Bert felt the beginnings of a headache, stemming from grinding her teeth together. Her fingers remained tight around her pistol, while Phoenix moved in next to her cradling a whole pile of knives in his arms. He dumped them on the bar counter with a loud clatter and picked up the biggest - a very, very bloody meat cleaver.

The door thudded again, louder this time. Voices muttered behind it as Smack-dab's customers hopped their seats inch by inch away from the front area. A general murmur of panic was rippling through their poor, wealthy ranks, wide-eyed heads swivelling like Old World carnival clown machines to find someone who seemed confident. Of course, this meant all eyes fell on Bert. Bert, whose blue eyes bore holes in the door frame.

Smack-dab's front door thudded a third time. Someone behind it cursed loudly.

"Bloody stars, what's this thing made out of?" he said.

"Just'th open it normally, Roger," a second voice cried.

"I want to make'th an entrance."

"Thee can make an entrance normally, though!"

"But I want to make'th a dramatic entrance!"

"Yeah, but thee can't make a dramatic entrance if you - thee - can't kick'th it down."

The bugle ceased suddenly.

"Why don't you turn'th the handle, then kick it in?" a third voice chimed in.

"That's a great idea!"

"Thank you."

"Alright, you play'th forth the Battle Tune, you turn'th the handle, and I'll kick it in."

For the third time in barely as many minutes, Bert let out a slow, careful breath. Somehow she could just feel the stress like a little, irradiated pixie sitting on her shoulders, sandpapering her lifespan down with each headache.

The first time these weird-talking nutters appeared at Smack-dab, Bert was terrified. She thought a swarm of bandits - her sworn enemies - was seizing the opportunity of The Woman's death and moving in for a quick kill. It was her first bar invasion on her own, and to this day she still regretted the amount of ammo she wasted on their small, hooded warband. It took days to clean up all the giblets.

The fourth time it happened, she followed the buggers back to their village in the mountains and demanded the madness to stop. There were threats, sure, and she had shot some folk, OK maybe, but she was under the impression that the treaty was sound. It had worked for the past couple years, anyway.

But now?

Bert drew her pistol angrily and placed it, under her human hand, on the bar counter. She didn't need this, not today.

The bugle outside began again. The Battle Tune.

A muffled voice spoke confidently. "On the count of three..."

Phoenix practiced swinging his cleaver a couple times, blood specks flinging off and hitting him in the mouth.

"One..."

He spat in disgust, wiping his arms on his face but only smearing the blood across more of his face.

"Two..."

Customers all around the bar were beginning to notice Bert's lack of terror. She wasn't cowering, or ducking for cover, or fleeing and screaming (like they would be). Some took it as a good sign and turned their chairs - drinks in hand - to face the action.

Bert gripped her pistol.

"Three!"

The door thudded again.

"Sorry Roger, I thought we were going, one, two, three, then kick."

The handle turned in its socket. "Alright, try'th now."

With a mighty bang, the wooden door burst inward, joyriding on its hinges and slamming against the wall in a dusty cloud. Three figures poured into the bar along with their ridiculous music, all clad in long, black robes speckled with little white stars. Their robes were noticeably burned, large holes having been singed all over, particularly the shoulders and hoods. Bert wondered if there were just three in the group before the storm swept in...

"Bear witness!" cried the one in the front, who was waving a well-kept pistol in the air quite irresponsibly. "The Stars hath sent us to relinquish thine heathen establishment of the Burny Drink!"

Bert, carefully, thumbed back the hammer on her weapon, eyes focused on the guy with the gun. His colleague in the back was of little threat - he'd brought a spear to a Bert fight.

The lead invader turned his wild eyes on Bert, pointing at her with his weapon. "You! Devil Woman! Release thine Burny Drink, in the name of the Constellator!"

"CONSTELLATOOOOOR!" screamed the other two.

Bert gritted her teeth. "No."

"CONSTELLAT- oi wait, what did you say?" The leader cocked his head to one side, his weapon dropping to his side.

"I said no. Now what the hell happened to Fred? Why have you come back here?" Bert's face was filling with red.

Phoenix, noticing the colour of Bert's face, inched away from his boss nervously.

Obviously the lead figure was back on solid ground with Fred. His eyes lit up once more, his arms lifting from his sides to wave about in the air, his mouth revealing rotten teeth. "Fred! PAH!" he spat. "Fred was marked with thine Itchy Red Spots. The Stars made him Unworthy with their pox, and he was sacrificed to their glory ... 'th. There is a new Constellator!"

"CONSTELLATOOOOOR!" cried the ones in the back.

"Shut up!" Bert roared. "Who is your new Constellator-"

"CONSTELLATOOOOOR!"

"I said shut the hell up! Who is the new Cons- the new leader? I had a treaty with Fred and I will damn well see your end of the bargain held up." Bert, now positively crimson, slammed her robotic fist on the bar counter, startling the bottles behind her - not to mention the nearby onlookers enjoying the show. Table three, though, was watching a little plate of salad going cold in the service window.

"Your pathetic alliance with'th Fred the Unworthy hath been torn asunder, foul Devil Woman!" the lead figure continued to scream. He took a step forwards towards the bar, brandishing his pistol in wiry fingers. "You will never have an alliance with the Starry Place again - never!"

"Never!" cried his colleagues.

Phoenix was now shuffling slowly back towards the kitchen, away from where things might get messy. He hesitated, thinking maybe he should collect his precious pile of knives, but thought better of it. Too close to ground zero. Bert was about to explode.

Bert opened her mouth to shout back, but the hooded figure cut her off...

"No, speak'th no more, Devil! If you will not give us thine Burny Drink, you shall'th die for it!"

...and a little dial that measured the pressure of Bert's rage ticked over into the red zone. Pipes started to whistle quietly.

The leader from the Starry Place raised his weapon in the air, clenching his other hand into a fist. "Kill the non-believers! Relinquish the Burny Drink! For the Constellatooooor!"

"CONSTELLATOOOOOOR!"

And then his arm exploded.

* * *

"You leave Mr Tinkles alone!" Orsen screamed, his voice hammered by his pounding footsteps.

Jeb was doing his best to catch up, but if you could say one thing and one thing only about Orsen, he was bloody quick for a skinny teenager. The old sheriff wheezed loudly, forcing himself forwards in pursuit. He saw a small irony in the situation - running straight towards the very thing he was trying to run away from - but it didn't seem funny yet. Maybe it would in a few weeks, once the bruises and open wounds healed up. Assuming they ever did, of course.

The folks with the dungarees finally stopped kicking the wolfcat, noticing Orsen's gangly, teenage battle charge. The creature lay bloodied at their feet, its chest rising and falling gently, but otherwise totally devoid of motion. One of the attackers was an older wiry fellow with messy hair and no teeth, and the other a young buck with a decent set of muscles, but a dim-witted stare to suggest nothing decent going on anywhere else. Quite frankly, Jeb reckoned they looked like an alternate-universe version of himself and Orsen. Except with dungarees.

"Stop hurting Mr Tinkles!" Orsen screamed again.

"For cryin' out loud, Orsen, it's not bloody Mr Tinkles!" Jeb called desperately from behind.

"But he still needs help!"

The pair he was charging at looked truly lost, much to Jeb's relief. Namely, because he was also completely lost. He figured he'd come up with a plan on the fly, but most of his brainpower seemed to have diverted to swearing, wheezing and feeling pain.

The wolfcat kickers, whom Jeb decided to call Bob and Rob, met each other's eyes for a moment, then turned back to Orsen. Then Rob, who was the tall fellah with the muscles, walked out to meet the boy.

"Leave. Him. Alooooone!" Orsen cried a third time, dragging out the final word all the way to...

...a fist. Rob, without speaking, planted his foot and threw a flying fist of fury straight to Orsen's squishy, surprised face. The boy flopped back like he'd been bitten by a paralytic bitefly - a real bugger in swampier areas of the Waste - and landed in an ungainly heap on the dusty plains.

And that was it. They just sort of stood there after that, both Rob and Bob. Rob looked back at Bob, presumably for assurance, but Bob shrugged with eyebrows raised and pointed at Jeb, who was still doing his very best to be of any assistance whatsoever. Then Rob pointed down at Orsen, where the lights were definitely on, but quite clearly nobody was home.

Bob shrugged again, moved away from the wolfcat over to the prone lad, and laid a boot into his ribcage.

"Oi!" Jeb shouted, albeit hoarsely. "You leave that lad alone! He's jus' a boy; he don't know what he's doin'!"

Look, it wasn't an ideal situation, but at least Jeb now had Bob and Rob's full attention. They watched in uncertain silence as the old man closed the distance to them. Rob stepped forwards again, flexing and unflexing his fingers, but Bob held out his hand and stopped the younger man.

"What the fuck is goin' on, eh?" Bob asked, his voice coarse.

Jeb slowed to a wheezy, puffy stop, finally arriving at the battleground. He placed his hands on his knees and bent forwards, eyes examining the prone figure of Orsen, who was now floundering like some kind of lanky fish.

"Don't hurt us," Jeb asked, swallowing some sticky spit while his lungs cried for mercy. "Please, we's jus' humble folk, don't mean ya no harm."

Bob held out his arms, one solitary eyebrow raised (Jeb didn't know where the other one was, but he could swear it was there earlier). "Wad'ya mean? It was you's that attacked us."

Just behind them, Orsen was woozily getting his feet beneath him, a grubby hand checking his face. It was still there, but maybe a bit flatter than before.

"Look," Jeb said, the fire in his lungs slowly diminishing with each rattling breath, "Jus' let us go, alright? We'll be on our way. The lad doesn't know what he's doin', is all."

Bob, mouth agape, looked at Rob, who looked similarly gapeful. The older of the pair turned back to Jeb. "But ... but it was you's that attacked us!"

Orsen seemed stable now, or at the very least, upright. His eyes, squinting, fell on the backs of Rob and Bob, then on Jeb, then on the wolfcat, now curled up in the dust not far from where the peace negotiations were taking place. He lingered on the wolfcat.

"It's alright, don't ya worry about it," Jeb said, holding out his hands in a pleading motion while showing off various types of innocent grin. "We're jus' gonna be on our way and thas that, eh? No harm done ... except to the lad, o' course. But between you an' me he deserved that one, eh?" He shuffled a foot forwards through the dust.

"Now look, mate," scowled Bob, now lacking both eyebrows. "Me an' me son are jus' out 'ere teachin' our pet wolfcat 'ow t' behave, and in yer come as happy as ya like screamin' yer lungs off about tinklin' an' attack us!"

Rob nodded, matching Bob's scowl.

"Now yer tellin' me ya mean no harm, she'll be right no worries off yer be on yer way? Well I've 'ad enough o' this. Yer takin' me for a ride, mate."

Bob stepped forwards, his knobbly fingers curling into tight fists. Rob stepped up with him, bearing his teeth. Though Jeb felt "fangs" might have been a better descriptor.

The old man sighed in defeat. This is why he always tried to keep Orsen out of trouble. Because if you got into trouble, well, you were in bloody trouble, weren't you? And all you had then was broken dreams, and probably broken bones. And probably broken plenty else, because trouble was like that. It caused trouble.

While Bob and Rob, whom Jeb had now forgotten who was which, stepped forwards to show Jeb what being pulp felt like, Orsen was kneeling down next to the injured animal. It had started to wriggle gently in the dust, but didn't try to escape when Orsen leaned in to scoop it into his arms. In fact, the battered creature nuzzled into the nook of his elbow.

Bob and Rob were now close enough to smell, which was never a good place to be. Especially if they smelled like Bob and Rob.

"I reckons," sneered Bob, or was it Rob? Whichever one was the older one. "I reckons we're gonna teach ya a lesson, so we will. Ya don't attack men o' the Farm an' expect t' live. We're out 'ere makin' th' Waste a better place, an' ya scream at us? Uh uh, not on our watch, eh Maddison?"

The dumb one nodded again. Jeb refused to call him Maddison.

Orsen was now standing moderately firmly, wolfcat curled in his arms. He seemed to have gained some semblance of normal consciousness. Jeb flexed his fingers, shook his knees and took a deep breath.

"Look, I appreciate th' situation here, but let's come t' an arrangeme- RUN, LAD, RUN!" he screamed, swinging his pack off his shoulders in a heavy arc and leaping into a sprint.

The dungarees duo didn't need to jump far to get out of the way before the pack clobbered them, but it was space enough for a skinny old man to hop through. Jeb launched himself between them and ploughed straight ahead towards the fleeing figure of Orsen, shouldering his pack again.

They ran as though a Waste Beast were chasing them, the fear of death motivation enough for Jeb's old bones to give him a last hurrah. Jeb vaguely heard a voice crying behind him about a pet wolfcat, but there was no turning back now.

Rob and Bob would never catch up, nor would they ever truly know what the hell happened, why they were attacked, and why two random, grubby traders offed with their wolfcat in broad daylight.

So at least it wasn't a bad day just for Jeb.

* * *

Would you have leapt into danger to save a little wolfcat? Let me know in the comments! And please remember to Vote to support this book.

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