Making the most of the rats’ hesitation, I took off into the forest as fast as my legs would carry me. There was no way I was waiting around for a stupid squeaker to ramble stupid evil things at me when I could be leaving. I raced in the direction of the smouldering stump - for surely that was the way I had come? - but was bowled over before I could reach it. It felt like I had run full tilt into a cliff.
There was a brief whirl of sky and mud and rat.
Picking my bruised body out of the muck, I turned to meet the eyes of my obstacle. I stepped away, and he moved with me, mirroring my movements as amusement split the hairy, pointed, pock-marked face. This one was just as ugly as the others. Yellow teeth, some missing, everything encrusted with filth. Scarily big. Bone showed through his hind quarters, surrounded by grey, diseased flesh. It didn’t seem to bother him.
Repressing a shudder, I dragged in qi - smouldering fire qi from the nearby stump. It sizzled through my veins. The rat laughed, hissing, spitting, chortling. He was drawing in qi likewise. I could see it, but not identify the source. It looked like a swarm of flies, immaterial and buzzing like a pestilence. Through the buzzing I could hear the other rats creeping closer.
“Shall we dance?” said the rat. I shook my head. This was not someone I wanted to befriend. “Why not?” he said, “you look so…healthy…”
And then he stole some of my qi.
He stole MY qi. He cultivated my qi, sucking it in as if it was his. I could feel it leaving my body, feel the lack, feel myself weakening. I snatched it back in as I feinted left, pivoted, leaping away. The big ugly rat knocked me down once more.
He was stronger than me.
“Where you going?” He sneered. “Don’t you like it here? Ádlíc, Of-sleán!” He shouted, red tinted eyes never leaving my face. “Should I let it go to grow its core? It’s still just a child, barely a wisp of condensed qi.” He sniffed, offensively close. I hissed. “Smells like the sun, and moon and… a river.”
“Let it grow, it will make a satisfactory cauldron. Slowly, slowly.” I could not see who was talking, struggling to free myself and choking on the scent of the rat, as we tugged back and forth at my qi.
“Brosnod you should share.”
I could hear the other rats now, the slip-slop-patter of their feet, the rustling of their slippery tails through the muck, I could hear them but not see them, for my vision could only see the rat before me.
My knees were quaking. I had never been so afraid, not even when I was drowning. I knew, I absolutely knew that if I took my eyes off him for a second he would kill me. And he was stronger than me. The weight of this knowledge was crushing me. I wanted to cower and only the knowledge that cats were best kept my belly off the ground. I recognised killing intent and hardened my heart.
“Keep it for For-Molsnian.”
“For For-Molsnian!”
They were playing with me. I had played with enough things to know it. How dare they treat me like prey.
“Perhaps. But I should teach it what happens to those who wander in the realm of the Heavenly Parasites,” said my smelly captor.
“For-Molsnian?” I said, more to buy time than anything.
“Yes, cat,” said the evil squeaker. “Soon everything in these beautiful woods will be ours. Every creature, every fae, every seedling, every bush, every tree. They are but fodder for our cultivation, for the Great King For-Molsnian. Death is coming, and we ride the wave. He is the vanguard. We are the pestilence. The Heavenly Parasites will suckle the life force from you one by one until you die screaming.”
This last was said with great passion, the red eyes whirring.
The rat - Brosnod, drew closer, his eyes intent, and the weight of fear pressed down on me once more. Aha. It really was not natural. Of course I was not really afraid, how could I be? He was a squeaker, even if he was strong. I focused on compartmentalising the sensation, letting my body experience the terror while my brain was busy elsewhere. I cultivated. Anger, hot and bright coursed through my veins as I cultivated, hotter, hotter, burning all the brighter for the darkness. The embers of the smouldering log were enough to send raging qi to my limbs. If strength would not help me then I would use speed.
I ran, in a great rush, but the rat grabbed me by the rear and hauled me backwards, syphoning off my qi as he did so. Was this what a demonic cultivator was? Panic started to build in my belly. True fear this time. His breath was the foulest stench I had ever had the misfortune to smell.
“I did not say you could go, little cauldron.” The rat shook me like a toy, and laughed.
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“Brosnod stop playing with your food.”
I drew in more fire qi from the smouldering stump. More, more, more, till I was full to bursting. It flared within me as I struggled against the squeaker’s superior strength but it felt like a boulder was sitting on me. As immovable. He was still talking, to the audience of rats - something about kings and gems and kingdoms and parasites but the roaring rage within me cancelled out any meaning his words might have.
The qi roared, demanding release but it had nowhere to go but round and round and round and round. Through my channels, blistering, faster and faster. I was the qi. I was the fire. I could not control it. I was going to throw up. No - I was -
Burning hot fire qi surged up my throat and sprayed out of my mouth.
The rat got a face full of flames.
I’m not sure who was more surprised, him or me, but I took full advantage. Ripping myself free I raced as I had never raced before, zooming through the forest, zig-zagging between the rotten trunks. Away, away, away. Faster, faster as fast as qi through my body. Hot I was burning but I was fast. The false fear was gone, and I was left with only my own.
The unexpected flames bought me precious seconds, but now I could hear them making chase. The horrific patter of dozens of feet, panting breath. Close. Close behind. Too close.
But I was a fire breathing cat with fur like a starless sky and they would never catch me!
I flew across the ground, as fast as a cat could fly without wings, paying no heed to direction, simply away.
My joints were burning, not from qi but from tiredness but I hurtled on anyway. The fire qi was spent, the burning stump was long lost in the murky darkness behind. There were no friendly elements to cultivate. I was alone in the deep dank night, pursued by demonic rats. Still, I was fast, and I was ahead. My courage would not waver now.
Where was home? Was I running away or toward? I could lose the rats if I could just find my forest. But it was just hard to focus on breathing and running and searching and not being scared all at once. My legs were straining, if I didn’t concentrate I would face plant into the soil and then they would be on me like a vicious tidal wave.
I looked around frantically for any sign of a green tree. How far did the diseased forest spread? Just as I thought my heart would explode, a flash of brown crossed my vision in the darkness. A hare! A living, normal hare, with two tall ears. Where there was a hare there must be happy forest!
I sped towards it, and for a moment we ran side by side, companions in adversity.
Only later did I wonder how a simple hare could keep up with my qi enhanced, Radiant form but in the moment I was only pleased to find a friend. We ran together, the hare slightly ahead, directing me subtly, and then suddenly we were running through green pines, my paws pounding over wholesome, moss covered grounds. I breathed in the damp, earthy wonderfulness of it, deep into my aching lungs. When I looked again the hare was gone.
No matter, I was confident now.
A brook babbled in the shadows ahead, I crossed it with a flying leap snatching up the water qi as I flew. Once more I was fleet, the circulating qi invigorating my body. I’m not sure if it was then that I started to draw ahead, but now I was out of their territory I sensed my rat pursuers were at a disadvantage. Or it was nicer to believe so, so I believed it.
I pushed even harder, till I felt like my lungs would burst, and my legs would fly off, and gradually, gradually the stampede of demonic rat feet receded. I ran through the time of two lights, as the cloud laden murk of winter night slowly transformed into the cloud laden murk of winter’s day.
Snow started to small, soft flakes, glistening and floating.
Being a black cat with fur like a cloudless night was less useful now. I raced on, conscious also that I was leaving a trail in the freshly fallen snow. That would not do. I reached another stream, still flowing, ice clinging to the banks with dagger sharp fingers. Little gossamer winged pixies with acorn hats were skating on the patches and they waved as I skidded to a halt.
I paused to listen.
No pattering, I pulled ahead enough to be out of sight. I leapt into the brook and ploughed upstream. It was shallow, so I half-swam, half leapt, cultivating the freezing water as I went. The shock of it led energy to my tired limbs. After a while I slowed, and moved more gracefully, with less noise. An overhanging willow gave me an exit, and I clawed my way up and out, leaping from branch to branch, doing my best to be silent.
There I crouched for a brief second. Had I lost them? Maybe? Yes? Maybe?
Icicles clung to my fur, but I was warm inside. Silent passage slowed me down but I concentrated on moving like a whisper, springing daintily from branch to branch. It was quite pleasant, almost like flying. For a moment I thought I felt the wind qi lift me in solidarity. But the feeling was gone as soon as it had arrived.
“I’ll be back to make friends with you,” I murmured, and the needles of the pines shivered in answer.
I worked my way through the trees for as long as I had the strength, stopping to rest only once, when my legs refused to work no more. My hiding place was the narrow crook of a pine, partly sheltered from the wind. From there I looked on my forest domain as the snow continued to swirl gently around me. No rats. Only quiet. The forest was sleeping under a blanket of white. All the creatures I had passed were tucking themselves in cosy burrows or nests to wait out the cold.
Pausing was a mistake.
The adrenaline left me, and my joints, already tired, started to freeze up. But home was with my Maud and my fire and my things. I would be safe there. I just had to get there. I did not want to sleep in this frosty tree with the snow landing on my head. So tired, I could barely scrabble down but I knew where I was now, at least. It was quite a long way still but that was fine. The further from the smelly rats the better. The thought of home was like a beacon in my mind.
A few hours later I slowly limped up my garden path.
The windows were shuttered tight against the snow, and smoke was puffing up merrily from the slightly crooked chimney. I scratched pitifully against the door, and then collapsed against it, losing consciousness as my body touched the step.
I woke briefly as the door opened, and Maud collected me into her arms. She carried me in state through the warm interior where I was folded into the depths of a woolly blanket and placed on her lap. There I luxuriated next to the roaring fire, in my beautiful, comfortable, rat-less cottage.
I signed with deep contentment, and lost myself in sleep while outside, the snow continued to fall.
Being Radiant was very hard work.