Of Cowards and Monsters

[Minerva]

Old hinges creaked and metal scraped harshly against stone as Hargorn heaved open the door to the Inquisition Chamber. The room before them was shrouded in darkness, and Fable whined and shut her eyes.

"Now, now," Hargorn said, smirking at the young otter with his jagged teeth as he carried her inside, "don't tell me yer 'fraid o' th' dark. Don't'cha worry yer pretty liddle tail, young 'un. Once I've got'cha safe an' snug, I'll turn on some lights fer ya."

Minerva struggled against her chains, biting and snapping at the other guards as they led her in after them and towards a set of manacles bolted on the far wall. The otterwife continued to twist and snarl as they were clasped tightly around her wrists.

"Guard th' door," Hargorn said to the two other beasts. Minerva pulled against her chains desperately as the guards moved to the iron door. Without a glance at the screaming otterwife, they pulled it closed behind them and locked it shut.

In the dark, nobeast could see Minerva's tears, and she slumped to her knees in defeat as she listened to the sounds of her child's sobs piercing the gloom.

Fable couldn't see her, but Minerva still forced a smile on her face as she hung limply forward. "It's gonna be okay, Fable. I promise, it's gonna be okay," she said, but her words only seemed to make the young one worse. She wished she could stroke Fable's head and ease her worries, but she feared that her daughter might never know her touch again.

"Aye, it's gonna be jest okay," Hargorn sneered, his peg-leg tapping against the stone floor as he hobbled through the darkness. "Now, why don' we get some light in 'ere fer ye, liddle un?"

White sparks brought light to the weasel's paws as he struck flint to steel within a hearth and started a small, crackling fire. Instantly, the orange glow pierced the darkness, and Minerva's heart skipped a beat. Hargorn smiled at the otterwife, tossing in several dried logs before grabbing a bellows and pumping it into the blaze.

As the growing flame scattered away the dark, it danced upon the gleaming edges of thin, cruel knives, spiked whips, and heavy bludgeons mounted upon the wall. Seeing the otterwife's expression, Hargorn laid a poker within the flames and hobbled towards her.

He curled a claw under her chin as he eyed the otterwife hungrily. "D' ye like me toys? Nire's a gen'rous beast. He gave 'em all t' me. D' ye wanna know which is me pers'nal fav'rite?" Though every extinct told her not to look, Minerva's eyes followed the weasel's claw as he pointed to a small, curved blade, not unlike a scalpel, at the far right wall nearest to Fable. "I'll tell ya what it's fer." The weasel grinned and raised his paws, and pantomimed pressing the blade against his palm. "Ye see, it cuts nice an' clean under th' pawpad. Ye ever 'ave woodpigeon? 'Tis as easy as sep'ratin' th' meat from th' bone.

"But that's fer later," Hargorn said, turning his good eye towards the sobbing Fable. "I prefer startin' with a more... tradish'nal approach." The weasel's paw moved towards Minerva's neck, and he snatched the hook from around it.

"Give that back," Minerva said weakly, but Hargorn hardly acknowledged her. He twirled the object nonchalantly by the cord as he ambled back to the furnace and pulled the poker from the fire, its end glowing bright and white hot. He started towards Fable.

"Please. Don't," Minerva begged as her daughter whimpered.

Hargorn ignored her. "Ye know. Hammerpaw was a good mate o' mine. I 'member how sometimes me an' 'im used t' sing ol' horde ditties in the Drag t'gether. I'm thinkin' I'll do t' 'er what ye did t' 'im," the weasel said, brandishing the hook and poker. "Don' worry though. She won't bleed fer long. I'll cauterize it." Hargorn turned once more to Minerva, dark shadows dancing within the hollowed socket of his missing eye. "Though, I kin say from exp'rience, that hurts even worse."

The weasel turned back to Fable. The young otter screamed and pulled against her chains as Hargorn stepped towards her. "Now now, hold still, lass." He raised the hook. "It'll be over in jest a tick."

Tears fell from Minerva's eyes as she screamed and pulled against her bonds. "Please! Please don't! I'll do anything!"

A smile crept to the weasel's muzzle, the point of Orran's hook a hair's breadth away from Fable's eye. Hargorn turned towards her, eyeing her like a starving beast. "Anythin', ye say?"

The poker clattered to the floor at Fable's footpaws as Hargorn dropped hold of it and the hook and ambled towards Minerva with a grin on his maw. He knelt down to her level, touching a paw to her cheek in mock tenderness. He spoke, trailing a claw slowly down the length of her body. "See, I was gonna have my fun with ye once I was done anyway, but I don't feel like fightin' ye like I had t' do with that Widow. So, yer not gonna squirm for me, no? Or bite an' snap like that vole friend o' yers did?"

Minerva shook her head numbly.

"Nah, 'course not. 'Cause ye know that if ye did, I'd 'ave t' play with all me toys with yer liddle un. But I tell ye what. If ye don't squirm. If ye play along an' do everythin' I tell ye, an' let me have my fun, I'll just slit 'er throat. Quick, simple, an' a whole lot less painful than what I was gonna do t' 'er. How does that sound?"

Minerva looked past him to her daughter, before nodding and letting herself go limp.

"Good lass. Don't worry. I won't hurt ye. I'm gentle by nature."

Hargorn smiled, the claws of one paw curling around the hem of Minerva's dress. The other, around her neck.

Clang! Something heavy slammed against the iron door outside and Minerva gasped as Hargorn's paw came unclenched from around her throat. "Hellgates," he snarled, grabbing a bludgeon from the wall. 

A few moments later, the hinges creaked as the door was pushed open and the carcass of one of the guards fell face first into the room. Komi plucked up the dead beast's spear and stuffed her bloody knife into her belt.

"Komi," Minerva said, relief laced in her voice.

Hargorn snarled and held the bludgeon tightly in his paws. "Well, well, if it ain't the Coward. 'Ere t' try an' save yer liddle friend? I don' know why ye're both'rin', seein' she was spyin' fer Nire. Some friend she is."

"He had my daughter, Komi," Minerva said. "What was I s'posed t' do?"

"I know," Komi said. The stoat glanced only briefly between the otterwife and her daughter, before she saw the burning poker and the weasel's belt on the floor. She narrowed her gaze at Hargorn and then, without a word, turned around.

"Aye! That's right!" Hargorn sneered, grinning at Minerva. "Run away, Coward, this ain't yer fight!"

"Coward?"

Komi pulled the door closed.

"You've mistaken me for someone else."

Komi rushed forward with the spear, swinging wide with the blade and forcing the weasel to jump back. Hargorn's peg-leg skittered on the floor, and he nearly lost his balance. Panting, the slavemaster kept his legs planted as he advanced with his bludgeon. Komi stabbed out at him, but Hargorn batted her weapon aside with surprising ease, countering with a heavy swing that Komi narrowly avoided.

Hargorn smiled as the stoat regained her footing. "Aye, and ye seem t've fergot I used t' be a gladiator, too."

The weasel surprised the stoat again as he swung his weapon with incredible speed, the tip smacking hard against the middle of Komi's spearshaft. The blow was enough to take away Komi's grip on her weapon, and it went skittering across the floor to a stop at Minerva's footpaws.

Komi grabbed her dagger from her belt with her other paw and clenched her teeth. She rushed forward, ducking under one of Hargorn's swings as she slashed out with the weapon. The blade met flesh, and Hargorn screamed as Komi tore it through his side. The stoat wasn't done. Sidestepping another swing, Minerva watched as Komi then ducked low and rushed forward, slamming her whole weight into his chest.

Hargorn's peg-leg gave way under him, and the weasel fell down hard upon the furnace. The slavemaster tried to rise, but Komi was on top of him in an instant. She kicked away his bludgeon.

"No, no, no!" Hargorn yelled as Komi clutched his head tight in her paw and then shoved it directly into the blazing ash and wood. The weasel screamed, bucking against her as the flames licked against the side of his face, but Komi held firm. With her other paw, she raised the dagger.

Hargorn snarled, his paw shooting up and catching Komi's wrist before she could complete the kill. With the fire still licking at his flesh, the weasel pulled her close suddenly, and then slammed his forehead into hers.

Komi gasped and fell off of him onto her back, the knife clattering from her paw and onto the ground next to Hargorn. The weasel stumbled back to his feet, moaning as he clutched at his wounded side with one paw and his scorched face with the other. He stumbled forward, his footpaw brushing against the fallen knife. Slowly a smile curled upon his face and he picked it up.

"Ye... put on a... good show, Coward. I think ye got me." Hargorn removed his paw from his knife wound, and smiled weakly at the blood that covered it. "But I ain't gonna lose...no. Not at all."

The blade shook in his paws as he stepped forward, and Minerva realized that Komi didn't have a weapon. The stoat scowled as Hargorn stepped forward and brandished his knife. Then suddenly he started running, but not at Komi.

Fable screamed as Hargorn charged towards her.

Her daughter's terrified scream spurred life back into Minerva, and the otterwife looked down at the weapon lying by her feet. "Komi! The spear!" Pulling against her chains, she kicked the shaft of the weapon as hard as she could, the force sending it skittering along the floor towards the stoat.

Komi scooped the weapon off the ground.

Hargorn raised his knife.

Fable clenched her eyes shut and screamed.

Blood splattered the walls.

For a moment, there was a deafening silence as Minerva dared open her eyes,  a silence only broken by the sound of a weasel crumpling dead to the floor, a spear in his middle and a bloodied dagger in his paw.

Minerva froze, staring at Fable as she hung limply from her chains, her eyes clenched shut, and a red, shallow gash upon her arm.

Komi sighed and smiled.

The young one opened her eyes, tears welling in them when she saw Hargorn's carcass lying inches from her feet. Looking to her arm, the child watched as threads of blood trickled out of the wound. A moment passed before the dam burst, and she turned to her mother across the room and wailed. "Mummy!"

"Fable!" Minerva cried in relief, pulling against her chains.

Komi plucked the keys from Hargorn's fallen belt, and unlocked the child's manacles. Fable wailed, scurrying past the stoat and burying her face in her mother's dress. Komi freed Minerva from her own chains, and immediately the otterwife fell to her knees. It had been months since they last embraced and so, she wrapped her arms tight around her daughter and pulled her close, sobbing into the young one's head. "See," she wept, stroking the Dibbun's head. "I told ye... everythin' was gonna be okay."

"Mummy, it hurts."

"I know. I know it hurts," Minerva said, letting go of her and looking at the child's bloodied arm. She clasped the young one's paw in her own and smiled reassuringly at her, pointing at the scars that lined her arm. "But, look. Now ye're just like mummy. Ain't that right?"

Fable wiped her eyes and nodded.

"Here, let me take care of it." Minerva tore a long strip from the hem of her dress and wrapped it around her daughter's arm, before tying it tightly. Leaning close, she kissed it and smiled. "There. All better, right?"

Fable nodded.

Komi waited patiently beside them, fitting one of Hargorn's keys into the lock on her collar. The iron came loose, and the stoat sighed in relief as she rubbed at her neck.

Minerva turned towards her, but kept her eyes low, hardly able to look at her friend. "Komi. I... thank ye... for savin' us. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't... I didn't want..."

Komi shook her head. "No. If it had been me and Tavin... I think I would've done the same thing." The stoat passed the keys to Minerva, sighing. "But... we've lost then, right? Nire knows what we're planning. He'll beat us at every step now."

Minerva pulled the collar from around Fable's neck, and met the stoat's crestfallen gaze. "No," she said. "There's still a chance. Nire thought I was lyin'."

"What?"

"Aye. He didn't believe me, and Blasio was there and told 'im somethin' different." Minerva remembered the broken pumps and paused. "But he didn't tell 'im everythin'. I don't know what that beaver's game is, but he's plannin' somethin', Komi, and it isn't good."

Komi could only nod as Minerva grabbed up her fallen fishhook from the floor and wrapped it around her neck. Then she plucked the spear out of Hargorn's body and raised the keys to her collar.

In stories, rain, thunder, lightning, it was all a sign of coming destruction. When the rain first fell over Minerva, she believed that the storm outside was for her, but as thunder boomed outside and echoed through the tunnels of the Crater and the Drag, the otterwife realized that she was wrong. The storm outside wasn't for her. It was for Nire. It was for Blasio. It was for the Crater. And when it was over, when the sun peeked back through the clouds, there would be nothing left standing.

Fable held tight to the hem of Minerva's dress as the otterwife's claws curled around the spearshaft.

And the collar fell from around her neck.