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The Drylands

Upon catching sight of those deadly claws, I snapped my head back. Stars filled my vision as my skull made impact. Only the pained screech that rang through my ears, followed by what sounded like a sack of potatoes collapsing on the ground told me that I hit my mark, though one of her claws grazed the side of my muzzle while falling back. The taste of blood whispered on the tip of my tongue.

"LAURENT! HELP!"

The confident one was down, but for how long, I could not tell. I could not glance back for a second as the shy cheetah was now not nearly as shy. Her ears were folded back against her skull, fangs bared in a snarl, and she was screaming in a rage as she began swiping her own claws at me. I kicked my paw against her throat to hold her jaws back and grabbed the wrists of her paws, but my knot was still tied to her vagina and I could not move.

Worst of all, she was strong, far stronger than she initially looked with her scrawny form and demure attitude. She might have been smaller than a lion or a tiger, but she was still a large cat and had extremely powerful muscles in her legs, which she was attempting to use to kick my chest.

"LAU-!"

Her hind paws raked my chest, splattering blood and chunks of fur onto the plank floors. Howling with rage, I let go of one of her wrists and brought my elbow down on the joint of her hind-paw. She yowled with pain and the leg went limp enough for me to pin it down with my hip. Just in time as well, my eyes went wide as I saw four beige claws inches away from slicing through my cock; I blocked the claws with the palm of my paw, catching the points of each claw deep into my pads.

I heard shuffling behind me. Whatever the condition that the confident one was in, it wasn't enough to make me feel safe. I had no choice

Peeling back my lips, I growled and snapped my jaws in the shy one's face, letting a glob of saliva drip from my fangs across her face. It wasn't enough to make her submit and she returned my display of dominance with her own, attempting to catch my muzzle between her jaws.

I had no choice.

With lightning speed, I lunged forward, catching her throat in my jaws. Cheetahs had stronger jaws than foxes, but foxes had longer muzzles that make it easier for us to hit our mark. It was much like fighting a swordsman with a spear, the sword might be sharper and stronger, but the spear had range and that triumphed over it every time.

My fangs fought past her twitching neck muscles, sinking into her veins and letting blood leak through into my mouth. Her screams did not cease, but quickly were joined by a gurgling noise.

I would have ripped out her throat if I could have. I had no choice. I released my teeth, blood pumped out in thick spurts. She managed to rip one of her paws from my grip but instead of using them to lash out at me, she calmly reached up to her throat, weakly trying to stop the mortal wound from bleeding out.

"Aderfi!" the confident one shrieked behind me.

My knot had loosened up and I tore it from the dying cheetah, spinning around and tackling into the confident cheetah. She banged into the wall with a terrible thump against her head, going limp and collapsing onto the ground one more time.

I tied up my trousers and put on my shirt once more, blood beginning to seep through the gray linen of the chest. I'd need to bandage that, but I didn't have time right now.

I looked back at the shy one, Aderfi I suppose was her name, still patting away at her wound as death began to cloud her pupils. Part of me wished there was something I could have done for her, perhaps if only to find out why she tried to kill me. Perhaps I was getting a bit soft, but I had no choice.

Sighing, I carefully opened the door with a squeak and slipped out of the bedroom and into the hall.

Any semblance of regret was instantly done away with when I heard a mop handle clatter against the ground and saw the brown fox that Carla was married to, staring at me with his jaws and eyes open wide.

In that moment, I remembered who he was. He didn't have bare patches of fur back when I first met him, but that was before I had driven him and his bandits into the Bavarian wastes, no doubt the sickness of the human world had gifted him with the sorry pelt he had now. His name was Luzern, Captain of the Alpine Bandits, and one of the loose ends I left untied from my very first campaign. I didn't have to use my imagination much to piece things together as to why him and his mate had brought me here.

The only question was whether Laurent was in on their plan or not.

"Remember Sergeant Vito?" I whispered across the hallway with a low laugh. "Tied a hempen scarf around your brother's neck, if I recall. He's a General now, would you believe it?"

Luzern took a slow, shaky step back.

I clicked my teeth together, "I think your tail would make a lovely gift for him."

Before I could charge down the hallway towards my prey, or before he could even run for that matter, a door to the side of the brown fox flew open and a needle-like dagger shot out, straight into the tavern-owner's neck and out again. He didn't seem to even realize what had happened when he fell to the ground and blood gushed out from the wound.

"General," Laurent stepped out from the side, bending over to wipe the crimson blade of his stiletto against Luzern's shirt, "it appears the benefactors I found were a little unsavory. Are you alright?"

I pressed my palm against the wall, leaning against it and panting, "I'm fine."

"You're bleeding, here..." Laurent began using the tip of his stiletto to slowly tear away a bandage from Luzern's pant leg.

"Don't!" I ordered. "He's been in the wastes for Canis knows how long. He's sick, probably glows in the dark, that's how bad he is."

Laurent retracted his paw, a grimace curling up in the corner of his muzzle. Lacking anything to wash his paw with, he wiped it against the hardwood floors.

"That's not contagious, is it? Never been near any of the wastes."

"The very air there makes you sick, as far as I'm concerned that makes it contagious."

Laurent clicked his tongue, "We can't exactly talk to a doctor here and find out..."

"Why not?"

"General, I've just killed both Carla and her husband, and looking at your bloody shirt, I've got a funny feeling that those two cheetahs aren't doing so well."

"One's alive," I muttered.

"Don't suppose she'd testify that this was self-defense."

I shook my head, "No, she seemed pretty upset when I tore out her sister's throat. She'd speak out against..."

A dark thought invaded my mind as I peered back at the door where the two cheetahs were. Laurent seemed to pick up on this, "General, you're not thinking of-"

"No," I stepped away from the door, towards Laurent, "wouldn't do us any good anyways. The pricks who own this place probably offered them freedom and enough silver to make a life for themselves. They're not soldiers and she's going to suffer enough already."

I wondered if I would have been so merciful back during the Alpini Campaign or perhaps Carpathia. Most likely, had she been a wolf, I would have already finished her off.

Gods! What a soft-hearted fool Philippe turned me into!

"I'm glad to hear you say that, General," Laurent fiddled with the hilt of his stiletto, "already had to kill one lady today."

"Aye, aye..." I peered down at the wretched, diseased corpse on the ground, "...let's get moving."

"We should hide the body."

"No, Laurent, I will not have you risk catching whatever he had," I planted my paws on his shoulders and looked him in his orange eyes. "I need you."

Laurent stared at me with his mouth agape. His scent grew a little bit spicy and I coughed, realizing how awkward I seemed.

"General, that one night was uh, fun, but I-"

"Dammit soldier, I meant I need your help!"

"Right, right," Laurent coughed and slipped his dagger seemingly into nowhere. To my surprise, he pulled off his shirt, revealing the wiry muscles of his chest beneath his orange and white belly fur. I was about to ask what he was doing when he tossed the cloth to me and spoke, "take your shirt off and cover up that wound. Wear this."

I tore off my shirt and slapped it across the wound. Slipping on Laurent's shirt, I clutched at the make-shift bandage beneath, it was better than nothing and far safer than walking out of a brothel with dead bodies while having scratches visible.

Without uttering a word, we stepped downstairs. The thick clouds of shisha smoke sifting through the floorboards helped cover up the fact that I was hunched over, obviously clutching at a wound. The place was busier now and a few foxes were yelling at the bar, demanding service.

We were just about out of the place when the door flew open and the preacher from earlier charged in. The hood of his cassock flew back, bringing his panicked eyes into the light.

"The fennecs have come! They're outside the gates!"

Laurent and I shared a worried glance. The rest of the bar, however, cheered wildly. Clearly they weren't afraid of the fennecs besieging the city.

"Finally, entertainment!" one fox who smelled of fish and olive oil exclaimed.

"Last time, I saw one of the savages smash their camel straight through a shack and came out on the other end with a she-cheetah in tow!"

"Oh, that's nothing!"

These chimera were sick. If they had any inkling what a battle entailed, what those outside the walls had to face, they'd have whipped themselves for even thinking such a thing. It was one thing to mock a foe who had come into misfortune, but a whole other matter to do that to your neighbor.

Moralizing about it turned out to be meaningless because one last voice suddenly piped up and made my blood grow cold.

"The window upstairs has a great view! Lets go!"

It was time to leave. Laurent didn't need to do it, but he still grabbed me by the wrist and tugged me to follow immediately and with all haste into the dry streets of Sfox.

The night air was surprisingly cool compared to the heat of the afternoon. My ears flicked as I caught chatter from all ends of the street, foxes abound discussing the ongoing raid outside the walls with the occasional cheer or cry of surprise as some unseen atrocity unfolded.

A chorus of screams from inside the tavern pierced my ears. It was definitely time to leave.

"Keep calm," I muttered to Laurent as we casually walked away from the bar. Sfox was not a large city and it was easy for the guards to maintain a good presence.

We passed a pair of guards resting halberds atop their shoulders and a chill forced its way down my spine. I fought to keep my fur from bristling and projected a casual and relaxed body language. Something in my scent must have been illuminating though, as one of the guards stopped and his little black nose peeked out from under his muzzle-guard, sniffing at the air in my direction.

"Halt!"

I grit my teeth and clutched at my makeshift bandage tightly. Snorting, I turned around to face the guards.

"Yes, guardsman?"

The senior of the pair was a large, black-furred fox with a red scar lining the length of his muzzle. His coat of fur was thick and poked up from the gray tunic underneath his rusted hauberk. He would occasionally stop to pant, clearly the heat was too much for him and he was not originally from around here.

"Identify yourself," the black guard ordered, "you're not from around here."

Clearing my throat, I bowed as gracefully as one could when nursing a stomach wound, "Largo of Vulpezzia, amateur traveler and explorer, and this is my associate Allegro."

"Professional traveler?" the black fox snorted, spitting a glob of spit onto the ground. "The fuck does that mean?"

"Ah, well, I travel around the Grand Republic and enjoy the sights and sounds! I pay for the expenses by performing work here and there, cleaning, loading at the docks, working the fields-"

"Sounds like you're a vagabound," the junior of the guards, a scrawny red fox whose helmet was far too long for his stubby muzzle, teetering from back to front as he moved his head, sometimes the nose guard would entirely cover his snout.

I laughed, "Some might call me that!"

"Vagabounds sleep outside the wall, unlessin' you can afford a bed," the black said.

I peered back towards the gates, which were tightly shut, and got a good look at the wall. Despite the threat outside and the occasional arrow shooting over it, or perhaps because of it, the wall had only a skeleton crew manning it and they were all huddled behind stone cover, only peeking out occasionally to assess the situation. Somehow, the wealthy watching from their balconies were making better sentries in this situation.

"Well, that's fair enough, guardsman, but it looks like we're stuck inside the walls for now!"

"What's wrong with your stomach?" the red one suddenly asked.

"Ulcers."

The black one snorted, "Let's have a look."

I let the black one approach. He shouldered his halberd while the red one kept his ready, able to give me a good jab in the neck in an instant if he wanted. The black guard's leather glove grabbed at my shirt and I slowly began to release my grip on the bandage.

From behind them, I saw another pair of guards enter the tavern. I couldn't help myself this time and my fur puffed up on the back of my neck.

"What's wr-?"

A gust of sand slapped the two of them in the face and they screamed, dropping their weapons and wiping at their eyes. I snatched up one of their halberds and gave the black one a good thrust with the length of the shaft, knocking him on his ass. The red one followed as Laurent tackled him to the ground with a clatter of metal.

"GUARDS, TO ME!" the black one screamed as he blindly thrashed on the ground.

The two guards from the tavern stepped out and I wasted no time shouldering my halberd and darting away with Laurent at my side.

"General, where?" Laurent gasped as he struggled to keep his halberd balanced.

"Walls."

"What!?"

"Follow, don't talk!" I shouted.

Alarm bells rang out from around the city and not for the fennec invaders. The guards couldn't give a damn about the raiders outside the walls, but if someone causes trouble inside them all of a sudden they snap to attention.

Our feet hit the stone stairs leading up to the ramparts. The guards trailing us stopped at the bottom and clattered their halberds onto the steps, missing inches below our feet. They peered from side to side, pondering whether to follow us up but decided to hold the line, blocking us from heading back.

An arrow whizzed by my ear as we got to the top of the wall, plinking off the side of a plaster house just behind me. Beneath us were the countless shacks of the slums with poor foxes, cheetahs and other species either huddling or making a run for it as fennec tribesmen, riding horses or camels, rode through the town, stealing whatever food they could and snaring townsfolk with lassos to be ransomed or sold later.

I had plenty of time to ponder our course, thanks to the cowardice of the guards atop the wall. They clearly wanted to take us down but were too afraid to leave the stone parapet. There was one who showed some backbone, though not intelligence, and dropped his crossbow, drew a dagger, and charged us. Laurent slapped him across the head with the heft of his halberd and he slipped off the wall with a crash.

Peering over the wall, we caught the guard slide off at thatched roof and collapse onto the ground below. A few seconds later, he scrambled to his feet and darted into an alleyway, followed by a fennec atop a brown horse.

"There's our escape route," I said to a slightly nervous Laurent, who nodded in return.

Just in time as one of the guards saw fit to load his crossbow, realizing that he had a way of maintaining his cover and ruining our day. The bolt smashed into the parapet just as I leaped away from the wall.

The straw roof was more solid than it looked. I felt scratches across my arms and legs, along with the occasional burr sticking to my fur, but I was able to slide down the slope of it and land in the dirt below atop my feet like a cat. Laurent slammed down beside me, standing up almost immediately as if he had done nothing special.

"What now!?" Laurent shouted.

What now, indeed? We were safe from the guards, who dared not pursue us, but we were now in the middle of a raid. Echoes of screams rang out amongst the twig and thatch shacks, with the occasional one being abruptly silenced. I was too accustomed to being the fox atop the horse during a raid, rather than being the victim on the ground.

Something slammed into my side and I turned over, peering down to find a small cheetah child staring up at me with fearful, orange eyes. He was only wearing a tattered pair of trousers and his ribs were sticking out from his chest.

"It isn't safe here, go hide!" I shouted.

The cheetah didn't seem to understand, staring back at me without changing his expression. Slowly his paw raised and he pointed a tiny claw towards the alleyway from which he must have come. I flicked my ear towards it and heart the beat of hooves, followed by the shriek of a horse.

Traditional Foxen militia tactics would prescribe blocking the passageway with a spear-wall, along with a cohort of skirmishers and either light infantry or cavalry to cover the flanks. I never was one for following tradition though and if I had been, we'd have been killed that day, no doubt.

"Come!" I hissed, grabbing the cat by the wrist.

He did not resist as I pulled him up against the wall of a ramshackle house and made him lean up against it. I took my place on the end, close to the entrance of the alleyway, gripping my halberd tightly and keeping it hidden from the line of sight down the alley. Laurent, ever sharp, followed my lead and took his place against the wall on the other end.

The hoof-beats grew close enough that we could tell the horse was moving at a trot, a casual, almost happy trot at that, more likely to be heard on a frolic in the woods than in the middle of a battle. Making it even easier to track was seeing the tips of the fennec's sharp ears peer over the roof of the shack.

I didn't even need to give Laurent the word to strike, we found ourselves both leaping out and thrusting our spears deep into the chest of the tall, brown horse. The horse fell over forwards, crushing the fennec beneath its back.

I was about to put the fennec out of his misery when the cheetah sprang forward, bringing down a brown rock across the fennec's head over and over, until the desert fox's face was badly bruised and he stopped moving, not that he had much fight left in him to begin with.

The cheetah child panted, stepping away from the bodies slowly and dropped the rock. His eyes went wide as he started at his blood-soaked paws. My nose twitched as the acrid scent of urine filled the air.

"Kit," I said, kneeling down beside him and placing my paw on his shoulder, "you did good. Anyone who tries to hurt you, you kill them, understand? If you don't do that, they'll kill you."

I snapped my fingers at Laurent and asked him to bring out his dirk, which he did and passed it to me.

Pricking one of my paw pads with the dagger, I let a droplet of blood spill down its length. Once it was sufficiently wet, I handed the hilt to the child who slowly took it, staring at the lethal weapon with fascination.

"If you get out of here safe, bring that dagger to me. I'll have a place for you in my army. The name's General..." I tapped myself on the chest, "...Marco of Carpathia."

"Mahrrco," the child repeated with a strange, feline accent.

"Now find someplace safe and get out of here!" I fiercely thrashed my arm which was enough to send the kitten scrambling. Within moments, he had vanished from sight, sound and scent.

"General Marco!"

My ears perked as a high-pitched, rolling voice called out. I turned around and gasped as I saw a fennec warrior atop a snow-white steed, wearing matching robes that were covered with metal splint-mail across his chest and arms. What little fur was visible from beneath the layers of scarfs atop his head were tan, much like the sands of the desert. A silver band was tied around his crown, securing the scarf atop his no-doubt tall ears.

"What a prize we have found!" his horse stepped forward, slowly circling us like a wolf pack might. A smirk revealed itself when the sand fox pulled his muzzle out from under a sand-stained dust veil.

Me and Laurent readied our halberds, bracing ourselves back-to-back. This was a position I never wished to be in, it was much like the stories of Dalmatius and his merry band of foxen heroes, who stood against each other's backs with their spears at the ready and fought against the wicked wolven nobles who chased them.

The story was told to new recruits who joined the militia. It was meant to encourage morale. It didn't matter that in reality, they all died, meaning the real lesson of the story was that being a pikefox in the militia was a lot like being an expendable meat-shield. Once you fell, someone took your place, you were not a hero, no one was.

"And who the hell are you?"

His eyelids narrowed, covering up his dark, brown eyes, "Izil of Clan Agulez! Were we in the desert, such rudeness would be enough justification to leave you to dry up in the sun!"

"Yeah, well, where I come from, we don't have to lick up droplets of dew from dirt pits, so I'll keep my water and talk however I damn well please!"

"Such spirit!" he laughed. "Very bold! Let me give you a choice!"

"I don't give a damn."

Ignoring me, the fennec continued, "We can take you by force or you can lay down your arms, kiss the dirt beneath me, and beg for mercy; perhaps we will consider taking you prisoner unharmed!"

"We?"

My ear flicked back just in time to hear someone's foot scuffle on the dirt, but not fast enough that I could dodge the loop of rope that swung over my muzzle and across my neck. In an instant, it tightened and I was dragged to the ground, thrashing and bumping over rocks until I was at the hooves of another fennec's horse. How the hell had they crept up on us atop such large horses?

I fought to breathe, but it was hopeless, the lasso was too tight. As the world began to dim, I saw that Laurent was being dragged by another rope, this one held between the claws of Izil. The fennec noble dismounted his horse once he was satisfied his prey was secure.

"What a fine prize," Izil said as he cupped his paw across Laurent's muzzle, his words growing more distant.

"Don't worry, General, we shall treat you in accordance with our hospitality. Fennecs always rescue helpless travelers in the desert as your people always say."

Izil gently rubbed his nose against Laurent's. Had Laurent been not on the verge of passing out, he would have shown some more disgust.

"But it's funny, they always leave the ransom part out."

"Stories can be funny that way..."