Dodging nimbly, Jon-Tom slipped around the table, brought up his staff, and
swung the straight end down in a whistling arc. Having had plenty to consume
himself, the wolverine reacted more slowly than usual. He did not quite get both
hands up in time to defend himself, and the staff smacked sharply over one set
of knuckles. The creature roared in pain.
"Look, I don't want any trouble."
"You stick up for your rights, mate!" Mudge urged him, beginning a precipitous
retreat from the vicinity of the table. "I'll watch and make sure it be a fair
fight."
"Like hell you will!" He held the staff tightly, trying to divide his attention
between the wolverine and the otter. "You remember what Clothahump said."
"Screw that!" But Mudge hesitated, his hand fumbling in the vicinity of his
chest sword. Clearly he was sizing up the tense triangle that had formed around
the table and debating whether or not he stood a better chance of surviving
Clothahump's vengeful spell-making than the wolverine and his friends. The
latter consisted of a tall marten and a chunky armadillo who displayed a sword
hanging from each hip belt. Of course, earrying weapons and knowing how to use
them were two different matters.
They were rising and moving to flank the wolverine and gazing at Jon-Tom in a
decidedly unfriendly manner. The wolverine himself had regained his composure
and was sliding an ugly-looking mace from the loop on his own belt.
"Steady on, mate," the otter urged his companion, sword out and committed now.
The wolverine was bouncing the spiked iron head of the mace up and down in one
palm, gripping the handle with the other. "Maybe I ban wrong about that
harmony." He eyed the man's throat. "Maybe I ban eliminate that voice
altogether, yah?" He started forward, encountered a waiter who started to curse
him, then saw the mace and fled into the crowd.
"Is too crowded in here though. I tink I meet you outside, hokay?"
"Hokay," said Jon-Tom readily. He moved as if to leave, got his right hand under
the edge of the table, and heaved. Table, drinks, remnants of their greasy meal
and platterware showered down on the wolverine, his companions, and several
unsuspecting occupants of other tables. The innocent bystanders took exception
to the barrage. One of the wolverine's associates side-stepped the flying table
and jabbed his sword at the otter's face. Mudge ducked under the marten's thrust
and kept his sword ready to challenge the emerging armadillo while neatly
kicking the bellicose marten in the nuts. The stricken animal grabbed himself
and went to his knees.
Among those who had received the dubious decorations preferred by Jon-Tom's
action were a pair of female coatis whose delicacy of shape and flash of eye
were matched by the outrage in their voices. They had drawn slim rapiers and
were struggling to join the fray.
Jon-Tom had moved backward and to his left, this being the only space still not
filled with potential combatants, and was quickly joined by Mudge. They
continued backing until they upset another table and its patrons. This
instituted a chain reaction which led with astonishing rapidity to a general
mayhem that threatened to involve every one in the establishment.
Only the chefs and bartenders kept their calm. They remained invulnerable behind
their protective circular counter, defending liquor and food as assiduously as
they had the honor and person of their gleaming white star performer. Only when
some stumbling battler intruded on their territorial circle did their heavy
clubs come into play. Waiters and waitresses huddled behind this front line of
defense, casually making book on the outcome of the fight or downing drinks
intended for otherwise occupied patrons.
The fight whirlpooled around this central bastion of calm as the room was filled
with yelps and meows, squeaks and squeals and chirps of pain and outrage.
It was an arboreal that almost got Jon-Tom. He was effectively if unartistically
using his long staff to fend off the short sword thrusts of an outraged pika
when Mudge yelled, "Jon-Tom... duck!"
As it was, the bola-wielding mallard missed his neck but got his weapon
entangled in the club end of Jon-Tom's staff. He shoved down hard on it. In
order to remain airborne the fowl had to surrender his weapon, but not without
dropping instead a stream of insults on the tall human. Jon-Tom had time to note
the duck's kilt of orange and green. He wondered if the different kilt colors
signified species or some sort of genus-spanning clan equivalent.
There was little time for sociological contemplation. The marten had recovered
from Mudge's low blow and was moving to put the sharp edge of his blade through
Jon-Tom's midsection. Instinctively he tilted the staff crosswise. The club end
came over and around. It missed the agile marten, but the entangled bird's bola
caught around the weasel's neck.
Dropping his sword, he pulled the device free of the staff and stumbled away,
fighting to free his neck from the strangling cord. Jon-Tom, momentarily clear
of attackers, hunted through the crowd for his companion.
Mudge was close by, kicking furniture in the way of potential assailants,
throwing mugs and other eating utensils at them whenever possible, avoiding
hand-to-hand combat wherever he could.
Jon-Tom took no pride, felt no pleasure in his newfound capacity for violent
self-defense. If he could only get out of this dangerous madhouse and back home
to the peace and quiet of his little apartment! But that distant, familiar haven
had receded ever farther into memory, had reached the point where it existed
only as misty history compared to the all too real blood and fury surrounding
him.
Thank God, he thought frantically, fending off another attacker, for
Clothahump's ministrations. Even a well-bandaged wound would have broken open
again by now, but he felt nothing in his formerly injured side. He was well and
truly healed.
That would not save him if one of many sword or pike thrusts punctured him anew.
The indiscriminate nature of the fighting was more frightening than anything
else now. It was impossible to tell potential friend from foe.
In vain he looked across the milling crest of the fight for the entrance. It was
seemingly at least a mile away across an ocean of battling fur and steel. A
desperate examination of the room seemed to show no other exit save via the
central bastion of the bar and food counter, whose defenders were not admitting
refugees. That left only the windows, an idea the panting Mudge quickly quashed.
"Blimey, mate, you must be daft! That glass be 'alf an inch thick in places and
thicker where 'tis beveled. I'd sooner take a sword thrust than slice meself t'
bloody ribbons on that.
"There be an alley out back. Let's make our way in that direction."
"I don't see any doors there," said Jon-Tom, straining to see past the rear
booths.
"Surely there's a service entryway. I'll settle now meself for a garbage chute."
Sure enough, they eventually discovered a single low doorway hidden by stacks of
crates and piles of garbage. T
he close-packed mob made progress difficult, but
they forced their way slowly toward the promise of freedom and safety. Only
Jon-Tom's overbearing height enabled them to keep their goal in view. To the
other brawlers he must have looked like an ambling lighthouse.
Already his shining snakeskin cape was torn and bloodstained. Better it than me,
he thought gratefully. It was not a pretty riot. The only rules were those of
survival.
He passed one squirrel prone on the floor, tail sodden and matted with blood.
His left leg was missing below the knee. So much blood and spilled drink and
food had accumulated on the floor, in fact, that one of the greatest dangers was
losing one's footing on the increasingly treacherous planking.
Jon-Tom watched as a cape-clad coyote picked over the unconscious form of a
badly bleeding fox. While his attention was thus temporarily diverted, someone
grabbed his left arm. He turned to swing the staff one-handed or jab as was
required. So far he hadn't been forced to utilize the concealed spearpoint and
hoped he'd never have to.
The figure that had grabbed him was completely swathed in maroon and blue
material. He could discern little of the figure save that the mostly hidden face
seemed to be human. The short figure tugged hard and urged him back behind a
temporary wall formed by a trio of fat porcupines, who, for self-evident
reasons, were having little trouble fending off any combatant foolish enough to
come close.
He decided there was time later for questions, since the figure was pulling him
toward the haven promised by the back door, and that was his intended
destination anyway.
"Hurry it up!" Though muffled by fabric the voice was definitely human. "The
cops have been called and should be here any second." There was a decided
undertone of real fear in that warning, the reason for which Jon-Tom was to
discover soon enough.
Visions of hundreds of furry poliee swarming through the crowd filled his
thoughts. From the size and breadth of the conflict he guessed it would take at
least that number several more hours to quell the fighting. He was reckoning
without the ingenuity of Lynchbany law enforcement.
Mudge, upon hearing of the incipient arrival of the gendarmes, acted genuinely
terrified.
"That's fair warnin', mate," he yelled above the din, "and we'd best get out or
die trying." He redoubled his efforts to clear a path to the door.
"Why? What will they do?" He swung his staff in a short arc, brought it up
beneath the chin of a small but gamely threatening muskrat who was swinging at
Jon-Tom's ankles with a weapon like a scythe. Fortunately, he'd only nicked one
trouser leg before Jon-Tom knocked him out. "Do they kill people here for
fighting in public?"
"Worse than that." Mudge was nearly at the back door, fighting to keep potential
antagonists out of sword range and the invulnerable porcupines between himself
and the rest of the mob. Then he shouted frantically.
"Quickly--quick now, for your lives!" Jon-Tom thought it peculiar the otter had
not sought the identity of their concealed compatriot. "They're here!"
From his position head-and-shoulders high above the crowd Jon-Tom could see
across to the now distant main entrance. He also noted with concern that the
chefs and bartenders and waiters had vanished, abandoning their stock to the
crowd.
Four or five figures of indeterminate furry cast stood inside the entryway now.
They wore leathern bonnets decorated with flashing ovals of metal. Emblems on
shoulder vests glinted in the light from the remaining intact lamps and the
windows. There was a crash, and he saw that unmindful of the danger Mudge had
outlined, the appearance of the police had actually frightened one of the
fighters into following a chair out through a thick window pane. Jon-Tom
wondered what horrible fate was in store for the rest of the still battling mob.
Then he was following the strange figure and Mudge out through the door. As they
turned to slam and bar it with barrels behind them he had a last glimpse across
the room as the police took action against the combatants within. This was
accompanied by a whiff of something awful beyond imagining and concentrated
beyond the power of man or beast to endure.
It weakened him so badly that he barely had strength enough to heave his
not-yet-digested dinner all over the far wall. It helped his pride if not his
stomach to see that the momentary smell had produced the same effect on Mudge
and the maroon-clad stranger. As he knelt in the alley and emptied his
nausea-squeezed guts, the pattern he'd glimpsed on the arriving police came back
to him.
Then they were all up and stumbling, running down the cobble-stoned alley, the
mist still dense around them and the siriell of garbage like perfume compared to
that which was fading with merciful speed behind them.
"Very... efficient, though I'm not so sure I'd call it humane, even if no one is
killed." He clung tightly to his staff, using it for support as they slowed a
little.
"Aye, mate." Mudge jogged steadily alongside him, behind the long-legged
stranger. Occasionally he gave a worried, disgusted glance back over a shoulder
to check for possible pursuit. None materialized.
"Indecent it is. You only wish you were dead. It be that way in every town,
though. Tis clean and there's no after caterwaulerin' about accidental death or
in the side, though. Like puking to death.
"Makes it a good thing for the skunks, though. I've never seen a one of those
black and white offal that lacked a good job in any township. 'Tis a brother and
sisterhood sort of comradeship they 'ave, which is well for 'em, since none o'
the common folk care for their companionship. They keep the peace, I suppose,
and keep t' themselves." He shuddered. "And keep in mind, mate, that we were
clean across the room from 'em. Those by the front will likely not touch food
for days." Several small lizards left their claimed bit of rotting meat,
skittered into a hole in the wall while the refugees hurried past, then returned
to their scavenging.
"Never could stand 'em myself, either. I don't like cops and I cannot abide
anyone who fights with 'is rear end."
Noises reached them from the far end of the alley and vestiges of that ghastly
odor materialized to stab at Jon-Tom's nostrils and stomach.
"They're followin'," said a worried Mudge. "Save us from that. I'd far rather be
cut."
"This way!" urged the cloaked figure. They turned up a branch of the alleyway.
Mist covered everything, slickened walls and cobblestones and trash underfoot.
They plunged onward, heedless of falling.
Gradually the smell began to recede once more. Jon-Tom was grateful for the time
he'd spent on the basketball court, and for the unusual stride that enabled him
to keep up with the hyperactive Mudge and their racing and still identityless
savior.
"They took the main passage," said that voice. "This should be safe enough."
They had
emerged on a small side street. Dim will-o'-the-wisp glows came from
the warm globes of the street lamps overhead. It was quite dark otherwise, and
though the mist curtained the sky Jon-Tom was certain that sunset had come and
gone while they'd been dining in the restaurant.
The stranger unwrapped the muffler covering face and neck and let it hang across
shoulders and back. Cloak, shirt, and pants were made of the same maroon
material touched with silver thread. The material was neither leather nor cotton
but some mysterious organic hybrid. Pants, boots, and blouse had further
delicate designs of copper thread worked through them, as did the high, almost
Napoleonic collar.
A slim blade, half foil, half saber, was slung neatly from the waist. She stood
nearly as tall as Mudge's five foot six, which Jon-Tom had been given to
understand was tall for a human woman hereabouts. She turned, still panting from
the run, to study them. He was glad of the opportunity to reciprocate.
The maroon clothing fit snugly without binding and the face above it, though
expectedly petite, was hard and sharp-featured. The green eyes were more like
Mudge's than his own. They moved with almost equal rapidity over street and
alleyway, never ceasing. Her shoulder-length curls were flame-red. Not the
red-orange of most redheads but a fiery, flashing crimson that looked in the
lamplight like kinky blood.
Save for her coloring and the absence of fur and whiskers she displayed all the
qualities of an active otter. Only the pale green eyes softened the savage image
she presented, standing there nervously by the side of a building that seemed to
swoop winglike above them in the mist.
As for the rest of her, he had the damndest feeling he was seeing a cylindrical
candy bar well packed with peanuts. Her voice was full of hints of clove and
pepper, as active as her eyes and her body.
"Thought I'd never get you out of there." She was talking to Mudge. "I tried to
get you separated but," she glanced curiously up at Jon-Tom, "this great
gangling boy was always between us."
"I'd appreciate it," said Jon-Tom politely, "if you wouldn't refer to me as a
'boy'." He stared unblinkingly at her. "You don't look any older than me."
"I'll change my tune," she shot back, "when you've demonstrated the difference