Bo could hardly breathe. The bitter stink of anger had flooded the jackalopes’ warren alongside sounds of agitated rustling. The pitmaster knew he’d upended the murder bunnies’ lives once again, and he hoped they understood he’d done it for their own good. The Crimson Forest was evil, and Bloodwhisker had damn near dragged them all down into its terrifying brand of Hell.
Do not listen to this foolish human. The Crimson Forest hissed. He has injured you. He has wounded me. But that is all the more reason for us to strike him down.
It was too dark to see, but Bo sensed Bloodwhisker’s movement. The rabbit had stepped away from Bo.
All the better to allow his archers to perforate the pitmaster.
“You have made a terrible mistake, human,” Bloodwhisker said.
Bo was dead. He was absolutely sure of that. He felt thousands of murderous eyes focused on him. He heard the creaking of shortbows as their strings were drawn taut. If it wasn’t so dark, he would’ve closed his eyes to await the end.
“You ask us to trust you. You promise us a new life.” Bo clearly heard the jackalope’s weary sigh. “I do not know if we can trust you.”
You cannot. Kill him.
The weight of Bo’s failed gamble crashed down on his shoulders. His knees felt weak. The knowledge that he would likely die in the next few seconds closed around his thoughts like a fist. He should’ve kept fighting. Should’ve used Bloodwhiskers as a fleshy maul and pounded the stump until there was nothing left of its foul body.
Bo was no fool. He knew he still would’ve died, but at least his enemies would’ve gone with him.
But…
No. He couldn’t have defeated the small army of archers with weapons powerful enough to punch through his defenses. Fighting would’ve brought the pitmaster to the same end. Even worse, it wouldn’t have offered even the slightest opportunity to make things better for his people.
Bo knew he’d made the right choice. Offering the olive branch to Bloodwhisker was the only play that made any sense. Any bet to gain valuable allies against the grunge elves and the Crimson Forest was a gamble worth taking.
You made the right choice, Barbie said. It’s just a shame it didn’t work out for us.
“On my command, loose your arrows,” Bloodwhisker said.
Bo tried to pull a card from the deck, but time felt as if it had slowed around him. His thoughts were a jumbled mess of worries for those he left behind. And Jenny’s face swam to the surface again and again. The pitmaster drew Hackstorm and prayed it would buy him enough time to—
“Fire!” Bloodwhisker barked, and Bo felt something sweep past his face.
Then the pitmaster felt arrows whizz through the air around him. The missiles streaked by so close he felt their fletching’s touch his skin, and he froze in place to avoid turning himself into a pincushion. They weren’t firing on him. Bloodwhisker had turned on the Crimson Forest.
You will all die for this!
That was the last thing the monster said that day. In a handful of seconds, the jackalopes had obliterated it in a rain of arrows.
And then, as soon as it had begun, the barrage ended.
“You had me going there for a minute,” Bo said, chuckling to hide his terror. “If you’d chilled out on the dramatics a little, I wouldn’t have to change my pants right now.”
Bo heard the sound of the jackalope sniffing. “I do not believe you have soiled herself, human.”
“It’s a turn of phrase,” Bo said. “You know what, never mind. Can we get some light in here?”
“Not here,” Bloodwhisker said. “But there is another place we can talk that might be more comfortable for you. Come with me.”
The pitmaster expected a jab in the back from a jackalope spear, but instead felt a furry paw take his hand.
“Thank you,” Bo said. “You made the right choice in not killing me.”
“I suppose we will see,” Bloodwhisker said. “There’s no going back from what we did here today.”
“You got that right,” Bo sighed.
The Crimson Forest would not take the jackalopes’ betrayal lightly. It had counted on them to remove Bo from the equation. By turning against the tree and toward the pitmaster’s alliance, Bloodwhiskers had made an enemy who would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Probably beyond.
Bo made a silent promise that he wouldn’t take the jackalope’s sacrifice for granted. The pitmaster had to make this alliance worth the risk that Bloodwhisker had taken. Sure, the jackalope had tried to kill him. But Bo had offered to make the killer rabbits’ lives better if they joined his side.
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And he’d be damned if he went back on his word.
The other jackalopes gathered around as Bloodwhiskers led Bo away from what would have been his execution chamber. The pitmaster felt gentle brushes against his arms, curious touches from jackalopes who couldn’t tell yet what the future would hold for them. That was Bo’s responsibility.
Nonsense. These aren’t even humans. It’s not your fault they jump into bed with anyone powerful enough to offer them protection.
Which was true, up to a point. In Bo’s mind, though, the jackalopes may not have been men and women and children, but they were people. And Bo couldn’t just abandon them.
Bloodwhisker didn’t say a word as he guided the pitmaster through what felt like an endless series of narrow tunnels that ascended and descended through the earth, twisting and turning through one intersection after another. It was hard to believe the jackalopes had built all this in such a short period.
They didn’t do it alone. I’m sure the Crimson Forest helped. But this is also a spawn point. Reality bends around those to best accommodate their inhabitants. The minotaur lizards got a breeding pit, as befits their nature. But the jackalopes needed places to hide from predators. The Grail System provides for those who serve its needs.
Bo wondered exactly how champions worked into that idea. So far, the Grail System had done little for him except dump one challenge after another into his lap. He sincerely hoped the jackalopes wouldn’t end up in the same boat once they started working with Bo instead of trying to kill him.
As the pitmaster considered that, darkness gave way to a soft, hazy light. The smell of fresh air—which was more the lack of the distinctly jackalopey odor—tickled Bo’s nose. In a few more steps, the narrow tunnel widened into a spherical chamber with seamless walls of smooth earth. Diffuse light poured through shafts in the ceiling to highlight a pair of earthen stools that rose from the floor in the center of the chamber. Bloodwhisker pointed to one of the stools, then hopped down the slope to take the other for himself.
“Don’t worry,” the jackalope assured Bo when he saw the pitmaster’s dubious glances at the small stool, “it will hold your weight.”
The pitmaster tested it with one hand, just to be sure he didn’t go around wrecking the furniture in his new ally’s home, and found that it was indeed sturdy enough to hold his bulk.
“Thank you,” Bo said. “I mean it. It would’ve been a lot easier just to kill me back there.”
“You’re right about that,” Bloodwhisker said. “More satisfying, too, I’d wager. I wasn’t exaggerating about the torment you’ve caused my people.”
“I’ve already apologized for that,” Bo said. “It wasn’t my intent—”
“I didn’t bring you here to discuss the sins of our past,” the jackalope replied. “Whatever wrong you’ve done, my alliance with the Crimson Forest is just as bad. My hatred for you colored my perception. I nearly led my people to destruction. Thank you for showing me a different path.”
Bo nodded slowly and scratched at his beard. “The way ahead won’t be a primrose path. I hope you understand that. You and I may be able to bury the hatchet, but some of my people might not see that as clearly.”
The jackalope leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Under the sunlight, his eyes glowed a deep, soothing amber. Bo felt like the jackalope was peering into his soul but didn’t dare look away. He wanted the creature to see that he could be trusted.
“There have been deaths on both sides of our dispute,” the jackalope admitted. “But my people have suffered greater losses than yours. I’m not sure I can convince them an alliance is in our best interests.”
Bloodwhisker’s words shocked Bo. He’d thought the partnership between them was a done deal. But now he saw a wary cunning in the jackalope’s eyes and knew that any hope of forging an alliance with his former enemies hung by a very slender thread. The jackalopes just didn’t trust humans, and the pitmaster understood how they felt. Rabbits had been hunted and carelessly splattered across highways by humans for decades.
Still, there had to be some way to punch through that mistrust to find common ground. Bo might be able to beat the grunge elves and Crimson Forest without the hopping allies, but he’d be a lot more comfortable with them on his side. Their skill at archery and ability to move rapidly would make murder bunnies a fantastic addition to his forces.
The problem, though, was that he didn’t know what he could offer to them
“I know asking you to go to war against our common enemies is a lot to ask—”
“Enemies?” The jackalope’s brow furrowed and its ears drooped. “The Crimson Forest is our only mutual enemy that I am aware of.”
Bo did his best to condense the story of the Grail System, at least as much of it as he knew, into an explanation the jackalope could easily digest. It took him five minutes to get the gist of it out, and then he got to the point.
“I took out the devils who were the first group of harvesters to arrive on our world,” Bo explained, “and the gnomes turned out to be not much of a threat after all. But those grunge elves are still out there. They’ve had time to build up their defenses and having your bows on our side of a fight against them would be a huge help.’
“I’m sure it would,” Bloodwhisker said. “I am grateful that you turned me away from the tree before it destroyed my people. But this is an enormously dangerous request. We will help you fight the tree, but my people have no quarrel with these grunge elves, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“They won’t feel the same way,” Bo explained. “They want control of this hex to strip it of all its resources. If my people fall, yours will be next.”
The jackalope nodded but didn’t respond for several seconds. Finally, Bloodwhisker gave Bo a shrug. “My people are fast and clever. If the elves kill yours, then mine will flee this hex for a different life, somewhere else. We will stay on the move, hide when we can, fight if we must. But I cannot commit my people to your fight. The risk is simply too great.”
Bo understood the jackalope’s concern. Bloodwhisker was totally right to worry that the fight ahead would be brutal. Humans would die, and their allies would suffer casualties, too. The alternative, though, was to let the grunge elves roll through the Red River Hex and take whatever they wanted. Left to loot and pillage, they’d strip the place of its magic in no time. And that would bring the world one step closer to destruction.
Not that the pitmaster expected that argument to sway the jackalope. All of the future worries and magical harvesting business was not an immediate concern for a creature that had been an actual rabbit not so very long ago. There had to be something more immediate, more helpful that Bo could offer.
And then it hit him.
“There’s still loot back at the minotaur lizard’s spawn point, I think,” Bo explained. “Whatever we find there, you get first pick as a sign of my good will. There’s bound to be something that would help protect your people there.”
Do not give away the farm.
Bo ignored Barbie. He needed this alliance, and if he had to give away some loot, even if that loot was cards, he’d do it. This wasn’t just for him, it was for the good of the whole hex.
And, at the end of the day, the whole damned world.
The jackalope considered Bo’s words for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll go with you to see what there is to find. There’s something I wanted you to see, anyway.”
“And what’s that?” Bo asked as he stood from his stool.
“The Crimson Tree’s saplings,” Bloodwhisker responded. “They’re spreading.”