1. The Barbaric Rules

Himnib the Bear-Shepherd was about to leave the city of Amor, when the gate fell shut and everyone was held back. His hundred sheep bleated nervously as a panting messenger delivered some parchment.

A message from the king.

The gatekeeper, a wolf, quickly read it and frowned. “All soldiers are commanded to leave the gate immediately and come to the palace. Leave behind one of you to … shoot anyone within a hundred steps of the wall.”

He dropped the parchment in disbelief. The messenger pointed at a forgotten sentence near the bottom.

“Oh, and all creatures with red fur must be attacked and spit on.”

A long row of animals crowded the gate with the intent to enter or exit Amor. Upon hearing the king’s commands, they cautiously stepped back, away from the wall. The quadrupeds among them didn’t even know what a hundred steps was supposed to mean, so they ran away as far as possible.

The handful of animals with a red fur decided to hide behind barrels.

The soldiers sighed and locked everything down.

Himnib rattled the gate. “I can’t stay here! My sheep have no space to—”

Two of his sheep had already started feasting on someone’s frontyard. A third sheep called Behdiël climbed on a roof to sing, loudly. If he’d hoped this would attract female sheep, he’d be wrong. Barina, one of his oldest and most loyal, was the only one to stay by his side.

“Listen to me! I am a Companion!”

Some wolves raised their head at this statement, but nobody offered help or opened the gate for him. Instead, a bull pushed him aside.

“Keep your animals under control, barbarian.”

Barbarian? Did the bull mistake him for someone else?

A female Prima, temporarily on two legs, threw a bucket of ice cold water over the sheep who were redecorating her frontyard.

“My world, my world,” she mumbled. “Such rude scum. Doesn’t belong.”

Himnib pressed his walking cane into the stone floor with enough force to create purple sparks. His sheep instantly formed a neat row and followed him back into the city.

He passed two Giant Wolves. They wore white robes, loosely draped around their muscular body, and a crown of interwoven flowers. Both of them carried a bag around their neck, like an oversized necklace, to regularly sip from the wine inside. They had an accent he usually only heard inside the Council of Kame, when somebody really wanted others to believe they were smart.

“I’d love to, Rodrik,” said one. “Last week, however, the king commanded each day start by praying for an hour … to him! I barely have any time left for other matters!”

“Had it coming,” Rodrik said as his disgusted gaze slid over Himnib’s herd. “Remember that street artist? Who graced our plaza each day for ten years? Arrested and sentenced to death by the king, no reason given. They say the king woke from a nightmare at midnight and the artist was dead two hours later.”

“How do you always know such matters?” the other said, sounding jealous. “I never hear any fun gossip!”

Fun gossip? An innocent artist’s death? Himnib wanted to leave Amor now more than ever.

Rodrik smiled, adjusted his clunky white robe, and sipped some more wine. The look in his eyes betrayed he was drunk already. “You don’t go to the Tattlerat, no, no. The Tattlerat comes to you—if you’re worthy.”

Himnib shook his head at the absurdity—and tripped over a hamster he didn’t see because of it.

“Stop right there!” the hamster squeaked. He was far smaller than Himnib, a bear, but still an adult. “That’s a breach of regulation 4.1.7, barbarian. Come with me!”

That word again. Barbarian. Were they even talking to him?

He ignored it and walked on, but the hamster blocked his path, at the risk of his own life.

“Evade arrest. An infringement of regulation 5.2.3, that will be a fierce punishment. Yes, yes, nothing escapes Ginsea—the royal lawyer!”

The hamster whistled to two wolf soldiers nearby. Himnib had underestimated Ginsea’s power, for the soldiers listened and had him in metal pawcuffs only heartbeats later.

“What is this? I did nothing wrong. I have—”

Ginsea coughed. “Your sheep have repeatedly walked on the terrain of others and eaten the food of others. You are in possession of magical objects, which is forbidden in Amor. Must I continue, barbarian?”

“Well, my apologies. I won’t happen—”

One of the wolves chuckled.

“You were right,” he said to the other soldier with a grin. “Their accent really does sound like they’re saying bar bar bar bar all the time.”

They pulled him through the streets. But he’d done nothing wrong! He didn’t know those silly laws existed! It didn’t stop several Amori from throwing rotten fruit at his head. They yelled to his face about how uncivilized and dirty he was. How he didn’t belong amongst the neat Amori and their fair laws.

He’d see how fair those laws were right now.

Ginsea pushed him into a dark room made of marble. A wolf judge, with a hammer between their teeth, stood proudly behind a raised wooden desk.

Himnib had traveled much of the world with his herd. He’d come across his fair share of animals who had too little to do and decided to annoy him, and so he whispered in Ginsea’s ear.

“Is this necessary? Such a small offense? What is the penalty? Say sorry twice?”

“Something like that,” he whispered back. “But if we don’t punish the small things, animals will start breaking more laws, and more, until we stop punishing the big things too. It would be barbarian! Chaos! A bit like … well, like you. And so I’ve spoken.”

Himnib stood before the judge, the cuffs around his front paws locked to a pole. Sunlight entered through tiny holes in the ceiling. The raised stands around him were empty, but held not even a crumb of dust.

Ginsea told about the seven tiny regulations that Himnib had technically broken. He even turned the bad singing of Behdiël into a “disruption of public order”. Fine. As long as they didn’t touch his sheep.

“Ginsea,” the judge said with frustration, “go and waste the time of someone else. I deem Himnib completely innocent and—”

The small hamster made himself tall, which still wasn’t intimidating in any way. “Dumbfounded! I am dumbfounded! A judge is supposed to—”

The king walked into the room. The Giant Wolf with a giant crown babbled and gibbered about witches, ghosts and a flying chicken. He briefly looked at the judge, whispered in his ear, and walked away through the other exit without looking at Himnib once.

“Unbelievable!” the judge suddenly proclaimed. “And we allow this in our beautiful city? Such barbarians? This demands the worst punishment! And so it is.”

Ginsea frowned. “That, erm, is also not in accordance with law 4.1.2.”

The judge slammed his hammer into the wood. Himnibs cane was ripped from his paws.

“Judge Wolfar condemns the Bear-Shepherd Himnib to the Flame.”

“The what?”

Ginsea turned white and trembling. “The Flame? That is insane!”

“This is the final judgment of Wolfar. And so it shall be. Soldiers, bring him to the dungeons.”

“What’s the Flame?” Himnib yelled, as panic grabbed his heart and nearly stopped it.

“That … that,” Ginsea mumbled, unable to look Himnib in the eye.

The soldiers pushed him out of the room. He wanted to comfort his sheep and tell them it would be alright, but he was separated from his herd. Him in one cold, gray prison cell—his sheep, all hundred of them, in a different cell that was far too small.

“That’s almost worse than death,” Ginsea whispered. “Who experiences the Flame, forgets and is forgotten.”

“Forgotten?”

Ginsea searched judge Wolfar, who had already walked away to a table filled with food and wine.

“This is an outrage!” he yelled. “This is not the intent of our laws!”

Wolfar turned around, a slab of meat hanging partially out of his mouth. “Himnib is not an Amori, is he? He’s from the Bearchitects. He’s a foreigner.”

“Yes, but—”

“Our laws only dictate how Amori should be treated, fairly. Everyone else? I do what I want. Thus have I decided.”

Ginsea scratched his temple. He grabbed a book from the pouch on his back and rapidly scanned through it.

“He can’t be right, can he?” Himnib said hopefully. The hamster who was an annoying creature before had suddenly turned into his only shield.

“I fear …”

But then Ginsea’s ears perked up. He made himself tall again, eyes gleaming.

“Here! Law 2.4.8!” He held up the book, as if Wolfar could read it from distance. “For a proper separation of powers, to keep the law and the ruler separate, it’s FORBIDDEN for the king to influence any court case at all.”

Wolfar roared with laughter, as his claws blindly searched for more meat and more wine. “Are you really—”

“I sue the king!”

The piece of meat fell on the floor, which now also had a growing puddle of wine. Himnib grew tense. You couldn’t just sue the king, right? Could you even say it without being killed?

The soldiers already moved to arrest Ginsea too, but Wolfar raised a paw. “We have laws for a reason and we will respect them. Sue the king if you want. But you will regret it.”

Himnib’s head swam as they forced him into his cell.

Ginsea made apologetic gestures. Then he dove into his lawbook, searching for every single rule he could use to sue the king.