Page 71 of Blacktail

“You,” the opossum said. “Why have you come?”

“Have the beasts of these lands forgotten so much?” Blacktail asked. “I am here to kill you and make you my dinner. This is the way of things.”

“I have forgotten nothing,” the opossum said mildly. He dipped his head and drank from the stream. “I only wonder why you chose to dine on me rather than on one of those you were talking to earlier.”

“How do you know who I was speaking with?”

The opossum shrugged. “It’s a small wood. The few of us whom Mercy hasn’t seduced look out for one another.”

“Mercy? Who is this Mercy?”

“You don’t know? I thought you knew. You were talking to her priest earlier.”

“Who, that Milo fellow?”

“That’s him, yes.”

“Why do you call him ‘priest’? I’ve met stumps that were more fierce. If he’s the one leading their hunt, they’ll soon starve.”

The opossum regarded Blacktail for a long time. “I didn’t say that he was a priest of the Forest God.”

“Who, then?” Blacktail asked, honestly confused.

“They worship their mistress, the two-legs,” he said. Then, in a singsong impression of Milo’s terrier yap, “ ‘The protector, the caresser, she who brings bacon in the night. Come! Join with us and you, too, may dwell in the palace of sammich and chewtoy.’ ” He turned his head and spat. “Mercy.”

“They worship a—Oh no. Oh, bleeding dung. You can’t mean it.”

The opossum shrugged again. “These are strange times,” he said. He bent his head to the stream again. Blacktail heard his old heart hammering in his chest. The opossum drank for a long time, then looked up to see if Blacktail would eat him now.

“Let us pretend for a moment that I believe what you say,” Blacktail said.

“Very well,” the opossum said, agreeably enough. He looked up at the sky. “Well, this is the night for hunters, isn’t it? Hello, Asah.”

Blacktail followed his gaze up just in time to see an owl glide in to roost on the high branches of an oak.

“Hello, Slighen,” the owl responded. “And to Blacktail of the Far Hill…hail and obeisance.”

Blacktail sighed. “Spare me that sort of nonsense, if you please,” he said. “I’m only here for dinner.”

The owl cocked his head at Blacktail. “Dinner is of Slighen?” he asked.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“He hasn’t decided yet,” Slighen repeated. “Asah, why don’t you come down and help him make up his mind?” Then, to Blacktail in a conspiratorial whisper, he said, “Owls are quite tasty, you know.”

“Comfort is here,” the owl said. “No to come down. But I will help.”

“Help?” Blacktail said. “I don’t need help. I’ve been chewing my own dinner for some time now.”

“Chew, Blacktail, yes. Chew and rip and swallow. You are of the hunt. But these lands are no longer of you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Blacktail barked.

“I’m afraid he’s right,” Slighen responded, sighing. “It’s not just Milo and his lot. This whole forest is subjugated under a two-legs.”

“So far as I can tell, all forests are subjugated under one two-legs or another,” Blacktail said.

“That’s true enough, but not like this. No one hunts here. Not anymore.”