The Berserker

[Airan]

Name: Chitterfang the Wrigglekin
Species: Bat (common noctule)
Gender: Female
Age: 23

An elderly vole sprinted to the river and clawed at the bank. With frantic swipes he searched for worms, wasp larvae, and pillbugs within the mud.

"A runaway!" A vixen bandit wrapped in pilfered jewelry caught up. Far behind her other raiders pillaged food and heirlooms from the vole's onion farm. "No burrowing allowed, I'm afraid."

The elder held the insects high, gathered his breath, and sang a short, crystalline note. The vixen burst out laughing at the ritual.

"You believe in the Wrigglekin!?" The vixen's necklaces jangled as she chortled. "Quick now, scream into the river and summon Martin too!"

The vole did not scream. He filled his paws with crawlers, and offered both song and sustenance on high until his lungs gave out.

A streak of red-gold fur flew from the treeline and crashed into the ground as though it'd forgotten its wings. The dense bat, wearing a leafweave bandolier, climbed upright, scratched at her rear, and patted the farmer's head.

"Oi, Brennan. How're your onions? Big? Juicy?"

"Chitterfang, please." Farmer Brennan gasped out the words. "They're taking everything."

"The little blessings are eating your veggibles?"

"Not the bugs; focus."

"Huh?" Chitterfang's long ears scanned, picking up the vixen and a dozen armed bandits only a fence line away. "There are so many, too many! You have to run; I'm not sure I can-"

"This bat?" The vixen scoffed. "This is the Wrigglekin?"

"Wrigglewhat, wrigglewho?" Chitterfang looked about for a moment before flapping her wings. "Oh, you mean I'm the wriggling bat beastie. I am, I am, and you should all leave while you can."

"I see no storied monster."

"Depends on how you're looking."

"Quiet, git." The vixen readied her scimitar. "All I see is a dolt with a mouth as big as her behind!"

"Run, Brennan. Run." The vole did not move despite Chitterfang's push. "Run! RunrunrunBrennanRUN!"

The vixen charged, and Chitterfang swiped Brennan's offering into her mouth. She did not swallow, and let the 'little blessings' squirm along her tongue and teeth.

Time slowed, she breathed in an ancient rhythm, and the infestation dredged up deeper wells.

Memories resurfaced and mixed with the present. Brennan's rasping became a blind teacher scratching hiveholes into their cave's wall. The river's flow became the thousandfold wingbeats of her siblings curating nests and webs. And the vixen's war cry became the trilling crickets as Chitterfang held him close.

And then the blessings reigned.

The pillbugs spoke first. Chitterfang rolled low into the vixen's shins and sent her muzzle first to the ground.

The wasp larvae gave permission. Chitterfang's sharpened foreclaws stung down with the hive's fury and perforated the vixen's neck.

The worms sensed the charge of the vixen's allies. Chitterfang's body wove fluid through the flurry of weapons.

Roll, sting, weave.

Roll, sting, weave.

The afternoon sun dipped below the treeline before Chitterfang woke, her breathing shallow and the blessings long departed from her maw and mind.

A dozen raiders sprawled dead among the onion stalks. An elderly vole bled free into the river.

Chitterfang wheezed as she sat upright. Her shaking, spattered claws fished through her bandolier for a journal. Already the memories were fading, yet her charcoal trembled along: a blind teacher, web curators on high, and glowmoths lighting his wings. The scrawled clues joined many others, but not a one told of a road home.

Then the memories vanished, as they always did.

Chitterfang buried Brennan in his field, said a short prayer to those below, and limped away in search of another chance.

[Airan]

Name: Elias Heatherpaw
Species: Hare
Gender: Male
Age: 45

A formless presence issued forth like breath from the dark forest. Moonlight filtered in from above, catching the silver of the hare's saber and the gold in his paw.

Be with me.

Elias pressed the locket to his mud-smeared lips and pictured the penciled image within. He recalled every stroke of his paw, every wayward glance that stole him from its creation, every teasing breath that escaped her.

Be with me.

"Cap'n?"

Elias blinked. The wood lay before him, buzzing with insects.

"Are you all right, sah?"

Lieutenant Darscy placed a paw on his shoulder. Behind him, the other young hares of Elias' troop watched, their faces weary from their relentless pursuit.

Elias stuffed the locket into his coat and then gestured with his blade at a set of tracks.
"Seventeen o' the blaggards, by my count."

Darscy's paw remained. "Cap'n... I know this is personal, but p'haps—"

"Your concern is noted, Leftenant."

He didn't wait for a response. This was why they came, even against the badgerlord's orders: some things could not be let go.

The eight hares continued forward, their movement hushed upon the fresh-fallen leaves. Soon, an orange flicker caught his attention. He felt the heat long before he found the fire. It burned low, crackling to the hum of the surrounding insects. Roughshod tents encircled the flame, while several vermin slept in the open.

"Longdale an' Cuffscut, circle around," Elias whispered. "Remember your trainin'. Use the treeline to—"

A scream cut him off.

Elias spun to see Cuffscut squirming against the ground, clutching at an arrow in her shoulder. Metal glinted in the darkness as an axehead buried itself into another hare's neck.

"Ambush!" Elias shouted, hopping to the side as another arrow sailed past.

The vermin around the fire sprang up and charged as war cries filled the forest. Elias dispatched an approaching rat, then scanned the writhing shadows for Darscy when something heavy slammed him into the ground and sent his saber from his grip.

Hot, blood-soaked breath bloomed underneath a pair of hungry eyes. Heat flared inside Elias' chest. He recognized those eyes. He'd seen them a week earlier, in his home.

"Kin allers count on a hare t' be one thing: predickable." The fox slurped saliva and raised a cudgel.

Elias spat, sending the fox reeling. Hooking his claws into the beast, he spun around and leapt atop the wriggling creature. His paws found the fox's neck and he squeezed.

And then he heard her, like a scream from miles away: Remember.

The fox gurgled something. He didn't hear what.

Remember what they did to us.

Darscy called for him, but far away. Too far away.

Remember what they did to you.

The forest hummed with a thousand voices, the mosquito-whine of the insects coalescing into a song of blood.

Remember what they did to me.

He reached for the nearest instrument and found the fox's cudgel.

Music.

*****

The song ended.

Blood trickled from his chin. The cudgel clattered to his side. The forest had gone silent, as if even the insects dared not speak of what they saw.

Bodies littered the forest – crawling away, pinned to trees, heads caved-in – a picture of vengeance frozen in place. Among them: his hares.

Elias sank to his knees. His paws quivered, and he noticed the locket in his grip. He pressed it to his forehead and sobbed.

And then he felt it: breath against his neck, caressing his jawline with a familiar touch, then touching his lips.

And he heard her voice.

I am with you now, love.

[Airan]

Name: Ilka
Species: Wildcat
Gender: Female
Age: 36

Every time the red haze faded away, Ilka's first and most desperate desire was to clean the mess out of her fur. Experience had taught her, however, that clients handed over their post-job payment more enthusiastically to a grisly monster than to a tidily-groomed wildcat. When she was the latter, Ilka could have been any wildcat. When she was matted with viscera and her whiskers and fangs were stained pink, Ilka could only be The Hellcat.

But the fresh carnage did not seem to effect the mouse presently poking through the burlap sack of heads she had just dumped on the ground before him. Brother Wulter was deep into middle age, soft-bellied and grey at the ears, and always wore the brown robe of whatever sect had spawned him. He'd clearly strayed a long way from cloisters, though. He wasn't her client, but his notary, assigned this task because their mutual employer didn't want to be seen on a secluded forest road colluding with an infamous killer for hire.

"I count seven," Wulter said, finally straightening and letting the sack fall shut. "You missed two."

"I killed everybeast in that camp. If they are not in the bag, it's because they were not in the camp."

"Then you should go find them."

"I am a beast slayer-" She bared her pink teeth for emphasis. "-not a beast finder."

"If you value professional integrity, you'll complete the task that you agreed to."

"Or perhaps I shall simply add your head to the bag and take my money off your corpse."

Unfazed, Wulter only frowned. He was one of those types of mice – the irritatingly steely ones. Ilka could still kill him easily, or simply overpower him and take what was owed. She was impatient enough to leave this backwater that she wouldn't even need the Rage to do it.

But she looked at his robe and could only sneer.

"It's foolish for you to be out here alone with me, you know. Your employer must have deemed you expendable." She took a step closer so she loomed over him, resting one footpaw on a round shape under the burlap. "Perhaps he has grown weary of having his unsavory dealings overseen by an unsullied beast of the Light."

Wulter's whiskers twitched, but his gaze was steady. "Sometimes an unsavory act lends itself to the greater good."

"Is that why he had me kill a family of weasels, Monk? The greater good?"

He did not flinch, and had the decency not to pretend he hadn't noticed the smaller heads in the sack. Instead, his ears tipped back a degree, almost as if he meant to pray to the great Nothing Ilka knew to be out there.

"We are none of us unsullied," he said, "nor truly past redemption."

Ilka laughed, slow and cruel. Wulter only watched her earnestly. At length, her mirth faded away, and she scratched at the clotted gore on her palms.

"I'll make you a deal, Monk. My business wants restructuring. Be my factor. Keep that sack of gold for yourself or distribute it to the poor or whatever fool thing you wish. Consider it a sign-on bonus."

For the first time, Wulter's eyes widened and his mouth popped open in genuine shock. "W-Why would I ever-?"

"Perhaps I am a lost soul craving redemption," Ilka sighed, unsheathing her claws to examine their wicked points. "Or perhaps I am an arrow seeking a heart, with no care at all whether its owner is good or evil. In which case, the greatest good you might ever do is guiding my flight."