clubs come into play. Waiters and waitresses huddled behind this front line of
defense, casually making book on the outcome of the fight or downing drinks
intended for otherwise occupied patrons.
The fight whirlpooled around this central bastion of calm as the room was filled
with yelps and meows, squeaks and squeals and chirps of pain and outrage.
It was an arboreal that almost got Jon-Tom. He was effectively if unartistically
using his long staff to fend off the short sword thrusts of an outraged pika
when Mudge yelled, "Jon-Tom... duck!"
As it was, the bola-wielding mallard missed his neck but got his weapon
entangled in the club end of Jon-Tom's staff. He shoved down hard on it. In
order to remain airborne the fowl had to surrender his weapon, but not without
dropping instead a stream of insults on the tall human. Jon-Tom had time to note
the duck's kilt of orange and green. He wondered if the different kilt colors
signified species or some sort of genus-spanning clan equivalent.
There was little time for sociological contemplation. The marten had recovered
from Mudge's low blow and was moving to put the sharp edge of his blade through
Jon-Tom's midsection. Instinctively he tilted the staff crosswise. The club end
came over and around. It missed the agile marten, but the entangled bird's bola
caught around the weasel's neck.
Dropping his sword, he pulled the device free of the staff and stumbled away,
fighting to free his neck from the strangling cord. Jon-Tom, momentarily clear
of attackers, hunted through the crowd for his companion.
Mudge was close by, kicking furniture in the way of potential assailants,
throwing mugs and other eating utensils at them whenever possible, avoiding
hand-to-hand combat wherever he could.
Jon-Tom took no pride, felt no pleasure in his newfound capacity for violent
self-defense. If he could only get out of this dangerous madhouse and back home
to the peace and quiet of his little apartment! But that distant, familiar haven
had receded ever farther into memory, had reached the point where it existed
only as misty history compared to the all too real blood and fury surrounding
him.
Thank God, he thought frantically, fending off another attacker, for
Clothahump's ministrations. Even a well-bandaged wound would have broken open
again by now, but he felt nothing in his formerly injured side. He was well and
truly healed.
That would not save him if one of many sword or pike thrusts punctured him anew.
The indiscriminate nature of the fighting was more frightening than anything
else now. It was impossible to tell potential friend from foe.
In vain he looked across the milling crest of the fight for the entrance. It was
seemingly at least a mile away across an ocean of battling fur and steel. A
desperate examination of the room seemed to show no other exit save via the
central bastion of the bar and food counter, whose defenders were not admitting
refugees. That left only the windows, an idea the panting Mudge quickly quashed.
"Blimey, mate, you must be daft! That glass be 'alf an inch thick in places and
thicker where 'tis beveled. I'd sooner take a sword thrust than slice meself t'
bloody ribbons on that.
"There be an alley out back. Let's make our way in that direction."
"I don't see any doors there," said Jon-Tom, straining to see past the rear
booths.
"Surely there's a service entryway. I'll settle now meself for a garbage chute."
Sure enough, they eventually discovered a single low doorway hidden by stacks of
crates and piles of garbage. The close-packed mob made progress difficult, but
they forced their way slowly toward the promise of freedom and safety. Only
Jon-Tom's overbearing height enabled them to keep their goal in view. To the
other brawlers he must have looked like an ambling lighthouse.
Already his shining snakeskin cape was torn and bloodstained. Better it than me,
he thought gratefully. It was not a pretty riot. The only rules were those of
survival.
He passed one squirrel prone on the floor, tail sodden and matted with blood.
His left leg was missing below the knee. So much blood and spilled drink and
food had accumulated on the floor, in fact, that one of the greatest dangers was
losing one's footing on the increasingly treacherous planking.
Jon-Tom watched as a cape-clad coyote picked over the unconscious form of a
badly bleeding fox. While his attention was thus temporarily diverted, someone
grabbed his left arm. He turned to swing the staff one-handed or jab as was
required. So far he hadn't been forced to utilize the concealed spearpoint and
hoped he'd never have to.
The figure that had grabbed him was completely swathed in maroon and blue
material. He could discern little of the figure save that the mostly hidden face
seemed to be human. The short figure tugged hard and urged him back behind a
temporary wall formed by a trio of fat porcupines, who, for self-evident
reasons, were having little trouble fending off any combatant foolish enough to
come close.
He decided there was time later for questions, since the figure was pulling him
toward the haven promised by the back door, and that was his intended
destination anyway.
"Hurry it up!" Though muffled by fabric the voice was definitely human. "The
cops have been called and should be here any second." There was a decided
undertone of real fear in that warning, the reason for which Jon-Tom was to
discover soon enough.
Visions of hundreds of furry poliee swarming through the crowd filled his
thoughts. From the size and breadth of the conflict he guessed it would take at
least that number several more hours to quell the fighting. He was reckoning
without the ingenuity of Lynchbany law enforcement.
Mudge, upon hearing of the incipient arrival of the gendarmes, acted genuinely
terrified.
"That's fair warnin', mate," he yelled above the din, "and we'd best get out or
die trying." He redoubled his efforts to clear a path to the door.
"Why? What will they do?" He swung his staff in a short arc, brought it up
beneath the chin of a small but gamely threatening muskrat who was swinging at
Jon-Tom's ankles with a weapon like a scythe. Fortunately, he'd only nicked one
trouser leg before Jon-Tom knocked him out. "Do they kill people here for
fighting in public?"
"Worse than that." Mudge was nearly at the back door, fighting to keep potential
antagonists out of sword range and the invulnerable porcupines between himself
and the rest of the mob. Then he shouted frantically.
"Quickly--quick now, for your lives!" Jon-Tom thought it peculiar the otter had
not sought the identity of their concealed compatriot. "They're here!"
From his position head-and-shoulders high above the crowd Jon-Tom could see
across to the now distant main entrance. He also noted with concern that the
chefs and bartenders and waiters had vanished, abandoning their stock to the
crowd.
Four or five figures of indeterminate furry cast stood inside the entryway now.
They wore leathern bonnets decorated with flashing ovals of metal. Emblems on
shoulder vests glinted in the light from the remaining intact lamps and the
windows. There was a crash, and he saw that unmindful of the danger Mudge had
outlined, the appearance of the police had actually frightened one of the
fighters into following a chair out through a thick window pane. Jon-Tom
wondered what horrible fate was in store for the rest of the still battling mob.
Then he was following the strange figure and Mudge out through the door. As they