All The Hazard That Is Run

[Plink]

The jungle air turned from sticky to steamy as the morning stretched on, and Plink hurried along the stream. She had found the way through the tunnels by her fading mushroom's light, and had emerged near the tumble of mossy boulders where she and Scully had made peace, weeks ago now. She could not remember anymore why she had been angry with him, but she brushed away the thought and hurried on downstream.

There was no time to look back. Even now, the slaves were probably making their escape, and with nothing to distract the pirates from the harbor, Robert and Chak and the others wouldn't make it far.

Plink swallowed and examined the stretch of rocky bank before her, trying to remember if this was the right place. She tried to picture Tooley scrambling back into the brush, and the massive green bird holding up the stolen bag of coins. Up the stream a little ways, there was a steep mossy bank that marked the base of a hillside. Yes, that was where she had fallen, where Maurick had finally dropped her before he landed in the water.

Plink scrambled up the hill and tried to pick out the direction from which they had flown, but she couldn't see much through the thick undergrowth. Even if she had remembered the direction they had come from, their path had been swerving and erratic, and Plink had spent most of it hanging upside down from Maurick's talons.

There was no time for hopelessness now, though. Plink plunged into the foliage, not thinking about traps or snakes or mongooses. She peered up the trunks of trees, searching for a particular type of spiny vine.

"See how some of the leaves are different from others? That's 'cause they grow from different kinds of trees."

Plink shuffled through a clump of leaves that had gathered in the ditch along the roadside, grinning. "Ma, how's a tree know what kinda shape to make its leafs grow?"

"Don't know, sweet," Dampaw said, tugging her shawl tighter around her thin shoulders and hefting her basket in the same motion. "I guess they just figure that out themselves. They've got the time to think it through, after all. Trees can live fer hundreds of seasons."

"Nuh-uh!"

"It's the truth! You can cut down a tree an' count the rings inside the trunk, one fer each winter the tree's been standin'."

Plink found a stick that was a good size to make a sword. She whacked the fallen leaves with it, sending them fluttering through the air. In her mind, they were Marshals like the ones who had made her and her ma leave the last town, and Plink was a dashing swashbuckler, blowing them away with her skill.

"You know, your da used to bring me plants he found on his voyages." Dampaw braced her basket on one hip and bent down to pick up a scarlet leaf from the packed dirt of the road. Plink stopped swinging her stick and came close to watch the leaf twirl as her mother rolled the stem between her claws. Dampaw slid her eyes to look past the leaf, at her. "Pretty little potted things, all well-tended an' flowerin'."

"An' you left 'em all behind? On Terramort?"

"That's right." Dampaw went on spinning at the leaf for a silent moment. "They all died anyways... I ain't got a touch fer green things. My people were... were traders, mostly. Not farmers."

"Then why'd Da bring you plants, if you were just gonna kill 'em?"

Dampaw smiled and finally let the leaf fall. "He loved me, an' I asked him to. Ain't no shame in tryin' to do right by livin' things, sweet."

There.

At last, Plink spied a group of trees with their trunks thickly covered in the same vines she remembered. High, high above, she thought she could pick out the round mass of the nest, as well. It would be a long climb, but Plink had grown strong from scaling the wall of the harbor. She stripped off her red sash and, despite a surge of regret, bit through the cloth and ripped it in half, wrapping her paws in the strips. It wasn't much, but it would protect her from the worst of the thorns.

Then, hastily, she began to climb.

"Did Da kill a lot o' hares?" Plink whipped the high summer grass with her stick for a final time, then hurled it over the wide pool in the creek and into the sunlit meadow beyond.

The water was stagnant here, and it stunk, but Dampaw had insisted she needed to rest in the shade of the lone tree. Plink spun back toward where her mother sat against the trunk, pale and silent. "He did, didn't 'e? He was a great pirate an' hares are always pokin' their stubby noses inta pirate business, ain't they? So he musta killed hundreds of 'em!"

Dampaw licked her lips. "Did I ever tell you about Colonel Bristleworth?"

"No. Who's 'at?" Plink sneered. Still, she came to sit in the shade beside the bundles of belongings she and her mother had laid aside.

"He was a Waverunner officer when Atlas first started his war, got a fierce reputation fer killin' every pirate he ever met. Even the ones who surrendered, an' the captives who confessed." Dampaw shut her eyes as she went on. "Well, your da got wind that ole Bristleworth was at anchor nearby, an' you know what he did?"

Plink glared down at the sour dandelion she was shredding between her claws. "He fought 'em."

"Not outright. See, your da's crew was smaller, an' he knew a lot of his beasts would die in a battle against all those Waverunners. It's the captain's responsibility to protect his crew, remember, but that bloodthirsty colonel still had to be stopped. But your da was smart, an' brave, an' he came up with a plan. He boarded Bristleworth's vessel an' challenged that rotten ole hare to a duel right on his own deck, so nobeast else could interfere. They fought all day, an' long inta the night?"

Plink hauled herself up onto the wide branch that held the macaw's nest and gave herself just a moment to catch her breath and listen. No sounds emitted from the tangled-stick hut, but there was a strong smell of smoke, as if a fire had died down in the early morning hours. Plink hesitated for a long moment, then drew in a great breath and crept to the entrance.

The interior of the hut was in deep shadow, and she could only just make out vague impressions of the objects within. Stepping softly to keep from rustling the woven floor, Plink neared the fire pan and the mass of rags and feathers beyond. She could hear the sleeping bird's breathing, the low rasp of his exhales, and as she crept closer, she could smell beneath the smoke, the sour reek of dead things.

Plink blinked hard, trying to force her eyes to adjust more quickly to the faint light as she scanned the gleaming lumps lining the walls. Any of these things would do, but she didn't move to take them. There was only one thing here that she wanted.

Finally, she spotted it, sitting on the floor by the bed - a nondescript little sack. Tooley's bag of coins.

Plink snuck closer step by softly creaking step. The macaw let out a long breath. She froze, watching, as he ruffled his feathers and shifted his wing, revealing a glimpse of the great beak tucked beneath. Then, he stilled once more.

She was so close now. It would be simple. She would snitch the bag and wake him once she was already in the doorway. It wasn't much of a head start, but it was the best she could manage. But first, she had to get the bag.

On all fours, Plink crept nearer and reached out one trembling paw.

"Harrk," Maurick rasped, his low voice filling the hut. When Plink looked up, he was peering down at her with one large yellow eye. "Here was I, thinkin' ye be too savvy t' show yer tail in me forest again, an' low an' behold but ye traipse right inta me very cookpot."

Plink grabbed the bag and tried to bolt for the door, but she jerked to a stop. Her arm was stuck, trapped in a vise. She turned back, already knowing what had happened, her body weighted with dread.

Maurick had her arm trapped in his beak. Slowly, as he watched her, he began to squeeze, and Plink knew he would sever the bones in her arm as easily as he had snipped through her tail.

She didn't think. She jammed her free paw in her pocket and yanked out the first thing she touched, twisting to stab it into that huge eye. Maurick's beak twitched open as he screamed, and Plink scrabbled for the door.

The instant she hit daylight, her terror eased. She was still gripping Tooley's bag in one paw and the bloodied charcoal pencil in the other, and she tucked both items in her pockets as she looked back at the shadows in the hut.

Maurick was cursing her and scrubbing at his eye with the back of one talon, but he made no move to follow.

"How'd ya like that?" Plink shouted with building enthusiasm. "Yeh! Think yer so tough but one little stick in the eye an' yew roll over like a pill bug! They oughtta call ya 'Dishes It Out But Can't Take It Maurick'!"

Breathing hard with pain and rage, the macaw fixed her with a one-eyed glare, then shrieked and launched himself toward her.

Plink darted back to the trunk and began a frenzied descent, watching from the corner of her eye as Maurick took flight and swooped down straight at her. The moment before he would have struck, she let go of her holds on the vines and dropped out of his way, catching a grip a short distance down and slamming her belly into the spiky vines. She hardly noticed the sting as the bird crashed into the spot where she had been an instant before, claws raking bark and vines for purchase.

Maurick craned his neck to glare at her and screech again. He began climbing rapidly toward her, but Plink had grown faster with practice. She was no longer afraid just to be up so high, and she shimmied down the tree just as fast as her pursuer. At the base, she leapt to the ground and raced at once back toward the stream. With a raspy cry and a whoosh of feathers, Maurick took flight to follow.

He dropped out of the air in her path, so Plink darted around a tree and carried on in the same direction. She knew what happened if she lost her bearings, and there was no time now for getting lost.

The brush thinned abruptly and Plink found herself skidding down the mossy hillside toward the stream. As soon as her footpaws hit water, she raced toward the head, Maurick thundering after her. She leapt over slick rocks and dodged around the thick roots of trees, darting into the bushes whenever the enraged macaw took flight.

Gasping and with a stitch in her side, Plink finally spotted the stream's source. She clawed her way up the bank and into the mossy rocks above, nearly throwing herself into the tunnel concealed beneath an overhanging boulder vaguely shaped like a macaw's beak. There, she ran a few steps more before coming to a tense stop.

Maurick was no longer following.

Plink crept back toward the bright mouth of the cave, listening close to the jungle sounds. A rhythmic noise rose up through the insect songs. Though she couldn't see him from this angle, Plink knew Maurick was laughing just outside.

"Ye wretch, ye filthy little dirt-lubbin' brat. Is it that ye think ye be safe in that hole? Or did he send ye t' devil me? Curse his scurvy hide?"

Plink licked her lips and shifted from paw to paw. She didn't want him thinking this through. "This ain't about Cap'n Blade! It's about me takin' back what you stole from me, ya- ya crazy featherhead!"

"Be that so?" A shadow shifted in the bright forest beyond. "Well ye won't be keepin' it fer long, missy. Do ye think I found me way through those tunnels by chance? I know 'em better'n ye know yer own tail - or what's left of it, at least. How long do ye wager ye can stay clear o' me in the dark?"

A chill raced up Plink's spine and the macaw dropped into view, blocking out the light with his bulk.

"How long before ye take a wrong turn an' wind up trapped at a dead end?" His voice dropped to an echoing whisper as he bowed his head and entered the tunnel. "Ought I kill ye quick or let ye wander in the blackness 'til ye die from thirst?"

Plink began backing away, one paw on the wall. "Get plucked, ya big pigeon."

With a snarl, Maurick spread his wings slightly so his pinions brushed the close walls and advanced. "Plucked! I'll show ye pluckin', whelp? pluck ye straight out o' yer measly hide? Be more of a peelin', though?"

Breathing hard out of fear now, Plink turned back and began counting paces. She had been so careful when she came through with the dying light of her mushroom. Eighteen hundred and forty-seven steps, and turns to the left at sixteen seventy-two and two twenty-five. With her right paw trailing the wall, and Maurick's muttered threats cutting the silence behind her, she focused on counting back from eighteen hundred forty-seven.

Only, it was difficult to focus on numbers when she could hear his feathers dragging stiffly against the same rough stone that was under her paw. One second, he sounded like he was far off. He went silent as if he was listening for her. Then, suddenly, it seemed like he was right there behind her. Plink's hackles ached from standing so stiff for so long. She swore she could feel his breath on her ears.

When she had counted back to sixteen hundred and seventy-two paces, she reached across the tunnel, feeling for the crux of the sharp Y she remembered here. But all Plink felt was the left wall of the tunnel, flat and parallel to the one she had been following.

A wave of panic surged through her. She had lost count. Her steps had been too long or too short. She had misremembered the numbers. Whatever had gone wrong, she couldn't see to correct herself, and Maurick was closing the gap between them while she hesitated.

Plink rushed ahead along the left wall for a while, then switched back to the right. She stumbled and stopped counting for a time, then started again,  cursing herself and trying to guess how many paces she had missed.

"Harr harrk? Ye be seein' the truth now, don't ye?" Maurick spoke hardly above a croon, and he sounded both close and far behind. "Ye be growin' frightened. Trippin' on nothin'. I could kill ye now, if I'd a mind, but ye put on such a sweet liddle show."

Plink walked faster, almost trotting now. Her breaths came in gulps. She counted her steps by twos and put out a paw in front of her, certain a dead end could come at any time.

"Aye, missy. Run. I'll be along directly."

Still dragging her right paw along the wall, Plink lurched into a stumbling run.

The tunnel went on forever. It began to feel as if Plink was running in place while nothing around her changed. Then, finally, she hit a wall.

Her paw struck first, but it afforded her little protection. Her snout hit stone second and Plink went down in a heap, pain bursting behind her muzzle and eyes. As she regained her senses, she heard Maurick chuckling as he approached.

Scrambling on all fours, Plink felt the walls around her, hoping this was only a bend she had forgotten, but it was not. Three stone walls hemmed her in, and the macaw shuffled nearer from the fourth direction. He would have her soon. He would tear her to little bits and eat her, and this would all be for nothing.

For nothing. The slaves would be recaptured and punished. Chak would probably get caught, too. And nobeast half betrayed Blade. Chak and Rob and Tooley, they'd all be in so much trouble?

Plink couldn't let that happen. She'd already let Crue fall into danger, had practically pushed her. Plink couldn't let it happen to the others, too. She had to take care of them.

She climbed to her footpaws and licked the blood off her snout. "Cap'n Blade's takin' all his treasure away, you know."

Maurick's talons stilled on the rock floor. "Ye honestly expect me t' believe that he could move all those riches? It'd take-"

"An army of slaves? Aye, they've been at it fer days now, haulin' it out a bit at a time. To a ship. He's takin' it outta the mountain - an' away from you."

"Ye lie. Ye'd tell any lie it took t' save yerself now."

"I ain't lyin'," Plink said, and swallowed. "Go see fer yourself."

"Maybe I will," Maurick said, stepping nearer, "once I've tied ye up with yer own guts."

She fell back a step and the rock wall jabbed at her through her jacket. "What if he leaves with all his treasure while yer wastin' time? I wouldn't wanna risk it, if I were you."

There was a moment of silence and Plink struck again.

"We're close to the treasure room. D'you smell the smoke from their torches? I bet somebeast's in there right now, gatherin' up the last coins."

Maurick emitted a low sound like a growl, and it was Plink's only warning before he lunged for her. She dove for the floor. His beak snapped where her chest had been. Plink scrambled under his wing, trod on his tail feathers, and ran. But, after a relatively short distance, she stopped.

Maurick wasn't chasing her, but she could still hear him rustling and scraping in the dark. Quiet as she could, Plink followed after the sounds.

She had lied before, thinking the treasure chamber was still far off, but it wasn't long before her sensitive nose picked up an actual whiff of smoke. Then, Plink spied a faint yellow light ahead. A yellow light through which a large shadow moved.

Maurick squawked up ahead, but there was another scream as well, more terrified than furious. The voice was familiar. Plink sprinted toward the light.

The source was a torch inside the treasure chamber, hissing and huffing as Vera swung it in big desperate arcs at the looming macaw. The vixen was larger, but Maurick made up for his size with his massive wingspan and the shrill volume of his cries.

"Ye filthy thievin' dog! I'll make yer scull inta a soup bowl, I'll-!"

"I didn't steal anything! I'm not a thief!"

Maurick snapped his beak at her and Vera scrambled back into a corner. She was trapped. Plink scanned the chamber for some way to help.

The treasure was not all gone, but the room was much bigger than Plink had thought. She had seen the foremost mound of gold by the faint light of a mushroom. That mound was gone, now, as were the crates of books. But with Vera's torch flashing and fading, Plink could make out golden slopes stretching up into the darkness and away out of sight.

The thing that grabbed Plink's eye, though, was the standing candelabra near the door. She snatched it up and, though the base was too heavy for her to lift, she dragged it across the uneven floor to jab the burnt-down candles into Maurick's back.

He whirled on her in a blur, sending the candelabra flying with a clang and buffeting Plink with the backside of his wing. She tumbled backward and struggled to sit up, expecting to see the macaw bearing down on her.

Instead, she saw Vera's determined look as the vixen slashed her torch across the distracted bird's wing. His feathers went up in a crackle of flame and Plink stared, transfixed, as he beat the wing futilely in the air, only succeeding in feeding the flames. The air thickened with the stench of burning feathers and screaming.

Vera had already raced across the room and grabbed Plink's arm, dragging her up off the floor.

"Come on! We have to get out of here!"

Still dazed, Plink let herself be pulled out of the chamber and two steps into the maze of tunnels before digging her heels in. "Not that way!" She pulled back against Vera, guiding her toward the dagger room.

"I just came from this way," the fox said. She was wincing and drew her bandaged paw out of Plink's grasp, though the rat hardly noticed.

"Trust me," Plink said as she wove between the stone knives. "This is where we need to take him."

"Take him?" Vera caught her shoulder and Plink glanced up at her incredulous expression. "You can't mean you're trying to-"

But behind her, Plink spotted the sway of embers approaching through the dark. She grabbed Vera's paw again and dragged her up toward the mushroom chamber. "No time, Vera! Come on!"

From the darkness at their backs, a screech of fresh fury announced Maurick's pursuit.