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The Elder Stag Inn was dead that night. Garuk stood behind the polished copper bartop, slowly working a rag in a circle atop the burnished metal. Years of mugs and tankards had left an interlocking ring pattern on the copper. The moose snorted through his nostrils in boredom. He looked around the mostly empty common room, counting familiar tables. Ruk was used to seeing it through a haze of tobacco smoke, thronging with folk drinking and laughing. The bandits had gotten bad along the roads, and fewer travelers braved the risk. Now only three bodies sat stools in the Stag's belly, two he knew and one he didn't. Even as the bartender watched, the stranger left a coin on the table, rose and left. Ruk watched him go, the stranger's features hidden beneath a cloak and cowl that he hadn't removed the entire time he'd been drinking. It wasn't the moose's job to ask.

Garuk finished burnishing the same spot on the bartop and tossed the rag into the bucket behind him. The burly moose cracked his neck, his great antlers casting deep shadows on the wall behind him. It was getting late. There was little chance of business picking up. Ruk reached over and picked up the small brass bell on the shelf behind him and gave it a ring. Last call. Time to call it a night.

When his two regulars, merchants, had paid their tab and finished their tankards Garuk saw them off. The Elder Stag was situated along the road between two cities, surrounded by a palisade wall. There was a paddock and yard, a stable and barn in addition to the inn itself and adjoining kitchen. Lamps hung from rings on posts, pushing back the shadows in the yard as the moose walked his last two patrons to the gates. Just before they reached them, however, a group of figures pushed through into the yard. Six hooded and cloaked men, four on foot, two on horses tromped up. Lamplight glinted on steel beneath the gaps of their cloaks. Garuk stopped as the two men on horses rode right up to him and dismounted. Garuk could hear the distinct clatter of metal, the clink of chainmail as their boots hit the ground.

The moose gave his regulars a quick nod, telling them to make haste in leaving without saying a word. One hesitated, one did not. Garuk nodded again, and the second followed after the first with a hurried pace.

"Lookin' for lodgin's," one of the men that had dismounted said as he pulled back his hood. The grizzled features of a large wolf were revealed. The lupine's face was scarred, peppered with nicks and cuts that gleamed pink in the lantern light. His eyes were a shocking shade of crimson. "Ya got rooms, barkeep? Beer? Meat?"

"Whores?" said the other dismounted man, his cowl too doffed to reveal the craggy face of a wolverine. A murmur rose from the four men behind him, still hooded, shifting. Agreeing.

"All but the last," Garuk answered. "This ain't a brothel, my good fellows." The moose eyed the two men stoically. He knew brigands when he saw them. His face was hard, but masked with politeness. Garuk's large hands clenched slowly into fists.

"Hmph," the wolverine grunted. He slung his reins toward Garuk. "Stable 'im." He growled, then pushed past the moose. The lupine too left his horse with Ruk, grinning at him with yellowed fangs gleaming. The four other men followed, leaving the moose alone in the yard with the two brigands' horses. He grunted, leaving the mounts for a moment to bar and lock the gates. Six brigands in his inn were enough. Ruk turned then and returned to the two horses, leading them toward the stable.

When Garuk returned to the inn, the brigands had made themselves comfortable. They'd shoved two tables together near the fireplace. The wolverine was behind his bar, pouring beer from the kegs into his best tankards. The wolf was nowhere to be seen. The four other men had taken off their cloaks and cowls and were sitting at the tables playing cards and dice: a bear, a cougar, an orc, and a badger. They were all dressed in chain and leathers, swords on their hips, breastplates rusty and battle-scarred. Ruk snorted in annoyance.

The moose moved toward the bar where the wolverine was gathering up his tankards. Beer sloshed carelessly across the copper bar top. Ruk eyed him stonily. "I usually serve my patrons," he grunted.

"I don't remember givin' ya any coin, so we ain't patrons." The wolverine growled sharply, his voice grating like stones against one another. He walked to the table, leaving Ruk to seethe. The moose had been in this situation before, but not recently. He was being robbed. As Ruk stood staring daggers at the bandits, the wolf emerged from the door that led to the kitchen. He was carrying a huge platter laden with some of Ruk's best vittles. A wheel of cheese, brown bread, slabs of the roast boar he had prepared earlier that night still steaming from the stone ovens. The wolf glanced at Ruk as he passed the bar, and flashed him that crooked grin again mockingly. He sat the platters down on the tables with his friends. They set to eating and drinking as they gambled and diced.

An hour passed. Garuk watched the brigands drink his beer and eat his food, smoking tobacco pipes and making a mess of the table and floor around it. They got drunker with every passing minute, raucously laughing and arguing with one another. Ruk was largely ignored, or forgotten about. At least until the wolverine caught his eye by accident. An ugly look passed the mustelid's craggy features, a look that set Ruk on alert as the brigand rose and approached him.

"Where's yer barmaids?" the bandit slurred at him roughly from behind the bar where Ruk stood.

"Ain't got none," the moose grunted back, eyeing the wolverine distastefully. "Sent 'em off home early. Was dead."

"Yer wife? Daughters?" the brigand pried. He grinned crookedly. "Sons?"

"Ain't married," Garuk snapped back. He squared a little, pulling himself to his full height as the wolverine leered at him. "No stablehands, nobody but me and you here."

The wolverine's leer pulled into a frown, his eyebrows puckering into a scowl. "Nah, it's you and us, fucker," he snarled quietly. Ruk suddenly became aware that the brigands all were watching the exchange. The tall lupine was leaning against the fireplace's edge, one hand slowly squeezing his crotch. Ruk flicked an ear.

"I see one cock out of its pants," he boomed, "and I'll be making sausage out of all of them come the morning." He knew what the brigands wanted. Ruk had an ax behind the bar but the wolverine was closer to it. There were cleavers in the kitchen, but the group of other bandits was between Ruk and the door. The moose snorted fearlessly, his huge hands flexing, knuckles cracking audibly.

"Bold," the wolverine growled, his paw coming to rest on the hilt of the sword at his side. "But fuckin' stupid. Yer a big fella, but there's six of us and one of you. Six swords. Just shut yer gob and drop trou, it'll be a lot easier for ya. Better buggered than dead."

Adrenaline flushed through Ruk's veins like a shot of whiskey. The moose stared at the wolverine fearlessly. He heard the stools creak as the other men stood and approached. They were already starting to take off their armor. Ruk saw the wolf pull his cock from his pants over the wolverine's shoulder.

Suddenly, Ruk bellowed and charged at the wolverine. He had to get to the ax under the bar. The wolverine snarled and started to pull his sword but Ruk had gotten the drop on him. The moose slammed into him like a falling oaktree. Ruk felt the half exposed sword blade cut into his chest, but his weight kept the mustelid from drawing it. He fell on the wolverine, the moose's weight crushing the breath from the brigand. Ruk's huge hands crashed down on the wolverine's snarling face like a blacksmith's hammer. He slammed the brigand's head back against the floor and pushed his weight. Ruk's thick thumbs found the brigand's eyes and he squeezed. The brigand screamed as those thumbs crushed his eyes to pulp. Blood and pulverized eye spurted around Ruk's digits and still he squeezed. He squeezed until he felt the wolverine's skull burst like a melon under his palms. The crunch was loud enough that the other brigands heard it, and heard the wolverine's screams suddenly go silent.

Ruk pulled his dripping hands from the wolverine's corpse. The ax was within reach, but as Ruk looked up, he found the wolf's sword an inch or so from his left eye. The lupine's heavy dick still hung from his trousers, the snarling wolf glaring down at Ruk.

"Look at that," the wolf growled, nodding toward the wolverine's corpse leaking blood onto the floorboards. "Proud of yerself? Ya got one of us. I hope it was worth it, you old bastard. Cause now, we're gonna fuck ya, then I'm gonna skin yer fuckin' hide and make myself a new saddle outta ya. Ya can spend eternity under my fuckin' bollocks and arse, where ya belong. Fuckin' grass chewer."

The lupine took a step toward Ruk, forcing him to back away or take that sword point into his eye. Ruk crawled backward, getting to his feet. The sword followed him. The wolf approached steadily, and Ruk was forced to keep backing. Suddenly, pain sharp and cold, spiked Ruk's back. He stopped abruptly, gasping, looking over his shoulder to see he had backed into the sword of the bear. The ursine had gotten behind him while the wolf had been talking.

"I toldja he'd be trouble, Vargr," the cougar said, looking at the wolf. He was on the otherside of the bar. Ruk grimaced. The cloaked stranger.

"So he killed Eolain," Vargr, the wolf, answered with a shrug. "More booty for us when we gut this place."

Ruk could feel blood trickling down his back. The point of the bear's sword had penetrated his back. He slowed raised his hands submissively.

"I want first with his mouth," the bear behind Ruk growled. "Eo' was mah cully. He likes crushin' skulls, see how he likes my cock down his throat."

Ruk moved like lightning. His raised hands were in reach of one of the steel tankards on the shelf. He snatched it and whirled. The bear's sword, stuck in Ruk's back, was jerked to the side by the motion. It cut a gash across the moose's shoulder, but Ruk ignored it as he lunged toward the bear. Raising the tankard held in his fist like a brass-knuckles, he slammed it across the bruin's shocked muzzle. It hit his nose with a splat, crunching cartilage and breaking teeth ringing out against the steel tankard. The bruin spun from the blood, blood splattering the wall and teeth clattering to the floor like the dice he had been rolling. He fell, and Ruk stomped on the back of his neck where his skull met his spine. Another wet crack and a jarring pop exploded out as that huge boot snapped the bear's skull clean from his spine.

Ruk barely had time to scramble to the side as the wolf swung his sword at him. He stumbled over the bruin's twitching arm and fell hard onto his side. Before Ruk could recover, the badger slammed a boot into his ribs. Ruk yelled as the steel capped boot scraped over the cut the wolverine's sword had sliced into his chest. Before he could recover, the badger was on top of him, a long dagger pressed tight to Ruk's throat. The badger was panting with adrenaline, but Ruk could see in his wide eyes that he was shaken.

"Fuck," Ruk heard the orc grunt. He could see the huge greenskin nudge the bear's corpse with his boot. "FUCK."

"Vargr," the cougar started to speak, but the wolf's snarl cut him off. "Shut up, Caius. Dak, get the fucker's pants."

With the dagger at his throat, Ruk couldn't move. He laid there, staring up at the badger with steely eyes as the orc cautiously approached.

"Ya got him, Lynsus?" the orc asked the badger. The mustelid nodded grimly. "He ain't movin'. He so much as breathes too hard and I'll slit him like a sow."

Reassured, the greenskin knelt and began pulling at Ruk's boots. The moose had no choice but to lie there and let the orc take his boots off, then move up to his belt. Hard fingers worked the buckle and then yanked Ruk's trousers down. It took some wrestling getting them off the moose's heavy legs, but a moment later the moose lay naked from the waist down.

"Merciful gods," the orc snorted. "How's a fella with this between his legs not have a wife?" Ruk felt the orc grip his cock and lift it. "Fuckin' heavy." His other hand cupped and weighed Ruk's balls. Ruk grimaced as the brigand felt him up.

"What was it ya said earlier?" the wolf growled as he strode into Ruk's line of sight. "Ya were gonna grind up our cocks into sausage?" the lupine was grinning that crooked, evil smile. Now that they had the moose subdued, a wicked chuckle went through the surviving men.

"Lyn, ya got that cord on ya?" Vargr asked. "I wanna truss this bastard up like a deer. He ain't gonna enjoy the rest of tonight."

"Yeah, it's here," Lynsus answered. His eyes flicked to his belt, free hand reaching. Again, Ruk seized his chance. His hand shot up, grabbed the badger's wrist that was holding the dagger. He twisted, hard, and bone popped like a snapping branch. The dagger bent away from Ruk's throat, and he pushed, arm and all, slamming the blade into the badger's own gut. He screamed in agony and Ruk jerked upward, hand locked over the badger's fingers on the hilt of his dagger, twisting a hole into the badger's guts. Rusty chainmail or not, the dagger did its job. Ruk kicked, dislodging the gutted badger and orc in one huge buck. The moose rolled to his feet, the badger's dagger still in his hand. Naked from the waist down now, the bartender's low-slung cock and balls swung heavily between his thighs as he faced the remaining brigands. The badger rolled on the floor between them, clutching his gut. Blood bubbled between his fingers as he moaned and cursed.

"Get out," Ruk panted, still gripping that dripping blade, raised and ready. "Get out now and keep your lives." His eyes flicked to the door.

"Vargr, I told you," the cougar insisted. He was closest to the door now, sword drawn, but the remaining three, the most ready to flee. "I told you I knew him. I said he was dangerous."

"He's a washed up old mercenary!" the wolf snarled, yelling. "You stupid bastards just keep letting him get it over on you!"

"You should listen to your friend, Vargr," Ruk spoke up, panting a little. Blood was soaking through the front of his shirt where the wolverine's sword had cut him. It still trickled from the slice in his mid-back from the bear's. The pain was sharp, but the wounds were superficial; just enough sting to get the moose's adrenaline honed.

"SHUT UP." the lupine yelled, his red eyes wild. "Dak, with me!"

The lupine leapt at Garuk, and after a few moments of hesitation, the orc followed suit. The dagger that Ruk had taken from the badger wasn't quite a short-sword, but it was long enough to parry with. He blocked the wolf's wild swing and turned it aside. With his free hand he dealt the wolf a swift punch and as he staggered, Ruk kicked a stool into the lagging orc's shins. The greenskin's legs were entangled and he fell hard over the stool. Ruk backed away from the two brigands, putting a few tables between himself and their blades. He circled back toward the far end of the bar.

"He's goin' for his ax, stop 'im, Caius!" Vargr yelled as he spat out a yellow tooth. The cougar hesitated. His green eyes glanced at his compatriots. Then he swiftly strode for the door out of the Elder Stag and into the night beyond. Vargr howled with rage as Caius abandoned them. "Yer next, Caius! Once this fucker's a corpse, yer next!" He swung his sword at a table in rage, leaving a gash in the wood. He was nearly foaming at the mouth in rage.

The wolf's outburst gave Ruk the time he needed. The orc hadn't gotten to his feet in time, and the lupine's fit gave him pause. The moose's hands tingled as they closed around the haft of the ax. He abandoned the dagger on the bar top, gleaming with blood on the burnished metal.

By the time Ruk emerged from behind the bar, the orc had found his feet and turned to face the moose. As the brigand watched the behemoth of a moose stride toward them, ax in hand, eyes flinty, Dak felt his bowels shrink with curdling fear. The moose's swinging manhood swaying freely between his naked legs only furthered his terror.

"Vargr, maybe we should," Dak began, his voice thin, "--hrrrk!"

Before Dak could finish his words, Vargr had plunged his sword into the orc's chest. The greenskin stared at his former companion with wide stunned eyes, then slowly looked down at the length of rusty steel buried in his breast. The shoddy armor had done little to dull the blow. Blood dripped from the orc's breast around the blade in a slow trickle. Vargr kicked Dak from his sword with a callous boot and the orc crashed through the table the wolf had slashed. It crumbled to splinters under his weight. Ruk heard the gentle rasp as Dak's life left him.

Now alone in the Elder Stag's common room, Ruk and Vargr eyed one another from across the floor. Ruk was framed against the fireplace behind him, cast mostly in silhouette. Vargr still had the open door to the inn at his back.

"You're alone, Vargr," Ruk said calmly. His hands tightened on the haft of his single-headed ax, knuckles popping. "You know what they say about valor, but I know you have none."

Vargr stared at the massive figure in front of him. Cast in shadow, with the huge fireplace behind him, antlers rising high, and that tremendous cock slung low, Ruk seemed a demon with that ax in his hands. The wolf, for the first time, felt himself consider retreat. The night had not gone the way he had expected. Had not gone the way it had countless times before. Vargr's pride, however, would have none of it.

"Ya think just cause ya put paid to those worthless fucks that I'm scared of ya?" Vargr snarled, the blood on his lips glistening wetly in the firelight. "I was a soldier. I've killed bigger men than you. Killin' ya will be a fuckin' jest!" The wolf's crimson eyes were almost crazed. He charged, growling wildly. He swung his sword furiously, frenziedly, at Ruk. The moose parried with the haft of that ax, turning it deftly almost like a quarterstaff, with his hands at the top and bottom of the wood. The rusty blade bit into the oiled hardwood, recoiled, once, twice, three times. On the fourth swing, Ruk punched toward the blade with the head of his ax, hand gripping just below the head itself. The swing met the sword blade in mid-air, and the momentum of both Vargr's attack, and Ruk's counter was too much for the ill-cared-for blade. With a metallic crack, Vargr's sword shattered against the steel of the ax-head. Worse still for the unlucky brigand, a shard of his own sword rebounded and sank deep into his right eye-socket.

The hilt of Vargr's broken sword felt from the wolf's fingers as he rushed to clutch his face. Blood snaked between his fingers, dripping from the back of his knuckles in a thin stream. He was snarling through clenched teeth in agony. "I'll KILL YOU!" He roared. "I'll fucking GUT you!" He screamed, jerking a knife from his belt and charging suddenly at Ruk again. "I'll wear yer fuckin'--GRKH!" The top of the blade of Ruk's ax had slammed into Vargr's gut, propelled by Ruk's huge fist. The wolf's stood transfixed by the sudden, merciless blow like a moth on a pin. Ruk's free hand reached out, catching the lupine by the throat and plucking him off his boots like a rag-doll. Vargr wheezed, slashing weakly at the huge arm that held him aloft. The blade of his knife, like his sword, was rusty. Dull. It barely left thin scratches on the shaggy arm that gripped his neck like a vice.

"Perhaps it isn't valor you lack," Ruk said, studying the ruin of the lupine's right eye in the firelight, "just brains." Blood ran down Vargr's cheek in a branching line from his eye, dripping onto Ruk's fingers dug into the wolf's neck. Vargr's knife fell from trembling fingers, replaced with claws. These did more damage than the corroded blade, tearing at Ruk's flesh and leaving jagged ruts in his hide. The moose paid the pain no heed. Vargr's left eye was contracted with pain and fear, pupil a pinprick amidst sanguine irises. Ruk tightened his fist a little more and watched that eye widen with the pressure. The moose smiled slowly.

"How many times have you leered at that face you're making right now?" Garuk rumbled slowly. With a steady pace, he carried the squirming wolf toward the nearest table which happened to be the one he and his compatriots had been reveling at. Blood dripped in a slow trail of droplets to the floorboards below as the moose walked. Ruk slammed Vargr down on the table, face up. Plates, tankards, and the candles clattered as the moose soused the lupine down on the tabletop.

Holding Vargr pinned with that one hand around his throat, Ruk's other mitt set his ax aside against the table. He began pulling at the wolf's buckles and laces that held his pants up. During the fighting earlier, Vargr had put his cock away, but as Ruk jerked his trousers and leathers down and aside, it flopped back into the open. Vargr struggled, croaking and clawing more vigorously as the moose began stripping him.

"What's the matter?" Ruk snorted, grinning down at the wolf. "You didn't seem to mind doing this to me." The moose's large fist closed around the wolf's heavy balls, squeezing them firmly. Vargr gurgled and tried to close his legs. "Lie still, or I'll squeeze until I can spread these bollocks on my morning bread."

Reluctantly, Vargr relaxed his thighs. Ruk grunted and jostled Vargr's weighty stones. "Was all this worth it, trying to empty these?" He asked, releasing the lupine's sack and gesturing at the carnage they had made in the common room. Vargr could only gurgle spitefully in reply. Ruk's hand abandoned the wolf's loins for his own, taking his length in his palm and giving it a half-dozen slow strokes. Vargr's single eye flicked down, watching the moose pump his shaft. His claws dug deeper into Ruk's forearm, fresh ruby droplets blossoming around their points. Ruk snorted and shook his head, a shiver that made his thick ruff of fur around his neck wobble and fluff. "You ain't helping yourself, doing that," he said wryly, grinning with his square teeth at Vargr. The moose's hand pumped more firmly, and Vargr saw that girth thicken and swell. Ruk felt the shiver that ran through the wolf.

"P-ple...assse..." he wheezed around the fingers mashing his windpipe. Ruk tightened his fist down until Vargr's tongue shot from his maw with a wet rasp, spittle flying.

"Shut up," Ruk rumbled, "and take it like a man." The moose's cock was firm now, veins standing out along his prodigious length. Its wide head wreathed in foreskin, Vargr could hear it sliding on the precum the moose was starting to leak. "Ya said you were a soldier," Ruk mused as the moose shifted, pulling Varg's leg up with his free hand so he could press the head of that cock against the fuzzy hole nestled between the wolf's cheeks. "You must know what victory does to a man. Or were ya one of the ones who stood and gave orders while other men did the knifework?" The moose laughed darkly as the wolf's warm pucker clenched against his tip. He knew which he thought the lupine had been.

With a slow press of his naked hips, Ruk ground his cock forward against Vargr's clenching gates. The wolf wheezed desperately as he tried to keep the moose's member out of his guts, but like a battering ram, there was no stopping that questing prick. With a staggering pop, Ruk's broad cap broke through Vargr's resistance. The wolf's body jerked and tensed as it was violated, a hoarse whine escaping around Ruk's fingers. Ruk could feel the stickiness of blood on his cock, but that didn't stop his inexorable push. With nothing but the moose's own leaking precum, he forced his inches into Vargr's spasming bowels.

With that fleshy weapon buried in his guts, Vargr's legs shook and trembled. Ruk finally let go of Vargr's neck, giving him both hands to grab the wolf's legs and pull him flush with his own groin. Vargr's remaining eye bulged wider in its socket, his teeth grit against the painful intrusion of the moose's cock. "Sss-stop...!" The lupine managed to hiss, his claws digging ruts into the tabletop. He croaked as Ruk pulled back an inch or two and plunged balls deep again. That heavy sack slapped loudly against the wolf's hairy ass.

"Fuck, you're tight," Ruk breathed, puffing hot air from his nostrils. "First time?" he mocked and began to thrust. The look of pain and humiliation on the wolf's ragged, bloodstained features only further hardened the moose's cock. "It's been a long time since I last put paid to a bastard like you, Vargr." Ruk admitted as he reveled in scrambling the lupine's innards with measured thrusts.

"F-f-fuckkk...you...nnnnggh..." Vargr panted, his eye rolling in his head. He suddenly summoned what strength he had left and lunged forward. He lashed out with his claws, slashing Ruk across the face with a bubbling snarl. Ruk barely flinched, though the claws had laid his cheek open with four bloody gashes from jaw across his broad snout.

"Still got some fire, I see," Ruk rumbled, smirking. Like a bolt of lightning, he shot his head forward and smashed his stony brow into the wolf's snarling face. The force of the blow sent Vargr smashing back onto the table, howling in agony. His paws went to his face once more, where fresh blood soaked his muzzle from the pulped ruin of his nose. Vargr writhed, gasping and gurgling, bubbles of blood escaping his nostrils. Ruk mercilessly continued to pump his cock in and out of that backside. The wolf groaned, gasping through his mouth. Ruk's prick sawed in and out, roughly, the moose's balls clapping against the lupine's meaty ass. He picked up his pace, panting as he railed away against his enemy. The wolf rasped and squirmed. As Ruk bucked against him, stirring his bowels, the moose noticed the wolf's hefty dick was starting to thicken and rise. Garuk grunted, watching in amusement as the malicious lupine's prick hardened from the moose's fucking.

"Just need a grass chewer to put you in your place, huh?" he mocked, flicking the tip of Vargr's stiffened shaft. The wolf yelped, that single red eye flicking down to lock on his own traitorous penis. His nose was crooked now, bleeding freely down his chin, but the horror in his eye from seeing his own dick rock hard under the moose was worse than the fear he'd had for his life only moments ago.

"Happens to most men when they get their first good buggering," Ruk taunted, his hand leaving the wolf's leg to wrap around that stiff prick. He tugged it derisively, the smell of the wolf's fear and musk pungent in his nostrils. "Nnngh! S-sh-top...that!" Vargr slurred, his hips arching, trying to get his cock out of the moose's fist. Ruk hung onto it, continuing to jack it. "You chose this, y'know," Ruk chided, squeezing that dick firmly. "I gave you a chance to leave. This is your punishment for your arrogance."

As though to prove that statement, Ruk pulled Vargr down on his dick until he was able to grind against the lupine's upturned rear. Vargr squawked, grimacing, but precum spurted lightly from the tip of his piece, wetting Ruk's knuckles. Ruk brought the meat of his thumb up and smeared the fluid across the wolf's foreskin and cockhead. Vargr jerked and shuddered, his eye snapping shut. He yelped as the motion squeezed the ruin of his right eye. Ruk stretched up, looming over the wolf, and put his hands on Vargr's shoulders. Holding him pinned against the table, he forced his torso down on the wolf. It pushed his legs apart to either side, the moose's belly mashing down on the lupine's stiff tool and nuts. Vargr opened his eye to see that antlered head looming over his own. He started to speak, but Ruk started to fuck before he could. What came out instead was a strained groan, as the moose's pipe rammed his prostate over and over again.

The table shook and rattled, creaking. Tankards rolled over and clattered to the floor, spilling their contents. Ruk's thrusts shook through Vargr like the heaviest of blows, the moose's broad, powerful ass flexing with every pump. Vargr panted, gasping, his legs straightening reflexively in the air as the moose cored him. His claws sliced curves into Ruk's back. "M-mercyyy..." he whined thinly.

Ruk's thrusts only hardened. The meaty thud of his crotch against Vargr's ass redoubled, their mingled shadow cast large on the far wall by the dying fireplace. Vargr's body trembled under the moose, his breath hitching. Ruk's own broad back arched, lifting him off of the wolf's torso. His antlers tilted as his neck curved to the ceiling, breath coming in deep huffs that blew hot air across Vargr's face. Distantly, Ruk registered the mewl from Vargr, and the bursting jolt of his body. Hot liquid splashed across Ruk's gut, arcing to mark the wolf's chest with his seed. His body had lost the fight, the wild stench of his load tinging the air with its tang. Ruk snorted, then bellowed, as his own load burst forth a moment later. Those fat moose balls jerked and flexed, pumping as he filled the lupine's gut with his seed. For a few moments, both males sank into the pleasure of orgasm and afterglow, Vargr reluctantly, Ruk, triumphantly. When it finally faded, Ruk could feel his backwash dripping from his balls onto the floor. Vargr's seed was smeared across them both, his lupine dick softened and defeated. Slowly the moose looked down at the wolf under him.

"That was mercy," he said, his voice thick and hoarse. Then with that terrifying speed, Ruk brought both his fists down in a hammer-blow on Vargr's heaving breastbone. The crunch rang out like thunder, the lupine's ribs caved in by the wild strike. Bone pierced lungs and heart, crushed breath from within on a torrent of fresh red that rose from Vargr's maw in a spurt. For a brief moment, the wolf spasmed, gurgling, eye wide in shock. Then that red eye went glassy and still, face slack in death.

The night air was cool and quiet. Ruk emerged from the inn, naked now. He walked to one of the rain barrels nearby, drawing a dipper of the cool liquid to gulp down. He poured another over his head, washing blood and sweat and wolf seed from his hide. The lanterns on their posts had burned low on their wicks, the shadows deep. The sky above was clear, festooned with stars. Ruk stretched himself, letting the cold water and cool air brace him.

"I did try," the sudden voice behind Ruk made him jump. He spun in place, fists raised, and found Caius, the cougar, sitting on a stump in the dark. "I'm not here to avenge anyone," he said calmly. "I know who you are."

Ruk slowly lowered his hands. He'd had his fill of death and violence for one night as well. "Do you?"

"Yes. I've heard tales of your younger days. I tried to tell them it was a bad idea to rob you," Caius answered. He was smoking a long, slender pipe. Gray smoke curled into the night air, and it smoldered gently as he drew on it. "I'm not looking for forgiveness. Merely to tell you that you're still remembered. I was weaned on your tales, wanted to be like you when I was a cub. Life is a jest that way."

"Is that why you fled? Respect? Or fear?" Ruk asked, an ear flicking.

"Respect was my trying to stop them, I wouldn't have come at all. But I was ordered to. When I reported back to them, I tried again to warn them to seek easier targets, to leave this inn in peace. They wouldn't listen. Too tasty a morsel to ignore." Caius answered. "I simply offer thanks for giving me the chance to make a better decision than they."

Ruk grunted softly, staring at the cougar for a few heartbeats. "Brigandry is poor work for a man with any honor," he said eventually. Caius laughed bitterly. "Honor is poor succor for a hungry belly and a thirsty gullet."

"Then stay," the moose gestured at the inn. "I can use extra hands here. Pay is not much, but you won't go hungry. It's the thanks I can give for not continuing to try and kill me."

Caius smiled slowly, looking up at the inn framed darkly against the starry sky. "Perhaps." he agreed.