Reborn as a Fantasy General
Reborn as a Fantasy General (Army-Building Isekai)
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Synopsis
--Synopsis--
"Know thy self, know thy enemy"
- Sun Tzu
Marcus Graham has been handed a raw deal. As a student of military history, he wants nothing more than to help the world learn from human conflict. But his increasingly hostile college is blocking his lectures and threatening to cancel him for speaking his mind. War is just too triggering for the young minds of this generation.
But there's another world out there. A world wracked by constant strife. A world of fantasy races locked in combat, and where the tides of war are always in full swing. It is a world on the brink of almost total annihilation, where the common people have almost given up hope.
But Marcus, with his extensive knowledge of battlefield strategy, might just be the man to save them all.
___________________________________________________________________________
--Fantasy General features--
Small-large scale battles ranging from shady underground caverns to open-field skirmishes.
A story focused on military strategy with detailed battle maps.
Political intrigue between fantasy races each (Elves, trolls, orcs/goblins, lizardmen, ratlings) each with their own kingdoms and motivations.
Characters with realistic thoughts and actions.
A protagonist who's IQ is above room temperature
Chapter 1
"We must love one another or die"
-W.H Auden
"All wars are unnecessary. Human unity has only ever been accomplished through peace."
Marcus listened, trying his best not to grind his teeth into a fine paste.
"My opponent today is under the impression that all of us in this room are too privileged, too uptight, and too 'triggered' to understand that this is a lie peddled to us by – who, I wonder? Communists? Neo-Marxists? Or maybe the age-old enemy of the young white male – Feminists!"
A series of chuckles came from the student body. Marcus was about ready to split his pen in half. He'd promised himself he'd take notes – that he'd focus on fact-based debate.
"Don't let yourself get baited!" Maria had told him when he groggily rose from bed at 2am this morning to look over his speech for the seventeenth time. "If Steven starts off with ad-hominem attacks, don't rise to it. You hear me? You can be such a bloody hothead and that's not the look you want."
Now here he sat in the lecture hall, his hands practically shaking with rage, which of course the student photographers at the debate event would take a snapshot of and label as fear in tomorrow's campus paper.
Above the door to the lecture theatre hung an 'Exit' sign in blazing neon letters that proved to be distractingly tantalizing. And below this sign, hanging limply from the door, was plastered the name of the event he'd, in his infinite wisdom, decided it would be a good idea to speak at:
'The Morality of Warfare'
Recent tensions in the Far East had prompted heated discussion on the subject on campus, and the Head of the Centre for Military History had called on him to make a case that their faculty was still a legitimate one. Marcus had risen to the challenge like a rooster with the rising sun, and only afterwards had he realized exactly who is opponent would be.
"Of course, I don't mean to assert that my opponent today is nothing but a mouthpiece of ideologically-charged talking points, but his track record speaks for itself."
Steven fucking Barenz. Straight A student of Philosophy, English Literature, and chairman of the Equality Office – as dystopian as that title sounded. He was a self-proclaimed crusader for justice, who had taken it upon himself to see that Marcus' faculty – indeed his entire subject itself – was deemed too dangerous to be taught to the bright young minds of this generation.
Looking around him at those 'bright young minds' who were currently eating up Steven's words – the same ones that had held up signs like 'WAR IS MURDER' outside - Marcus realized that he'd already risen to the bait. This whole damn 'debate' was a sham. He'd expected as much when campus security had had to escort him to his seat.
"Yes," Steven went on, hands flying around like an evangelical preacher. "Marcus Graham has been a spokesperson for Fascists, Nazis, and Conservative political pundits who want nothing more than to see a progressive academic institution like ours burned to the ground. Just yesterday he was seen endorsing the campaign of noted Fascist Youtuber ThreeStar, who is currently looking for signatures to ensure that women have no rights to their own bodily autonomy!"
An image of Marcus posing for a selfie with a blonde-haired woman then filled the lecture hall screen, and a series of gasps trickled through the crowd.
Marcus failed to see what posing for a photograph with someone who asked him for one had to do with collusion or endorsing this woman's anti-abortion campaign. Furthermore, he failed to see what it had to do with the subject at hand. But that might be his naivety talking. The subject wasn't really what was being discussed here at all, was it?
Steven droned on with four other examples of Marcus being someone who hated most human beings on this earth who weren't white men. He barely listened, picking up the usual list: transphobia, bigotry, racism, non-Christians – nevermind that Marcus had always maintained a staunch position of Agnostic Atheism throughout his life. He wasn't there to judge history or the people who participated in it. He was there to observe patterns, and to learn.
And learning, Marcus scoffed to himself, had itself become something of a battle in recent years.
Suddenly Steven came to the crux of a real argument, and Marcus entered the room once more:
"War has accomplished nothing but suffering," he was saying, hands gripping the podium like it might fall away from him. "And it brings out the worst in human nature. Witness the Rape of Nanjing by the Imperial Japanese Kwomangting, the atrocities committed in the name of God during the Crusades, and the complete failure that was Vietnam. These incidents speak for themselves. They were invasions, pure and simple, of a foreign power against a sovereign nation. The idea of 'Might makes Right' was fully on display – and legitimized all atrocities the invading forces committed. The children of Nanjing, Ho Chi Ming, and Akris were slaughtered like cattle, all for the sake of some ideological victory over a perceived 'enemy'.
Furthermore, the concept of 'good wars' and 'bad wars' that Marcus has written so much about has no basis in reality. Even in the Second World War, the allied forces cannot claim the moral high ground in the wake of the firebombing of Dresden, an event which killed approximately 25000 innocent German lives. I wonder what the Founding Fathers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would say if they heard Mr Graham speak today on the 'necessity' of the atomic bomb that vaporized their people? Could he look them in the eye – the melting bodies of the Japanese who died in nuclear fire – and tell them they were just the necessary casualties needed to end the war?"
The crowd had grown silent. Almost reverent, and a chorus of rapturous applause echoed from every seat as Steven bowed lightly and finished up his opening statement.
Marcus, meanwhile, was just surprised that Steven had actually read something he'd written, even if he'd done nothing more than give it a cursory glance.
The Speaker then invited Marcus to the podium,. He rose steadily, his notes crumpled in his hand.
"Just breathe", he muttered under his breath. "Face your fear, and do it anyway."
Some boos and jeers greeted him instantly, and Steven's proud, smug face beamed at him from the front of the crowd.
As the spotlight above hit his eyes, Marcus was suddenly transported back to Maria fixing his tie before he stepped out of his apartment this morning.
"He'll try everything to distract you," she had said. "They crowd will be on his side. You know that, don't you?"
"Of course I do," he'd told her with a smile. "But I have to do this."
"Why? It's not like you have anything to prove. You're gonna be a published author soon. You don't have to answer a callout from some brash liberal trying to rile you up."
"Don't use labels like that," he said with a chuckle. "They do nothing but keep us all divided."
"It's what he'd call himself," she shrugged.
He looked at her pale face framed by locks of amber hair and inset with gleaming chestnut eyes. When he'd started seeing her, most people remarked how she looked more like a ghost than a woman.
How ironic, then, that she was the only woman he'd ever met who saw him for who he was – who had been able to see that within this bookish military history nerd there beat a heart filled to the brim with passion for everything he threw himself into.
"You don't have to do this," she said again as she pressed a wet kiss onto his pallid lips.
"I know," he whispered. "But in order to be able to think, we all need opposition every now and then. I don't want to live in a world where we all believe the same things."
"The way things are going…" she replied tentatively. "With people like him around…"
He took her hands in his and smiled through his tiredness. "Maria, that's exactly why we have to fight!"
It was her face that he saw through the bright spotlights of the lecture hall, and then, as the light dimmed and dipped beneath his eyes, he looked out onto a sea of hatred.
He muttered an apology to Maria. He wasn't about to take this sitting down.
"My opponent seems to know everything about me," he began, looking directly into the sea of anger as it slowly began to swell with his every word. "But I believe it is more useful to judge a man by the content of his speech rather than by the company he keeps."
The seething had already begun. He didn't care.
"Mr Barenz would have me answer for the sins of a generation that came before me. He would parade me before you like a witch on trial. And yet, I wonder if he has truly spared a thought to the piles of corpses he wants to stand on. Would Mr Barenz care to listen to the 6 million Jews massacred in the Holocaust, and tell them that Dresden was the worst calamity of that barbarous conflict? Would he care to listen to the thousands of Americans butchered in Japanese internment camps, or perhaps the 7.5 million Chinese civilians who, as he puts it himself, fell to the Japanese Imperial Army from as early as 1936 and who, for the record, make up the highest percentage of civilian casualties experienced across the entire wartime period? Could he look at that sea of dead and tell them the atomic bomb was a mistake?"
The crowd was starting to rise up in arms. He went on, unperturbed.
"I am not here to shock you," Marcus said, trying to check his flaring temper. "I am here to point out that if Mr Barenz' argument is that atrocity exists, then I agree with him. It happens to be a part of human nature and –"
"WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE THAT!?"
The question was belted from a young man in the crowd that Marcus could barely even see.
"I don't decide a thing. None of us do. Human history follows identifiable trajectories," he explained. "War has been part of every developed culture on the face of this earth. To look at only atrocities committed in warfare and judge all armed disputes based on them is to deny the necessity of fighting a just conflict."
"JUST?!" someone yelled back at him. "Your justice is Fascism – nothing more!"
By this point, Marcus' teeth were practically sharpened. He despised nothing more than the moronic labelling of challenging ideas as 'Fascism'.
"What is 'just' has no ideological bearing," Marcus replied, his grip tightening on the podium's edges. "Would you tell Cochise that, even though the odds were against him, he should have simply given up and submitted to the USA's genocidal campaigns against his people? Evil is evil – plain and simple."
"Who is this kid?" one of the professors suddenly barked up at him – one holding a sign that read 'BAN THE BOMB'. Whatever bomb it was referring to, Marcus didn't know.
"But I –" Marcus stammered, seeing fists begin to flare and tempers rise. "I – I am not here to defend the concept of warfare! I am here to defend the study and analysis of military conflict as a legitimate branch of history."
"And you're doing a shitty-ass job of it!"
"History is-often-written by the victors!" Marcus shouted, fumbling with his notes, trying to be heard over the increasing might of the crowd. "But this is only partially correct – in truth, it is written by historians. Historians who have the objectivity to look at the past and learn from the mistakes we, as humans, have made. And I tell you that war is not a blanket evil. We must catalogue and emphasize the horrors of war. But we must also catalogue the simple fact that, sometimes, one person – or one people – must stand up and fight."
"You Jingoist bastard!" another voice cried.
"No!" Marcus shouted right back, his voice becoming increasingly hoarse. "I do not condone conquest, or the enslavement and domination of others through military force. Force cannot change the minds of a people. But education can-"
He stopped, feeling something heavy and sharp impact the side of his head, and his hand flew to feel the trickle of blood that had started to run down the side of his face.
The object that had been thrown at him – a rock wrapped in notebook paper – fell heavily to the ground.
And with it, all hell broke loose in the hall.
Some students had started charging the stage, barreling over their classmates while they flew a peace sign from a great banner that trailed after them. The campus guards surged forwards, bearing down on the protestors while the doors were opened from the outside and the call went out that the lecture was finished. As the students started to be funneled away by the overburdened security guards, some started crying out bloody murder, while others tried to maze the campus guards before they were shoved away, taking selfies of their brutalized faces and telling their online followers that they had just been assaulted at Mr Graham's lecture. No mention of Steven Berenz was made.
Marcus watched in stunned horror as the remaining students fighting in the hall clambered over themselves, trying to reach him, while the beleaguered Campus guards did what they could to extract him as soon as possible.
"Come on, son," one of them told Marcus, grabbing him by his limp arm and dragging him away by force. "Time to go."
Marcus looked through the haze of red that clouded his vision at the baying, hateful crowd. Like a pack of jackals yipping to see him shredded apart. They hadn't come here to listen or to learn.
And as he let the security detail lead him outside, he suddenly realized his mistake: he had taken the bait long before the lecture had even started.
…
The incessant ticking of Marcus' antique clock dominated his meagre student apartment.
Above, his ceiling fan spun with little alternative as he lay on his threadbare couch like a potato stewing in the warm California sun. Maria looked down at him, her lithe fingers stroking his thinning, disheveled hair.
"You know," she said. "Maybe if you'd at least showered before the show, they'd have listened to you."
He struggled to form a wry smile, taking her hand in his.
"I'm a fool, Mari."
She shook her pale face. "No you're not," she said. "You're just someone who actually believes in the things he says. That's never gonna make you a popular guy on a college campus."
He sighed, long and deep, as he reached for his phone.
Maria, however, was faster. She snatched it up and threw it away.
"Nope," she told his incredulous face. "You're not looking at that. You're gonna look at me instead."
She took his face in both her hands and squeezed his cheeks together, rubbing them like he was a little boy being reprimanded for bad behavior.
"Hey!" he chuckled. "I'm a sensitive man, you know."
She planted a kiss on his forehead. "Don't I know it. That's why I'm not having you look at your feed. You've lost all your 'X' and Insta privileges today."
He sighed again as his eyes traced her defined features, losing himself momentarily in the chestnut sea of her eyes. He'd made the mistake of checking his socials in the wake of the debate, seeing – well – exactly what he expected. Students had taken to saying he incited violence, and all they needed to prove this claim was some pictures of bruised faces and copies of his student transcript which, of course, someone had managed to procure. Now they were organizing a petition to have him removed from his faculty, labelling him a Stochastic Terrorist. Nevermind that he-
"Hey," Maria interrupted his thoughts. "I can see it in your eyes. You're thinking about those Twitter freaks again. What have I told you about letting them get to your head?"
He closed his eyes. He knew she was right. As a student of Communications and Psychology, she knew much more about how the modern world of propaganda and how it worked than he ever had. He'd been too stuck in the past before he met her. She'd led him into the present.
"Mari," he said. "What am I going to do?"
She blinked. "About what?"
"They'll never publish the book now."
He looked towards the manuscript on his desk – screeds and screeds of painstaking research compiled over at least 6 years of constant study as part of his Doctoral Thesis. An overview of military tactics from the medieval-early-modern-contemporary era, and an assessment of observed patterns. Effectiveness of campaigns, relative strengths of military commanders, technological developments and how these strategies from the past could still have practical application.
It was his life's work, staring him in the face every morning, begging him to finalize it and send it out into the world.
But now? Now he could barely even look at it. It was as though he – the author – had failed the work. He wasn't worthy enough to carry it through.
"You always doubt yourself," Maria said gently, her fingers playing with his tufts of frizzled hair. "But – look – it's you that's the most important thing here. You haven't taken a break in days. Look at you."
She sat up and forced him to look in a small glass mirror. The reflection that looked back at him barely resembled what he knew to be himself – his dark rimmed glasses were steamed up and cracked at the ends, the sharp jade eyes behind them looked at him with judgement, and his beard was just as matted and unkept as his hair.
"To tell you the truth," she said. "I'm worried about you, Marc. You're not looking after yourself. You're throwing everything away on this. Life's more than just study, you know. It's more than just recognition. Who the hell cares if they don't like the book? You don't have anything to prove to them."
He shifted his eyes and looked back at the manuscript, seeing – as only an author could – all the blood, sweat, and tears he'd poured into it over the years.
"I am that book," he said.
When then he curled up to sleep, he felt Maria's hand touch his back like she was trying to dress an open wound before he escaped into the world of his dreams.
-W.H Auden
"All wars are unnecessary. Human unity has only ever been accomplished through peace."
Marcus listened, trying his best not to grind his teeth into a fine paste.
"My opponent today is under the impression that all of us in this room are too privileged, too uptight, and too 'triggered' to understand that this is a lie peddled to us by – who, I wonder? Communists? Neo-Marxists? Or maybe the age-old enemy of the young white male – Feminists!"
A series of chuckles came from the student body. Marcus was about ready to split his pen in half. He'd promised himself he'd take notes – that he'd focus on fact-based debate.
"Don't let yourself get baited!" Maria had told him when he groggily rose from bed at 2am this morning to look over his speech for the seventeenth time. "If Steven starts off with ad-hominem attacks, don't rise to it. You hear me? You can be such a bloody hothead and that's not the look you want."
Now here he sat in the lecture hall, his hands practically shaking with rage, which of course the student photographers at the debate event would take a snapshot of and label as fear in tomorrow's campus paper.
Above the door to the lecture theatre hung an 'Exit' sign in blazing neon letters that proved to be distractingly tantalizing. And below this sign, hanging limply from the door, was plastered the name of the event he'd, in his infinite wisdom, decided it would be a good idea to speak at:
'The Morality of Warfare'
Recent tensions in the Far East had prompted heated discussion on the subject on campus, and the Head of the Centre for Military History had called on him to make a case that their faculty was still a legitimate one. Marcus had risen to the challenge like a rooster with the rising sun, and only afterwards had he realized exactly who is opponent would be.
"Of course, I don't mean to assert that my opponent today is nothing but a mouthpiece of ideologically-charged talking points, but his track record speaks for itself."
Steven fucking Barenz. Straight A student of Philosophy, English Literature, and chairman of the Equality Office – as dystopian as that title sounded. He was a self-proclaimed crusader for justice, who had taken it upon himself to see that Marcus' faculty – indeed his entire subject itself – was deemed too dangerous to be taught to the bright young minds of this generation.
Looking around him at those 'bright young minds' who were currently eating up Steven's words – the same ones that had held up signs like 'WAR IS MURDER' outside - Marcus realized that he'd already risen to the bait. This whole damn 'debate' was a sham. He'd expected as much when campus security had had to escort him to his seat.
"Yes," Steven went on, hands flying around like an evangelical preacher. "Marcus Graham has been a spokesperson for Fascists, Nazis, and Conservative political pundits who want nothing more than to see a progressive academic institution like ours burned to the ground. Just yesterday he was seen endorsing the campaign of noted Fascist Youtuber ThreeStar, who is currently looking for signatures to ensure that women have no rights to their own bodily autonomy!"
An image of Marcus posing for a selfie with a blonde-haired woman then filled the lecture hall screen, and a series of gasps trickled through the crowd.
Marcus failed to see what posing for a photograph with someone who asked him for one had to do with collusion or endorsing this woman's anti-abortion campaign. Furthermore, he failed to see what it had to do with the subject at hand. But that might be his naivety talking. The subject wasn't really what was being discussed here at all, was it?
Steven droned on with four other examples of Marcus being someone who hated most human beings on this earth who weren't white men. He barely listened, picking up the usual list: transphobia, bigotry, racism, non-Christians – nevermind that Marcus had always maintained a staunch position of Agnostic Atheism throughout his life. He wasn't there to judge history or the people who participated in it. He was there to observe patterns, and to learn.
And learning, Marcus scoffed to himself, had itself become something of a battle in recent years.
Suddenly Steven came to the crux of a real argument, and Marcus entered the room once more:
"War has accomplished nothing but suffering," he was saying, hands gripping the podium like it might fall away from him. "And it brings out the worst in human nature. Witness the Rape of Nanjing by the Imperial Japanese Kwomangting, the atrocities committed in the name of God during the Crusades, and the complete failure that was Vietnam. These incidents speak for themselves. They were invasions, pure and simple, of a foreign power against a sovereign nation. The idea of 'Might makes Right' was fully on display – and legitimized all atrocities the invading forces committed. The children of Nanjing, Ho Chi Ming, and Akris were slaughtered like cattle, all for the sake of some ideological victory over a perceived 'enemy'.
Furthermore, the concept of 'good wars' and 'bad wars' that Marcus has written so much about has no basis in reality. Even in the Second World War, the allied forces cannot claim the moral high ground in the wake of the firebombing of Dresden, an event which killed approximately 25000 innocent German lives. I wonder what the Founding Fathers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would say if they heard Mr Graham speak today on the 'necessity' of the atomic bomb that vaporized their people? Could he look them in the eye – the melting bodies of the Japanese who died in nuclear fire – and tell them they were just the necessary casualties needed to end the war?"
The crowd had grown silent. Almost reverent, and a chorus of rapturous applause echoed from every seat as Steven bowed lightly and finished up his opening statement.
Marcus, meanwhile, was just surprised that Steven had actually read something he'd written, even if he'd done nothing more than give it a cursory glance.
The Speaker then invited Marcus to the podium,. He rose steadily, his notes crumpled in his hand.
"Just breathe", he muttered under his breath. "Face your fear, and do it anyway."
Some boos and jeers greeted him instantly, and Steven's proud, smug face beamed at him from the front of the crowd.
As the spotlight above hit his eyes, Marcus was suddenly transported back to Maria fixing his tie before he stepped out of his apartment this morning.
"He'll try everything to distract you," she had said. "They crowd will be on his side. You know that, don't you?"
"Of course I do," he'd told her with a smile. "But I have to do this."
"Why? It's not like you have anything to prove. You're gonna be a published author soon. You don't have to answer a callout from some brash liberal trying to rile you up."
"Don't use labels like that," he said with a chuckle. "They do nothing but keep us all divided."
"It's what he'd call himself," she shrugged.
He looked at her pale face framed by locks of amber hair and inset with gleaming chestnut eyes. When he'd started seeing her, most people remarked how she looked more like a ghost than a woman.
How ironic, then, that she was the only woman he'd ever met who saw him for who he was – who had been able to see that within this bookish military history nerd there beat a heart filled to the brim with passion for everything he threw himself into.
"You don't have to do this," she said again as she pressed a wet kiss onto his pallid lips.
"I know," he whispered. "But in order to be able to think, we all need opposition every now and then. I don't want to live in a world where we all believe the same things."
"The way things are going…" she replied tentatively. "With people like him around…"
He took her hands in his and smiled through his tiredness. "Maria, that's exactly why we have to fight!"
It was her face that he saw through the bright spotlights of the lecture hall, and then, as the light dimmed and dipped beneath his eyes, he looked out onto a sea of hatred.
He muttered an apology to Maria. He wasn't about to take this sitting down.
"My opponent seems to know everything about me," he began, looking directly into the sea of anger as it slowly began to swell with his every word. "But I believe it is more useful to judge a man by the content of his speech rather than by the company he keeps."
The seething had already begun. He didn't care.
"Mr Barenz would have me answer for the sins of a generation that came before me. He would parade me before you like a witch on trial. And yet, I wonder if he has truly spared a thought to the piles of corpses he wants to stand on. Would Mr Barenz care to listen to the 6 million Jews massacred in the Holocaust, and tell them that Dresden was the worst calamity of that barbarous conflict? Would he care to listen to the thousands of Americans butchered in Japanese internment camps, or perhaps the 7.5 million Chinese civilians who, as he puts it himself, fell to the Japanese Imperial Army from as early as 1936 and who, for the record, make up the highest percentage of civilian casualties experienced across the entire wartime period? Could he look at that sea of dead and tell them the atomic bomb was a mistake?"
The crowd was starting to rise up in arms. He went on, unperturbed.
"I am not here to shock you," Marcus said, trying to check his flaring temper. "I am here to point out that if Mr Barenz' argument is that atrocity exists, then I agree with him. It happens to be a part of human nature and –"
"WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE THAT!?"
The question was belted from a young man in the crowd that Marcus could barely even see.
"I don't decide a thing. None of us do. Human history follows identifiable trajectories," he explained. "War has been part of every developed culture on the face of this earth. To look at only atrocities committed in warfare and judge all armed disputes based on them is to deny the necessity of fighting a just conflict."
"JUST?!" someone yelled back at him. "Your justice is Fascism – nothing more!"
By this point, Marcus' teeth were practically sharpened. He despised nothing more than the moronic labelling of challenging ideas as 'Fascism'.
"What is 'just' has no ideological bearing," Marcus replied, his grip tightening on the podium's edges. "Would you tell Cochise that, even though the odds were against him, he should have simply given up and submitted to the USA's genocidal campaigns against his people? Evil is evil – plain and simple."
"Who is this kid?" one of the professors suddenly barked up at him – one holding a sign that read 'BAN THE BOMB'. Whatever bomb it was referring to, Marcus didn't know.
"But I –" Marcus stammered, seeing fists begin to flare and tempers rise. "I – I am not here to defend the concept of warfare! I am here to defend the study and analysis of military conflict as a legitimate branch of history."
"And you're doing a shitty-ass job of it!"
"History is-often-written by the victors!" Marcus shouted, fumbling with his notes, trying to be heard over the increasing might of the crowd. "But this is only partially correct – in truth, it is written by historians. Historians who have the objectivity to look at the past and learn from the mistakes we, as humans, have made. And I tell you that war is not a blanket evil. We must catalogue and emphasize the horrors of war. But we must also catalogue the simple fact that, sometimes, one person – or one people – must stand up and fight."
"You Jingoist bastard!" another voice cried.
"No!" Marcus shouted right back, his voice becoming increasingly hoarse. "I do not condone conquest, or the enslavement and domination of others through military force. Force cannot change the minds of a people. But education can-"
He stopped, feeling something heavy and sharp impact the side of his head, and his hand flew to feel the trickle of blood that had started to run down the side of his face.
The object that had been thrown at him – a rock wrapped in notebook paper – fell heavily to the ground.
And with it, all hell broke loose in the hall.
Some students had started charging the stage, barreling over their classmates while they flew a peace sign from a great banner that trailed after them. The campus guards surged forwards, bearing down on the protestors while the doors were opened from the outside and the call went out that the lecture was finished. As the students started to be funneled away by the overburdened security guards, some started crying out bloody murder, while others tried to maze the campus guards before they were shoved away, taking selfies of their brutalized faces and telling their online followers that they had just been assaulted at Mr Graham's lecture. No mention of Steven Berenz was made.
Marcus watched in stunned horror as the remaining students fighting in the hall clambered over themselves, trying to reach him, while the beleaguered Campus guards did what they could to extract him as soon as possible.
"Come on, son," one of them told Marcus, grabbing him by his limp arm and dragging him away by force. "Time to go."
Marcus looked through the haze of red that clouded his vision at the baying, hateful crowd. Like a pack of jackals yipping to see him shredded apart. They hadn't come here to listen or to learn.
And as he let the security detail lead him outside, he suddenly realized his mistake: he had taken the bait long before the lecture had even started.
…
The incessant ticking of Marcus' antique clock dominated his meagre student apartment.
Above, his ceiling fan spun with little alternative as he lay on his threadbare couch like a potato stewing in the warm California sun. Maria looked down at him, her lithe fingers stroking his thinning, disheveled hair.
"You know," she said. "Maybe if you'd at least showered before the show, they'd have listened to you."
He struggled to form a wry smile, taking her hand in his.
"I'm a fool, Mari."
She shook her pale face. "No you're not," she said. "You're just someone who actually believes in the things he says. That's never gonna make you a popular guy on a college campus."
He sighed, long and deep, as he reached for his phone.
Maria, however, was faster. She snatched it up and threw it away.
"Nope," she told his incredulous face. "You're not looking at that. You're gonna look at me instead."
She took his face in both her hands and squeezed his cheeks together, rubbing them like he was a little boy being reprimanded for bad behavior.
"Hey!" he chuckled. "I'm a sensitive man, you know."
She planted a kiss on his forehead. "Don't I know it. That's why I'm not having you look at your feed. You've lost all your 'X' and Insta privileges today."
He sighed again as his eyes traced her defined features, losing himself momentarily in the chestnut sea of her eyes. He'd made the mistake of checking his socials in the wake of the debate, seeing – well – exactly what he expected. Students had taken to saying he incited violence, and all they needed to prove this claim was some pictures of bruised faces and copies of his student transcript which, of course, someone had managed to procure. Now they were organizing a petition to have him removed from his faculty, labelling him a Stochastic Terrorist. Nevermind that he-
"Hey," Maria interrupted his thoughts. "I can see it in your eyes. You're thinking about those Twitter freaks again. What have I told you about letting them get to your head?"
He closed his eyes. He knew she was right. As a student of Communications and Psychology, she knew much more about how the modern world of propaganda and how it worked than he ever had. He'd been too stuck in the past before he met her. She'd led him into the present.
"Mari," he said. "What am I going to do?"
She blinked. "About what?"
"They'll never publish the book now."
He looked towards the manuscript on his desk – screeds and screeds of painstaking research compiled over at least 6 years of constant study as part of his Doctoral Thesis. An overview of military tactics from the medieval-early-modern-contemporary era, and an assessment of observed patterns. Effectiveness of campaigns, relative strengths of military commanders, technological developments and how these strategies from the past could still have practical application.
It was his life's work, staring him in the face every morning, begging him to finalize it and send it out into the world.
But now? Now he could barely even look at it. It was as though he – the author – had failed the work. He wasn't worthy enough to carry it through.
"You always doubt yourself," Maria said gently, her fingers playing with his tufts of frizzled hair. "But – look – it's you that's the most important thing here. You haven't taken a break in days. Look at you."
She sat up and forced him to look in a small glass mirror. The reflection that looked back at him barely resembled what he knew to be himself – his dark rimmed glasses were steamed up and cracked at the ends, the sharp jade eyes behind them looked at him with judgement, and his beard was just as matted and unkept as his hair.
"To tell you the truth," she said. "I'm worried about you, Marc. You're not looking after yourself. You're throwing everything away on this. Life's more than just study, you know. It's more than just recognition. Who the hell cares if they don't like the book? You don't have anything to prove to them."
He shifted his eyes and looked back at the manuscript, seeing – as only an author could – all the blood, sweat, and tears he'd poured into it over the years.
"I am that book," he said.
When then he curled up to sleep, he felt Maria's hand touch his back like she was trying to dress an open wound before he escaped into the world of his dreams.
Chapter 2
"Who's for the game, the biggest that's played,
The red crashing game of a fight?
Who'll grip and tackle the job unafraid
And who thinks he'd rather sit tight?"
-Jessie Pope
Marcus tossed and turned in his sleep, his dreams wracked by demons and tormentors.
He saw the baying crowd crying out for his blood, jabbing him with imaginary pitchforks like he really was a witch. At their head stood Steven Barenz, the head of the horned demons, shrieking out slogan after slogan about how much of a monster Marcus was – how he'd rot in obscurity. How he was a failure.
But above all the vicious taunts, there was one the dream-Marcus simply couldn't shake off.
"Could you look at them?" the mocking voice of Barenz wailed in his ears. "Could you look at all the faces of those who suffered under the yolk of Generals and Tyrants, and tell them that the road to progress would be paved with their blood and broken bones?"
His dream-self had no answer, and just before he was thrown into the fiery depths of the abyss, and the whole college of screaming demons finally had their victory, he woke up to the sound of his alarm clock going crazy.
"Sh….Lud!"
Marcus wiped sweat from his forehead, feeling like a prized moron for having passed out on the couch. He checked the screaming clock and saw that it was around 1am. His hand fumbled in the dark for his glasses, finding that Maria had placed them on the table beside him as he slumbered.
"Mari," he murmured. "You deserve so much better than this fool you shacked up with."
He resolved that he might as well pluck himself up, pour himself some scotch, and work through the rest of the early morning. When it hit 5am he'd order something for Mari and serve her breakfast in bed. That would put her mind at rest. That would-
"..ai…alud!"
He turned his head towards his screaming alarm clock, wondering at the sound that was shrieking from its face. Was it broken? Again? Honestly, Mari had been right to suggest he get rid of it. But he couldn't. Even though it was a busted, dust-caked relic, he had always had a soft spot for old, broken things.
"Sha…ud!"
Then again, that noise was just a little too annoying.
He pushed off from the couch and groggily approached the cackling clock, feeling more and more like the sound coming from the thing was not the regular sounds of a clock at all.
"Sh…alud!"
Now that he got closer, it sounded almost like a voice.
"…hai-alu…"
No, not one voice, but many.
Maybe he'd put that drink on hold…
"Shai-Alu-!"
It sounded almost like…a chant? A song?
Or…
"SHAI-ALUD!"
A summons.
As soon as the two syllables were howled in full, Marcus felt his whole body shift.
"What..?"
No, he realized. It wasn't just his body. The room was spinning. The clock face was melting into the ground, each roman numeral on its face slowly slipping down the mantal piece like melting egg-yolks.
Around him, he saw the couch sink into the floor, his apartment table disintegrate entirely, and his floor begin to shake like an earthquake was about to tear through the whole college.
"I…I better wake Mari," he told himself, trying to still his beating heart.
But the increasing volume of the chant started to gnaw away at his ears, and soon the words sung by a guttural chorus was all he could hear:
"SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD!"
He gripped his ears as the sound tore through him. The door to his bedroom simply shook like a leaf in the wind and then broke apart, sending splinters flying across his walls.
But the shock of all this was nothing compared to what he saw next.
His eyes flew to where his manuscript was sitting and saw that every single page was floating in the air. He watched in disbelief as his ink-filled notes began to slip away, sliding off each tatty page like a child had spilled paint over them.
"No!" he wailed, lunging at the flying scraps as they fizzled away with the rest of his room. "NO!"
He fell to his knees.
He had just looked at his hands.
His fingers twisted before him like elongated talons, slowly melting into the maelstrom of spinning furniture that his apartment had become.
And it was in this state that Mari finally entered the room.
"M…Marc…"
Her leg had been pierced by splinters from the broken bed. Her face was covered in blood. She limped towards him, falling to the ground and reaching out towards his terrified form.
"Mari…"
"MARI!"
Marc lunged for his girl just as the floor finally gave way, and the last thing he saw before he plummeted into darkness was the sight of Mari's blood-streaked face.
…
"SHAI-ALUD!"
"SHAI-ALUD!"
"SHAI…ALUD!"
Skeever-Steelclaw of the Crimson-Eye Clan was running out of options.
The Kobolds had cornered his men in a cave off of the Black Gulch caverns, cutting off his supply lines and thinning his numbers by the second.
"Sire!" his second-in-command, Redwhiskers, screamed. "They come upon us again!"
"Be holding fast!" Skeever snapped back at the Claw-Leader. "Are you a worm or a rat?!"
"Be telling his to the others!" Redwhiskers wailed in protest. He only came up to Skeever's chest. Even for a Ratman he was short. Still, he certainly possessed a voice that would carry.
"Be silencing yourself," Skeever warned. "Or I will be gutting you before the Kobolds do!"
The Claw-Leader scurried off to muck in with what remained of Skeever's meagre force. 30 Ratguard with – at best – decent training, who's spears had at this point been abandoned in favor of their shields. They pushed together to hold the entrance of the cavern where Skeever and the head-priest conducted their desperate ritual, the arrows and bullets of their enemies flying over their heads.
Skeever looked at the beleaguered ratguard as the weathered the storm of the Kobold's hail of projectiles from the other side of the gulch. Damned cowardly little demons! Even when they outnumbered his forced ten to one they still would rather hurt them from afar rather than kill them quickly.
The stalactites of the cave began to yield as more bullets and arrows slammed into them, pushing the ratman shield wall back inch by inch.
Even the most putrid, dung-eating ratcub would know that they were dead - that this pitiful holdout was nothing more than buying them what little time they had in the service of the He-Who-Festers.
And so, with little other option, Skeever had turned to his Head-Priest.
Deekius.
The Talon-Commander looked upon the priest with the same derision one would save for an albino-rat. He hated to even look in the aging priest's direction.
But the orders of his King were paramount: every army, every squad – no matter how big or small – had to contain at least one priest so that He-Who-Festers would look upon their exploits with favor.
But looking at the ragged-clothed as he shook his staff like a child and spoke a name Skeever did not know to the uncaring walls of their cave, Skeever could not exactly be blamed for thinking that their God had abandoned them.
"How much longer will this be taking, priest," he spat. His distrust in those who claimed to speak to the Gods was no secret.
Deekius barely paid him any attention. He simply continued dancing around the bloody Golb they had sacrificed on his makeshift altar (which, for the record, had required four of Skeever's men to construct). Those same men, the priest insited, had to join him in his ridiculous chant.
"SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-"
"Enough with your 'Shai-Alud!'" Skeever exploded, grabbing the priest's staff with his gauntleted claw. "We have tried your silly ritual. Now, we will be doing it my way."
Deekius' beady old eyes gazed at Skeever under his hood. "Your way will see us all dead, Talon-Commander."
The red storm of Skeever's rage could be seen even through his fur. He grappled with the priest as his men looked on, feeling more hopeless with each passing second.
"When – will – you – be – understanding!" Skeever cried. "He-Who-Festers does not listen!"
"Your – lack – of -faith – is – being – your – weakness!"
"WEAKNESS!?" Skeever shrieked in response. "I – I will be showing you weakness, you water-bather! I will -!"
A stab of light bazed in the cavern, interrupting the heated conflict between priest and commander and searing into the thin retinas of every surviving Ratling. Every tail curled up in fear, and apprehension, and those forming the shield wall had to resist the urge to turn around and see what had just befallen their compatriots. Was it an attack from the rear? Had they unearthed a secret stash of dwarven explosives? Those runts did always love to leave booby-traps in these tunnels…
But Skeever and Deekius could not resist the urge to drop to their knees before the sight they now saw before them. The light struck the corpse of the Golb, exploding the bulbous body of the creature into a dozen bloodied chunks, and then began to take on form. First – a body shimmering and bright, then two arms and legs stretched out from within the otherworldly light that told the Ratlings exactly what they had just summoned.
A human.
As the piercing, blazing light finally died, the form of a man stood naked before them – hair disheveled and smelly, eyes rimmed with oddly shaped spectacles, and with eyes that spoke of his experience – eyes that bore into the soul of every Ratling so that those who met his gaze simply had to look away.
Even Skeever felt himself awed by the sight. He relinquished his grip on Deekius and dropped to his knees with the rest of the congregation, momentarily forgetting that there was still a battle raging outside.
"Praise be He-Who-Festers!" Deekius wailed to the stony sky above them all. "Our savior has come! Let his name be sung from the depths of the Underkingdom: SHAI-ALUD IS COMETH!"
Skeever gulped as he locked eyes with the human man and saw him open his mouth. What words he would say would go down in history. Right now, in this moment, Skeever was part of something so far beyond himself that he wished to commit it to his short memory.
Shai-Alud closed his mouth, blinked twice, and then opened it again:
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?"
The red crashing game of a fight?
Who'll grip and tackle the job unafraid
And who thinks he'd rather sit tight?"
-Jessie Pope
Marcus tossed and turned in his sleep, his dreams wracked by demons and tormentors.
He saw the baying crowd crying out for his blood, jabbing him with imaginary pitchforks like he really was a witch. At their head stood Steven Barenz, the head of the horned demons, shrieking out slogan after slogan about how much of a monster Marcus was – how he'd rot in obscurity. How he was a failure.
But above all the vicious taunts, there was one the dream-Marcus simply couldn't shake off.
"Could you look at them?" the mocking voice of Barenz wailed in his ears. "Could you look at all the faces of those who suffered under the yolk of Generals and Tyrants, and tell them that the road to progress would be paved with their blood and broken bones?"
His dream-self had no answer, and just before he was thrown into the fiery depths of the abyss, and the whole college of screaming demons finally had their victory, he woke up to the sound of his alarm clock going crazy.
"Sh….Lud!"
Marcus wiped sweat from his forehead, feeling like a prized moron for having passed out on the couch. He checked the screaming clock and saw that it was around 1am. His hand fumbled in the dark for his glasses, finding that Maria had placed them on the table beside him as he slumbered.
"Mari," he murmured. "You deserve so much better than this fool you shacked up with."
He resolved that he might as well pluck himself up, pour himself some scotch, and work through the rest of the early morning. When it hit 5am he'd order something for Mari and serve her breakfast in bed. That would put her mind at rest. That would-
"..ai…alud!"
He turned his head towards his screaming alarm clock, wondering at the sound that was shrieking from its face. Was it broken? Again? Honestly, Mari had been right to suggest he get rid of it. But he couldn't. Even though it was a busted, dust-caked relic, he had always had a soft spot for old, broken things.
"Sha…ud!"
Then again, that noise was just a little too annoying.
He pushed off from the couch and groggily approached the cackling clock, feeling more and more like the sound coming from the thing was not the regular sounds of a clock at all.
"Sh…alud!"
Now that he got closer, it sounded almost like a voice.
"…hai-alu…"
No, not one voice, but many.
Maybe he'd put that drink on hold…
"Shai-Alu-!"
It sounded almost like…a chant? A song?
Or…
"SHAI-ALUD!"
A summons.
As soon as the two syllables were howled in full, Marcus felt his whole body shift.
"What..?"
No, he realized. It wasn't just his body. The room was spinning. The clock face was melting into the ground, each roman numeral on its face slowly slipping down the mantal piece like melting egg-yolks.
Around him, he saw the couch sink into the floor, his apartment table disintegrate entirely, and his floor begin to shake like an earthquake was about to tear through the whole college.
"I…I better wake Mari," he told himself, trying to still his beating heart.
But the increasing volume of the chant started to gnaw away at his ears, and soon the words sung by a guttural chorus was all he could hear:
"SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD!"
He gripped his ears as the sound tore through him. The door to his bedroom simply shook like a leaf in the wind and then broke apart, sending splinters flying across his walls.
But the shock of all this was nothing compared to what he saw next.
His eyes flew to where his manuscript was sitting and saw that every single page was floating in the air. He watched in disbelief as his ink-filled notes began to slip away, sliding off each tatty page like a child had spilled paint over them.
"No!" he wailed, lunging at the flying scraps as they fizzled away with the rest of his room. "NO!"
He fell to his knees.
He had just looked at his hands.
His fingers twisted before him like elongated talons, slowly melting into the maelstrom of spinning furniture that his apartment had become.
And it was in this state that Mari finally entered the room.
"M…Marc…"
Her leg had been pierced by splinters from the broken bed. Her face was covered in blood. She limped towards him, falling to the ground and reaching out towards his terrified form.
"Mari…"
"MARI!"
Marc lunged for his girl just as the floor finally gave way, and the last thing he saw before he plummeted into darkness was the sight of Mari's blood-streaked face.
…
"SHAI-ALUD!"
"SHAI-ALUD!"
"SHAI…ALUD!"
Skeever-Steelclaw of the Crimson-Eye Clan was running out of options.
The Kobolds had cornered his men in a cave off of the Black Gulch caverns, cutting off his supply lines and thinning his numbers by the second.
"Sire!" his second-in-command, Redwhiskers, screamed. "They come upon us again!"
"Be holding fast!" Skeever snapped back at the Claw-Leader. "Are you a worm or a rat?!"
"Be telling his to the others!" Redwhiskers wailed in protest. He only came up to Skeever's chest. Even for a Ratman he was short. Still, he certainly possessed a voice that would carry.
"Be silencing yourself," Skeever warned. "Or I will be gutting you before the Kobolds do!"
The Claw-Leader scurried off to muck in with what remained of Skeever's meagre force. 30 Ratguard with – at best – decent training, who's spears had at this point been abandoned in favor of their shields. They pushed together to hold the entrance of the cavern where Skeever and the head-priest conducted their desperate ritual, the arrows and bullets of their enemies flying over their heads.
Skeever looked at the beleaguered ratguard as the weathered the storm of the Kobold's hail of projectiles from the other side of the gulch. Damned cowardly little demons! Even when they outnumbered his forced ten to one they still would rather hurt them from afar rather than kill them quickly.
The stalactites of the cave began to yield as more bullets and arrows slammed into them, pushing the ratman shield wall back inch by inch.
Even the most putrid, dung-eating ratcub would know that they were dead - that this pitiful holdout was nothing more than buying them what little time they had in the service of the He-Who-Festers.
And so, with little other option, Skeever had turned to his Head-Priest.
Deekius.
The Talon-Commander looked upon the priest with the same derision one would save for an albino-rat. He hated to even look in the aging priest's direction.
But the orders of his King were paramount: every army, every squad – no matter how big or small – had to contain at least one priest so that He-Who-Festers would look upon their exploits with favor.
But looking at the ragged-clothed as he shook his staff like a child and spoke a name Skeever did not know to the uncaring walls of their cave, Skeever could not exactly be blamed for thinking that their God had abandoned them.
"How much longer will this be taking, priest," he spat. His distrust in those who claimed to speak to the Gods was no secret.
Deekius barely paid him any attention. He simply continued dancing around the bloody Golb they had sacrificed on his makeshift altar (which, for the record, had required four of Skeever's men to construct). Those same men, the priest insited, had to join him in his ridiculous chant.
"SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-"
"Enough with your 'Shai-Alud!'" Skeever exploded, grabbing the priest's staff with his gauntleted claw. "We have tried your silly ritual. Now, we will be doing it my way."
Deekius' beady old eyes gazed at Skeever under his hood. "Your way will see us all dead, Talon-Commander."
The red storm of Skeever's rage could be seen even through his fur. He grappled with the priest as his men looked on, feeling more hopeless with each passing second.
"When – will – you – be – understanding!" Skeever cried. "He-Who-Festers does not listen!"
"Your – lack – of -faith – is – being – your – weakness!"
"WEAKNESS!?" Skeever shrieked in response. "I – I will be showing you weakness, you water-bather! I will -!"
A stab of light bazed in the cavern, interrupting the heated conflict between priest and commander and searing into the thin retinas of every surviving Ratling. Every tail curled up in fear, and apprehension, and those forming the shield wall had to resist the urge to turn around and see what had just befallen their compatriots. Was it an attack from the rear? Had they unearthed a secret stash of dwarven explosives? Those runts did always love to leave booby-traps in these tunnels…
But Skeever and Deekius could not resist the urge to drop to their knees before the sight they now saw before them. The light struck the corpse of the Golb, exploding the bulbous body of the creature into a dozen bloodied chunks, and then began to take on form. First – a body shimmering and bright, then two arms and legs stretched out from within the otherworldly light that told the Ratlings exactly what they had just summoned.
A human.
As the piercing, blazing light finally died, the form of a man stood naked before them – hair disheveled and smelly, eyes rimmed with oddly shaped spectacles, and with eyes that spoke of his experience – eyes that bore into the soul of every Ratling so that those who met his gaze simply had to look away.
Even Skeever felt himself awed by the sight. He relinquished his grip on Deekius and dropped to his knees with the rest of the congregation, momentarily forgetting that there was still a battle raging outside.
"Praise be He-Who-Festers!" Deekius wailed to the stony sky above them all. "Our savior has come! Let his name be sung from the depths of the Underkingdom: SHAI-ALUD IS COMETH!"
Skeever gulped as he locked eyes with the human man and saw him open his mouth. What words he would say would go down in history. Right now, in this moment, Skeever was part of something so far beyond himself that he wished to commit it to his short memory.
Shai-Alud closed his mouth, blinked twice, and then opened it again:
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?"
Chapter 3
"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight"
-Sun Tzu
Marcus looked down upon the swathe of hunched, humanoid rats that surrounded him, staring at his naked body like it was the body of a God.
And once more he shouted the only words his mind could conjure:
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"
Around him was a dark basalt cave that looked like it was on the verge of collapse – pieces of the conal stalactites above were shaking as projectiles hammered off them – arrows and makeshift bullets that Marcus had to duck to avoid.
His voice shook the creatures before him to their core, and only one of them – the filthy looking one with a staff topped by the horned skull of one of its own – dared to step towards him.
"We are being sorry, Shai-Alud, for calling upon you without warning. But our lives are being in danger, and we must be returning to Fleapit tonight to deliver vital information to King Shrykul."
"We – we were being desperate, Sire," another filthy rat chimed in as it saw Marcus' disgusted face. This one was clad in grime-soaked steel and held himself above the others. He was at least twice the size of the tiny rodent with the staff who called him 'Shai-Alud.'
"We know you must be confused," he continued. "But we cannot afford to wait here. Answers will be given after the battle is won!"
"Confused!?" Marcus railed. "That's an understatement! You're a talking rat!"
The ratlings all shared a confused look at eachother.
"We thought the human kingdoms of the surface are all having heard of us."
"You! You…" Marcus trailed off. He suddenly remembered the last sight he saw before he was transported here – that of Mari's blood-soaked face trembling in the dark.
"Let me out of here," he demanded. "Now."
The robed rat moved forward. "Shai-Alud, we cannot be-"
Marcus pushed past him, ignoring his excuses, and eventually collided with the tatling sheild wall.
"Let me pass!"
One of the rats – a skittish-looking fellow with red-tipped whiskers - turned his head and squeaked, "We cannot be doing this, Sire! The Kobolds will swarm us!"
Kobolds…
"Get out of my way!"
Marcus shoved himself into the shield wall – four rats deep, each man holding against what he now saw was a hail of arrows and bolts that hammered the shields of those at the front. He observed the ratlings shift and move back, the row behind then replacing the front row, giving the latter line time to recover.
They were like living shock absorbers, Marcus mused. But as he pushed passed another ratguard and saw who their enemy was, he realized that they had no chance of holding out.
They were positioned at the mouth of a cave that overlooked a streaming gulch, filled to the brim with oozing green water (or at least, Marcus assumed it was water). On the other side of the gulch lay a horde of yipping red demons firing arrow after arrow at the ratling's position, harrying them with impunity and crying out a flurry of taunts Marcus didn't understand.
He stepped back, slowly, and the ranks closed up behind him, before he finally bumped into the big rat-man again.
"You see, Shai-Alud," the creature said. "We are needing your help. We cannot survive like this."
Marcus's eyes were starting to adjust to the grim situation he saw around him. Slowly he came to see the dying and dead rats that lay littered across the cave floor, their bodies riddled with arrow shafts, their eyes filled with festering maggots.
"This…this is a dream," Marcus said, rubbing his eyes forcefully. "This – yeah – I'm dreaming, right? I have to be."
His train of thought was abruptly interrupted by the big rat lunging towards him.
"Shai-Alud!"
He felt something grave the top of his head before he hit the ground, the huge rat bearing down on top of him.
The arrow that had just missed the back of his skull embedded itself in the far wall of the cave.
And Marcus was forced to concede that the sting of the projectile as it flew by the tips of his split end hairs was all too real.
"The barking demons dare to attack Shai-Alud!" The robed rat howled. "They shall taste of his vengeance! Sire, be giving us your direction. Be telling us your plan!"
Marcus blinked as the massive rat hauled him to his feet. "Plan?"
"Indeed, great Shail-Alud! It is said that He-Who-Festers will summon to us a champion who's power shall be knowledge. A champion that shall be plucked from the realm of Gods and take the shape of a human man. A champion who shall be guiding us out of the long night of our suffering and usher in a new era for the Under-Kingdom! A champion with the same scent as our kind!"
Marcus bristled at that last bit. But, well, he had to admit that he did stink.
If not showering this morning was what contributed to him being summoned to another world, he was beginning to understand why most protagonists of those Isekai works he'd heard about were often children whose IQ approached that of a refrigerator's.
"You…selfish, arrogant little creatures!" Marcus yelled. "You have no idea what you've done to me! My – I had a life back there! I had a girl…I had my…my work!"
He collapsed into himself like a bundle of falling cards, covering his face in his hands.
"My book.." he murmured. "My manuscript – all my notes – gone…"
The Rat-men looked to each other, unsure of how to proceed.
"Deekius," the big one mumbled. "Are you being sure that this one is…"
The robed rat looked at his companion long and hard before returning his dark gaze to Marcus. His eyes were small, with slitted pupils that more resembled those of a snake than those of a rat's.
As more cries of torment were heard from the shield wall, Deekius eventually produced a cup from beneath his robes and filled it with water from the surrounding cave floor. He then placed his claw over it and intoned a word that was lost to Marcus' ears.
What wasn't lost, however, was the hot cloud of steam that started to rise from the cup, and he suddenly became aware that he was indeed in a world where magic could course through the veins of even a creature as lowly as this.
Deekius handed the cup to Marcus and then placed a putrid hand on his shoulder.
"Shai-Alud," he said. "If it is my life you are wishing to take for my impertinent summons, I will be giving you it once this battle is won."
Marcus looked up at the ratman's dim eyes and saw the blind belief in him that shimmered behind them.
"I was not wishing to destroy your place in your realm," he went on. "I am being but a groveling priest of He-Who-Festers. I cannot be imagining how worshipped you are among your fellow spirits."
Marcus scoffed in spite of everything, taking a timid sip of the drink that had been offered to him. If only this dung-eating rat knew what his life back home was really like…
"But we are needing you, Shai-Alud. We are not needing books. Scrawls on pages are meaning nothing to us. What we need is the knowledge of one versed in war. Shai-Alud, that person is you."
Marcus sat back, seeing the same desperate desire reflected in the large armored rat that stood at attention behind the priestly one. Meanwhile, his stomach cried out at him to never accept a drink from ratmen again.
He might have said something, but Marcus was too preoccupied with something else. Something Mari had said just before all this madness:
Look – it's you that's the most important thing here.
He sighed deeply, looking down at his shaking hands.
"Mari…"
His hand then flew to touch the lice-ridden paw of the rat.
"If I help you," he said. "Could you send me back?"
The priestly Deekius hesitated. But it was the armored brute that spoke for him.
"Deekius will do as the Shai-Alud commands," he barked. "If there is being a way to send you home – he shall work until his back is broken to find it!"
The ratman stared angrily at his companion, but Marcus wasn't satisfied.
"I want your word, rat," he said. "If promises mean anything to your kind."
"SIRE!" the commander of the shield wall screeched. "We cannot be holding much longer!"
"HOLD, REDWHISKERS!" The brute shouted with an intensity and bassoon that surprised Marcus. "Retreat, and I will be killing you myself!"
He and the priest then looked back at him.
"Your word, Deekius," Marcus stated.
"I – yes," he murmured. Then, with more feeling: "I give my word I shall give my life to find a way for you to return home if you shall be helping us keep ours!"
Marcus smirked. "I can probably help you win this battle," he said. "But your soldiers will have to listen to me."
The armored brute beat his fist against his chest, taking up his spear and shield with renewed tenacity. "We await your command, Shai-Alud! Tell us where we must strike the enemy!"
"We won't be striking anyone," Marcus replied, matter-of-fact. "Not in this position. Not when you're hemmed in with no ballistics capacity whatsoever."
The rats blinked their confusion at their prophesized savior as more arrows began to sing over their heads.
"Do you have a map?" Marcus asked. In the face of their confused faces, he elaborated, "A drawing of the area. Major paths, any roads, narrow passes, or maybe a larger body of water than what's out there?"
The ratmen looked embarrassingly at one another.
"We are not being artists, Sire."
Marcus tutted. "Well, you must at least have a camp nearby, right? You said something about getting a message to your king. Where's your destination?"
The armored one understood this time. "Fleapit is being a week's journey away," he explained. "I was leading our Clawpack to Knifegrot fortress when we were attacked by these idiot Kobolds. The fort has many supplies, much food, and many more rats, and is a day's journey away on claw."
Marcus pondered that. A day's journey? With this beleaguered force? It was unlikely they'd make it, even if they made a successful breakout.
But they were dead if they sat here. At least if they kept moving, they'd have a chance.
Staring at the slowly dissolving shield wall, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
"Is there any way to cross the gulch?" Marcus asked. "On either our right or left flank?"
Skeever replied without hesitation, "I know these tunnels like the back of my claw, Sire. There are being two bridges at either end of Black Gulch. They're being rickety and old, but they can hold troops."
Marcus considered this. But he scrounged for more info:
"Do these Kobolds have any units specialized in CQC?"*
Again, the rats merely blinked up at him.
"Do…do they have swords for stabbing," he said slowly. "Or big spears like you?"
"Hah!" the big guy scoffed. "Kobolds are cowards, Sire. They strike from afar, always picking away at us as we move. They are not strong like us!" he beat a fist against his chest again.
Marcus nodded. A homogenous force composition was their weakness, then. They relied on a single tactic, probably betraying the simplistic nature of warfare in this underground waste.
Slowly, a plan began to form in Marcus' head.
"Shai-Alud?" Deekius asked. "If we are not to attack now, then what are we to do?"
"The only smart thing we can do," Marcus told the rat-priest. "We're going to run away."
____________________________________________________________________________________________
*Close-Quarters Combat
-Sun Tzu
Marcus looked down upon the swathe of hunched, humanoid rats that surrounded him, staring at his naked body like it was the body of a God.
And once more he shouted the only words his mind could conjure:
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"
Around him was a dark basalt cave that looked like it was on the verge of collapse – pieces of the conal stalactites above were shaking as projectiles hammered off them – arrows and makeshift bullets that Marcus had to duck to avoid.
His voice shook the creatures before him to their core, and only one of them – the filthy looking one with a staff topped by the horned skull of one of its own – dared to step towards him.
"We are being sorry, Shai-Alud, for calling upon you without warning. But our lives are being in danger, and we must be returning to Fleapit tonight to deliver vital information to King Shrykul."
"We – we were being desperate, Sire," another filthy rat chimed in as it saw Marcus' disgusted face. This one was clad in grime-soaked steel and held himself above the others. He was at least twice the size of the tiny rodent with the staff who called him 'Shai-Alud.'
"We know you must be confused," he continued. "But we cannot afford to wait here. Answers will be given after the battle is won!"
"Confused!?" Marcus railed. "That's an understatement! You're a talking rat!"
The ratlings all shared a confused look at eachother.
"We thought the human kingdoms of the surface are all having heard of us."
"You! You…" Marcus trailed off. He suddenly remembered the last sight he saw before he was transported here – that of Mari's blood-soaked face trembling in the dark.
"Let me out of here," he demanded. "Now."
The robed rat moved forward. "Shai-Alud, we cannot be-"
Marcus pushed past him, ignoring his excuses, and eventually collided with the tatling sheild wall.
"Let me pass!"
One of the rats – a skittish-looking fellow with red-tipped whiskers - turned his head and squeaked, "We cannot be doing this, Sire! The Kobolds will swarm us!"
Kobolds…
"Get out of my way!"
Marcus shoved himself into the shield wall – four rats deep, each man holding against what he now saw was a hail of arrows and bolts that hammered the shields of those at the front. He observed the ratlings shift and move back, the row behind then replacing the front row, giving the latter line time to recover.
They were like living shock absorbers, Marcus mused. But as he pushed passed another ratguard and saw who their enemy was, he realized that they had no chance of holding out.
They were positioned at the mouth of a cave that overlooked a streaming gulch, filled to the brim with oozing green water (or at least, Marcus assumed it was water). On the other side of the gulch lay a horde of yipping red demons firing arrow after arrow at the ratling's position, harrying them with impunity and crying out a flurry of taunts Marcus didn't understand.
He stepped back, slowly, and the ranks closed up behind him, before he finally bumped into the big rat-man again.
"You see, Shai-Alud," the creature said. "We are needing your help. We cannot survive like this."
Marcus's eyes were starting to adjust to the grim situation he saw around him. Slowly he came to see the dying and dead rats that lay littered across the cave floor, their bodies riddled with arrow shafts, their eyes filled with festering maggots.
"This…this is a dream," Marcus said, rubbing his eyes forcefully. "This – yeah – I'm dreaming, right? I have to be."
His train of thought was abruptly interrupted by the big rat lunging towards him.
"Shai-Alud!"
He felt something grave the top of his head before he hit the ground, the huge rat bearing down on top of him.
The arrow that had just missed the back of his skull embedded itself in the far wall of the cave.
And Marcus was forced to concede that the sting of the projectile as it flew by the tips of his split end hairs was all too real.
"The barking demons dare to attack Shai-Alud!" The robed rat howled. "They shall taste of his vengeance! Sire, be giving us your direction. Be telling us your plan!"
Marcus blinked as the massive rat hauled him to his feet. "Plan?"
"Indeed, great Shail-Alud! It is said that He-Who-Festers will summon to us a champion who's power shall be knowledge. A champion that shall be plucked from the realm of Gods and take the shape of a human man. A champion who shall be guiding us out of the long night of our suffering and usher in a new era for the Under-Kingdom! A champion with the same scent as our kind!"
Marcus bristled at that last bit. But, well, he had to admit that he did stink.
If not showering this morning was what contributed to him being summoned to another world, he was beginning to understand why most protagonists of those Isekai works he'd heard about were often children whose IQ approached that of a refrigerator's.
"You…selfish, arrogant little creatures!" Marcus yelled. "You have no idea what you've done to me! My – I had a life back there! I had a girl…I had my…my work!"
He collapsed into himself like a bundle of falling cards, covering his face in his hands.
"My book.." he murmured. "My manuscript – all my notes – gone…"
The Rat-men looked to each other, unsure of how to proceed.
"Deekius," the big one mumbled. "Are you being sure that this one is…"
The robed rat looked at his companion long and hard before returning his dark gaze to Marcus. His eyes were small, with slitted pupils that more resembled those of a snake than those of a rat's.
As more cries of torment were heard from the shield wall, Deekius eventually produced a cup from beneath his robes and filled it with water from the surrounding cave floor. He then placed his claw over it and intoned a word that was lost to Marcus' ears.
What wasn't lost, however, was the hot cloud of steam that started to rise from the cup, and he suddenly became aware that he was indeed in a world where magic could course through the veins of even a creature as lowly as this.
Deekius handed the cup to Marcus and then placed a putrid hand on his shoulder.
"Shai-Alud," he said. "If it is my life you are wishing to take for my impertinent summons, I will be giving you it once this battle is won."
Marcus looked up at the ratman's dim eyes and saw the blind belief in him that shimmered behind them.
"I was not wishing to destroy your place in your realm," he went on. "I am being but a groveling priest of He-Who-Festers. I cannot be imagining how worshipped you are among your fellow spirits."
Marcus scoffed in spite of everything, taking a timid sip of the drink that had been offered to him. If only this dung-eating rat knew what his life back home was really like…
"But we are needing you, Shai-Alud. We are not needing books. Scrawls on pages are meaning nothing to us. What we need is the knowledge of one versed in war. Shai-Alud, that person is you."
Marcus sat back, seeing the same desperate desire reflected in the large armored rat that stood at attention behind the priestly one. Meanwhile, his stomach cried out at him to never accept a drink from ratmen again.
He might have said something, but Marcus was too preoccupied with something else. Something Mari had said just before all this madness:
Look – it's you that's the most important thing here.
He sighed deeply, looking down at his shaking hands.
"Mari…"
His hand then flew to touch the lice-ridden paw of the rat.
"If I help you," he said. "Could you send me back?"
The priestly Deekius hesitated. But it was the armored brute that spoke for him.
"Deekius will do as the Shai-Alud commands," he barked. "If there is being a way to send you home – he shall work until his back is broken to find it!"
The ratman stared angrily at his companion, but Marcus wasn't satisfied.
"I want your word, rat," he said. "If promises mean anything to your kind."
"SIRE!" the commander of the shield wall screeched. "We cannot be holding much longer!"
"HOLD, REDWHISKERS!" The brute shouted with an intensity and bassoon that surprised Marcus. "Retreat, and I will be killing you myself!"
He and the priest then looked back at him.
"Your word, Deekius," Marcus stated.
"I – yes," he murmured. Then, with more feeling: "I give my word I shall give my life to find a way for you to return home if you shall be helping us keep ours!"
Marcus smirked. "I can probably help you win this battle," he said. "But your soldiers will have to listen to me."
The armored brute beat his fist against his chest, taking up his spear and shield with renewed tenacity. "We await your command, Shai-Alud! Tell us where we must strike the enemy!"
"We won't be striking anyone," Marcus replied, matter-of-fact. "Not in this position. Not when you're hemmed in with no ballistics capacity whatsoever."
The rats blinked their confusion at their prophesized savior as more arrows began to sing over their heads.
"Do you have a map?" Marcus asked. In the face of their confused faces, he elaborated, "A drawing of the area. Major paths, any roads, narrow passes, or maybe a larger body of water than what's out there?"
The ratmen looked embarrassingly at one another.
"We are not being artists, Sire."
Marcus tutted. "Well, you must at least have a camp nearby, right? You said something about getting a message to your king. Where's your destination?"
The armored one understood this time. "Fleapit is being a week's journey away," he explained. "I was leading our Clawpack to Knifegrot fortress when we were attacked by these idiot Kobolds. The fort has many supplies, much food, and many more rats, and is a day's journey away on claw."
Marcus pondered that. A day's journey? With this beleaguered force? It was unlikely they'd make it, even if they made a successful breakout.
But they were dead if they sat here. At least if they kept moving, they'd have a chance.
Staring at the slowly dissolving shield wall, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
"Is there any way to cross the gulch?" Marcus asked. "On either our right or left flank?"
Skeever replied without hesitation, "I know these tunnels like the back of my claw, Sire. There are being two bridges at either end of Black Gulch. They're being rickety and old, but they can hold troops."
Marcus considered this. But he scrounged for more info:
"Do these Kobolds have any units specialized in CQC?"*
Again, the rats merely blinked up at him.
"Do…do they have swords for stabbing," he said slowly. "Or big spears like you?"
"Hah!" the big guy scoffed. "Kobolds are cowards, Sire. They strike from afar, always picking away at us as we move. They are not strong like us!" he beat a fist against his chest again.
Marcus nodded. A homogenous force composition was their weakness, then. They relied on a single tactic, probably betraying the simplistic nature of warfare in this underground waste.
Slowly, a plan began to form in Marcus' head.
"Shai-Alud?" Deekius asked. "If we are not to attack now, then what are we to do?"
"The only smart thing we can do," Marcus told the rat-priest. "We're going to run away."
____________________________________________________________________________________________
*Close-Quarters Combat
Chapter 4
"You can't win a war lying down"
- George S. Patton
Marcus looked up at the faces of the two ratlings in the aftermath of his revelation.
They looked like he'd just slapped them both with a wet fish.
"Don't mistake me for ordering a withdrawal," he said. "This is more of a feigned retreat than anything else."
"Shai-Alud?" the hulking rat commander asked. "How are we to run when their arrows don't stop flying?"
"Call me Marcus," Marcus replied. "If we're going to fight together, we might as well know each other's names."
The great rat stiffened, clamping his chest again in what might be some kind of salute. "I am Skeever-Steelclaw, fourth Talon-Commander of the Crimson-Eye Clan."
Marcus nodded. He had some pride about him, for a creature that smelled of fly-covered faeces.
Then again, that might be Marcus' own scent.
"You know my name, Sire," Deekius said. "But to the question of our running, this is not how we ratlings under the watchful eyes of He-Who-Festers make war."
"You wanted the wisdom of your great summoned hero," Marcus said with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. "There it is. We're going to run."
As both creatures seemed to sink further into despair, Marcus explained further.
"But like I say, 'feigned retreat' would be a better way of putting it. We break through the enemy's hold and reposition ourselves so that we can make one decisive strike at the enemy. Right now, we're trapped, but we have something the enemy doesn't."
Both ratling's ears perked up.
"You said it yourself, Skeever," Marcus went on. "Your soldiers are tough, and they're armored. They've clearly got some discipline about them, probably owing to your bassy voice. I'd reckon you could tell them to jump into that evil looking gulch and they'd probably do it."
Skeever coughed. "He-Who-Festers would not be looking favorably on that, Sire."
"I'm sure," Marcus chuckled. "But I'm also sure your God wants his followers to live, right? So, here's what we're going to do."
Marcus sat down and began drawing in the wet, mud-caked ground of the cave, aware that the shield wall could buckle at any moment, and that lives were on the line. But he had to go through his plan. In cases like these, total understanding was needed by all military leaders, and he got the impression these two were often at eachothers throats even though they clearly served the historically synergistic roles of battlefield commander and priest. If he could get them both to understand what their troops had to do, and back him up completely, then these rats would have both martial prowess and the fanatical fervor religious zealots were often able to inspire in their troops. You didn't have to be a man of faith to see that. Such unity of purpose was one of the best force multipliers an army could maintain – it could double the worth of every man in a single unit.
"Alright," he said. "By my count we have 30 spearmen to work with. That's good enough for us to split them into two units of 15 and form each into a Testudo Formation.*"
"Testudo?" Skeever inquired.
"A tight, mobile, and defensive column," Marcus explained, drawing a crude diagram in the sand of stick-figure soldiers with their shields held high over each others' heads. "At the vanguard, the shields are kept at arm level, and every other rank within the formation keeps their shield raised over their heads to grant protection to the group from aerial attacks. Used correctly, this will minimize our casualties as each unit moves down the gulch."
Skeever rubbed his hairy chin. "By He-Who-Festers…" he said. "I am never having heard of this."
"As to our plan of attack – we're facing a force made up entirely of archers that far outnumbers ours. The best way to strike at them would be with a pincer move, after we've disrupted their visibility."
Marcus reconfigured his crude diagram, pointing out the stages of the plan that was slowly forming in his head.
"We each lead one force towards both bridges, cross them, and then attack the enemy force from their flanks."
"Such is the knowledge of the Shai-Alud," Deekius said excitedly as he followed Marcus' sketching fingers. "The teachings of Greyrax himself could not even compare. But it is remaining to be said: what is this you say about disrupting their visibility?"
Marcus looked up at the wondering priest.
"A bowman that can't see can't fire reliably. And, luckily for us, we've got a nice body of water between us and them."
Both rats blinked at the human again.
"So?" they chimed.
"So?" Marcus said with a smirk. "You've already got the answer, Deekius. You showed me it when you boiled me my drink."
Both rats watched as he raised his putrid water cup and took a hearty swill of the vile liquid again. It went down with a vile aftertaste, but then what did he expect of dung eating rats? Magic milkshakes?
Eventually, both talking vermin realized what he meant.
"By Greyrax," Skeever whispered. "It – it just might be working!"
Deekius raised his staff and bowed his head.
"Such is the knowledge of the Shai-Alud. He knows us better than we are knowing ourselves…"
The ratmen stared in wonder at their pondering God, until the cries of Redwhiskers could no longer be ignored.
"TALON-COMMANDER!" he bellowed. "WHAT IS YOUR ORDER!?"
Skeever stood to attention. "We will be executing the first part of your plan, Shai-Alud. I will lead the left flank, Deekius, you go with Marcus to lead the right."
Putting me under the protection of your priest, huh? Marcus moaned within his mind as Skeever turned and belted out a shrill order to his troops.
"ALRIGHT, YOU SOAP-SWALLOWING SWINE! Be hearing the voice of the Shai-Alud! From now on, we are following his lead. Testudo formation – now!"
When his men cast bemused looks back at him, he railed against them as though he hadn't just literally heard of this himself mere seconds ago.
"ARE YOUR EARS STUCK WITH THE RAGGED BEARDS OF DWARVES!?" he bellowed. "Front rank and back ranks, be maintaining position. Rest of you, shields up! We are MOVING!"
Deekius shoved something into Marcus' arms before the latter could even complain about it.
"Be taking these, Sire Marcus," the priest said. "Robes from my fallen apprentice and a spare shield from one of our brothers shot down. If you are to be coming with us, you will be having the protection of both our steel and our faith."
"Gee, thanks," Marcus groaned, slipping into the tight-fitting robe, still sticky with blood. The shield, meanwhile, was tiny compared to him – maneuverable, sure, but barely larger than a buckler."
Skeever split up the force and got them into formation quickly as more and more projectiles pelted their position.
"Do not be afraid, Sire," Deekius said as they rushed to join the troops. "We are being the chosen ones – the vanguard of a new era for the Under-kingdom! We have the protection of He-Who-Festers with us on this day!"
"Great," Marcus replied as he slotted himself in the Testudo on the right flank and hunkered down. "Because we're going to need it."
…
Gith loved the smell of dying ratman.
Ever since he was a child sucking on his mother's sixth teat, he had listened to stories of how his fourteenth daddy had shoved his stabbing knife in old Grayrax himself back in…uh…a big fight that went down…somewhere. He'd smiled as the black ooze of his mother's milk had run down his mouth and thought about chasing daddy's tail one day and cutting up a whole bunch of ratmen till their bellies spilled out.
He had no idea it would feel this good.
"We kill-kill!" he said for the fourteenth time since their attack had begun. "We kill-kill big rats slow-slow! We make 'em bleed! Yes! Bleeeeeeeed!"
Gith had never been respected much by his peers, or the new Big Boss that these bad rats had stolen from. So, when the Big Boss had ordered all the hunting yips to close those ratmen's bad eyes forever and bring him the head of the big one – Skeevin, or something - Gith had ventured out with excitement. But he'd never expected to find them, broken and beaten, on the edge of big dark Black Gulch, where it is said the yippers can never jump, and where the waters themselves can eat you up and turn you inside out.
No, he thought to himself. No water. No jumping. No fuss. We sit here and shoot at rats till they dead. If they surrender, we shoot them in their eyes! Yes-yes! We kill 'em all, we ki-"
"Gith-Gith!" one of the bow-yippers squeeked. "Bad rats come out-out!"
Gith's toothy smile stretched his face beyond healthy proportions.
"They go mad-mad!" he cried, performing the war-jump of battle victory. "Now they die-die! Now they-"
He looked closer at something that shone in the distance. There were two different clumps of rats now, and they sparked like a big box of shiny steel. Gith's men looked on in confusion as they aimed their arrows at where the ratmen's heads should be and saw them instead knock harmlessly off their shields.
"Gith-Gith!" one yipper cried. "What we do? The silly rat men wear shields like hats!"
"Fool!" Gith roared, his toes slamming into the ground as he performed the rebuke-jump of idiocy. "We hit them in their toes, we hit them in their arms, we aim for smelly rat-flesh! We keep hitting them!"
One of the dumb rats scurried out ahead of the two columns of shining steel tipped with spears, and he was nothing but an old bag of wrinkles and bones.
"Him!" Gith squealed. "Hit him! Hit him! Kill-Ki-!"
Gith's voice was cut off as the ugly rat pounded the ground of the opposite gulch ridge with his wooden staff, and shouted one single word that send a chill running up Gith's bones.
"ARVOK PATURZ!"
A surge of energy pulsed from the dirty rodent's staff, and Gith instinctly felt his knees begin to shake.
His men stopped their firing and looked down at their naked hides, checking for any sign of injury.
And Gith, to show them he had no fear, called out to the doomed little ratling.
"Stupid rat! Was that supposed ta hu-"
The waters of the gulch suddenly began to bubble beneath their feet, a sound like air being sucked through a million teeth pierced the ears of every kobold, and in the next second the waters belched out a cloud that covered the entire ridge.
"EEK!" the frontlines of Gith's hunting pack screamed. "Head-Yip! We can't see! We – where have the rats gone?!"
The cloud enveloped the entire hunting squad, searing into their eyes and making them well up with tears.
Rat man trickery! Gith bellowed in his tiny brain. He would have their furry heads for this!
"QUIET!" Gith yelped, jumping around like a madman and tearing one slingshot away from a shaking yipper beside him. He tried to keep himself from showing the fear that was welling up in his heart. He tried to listen for the rats if he could not see them, but his dumb yips wouldn't stop their shouting!
"SHUT UP!" he squealed to the obscured heavens. "AND KEEP FIRING!"
"…at what, Head-yi-"
"JUST FIRE!" Gith screamed, smashing his fist into the insolent yip who dared to question him. "FIRE FIRE FIRRRRRREEEE!"
And without another word, that's exactly what the steam-covered Kobolds did.
- George S. Patton
Marcus looked up at the faces of the two ratlings in the aftermath of his revelation.
They looked like he'd just slapped them both with a wet fish.
"Don't mistake me for ordering a withdrawal," he said. "This is more of a feigned retreat than anything else."
"Shai-Alud?" the hulking rat commander asked. "How are we to run when their arrows don't stop flying?"
"Call me Marcus," Marcus replied. "If we're going to fight together, we might as well know each other's names."
The great rat stiffened, clamping his chest again in what might be some kind of salute. "I am Skeever-Steelclaw, fourth Talon-Commander of the Crimson-Eye Clan."
Marcus nodded. He had some pride about him, for a creature that smelled of fly-covered faeces.
Then again, that might be Marcus' own scent.
"You know my name, Sire," Deekius said. "But to the question of our running, this is not how we ratlings under the watchful eyes of He-Who-Festers make war."
"You wanted the wisdom of your great summoned hero," Marcus said with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. "There it is. We're going to run."
As both creatures seemed to sink further into despair, Marcus explained further.
"But like I say, 'feigned retreat' would be a better way of putting it. We break through the enemy's hold and reposition ourselves so that we can make one decisive strike at the enemy. Right now, we're trapped, but we have something the enemy doesn't."
Both ratling's ears perked up.
"You said it yourself, Skeever," Marcus went on. "Your soldiers are tough, and they're armored. They've clearly got some discipline about them, probably owing to your bassy voice. I'd reckon you could tell them to jump into that evil looking gulch and they'd probably do it."
Skeever coughed. "He-Who-Festers would not be looking favorably on that, Sire."
"I'm sure," Marcus chuckled. "But I'm also sure your God wants his followers to live, right? So, here's what we're going to do."
Marcus sat down and began drawing in the wet, mud-caked ground of the cave, aware that the shield wall could buckle at any moment, and that lives were on the line. But he had to go through his plan. In cases like these, total understanding was needed by all military leaders, and he got the impression these two were often at eachothers throats even though they clearly served the historically synergistic roles of battlefield commander and priest. If he could get them both to understand what their troops had to do, and back him up completely, then these rats would have both martial prowess and the fanatical fervor religious zealots were often able to inspire in their troops. You didn't have to be a man of faith to see that. Such unity of purpose was one of the best force multipliers an army could maintain – it could double the worth of every man in a single unit.
"Alright," he said. "By my count we have 30 spearmen to work with. That's good enough for us to split them into two units of 15 and form each into a Testudo Formation.*"
"Testudo?" Skeever inquired.
"A tight, mobile, and defensive column," Marcus explained, drawing a crude diagram in the sand of stick-figure soldiers with their shields held high over each others' heads. "At the vanguard, the shields are kept at arm level, and every other rank within the formation keeps their shield raised over their heads to grant protection to the group from aerial attacks. Used correctly, this will minimize our casualties as each unit moves down the gulch."
Skeever rubbed his hairy chin. "By He-Who-Festers…" he said. "I am never having heard of this."
"As to our plan of attack – we're facing a force made up entirely of archers that far outnumbers ours. The best way to strike at them would be with a pincer move, after we've disrupted their visibility."
Marcus reconfigured his crude diagram, pointing out the stages of the plan that was slowly forming in his head.
"We each lead one force towards both bridges, cross them, and then attack the enemy force from their flanks."
"Such is the knowledge of the Shai-Alud," Deekius said excitedly as he followed Marcus' sketching fingers. "The teachings of Greyrax himself could not even compare. But it is remaining to be said: what is this you say about disrupting their visibility?"
Marcus looked up at the wondering priest.
"A bowman that can't see can't fire reliably. And, luckily for us, we've got a nice body of water between us and them."
Both rats blinked at the human again.
"So?" they chimed.
"So?" Marcus said with a smirk. "You've already got the answer, Deekius. You showed me it when you boiled me my drink."
Both rats watched as he raised his putrid water cup and took a hearty swill of the vile liquid again. It went down with a vile aftertaste, but then what did he expect of dung eating rats? Magic milkshakes?
Eventually, both talking vermin realized what he meant.
"By Greyrax," Skeever whispered. "It – it just might be working!"
Deekius raised his staff and bowed his head.
"Such is the knowledge of the Shai-Alud. He knows us better than we are knowing ourselves…"
The ratmen stared in wonder at their pondering God, until the cries of Redwhiskers could no longer be ignored.
"TALON-COMMANDER!" he bellowed. "WHAT IS YOUR ORDER!?"
Skeever stood to attention. "We will be executing the first part of your plan, Shai-Alud. I will lead the left flank, Deekius, you go with Marcus to lead the right."
Putting me under the protection of your priest, huh? Marcus moaned within his mind as Skeever turned and belted out a shrill order to his troops.
"ALRIGHT, YOU SOAP-SWALLOWING SWINE! Be hearing the voice of the Shai-Alud! From now on, we are following his lead. Testudo formation – now!"
When his men cast bemused looks back at him, he railed against them as though he hadn't just literally heard of this himself mere seconds ago.
"ARE YOUR EARS STUCK WITH THE RAGGED BEARDS OF DWARVES!?" he bellowed. "Front rank and back ranks, be maintaining position. Rest of you, shields up! We are MOVING!"
Deekius shoved something into Marcus' arms before the latter could even complain about it.
"Be taking these, Sire Marcus," the priest said. "Robes from my fallen apprentice and a spare shield from one of our brothers shot down. If you are to be coming with us, you will be having the protection of both our steel and our faith."
"Gee, thanks," Marcus groaned, slipping into the tight-fitting robe, still sticky with blood. The shield, meanwhile, was tiny compared to him – maneuverable, sure, but barely larger than a buckler."
Skeever split up the force and got them into formation quickly as more and more projectiles pelted their position.
"Do not be afraid, Sire," Deekius said as they rushed to join the troops. "We are being the chosen ones – the vanguard of a new era for the Under-kingdom! We have the protection of He-Who-Festers with us on this day!"
"Great," Marcus replied as he slotted himself in the Testudo on the right flank and hunkered down. "Because we're going to need it."
…
Gith loved the smell of dying ratman.
Ever since he was a child sucking on his mother's sixth teat, he had listened to stories of how his fourteenth daddy had shoved his stabbing knife in old Grayrax himself back in…uh…a big fight that went down…somewhere. He'd smiled as the black ooze of his mother's milk had run down his mouth and thought about chasing daddy's tail one day and cutting up a whole bunch of ratmen till their bellies spilled out.
He had no idea it would feel this good.
"We kill-kill!" he said for the fourteenth time since their attack had begun. "We kill-kill big rats slow-slow! We make 'em bleed! Yes! Bleeeeeeeed!"
Gith had never been respected much by his peers, or the new Big Boss that these bad rats had stolen from. So, when the Big Boss had ordered all the hunting yips to close those ratmen's bad eyes forever and bring him the head of the big one – Skeevin, or something - Gith had ventured out with excitement. But he'd never expected to find them, broken and beaten, on the edge of big dark Black Gulch, where it is said the yippers can never jump, and where the waters themselves can eat you up and turn you inside out.
No, he thought to himself. No water. No jumping. No fuss. We sit here and shoot at rats till they dead. If they surrender, we shoot them in their eyes! Yes-yes! We kill 'em all, we ki-"
"Gith-Gith!" one of the bow-yippers squeeked. "Bad rats come out-out!"
Gith's toothy smile stretched his face beyond healthy proportions.
"They go mad-mad!" he cried, performing the war-jump of battle victory. "Now they die-die! Now they-"
He looked closer at something that shone in the distance. There were two different clumps of rats now, and they sparked like a big box of shiny steel. Gith's men looked on in confusion as they aimed their arrows at where the ratmen's heads should be and saw them instead knock harmlessly off their shields.
"Gith-Gith!" one yipper cried. "What we do? The silly rat men wear shields like hats!"
"Fool!" Gith roared, his toes slamming into the ground as he performed the rebuke-jump of idiocy. "We hit them in their toes, we hit them in their arms, we aim for smelly rat-flesh! We keep hitting them!"
One of the dumb rats scurried out ahead of the two columns of shining steel tipped with spears, and he was nothing but an old bag of wrinkles and bones.
"Him!" Gith squealed. "Hit him! Hit him! Kill-Ki-!"
Gith's voice was cut off as the ugly rat pounded the ground of the opposite gulch ridge with his wooden staff, and shouted one single word that send a chill running up Gith's bones.
"ARVOK PATURZ!"
A surge of energy pulsed from the dirty rodent's staff, and Gith instinctly felt his knees begin to shake.
His men stopped their firing and looked down at their naked hides, checking for any sign of injury.
And Gith, to show them he had no fear, called out to the doomed little ratling.
"Stupid rat! Was that supposed ta hu-"
The waters of the gulch suddenly began to bubble beneath their feet, a sound like air being sucked through a million teeth pierced the ears of every kobold, and in the next second the waters belched out a cloud that covered the entire ridge.
"EEK!" the frontlines of Gith's hunting pack screamed. "Head-Yip! We can't see! We – where have the rats gone?!"
The cloud enveloped the entire hunting squad, searing into their eyes and making them well up with tears.
Rat man trickery! Gith bellowed in his tiny brain. He would have their furry heads for this!
"QUIET!" Gith yelped, jumping around like a madman and tearing one slingshot away from a shaking yipper beside him. He tried to keep himself from showing the fear that was welling up in his heart. He tried to listen for the rats if he could not see them, but his dumb yips wouldn't stop their shouting!
"SHUT UP!" he squealed to the obscured heavens. "AND KEEP FIRING!"
"…at what, Head-yi-"
"JUST FIRE!" Gith screamed, smashing his fist into the insolent yip who dared to question him. "FIRE FIRE FIRRRRRREEEE!"
And without another word, that's exactly what the steam-covered Kobolds did.
Chapter 5
The only good Kobold is a dead Kobold
- Greyrax Redpaw
Shit.
It was the only word that came to Marcus' mind as he crouch-ran within his Testudo-column, desperately hoping against all hopes that his flimsy shield would be enough to protect him against the storm of arrows coming their way.
The ridge had all but vanished – replaced by a hazy steam-cloud that Deekius' spell of heating had managed to produce. It provided the perfect cover, but Marcus knew there would be casualties even with its protection.
"Priest!" he called out to the shambling robed rat that was bringing up the rear of the formation. "You stay close to me."
He wasn't about to have his only ticket out of here kick the bucket so early.
"I am with you, Sire!" Deekius roared above the din of the cackling troops as they approached the bridge over the Gulch that would take them to the Kobold army's left flank.
Marcus felt the reverb of arrows and pellets bounce of his shield and forced his arms to hold steady. He'd only ever been involved in reenactments – mostly of US Civil War engagements – and aside from the occasional trip to the Renfaire when it came through town, he wasn't exactly accustomed to using a shield as a shock absorber.
Even if this one was little more than a toy by human standards.
The ratlings kept up the Testudo with a surprising level of discipline, even managing to maintain their ranks as they turned and made the crossing over the steam-caked bridge, and Marcus felt it quiver under their weight.
"Forward!" Deekius cried. "In the name of He-Who-Festers! For King Shrykul, and for the Shai-Alud!"
"THE SHAI-ALUD!" the column cried. "SHAI-ALUD!"
Marcus closed his eyes and willed his legs to continue forward as the hail of arrows grew denser by the second. He could tell they were unfocused – that the enemy had utterly lost its line of sight and probably their morale judging by the wild trajectories of their projectiles. Yet still, the logical part of his brain balked at what was happening, right now – of him running like a madman in a column of spear-wielding giant rats that were worshipping him like he was some kind of deity – a hero sent to them by their malodorous God to guide them into battle.
As Marcus through the steam cloud and saw tiny, knife-eared shadows appear in front of the column, he realized that if he wanted to make sense of any of this – if he wanted a way back home – he'd have to throw himself into the part.
Think – what would Hannibal have said at the Battle of Canne when his pincers slammed into the Roman defense? How would he have inspired his troops?
As the running became even more fervent, and the ratmen at the front more agitated than ever, Marcus threw off his shield and bellowed his command:
"Close ranks!" he called. "Front-Guard, shields up! Second row, spears down!"
The ratlings did as they were bid, even though Marcus could sense the desire to charge forward.
The first kobolds to see them screamed, their arrows flying wide or dinging pathetically off the shields of the front guard.
"Advance!" Marcus shouted. "Maintain speed!"
"This is being a moment that shall be written in history!" Deekius chuckled manically, his beady eyes and tatty tail twitching in anticipation.
By this point, the mouths of the ratlings in the column were practically salivating. They crept towards the kobolds flank, while the latter fought the overwhelming desire to scarper and flee.
Then they turned, hearing the death knells of their friends on the right flank, signaling to Marcus that Skeever had already smashed into their formation.
He looked into the tiny, wavering eyes of the kobold archers, breathed deep, and delivered his last command:
"CHARGE!"
The force with which the ratling's spears thrust out almost knocked Marcus off his feet. He heard the first Kobold's scream before his eyes caught up to the carnage. The Testudo column balked, stalled, and then the rat's heaved to, dragging their impaled victims away and shaking them off the tips of their bloodied weapons. Their tiny bodies dripped away in eviscerated chunks, leaving twitching corpses under their feet.
"Ratguard of Shrykul!" Deekius roared above the din of the Kobold archers' screams. "HEAVE!"
"HO-RAH-HAH!"
On the last syllable of their chant the column thrust in again, tearing through the Kobold army's left flank which by this point had all but collapsed. Many of the little critters simply threw their arrows and bows to the ground and started running as the column of living thorns pushed towards them.
Marcus watched the chaos unfold with awestruck eyes. He saw the Kobolds bodies buckle and crumble as the ratling's spears pierced their bloated bellies, spilling blood and ichor across the basalt ground so that Marcus had to watch his footing. A river of dark crimson now flowed beneath his feet.
"Gom-Yip save us!" came the terrified cries of the Kobolds from deeper within the beleaguered army's ranks as they tried running in the opposite direction only to be impaled on the spears of Skeever and his detachment. Slowly but surely, both rat-filled Testudos pushed forward, hemming in the enemy's dwindling forces.
Marcus saw some stragglers jump into the gulch below, taking their chances with the dark waters that still bubbled beneath their feet. A few managed to break out from their haphazard formation and sprint passed the column, and Marcus saw the bloodthirsty red of the front-line's eyes light up.
"HOLD!" he yelled. "L-let them go!"
Marcus could feel his bowels start to lurch at the sights and – and the smells.
The smells were the worst part.
"Obey the Shai-Alud!" Deekius shouted, frantically waving his staff beside Marcus. "Let the weaklings flee! Our kinsmen back home are being hungry!"
Amidst the laughter of the ratpack, they thrust their spears in again.
"HO-RAH-HAH!"
Marcus watched as Kobold after Kobold fell before the spears, which were by this point coming away from their foes chunked with intestine and torn limbs. He grimaced as his foot slipped into something slimy and he realized, with mute horror, that he'd just stepped into what remained of a Kobold's innards.
The little red creature flailed beneath him and then lay still, its razor teeth finally closing and its tiny limbs falling to the ground, all life squeezed from them.
And Marcus was forced to make the realization that he had just taken his first life.
As the shock of the moment, compounded by the scents and screams of the dying and the dead filled his entire being, his attention was drawn to one Kobold at the center of the ruined army. One who was still barking orders, knocking heads, standing back-to-back with what remained of his meagre troops as they brandished their tiny, rusted daggers at the advancing columns.
"STOP!"
The command was Marcus', and though it drew a look of agitation from the ratguard and their gore-strewn implements, they obeyed just as they encircled the last of the Kobolds who had not quit the field.
"Sire?" Deekius chittered. "Why do we halt? The battle is almost won!"
Marcus looked at the timid, trembling creatures that remained. They were a pack of ten – three of them already limping where a spear tip had wrenched through their knee-joints. They stood shuddering together, their dull knives practically shaking in their hands.
"The battle is won, Deekius," he said wearily. "You've no need dull your blades any further."
At seeing the lull in their attack, one of them – the one at their center – climbed atop the shoulders of two of them and wailed through a spittle-filled mouth:
"NASTY, EVIL RATS! YOU CHEAT! YOU CHEAT! YOU BRING HUMIE TO UNDER-FIGHT! YOU NO HONOR! NO HONOR!"
The creature jumped around like he was possessed by a spirit of madness, and Marcus found himself reeling back with disgust.
"GITH FIX! YES-YES! GITH FIX YOU ALL GOOD! YOU FIGHT GITH NOW! YIP TO MAN!"
"He is being a crazy one, Sire," Deekius whispered. "Crazier than usual for Kobold. He is being their leader."
Marcus looked from the insane little red man to the…slightly…less insane…furry man.
"He's their leader?"
Marcus swallowed his wounded pride. He had no right to feel any source of triumph over defeating the army of this child.
"GITH IS MIGHTIEST OF ALL YIPS! GITH's YIP SHALL ECHO THROUGH THE UNDER-KINGDOM! SPAWN AN ARMY OF YOUNGLINGS AND CRUSH-CRUSH ALL SMELL RAT MEN! GITH WILL KILL-KILL THEM ALL! HE WILL KILL! HE WILL KILL! HE WILL…"
Marcus caught the flashes of fear that were hidden behind the faces of this 'Gith's' remaining soldiers – if the little naked demons could even be called that.
His gut told him that putting the beasts to the knife would satisfy some tiny part of him that saw them as the horde of hate back home, in that college theatre, with the evangelical Steven Barenz whipping them up into a storm at their heads.
But these little beasts…now that the tides had turned, there was no malice in them. There was fear, and fear alone.
"GITH WILL FEAST ON YOUR EYEBALLS! HE WILL BRING YOU TO BIG BOSS AND BE REWARDED!"
"Sire," Deekius said, his tongue practically slavering. "Your orders?"
Marcus ignored his bloodlust and instead looked towards the back of the yipping demon. The fog of steam had begun to clear, and Skeevin's bloody form was visible on the other side of the encirclement, his eyes watching Gith's every move, observing every little twitch of his hoofed feet as they jumped in fury.
In his hand gleamed his spear, slowly bending down.
All it took was for their eyes to meet, and Marcus to incline his head but a fraction of an inch.
"GITH SHALL RULE THE UNDER-KINGDOM! GITH WILL TAKE TEETH OF RAT-KING AND WEAR THEM AS TROPHY! GITH WILL –"
Nobody ever found out what Gith's last claim to fame would be. Skeever's spear had found the back of the little demon's throat and pierced it right through, sending the tiny creature flying against the far wall of the gulch and impaling him there.
He gargled, twitched his tiny legs, and then lay still.
And Marcus watched as what remained of his tiny force threw their weapons to the ground and wept at the ratmen's feet, the latter of whom watched the spectacle with utter disbelief. With a mere force of 30-odd men, they had decimated a horde double their size.
He stumbled, overcome by the sudden urge to vomit. His dulled senses began to perceive all that surrounded him – the putrid stench of corpse and unwashed rat merged together, along with that of the Kobold's blood which ran in little rivers down his feet. He would have collapsed without Deekius holding him upright, taking his shaking hand in his claw and throwing it into the air.
"VICTORY!" the rat-priest cried. "PRAISE BE TO HE-WHO-FESTERS! PRAISE BE TO SHAI ALUD!"
"SHAI-ALUD!" the frantic force of rats called out, waving their bloodied spears in the air. "SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD!"
Skeever added his booming bass to their cries too, and Marcus was left stricken with confusion. He looked on every blood-smeared face and saw nothing but savages that he'd led into battle, cementing himself as this prophesized hero they had wanted so badly.
His revulsion, however, would have to wait. He couldn't afford to show weakness now, not in front of creatures like these. So, he let them have his cheers. He let them parade themselves round him. He let them call him whatever name his bloodthirsty little troops liked.
If it brought him one step closer to leaving this hell, then he'd grin and bear it like the best Generals did.
Chapter 6
"Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die"
- Douglas MacArthur
Marcus stared into the crackling bonfire before him, trying to block out the sounds of celebrating rat-men pushing their Kobold prisoners around.
The ratguards had made camp at the end of the so-called Black Gulch just before they entered another tunnel that would take them to Knifegut fort – where Skeever said they could resupply and have safe passage to their capital city of Fleapit, seat of his Clan's power.
Marcus admitted that he was a little curious. An entire colony of humanoid rats lived down here, capable of military discipline and quick learning. They'd taken to the Testudo naturally, and though Deekius insisted their prowess in the battle had been due to his leadership alone, Marcus knew better. Being an effective General meant nothing if his troops weren't flexible, well-equipped, and maintained just the right amount of bloodlust.
Staring sidelong at the ratguard as they chewed on what remained of their kobold captives, Marcus realized that wouldn't be an issue for these creatures.
Skeever suddenly appeared beside him, offering him some vile-looking liquid swirling in an earthen glass.
He took it. When in Rome…
"You are being quiet, Sire Marcus," the rat said with a twitch of his still bloody whiskers. "You are not wishing to celebrate your victory?"
"It was *hic!* your victory more than mine."
Whatever the swill was Skeever had given him, it certainly had a kick to it. He decided he didn't want to ask. To quench the thirst in his gut was all he wanted.
"We would be dying without you!" Skeever railed, slapping a great claw on his back. "You are being too humble. This is not the warrior's way. When the king sees you, he shall be giving you all honors. You shall become war leader to rival Greyrax himself."
Marcus tentatively wondered if these 'honors' were what he wanted at all.
"Where's Deekius?" he asked.
Skeever grimaced. "Bah! The priest is conducting after-battle ritual to praise He-Who-Festers. He is big reason we stop here."
Marcus followed Skeever's eyes till they found the sagging form of the old, robed rat, shaking his staff above one of the captured Kobolds, cutting his own flesh and smearing his crimson blood across the crying creature's forehead.
"You were very clever to spare the last of the Kobolds, Sire," Skeever said. "Now we have captives and can be making good sacrifices to the Lord."
Marcus sighed. He had inadvertently made these beasts believe he was just as debased as they were.
His eyes flitted to them chewing on the innards of the Kobolds corpses they had dragged or carried with them out here, the bonfire throwing their savage shadows across the basalt cave walls.
"Skeever," he suddenly whispered. "I cannot stay here. I must go home."
The Talon-Commander huffed and took a shot of his viscous liquid. "I am understanding, Marcus. If you are simply one of many where you are coming from, then we have underestimated the humans of the Realm Beyond."
"Realm Beyond?" Marcus parroted.
"The place we are summoning you from. A place of spirits where it was said a hero would come."
Spirits, Marcus scoffed. From a plane of spirits. Well, it wouldn't be a stretch to call urban California a realm where spirits frolicked in the sun…
As he observed Skeever's reverent staring into the fire, he saw that maybe the rat himself didn't even buy it.
"Is your…faith important to you, Skeever?" Marcus asked suddenly, surprising himself with the question.
The rat bristled. "There are being some of us who have forsaken the Old Ways. It is said Clan Marrow has burned all their temples."
"Temples?" Marcus couldn't help but choke. "You have places of worship?"
The rat mistook this surprise for admiration.
"They are being sacred places to those who commune with He-Who-Festers," Skeever explained. "But with the war many have turned their backs. Some of my Clan's temples are being empty places lately. But that will change when they are seeing you."
He spat a globule of puss into the fire, enjoying his men chuckling to see the flames lick around it.
"You are being hope," he said. "That is the name we give you – Shai-Alud, Final-Chance, the one who will be destroying our enemies and making these tunnels ours."
Marcus finished his drink and set it down. He didn't like where this was going.
"I am not here to prosecute your war," he said. "I'm here until I can leave, and that's it."
He stood up and walked away, towards the still-praying Deekius. His sudden rage was something even he didn't understand, something that Maria had always warned him about. He dared not look back at the rat commander but knew he wasn't being followed as he cut through the jumping rodents who tried to lay their filthy claws on him, their salivating mouths screaming 'Shai-Alud!' at him as he passed.
"Deekius," he said when he approached the busy priest. "We need to talk."
The Ratling turned, revealing a spattering of kobold intestine draped across his long snout. His prisoner had long since expired, his stomach being torn open and emptied of its constituent parts. Beside him sat a long parchment, upon which the priest was scratching out signs and runic symbols utterly incomprehensible to Marcus.
He can read and write, Marcus mused. That's something.
"Sire," he said. "The rituals of He-Who-Festers are delicate. They cannot be interrupt-"
"Spare me," Marcus broke in. "You told me you'd send me back if I helped you win the last battle."
The robed rat was immediately subservient. "Sire, I am trying. I am trying to commune with He-Who-Festers. But his signs are being…distorted."
"Not good enough," Marcus replied.
"I will be continuing my efforts, Sire! I am needing time to-"
"I don't have time!"
Marcus shout was interpreted by the surrounding rats as a warcry, and they took up the chant like a horde of baying jackals.
"DON'T HAVE TIME! DON'T HAVE TIME!"
"I…Damnit!" he raged, planting himself on the hard ground and covering his face in his hands, before realizing that his hands were still slathered in the blood of the little yipping demons.
He looked up at the sad face of the priest, who prostrated himself before Marcus' feet.
"May my back be flayed, and my skin soaked in soap!" he wailed. "I offend the Shai-Alud with my obstinacy! Sire, I am imploring you, be helping us reach Fleapit and I will enlist the aid of the Prime Putrefact. He and his acolytes shall enhance my power. There we can send you home to the Realm Beyond!"
Marcus wiped a bloody hand down his face. The smell of the liquid was sickening, but he just didn't care anymore.
"I'm stuck here…" he murmured. "I'm stuck…"
You are being hope…the one who will be destroying our enemies and making these tunnels ours.
That's what they really wanted, wasn't it? A destroyer – someone to help them win their little war. Wouldn't anyone? Could he really blame them for wanting to defeat their enemies? Even if Marcus still didn't know anything about the grand conflict that was going on here at all?
As a thought suddenly began to form in his mind, Skeever shambled up and kicked Deekius in his side.
"Be rising, priest. Show Sire Marcus you are worth his respect, at least."
"I am but a lowly servant," Deekius murmured. "I am not fit to be trod upon!"
"No…" Marcus whispered, clapping his hands together as though he had just come to a pivotal decision. "No. You whipped up a steam cloud that practically ensured our victory. Without you, we'd have sustained massive casualties. If anyone's behaving like a useless idiot here, it's me."
The rats regarded him with their unblinking stares.
He looked on them with different eyes, then. They had an organized religion in the throes of secular doubt, enemies from all sides that kept them constantly fighting, and innate instincts that made them unwilling to just back down and die.
And, well, Marcus understood doubt. He knew how it felt to be hemmed in by enemies, and, as Mari was often fond of telling him, he had a particularly stubborn streak in him that refused to let him back off in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
But unlike his great, vaulted 'Realm-Beyond', here were a bunch of sentient beings who were actually willing to listen to him.
He smirked at the heresy of the idea. Was it possible that these rats were more capable of unbiased understanding than his college opponents?
"Alright," he said with a shake of his dirty locks. "You need me, and I need you. We'll push through to Fleapit, and then you'll show me to this 'Putrefact.' But if he can't help me, Deekius…"
The priest bowed graciously, practically groveling at his feet. "Sire, SIRE! You are kind, you are most kind to your humble servant!"
Marcus would've laughed if the stench of the rat didn't overwhelm him.
"But you must be punishing me, Sire," he stammered. "Any who offend a vassal of He-Who-Festers must lose a piece of themselves!"
Marcus looked to Skeever who simply shrugged, licking his bloody lips.
"I can be performing this task for you, Marcus," he said with an impish grin. "I would be considering it a pleasure."
Marcus looked down at the groveling rat-priest and sighed again. The more he learned of these beings, the less he understood.
But he could change that.
"You said you must lose a piece of yourself?" he asked the ratling. "Very well. But I won't take your body, Deekius. We need you in the fight. It's your tools I want."
Deekius' eyes flew to watch as Marcus pointed at his parchment binder and ink-quill. At least, Marcus hoped it contained ink...
"That," he said. "Give me a few of those parchments and some ink and we'll call it fair and square."
"HAH!" Skeever grunted, elbowing the priest as he rose to his knees. "The Shai-Alud is right, Deekius. You waste your time scrawling down signs which mean nothing to our war. Be giving it up, and let the chosen of He-Who-Festers do the writing!"
A few of the other members of the troop stifled their laughter, which told Marcus all he needed to know about the Ratmen's attitude towards the written word.
But, no matter, he thought as Deekius ripped off a screed of parchment and hesitantly handed him a dirty quill. Marcus didn't need them to be literary geniuses.
Fighters is what they are, and that's all they have to be.
- Douglas MacArthur
Marcus stared into the crackling bonfire before him, trying to block out the sounds of celebrating rat-men pushing their Kobold prisoners around.
The ratguards had made camp at the end of the so-called Black Gulch just before they entered another tunnel that would take them to Knifegut fort – where Skeever said they could resupply and have safe passage to their capital city of Fleapit, seat of his Clan's power.
Marcus admitted that he was a little curious. An entire colony of humanoid rats lived down here, capable of military discipline and quick learning. They'd taken to the Testudo naturally, and though Deekius insisted their prowess in the battle had been due to his leadership alone, Marcus knew better. Being an effective General meant nothing if his troops weren't flexible, well-equipped, and maintained just the right amount of bloodlust.
Staring sidelong at the ratguard as they chewed on what remained of their kobold captives, Marcus realized that wouldn't be an issue for these creatures.
Skeever suddenly appeared beside him, offering him some vile-looking liquid swirling in an earthen glass.
He took it. When in Rome…
"You are being quiet, Sire Marcus," the rat said with a twitch of his still bloody whiskers. "You are not wishing to celebrate your victory?"
"It was *hic!* your victory more than mine."
Whatever the swill was Skeever had given him, it certainly had a kick to it. He decided he didn't want to ask. To quench the thirst in his gut was all he wanted.
"We would be dying without you!" Skeever railed, slapping a great claw on his back. "You are being too humble. This is not the warrior's way. When the king sees you, he shall be giving you all honors. You shall become war leader to rival Greyrax himself."
Marcus tentatively wondered if these 'honors' were what he wanted at all.
"Where's Deekius?" he asked.
Skeever grimaced. "Bah! The priest is conducting after-battle ritual to praise He-Who-Festers. He is big reason we stop here."
Marcus followed Skeever's eyes till they found the sagging form of the old, robed rat, shaking his staff above one of the captured Kobolds, cutting his own flesh and smearing his crimson blood across the crying creature's forehead.
"You were very clever to spare the last of the Kobolds, Sire," Skeever said. "Now we have captives and can be making good sacrifices to the Lord."
Marcus sighed. He had inadvertently made these beasts believe he was just as debased as they were.
His eyes flitted to them chewing on the innards of the Kobolds corpses they had dragged or carried with them out here, the bonfire throwing their savage shadows across the basalt cave walls.
"Skeever," he suddenly whispered. "I cannot stay here. I must go home."
The Talon-Commander huffed and took a shot of his viscous liquid. "I am understanding, Marcus. If you are simply one of many where you are coming from, then we have underestimated the humans of the Realm Beyond."
"Realm Beyond?" Marcus parroted.
"The place we are summoning you from. A place of spirits where it was said a hero would come."
Spirits, Marcus scoffed. From a plane of spirits. Well, it wouldn't be a stretch to call urban California a realm where spirits frolicked in the sun…
As he observed Skeever's reverent staring into the fire, he saw that maybe the rat himself didn't even buy it.
"Is your…faith important to you, Skeever?" Marcus asked suddenly, surprising himself with the question.
The rat bristled. "There are being some of us who have forsaken the Old Ways. It is said Clan Marrow has burned all their temples."
"Temples?" Marcus couldn't help but choke. "You have places of worship?"
The rat mistook this surprise for admiration.
"They are being sacred places to those who commune with He-Who-Festers," Skeever explained. "But with the war many have turned their backs. Some of my Clan's temples are being empty places lately. But that will change when they are seeing you."
He spat a globule of puss into the fire, enjoying his men chuckling to see the flames lick around it.
"You are being hope," he said. "That is the name we give you – Shai-Alud, Final-Chance, the one who will be destroying our enemies and making these tunnels ours."
Marcus finished his drink and set it down. He didn't like where this was going.
"I am not here to prosecute your war," he said. "I'm here until I can leave, and that's it."
He stood up and walked away, towards the still-praying Deekius. His sudden rage was something even he didn't understand, something that Maria had always warned him about. He dared not look back at the rat commander but knew he wasn't being followed as he cut through the jumping rodents who tried to lay their filthy claws on him, their salivating mouths screaming 'Shai-Alud!' at him as he passed.
"Deekius," he said when he approached the busy priest. "We need to talk."
The Ratling turned, revealing a spattering of kobold intestine draped across his long snout. His prisoner had long since expired, his stomach being torn open and emptied of its constituent parts. Beside him sat a long parchment, upon which the priest was scratching out signs and runic symbols utterly incomprehensible to Marcus.
He can read and write, Marcus mused. That's something.
"Sire," he said. "The rituals of He-Who-Festers are delicate. They cannot be interrupt-"
"Spare me," Marcus broke in. "You told me you'd send me back if I helped you win the last battle."
The robed rat was immediately subservient. "Sire, I am trying. I am trying to commune with He-Who-Festers. But his signs are being…distorted."
"Not good enough," Marcus replied.
"I will be continuing my efforts, Sire! I am needing time to-"
"I don't have time!"
Marcus shout was interpreted by the surrounding rats as a warcry, and they took up the chant like a horde of baying jackals.
"DON'T HAVE TIME! DON'T HAVE TIME!"
"I…Damnit!" he raged, planting himself on the hard ground and covering his face in his hands, before realizing that his hands were still slathered in the blood of the little yipping demons.
He looked up at the sad face of the priest, who prostrated himself before Marcus' feet.
"May my back be flayed, and my skin soaked in soap!" he wailed. "I offend the Shai-Alud with my obstinacy! Sire, I am imploring you, be helping us reach Fleapit and I will enlist the aid of the Prime Putrefact. He and his acolytes shall enhance my power. There we can send you home to the Realm Beyond!"
Marcus wiped a bloody hand down his face. The smell of the liquid was sickening, but he just didn't care anymore.
"I'm stuck here…" he murmured. "I'm stuck…"
You are being hope…the one who will be destroying our enemies and making these tunnels ours.
That's what they really wanted, wasn't it? A destroyer – someone to help them win their little war. Wouldn't anyone? Could he really blame them for wanting to defeat their enemies? Even if Marcus still didn't know anything about the grand conflict that was going on here at all?
As a thought suddenly began to form in his mind, Skeever shambled up and kicked Deekius in his side.
"Be rising, priest. Show Sire Marcus you are worth his respect, at least."
"I am but a lowly servant," Deekius murmured. "I am not fit to be trod upon!"
"No…" Marcus whispered, clapping his hands together as though he had just come to a pivotal decision. "No. You whipped up a steam cloud that practically ensured our victory. Without you, we'd have sustained massive casualties. If anyone's behaving like a useless idiot here, it's me."
The rats regarded him with their unblinking stares.
He looked on them with different eyes, then. They had an organized religion in the throes of secular doubt, enemies from all sides that kept them constantly fighting, and innate instincts that made them unwilling to just back down and die.
And, well, Marcus understood doubt. He knew how it felt to be hemmed in by enemies, and, as Mari was often fond of telling him, he had a particularly stubborn streak in him that refused to let him back off in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
But unlike his great, vaulted 'Realm-Beyond', here were a bunch of sentient beings who were actually willing to listen to him.
He smirked at the heresy of the idea. Was it possible that these rats were more capable of unbiased understanding than his college opponents?
"Alright," he said with a shake of his dirty locks. "You need me, and I need you. We'll push through to Fleapit, and then you'll show me to this 'Putrefact.' But if he can't help me, Deekius…"
The priest bowed graciously, practically groveling at his feet. "Sire, SIRE! You are kind, you are most kind to your humble servant!"
Marcus would've laughed if the stench of the rat didn't overwhelm him.
"But you must be punishing me, Sire," he stammered. "Any who offend a vassal of He-Who-Festers must lose a piece of themselves!"
Marcus looked to Skeever who simply shrugged, licking his bloody lips.
"I can be performing this task for you, Marcus," he said with an impish grin. "I would be considering it a pleasure."
Marcus looked down at the groveling rat-priest and sighed again. The more he learned of these beings, the less he understood.
But he could change that.
"You said you must lose a piece of yourself?" he asked the ratling. "Very well. But I won't take your body, Deekius. We need you in the fight. It's your tools I want."
Deekius' eyes flew to watch as Marcus pointed at his parchment binder and ink-quill. At least, Marcus hoped it contained ink...
"That," he said. "Give me a few of those parchments and some ink and we'll call it fair and square."
"HAH!" Skeever grunted, elbowing the priest as he rose to his knees. "The Shai-Alud is right, Deekius. You waste your time scrawling down signs which mean nothing to our war. Be giving it up, and let the chosen of He-Who-Festers do the writing!"
A few of the other members of the troop stifled their laughter, which told Marcus all he needed to know about the Ratmen's attitude towards the written word.
But, no matter, he thought as Deekius ripped off a screed of parchment and hesitantly handed him a dirty quill. Marcus didn't need them to be literary geniuses.
Fighters is what they are, and that's all they have to be.
Chapter 7
"He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command."
Nicolo Machiavelli
-Grindlefecht, Boss Skegga's stronghold-
He watched the Kobolds groveling beneath his feet, slathered in the blood of their fallen comrades.
Slowly, he began to understand the words they were yammering at him. These little beasties were even dumber than tadpoles, always bumping and jumping and shouting about something.
He leaned forward, allowing the rolls of his fat, slathered in slime and mucus, to loll over the throne of crushed rats and dwarf they had built for him.
"You are telling me you let those rats beat you?"
The Kobold survivors looked at eachother, fear overcoming their tiny frames.
"Where is Gith?" he asked.
"He – he died-died, Boss," one of them barely squeaks.
He sat back and wiped his greasy, webbed fingers over his moist face.
He nodded at the guards around his throne.
"Take them to the pit of stilled-jumps," he said. "May they
"N-no Skegga! No, please, I-"
"What is our name?" he asked.
The timid Kobold who had spoken out nods frantically.
"Sk-Sk-Skeg-"
"MY FIRST NAME!" he bellows, his jowls shaking with the force of his voice.
"Boss!" the little creatures yip in unison. "B-Boss Skegga!"
"Hmpf!" he snorted. "Your commander died because he did not teach you proper respect. Let the pit be your teacher!"
"N-no!" they yelped as his honor-guard started to drag them away by force. "It was not our fault!"
"Take them from me," he said with a weary wave of his flipper.
"We have information, Boss!" a desparate Kobold pleaded as he was dragged away by both his flailing arms.
"You cannot tell us anything that we do not already know," Skegga replied, rubbing his slimy forehead. Honestly! These cretins could tire even the oldest bullfrog.
"They – they had a humie with them!"
Hold on…
"Stop," he called out to his subordinate guards. "Let this wretched one speak."
The Kobold was thrown down at the foot of his throne while his compatriots were trundled off to die. He didn't spare a look back at them.
"I – we – we saw him, Boss Skegga! He show them how to become big metal column! How to wear shields like hats! He – he reason they lives!"
Skegga rubbed his feathered chin. A human…
"Make yourself useful, wretch," he snarled. "Tell us where the rats of Skeever-Steelclaw were going."
The little demon jumped at the chance. "K-Knifegut!" he squeaked, remembering Boss Gith's speculations. "They – they must be going to Knifegut, Boss! It is small fort behind Gulch. Small, weak-weak. Will crumble if we hits it good, yes-yes!"
"Hmpf," Skegga replied, moderately amused by the little thing's audacity. "What is your name, mongrel?"
The wretch pelted it out like he was singing for the surface Gods, "Klega, my Boss! I is Klega!"
"Well, little slime," he said. "You have indeed brought us some most interesting tidbits. You will lead a detachment of our forces to Knifegut and secure this human. He is pivotal to our ascension."
"Y…yes-yes holy one!" Klega chirped like a songbird. "It will be done! Rat-rats die-die! Human die-die!"
"NO!" Skegga roared, puffing out his great larynx and shaking the very foundations of the ancient stone stronghold. "Bring this human to me – ALIVE."
"Y-yes…"
"Yes – WHAT?"
"Yes, Boss Skegga! Yes-yes most holy of holies Boss, yes –"
"Give him a detachment of three Skags and remove him from our sight. He shall ride out immediately."
The command was given to a thinly veiled figure that stood to attention beside Boss Skegga. A figure who could have blended into any shadow, even that cast by the great horned toad as he lorded over his kobold subjects.
"It will be done, Sire."
Skegga slammed a slime-coated fist down on his armrest. "How many times have we told you to refer to our glorious form as 'Boss'?"
The creature bathed in shadow bowed his hooded head, the dark crimson of his eyes gleaming in the dark.
"Apologies, Boss Skegga," he said. "Old habits are being hard to kill."
Skegga wiped spittle from his mouth and commanded his throne to rise, displaying his rolls of lumpy fat and gut to all the kobolds around him.
"What a thing it is to control," he said to his confidant as his throne levitated above them all. "How gratifying it is to be a God. Silas, do you not know what this means? The appearance of a human amongst your former brethern?"
From the darkness of his throne room, Skegga heard the twitching of whiskers and a silent acknowledgement.
"You are thinking it is the Shai-Alud, Boss Skegga?"
"WHO ELSE!?" the great toad thundered, laughter spilling out of his bulging throat. "If the time of prophecy has come, then it can only mean that our cause is a righteous one!"
"If you are saying so, Boss Skegga."
He ignored the chittering of his advisor and let his great arms fly out to encompass all of his realm – a world of ancient stone plundered from the dwarves, where their arsenal of cannons and powdered weapons would prove sufficient to finish his extermination campaign – wiping the Under-Kingdom clean of filth and ushering in the era of the Horned One – of Boss Skegga.
But first, he would make this human kneel before him. If he truly was the Shai Alud, then Skegga would have his secrets. He would hoard them like a dragon's golden lair. They would be his ticket to dominating the surface, once all this was over.
Then his 'benefactors' would know his vengeance. Those damned snake-fiends who thought they could control the world! His world!
The Great horny toad spun back to face his guards, and opened his massive maw – showing them the jaws that would swallow the entire world, in time.
"Ready our forces!" he called out from his flying throne. "The time of the Kleansing has come!"
***
Even as he trudged through a grim, dank tunnel with a squad of fetid rats, Marcus was in his element.
He wasn't a hard man to please by any means. Give him a pen and paper and he'd commit himself to it with more gumption than a moth to a naked flame. It is true what they say of humans – they can and will make the best of any situation if they put their minds to it.
Marcus was currently scribbling away his observations under the dim light of Deekius' Glow-Glob, a low-level spell he had conjured up as they passed through the tunnel sections leading from the Black Gulch to Knifegut fortress. Although, as Marcus had soon realized, the word 'spell' didn't quite sit right with the priest. He had taken offense when Marcus had applied the label to a miracle of the Ratman's God. The more appropriate term was something Deekius referred to as 'Gloomraav'. Loosely translated, the word was more akin to 'Incantation' or 'chant' than spell. It also denoted the Ratman's priest-caste – the Gloomraava - who were led by this 'Prime Putrefact' – a rat who served as a kind of Bishop for each different clan.
Marcus had scribbled down all these details as they made their way towards their destination, stopping only at a few points to feast on their captives or collect more secretions from the tunnel walls. His parchments had become his coping mechanism for the things around him which could have easily got even the bravest of stomachs churning.
Marcus was no stranger to horror. His profession demanded that he come to terms with the great slaughters and barbaric sacrifices of the past – from those committed in the golden halls of Tenochtitlan to the occult inner workings of the Ancient Rome's Haruspex – his mind was lined with examples of wanton, obscene destruction that resulted from both warfare and religious necessity. However, to see them firsthand would have given him pause if he did not have Deekius' papers – those notes had become his real shield.
The journey through the tunnels had been quiet – mostly. The chitterings of the rats might have been considered speech, but Marcus had no chance in understanding the finer nuances of their language. Come to think of it, he was surprised that he was able to understand them at all, let alone the cryings of their Kobold enemies.
"The Shai-Alud is said to speak with a voice that commands respect," Deekius had told him when he asked about it. He assumed that meant that he was simply able to parse their speech and communicate automatically – like his words were being instantly translated.
But if that were true, was he simply hearing their speech in English or, from their perspective, could they hear him speaking Rat?
He decided such a trivial detail didn't matter in the long-term, and decided instead to devote himself to questions. This was a whole new world, and he was now convinced that it was his duty to document its denizens – no point being a part of history if you're too ignorant to make sense of it.
So he prodded Deekius and Skeever with queries throughout their tunnel journey, questions about what the world of the Under-Kingdom looked like, politically, culturally, and socially. Some of these questions took some rephrasing, and some of their answers required parsing, but overall, he was surprised to find a degree of sophistication in the structures that dominated their lives.
Aside from He-Who-Festers, who's faith dominated Ratman religious worship, the Four great kings of each Clan ruled in their section of the underground – known colloquially as the 'Warrens'. Each Clan occupied a different, and often contested, territory: Clan Glumrot held the South, Clan Nightstalker had the East, Clan Marrow the West and Clan Red-Eye the North. It was the Northern tunnels that they were currently trudging through, and these same tunnels, Skeever explained, that were currently receiving the brunt of the Kobold's hostilities.
"They are being tiny," Skeever told him. "But they breed in thousands. One male to every female."
The rats shuddered at that thought.
"I…um…isn't that normal?" Marcus asked, quill in hand.
"'Normal'?" Skeever scoffed. "Perhaps it is being so where you come from, Marcus, but not for we rats."
With some trepidation, and more than a few challenging looks from Deekius that Marcus couldn't help but notice, Skeever then went on to explain the beginnings of the ratman life cycle: from the swollen bellies of their Queens a litter of at least one hundred rats would be born from every conception. Approximately 20% would be lost to disease – the so-called 'weak ones' whom He-Who-Festers had not blessed with immunity – and another 35% were killed by their brethren, so that only the strongest rats survived in a litter. Their breeding problem was exacerbated by the fact that the birth of a female was something so rare that it was barely considered a possibility: in five centuries, there had only ever been five females in the entire Ratman kingdom.
Five female Queens, servicing five Clans.
A new female meant not only the birth of a new life, but the birth of a whole new nation itself – one which would be sired by the King of each clan and him alone.
Of course, this posed an obvious question: why not expand the list of acceptable partners for each queen? The way Skeever put it, a Queen enjoyed a strictly monogamous relationship with the King of her Clan, and no others were permitted entry to her chambers. If lack of manpower in this war was an issue (and from the looks of this tiny, beleaguered force, Marcus assumed it was) then wouldn't a polyamorous compromise not make more sense to prolong the bloodline of each clan, not to mention sustain their war effort?
Just as he was about to pose such a question to Skeever, the armored Rat stopped him with a single raised fist.
The whole force immediately stood to attention, those at the rearguard quickly silencing their Kobold prisoners.
Marcus crouched low with them and saw a series of long, lithe shadows play across the tunnel intersection that lay ahead of them.
"Movement," Skeever whispered.
Marcus kicked himself as he felt his heart lurch. His questions would have to wait. He'd just been thrust back into the real world for what it was.
Nicolo Machiavelli
-Grindlefecht, Boss Skegga's stronghold-
He watched the Kobolds groveling beneath his feet, slathered in the blood of their fallen comrades.
Slowly, he began to understand the words they were yammering at him. These little beasties were even dumber than tadpoles, always bumping and jumping and shouting about something.
He leaned forward, allowing the rolls of his fat, slathered in slime and mucus, to loll over the throne of crushed rats and dwarf they had built for him.
"You are telling me you let those rats beat you?"
The Kobold survivors looked at eachother, fear overcoming their tiny frames.
"Where is Gith?" he asked.
"He – he died-died, Boss," one of them barely squeaks.
He sat back and wiped his greasy, webbed fingers over his moist face.
He nodded at the guards around his throne.
"Take them to the pit of stilled-jumps," he said. "May they
"N-no Skegga! No, please, I-"
"What is our name?" he asked.
The timid Kobold who had spoken out nods frantically.
"Sk-Sk-Skeg-"
"MY FIRST NAME!" he bellows, his jowls shaking with the force of his voice.
"Boss!" the little creatures yip in unison. "B-Boss Skegga!"
"Hmpf!" he snorted. "Your commander died because he did not teach you proper respect. Let the pit be your teacher!"
"N-no!" they yelped as his honor-guard started to drag them away by force. "It was not our fault!"
"Take them from me," he said with a weary wave of his flipper.
"We have information, Boss!" a desparate Kobold pleaded as he was dragged away by both his flailing arms.
"You cannot tell us anything that we do not already know," Skegga replied, rubbing his slimy forehead. Honestly! These cretins could tire even the oldest bullfrog.
"They – they had a humie with them!"
Hold on…
"Stop," he called out to his subordinate guards. "Let this wretched one speak."
The Kobold was thrown down at the foot of his throne while his compatriots were trundled off to die. He didn't spare a look back at them.
"I – we – we saw him, Boss Skegga! He show them how to become big metal column! How to wear shields like hats! He – he reason they lives!"
Skegga rubbed his feathered chin. A human…
"Make yourself useful, wretch," he snarled. "Tell us where the rats of Skeever-Steelclaw were going."
The little demon jumped at the chance. "K-Knifegut!" he squeaked, remembering Boss Gith's speculations. "They – they must be going to Knifegut, Boss! It is small fort behind Gulch. Small, weak-weak. Will crumble if we hits it good, yes-yes!"
"Hmpf," Skegga replied, moderately amused by the little thing's audacity. "What is your name, mongrel?"
The wretch pelted it out like he was singing for the surface Gods, "Klega, my Boss! I is Klega!"
"Well, little slime," he said. "You have indeed brought us some most interesting tidbits. You will lead a detachment of our forces to Knifegut and secure this human. He is pivotal to our ascension."
"Y…yes-yes holy one!" Klega chirped like a songbird. "It will be done! Rat-rats die-die! Human die-die!"
"NO!" Skegga roared, puffing out his great larynx and shaking the very foundations of the ancient stone stronghold. "Bring this human to me – ALIVE."
"Y-yes…"
"Yes – WHAT?"
"Yes, Boss Skegga! Yes-yes most holy of holies Boss, yes –"
"Give him a detachment of three Skags and remove him from our sight. He shall ride out immediately."
The command was given to a thinly veiled figure that stood to attention beside Boss Skegga. A figure who could have blended into any shadow, even that cast by the great horned toad as he lorded over his kobold subjects.
"It will be done, Sire."
Skegga slammed a slime-coated fist down on his armrest. "How many times have we told you to refer to our glorious form as 'Boss'?"
The creature bathed in shadow bowed his hooded head, the dark crimson of his eyes gleaming in the dark.
"Apologies, Boss Skegga," he said. "Old habits are being hard to kill."
Skegga wiped spittle from his mouth and commanded his throne to rise, displaying his rolls of lumpy fat and gut to all the kobolds around him.
"What a thing it is to control," he said to his confidant as his throne levitated above them all. "How gratifying it is to be a God. Silas, do you not know what this means? The appearance of a human amongst your former brethern?"
From the darkness of his throne room, Skegga heard the twitching of whiskers and a silent acknowledgement.
"You are thinking it is the Shai-Alud, Boss Skegga?"
"WHO ELSE!?" the great toad thundered, laughter spilling out of his bulging throat. "If the time of prophecy has come, then it can only mean that our cause is a righteous one!"
"If you are saying so, Boss Skegga."
He ignored the chittering of his advisor and let his great arms fly out to encompass all of his realm – a world of ancient stone plundered from the dwarves, where their arsenal of cannons and powdered weapons would prove sufficient to finish his extermination campaign – wiping the Under-Kingdom clean of filth and ushering in the era of the Horned One – of Boss Skegga.
But first, he would make this human kneel before him. If he truly was the Shai Alud, then Skegga would have his secrets. He would hoard them like a dragon's golden lair. They would be his ticket to dominating the surface, once all this was over.
Then his 'benefactors' would know his vengeance. Those damned snake-fiends who thought they could control the world! His world!
The Great horny toad spun back to face his guards, and opened his massive maw – showing them the jaws that would swallow the entire world, in time.
"Ready our forces!" he called out from his flying throne. "The time of the Kleansing has come!"
***
Even as he trudged through a grim, dank tunnel with a squad of fetid rats, Marcus was in his element.
He wasn't a hard man to please by any means. Give him a pen and paper and he'd commit himself to it with more gumption than a moth to a naked flame. It is true what they say of humans – they can and will make the best of any situation if they put their minds to it.
Marcus was currently scribbling away his observations under the dim light of Deekius' Glow-Glob, a low-level spell he had conjured up as they passed through the tunnel sections leading from the Black Gulch to Knifegut fortress. Although, as Marcus had soon realized, the word 'spell' didn't quite sit right with the priest. He had taken offense when Marcus had applied the label to a miracle of the Ratman's God. The more appropriate term was something Deekius referred to as 'Gloomraav'. Loosely translated, the word was more akin to 'Incantation' or 'chant' than spell. It also denoted the Ratman's priest-caste – the Gloomraava - who were led by this 'Prime Putrefact' – a rat who served as a kind of Bishop for each different clan.
Marcus had scribbled down all these details as they made their way towards their destination, stopping only at a few points to feast on their captives or collect more secretions from the tunnel walls. His parchments had become his coping mechanism for the things around him which could have easily got even the bravest of stomachs churning.
Marcus was no stranger to horror. His profession demanded that he come to terms with the great slaughters and barbaric sacrifices of the past – from those committed in the golden halls of Tenochtitlan to the occult inner workings of the Ancient Rome's Haruspex – his mind was lined with examples of wanton, obscene destruction that resulted from both warfare and religious necessity. However, to see them firsthand would have given him pause if he did not have Deekius' papers – those notes had become his real shield.
The journey through the tunnels had been quiet – mostly. The chitterings of the rats might have been considered speech, but Marcus had no chance in understanding the finer nuances of their language. Come to think of it, he was surprised that he was able to understand them at all, let alone the cryings of their Kobold enemies.
"The Shai-Alud is said to speak with a voice that commands respect," Deekius had told him when he asked about it. He assumed that meant that he was simply able to parse their speech and communicate automatically – like his words were being instantly translated.
But if that were true, was he simply hearing their speech in English or, from their perspective, could they hear him speaking Rat?
He decided such a trivial detail didn't matter in the long-term, and decided instead to devote himself to questions. This was a whole new world, and he was now convinced that it was his duty to document its denizens – no point being a part of history if you're too ignorant to make sense of it.
So he prodded Deekius and Skeever with queries throughout their tunnel journey, questions about what the world of the Under-Kingdom looked like, politically, culturally, and socially. Some of these questions took some rephrasing, and some of their answers required parsing, but overall, he was surprised to find a degree of sophistication in the structures that dominated their lives.
Aside from He-Who-Festers, who's faith dominated Ratman religious worship, the Four great kings of each Clan ruled in their section of the underground – known colloquially as the 'Warrens'. Each Clan occupied a different, and often contested, territory: Clan Glumrot held the South, Clan Nightstalker had the East, Clan Marrow the West and Clan Red-Eye the North. It was the Northern tunnels that they were currently trudging through, and these same tunnels, Skeever explained, that were currently receiving the brunt of the Kobold's hostilities.
"They are being tiny," Skeever told him. "But they breed in thousands. One male to every female."
The rats shuddered at that thought.
"I…um…isn't that normal?" Marcus asked, quill in hand.
"'Normal'?" Skeever scoffed. "Perhaps it is being so where you come from, Marcus, but not for we rats."
With some trepidation, and more than a few challenging looks from Deekius that Marcus couldn't help but notice, Skeever then went on to explain the beginnings of the ratman life cycle: from the swollen bellies of their Queens a litter of at least one hundred rats would be born from every conception. Approximately 20% would be lost to disease – the so-called 'weak ones' whom He-Who-Festers had not blessed with immunity – and another 35% were killed by their brethren, so that only the strongest rats survived in a litter. Their breeding problem was exacerbated by the fact that the birth of a female was something so rare that it was barely considered a possibility: in five centuries, there had only ever been five females in the entire Ratman kingdom.
Five female Queens, servicing five Clans.
A new female meant not only the birth of a new life, but the birth of a whole new nation itself – one which would be sired by the King of each clan and him alone.
Of course, this posed an obvious question: why not expand the list of acceptable partners for each queen? The way Skeever put it, a Queen enjoyed a strictly monogamous relationship with the King of her Clan, and no others were permitted entry to her chambers. If lack of manpower in this war was an issue (and from the looks of this tiny, beleaguered force, Marcus assumed it was) then wouldn't a polyamorous compromise not make more sense to prolong the bloodline of each clan, not to mention sustain their war effort?
Just as he was about to pose such a question to Skeever, the armored Rat stopped him with a single raised fist.
The whole force immediately stood to attention, those at the rearguard quickly silencing their Kobold prisoners.
Marcus crouched low with them and saw a series of long, lithe shadows play across the tunnel intersection that lay ahead of them.
"Movement," Skeever whispered.
Marcus kicked himself as he felt his heart lurch. His questions would have to wait. He'd just been thrust back into the real world for what it was.
Chapter 8
"All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty"
-George S Patton
"Be silent, ratguard!" Skeever murmured in a whisper still loud enough to carry through the ranks of his men. "Movement is being ahead."
Marcus watched the rats hunker down and train their eyes on the approaching shadows that had begun to run up the sides of the tunnel. Deekius' Glow Glob dimmed behind him, and the ratman priest stuttered an apology as the light faded away, leaving Marcus practically blinded.
Then he saw them approach like dark stalkers in the night: a set of eight symmetrical eyes glowing with an evil green fire, attached to long, lithe arachnid bodies, each of their four legs ending in serrated pincers that gleamed against the inky black of the tunnel.
"Skeever," Marcus murmured. "What are they?"
"Rothkazuul," the Talon-Commander replied. "Gutmulchers. Perhaps you are being able to know why they have this name, Sire?"
"I can take a few guesses."
Marcus watched the creatures make their slow, methodical creep towards their new prey. Three of them – judging by the numbers of eyes blinking in the dark. Marcus would've ordered the rats into a defensive formation, but he doubted hoe effective it would be given the circumstances. These creatures looked like they'd crawled out of a nightmare. He had no reference point for their speed or ferocity. But from the thin threads of spittle that dripped from their maws, he could hazard a guess.
"Ratguard," Skeever said. "Hold firm."
Marcus could feel the ranks collapsing in the face of the beasts. The ability to demoralize an enemy could be the greatest force multiplier in a commander's arsenal. Under the gaze of the arachnids, it seemed it was Deekius who held the group together, uttering prayers of loathsome diseases and maggots that would infest the brave soldiers who stood against the enemies of He-Who-Festers. And, incredibly, these chants seemed to be working.
Well, working on everyone except Marcus, who was too busy trying to pick out the key features of the crawling night stalkers so he could sketch them later. If they surviv-
The leader at the head of the brood leapt.
"Brace!" Skeever called out. "Protect the Shai-Alud!"
Marcus felt it slam into the ground before them and tear a crater deep into the earth, throwing the lines instantly into disarray. Like an artillery bombardment it then let out a shrill scream that laid the rats low, forcing them to hurl their spears at its thrashing form. Marcus looked up, seeing the wreaths of spittle and blood flying from the things mouth and noticed with horror that it had snatched up two of the front guard already, crunching them within its elongated jaw.
"Strike the legs, warriors of Red-Eye!" Skeever yelled over the paralyzing screech of the monster. "Bring it down!"
His voice carried. The soldiers surged forward, breaking ranks and stabbing at the Gutmulcher's pincer-legs before it jumped with incredible height and attached itself to the tunnel ceiling, sending a hail of bloody rat limbs down on the whole force.
"Don't let it get away!" Skeever yelled. "Be aiming your spears well!"
No…Marcus thought. The thing could have killed at least three more and run back off to its lair. The reason it's sitting up there…
His suspicions were confirmed with sudden another rush of energy to his right.
…is because it's a distraction.
He caught the flashing crimson eyes of another Gutmulcher just as it pierced the earth beneath his feet, and he collapsed beneath its weight. With his bare hands he clamped down on the things gnashing mouth and felt the being's acid spittle tear at his robe as it drizzled down upon his flailing body.
All around him he could hear the disarming screeches of the beasts as the other two converged on the ratmen guard, and even Skeever's voice became lost amid the cacophony of infernal shrieks.
Marcus looked into the symmetrical eyes of the evil beast and knew his arms were giving up. The thing's teeth edged ever closer to his chest, where his unseated heart knocked with frenzied rhythm against his ribs…
SCREEE!
An impact. A feeling of force beating against the Gutmulcher's side, and the sight of its eight eyes going wide as a green puff of smoke enveloped the left of the thing's face.
It's cousins quickly followed – each one being shot with a series of small pellets that exploded on impact, creating a greenish haze that seemed to strike terror into the nightmare stalkers.
"A miracle of the Great Unclean One!" Deekius roared as the troops began to rally. "Into them!"
Marcus saw the beasts sway and stammer around like drunkards, their eyes glazed over and hazy from whatever weapon had just been employed against them. It took barely any effort at all for the ratguard's spears to slice clean through their legs and cut them apart once their bulbous torsos fell to the floor of the cave.
But Marcus wasn't interested in the sight of the plumb-purple viscera that spewed from the beasts, or their cries of pain as the ratmen impaled them. Instead, he walked over to the dying form of the Gutmulcher that had pinned him, and picked up a broken object that had smashed into the creature's side.
It was none other than a simple grey pellet, probably launched, Marcus guessed, from a slingshot belonging to the Kobolds they had dealt with earlier.
And as he made the realization, his eyes slowly turned towards the back of the ratman ranks to see their six remaining Kobold prisoners bowing in reverence, slingshots still in their impish hands.
Marcus dropped the pellet suddenly and staggered over to the creatures as the last of the arachnid menace rattled off their death throes behind him.
"You – you helped me?"
"DOWN, BEASTIE! BE GETTING DOWN!"
Before any of the Kobolds could respond, the bloody Claw-Leader known as Redwhiskers cracked one of them in his jaw with the butt of his spear. "You dare to address the Shai-Alud!? You are being no better than dirt!"
Marcus pressed forward. "Actually, I was addressing them."
The rat balked, aiming the tip of his crimson-soaked speartip at one of the shaking prisoners now groveling at his feet.
"These are being less than animals, Sire! No better than dung beneath paw! Not even being useful like dung!"
"And yet," Marcus interrupted massively. "It seems that they just saved my life."
Redwhiskers sputtered slamming his spear into the ground in fury.
"They meant to attack you, Sire! They are stealing the weapons we conf-con- confiscated from them! We should be putting them to death! We should –"
"Is that how you speak to your Shai-Alud?" Marcus asked, standing above the ratman with authority, thinking that it was about time he project some discipline into this bloodthirsty little creature.
"I – I – You do not understand, Sire! You are not being one of us. No good Kobold. None! Only meat. Only good for meat on their bones!"
By this point the argument had drawn a crowd, and the ratguard who had finished mopping up the remains of the Gutmulchers turned their attention towards Redwhiskers, who began to crumble under their gazes.
He feels his men begin to doubt him, Marcus thought. Good. That shows they don't think me an outsider. But it also shows there may be more like this one. This situation will have to be handled delicately.
Even a single weak soldier could spell disaster for even the strongest fighting force. When it came to leadership of a military cohort, no matter how small, doubt was a disease that if left unchecked could spread and corrupt the entire fighting force.
"Redwhiskers!" Skeever yelped from behind. "You dare defy Sire Marcis?"
If the little brute had seemed like he was on the brink of cracking before, the voice of his unwavering commander, coupled with the sight of him slathered in Gutmulcher blood and ichor, made him crumble.
"I – forgive me!" the insolent rat said. "It is having been long, long campaign."
"Much longer campaigns are to be coming, pustule!" Skeever raged.
Marcus, however, did not show annoyance. Instead, he stepped past the shaking Redwhiskers and stood before the bowed Kobold prisoners.
The rats around them drew their hip-blades, but the creatures made didn't move a single muscle.
"You saved my life," Marcus said to the one at their head, presumably their leader. "And took a chance in re-equipping yourself with your weapons to do so. Why?"
At a nod from their leader, the prisoners all threw down their slings and pellets.
"We is useful, Boss, yes-yes?" the head prisoner said. "Our balls have stinky poison that kill-kill the Gut-Munch."
Marcus raised his eyebrows, looking down at the pilfered pellets. So each of them really did contain a substance that was toxic to the creatures. Possibly a liquid that diffused on impact, rendering the creatures confused and utterly immobile.
"Bah!" Redwhiskers screeched. "Kobold trickery!"
"Perhaps so," Marcus replied cooly. "But trickery that has allowed them to survive in these tunnels. Trickery that has clearly allowed them to pass through your kingdom in greater numbers than it seems you can. Trickery," Marcus said with a smirk. "That has saved your furry behind."
Redwhiskers clenched his jaw, but a single look from Skeever stopped any more words from spilling out.
"This is being fascinating," Deekius said, coming to examine the pellets. "A weapon against the Gutmulchers…we have always searched for a secret like this."
Marcus rolled one ball between his thumb and forefinger.
"Tell me your name, Kobold," he said.
The leader of the prisoners jumped at his command. "Ix, Sire. I am Ix."
"Well, Ix, you have served us well today. For that, I will make you an offer as the leader of this detachment. Join us and provide ranged support with your men, and we will spare your lives."
Skeever nudged Marcus' arm. "Sire," he whispered. "I am being all for recruiting more men, but can we really trust-"
"I'll trust those that put their lives on the line for me," Marcus broke in, getting sick of these petty, impractical squabbles. "Well, Ix?"
The little guy double blinked, surprised, it seemed, to be given a choice in the matter.
He looked to his friends, and then to the torn limbs of the rest of his squad that remained in the ratmen's supply carriage behind. The answer, to him, was so obvious that he didn't understand why Marcus simply conscripted him forcefully.
"Yes-yes, Shai-Alud!" he cried, bowing low and kissing the ground beneath Marcus' feet. "We Bullet-Yips of Grindlefecht are yours. Yours-yours! Thank you! Thank -!"
"Don't thank me too much," Marcus chuckled, making sure those wary ratmen around him heard this part of his recruitment clearly. "You will have the dangerous jobs of both opening our assaults covering our retreats. Failure," he said with a touch of humor. "Is not an option."
He smiled thinly to himself as the rats murmured some impressed whispers to each other. He'd always wanted to use that line.
"You will be in charge of them," he told the disbelieving Redwhiskers, who stuttered like a lunatic but, again, said nothing. "See that they are given their fair share of our rations. Guard them as they have guarded me. Do this and you will win my favor."
Marcus tried to read the thoughts implicit in the young rat's stare, but he quickly bowed his head and started skittering away.
"It will be done, Sire."
With that, the column moved on – with Skeever barking orders to move swiftly as the stench of Gutmulcher blood attracted more of their kind. Marcus lingered only for a moment, catching the sight of barely suppressed fury in Redwhiskers' eyes before the Claw-Leader urged his men to follow their Commander.
Fury, he thought. With a touch of ambition behind it…I'll need to watch that one.
-George S Patton
"Be silent, ratguard!" Skeever murmured in a whisper still loud enough to carry through the ranks of his men. "Movement is being ahead."
Marcus watched the rats hunker down and train their eyes on the approaching shadows that had begun to run up the sides of the tunnel. Deekius' Glow Glob dimmed behind him, and the ratman priest stuttered an apology as the light faded away, leaving Marcus practically blinded.
Then he saw them approach like dark stalkers in the night: a set of eight symmetrical eyes glowing with an evil green fire, attached to long, lithe arachnid bodies, each of their four legs ending in serrated pincers that gleamed against the inky black of the tunnel.
"Skeever," Marcus murmured. "What are they?"
"Rothkazuul," the Talon-Commander replied. "Gutmulchers. Perhaps you are being able to know why they have this name, Sire?"
"I can take a few guesses."
Marcus watched the creatures make their slow, methodical creep towards their new prey. Three of them – judging by the numbers of eyes blinking in the dark. Marcus would've ordered the rats into a defensive formation, but he doubted hoe effective it would be given the circumstances. These creatures looked like they'd crawled out of a nightmare. He had no reference point for their speed or ferocity. But from the thin threads of spittle that dripped from their maws, he could hazard a guess.
"Ratguard," Skeever said. "Hold firm."
Marcus could feel the ranks collapsing in the face of the beasts. The ability to demoralize an enemy could be the greatest force multiplier in a commander's arsenal. Under the gaze of the arachnids, it seemed it was Deekius who held the group together, uttering prayers of loathsome diseases and maggots that would infest the brave soldiers who stood against the enemies of He-Who-Festers. And, incredibly, these chants seemed to be working.
Well, working on everyone except Marcus, who was too busy trying to pick out the key features of the crawling night stalkers so he could sketch them later. If they surviv-
The leader at the head of the brood leapt.
"Brace!" Skeever called out. "Protect the Shai-Alud!"
Marcus felt it slam into the ground before them and tear a crater deep into the earth, throwing the lines instantly into disarray. Like an artillery bombardment it then let out a shrill scream that laid the rats low, forcing them to hurl their spears at its thrashing form. Marcus looked up, seeing the wreaths of spittle and blood flying from the things mouth and noticed with horror that it had snatched up two of the front guard already, crunching them within its elongated jaw.
"Strike the legs, warriors of Red-Eye!" Skeever yelled over the paralyzing screech of the monster. "Bring it down!"
His voice carried. The soldiers surged forward, breaking ranks and stabbing at the Gutmulcher's pincer-legs before it jumped with incredible height and attached itself to the tunnel ceiling, sending a hail of bloody rat limbs down on the whole force.
"Don't let it get away!" Skeever yelled. "Be aiming your spears well!"
No…Marcus thought. The thing could have killed at least three more and run back off to its lair. The reason it's sitting up there…
His suspicions were confirmed with sudden another rush of energy to his right.
…is because it's a distraction.
He caught the flashing crimson eyes of another Gutmulcher just as it pierced the earth beneath his feet, and he collapsed beneath its weight. With his bare hands he clamped down on the things gnashing mouth and felt the being's acid spittle tear at his robe as it drizzled down upon his flailing body.
All around him he could hear the disarming screeches of the beasts as the other two converged on the ratmen guard, and even Skeever's voice became lost amid the cacophony of infernal shrieks.
Marcus looked into the symmetrical eyes of the evil beast and knew his arms were giving up. The thing's teeth edged ever closer to his chest, where his unseated heart knocked with frenzied rhythm against his ribs…
SCREEE!
An impact. A feeling of force beating against the Gutmulcher's side, and the sight of its eight eyes going wide as a green puff of smoke enveloped the left of the thing's face.
It's cousins quickly followed – each one being shot with a series of small pellets that exploded on impact, creating a greenish haze that seemed to strike terror into the nightmare stalkers.
"A miracle of the Great Unclean One!" Deekius roared as the troops began to rally. "Into them!"
Marcus saw the beasts sway and stammer around like drunkards, their eyes glazed over and hazy from whatever weapon had just been employed against them. It took barely any effort at all for the ratguard's spears to slice clean through their legs and cut them apart once their bulbous torsos fell to the floor of the cave.
But Marcus wasn't interested in the sight of the plumb-purple viscera that spewed from the beasts, or their cries of pain as the ratmen impaled them. Instead, he walked over to the dying form of the Gutmulcher that had pinned him, and picked up a broken object that had smashed into the creature's side.
It was none other than a simple grey pellet, probably launched, Marcus guessed, from a slingshot belonging to the Kobolds they had dealt with earlier.
And as he made the realization, his eyes slowly turned towards the back of the ratman ranks to see their six remaining Kobold prisoners bowing in reverence, slingshots still in their impish hands.
Marcus dropped the pellet suddenly and staggered over to the creatures as the last of the arachnid menace rattled off their death throes behind him.
"You – you helped me?"
"DOWN, BEASTIE! BE GETTING DOWN!"
Before any of the Kobolds could respond, the bloody Claw-Leader known as Redwhiskers cracked one of them in his jaw with the butt of his spear. "You dare to address the Shai-Alud!? You are being no better than dirt!"
Marcus pressed forward. "Actually, I was addressing them."
The rat balked, aiming the tip of his crimson-soaked speartip at one of the shaking prisoners now groveling at his feet.
"These are being less than animals, Sire! No better than dung beneath paw! Not even being useful like dung!"
"And yet," Marcus interrupted massively. "It seems that they just saved my life."
Redwhiskers sputtered slamming his spear into the ground in fury.
"They meant to attack you, Sire! They are stealing the weapons we conf-con- confiscated from them! We should be putting them to death! We should –"
"Is that how you speak to your Shai-Alud?" Marcus asked, standing above the ratman with authority, thinking that it was about time he project some discipline into this bloodthirsty little creature.
"I – I – You do not understand, Sire! You are not being one of us. No good Kobold. None! Only meat. Only good for meat on their bones!"
By this point the argument had drawn a crowd, and the ratguard who had finished mopping up the remains of the Gutmulchers turned their attention towards Redwhiskers, who began to crumble under their gazes.
He feels his men begin to doubt him, Marcus thought. Good. That shows they don't think me an outsider. But it also shows there may be more like this one. This situation will have to be handled delicately.
Even a single weak soldier could spell disaster for even the strongest fighting force. When it came to leadership of a military cohort, no matter how small, doubt was a disease that if left unchecked could spread and corrupt the entire fighting force.
"Redwhiskers!" Skeever yelped from behind. "You dare defy Sire Marcis?"
If the little brute had seemed like he was on the brink of cracking before, the voice of his unwavering commander, coupled with the sight of him slathered in Gutmulcher blood and ichor, made him crumble.
"I – forgive me!" the insolent rat said. "It is having been long, long campaign."
"Much longer campaigns are to be coming, pustule!" Skeever raged.
Marcus, however, did not show annoyance. Instead, he stepped past the shaking Redwhiskers and stood before the bowed Kobold prisoners.
The rats around them drew their hip-blades, but the creatures made didn't move a single muscle.
"You saved my life," Marcus said to the one at their head, presumably their leader. "And took a chance in re-equipping yourself with your weapons to do so. Why?"
At a nod from their leader, the prisoners all threw down their slings and pellets.
"We is useful, Boss, yes-yes?" the head prisoner said. "Our balls have stinky poison that kill-kill the Gut-Munch."
Marcus raised his eyebrows, looking down at the pilfered pellets. So each of them really did contain a substance that was toxic to the creatures. Possibly a liquid that diffused on impact, rendering the creatures confused and utterly immobile.
"Bah!" Redwhiskers screeched. "Kobold trickery!"
"Perhaps so," Marcus replied cooly. "But trickery that has allowed them to survive in these tunnels. Trickery that has clearly allowed them to pass through your kingdom in greater numbers than it seems you can. Trickery," Marcus said with a smirk. "That has saved your furry behind."
Redwhiskers clenched his jaw, but a single look from Skeever stopped any more words from spilling out.
"This is being fascinating," Deekius said, coming to examine the pellets. "A weapon against the Gutmulchers…we have always searched for a secret like this."
Marcus rolled one ball between his thumb and forefinger.
"Tell me your name, Kobold," he said.
The leader of the prisoners jumped at his command. "Ix, Sire. I am Ix."
"Well, Ix, you have served us well today. For that, I will make you an offer as the leader of this detachment. Join us and provide ranged support with your men, and we will spare your lives."
Skeever nudged Marcus' arm. "Sire," he whispered. "I am being all for recruiting more men, but can we really trust-"
"I'll trust those that put their lives on the line for me," Marcus broke in, getting sick of these petty, impractical squabbles. "Well, Ix?"
The little guy double blinked, surprised, it seemed, to be given a choice in the matter.
He looked to his friends, and then to the torn limbs of the rest of his squad that remained in the ratmen's supply carriage behind. The answer, to him, was so obvious that he didn't understand why Marcus simply conscripted him forcefully.
"Yes-yes, Shai-Alud!" he cried, bowing low and kissing the ground beneath Marcus' feet. "We Bullet-Yips of Grindlefecht are yours. Yours-yours! Thank you! Thank -!"
"Don't thank me too much," Marcus chuckled, making sure those wary ratmen around him heard this part of his recruitment clearly. "You will have the dangerous jobs of both opening our assaults covering our retreats. Failure," he said with a touch of humor. "Is not an option."
He smiled thinly to himself as the rats murmured some impressed whispers to each other. He'd always wanted to use that line.
"You will be in charge of them," he told the disbelieving Redwhiskers, who stuttered like a lunatic but, again, said nothing. "See that they are given their fair share of our rations. Guard them as they have guarded me. Do this and you will win my favor."
Marcus tried to read the thoughts implicit in the young rat's stare, but he quickly bowed his head and started skittering away.
"It will be done, Sire."
With that, the column moved on – with Skeever barking orders to move swiftly as the stench of Gutmulcher blood attracted more of their kind. Marcus lingered only for a moment, catching the sight of barely suppressed fury in Redwhiskers' eyes before the Claw-Leader urged his men to follow their Commander.
Fury, he thought. With a touch of ambition behind it…I'll need to watch that one.
Chapter 9
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts"
-Winston Churchill
It took only another three hours before Marcus registered flaring lights at the end of the ratmen's tunnel path.
And when they finally emerged into Knifegut fortress, Marcus was forced to admit that he shouldn't have been surprised.
"By the Unclean…" Deekius whispered.
A general shout went up in the ranks of the rats that remained.
The fortress was a crumbling ruin.
The fort was built into the far wall of a great cavernous expanse that should have provided an ample defensive position. Marcus spied at least three other tunnels that led out of the cavern in full view of the fort, giving it a Panopticon-like command of the local area. Yet, Its stone walls were pocketed with holes the size of an elephant's foot, and its simple moat was filled with the floating bodies of ratmen and kobolds that stared up at the new arrivals with blank, soulless eyes. The once stout Martello towers that rose on either side of the gatehouse were at this point openly exposed – their insides having been decimated by what looked like siege weaponry. In their skeletal state, even a simple force of ten could enter them from the outside. The banners of the red-eye that hung loose from the tops of the walls were tattered and rotten from exposure to what Marcus assumed must have been constant assaults.
Piled up around the fortress perimeter were more bodies – perhaps one rat for every fifteen kobolds – being trundled away in wheelbarrows by downtrodden ratmen. Again, the stench of death hit Marcus first – the thing the textbooks couldn't have ever prepared him for.
They had given the kobolds a fair battering, but anyone could see that this place wouldn't hold out much longer.
"You there, kinsman!" Skeever called out to one of the dejected rats trundling his barrow of dead. "Be taking us to Talon-Commander Gatskeek!"
The rat looked up with red-rimmed eyes under his filth-ridden hood and barely squeaked in acknowledgement.
"Be following."
Through the cavern the column of Skeever-Steelclaw's forces marched, their Shai-Alud at their head. Most of the rats on corpse-collection duty barely paid them any heed, and Marcus found himself seeking solace in his notebook scribblings to keep from looking into their sad eyes.
"How do you treat your dead?" he asked Deekius.
"We are not being wasteful," the rat-priest replied. "Most are being taken back to the towns to be fed to the Queens. The remains are being given to soldiers first, then scraps thrown into street. Even defeat in battle can bring happy bellies."
Marcus nodded slowly, imagining the chaos of the ratmen's city streets. He imagined dirt-caked children scampering around with flies in their eyes, waiting for a morsel of their own kind. But he could not help but see a certain logic to the practice which might have its root in the creatures' strange anatomy. Cannibalism had died out as a practice in human history because of its dangers – disease, primarily - particularly that which is caused by improperly folded Prion proteins. This exact problem was what devastated the native tribes of New Guinea. From what Marcus gathered of the ratmen, however, it seemed that they had a far higher toleration of the effects of disease than the average human. It made sense, in this context, for their religious faith to be one that praised an almighty pox-bringer.
Marcus' contention had always been that religion served an acute social function, first and foremest – and was even formed in response to the evolutionary traits of a people. It was a point he had wanted to make in his book…a book which he'd all but forgotten about.
After all, he was writing a new book now. A book that would be far more interesting to the scholar and layman alike.
"Be opening the gate!"
The shout of the archer-rats manning the ruined Martello towers snapped Marcus back to reality, and he watched the ratmen's drawbridge open to afford him a vision of Knifegut proper. It was a basic fort with only a few communal stone huts that served the usual functions Marcus would expect: there was a troops barracks, an armory containing mounds of various rusted weaponry practically sprawling across the floor, a stout chapel built into the cavern wall adorned with two rotten, maggot-encrusted Kobold skulls and the walls of the fort themselves which stretched out from the cavern's far wall. Littering the fort's grounds were also copious crates and barrels from which foul-smelling odors wafted. Marcus suspected that they could only be the ratmen's supply crates.
By far the most impressive structure was the massive wrought-iron gate that sealed the exit to the fort. It was currently manned by a line of six bored-looking ratguard.
As Skeever's men inspected their surroundings, seeing nothing but decrepit soldiers greet them with sniffs of their great, wriggling snouts, the commander of the fortress shambled down the steps of the gatehouse to meet them.
He was an old rat. Grey of fur and short of tail, with a festering, puss-filled wound adorning his left leg. Though he limped towards them, Marcus could tell there was strength still in his old bones, and that the scimitar that was sheathed just under his black cloak was probably still sharp enough to pierce Kobold skin.
"Skeever," he said, grabbing his comrade and giving him a hearty pat. "Be welcome in Knifegut."
Skeever nodded but wasted no time on pleasantries. "The fort is being broken, Gatskeek! What is happening here?"
Old Gatskeek nodded gravely and nodded to Deekius. His eyes then lighted on Marcus for the first time.
"So this…" he began. "This is the Shai-Alud."
As he spoke the word a whisper of disbelief rippled through the ratmen assemblage. Marcus felt their stares on his back, some of them looking at him with hungry eyes.
"Are you being sure?" he asked Deekius. "He is not looking like much."
Before Marcus could utter a word in protest, the rat-priest was already up in arms to defend him: "Sire Marcus' abilities are not in question. Under his leadership he saw us slaughter a pack of fifty Kobolds to the man!"
"Almost to the man," Marcus corrected, glancing back at the Kobold prisoners who were uncomfortably shifting against the stares of the fort-rats.
"Hm," Gatskeek grunted. "A human. And one that is barely having a hair on his chest."
Marcus unconsciously tightened his robe around him.
"Skeever," he grunted again. "Is this one the reason you are bringing those things into our fort?"
His eyes darted towards the Kobold slingers, who dropped to their knees, each one pulling down the other by their elbow to show their supplication.
"We are serving Shai-Shai now, good rat-Sire, yes. We are loyal only to-"
"I didn't ask your opinion, filth," the old rat spat. "I am talking to my kinsman."
Skeever looked from Gatskeek to Marcus before he replied.
"It is being the command of the Shai-Alud," he said without further hesitation. "These ones are saving us as we journey back through the North tunnels. They are having weapons that tame the Gutmulchers."
Gatskeek spat a globule of grimy saliva at his feet. "And what if they are simply tricking you, hm? You know Kobold are good for nothing but schemes and backstabbing. Their brains are being as fiendish as their devil hands."
"Are you questioning the will of the Shai-Alud, kinsman?" Deekius interrupted, raising his staff menacingly so that even the fort rats cowered back in fear. "Know that in doing this, you are questioning He-Who-Festers himself."
The old rat stepped up to look into the dark eyes of the priest, holding his gaze and keeping one paw on his scimitar's hilt.
"You will not be frightening me, Gloomraava," he said with revulsion. "We are praying to the Unclean One for weeks, after we are burying our dead, after we are licking our wounds, after we are fighting night after night. He does not listen."
Marcus sensed the tension in the air. It seemed old Deekius' reliance on religion as a tool of fear wasn't quite up to scratch when it came to those who had suffered under the yolk of real warfare. Yet, Marcus could observe the reticence in the ratmen that surrounded them. He could see there were a few who looked upon him as their messianic figure, and a few who's minds weren't quite as made up yet. How they dealt with this old skeptic – the commander of a set of obviously demoralized troops – this would be crucial. If he was ever going to reach the capital of this forsaken underground pit and finally be in with a chance of getting home, then he would wield belief like a weapon and cleave through all these petty squabbles.
So, as much as it pained him to play along with this little game of Gods and prophets, he sucked up his Agnosticism and faced down the commander.
"You are…being…right, Talon-Commander Gatskeek," Marcus said, taking care to match the intonation of the ratmen he had managed to pick up so far. "Your fights so far are being a test from He-Who-Festers. He has sat in silence so that you might show your dedication to him even when he turns his furry ears away from you. Now, your deliverance has come."
He indicated the troops surrounding them. Well-armored, still disciplined rats who stood to attention as he swept his hand over their column.
"We," Marcus said. "Are here to show you that the Unclean One still listens. He has sent…is sending us…to help you go home."
After this little speech the grey rat said nothing for a time. He looked Marcus up and down, and then returned his gaze to Skeever with a licking of his ragged snout.
"You vouch for this man?" he asked.
Skeever nodded without any hesitation this time. "On my life, kinsman. I, too, thought that we had been forgotten. But it is not being so. We will be going down in history."
Gatskeek merely chuckled at this, then eventually threw his head back and belched out a laugh that seemed to infect the troops that were still here with him – those watching from their doomed positions on the walls and those nosing the floor of the barracks for scraps before the new bodies came in.
"Skeever-Steelclaw is finding the Shai-Alud – hah!" Gatskeek shouted. "King Shrykul always did say our clan would be favored one day."
The old rat now looked to Marcus with a glint of humor in his withered, aged eyes. Eyes that had seen, perhaps, too much horror to care anymore.
"Well, Shai-Alud," he said. "Your words are being good. But we are not going anywhere."
He nodded at Marcus, Skeever, and Deekius to follow him.
"Why is that?" Marcus asked.
"Because, Shai-Alud," the old rat replied. "We are being fucked."
-Winston Churchill
It took only another three hours before Marcus registered flaring lights at the end of the ratmen's tunnel path.
And when they finally emerged into Knifegut fortress, Marcus was forced to admit that he shouldn't have been surprised.
"By the Unclean…" Deekius whispered.
A general shout went up in the ranks of the rats that remained.
The fortress was a crumbling ruin.
The fort was built into the far wall of a great cavernous expanse that should have provided an ample defensive position. Marcus spied at least three other tunnels that led out of the cavern in full view of the fort, giving it a Panopticon-like command of the local area. Yet, Its stone walls were pocketed with holes the size of an elephant's foot, and its simple moat was filled with the floating bodies of ratmen and kobolds that stared up at the new arrivals with blank, soulless eyes. The once stout Martello towers that rose on either side of the gatehouse were at this point openly exposed – their insides having been decimated by what looked like siege weaponry. In their skeletal state, even a simple force of ten could enter them from the outside. The banners of the red-eye that hung loose from the tops of the walls were tattered and rotten from exposure to what Marcus assumed must have been constant assaults.
Piled up around the fortress perimeter were more bodies – perhaps one rat for every fifteen kobolds – being trundled away in wheelbarrows by downtrodden ratmen. Again, the stench of death hit Marcus first – the thing the textbooks couldn't have ever prepared him for.
They had given the kobolds a fair battering, but anyone could see that this place wouldn't hold out much longer.
"You there, kinsman!" Skeever called out to one of the dejected rats trundling his barrow of dead. "Be taking us to Talon-Commander Gatskeek!"
The rat looked up with red-rimmed eyes under his filth-ridden hood and barely squeaked in acknowledgement.
"Be following."
Through the cavern the column of Skeever-Steelclaw's forces marched, their Shai-Alud at their head. Most of the rats on corpse-collection duty barely paid them any heed, and Marcus found himself seeking solace in his notebook scribblings to keep from looking into their sad eyes.
"How do you treat your dead?" he asked Deekius.
"We are not being wasteful," the rat-priest replied. "Most are being taken back to the towns to be fed to the Queens. The remains are being given to soldiers first, then scraps thrown into street. Even defeat in battle can bring happy bellies."
Marcus nodded slowly, imagining the chaos of the ratmen's city streets. He imagined dirt-caked children scampering around with flies in their eyes, waiting for a morsel of their own kind. But he could not help but see a certain logic to the practice which might have its root in the creatures' strange anatomy. Cannibalism had died out as a practice in human history because of its dangers – disease, primarily - particularly that which is caused by improperly folded Prion proteins. This exact problem was what devastated the native tribes of New Guinea. From what Marcus gathered of the ratmen, however, it seemed that they had a far higher toleration of the effects of disease than the average human. It made sense, in this context, for their religious faith to be one that praised an almighty pox-bringer.
Marcus' contention had always been that religion served an acute social function, first and foremest – and was even formed in response to the evolutionary traits of a people. It was a point he had wanted to make in his book…a book which he'd all but forgotten about.
After all, he was writing a new book now. A book that would be far more interesting to the scholar and layman alike.
"Be opening the gate!"
The shout of the archer-rats manning the ruined Martello towers snapped Marcus back to reality, and he watched the ratmen's drawbridge open to afford him a vision of Knifegut proper. It was a basic fort with only a few communal stone huts that served the usual functions Marcus would expect: there was a troops barracks, an armory containing mounds of various rusted weaponry practically sprawling across the floor, a stout chapel built into the cavern wall adorned with two rotten, maggot-encrusted Kobold skulls and the walls of the fort themselves which stretched out from the cavern's far wall. Littering the fort's grounds were also copious crates and barrels from which foul-smelling odors wafted. Marcus suspected that they could only be the ratmen's supply crates.
By far the most impressive structure was the massive wrought-iron gate that sealed the exit to the fort. It was currently manned by a line of six bored-looking ratguard.
As Skeever's men inspected their surroundings, seeing nothing but decrepit soldiers greet them with sniffs of their great, wriggling snouts, the commander of the fortress shambled down the steps of the gatehouse to meet them.
He was an old rat. Grey of fur and short of tail, with a festering, puss-filled wound adorning his left leg. Though he limped towards them, Marcus could tell there was strength still in his old bones, and that the scimitar that was sheathed just under his black cloak was probably still sharp enough to pierce Kobold skin.
"Skeever," he said, grabbing his comrade and giving him a hearty pat. "Be welcome in Knifegut."
Skeever nodded but wasted no time on pleasantries. "The fort is being broken, Gatskeek! What is happening here?"
Old Gatskeek nodded gravely and nodded to Deekius. His eyes then lighted on Marcus for the first time.
"So this…" he began. "This is the Shai-Alud."
As he spoke the word a whisper of disbelief rippled through the ratmen assemblage. Marcus felt their stares on his back, some of them looking at him with hungry eyes.
"Are you being sure?" he asked Deekius. "He is not looking like much."
Before Marcus could utter a word in protest, the rat-priest was already up in arms to defend him: "Sire Marcus' abilities are not in question. Under his leadership he saw us slaughter a pack of fifty Kobolds to the man!"
"Almost to the man," Marcus corrected, glancing back at the Kobold prisoners who were uncomfortably shifting against the stares of the fort-rats.
"Hm," Gatskeek grunted. "A human. And one that is barely having a hair on his chest."
Marcus unconsciously tightened his robe around him.
"Skeever," he grunted again. "Is this one the reason you are bringing those things into our fort?"
His eyes darted towards the Kobold slingers, who dropped to their knees, each one pulling down the other by their elbow to show their supplication.
"We are serving Shai-Shai now, good rat-Sire, yes. We are loyal only to-"
"I didn't ask your opinion, filth," the old rat spat. "I am talking to my kinsman."
Skeever looked from Gatskeek to Marcus before he replied.
"It is being the command of the Shai-Alud," he said without further hesitation. "These ones are saving us as we journey back through the North tunnels. They are having weapons that tame the Gutmulchers."
Gatskeek spat a globule of grimy saliva at his feet. "And what if they are simply tricking you, hm? You know Kobold are good for nothing but schemes and backstabbing. Their brains are being as fiendish as their devil hands."
"Are you questioning the will of the Shai-Alud, kinsman?" Deekius interrupted, raising his staff menacingly so that even the fort rats cowered back in fear. "Know that in doing this, you are questioning He-Who-Festers himself."
The old rat stepped up to look into the dark eyes of the priest, holding his gaze and keeping one paw on his scimitar's hilt.
"You will not be frightening me, Gloomraava," he said with revulsion. "We are praying to the Unclean One for weeks, after we are burying our dead, after we are licking our wounds, after we are fighting night after night. He does not listen."
Marcus sensed the tension in the air. It seemed old Deekius' reliance on religion as a tool of fear wasn't quite up to scratch when it came to those who had suffered under the yolk of real warfare. Yet, Marcus could observe the reticence in the ratmen that surrounded them. He could see there were a few who looked upon him as their messianic figure, and a few who's minds weren't quite as made up yet. How they dealt with this old skeptic – the commander of a set of obviously demoralized troops – this would be crucial. If he was ever going to reach the capital of this forsaken underground pit and finally be in with a chance of getting home, then he would wield belief like a weapon and cleave through all these petty squabbles.
So, as much as it pained him to play along with this little game of Gods and prophets, he sucked up his Agnosticism and faced down the commander.
"You are…being…right, Talon-Commander Gatskeek," Marcus said, taking care to match the intonation of the ratmen he had managed to pick up so far. "Your fights so far are being a test from He-Who-Festers. He has sat in silence so that you might show your dedication to him even when he turns his furry ears away from you. Now, your deliverance has come."
He indicated the troops surrounding them. Well-armored, still disciplined rats who stood to attention as he swept his hand over their column.
"We," Marcus said. "Are here to show you that the Unclean One still listens. He has sent…is sending us…to help you go home."
After this little speech the grey rat said nothing for a time. He looked Marcus up and down, and then returned his gaze to Skeever with a licking of his ragged snout.
"You vouch for this man?" he asked.
Skeever nodded without any hesitation this time. "On my life, kinsman. I, too, thought that we had been forgotten. But it is not being so. We will be going down in history."
Gatskeek merely chuckled at this, then eventually threw his head back and belched out a laugh that seemed to infect the troops that were still here with him – those watching from their doomed positions on the walls and those nosing the floor of the barracks for scraps before the new bodies came in.
"Skeever-Steelclaw is finding the Shai-Alud – hah!" Gatskeek shouted. "King Shrykul always did say our clan would be favored one day."
The old rat now looked to Marcus with a glint of humor in his withered, aged eyes. Eyes that had seen, perhaps, too much horror to care anymore.
"Well, Shai-Alud," he said. "Your words are being good. But we are not going anywhere."
He nodded at Marcus, Skeever, and Deekius to follow him.
"Why is that?" Marcus asked.
"Because, Shai-Alud," the old rat replied. "We are being fucked."