Ruddler Post

The pale morning sun
resided over a quiet scene. The stone fort’s grounds had been
cleared of the heaps of corpses days before, and all seemed almost
normal, now, except for the diminished activity within the walls.
Beasts went about with sad faces around it, but in the hills and
trees, birds sang cheerfully, and most of nature seemed unaware of
the carnage that had so recently been hidden from sight. There were
many new graves around the fort, bleak, gray headstones marking them
plainly, but about them there seemed to be an atmosphere of peace and
rustic tranquility.

This was the first view
Autumn Windshaft had of Fort Ruddler. The tip of her long, bushy tail
twitched with anticipation. This was where rumors said that her son
had come. The gray squirrel was a middle-aged female, kept young by
her vigorous life of roving the Northlands in search of her son. At
her back was a full quiver, and in her paw was her bow. Her quiver
and its webbing were worn over a short, taupe cloak, with a hood
which was up over her head.

Autumn shrugged
casually, trying to remain calm, but eagerly looked the fort over. A
bunch of nettle bushes stood in her path. The squirrel dashed down
the hill playfully and jumped over them. It was when she landed,
catlike on all fours, that Autumn first heard a faint groaning coming
from the bushes. Instantly suspicious, she glanced over her shoulder
and whipped out a bodkin arrow, its goose feather flights died black.
Pulling the arrow partway back on the string, she advanced back up
toward the bushes. “Who’s ‘ere?” she said
cautiously.

A bush rose slowly with
a grunt. Autumn yelled and jumped back, slipping and rolling down the
hill a few feet, but did not release the arrow. The squirrel looked
back up. It was a hedgehog. She crept back up the hill, the hedgehog
glaring at her savagely. When Autumn looked him over she realised he
was splattered with blood. But it was apparently not his blood, for
he looked quite healthy and had no visible wounds. Worriedly, she
looked at the ground beside him and saw a weasel. The squirrel yelled
again; the weasel was gashed horribly all over and had also been
gutted.

Looking from the
bloodied, stone-bladed knife in the hog’s paw to the dead
weasel, Autumn made a hasty conclusion and backed off slowly. The
hedgehog dropped the knife and made a step towards her. Only then did
she see the arrow in his side. It was an old wound, for the blood was
black and dried, but it was a wonder he had survived this long.