Frozenmoon - Prologue

Under a soft night-blue sky, a white-furred figure lay on the gravel. His chest heaved, and as he stood up, he wiped blood from his shoulder, stopping it from bleeding any more onto his chest. He took a step, but his legs gave way beneath him. “Damn you, Fleck,” he growled beneath his breath. He lifted himself up slowly, shuddering as his cut forelegs leaked out blood from the pressure of his weight.

Something gasped behind him, and then a clumsy step of feet. Tyranos whirled, fiery eyes alight. Yet nothing was behind him. His tail lashed and he lowered his ears. “Come out!” he growled. If it was Fleck…

He didn’t move, but instead just stood there patiently. He knew if he took another limping step, he’d fall over, prone.

His eyes scanned the long May grass. Fescues, grain, and the scent of strawberries hit his nose. Then he caught the scent of another mouse. Yet he couldn’t trace whose it was.

“Tyranos?” a voice whispered, coming from behind the power pole.

“Who is it?” he asked, wincing every time the muscle on his shoulder tensed. He took a short step, trying as hard as he could to stop his cut legs from giving way beneath him.

From behind the power pole, a familiar dark shape stepped out. “What-” she stopped, scanning his body. “What happened to you?” It was Trill.

Tyranos chuckled. “You didn’t seem so worried outside of Hoof Spots.” He remembered when Trill tried to kill him, only three days ago. His chest heaved as he wiped off another spot of blood.

Maybe he’d been out for longer than that. Two days seemed likely.

“You didn’t have a gash the size of my paw in your shoulder, did you?”

Tyranos managed another laugh, wincing with every tensing of his shoulder muscles. “Now I have three.” He made motions to his legs, and then his port shoulder. All the wounds were made by Fleck. Two in a mad fit of fear, and the wound on his shoulder due to a battle that he shouldn’t have lost. “Look.” He hung his head now, remembering what he did to her to cause Trill’s anger at that battle. “I didn’t mean to hit you…” he paused. “With that sling.”

Trill shook her head. “You threw it, though.” Her grey-black fur bristled in the moonlight.

With a sigh, he nodded. “I did, didn’t I?”

There was a tense silence for a few moments, with both looking each other in their amber eyes. Finally the silence was broken not by anyone saying anything, but by Tyranos turning around and taking a weak step away. It didn’t matter if Trill was here. She still tried to kill him and Tulun.

“Wait,” Trill said, grabbing Tyranos by his good shoulder.

The white mouse whirled painfully. “What? You want to kill Tulun again?”

“No!” she said. She stopped for a moment beneath Tyranos’ shadow. “I made mistakes, okay?”

Tyranos scoffed. “Sure.” He shook Trill’s paw off, angrily taking another limping step. “Trying to kill us, following along with your father’s little plan. Mistakes?” he said, sarcasm edging his voice. “Never.”

Trill looked down at her paws. “I did more than just that.”

Tyranos took another step down the grassy path. “You? Never.”

“You want to know more?” she growled. “Rozalin killed Highwhisker. Now I’m exiled.”

Tyranos remembered how sensitive she was about Hazelwood, but the thought only nagged at the back of his mind. He stopped midstep, barely able to keep his balance. “No.” He didn’t even turn, feeling the fur on his neck rising. “You didn’t. You couldn’t have.” Pieces of memory began to form in his mind. Thoughts of why the first expedition was sent off, and then the mission that Rozalin had sent after it. “That’s why Roz sent the mission.” His voice was calmer, subdued.

“That’s why.”

Tyranos could barely breathe. He just took angry steps away. Highwhisker, the mouse that took him and Tulun in, even if he knew they could never change. A special kind of mouse, despite whatever fault that Hazelwood or Trill could find in him.

“Just leave, Trill,” he said. “Go away.” He kept limping away, gritting his teeth together from the pain in his legs and shoulder.

He turned his head back painfully, white fur bristled in anger at her. She just stood there, still.

Tyranos continued walking, grasping his shoulder to stop the blood flowing from his shoulder.

Tyranos stopped as a blade landed in front of his paws, digging into the soil.

“You want it?” Without turning back, he could tell that Trill was serious.

Tyranos bent over slowly and picked the blade up. He didn’t hold it high, he just let the scimitar drag by his hind paws.

A thought hit the back of Tyranos’ mind, slowly creeping its way to the front. Highwhisker wouldn’t have a funeral, like the Frozenmoon mice did. Wolf Plains mice just threw bodies outside the city, to be eaten by the hawks.

Sir Highwhisker deserved better.

Trill still stood in the dirt clearing, looking back at Wolf Plains, a day’s walk away, but a night’s run.

“Where’s Highwhisker’s body?” He dug his hind claws into the loose dusty dirt.

Trill spat. “You want to see that coward?”

Tyranos felt the fur on his hackles rising. As he painfully got onto four paws, he nodded. “He wasn’t a coward.”

Trill scoffed, but got onto four paws. “Loyal or Guildless, I’m doing this for you.” She took quiet steps, taking fast steps up the hill and stopping at the top of it. She turned East, the direction of Wolf Plains. “I’ll wait up if you need it.”

Tyranos turned back at the sky, the moon still high in the sky. “I’m okay.”

He took steps as quickly as he could, but still couldn’t put much weight on any of his paws, especially his port forepaw. Yet he still padded on, wincing every time his paws hit he ground.

***

“He’s over here.” The scent of death hit Tyranos straight in then face, and Tyranos had to look away. Yet his eyes couldn’t tear themselves from the mouse. His chestnut fur was matted. His blue eyes were now a dull grey. Shattered glass stabbed through the fur on his back. His body was stiff in death, his eyes sightless to the sy above him.

“You did this!” he growled to Trill. “You gave the word to Rozalin, didn’t you?” His paws clenched and unclenched.

The dark mouse didn’t say anything. “I only gave the word,” she murmured.

Tyranos’ voice shuddered. “You still did it! I warned you!” Anger rose in his voice. “He couldn’t be killed.”

“You were wrong, then.”

Tyranos raised a claw, baring his claws, then she realized Trill was right. Highwhisker was an old mouse, and he wasn’t growing any younger. He was probably getting weaker too. Tyranos just looked up to Highwhisker too much to see it.

Still, it didn’t justify anything. “Why? Why would you even want to do it?” His voice calmed down, yet he still dug his claws into his paws. He lashed his tail in anger.

In the moonlight, Trill stood there without moving. “I believed in what I thought was right.”

“You still do?” Tyranos looked at the body of Sir Highwhisker, laying what little snow there was left.

Trill remained silent, her yellow eyes locked on Highwhisker.

Tyranos sighed, and knelt down to Highwhisker, closing the governor’s eyelids. He lifted him up slowly, resting the old mouse on Tyranos’ shoulder. “He deserves better.”

The sun began to rise. Soon everyone would be waking up. “Let’s go.”

He took limping steps away from Wolf Plains, forced to go on his hind paws to carry Highwhisker. “Are you coming, Guildless?” he spat.

Trill nodded silently. “Where are we going?”

“Frozenmoon’s army,” he said quietly. He continued limping on the road, listening for the horn that woke the guards up every morning.

There it sounded, and Tyranos began walking faster. He wouldn’t want to be seen by the Guards, however little there were left.

“Come on,” he growled. It was a long walk back to the crabapple tree Leurce pointed to, but Tyranos wanted to get there quickly as possible. 

Before he took another step, he caught sight of a blond mouse, watching him. He was a near replica of Edvard, down to fiery green eyes. He stepped back, wincing, but continued to glare at the mouse. Tyranos killed Edvard for good reason. He shouldn't let a ghost haunt him.

It took a few seconds, then the blond mouse turned away slowly, and walked down from his perch on the fencepost.

Tyranos did the same, walking away from Wolf Plains, with Sir Highwhisker on his back.

This time, he was leaving for good.