Reborn as a Fantasy General (Army-Building Isekai)

[IronLungg]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, there are humans on Thea, Marcus noted.

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

Marcus stiffened.

Deekius, if you have tricked me…

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You are wounded, King Shrykul?"

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

Occupational hazard…Marcus mused. What…

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

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

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

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

The screams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[IronLungg]

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

"You're blind…"

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

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

Marcus blinked up at her.

"Excuse me?"

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

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

Once again, he sucked up his disgust.

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

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

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

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

"I do not. I have ne-"

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

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

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

"Yes, sweetheart. You are being ri-"

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

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

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

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

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

She finally turned back to Marcus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…What?

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

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

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

"SILAS! SILAS! SIIIILLLLLLAAAAAAAAS!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is she…always like that?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcus's fists tightened behind his back.

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

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

Deekius…

His hand inadvertently clenched on the hilt of his dagger.

He was going to pay that rat a little visit.

 

[IronLungg]

"You knew, didn't you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somehow, that served to piss Marcus off even more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcus groaned as he sheathed the knife.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcus stirred. "Meeting?"

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

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

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

"Leaving?" Marcus asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

###

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[IronLungg]

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



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


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


"Thank you for coming today, Brothers."


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


"What news of our Brothers in the East?"


Both rats bowed their heads and said nothing.


Shrykul nodded. "I see."


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Both rats inclined their heads.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


At this, King Shrykul simply shook his head.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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