# [Mouse Guard] Death's Wings - Spring, 1153



## Paka (Dec 9, 2008)

_"When the Great Horned One takes you in the night it does not kill you.


When the Great Horned One takes you, you were dead already.


You did not know it yet."


- words carved into monolith known as The Finger near Copperwood_

Mouse Guard Archives, Spring, 1153

Death's Wings, Part I


Snow was still on the ground and only the hardiest grass was peaking out from the thin snow remaining. No guardsmice had left Lockhaven's gates for spring-time missions yet.

Gurney and Tander would be the first patrol of the new year, each having been promoted to Patrol Guard recently. They were mentored at different times by Finn, an old greyfur sailor who had not returned to Lockhaven after his spring mission.

Gurney was a black mouse with a black cloak, known for sitting in the tavern with a mug of ale, as if just to soak in the camaraderie. He was an independent smith-mouse from Copperwood in the south. The incident between him and Guard Captain Grahame on the fight practice grounds is well documented in last year's archives.

Tander was a bookish brown mouse with a gray cloak, a sling on his hip and with always-searching eyes looking for a safe exit. He was a cartographer, always looking for lost paths in the territories, looking for faster ways for his fellow patrol-mice to travel. Tander was yet another smart mouse inducted into the Mouse Guard from Sprucetuck.

They were often seen together sharing a table in Lockhaven's pub, Gurney smoking a pipe, soaking in the atmosphere while Tander poured over a map of some obscure corner of the Territories.

Gwendolyn called them into her quarters so early in the morning that it was still dark, a morning chill in the air. Her desk was covered, as always, by missives and maps, candles and the chess-like pieces representing the movements of the various Mouse Guard in the territories. This time of year, so close to winter, most were safe in Lockhaven, training for the winter, but some were still errant or spending the winter with family.

"Finn never returned from his spring-time missions and never sent a letter. He might have spent the winter with a lady-friend of his in Copperwood." She eyed the guard-mice carefully, letting their smirks fade. Finn was a former sailor from Port Sumac and his reputation with the mice-maidens was the stuff of Territories legend. .

"He might be hung over in some Copperwood ale-house but I want to be sure; he is too valuable a veteran and more than that, he is one of us, one of the Guard. You two will go find him, not waiting for the full thaw."

They left that morning, the sun only a rumor over the eastern horizon, the sky still the color of a bruise when they left the safety of Lockhaven.

The rain was cold and miserable, freezing as soon as it touched the ground. It was nothing that would kill them, but it might threaten to wear them down, leave them exhausted or worse when they finally reached Copperwood. Hills that would have only been a hard hike became slippery crawls on their bellies, leaving ice in their cloak and frozen whiskers on their face.

They found an overhang in the night, not quite a cave, more of a safe place to stay out of the rain for a time but it was not enough. In the night the wind shifted, causing the rain to find them, even under shelter. They were driven out by rain blowing in sideways, pelting them, ending their attempt at rest.

On the last leg of the journey, frozen branches were falling, shattering on the ground, covered in a layer of ice, like a butterfly's cocoon. The sound of the wood shattering was deafening. The trees that were not falling apart were sagging under icy weight, always threatening to drop a branch that would became dagger-sharp shards upon hitting the snow-packed ground.

An abandoned farm was where they took their final rest before the fields outside of Copperwood but it was long abandoned, holes in the roof and a lack of firewood gave them little comfort.

The hoot of an owl drove all thoughts of rain and ice from their minds. Gurney gripped his halbred, eyes skyward. Tandor slipped his sling from his belt, looking for a safe passage to a defensible position.

They were on the edge of a field just outside of Copperwood when they heard the hoot again. It was a field Gurney knew well from his youth. In the middle of the open field was The Finger, a stone monolith that reached for the sky, tall as a tree. Along the edge of the Finger were stairs, put there by mice in a dark age before the Mouse Guard.

In those dark ages, mice had left offerings for an owl on the Finger. It was unthinkable now, mice chaining another of their kind for an animal to eat. Yet, there was Finn, chained to the top of the Finger, too weak to move. Again an owl call but this time it was clear that it was no owl but a horn, blown by horrid mice, designed to summon a Great Horned Owl.

Quickly the ran for the Finger, hoping to reach their mentor before the winged beast did.

Tander sprinted for the stone itself while Gurney looked at the night sky, noticing the owl's silhouette against the moonlight, its eyes scanning the ground. It would surely eat Tander, so Gurney waved his Halbred, hoping to get the monster's attention.

The little black mouse got the Great Horned Owl's attention while Tander used his knowledge of open fields to make his way to the Finger itself and free Finn from his shackles.

The monster swooped down out of the sky, ripping at the black mouse, claws extended. Gurney hacked at it with his halbred, keeping as far from the talons as his weapon would allow. The owl took off in order to eat its meal on the Finger but the guardsmouse had hacked off a part of its claw.

Wary of further ambush, the owl floated on the wind, looking over the Finger's occupants. Tander sprinted up the stairs while placing a stone in his sling. As he came around to the owl's side of the Finger, he let fly, even as the owl ended his floating, beginning to descend towards the helpless greyfur, Finn.

The stone struck true, taking out one of the owl's eyes, driving it from the Finger. Having lost a claw and and an eye, the owl flew away to seek an easier meal elsewhere.

When Tander and Gurney reached the top of the Finger together, Finn was delirious with hunger and exhaustion.

"You two don't look like an owl," he said, managing to smirk, proud of his former students and surprised to be alive.

"Your smell drove the owl off, Finn," Gurney replied, as he fell into the old caustic banter he had known with his mentor, while looking over the chain with a smith's eyes.

Tander just smiled, happy to see Finn alive and helped him up as Gurney cut the chain from the old mouse's ankle.

As they got him safely down, Finn muttered something about an owl cult, a group of armed mice holding the town hostage all winter, the governor's children taken in the night but it was all vague whispers, as if he was in a fever dream.

Gurney shook his head in disgust that the Copperwood mouse-folk would let mice chain one of their own for an owl's pleasure.

Devin the Smith, a childhood friend of Gurney's in Copperwood proper, welcomed the guardsmice into her home when they entered the town in the night unnoticed. Devin the Smith could not tell her old friend any names to give him any leads concerning the owl's worshippers; she had family in town, a husband to think of and no way to protect them all.  The fear was on her.

Gurney knew that Finn needed to be taken back to Lockhaven and that he had Tander were of equal rank in the Mouse Guard; neither had been given leadership of his patrol. "I want to stay and see this through, Tander. I want to know why my home has allowed his to happen and won't be ready to leave until I have some answers."

Tander replied softly but with a firm strength in his voice, "You will have no conflict for me, my friend."

It seemed to Tander that they should gain audience with the governor. When they approached the governor's house, it was already stalked by mice wearing armor and owl feathers (who knows how they gathered it) in their helms.

Tander shook his head. "There is no way in."

They were angry and tired. By the strict letter of Gwendolyn's original mission, they had completed their duties but they looked at these armored mice prowling Copperwood's cobbled streets and knew the mission had only just begun.


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## Paka (Dec 23, 2008)

_"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."


- Copperwood Motto
_

Death's Wings Part IIa

Gurney shook off the exhaustion from the journey. His hometown was filled with mice who closed their doors while others suffered. Other mice in the guard might come to whisper that Copperwood was filled with weaklings and cowards. No, Gurney was not tired anymore. He was too damned angry to be tired.

The guardsmice squatted behind a stone between two buildings, a tannery and an armory, looking in on the Governor's Cottage along the central square. Brigands in armor patrolled with owl feathers in their helms, barbed spears at the ready.

"Tander, I am going to the bell-tower and gather up the town. I have something to say to the mice of Copperwood," Gurney said in as matter-of-face tone, unslinging the halbred from his shoulder. "You shouldn't go with me in case I am captured."

"Maybe we could find an alternate route to the tower...a safer route?"

Gurney agreed with Tander but not in the way the bookish mouse wanted. "Yes, if you go a safer route, that will be better for you, I think. I am walking across the square, facing them head on. I'm a warrior, not a planner."

"Maybe we could fight them in the bell-tower and choose our ground, choose the terrain and the time to fight," Tander pleaded, noticing that the sewage tunnels under Copperwood ran right to the bell-tower..

"I am choosing the grounds. I am choosing the square, right now, right here. If I die in front of the bell-tower, while you ring the bell and if I should perish in front of all of Copperwood's cowards, that is fine with me."

Tander knew better than to turn this into an argument. "Sing that song, 'The Night the Sparrows Fed,' before you head out, give me time to get the bell ringing and to back you up."

Gurney nodded.

As Tander sprinted down the sewage tunnels, Gurney walked into the town square, singing the grim folk song, 'The Night the Sparrows Fed,' to himself while he strolled.

The zealous owl-feathered brigand-mice met him before the bell-tower, spears in hand.

"You are coming with us, guard-mouse."

"I am going up to ring that bell."

The lead brigand opened his mouth to argue and Gurney got in close, choking up on his halbred, using it like an axe, rather than like a pole-arm. Before they knew what was going on, he was in amongst them, wreaking havoc, rending limbs and opening their guts to the cobblestones of Copperwood's main square. By the time Tander rang the bell and loaded a stone into his sling, most of the brigands were already dead.

The last of them begged and pleaded for mercy. His spear had been knocked from his paw's grip and he was crawling along the stones, slipping on his comrad's blood.

"Please. Please, don't kill me. Mercy, Mouse Guard. Mercy, I beg-"

"I am showing you the mercy that you showed to the mice you chained up for the owl, you bastard."

Gurney's halbred showed no mercy, cutting the mouse in half, from crotch to skull.

When Tander came down the steps, he found Gurney smoking a pipe, looking out to the town, watching the crafts-mice of Copperwood gather among the carnage. The governor saw the death and fell to his knees, crying. He did not cry for the brigands but for his own children, whom the owl cultists had kidnapped and held hostage.

"You have killed my children. They will kill them for sure now. Look and see what you have done! You've killed my beloved children."

Gurney smoked his pipe impassively, not swayed or moved in the least by the governor's show of emotion and grief.

The black-furred mouse tamped out his pipe, putting it back on his belt and cleaned his halbred of the gore stuck to the blade. "Like as not your kids were dead already. No, you should have stood up to these bandits the moment they showed up. The Copperwood I knew, the place where I grew up would have never allowed this to happen. No way. Grey-ears and his two sons would have taken to arms and stood strong. Old Man Winter would have picked up his bow and shot any mouse who suggested feeding an owl willingly. No way the Copperwood that raised me would have been so cowardly."

Devlin the Smith, who had been an apprentice with Gurney before he had been cloaked as a Mouse Guard shook her head. "Gurney, it was a rough winter; you don't know what it has been like out here."

Tander verbally backed up his fellow guard-mouse and friend, "Gurney has just given all of you an opportunity to regain the honor of your town... will you take it?"

Having cleaned his halbred from the fur and blood that was clinging to it, Gurney looked over the mice of Copperwood. "We are going to take to the trail; they will be heading to the Finger to feed the governor's children to the owl. We are going to save them, face the owl if we must. Whose with us?"

Old Man Winter stepped forward, nodding his head.

Old Gray ears stepped up too. "My eldest boy died from the famine of this winter's past."

Gurney told the old man he was sorry to hear that.

"But me and my boy will fight with you to make sure no others have to die."

The rest of Copperwood watched them go as they left the safety of the oak that the town was built within and headed out on the open trail for the Finger, a jutting natural pillar of stone as high as a tree where these zealots have taken to sacrificing mice to an owl. If they were lucky, the Guards-mice reckoned, they would get to the Finger before the cultists and they could save the governor's children before the owl was summoned.

Tander and Gurney did the maths in their head, thinking about the time it would have taken the bandits to hear about the slaughter, gather the children and make for the Finger.

The guards-mice, along with an old hunter, an old carpenter and the carpenter's young son heard the horn the zealots use to summon the Great Horned Owl, a beast whom the brigands believed was the incarnation of death itself.  They barely had time to group together when they saw a shadow cross the moon.


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