Once they all filed into the landing by the stairs, Krum ordered them into formation. All of them had seen battle. He knew he didn’t need to instruct them on the techniques of killing cats or humans. Mice armies were seldom idle, as they had more enemies than one could shake a stick at. He was in command of 500 battle-tested veterans. “I want spears on the left flank, swords on the right flank, archers center, and axes at the rear! Ere long we’ll be fighting a fierce cat, and humans soon to follow. Archers, go for the eyes. Spears, axes, and swords—you know what to do.
“All of you have come to fight. Some of you will not go back. But we are mice kind, and bow before no foe. March on in triple-spear-wedge formation!”
It didn’t take them long before they found their target. The cat was sitting in the middle of the parlor on a Persian rug, looking at them—waiting for them. It knew. The mice entered the parlor through the living room hallway, and marched to the edge of the rug, encircling the cat with their respective flanks. The cat remained motionless.
“Hold!” Krum cried. He alone crossed onto the rug until he stood a few inches away from the cat.
The cat looked at Krum with sly emerald eyes and a grin that looked somehow very serious. They looked other in the eye for a full minute. At long last, the cat spoke.
“Must it be?”
Krum nodded and drew his sword slowly from his scabbard. “It must,” he replied.
“Then so be it.”
The cat hissed and leapt over Krum to the sword flank, where it knocked away a dozen mice with a single swipe. It took another two in its mouth and bit down, crushing skin and bone and organs.
From there it leapt to the seat of a black leather recliner, where it licked its paws before immediately bounding over the sword flank and into the midst of spear formation. It growled in pain as it plowed through the formation with tooth and claw, shredding and biting the soldiers as it went. It was killing mice left and right, though its paws and claws had spears jutting out from them. It was fighting as if possessed by the Devil himself.
Krum knew that it was a good thing. The cat was fighting on instinct, his soldiers were fighting tactically. “Axes! To the fray!”
The axmice, with lightning speed, furiously sped to the area of spearmice cleared by the enemy. The axes of 15 mice were buried in the cat’s rear legs with one coordinated and synchronized assault. It spun around, hissing and growling, and stamped down the 15 now axless mice with its paws, maiming and killing. The rest of the axmice were swinging and cleaving mightily, but couldn’t bear the brunt of the cat’s fury.
“Swords, to the fray!”
With the spears to the enemy’s rear and axes to its front, the swordsmice charged in from the side. The archers were doing their job well enough, but without a shot to the eyes, the arrows were merely an annoyance.
The enemy cat was turning and whipping around, surrounded on all three sides. The slain mingled with the living, and all of the corpses around were obstacles to the soldiers. A band of spearmice managed to get under the cat’s stomach, and with their spears held high and vertical, jumped and rammed their spears upward in the soft underbelly of the feline. Bleeding from a multitude of wounds, it fought on.
Krum was standing back next to War chief Yarbrough, watching the battle from afar. He hated it, but he knew as a commander he had to be able to command, and that meant not being dead.
Yarbrough had to practically scream in order to be heard over the clanging of steel, the death throes of the mortally wounded, and the shrieks of the enemy that could wake a zombie three times dead. “It’s amazing it doesn’t flee! It’s doomed!”
Krum knew that the cat had to follow the ancient laws of combat. Once engaged with a formal enemy, it was against their code of honor to retreat. The cat would fight to the death; what mattered to Krum was how many it took out in the process.
He couldn’t bear to watch his men die in front of him. The cat could barely stand, but was still dealing death to his men, and all the while he stood there like a statue. He’d had enough. He drew his sword and charged into the melee.
“Krum! Come back here! You’re to command!”
It fell on deaf ears. Yarbrough shook his head. A moment later, he drew his sword and charged. The valiancy of mice kind was never to be underestimated.
Having to hurdle over the slain soldiers slowed down Krum more than he would have liked, and as he jumped over yet another one, he saw and heard the left eye of the enemy pop, and saw several of his men showered with yellow and green ooze. As he arrived, the cat’s legs, bleeding and mangled, gave up under it, and it collapsed on its side. The wet-sounding wheezes it was letting out told Krum it was choking on its own blood, and didn’t have much time.
“YIELD!” Krum shouted. “No more weapons shall touch this cat!” Except for the moaning and cries of pain from the wounded, all of the battle noise ceased. Krum closed in on the cat’s head, making sure that it saw him with its one good eye.
“You fought more bravely and fiercely than any other of your kind that I’ve witnessed. What is your name?”
The cat’s wheezes were becoming shorter and more random. “My keepers call me Monroe. My true name is Azubah Na Shanala, daughter of Zelenia Na Shanala, of the Ophania Cat Clan.”
“I shall record your bravery in the Annals. Your name will be remembered.”
Azubah closed her eye and bowed her head ever so slightly. “Thank you. Now finish it.”
Krum made it quick and merciful. Azubah lay dead on the floor seconds after he delivered the death blow.
He was exhausted, but there was more to come.
“Sergeant Oldwhey!” Krum yelled.
The commander of the spears ran over and stood at attention.
“How many soldiers yet live?”
“Sir, 354 live, 67 are mortally wounded. We’ve 287 able-bodied soldiers, most of them archers.”
I’ve never lost so many against one cat.
It would have to do.
“Onward, mice! We’ve humans to slay!”
* * *
Gaining entrance to the master bedroom was a much easier task than it might have been. The door was miraculously left ajar. It would have taken an hour if they had to push down a handle, two hours or more if they had to twist a knob.
It was very dark except for the Mickey Mouse nightlight plugged into the wall on Michael’s side of the bed.
“Who’s that chap?” Yarbrough asked Krum, pointing to the source of light.
Krum didn’t answer.
He talked to the Sergeants leading each formation, save the archers. They stayed back to tend to the wounded as best they could. “Listen, we’re all gonna climb. I need you to be as quiet as a queen’s fart. We’ll take out the male first. His snoring is annoying the piss outta me.”
They climbed the bed successfully and surrounded Michael. Two blinders, as they were called, each stood by his head with spears pointed at each eye. Two cripplers moved down to his underwear, each pointing a spear at a testicle. One stifler stood by his mouth, ready to dive in with a spear once he opened it to scream. Four slitters stood by his neck, each sword pointed at the pulsing vein under the jaw line. Two scramblers stood by each ear, with pikes three times as long as a normal spear pointed in the ear canal. There were numerous other designated roles, all designed to cripple and kill quickly. An awake human could cause even more damage than a cat.
“On my count of three, begin the execution,” Krum said.
“One. Two. Three!”
It was over as soon as it began. Without a sound, Michael perished in his bed. What made Sarah stir in her sleep was the violent shaking and hemorrhaging that usually followed such an execution. It couldn’t be helped. Soon the wetness of the blood would wake her.
“Mice, move in to position on the next target! Now!” Krum yelled. He knew it would wake her, but he had confidence in his soldiers. They were in position within three seconds. She opened her eyes.
“Hold!??
? Krum yelled. His soldiers were looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. If she got out of bed without being blinded the mission would be a failure. He stood by one of the scramblers. The voice of mice was too quiet to be heard unless spoken directly into the ear of a human.
“Don’t move, love.” He couldn’t see the look of bewilderment and horror on her face, but he could imagine it. “This is for all the mice your kind have killed. You’ll soon join your husband. Do you have any last words?”
“P-p-please,” she stuttered. “Please, I’m sorry for what Monroe did. I wrote you a note! Didn’t you get it?”
“What note?”
“I ap-p-ologized for what Monroe did. I said I would give you ch-cheese.” She stared in horror at the spears less than a millimeter away from her eyes.
“You humans kill us all without a thought or care. All that food, and you kill us if we take a nibble of cheese or a crumb of stale bread. Why?”
“I d-don’t. I’ve never killed one of you. It was my husband’s idea!”
“Your husband’s dead and gone now, love. I can’t spare you.” All he could think about was Ginger, and what she would want. She wouldn’t want to shed innocent blood. But he couldn’t spare the life of this woman. If he didn’t command the mice to kill her, Yarbrough would, and soon.
“Please, I wrote extra notes in case I found any more mouse holes. I put one by your hole in the kitchen. I put the others on my dresser. Please! Oh, God, please. Please don’t kill me. I can give you cheese, pounds of it, enough to feed all your families for months!”
Krum bowed his head in disgust at the decision he knew he had to make. He knew what he had to do. He knew what everyone expected him to do. He knew at that moment that he was a fool for ever loving someone as kind and gentle as Ginger, and even more a fool for having the slightest glint of hope that she could ever love him back. His hands were too stained to ever hold hers.
“Execute her!”
The immediate command without the preliminary counting of three had the consequence of catching the soldiers off guard for a fraction of a moment. It gave Sarah a tiny window of time before she died. It wasn’t enough to live, but it was enough for her to reach toward her ear and grab Krum. She squeezed him as hard as she could and threw him at the wall before she fell to the same gruesome fate as her husband.
Krum lay on the wall against the floor, in more physical and mental pain than he had ever experienced. Eons passed in the time before he was flung until the time Yarbrough came to him.
All of his ribs were crushed. He was bleeding internally from where Sarah’s fingers dug into him. Yarbrough knelt next to him. “You’re gonna be fine, sir. Let’s get you back. The mission is over. It was a success.”
“Success be blowed. We lost over seven score of our finest.” Krum coughed and sprayed blood on Yarbrough’s tunic. He was bleeding from the socket that he lost his eye from years ago. I must be a truly pitiful sight. “Did you find the note?”
Yarbrough pulled the scrap of paper from his satchel and read it to Krum.
He knew he didn’t have much time left. “Take the note to Ginger. See that it gets to her personally. And tell her I’m sorry.”
“Ginger Merrywhiskers? From the south district?”
“The same. Tell her to not give it to the High Councilor under any circumstances.”
“That’s treason. This is a very crucial document, it could change much.”
“It is treason, and also my dying wish. Phillip would only use it to wipe his pampered ass. He loves battle, but never fights it. A throne warrior. Give it to Ginger. She’ll know what to do.” Yarbrough’s tunic turned even redder from another of Krum’s coughing fits.
“I’ll see it done. Is there anything else?”
Krum mustered all of his strength to draw his sword. Live by it, die by it. “Give this to her.”
“Sir! That’s the Sword of the Mayflower! It’s been in your family for ages!”
“I’ve no heirs to pass it on to, nor siblings. My bloodline dies with me. Give it to her.”
Yarbrough motioned to take the sword, but paused, as if the legendary sword would burn him for being unworthy.
“Take the bloody thing.”
He finally took it. Had Krum not interrupted him, he would have gazed in admiration at the thing for who knows how long.
“Go. Take the men back. Use the archers to carry the slain; there’ll be a lot of grieving families who’ll want a proper burial. Now go. And leave me here.
“But, sir—“
“I said leave me. That’s an order.”
“As you wish.” Yarbrough looked at Krum one last time before leading the soldiers out of the room.
As Krum watched the last one leave, he thought of Ginger. He thought of all the things he didn’t do right, and all the things he left unfinished. He accepted his fate. He expected no less than to die bleeding on the field of battle. But acceptance didn’t translate to pride, nor to any sense of happiness. I’m sorry, Ginger. Thank you for everything, he thought, and let the darkness welcome him in.
* * *
Yarbrough found the ramshackle hovel in the south end of Darkyew. He knocked on circle door. He waited only moments before it was answered.
Ginger saw the sword and note, and fell to her knees and wept.
* * *
Sheriff McKinley and Deputy Harris sat in the Fairview County sheriff’s office drinking coffee and eating donuts.
The sheriff was old and haggard, with three days of stubble growing out of his face. The deputy, by contrast, looked too young to be an officer of the law. His enormous glasses took up most of his face, and magnified his eyes to three times larger than their actual size. McKinley told him more than once that the David Cassidy hairdo went out of style decades ago, but Harris insisted that it suited him and gave him an element of charm.
McKinley solemnly took a bite of his donut, revealing lemon-yellow teeth that were as crooked as a politician. “Looks like they struck again, dep.”
Harris chuckled. “Excellent. We got the place sealed off?” He closed his monthly edition of Playboy he was perusing and poured a capful of tequila into his mug.
“Yessir we do. Nobody’ll be comin’ around. We can get that place cleaned up pretty quick, I wager.”
Harris took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. “Anything of value?”
“Quite a bit.” McKinley pulled a pair of fingernail clippers out of his pocket and began to clip his nails over his sticky paper plate. “There’s a grandfather clock worth at least five thousand, jewelry worth twice that, and a watch collection worth double that, I reckon. Not to mention all the usual stuff. DVD player, TV, laptops.”
“How did they do it this time?”
“Huh? Oh. Normal execution. Nothing fancy.
“Who kills them? What kills them? What lives in that house?” Harris’s saucer-eyes were teeming with curiosity. McKinley knew the answer to his question, but Harris wasn’t ready to know just yet.
“Not sure. Don’t wanna be sure.”
With a look of disappointment and hidden curiosity, Harris nodded enthusiastically.
“What about Dirk?” Harris asked.
“Don’t worry about him. Cornelius gets enough money. Enough to feed his gambling addiction, anyway. He spends his time at the Ou-La-La Casino while his parents die of cancer.”
“They died, I thought.”
“Ayuh, and they’ll be buried in cardboard boxes, unless he can find something cheaper.”
Harris forced a laugh. “What a piece of shit.” A look of concern crossed his face a moment later. “What if he tells the feds?”
“And risk going to the pen? Not likely. He’s too involved. Besides, I think he prefers the slots at Ou-La-La over cigarettes and butt-smuggled weed in an 8x10 cell. Barring that, I got friends in the higher-up. They get paid and keep their mouths shut.”
Harris took another sip of his mostly-tequila coffee and slammed down the mug. “Jus
t another day in the life, eh Sherriff?”
McKinley lit his pipe and took a long drag. He exhaled calmly and looked around the room, a look of deep thought on his face. “Ayuh. Another day in the life.”
* * *
Phillip the High Councilor stood on the gallows with a hemp noose around his neck. He never guessed that there would be more copies of the note. He also wasn’t aware that Ginger and Jedediah Cheesewick grew up together, and kept their long tradition of chatting every Sunday over milk and honey.
The trial was a long one, but the evidence was too overwhelming. If the note hadn’t been seized from his loo during a warranted search of his quarters, it may well have been Ginger and Yarbrough swinging from the gallows on counts of treason. It also didn’t hurt that the nine other councilors had been trying to get rid of Phillip for a long time. All of the countless mini-campaigns and crusades he ordered over seemingly trivial causes had been unsettling them for years.
Other royal mice, too scared to come forward before the trial, bore witness to Phillip stealing from the larder as well as the treasury. It was a can’t-miss case for the prosecution.
The voice of the newly appointed High Counselor Baylian boomed toward the crowd after the trumpets died down. “Phillip Blackgables, you have been tried and found guilty of high treason, sneak-thievery, grand larceny, unsanctioned concealment of sensitive documents, and conduct unbecoming a member of the Royal Council. You are hereby sentenced to hang from your neck until your feet stop kicking and your tail stops whipping. May God have mercy on your poor excuse for a soul.”
Phillips face twisted with unblemished hatred. He yelled as loud as he could. “You’re all hypocrites! The only thing I’m guilty of is protecting this township from evil doers and—”
The false bottom of the gallows fell under and Phillip fell through it, kicking wildly.
Ginger walked out of the courtyard to the royal gardens. She didn’t need to see him die. Krum was gone, and could never come back, but she knew in heart she did what he would have wanted her to. She kneeled and picked a violet sproutling and clutched it in her paw, gazing across the myriad of colors and inhaling the sweet scents of the garden. A breeze, so rare for that time of year, blew and made the flowers sway eastward. She wrapped her scarf tighter and headed home.