FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1

Ed refused to cry.

He stood, naked, tethered in chains with other animals on a wooden stage. Villagers flocked below, their appraising leers as corpulent with malice as their rotund mayor pacing around, eager to get today's bidding started. A panorama of log cabins and thatch roofs rose behind the crowd, trees rising beyond those.

He'd never seen a prey village before one of Papa's raids, who often toured him and other bear cubs around their burned, skeletal remains to show them the follies of comfort. He should’ve paid closer attention.

Sunlight shone with cloudless approval of today's proceedings. Papa and the others, Uncle Grom, Mr. Shilk, his big brothers, hanged from old gallows in the village's square. Ed, whose thirteenth year flirted at a distance, hadn't raided with any of them. He never experienced the jubilant honor of victory in battle beside them. Never returned home among them after an arduous journey, bloodied hands burdened with loot. Never celebrated with them in their quiet, insofar as drunk bears were, mountain village.

Now, he never would.

Ed shut his eyes, lowered his head. He clenched his jaws until his gums oozed.

Then a gloved hand squeezed his cheeks from behind, pursing his lips. It directed his gaze outward, toward the crowd.

"This here's 1017," the mayor said. He was a chipmunk wearing a frock suit the way two hundred pounds of blubber wears a paper bag, the kind of sniveling critter who would've given Papa a stomach ache after eating him. The kind who boasted the insolent self-satisfaction of one who knew the only animal who’d rip his head off for treating his son this way was dead.

The mayor slammed the blunt end of his bejeweled cane into Ed’s belly before he could bite his fingers off. He wheezed. The crowd laughed.

Don't cry. Don't cry.

1017, branded above his right inner ankle, was his new name. The shackles and chains and collar were his new clothes. This was his life going forward.

"Edmon the Tyrant's last surviving bastard," the mayor said. "They say you should 'save the best for last', but they also say you should start on a high note—"

"Who says that?" someone in the crowd shouted.

"They do," the mayor replied.

"Who's 'they'?" someone else demanded. "Why're we takin' their word for it?"

"We'll start bidding on 1017 shortly!" the mayor said, moving curtly away from Ed.

Anticipation washed the crowd in a wave. Ed prayed to the Mettled Warlord for a stony glare he couldn't make on his own. Papa'd sold prisoners to villages like this, to motherless fucks like the mayor behind him, who sold them on stages like the polished, cold one under his feet. Ed remembered the plain, earnest horror on their faces.

It…It'd been their own fault! They should've fought for the glory of death in combat if they didn't want to endure this indignity!

An armored wolf’s sharp gaze broke through his indignation. He licked his lips at him.

"One hundred gold," someone shouted.

Ed’s head snapped so hard from the wolf’s gaze he felt something in his neck pop. It’d started already? He looked frantically to his surviving clansmen standing onstage with him, who were pretending the cub-shaped space between them didn’t exist with the air of those who might’ve filed their claws if their hands weren’t shackled.

"One fifty."

Ed trembled.

"One eighty!"

He bit his tongue.

"Two hundred gold!"

A coppery taste filled his mouth.

"Two fifty."

Don't cry. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry!

The armored wolf raised his hand. "Five hundred," he said.

"Five...twenty."

"Five fifty," the wolf said.

"Five sixty."

"Seven hundred," the wolf said.

The mayor's gloved hands grabbed Ed’s shoulders, holding him steady as he swayed. He'd never been so grateful for an empty stomach.

"Nine," a new bidder, some kind of animal with a scruffy white beard, said. His face hid beneath a straw hat with netting around its rim. The crowd parted somewhat around him, revealing blue-furred muscle and a red scarf. He wasn't a villager. These feeble bench-warmers would've had to lift logs and swear off butter for a billion years to get shoulders half as wide as his. The wolf, his closest rival in terms of physique, maintained a jovial smirk beneath furrowed brows. Other armored wolves now orbited him.

"Nine hundred, Sir?" the mayor swooned unctuously.

“Nine hundred? I said nine for th'kid," the bearded animal said, glancing around when people began snickering.

"The current bid is seven hundred, Sir," the mayor said, his cheer evaporating.

"Seven hundred?"

"Yes, Sir."

"So…I just gotta bid higher than that 'n I'll get th'kid, aye?"

"If no one deigns to outbid you, yes."

The man stroked his beard, humming. "I can add as many zeros as I like? T'the end of th'number I mean."

"Hurry up, old man," the armored wolf said. "My friends and I have suffered great losses storming their village, and we mean to have 1017...repay us." He glanced at Ed, saying "repay us" with a legal writer's glee while typing fine print.

"I'm sure you can find a cheaper lay somewhere in the woods."

"Aye, I ain't gonna take up more of your precious time," the bearded animal said. "Nine thousand."

No one spoke. No one breathed. The first syllables out of the mayor’s mouth were a string of choked gasps. "N-nine t-thousand gold?"

Ed saw the old man's eyes for the first time because they were the last pair to bulge out of his face with shock.

"Nine thousand gold for one brat? I meant coppers, fool! Nobody carries that much on 'em if they ain't lookin' t'get their throat slit!"

"Coppers. Copper pieces," the mayor sighed. "Right. Well, you're still significantly short.”

“I’m th’tallest guy here!”

“I meant your bid.”

"Oh."

"We're bidding in gold, Sir."

"You're payin' seven hundred GOLD for a kid, 'n tellin' me t'go find cheaper lays? All you pups these days know how t'do is waste money," the old man shouted in the wolves’ direction before turning to the mayor. "Seven fifty. "Gold."

The mayor squinted, regretting his lack of eye-wear not because he couldn't see but because he'd've looked suitably distinguished adjusting them on his pudgy snout.

"Where are you carrying nine thousand coppers and seven hundred and fifty gold on your person anyway? You aren't even wearing pants!"

Villagers stepped further away from the old man.

No pants. No shoes. A single pauldron styled after a fishman's spine adoring his left shoulder and a bulging red speedo completed his hobo ensemble. Two black scabbards hung against his hips. Scarred, spry muscles made him resemble a tower of boulders, contradicting an age his snowy beard, chest hair, and happy trail implied. He could’ve been an otter or some mutant approximation of one, born in a lab, raised on a steroid diet. He didn't carry a bag.

"Today's laundry day," he said defensively.

An elderly vagabond and a pack of wolves with a grudge, bidding against one another to do Gods knew what with him. He groaned despite his terror. Maybe there was still time for the noose.

"So, I win now or what?"

"Eight hundred gold," the wolf said, his grin faltering.

"Nine again," the old man said.

The wolf conferred with his pack and said, "One thousand.”

"One 'n two hundred."

"A wild animal like you can't possibly have that much gold," the wolf sneered.

"Sir, please," the mayor said while rubbing hands above Ed's head, “the current bid stands at one thousand and two hundred gold.”

The wolf gaped at him. "You're taking that as a legitimate bid?"

"Any," the mayor began, waving desperately in the older man's direction, "potential buyer who fails to pay within the allotted time forfeits their claim, relinquishing the sale to the next highest bidder. Now, Sir?"

"One thousand...six hundred." the wolf snarled.

Eyes swiveled toward the old man like dozens of handballs bouncing between closing walls. His jaws set. He pulled his hat over his face in deliberation. The wolves smiled one by one as moments ticked by, ending with their leader's wry smirk.

Ten seconds passed. Fifteen. Twenty.

The mayor opened his mouth. Whatever he would've said wrecked, crashing into the barrier of his seized throat when the old otter lifted his head and said, "Two thousand."

2

Coins of various creeds, regions, and denominations traded hands all afternoon.

The sky adorned itself in bands of yellows and oranges and reds as daylight crept away, soon topped with nightfall's ever fashionable shawl.

The old otter returned, pushing a small wheelbarrow full of trunks and crates and sacks, with his payment of two thousand gold coins in a pouch. His money was counted, recounted, and Ed was sold. They replaced his collar and chains for a set of tight cuffs that bit his wrists like starved piranha and the old man threw him into his barrow with the rest of his luggage.

They left the same way he came, through the forest, where total darkness settled while daylight faintly loitered behind them.

Ed hugged his knees.

Wild animals prowled these woods, hunting travelers and merchants and anyone who traveled at night alone, the hiker’s equivalent to carrying neon signs that read “Please Kill Me, I’m Tasty.” Pushing them into the forest’s black maw was Ed’s first clue the old man had a death wish longer than a spoiled brat’s Christmas list. You didn’t walk around cosplaying pulp comic barbarians if you haven’t given up on some level.

A lantern swung off a pole ahead of the barrow, a tiny flame flickering within it. Its otherwise futile incandescence became a nova in this darkness, lengthening shadows all around, making them dance and sneer on every gnarled tree they passed. Dense canopy became its own starless night above them. Every bush hid a new potential threat. Phantom predators prowled around every sinuous bend like starved assassins armed with forks, knives, and drool-soaked bibs.

Ed clutched his legs to his chest.

He wasn't afraid of them.

No, really.

Why fear possible danger when a perfectly good, perfectly real one pushed him forward? You had to watch your back around old men in speedos, or else they did it for you.

"What's your name, Lad?"

"Ed," he said plainly. Papa taught him never to piss off a meathead with a blade by drinking on steak night.

"Your Ma too busy suckin' cock t'give you a name with more than two letters or what?"

Ed's fangs clenched.

"She dead or what? They gut her in front of you? They rape her? Heard they sold th'bitches first. Too bad I came around late as I did, eh? Could've bagged me a good whore with nice tits instead of a mute runt. Th’walk would go by quicker. If we talked I mean, not if I had a whore t’screw. That'd put up a few roadblocks, hahah! What do you think she's doin' now, if she's even still alive? Probably gettin' railed like a slut. Sluts do it for free, y'kno. She’s probably suckin’ cocks if they ain't already slit her throat, but y’never know, some sick fucks are into that."

"Shut up!" Ed spun around, red-faced, fangs bared. His shout pierced the forest's cricket song like an echoing gunshot.

"I'll fuckin' kill you! I'll rip your throat out in your sleep 'n shit down th'hole! You'll kill me now if you've got anythin' more than cobwebs between your ears, old man! I'll—”

Steel glinted firelight like a lightning bolt. The otter held two handles before and after its flash, if you counted a sword's grip as a kind of handle. A cold, metallic sharpness blockaded sweat rolling down Ed’s neck. His lips snapped shut. Truncated expletives fled down his throat before a new mouth sliced open for them to spew out of.

"Keep your voice down," the otter said, grinning, "y'outta know you're wakin' up half th'damn woods."

His hand flicked backwards, sheathing his sword with the practiced skill of a homicidal baton twirler. The blade slid into its scabbard like a hissing cobra, momentarily staved.

Ed cringed with embarrassment after his life finished flashing before his eyes; it didn’t take very long. Papa'd admonished him similarly in the past, by knocking the back of his head with an axe-butt instead of using a…

"Slender blade," he said in quiet wonderment. "You're an ‘eastern swordsman’, right?"

Eastern swordsman (real name momentarily forgotten, along with the Common alphabet, the number twelve, and how to breathe through your nose, while his heart rate slowed). Fearsome warriors driven by a code of honor. Haughty sonsofbitches, Papa said. Their steel was sharper than any axe or longsword or novelty butter knife could ever hope to be.

Ed swallowed a knot that passed beneath a lingering chill on his neck.

A mere swipe sent bastard's heads leaping off their shoulders, and they'd still be alive before it finished doing somersaults. An exceptional swordsman could even make it stick the landing on its severed stump of a neck. A master might also say badass things like “You’re already dead,” before walking away, allowing the beheaded-reheaded victim to discover their body went through a vegetable dicer when they inevitably tried attacking the swordsman’s exposed back.

They also wrote fruity poetry.

Ed glared at the old man with renewed suspicion and concern for his rectal health.

"Y'mean a samurai?"

"Yeah! That's th'word."

"Nah."

"Nah?"

"I'm a pirate."

"So, you stole those swords?"

"A pirate-samurai."

An awkward silence pervaded for several minutes, rickety wheels crunching thin lines along the dirt path.

"Don't pirates work on boats? At sea?" Ed eventually asked.

"I'm on vacation."

"What's the difference between a regular samurai and a pirate-samurai?" Ed asked. He guessed this particular samurai didn’t shame himself by doing something as inglorious or unmasculine as writing poetry. The kind of shafts he imagined him fiddling with weren’t tipped with lead. Especially considering a life of piracy, a life at sea without female company, left few alternatives for creative outlets besides creative skewing of gender roles.

In more ursine terms, he could fuck a guy without feeling like a bundle of unleaded sticks.

Ed shuffled around so his backside wasn't facing him.

"Plenty of things," the old man said.

"Such as?"

"A certain six-letter word beginnin' with 'P', for starters."

"You still got 'codes of honor' right? Don't figure pirates hold with those," Ed persisted, uttering "codes of honor" like he'd slurped a raw lemon.

"Sure, but piracy ain't all swashbucklin' 'n shanties. Both sides got codes. Some are more stringent than others, but I don't follow either set. I live by my own code, see? 'N I'm well off for it!"

Ed gave him the side-eye, worried that “swashbucklin’ ‘n shanties” pertained to anatomy lessons behind unbuckled trousers. Maybe it was another term for “plunderin”, as in: “plundered treasure” or “plundered booty”.

Gods dammit!

"What's your code?" he asked, fidgeting. Staying brave in the face of an ostensible threat to his manhood wasn’t easy, considering he didn’t even have it yet.

"I do what I want, who I want, when I want, where I want, how I want. Anybody gettin' in my way gets more off th'top than they’d like.”

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"How's buyin' me figure into that?"

"Gods, who would've thought a bit of proddin' turns ya into th’nosiest bastard in all th'Three Worlds? Who taught you about samurai anyhow?"

"Papa."

The old man stroked his beard. "Edmon th'Tyrant. Edmon th'Dumbfuck Bastard that got Himself 'n his Big Britches Hanged. Hung ain’t proper grammar by th’way. Don't get ‘em mixed up since it pertains to you. Nothin' worse than improper Common when referrin' to th'dead. Don't gimme that look. Yer Papa was weak. That's what your 'Mettled Warlord's' code says, ain't it?"

"Papa wasn't weak," Ed growled, his surprise that another animal, a non-bear, knew about the Warlord preventing a second outburst.

"He hangin' t'show off his dead fish impression?"

"They came at night! Attacked while we were sleepin' ‘n torched th'place. It wasn't a fair fight!”

"Sounds like one of his raids t'me, if tavern gossip's anythin' worth goin' by."

Ed's glare lowered.

"Your Mettled Warlord says he should've been strong enough to fend off measly prey. Says he ought t'have died in battle instead of garglin' on his lungs for weakling's entertainment. Shamed your clan, didn't he? You think they'll cremate him 'n scatter his bones with your ancestor's ashes? Think they'll do th'proper funeral rites?"

Ed said nothing.

"Your Papa got sloppy. Pillaged too close to th’colonies, that's villages built by civilized animals."

Ed lifted his head. "Civilized animals?"

"Fuckers in suits. They hunt with ballpoint pens how we hunt with swords 'n arrows. Th'point is, your Papa got what he deserved. Not cuz he was wrong, they’d’ve left y’all alone if he stayed in his turf. But he got cocky, bought his ticket, ‘n now you’re repayin’ it.”

Neither spoke for some time. The path ahead widened, trees dispersed. Local terrain became uneven and gravely as they neared the mountains. Leaves that’d formed a dense, black dome above them for much of their hike now thinned, revealing specks of real night before opening out into an astral rim around the old man’s destination.

The forest yawned around the large hot spring, revealing a black sky burgeoned with stars like a jeweler's diamond display. Steam rose from various rock-rimmed pools, their waters roiling like lava in active volcanoes, a full moon with its stellar entourage reflected on each bubbling surface. Sweltered leaves hung over the biggest pool like awnings swaying in a warm breeze. The old man stopped beside this one, the only one with rocks big enough to accommodate his leaning bulk. Ed didn’t have the imagination, literary expression, nor castration required to compare a hot spring to a woman, but he’d’ve said she was the most beautiful one he’d ever seen if asked to try.

And that she stank.

The whole place stank like an Overworld buzzard's clutch gone bad in their nest. Heat not only exacerbated the spring's sulfuric aroma, but gave it a nasal kick spicier than huffing fumes out of a fermented barrel of chilis.

"Bath time, Lad. Hop out." the old man said.

Ed did his best to climb out of the wheelbarrow while pinching his nose, without falling on his face. His feet prickled with complaints up his legs when they touched damp stone, which’d slept all night while he kept the rear guard.

"Can't exactly bathe in cuffs," he said, holding his breath to show off his wrists. "You got th'key right? I might drown if y'don't free me."

"Then drown."

The old man undressed, in the strictest sense of the word. He removed his hat, showing his face. A scar ascended his left cheek, missing his eye but clipping his ear. White hairs concealed his brows in bushes pricklier than nettles. His whiskers curved upwards like twirled mustaches around a big, round nose. He rubbed his smooth head and two blue hairs stood to attention.

His scarf came off next. Then the pauldron. The straps around his wrists. His woven anklets. His belt and swords. Then—

Ed averted his eyes, flushed. Every muscle in his body, more so the ones around his glutes, clenched apprehensively. Oh shit. OH SHIT. OH SHIT.

There was a splash. The nude otter dove face first into scalding water, sighing blissfully when he emerged as though he hadn’t dunked himself in an acrid mineral soup.

"Liked what you saw, y'little queer?" he asked, leaning against the pool’s rim with his arms spread along its stones.

"In your dreams, fucker! Touch me 'n I'll bite it off!" Ed snarled.

"Th'only time I'll touch ya is when I bust that lip of yours. What kinda animal do you take me for?"

"Th'kind that buys slaves with enough gold for a house, 'n strips when he gets them alone in th'woods."

Smelly waters simmered.

"Aye, that don't sound too good when ya spell it out like that," the otter conceded, "but rest assured, I prefer legal shithead punks. Ain’t so desperate t'get it wet that I'd go cradle robbin' either.”

“Just orphanage robbin’,” Ed said.

“Hyuk it up, twerp. I’ll give your candy-ass th’thrashin’ your Mama should’ve gave ya if y’don’t jump in without givin’ me more lip.”

Ed hesitantly stepped forward, dipping his toes as far away from the old man as possible. Fatigue-melting euphoria dragged him further and further in until he was submerged in a stew of relief. They both took a deep breath. The old man sighed. Ed gagged.

"Ah! Forgot somethin',” the old man said while climbing out. He returned with several gourds, jugs, and bottles in both arms, lining them along the rocks like soldiers at attention.

"Nothin' beats a drink ‘n a hot bath before dinner," he said.

"What's for dinner?" Ed asked when he finished coughing.

"Your tone improves around chow time, eh? Nothin's for dinner yet, it ain't arrived." The old man took a gourd, pried its cork out with his teeth, and upended it against his scruffy lips. "Aaaah," he said after three big gulps, his gasp blowing steam like a smoky dragon breath. A nectary scent frolicked along rising steam before headier scents smothered it.

"Rum?" Ed asked.

"Good nose. Y'shoulda whiffed our dinner tailin' us for miles then. Want some?"

Papa disallowed all drinking until his thirteenth birthday. There'd been sneaky sips here and there, but he'd never chugged the way he'd’ve been allowed—expected to on that mythical night when Boys become Men. An occasion presaged by a clan-wide feast that demanded weeks of preparation. Prey was hunted. Clansmen decorated their homes in his family's colors. Sport and songs and dances tumefied day and night with festivities. Fellow Men celebrated the arrival of a new comrade with the inebriated gusto of home turf when their team brings back gold or gets stomped; bears in celebration being nigh indiscernible from bears enraged. Women scouted future suitors for their daughters, taking advantage of the girls’ feigned lack of interest by scoring playmates for themselves. Their village went into a sort of carbohydrate-induced hibernation for days after each of his big brother's parties. Papa'd always said they’d have spears blessed in the Warlord’s name for his party, for when they’d finally get the Gods to send messengers telling them to keep it down.

"Hell-oooo? Three Worlds to rude brat. You want some or not?"

Ed blinked and wiped his sweating face with both forearms. "Um. Yes," he said.

"Yes whaaaat?"

"I'd tell you to lick th'darkest part of my ass, but you'd probably like it."

Shrugging, the otter drained his gourd with two more big gulps, tossed it over his shoulder, and reached for a glass bottle.

Sweat continued pouring from Ed in a sweltered deluge. Each breath was a steamy cotton ball shoved in his mouth to dab up what little moisture remained, precious little since his last drink of water earlier that morning, before getting sold. He’d hoped someone spat in it because, contrary to the saying, he could imagine alternatives as to why it’d been so cloudy.

His pride lasted all of two minutes.

"Yes...please..."

3

Seven empty containers bobbed between them like wayward vessels on a tumultuous voyage. Five full bottles survived their unquenchable thirsts, but with one in each of their hands, both animals alternating between raucous laughter and hearty swigs, "survived" should've probably read "feared".

Ed thought rum was supposed to be sweet, like mead. Whatever bathtub brewery this swill was pissed out of lost its recipes, replacing ingredients with spice mixtures that'd make the most daring chili lovers die of dehydration through their eyeballs.

He spat out his first real swallow of alcohol, to the old man's uproarious delight. Stubbornness made him endure his second, which left flames on its way down instead of infernos. The third, fourth, and fifth chugs weren't any smoother. You couldn't put a gun to his head to make him say it didn't taste like pureed compost seasoned with red-hot thumbtacks.

But everything afterward was good.

Everyone he'd ever known was dead or sold into slavery. Two bottles made it seem like the funniest joke in the world.

"Then..." the old man chortled, "then he said...he said...y'kno what he said, Boy?"

"No," Ed giggled, tiptoeing woozily along the fraying rope of his wits, "I wasn't there."

"You weren't. Nah. Ya weren't. Were y'there? Nah, you weren't. Right?"

"Don't remember. Lemme check."

Ed guzzled another bottle until his eyeballs boiled in their sockets. He unleashed a guttural belch and swayed, the steamy forest twisting into funhouse proportions before him.

"Naw, I wasn't there."

The old man finished another gourd with the kind of experienced chugging that made whirlpools look like unstopped drains.

"You weren't, aye, I knew that. Y'kno what I said tho? I said...er...what was I sayin'?"

"You were tellin' me where big, dumb, old faggots find two thousand gold in th'woods...urp." Ed washed down a potential disaster with more booze.

The old man squinted. "Was I? Oh. Oh, oh, oh! I was! Pinched it off some travelin' merchant. He was all alone," the otter burped, "well, technically he had a guard with him. Big motherfucker. Probably did fuck his mother. Y’never know what anybody’ll do for a silver these days. I do, but that’s another story. Anyway, Beaver boy was travelin' alone after I killed his guard. I did! Ain't too smart, travelin' alone in th'woods. What kinda idiot carries two thousand gold in th'woods all by themselves?"

"You!" Ed said, thinking he’d made a clever retort, unaware that he was giggling like a gnoll in a bounce house.

The old man narrowed his eyes into slits thin enough to wipe an ant's ass with. "Oh yeah,” he said. “Hey, ain't them your clanfolk over there?"

Ed wobbly turned to where he pointed with his tongue hanging from a lopsided grin.

Seeing the armored wolf pack standing by their wheelbarrow did the work of fifteen hours of sleep, two kettles of black coffee, and an emptied bottle of aspirin. His stomach did a flip that would've made an acrobat's career before, remembering it was bloated with alcohol, gurgled with the threat of another nauseating crisis.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintances again," the dark-furred leader said with a mirthless sneer. Ed’s clanfolk were the adult three bears, clad in rags, shackles, and haunted stares, pushing the five wolves’ wagon, which’d been stacked high with things he also recognized. Family heirlooms, ancestral weapons, ceremonial trinkets. All that remained of their razed village was being ferried atop four wheels.

"Do you know why I'm here?" the wolf asked.

The old man sighed after emptying another bottle. "Who are you?"

The wolf's grin faltered. "You outbid me for The Tyrant's cub."

"Ah! You're that wolf fucker. Not a wolf fucker mind you, a wolf fucker. Although, guess y'probably do fuck wolves. Bein' a wolf 'n all. Stands t'reason. Bet he’d fuck a wolf for a silver, ey, Lad? Ghahaha!”

Ed didn’t laugh.

"Yes," the wolf said patiently, brows furrowing. "I ask again, do you know why I'm here?"

"You ran outta baby dicks t'suck 'n mistook th'springs for a nursery?"

"Try again."

"Y'heard I've got th'cure for faces like a donkey's ass with diarrhea?"

The wolf unearthed one of the old man’s sheathed swords out of his wheelbarrow.

"No."

"Oh! I know. I got it. You're ready t'get eaten for dinner. I was wonderin' when you'd quit playin' grab ass in th'bushes. We were gettin' hungry."

"He's dinner? They’re dinner?" Ed gaped, thoroughly sobered, soberly mortified.

"Not till I cook 'em. Unless y'like your meat raw—no homo, as you lads say, ghaha!" His fresh bottle hadn't reached his lips before it exploded into a burst of shards and cheap booze, spraying him with both. An arrow shook against a nearby tree. Every wolf but their leader laughed as the shooter nocked another arrow.

"I'm here to take what's mine," the wolf said. "Hand over the boy and we'll be on our way. We'll even reimburse you."

"Aye?" the old man said after wiping his face.

"Your life for the boy, not that it’s worth what you paid for him. You should be so honored."

"I've got another idea," the old man said, standing. "Seems t'me you're all right where I want ya. Strip naked 'n get lost 'n maybe, maybe, I'll decide I'm too drunk to butcher all you like pigs."

The wolves quit laughing. For a moment all anyone heard was their own drumming hearts and the spring’s dissonant simmering.

The otter stepped out of the pool in a sure, implacable stride.

Then tripped on some rocks and fell flat on his face like a gutter-loving drunkard.

Ed couldn't hear himself groaning over the pack's renewed laughter. He hid his face in his hands.

"Gimme a moment," the old man groaned, waving a finger like a white flag. "I'm thankin' th'ground. It was kind enough t'break my fall."

"You sure we shouldn't kill him anyway, Randolph?" a big wolf asked, "we're runnin' low on meat."

"You'll eat anything, I swear," Randolph said while wiping away tears. "Don't blame me if eating him gets you drunk. Gene, Oswalt, grab the kid. Eyolf, put an arrow in the old man's head if he moves."

Gene and Oswalt, snickering, stepped forward. Eyolf, aiming with hawkish precision, still missed what happened next by a full second. Gene and Oswalt didn't even know they were dead until their bodies hit the ground.

The old man sprang upright, ramming his broken bottle into Gene's throat. He then, moving with the speed and force of a boulder going down a steep hill, maneuvered behind Oswalt. There was a brittle, apocalyptic snap and Oswalt went from staring at a stunned bear cub to staring at his stunned comrades. He fell against Gene before the sputtering wolf finished falling, both dead.

Eyolf shot at him.

Ed, stunned, slack-jawed, queasy from watching the musclebound otter's speed, anticipated a skillful dodge. Or maybe he’d catch the arrow with his bare hands. Or with his teeth. Or…

With his chest.

The otter blinked and squinted at the feathered shaft protruding from him. He flicked it. It juddered like a flagpole.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!" he said.

"Shoot him again, Eyolf!" Randolph shouted.

"He...he..." Eyolf sputtered. Nobody’d survived a shot from his bow since he was learning to walk. "I hit him. Dead center. Chest. Lungs. Arteries. Heart. Why isn't he dead?"

The otter answered by chucking a fistful of dirt and gravel at them. Randolph and the fifth wolf ducked away from Eyolf, who shielded his face. It kept his eyes safe, on the plus side. On the negative, he didn't see the old man running his neck through with his own arrow until he was sent flying into the bushes from the impact.

"Just kiddin'," the old man said with a sneer that'd send demons flocking to confessionals. Blood poured from his chest wound like a big red arrow pointing down. Randolph’s snout wrinkled. The fifth wolf followed his leader’s gaze and convulsed with disgust at what he saw.

“M-my Gods, you’re getting off to it! You sick fuck!”

"Shit, I wish,” the old man said. “That didn't even hurt th’way I really like it."

Then he threw up.

"Okay, maybe it hurt a little."

"He...he...he shot you!" the fifth wolf said.

"Aye, missed all my vitals! Shouldn't've aimed for my head. Mama always said I got a hard one, haha!" He said, teetering from side to side.

"He aimed for your chest," the wolf said, "where he shot you.”

Gears strained to work through the old man’s drunken fog. “Oh yeah.”

The shackled bears exchanged glances. One quietly reached for a long sword, jerking backwards when a knife buried itself into a crate where his fingers would've been.

"Stay outta this," the old man said, brandishing another knife he’d swiped from Oswalt’s belt. "These bastards are my prey, ‘n I won’t—" a cheek-bulged groan that ended in a hard swallow interrupted his sentence, “—have nobody hoggin’ my fun.”

Randolph and his last man stood back to back, one scowling at the otter, the other scowling at the bears, who didn’t interfere again. They knew a bloodbath when they saw one, and didn't want their backs scrubbed.

"What's your name?" Randolph asked.

"Masamune Kage," the old man slurred in a way that could've been mistaken for an ominous tone.

"You lie!" Randolph hissed, "a forest bum like you? A Kage?"

"I-it makes sense," his partner said, "blue pelt, his movements, those swords…"

Randolph, remembering he held one, glared at it. A katana with a golden, cross-shaped guard. A lotus insignia engraved on its pommel. Ed, who’d tiptoed toward his clansmen, watched his face sink into the gluttonous tar of real dread.

"Kage," one of the bears shuddered. "Samurai clan from th'east. They practice a double sword technique, practically from birth."

"I heard one of 'em can take out an entire army alone!" another bear said.

"They make their own blades. Toenail clippers of th'Gods, they call 'em," the third bear said, "because th'Gods come down every thousand years for a trim."

Ed and the other bears gave him a funny look.

"It's true! It's in their folklore. I've seen 'em."

"Where?" the second bear asked.

"In a book, where else?"

"I heard," the second bear said, knowing his fellow clansman only read if pictures of naked women were involved, "they're a clan whose Lord stripped 'em of their honor, so now they're a band of bloodthirsty scoundrels. Roamin' th'Wilds. Slaughterin' everybody they see."

"I heard one of 'em wiped out a gnoll village, raped th'women, drunk all their scotch, 'n fathered a hundred bastards t'make a whole new pack. All in one night!" the first bear uttered in a mix of horror and envy.

"I resent that!" Masamune Kage said. "I ain't never raped no woman, they were clawin' each other for a turn t'bounce on my dick! Can't say nothin’ 'bout fatherin' a hundred gnoll bastards. Didn't stick around long enough t’count ‘em."

He tossed his last knife up and down until he dropped it and bent low to pick it up.

Both wolves jumped him.

Moonlight glinted off their steel like a pair of shrill screams. There were three clangs, three flashes.

Ed blinked and missed it.

Randolph staggered backwards, wielding Masamune's unsheathed katana the way a terrified exorcist wields a crucifix.

The fifth wolf was down, his sword an arm’s reach away. His face staring up at the giant otter looming over him told the story of a bitter internal dispute: shit his pants or piss himself? He shuddered. His body made an executive decision.

"I can't believe y'realy fell for that! Imagine how fucked you'd be if I weren't drunk off my ass? I was slashin'—" Masamune paused, swallowed, wobbled, "—I was slashin' your doubles 'n still got both of ya."

"P-p-please..."

Masamune glanced at his sword. "Go on. Pick it up."

"D-don't kill me."

"I ain't gonna kill ya, Scout's Honor. Get your sword."

He might’ve gotten his sword. He might’ve gotten the fuck out of dodge, screaming like a banshee in the night.

Masamune's arm moved as soon as his head turned, a cobra on its last nerve, a lash from a bladed whip.

The wolf's head bobbed forward, hanging onto its neck by slivers of skin and meat. The corpse crawled on its hands and knees, its exposed spine bundled in pink rawness, before realizing it was dead and slumped. It took another few moments for its blood to get the memo to start spilling.

Randolph, a sapling in a hurricane, dropped Masamune's katana. Ed couldn't tell if the noises he made, like porcelain knick knacks during an earthquake, came from his rattling armor or his banging knees.

"Holy shit! You! You!"

"Hah! I lied. Ain't even a scout, dumbass. ‘N another thing, I'm th'only honorless, bloodthirsty scoundrel th'Kage clan needs!" Masamune said, another untimely belch almost ruining whatever menace his declaration was supposed to have, if not for the near-headless corpse at his feet.

Randolph dropped to his knees. "Please, spare me! You can have the boy, my cargo, everything. You'll never see me again."

"All of those things are true," Masamune said. "Strip."

"W-what?"

"Strip. Get naked. Peel th'peaches. I wanna see if my new rug's got any fleas."

He obeyed. Masamune searched each corpse, collecting coin purses, muttering curses. The naked wolf trembled, tail quavering between his legs, within a halo of his armor and clothes.

Masamune returned to observe him, knife in one hand, his katana in the other.

His katana. The supposed toe trimmer of the Gods.

Whichever God let that hunk of scrap metal anywhere near their toes wanted to lose more than a few nails. The blade was chipped from tip to hilt, baring more teeth than a grinning shark. Ed remembered its cold touch against his neck. How he hadn't felt teeth, but a solid mass of razor sharp death lusting for a date with his insides.

Not quite the same way Masamune’s third sword now lusted Randolph's insides.

Randolph noticed it throbbing between his legs last out of all animals present, who’d either averted their eyes, or couldn’t look away but would’ve sworn on their lives they weren’t gay for doing so.

Randolph stopped trembling.

He'd gone as stiff as a...as rigid as a...well, let’s say he now empathized with deer caught in headlights. Twelve inches of smoldering, drooling cock would have a lot in common with four thousand pound, speeding missiles in a few moments.

"Fightin' always gets me antsy," Masamune said breathlessly, in a tone that was more akin to tarantulas than ants. His tongue savored every inch of his scruffy lips with a slow lick.

"Your buddy got off a good shot, almost wish he hit me again, but," he brandished all three weapons at once, sneering at his cowering prey, "I figure we've got enough toys for some good foreplay."

4

A wolf's howling screams penetrated the night. Most wild animals groaned in their sleep. Other wolves made hasty retreats for miles around.

5

Boasting one's sexual prowess is a time honored boyhood tradition. Ed'd once claimed he could fuck a whole army of Amazoness jaguars into submission. A neighbor boy, who died from a terminal case of an arrow to the back of his head, once said his dick was so big, so amazing, so plentiful with bliss-giving vigor that any woman who bounced on it for five seconds would've died with a smile on their face bigger than the whitest crescent moon.

The only tit either boy'd ever sucked was their mother's. The sight of a real, live, naked woman was an oxymoron because, faced with one, all either boy would've stared at were their toes.

Randolph didn't die with a smile on his face. His anguished "O" of a death mask was the closest he’d ever get to resembling a moon.

The bears became Masamune Kage's property for the duration of their journey around the mountains. They ate wolf meat for dinner, loaded their new Master’s new cargo onto his new wagon, and ate more wolf meat for breakfast the next morning before setting out. None of the bears slept the night before, only in part due to Masamune’s cantankerous, drunken snoring.

Watching live animal dissections was one thing, but you couldn't feel safe around someone who’d do the unthinkable to another man, which turned out to be very, very easy to think about all night long. There were words for how durable the animal body was. None of the ones relevant to last night’s events were the kind you’d want to use on someone’s get well card.

Ed, uncuffed and wearing a cape like an over-sized robe, hadn't so much as farted in anyone’s direction for the duration of their hike around the mountain. Talking was masochistic when every sound, every word, spelled itself on his eardrums with a knife's edge.

Shambling along, lacking the luxury of Masamune’s straw hat to keep sunlight from using his eyeballs like pincushions, he swore for the first time to never to drink with this otter again.

Rocky trails took them high enough to see roofs emerging from the eastern treeline like dark zits. Craggy moorland smothered their descending path into the woods the way a thick, green stew chokes lines drawn through it.

"You fucks can get lost. I'll take it from here," Masamune said with strained effort.

"You're leavin' us out here, just like that?" Ed asked, his temples pounding with each syllable.

"Can't make a profit draggin' you meat vacuums along." He said, grinning broadly at his wagon of plundered plunder as a glowing mother does at their newborn.

"Here's a tip. Wanna rake in th'big bucks? Toss around lots of cash someplace in th'boonies 'n wait till thugs jump ya. Works every time."

Ed blinked with disbelief. "That's why you bought me? I was bait?"

"Ya sure as fuck weren't pleasant company. Besides, look what I got out of it!"

The four bears looked.

"You ain't makin' two thousand back offa this," the oldest bear said.

"Let alone make a profit," another said.

"Th'shit ya got blood on is as good as trash," said the third.

Masamune's grin became a smile, then a pursed line, then a frown so devastated orphaned puppies looked to him for inspiration.

"No…" he said, "but you ain't takin' th'rations into account! Or...or th'leftover wolf meat! That'll save me food money for a while. Look at it that way 'n I've bought a healthy, young slave at a discount."

"I thought you were lettin' me go," Ed said.

Masamune's hopeful smirk turned upside down. He sized up the other bears. "How much did ya say they bought you for?"

"Would ya look at th'time?" a bear said to his watchless wrist.

"Yeah, we should get goin'," another said, "don't wanna keep ya from your profits any longer than necessary, Sir."

Ed didn't move when the other bears hurried back the way they came. Masamune gauged him, humming through pursed lips as he stroked his beard.

"Already said I'd let ya go, might as well stick to it," he said, shrugging. "Beat it."

"That one of your pirate-samurai codes? Always keep your promises?"

"Fuck no. You're just a pain in th'ass. I may be th'only idiot in th’Three Worlds who'll pay two thousand gold ta sit on a thumbtack, but that don’t mean I gotta stay put.”

Ed turned to follow his clansmen.

"If y'wanna hear another of my codes—"

He stopped.

"—I live 'n die by my sword. Your Papa did, 'n he took near everybody he ever knew down with him. Don't go chasin' death by causin' trouble for those villagers. Might as well make a fresh start while you're young. Become an honest animal. Be a lumberjack or some shit."

"Maybe he did," Ed said after recovering from the mental damage done by imagining himself wearing plaid, "but that don't mean I gotta like it."

"He got what was comin' to him," Masamune said. They stared at one another, or rather Masamune stared through him. Ed looked into his darkened eyes, twin wells of venom running over, and shivered. A phantom sharpness lingered on his throat.

"Everybody gets theirs eventually."

“There’s,” Ed hesitated, “somebody you wanna kill, right? Somebody you want to ‘get theirs’.”

Masamune’s eyes cleared. Aye," he said. "Two of 'em."

"Then fuck your hypocrite bullshit! What makes your grudge any better than mine?"

"Nothin',” Masamune said, his smile sardonic and weary. “Well, goodbye. To your health 'n shit.”

Ed stood there, watching him go downslope until one of his clansmen grabbed his shoulder from behind.

"Some of th'others escaped, you know,” the bear said. “We'll find 'em. Maybe join another clan. Edmon had family all around these parts. They’ll take us in if you’re with us t’help sell our case.”

Years later, Ed couldn’t remember exactly why he ran after Masamune Kage. Just that that day’s hangover was the first of many, many more to come.