The morning air was thick and grey. I lined them up in the mud, forty of them clutching those jagged chitin shivs. They looked like a row of dead men walking. Mo leaned against a fence, his arms crossed, watching the kids shake.
"Pair up," I barked. "Now."
They hesitated. These rabbits spent their lives hiding in holes, praying the Queen's pets wouldn't find them. They knew how to hurt nothing that wasn't a vegetable.
"I said pair up!" I grabbed a boy by his long, scarred ear and threw him toward another. "You. Fight him. If I don't see red on the ground in five minutes, I'm taking a finger from both of you."
"We're brothers!" the boy shrieked, his eyes wide.
"Then you'd better hope your brother is fast," I said.
I gave them no choice. I kicked the back of a girl's knee, forcing her to drop into the filth, and shoved her opponent on top of her. The first punch landed with a wet thud. Then the first blade cut.
It started slow, then turned into a frantic, desperate mess. Agnes was paired with a tall, grey-furred male who looked ready to bolt. She waited for him to move, then lunged, driving her chitin blade into his shoulder. The serrated edge caught on his tunic and tore through, leaving a jagged gash that leaked dark fluid.
The guy roared, a sound more like an animal than a person, and swung his fist. It caught Agnes in the mouth. Her lip split instantly, spraying a fine mist of red across her white fur. She spat a glob of blood into the mud and went for his eyes.
Across the square, the scrawny kid with the notched ear was pinned. His partner, a brute of a rabbit with a broken tooth, slammed a rock into the kid's ribs. I heard a rib snap—a sharp, dry sound. The kid wailed, but the brute kept going until I stepped in and hauled him off.
"Enough," I said, looking at the mess.
The mud was no longer grey. It was stained with dark, copper-heavy puddles. Half the villagers were doubled over, clutching gashes or holding shattered noses. The Chief stood in the doorway of his hut, his hands trembling on his cane. He watched his soul burn.
"You're all pathetic," I spat, walking through the carnage. "But now you know what it feels like to bleed. The Stormbeasts won't give you a chance to cry. They'll rip your throat out and keep going. If you can't hit your own kin to survive, you're already dead."
Agnes stood up, wiping the blood from her chin with the back of her hand. Her ruby eyes were cold, hollowed out by the violence. She looked at the man she'd stabbed, who was rocking back and forth clutching his arm.
"You're stripping away everything we are," Agnes said, her voice a low hiss. "You're turning us into mindless butchers."
"The Queen made the monsters," I said, leaning in close so she could see the dirt under my fingernails. "I'm the one making sure you aren't the next meal. A butcher lives; a lamb gets eaten."
Mo pushed off the fence and walked over to a girl who was trying to push her intestines back into a shallow stomach wound. He gave no bandage. He handed her a rag and pointed toward the well.
"Clean up," Mo said. "Tomorrow, we do it with the Drakes."
We didn't wait for the wounds to scab over. I dragged the group toward the jagged cliffs on the edge of the valley, where the wind whistled through the rocks like a dying man's throat.
"Look up," I told them.
High above, a Storm-Drake circled. It was a lean, ugly bastard, all leathery wings and a tail tipped with a bone-stinger. It was one of the Queen's favorites for clearing out "rebellious" villages.
I looked at the girl with the rag pressed to her stomach. She was pale, her legs shaking in the mud.
"You," I said, grabbing her by the shoulder and shoving her into the center of a clearing. "You're the bait. Sit there and look like you're dying. It shouldn't be hard."
"James, she's losing too much fluid," Mo muttered, but he didn't stop me. He knew the drill.
The girl collapsed, her white fur stained a muddy pink. The Drake saw her. It let out a shriek that sounded like metal grinding on metal and folded its wings, dropping like a stone.
"Hide. Now," I hissed to the others.
The Drake hit the ground with a heavy thud, its talons digging deep furrows into the earth. It hissed, its long neck snaking toward the girl. It opened its maw, revealing rows of needle-teeth dripping with a clear, corrosive slime.
Just as it lunged, I whistled.
Agnes leapt from behind a boulder, her chitin blade raised high. She didn't hesitate. She slammed the serrated edge into the Drake's wing joint. The bone snapped with a wet crunch, and the beast let out a gurgling scream.
The rest of the rabbits swarmed. They were messy and terrified, but they were hungry for some kind of payback. One boy drove a pole into the Drake's side, the chitin tip disappearing into the scales. The beast lashed out with its tail, catching a villager in the chest and sending him flying into a tree. I heard his ribs turn into powder.
I stepped in, dodging a snap of the Drake's jaws. I drove my combat knife into the base of its skull, twisting the blade until I felt the spine give way. The beast's body went limp, its massive wings flapping uselessly in the dirt.
Agnes didn't stop. She kept hacking at the neck until the head came away in a spray of dark, steaming fluid. She stood there, drenched in the Drake's filth, holding the severed head by its horns.
"One down," she panted, her eyes bloodshot.
"There's a whole nest of them up there," I said, pointing to the higher crags. "And they're going to be pissed when they find out their scout didn't come home."
I looked at the girl we used as bait. She was still alive, staring at the dead monster with a hollow expression. I kicked a piece of the Drake's wing toward her.
"Pick it up," I said. "We're going to need more armor."