The knocking draws the attention of whatever it was in the wreckage, and the rustling a bit down the road moves towards me. I back away from the road and follow the rustling with my staff. It inches near the edge of the stone road, and a bipedal rabbit-like creature with fur like that of a Dutch rabbit steps out. The tip of its pointed black ear reaches the middle of my chest. Gold earrings glimmer up and down the length of its left, swiveling ear. It eyes me with a rod; partially tucked behind its right elbow; aimed toward me. It would be almost cute if it weren’t for the fact that through the blades of the grass that surrounded it, I couldn’t see the red-daggered symbol of Roki emblazoned on the white tunic it wore.

It chatters and clicks as it tries to communicate. With me, I aim my staff forward.

“Bombard my enemies, O’ thou servants of Gob, the magnomious.”

A stone rips from the ground at my feet and flies forward. The rabbit hops sideways out of the way as the stone sinks into the ground where it had been saying. Its brown, dewy eyes glower as it waves the rod back and forth and chatters.

“An arrow, O Djinn.”

An arrow of flame and wind forms at the tip of the staff and flies forth. At the same instance, the rabbit waved the rod in my direction. A wagon wheel lifts and flies out of the wreckage and towards me. The arrow smashes against the oncoming wheel and splatters; sending tendrils of spinning flames in every direction. The wheel pushed on through it, and I dove out of the way. The wheel slammed into the ground and embedded itself in the rocky soil.

I push up from the ground but am dragged back down as a tentacle of grass wraps around my neck and pulls me back down. The rabbit chatters and the light grows darker as a wheel-shaped shadow is cast over me. I draw the kris from my waist and slice the grassy tentacle. Once I’m free I roll away, just in time for the iron-rimmed wheel to slam against the ground where my head had been.

Grassy tendrils catch me again. This time around the waist and around my legs. The wagon wheel pulls free from the ground and hovers toward me. I manage to pull my arm and wrist free of the deep-rooted grass. I aim my staff and stammer out.

“Bombard my enemies, O’ thou servants of Gob, the magnomious.”

A large stone rips through the soil by my head; sending the rocky dirt into my face as it slams into the axle of the large wheel. Splinters of wood and iron and shards of stone scatter in every direction and fall atop of me. I cover my face with my elbow and shoulder; the shrapnel skirts off the gauntlets and smack uselessly against the mail.

Stolen story; please report.

Nothing else comes after me, and the grass falls away from my waist, legs, and arms. I glance around. The rabbit’s ears are drawn in and its paw grasps the side of its head as it winces. It sees me stand up, and darts to the safety of the wreckage before I had a chance to utter the first syllable of a spell. I hear the rattling of the wood against stone as it darts down the highway. I follow the path of the rattling and cut off the rabbit with a flaming arrow aimed at a torn-up canvas top.

The missile of flame and wind smashes against the canvas and ignites it. The fire spreads to the wagon the canvas is attached to, and with another few arrows, spreads to the other wreckage nearby; blocking off its path in that direction. The rattling turns on a dime, as the rabbit pivots and weaves through the cover of the wreckage. I loose another Djinn’s Arrow a bit of the way before the hiding, fleeing rabbit man on another flapping shard of stuck canvas on one of the overturned covered wagons. It catches. If the Rabbit priest wants to hide, I’ll smoke him out. It’s a shame that I’ll lose whatever I could find within the wreckage, but my life was worth more than that. There was a chance that it had a burrow somewhere within the grass. I couldn't allow it to escape.

As the fire spreads from there, the rattling beneath the wreckage stops. I aim my staff in the direction I had last heard the rabbit running. I could feel the pressure building up in my head. As I stand there, staring down at the trapped rabbit, something moves in the corner of my eye. Burning scraps of wood and canvas fly at me from either direction, I hop backward and wince as I step on my bad leg. The two balls of burning debris crash in front of me — mere inches away, and spit hot embers into my face.

A rustling approaches me as I shield my eyes from the hot sparks. I briefly catch the gleam of something silvery dart forth as I open my eyes. The Rabbit, in the brief second that I was blinded, closed the distance between us, with a slender blade about the length of its arm. It stabbed forward as it hopped off the ground and aimed the point of the blade at my stomach — its small mouth opens up in a mischievous grin. My hand shoots down to intercept out of reflex. Palm side down this time, unlike the time that I guarded against the Dogman’s dagger so that the blade bounced off segmented plates.

The grin fades from the Rabbitman’s face, and before it could retract itself and retreat to safety, I grab hold of its wrist and pull it forward into my raised knee. I slam my knee into the creature’s face and shatter its buck teeth. I follow this up with a barrage of jabs, hooks, straights, and haymakers until the creature lays quite still. I toss it to the ground and stomp on its neck, and to make sure that the deed was done, I picked up the blade it had dropped and slide it into the creature’s clavicle, and down into its heart.

Ah, I feel like shit. How could I be so brutal against something so adorable? I draw the knife from its throat and wipe it on my leg and the grass.

“Was that the priest?” I ask the Shard.

“Yes. You have ten minutes to exit.” It responds.

In those ten minutes, I manage to undo all of its earrings and pocket them. After that, I grabbed my kris from the ground, sheath it, and do the same for the little cane sword it had, and step out of Efra and into Earth.