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There was a cell, and in the cell there was an elf.

He was a very unhappy elf. He lay on a rough straw mat, ankles bound with leather cord and arms strapped behind him with more of the same. If he struggled hard he could force himself unsteadily to his feet and hop around the cell. There was little to see and nowhere to go. The cell was eight by ten feet, windowless stone on there sides and iron bars on the other. All he'd been left to wear besides his bindings was a hide loincloth.

Past the iron bars and the cell door two guards stayed carefully out of reach. Their spears could reach him through the bars if they chose, but he couldn't reach them. There was just the cell, a hole in the floor to relieve himself, and the certainty he was doomed.

There was a click of claws from the hallway. He rolled on his side, the straw of the mat pricking his shoulder, and saw a badger.

It was a gray beast with darker face and paws and it was at least three times his size. Even so it was barely thigh high to the guards, a furry turtle of a beast with iron armor on its forelegs and a leather harness that barely showed through the fur. A city militia badge was clipped to the harness. Some cities have guard animals, trained dogs or greater monsters. Verbobonc, apparently, had a badger.

The guards stepped back as a third man in officer's livery opened the cell door with a rattle of keys. The elf got a closer look at the badger then. It was the last thing he would ever see.

As it padded closer, claws as long as a man's hand clattering on the stones, he drew back his legs to kick it in the face. It deflected the kick with a swipe of a forepaw. The elf was skillful and strong but the badger was too, and it wasn't tied up.

The second time he tried to kick it, it pinned his legs to the floor with a paw the size of a man's head and stepped forward. The other forepaw drove the breath from the elf's lungs as half the beast's weight came down on him. Five hundred pounds of badger was more than enough to overpower him and suddenly the elf's head was in the badger's mouth.

If he'd had a sword, if he'd not been tied up, things might have been different. The beast was strong and quick but it was short-legged and the elf was very good with a blade. Unarmed, tied up, it was no contest. He could only thrash helplessly as two great paws wrapped around him and forced him into the waiting maw.

For a moment, past the closing jaws, he saw the guards watching. The spearmen looked horrified, the officer had the look of a man performing a mildly unpleasant duty. The elf imagined the routine. "Put on uniform, inspect troops, fill out the daily paperwork, feed the prisoner to the badger. Then, tea."

The badger was several times his size and ferociously strong. Without weapons, and tied up to boot, he could only try to kick it as he was unceremoniously eaten. With a lurch his shoulders were gone into its maw and sharp fangs scraped him as cruelly as its claws. Scratches and bruises were the least of his worries. Much worse was the slither of gullet flesh as it expanded over his head and neck and the sudden clench of muscles as the badger swallowed. A great contraction of the throat gripped his head as though in a great soft fist and sucked him into the badger.

With one gulp and one strong push of its rough-padded forepaws it slid its muzzle over him all the way to his waist. It pinned his butt against the straw mat as it fed, not because he had any real chance of escape but simply because being kicked would interrupt the smooth progress of its meal. It was here to do a very simple job. Letting him fight back even a little would delay the moment when it could burp and settle down to digest its breakfast.

Trapping his ass to the floor helped it push over him until he was halfway swallowed, then it sat back on its haunches, muzzle bobbing, and bolted him down. One lurch of its jaws and there was nothing left of him but a kicking set of legs. A fleshy sphincter expanded over the struggling elf's face and soft folds of stomach flesh expanded to take him in. There wasn't much acid as of now but he knew what would happen when the beast finished swallowing him. With the stomach valve shut behind him the digestive juices would flow. He was two or three more gulps away from being a meal.

Swallowing prey whole is not normal badger behavior so this beast was certainly magically modified. No doubt the city used it as an efficient way to execute prisoners without worrying about them being brought back to life. It's quite easy to resurrect a hanged man if you get the body soon enough after death. It's a lot harder to bring him back after he's taken a trip through the bowels of a badger.

This explained the leather bindings and a loincloth that was just leather and a bit of fur. Why trouble their pet monster with indigestible items? The leather would dissolve as readily as he would.

There was enough leftover stomach acid in the badger's gut to sting his skin and the elf struggled with all his might. He knew that barring someone grabbing his feet or the badger voluntarily disgorging him there would be no escape, but his pride and self-preservation instinct kept him struggling like a fiend.

No one grabbed his feet. With a lurch of its jaws the badger's fangs dug into the elf's knees and all his kicking did was scratch his skin on the jagged teeth. Another snap of its jaws and they closed around his feet. The natural tendency of its throat to want to shrink back to its usual diameter squeezed him deeper even between gulps but for a moment his legs lodged in the badger's gullet.

In a moment of inspiration the elf locked his knees, reasoning that it couldn't swallow him unless it folded him up in its stomach. Sooner or later it would need to breathe and it would either spit him up or choke to death, after which he could wriggle his way out of the beast.

The badger realized almost immediately what he was doing and arched its neck, trying to bend his legs so it could finish swallowing him. It had eaten him with his knees toward the ground and they bent the wrong way for that. Strong as it was it couldn't hyperextend his knees, though it sure hurt him when it tried. It tried craning its nose up to force his legs to bend the right way but this awkward maneuver gave him the chance to lock his knees once more each time it straightened its neck and tried to swallow. He had it stalemated.

Frustrated but stubbornly determined to have its meal, the badger settled down to conserve its strength. It sucked in a labored, wheezing breath and he realized it could breathe with its throat full of legs. It wasn't easy and the badger was very uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as he was.

Eventually it would gag despite its best efforts to suck in air, the elf told himself. Eventually it would retch him back up. It couldn't get at him to make him relax. If he could just hold out long enough....

They each stubbornly refused to give in, the elf ignoring the stinging drops of acid dripping down his back to join the pool slowly forming at the bottom of the stomach and the badger wheezing in breaths and refusing to cough him up. After a minute or two the elf realized he had a problem. Only the tiniest bit of air arrived in the stomach with each breath while the badger was able to suck in almost a whole lungful. He was going to weaken first and as soon as he did, it would gulp him down.

The elf, a veteran of many a tavern brawl and monster battle, cast about for a means of escape. There didn't seem to be one. Very soon how the fetid, acid-scented air of the thing's gut would run out and then he'd be badger food. All it had to do was outlast him.

Then the badger hit on an idea. His feet were still partially in its mouth and a warm muscular badger tongue pushed his toes between its back teeth. There was a scrape of broad, sharp teeth equally good for crushing bone or slicing meat into chunks small enough to swallow. It bit down, a testing bite to see how he'd taste perhaps, and as the teeth crunched down on his toes the elf panicked.

It was not smart, not his finest moment, though it would likely be his last. Reflexively he tried to get his toes away from the fangs that would grind them into jelly and in that moment, overcome by instinct, he bent his knees.

The elf knew instantly that he'd made a mistake but it was too late. His toes slipped safely away from the crushing fangs and right down the badger's throat. Before he could straighten his legs again the badger stretched out its neck to let them slide still further in, tensed, and swallowed.

A great contraction rolled through the strong muscles surrounding its gullet, muscles no doubt developed by swallowing men whole, and as his legs slid into the stomach to join him the elf found himself doing a front somersault. There was nothing to grab even if his hands were free, just slippery mucus-covered belly flesh, and its swallowing muscles were stronger than his panicked effort to once more straighten out his legs. With a great wet gulp it swallowed him and the elf curled up inside the beast, rolled into a ball and pressed tightly against himself.

He was also pressed tightly against the slick stomach walls and as the valve between throat and stomach sphinctered shut he found himself in a pocket of flesh, surrounded on all sides by inward-pressing gut.

"My kingdom for a knife," the elf thought. "Who does this miserable beast think it is? I've fought giants! Battled dragons! I've led troops in the field! I'm not going to meet my end in the gut of some mundane guard animal, breakfast for a badger!"

Though several times his size, the badger now sported a great swelling in its middle. Flesh creaked and bones groaned as the beast's body grew accustomed to a lump of food a third as heavy as it was stretching its gut tight. With an offhanded competence surely bred of experience it wrapped its forepaws over the lumpy bulge and squeezed. It had rolled over after swallowing him and it seemed to know exactly where to push. Over the creak of its muscles and the thump of its heart, less than a foot away through layers of flesh, the elf heard the badger belch.

Most of the air left with a rustle as the beast burped and with its stomach valve safely shut there was a gurgle. The little droplets of acid that irritated him were replaced by thick, oily drops that trickled heavily over him. Its stomach was reacting to the arrival of a meal and the pool of acid he lay in grew deeper by the moment. It was getting genuinely painful now. Soon his skin would soften, then his flesh. The bones would be the last to go, lingering in its stomach and turning its droppings white as they dissolved and were passed.

"Well," thought the elf. "Maybe this is it after all." He tugged at the rawhide bonds that held his arms behind him. There was a slimy feel to the leather as it too began to dissolve, but it was still too strong to break.

Even if he broke them, where was there to go? With no weapons he couldn't cut his way out. If he got loose and struggled, it would just squeeze its belly with its paws until he ran out of air.

The elf gasped in the last sips of air inhabiting the stinking darkness. There was no escape. He'd been doomed from the moment the badger opened its mouth.

He hadn't killed that many guardsmen when he tried to rob the city treasury. He had confidently expected just to be hit with a large fine and exile. That had happened before in other cities. Verbobonc wasn't like that. Here he got a trip through a badger.

With a last desperate effort the elf yanked at the bindings and they finally snapped, softened by the beast's stomach juices. All he succeeded in doing was use up the last of the air. Even with his arms free there was nowhere to go and the second it felt him move it wrapped its forepaws over its bulging gut. Just as he'd suspected, the badger knew what to do when its breakfast misbehaved.

The elf fought to the very end, by which time the the movements beneath the badger's belly fur were barely noticeable. Satisfied that its meal was finally subdued, the beast stretched out on its side, draped one paw over the lumpy bulge in the shape of an elf, and settled down to sleep. It didn't need to be awake for this. Its stomach knew what to do.

The elf's story was over, but the badger's went on. Alone in the cell, locked in as securely as its meal had been, it dozed as its stomach worked on its meal. Digesting a meal a third your weight is a lot of work and it stretched out on the straw mat that had previously been used by its breakfast. To a feral beast like the badger it made a perfectly adequate bed. It woke occasionally to drink from a pottery dish of water the guards filled and twice it squatted over the smelly hole in the floor.

The carnivorous beast had a short and simple digestive tract and it didn't take long for the fleshy parts of the elf to break down. It would need an entire day to fully digest the larger bones but the flesh and organs made their way through its bowels rapidly. By the time it was out out the cell at sundown half of what used to be an elf would have made its way into the city sewers. That was considered enough to make it not worth anyone's while to try to recover the rest from the badger's guts.

But there was an interruption to its nap around noon. The bored guards dropped their cards and stood at attention as the officer showed himself once more.

The badger woke with a start as it recognized the footsteps and when the door opened to admit the captain it had sat up facing the bars. The officer nodded to the guards and they opened the cell door. Though they had been guarding the cell all morning the guards gathered up their cards and coins rather than watch the badger. They weren't here to keep it locked up. They were here in case someone tried to rescue the badger's breakfast.

"Sir," the badger growled, and sketched out a salute with a long-clawed forepaw. "Is there a problem?"

The elf never knew the badger could talk. There was no reason for them to converse. The only interaction with the elf the badger was interested in ended with a burp.

"Bart," the captain said without preamble. "If you coughed the elf up now, what would he look like?"

The badger considered. It was around noon, as he'd heard the clocktower chime the hours as he dozed. "It would not be pretty, Captain. The bones will be mostly whole but the rest?" He shrugged a badgery shrug. "Soup."

Captain Ransom nodded. "I expected as much. Come with me, Corporal." He gestured the guards to accompany them.

In the entry hall of guard HQ he was surprised to find two of his fellow gate guards had brought part of his gear. When on duty at the gate he wore a custom-fitted suit of chain armor, a steel helmet shaped for his long narrow head and a surcoat with the city's insignia. The captain waved away the armor, leaving the guards disgruntled that they carried it all the way here, and had them clip the surcoat onto the badger's harness. He retained the steel bracers on his thick forelegs as those were his own property rather than the city's.

Moments later Bartleby the badger blinked as sunlight stung his eyes. He'd been inside since before sunrise and the guard HQ's magical lanterns weren't nearly as bright as sunlight.

They emerged onto the wooden sidewalk and turned left. After only a few steps the badger guessed they were on their way to the castle.

Bartleby was still quite full and would rather be napping, as his guts sloshed with half digested elf. Despite his best efforts, his belly fur brushed the sidewalk. Stupid short legs, indeed.

It was clear that something unusual was happening. After eating someone he was required to stay in the guard HQ, and usually in a cell, until the end of his shift. This ensured that even if he were ambushed and killed on the way home, his breakfast would be too digested to easily Raise. He got the next day off guard work (with pay) and was required to stay in the inn where he lived and had a second job as a bouncer. By the time he was out in public again, part of the prisoner he was assigned to eat would just be badger fat and the rest would have made its way into the city sewers.

It wasn't impossible to Raise someone even then but it took vastly more powerful magic. Anyone with enough money or powerful enough friends to get those spells cast probably wouldn't end up in the jail, or in Bartleby's gut.

These days Bartleby mostly disposed of the occasional prisoner. Getting paid to lie around digesting your breakfast is a good job if you can get it.

Rarely, he ate someone while working as a bouncer, too. You had to get him pretty angry, but he could and had swallowed people who caused too much trouble at the inn. Not to mention his unusual way of rescuing someone from a burning building, in his occasional role as a fireman. But by and large, when he ate someone it was because he was ordered to.

"Sir," Bartleby growled as they left the part of the city with dirt streets and wooden sidewalks for the city center with its flagstoned streets. Ahead was Castle Greyfist and the portcullis was up. "May I ask what is going on?"

"Shortly, Corporal," the captain said, and that was that.

"Captain Ransom, Corporal Bartleby," he said to the gate guards at the portcullis. He nodded to the guards that came with them and those two sat down on a bench to wait. The portcullis guard checked a list and waved them through.

"Weapons," the guard in the next room said. Captain Ransom turned over his sword and dagger. Bart stood there awkwardly, armed to the teeth with claws and fangs. The weapons check guards looked him over and thankfully didn't suggest a muzzle. Instead two guards with halberds and breastplates accompanied them. They did, however, make him leave his bracers. All those did was make his physical attacks more effective, but all the guards knew was they were magical.

"Be polite," the captain whispered, knowing Bart would hear. "None of this is anyone's fault but they may need to yell at someone."

An aide met them at a massive, elaborately decorated door. "Address him as Your Lordship, guardsmen."

"Yes," Captain Ransom said.

"I understand," Bartleby growled, which caused the aide to look at him in consternation. He must have thought Bart a trained guard animal. Which in a sense he was.

Then the heavy door opened and they were shown in. In the meeting room was one slightly raised dais with a formal, not-quite-a-throne chair. A man in a Verbobonc tabard picked out with gold thread and a red velvet cap set with a string of pearls, not quite a crown, sat in it. He was flanked by a senior guard officer whose name Bart didn't know, a man who must be a mage, and off to one side an elf in the colors of Keoland, a powerful neighboring country.

"Captain Ransom and Corporal Bartleby of the guard, your lordship," the aid said. "The right honorable Viscount Langard," he said to the the two guardsmen.

"Your lordship," Captain Ransom said with a bow. Bartleby ducked his head in imitation.

The viscount was staring at Bart. "I was told, and didn't believe it. Why is there a badger in the city guard? Why does it have a rank?" For there was the corporal's badge on his harness, plain for all to see.

"Your Lordship," Bart growled, surprising everyone who wasn't a guard officer. "I served as a caravan guard for several years and wished to settle down. I was hired by the guard here because I am adept at sniffing out contraband in caravans and wagons. Also in subduing the smugglers without killing them."

"It talks," muttered an aide in the background.

The viscount was staring at Bart. "How is it that you talk?"

"I was once a mere badger," Bartleby growled. "Just a large one. Some call such creatures 'dire animals' so I am a dire badger. I was raised from a cub as a riding animal, for an exotic ride-a-mount business. I was later purchased by a noble who had me Awakened."

"Awakening," the mage next to the viscount said to him, "Is a magical process whereby a common beast is given intelligence and the ability to speak."

"Yes, milord," Bartleby growled. "I served the noble as a bodyguard for some time, but when she became engaged her new husband did not want a giant badger in the house. A caravan owner knew me from seeing me travel with her so I became a guard for his caravan. A few years ago I came here in his caravan and was hired by the Guard. "

This was all perfectly accurate, just incomplete. The part he left out was that the husband didn't want to share his wife with said badger, or his house with one of her former lovers. She had bought from from the ride-a-mount vendor because besides riding him she liked to be ridden, so to speak. The details of their relationship were nobody's business but hers and Bartleby's.

The guard officer with colonel's insignia nodded. "Your lordship, he speaks the truth. He is a guardsman in good standing. I have his file if you wish to go over it."

The viscount, a half-elf by the look of him, ignored the colonel and leaned forward to study Bart.

"This is not relevant," snapped the elf in Keoland colors. "We are not here to discuss badgers. We are here to discuss the status of Count Laufey's son. Why is he not here before us? I am here to arrange his release."

Bart experienced a sinking sensation as he guessed why he was here. Without moving his upper body Captain Ransom pressed the edge of his boot against Bart's forepaw to show his support. Then the captain spoke.

"Your lordship, the man in question led a gang in an attempt to rob the city treasury. Several guardsmen were killed. The magistrate condemned the accused to death and he was transfered to us for execution."

Before he could go on the Keoland elf spoke up. "Has he been executed then? Where is the body? I will take it and have it Raised."

The colonel shot Ransom a look and nodded. After a pause the captain went on.

"When dealing with powerful, or rich troublemakers, the policy to to destroy the body so they cannot readily be Raised. This is one of Corporal Bartleby's functions."

Every eye in the room turned to the badger, who despite his long flank fur was visibly heavy in the middle. Captain Ransom opened his mouth to explain but the Keoland elf spoke first.

"Are you telling me," he said as he pointed at the bulge in Bart's middle, "That this monstrosity ate the count's son?"

"Your Lordship," Bartleby growled, "Before I was Awakened and freed, my owner had me magically modified so I could swallow large prey whole. This was to neatly dispose of bandits and other troublemakers. Verbobonc, like most cities, requires visitors to divulge this ability so that 'gulpers', as we are sometimes called, can be questioned when someone disappears. I so informed the Guard when I was hired and eventually I was asked if I would serve as an occasional executioner."

The badger looked down between his legs at his drooping belly, then back at the viscount. "I am ordered to eat them, and I do. I have been punched in the nose by a relative of someone I ate. That is the only one whose name I learned. I serve the city. I am a guardsman, I work for the city fire company, and occasionally I eat someone when so ordered."

The viscount stared at the bulge in Bart's middle with horrified fascination. "You ate him whole?"

"Yes, milord. I have been told -"

"Milord," Captain Ransom interrupted. "It is easy for one with even a moderate amount of money to have an intact body Raised from the dead. There are ways to make this harder. Burning the body produces disagreeable smoke if done within the city walls, magically destroying it requires paying a mage as no sufficiently powerful one is available to the guard. Taking the body out of the city to burn or otherwise destroy it presents an opportunity for someone to make off with it."

The captain gestured at five hundred-plus-elf-pounds of badger standing to his left. "Corporal Bartleby is, no offense to the gentleman from Keoland," he nodded to that elf, "An efficient and inexpensive way to keep troublemakers from coming back."

Bart's guts chose that moment to let out a loud gurgle. He did his best not to look embarrassed.

The viscount asked the same question the captain had earlier. "If you coughed him up now, could he be Raised?"

"No, milord," the badger growled. "Execution takes place at six bells. I ate him shortly after sunrise. While he is not yet fully digested, there is far too much damage for simple magics to bring him back. I am told there is more powerful magic that would work."

The elf from Keoland was disgusted. "Your lordship, this is intolerable. For an Elven noble to meet his end in the belly of a mere beast. Turn this monster over to us, that we may kill it and recover what is left of our brother."

Captain Ransom and the colonel went rigid. The viscount held up his hand before anyone could say anything regrettable.

Unbeknownst to Bartleby, the viscount was new to his position and there was some doubt as both his political acumen and courage. There would be discussion behind closed doors later as to whether this whole incident had been staged to test him. Bart would know none of that, of course. He was just a badger.

The viscount turned to the Keoish noble. "Baron Unter, the elven noble in question led an attack on our city treasury. Guardsmen died. Had we known his identity, some accommodation might have been made. But we did not, and he was correctly put to death, just as would any such miscreant. That he was digested rather than hanged and burned is of no moment. Dead is dead."

The elven noble went pale, but there was nothing to be said. Losing his temper could create a diplomatic incident and he was too seasoned a politician to let that happen.

The viscount returned his attention to the badger. "Corporal Bartleby, captain Ransom, you may return to your duties. But first," he waved over the court mage and spoke quietly to him for a moment.

From what happened next, even Bartleby guessed that the viscount did not much like the attitude of their visitor from Keoland. And his lordship found a way to send a message about it.

"My magical advisor tells me that it is still possible to bring someone back even from digestion, with enough magic and some sample of the person in question. I am sure the good Baron would be happy to transport such a sample back to his lord."

"I would hope, Corporal," the viscount said with a smile, "That you might be able to provide him with such a sample."

Bartleby considered the groaning contents of his guts. Digesting a meal a third your weight in just a day or two necessarily means certain processes are speeded along. What checks in must check out and the result was frequent visits to the lavatory or chamber pot, whichever was closest. The walk to the castle and the nap before it had provided more than enough time for a "sample" to be readied, wherever he chose to deposit it.

"Why yes, your lordship," the badger said with a matching smile. His just had more sharp points. "I can. I just need a sufficiently large pot."