Reborn as a Fantasy General (Army-Building Isekai)

[IronLung]

The dark world of the underground ruins shook before Marcus' sight. His ears adjusted to the ringing sound that reverberated off the walls of his brain and he felt his legs being pulled back into the safety of a building's shadowed interior.

Just before he was lifted inside, he saw the face of a Ratman that was following him disappear in a cloud of red before its body slumped to the ground, and the dull ache of the bullet's sound caught up with him.

He thrashed, kicking out and turning round to see Deekius, Skeever, and Ix surrounding him like a personal honor-guard while more Rat screams peppered the cavernous skies above.

Something bloody and swollen hung loose from Skeever's right arm's socket, and Marcus' eyes bulged as he recognized it was the remains of the hulking Rat's arm.

"Skeever," he stuttered. "You-"

"Be not minding it!" the Talon-Commander screeched so all his men nearby could hear it. "We are having bigger problem!"

Marcus looked at the sweating faces of the others and nodded briskly, steadying himself without another hesitation even as he realized, with a tight knot of dread, that the shooter had clearly aimed for his head.

"What's the situation?" he asked, coming to sit with the gathering as Skeever and Ix both chanced a look out the broken window of their ruin hideout.

"We are being scattered by shooter," Deekius replied.

"Shooty dwarf!" Ix spat. "Shooty dwarf, crazy dwarf – mad like all men of the stone-stone!"

Marcus frowned, cautiously peering over the lip of the windowsill and seeing an assortment of the scattered Ratguard. Rat corpses littered the streets – each one with a single hole that had punctured its cranium. Beyond, at least five meters away, Marcus caught sight of Gatkseek's furry, white form guiding panicky troops towards his location next to a blown-out chapel. As the Rats moved, the stragglers were being picked off one by one. Any who attempted to flee from the cover of the ruins were popped like hairy watermelons as they skittered away in fright from the flash of light that gleamed from the other side of the chasm.

A sniper, Marcus thought. One that's got us pinned here. Putting the fear of death into these Rats so that I bet they don't even hear Gatskeek's commands anymore.

He crouched low as a pinpoint shot broke the panes of rusted glass on the window beside him.

"How do you know it's a dwarf?" he asked.

The crowd looked to Ix, who shrugged grimly.

"Dwarf-dwarf only one shoot long gun-gun," he said. "When Boss Skegga take Grindlefecht, we lose many Yip-Yips to shootie-Dwarves. Some he take prisoner. But their gun-guns too big for us."

Marcus nodded as he turned back to the Rats. "Have you ever seen one of these Dwarves so near your Capital?"

Both shook their withered heads, Deekius kneeling to resume his healing incantation on Skeever's busted arm. "We are not having seen Dwarf for ages," he said. "That there is one amongst the ruins just beyond Fleapit is bad. Could be scout. Could be sent by stout men of the stone to scope out Fleapit defenses."

"Or," Marcus offered with grim realization. "He could be an assassin."

The others fixed their eyes on him as he stroked his scraggly beard which, by now, had ceased to be itchy.

"He aimed the shot that maimed Skeever at me," Marcus said. "If Skeever had not seen it, I could be dead right now."

He looked with serious eyes upon the wounded Ratman.

"Once again, I owe one of your kind in this Underkingdom my life."

"We can be giving thanks after battle is over," Skeever said. "For now, we must be defeating this Dwarf."

"Quite right," Marcus agreed, hearing Gatskeek roar as another bullet chipped away at the skull of one of his men out in the open. "Right now, we need to focus on linking up with Gatskeek."

"Should we be forming Testudo, Sire?"

Marcus shook his head. "Not good enough. Whatever weapon he has it's not only got tremendous range but tremendous firepower. If that's a simple Dwarven weapon…to be honest I want to know how your Boss Skegga managed to defeat a fort full of them."

Ix licked his serrated teeth. "A single Kobold life is meaning nothing, Sire. A thousand are meaning victory."

"This Skegga sounds like a regular Ulysses S Grant," Marcus scoffed. "But at any rate, we can't afford to make slow progress. The narrow streets of this ruin also don't suit such a wide formation. In fact, they don't suit any formation at all."

"So we run, then?" Deekius asked expectantly. "Fleapit is only being a few hours away."

"We will never be making it," Skeever said through a pained grimace as the priest ceased his healing. "The dwarf will be picking us off one by one, starting with the Shai-Alud."

Marcus nodded gravely, hearing more shouts of rats in their death-throes in what had now become an abandoned death-maze out there. Winding streets held nothing but running Ratmen who were little more than sitting ducks for the shooter above.

A maze…

Marcus looked up at the commanders and their men they had managed to save. A force sizeable enough to take on armies, and yet here they were cowering before one single foe far more technologically advanced than they were.

But technology only took an enemy so far, and Marcus knew at least one weakness that could confound even a seasoned sniper.

"Ix," he said. "Hand me one of those panes of broken glass."

The Kobold did as he was bid.

"Skeever, I need your weapon."

"Be taking it," the Ratman said as he looked with fury at his busted arm. "It is being useless to me now."

"I'll also need an adhesive," Marcus said then, remembering who he was talking to, added: "Something sticky."

The Rats looked at each other with slight, bloody grins, and each one coughed up a piece of twitching puss from a section of their addled bodies.

"Uh, thanks," Marcus said as he wrapped the sleeve of his robe round a mangy, hair-filled piece from Deekius, attaching it to the tip of Skeever's rusted blade and then affixing the glass shard to the thing.

"Bingo," Marcus murmured as he positioned himself next to the doorway entrance to their position. "Now, we've got a makeshift mirror."

"Sire?" Deekius whispered. "What is being your purpose?"

"First step in dealing with snipers," Marcus said. "Is figuring out where he is."

He gingerly set the blade-mirror out on the ground, slowly turning it so that it showed him the surrounding region – the tips of the ruined towers, the high chapel spire where Gatskeek was hunkering down, and the jagged ridges of the canyon.

The city had suddenly become devoid of Ratman screams. Those who had tried running down the decayed streets were already dead.

Marcus waited. He watched.

And Marcus knew that out there, somewhere, their foe was doing the same.

"Come on," he murmured. "Come on…"

A flash in the dark.

He blinked, and his arm shook with the reverberation of the mirror being splintered into a thousand pieces and the sword skidded away from him.

Marcus leaned his back against the wall as the rest of the pinned congregation came to see what he'd just learned.

"Our man's up in the spire at the Northwest edge of the town," he explained. "We should move quickly. If he's got any brains he'll know we're on to him and try to reposition himself. But he's greedy. He won't move if we present him with targets."

The Rat-leaders and the Kobold commander looked at the men beside them, then back at Marcus.

"I'm afraid," their Shai-Alud said through a wry smile. "I must ask too much of you all, yet again."

He explained what they'd have to do to reach Gatskeek – a plan which would take a combination of proper technique, timing, and, worst of all when it came to warfare, no small degree of luck.

When he'd finished, they Rats stood in darkness and silence, staring at him like he'd just told them they'd basically already lost.

Skeever was the first to eventually give a simple nod of acceptance.

"And once we are getting there?" he asked. "What is being the plan?"

"I'm afraid it's going to have to be the same process, just with more numbers."

The wounded ogre-rat nodded again, holding his head up high as he barked the order to his men without another question.

Skeever, Marcus thought. You might look like a filthy rat, but you've got the soul of a Spartan in you. Pretty much my polar opposite…

As Ix and the others readied themselves to execute their breakout towards Gatskeek's chapel position, Deekius knelt down beside Marcus and began his creepy, chittering whispering.

"Sire," he said. "I am not meaning to be changing your plan, but there is a way I am seeing to defeat the shooter Dwarf that will be sparing the lives of the Clansmen we have left."

Marcus' eyebrows twitched at the Rat's candor. It seemed almost like he was proud of his little idea and, when he told Marcus exactly what he had up his sleeve, even the Shai-Alud was forced to admit that it was a variable he hadn't even considered.

"You…you can do that?" he asked.

Deekius nodded with no small degree of pride. "He-Who-Festers has bestowed me with many gifts, Sire. And this is not all I can do. I am being more than just simple priest, as you know. After all, it is these hands that summoned you."

Marcus, for probably the first time since he had met the bag of filth and hair standing before him, actually smiled with the Rat.

"You know something, Deekius?" he said. "You might just see us through this yet."

###

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[IronLung]

"GO!"

Marcus' command was barely needed. At his word, Deekius raised his staff to the broken roof of their position and channeled a Glow-Glob directly at the sniper's position. The globe flew towards his tower and exploded in a dazzling display of blinding light, and then the running began.

The rats poured from their position and started zig-zagging across the streets, stepping over the corpses of their brethren. They ran in groups of five, as instructed, with Marcus having smeared his face with dirt and shavings of hair from some troops that had willingly donated their matted fur. If he didn't already have at least one virulent disease from this place, then he reckoned he'd probably get one now…

Nonetheless, the strategy worked…for a time. As the rats moved, they obeyed his orders – keep running, stop abruptly and turn, criss-cross each other and move to the next piece of ruined building or rock that afforded some cover. Snipers shoot where you're going to be, not where you are. If this one was worth his salt, as Marcus suspected, then he'd be predicting. He'd be watching and waiting for the right shot.

As the improvised flashbang died away above them, his squad began to fall. Their movements were effective for a time, allowing them to traverse the squalid streets and avoid most of the sniper's strikes. Still, whenever they saw the puff of smoke and felt the vibration of his bullets against the ground so close to their feet, they shook with panic, and Marcus had to bark at them to keep on moving.

He would have continued to do so if the ratman next to him hadn't then fallen, crumpled and twitching, as the sniper's next shot found its mark.

And that meant he had found him…

Marcus dove for cover behind a ruined wall just as the next shot rang out and brought the statue of a bearded Dwarf crumbling to pieces behind him.

He covered his ears – at this close range the ringing of the shot was so intense that it felt like an artillery barrage. Whatever bullets the Dwarf was employing, they were potent. Potent enough to slice through steel and stone.

"Sire Marcus!" Skeever shouted as he himself dove for the nearest ruined building in the next intersection. "Are you seeing the chapel?"

Marcus looked up and tentatively and scanned the corpse-laden street before him. There it was. Probably only ten meters away. Salvation.

At the church doors stood Gatskeek and his men, waiting, calling out for their comrades.

No! Marcus roared in his brain. Don't let him know where we –

As one Ratling broke free from their position and sprinted at the church, his head was promptly clipped from his shoulders.

Damn it!

The world once again fell into silence.

Deekius came up the rear, his old bones aching after all the exertion.

"I don't suppose you have another Glob in you, Deekius?"

The Rat-Priest shook his sweating head. "My power is waning, Sire. I have enough energy for one final spell, as we discussed."

Marcus nodded. It was now or never, then.

He took one look at Skeever. His eyes communicated all that he needed to.

Ix's shrill barks could be heard behind them. The little guy was still scurrying along. Probably, his puny size gave him the edge over a sniper. His small head was probably that Dwarf's worst nightmare.

Marcus stood and, bracing himself, gave his command.

"RUN!"

The Rats broke free from their positions with a collective cry of fear mixed with rage, each one still living sprinting for the chapel where old Gatskeek waited, cheering them on with a "Be coming! Be coming!"

Marcus heard the distinctive sounds of skulls being perforated. He felt his own legs begin to quake with the stress of the exertion, and yet the sight of the chapel door, coupled with the adrenaline coursing through his veins, was enough to keep him running even when he could no longer feel his legs as they hit the dark, bloody ground beneath him.

His zigzagging became more cumbersome as he neared his final destination. Deekius, Skeever, and the other rats had by this point tossed their weapons away and ran on all fours, totally abiding by their squalid animal instincts. Seeing the speed with which they passed him by, for once, Marcus wished he could be more like them.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, a flash rang out in the dark.

You've found me, haven't you…

"MARCUS!"

Deekius pushed him just out of the bullet's trajectory. It slammed into the glass windows of the building behind them and sent its shards flying across the ground, leaving both Shai-Alud and Rat-Priest to look up from their prone positions into the flashing eye that was looking down at them from the tower above. An angel of death, about to deliver divine judgement.

Deekius dragged him to his feet, but he knew that, now, it was hopeless.

The eye flashed with dazzling white…

Mari, he thought. Wherever you are, I'm coming.

…and the rusted blade of a scimitar caught the bullet mere inches from his face before embedding itself in the far wall of another decrepit building.

Marcus double blinked, unsure if he was really still standing there, in the dark city of the underworld.

Then Deekius' pulling yanked him right back to reality.

"Be going!" the rat-priest yelped. "Quick!"

Marcus let the little creature lead him the rest of the way, with Gatskeek grabbing his arm and yanking him inside the abandoned chapel with as much force as an ogre grabbing its prey.

Only then did Marcus notice that his scimitar was missing from its scabbard at his side.

He looked from the scabbard to the rat that stared at him with heavy-set eyes, seeing the impish grin that spread across his furry lips.

"Gatskeek," he said as Skeever and what remained of his forces made it through the chapel entrance. "You…"

"Be not mentioning it," the old rat huffed. "Now, we are being even. You are giving my troops their lives. I am giving you yours."

Marcus staggered, barely able to comprehend what just happened. The sheer luck of it…

"But," he stammered. "How did you..?"

"I am watching," Gatskeek said, indicating the top of the spire from where the sniper was still taking shots at the stragglers who couldn't make it to their safe haven. "Just like he is. The dwarf is taking six seconds to reload between every shot. I am aiming my scimitar in time."

Marcus could barely believe what the Ratman was telling him.

"You are putting the Shai-Alud's life in danger!" Deekius railed, stepping forward and flashing his staff threateningly in the unfazed veteran's face.

"And yet he didn't," Marcus said as he stepped between them. "Instead, he performed a miracle that He-Who-Festers would be proud of."

Deekius retched, looked down at the ground, and bowed with silent admission.

"It seems your God might smile upon you more than you think, Gatskeek," Marcus said.

"Peh," the old Rat squeaked. "It is just being luck, that is all."

The irony was not lost on Marcus. Here they were in previously held enemy territory, holed up and shivering in the ruins of what was clearly a central place of worship for the Dwarves. It was odd, however: although Marcus was assuming that the strange symbols of precious gems and metals surrounded by fire, water, lightning, or other elemental forces that dotted the walls meant this was clearly a place of religious significance, there were no examples of personalized religious iconography typical to most churches. No depictions of Gods, no images of saintly Dwarves wielding golden weapons in their hands. He had been wondering what one looked like all this time. It seemed his first encounter with one would be the sniper, and yet he also knew there was only one way that encounter would go – with one of them ending up dead.

I wonder…Marcus thought as he edged towards the nearest shattered windowpane, looking up from its sill at the tip of the sniper's post upon the ancient Dwarven spire.

"You are being even uglier than usual, kinsman," he heard Gatskeek say to Skeever as the latter dropped, panting, to his knees.

"Who would be thinking a Dwarf would lay me low," Skeever replied, in a tone that was barely audible even as the unnatural quiet of the empty streets descended on them all again.

Marcus couldn't quite place it, but there was something behind the bulky Ratman's words. Almost as though he was close to death itself…

"We will be making the fat-beard pay dearly for the insult," Gatskeek said.

Then, as he had become accustomed to, Marcus felt all the remaining rats eyes glue themselves to his back.

He turned to see what was left of them – a force of 45 men, including Ix's Kobolds, that were squashed together like a heap of living, breathing pestilence between the four walls of this drab place of worship.

Filthy creatures, yes. Savage, beyond question. But at least four of them had saved his life on numerous occasions in the past few days. For that, at least, he owed them something. He owed them the chance to strike fear in the enemy that had wounded them. He owed them vengeance.

"I assume you are having a plan?" Gatskeek asked him.

Marcus wiped dried blood from his forehead and stretched a smile across his face that would've made the most devious Ratman proud.

"Don't I always?"

###

If you are enjoying Fantasy General, consider supporting the story on Patreon to read extra chapters. Recently I met my goal of 10 Patrons, and so I have increased the number of advanced chapters to 5. Thank you all for your support.

 

[IronLung]

Pieces of rubble fell from the cavern ceiling and danced along the barrel of his gun.

He barely even blinked. After his last shot, he hardly moved a single muscle. Now, he was pure focus. The only sound he heard was his own short, raspy breaths.

"Come on. Come on…"

The long, unbroken silence stretched out and lay across the city like a ghostly veil. But it did nothing to cover the litter of Ratman corpses he'd left strewn across the streets.

Vermin, he thought. Just like that bastard toad.

Whatever a human saw in them, he had no idea. When he'd first spotted the strange-looking man in the dank robe of the rat-priests, he'd hesitated for a split second before pulling the trigger. That had been his fatal weakness. In his profession, a split second was literally the difference between life and death.

He supposed it was hypocritical of him to fault the human hunkering down there with the scared little beasts. After all, he was guilty of the exact same crime – of being a traitor to his people.

"Fingel Darragut," he murmured into the stock of his rifle. "The traitor of his House. Last of his line…"

No. That wasn't how his story was going to end. He would be marked as a traitor in the Annals of Stone, yes, but it would not take long for his son to clear their family name. The boy was a natural Golemsmith. Before long, he'd revolutionize the whole industry. Then nobody would care what his talentless father did – a man who could do nothing but bring death from afar, sneering down at this war-torn world through the scope of his gun.

"Arnel," he said. "Mariah – wait jus' a bit longer," he said as his eyes picked out movement behind the chapel's broken windows. "I'm coming."

Like a sudden swarm whipped up into a frenzy, the Rats spilled out from their hiding space, zig-zagging through the narrow streets towards his position, using the burned-out houses for cover.

"Finally lost yer minds?," he said, pulling back his chamber and checking how many powder-shots he had left. "Alright. Let me send ye to yer filthy God."

He popped a few heads left and right as they dived for cover, reloading with quiet intensity, imagining the head of that bloated frog Skegga with every skull his bullets dashed against the walls of his people's former city. The recoil, by this point, barely even shook him. His shoulder was tight. His cloak was moist with sweat. His eyes were moving faster than the little beasts could. One by one, they fell before the marksman of Darragut.

"Where are you..?" he murmured through each new hit, scanning the church for the tallest one among them. Searching for the priest with the staff that had blinded him with his little magic trick.

And then, like a creature born of the stones themselves, he appeared.

He came striding out of a building a few meters south of the chapel, walking calmly as though he were an angel of the caverns come to pick up the dead and carry them down to the center of the earth to be with their fellows.

He strode right to the top of the narrow road running red with the blood of the Ratmen, and stopped.

Just…stopped.

He stared right up at Fingal, and the latter couldn't help but stare back through the scope of his gun.

"What the…" he mumbled, hearing the screams of Rats as they cried out below for their comrades.

He's a bloody nutcase, his mind told him as the black dot of his makeshift reticule danced between the eyeballs of the human's face. He's…he's lost it.

Fingel's fingers shook as he fought against the urge to pull the trigger. To cut the head from the snake. To end all this…

The world, once again, was wreathed in silence.

"You got some kinda death-wish?" he asked the form of the human staring up at him. Unblinking. Unafraid. Totally calm and collected in his filthy, flea-ridden robe.

Fingal reloaded. Checked his aim. Felt the trigger thrumb behind his forefinger.

One shot. That's all it would take.

One shot to buy him freedom.

One head to carry home.

One path to secure his family's future.

He ignored the sweat pooling upon his hairy brow and grimaced beneath his cloak.

"Stone take you," he spat. "You wanna go, boy?"

He licked his lips and steeled his resolve.

"Fine!"

He pulled the trigger.

The bullet whizzed through the air, knocking the stock against him, sending his death projectile towards his once chance in this life.

It phased right through the skull and embedded itself in the back of the chapel behind.

"…What?"

Fingel's eyes beheld the form of the human slowly turning translucent in the wake of his shot. The ghostly form of the boy wavering like a silent specter being returned to the earth. And where the Shai-Alud once stood, now, there was nothing but air.

A deco-

His training kicked in before his head even finished forming the thought. He spun around, hearing the trapdoor open behind and three shadows surge towards him.

One he popped below the chest with a single round, fired point-blank. The others collapsed, prone, as they felt the shock of the bullet shred their friend's body, and he desperately worked his fingers to reload, using all the time their momentary paralysis gave him. His chamber slammed shut. His stock came back up and then –

Pain.

He looked down to see the spear of the armless Rat embedded in his gut. He staggered, spat up blood, and looked to see the priest's grizzly maw snapping at his face.

And with the gut-rending crunch of his bones, the world of Fingal Darragut ended in a haze of crimson-coated fangs.

…

"GATSKEEK!"

Marcus heard the scream before he registered that they'd manage to kill the Dwarf. He saw the pudgy being's body fall from the tower, pieces of his face trailing in bloody chunks after him, before he hit the ground and became nothing but a pile of goo.

His weapon landed beside him, smashing upon impact.

But he had no time to lament the loss of such a technologically advanced piece of equipment.

He pushed through the cheering Ratmen and those who corralled around the Dwarf's body to spit or defecate in his mangled remains and saw Skeever and Deekius carrying the shaking form of their comrade from the doorway of the spire.

"Be moving!" Skeever shrieked at his men.

Redwhiskers (he apparently survived) understood his master's command. He corralled the other Ratlings together with a general shout and brought them back to the chapel, commanding them to take the Dwarf's remains with them.

Marcus paid them or their bloody desire no heed. He followed after the three limping commanders as they threw themselves into an adjacent building with a long bar table covered in cobwebs and threw Gatskeek on the table.

Marcus watched from the doorway. He said nothing.

"Where is your healing magic?" Skeever shouted at Deekius' snout.

"It is being spent with the apparition spell," the priest explained. "Sire Marcus needed it to ensure us victory. I have follo-"

"I DON'T CARE!" Skeever cried, gripping the priest by his robes and pulling him to the floor. "Be fixing him, now!"

Marcus slowly entered through the commotion, ignoring both Rats as they scrambled on the ground, and his eyes found Gatskeek's shuddering form.

"Gatskeek…"

A bullet had torn clean through the side of his abdomen. His ribcage, muscle, and bone, was fully exposed on his left side.

"Be fixing him!" Skeever wailed. "Fix him!"

"I cannot be doing the impossible!" Deekius spat back at his comrade. "He-Who-Festers' will has been spent."

"Then we take him to Fleapit, now!" Skeever replied, throwing spittle and phlegm across the floorboards. He rose to move the old, wounded warrior who groaned in pain and shoved him away.

"You…are being…ngh…fool, kinsman."

"Silence!" Skeever roared. "You will be fixed. The capital is being two hours away. Be hanging on!"

"Skeever," Deekius said, laying a hand on the hulking rat's heaving shoulder. "Be looking at him. He is gone."

"Don't say another word to me, priest!"

"It is the way of such things!" Deekius continued in the face of his commander's ire. "Talon-Commander Gatskeek is never being a believer in the Unclean One! His faith is not being strong enough to make it home. You know this is how things must be, Kin-"

Deekius' final remark was cut off by the claws of Skeever scratching at his eyes. Both rats fell back against the wall, their teeth and nails slashing at the other, their bodies locked in animal combat.

"Enough!" Marcus shouted.

His voice – full of authority, yet clearly shaken – was enough to bring them back. Even if it was just for a moment.

Then his tired eyes looked down at Gatskeek's pallid form. His chest, once rapidly rising, now started to slow.

"Do not…be wasting…effort…" he told his brothers. "Kinsmen…I am going…where…I…must…"

Both Rats looked away, Skeever gritting his teeth in consternation, Deekius bowing his head.

But Marcus didn't. Marcus looked straight into the red-rimmed eyes of the dying rat.

And without even thinking about it, his body started moving towards him.

"Shai…Alud…" the old Rat croaked, coughing up blood and bile as his fading body rocked with sudden laughter.

"Gatskeek, I…I didn't think…"

"No," Gatskeek replied. "You…you…are…thinker," he said through raspy breath.

Marcus wanted nothing more than to look away from the image of death he was staring at. He wanted to cross to the other room and shield himself from the reality of those pitiable eyes staring back at him unblinkingly while the blood of this warrior soaked his feet.

"Be…making…me…promise," Gatskeek wheezed.

Marcus, not knowing what else to say, simply nodded.

The old rat raised a shaking claw. Marcus caught it, and steadied it in his grip.

Even in death, the old commander of Knifegut had strength running through his arm.

"Shai-Alud…" he coughed. "M…Marcus…be winning. Be…freeing us. Be freeing…ngh…them."

The light began to die behind his pupils.

"Take…us…home…"

Marcus gripped the claw tighter as he felt Gatskeek's strength begin to wane.

But the eye wavered. It was waiting.

"I will," he said, without really knowing why he said the words. "I am promising."

Almost as soon as the last syllable left his lips, Gatskeek's soul left the world behind. His eyes glazed over, Marcus let his arm fall, and he gave one long, drawn-out gasp that settled into the dead air of the city, and then was gone.

###

If you are enjoying Fantasy General, consider supporting the story on Patreon to read extra chapters. Recently I met my goal of 10 Patrons, and so I have increased the number of advanced chapters to 5. Thank you all for your support.

 

[IronLung]

In the aftermath of the sniper's gauntlet, the forces of Talon-Commander Skeever numbered approximately fifty men, including the six Kobold auxiliaries commanded by Ix.

Marcus counted them, having nothing else to say, as they resumed their slow, solemn march towards Fleapit, leaving the city of Dwarven ruins behind.

The atmosphere was more solemn than it ever had been. Even looking into the eyes of the rats, Marcus could tell that their spirits had taken more punishment than they'd ever endured beneath their black, cavernous skies. Normally, the dead would be consumed by the survivors of a battle. This time, however, Marcus issued a different command.

"Throw them in the back of the supply carts," he ordered. "Take them back to their home."

The rats had balked at this. Redwhiskers in particular had stepped forward to throw spittle in the face of the command, shouting that they would honor the dead by imbibing their warrior souls within their bellies – that this was the way of the ratmen. He was stilled, however, by the words of his kin-commander.

"Be doing as the Sha-Alud says," Skeever warned him, his red eyes flashing with barely restrained anger while he dragged Gatskeek's inert body behind him with his only remaining arm. "If I am seeing you take a single bite of the dead, I will be bloodying my spear with your insides. I am not needing two arms to kill you."

Grateful as he was for Skeever's support, Marcus could not watch him as he trundled Gatskeek's body behind his feet and threw him into the cart bound for the capital. Something about those eyes – the still-open eyes the old rat flashed at him as he died, was just far too human.

But he was doing what the old rat said. He was taking them home – all of them.

Before they left for the final stretch of their journey, Marcus spared a look at the bloody pulp that was the dwarf at the foot of the ancient city spire.

He barely heard Deekius shuffle up beside him as the other rats completed their corpse collection.

"Why," was all he said, looking down at the Dwarf's eviscerated face, unsure he even wanted a reply. "Why did he do it?"

The rat-priest sniffed the stagnant air. Then he looked nonchalantly at the corpse.

"The mind of a dwarf is being like stone," he said. "It can not be understood by us, Sire. Be not thinking of the dead. Especially not fat dwarf dead."

Deekius shuffled away again almost as soon as he had come – administering some strange crunched-up herbs to each loaded corpse in their death-cart. Marcus watched him go, wondering at his words, and then took a final look at the dead Dwarf.

Are they really so hard to understand, Deekius? You hate them, don't you? Could it not be safely assumed that they hate you, too?

He walked away as the thought entered his mind. The rat had said one true thing: he didn't have to care about the internal strife and mad desire to kill each other that plagued the residents of this underground kingdom.

So, why was he starting to?

…

At the very edge of the cavern, Skeever gave the command to make camp one final time. Here, they were as safe as they could be. Only a few Gutmulcher attacks had come their way, and the Kobolds had helped them make short work of the beasts.

A narrow bridge stretched from the edge of their position down into an abyssal expanse below, but if he strained his eyes, Marcus could make out the tips of brown spires and domes poking out from the dark below. The rats joined him in looking over the lip of the chasm and beat the rusted steel of their chests in victory.

It could only be Fleapit. Which meant one thing: their journey was finally coming to an end.

And that meant Marcus's time in this world was coming to an end.

He sat alone from the rest of the army, feeding on some putrid, half-cooked salamander Deekius told him had some nutritional value, and avoided the stares of most of the resting rats.

They seemed to be sleeping soundlessly next to their bonfires, their minds unperturbed by what had transpired. Though their noses must have been picking up the scents of the desiccated corpses they'd trundled all the way here with far more intensity than Marcus, their faces betrayed no horror or sorrow.

We have come to the lip of Fleapit, Marcus wrote in his parchment pages – pages which were slowly turning into more of a personal diary than historian's book draft. Deekius has encouraged us to stop so he might perform the proper rituals and prepare the group to re-enter the city. The rats don't seem to complain. All of them seem more secure than they've ever been with the tips of their capital city beneath them. They sleep soundly, while I can't close a single eyelid.

Gatskeek's death was my fault. The deaths of all those rats back there were my fault. This is not the admission of a wartime hero worthy of his exploits being recorded through film or the written word – this is, pure and simple, an idiot admitting where his failings are. Though the historian in me is calmly explaining that these casualties are just the reality of war, to see the corpses that littered those streets, to remember the faces of the Kobolds we've slain, and to see the broken, battered body of Gatskeek on that table – its more than simply just facing reality. It might be showing me a part of myself that I never even knew existed.

Even as I continue on, with nothing but the thought of home as my guide, you cannot blame me for being somewhat reflective – sentimental even – about those I've stood beside while they shed their blood in my name. 'Shai-Alud' they call me. Savior. Deliverance from suffering. An empire builder. Could I be those things? Maybe. I could rise to the heights of Ghengis Khan himself leading these rats in a slaughter across this sunken realm. I could stand above mountains of corpses while they worshipped me. It is what Deekius wants. It would be more than I ever could be back on earth.

The heresy of that final sentence struck Marcus with the intensity of a hot iron searing the soft flesh of his brain. Had he really just penned that thought? Had he really just expressed something so heinous, so unnatural - admitting that his exploits here might earn him a mark on this world?

To be a part of history, rather than simply its scribe…

Don't you owe that to the people you've killed?

He was about to angrily scrub that final line from his notes when Skeever plopped down beside him, his lame arm hanging limply from its socket.

"Sire Marcus," he said. "You are being deep in thought."

His tone was so low, barely a hushed whisper, so that Marcus completely abandoned his notes and met his cold eyes – eyes that looked out at the abyss that stretched beneath them. Eyes that were trained on nothing but the Ratman's home.

"I am thinking you will like Fleapit," he said. "Maybe you will be hating the smell at first, but it will be something you could get used to."

Marcus shifted awkwardly beside the battle-scarred warrior. "Well, I've certainly been learning to live with a lot of things, recently."

A moment of strained silence passed between them both, as each one understood the meaning behind the others' statement.

"You are not meaning to stay with us," Skeever said quietly.

Marcus suppressed the gulp in his throat, eyeing the scimitar in Skeever's hip. Gatskeek's weapon.

"No, Skeever," he replied. "I am not."

The rat merely sniffed by way of response, his eyes falling to his wound.

"I am understanding," he finally said. "A warrior's first thoughts are always being home."

"I am no warrior."

Skeever scoffed at this, seemingly amused by the notion. "You are thinking you do not fight with us, and so this is not making you a warrior. But you are making sure we all get here, Sire Marcus. You are helping us get home. It is only fair we are doing the same for you."

Marcus sighed into his arms. "You don't owe me anything, Skeever. If anything, I owe all your people an apo-"

"Do not be saying 'sorry'," Skeever interrupted, seizing Marcus with his sudden determination. "This word is meaning nothing to us. You are thinking you have killed Gatskeek. You are thinking you have killed my men. But you are not understanding that all of my kin are signing away their lives before we began our mission. We are knowing it is suicide. The fact any of us are remaining is miracle."

"And Gatskeek?" Marcus questioned, unsatisfied. "Did he sign away his life, too?"

Skeever wasn't to be put off. If anything, all his rage at his old kinsman's face seemed to have abated in the last few hours.

"I tell you of Gatskeek," he said, hunkering down with an uncharacteristic, almost jovial smile. "Gatskeek is taking post at Knifegut not because King Shrykul wishes it of him, but because he is volunteering. He is doing this because he reaches his twenty-fifth year. Soon, he will no longer be able to fight."

Marcus's curiosity took over. "Why?"

Skeever shrugged. "Strength is what Ratkin value. Old can not fight well. We are not living long lives, Marcus. We are hoping one of two things: to be dying in battle or from disease given by He-Who-Festers. I am preferring battle. Gatskeek is thinking the same."
Marcus was struck by the idea, as well as the candor in the Ratman's voice. He was explaining something that was so simple that Marcus had overlooked it entirely. Here was a whole society practically geared towards war. A society completely accustomed to death. It had become merely second nature to them – so much so that an old warrior like Gatskeek had died with a smile on his face, even knowing he would not see his home again.

It was this notion, and this alone, that prompted Macus to ask his next question – something that, if he thought about it, meant nothing if he was leaving this place tomorrow:

"Do your people believe in an afterlife? A place where you go after you die?"

Skeever looked at him. "The Dwarves are believing in this. They are believing in things like souls returning to stone they were born from. We are not like them. We know there is only darkness here. Our short lives are having meaning in making clan stronger. That is all."

Marcus caught himself smirking. The irony of him landing on the laps of these rats – of all people – and them having the most realistic perception of death he'd ever known, was suddenly all too evident to him.

"You're like Vikings," Marcus said. "The Norsemen of the Middle Ages. Only slightly more rational, and slightly more smelly."

Skeever shook his furry head. "I am not understanding you."

And Marcus, shifting to lay down and finally rest, chuckled back at him.

"That's alright," he said. "Most people never do. But, for what it's worth, thank you."

He looked over his shoulder after the rat said nothing more.

"Is that another phrase your people frown upon?"

The Ratman had similarly laid down to rest for the night - Marcus didn't expect him to reply anytime soon. So, when he did, Marcus admitted he still had more to learn about these rats than he thought.

"You are being welcome, Marcus."

###

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[IronLung]

The next morning, Skeever packed up the camp and led his men down the long, craggy ridge towards Fleapit, Marcus following in the rearguard beside Deekius, eyes taking in the sights of the city that slowly revealed themselves to his haggard mind.

The first thing that assailed his senses was (of course) the smell. Putrid would be a euphemism.

The second thing was the coiling spires and domed huts that lined the city streets. Marcus couldn't tell from above what comprised these strange, angular structures, but their color was a dun, greying hue, reminiscent of an infected limb ready to be amputated. From the bird's eye view he had, Marcus could see that the city was surrounded by a stout stone wall packed with dirt behind its face to act as a shock absorber in the case of bombardment – a smart move, he had to admit, especially considering the occupants.

Within the city, a series of lower-quality interior walls stretched out and walled off various districts. The section nearest the city gatehouse - the South district – caught his eye first. Streets were lined with rows upon rows of ramshackle housing and ratmen jostling together, some hawking their wares in a central market bazaar – hawking items that Marcus could scarcely imagine. Rising high at the end of the market was a grand building with three high spires – by far the tallest building in the whole city. From its position in what looked like the residential district, Marcus assumed it to be the grand church of the Ratman faith – the place where this 'Prime Putrefact' dwelled and, thus, the place where he would get his ticket out of here.

On the city's west bank, penned in by another interior wall, was a pool of tar that swelled and undulated as though alive, throwing about the ratmen swimming within, their eyes glazed over in ecstasy. Dominating the city's east block was a series of industrial buildings belching clouds of black fumes into the air, which, Marcus realized, must have been the reason it had been shrouded from their sight as they descended.

At the very center of the city was a rather stately, angular structure with jagged, black geometric shapes grafted on to its domed roof, giving it the appearance of a jagged crown. Marcus assumed this to be where their monarchs must dwell.

Skeever stopped upon the lip of the ridge and breathed deep, his chest swelling with corrupted air.

"Home," he said. "There is being nothing like it."

Marcus couldn't fathom why he said this with such deep sorrow in his voice, but he put such concerns to one side. The other men seemed to do the same, practically throwing themselves forward and wanting nothing more than to drop their weapons and run for the gates.

Marcus, meanwhile, had to admit that he'd been taken in by the sight – his first city in the world of Thea.

Solid walls, he wrote in his journal parchments. Defended on the four cardinal points by twin Martello towers, providing an overview of both the city districts and the exterior chasm. From above, each district seems to stretch inexorably towards the palace at the center like an old Italian Star Fort. Deekius informs me the palace is referred to as 'Castle Carfaxx' – so named after the first King of their Clan who built the place, apparently, from the hollowed-out corpse of a Gutmulcher queen. From the looks of it, I doubt the veracity of this story. Then again, I'm still new here.

The defense systems of the city seem remarkably sophisticated – all things considered. Aside from the tightly packed districts that give the wall-mounted archers overview over the entire city, the black fumes of their industrial base obscures the town from the ridges above. I see no other tunnels or entrances from which they could be attacked – we seem to be at the base of the cavern. Aerial assault would be possible, but unwise, considering the lack of visibility. Whether this location and these defensive measures are intentional or not I can't say, but I can say for certain that these rats display some surprising levels of intelligence matched only by their ferocity in battle. If only their reproductive capacity was higher…This species might indeed have a chance at becoming an Empire worth contending with.

Noticing the population density of the city though, I can see the issues that higher birth rates could lead to. These streets would have to be widened considerably, the walls would have to be expanded, and I've seen no evidence of arable farmland in this underground realm that could support a growing civilization. The creatures' propensity towards cannibalism makes sense, if you consider this. Again, however, this only leads to loss of vital war assets. The main issue, as I see it, seems to be that they lack a proper source of food and nutrition, along with (obviously) proper measures for childcare and child-rearing. I should probably reserve judgement on those particular issues until I meet the Queen, but based on my observations so far…I doubt she's a loving mother to her offspring.

Marcus snapped himself out of his writer's reverie as the army came to a halt before the grey walls of Fleapit and formed up into ordered columns. The ratman guards in the Martellos flanking the gate brightened with recognition, and it seemed to Marcus that Skeever did not have to announce himself at all in the bombastic fashion that he did.

"I am Talon-Commander Skeever of Clan Red-Eye!" he roared, his voice carrying long and wide so that Marcus could swear the city itself came to a complete standstill. "My Pack is returning victorious, and we are coming with information for King Shrykul!"

The rats on the towers ran for the gatehouse drawbridge and then stiffened abruptly. Five of them armed their vicious-looking crossbows and aimed them directly at Ix and his Kobold slingers.

"You are calling yourself Skeever!" one of the archers shouted down. "Yet Skeever of Red-Eye would not be making friends of Kobold soap-eaters! By whose command do these creatures follow you?"

Deekius made to step forward, but Skeever held him back, strong, and firm, even with one arm left.

"By my command!" he shouted right back. "And the words of the Shai-Alud!"

The guards stiffened, slowly lowering their crossbows as their eyes found Marcus in the midst of Skeever's forces. The human among them.

And they renewed their opening of the gate with gusto.

"Be opening!" the archer who had questioned them screamed. "Praise be He-Who-Festers! The Shai-Alud is coming!"

Before the wooden gates of the Capital was opened to them, Marcus could already hear the awestruck screams of the rats who heard the proclamation. He heard the cacophonous bells of the church spires ringing above, drowning out the battlecry of victory that the remaining rats of Skeever's squad bellowed to see the gate of their homeland part before them once more.

Then, when the doors were fully open, Marcus looked upon a sea of crimson eyes.

"Be giving glory to Skeever!"

"Glory to Clan Red-Eye!"

Deekius shuffled to the front of the army to stand beside the Talon-Commander, who, for now, hid his wounded limb.

"Brother," he asked. "Are you being ready to return home?"

Skeever nodded with a small, almost imperceptible grin.

They walked towards the crowd of cheering ratlings, and Marcus fought against the urge to shield his ears from the sound – the wailing, banshee-like, that was assailing him. Coupled with the stench of peasant rat's rotted clothes, wrapped in what looked like threads of torn bandages and cloth, it was a true assault on his senses that would probably have repelled even the hardiest army. That, Marcus thought as he looked into their puss-dripping eyes, was the Ratmen's true defense: revulsion.

And yet as he walked through the streets, Skeever urged him forward, Deekius summoning little globes of light to circle him like a halo, completing the image of the savior walking the streets of the common-rat.

"Deekius," Marcus murmured out the corner of his mouth, while he batted at a light-glob that flew into his eyeball. "Isn't this a little much?"

"Sire," the rat-priest replied. "This is being my specialty. We of the Gloomraava are knowing the people. In this time of war, the common rat is needing hope. You, Marucs, are being that hope. They are looking at you and knowing it. Look for yourself."

Marcus sighed at the rat-priest's showmanship – with every ratling he passed by he was staring them down till they bowed their heads, and when Marcus passed by after him, the furry citizens of Fleapit dropped to their knees.

"They have been expecting you," Skeever said by way of explanation while he waved to the crying crowds in the narrow streets. "They are not knowing the hour of your coming, or which Clan would be blessed with your presence. But they are knowing you would come as you are, and they are knowing this war will be won."

Marcus looked out at the undulating sea of festering rodents crowding round him, stretching out their lice-ridden claws to touch but a scrap of his robe, kneeling in supplication as his eyes passed over them. The devotion of Skeever's warriors he understood. The devotion of the priest – that made sense. He was, after all, a convenient example of the prophesy their God spoke of. But to see the ordinary people of this town – actual members of this underground civilization – appraise him as some kind of Lord and savior…it brought home a reality that he had not yet been willing to admit.

They needed him.

Their faces were haunting – gaunt and haggard. They were like the destitute members of a poor city under siege, cells of an organism in the last throes of its life, clinging to a final, desperate hope.

Such faces stuck with him until they finally arrived at the gates of the great grey palace, and the crowd stood back, each dropping to kiss the filth-ridden ground of their city.

"Ratlings of Red-Eye!" Deekius yelled at them, his arms raised and staff flailing wildly with his words. "The Shai-Alud is come! He goes to meet now with King Shrykul! He goes to meet his destiny!"

The commoners howled their glee into the corrupted air above their city – rats of every shape and size, of all colorations and discolorations, their poxes practically bursting with delight.

The Ratguards at the palace gates saluted them with pride, and the jagged gates of the palace opened up to swallow Marcus whole.

For a moment he looked back into the eyes of the ratlings, taking in the sight of their worship once again.

"It is being something, is it not?" Deekius said beside him. "Having the love of the people."

Marcus' reply was so quiet, so subdued, that he couldn't even be sure the words were his.

"It's…something," he said as the guards ushered them inside. "Something…new."

###

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[IronLung]

The grand palace of Clan Red-Eye was both more, and less, than Marcus had expected.

The domed ceiling dripped with loose spume and had caused wet puddles to lie upon the tiled flooring. Loose pieces of once pristine stonework was corrupted and ravished by fungal growths and other bulbs of pink, polyp-like bulbs that ran up every column and stairway that led to the throne room of King Shrykul of the Red-Eyes.

And yet, there was a certain charm to parts of the abode. As Marcus stepped towards the infected-looking plants that lined the walls, they opened to reveal petals brimming with fiery red life, puffing sweet-smelling scents into the air that Marcus breathed in with wonder. It smelled distinctly of…strawberries?

Looking around him at his Ratman delegation, he saw that they cringed and tried staying as far away from the plants as possible.

"I am forgetting how potent the defense mechanisms are being. Sire Marcus, please be forgiving the King his precautions!"

Marcus stifled a smile even as he came to understand the significance of Deekius' statement: the sweet scents were defenses, yes, but probably only against civil unrest. He did not get the impression that Kobolds like Ix inherently despised cleanliness as the ratmen of the Under-Kingdom did.

Thinking about them reminded him of their presence outside. Skeever commanded the army to wait in the castle courtyard – a drab square acre of salted earth where nary a plant lived anymore – and explained to Marcus that they'd eventually retire to the city barracks behind the eastern Industrial sector (The Workyard). Marcus had given strict orders to the reticent Redwhiskers that he continue his duties as overseer of Ix and his Kobolds, who had been uncharacteristically quiet as of late. This of course made sense – here they were in the capital city of their enemies. It only made sense for them to feel out of place and afraid for their safety. The eyes of the rats they passed by on the way here met their downtrodden faces with nothing but seething hatred. It would be a while before they would truly win the trust of the people to whom they now owed their service.

But as Marcus had nodded to them and made to allow them rest, Ix had tugged on his arm like an impatient child.

"Ix want come to see King. Tell him he and his Yip-Yips will be useful."

Marcus looked to Skeever and Deekius' untrusting faces. After all the blood they'd shed side-by-side, still they could not see eye-to-eye with the creature.

"It…is not being a good idea, sire Marc-"

"Ix will accompany us," Marcus said with finality, breaking through Deekius' complaints. "If your king doesn't like it, he can take it up with me."

That seemed to have settled that, for the rats immediately bowed and fell back in line.

"You wish to pledge yourself to the king of your mortal enemies, Ix?" Marcus asked while they were out of earshot of the rest of the group.

"Ix already pledged to boss Marcus," the little crimson demon squeaked. "Will be loyal only to him-him."

"Do me a favor," Marcus told him as they entered the palace together. "Keep that fact to yourself."

For this reason, Ix now walked beside them as one of the army lieutenants, and Marcus had to admit that he savored the little man's unwavering, unquestioning support. It was exactly that kind of support that he would need in a world as harsh as this.

When finally they reached a set of gilded doors crawling with woodlouse, Deekius turned to address Marcus directly.

"Behind this door is sitting King Shrykul," he said. "He is expecting us, but I fear he may be restless. The war is greatly disturbing our king. Be wary, Sire Marcus, for though you are being the Shai-Alud, the King's word is still being law in Fleapit. Be letting Skeever take the lead, and be following his example."

Marcus understood the tacit warning in Deekius' terse tone: Don't piss him off. Please, for the love of the Unclean One.

Marcus nodded and faced the doors.

"Don't worry," he told the rats. "I've been practicing my best curtsey."

With a nod to the halberd-wielding guards stationed beside the doors they were thrown open, revealing an opulent throne room decorated with a dun, chewed carpet and a tattered but regal set of Red-Eye Clan banners lining the room walls, each one displaying the Clan's distinctive sigil – a jagged black eye with a blood red pupil set against a vermillion backdrop.

And at the very end of the room sat a thin, rather ungainly rat atop a stone throne, clad in a slim red robe and wearing a jagged crown composed of corrugated iron. To Marcus's untrained eyes, it looked more like a child's shop class project than the marker of a monarch. But the glowing ruby set in its center certainly did not look basic, nor did the two jet-black, six limbed creatures that growled at the new arrivals beside their master's throne.

"Busho, Revik, be sitting at peace!"

The command was barked by the king at his two 'pets' which looked like gangly, mutated rats stretched and deformed beyond belief, each one chained to one of the throne's armrests. As Marcus and his delegation came to stand before the throne, Marcus couldn't help but recoil a little at their gnashing, rabid fangs and shorn, emaciated bodies. He could swear he could see pieces of their ribcages fully exposed through the thin film of their onyx skin.

Presently Skeever stepped forward and knelt before his King, unafraid. With a curt nod to the rest of the delegation, they all followed suit.

Then, for what felt like an eternity, nothing happened at all. Marcus heard the king groan as he rose, take a whiff of the air around Skeever, and then, without warning, plant both his gnarled hands on the Talon-Commander's shoulders.

"Skeever Steelclaw!" he roared. "My subject chosen by He-Who-Festers himself! Rise, rise and greet your King!"

Skeever was plucked from his feet without even being given the chance to rise, as the King clapped his arms around him in an almost brotherly embrace.

"It is good to be seeing you again, Highness."

"Skeever, Skeever," the regal ratman replied, his jagged crown jostling about with every movement of his angular face. "Am I not telling you before that you are a Kinsman within these walls? Come, be not bowing down before me. Rise and let me see the faces of those who are conquering the North tunnels, and giving old boss Skegga a large kicking in his fat Froggie balls!"

Skeever and Deekius, seemingly quite shocked by the King's demeanor, rose steadily and shakily, with Marcus and Ix following suit as the king turned his eyes upon them, settling upon Ix staying there.

"The – uh – yes, the Kobold," Skeever muttered. "I can be explaining this. You see, King Shrykul, he is being –"

"A fighter," Shrykul said, his mouth opening to reveal rows of sharp, tar-ridden teeth. "You think I am not knowing this? Your King is having eyes on all his domain. I have heard of how you are having fought with my people, Kobold. I am having heard that you have forsaken your Boss."

Ix stuttered his reply. "Y-yes-yes, good King!" he shrieked. "Ix is meeting Sire Marcus. He is showing us that ratmen are strong-strong, now. Ix-Ix work with ratmen. Help ratmen. Help ratmen win."

The King considered this with a nod. "I am sure your knowledge of Boss Skegga's lair will be proving useful," he said, turning back to Skeever with a satisfied nod. "We are needing all the man we can get. These Kobolds will be serving us well in the war to come. Your judgement is being good as always, Skeever."

The Talon-Commander turned away the compliment with a stout shake of his head. "It is being the idea of the Shai-Alud, Highness. Marcus is knowing tha-"

"Yes," Shrykul interrupted, slowly passing by Skeever and meandering over to the next subject of his scrutiny. "The Shai-Alud."

When he stepped close, Marcus was surprised to find that he did not smell quite so putrid as the company he was used to keeping down here. His nose twitched as it similarly appraised Marcus, taking in the scent of a human for perhaps the first time ever.

"They are telling me your name is Marcus," he said.

Marcus, almost forgetting himself entirely, eventually nodded.

"It is."

"Deekius," Shrykul barked at the rat-priest. "Is he truly the one?"

"He is, most-esteemed Highness. He is coming to us through dung and darkness, regaling us with tales of the Realm Beyond, delivering death unto our-"

"Be leaving us," Shrykul said as he turned tail and ascended his throne once again. "Be retiring to the private chambers. Rest there. Be eating well."

The Rats looked at each other with unblinking confusion.

"But, Sire," Deekius said. "Our report-"

"Your report can be waiting," the King replied curtly, never once taking his eyes off Marcus.

"B-but Sire we must be acting with ha-"

"Did you not hear your King, Gloomraava?" Skeever spat. "Look you – even the Kobold knows to obey. Do not be embarrassing us."

The rat delegation left with bows, Ix following suit as best as his tiny, hoofed legs would allow him to. Deekius was the last to leave, his suddenly nervous eyes finding Marcus and pleading with him immutably with a look that said: do all that the king asks!

When they left, the great double doors slammed shut behind them.

Leaving Marcus alone with the rat-King and his two very hungry-looking mutant pets.

"Well, Marcus," Shrykul said. "I am hearing reports of your exploits. I am understanding your leadership is why Skeever and his pack survive. Now, you are arriving before me. And now, I am asking only one question of you."

Marcus was suddenly very aware of how alone he was in this room, compounded by the distinct click! of the doors behind being locked.

"Do not be lying," he said. "My dogs are being good at knowing truth."

Of that, Marcus had no doubt. Their hungry, salivating maws told him what his destiny would be if he attempted any kind of deceit. He knew what the rat-King wanted to know before he even asked it. Even if he did seem a tad more reasonable than any Ratman he'd seen so far, the fact remained that there was one thing on his mind:

"Will you lead my armies in our war? Will you be helping us win against the Kobolds and their new God?"

Marcus gulped, felt sweat pool beneath his messy blonde fringe, and took two cursory glances at the mad eyes of the growling rat-mutants before he answered as directly and clearly as he could:

"No."

With an air of regal authority, King Shrykul of Clan Red-Eye leaned back in his high throne and breathed a heavy sigh that spoke of weariness beyond years.

"Well," he said. "Then we are having a problem."

###

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[IronLung]

"We are having a problem, Shai-Alud Marcus."

If he was being honest, Marcus heard these words with a complete lack of surprise. In the pit of his stomach, he had known escape wouldn't be so easy. Not with all those rats out there singing his name in the streets.

He summoned all the knowledge on monarchical etiquette he had, and then remembered that it was probably useless in the face of the King of spume and slime.

"I was given assurances," Marcus nevertheless replied, trying to avoid further eye-contact with the King's mutant hounds. "Assurances that, if I guided Skeever's forces back to Fleapit successfully, I would be granted an audience with the Prime Putrefact and be given a way to return to my home."

Shrykul considered this unblinkingly, his sharp claws drilling into his throne's solid armrests.

"I know what you are wishing, Shai-Alud," he said.

He leaned forward slightly, raising a single finger to command his dogs to heel. Like real pets they mewled and spun around, laying down at his feet with their spiny tails tucked between their legs.

"I am believing in honesty," Shrykul then said. "So I will tell you what you are thinking of us, and you will tell me if this is being correct: you are thinking we are filth, stupid, and uncivilized. You are thinking we are cruel and unusual compared to humankind. You are thinking we make war only because we are vicious."

Marcus straightened up and met the King's rigid stare. "Not entirely, King Shrykul. In my journey to this place, I have seen Ratmen show both bravery and cunning that befits the title of warrior. I have seen Skeever care deeply for his duty to you. I have seen Deekius demonstrate powers that go beyond anything we mortals could employ on the battlefield. But, more than all of this, I have seen a commander among you who genuinely cares for his men. It is that very fact that killed him."

"Gatskeek," Shrykul said. "He will be honored."

Marcus nodded solemnly. "But I will admit you are correct in some of your assessment. I do find your kind filthy and uncivilized. But perhaps this is because your people have not been given the chance to grow."

Shrykul stroked the long, thin piece of hair under his chin.

"You speak well, Marcus," he said. "You are reminding me of someone else. Someone who was here and is now not."

The King grew somewhat pensive. Then, after a moment, he resumed his stately air.

"Now I am telling you what I think of humans," he said with a grin. "I am thinking they are brash, pushy, and expansionist. I am thinking they look down on other races and think they alone can guide the world and think of their desires before anything else. I am thinking they are children who are told they are strong but who would fall before even the smallest of my Ratman warriors. Am I wrong to think these things?"

Marcus gulped again. "Where I come from, King Shrykul, there are many who think the same way you do about humankind."

"Is this so?" the King asked. "And what happens to such people in the place beyond?"

Marcus shrugged. "They are forgotten in the annals of time. Our species progresses without them, and they are left behind. Mostly, this is because they are skilled only in the art of complaining and not in acting."

The stately King leaned back in his throne again. "Do your Kings also execute those that are insulting them in their own palace?"

Marcus smiled. "Yes. But our Kings do not value honesty."

From the flash in Shrykul's beady eyes, Marcus thought we was ready to unleash his hounds on him right then and there.

But it was laughter that gripped the thin King then, not fury.

"You speak well," he told Marcus again. "It is a talent humans of the surface are having, too. It is what is making them so tricky in negotiation."

So, there are humans on Thea, Marcus noted.

"Very well," the King said as though something important had just been decided. "We are understanding each other. You are knowing what I want. I am knowing what you want. This is why we are having problem. Because even if I am wishing to grant you the boon you deserve, it is not being within my power to do so."

Marcus stiffened.

Deekius, if you have tricked me…

"But, surely as the King of your Clan…"

"Not all offices of state are being mine, Marcus."

"Well, who then?" Marcus asked, acutely aware that his tone approached that of a disgruntled 30-something wishing to speak to a bargain clothes store manager.

Shrykul sighed, scratched his chin again, and rose steadily from his throne.

"Be following. I will take you to her."

A bleak crest of weariness seemed to overtake the Ratman's features. Marcus began to follow him through another set of gilded doors hidden beneath a shabby curtain behind his throne. It was only now that he noticed the King walked with a slight limp on his right side.

"You are wounded, King Shrykul?"

The Rat replied without looking back. "In a manner of speaking," he said, tapping his right leg. "This is being occupational hazard."

Occupational hazard…Marcus mused. What…

The sudden change in environment in this section of the palace struck Marcus. The King led him down a narrow, damp tunnel only dimly lit by torch sconces that threw the shadows of crawling insects along the stone walls.

Here and there Marcus could see dents and cracks within the brickwork which revealed a thick, greasy, jelly-like substance oozing through the walls like a creeping infection.

He quickened his pace. The King seemed to do the same.

The further down the passage they went, the more Marcus felt his entire body quake. The guards stationed in this section of the castle seemed shaken and unnerved as they allowed the King and his Shai-Alud passage, and Marcus could probably ascertain the reason for their hesitancy:

The screams.

They came from the end of the tunnel – from a corrugated steel gate bolted with six individual sets of locks. They were not the screams of one person. No, they were much too savage to come from a single throat. Instead, Marcus heard the chorus of a hundred living, breathing agonies emanate from behind the gate.

And when the King halted and looked up at his terror-stricken face, he sighed again.

"I must be warning you," he said. "What you are about to see may be…distasteful to your human eyes."

Marcus kept a stiff upper lip. "I've seen plenty of horrors on the outskirts of your Kingdom, King Shrykul. But why are you bringing me here?"

"To meet the one who will tell you why you cannot leave," he replied, nodding to the guards stationed beside the gate to unlock its bolts.

Before the darkness beyond the gate was even visible, Marcus already knew who awaited him on the other side.

"May I be presenting my Queen, Shai-Alud Marcus," Shrykul said as the screaming suddenly abated. "Darling, you are having a visitor."

Beyond the depths of the dark chamber that stretched out before Marcus, a wild, flaring snout appeared and wormed its way into the light cast by the door.

"Hail, your Highness," Marcus said, giving his best impression of a stiff bow. "I have come to ask –"

Marcus stopped, feeling something wet squish underneath his feet. He looked down to see the shredded corpse of a Ratling child – a pink, hairless, mutilated thing – breaking apart beneath his heel.

Then he saw the rest of the ground was similarly littered with long dead bodies – bodies that had been left to rot for so long that many had simply become a grey paste of blood and bone, ground down by something…big. And angry.

He stumbled forward, lost his footing slightly, and then fumbled to rise and –

"Ask?" a deep voice boomed above him. "A hairless male is coming to ask something of us. How…heretical."

Marcus looked up to see the body of the queen emerge behind her snout, the ground literally quaking beneath her gargantuan form. He watched as the thick knots and folds of fat tissue that comprised her belly stretched up as she rose to her full height – and he made the nauseus realization that such rolls of fat comprised her entire body. She was like a bulging, writhing sandworm from the science-fiction novels he had read as a child. But unlike them, her oozing, bloody body demanded no reverence. Indeed, Marcus was doing his level best to not vomit across the chamber as she leaned down to sniff him.

"A fresh human sample," she said, her pale eyes blinking rapidly as the hairs from her snout – like a legion of twisted feelers – fell over his head and smeared their snot across his face.

Her mouth opened to reveal a brown maw dripping with bile, and a lithe tongue wriggled its way out.

"Darling," she moaned. "Such a lovely gift you are bringing me."

###

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[HellTeddy]

Oh shit.
Now to talk-no-jutsu your way out of being eaten.

 

[SynergeticVoices]

Seems like the rats are a hands-off matriarchal society which does make sense due to their extreme scarcity and dimorphism (assuming this rat queen is an comparable example to the other rat queens)

The males serve, fight and die for the Queen like a eusocial colony and the favoured mate manages the day to day of the clan alongside providing her food supply. But the actual power rests with the Queen.

 

[IronLung]

In my life, I am knowing only one thing for certain: I am loving my Queen"

- King Bekblast of Clan Marrow, five minutes before his consumption by Queen Eradeka


While the Queen sniffed Marcus like a voluptuous snake seasoning its meal, Shrykul, who measured up to about one eighth of his Queen's size, shuffled noiselessly into the room.

"This – this is being the Shai-Alud, dear," he said. "The one who is bringing us –"

"I KNOW WHO HE IS!" she screamed at him, throwing a torrent of spittle across his entire body. "I CAN SMELL THE SCENT OF THE UNCLEAN ONE UPON HIM! ARE YOU DOUBTING THE STRENGTH OF MY NOSE?"

"N-no, dear," Shrykul said with another shiver.

Marcus looked up then, much as it pained him, to see the eyes of the Queen for himself. Glazed over, pale as moonlight.

"You're blind…"

The words had left his lips before he'd even pondered if he should voice them. Behind, Shrykul stirred, but the Queen let a greasy smile smear itself across her face.

"I am not needing eyes to tell talent when it is being in front of me!" she howled. "Now, tasty-smelling human. Get on with it."

Marcus blinked up at her.

"Excuse me?"

"Must I be repeating my every thought! Are you males all deaf and dumb? Tell us how we will win this war!"

Shrykul tensed up as Marcus stood slowly, calmly, keeping his eyes on those of the heavily breathing Queen.

Once again, he sucked up his disgust.

"My…lady," he said. "I am bound for my home. Not for your war. Surely you can understand that."

The only female Ratman in Fleapit twitched for a moment, and then stretched around the form of the human like a cobra.

"Are you having children where you come from, Shai-Alud?"

Marcus did not try and escape. He got the sense that fear would kill him more than it would serve him right now.

"I do not. I have ne-"

"WELL, I DO!" she screamed in his face, returning to meet his gaze with such speed that Marcus was off-footed. "All you are seeing around you, every Rat – from smallest to biggest warrior – all of them are coming from this body!"

She indicated her stomach, as though it wasn't obvious.

"And a mother – a good mother – she loves her children. She is giving them life. She is watching them grow. She is nursing them on her own teats. Oh, oh how they bite and scratch. How they gnaw and pummel. How they test us so! Isn't that right, dear?"

"Yes, sweetheart. You are being ri-"

"How they make our kingdom run black with filth!" she continued, practically spitting in Marcus' face. "How they make this underground ours. Ours! It is all ours!"

She rose to her full height again, laughing at the ceiling.

"But – but now!" she screamed after her joy subsided. "How they DIE!"

She raked her claws against the wall, throwing torn pieces of stone and puss across the room while Marcus and Shrykul watched in silence. Marcus – because he was stunned. Shrykul – because this was just another day.

"Slimy, soapsucking toad!" She wailed to the black heavens above her. "SKEGGA! He kills our children. He tears their limbs. He sends his armies in their Kleansing. He is meaning to kill me, then my sisters. Yes! The hubris of a toad – an evil, dumb, postulating toad! He dares to be harming my children. My pretty little things…"

She finally turned back to Marcus.

"You are supposed to be the hero!" she squealed. "The leader of our armies! You are supposed to be winning war. Prophecy says so, oh – oh yes! I do not need eyes to know this. I can hear it. I am hearing whispers of you on the winds of the underworld. Now you are here – you are being ours! And you – yes – you shall be our sword."

"I – understand your position," Marcus said after quickly looking to Shrykul for some help and realizing, almost instantly, that such help was not forthcoming. "But one of your priests pledged to me that I would be brought home if I aided the forces of Skeever in coming here. I am not a human that can help you regardless, your Majesty. Even getting this far, my victories were based largely on luck. You have your enemies on the backfoot now, that should be enough to-"

"PRIESTS!" the Queen shrieked like a banshee. "Priests! Oh, how they are boring me so. How I am detesting their stories and scheming behind my husband's back. Oh, yes – he is so, so busy ruling his kingdom while it falls to pieces. The kingdom that is being sustained by nothing but my life!"

"Now, dear," Shrykul began. "Marcus does not need to know –"

"HE SHALL KNOW WHAT I PLEASE HIM TO!" the worm-wife roared back. "This place is being mine – mine! You are making your fancy speeches while I fester in here. You are wearing the crown, but I am holding the power. The power of life. LIFE! The only power you can never be having."

Shrykul shrunk back, humbled, while Marcus's temper began to flare.

"I did not come here to be privy to a marriage dispute," he said tetchily. "I must go to your Prime Putrefect. If you deliver him to me I make you assurances that I will guide the strategy of your armies before I leave."

The Queen glowered down at him with her vestigial blind eyes and laughed after she understood what he had said.

"HAH!" she wailed to no one in particular. "He is making the same demand of me that I make of him! Oh, dear, sweet-smelling, naïve little human – we are both wanting the Putrefect delivered to us!"

…What?

Movement from Shrykul behind. He was signaling to the doormen to open the gate again. It seemed, finally, that they had arrived at the point.

"My dear, sweet Putrefact," the Queen was wailing like a child, puss-filled tears streaming from her bulbous eyes. "Loving, caring Putrefact…the only one of those detestable little men of the faith that is deserving to bask in my flatulence! A pox most foul upon Skegga – bastard, fat-toad Skegga and his scum-sucking minions! He is taking my precious Putrefact from me! ME! He steals our favorite child and sends his armies after us? I will be having his head on a pike! I will be seeing his entrails coat my lair! I will be plucking out his eyes and serving them to his prisoner – my beautiful, loving Putrefact. My – my SILAS!"

By this point, Marcus was allowing Shrykul to guide him out of the chamber while the Queen thrashed about in the bodies of her dead children.

"SILAS! SILAS! SIIIILLLLLLAAAAAAAAS!"

The doors slammed shut and the bolts were quickly re-done.

And Marcus stood beside Shrykul saying nothing, simply staring at the bars of the gate while they rattled against the Queen's exhortations.

"You," Shrykul finally said. "You are understanding our problem."

Marcus's voice was barely a whisper. "It's a big one."

He turned to the rat suddenly, looking passed the jagged-iron crown to see the weary eyes of the rat beneath.

Suddenly his 'occupational hazard' had been made eminently clear to Marcus.

"Is she…always like that?"

Shrykul shook his head solemnly. "She is suffering for the good of all of us. You must understand – she sees so many of her younglings die in the wake of our copulation. She has birthed generations, and the price of those lives is being many, many deaths and stillbirths. My priests are telling me that such things are affecting the mind in…bad ways."

Marcus shivered as he recalled the image of the bulbous, worm-body that dwelled within the doors before him. Literally nothing more than a wailing, angry baby factory.

And beside Marcus stood her devoted little gigolo. The only rat that was permitted to mate with her in the entire kingdom. Probably, Marcus reflected, this was because such mating attempts posed dangers in themselves. He doubted the Queen was always a willing participant in such unions…

"You are thinking we are a disgusting people once again," Shrykul said as he began walking back up the tunnel to his throne room. "But world is being cruel. Underworld – even more so. It is not caring for sentimentality. What matters is generations and survival of kingdom."

"That," Marcus said. "I can almost understand. But had I been summoned on the other side of your Black Gulch, and I was shown what you just revealed to me, I believe your Fleapit would not stand to see another day."

Shrykul stopped and looked back, both his guards bearing their spears at the heresy spoke by the human.

Slowly, the rat-king raised his hand and coaxed them to lower their weapons.

"An honest human?" Shrykul said. "It is being a rare thing, indeed. You are of course implying that the only reason you remain with us is because we are having a way for you to return home."

Marcus nodded. "No matter how noble your intentions seem, King Shrykul, this is a truth I won't keep from you."

The King of the Red-Eyes smiled thinly in the darkness of the Queen's tunnel.

"Then you know my terms," he said. "Win this war and you will be finding our Putrefact. Only he has the power to send you back to the realm beyond."

Marcus's fists tightened behind his back.

"Be taking the night to think on this," Shrykul said as he turned his back. "Be taking the stairway outside my throne and find your room beside your comrades. Be resting. Be deciding in the morning. I am hoping, for all our sakes, that you will be making the right choice."

Marcus watched him go with barely restrained fury building up in his throat. He wanted to scream. He wanted to beat his bare fists upon the door frame of the vile creature he had just seen and issue a roar to match her own. Instead, he began following the King's path, fists still clenched, as his mind focused on the image of a single person.

Deekius…

His hand inadvertently clenched on the hilt of his dagger.

He was going to pay that rat a little visit.


###

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[HellTeddy]

Thank you for the chappy!

You got the same chapter posted twice.

 

[IronLung]

Thank you for the chappy!

You got the same chapter posted twice.

Click to shrink...

LOL

Thank you evil bear

 

[IronLung]

"You knew, didn't you?"

Marcus's accusation brought a deathly silence over the Ratman he'd called to his chambers within the palace.

"Sire, I was not lying," Deekius replied slowly. "The Prime Putrefact is your only way of making it back to realm beyond."

"But you knew he was gone, and you kept that little piece of information from me, didn't you?"

Skeever, who had answered Marcus's summons knowing there would be trouble, looked from the rat-priest to his Shai-Alud.

"We are only suspecting, Marcus," he said. "The Kobolds having knowledge of our tunnels is not making sense. We are knowing they must have one of us. But we could not know –"

"He did," Marcus interrupted, standing and marching over to Deekius' silent snout. "Didn't you?"

A change had come over the rat-priest since they'd returned to the Capital. Once, Marcus had thought him a sniveling wretch with some admittedly useful tricks up his sleeve that had contributed greatly to their victories. Now, however, he seemed cool, aloof, and possessed of an uncharacteristic confidence.

Somehow, that served to piss Marcus off even more.

"I could not be knowing for certain," Deekius replied. "Our forces are being away from home for a long time. Scout reports do not come to us. We are finding Boss Skegga's defences and inspecting them only. We are not going to see prisoners he has taken. But…I am feeling the will of He-Who-Festers waning in me. I could have been guessing the Putrefact was gone."

Marcus drew the dagger Gatskeek had given him. Skeever tensed, moved forward, but Deekius held up a firm paw to hold him back.

"I could kill you now, priest," Marcus told the rat as he aimed the tip of the weapon at his furry little throat. "Your King would pardon his Shai-Alud."

Skeever didn't move an inch. Deekius, to his credit, held Marcus's death-like stare. Then, without any indication of damaged pride, he laid his staff on the floor, got on his knees, and bent his neck.

"I am giving you promise, Shai-Alud," he said. "Are you remembering? Before we are leaving Black Gulch I am saying to you that my life is yours if you wish it. I, Deekius of Clan Red-Eye, have done the job bestowed on me by He-Who-Festers. I am bringing the Shai-Alud to this world, and I am guiding him to the Capital. If you are wishing it, I would gladly now be dying by your hand."

Marcus looked unblinkingly at the supplicant rat. There was no fear he could detect in his small, robed body. Not even the flies that surrounded his snout buzzed with greater intensity than usual. His breathing was cool. Calm. Totally at peace. If anything, it was Skeever that was more fidgety right now.

Marcus groaned as he sheathed the knife.

"That's the problem with religious fanatics," he said as he turned away from the sight of the rat. "You're always so ready to die. So certain that your life has meaning."

Marcus looked out at his small balcony that lay beyond his room. A space that, coincidentally, gave him an overview of the entire residential district that lay beyond the palace.

He could hear the rats below that had not dispersed at the palace gates. A crowd cheering his name. Cheering for him.

"Be listening to them," Deekius said from his back. "They are adoring you, Sire. They are already being your loyal subjects. You are coming to our home as a human, and are already having the absolute loyalty of the people. You are being second only to the King in their eyes. You are-"

"Get out," Marcus said, abruptly cutting off the priest before he began an entire sermon. "Be thankful you still have your head."

Deekius made to say more, but at a firm grunt from his comrade, thought better of it. Both rats bowed and made to leave.

"Not you," Marcus said, speaking over his shoulder to Skeever.

He did not wait to see if his command had been obeyed. He sat down on the stone bed that had been prepared for him, rubbing his face in his hands and praying to whatever disease ridden God they worshipped down here that he would sell his soul for fresh linen.

He heard the patter of Skeever's feet as the soldier bowed at the end of his bed.

"Sire," he said. "Deekius is strongest of Red-Eye priests. He is being chosen for our mission because of his faith. You show good judgement in keeping him alive."

"Skeever," Marcus said. "I am stuck here."

He said it again, paying no heed to how this could affect Skeever's morale. Right now, he had to be a person. Not a prophet. Not a General. Not a historian. He was human, and he was tired.

"Like your squad in that Gulch tunnel," he continued, wringing his hands together like a madman.

"Sire," Skeever replied. "When we are finding Prime Putrefect, he will be able to –"

"And what if we don't!" Marcus yelled, rising and marching over to the balcony door. "All of you are putting a war on me that I know nothing about. Kobolds, Dwarves, Ratmen – what's the difference to me? We beat the Kobolds on the way here with luck – luck, and some basic environmental awareness. Now, you're asking me to dismantle and entire civilization on the chance that one prisoner they've taken might still be alive."

"He is alive," Skeever said. "Boss Skegga not stupid enough to kill clever Silas."

Marcus's rage was not to be stilled. "Your king is basically subservient to a crazy she-demon that holds the future of your entire clan on her whims. Your priest-caste seems like they're running their own show. Meanwhile, your people want an empire spanning this entire underground network that stretches on for God knows how far. When will it stop, Skeever? When will the goal posts be shifted next? First, you'll ask me to win this war for you. Next, you'll ask me to conquer your Dwarven neighbors. Then, you'll ask me to win the entire world."

Marcus smashed his fist into the side of the door frame.

"And I wish they'd shut up out there!"

He was about to throw the door open when Skeever's heavy gauntlet stopped him, pushing the door back.

"This is not being like you, Sire Marcus."

He was about to spit his fury right back at Skeever's face when the latter slammed his gauntlet on his chest.

"We of Clan-Red eye are not making promises we do not keep," he said. "I am devoting myself to guiding you to Prime Putrefact and getting you home. Are you doubting me, Sire?"

Marcus looked at him with furious eyes, but he said nothing.

"Our King could be torturing you to force you to lead," Skeever said. "Why is he not doing this? Because he believes in the Shai-Alud. The Prophecy is that you are chosen by He-Who-Festers to defend our race. Are you not seeing that we are on brink of doom? Are you not seeing the mad Queen for yourself who cries over her children?"

Marcus stepped away from the balcony and returned to sit by the bed, sighing deeply, staring at the grey stone of the floor.

"If you are commanding me," Skeever said, unsheathing Gatskeek's scimitar and planting it in the ground before him. "I can be taking you away from here. I can be taking you to the surface and you can never be looking back. If you hate us so, this is being your choice. But, if you are hearing the devotion of those outside and thinking you want to be something more, then you should be joining King Shrykul tomorrow morning in his meeting with the other Clans."

Marcus stirred. "Meeting?"

"The Skittering has been called," Skeever said. "Clans Marrow and Glumrot are answering. They are bringing envoys to discuss strategy to secure the North tunnels. Our counterattack will be coming. And it will be bloody, Sire."

The rat-warrior's head rose to meet the eyes of his Shai-Alud.

"But with you on our side, many can be saved. The clan can grow strong again, and I can be leaving this world in peace to meet my Brother Gatskeek."

"Leaving?" Marcus asked.

Skeever nodded solemnly at his lame arm. "I am maimed, Sire. I am no longer of use in field. King Shrykul will be giving me choice tomorrow of living rest of days in Capital tar-pit or of self-execution. I will choose execution."

Marcus rose abruptly. "Skeever, you'll do no such –"

"It is being my choice, Sire," the rat said. "I am seeing too many of my Brothers die already. On my watch, Gatskeek is falling. I am not fit to command."

Marcus said nothing to the downtrodden rat at first. Instead, his eyes fixed on Skeever's arm – the arm that had shot out to shield him from the sniper's fire, and in that broken mess of a limb was embedded not just the dwarf's bullet but all the burdens of Marcus's command. The rat blamed himself for Gatskeek. He clearly hadn't learned that the responsibility for death – every death on the battlefield - should be placed squarely at the feet of one person alone. And that person was not a soldier.

He rose steadily and walked over to the balcony, opening the doors and being hit with waves of adoring cheers. The rats corralled together beneath, their snouts edging as far as they could through the rusted metal of the palace gates, just so they could get a proper look at him.

On their lips was but one name: Shai-Alud. Shai-Alud. That's what they wanted him to be.

No, he thought. That's what I already am to them. Question is, is that what I want to be?

He looked down at his dirt-caked hands and thought of home – of Mari, and her blood covered face that had evaded him just before he'd slipped away. He thought of the crowds who hated him for who he was. He even thought of Steven Barenz – and the question that the fiend had posed to him the day before his world had changed forever:

Could you look at them? Could you stand atop a mountain of corpses and tell them their sacrifice had been worth it?

And he clenched his fists and steeled his soul. When he turned back to Skeever, the rat thought he was possessed by an entirely new human.

"What is it you want, Skeever?" he asked.

The ratman stared at him, dumbstruck for a moment – as though the question were entirely self-explanatory.

"What any warrior of Red-Eye wishes," he replied. "To serve."

"I thought as much," Marcus said with a chuckle, before turning back to the drab outside world.

"We will attend King Shrykul's meeting," he said. "However, I have a few conditions of my own…"

###

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[IronLung]

Note: The following chapters make extensive reference to this map of the North Warrens (Clan Red-Eye territory in the Underkingdom)

King Shrykul watched the columns of troops press through his Castle gates and squeeze themselves into his courtyard. The banners they flew bore the tattered symbols of the Clans he had called for – the bleeding fangs of Clan Marrow and the forked green tail of Clan Glumrot. Both armies numbered probably around 300 rats in total. More than he should have expected. Less than he had hoped for.

He turned back to the round table his servants had dusted off in his war-room and took his seat at its head.

"Thank you for coming today, Brothers."

Across the table from him sat three rats who couldn't have been more oppositional in nature. To his left was Talon-Commander Festicus Rekk – Clan Marrow's consummate warrior sent by King Skylock to command the meagre force he'd responded to the Skittering with. The rat glared at Shrykul with one bulging red eye and one vestigial wound where his other eye should have been. He towered over both the King and the other envoy, even larger in scale than Skeever, and his blood-dipped steel plate reflected the dim light of the torches that glimmered on the walls of the chamber. To look upon him was to look at a spirit of war itself – bold, brazen, barely contained rage – all wrapped up in a big ball of bloody fur. His Clan's Capital – Steelclaw Bay - lay in the West tunnels, where it was said the greatest density of Dwarven strongholds still held out against them. For this reason, Clan Marrow was seen as the vanguard of the ratman kingdom – even their lowliest citizen was sharpened by constant war in a hostile landscape. Their shock troops and cavalry were second to none.

"When the call goes out, Clan Marrow is answering!" Festicus yelped, punctuating his statement with a bang of his great mailed fist on the table. "We are being the first to arrive. We will be the last to leave."

"Admirable attitude you are having, Brother," the rat sitting across from him hissed. "If only you are tempering your sssssuicidal wissshes with faitttth."

Shrykul looked cautiously at the speaker – Talon-Commander and priest Verulex Moulder from Clan Glumrot. The rat was small, hunchbacked, and kept his eyes hidden from sight behind his hooded, fleabitten robe, revealing only his long, polyp-laden snout. The stench that exuded from his form spoke of pestilence beyond that which the other Clans knew of. King Sceptix's Clan was best known for its predilection for brewing toxins and its chemical warfare capabilities. Their capital – Pestelpans – was secluded in the South tunnels where the air one breathed was riddled with poisons. They were a most secretive Clan, most protective of their instruments of infection, and most closely aligned with the church of He-Who-Festers. It was said by some that the rule of King Sceptix was essentially a theocracy with him as its puppet ruler and nothing more. For this reason, Shrykul had always been hesitant to trust the priest-caste of Glumrot. But still, when the Skittering was called, they at least had answered. That was more than he could say for Clan Nightstalker.

Nightstalker…the most elusive Clan of all. Why had they not come?

"I am not needing faith to stick ugly Kobolds with pointy end of my spear!" Festicus roared.

Shrykul interrupted any reply Verulex could have made before he even started. The last thing he needed right now was a sermon – especially one delivered with that irritating lisp his Clansmen maintained.

"What news of our Brothers in the East?"

Both rats bowed their heads and said nothing.

Shrykul nodded. "I see."

He at once turned to the third rat – an albino, red-eyed fellow practically shaking in his chair – and nodded to him.

"You are being welcome here, Sire Gekul," he said, noting how the little rat jumped at King mentioning his name.

Against the paralyzing stares of both the Talon-Commanders that flanked him at the table, Gekul gulped and bowed as low as he could without banging his head.

"M-m-many thanking you, good King Shrykul," he said. "You are always being good to our village."

The tiny rat squirmed in his seat, and Shrykul had to keep from chuckling to himself. He was a mayor amongst giants, merely a representative of the frontier town of Razork on the border between Red-Eye lands in the North and those now owned by the Kobolds of Skegga. But his presence here was necessary. Shrykul had heard of the constant raids the Kobolds had been launching against the village, and the uselessness of Fort Spearclaw in repelling their attacks. Though Silas, when he was still here, had cautioned him to leave the village unmanned and commit his forces elsewhere, Shrykul was not about to leave the rats there without hope. Especially not when the village provided a key staging area for their assault into Skegga's lands.

The King nodded again and sighed deeply before beginning in earnest. He had played for enough time.

"Sssssire," Verulex hissed. "Be pardoning my interjection, but will the Shhhhhai-Alud be joining usssss?"

Shrykul fixed the priest's eager snout with his sharp eyes.

"I – am fearing he shall not be," he said.

He watched their initial reactions to this news with some interest. Interestingly, it seemed it was Verulex who was most put out. Festicus just seemed peeved he wouldn't get the chance to meet a great commander.

"I am not thinking this man a coward!" Festicus growled. "We of Marrow are hearing of his leadership prowess! That is big reason why we are coming with legion of best horned Spinerippers!"

"Indeed," Verulex concurred. "We of Glumrot are mosssst interesssted in thisss man – summoned by a priessssst of He-Who-Festersssss. Thisss isss meaning great thingggssss for ratman Clanssss."

For all the Clans? Shrykul wondered. Or just for yours?

"Be that as it may," he said, dropping his suspicions. "We are having war to fight. If Kobolds are breaking Clan Red-Eye lands then they will be moving West and South next. They will be coming for you."

Both rats inclined their heads.

"So let us be making plans," Festicus said. "What is being the current situation?"

Shrykul nodded to one of his attendants who spread a map of the North Warrens across the round table. As he spread out the folds in its edges, Shrykul began to give the briefing he had been deliberating over all night, when his wife's calls had not been haunting his brain.

"Skegga has reinforced the old Dwarven stronghold of Grindlefecht," he began. "It is being important fortress for trade with the surface. It holds nearest entrance to Jungles of Barakh and thus good position for slave-trading with Yokun."

The rats stiffened at the mention of the humanoid snake-people that lived in the jungles above the North warrens. Their ferocity in battle was matched only by their cunning.

"Grindlefecht is being well defended," Shrykul continued. "High walls packed with stone and clay, solid steel forged by Dwarven craftsmen. Our scouts are reporting that Skegga is finding Dwarven powder-cannon deposits within. Walls will be filled with dwarven death-guns.

In addition, Grindlefecht is being protected by line of three fortresses that form defensive perimeter along North side of Black Gulch – Gromelin, Tarakht, Festigraf. These forts are being of lesser quality. It is seeming that Dwarves knew of Kobolds coming and destroyed most of their more clever defenses. But their proximity to each other is still making them dangerous."

Verulex nodded as the King let the information sink in. "An attack on one will be met with reinforcementssss from the otherssss."

"Along with reserve troops from Grindlefecht," Festicus agreed.

Shrykul nodded. "Kobolds were repelled by Skeever Steelclaw's Pack recently, and a force of 70 Skogsriders were sent to pursue. They were broken at Knifegut Fortress."

"But the Fort is lost," Festicus said. "We are hearing of the tale. Fort is being manned by Gatskeek. Good rat. Solid fighter. It is great tragedy the Shai-Alud could not preserve his life, or that of his Fort."


"But the fort isssss sssstill being of usssssse," Verulex hissed. "Gutmulchersssss now make nessssst there, yessss?"

My, my, how word is traveling, Shrykul mused.

"You are being correct, Brother," he said aloud. "The Fort is still presenting best line of defense from North-East attacks. We can safely be considering Black Gulch virtually impassible. For us, and for them."

"What of Gulchnavel village?" Festicus asked, pointing at the image of the ratman town closest to the edge of the Gulch.

At this, King Shrykul simply shook his head.

"Bastard Kobolds!" Festicus stormed. "Soap-eating water-washers! How are they suddenly being so clever? Kobolds are stupid. Kobolds are warring with each other. Never being united like this. Never caring about common goal. How does this fat toad command them?"

"Crudely asssssked," Verulex smirked. "But, for oncccce, I am being in agreement with my Brother. How doessss thisssss frog give orderrrssssss that Koboldssss lissssten to?"

King Shrykul sat back and shifted his eyes towards the door of the war-room chamber, nodding once to a shadow that now moved to sit with the others.

"By the Unclean One!" Festicus shouted. "Skeever Steelclaw!"

Skeever dismissed his brother's bow with a curt wave of his good hand, and took a seat beside the king.

"Brother," Shrykul said. "Be telling us of what you learned on your mission to Grindlefecht."

All three rats sat forward to listen, all of them having heard only snippets of Skeever's great mission that almost wiped out his entire Pack. Of his surveillance of the enemy capital, flight in the face of certain death, sumoning of the Shai-Alud and, finally, triumphant return to Fleapit to see this war to its end. It had trickled through the armies of both clans who answered the Skittering like a children's whisper-game, each version of the events becoming more bizarre with every telling.

The rat who had wormed his way into legend now sat down beside them. His eyes passed over each one of them individually and then, with a face set as hard as stone, laid both his arms on the table.

"Brothers," he began. "The situation is being worse than we think. But there is one person that will be helping us win this war."

The entire assembly then shifted abruptly as the doors of the war-council chamber were flung open, and a tall, slim figure strutted into the room without King Shrykul's instruction.

If any rat present were facing the monarch of Clan Red-Eye in this moment, they would see he was just as surprised as he was.

"By He-Who-Festerssssss," Verulex whispered.

Calmly, Marcus took a seat beside Skeever and leaned against its hard stone back.

"Well," he said. "You have your General. Now, shall we get down to business?"

###

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[IronLung]

Marcus had to admit that he had never been one for theatre or pomp – those domains were Mari's specialties. But he was enjoying the charge his entrance had sent flying through the rats in the war room.

"Shai-Alud Marcus," King Shrykul began, trying his best, Marcus knew, to conceal his surprise. "Thank you for joining us."

Marcus could sense the eased tension in the ratman-monarch's voice. But there was also an element of anxiety still present, as though the surprise of his entrance had changed the entire proceeding.

Good, Marcus thought. Perhaps its best that I keep you guessing.

"It issss being honor to meet the hero of the Gulch," the most hideous rat at the table hissed like a serpent.

"Hmpf," the other, much larger one huffed. "I am thinking the Shai-Alud would be taller."

Marcus nodded to each of them and got their names. He committed them to memory. These were the Talon-Commanders he'd be shedding blood with, after all.

The time to get a good handle on them would have to come later, however, as the King nodded to Skeever to continue with his briefing.

"Commander Steelclaw was about to be informing this council of the results of his recon mission," he said.

Marcus nodded at that and then gestured for Skeever to go on. King Shrykul noticed.

"We are seeing Grindlefecht defenses firsthand," Skeever explained, pointing to the dark walls of the fortress' exterior on the table-map. "Walls are strong. Cannons are deadly – but there are not being many of them. Skegga is not having good knowledge yet of Dwarven technology."

"That is being good," the humongous Festicus grunted. "Their guns are claiming the lives of many Clan Marrow warriors."

Skeever went on, "We are capturing Kobold prisoners as we move North, Brothers. They are telling us many things – some nonsense, some truth. But more than one of them is telling us that Skegga is holding Prime Putrefact hostage."

"Sssssilas," the cloaked rat called Verulex hissed. "A beacon of He-Who-Festerssss himssselffff. How are they taking him?"

"He was on mission to give blessing to Fort Spearclaw," Skeever explained, pointing out the Westernmost fort on the edge of the map. "Kobold raiders are attacking and taking him. They are torturing him for information on tunnels and armies."

"Ssssilas would not give up information sssssso eassssily," Verulex broke in. "He is being clever rat. Knowledge of the Unclean One isssss great within him."

"Is it possible the Prime Putrefact is betraying us?" Festicus asked.

"Out of the question," Shrykul said. "Silas has always being nothing but a loyal servant of the Queen. It is being more likely he is knowing his importance in staying alive. Both as great member of our faith, and…" The King cast a sidelong glance at Marcus.

And for being my only motivation for helping you, Marcus said.

"Bah!" Festicus roared. "How are we even knowing he is still being alive?"

"Thossssse of Clan Glumrot would be ssssensssing the Putrefact's passssing," Verulex replied. "He livvvessss, Brother."

"Then our war is ending in rescue mission," Festicus said with another bestial grunt. "But if they are knowing we come for them in force, it is likely they will be slaying Silas before we reach their doorstep."

"This is not being likely, Brother," Skeever said. "We are knowing more – Skegga is toad that is totally believing in victory. Right till the end, he will believe he shall be winning, and so shall not be slaying such a valuable tool. He is believing he is new God of Underkingdom. That his Kleansing will lead to his rise to heavens."

"A toad leading a Theocracy," Marcus scoffed openly. "A marriage of form and function."

The rats chuckled with him, but in truth it was the next part of the briefing that truly interested Marcus the most.

"Heresssssy," Verulex whispered. "Thisss, I can be believvvving. But from a horned toad of the ssssurfffacccce? They are not being known for faittttthh, or leadersssship."

"This is being right," Skeever nodded. "Skegga is believing these things because someone is telling him they are true."

All the assembly leaned forward. The question 'who?' didn't even have to be asked.

Skeever cleared his throat.

"The Yokun," he said. "They are keeping Skegga as a slave, and then setting him up as God of all Kobolds. They are giving him orders to slay us, and he is obeying."

A general murmur of alarm went up from all ratman gathering. Marcus, listening intently, tried to gauge the individual reactions of each.

"Those fiendish heretics!" Festicus raged, banging his great mailed fists upon the table that was now beginning to crack on his side.

"You are knowing thisssss for cccertain?"

Skeever nodded gravely. "We are seeing it with our own eyes. At the entrance to the surface jungles, Skegga is meeting with Yokun slavers who are giving him his orders. These orders I am risking my men to gain. These orders are why Skegga is hunting us all the way to Knifegut. Without the Shai-Alud, we would not be handing them to you now."

The rats' eyes all fell upon Marcus for a moment before lighting on the small, dirty parchment Skeever produced from under the table.

Just a little piece of paper. Something so insignificant that had cost the lives of – how many already? Hundreds? Thousands?

Marcus put the thought from his mind. He couldn't afford distractions of conscience.

"For speed," Skeever said. "We shall have Shai-Alud Marcus read this for us."

Marcus nodded at once and took the document, having already seen its contents beforehand. He had insisted that Skeever give it to him and allow him to be the one to deliver to them the news of the grand plot against them all. The plot that they'd need him to break apart piece by piece.

Marcus cleared his throat before beginning.

"'Skegga. Your orders still stand: unify the Kobolds under your Kleansing and harry the ratman Clans. We shall install you in the fortress of Grindlefecht beneath the Southern jungle – use the stronghold as a staging area and as the locus for your worship. Welcome all Kobolds who travel there in holy pilgrimage as warriors that shall enter the heavens with you. Await them, and in the meantime, bolster the Dwarves' defenses. Learn from and exploit their technological prowess. Then, when your numbers swell, launch your holy campaign.

Destroy Clan Red-Eye first through sheer force of arms, then swiftly move West. You shall push back Clan Marrow alongside their Dwarven enemies and then let the little men have their pickings of what is left. In the meantime, fortify the North Warrens and prepare for a direct assault on Clan Glumrot in the East tunnels. We shall supply you with thirty Hellfire Throwers when the time comes. The toxins of the rats shall be consumed in holy fire, and their cities will crumble – for their warriors are weak. In the aftermath, continue fortifying the tunnels against possible counterattacks from Clan Nightstalker, though we doubt they will offer much resistance when the time of your Ascension comes. Like all creatures of the Underkingdom, they shall bow to you in time.

Do these things, as the Patriarchs command.

-T"

Marcus stopped reading and handed the parchment to King Shrykul, who took it with a shaking claw.

The faces of all the rats were now blanched with fear. They had just listened to how their species was to be systematically divided and destroyed over the course of a few months, each of their weaknesses being perfectly exploited to bring their civilizations crumbling down, one by one.

When Marcus had convinced Skeever to let him see the orders ahead of time even he had been impressed. These Yokun seemed well suited to wars by proxy. They had provided Skegga with troops, supplies, a base of operations and a purpose. The general strategy struck Marcus as being remarkably similar to that employed by the USSR during the Angolan Civil War. The only marked difference being that Skegga's prime directive was one of genocide, pure and simple.

But, just like that particular proxy war, this one spoke of tensions far beyond the current theatre. It spoke of a greater war yet to come.

"Why?" Festicus murmured, quietened by the harrowing news. "Why would the Yokun be seeking our extermination? For our raids against their cities?"

Verulex shook his hooded head. "They are already sssstriking back againsssst usssss," he said. "Multiple timessss. They are ssssseing ussss assss a mere nuisssscence. They are thinking we fight amongsssst ourssssselvessss before posssing threat to them on sssssurfacccce."

"But when your back is turned to your enemy, that's when you have to start caring about them," Marcus said, eyeing Shrykul.

The King sighed and leveled his gaze at the rat assembly. "You are knowing that we are being so hampered by Kobold war that we are not raiding the surface in months. Yokun are being free to pursue their true goal without worry."

"Which is?" Festicus asked.

Shrykul sat upright as he delivered his answer. "War, Brothers. War."

The King let his words sink in, eyes sweeping the table as the gravity of the situation only now began to sink into each warrior before him. Marcus could tell the King bore this heavy load well – better than he would have expected him to. He also knew that Shrykul could fill in the gaps in Marcus's knowledge. He had also assumed these snake-people were making war on the surface. But against who, he couldn't be sure.

"For the past year," Shrykul continued. "The Yokun are making war against human Empire of Marxon II. Their conflict is boiling over all of Southern Thea, and the snakes forces are stretching thin. They are thinking to keep us in check so they can be fully committing their armies to war effort. This is why they are installing Skegga to lead Kobolds against us."

"So we are being just toys," Festicus seethed. "Nothing more than distraction!"

"The sssssnakes are clever," Verulex said. "They are knowing we would ssssseize opportunity to raid sssssurfaccce and be taking advantage of war. They are sssstriking at usssss becausssse they expect worsssst of usssss."

"It's worse than that," Marcus chimed in, leaning forward now, becoming more interested by the second as he let his military mind race towards what he saw as inevitable conclusions. "The minute they know your people have been destroyed, they'll call upon Skegga to join them in their conquest on the surface."

"How can you be sure?" Festicus asked. "You must be forgiving me, Shai-Alud, but you are not being of Yokun blood. You can not be knowing what they wish."

At this, Marcus simply smiled. "It's the job of a General to think ahead – to put himself in the enemy commander's frame of mind. Besides, it's what I would do."

He looked down at the map and swept his hand across it.

"The way I see it," he said. "You are fighting a war here not only for the survival of your own species, but that of every other species in this world."

He let that sink in. Several inconvenient realities had dawned on these rats in the last hour or so, and with every new revelation their small brains swelled with the agony of knowing how close they were, right now, to total annihilation."

"If the Nightstalkerssss are knowing," Verulex hissed. "If we are sending message to King Naxus…"

"You are not knowing my Brother King well," Shrykul scoffed. "We'd be spending a week at best just trying to find his lair in those Blackfog-infested tunnels down South. No – we must be dealing with this threat here and now. There can be no idleness. There can be no turning back."

"But how are we to beat them?" Festicus hummed. "You are saying so yourself – Knifegut fort is being fallen. It was being best staging area for attacks on North."

"I am agreeing," King Shrykul said. "That is why we will be needing another plan."

And, without even returning their gazes, Marcus knew all those beady little eyes had suddenly fallen on him.

He cracked his neck and smiled thinly in the dark.

"I guess that's where I come in."

###

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[IronLung]

"Okay," Marcus began. "Skeever has run me through the basics of your Northern tunnel geography. Here's how I see things."

Marcus stood up and began pointing out various locations on the dark paper map as he mentioned them, making a few extra doodles with his quill pen as necessary to illustrate the finer points of his battle plan.

"Your main advantage is this chasm itself. Skegga would lose far more men than he would gain in a long, protracted assault on this place's reinforced position. Without any kind of aerial support, he would have a tough time taking Fleapit itself."

"So you're saying we're safe?" Feticus asked.

"Not exactly," Marcus replied. "I think Skegga's strategy lies more in bleeding you out. It would make sense – the destruction of this village here, Gulchnavel…I'm assuming it served some kind of economic purpose?"

Shrykul nodded. "It is being main source of Gulch fish for Clan."

Marcus had expected as much. "If I was him, I'd be pushing against this village here," he said, circling the small form of Razork on the West corridor of the Warrens. "Skegga has the advantage of being able to quickly reinforce his men from his defensive line of forts on the other side of the Black Gulch border. This allows him to launch quick raids that could probably hamper this village, which would lead to your eventual encirclement."

"T-that's it!" a new voice squeaked. "That's exactly what is – what is being…"

The timid albino rat sank back in his chair almost as soon as he raised his voice. The other rats had practically forgot he was there.


"Brothers," King Shrykul said. "Be allowing me to introduce Ricket. He is being Mayor of Razork village."

Marcus nodded to the timid little creature, smirking a little at his shaking body. This was evidently not a rat bred for combat.

"Speak freely, Ricket," Shrykul told the little guy.

"I – y-yes, Sire," he squeaked. "I am being in agreement with Sire Marcus. We are having suffered for weeks. Kobolds are – how does the Shai-Alud say it? Bleeding us dry."

"Which is exactly why you are being here," Shrykul said with a smile. "We will not be letting your village fall. You are having our greatest farmlands and Glitterpak wranglers."

Marcus thought about what nutritional value these rats extracted from those bloated beasts that dominated the skies above their home. If his intuition was correct, the floating gas bulbs had a very different application.

Verulex, however, urged him on.

"What isssss thisssss about enccccirclement, Ssssshai-Alud?"

"Skegga means to back you into a corner," he replied. "He is cutting off your supply chains one by one and starving you out. He doesn't need to attack Fleapit directly – and Knifegut's current state means he now won't even try."

"But then wh – why does he not simply destroy our village, Sire Marcus? He is only stealing some of our meat, and picking off some of our rats."

Marcus pointed out the village of Razork and circled it neatly. "Skegga probably knows our only recourse is to move troops through Razork. He wants to provoke us into massing our forces there so he can funnel us into this area between the forts of Gromelin and Tarakht. King Shrykul, this looks like a mountainous region."

The King nodded slowly. "Razor Ridge. It is being called throat of the fat-beards. Two stone cliffs on either side look into the ridge below. It is being only pass into Dwarf lands."

"In other words," Marcus continued. "A chokepoint. He wants us to commit our forces there – bait us into a frontal assault and then, with reinforcements from his line of fortresses, finish us while we have no room to maneuver."

"He is thinking we are fools!" Festicus screeched.

"He is being right," Shrykul said. "We should have been pushing back against the Dwarves years ago. Now, we are paying the price."

"But Ssshai Alud," Verulex asked. "Sssssssurely you are having alternative plan?"

The rats listened intently, leaning forward as much as their stiff chairs allowed them to.

"Nope," Marcus said simply. "I intend to do exactly as Boss Skegga wishes."

The Rats glared at him, and slowly the assembly's eyes turned to the King.

"I am thinking the Shai-Alud was being a hero, Sire Shrykul. Not a butcher."

Marcus ignored the quip from Festicus, and began scribbling on the map again.

"Broadly speaking," he said. "There are two conditions that, once met, signal the inevitable end to any war. One: the enemy no longer has the capacity to move. This is a condition Skegga hopes to achieve. If we give him any more time, he will achieve it."

The Ratmen waited. Marcus let them.

"And the sssssecond condition?" Verulex hissed.

Marcus smirked. "One combatant establishes aerial superiority over the other."

Amidst the sea of their blinking eyes, Marcus then began another series of doodles which were focused on the village of Razork, the ruins of Gulchnavel village and the twin forts of Taracht and Gromelin that lay on the opposite side of the Black Gulch.

He explained his plan in broad strokes, going through the rationale behind his hypothesis, and the practical application his theory held if it was correct. Then, he explained exactly how they could turn the tide of this war, ending with the stipulation that they'd have to act quickly.

When he finished crossing out both depictions of the twin forts, he put his quill down and sat back. Waiting. Observing the incredulous faces of all the ratmen assembled.

Slowly, he began to see the lights of bloodlust and conquest glaring in their eyes, spilling from their flaring nostrils.

"Thissssss isssss a mosssst devioussss plan," Verulex said. "I am not believing the Sssssshai-Alud would truly have had a Rat'sssss sssssoul within him…"

"How…" Festicus stumbled, looking from Rat to snarling Rat. "H-how do we know this is possible?"

The Rats looked towards the small form of Ricket who, now, had ceased shaking entirely. Now he sat rigid, his eyes glued to Marcus's markings on the map.

"I – I suppose…" he fumbled. "That is – we – we have never tried…we have only ever needed…"

"We would still be having the problem of Skegga's army," Shrykul said. "Any engagement at Razor Ride would be costing us much, even if we were able to be cutting off Skegga's reinforcements so…completely."

On this, Marcus decided to address everyone.

"You will all have noticed the Kobold auxiliaries outside," Marcus said, meeting their disgusted stares head on. "Their leader – Ix – has told me much of how your enemy thinks. You think them simple-minded, and utterly without the concept of loyalty. But, in truth, they are loyal to one thing and one thing alone: power. As soon as they doubt the strength of their God, they will turn tail and flee the field. The battle will become little more than a cleanup operation. And there's nothing better than death from above to call into question the Divinity of a loving God."

Festicus, for the first time since they had met, actually smiled at Marcus, showing all his jagged teeth in the process. The notion of slaughtering the Kobolds was tantalizing enough for him. Slaughtering them once they'd abandoned all hope? That really got his Clan Marrow heart racing.

Verulex, as befitted his nature, stayed quiet. The Mayor seemed totally out of it, and King Shrykul stood with his hands cupped over his nose, considering the possibility that all the things Marcus said might actually be true.

It was now or never, then. He held their entire future in his hands. He wasn't going to waste his words this time.

"King Shrykul," he said. "I request permission to travel to the village of Razork with a small detachment as soon as possible to verify my theory. If this works, you could be sitting on the greatest strategic advantage your species has ever known."

The King was sitting silently, eyes closed, head far back in his seat.

Skeever shifted beside him. He had hated the idea when Marcus had revealed his hunch to him. Good, honorable Skeever didn't believing in deception, it seemed.

But honesty and honor weren't how you won wars. The Rat would either learn that, or perish. He'd have to make the choice.

The King turned to face him, looking at the Shai-Alud of legend with his dark, weary eyes.

"But you want something in return, Sire Marcus," he said. "Don't you?"

Marcus didn't hesitate, even as the other rats had perked up their furry ears with interest.

"I have two conditions for my helping you," he said.

Shrykul narrowed his eyes but never let his smile drop once.

"This is ridiculous!" Festicus stammered. "No human can be making demands of a King of our –"

"Be holding your tongue, sssssoldier of Marrow," Verulex broke in. "Thisssss isssss being no ordinary human."

Shrykul barely seemed to hear any of their verbal sparring.

"Name them," he said.

"First, when we retrieve the Prime Putrefact, you will command him to send me home immediately, releasing me from your service and any further commitment to your cause."

Shrykul didn't move a muscle. He didn't even blink. And Marcus, feeling the eyes of the rest of the audience on him, fought against the notion that he'd just made a huge mistake.

But then the narrow beads of the Ratman king settled, and he gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

"I am supposing it cannot be helped," he said. "The Shai-Alud is valuing his past more than his present or his future. He could be a prophet among us, but does not care."

Marcus ignored the little part of his brain that agreed.

"You wished for honesty, King Shrykul," he said. "I am giving it to you."

The Ratman monarch huffed. "Before I am agreeing, in front of my council, I would hear your second condition."

At this, Marcus smiled, casting a sidelong eye at Skeever.

"Skeever-Steelclaw shall take command of the vanguard force that rides out with me," he said. "Furthermore, he shall act as my personal bodyguard."

Skeever's eyes flared with flame as he started to comprehend what Marcus had just said.

"W-what?"

Marcus watched Shrykul's lips curl into a macabre smile.

"S-sire," Skeever railed. "My King – surely you cannot be considering this?"

"You once promised to be serving me and my realm, Skeever-Steelclaw," Shrykul replied, still with his eyes glued to Marcus's. "Are you forgetting this?"

"No – n – no, Sire, of course, but –"

"Then your realm is calling, my soldier. Will you deny it?"

Skeever cast a fierce look at Marcus that said, You kept this from me.

And, Marcus, with the tiniest shrug of his shoulder, cast a look back that replied, Of course I did.

Meanwhile, the rest of the room waited on the King of Clan Red-Eye's determination. Every rat present knew Shrykul. They knew of his valor in battle as a young rat. They knew of the valiant sacrifice he made in laying with the Queen of his Clan, and they knew that, with a mere twist of his whiskers, he could flay this human's skin from his bones and see what a Shai-Alud was really made of.

But what they didn't know – or had never tried to see – was the almost childish joy that erupted from him as he laughed before he gave his answer.

"Done," he said. "Festicus – be getting this man 70 of your finest cavalry. He is riding out tonight."

###

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[IronLung]

The journey to Razork was mercifully uneventful.

Well, uneventful with the exception of Skeever staring daggers at him for just about the entire duration. But then, Marcus had bigger issues to worry about.

He nudged his Spinegrinder with his foot lightly to try and slow the creature down and was met with nothing but a snap of its long, alligator-like jaws in response. He felt like he was going to vomit for the last half-hour since they'd left Fleapit.

"Now, to ride Spinegrinder is not being so hard," Festicus had told him in the palace courtyard in the wake of the strategy meeting. "Are you ever riding horse before?"

"My girlfriend-eh-queen, she used to ride. I picked up a few pointers from her."

Festicus had looked at him with stark shock. "Your queen is riding horse where you come from?" he asked. "The horses of your fellow spirits must be strong to be carrying such heavy load."

Don't let her hear you saying that, Marcus thought. Warrior-rat or no, she'd take you on.

The creature the Clan Marrow commander presented to Marcus was one that was like a horse only in theory. The thing appeared to be a cross between a spined velociraptor from prehistory and an Austrian Allegator. It's eyes were diamond-slits of crimson framed by the wrinkled skin that hung from its armored hide. The long, thin strands that fell from the back of its angular head lurched forward and smeared across Marcus's face, the thing's fanged mouth salivating as Marcus's coughed and moved away.

"He is liking you," Festicus said with an approving grunt. "Principle of riding the Spinegrinder is similar to horse. Hold reigns, kick when it goes too slow."

"Is that really that much of a –"

Before Marcus was finished Festicus had already picked him up and placed him on the shabby saddle affixed to the creature's back.

The thing screeched with fury, its powerful legs kicking against the ground and tearing at the cobbled courtyard.

"Woah!" Festicus roared. "Be calm, beast!"

The hulking rat administered a jab at the thing's ribs. It shook its body violently in response, straightening up and eyeing the ratman with hate.

Meanwhile, Marcus clung onto its spiny neck for dear life.

"He is understanding," the great rat told him. "Now you are being true rider, and the legends will be speaking of how the Shai-Alud rode into battle on a Spineripper of Clan Marrow!"

When Marcus and the rest of his entourage had then shot off out the palace gates and thundered their way down the city streets, Marcus was forced to acknowledge two things:

The ratmen cavalry was clearly superior to the Kobold's bulbous-ball Skogs. He could only imagine how effective a direct cavalry charge from a squad of them could be.
His gag reflexes were still very much intact in this new world of Thea.

Presently, he had managed to suppress his vomit-instincts enough to survey the surrounding cavern as they passed through the ruined watchtowers of dwarven architecture and ratman outposts. The Western reaches of Clan Red-Eye's Warrens were much wider, open spaces than he had experienced in the wake of his flight from Black Gulch. Down here he could barely even see the roof of the cave system – the twinkling of the stalactites above were more like stars amidst an onyx sky.

Behind him trudged his men – seventy strong warriors of Clan Marrow plus Skeever, Deekius (of course) and Ix, the latter of which had pleaded to allow Marcus and his men the chance to join him on this expedition.

"Where Marcus goes, we go," the little red demon had told him before they left. "We are not fit to stay in ratman city."

Marcus had cocked an eyebrow at the little guy. "You don't fear being on the frontlines of this conflict?"

Ix shook his tiny skull. "We are being safer out there than we would be here."

Marcus had understood. The distrusting stares of the ratmen could be abated only with Marcus present to dissuade them to acting on their old hatred. As much as he hated to admit it, the little guy was probably right, and he hadn't shown himself to be a dishonest little critter so far. In any case, Ix assured him that he and his men were experienced in mounted combat using their slings in raids – and there was no more effective unit for harrying and baiting large columns of enemies in an open field than mounted archers. Marcus needed all the allies he could get if he was going to make a proper fighting force of these rats.

On that note…

Marcus kicked his Spineripper lightly to coerce it over to Skeever's position at the head of their cavalry column. The creature buckled, slapped its sinuous, armored tail against his leg, but ultimately obeyed the command.

Skeever barely looked at him as he approached.

"Shai-Alud," he said. "We are arriving at Rokash in 15 minutes."

"We've made good time," Marcus replied.

Silence.

More silence.

"Skeever."

No reply.

"I know you are angry with me."

The ratman's single useable arm trembled slightly on the reigns on his mount.

"You would wish me to be speaking plainly?"

"Always," Marcus replied. "If there's anyone I know I can count on, its –"

"You have debased me!"

Marcus almost fell from his Spineripper's saddle, such was the force of Skeever's outburst.

"Why," he said. "Why are you making me Talon-Commander? I am useless on battlefield, now. I am being a cripple. A dumb, idiot cripple."

Marcus balked at the statement. "I never expected such a display of self-pity from you, Skeever. Are you not still the warrior I met in the North tunnels."

The rat said nothing, but his sharp eyes met Marcus's in that moment. He was waiting for a rationale.

Alright Marcus, you sonofabitch. You weren't any good at this in life – you bowed before people who wanted nothing more than for you to shut up. Now, here's someone who wants you to talk. Don't fuck it up.

"You remember what you told me before the meeting?" he asked. "About the one thing you want in life?"

Skeever nodded slowly as the craggy rocks of the underground disappeared beneath the feet of their mounts.

"You told me you wanted to serve," Marcus said. "But who, Skeever? Your king, your God, or your people?"

"There is being no difference," he replied. "Shrykul and Red-Eye are being one and the same."

"Really?" Marcus asked. "Because it seems to me that you were certain Shrykul was going to have you stripped of your duties and you hated it. It also seems to me that you couldn't give a shit about He-Who-Festers or his priests."

"Be careful, Sire Marcus," Skeever murmured. "You are speaking heresy."

"What will you do, Skeever? Kill me?"

When no reply was forthcoming, Marcus seized his advantage.

"But there's something else I see in you, Skeever, and that's that you do genuinely care for the men under your command. I saw how you wept for Gatskeek, in your own way, and I saw how you looked at the rats of your homeland when you returned. You care about your people, Skeever, and that is what makes a great commander. Not loyalty to the state, or some ethereal deity, but loyalty to your Brothers."

Skeever sagged, rubbing his lame arm against his cheek to scratch away some fleas, and seemed to settle into his riding. Marcus couldn't tell from this angle, but he felt there was a distinct shine in the ratman's eyes – the glint of pride that had possibly never been recognized by anyone else.

So, now was the time to go for broke.

"I need someone I can trust, Skeever," Marcus said.

He let the question implicit in that statement hang for a while, filling the dead air between them with silent expectation.

"If you are putting my warriors first above all else," the ratman finally replied. "Then you can be having my trust, Sire Marcus. But if you are ever seeking to betray us, I can not be standing with you."

Marcus smirked at the little rat as the rooftops of Razork finally came into view.
"I couldn't ask for a fairer deal," he said.

…

Razork was a tiny settlement built at the very edge of the Red-Eye Warrens. A collection of stick and mud huts, small shrine covered in rotting bone-marrow, and a stout keep at the town's far edge filled Marcus's sight as he and his riders dismounted. As he focused his vision he could pick out the pock marks of arrow and claws on the walls of each house – signs of the heavy raiding activity the ratmen had been experiencing here.

The villagers emerged from their ramshackle houses and whispered in hushed tones of the Shai-Alud and his men – sharing the stories of victory they'd no doubt heard echo through the tunnels of their homeland. Yet Marcus beheld many who simply ignored him and went about their business. Mostly, this business was preparing the dead for consumption.

But what interested Marcus the most was the farmlands that spread out from the town's western perimeter. Not a traditional pasture by any means – these fields contained several bloated, spiky creatures shackled to the ground with chains, being force-fed fungal spores collected from the stalactites above to artificially increase their weight.

Glitterpaks.

The albino mayor, practically puking up his guts beside his chuckling Spineripper, was the first person to address the downtrodden people of his town.

"Residents of Razork!" he squeaked as he came to stand in front of Marcus, coming up only to the human's shinbone. "I am knowing how we suffer – your mayor Gekul is hearing your cries in the night! He is bringing the Shai-Alud here to save you and the rest of our people!"

Marcus caught Skeever's bored eyeroll from out the corner of his vision. He couldn't help but smile.

The villagers weren't exactly inspired. They barely even paid their venerable leader any mind. Their ears perked up and then simply dropped down again as they continued with the drudgery of their lives.

"I – I am apologizing, Shai-Alud," Gekul murmured as he turned sheepishly around. "We are being attacked much these last months. We are suffering. Their spirits are being low."

Marcus stood tall, hands clasped behind his back as he looked over the beleaguered hamlet and then turned back to his men behind him.

"Well then," he said. "Let's give them something to hope for. Marrow rats!" he called. "Make camp here. Deekius!"
The rat priest shambled up to him, his maggot-ridden staff glowing with restored energy.

"I need you to take a team to fort Spearclaw nearby," Marcus said. "We need an assessment of how many able-bodied rats remain up there."

The rat-priest seemed put-out in not being able to accompany the prophet of his faith, but he knew better than to quibble at this point.

"It will be done, Sire," he replied.

The Shai-Alud then turned to his Kobold auxiliary commander who could barely been seen over the head of his Spineripper.

"Ix, I need you to scout ahead and report on any incoming hostiles," he said. "As I understand it, a raid could be coming at any moment."

"Ix hears. Ix goes."

"Now," Marcus said as he turned to Gekul. "Let's see your armory, Mr Mayor."

As Skeever smirked beside him, Gekul stammered, "A-a-armory, Sire? We are but a simple village. We are having no weapons. We –"

"Relax, Gekul," Marcus said. "You have more weapons here than you think."

Marcus turned his face to the lines of Glitterpak farms that dominated the outskirts of the town. The Kobolds had barely struck them – every fence post and bloated, puffing creature was still there, at least 40 of them rolling around.

"A-are you sure about this, Sire?" Gekul asked.

"Nope," Marcus replied as he followed the mayor down to the first of the farmsteads. "But at the very least, I'll give your villagers a show they won't forget."

###

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[Morkail]

That first chapter was a little too real for my liking lol. Watched.

 

[IronLung]

-Grindlefecht, Boss Skegga's Stronghold-

Silas sat in the dark, illuminated by only the single, dim light of a gleaming candle.

Beneath the window of his chambers in the high tower of Grindlefecht, he watched the Kobolds go about their daily routines. Snapping at each other, jumping off the walls, trying to repair the dwarf cannons and losing their feeble limbs in the process. With the help of a few prisoners he'd managed to 'persuade', they had managed to get at least four of the great cannons back in service. Still, that amounted to only 45% of the fortress' effective strength. And they would be needing those cannons, soon.

The dwarf had not returned. The Shai-Alud had made it to Fleapit. Of that, Silas was certain. And that meant he was no ordinary human. He had not only won every engagement thus far, but he had won the trust of the ratmen of Red-Eye. It would not be long before the Skittering was called.

"And he shall lead them," Silas said aloud, slipping out of his Ratman accent. "Because he is strong in the ways of the battlefield. But he does not know the politics of this world. In time, Shrykul will betray him. They will use him as a slave to push against the surface."

The old Prime Putrefact leaned back, staring at the dank ceiling of this stone dwarven room.

"Shrykul…you are not wise in the ways of this world. You do not know how best to use the talents of a human like this one. You do not know what it means to be patient."

Silas heard the door creak open behind him, and the sounds of wet slapping against the floor.

But I have learned, he thought as he turned. Patience is the best weapon our kind has. Patience…and pressure.

Two Kobolds stood before him with a wriggling, bloody human in their arms. A male – naked, his face wet with tears and snot. They threw the pathetic thing before Silas and saluted him graciously.

"We bring this one for you, good Silas!" one of the Kobolds shrieked. "Just as you said! We are finding him hiding on surface from Yokun slavers, yes-yes! He is crying like baby."

Silas looked down at the crumpled creature and cringed to see his malnourished, dirt-caked body writhe on the ground. Even for a ratman, it was a pitiable sight.

"Oh, oh please!" the human cried. "You – you must help me!"

Silas scratched his chin, reminding himself to slip back into his ratman dialect. "What is being your name, human man?"

The frail creature coughed out his answer, "S-S-Steven! Steven Barenz!"

Silas sat back, his mind racing.

"I-please! You seem to have a good grasp of the English language. Please, I – oh – I – I have suffered such indignities! It's too much. It's too – it's too much! It's not fair!"

"Life is often being so, human man," Silas said as the twin Kobolds chuckled beside him. "Tell me, where are you coming from?"

Steven tried to still his bony, shaking hands. "E-earth!" he shouted. "I – first I was at a rally, and then – then – Oh, oh God! Please –"

Silas raised a single, gnarled finger up to silence the human, and his command was punctuated by a swift scratch from the Kobold standing beside the feeble being. As he fell to the ground again, Silas pondered.

So, there are more of them, he thought. I suspected as much. The reports of the Yokun to Skegga are more revealing than those cunning serpents think, and the old toad's lack of literacy doesn't aid his understanding of anything they write. A 'special human' prisoner was certainly higher praise than they would bestow upon a vassal of Emperor Marxon. Did that then mean that the Emperor himself might have captured one of these 'Shai-Alud's' for himself?

Was that why his Empire had embarked upon its devastating war against the Yokun above?

"Be telling me, human man," Silas asked. "What was being your profession in your life?"

Steven's baby-blue, bloodshot eyes lit up.

"I – I was a man of faith," he said. "An envoy of the Church of Unification. I preached truth to all who would hear me. I – we – we worked towards an era of peace. I am a man of peace," he said with a stuttered mixture of pain and joy. "That's all! That's all I ever wanted to be. That's all I –"

The man silenced himself this time as he picked out the sly, devious smile that was emerging on the ratman's thin lips.

"A man of faith?" Silas said. "This is being quaint. I am knowing what men of faith are good for. I am knowing exactly how one of your kind shall be serving us."


***


-Razork Village, Clan Red-Eye Territory-

The fields of Razork village stretched out before Marcus – row upon row of flatland surrounded by craggy stones and populated with puffing Glitterpaks being reared for meat.

"You actually eat these things?" Marcus asked Gekul, as they stopped by the wooden fence of one such enclosure and he inspected the stone-skin of the gas-exuding creature.

"I-indeed, Sire Marcus. Muscle and tendon of Glitterpak is being good delicacy. Hide is also being used to make armor."

Marcus sniffed the air. "You aren't afraid of these noxious gasses?"

"We are not fearing gas," Skeever chimed in beside him. "Our stomachs are being strong. Stronger than any in Thea."

Of course, Marcus thought with another sniff of the black clouds that seeped out of every pore in the Glitterpaks' bodies. Their innate resistance to disease would probably lead them to believe these gases were nothing more than flavoring. But if I'm right…

Marcus's nose twitched as he took in the scent.

He knew now he was wrong. He'd assumed the black clouds to be Carbon Dioxide, but the scent…no. If his nose could still be trusted in this dark new realm, this was something else entirely.

Gekul called over one of the raggedy-clothed rats poking at the Glitterpak's skin.

"This is being Tekri, Sire Marcus," the mayor said. "He is chief Glitterpack wrangler."

The tough-looking rat spat at his feet by way of greeting.

"Are you truly being Shai-Alud?" he asked Marcus.

The latter nodded slowly. "That's what they tell me."

"Hmpf," the rat-farmer replied. "You are being welcome on farm, but I am not treating you different from others. Here, Tekri is King, and I am supposing mayor has brought you here to take young Glitterpaks away to be delivered to Fleapit early. I am telling you the same thing I told him: these are still but infants. Their meat-yield will be too low."

"When the next raid is coming through…" Gekul murmured.

"We will be fighting," Tekri replied, a few of his fellow wranglers nodding along with him. "We will be defending home and doing our jobs. Be telling King Shrykul this."

Skeever tensed up, his hand flying to the hilt of his scimitar. But Marcus stepped in front of him, passing by Gekul massively to stand before the head-wrangler.

"What if I told you that it is not meat we have come for," Marcus said. "But essential war assets."

Tekri blinked up at him, and before he could even respond Marcus continued:

"I believe all villages of Clan Red-Eye are obligated to provide military aid when a representative of the King requests it. Or am I wrong, Mayor Gekul?"

Gekul twitched his white nose and nodded sheepishly, trying to avoid Tekri's fiery stare.

"N-no, Sire Marcus. You are being ri-"

"This is being ridiculous!" Tekri said. "Our village is dying. If you are taking us, we are losing everything."

"I don't intend on taking you or the people here anywhere," Marcus said.

Tekris was taken aback. "Then…"

The eyes of both rat and man trailed towards the chained Glitterpaks.

"Shai-Alud," Tekris growled. "Maybe you are not being in our lands long, but Glitterpak is dumb, useless creature, good only to be consumed."

"I disagree," Marcus said as he jumped the fence and walked towards the first subject of his experiment that, he admitted to himself, was a little insane. "In fact, you might just have been growing the greatest weapon against Boss Skegga and his Kobolds in the entire Ratman kingdom."

Tekris balked at the statement, turning to see if his brothers were appropriately dismayed by this brash human. To his surprise, both mayor Gekul and Talon-Commander Skeever stood almost transfixed by this Shai-Alud's every word.

"Wrangler Tekris," he suddenly said. "You have done more to help your nation than you might think. In fact, when this is all over, it will be your name that I give to the Queen personally."

"M…my name?" the old farmer whispered.

"But first," Marcus said. "I'm going to have to ask your forgiveness. Because many of these beasts you have reared will have to die soon."

Tekris bristled and then spat again. "I am not caring about this!" he cried. "Glitterpaks die anyway. They are mindless, dumb beasts."

"I wouldn't be so harsh on them," Marcus said as he rubbed the stone-skin of one of the creatures. "This little guy's sacrifice might just save your entire race."

###

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[IronLung]

Ix wished these ratman mounts wouldn't sway around so much.

He missed the cool, flat backs of the Skogs that he rode into battle on the dangerous raids against the fat dwarves in their stone houses before this war started. But even the tiniest Yip knows that things change. One day you think you have leaped your highest leap. The next day you find that there is another mountain to overcome.

Such thoughts buzzed in his mind as he kicked the Spineripper gently and brought it to a halt before the narrow pass that led from the edge of Ratman territory to Boss Skegga's dominion.

"Head Yip Ix?" one of his men asked him. "What be problem?"

Ix scanned the slowly moving objects he saw in the distance, his eyes picking out rolling stones clustered together between the two great canyons dubbed Razor-Tooth pass.

"Be holding," he said to his men. "There be big-big trouble ahead."

He led his meagre unit of six over to a rocky crater and ordered them to fall prone. Looking over the lip of their position, they could pick out the size of the force that was surely coming for them.

But the sound – that was what hit their ears first.

Ix would be lying if the joyous cries of his once-brothers did not inspire some small sense of longing in him. He looked upon the force of Skogriders and slingers as they emerged from between the pass like a red haze of bloody death, the faces of every kobold smeared with the purple blood of dwarves or ratmen prisoners, some of whom they carried with them on wooden poles. They had spread their limbs and strung them up like grisly artistic projects. For what purpose, Ix could only guess at.

As the little Kobold tried counting each head that emerged from the pass – counting at least 300 troops before he realized this was no mere raiding party. For, at the center of the horde, a lumbering steel giant trundled forward on two spoked wheels – its shiny skin glistening in the darkness of the cavern, every inch it moved causing the ground to quake beneath it.

"By Kalyip!" one of Ix's men cried. "It is dwarven gun-gun!"
"Big dwarven gun-gun," Ix corrected.

He sat back down and looked into the eyes of his men as they shook with terror. Even the ratman Spinerippers seemed to shake to behold the great, beastly cannon – they knew that its roar brought one thing alone: death.

"What we do-do?" Ix's men asked. "Sire Marcus cannot win-win against dwarf gun!"

"We should run-run, quick-quick!" another Kobold spat, practically twitching in terror. "We should be joining the troops! Skegga will not know-know we are traitors. He will let us come back-back, yes?"

The sound of Ix's hoofed-foot stamping on the hard stone ground brought the men suddenly and abruptly back to their senses.

"If I am knowing anything," he said. "It is to never be under-estimating Sire Marcus. We run-run to him. We tell him what come-comes. And we will win."

…


Deekius couldn't have asked for a more undisciplined bunch of soldiers.

Fort Spearclaw was a mess. No – a pile of filth would have at least had some use as a font of worship for He-Who-Festers. This fort was nothing but a glorified hovel. A place for rats to die in.

He and his entourage of Marrow rat soldiers were met at the gates by an unimpressed guard wielding a shortsword that looked like it hadn't been used in years. Not a single bloodstain coated the blade.

"We are not needing a priest," the gatehouse captain had said, before ordering the gate to be shut.

Deekius stood firm. He slammed his staff into the ground and amplified his voice with the gift of the Gloomraav. "You will not be turning away the Gloomraava that summoned Shai-Alud into this world!" he bellowed. "We are coming to liberate this village. And we are calling upon you to aid us."

The soldiers lining the fort walls chuckled – though the action was a paltry imitation of laughter at best.

"Be going home, soap-munching priest!" one of the crossbow-wielding archers on the dingy fort battlements spat back down at him. "We are independent fort now! We no more take orders from He-Who-Festers, or King Shrykul! If he is being offended, he can be coming here to take the fort back himself!"

The rats of the battlements then proceeded to lift up their leathers and display their furry buttocks for Deekius and his men to see, before they subsequently defecated down the side of their own walls.

"Be letting us at them, Gloomraava," one of the tough Marrow-rats said beside Deekius. "We of Clan Marrow are knowing how to deal with disrespect."

But Deekius was cool. He simply turned his attention back to the rat who was still standing at the gate before them, staring at the priest and his armored entourage.

"What is being your name?" Deekius asked.

The lazy rat spat out a clod of Glitterpak meat and said, "Regurg."

Deekius straightened up, ignoring the laughter of the men who still wiggled their butts at him from above.

"Who is being your commander, here?"

Regurg shrugged and flashed a sly smile at the priest. "You are talking to him."

Deekius flashed his ignorant smile right back at him, making sure the rats on the battlefield were watching. "I am invoking Right of Greyfang."

Regurg stiffened and twitched his whiskers in consternation and Deekius's smirk widened. It looked like the rat still knew what the ancient decree of the old Warlard Greyfang meant when a ratman invoked it: a duel to the death.

"The words of the Warlord are meaning nothing here," he said. "Not anymore."

"You are refusing, then?" Deekius asked.

He had him – the priest knew how prideful these Talon-Commanders could be. Even one such as this – who had long since given up his loyalty to his King – could not survive a single month without the unbridled trust of his men, and rejecting the Right of Greyfang would mark him as a coward in their eyes. Even now, Deekius could see that they had ceased their childish pranks, and were now absorbed in the discussion that was taking place, looking to their once-Lord for his answer.

Our kind are born to serve, Deekius thought as he looked at the gradually building tension behind the commander of Spearclaw's eyes. To give up position of power is being worse than death.

"You think I am being afraid of Gloomraava such as you?" he asked, gesticulating wildly more, Deekius knew, as a show for his men than anything else. "Fine. We shall be meeting in the center of this fort, and you shall be falling under my blade!"

Without any further fanfare the furious rat stormed into his fort and drew his virgin shortsword, taking a few drunken practice swings through the air as his crossbowmen came down from the battlements to get the best seats in the house for what was about to transpire.

Deekius calmly walked through the puddles of mud and shit and bloated corpses that littered the ground of this place. Already he could see why these rats had become indolent – their mounds of dead numbered in the dozens. They had both a wealth of food, and a reminder that their opponents were far stronger than they.

"They are holing up in here like water-bathing wretches!" one of Deekius' Marrow guards spat. "Is this truly how pathetic the warriors of Clan Red-Eye are being? Be letting me fight as your champion, Gloomraava. I shall be slaying this heretic in seconds."

"Be still," Deekius warned the soldier as he craned his neck, staring down the hopping form of Regurg currently engaged in psyching himself up. "And do not be intervening. No matter what."

Both ratmen squared off in the middle of the cragged peak Spearclaw was built upon, their toes grinding grey pebble between them. The rats of the fort slung their weapons and respected the tradition with dignity, telling Deekius that there might still be some hope for these lazy wretches.

At least, he thought with a sly grin. We will be punishing them after the war is won.

A single bead of sweat dropped from Regurg's frayed brows as he circled the priest's tiny, hunchbacked form, and as soon as it hit the dry earth, he charged.

"Har-YAH!"

His swipe came down upon Deekius' staff and knocked the Gloomraava back against a haybale beside the fortress' North wall. Deekius rose, winded, and only narrowly managed to avoid the high slash of Regurg's next attack that shore through the hair on his forehead.

As the Gloomraava rolled to the side of the now cocky warrior, he saw the beast hold up his blade and display the specks of green blood that oozed across its edge.

"Be bearing witness!" he roared to the crowd. "Tonight, we are dining on Gloomraava blood!"

As his horde cheered him on from the battlements, Deekius' entourage began to surge forward.

But the ratman held up his gnarled claw, tasting the blood that dripped from his skull.

"I am telling you," he said. "Do not be intervening."

The rats of Clan Marrow then beheld the Gloomraava stand, lapping at the small rivers of blood that cascaded down his own face and snarling a devious, bone-chilling smile.

"The noble servant of weakling Shrykul is going mad!" Regurg shouted to his cheering men. "Well, should I be putting him out of his misery?"

"Be taking the head from his bastard shoulders!" his men yelled back at him.

Deekius, meanwhile, breathed deep the air of the Underkingdom. He stared forwards, eyes probing the body of his ratman opponent.

He placed his hands, palm up, on the ground.

He whispered words that the rats of Clan Marrow had never heard another rat utter.

"You are seeing your death, Gloomraava?" Regurg spat in the face of his apparent prostration. "Then, be allowing me to finish you!"

Regurg surged towards his opponent with a mad bellow of animal rage spilling from his lips. His bulging arm came swinging down in a mercy-strike that would have taken any rat's head clean from his shoulders.

Any rat, that is, except his opponent.

For when Deekius opened his eyes and looked upon the blade of the unworthy commander, he saw nothing more than a child paralyzed with fear.

###

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[IronLung]

Chaps earlier than usual today. Enjoy your weekend folks!


Deekius gazed up at Regurg as the latter's blade came crashing down to cleave his skull.

And then, without warning, the Talon-Commander's arm stopped – seemingly on a whim.

To the onlookers, it seemed that Regurg had suddenly been paralyzed for, though his sword arm twitched and wavered, his eyes moved around frantically, and a low, pained howl began to emanate from his lips.

His body shook with perspiration and bulging muscles – muscles that were contracting and spasming as they followed commands independent of their owner. Slowly, with what looked like great effort, Regurg lowered himself into a kneel before the Gloomraava and his head jerked up to look at Deekius' eyes.


"C-commander?" one of the fort rats called.

No response came from their leader. Instead, the same low, animal mewl escaped from his throat, through his teeth clenched and chittering, close almost to shattering as they ground against each other.

"By the Unclean…" the Marrow-rats of Deekius murmured, their claws involuntarily flying to grab at their throats as they watched the neck of the squirming ratman bulge, seeing dark veins throb against his flesh.

Then, in a fluid movement that lasted only for five seconds, Regurg plunged his shortsword straight through his throat, twisting the blade as it emerged on the other side.

He fell to the ground, coughed up a torrent of his blood, and after twitching wildly for a few moments, lay still as a rock.

In the minutes that passed between the ratman's death and the Gloomraava's piercing victory cry, the seventy rats of Spearclaw fortress' garrison were silent as a crypt, eyes glued to the inert form of their once valiant leader who had dared to defy their King that had abandoned them.

When Deekius' staff slammed into the ground, every pair of eyes then settled on his hooded form.

"Be seeing the power of He-Who-Festers!" he yelled, throwing his arms wide and wading into the pool of Regurg's still spilling blood. "He has bestowed I, his servant, with the power to hold life and death in my claws! He is giving me this because I am calling the Shai-Alud to this place, and I am following him to the ends of this earth. Imagine what he is giving you, if you are joining with him!"

The rats started murmuring amongst themselves, and those of Clan Marrow were forced, for once, to admit that the old religion did indeed have more power over the minds of their kind than they and their King had thought.

"Down in Razork the Shai-Alud is waiting for you," Deekius cried, throwing mucus-caked spittle from his gnashing jaws. "He is coming to free us all! He is coming to kill the Kobolds and Boss Skegga. He is coming to take us against the surface and win this world! Be joining us in the Skittering to end all Skitterings – the Skittering that will be bringing the End!

Be joining us," Deekius added as he still saw some apprehensive faces in the crowd. "Or be following this heretic to your grave."

Now, the rats' choice had been made for them. Those who had once smeared the walls of their fort with their fecal matter to mock the rat that stood before them now bent the knee and kissed the ground he walked on. Not a single soldier still stood when Deekius' dark eyes swept over them.

Seventy new men for Sire Marcus, he thought. They are not being good men. But they are being ours, now.

He handed his staff to one of the Clan Marrow rats and kicked at the dead-eyed form of Regurg beneath him.

"Be preparing this one," he said. "I will be eating his stomach first –"

Deekius' wishful thinking was interrupted by the cacophonous drone of something flying through the air beneath the fort's hill – something discharged with such force that it shook the very ground of the Underkingdom, reverberating off the stone walls and causing the stalactites of the ceiling to crumble and break. Before the sound caught up to them, the ratmen of the fort then saw one of the huts of Razork disappear in a fiery explosion that tore it from its very foundations, leaving a trail of smoke a debris in its way.

"By the Unclean One!" they screamed as the sound of the earth-shattering cannon rebounded in their ears.

"Ah!" Deekius spat as he came to stand among them on the battlements, looking down at the carnage with crazed glee.

"So now you are invoking the name of the Unclean? Well, let his name become your battle cry, because we are going down there to kill his enemies!"


…


The explosion tore through the air and ripped into the first hovel of Razork with such intensity that Marcus had to fall prone and cover his ears. Even then, the ringing he felt was deafening.

He looked up to see Skeever shouting something in his face. At least, he assumed he was shouting. His ears could still not be commanded to catch up with reality.

"Form up!" he cried, leaving his latest 'experiment' where it lay in the farm. "Get the Spinerippers into a wedge formation."

His final command had barely left his lips before Skeever obeyed without question.

"AH!" Rekul was screaming beside him, Marcus's ears finally transmitting the pathetic pitch of his voice. "Th-they are bringing dwarven big gun to us! We are being doomed, Sire! We – we are bei-"

"Get a hold of yourself, ratman!" Marcus roared at the little beast, almost ready to slap some sense into him if need be. "They can't have more than one cannon, or they'd have fired again already. Besides, have you forgotten what we have on our side?"

Marcus looked with the mayor over the farmlands that had become entirely cleared – the Glitterpaks coerced away by ratman spears into a single pen that lay at the very end of the village.

"Sire…" Rekul gulped. "Against a Dwarven gun…"

The rat suddenly felt his soul stiffen, for he looked up to see the face of the Shai-Alud brimming with a smile.

"I know," he said. "They're certainly making things interesting for us."

Another boom from the dwarven gun struck Fort Spearclaw above them all – ripping apart its Northern battlements and surely killing every last crossbowman that was lazily dozing on the walls.

"By the Unclean…" Rekul murmured.

So shaken was the little rat that Marcus's reassuring but firm hand on his shoulder startled him almost as much as the din of the great cannon.

"Go to your people," he said. "Evacuate them. Force them out with some of the Marrow rats if you have to. But tell every single one of them that the time has finally come to push their enemies back to the abyss they crawled from. The time has come for them to defend their home."

The white rat sniffled, eyes glazed with tears.

"S…sire!"

"Be drying your eyes before you go, mayor," Marcus replied. "It won't do for your people to see you like this."

"Be listening to the Shai-Alud!" Tekris bawled from behind as he grabbed the mayor and started dragging him up the burning hill of their home with the rest of his wranglers. "There are still being rats we can save if we are moving quickly!"

The old wrangler turned and spat at Marcus's feet one final time before sprinting off with his esteemed leader practically swinging from his waist.

"I am hoping you know what you are doing," he said. "We are raising those Glitterpaks since they are being babies. We would not be wanting them to die in vain."

"You have my word they will be put to good use," Marcus said. "More than that – they will light the way forward for your entire Clan."

"I am holding you to that, human man," the farmer smirked, before finally dashing off.

It's funny, Marcus thought. They often say that Scorched Earth campaigns of burning farms, infrastructure, and enemy resources are a key component of victory in a state of Total War. Yet, here we are, not only destroying these resources ourselves, but actively weaponizing them against the enemy.

In spite of the roaring of the great dwarven cannon, Marcus managed a thin smile in the darkness of the deserted farms.

"Sire Marcus!"

It was at this moment that Ix and his Kobolds came charging through the farmyard fences, practically swinging from the sides of their panting Spinerippers.

"Ix," Marcus nodded as he made his way towards the burning village, watching the Marrow-rat cavalry take up their positions on the left and right flanks of the place. "I'm hoping you bring me some good news."

The little Kobold drew stuttered breaths as he ran beside him. "Judge by big-big cannon, sire. Do you think Ix's news is good-good?"
"I suppose I don't need scouts to tell me when my forces are being shelled by artillery," Marcus said, another cannonball smashing into the farm they'd just left behind, forcing both man and Kobold into a low crawl across the dirt. "Enemy composition?"

"At least 500," Ix said, drawing a mirthless chuckle from Marcus. "Bigger than ordinary raiding force. Big-big, and mean. Skogs and slingers march-march together."

They mean to take us down in one swift, decisive attack, Marcus thought. It's just like I predicted, Boss Skegga is making a push to secure a new border which will enable him to encircle and starve out Fleapit. But what's making him act now? Why commit such a horde at this specific moment…?

Marcus's thoughts were interrupted by a horde of rats waving shortswords, bucklers, and rickety crossbows through the burning village streets towards him.

He rose, hailed them cautiously, and then realized with a start who the leader of this new pack was.

"Sire!" Deekius roared above the flames that licked the hovels all around them. "We are evacuating from Spearclaw. Thirty rat-swordsmen and forty crossbow are awaiting your command."

"In the name of the Unclean One!" a particularly amped-up crossbowman wailed. "Be pointing us at our targets and watching them die, Shai-Alud!"

Marcus glanced at Deekius's proud face, wondering what kind of 'inspiration' the rat priest had drilled into these guards.

But that was a question for another time. For now, they had an army with a very loud demon at its head to beat back.

"You will all have your parts to play in paving the way for Clan Red-Eye, no, the ratman Empire's counterattack against the Kobold menace!" Marcus shouted over the roar of another cannonball flying high and overshooting the village. "Boss Skegga will learn to fear the name 'Spearclaw!'"

Amidst the cheers of these new warriors, Skeever stumbled his way out of a fiery alley, having been aiding in the evacuation of the villagers that still lived.

"Skeever," Marcus asked. "Are the Marrow cavalry in place?"

The Talon-Commander nodded. "All is being ready, Marcus."

"Alright," the General replied. "Here's the plan."


###

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[IronLung]

'Offense is the essence of air power'

Henry H. Arnold


The roar of the dwarf powder cannon tore through the air of Razork village like an ancient demon awakened from a long slumber.

It's every shot rebounded with an echo that traveled through the tiny beating hearts of every Kobold that stood around it, each one waiting for the command to move out and slay what was left of the pathetic ratlings who still lived in their tiny little border village.

When the cannon was recalibrated and smashed clean through fort Spearclaw, a general call went up, and two hundred mounted Skogsriders raised their scimitars into the air and charged forward in a single organic mass – a living wall of biting, slashing claws and bloody teeth bared for their furry enemies. They needed no war drums, for the claws of their bouncing, starving mounts beat against the hard rock of the ground and sent an earthquake radiating up its grey veins.

The line of one hundred slingers followed them behind, each Kobold lamenting to his comrade Yips that they would barely have any good killing to do here. Their spirits were raised, however, by the suggestion from one of their lieutenants that, perhaps, they would be given the glorious job of 'rounding up' the wounded or lame that Boss Skegga was so found of taking as prisoners. Each little demon whooped and clapped his hoofed heels as he imagined it – taking a ratman, strapping him to their wooden beams, setting them ablaze and then delivering them to Skegga just before they took their last breath. With any luck, perhaps they could get the Queen herself. Perhaps Skegga would even allow them to have their way with her. As ugly as the ratling matriarchs were…females were females. Besides, one slightly more muscled Yip joked, none of Kobold kind had ever broken in a royal arsehole before.

Such philosophical musings were, however, rudely interrupted by one Kobold pointing up at the stalactite-laden sky and shouting something above the din of the cannon's roaring.

"Shut that Yip-Yip up!" came the shout of one of the Slinger Head-Yips, readying his claws to rebuke the screaming subordinate.

Yet, the perceptive amongst the Kobolds followed the eyes of their comrade and saw what he beheld: a cloud of puffing Glitterpak sailing above them, belching out their vile black gas.

"Glitterpak!" a Head-Yip squealed. "The smelly ratman-farmers are mad-mad! They have let their meals go-go!"

As powerful as the Yips voice was, his scream was lost to the thundering of the Scogs' scrabbling feet on the Underkingdom floor. They only noticed the puffing bulbs of dumb, grey life when the creatures started falling slowly towards them.

"EEEK!" one Skog rider yipped. "These ugly ball-balls are getting in the way!"

The riders at the vanguard of the formation quickly realized this Yip was right – the Glitterpaks had plummeted towards the ground with a speed that the Kobolds had not seen before, and had come to rest just above the horde of red waves.

"Pop these dumb-dumbs!" Came the collective shout from the head Yips – a shout that was, again, partially lost in the echoing of another cannon shot.

The scimitars of the cavalry sliced up at the stupid creatures, knocking them away like the gassy balloons they were. However, they could not penetrate the armed grey hides of the things.

"ARGH! Kill-kill! These dumb things get in our way-way!"

The cavalry charge – once confident and resolute – suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

Now, those looking on from the village of Razork saw the Kobold army come about and turn back on itself, Skogs bumping against Skog and Kobolds being thrown from their saddles as they tried to pierce the skin of the Glitterpaks to no avail, growing more and more irate with each useless poke and stab.

And all the while, their little Kobold lungs were filling with the black gas of the useless creatures, prompting coughs and sputters that did nothing more than spur on the fury of the yipping beasts.

Not a single one of them decided to scan the hill where the burning fort spearclaw still stood overlooking the entire flatlands of the North Warrens.

If they had, they would have seen the sight of one of their own, holding their doom within his tiny claws.

…

"Hold," Marcus told Ix. "Hold…"

The Kobold cavalry was, by this point, engulfed in a sea of gaseous onyx. The smell was rancid. Even from this distance, it was beginning to numb Marcus's senses.

It had had the same effect on him the first time he had taken a whiff of the gas and pondered where he'd smelled something similar before. It was only when he arrived in Razork that he'd realized, with quiet certainty, just how right he'd been.

Beside him stood the straight-backed form of the Kobold, Ix, his arms faltering every so slightly as he drew back the sinew on the string of his longbow and waited.

One single, flaming arrow flickered before him.

"Sire," he croaked. "I am never using big-big bow like this. I cannot promise I can hit-hit Skogs."

Marcus kept his hand raised, nodding to Skeever who waved to him from the left embankment of Razork village, he and his riders hidden from sight by the smoke left in the wake of the dwarf-cannon's onslaught.

"Who said anything about hitting them?" Marcus said, sweat pooling on his forehead as he watched the Kobold forces become more and more enveloped by the Glitterpak's gassy belches with each passing second.

They were scrabbling. Their formation was already broken. In the next few minutes, their morale and bodies would be broken, too.

"There is a famous quote from an old warlord of my world," Marcus said with a slight smirk. "'Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.'"

He looked at his Kobold archer that held the death of hundreds in his hands.

"Are you ready to become a destroyer, Ix?"

The little Kobold returned his Sire's dry smile.

"Ix only kill a few hundred Yip-yips," he said. "Not world."

Marcus had to laugh. Maybe these Kobolds had more intellectual wit than everyone thought.

But that idea wouldn't serve him here. Right now, he had to give the order to have an entire army of them burn.

Only when he could barely even see their furious forms from within the black haze did he finally give the command:

"LOOSE!"

Ix's tired arm released its projectile. The ratmen of Razork, the guards of Spearclaw, and the cavalry of Clan Marrow all watched it fly through the dark skies of the Underkingdom – a tiny, insignificant thing that trailed smoothly through the air until, finally, it plummeted towards the black-cloud that had enveloped the Kobold army.

And the skies of the Underkingdom were bathed in red.


…

All the Kobolds saw was black become a kaleidoscope of red-orange light.

Light that seared their eyes and threw them from their mounts.

No one saw which Glitterpak's spume began the chain reaction. In the years after the battle of Razork field, there would be no historians to extol the brave sacrifice of the first creature to die as its own plumes of expelled gas were ignited to become a blooming flower of carmine destruction that, in a matter of seconds, seared the flesh from the bones of every Kobold stuck within the cloud.

What future generations would all agree on, however, was the simple fact that the confidence of the army was snuffed out like the briefest of candles as the bonfire of the Sha-Alud swept over them.

The earth-shattering wail of the explosion came after the sight of the fiery sphere erupt amongst the horde. The ratmen hiding in the dark corners of Razork watched transfixed as the pillar of flame roared and flared up to touch the ceiling of the cavern, stretching out and silencing even the dwarven cannon behind it.

Then the screams came.

From within the bulb of fire, the Kobolds and their Skogs were cooked alive. Their skin was stripped from their bones and replaced with a bright sheen of living flame that jumped and followed them in smoky trails as those who were not immediately killed in the blast fell to the ground and rolled frantically without once looking to see what was coming for them, thundering up from the burning ratman village.

Two forces of Spineripper cavalry emerged like gnashing specters from the left and right ends of Razork, barreling down the open field towards what remained of the immolated Kobold line while their scorched bodies tried to wail for help from their God that had forsaken them.

The two wedge formations of Spinerippers bore the largest rats the Kobolds had ever seen – each one an armored knight of filth ready to rend their pray apart.

The Kobold slingers watched their cavalry fall away with shaking legs that simply would not function. And it was their firing line that saw exactly what fate awaited them. It was they, the historians of the Underkingdom would later say, who first heard the chilling call of the Shai-Alud as he stood on the hill above the scorched field and gave his second, and last, command to his forces that day:

"CHAAAAAAAARGE!"


###


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[IronLung]

"Without cavalry, battles are without result"

-Napoleon Bonaparte



In the aftermath of the Glitterpak bombing, there was a lull of perhaps forty seconds where nothing happened at all. Dazzled Kobolds – the ones still living – wandered aimlessly or crawled to return to their Skogs, only to find their mounts had become crisped-up polyps stuck to the still burning ground.

The ringing in their ears deafened them to the sounds of the Slinger-line behind them screaming for them to turn and face what was coming. As their senses returned to them, however, those of the Kobold cavalry horde began to feel the distinct ringing sensation running up their feet, setting their teeth on edge and sending shivers up their spines.

And when they turned to see the cause, it was already too late.

The first Marrow-rats smashed into the left and right flanks of the enemy simultaneously, their Spinerippers leaping into the fray to rip and tear the jugulars of two Kobolds at once, while the spears of their riders found the spasming bodies of the burning Skogs. The cavalry wedges sliced through the red-mist of the once-confident horde and pushed the survivors into a defensive circle – slowly chipping away at the edges of the formation until it gave way and the riders simply threw themselves from their Skogs and tried making a break for home. None of them could make it passed the watchful eyes of the salivating Spinerippers.

Bodies began to fly through the air, shedding bloodied limbs and decapitated heads that had been crunched by the Ratman mounts and simply tossed away. The Marrow soldiers lunged and thrust through the Skogsriders with such ease that the battle fervor that had overtaken them in their initial charge changed to the grim, macabre satisfaction of butchers slaughtering defensive lambs.

"This is not being battle!" one of the Marrows was heard to say over the blood-curdling sounds of the Spinerippers feasting. "This is being sport!"

The Kobold's squeals ripped through the dark skies as they died. One by one, two-hundred soldiers fell before the spears of seventy, their glorious victory cut short in a matter of minutes.

…

Up above, on the ridge occupied by the now-abandoned fort Spearclaw, Marcus watched the chaos unfold with cold, quiet detachment. He watched the red-mist that had once represented the enemy army to his naked eyes slowly wipe away as the tar-black armor of the Marrows overtook the field. Meeting cavalry on an open field was practically suicide in military terms, and the only thing that could effectively put up any resistance would have been a Schiltron formation (which he doubted the Kobolds had the ware withal to be aware of), a counter-cavalry charge (which was now impossible for them) or a sustained artillery barrage – and that dwarven cannon was now practically useless, thanks to the cloud of smoke that now hung over the sight of the massacre. Once again, disrupting the enemy's line of sight had been vital, but Marcus had had to acknowledge that even he didn't know how devastating the bombing run would have been.

Methane gas, he wrote in his notes as he observed the results. All this time…these rats had a source of power that they were using as a mere food supply. In fairness, I had my own doubts. The smells match, but methane on earth is colorless. Though I suppose that's my mistake – believing this world of fantasy creatures behaves the exact same as my world did. Sure, there's some similarities, but I have to account for the differences when I see them, too. This does open up some more possibilities, though – we share chemical compounds and structures. I wonder what else I can find here…could there be an equivalent to cyanide gas? Doubtful that this world has discovered the necessity for general warfare conventions or ethical guides to conflict…that, in itself, is a notion that I must remove from my brain if I want to win here…

His scribbles were interrupted by the sound of another bombardment tearing a chunk out of Spearclaw's walls behind him and Ix, whose eyes remained transfixed on the wholesale slaughter of his once-people.

"That's our cue, Ix," Marcus said. "Time to move."

The little creature nodded and followed the Shai-Alud down to the village.

…

The Slinger line watched their comrades die in silence.

Only when one of their number decided that something like victory could still be achieved did they take up their arms and begin their counterattack.

"We still have dwarf gun-gun!" many heard some Yips shout. "We can still win-win! Strike for eyes of soldier rats! Shoot them – quick-quick!"

The Slingers obeyed. They obeyed, having no recourse for their comrades that were still alive, trying desperately to flee for safety. Their clay-iron bullets bounced harmlessly off the reinforced armor of the Marrow soldiers, whose visors rose to prospect the tiny critters nipping at their hides. The Kobolds scrabbling on the blasted ground were killed in droves by spear and bullet alike. Only when the cloud of hazy smoke began to clear did the Slingers realize that their efforts had been in vain.

"Klegga save us!" they screamed. "Canon! Canon shoot-shoot!"

The Head Yips buckled as the Spinerippers finished off the cavalry in a cluster of grey and crimson. The commanders ran back to help load the canon, bellowing against all hope that the death-machine that had lit up the ratman village could strike a killing, demoralizing blow against the clustered cavalry who were now stuck wading amongst the bloated corpses of the dead Kobolds. Another charge was not forthcoming. They had sealed their own defeat.

"FIRE!" the Head-Yips screamed at the tiny troops loading the cannon with another explosive round. "FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!"

The Slingers on the frontline meanwhile made a stark realization that stopped their pointless assault – the cloud of blackened smoke had began to move. It began to creep towards them, filling their lungs only momentarily before it snaked its way towards the snout of the great cannon.

And those that understood what was happening understood it far too late.

"STOP-STOP THE CANNON!" the Sligners shouted, turning back and running towards the great hulking machine as it aimed directly at the slogging Spineripper cavalry. "STOP! STOP-STOP! STO-!"

The final exclamation of the Kobold raiders was cut short prematurely as the cannon belched its final fiery round right into the black maw of the smoke cloud that had just engulfed it.

Once more, light shone in the Underkingdom. The dwarf cannon's shot erupted in a hailstorm of flame and broken shards of metal that instantly impaled the throats of its engineers, and the great hulking beast disappeared under the strength of its own firepower.

Back in Razork, the evacuated ratman citizens gathered on the hill atop their village, seeing the broken Spearclaw fort shattered and broken behind them, but, in truth, not caring a jot about the fate of that useless building. Instead, they watched the light show the Shai-Alud had promised them: they watched the garrison of Spearclaw emerge from the darkened shaodws of their fields left flank and mow down the Kobold Slingers who still remained. The little demons' screams filled the tunnels, and it was said that on that day every ratman – even those secluded in the gooey-pits of Clan Glumrot – heard the wails of their enemies as they fell under the might of the Shai-Alud's army.

Mayor Rekul stood beside the Glitterpak Wrangler Tekris, both watching the sights of victory for their kind unfold before them in utter disbelief.

Finally, it was Tekris who opened his mouth to stutter a few words:

"Poor beasts," he said. "That there's being a waste of good meat."

But someone standing behind the ratmen disagreed – the rat holding a great wooden staff that had directed the black cloud towards the now wrecked dwarf cannon.

"No," Deekius said. "That is being victory."

The villagers watched the rest of the Kobolds be promptly mopped up like children – children falling under the men of spearclaw. These were warriors who had once sworn they would never again fight for King Shrykul. They were debased and disgraced, warriors without the wish for glory in their hearts.

And yet there they were, hacking away at the Kobold army until, in a matter of minutes, they cheered a vindictive roar for the man riding towards them – the man who commanded his Spineripper to hop atop the wreckage of the dwarven cannon and turn to meet his victorious soldiers as they rose their bloodied blades to chant his name.

"SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD!"

The man who had set the sky of the Underkingdom ablaze.

"He really is the one…" Rekul whispered. "He…he has risen."

The villagers around him, for once, all nodded in revered agreement.

"Well?" Deekius asked them all, like a father reprimanding his children for bad behavior. "Show him the respect he is deserving."

The villagers, with no exception, got on their knees so fast that it was said you could hear their joints snap from submission.

The rat-priest swept his hands over Marcus's triumphant form in the burning fields below.

"It is being a new dawn," Deekius told the rats of Razork. "He-Who-Festers is giving us His champion. Soon, the Underkingdom shall be ours. Then," he added, smiling under his hood. "The whole world."

###

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[IronLung]

-One Month Later-

-Fort Festigraf, edge of Boss Skegga's Territory-

Head-Yip Mivvy watched the deep green pools of the Black Gulch swirl with no alternative, stifling the yawn that was traveling up his tiny red throat.

He spared little thought for the chitter-chatter of his men as they boasted of the ratmen they would hang or strangle on the battlefield. In the wake of the Massacre of Razork Field, Big Boss had been mobilizing his forces and getting ready for ratman attack. For the first time – ever – the Big Boss told them it was time to defend against their enemies.

The furry little bastards would be coming for them.

Mivvy decided to join the rest of his Slingers on the western battlements of his fortress, who were currently engaged in the task of spitting as far as they could into the undulating waves of the great Gulch below them.

"Meh-meh!" Mivvy grunted as he came to stand beside them. "You call that spit-spit! This is spit-spit!"

He reeled back, retched, and spat a globule of puss that flew further than the rest – disappearing like a bubble in the dark emerald broth they were guarding.

"See?" Mivvy grunted as he elbowed the Yip beside him.

The Yip nodded somewhat hesitantly, and Mivvy took note. Lately, the excitement of his men had been low. Normally this wouldn't be an issue – Boss Skegga had enough Yips to replace each one tenfold. Lately, however, their fort on the edge of the Boss's stronghold had been getting less and less supply trains. The Yips were tired, and they were afraid – he could see that in their sleepless eyes.

"Boss-boss," one Yip murmured. "When we kill-kill the ratmen? My sword waits for them. It waits – but we don't go."

Mivvy watched his men nod furiously in agreement with this notion.

"Boss Skegga say 'wait and defend while I build up great army!' but we wait for two weeks now. Our bellies rumble-rumble! Why we not go, cross Gulch, and kill-kill all rats now-now!"

Mivvy listened to these complaints with an indignant sniff, and then closed his eyes as he allowed them to pass in one spiky ear and out the other.

Then, without warning, he kicked the first Yip that had dared voice opposition to Boss Skegga straight into the Gulch below.

And while the others yelped and pleaded for mercy, watching their friend sputter and die until a series of frothy bubbles were all that remained of his meek existence, Mivvy decided to raise his voice to a thundering falsetto:

"You bring dishonor to our fort-fort!" he screeched. "We are first defense against stupid rat-rats. Do you doubt Boss Skegga's plan? Do you forget that we have five-five dwarf big guns now? We wait for his word, we take the cannons south, and then we watch rat-rats burn. Patience is what you must learn-learn, my Yips! You must know this thing!"

He watched the forms of his men shudder at his very shadow, and tried his best to keep from smiling.

"Do not worry! I will be leading you into fight-fight. We of Festigraf will be famous in Kobold tale-tales!"

The Yips knees buckled, their fingers rose to point at him – at Mivvy, their glorious leader.

"Do not fear Mivvy!" Mivvy shouted, puffing out his chest and planting his spear in the ground. "He is brave, yes-yes, but you can be too! You can be-"

"H-head Yip?"

Mivvy rounded on the impenitent Kobold that had just interrupted him.

"WHAT-WHAT?! Do you want to join your friend-friend in the waters below? Are you so stupid that you wo-"

"LOOK TO THE SKY-SKY!"

Mivvy heard the words. He saw now that the Yips had never looked upon him with fear. Instead, they looked upon the balloon-beasts that were now floating towards the fort battlements, each one of them being ridden by a ratman carrying halberds and spears that could cut through the hardest leathers Skegga had provided them.

And the beasts they rode upon – it…it had to be them. The scourge of Razork. The Glitterpa-

"SLINGERS, FIRE!" Mivvy screamed. "FIRE – FIRE AT WI-"

Mivvy found that he was unable to finish his exclamation. Instead, he felt blood spurt from his throat and block the words, and his claws flew to grab the spearshaft that had just been launched by the one-armed rat that was staring down at him, jumping from his mount as he and his comrades kicked the Glitterpaks towards their walls.

Then the walls of Festigraf bloomed with hellish fire, and the fate of the recently drowned Yip no longer seemed so bad.

…

-Grindlefecht, Boss Skegga's Stronghold-

"SILAAAAAAS!"

The dark-skinned ratman carefully stepped over the beheaded Kobold Head-Yip lying at the foot of Skegga's temple entrance. He then narrowly avoided the mangled body of a dwarven prisoner – or, at least, what was left of him – as it was hurled in his general direction.

"Sire," Silas said as he ambled before the throne of the thundering Toad-God. "You are seeming upset."

"Upset?" Skegga roared, crunching down on five Kobolds that fit into the palm of his pudgy right hand. "UPSET!? You sneaking, sniveling, dirty rodent! Look at all these infidels that line our glorious golden hall! You think I shall stop at them, Silas? Should your Lord lose another single fort this day, it shall be your guts that coat the insides of my temple!"

Silas looked around him, feigning fear and appropriate levels of apprehension at the grisly tapestries of Kobold intestines and entrails that decorated the interior of the temple. With each passing day, and with each passing loss, it seemed the place of worship was becoming more crimson than gold.

These days, Skegga barely maintained a retinue of Honor-Guards. The last Yip that had suggested they forge a path towards Razork again had been tied to a stake and put to the torch. Yet another had been fired from the now operational cannons the sat atop the high walls of the fortress' gatehouse.

"I am hearing the reports of Festigraf's falling," Silas said carefully. "Most grave news."

Skegga's slimy hands practically crushed what remained of his floating throne's armrests.

"It was the beastly, bloated bugs!" he shrieked. "The dumb balls of meat and gas that burn brighter than even our dwarf guns when put to the flame! How were the Masters not telling us! How were we not knowing of the power of these little beasts?"

A sound question, Silas pondered. But then, none of us are knowing. None of us are ever being bold enough to assault our own source of nutrition in this cesspit. None, of course, except an outsider like this Shai-Alud. The one they call 'Marcus'.

Silas had learned much of this man over the course of the last month. And what he had learned filled him with a mixture of tepid excitement and existential dread.

But, more than anything, what he had learned was a simple fact that he had suspected when this war began but never truly known to a certainty. The reality of this fact had become so clear to him when he learned of the Kobolds catastrophic defeat on the field of Razork village. That had been it – their last main counteroffensive. Now, with Skegga practically shaking in his flying chair, they were simply hunkering down and waiting for the end.

And that – Silas knew – could take a very long time indeed…

"Silas," the odious Toad-God spat, his bloodied tongue flecking out to throw spittle and brain-matter at the straight-backed ratman. "You always stand so silent. Thinking you are oh so clever – don't you? DON'T YOU?!"

To this, the ratman said nothing. He simply waited for the tantrum to subside.

"Your precious dwarf-man assassin was a failure. Your raid against Razork was a failure. Since this Shai-Alud has risen, he has made nothing but a fool of you. How do you like that, ratman? You are a fool before a human!

And when he comes here," Skegga added, rising and taking his massive, infected gut with him. "It will be your head they shall take first. Your comrades will flay the skin from your bones when they discover your treachery! Mark you, you putrid little beast – if you value your life, you will show me results! You will tell me that your Lord is right to place his trust in a scheming little man like y-"

At that moment, the doors of Skegga's grand temple were thrown open and a pair of excitable Kobolds came charging through, each one carrying the end of a brown burlap bag.

"W-What is the meaning of this!" Skegga roared. "HOW DARE YOU DISTURB THE GREAT SKEGGA!"

"I am apologizing," Silas said, trying to keep from smirking. "These Yips are coming to you under my orders."

"YOUR ORDERS!?" the toad-pretender wailed. "What now, Silas? Have you chosen your tomb already? Shall we inter you in that little bag, and throw you back to your spume-covered Queen? Shall we take you now? Is that what you want? Is – is – is that…"

The interruption to Skegga's rant this time came from no one at all. His voice simply trailed off when the Kobolds, at a nod from Silas, emptied the contents of their bag onto the floor of the temple.

And a fly-ridden human head tumbled out with little fanfare.

Streaks of bloody blonde hair framed the young, but not distasteful, face. His sapphire eyes glared up at Skegga with dull intensity – just as they had in life. His open mouth betrayed lines of broken teeth and a tongueless maw that gaped up at the God as though in complete awe.

"Wh-what is…"

"May I be presenting to you the Shai-Alud," Silas said with appropriate pomp, giving a little flourish of his tail around the head. "He is being captured on the outskirts of Festigraf battle, his ratling friends fleeing as we are taking back the fort earlier today. As you can be seeing, he shall no longer be causing us difficulty. Human head is being easily removed from shoulders."

At first Skegga stayed stiff-backed and shaken, unwilling to even float forward and prod a single flipper at the fleshy skull.

"Is…is he…really dead?"

Silas stifled a laugh. "I am not knowing human that can live without skull, Sire."

And all at once, the rage that had boiled in Skegga's great stomach for the past two weeks suddenly subsided. He looked upon the vacant face of his hideous human, and took it up in his hands.

"You," he said, speaking directly to the still wet head. "You caused us quite a bit of trouble, didn't you? Little ugly man. Well, no matter. Look at you now – eh? Not so strong, not so inspiring. You're dead. Dead and gone, just like the rest of your precious ratling helpers!"

With a gargantuan spurt of sudden energy Skegga lobbed the head at the ground. It bounced, broke and splintered, spilling the contents of its skull across the temple floor.

"Put him atop our greatest spike!" Skegga roared. "Place him at the front of the stronghold. Let all the rats see what has befallen their savior! Silas – Silas my dear little servant – you have finally come through for your Lord! Perhaps you shall have a place by my side after all as I journey to the heavens unimpeded!"

Silas brushed off loose pieces of stray brain-matter from his jacket.

"Sire," he ventured. "With the Shai-Alud dead, the armies of Shrykul are being leaderless and shaken. They are being sure to be in their most vulnerable state. It would be wise, now, to be launching counterattack."

Skegga considered this, watching his Kobolds take the ugly head away gleefully, hopping about, slipping on the dried blood of their slain comrades.

"What did you have in mind, Silas?" the great toad grunted through his smiling jaw.

"A mass commitment," the rat replied. "We should be commencing two-pronged attack across both fronts. One to be wiping out Razork and its Glitterpak production capacity, another to be attacking from Black Gulch to be striking ratmen as they try to rebuild Gulchnavel village for food. Be sending all Yips from surviving forts and towns. Be letting them know the hour of your ascension is being –"

"We shall do better than that," Skegga murmured, chuckling ruthlessly as he rose to his full height to make his proclamation to all who would hear him within his walls: "Be sending a message to all who man the walls – Skegga himself shall lead this grand charge! All Yips are to ready for battle! Call up the engineers! Call up the palace guards – have them fitted with the armor of the fat-beards! Call every male and female Yip and be giving them a weapon! I shall put the skull of the rats' precious Shai-Alud on my tallest spear and ride my chariot into battle with him! Our time of victory is at hand, my children – and it shall be glorious. Oh, yes – glorious! Skegga shall lead you into our ascension - just as he promised!"

Silas endured the cheers of the Kobolds still living in the temple and then watched them go off to deliver the great proclamation of their God. A final Mustering – the creation of an army to end all armies. The fists of Skegga would come down hard, crushing what remained of the ratman Empire.

As Silas cleared the temple compound, he allowed himself a fleeting smile.

"Yes, Skegga," he murmured as he returned to his chambers to prepare for what was to come. "It shall be a glorious day for us all."

###

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[Herac]

Oh this is perfect! I hope this head was the loathsome Steven guy from the beginning that Silas captured a few chapters ago. Yes Silas take that opportunity to lead them to their death now that their usefulness has expired. I'm rooting for Silas he is a great protagonist hopefully that earthling guy we followed so far, Marcus, will help our true protagonist Silas! Even if Marcus has displayed a bit of usefulness with his thoughts about chemical warfare in chap 34.

As soon as I saw that Steven was transferred as well I was dreading that you would try and "redeem" him, like so many others would do. But no, if that truly was Steven then you have proven yourself wiser than many who also start out with a clear antagonist with a political stance which divides your readership only to not allow Catharsis and Schadenfreude over punishing them.

 

[IronLung]

-Fleapit, Castle Carfaxx -

Marcus sat by the light of a single flickering candle, secluded in his private chambers.

Even within these stout stone walls, however, he could still hear the sounds of praise and worship echo throughout the city streets below. He could them calling his name – or, at least, the name they had placed upon his shoulders – over and over again until he felt it echo in his own skull.

"Shai-Alud, Shai-Alud…"

A name that is supposedly going to live in legend, he wrote in his parchment. A name that means so little to me yet everything to them. If the last month has taught me anything, it is that devotion is a powerful tool. I almost understand why those of the Unification Church back on earth used it – encouraging blind belief in something greater than yourself seems to be one of the easiest ways to move the souls of mortals.

He caught himself as he finished writing that last sentence.

"I'm even starting to sound like them," he said. "The rats of the Church of the Unclean."

His eyes turned to his newly embroidered trench-coat hanging beside his stone bed. The priests of Glumrot had come to him yesterday and Head-Gloomrav Verulex had personally bestowed the new threads upon him, telling him the high-collared attire was much more form fitting for a human than the dingy robe of their priestly order. Their priests, he said, had modeled the design after the Generals of Marxon II's army, but couldn't resist stitching an image of a ratman soldier wearing a pair of glasses on the sleeve. Marcus had stifled a laugh as he beheld the curious little emblem, but he thanked them all the same.

Afterwards, of course, they gave me their usual spiel, he wrote in his journal/makeshift history book. Asking me to at least join them in the Fleapit cathedral for the afternoon sermons. Recently, their ranks have begun to swell. Virtually all the ratmen from the outlying villages that still stood, even those far down South from places not even Skeever or Shrykul have heard of, have come to visit the church here and ask for the chosen one's blessing. They've come to see me, and I've refused them, and even that seems to play into the hands of rats like Deekius and that slow-talking Verulex. They tell their flock that I am testing them – that I shall appear when the time is right and they are found worthy. He-Who-Festers does not simply deliver his champion into the hands of any old rat. So, join up arms, Brothers, join the war effort as we eliminate the Kobold menace and you shall stand shoulder to shoulder with the Shai-Alud on his next campaign. You shall bask in his glory. You shall see his might for yourself…

Marcus stopped writing, slamming down his quill in sudden disgust.

The echoes of the outside world had started to dim, and he suspected that the Nocturnal hours had fallen upon the rats of the city. They had the uncanny ability to know when it was time for slumber – their body clocks had simply adjusted well to their environment. As all creatures did. All creatures, that is, except him.

He took up his pen again after running a weary hand across his grimy face.

I know what they want. They want to use me as their poster boy. They want me to be some kind of Messiah figure for their people. I would be lying if the sense of power hadn't seemed tempting but the more time I spend on the frontlines, the more death we bring to the Kobolds on the other side, the more I wonder: is leading this army of furry filth-lickers really what's best for this world? Can I really sacrifice the safety of Thea to reclaim my place back on earth?

His thoughts suddenly turned back to home, as they often did these days. He thought of Mari – her skin still chalk-white and sparkling during their visits to Santa Monica pier. She'd never tried to use him for her own personal gain. She'd never tried to warp him to become something he wasn't. To her, he was just a dweeb who thought too much about old men gunning each other down across time.

He had even caught himself thinking of Steven Barenz with a sense of camaraderie in the past week – as he'd heard report after report of the Kobold armies burn in the face of the Clans righteous fury. Though he and old Barenz couldn't have been more oppositional in nature, there was a certain satisfaction in having a rival on campus. He realized now just how much he'd actually enjoyed their little verbal spars – even though at the time it had seemed to strike fury in his heart. Everyone needed opposition – everyone needed their faith to be tested every once and a while. For every thesis, an antithesis.

And now I'm quoting Hegel, Marcus wrote. Strike me down for my insanity – I've become a popcorn Twitter philosopher. I can only imagine what these ratmen would do if they ever discovered something akin to social media in their realm! A way for them to transmit their propaganda instantaneously? That would get every Clan hot-and-bothered for He-Who-Festers in no time. That would prove to be an amenable solution to their species' crisis of faith.

But if I am honest, the rats are not the only ones in crisis here. I had planned the assault on Festigraf fort with the express purpose of forcing a surrender. I had hoped – in my naivety, perhaps – that this Skegga would either be forced to consider terms of negotiation, or his Kobolds would be provoked into open rebellion by this point. They know our greatest weapon and have no counter against it. They've been backed into a corner and the tunnels of the North run red with the blood of their tiny raiding parties. Our border patrol posts have made short work of any trying to enter the Capital's vicinity. We've even begun rebuilding Gulchnavel village so that food supplies no longer being provided by Glitterpak meat can be rejuvenated using the fish of the Gulch. Not the most delectable source of nutrition, but then again my human gut isn't exactly cut out for this place.

Marcus spared a look at the half-chewed black fish that lay beside his desk, its eyeball casting an accusatory stare at him.

The point is: there hasn't been a single successful Kobold incursion since the Battle of Razork Field. By now, tensions should be high in the enemy's Capital.

So why isn't this Boss Skegga simply giving up the goat?

I have a few ideas on that front. One: his grip on Kobold civilization is so strong by this point that they simply can't organize an effective resistance against him. Two: the Kobolds don't feel that we would ever accept deserters into our ranks – probably because they themselves have heard the rhetoric of the Church of the Unclean. All this talk of 'eradication' doesn't exactly inspire confidence in racial unity. Third: they have Silas. They have this so-called 'Prime Putrefact'. Perhaps Skegga simply believes that with such a sacred prisoner in his clutches, the ratmen will eventually be forced to sue for peace. He obviously doesn't know what it's like out there. These days, it's my praises they're singing.

The situation is remarkably similar to that of Imperial Japan circa March 1945, after the capture of Iwo Jima and Douglass' MacArthur's establishment of total air superiority over the Home Islands: how do you convince an enemy that they're beaten? With the prospect of launching a full-scale invasion that will cost hundreds of thousands of lives, how do you make an enemy see that they have no chance at victory?

The worst part is I know the answer. It's the same answer Truman gave Tojo the day he launched the Atom Bombs: a single, decisive strike.

But can I do it? I know what Shrykul wants. I know what Skeever would say. I know what Deekius has been saying for the past month, preaching about the prophesized 'complete and utter annihilation' of the enemy forces. But in truth, they're asking me to commit to genocide of an entire species purely because they've been manipulated into thinking a deity walks among them. Could I look Ix in the eyes and sign the death-warrant of his people? The little guy was on their side now – and, in fact, even the Talon-Commanders on the frontlines had to admit that he and his 'Yips' were the best damn marksmen they'd ever seen – but how long would that last if he realized his entire race was now doomed to extinction?

This, coupled with the messiness that will result from a full-scale invasion of Grindlefecht, has been driving me insane these last few days…but maybe, just maybe, I'm going about the problem all wrong…there has to be another wa-

"SIRE!"

Marcus jolted upright at the intrusion. A ratman had practically just barged through his door, falling to his knees only as an afterthought. When Marcus realized it was Skeever, however, resplendent in his newly fashioned suit of crimson Clan Marrow plated steel (a recent gift from Marrow-King Skylock himself for the Shai-Alud's most vaulted commander) he waved away his subordinate's supplication and bid him rise.

"We – we are having big problem," the ratman shrieked.

"Aren't we always?" Marcus replied, donning his coat and wiping away the fog on his glasses. "Tell me as we walk the halls, Skeever – I need a walk."

For now, he would have to leave his journal and his human worries behind.

Because he was about to re-enter the world of ratman politics. And in that world, he needed all his wits about him.

###

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[Herac]

Now I really hope that it was Steven head as I seem to have prophetic visions with how the Marcus guy sympathizes with Steven. How nice it would be if the true protagonist Silas could just harvest all the info from the squeamish Marcus mind and go forth to conquer. I hope Marcus can overcome his silly and needless worries and just do his damn job.

 

[IronLung]

'No fighting in the War-room!'

-Dr Strangelove



When Marcus opened the doors to Shrykul's war room, he found it to be a hotbed of battle already.

"Thissss can not be tolerated," Verulex was hissing. "You are sssshowing disssssloyalty to your Brother clanssss, Fesssssticusssss."

"Oh , be silencing your long-winded mouth, Glumrot priest, or I will be shutting it for you!"

"I am not thinking the Queen of Marrow issss breeding cowardssss," the Arch-Priest replied. "Perhapssss my intelligenccce issss wro-"

"Be calling me coward again," the Marrow-rat growled as he rose to his full height, practically knocking the round table away. "And those unwise words will be your last."

"Peace!" King Shrykul yelled to them both, interposing his arms between them like a father reprimanding children. "Let us not be seen as savages when the Shai-Alud is joining us!"

Marcus waited a moment before he seated himself next to Skeever, who had taken to only sitting after Marcus selected a spot at the table, nowadays. Both the rats of the other Clans bowed low to show the proper respect for their General.

Not as low as usual, though, Marcus thought as he nodded back at them. You've been doing some thinking too, recently, haven't you?

Before them all was spread the map of the Northern Warrens, with a few new sites stenciled hastily over the last few weeks. Most notable was the sketching of Gulchnavel, cementing its fully operational status as a food supply, as well as the newly rebuilt fortress of Greenwatch – named thus because Marcus felt these rats needed some new, cleaner labels for their defensive sites.

His next order of business? The full introduction of soap to their Kingdom. Though that, he wagered, would be a tougher war to fight than the one they were currently embroiled in.

"What ails the leaders of our war effort?" Marcus asked, eyeing up both the commanders as they resumed their seating positions.

Shrykul cleared his throat. "Brother Festicus is having problem," he said. "His King requests that he return to man his old fortress in the East Warrens."

"It is being out of my hands," Festicus explained, casting a hateful look at Verulex. "The dwarves are growing bolder with each passing day. They are knowing we make war against the Kobolds who stole their homes. They are also knowing King Skylock is sending more men here to secure victory for his Brother, King Shrykul. Because of this, they are striking our borders with greater force than usual."

Marcus leaned forward to consider this. It made sense, of course. When your enemy is distracted by a war on another front, it would be in your best interests to strike fast and with force. Marcus had assumed, based on the information he'd been fed by both the Church of the Unclean and the warriors of Red-Eye, that the Dwarven kingdom was in disarray, barely holding on to its fiefs in the East.

"We have been fighting this war – the great war – for ages," Festicus continued. "It is our Clan that is calling the last Skittering to push Dwarves back."

"But you didn't finish them," Marcus stated.

Festicus puffed out his chest. "The stunted fat-beards are having cannons that could rip through ten legions of Marrow Spinerippers! Not even the combined armies of ratmen could crush them fully."

"We left them to die," Shrykul explained. "We are leaving Marrow to pick away at them as they starved themselves in their little corner of the Underkingdom. When Kobolds are taking Grindlefecht, we are thinking the Dwarves are being finished."

"Well, you thought wrong," Marcus said, leaning back. "Turns out they were just waiting for the right moment to pick away at you."

He turned to Festicus and fixed him with hard, serious eyes.

"Have you responded to your King's order?"

The Marrow rat grunted. "Not yet, Sire Marcus. But there is no response but to be complying."

"Or," Marcus said. "We make a counter-offer the King of Clan Marrow cannot refuse."

"You are not knowing my Brother well," Shrykul sighed. "He is not one for negotiation, especially with a human. Meaning no offence, of course."

Marcus kept his eyes on Festicus. "It won't be a negotiation," he explained. "I'm offering your King an edge over his Dwarven enemies. I'm told that Grindlefecht maintains an arsenal of six fully-functioning Dwarven powder-cannons. This is what I offer him."

Verulex and Shrykul practically almost fell out of their seats. Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus could see Skeever barely suppress a chuckle.

"This…this is being too uncertain," Festicus said, though his shifty eyes told Marcus he was intrigued by the proposal. It wasn't hard to read the face of a warrior – even if the warrior was a filthy rat. "How can we be sure we can be taking the cannons before Skegga is dismantling them?"

"We'll need soldiers strong enough and quick enough to get under their noses before their engineers have the chance," Marcus replied with a smile. "I can think of no soldiers better than the brave rats of Clan Marrow."

While the warrior began to return a sly smile, Verulex seethed at the other side of the table.

"Thisssss isssss being mosssst unorthodoxxxx," he hissed beneath his hood. "Ssssssixxxxxx Dwarven cannonsssss to one ssssssingle Clan? It isssss favoritissssssm, issssss it not, King Ssssshrykul? Isssss thissss the policcccy of Red-Eye now? To value one Clan over the contributionssssss of another?"

"I believe Clan Glumrot has received adequate compensation for their generous contributions to the war effort thus far," Marcus said, whirring on the little hooded priest before Shrykul could even say a word. "Skeever? How many temples to He-Who-Festers have been constructed recently in our new villages?"

"Two, Sire Marcus," the soldier replied steadily. "One for each village."

"And remind us to which Clan their Head-Priests belong to?"

"Clan Glumrot."

Marcus then turned his attention to King Shrykul. "Sire Shrykul, how many Clan Glumrot priests now perform sermons in the Grand Cathedral of the Unclean One?"

"Twenty-five," the King said, somewhat unwillingly.

"Twenty-five," Marcus nodded. "A full five priests more than those of Clan Red-Eye. Considering the growing numbers of the flock from across the North and South Warrens recently, I should think the Archpriest of Glumrot would be more than proud to see that the King of Red-Eye himself values his priests more than his own."

"We are forever grateful, Sire," Verulex murmured as he shifted in his seat, his teeth chittering as he licked at the poxes and boils that lined his snout. "But there are material issssuessss to be –"

"Furthermore," Marcus interrupted. "I believe my own personal Priest and Summoner, Deekius, has promised to give instruction to your own Gloomraava on the nature of his Incantations. Perhaps the priests of your Clan have forgotten that I have offered no similar benefit to Clan Marrow?"

"No – No, Ssssire, we –"

"They doubt our generosity, then? If that is the case, perhaps there should be a reshuffling of the robes of the Unclean," Marcus continued. "For, as He-Who-Festers says: 'the greatest of all poxes is a lack of faith.'"

The entire room waited for Verulex's response. They waited for some sly, poisonous words to drip from his bile-soaked tongue.

But, to everyone's surprised, he bit his lips, curled away into his seat, and stuttered out only a few more words with total clarity:

"…no, Sire. We are thanking you."

Marcus straightened up, refocusing his attention on the King.

"If this is amenable to you, King Shrykul, then a messenger should be sent to King Skylock in Steelclaw Bay tonight, if possible. Let them know that we take care of our own."

The King looked from Veulex to Skeever, and from Festicus to Marcus again, before he made any response.

"This can be arranged," he said. "Though I am having doubts that my Brother will be so agreeable to such a generous deal stamped with my name. He may be thinking I seek to betray him."

"Stamp it with mine, then," Marcus said with a wave of his hand. "If he doubts the generosity of the Shai-Alud, his own Gloomraava would turn against him."

Marcus paused after he said this, and for the first time began to take in the new tone that had settled like a gaseous cloud in the room. He caught himself, and straightened instantly, realizing that he'd probably just insulted the King of Clan Red-Eye by insinuating that his words meant more than the ratman's.

"I am sorry, Sire Shrykul," Marcus said with a bow. "I spoke out of turn. I merely wish to see this war ended soon, before the grip of insanity takes us all."

King Shrykul met his eyes and then laughed away his words with good cheer. "Be not thinking upon this, Marcus. You are being first among equals here. Remember that."

Marcus almost heaved a sigh of relief. He'd been lucky, he knew, to have been summoned on this side of this King.

"Now," Shrykul said. "Let us be getting to our next order of business."

The rats leaned forward as Skeever pointed to the now ruined fort of Festigraf on the opposite side of the Black Gulch

"Festigraf is being destroyed," he said. "As per Sire Marcus's suggestion. "However, our scouts did not report immediate signs of Kobolds being willing to surrender in the wake of the bombing run."

"Of course not!" Festicus roared cheerfully. "They are being mindless beasts."

Marcus held his tongue.

"Yesterday, however," Skeever said. "Clan Glumrot scouting party of pox-throwers are meeting Kobold raiding party on border of Gulchnavel village. They are saying they come to surrender to fort Greenwatch rats."

Marcus jerked up. "How many?"

"Two-hundred," Skeever replied. "Two hundred 'Yips' who say that they swam the Gulch to fight for Shai-Alud Marcus and are rejecting God Skegga. They say his recent failures are showing he is not true God at all."

Marcus practically exploded with excitement. "And?" he burst. "Where are they? We could use their help. We could even have Ix and his Slingers train them in the proper ways to ride Spinerippers. Hell, we could even have them pilot the new batch of Glitterpaks from Razork. Why wasn't I told of this sooner?"

The rats in the room all shrank before Marcus's eyes. And slowly, the excitement in his soul faded away to yet another stark realization of the reality he was living in. The reality of the side he was helping to win this war.

"Because we are slaying them," Verulex finally said. "To the man."

###

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[rx915]

Interesting setup. Being the victim of a wrongthink purge and then being put in charge of ratmen. Being put in a position where you get dragged away because of a bad position especially one that works out yeah though leading ratmen isn't something I thought of.

I've always thought about this kind of setup where one mulls there position in the modern world in maudlin brain storming idleness about the what their life would be like in the past where they may have skills or values that are appreciated more or they seek opportunities they couldn't have in the present.

It's filling that niche where I thought of someone who was inspired by the past conquerors of old especially Alexander that they bring that baggage with them while also facing the realities of said fantasy and accepting the outcome.

Then the title given to the main character gives me Dune vibes of Muad'dib.

 

[IronLung]

'Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.'

-Coretta Scott King



"You…you what?"

Marcus gripped the underside of the war-council table as he rounded on Verulex.

"The Koboldssss are being treacheroussss and ssssscheming," the robed rat said. "They are being thrown back into the gulch and left to rot there."

"I am betting it was a good sight to see," Festicus chuckled. "How I long to have been there to-"

"ARE YOU A FOOL!?"

Marcus's raised voice caught the rat-assembly off-guard.

"Two HUNDRED soldiers!" he practically screamed. "Two hundred! Do you have any idea how much of a difference they could have made to this war?"

Even Shrykul seemed to bite his tongue at this outburst, but Verulex, this time, was not to be cowed.

"You are wisssshing ussss to trussst in thossse little hereticsssss?" he spat. "They are an affront to He-Who-Festersssss."

"Has your God not eyes to see when fortune favors him?" Marcus retorted. "Think of how much Ix and his Yips have aided us – even now they train our marksmen to become better after mastering the longbow – and you not only turn them away but gut them like fish!"

"It isssss the will of the Unclean-One, Sssssire. You are not being one of usssss. You are not knowing what an affront it isssss to be harboring the enemy. He-Who-Festersss is leaving no room for doubtsssss – thissss Underkingdom isssss belonging to ratmen, and to us alone."

"Then he is a fool deity, just as Skegga is!"

"Marcus!" Shrykul shouted, banging his fist on the table with such uncharacteristic force that everyone jumped in their seats. "That is being enough! The name of He-Who-Festers shall not be mocked in my War-Council."

"You mock his own name with stupidity like this!" Marcus retaliated. "Why was I not informed of this, when I have explicitly explained to you all the importance of parley with your enemies? Your nation wishes to become an Empire – you can't accomplish this by simply eradicating all your foes, especially when they come to you on their knees! Those Yips could have had vital information on Skegga's defenses. They could have had weapons we could use! Tell me what madness possessed you to do th-"

"It issss the will of the Unclean!" Verulex howled, throwing a torrent of green bile across the table as his temper finally flared out of control. "The unbelieving are not being worthy to walk our Kingdom. Those who have thrown in with thissss heretic bosss Sssskega are desssserving of only death. Ssssshal we really be permitting thesssse cretinssss to join our Empire – thosssse who would be sssssooner planting a knife in our backsssss as ssssson assss we are turning away from them?"

"Sire, Marcus," Festicus said. "I am meaning no disrespect, but are you forgetting the sights we are seeing in Battle of Razork Field? These Kobolds are stringing up rats of Clan Red-Eye – rats tortured almost to point of death – and are parading them before us on the field of battle. They are being savages, Sire, they are not being capable of anything more."

Marcus turned to the broad-shouldered rat. "Don't tell me you agree with this insanity?"

Festicus did not bow before the accusatory stare of the human. "You are not fighting this filth for as long as we are, Marcus. Us, or them, this is the only way."

"And we are being on the right ssssside of hisssstory," Verulex sneered. "We have preached already to the villagessss of how the Koboldsss came before usssss on their kneesss, only to be lossssing their headsssss. Such gloriousssss ssssscreamsssss they are making. Ssssssuch lovel-"

"Oh, shut up – shut up, for once!" Marcus roared, standing abruptly, and making to grab the dagger at his hip. Only Skeever's sudden, firm grip stopped him from attacking the priest then and there.

"Sssssire Marcusss issss ssssshowing ssssskepticccccism about the Unclean One," Verulex said. "It issss ssssomething many of our priestsssss are noticccccing. Thisssss issss mosssst troubling."

While Marcus fought to break free of Skeever's hold, the latter calmly stood to address the ratmen.

"Where Sire Marcus is coming from," he explained. "There is being questioning of Gods all the time. These things are being natural. The Shai-Alud is knowing how important our faith is, otherwise, he would not be allowing Verulex to build churches to the Unclean in the new villages and Fleapit, remember?"

Marcus spared a look at his one-armed commander and saw the strict look in his eye. It was a look that he had never seen from a ratman subordinate before. It was a look that said, 'Let this go. Or you'll be in trouble'.

And so he put a stopper in his rage, grit his teeth, and sat back down, head bowed in his hands.

"Can none of you see the value in at least a little mercy?" he asked them. "Skeever, you know how much Ix has helped us."

"They have been most useful," Skeever agreed. "It was after all Ix who is cementing victory at Razork."

"But a few good Kobolds do not speak for a whole mad race," Festicus replied. "Brother Skeever, are we not both believing this? Or are you forgetting the bloodshed your men have suffered?"

Skeever cast one sidelong look at Marcus before bowing his long snout.

"No, Brother," he said. "I am not."

"Sire Marcus," King Shrykul then broke in. "We are appreciating your leadership, and your meticulous planning. But in matters of state and policy, you must be leaving things to us. If we are starting to treat our enemies with kindness, we will be destroyed from within. My Brother Kings can be overlooking a few Kobold auxiliaries, but they shall not be permitting large swathes of the enemy to live among us. I will not be having my Kingdom destroyed by Civil War because our Shai-Alud wishes us all to make peace."

"Such peacccce," Verulex added. "Wassss never an option. The yipping demonsssss chosssse their God. They chosssssse their death."

"And you have chosen yours," Marcus said, rising and ignoring Skeever's tugging at his wrist. Ignoring, too, the voice of Mari who pleaded in his mind to cool off his temper.

"A homogenous race has never once created a global society that could stand the test of time. An expansionist civilization needs to innovate. It needs to incorporate. It needs to welcome those who would serve a common cause – and it needs to give them a banner worth standing beneath. Anything less, and you don't get an Empire. You get a world-spanning ruin."

He bowed and then turned without listening to anything else. Someone might have shouted something back at him. Someone might have called him naïve, or ignorant of the ways of the society he was currently existing in, but he didn't care to hear. He'd heard enough. And he'd realized only now what kind of war they'd had him fighting here from the start.

"You might achieve victory for your people today," he said before he slammed the door in their faces. "But all you shall have won is a slow, protracted demise."

…

Idiots.

Back in his private quarters in the palace, Marcus's' quill was taking the words out of his arm more than he was telling it what to write.

Idiots! All of them!

His scrawlings were intense enough that he felt the parchment break beneath his fingertips.

Why should I have expected anything more? Of course, I shouldn't have. These rats are little more than the European Great Powers carving up China in the wake of the Opium Wars. They have an entire species arrayed against them – one which they know values strength over any kind of ideological devotion – and all they want to do is put them to the torch even as their spirits begin to waver in the face of weakening strength. I give them evidence of Kobold worldviews, showing them that they can contribute to the war effort, and they throw it right back in my face. I have handed the keys of victory to these creatures in order to watch nothing more than a genocide of their own making take place.

He threw down his quill and wiped a sweaty palm over his face.

Why do you care? A little voice in his head then asked him as he swung back in his chair. You weren't planning on sticking around here, were you? You didn't really aspire to make this kingdom a better place or some horse piss like that, did you? If you did, you're just as naïve as they think you are.

Marcus closed his eyes and rubbed his tired temples. No matter how many meetings they all had, he kept coming back to the same problem: they wanted him to give the command to make a final charge – to wipe the Kobolds from the face of the under-earth.

Not even Skeever could stop that from happening. Faced with the will of his King, and the representatives from two other Clans, the Talon-Commander had had to back down. Not that Marcus blamed him.

It's time to stop mulling over what you think should be done and start focusing on what is practicable. You want to go home, don't you?

Marcus listened to the little voice's question and held his quill between his fingers as he was about to write down his response.

Don't you?

Just then – a knock at the door.

"Sire Marcus?"

The voice was unfamiliar to him, so he merely gave it a curt response.

"I'm not receiving visitors," he said.

Normally, that would have prompted the guards at his door to spring into action and remove the adoring servant from his door. This time, however, he heard the hinge bolts clang as they hit the ground, and his door effortlessly creaked open.

"I said I'm not receiving any visitors!" Marcus repeated. "I don't care who you are or what Clan you hail from. Go and see a priest if you want to hear about m-"

When Marcus spun round, his voice caught in his throat.

What he was looking at was no rat. Its cloak was far too long, its skin far too scaly, its eyes far too slitted and colored with the dark amber of a predator.

And the blade it held in its hand was far, far too long. And sharp.

"I'm afraid I have to insist, Shai-Alud."

###

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