Thread: In the Eve (Mr. M & Cpl. Bunny)

Bando swung down from one of the trees, bark slipping smoothly under his long-fingered hands, letting go at just the right time. He sailed through the air, his light clothes fluttering in the night, and landed square in the back of one of the monsters, feeling its bony back squelching unpleasantly under his bare feet. He was small, almost a child's size, but he hit true and let his full weight slam into the beast. He didn't bother with his knife, and he hadn't brought a spear, because it wouldn't do any good. These things, he couldn't fight them. But they were mostly clumsy. Awkward. Like a jurrik drunk on stale blackberries. In that way, they were easy to knock down. He rode this one to the ground, and sprang away before it could get itself up. There were what seemed like hundreds, all through the village. These horrible, rotting things infested the whole place. If he couldn't fight them, couldn't kill them, he had to try and help the others, his friends and neighbors, to escape. So he ran and leapt and swung through the village, tripping and jostling and knocking them down, dodging around them, confusing them when he could. His wide eyes picked out his path through the dark, his sensitive ears told him when the monsters were near they were anything but stealthy. The only time he had trouble, really, was at the site of old Tanner's half-finished new hut. He had just smacked one of the creatures into a support pole, spearing it in a gory display of foul black ichor, which didn't kill it, but transfixed it in place, which was good enough for now. That's when three others shuffled over, gasping and moaning as they closed. He didn't waste time bantering with them Bando could be a talker, but there was no point with these things. Instead, he looked around for something he could use. Right by him were a pile of bamboo poles, supports for the hut. He rolled one onto his bare foot, kicked it up into his hand and whipped it around, holding it near one end. He ran toward the one farthest away in that direction there was a tool box, one of those open-topped rectangular wooden boxes with the dowel handle over the long axis. Bando planted the end of the pole in the ground, using it to vault high, but as he left the ground, his dexterous left foot snagged the box, and slipped into it, so when his vault brought him into the monster at high speed, he led with his left, smashing the creature's rotten teeth without risking his comparatively tender flesh. The thing went down, and Bando leapt off its face, dancing back around with the pole. He thrust it casually between the legs of the next closest, waiting only long enough for its own step to trip it up before dropping the pole and snatching up a coil of braided cord. This would normally be used to bind the bunches of grasses to the side of the hut, but he had a different use for it now. As the other two struggled to rise, Bando risked running in closer to the last one, readying the cord as he went, tying a big sloppy knot in one end to weight it. He dodged past, flicking the weighted end around its legs as he passed, and catching it from the other side. As the monster tried to turn, Bando tugged on both ends, yanking the beast's legs out from underneath it. As it fell, Bando smiled. It wasn't to last. He heard a child scream, call for his mother. Everyone knew everyone in the village, so he recognized the voice. It seemed like he couldn't breathe the whole way over to the doctor's home. As he came up to it, he saw one of the windows was already broken, its woven reed screen in tatters, and in a flash he was crouching on the windowsill. He took in the carnage, the poor tiny body, and the two monsters coming in close on Bess in the corner. No time for anything clever, he had to do something practical. He slipped the free end of the cord he still carried through one of the open loops of the big messy knot, and then leapt into the room. The cord made a big makeshift lasso, and Bando held it open in both hands as he sprang up onto a half-cleared table near the creatures, bouncing off the edge to sail past behind them. He dropped the wide loop over both their heads, the cord settling on their shoulders, but he kept hold of the unknotted end. As his jump carried him to the ground, it drew the lasso closed, and the monsters found their heads suddenly bonking together with a sickly wet cracking sound. Bando didn't stop, yanking on the cord with his full weight, pulling the stunned creatures over backward. Bess! he shouted, his normally high voice sounding extra-squeaky in his urgency. Come on! Get out!