Try Too Hard (Tassle Riverswift)

[Substitute Author]

The passages under the old castle were dim and quiet after the din of the battle above. Tassle still heard the screams and cries ringing in her ears, beyond the gasps of her own breath and the pounding of her footpaws on the stone. She ran blindly, the glow of the torch in her paw barely lighting the way ahead.

Others ran around and behind her, frantic and panicked. Tassle twisted around to look behind her, afraid to see who might be following. The passage was clear; the badger was doing his work. 

"Run, everyone," she gasped out, forcing her aching paws onward. "Don't stop yet!" 

So they ran. Downward-sloping passages twisted and turned as their terrified escape progressed. They did not run fast, or even well. Some still had chains on their limbs. Some were wounded, and staggered along only with the help of their fellow slaves. Some were burdened with packages- in the flurried battle before the escape, Tassle and some of the others had grabbed as many supplies as they could find.

Tassle thought grimly that they would need them. 

Fear and freedom spurred the on until they couldn't run anymore. With unspoken consent they all slowed and then stopped, fighting for breath. Holding her aching side, Tassle held up the torch to reveal a small room of crumbling masonry with several dark passages splitting off. It was dank and smelled of mold. 

With groans and tears, the former slaves sat down. Some cast fearful glance back down the corridor they had come. They looked at each other with scared, haunted eyes. What do we do now? 

"Can't stop here," Tassle said, taking deep breaths and eyeing their surroundings with distrust. "Got to find a safer place." 

"We'm coin't," Brooga said. The mole, despite her size, had held up well through the battle and run. But her face was troubled. "We'm got weak'uns, burr, 'n' 'urted 'uns." She waved a digging paw at a squirrel with blood on his face, slumped limply against a pile of rocks. He was unconscious. 

Tassle's opened her mouth to speak, then shut it, looking around her. They were small and weak, most of them. They couldn't stand up to this. She had to... help them. 

"We'll let them rest," she said firmly, after a moment. "Try to see to the hurt ones. But I'll investigate this passageway. You-" she gestured at one of the stronger looking beasts. "Get the other. Don't go very far, just look around." 

The mouse she spoke to nodded, swallowed hard, and accepted the new torch she gave him. Tassle swept one last glance over the group, then bit her lip and turned down the passageway to her right. Taking a deep breath, she began walking. 

She turned a bend in the dank, dark, passageway only a little distance after she left the group. With the torch held out in front of her sending flickering light ahead, she walked on until the sound of her companions faded and she was left with only the raspy sound of her own breathing. 

Then she took a deep breath and began shaking. The torch dropped from her paw as she collapsed against the wall. Sobs shook her emaciated body and tears flowed down her cheeks as she slowly sank down, her back against the rough stone. 

Images of the battle swept over her as she rocked back and forth, still quietly crying. When the chains had fallen from her wrists she had leapt forward, fueled with anger and the desire for freedom. The slaves had overwhelmed a group of guards quickly- Tassle had knocked down a rat with a makeshift club and wrenched a cutlass from his paw. Cutlass waving, she had charged into the fray, ready to fight for freedom! 

The first beast she encountered was a weasel whose face was familiar. He had often beaten them when they were still oarslaves. As she charged him, she could see his sneering face as he had tormented them... 

Now all she could see was his sightless eyes, staring upward, and the blood pouring out of the wound she had given him. He was dead. 

Tassle tried to quiet the sobs racking her body. Through the tears she could see her paw still clenched around the hilt of the cutlass. Blood had run down from the blade and colored the fur of her paw and arm. Dropping the cutlass with a cry, she tried to scrub at her paw with the edge of her ragged tunic. The wet blood smeared on the cloth. 

She killed somebeast! He had been alive and now he was dead, and she had done it. She had spilled his blood and it was all over her, marking her. Many nights, when she lay exhausted on her bench, starving and covered with whip marks, she had dreamed of taking some sort of revenge on those that had done it to her. But she had never thought it would be like this! She thought she would be glad, liberated. 

Instead, Tassle felt sick and terrified.   

Back home she had a rapier. Her father taught her to use it and she sparred with her brothers. She was pretty good- but this wasn't a rapier. This wasn't playing around with her family anymore. This was serious. 

Maybe she hadn't realized how serious it was until now. 

Slowly, Tassle's sobs subsided into sniffling, and she wiped a paw across her eyes. Her breath came easier now. She couldn't change anything that had happened. Somebeast was dead, but now somebeast was free. 

More than one. Most of the rest had made it away. They were free. She was free. The thought turned around in Tassle's mind, over and over. For a long time she just sat there, oblivious, thinking. The tears dried on her face. 

Free. Her chains were gone, never to bind her again. She could call her life her own. But in a sense, they had only gone from one imprisonment to another. The cellars of this awful place were their refuge, for the moment, but they were also a trap unless they managed to find another way out. 

Well. They would just have to find another way out, then. Or fight their way through the guards above. One way or the other, they would get out.   

And after that? To find a way off the island. A boat. After that... 

Tassle sighed heavily and pulled herself to her feet, retrieving the torch and coaxing it back to light. Hesitating, she looked down and then slowly picked up the cutlass. Then she started off down the passageway, examining the walls carefully. 

One step at a time. She was free; for now, that was enough. Everything else would come later.   
~ 

Grubby, exhausted, but composed, Tassle was the first of the scouts to return back to the group. She saw fear on the faces that turned upward to look at her as she trudged back into the cavern, but the fear faded as they recognized the little shrew maid.   

"No luck this way," Tassle said dully, feeling as if every bone in her body ached. "It's all damp, crumbling, passageways. Like a maze." 

No reply came to her statement, but there was a whimper of delirious pain from the wounded squirrel. Tassle winced; he needed seeing to, but she was so tired! He should just, just... be quiet! 

She immediately felt bad for the traitorous thought. Ashamed of her callousness, she forced her weary paws to move and walked over to where Brooga had tried to get him comfortable. The mole looked up, worry in her round face. 

"He'm be worsen, miss. All fevered 'n' 'ot. Oi doesn' know..." 

Tassle lifted the bandage Brooga had put on it and felt a pang of fear as she saw the wound. It was bad... very bad. Panic seized her for a moment, but she swallowed it down and tried not to look at the squirrel's face. 

"Do your best," she whispered. 

"Tassle!" someone hissed from across the room. "Somebeast's coming!" 

Tassle's head snapped up. Gripping her cutlass tighter, she scrambled across the room to stand beside the quaking beast, who stared with wide eyes down the first passageway. The sound of footsteps and labored breathing was growing louder. 

"Who's there?" Tassle demanded, holding the cutlass out in front of her. It shook slightly in her paws.   

A striped head, streaked with blood, emerged out of the darkness. It was Ulrick, looming above them with a strange expression on his face and a length of chain still in his paw.

Tassle swallowed hard and forced a relieved grin. "You made it! Is anyone following us?" 

"No."   

Tassle took a deep breath and let the tip of the cutlass drop. "How did you find us?" 

The badger glared at her and his lips curled in a snarl. "You left a passage through the dust a blind beast could follow. I did my best to cover the trail." 

Tassle stared at him, then shook her head. She peered behind the badger, face creasing. "Did anyone come with you?" 

"No." 

"But... What happened to the other?" 

Ulrick shrugged carelessly. "Don't know. Some are dead. Some of them got caught again, I think." 

Caught... then some of their number were still enslaved. And they would probably be paying the penalty for the freedom of the others. Tassle lifted her chin. 

"We have to get them back. They're in big trouble." 

"So?" Ulrick growled. "It's none of my business. I'm not going to risk my life for them. I'm free- that's all that matters!" 

Tassle watched with a sinking feeling in her chest as the big badger stalked away, the other former slaves shrinking away from him. "But..." she whispered, eyes big. "We have to help!" 

"Not noaw, burr." A velvety paw touched her arm. "We'm toird 'n' 'urt, miss. Oi'm scared, moiself. We be need'n rest more'n anythin' else." 

"You- you're right." The shrew rubbed her head, sighing. "We need to find someplace to make a camp that'll be safe. The slavers will probably try to find us... So we'll need to be ready. Then we need to find a way out of here. Right." 

"The other scout's come back, Tassle," someone called. Tassle whirled around to face the scout, a mouse with overlarge ears.

"Did you find anything?" she asked eagerly.   

"Yes! At least, I think so." The mouse quivered with excitement. "There's a bigger room that looks in good condition. It's got a pool of water!" 

Water. Water was life. With water, they could survive. 

"Well done." Tassle nodded. "We can pack up and go there immediately." 

"There was a strange passage, though," the mouse said nervously. "Smelled real bad." 

"We'll deal with it later. Brooga!" Tassle turned again, feeling something like energy beginning to flood her limbs again. "Can the squirrel be moved?" 

"Oi doin't know." The mole rubbed a digging claw over her head. "'e needs woiter, boi urr. We c'n troi." 

"Let's go, as quick as we can, then. There's no time to spare." 

~ 

The room wasn't very big, but it was enough for them. Their torches lit up a squarish room with rock and timber debris littering the corners. It didn't look like it had come from the room itself, though. Tassle held her torch up and found no gaps or cracks in the old stone walls. There was a small pool of water in one corner. Directly across from the passage they came from was another passage, smaller and half covered. 

"Start setting up camp," Tassle instructed quietly, dropping her pack of supplies. "I'll check that out."

A wave of damp air blew into her face as she approached the second tunnel, making the torch flicker. A foul, rancid, scent swept over her. Tassle gagged. Pulling the end of her tunic over her nose, she backed away. It was useless to investigate now. 

Someone had pulled out their meager supplies and tried to start a fire with some of the old timber. Tassle joined the gaunt former-slaves, shuddering.   

"We'll pull some of the rubble over the first passageway," she said quietly, mostly to herself. "Build a barricade. They'll probably come after us eventually." 

"They'll find us!" somebeast shrieked, looking terrified.   

Tassle grimaced inside and tried to manage a comforting smile. "That'll be just in case. Hopefully they won't find us. The passages are tricky." 

"The rats will probably guide them." 

The voice was Ulrick's, coming flat and low from the shadows. Tassle sent him a swift glare.

"We'll figure that out. We need to try to get out of here, and get more food, and some weapons..." There was six of them, besides Tassle, sitting around the fire and looking up at her. Their faces were gaunt and exhausted, but their eyes held a new hope. Swallowing back weary tears, the shrew forced a brave smile.

"We'll make it somehow. Don't worry." 

"Do you want us to cover up the other passage?"

Turning, Tassle saw the black opening of the second passage and her nose wrinkled as she fancied she could smell its awful stink. But... a sudden thought chilled her.

"No." She hesitated. "We might need another exit. Leave it." There was a frightened mutter, and Tassle mentally kicked herself for saying that out loud. 

"We're free, friends! It will be all right." She felt a liar saying it, and couldn't meet their gaze. "Let's get some sleep."