Well, fuck me with a riding crop and shout Tally Ho!
Orin piled into me, tripping, as Weylyn tumbled over him, and fell into the shallow river.
“What’s the hold up?” Brann grumbled as he rounded into view. His reaction, instead of freaking out, was to pull binoculars from his pack, for a better look. “Astonishing.”
“What is?” Katie had to step around Brann to get a peek at the grassy glen twenty yards ahead of us. “Oh... fuck me...”
Now, I wouldn’t call them giant, exactly, their sizes varied. Most of them were about the size of a German Shepard. The biggest was no larger than a Great Dane. But every one of them were solid black, all right.
“Ha! HaHA!” Keegan exulted, his shout causing all the giant black rabbits to stop grazing and look up at us. Keegan slapped Katie on the back (although I doubt she could feel anything). She could only choke out “Gak... Duuh, duuh, wha— wha—?? Hunh?...”
Keegan turned on Orin, and stuck out his hand. “There you have it! Pay up wolf boy, you bleeding welcher!”
Orin was shaking his head, muttering “...no ...can’t be...”
But there they were. Although I couldn’t say for sure the furry black animals were actually giant rabbits. They may simply have been large kangaroos. Yeah? Only kangaroos don’t have those big... rabbit ears.
In Keegan’s opinion, it was obvious. “Pookahs!” he proclaimed. “That’s four hundred smackers, you two unbelieving infidels! Ye of little faith, and now, of even less money!”
Katie recovered a little. She was making soft, squeaky little sounds and wriggling her nose. Slow and careful, she stepped toward the MegaBunnies. As an incomprehensible exchange squeaks and trills passed between Katie and the Pookahs, I explained to the others “She’s great with animals. Talks to them all the time.”
“Riiiiight,” Orin grimaced. “A regular Doctor fucking Doolittle...”
“Not really as big as I’d expect for a Pookah,” Brann observed. “The literature commonly suggests they’re about seven feet tall.”
“And who are you?” I asked. “Jimmy Stewart?”
“Babies,” Katie said, turning back to us after her conversation. “These are just babies. Not full grown, see?” She tried to make it sound like no big deal.
“But… did you ask them?” I questioned Katie. “Are they pookahs?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I mean, how can you tell?”
Katie recited, “A pookah will appear here and there, now and then, to this one, and that one, and how are you Keira Matilda Morrigan?”
Weylyn froze now, like a bird dog on point. He stared intensely, looking past the herd. Scanning the tree line beyond the meadow. “Orin?”
“Yeah. I smell it,” Orin confirmed. “Predator. Close by.”
“What... kind?” I wondered. “What is it?”
Brann stood closer to me, drawing out his daggers. “Remember the Cu Sidhe?”
“Those big Hell Hounds?”
“If they’re here, their Masters may not be far behind.”
Orin and Weylyn had both shifted into wolf form. Growling, hackles raised, they crept forward, low and stealthy.
A Cu Sidhe hell hound burst from the trees, loping across a hundred yards of meadow, savage jaws drooling at the feast he was planning. Orin and Weylyn exploded, sprinting hard, past the pookah herd. They dashed into the rapidly closing gap between the bunny snacks and the monster.
Just before they reached the beast, Keegan veered off, passing the Cu Sidhe, who turned it’s head to follow his movement. Orin kept charging straight ahead. He plowed into the monster, sinking his fangs into the thick neck, and taking it down. As they tumbled, Weylyn had already made a sharp buttonhook turn, reversing course to strike at the beast from behind as it struggled with Orin. Weylyn savagely tore into the creature’s flanks. Orin’s jaws stayed clamped on its neck, so the monster couldn’t turn to defend itself. Blood and fur filled the air in a crimson blur. The monster was huge and powerful, but no match for the Wolf Boys. Like a bull weakened by picadors, it began to slow down, then stumble. It appeared that victory was at hand... until the second Cu Sidhe exploded from the trees. It was sprinting in, fresh and furious, ready to tilt the odds against my Wolf Boys.
“Orin!” I screamed. “Weylyn! Behind you!”
They were so blood-frenzied, and the air was so full of loud roars and bellows, they couldn’t hear me, and they didn’t see the new beast, closing in on them fast. I was so terrified that I almost turned away. I couldn’t bear to watch my loves ripped to shreds in front of me. That second monster was almost on them. But I was glad I kept watching. Otherwise, I would have missed seeing two guided missiles clad in black fur shoot out from the trees to the left, roaring toward hell hound number two. They hit him high and low, like blitzing linebackers sandwiching an unsuspecting quarterback. The stunned beast hit the ground so hard I swear I could feel the shock wave in the ground at my feet.
By this time, the first monster was just about toast. Orin and Weylyn ripped and bit and clawed it into a gruesome sack of bloody meat. It was hard to watch, so I turned to see the fate of the second beast. Two adult pookahs had charged out to defend their young. They didn’t bother with teeth, or claws. Didn’t have them. Didn’t need them. It was like watching a man square off in the boxing ring against an adult kangaroo, or trying to win a fistfight with an ape. With their incredibly powerful hind legs, the quite simply kicked the crap out of that monster. It was no contest.
It was, however, poetry. As graceful as a ballet. Taking turns with their steel spring legs, the pookahs punted the hell hound back and forth, like a badminton volley. They batted and bludgeoned the beast, a brutal but magnificent display of coordination, of choreography. Whack, whack, whack. Bouncing the now lifeless corpse back and forth like a two ton hacky sack. Every bone, every organ, pounded to jelly. Finally, they stopped thumping the
