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Hey everyone - Let me know what you think!

Is Captain Summer coming off as a grumpy badass, or is he too cliche? I'd love to hear what you all think about the character development and thematic elements of the story.

Trying to figure out if I need to put in more character exposition or something. Idunno.

Comments and critique welcome.

Chapter XIV - Pressure

Thistle had ridden through the rain at a break-neck pace, his four archers strung along behind him in a line down the muddy wagon rut the captain had called a road so sarcastically. He understood now, so many things - What it was like to order other furs killed and watch it happen, what it was like to engage in something more serious than fights with drunken brawlers, and what it was like to taste the bitter metallic acid bile of terror.

All that was holding him together was his assigned mission, and the knowledge that the four behind him were relying on the corporal for guidance. They'd barely managed to keep their position when the undead had shown themselves, and only Thistle grabbing a hare by the ear and shouting into it to start firing had gotten them to nock arrows and let fly.

When he finally spotted the road house lights in the distance, Thistle's hammering heart felt as if it would explode from relief. He didn't slow a second, his lathered horse huffing up blood and foam as he pushed the poor exhausted beast and felt its straining muscles fight to give him what he demanded of the faithful beast.

The curtain of rain blew across his vision again, briefly obscuring the inn, and all he could see for a moment were swirling shapes of darkness and water that his eyes resolved into horrible, yawning, fang-toothed faces before they were blasted away into the forest by the wind. Flinching, Thistle scrubbed at his eyes with his left paw, while using the other to pull the horse's chin down as he slowed it to approach the inn's steps.

Heavy, wet wind gurgled by, a sinister laughing sound that chilled his spine. Then, he saw a flash of lightning off metal, peeking through an open shutter on the inn's front wall. He tilted his head, curiosity beetling his damp brow. A sudden downward lurch left him feeling as if he'd nearly swallowed his tongue, yanking his attention away from the curious object half-spotted in the darkness, when his horse stepped into a muddy whorl that turned out to be a small sink hole in the trail, whinnying loudly as it yanked its hoof free.

Thistle patted the poor thing's neck, leaning low, then froze, as lightning flared again overhead, lighting up the sky and flaring off a shape that moved quick as a snipe across his vision, and he saw that the metal object in the window was a crossbow, and behind it a fur dressed in the Casso livery. Thistle felt a heat on his cheek, and raised his paw, drawing it away to see drops of hot blood on the pads. Behind him, he heard a gurgle, the bolt having skimmed his face and struck the cat behind him in the chest, knocking him from the saddle and into the fetid muck.

He froze, his blood and bones feeling as if they were full of ice, rigid and unmoving. From the second floor of the dilapidated inn, shutters slammed open, and a dozen more of the deadly implements were presented, shocking him from his state of paralysis.

"Ride!" he roared, and jammed his spurred boots into the horse's sides, blood seeping through the wounds they made, causing the hirse to scream in pain and jolt forward on its wrenched hoof as Thistle ducked low and grabbed onto it's neck for dear life as the terrified thing charged straight ahead, blind to the threat.

From the door, as his galloping horse came parallel to the rotting wooden porch, a booming voice roared orders to the armed and armored furs hidden in the old building.

"Shoot them all down! Traitors to the crown!"

The clacks of firing crossbows came together like the sound of shattering glass, and behind him Thistle heard a shriek of pain and dozens of meaty thunks that lurched his stomach, paired to the buzzing sound of a thousand hungry steel-headed wasps. The sick sound of bolts hitting flesh ringing in his ears, he prayed and rode, laying so flat he was sliding off the side of the horse, eyes wide as the world rushed by him in a sped-up terrified nightmare.

Rain splattered into his eyes, bouncing off the galloping, straining mount's mane, and Thistle pressed his face to his arm, silent screams rebounding in his head as he awaited the burning pain and bone-rending impact of bolts piercing his body. He knew damn well the heavy crossbows Casso's soldiers used would lance through his mail like a ballista hitting a cow.

The panicked horse pushed on, its passing flinging a veritable wall of muck and slime in their wake. Slowly, breathing so hard his lungs felt like they were torn inside, Thistle pulled himself back up into the saddle, his world wobbling from the rush, turning to stare back in disbelief towards the ambush. Through the once-more driving rain, he could see little, only that his guardsfurs were no longer with him. His heart wrenched in his chest, feeling crushed to bits, as he turned away, gripped his rains, and snarled so he would not sob.

Ahead of him, perhaps a half-league distant, he saw the great city gates spread wide open before him, the two great stone towers on either side rising like black, timeless sentinels into the rain-fogged night sky. Bridging the two great towers was a gatehouse, built of strongest granite blocks and masonry, flying Casso's dripping colors, the gargantuan steel twin portcullises pulled up and heavy double double-door steel banded and brass-studded oaken gate doors thrown so wide he knew they were there only by the eight great hinges that held them against even the strongest of battering.

Behind him, the rolling blast of a trumpet called out a cadence, and Thistle cursed, leaning forward to once again grab the horse's neck as he spurred it, hurling it's slowing gait once again into an exhausted, blood-frothed charge as Casso's soldiers streamed from the barracks on either side of the inner gate, shouting and hurrying to attempt forming a spear wall.

In an instant, he was under the Twins Road gatehouse, murderholes flying past him alongside and above faster than their defenders could un-dog the hatches and dump rocks, and with the wet wind gusting in his face he burst forth from the gate tunnel, into the disorganized mass of soldiers. His wide eyes noted, enraged, that the guards furs who's duty it was to keep the gate were absent; these were Casso's regulars, and they were armed and armored even in the midst of the rainy night.

Thistle didn't recall having drawn the heavy flail that had hung by his side since their group had left Amarthane, but his leather-gloved paw brought it away from his side and upward as he straightened from his neck-hugging crouch, wheeling its heavy iron head into and through the helmeted skull of a bull that lunged for his reins, sending its pulped brains through the air as the horse's powerful chest muscles impacted something with brutal force and sent the fur wheeling aside as others leapt out of the way.

The horse screamed, and he felt the vibration as something hit it in the side. Thistle turned in the saddle and slammed his boot down into the crown of a helmeted fur who'd grabbed his saddle, denting the helm and knocking the wolf back as he kicked the horse again, jamming his spurs into its already-blooded sides.

Ahead of him, the cobbled thoroughfare opened into the main market square, which was festooned with swarms of commoners even at this hour of the night, along with the backs of a triple-line of Casso's troops. Thistle's gut wriggled, as he saw the crowds watching, jockeying, trying to climb up to see what the commotion was, as others were chucking rotten fruit and chanting angry doggerel hymns at the soldiers. He released the reins, grabbing at the heavy sack that had been squirming and muffledly grunting since he'd parted ways with Captain Summer.

Furs were yelling, pointing, from their positions on the balconies surrounding the square. The horse carried him forward, inexorable like a lightning-strike, and the beast slammed bodily into the lines of soldiers containing the hurly-burly of commoners that hovered upon the edge of riot.

The disorganized and lightly-packed furs at the gate had barely slowed him, but this was a wall of armor and determination, though it was faced the wrong direction. Impact slammed up the horse's muscular body as it trampled and slipped on the shocked, armored enemies, and then Thistle was out of the saddle, tumbling through the air with his flail whipping up next to him.

Wide-eyed peasants seemed to hold their breath, as the world slowed from the break-neck gallop he'd been traveling at to a molasses-in-winter flow. The cobbles were growing closer, he could see smashed wooden flagons and heaps of rotten fruit, splattered about like guts and blood and vomit mixed into a bouillon of rain and mud. His face impacted stones and he felt his body rolling forward in a moment of strange detachment, his world filled with spinning and tumbling.

Pain shot through his body, his face bruised and broken, his left shoulder wrenched from the hit as well. Thistle tried to push himself up, as the roaring in his ears met with the roaring of the mob, and suddenly he was surrounded in a forest of legs, as he tried to hold up the thrashing, moaning sack. His muzzle managed to open only partway before mind-wrenching pain occupied his entire consciousness, the broken bone wobbling loose as his smashed muzzle bled like a sieve.

Paws grabbed him, and he vomited in agony and disorientation as everything swirled once again, blackness edging his sight. Behind, he heard the tearing of cloth, and managed a drool and blood-dribbling broken-jawed smile as the creature inside moaned out, legless, armless, it's teeth smashed to bits by a lucky mace blow hours before.

Someone wrapped powerful, muscular arms around him then, and he was squashed up against a bare, plushly-furred chest, as the common folk started shrieking and yelling, stampeding about.

He had succeeded in his mission, he knew, as the darkness came on. He only hoped the timing had been what Captain Summer was hoping for.

Summer grunted, too stubborn to show pain, as his knees yelled out in protest, as he was pushed down onto them without so much as a cushion on the hard, uneven stones of the prison tower floor. His paws were still bound, though now behind his back, and Royval's bodyguards had stripped him of his armor, tunic, and sword, leaving him in just breeches, belt, and mud-splattered boots.

He suspected they'd not bothered to strip the rest of him only because of what they'd seen when the tunic had come off.

The middle-aged tiger's fur was of the golden color they had expected to see, but lined through with grey, and stood stiff over the hard muscle his long career of wearing armor and walking the streets in all manner of weather and riot had given. Crisscrossing his body were dozens of scars, most of them de-furred and white from their age, others new and pink or growing white fur over them, from dozens of scraps, battles, assassination attempts, duels, and training accidents.

The pampered knights of Royval Casso's personal guard had been taken aback by the level of experience and sheer mean toughness those marks showed in the guard captain, and while none would admit fear of another, he could see the dawning wariness in their eyes as they pushed him to his knees in front of the tower's warden-commander. He didn't resist, knowing he'd need those legs functional in no more than a day or so.

Summer blinked at the blurriness in his vision, then ignored it when it wouldn't go away at the edges, trailing his eyes over the tall, athletic tiger that sat in a regally-carved and padded chair in the tower's warden office, desk piled high with brazenly-displayed stacks of gold and silver coinage and very little paperwork. It made him curl his lip in a sneering snort.

"Just like my office. Only with more furniture, more gold, and less paperwork. Glad to see you're working hard, young Jano."

The captain's acerbic words ruffled the younger tiger, his fur rippling up in annoyance as he stood from behind the desk and settled two balled paws on its top, tail lightly whipping behind him.

"First my road wardens start speaking sedition...Now you? I thought better of you, you old chewed-boot bastard."

Captain Summer couldn't help it, as his lips curled at one edge into a mocking half-smile.

"Better a chewed-boot bastard than a bribed law-fur. I saw the walking dead with my own eyes, Jano. Look in my face and call me a liar, if you think I lie."

Jano glared at the captain over top of his desk, as the older fur knelt stolid and stoic on the stone floor, ignoring what was no doubt a painful position and, even shirtless and unarmed, managed to maintain the dignity that had carried him through three decades of service.

The tiger's glare couldn't hold, and he sighed, slapping a paw over his face in resigned frustration as he gestured for Casso's guards to leave with a wave of his paw. He didn't stop rubbing his face until the door had thudded shut.

"Old chewed boot indeed. By the gods, man, do you have any idea the hornet's nest you've pissed on?" His voice had softened, anger gone to an admonishment that had no hope of success with the stubborn old cat and knew it.

Jano strode around the desk and knelt down behind Summer, drawing a knife to cut the bonds on his paws, pausing as the blade touched rope to regard the back of his one-time commander's head.

"I served with you ten years, Summer. You're not going to take this knife from me and try to do something foolish are you?"

The old tiger grunted, and shrugged his scarred old shoulders, the stripes rippling over banded muscles as he tilted his head and pretended to consider the merits of such a decision.

"Well, if I escape, it'll vex your new 'king' such as he is." His voice dripped sarcasm on the title, as if trying to dye it better than those flags had been. "And atop that, it would be fine to put you on your ass for letting them strip me down like some whore-son criminal." As the young tiger behind him glowered in annoyance, Summer smirked. "On the other paw, now you've got the proof there's deadly danger out there, and I could do with a few days' vacation, served food and nothing to do but lay about in a nice tower?"

Jano shook his head as he slipped the jeweled dagger between Summer's paws, slicing the rough rope away so the Captain could bring his paws around front and roll stiffened, aching shoulders, wincing.

"It's not that simple, captain. You missed a rioting mob by less than an hour. Some idiot smashed his horse into the back of a blocking line and catapulted into some protesting louts. They rioted damn near instantly. Guards drove them off, and never caught the leopard responsible. You'd not know anything about that, would you?"

Summer's nonchalant shrug said nothing, but Jano could guess, and it only intensified his headache as he sat down behind the desk. The captain stood, and stretched his back by bending forward, grabbing his knees with both paws. Jano continued, unstymied.

"You've brought us evidence that the dead are rising, but only the one. There are whole cemeteries in this town, with hundreds of years of dead in them, and not a peep from a single tomb. I know, I've had them checked. Without his majesty's knowledge."

Summer straightened with a wince, his spine crackling, and he grabbed the room's spare chair, sitting in the hard wooden thing. Designed to be uncomfortable, the chair was stiff and badly made, so that anyone in it would be uneasy and not at their best. He smiled sourly at the tactic.

"Ten thousand, Jano."

"What? Ten thousand what?"

"That's how many of them I judge we saw on the road."

The warden-commander stared at him over the top of steepled fingers, his eyes fiery and intense.

"Ten...Ten thousand. Do not feed me horse shit and call it pie, Captain. Ten thousand."

"Aye." The captain nodded, meeting eyes with the veteran, who knew better than to think his old commander a liar or a fool. Not just because of the teeth he'd lose to the relentless arse-whipping he'd get for such a foolish act.

Jano slumped behind his desk, bringing the steepled paws up to rub at his face, sitting there for long minutes as the captain sat across from him, entirely unconcerned with his shirtless state or lack of weaponry, or evidently with the fact that King Casso would likely have him executed after but a formality of a hearing.

"His Majesty believes anyone who supports these stories to be a seditioner."

"Then he's a fool."

"Look at it from his perspective, old boot. It's a pretty far-fetched tale of trouble."

"Nothing's far-fetched if it's true. If he won't act to protect the city, he's no worthy king."

The glare Jano gave over top of his paws was withering, scalding as boiling water and twice as angry. A growl tore out of his throat, and he slammed a balled paw down on his desk hard enough that gold and silver coins lost their piles and slid, bouncing off the floor in a cacophony of clinks and clanks.

"Gods damnit old man! That's treason and you know it! Besides, we just lost ten thousand soldiers in a gods-damned war over who gets to wear a shiny fucking hat, and you want to rip the wounds open and piss in them?"

Summer didn't turn aside, nor flinch at the noise and show of anger. He stared, cold and hard, into the blazing eyes of his young one-time friend.

"What happened to the forest wardens who should have warned us of this?"

Jano's burning eyes didn't lessen in intensity, though they did turn towards the old slit archery window in his wall.

"Casso had them hung for sedition and treason. I haven't had a good report from the forest wardens since then. Don't know they've realized what happened, but I can't imagine it'll be good when they find out."

Captain Summer got up off the chair, and was quickly around the desk, putting his paw to the younger tiger's shoulder and stooping to meet his eyes. To Janos' surprise, there was no fury there, only a roiling sadness, like the deep sea over wrecked ships.

"I'll go peacefully to the tower cell, you know I will. When the dead reach the city, they'll slaughter everything inside if the gates aren't shut. Please, Jano. All I ask is that you be ready to act when the dead come. You and your wardens could rule the rooftops of the city in a short minute, and we'll need that to get the gates shut and keep Casso's men from bollixing things up."

So close to Jano, Summer could see the fatigue in the bruise-like marks under his eyes, and in the thinning of his fur. Jano knew Casso was a bad king, and was in not much less danger than Summer himself. They were eyes that had seen horrible things, not so unlike those of his own guards after what they'd witnessed in the woods. He continued, seeing the uncertainty in those haunted eyes.

"I admire your loyalty, if not to whom it's been given. As soon as he can see the threat for himself, Casso will have no choice but to see the truth. Hell, even if we fail, we can't be punished. The dead will have us before Casso has the chance."

Jano sighed and picked up a brass bell off his desk, clattering it to summon his wardens to escort the prisoner.

"Go to your cell, old boot. I'll think about it. You take some time to think about your options as well."

Van slammed the hatch open with his shoulder, grunting as the fifth such hit finally made the thing fly open, dumping him on his side onto a filthy, spongy, yielding floor that reeked of rotting fish and dead animals. He groped in the slime, chunks of gristle sliding over his paws until he could find a spot mostly dry of the oily offal and push himself to his feet.

Tomasj emerged second, lupine eyes gleaming in the near-blackness as light filtered down through mud and straw-packed wooden planks overhead. He barely restrained a laugh, at the realization that they were standing in a garbage pit.

"Good choice of exits, Van! We'll smell just like the peasants you've all decided to save."

His voice came out as a whisper, not foolish enough to shout when they had no idea whose floor they were under. Tomasj's smirk was nearly audible when he heard Timid squeak softly as his footpaws squelched into the awfulness that the warden and witch hunter were already slogging through to find an exit.

"Oh gods...What in all the hells IS this?"

Cel's voice grated on the wolf every time he heard it, though he couldn't say why. Perhaps her constant calm and collected demeanor. It gave him the urge to investigate her for witchery. No woman, in his mind, should be so mannish.

"Father Tim, we'll wade through worse before this is done. Help me step down?"

Some shuffling and further squelching sounded behind them, as Tomasj and Van spread out to find walls and feel along them for the door that would let them out of the fetid, stinking mess. Finally, Tomasj's paw found a door hinge, and moments later after some feeling about, a latch he could un-dog by scraping his knife through the layer of filth and rust that had caked it shut. The door stuck when he tried to push it, and Tomasj grunted in annoyance, giving the door a solid, booted kick.

"Damn it. Van, help me open it."

Feeling his way over, the fox lent his shoulder, and both furs pushed, shoving and grunting as their footpaws slid in the sludge, the old door simply refusing to budge. At the same time, Cel and Timid were working their way through the gooey mess, until Cel's tired body leant up against the wall with a creak of armor and a soft crunch-grind sound Tomasj knew had to come from her knee.

To Tomasj's annoyance, the little priest wriggled himself between the two pushing at the door and prodded at them both with his soft paws.

"Move, will you? My father was a mason, I might be able to...Yes, here we are."

The wolf squinted, his dark vision slowly resolving that the priest was working at the rusty lumps of hinge he'd himself dismissed. After the metal screeched a few times, the priest managed to yank one of the pins up and out, falling on his arse in the muck with a muffled noise of disgust. Smirking in the dark, Tomasj spoke as he slammed into the door, finally managing to budge it.

"So, fearless oracle-leader, what do we do once in the city eh?"

He heard Timid flopping about in the muck trying to find footing, and was surprised when the priest's voice came out clear and strong, rather than with the trembling little-girl's weakness he was expecting.

"You and Van will go see about making sure the duke understands the threat. Cel and I will go to the Temple of Many and see about using it to warn the common folk. Gods willing, we will meet up at the eastern wall gate to oversee fighting these things when they come. The locals will likely not know what we do about slaying the things."

The wolf smirked. It was a logical plan. It also had the advantage of his wife's approval, which he felt as a pulse of sticky, bloody warmth that radiated from his pistol into his crotch and up his chest.

"Fine. We will do this. See you after."

The door finally splashed open, letting loose a slow torrent of sludge as Tomasj the Witchkiller stepped out onto a cobbled street and stretched his arms, sucking in deep raspy breaths of the beautiful reek of a city ripe for the coming chaos.