Reborn as a Fantasy General (Army-Building Isekai)

[IronLungg]

Be giving me death before giving me shame!

- Vikk Bad-Eye

The old rat led Skeever, Deekius, and Marcus towards his command post at the foot of the barracks. Skeever commanded the rest of his forces to stay behind and recuperate, taking advantage of the fort's supplies before they moved on.

"Supplies?" Gatskeek huffed. "You would be lucky to be finding a morsel of good tail flesh in this dump."

"What has happened here?" Skeever demanded, keeping his voice as low as possible so his men would not overhear his anxiety. "When last we departed, the fort was holding strong. Why now are you being so laid low?"

Marcus was too busy contemplating the rat's denial to retreat to even pay attention to his reply.

"Raids from the yipping ones are becoming constant," Gatskeek explained as the retinue passed by ranks of wounded Ratlings simply staring at the barrack walls. "Ever since they be having new Boss, they attack in large number with more and more anger. No matter how many we are killing, more come to climb over corpses and take fort. They all cry out victory for new Boss Skegga."

Marcus noticed how uneasy even the name itself made Ix and the other Kobold prisoners. He made a mental note.

"Be telling me you are completing your mission, Skeever," he asked with some faint hope.

The hulking Skeever responded in nary a whisper, perhaps so the Kobolds that now journeyed with them would not hear.

"We are," he said, producing a small, crumpled map in his hands. "Though it is costing me half of my men to do it."

Gatskeek returned his morose statement with a solemn nod. "We all are learning the cost of this war, kinsman. I am fearing that it has already spent us. There are being rumors from the capital that the North tunnels will soon fall against the might of Skegga's united army."

"We have seen him," Skeever said with revulsion. "He is no God. He is nothing but surface slime. If only the dumb demons could know this!"

"How are they breaking Knifegut?" Deekius interrupted suddenly. "This fort is being one of the strongest in the North Warrens."

"They are having advantages they never had before," Gatskeek replied. "Skogs, big guns, and numbers we have never seen. This Boss Skegga has given the yipping demons some new religion and has brought the Kobold tribes together under it. He is telling them that Great Kleansing will come, and they will wipe out all life in these tunnels until only Kobold remains."

The venerable rat looked back at the Ix and his compatriots and spat into the ground of the fort. His hatred could not be concealed.

Marcus couldn't blame him. In war – especially one in which peace talks were not on the table - it didn't behoove a commander to feel any compassion for his enemy. It would make the job of killing them that much harder.

He also understood the situation better now. These Kobolds, though individually insignificant, possessing basic intelligence, had been formed into a coherent military force through the galvanizing power of a new faith and a new God – this Boss Skegga. Whoever he was, he understood the power that faith wielded over those without minds of their own – those who desperately wanted to believe in something greater. The notion of disparate tribes being unified under such faith was not a novel one to Marcus – the Jihads under the Rashidun Caliphate of the 7th century and the Cathar Crusades of the 13th provided just two examples of how powerful an army with a common, spiritual purpose could truly be.

Eventually, Gatskeek led the detachment of leaders to what served as his war room at the end of the fortress barracks. It was a tiny chamber lit by two torch sconces on either side of a desk riddled with termites. Upon the desk lay a map of the surrounding area, with several points viciously crossed off like someone had taken a blade to the paper.

Marcus was surprised to see that it was a rather more detailed map of the stronghold than he had expected – clearly identifying the three tunnel entryways and the escape route through the great steel door, as well as diagrams of defensive positions that could be taken up on the twin Martello towers.

"We are being boxed in," Gatskeek said with another indignant spit of phlegm. "Every day Kobold raiders are hacking at us from the West and East tunnels. We try plugging them, but Gutmulcher attacks too frequent. Walls have held for past month but now," the Talon-Commander sighed. "You are seeing situation."

"Indeed," Marcus said, stepping forward to get a closer look at the fortifications and the wall foundations. "You've done well to hold out this long with what you've had to work with."

Gatskeek didn't bow in deference as the others did. Instead, he accepted the praise with a way, curt nod.

"We can be holding for another day at best," he continued. "Then Kobolds will take Knifegut. Will have clear path to assault Capital."

"Why haven't reinforcements come from Fleapit?" Skeever asked in disbelief. Marcus could tell the state of this place was having an effect on him. In the short time he'd known the creature, he could tell this hulking rat despised the idea of seeming weak in the face of his foes.

"King Shrykul is decreeing that no more help will come," Gatskeek replied. "He is needing to reinforce city walls against dwarven raiders to the South. Kobold threat is not seen as biggest problem."

"We will change that," Deekius promised. "Our mission is bringing word not only of great threat, but of way to be stopping them."

"We can be allowing you to pass through today," Gatskeek huffed. "Tell the King we are fighting and dying well."

"'Dying'?" Marcus asked. "Why are you so content to die?"

The rats all looked at him, their eyes streaked with confusion.

"There is much you have not told the Shai-Alud then," Gatskeek reprimanded his kinsmen. "When we are being ordered to make sure Knifegut has a standing army, we are standing no matter what."

"This is being our way," Skeever said. "What the King commands, we are doing."

Marcus, however, wasn't accepting that.

"This fort will fall tonight," he told Gatskeek, sensing Skeever and Deekius' hesitation. "With or without your rats here to man it. You said so yourself. I counted at least sixty good men out there who could fight another day. Can you really look them in the eye and tell them they are dead rats walking?"

"They are being loyal servants of our King, human," Gatskeek growled. "If the king commands it, then we are to follow!"

Marcus looked at his companions for any support, and found instead that they nodded with the old grey veteran. He felt fury rise in his throat but stop at his gullet. He remembered Mari's words. Then, he remembered what his purpose here was.

There could be more dangers on the way to Fleapit, and Skeever's men numbered only around approximately 24 beleaguered spearmen by this point. Extra manpower was exactly what they needed if they were going to survive the journey through another one of these decrepit tunnel systems. Marcus, having just seen the horrors of Gutmulcher jaws, was surer of that now than ever.

Gutmulchers…

He flew forward suddenly, analyzing the map.

"The orders of your King," he said. "What, exactly, were his words?"

Gatskeek's furrowed brows betrayed his confusion, but he answered without hesitation: "To be ensuring the fort is manned and protected from threats to the North."

Marcus nodded.

"What if there was another army that could protect it?" he said slowly, his eyes darting from each leader in the tiny chamber, knowing that they looked into his eyes and saw the flickering of the dim torch embers that threw themselves across the room.

"Well, Talon-Commander?" Marcus pushed. "King Shrykul didn't say that you, specifically, had to guard this place from your Kobold enemies, did he?"

The old veteran licked his scarred lips. "No," he said. "But if you are thinking that the Ratmen you bring with you will be enough to hold this place when sixty of my soldiers cannot, then you are more insane than you are looking."

"Who said anything about Ratmen?" Marcus said with an impish grin that couldn't help forming at the corners of his mouth. "We have a better ally that we can use in this fight."

Amidst the stares of the twitching rats Marcus' smile only widened. A plan was forming in his mind that he wouldn't exactly call 'sane'. But it was practical. And it was better than letting 60 able-bodied rats die here when they could be helping him reach his goal.

"Gatskeek," he said aloud. "If I told you I could save your men and keep this fort manned, would you trust me?"

The old rat scoffed. "Trust you?" he said. "No, human. I am not trusting anyone without the tail of my kinsmen. But if Skeever-Steelclaw vouches for you, then I will hear your plan. Then we shall be seeing if I will risk my men for you."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Marcus said. "If you follow my instructions, not a hair on their tails will be touched."

Skeever and Deekius exchanged looks that told Marcus even they doubted him in this moment. Yet when they turned back to him, they saw only confidence in their prophet's eyes.

"First things first," he told Skeever. "Gather your troops. We're going spider hunting."

 

[IronLungg]

'Nearly all men can stand adversity. But if you want to test a man's character, give him power'

-Abraham Lincoln


Klega tried to still his ferocious heart as it knocked against his ribs.

Ratties die-die, his mind told him. Kill. Kill-kill them all for Boss Skegga!

Behind him rumbled the yips and cries of his army – 70 of the big Boss's finest Skog riders, with complete control over their hopping mounts. Klega had always mocked the Skogs of the North tunnels as a child. He had spat at their spherical bodies and played the game of Skogchase with his companions in his youth – where they would taunt the Skog captives in their pens and jump over their spiny backs and tails as the creatures charged them, their venomous tongues lolling out lamely when they missed their targets. Klega had never imagined that he would ever have such control over one of those beasts – that the harness he held in his hands kept such a stupid looking beastie under his total control. It was right what Boss Skegga said – having control over the creatures of their dark world felt like being a God.

Klega smiled at that, raising his chipped shortsword and shouting over his shoulder at the other riders. His riders.

"Towards Knifegut!" he yelped to his fellow Kobolds. "We kill all rat-rats and then – then we take their Shai-Alud and crush-crush Fleapit! For the Big Yip! For Boss Skegga!"

The sound of his men whooping and bashing their mounts with their sharp claws and clubs reverberated through the tunnel they sped down. They sung songs of triumph, songs that praised the Boss and how they would be his tools that would set the Under-Kingdom on fire.

And Klega joined them, jabbing his Skog in its stupid, dumb, empty belly and laughing as it squeaked in pain.

Perhaps one day soon, he thought, they would be singing his name instead of the Boss's.

…

Marcus stood atop the crumbling wreck that was Knifegut's walls. Beside him stood Ix, practically shaking.

They watched Skeever and his men return with their plunder – the results of about two hours worth of sustained combat with the spiderlings of the tunnels. They had hesitated at Marcus' refusal to come with them, but understood that time was of the essence and he had to inspect the walls. If this plan was to work…

He looked down at the tiny form of the Kobold prisoner beside him.

…then all its constituent parts would have to operate in unison.

"Are you scared?" he asked the creature as Skeever waved his bloody spear up at them.

"I – I…" the little creature stammered. He had the involuntary habit of hopping in place like an eager child, and Marcus had to stop himself before such comparisons went any further. These little demons were not children. What they lacked in brain power, they evidently made up for in two areas: numbers and cunning.

"Speak freely, Ix," he commanded. "And don't lie. The Shai-Alud will know."

He chuckled to himself at this little bit of theatre. If only Mari could see him now. She'd always said he was a bad actor. But then again, you didn't need acting chops to keep infants entertained.

"Ix fear-fears wrath of God," the Kobold said. "Boss Skegga is supposed to be new God-God of Underground."

"And do you believe that?"

Ix gulped out his answer. "We of the Far North tunnels do not have choice. We not ask-ask question. We loyal."

"Until your commander is defeated, it seems," Marcus challenged.

It was unclear whether Ix recognized the threat in his voice, for all he did was pull on his long ears and wiggle his toes.

"Ix is having new thoughts," he said. "Commander Gith not win-win fight. This mean he not strong enough. This means Skegga not choose good leader. So this mean Skegga cannot be God-God. God not-not make mistake."

Marcus chuckled to himself. A stout deduction! Even if it was phrased a little awkwardly. Their people clearly valued strength. He imagined, from the things he'd heard, that this Boss Skegga probably commanded through sheer determination alone. Probably, he was at least ten feet larger than his subjects. And probably, Marcus thought, he believed that large numbers and a common cause were enough to win a war."

But even as he listened to Ix's words, Marcus kept his distance. He was not stupid enough to show disdain like the rats did towards their new comrades. The petty racial squabbles between these creatures did not concern him. But equally, he was not going to go the way of Xerxes, shanked in the back by those soldiers closest to him.

"Are you prepared?" he asked.

The Kobold answered with certainty. "Yes-yes, Shai-Alud. We are ready. You have told us of our role in plan-plan. Plan will work. We will win."

"That's not what I mean," Marcus continued, measured. "Are you prepared to kill your own kind?"

Ix looked up at him again and blinked his beady little eyes as he considered the question. They held each other's gazes for a time, until finally the Kobold had plucked up enough courage to bear his rotted fangs and squeak out his answer:

"This skin," he said, pulling at his soft belly. "This mean nothing to Yip-Yip. Kobold stand where there is power. Only want strong-strong. If ratmen strong, we follow ratmen. If Boss Skegga strong, we follow Boss Skegga. Ratmen have not been strong-strong. But now Ix has seen ratmen fight with Shai-Alud. Now maybe ratmen become strong-strong. They become worth following."

You go where there is power, Marcus thought, taken aback at the little creature's candor. Irrespective of race or creed. I can respect that. Even admire it. Of course, you could be lying to me. But then, you can't be, can you? Because you've just told me something that you probably don't think you did.

"Well then," Marcus said with a slight smile as he turned away to finish up the preparations. "I suppose I better win this next fight."

A sudden streak of mischief suddenly took him. He'd heard a long time ago that a man shouldn't ask questions he doesn't want the answer to. But still, he couldn't help himself. Maybe the performance of the Shai-Alud General really had taken him over.

"If I become weak-weak, Ix," he said. "Will you kill me?"

The Kobold looked at him vacantly, and merely shrugged his tiny shoulders.

"Ix no need," he said simply. "Weak-weak not live long in Under-Kingdom."

…


When Klegga and his raiders finally reached the end of the tunnel that their prior Yips had cleared to Knifegut, he looked upon the fort as a conqueror looks upon a golden city ready to fall.

He forced his men to a halt with a single raised claw, his fingers twitching on the grip of his blade.

Quiet-Quiet, he thought, scanning the big towers that were barely still standing after their constant raids.

"Head Yip Klegga!" one of his men whispered beside him. "Why-why we stop?"

"Klegga is using brain-brain," Klegga replied. "Fort look abandoned."

"Then we take-take easy!"

Klegga shook his head. "Too easy," he said. "Could be ratman trap."

"Trap?" another of his men giggled maniacally. "Stinky rats no clever enough for trap-traps! Not like clever Boss Skegga and clever Head-Yip Klegga."

"Head-Yip Klegga!" his men roared.

They want fight-fight, Klegga thought. Klegga understands. But rat-rats have Shai-Alud, now. They have leader now. Maybe they ha-

A general shout suddenly went up from the back row of his riders.

"Head-Yip! Look!"

Klegga strained his eyes to watch the movement that was taking place atop the fort's ruined walls. Kobold eyes were sharp as eagles, and even across the field of battle, Klegga could see the ratmen waving at them with their bows.

Then he saw the defenders turn round, lift their tails, and defecate off the side of the walls, jumping around in mockery of the Kobolds' war dance.

"The devils!" the Skog-riders wailed. "They make fun-fun of us!"

"How dare they mock-mock the sacred dance of war!"

"Enough waiting! We go! We go now-now!"

"NOW-NOW!"

"W-wait!" Klegga screeched. But his voice was lost in the hail of frenzied whoops and battle cries that sailed from the throats of his warriors. He watched them urge their Skogs on with crazed kicks and saw the hatred burning in their eyes as they charged the walls with their meagre defenders who, Klegga saw, barely took aim at them.

He looked at the chaos of the ordered rows breaking up all around him and felt a deep gulch open up beneath his raging heart. Boss Skegga had chosen him to lead. Why weren't the Yips listening to him?

He looked back up at the fort and tightened his grip round his shortsword.

It does not matter, he told himself as he threw his entire being into the battle. When Knifegut fall-falls, it will be my name they remember. No one else.
###

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[IronLungg]

Jump-Jump! Little Yip

Catch the sun-sun in your hands

Jump-Jump! Little Yip

We will be here when you trip!

- Popular Kobold rhyme



The sounds of the Kobold raider's war cries pierced the air of Knifegut's cavern.

The defenders of the walls took aim and fired as they had been instructed. Their arrows had barely flown before the cavalry was upon them, digging their claws into the remnants of their walls and charging toward the Martello towers.

The vicious teeth of the starving Skogs gleamed in the darkness of the cavern and found the hands of the ratman archers within mere minutes. They tore through skin and muscle like carving through butter, relishing every morsel of rat-flesh they swallowed, while the defender's bodies crumbled beneath them.

For a short, two-minute duration of pure agony for the defenders, the towers held. The archers relinquished their bows and drew daggers to pierce the soft underbelly of the rampaging Skogs. A few of them found the vile beasts' hearts before the rats were forced back in the face of a wall of gnashing fangs.

"Be retreating!" came the general shout from the walls.

Klegga heard their desperate cries and pushed forward, getting in amongst his units where the fighting was thickest. By this point, the walls and towers were filled with rampaging riders struggling to edge their way into the fortress past each other. The raiding party had become nothing but a wave of living, undulating death.

The defenders were pushed back into the courtyard of the fort, with Klegga's screams becoming the manic shouts of a warlord seeing his enemy crumble beneath his might. The Yips surged forward, urging their Skogs to leap over the battlements and crush the fleeing rat defenders under their bipedal feet. Some of them let the rats die a slow death – poking at them with their rusted machetes while their Skogs licked and chewed away at their flesh, stripping them of their putrid hair and swallowing them whole.

"Skogs are hungry, yes-yes?" Klegga shouted over the chaos of his whooping warband and the squeals of pain from the rats they trampled. "Give them food-food! Let them munch, crunch, chew-chew all night!"

By now the courtyard of Knifegut had become little more than a bloody feasting ground. Like carrion birds the Kobolds descended upon the meagre force of ratmen archers and guards that remained, dispatching them with little care even for their own unit formation. It became difficult for Kelgga, in the confines of the walled-in courtyard, to even recognize his line commanders in the mass of writhing flesh and ichor. But no matter, he thought to himself. Even if his 70-odd Yips were packed in here like cattle, all he had to do was watch them munch.

Klegga took his time to inspect the remains the rats had left in the courtyard – nothing but torn boxes and empty crates that reeked of ratmen filth. They had obviously been in a hurry to leave.

The chaos of the one-sided battle spilled into the barracks where the Kobolds found nothing but deserted straw bedding and filthy piles of dung stewing in the heat of the claustrophobic cavern. The armor – a similar situation. Klegga was becoming convinced the coward rats had run, leaving only a token defense to face his onslaught. It was funny. Klegga had never known ratmen to be brave, or capable of thinking. Perhaps their Shai-Alud had convinced them to stay and die so that his forces might leave?

The Shai-Alud…

Come to think of it, Klegga had not spotted a human anywhere within these walls. In a sudden panic, he ordered his men to search the place top to bottom, but those finishing off the defenders reported nothing outside but the dingy, smelly boxes the ratmen had left behind.

"They stink-stink!" one of his Yips shouted. "Like everything rat!"

"Head-Yip Klegga, we should push on!" another raider declared, filled with the fervor of bloodlust and battle victory. "We go-go to Fleapit and crush King Shrykul!"

The raiders whooped and cheered him on, and Klegga's sword arm began to twitch of its own accord. Covered from head to toe in ratman blood, he felt fearless. Brutal. He was ready to knock some sense into that screaming Yip when he heard the distinct sound of something flying through the air just above his sharp ears.

Something had just happened…

"Quiet-quiet!" he called out to his still rampaging horde licking at their fallen prey. "Quiet!"

It was useless. His voice was lost in their vindictive celebrations.

And then he heard it again: a sudden rush of air. A flurry of swift cuts being made through the dark cavern skies.

He looked up, scanned the stalactites that glistened above. His eyes strained to pick out movement, anything that could tell him what was –

SNAP.

The sounds of a dozen impacts nearby. The sound of wood splintering into pieces. Sounds that were unheard by his men enjoying their victory.

But their effects were felt. The dozen or so boxes and barrels that lined the courtyard were suddenly split open, revealing their viscous, dark-green contents.

A cry went up from his men as the explosions wracked their minds. The contents of the crates burst out and covered them, coating the Skogs' salivating mouths and sticking to the limbs of the raiders like glue. Even Klegga had to reel back, struggling to keep his mount under control as he shook the thick, sticky mucus from his eyes.

"Filthy-filthy rat-rats!" he heard his men scream. "They think to mock us while they run-run!"

But Klega was barely listening to them, now. Instead, he was preoccupied with staring at the mucus that dripped from every pore of his skinny claw, and looking up to see it covering all of his men like a cloak of vile poison.

His eyes shot wide open when it finally dawned on him what it was.

And by that point, it was too late.

"Head-Yip?" a rider said beside him, spitting out clumps of the disgusting fluid. "Why you look so pale-pale?"

Klegga wasn't listening to his men now. Now, he was feeling the thunderous vibrations beneath his feet.

He looked around him at the puzzled-looking Kobolds and Skogs, who had now stopped their feasting.

"H-Head-Yip? Wha-"

Cracks appeared across the fortress courtyard, tearing through the boxes which still lay unopened and spilling more of their vile payload across the ground, so that the chicken-claw feet of the Skogs started slipping around uncontrollably.

The courtyard had become little more than a bloody skating rink now. A skating rink composed solely…of Gutmulcher blood.

"Y…Yip-Yips!" Klegga called out as the sounds of the vibrations reached fever pitch. "Fall back! FALL BACK-BACK NO-"

The Head-Yip's command was cut off by the storm of pincers and serrated teeth that launched themselves over the wall battlements and landed in the middle of the raiders. Before the first victims were able to scream they were torn from their Skogs and chewed clean through, leaving their mounts to flail about helplessly in the viscous fluid that kept them stuck in place. Klegga looked up to see a legion of the screeching, eight-legged horrors of the tunnels descend on them from above, tearing through the already disrupted ranks of his horde with even more ease than they had employed against the ratman defenders.

"Group-group!" Klegga called out in vain. "Pack-leaders, fall back-back!"

It was useless. His eyes saw nothing but Kobolds squealing in despair as they were lifted from their mounts and ripped to shreds, their blood raining down on their comrades who turned tail and tried fleeing, abandoning their slipping Skogs altogether. Some of them made it to the walls and scrabbled up the sides to see nothing but a sea of waiting Gutmulchers on the other side – an ocean of crimson eyes that stared back at them before enveloping them within their flesh-ripping teeth.

Klegga watched his men die not with a heavy heart, but with a mind wracked by fury.

This…he raged. "This is not how it is supposed to be-be!"

The men around him looked up at their rage-filled leader spitting such anger at the chaos that unfolded around them. It was the first time they'd looked to him as a leader since they'd set out from Grindlefecht.

He looked towards the metal gate that the ratmen had defended with their last, putrid breaths. The gate, Klegga knew, that led to Fleapit.

"Yips!" he yelped above the din of the dying and the paralyzing screeches of the infernal arachnids. "Move towards big door-door! We push to Fleapit! Spiders cannot outrun us! Let cowardly ratmen face them!"

Slowly, Klegga saw his own insane resolve build in the small contingent that could hear him – those boxed in at the edge of the fortress.

"How we get to big door, Head-yip?"

Klegga kicked at the side of his Skog and raised his short sword high.

"How we get everywhere!" he squeaked. "We fight-fight!"

The little creature surprised himself with the ferocity of his candor, leading a breakout charge of the 30 or so Yips that weren't ground to pulp and intestine in the Gutmulcher's toothy maws. With him at their head his cavalry charged forwards, slashing back at the beasts in their way, aiming for the legs and managing to wound the arachnids that broke off from their feast.

"Keep push-push!" the fervent Klega called out. "We still win-win!"

They would come back, he told himself as he slashed through the talons of a snarling Gutmulcher and then forced his Skog to barrel right past it. They would come back later and take the place properly. They would bring poisons with them. Boss Skegga would understand. Klega would bring him this vital information that the fort was now home of Gutmulchers only. The rats had tried to trick them into being spider lunch. But they had failed. They had failed because Klega was strong leader – strongest leader in all Under-Kingdom!

And with such thoughts raging in his skull, he and his dwindling force finally reached the wrought iron gate at the back of the fortress.

"Open-open!" he cried to one of the raiders beside him, who forced his cog to jump up to the ratmen's primitive winch on the wooden platform that teetered beside the gate.

The 'mulchers from behind now surged towards them, having finished supping on the rest of his men.

"We are next-next!" a shaking Yip called behind Klegga. "We – we run-run! We go –"

A slap from the Head-Yip brought him back to his senses.

"Coward Yips never make big jumps!" he roared as loud as his puny larynx would allow him. "We will make biggest jump in Kobold history! We lead Mulchies to Fleapit! We strike blow-blow against rats!"

The iron gate finally came down, and when Klega turned towards the dark expanse that opened before them, he did so with certainty in his eyes and glory in his heart.

Until he saw what was waiting for them.

###

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[IronLungg]

Kill with a borrowed knife"

-The Thirty-Six Strategems



As the wrought iron door to the escape tunnel opened, Marcus braced himself for what had to happen next.

The door shuddered open, revealing pained, animalistic cries of death punctuated by the cracking of bones and squelching of teeth tearing through pliable flesh.

But he focused. He raised a hand to signal to the shield wall positioned right behind the door to ready themselves for combat.

"Sounds of Kobold death," Deekius grinned beside it. "It is warming the heart, is it not, Shai-Alud?"

Marcus ignored the bloodthirsty comment of the priest with a gulp. He could already smell the ranks of torn flesh and exposed bone marrow that coated the courtyard as the fortress' insides came back into view.

Then, he saw what remained of them.

He saw the Kobolds drenched in Gutmulcher blood mixed with the ichorus remains of their own people, and their spherical, reptile-like mounts shrieking in agony as the image of the ratman shield wall came into view.

Then Marcus locked eyes with the Kobold at the head of the riders, and he saw – as someone who was no stranger to fear – that the Kobold's hope of escape had just vanished.

"Spears!" he called.

The shield wall obliged, bringing their weapons to bear with an affirmative "HAH!"

His hand rose above their heads, holding the Kobold captain's desperate, pleading eyes just before he brought his fist down and issued his command:

"FORWARD!"

And with one swift, unburdened motion, the wall of thorns struck out at the raiders.

The first spears pierced the foreheads of the snarling Skogs with ease, ripping through their scales and coming away with pieces of blackened brain-matter oozing from their tips.

Then the next rank simply stepped forward without a second thought.

The Kobolds' screams filled the black void behind the rats where Marcus stood, watching the chaos he'd orchestrated unfold. The Skogs sent their thorny tongues covered in acidic mucus at the rats, their riders desperately trying to push against the wall. But it held firm. The furry monsters shoved back, striking out with spear and shield in equal measure, knocking Kobolds from their mounts which began flailing about lamely before they too were speared through their eye sockets.

The Kobold commander threw his voice against the slow, methodical advance of the ratwall, bellowing for his men to withdraw even as he watched what remained of his force die in front of him.

Then the Gutmulchers came.

They broke through the ruins of the fortress' walls and descended like a pack of hungry vultures on the rear of the Kobold cavalry, instantly decimating any who tried falling back into their hungry maws. Those raiders that survived could do nothing but watch as their brethren were slaughtered, then consumed, their lifeless eyes watching their comrades from within the serrated maws of the arachnids.

To their front, a wall of thorny death impaling them one by one. Behind, a sea of gnashing teeth coated in the blood of their comrades. Marcus had to admit, whether he liked it or not, he had managed to manufacture a living death-machine. The slow, methodical death of the Kobolds was like watching two hydraulic presses slowly but surely flatten an object at both ends until, in a matter of seconds, it collapsed in on itself and splintered into pieces.

Such pieces filled Marcus' view wherever he looked – chunks of Kobold limb, claw, and face flying back to hit his awestruck eyes.

He barely even remembered to order that the gates be closed shut.

"Fall back!" he called out to Skeever, who nodded with a face smeared in Kobold stomach fluid. They couldn't afford to let their Gutmulcher 'allies' gain a single inch in the escape tunnel. The plan had always been to lure them to the fort, have them decimate their enemies, and then quickly cut off their ability to pursue them. With the Kobold forces stripped down to only about ten men, Marcus reckoned this was the time to withdraw.

Behind him, issuing his remaining archers the order to fire into the mess of dying and dead, Gatskeek laughed maniacally like a senile old rodent.

"I must be admitting, Marcus," he shouted as the iron gate came down again. "I was not expecting this plan to succeed!"

"That makes two of us," Marcus whispered, watching the gate slowly fall like a closing curtain on an act full of madness and depravity.

Yet, once again, he was struck by the mad eyes of the Kobold leader in the middle of his decimated horde.

His men cried out in hapless, animal agony all around him, but he did not have eyes for their suffering. It could be their pain simply did not matter to him. Or, it could be that the sight of Marcus simply meant more.

By the way he licked his mucus-coated lips and fingered his rusted blade, Marcus tentatively assumed it was the latter.

His suspicions were confirmed: before the gate finally crashed down the little critter let out a howl that chilled the bones of every creature still living. He kicked at his Skog and it sent him flying through the air, sending bloodied viscera spilling over the shield wall. The spears were not quick enough to turn and strike up as he sailed above the rats, and came straight at Marcus' head with his blade poised to strike.

Marcus reacted as quickly as he could, collapsing into a roll that barely avoided the swipe at his throat. The little one turned tail, spun again, and charged right for him, Marcus only barely managing to grab hold of his blade with his bare hands to stop it tearing through his chest.

"Shai-Alud!" Deekius called out.

The next moments played out over a matter of mere seconds – seconds of fleeting pain, confusion, and the exhilaration of combat. Marcus was forced down to the ground by the sheer power of the little creature's conviction. The thing forced his shortsword down, slicing little bloody rivers into Marcus' fingers and making him cry out in pain. More than that, however, it was the face of the Kobold that struck terror into Marcus during these agonizing moments that seemed to signal death. The eyes – like to burning coals ready to pop out and singe his flesh.

"Shai-Alud!" the creature spat as he twisted the blade and cut into the soft flesh of Marcus' hands. "You…die! Die die! Klegga…will…not be…kill-kill…like this!"

Marcus watched those mad eyes draw ever closer to him, and for a single millisecond the thought flashed through his mind that he could simply let the Kobold have his victory. Everything about the little creature – his fury, his righteous drive to kill – it was spurned on, Marcus thought, by his grief. Grief he could only articulate through anger. Grief, in the final analysis, for his fallen brothers…

Grief that ended as those dark eyes went wide, and both he and Marcus looked up to see the pellet that had shot clean through the back of his head.

Like a twisted marionette the little creature turned its twitching head behind to see its murderer and there, both Klegga and Marcus beheld the sight of a Kobold loading another sparkling pellet into his slingshot.

"Klegga weak-weak," Ix said as he lined up his next attack. "Cannot even kill fleshy humie. Klegga no deserve be Head-Yip. Klegga choose wrong side."

And before the latter had any chance to open his blood-filled mouth to argue, Ix's next projectile found Klegga's heart and sent him crumpling down next to Marcus, his eyes lolling back in his head.

For a moment no one said anything, and Marcus was forced to stare into the eyes of the Kobold as his bloody corpse spasmed in its death-throes.

"Shai-Alud!" Skeever and Deekius both called as they finally reached him. "S-Sire Marcus! Damned be that Redwhiskers! Your slow turning of the winch is maiming our lor-"

Marcus shook himself off and rose gently, ignoring the blood rivers flowing down his palms. He knew he'd be losing too much blood unless he acted soon to bandage the wound. The dark world of the escape tunnel was beginning to blur. But, still, he staggered forwards until he stood before the little Kobold and his pack of archers – those who had popped every crate out there with pure precision and then managed to retreat back here with enough time to come to his rescue.

"I believe," Marcus wheezed. "I believe I owe you my thanks, once again."

Ix shrugged. "Ix is speaking true-true. Klegga is weak. Marcus is strong."

As the screams of the outside world died down, Marcus was seized by a sudden burst of energy. He stepped forward, grabbed the Kobolds claw in his bloody hand, and raised the little creature's fist in the air, smiling to see Redwhiskers grimace amongst the soldiers.

"Witness the real hero of this battle," Marcus shouted triumphantly. "The enemy of your enemy is your friend, ratmen! Remember that, and they might just save your life."

At this the ratmen roared with cheers, their voices probably echoing all the way down to their capital city that lay further down the tunnel. Marcus let them cheer for victory. He let them call out his name, and that of the Kobold beside him. He even caught old Gatskeek chuckling with hidden glee. They had wont he day, and he was now another step closer to freedom.

"S-sire?" Deekius' voice asked beside him.

He unclenched the Kobold's claw and stumbled forward, letting the putrid rat catch him.

"I…I'm tired, Deekius…" he said.

Reality blurred. The now concerned faces of his warriors coalesced together into a colorless sea of fur.

His hands fell to the ground.

"Shai-Alud!"

"Shh," he whispered, finding, of all things, the dead face of the Kobold, Klegga, being trampled beneath the ratmen's feet. "I…I'm heading…home…"

 

[IronLungg]

When Marcus came to, he realized with no small degree of despair that he was still in the underground empire of the rats.

"Sire," a voice said nearby. "You are being awake."

Marcus rose steadily, groaning with weariness beyond his years to see the twitchy Deekius sitting next to a bonfire that warmed them. They seemed to be at the edge of a huge chasm overlooking a set of small, desolate buildings that looked like towers to Marcus' untrained eyes.

He ran a hand through his hair and found, to his surprise, that his wounds had been bandaged.

"Your work, Deekius?" he asked the rat-priest, who nodded with a reverant bow.

"I am being no expert in healing magic," he explained. "But the eyes of He-Who-Festers is with us, Sire Marcus. His hands have touched yours and –"

"That's plenty," Marcus interrupted, standing to stretch out his back and take in the sight of the rest of their army. He found, again to his surprise, that both forces had splintered off into distinct groups swaddled around their own bonfires on the edge of the rocky chasm overhang. It looked like they were separated by profession – there were the spearmen of Skeever, the honor guards of Gatskeek, and lastly the small assortment of archers who, incredibly, were joined by Ix and his tiny band of quick-footed Kobolds.

Marcus couldn't help but grin. A picture of unity amidst scuttling vermin. All accomplished through war.

How's that for you, Barenz? He asked the invisible ghost of his eternal campus tormentor.

His mind then returned, as it often did, to the gravity of the situation at hand, and his eyes found at least two rats down there who did not sup on the fresh liquor of recent triumph – Redwhiskers, sitting as far from the Kobolds as possible, and Gatskeek, morosely staring into the crisping flames of his unit's bonfire.

One of those creatures he was sure he couldn't reason with. Force would be his best bet.

The other one was Gatskeek. And in casting his eyes over him, Marcus was forced back into this new reality.

"How long was I out?" he asked Deekius.

"Only five hours, Sire," the priest replied, shuffling next to him. "In that time, we are forging the path to Fleapit, where our mission shall finally end."

"Any casualties?"

Deekius shook his boil-coated head. "Few, Sire. With the aid of the Kobolds under Ix, are managing to repel the larval Gutmulchers who live in these parts of the Warrens. Most of the creatures are retreating after small bout of combat."

Marcus nodded at that, looking over the units below with no small degree of satisfaction.

Satisfaction, he scoffed internally. What do I have to be pleased about?

He must have at least voiced some of this statement out loud, for Deekius snapped his staff on the ground and answered him,

"Sire, under your command we have routed two whole armies of the Kobolds. Together, there is so much more we can do. King Shrykul will make you a legend among us."

"For what it's worth," Marcus murmured, finding the silent form of Gatskeek amidst the crowd.

"I'm heading down alone," he told Deekius. "Thanks for the assistance."

The rat-priest nodded solemnly, but watched his new Sire go with curious eyes, as though he could read the thoughts of Marcus as the latter formed them.

"Sire, we are creatures made for war. We are destined to rule these tunnels. All those we lose are simply part of He-Who-Fester's great pla-"

"Easy for you to say," Marcus shouted back over his shoulder. "You aren't the one sacrificing your life for your God's cause."

He ignored any response from the priest and instead walked towards Gatskeek's bonfire, the latter's troops all rising to beat their hands against their chests as he arrived.

All of them, except the old rat himself.

"I would be telling them to stand down," he said. "But I am thinking I no longer command them."

Marcus crouched down beside the old veteran with a slight groan of pain in his joints, much to Gatskeek's amusement.

"I see even the joints of a Shai-Alud are aching over time."

"More than you know," Marcus replied. "But I didn't come here to complain about my knees."

"Then what are you coming to do?"

The sudden tension between them was sensed by the honor guard nearby, and one of them hesitated for a brief instant – wondering if he should bring Skeever to mediate whatever discussion was about to take place.

Marcus couldn't help but be drawn to the bulging muscles of the old rodent that peeked out under his steel pauldrons. In his prime, he was probably even bigger than Skeever.

"I've come to tell you that I'm sorry."

The creature couldn't help but laugh in his face.

"This is not a word we ratmen are even knowing! You are apologizing for victory, human?"

"I'm apologizing because you had to leave the position entrusted to you by your king. I'm apologizing because, in order to strike a blow against your enemy, you had to lose seven of your men."

The old one glared at him with eyes framed by two great, furrowed brows.

"'My men'," he scoffed. "You are meaning Bentpaw, Calmsqueak, Longjaw, Snappingtoe, Glumrak, Mortsmek, and Rockscratch?"

Marcus gulped, feeling the tension only increase. "Yes."

"If this is being your concern," the old rodent said. "Then you are misplacing your sympathy. These rats knew their fate was to be dying some day, as we all do when we are birthed into the Warrens."

"It might mean nothing to you," Marcus said. "But I would have you know that this was the only way we could repel the raid that was coming. These seven gave their lives to ensure the security of your capital city. But that means nothing to a commander who has known his men for years, and then been forced to send them to die."

The rat held Marcus' gaze for an uncomfortable length of time that could have been seconds, could have been minutes. All Marcus knew was that, when the grey rat finally did look away, he breathed a small sigh of relief.

"You are not being like the Shai-Alud we have heard tales of," Gatskeek said, focusing on the flaring flames of his fire. "Shai-Alud is a war leader who must be followed without question. Who will be guiding us to new day. Making our Kingdom into an Empire."

An Empire…

A ratman Empire…

Marcus looked back at Deekius for a second before turning back to Gatskeek.

"Gatskeek," Marcus said. "Do you believe all that? You think I'm a prophesized savior destined to lead you all?"

When the old rat looked up at him and said nothing, Marcus decided he'd answer the question himself.

"Because I'm not," he said. "That legend? It's all bullshit. I'm just a guy with some rudimentary knowledge of military history snatched from my world and forced to fight with you all. I want this even less than you do."

The old rat cast him a sideways stare of disbelief, until a wide smiled showed his still vicious fangs.

"You should be showing care," he said. "Your Gloomrava may be hearing your heresy."

"And what?" Marcus smiled back. "You think he will slay his precious hero?"

Gatskeek chuckled in the odd way he did – like an old man filled with phlegm he could barely keep concealed.

"Why are you telling me these things?" he asked as both man and rat shared the meagre heat of the bonfire.

"Because I need someone to tell me the truth," Marcus replied without a hint of irony. "I need someone who doesn't blindly owe me loyalty to tell me when I make a wrong call, or when I start down a path that leads to nothing but destruction, no matter what 'gains' might be made."

The old rat considered this for a few silent minutes, licking his hungry lips in reflection. It seemed to Marcus that his message had sunk in, but by the shrugging of the old rat's shoulders, he realized that he might never be sure if his words stuck with these beings or not.

"Meh," Gatskeek finally spat. "I don't care if you are believing in the prophesy or not. But I am not being a fool. Our species do not live long if we are not being smart. Gatskeek has lived longer than most because he knows when to be making the right friends."

He fixed Marcus once again with the red-rimmed eyes.

"I will be giving you my advice if you ask for it," he said. "But know that I will tell you things you do not wish to be hearing, and that my loyalty will always be with my people."

Marcus fought the urge to chuckle. "I would have it no other way," he said.

They didn't shake on the agreement – that didn't seem like something the rats did to seal a deal – but Marcus saw the old rat aim a globule of spit at the flickering embers of his fire and decided that he would follow suit.

He had no idea if that was the right thing to do or not, but he did see Gatskeek smile again as he rose and shook himself off.

'We are to be leaving soon," he said. "Fleapit is being only a day's journey North. Then we will be seeing what King Shrykul thinks of you."

He threw something small and sharp at Marcus' feet with such intensity that the latter almost thought he was trying to kill him.

Instead, Gatskeek's dagger glimmered between Marcus' legs.

"Be using that next time enemy comes upon you," the old rat said with a smirk.

Marcus then watched him walk off to offer congratulations to his archer team nearby. He huddled closer to the fire, stretching out his bandaged hands and enjoying, even for a moment, the simple pleasure of heat on his skin.

My list of allies grows, he told himself as he picked up the old rat's gift by its handle. Mari, you would be proud of me.

 

[IronLungg]

-Grindlefecht, Boss-Skegga's stronghold-


"BRING ME ANOTHER PRISONER!"

The bellow from Boss Skegga's swollen larynx sent sonic shockwaves rippling through the ancient Dwarven architecture that comprised his stronghold. He swiveled on his floating throne, the sputtering blue flames licking at the skulls of Dwarf, Ratman, and Kobold alike that had been crushed under the claws heel of his armies.

His minions rushed to grab another one of his torture victims from the Desecrated Pit behind his throne room. It was the place where the bearded freaks that owned this place had once conducted strange ceremonies in 'Praise of the Stone' or some such guff that served as their religion. While he waited for his next victim that he would see flayed alive, he spared a look at the piles of skeletal corpses lined up on the far end of his temple.

The great horned toad scratched his slimy legs and stretched out his pudgy, greased flippers, staring at the blood that coated them in the aftermath of the last prisoner he'd strangled after supping on his innards. His mind raced to keep up with the thrumming of his unseated heart. Ever since his scouts had reported that, not only had Klegga failed to capture Fort Knifegut – and lost 70 good Skogriders in the process – but that the fort was now a nest for the Warren border Gutmulchers, he had been consumed by a red mist of rage that nothing would abate.

And making matters worse was the knowledge that this 'Shai-Alud' was still out there, mocking him with every breath he drew in his realm.

"SILAS!"

His voice thundered with such animalistic intensity that the Kobold guards near him shook. But not Silas. No. Never Silas. Sneaky, tricky, traitorous Silas.

The young Rat slipped stealthily out of the shadows behind his throne and coughed to make his presence felt.

"Yes, Sire?"

"Tell me," Skegga began, his arm-flippers gripping the golden armrests of his throne as it slowly spun to show him the corpses that decorated his temple walls. "Tell me how a mere human can resist me."

Silas cleared his throat again. "You are speaking of the Shai-Alu-"

"OF COURSE I AM!"

Now some of the Kobolds actually tried to flee, being tripped and mocked by their comrades before they made it to the golden door.

"My knowledge of the prophecies are being dim, Sire," Silas replied, unfazed. "But it would seem that this human is no ordinary peasant. He seems to have knowledge of military strategy that lies beyond the ken of the Clan Red-Eye Rats. Perhaps He-Who-Festers has finally blessed my former comrades with a true champion for their-"

"HE-WHO-FESTERS IS A LIE! I AM THE ONLY GOD THAT RULES THESE TUNNELS!" Skegga roared, throwing spittle in the slim Ratman's face. He simply took a handkerchief from his shaggy coat pocket and wiped himself clean.

"Of course, Sire."

Skegga huffed as he threw his body back, closing his eyes in consternation. First Gith's unit, now Klega's…and the fact they had allowed the fort to be taken…how did that make sense?

"You must admit, Sire, that the strategy of the Shai-Alud is an unorthodox one," Silas continued, as though the impish little creature could read his thoughts. "Yet it makes perfect sense if we are thinking about things from the Red-Eye's point of view. They have retreated, yes, but in so doing are leaving a set of guards that shall never tire, and shall be proving quite formidable to remove. Knifegut is now being virtually unassailable."

Skegga grumbled, gripping his armrests with such intensity that for a moment Silas thought he might well tear them off and toss them at his head.

"We will bring our cannons to bear!" he said. "Cannons, big guns, a thousand raiders if need be! They'll see the power Skegga wields then and they'll know – oh yes! THEY'LL KNOW I AM RISEN!"

"I would urge caution, Sire," Silas replied with a short bow of grace. "Such troop movements would be leaving our headquarters unmanned and undefended. Our forward outposts would be found sorely lacking in the face of a directed Ratman counterattack. If we are keeping the majority of our forces garrisoned here, we are ensuring we have the capacity to reinforce our border forts with as much haste as necessary."

Skegga's eyes narrowed at the Ratman. Inside, he wished to tear him apart for his tenacity. But he could not doubt the frustrating logic in the little imp's words.

"You have proven good with your tongue, Silas," he said. "We admit that you have had some good ideas that have been of some assistance to us. But now you would council me in cowardice? You would have us wait here till our glorious palace is attacked by Ratman filth and their false prophet? If this is your 'plan', Ratman, then you had better give me a damn good reason why I shouldn't rend you limb from limb right here and now."

Skegga was more than used to striking fear into his subjects. Fear was an effective enough tool when dealing with animals. It had worked to whip up these Kobolds just as his benefactors on the surface said it would. It had worked to throw them like a flurry of boulders into the walls of Grindlefecht and take the dwarves by surprise. It had worked to beat down the little fat-nosed men who defended these forges and it had worked to get him the guns that would facilitate his conquest of the rest of the underworld.

But, it had not been enough to ever phase Silas. Sneaky, tricky Silas. Silas, who had been useful so far in showing Skegga the ways into his former home, but the Ratman was beginning to get on his nerves.

How can a rat carry himself with such pride in the presence of a God?

Skegga licked his mucus-caked lips.

"Well?" he asked.

Silas bowed low and indicated the two Kobolds Skegga had sent away to bring him another torture victim.

"Quite the contrary, Sire. I am not believing nothing should be done about this troublesome man. He is being far too dangerous to be left alive. However, instead of committing a sizeable force to seek out and destroy him, I suggest that we are taking a different approach."

The Kobolds threw down the Dwarven prisoner – a stout man with ragged tufts of ginger hair spilling down a morose face covered in dust and grime. Skegga was surprised to see that one of his Yips was holding the little man's weapon: a long, ornate, silver-plated arquebus.

"S-S-Silas tell us to bring this prisoner before you, Boss Skegga!" the Kobold holding the pristine weapon said. "This fat-beard have big gun-gun. Too big! Can't shoot-shoot with this!"

"Maybe you can't, ya muth-sniffin' vlech," the prisoner spat. "But I can."

The Kobolds looked up at Skegga with bloodlust in their eyes, but the gargantuan toad only roared with laughter.

"You have quite the mouth on you, little man!" he shouted. "I think I shall eat it, first."

"Sire," Silas broke in. "This man is far more useful to us alive than dead."

Skegga rounded on the tiny rat. "He looks like another fat little dwarf to me. Explain."

Silas nodded to the man as he stood up proud in his chains.

"Fingel Darragut," the Dwarf said. "Trained sniper in the service of Lord Grendle of House Darragut."

"Sniper?" Skegga asked.

"A long-range weapon expert, Sire," Silas explained.

Boss Skegga sat back and stroked his bulging throat.

"An assassin," he said.

"In a manner a' speakin'," the Dwarf said. "Point me at a target, and I'll take it doon. You got a man that needs killin'? I can dae it."

Skegga saw determination in the little man's eyes, and he leaned over to whisper in the ear of his sneaky little advisor.

"Silas, why is this man offering his services to us? Is this some kind of Dwarf trick?"

"Hardly, Sire," Silas said with a smug grin. "From what I am knowing of Dwarves and their strict adherence to honor-culture, they are incapable of lying, even to their enemies."

Remembering the masses of fat-men that had refused to surrender during their assault here, Skegga could understand that.

"Then why does this scum-sucker wish to help us?"

"For the same reason his people are doing anything," Silas said. "For his family."

At the raised slime-brows of Skegga, Silas went on: "We are having both his wife and first-born son in chains. Your divine leadership is giving us a perfect bargaining chip over this man, who just so happens to be more than capable of tracking a target through even Ratman infested tunnels – and one who is being capable of avoiding Gutmulcher eyes. He is, after all," Silas chuckled drily. "A rather short man."

Skegga's own smile shone in the grim, red lights of his temple.

"So you wish to prove yourself to us, little man?" the giant toad sneered. "As it so happens, I have just the right job for a man such as you."

Fingel stared through eyes that had long ago given up on his own life. In those eyes was nothing but the vision of death. It overcame all sense of morality he had ever maintained, all sense of loyalty he maintained to anything but his family that were being kept somewhere below, in the bowels of Skegga's lair.

Despite everything, Silas had done well this time.

The great toad smirked as the Dwarf bowed low.

A broken man kissing his feet. Eyes that were absent of hope.

He loved to see it.

 

[IronLungg]

The march of the Ratmen echoed through the chasms of the North Warrens uninterrupted.

To the onlooker, nothing about such a force would have looked strange in the tunnels at this end of the Underkingdom.

Nothing except, of course, the human scribbling away with a quill and notebook at the center of the horde.

Evidence of sophisticated architecture used as defensive measures, Marcus was writing, barely paying attention to the chittering of the rats around him – or, at least, the ones he wasn't bombarding with questions.

Skeever tells me that these intricate ruins are Dwarven in origin – they are apparently masters of craftwork. I'm inclined to agree – dotted throughout the chasms we cross now are several examples of barricades, shrines, and other ornate buildings that are irregular in their design, far more solid, defensible, and visually appealing than what I saw in fort Knifegut. Skeever tells me the Dwarven forces have a sizeable presence in the Northwest, maintaining trade routes with the human nations above. This would imply friendly relations…though the Ratmen seem to hate their Dwarven neighbors just as much as their Kobold foes.

"Scruffy, fat, bearded goats!" Skeever remarked to Marcus absent-mindedly. "It is being great honor for Rat to kill Dwarf, taking lock of hair as trophy. Gatskeek! Be showing Sire Marcus your prize!"

The old venerable Rat marching ahead of their column looked back over his shoulder with a proud smile, bearing a dirt-caked lock of braided grey hair.

"Gutting this one was costing me fifteen good ratguards," he croaked. "He was apparently champion."

"And now he is resting in dirt," Skeever spat. "As he should be."

Marcus bristled slightly, looking down at the hate-filled eyes of the Talon-Commander.

"Skeever," he said. "From what you've told me, I have more in common with these Dwarves than I have with you."

The Rat barely heeded the statement, waving Marcus' tense face away.

"No, Sire," he said. "You are looking like a human, but you are having the soul of a Rat within you."

Marcus couldn't help but chuckle. "Is that so?"

"It is what He-Who-Festers has proclaimed," Deekius cut in from behind them. "The Unclean One never lies."

Marcus caught Gatskeek rolling his eyes up ahead and decided to just laugh the comment away.

"You know, many people have accused me of having just that kind of soul in me," he said.

"Begging your pardon, Sire?"

"Nothing," Marcus told Skeever, continuing instead with his notes.

We have about six hours to go until we reach Fleapit, according to Skeever's intuition. Me? I can barely tell whether it's day or night under here, and I can feel my body groan as it tries to adjust itself to this Under-Kingdom time.

With us being so close to the Capital of the Red-Eye Clan's domain, I decided to probe into their military structure. Skeever acts as a Talon-Commander (the general name for a warband leader) and has in his tenure employed several different Lieutenants (Or Paw-Leaders) to supervise smaller units – of which the terse Redwhiskers is the last surviving member. Every fighting force in the field also must be followed by a Rat-Priest of He-Who-Festers, almost like a kind of battle-cleric. This implies at least some degree of military hierarchy of a magnitude higher than I assumed.

The thing that interests me more is the Clan system itself – which is no more complicated than that seen in similar societies in the real (cross that last, 'our') world. It puts me in mind of the old Celtic system of social organization seen in the Early-Medieval British Isles – each Clan maintains its own army, traditions, cultural aspects, and rituals which give them a level of individuality. At the same time, any one King can call for a general muster (called a 'Skittering') which compels each Clan to send a detachment of military aid to the other, in return for promises of similar aid should they find themselves in a spot of trouble. This system, though primitive, is and has been effective in ensuring the Clans remain committed to the general defense of their borders. Gatskeek, however, tells me that the exact interpretation of 'military support' is taken in a deliberately subjective way by some of the Clans if they are particularly hard-up or, in some cases, just lazy. In one interesting example, King Nailgrip of Clan Marrow was reprimanded for delivering a detachment of 'living battering rams' to King Scargut of Clan Glumrot. This turned out to be nothing more than a box of five Dwarves tied to a stake – with Nailgrip vehemently arguing that 'these fat little men are being good for nothing but bashing doors'.

The purpose of Skeever and Deekius' mission is something they're keeping close to their chests. They won't even breathe a word of it to me – they won't give me a shred of information about whatever they 'stole' from this Boss Skegga, but they have revealed that the information they have will 'finally' lead to King Shrykul calling for a Skittering in the coming weeks. I can see the excitement in their eyes as they talk about this in hushed whispers, turning to me with bloody, visceral joy. It's obvious what they want – they want me to lead the muster when it comes.

Gatskeek's been keeping quiet about the whole thing. Part of me thinks that the old rats simply wishes to see his home again. At a few points on our journey, he has only pointed out sightings of creatures native to these chasms – small, balloon like birds which move around the highest stalactites above us. He looks upon them with a level of nostalgia, informing me that they are 'Gitterplaks', or 'Gas balloons' – completely harmless beings that seem to enjoy just existing in the caverns, living on the algae that grows amidst the ceiling stalactites.

Watching them pass by like lifeless orbs overhead, I can see that they secrete a black fume that looks almost familiar. It bears a striking resemblance to CO2 emissions.

If that's the case, perhaps I finally have a concrete rationale for how addled the brains of these critters seem to be.

…


The Ratpack stopped in the shade of an old abandoned Dwarven fortress – steel walls flanked by old, disused cannons littered the floor of the chasm as the army hunkered down for the night.

The final road to Fleapit ran through this way – the fortifications were often used as a point of reference. It was said that it Ratmen could smell the shit of Dwarven ghosts nearby, then they knew their home was just around the corner. It had, after all, been built on their graves.

Marcus sat around yet another campfire watching the Rats chew into the supplies Gatskeek had scrounged up. Skeever at one point noticed him staring and tossed something small, wriggly, and moist towards him.

"I…I will pass," he said.

He didn't want to seem rude, but the churning in his stomach was something that wouldn't be abated by simply food alone.

He watched them laugh and spar with oneanother just like a General would watch his men engage in such recreational activities and had to remind himself that this was a one-way trip for him – that his duty in Fleapit was to get himself home through an audience with those closest to the great, almighty He-Who-Festers. With any luck, he could then put this whole nightmare behind him.

But I have to admit, he scribbled in his notes. It's had its moments…

Currently one of the Ratmen of Gatskeek's group – a jolly, rather plump fellow aptly named Squealer – was serenading the army with tales of Marcus' exploits. How the Rat knew anything about him was anybody's guess – though the other Ratmen cheering him on and throwing scraps of food at him certainly didn't seem to care if he lied.

They even have a bard singing my praises, he wrote as an addendum to his notes above. Mari, I wish you could see it – what I'm looking at right now. Sure, they're a little rough around the edges, but they actually believe in the strategies I outline. They listen. They learn. They adapt – and what better qualities are there in a military force than those?

He caught himself suddenly, looking down to see his leg shaking with excitement.

Excitement, he chuckled. I have to remind myself that this isn't some silly game…

"You are being preoccupied, Marcus," Skeever said as he planked his giant form next to him. "Why are you being so interested in writing?"

Marcus smiled up at him, wiping excess dirt and grime from his brow. "Someday, someone will read these," he told the incredulous rat. "People come and go on this earth, but stories – legends – they stay as long as people have eyes to read and ears to hear about them."

Skeever shrugged, returning to the revelry of the fat-Rat Squealer. "We are not having place in history," he said. "Maybe in Underkingdom, yes. Many great Rat-man warrior and war-thinker. But on surface, on world called Thea, there are no Rats that can live."

Thea…

Inadvertently, Skeever had just given him something more valuable than what he held in his hands. The name of their world.

"Skeever," he said. "Why do your people live in these tunnels? What is up there that keeps you down here?"

As the morose soldier turned to answer, something glinted out the corner of Marcus' eye. The Rat reacted before he did – seeing the flash of a muzzle reflected in the lenses of Marcus' glasses and turning with the human just in time to see Squealer's jovial head explode in a hail of bloody brain-matter.

"DOWN!" he cried so the whole chasm could hear him. "GET DOWN, NO-"

Another flash, and Marcus felt something slice through the air before him, embedding itself in Skeever's sword arm.

Then, all hell broke loose.

 

[IronLungg]

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

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

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

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

"Skeever," he stuttered. "You-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crowd looked to Ix, who shrugged grimly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked with serious eyes upon the wounded Ratman.

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

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

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

"Should we be forming Testudo, Sire?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

A maze…

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

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

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

The Kobold did as he was bid.

"Skeever, I need your weapon."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcus waited. He watched.

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

"Come on," he murmured. "Come on…"

A flash in the dark.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You…you can do that?" he asked.

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

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

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

 

[IronLungg]

"GO!"

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

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

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

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

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

And that meant he had found him…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Damn it!

The world once again fell into silence.

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

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

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

Marcus nodded. It was now or never, then.

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

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

Marcus stood and, bracing himself, gave his command.

"RUN!"

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

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

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

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

You've found me, haven't you…

"MARCUS!"

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

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

The eye flashed with dazzling white…

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

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

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

Then Deekius' pulling yanked him right back to reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcus could barely believe what the Ratman was telling him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Don't I always?"

 

[IronLungg]

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

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

"Come on. Come on…"

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

Vermin, he thought. Just like that bastard toad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just…stopped.

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

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

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

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

The world, once again, was wreathed in silence.

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

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

One shot. That's all it would take.

One shot to buy him freedom.

One head to carry home.

One path to secure his family's future.

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

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

He licked his lips and steeled his resolve.

"Fine!"

He pulled the trigger.

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

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

"…What?"

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

A deco-

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

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

Pain.

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

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

…

"GATSKEEK!"

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

His weapon landed beside him, smashing upon impact.

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

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

"Be moving!" Skeever shrieked at his men.

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

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

Marcus watched from the doorway. He said nothing.

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

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

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

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

"Gatskeek…"

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

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

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

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

"You…are being…ngh…fool, kinsman."

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

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

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

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

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

"Enough!" Marcus shouted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Gatskeek, I…I didn't think…"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The light began to die behind his pupils.

"Take…us…home…"

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

But the eye wavered. It was waiting.

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

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