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Eight of Nine
Fantasy short story submitted to Writing Battle Writing Contest 2026
Bricks can tell you the whole red-brown history of a place, if you knows how to read ‘em proper. A crumble-mortar epic hewn right there into the walls. Cracks and divots like wrinkles on a man's face, a life lived in service. Carrying onward the memories of those of us not meant for the books and songs and ledgers. And just like eyes and the soul and that, the bricks are a window to the truth of a place.
The stories worth a read ain't at the eye-bricks, though, nor the handers. No, they're down in the muck with me, at the footers, the knee-caps, and the shinny-brick, waitin’ for a drunken slidey-down or a brawl gone awry. Those bricks whisper and scheme behind their stains, salt and mud and shite.
First rat I ever split open was right here, in this odorous, sublime little corridor of the Shambles, where the blessed poor go off to die like they should. These self-same bricks were there, then. Watchin’, drinkin’ that poor rat’s life. Now, like jailers, or old friends what knows best, they hem me in—or maybe they hem the rest out. Sometimes it feels like hemmin’ and hawin’, both, the cruel joke they's made of me. A life the length of nine men, and here I be, stuck in the shite too afraid to move.
Funny that, how the bricks brought you to me.
I seen you walkin’ by. Peerin’ and glancin’ like a boy at a shop window, checkin’ his toy ain't been bought yet. Thought at first you was lookin’ for me, a nabber or some like. But no, your eyes roved too low, darted away too fast, and you didn't have the smell of rat on you. Days and days you'd come, lookin’, tanned arms dusty from Shambles work. My hackles and my curiosity both began to pique, I admit. Could smell the magic on you, the beautiful stink of it, but could hear the walls whispering to leave well enough alone. Somethin’ familiar mixed up in the odors, too, but I couldn't quite place it—the familiarity, I mean, not the scent. Pine sap and true love, it was. This nose ain't miss a ratsdamned thing.
When you finally stepped off the street, into my shite-strewn domain, the bricks sang your footfalls to me. Practically leapt to all fours, the music was so loud. Hair stood up like soldiers. I admit readily, ain't too proud, I began to hiss and spit and piss and shit all’s at once, I was so surprised. Not afraid, mind. Surprised.
Your eyes snapped up to me, then, bloodshot and saggy, and I saw the self-same shock mirrored. You held up brick-wrinkle hands, backing off, though your eyes darted again to the shinnies on the leftern wall, the old stains there. But the low growl from my throat was enough to send you off, quick as a quake.
Slept with me good eye open that night.
Next day, the bricks sang quieter as you approached, like they'd warmed to you. Your eyes met mine briefly, then you looked away. I wondered for a moment if you knew what I was, knew the signs that distinguished me from the common city strays. But then you held out your hand to me like a shitehead. A low mrow leapt unbidden from my throat, voice cracked from disuse, and I stretched my front legs out. Ears flick-flickered from the tongue-click noise you made, but it was the nose that brought me close.
Fish. I knows the scent anywhere, even covered up as it were by sweat and grime, pine and longing. Maybe even fresh fish, it were, a king's ransom in the Shambles. Ain't been brought fish since… a long time, is all.
My traitor nose dragged me even closer, but I'd not lost me head so foul as to step out the shadows yet. No, these muscles knew their ways, and the bricks seemed to fold inward to stop me movin’ any further. You moved your outstretched hand. I thought maybe to come closer, and my ripper fangs started to drop from their hidings, but then you turned that hand over. Plop went that perfect bit of fish, right there on the dirty pavings. I admit, I slavered at that. Maybe a step closer ain't be so bad.
But a ricky cart rolled by, splashin’ puddle water up your back, and you stood up too sudden from the shock, gaspin’. Out struck my hooker paw, then, without a thought from me, and gave a right good slash to your trouser leg. Surprised again, I was. I'll point out that I had the decency to miss your fleshies altogether, only a warning swipe, but I think you caught sight of more of me than I'd planned. Another gasp. Eyes widened. I seen the realization hit, the danger you'd just been in. You ran like a man should at the sight of me, ruined trousers snappin’ behind you like a beast on your heel.
It were a few days before I seen you again. The alleys of the Shambles tend to be a bit of a maze, and I wondered—idly, not carin’ a bit, mind—if you were comin’ back at all, or if you'd maybe got lost. The fish talkin’, really. Hadn't just hit the spot, it had walloped a couple more of ‘em I didn't knows I had. Found myself lookin’ up whenever footsteps sang by the alley mouth. Not just fish dreamin’, mind. Worried maybe you'd told someone what you seen, that an army of nabbers would swarm me any day now, pop me in a sack and sell me for a pretty penny.
Let ‘em try. My killin’ days were numbered, but not gone.
When you finally came, it was a surprise to me, and to you as well, I think. Looked like you been runnin’. Your breaths were comin’ fast, fear fast, battle fast, and I silently dropped to the ground from the perch I'd been usin’ for nappers. Two men, big like trees, lumbered into the alley mouth, blockin’ the exit and the wanin’ daylight both. Had the stink of rat on ‘em, they did, and the rippers dropped into me own mouth like a dagger out of a sheath. I watched you, waitin’.
One of the eclipsin’ brutes came toward you, slow and smart, armed with a truncheon, big nasty thing with metal bits round the end. And he weren't no amateur side of beef, no sir. He went to one side while his friend went to the other, coordinated like pack dogs, with twice the stink. My tail flicked low, ears back, and I slunk closer.
“I told your boss,” you said, holding your hands up, “I'm not interested. Not trading one jailer for another.”
“Not asking,” said Trunch.
“Need fighters of your… reputation.” added the other. He wore brass on his fists, so we'll call him Punch.
You sighed, hand movin’ almost imperceptible to your belt, but I seen it. “That was a long time ago. I'm not that man anymore.”
Punch grinned. “I'll bet we can coax him back out.”
Trunch attacked first, a quick swipe at your knees, the wind off the swing as fierce as any blow. You jumped out the way, though, faster than I expected, and even ducked the waiting wallop from Punch. Fist like a mace, he had, but he’d put his all in the blow, and staggered off-balance from the weight of the miss. Flashin’ silver did its flashin’, then, blade off belt and bared like fangs, and Punch roared at the sudden gush of blood at his mids. I hadn't even seen you move, it was that fast.
Trunch made to swing again at your turned back, the rat, and my legs pumped of their own volition. I landed on his hairy back, rippers rippin’ his shoulder, fillin’ my mouth with his bits as the skin shredded like paper. He yowled, bucking me off, droppin’ his truncheon. You turned and kneed him in the groin, shovin’ him hard back towards the alley mouth and flickin’ white-wide eyes my way as you came close. Were I friend or foe, those eyes wondered.
Punch had recovered now, non-brassy mitt stuffed in his coat, stanchin’ the abdomen bleed, and we turned as one to face him. Both of us growled.
“It doesn't have to be like this, Butcher.” But it did, and Punch knew it. He'd made it so.
“I don't want to fight anymore,” you replied, voice a whisper. I looked up at you, then, saw the tears threatenin’ your eye. I think that was the first time I'd given you a look good and proper.
Short thing, you were, ‘neath the shoulders of most men. Greasy black hair, like mine, down to your chinny and shot with age. Arms and legs made of muscle, though, could see the snake of it writhin’ under the skin, the fruit of hard life and harder work. Covered in dust, they was, from the quarries, but now smeared in a bit of Punch and a bit of Trunch. All the way up your right arm were the scars. Bricks of your own, singin’ the sad song of you. I seen many a prison fellow before, marked for crimes, and I knows how to read ‘em. Ten years, you'd been away. Ten years. Butcher, Punch’d called you. Pricked at me. That scent of pine on you, and love—not love, though, the loss of it.
And then I remembered.
She'd been lovely. Every few weeks she'd come here, with a morsel of somethin’, smile and a song both on her lips. Oh how I loved that voice of hers. Like a warm sunny spot in the mid afternoon. I'm thinkin’ she was the only person alive who'd ever gave me a scritch ‘hind the ears and kept her hand, those little fingers gettin’ underneath my fur like the touch of a god. The pine smell belonged to her, sappy woodwork all over.
If any person were to be mine, and I theirs, woulda been her. That we have in common. My kind bond once in a life if we're lucky, and we're a long-lived bunch. She was somethin’ miraculous.
I'd thought the men behind her that day had been nabbers. I'd ran and hid. Didn't understand. She bit one of ‘em, I think, heard the yelp and the shouts from my hidin’. Time I came out she was head cracked against the shinnies, bleedin’ her kindness onto my walls. The men were laughin’.
Thought the roar had come from me, the rage that boiled inside, but I'm rememberin’ better now. You'd seen her from the mouth. Your face had fallen open at the sight of her there. We both charged headlong at the false nabbers, the killer rats, swingin’ fist and paw and gnashin’ rippers. Heard about berserkers before, but you were the best fighter with two legs I'd ever laid eyes on. Like a dance it was. Not enough, of course. Too many of ‘em by any count, and they was strong, good fighters. Looked to be a nasty defeat comin’ at us, but then you and I did what my kind do when they've bonded.
We became one.
The bricks remember the slaughter of that day. The screamin’ and the viscera, the bodies torn asunder. Their crags sing a song of butchery, and I knows now how you got that name and whys they locked you away so long. I'd run off when it was done and we were split back up, leavin’ you the blame and the danger. Ten whole years, I been wallowin’ here. A coward.
Punch laughed, bringin’ me back to the now of it. A low laugh, full of little humor.
“There's no hiding from us, Butcher,” he said, “wherever you run to, we'll follow. No matter what name you take, you'll always be ours. Find yourself another girl, and we'll take her just the same.”
And that did it, didn't it. Felt the magic swellin’, overripe and angry, and our two fleshy sacks combined like before. My claws were your fingers, my rippers dropped into your mouth, and my good eye saw what you saw. I hated your hatings, and you mine. And there, at the center of it all, was her.
Hope, her name had been. I could hear it in our mind, as if I'd always known, though this was the first I'd ever heard it. My Hope. Ours. She was here with us, in the low bricks, her fingers scritchin’ our ear. The two of us become one, a bloody pairing, butchered and butcherin’ both.
What Punch and Trunch saw was a demon of vengeance, formed from the bodies of two killers, human and pantherene all swirled together in a snarlin’ visage of death. We screamed her name as we tore into their bodies, earnin’ our own name anew. Butchery commenced. The bricks ain't sing that song any time soon, but the stains’ll tell if you really want to hear.
This time, however, when the killin’ was done, I ain't run and hide. No, I was done with all that. Hope was in you, like she was in me, and I'd keep the both of you safe ‘til the day your body passed of the wrinkles, then go my way satisfied into me Ninth.
Pulled the deadies into the shadows for the rats piece by piece, I did, followed by unconscious you—whole, of course, and heavier than I expected. Not a soul came lookin’ for Punch or Trunch or you, and I should know. Kept a watch all night ‘til you stirred but a moment ago. Lotta time to think on things.
Hope was yours once, and she might’ve been mine in an earlier life. Perhaps… perhaps together we can keep her memory safe, and maybe even claw back a bit of her namesake, for ourselves and for the other downtrodden of this shiteful world.
So, what say you?
The Bread chronicles
Cartoon and voiceover done by me
Something is wacky with the syncing on the youtube video. But it still works!
