the giant?s fist so its grasp tightened on nothing. He glimpsed Thrayjen?s tail winding around the creature?s treestump leg even as another gauntlet paw came in, but this time both paws kept him in check.

Words beyond the ken of Mossflower natives cragged from Padoha?s thin muzzle. The giant grew accustomed to the stoat?s squirming, and held him firm, upside-down, as he pressed his thumbclaws into his flank. Talons punctured flesh, and Rinam gained her third wind as Aldridge?s howls of pain filled the air. Words passed between them. Some broken and inaudible, some silent and inferred. The mouse nodded once, signed for strength, and rushed forward with her shoulder driving forth her shield.

?Together!?

The mouse smashed into Padoha?s gut, the rat?s tail pulled hard, and the monster toppled backward. Its boulder body pounded into the arena floor, and the stoat landed square on the beast?s face.

Aldridge found stability with the same pace that had propelled his dancing, bellowed something indistinct, and rained punches upon the monster. Great talons flailed at him as he did, a few blows catching him but most falling short.

Thrayjen made good use of Aldridge?s distracting assault, snatched his trident up from the arena sand, leapt onto Padoha?s belly as Rinam rolled off.

A single, simple thrust and Padoha?s roar faded into a whimper, Thrayjen?s trident plunged into the beast?s stomach. Wretched agony ripped from a flooding throat and thick blood oozed forth from a lipless maw.

The spectators screamed their hero?s worship, not a single tail left in its seat as beasts leapt and cried and clapped. From his box, Nire?s own pale face rested in a stony disgust as he eyed the writhing, dying monster.

Aldridge crawled from the defeated creature, blood and spittle marring his coat. The stoat barely kept himself upright, stumbling away from the scaled horror even as it wheezed desperate foreign words at him. Padoha turned his attention on the rat who had impaled him, his tongue lolling as speech faded.

Nire stood in his box. Thrayjen?s chin stayed bowed towards the defeated beast but his eyes locked on the lynx. Nire smiled at him.

?End it.? Rinam limped as she approached the rat from behind. ?Do not let it suffer.?

Still, Thrayjen waited, motionless. Nire held his arm up, extending a clenched up paw.

Kill him!!
Death to the monster!
Evil!

Thrayjen?s heart beat steadily as Nire lowered a claw to the ground. The crowd cheered.

Knuckles white, arms trembling, Thrayjen pulled his trident from flesh far too slowly. A wail erupted from Padoha?s throat and fresh blood spurted from the gaping holes the trident had ripped through him.

?Thrayjen?? Aldridge uttered.

The rat ignored him, stepping off of Padoha?s stomach and pushing past Aldridge and Rinam to pick up the abandoned Marlblade.

And then his sword-paw was stilled. The paw of the bloodied, beaten stoat rested on his shoulder and the stoat himself stood in the rat?s striking path.

?You?ve the air of atrocity about you,? Aldridge said. ?Beasts have always spoken of the dead-eyed Prince and the examples he made of the beasts who defied him, but you are not the Prince any more. You?re a farmer. You?re a beast of peace. The damned lynx can call you Blackwhiskers all he likes but the only beast who decides whether the Blackwhiskers comes running? is you. Don?t give him what he wants.?

Thrayjen pushed the stoat aside.

With quick footed nimbleness, the rat climbed back onto the belly of the beast as if the dying creature were no more than ship?s rigging. Padoha tried to curl up, but his attempts were met with shrieks of pain, his stomach too ruptured for struggle. The scaled beast looked at the smaller rat, whispering unfamiliar words of desperate prayer or heated curse, watching Thrayjen raise the knife.

The blade plunged into soft flesh and fresh blood spurted from the pitiful creature, drowning and silencing words. Padoha gurgled, raising his claws towards his gushing wound as Thrayjen slowly twisted the blade. The beast heaved his chest one last time and his body collapsed into limpness.

It did not end with death.

Thrayjen dragged the sharp knife down, carving the corpse until its skin split from chin to belly. The rat slipped in warm blood, grappling at scales for purchase. He seized his trident, steadying himself upon its length. Then, once Thrayjen had planted his feet, his thrust the trident into the exposed insides of his slain foe.

Thrayjen wrenched, twisting until his arms ached and his paws could no longer grip the slick staff. Flesh, tendon, intestines wrapped around the trident, strips of bright rib slashing through the crimson that stained every square inch of monster and beast.

With steady breath, the Blackwhiskers stepped off his foe, dropping to the ground. He stared up through a mask of blood, eyes focused without interruption on the Master of the Crater, paws steady. His whiskers, heavy with strings of nerve and skin, twitched.

Nire clapped, and as he did he bowed elegantly to Thrayjen. Mouse and stoat shared a grim look between them as Thrayjen, smiling, returned the bow.