The Adventures of Button (25 page)

Shaking involuntarily, Buttons moved quickly ahead, ignoring the warning hiss of Cross-eye. Toby backed carefully toward the shore, ever keeping his eyes on the logs and the fangs behind them. Each had sustained bites, and small ragged lines of blood followed them in.

Buttons cried out as she rose from the water. The dark figure had to be Sally, but something dreadful was wrong. The small Scottie hastened forward to be with her best friend.

The two cats shivered also. Nothing to be seen, no sounds. Yes, that was it. Nothing was to be heard. Even the wind had ceased.

Buttons rapidly approached her best friend and stumbled as she viewed the terrible scene before her.

Sally lay on her side. Instead of brown and black mixed with white, there was only blood, trickling in many small streams from many rips and fang marks to clot in the sand, forming a black ring of approaching death around her. She was pinned to the ground by many pieces of rope to stakes driven into the sand. They criss-crossed her body in an obscene pattern. Only a torn ear moved.

As Buttons moaned deeply in her throat at her friend’s plight, an eyelid fluttered and a blood-filled eye opened, wandering, trying to seek the source of the moan.

A croaking sound came from Sally. But more she could not do. She was too weak to move. Her limps pinioned as they were could do nothing. Each toe had been wrapped individually, increasing the pain if she tried to move.

Buttons howled in anger. She rose on her toes and shouted her defiance at the dark and torn trees of Elderwood.

Sally was dying even as Buttons stood there. She could not free Sally in time to do anything. A terrible resolve covered her mind like a soggy blanket. She could not think. She just wanted to kill. Rats. And more rats. And more.

Toby and Cross-eye had quickly come to Buttons’s side. But as they stood beside her facing the shadows of Elderwood, JW’s cry was heard. Neither moved, fixed like marble statues. They waited and listened.

JW cawed loudly from a perch high on an old tree standing starkly and alone at the edge of the swamp. “More come. Beware.”

He fanned his wings and swept down on a group of fallen trees. From the deep darkness beneath it, a large cluster of rats issued forth, their eyes glittering with hatred and blood lust. They moved carefully, circling to the cats’ right. JW cried out as he swept toward another fallen cluster of trees.

As he did so, the raven swept awkwardly down from a perch unseen. His flight was erratic, and JW did not see the coming attack, but Buttons did. She rose on her rear legs and yipped a short call. JW wheeled aside as the raven crashed into him.

Screaming hatred on all animal-kind, the raven struck as hard as he could. It was too late. JW’s sharp turn avoided the full impact, but both birds struggled as they locked claws and pecked at one another. Their fall brought them crashing to the ground. The raven shrieked in anger and pain as his bad leg once again crumpled under him.

JW struggled to his feet as several rats rushed him, only to be met head-on by a furious small black dog who literally threw herself into them, allowing JW to rise swiftly above the battle. He would be short work for anyone of the rats.

Buttons had her mouth full as she snapped and slashed at the rats who had become utterly confused by her sudden and swift onslaught. Still, they did great damage as they were dispatched one by one.

Cross-eye and Toby, too, were meeting the cluster of large rats who had fanned out and attacked from several sides at the same time. But the rats underrated their opponents. With the small dog they had a chance. But these were felines, fighting mad felines who knew their opponent and took joy in the slaughter they reeked upon the rats. Toby slashed right and left as was his style, tearing life from the braver and more foolish who dared come within reach of his lethal claws. Cross-eye fought as he always did, leaping right and left, then in and out. His fangs found their mark, and each time, a rat died. His face was splattered with blood, some of it his own, several rats having bitten him as they died.

With the last of the group of rats dead, they both breathed rapidly and deeply. It had been difficult, but they looked for Buttons who sat among a smaller cluster of rats, the last in the throes of breathing his last. She, too, was panting hard, taking deep gulps of badly needed air.

The two cats rapidly closed around her, just in time as another group of rats slowly stepped from beneath a log leaning against another. They formed a larger bunch and approached slowly, grinning and nudging one another. Then, they separated and rushed in smaller groups of two and three with seconds between each attack.

A shrill whistle coordinated the attacks, which brought great distress upon their enemies who could only meet one small group before having to turn and face another. As the last rat fell, Cross-eye, too, fell to one side, his right rear leg having been bitten badly. His blunt features were masked in clotted blood. Buttons simply sat, panting in harsh, sharp intakes of breath. Her sides heaved with the severe exertion. Toby stood, blood slowly dribbling from a torn ear. If he fell, it would be the last of them, for his stamina was the greatest of all.

Buttons faced toward the direction from which the whistle had come. She stepped forward, a grin slowly forming as she glared with hatred on King Rat as he stepped into full view for the first time.

King Rat twirled a stubby whisker as he mockingly bowed. He spoke softly, “Welcome, my young friend. It is well you brought support, inadequate though it is. My fellows need their exercise.”

Buttons coughed briefly and blew blood from her lips. “Rats,” was all she said, much to the joy of Toby and Cross-eye.

Toby couldn’t help join the repartee, grim as it was. “We, too, seemed to have need of the exercise. Cross-eye is breathing a bit harder than usual. “Fine fellows, yours.”

Cross-eye’s words were as blunt as his snout. “Well, my short-whiskered friend, they at least died well. Will you do the same?”

King Rat was not to be outdone. He watched as the raven joined him. “Our friend dog suffered overly long, or your attack would have been more successful. Remember that when you,” he nodded to the raven, “peck her eyes out.”

The raven glared and then peered sideways. Another group of rats were approaching from the far left, matching the strides of another group who approached from the right.

The raven spoke directly to the three before him. “Well, let us see how bravely you speak in a few moments. We’ll see if you can die as slowly as the small beagle yonder. She fought bravely also. To no avail, as you will come to witness for yourselves.”

Toby looked about, and his voice shook slightly as he whispered, “I believe we face death as yon bird-brain states.”

And then, to the cats’ amazement, Buttons simply wheeled and returned to sit in front of her two feline champions. She began to lick a bloody paw, totally ignoring the raven and Rat King who looked on incredulously.

Raven glared at King Rat. “What is she up to? You know her better than I do.”

Rat King was about to answer. But he repressed the dark thoughts which were assailing his mind. “No, no,” he thought. “Not again, never again.”

Instead, he shrieked in bursting anger, his eyes almost popping from his furious features. “Attack! Attack! But do not kill them. We will have them thrust up like the other. Attack, I say.”

This time, the battle was brief and furious. Soon, Buttons and the two felines were sitting in utter exhaustion. Even the rats, many of whom still lived, had backed off, forming small clusters of equally tired rats. With heads down, their eyes still glittered with anger and hatred.

The shrill voice of King Rat was to be heard in the background, exhorting his minions on. “Attack, I say. Soon, they will be ours to do with as we wish.”

The raven hopped up and down awkwardly, his harsh voice sounding above even the high-pitched tones of King Rat. “I told you we could do it. See! I told you. She’s ours now. Nothing can interfere.” He cawed loudly and repeatedly, his voice carrying across the swamp.

Carrying to several figures who approached as swiftly as their limbs could carry them. Two by air, two by water.

Buttons began to wash her paw again, abruptly stopping the exhortations of King Rat and the raven. King Rat looked about. He scanned the swamp, peered long at the sky. No. Nothing to be seen. As he dipped his head to better view the small dog, she raised her head. Slowly, very slowly she winked.

Turning to her companions who sat, exhausted beyond belief, she smiled through her bloodied features. “Come,” she said. “Tired, yes, but now it’s time for us to attack.”

Cross-eye looked at Toby who could only stare back at his feline friend. Toby could only shrug as Cross-eye went on, “She’s crazy, but she’ll have her way, one way or the other. Come on, friend, Toby. We can only die.”

Cross-eye slowly raised himself on three legs, and slowly dragging his right hind leg, he staggered after Buttons who had gone to stand before Sally.

Toby sighed. “Just too bloody much.”

Cross-eye looked back and grinned. Whether the bobcat meant the day or the Scottie wasn’t clear. But did it matter?

Buttons stood over the barely conscious beagle. Congealed blood was all around. The blood that could run, ran more slowly. Well, they would go together. The small Scottie whirled, and stepped forward, moving between Cross-eye and Toby.

The rats were beginning to group together, forming three large masses. From their attack, no one would emerge alive. Nothing King Rat said made any difference. This time they would do it the old way. Bloody and slowly, limb by limb. Grim satisfaction to those who lived, no honor to those who died. That was the rat way of killing. They moved to meet the advancing small black dog.

Then, it happened. A tiny shrill voice came from afar. King Rat and raven were frozen in their steps as they scanned the sky together, fear gripping evil hearts that suddenly pumped with an uncontrollable urge to run.

They did so, rapidly and with no thought for their fellows, as a brown figure appeared over the trees, steeply turning in a heart-wrenching second. It was the dragon. There could be no doubt of that. The figure of Iggy clung to her neck as before, one small fist raised in defiance.

As the small dragon passed beneath a limb of a dead cottonwood tree, Iggy leaped to a large branch, racing along it to better view the havoc as Sara blew great clouds of flame and smoke down upon the milling crowd of rats.

Buttons could do no more, sinking in quiet relief to the sand beside Sally. Toby and the hobbling Cross-eye could and did, attacking with new vigor any rat who fled from beneath the flames. A scorched spot or two made no difference. This was their time.

Sara banked and turned flaming again and again until only a few rats remained. Quickly, she settled to the bloodied sand and rapidly approached Buttons, who rose, one limb at a time, to greet her great friend, Sarandra, Princess of the High Reaches.

“Sara, Sara,” was all she could say as she looked anxiously at Sally whom Sara was quickly examining.

Sara’s eyes were wide with wonder and fear. “Buttons, please, you must understand. I may be too late. I will do what must be done. You finish here.”

With those few words, the small dragon quickly snipped the many lines that crossed the bloody body of the beagle. Sara then gently took Sally into her arms and, spreading her wings, quickly mounted into the sky. Buttons could only sit one more time, watching Sara until she disappeared into vault of blue above her.