Reborn as a Fantasy General (Army-Building Isekai)

[IronLung]

Ix wished these ratman mounts wouldn't sway around so much.

He missed the cool, flat backs of the Skogs that he rode into battle on the dangerous raids against the fat dwarves in their stone houses before this war started. But even the tiniest Yip knows that things change. One day you think you have leaped your highest leap. The next day you find that there is another mountain to overcome.

Such thoughts buzzed in his mind as he kicked the Spineripper gently and brought it to a halt before the narrow pass that led from the edge of Ratman territory to Boss Skegga's dominion.

"Head Yip Ix?" one of his men asked him. "What be problem?"

Ix scanned the slowly moving objects he saw in the distance, his eyes picking out rolling stones clustered together between the two great canyons dubbed Razor-Tooth pass.

"Be holding," he said to his men. "There be big-big trouble ahead."

He led his meagre unit of six over to a rocky crater and ordered them to fall prone. Looking over the lip of their position, they could pick out the size of the force that was surely coming for them.

But the sound – that was what hit their ears first.

Ix would be lying if the joyous cries of his once-brothers did not inspire some small sense of longing in him. He looked upon the force of Skogriders and slingers as they emerged from between the pass like a red haze of bloody death, the faces of every kobold smeared with the purple blood of dwarves or ratmen prisoners, some of whom they carried with them on wooden poles. They had spread their limbs and strung them up like grisly artistic projects. For what purpose, Ix could only guess at.

As the little Kobold tried counting each head that emerged from the pass – counting at least 300 troops before he realized this was no mere raiding party. For, at the center of the horde, a lumbering steel giant trundled forward on two spoked wheels – its shiny skin glistening in the darkness of the cavern, every inch it moved causing the ground to quake beneath it.

"By Kalyip!" one of Ix's men cried. "It is dwarven gun-gun!"
"Big dwarven gun-gun," Ix corrected.

He sat back down and looked into the eyes of his men as they shook with terror. Even the ratman Spinerippers seemed to shake to behold the great, beastly cannon – they knew that its roar brought one thing alone: death.

"What we do-do?" Ix's men asked. "Sire Marcus cannot win-win against dwarf gun!"

"We should run-run, quick-quick!" another Kobold spat, practically twitching in terror. "We should be joining the troops! Skegga will not know-know we are traitors. He will let us come back-back, yes?"

The sound of Ix's hoofed-foot stamping on the hard stone ground brought the men suddenly and abruptly back to their senses.

"If I am knowing anything," he said. "It is to never be under-estimating Sire Marcus. We run-run to him. We tell him what come-comes. And we will win."

…


Deekius couldn't have asked for a more undisciplined bunch of soldiers.

Fort Spearclaw was a mess. No – a pile of filth would have at least had some use as a font of worship for He-Who-Festers. This fort was nothing but a glorified hovel. A place for rats to die in.

He and his entourage of Marrow rat soldiers were met at the gates by an unimpressed guard wielding a shortsword that looked like it hadn't been used in years. Not a single bloodstain coated the blade.

"We are not needing a priest," the gatehouse captain had said, before ordering the gate to be shut.

Deekius stood firm. He slammed his staff into the ground and amplified his voice with the gift of the Gloomraav. "You will not be turning away the Gloomraava that summoned Shai-Alud into this world!" he bellowed. "We are coming to liberate this village. And we are calling upon you to aid us."

The soldiers lining the fort walls chuckled – though the action was a paltry imitation of laughter at best.

"Be going home, soap-munching priest!" one of the crossbow-wielding archers on the dingy fort battlements spat back down at him. "We are independent fort now! We no more take orders from He-Who-Festers, or King Shrykul! If he is being offended, he can be coming here to take the fort back himself!"

The rats of the battlements then proceeded to lift up their leathers and display their furry buttocks for Deekius and his men to see, before they subsequently defecated down the side of their own walls.

"Be letting us at them, Gloomraava," one of the tough Marrow-rats said beside Deekius. "We of Clan Marrow are knowing how to deal with disrespect."

But Deekius was cool. He simply turned his attention back to the rat who was still standing at the gate before them, staring at the priest and his armored entourage.

"What is being your name?" Deekius asked.

The lazy rat spat out a clod of Glitterpak meat and said, "Regurg."

Deekius straightened up, ignoring the laughter of the men who still wiggled their butts at him from above.

"Who is being your commander, here?"

Regurg shrugged and flashed a sly smile at the priest. "You are talking to him."

Deekius flashed his ignorant smile right back at him, making sure the rats on the battlefield were watching. "I am invoking Right of Greyfang."

Regurg stiffened and twitched his whiskers in consternation and Deekius's smirk widened. It looked like the rat still knew what the ancient decree of the old Warlard Greyfang meant when a ratman invoked it: a duel to the death.

"The words of the Warlord are meaning nothing here," he said. "Not anymore."

"You are refusing, then?" Deekius asked.

He had him – the priest knew how prideful these Talon-Commanders could be. Even one such as this – who had long since given up his loyalty to his King – could not survive a single month without the unbridled trust of his men, and rejecting the Right of Greyfang would mark him as a coward in their eyes. Even now, Deekius could see that they had ceased their childish pranks, and were now absorbed in the discussion that was taking place, looking to their once-Lord for his answer.

Our kind are born to serve, Deekius thought as he looked at the gradually building tension behind the commander of Spearclaw's eyes. To give up position of power is being worse than death.

"You think I am being afraid of Gloomraava such as you?" he asked, gesticulating wildly more, Deekius knew, as a show for his men than anything else. "Fine. We shall be meeting in the center of this fort, and you shall be falling under my blade!"

Without any further fanfare the furious rat stormed into his fort and drew his virgin shortsword, taking a few drunken practice swings through the air as his crossbowmen came down from the battlements to get the best seats in the house for what was about to transpire.

Deekius calmly walked through the puddles of mud and shit and bloated corpses that littered the ground of this place. Already he could see why these rats had become indolent – their mounds of dead numbered in the dozens. They had both a wealth of food, and a reminder that their opponents were far stronger than they.

"They are holing up in here like water-bathing wretches!" one of Deekius' Marrow guards spat. "Is this truly how pathetic the warriors of Clan Red-Eye are being? Be letting me fight as your champion, Gloomraava. I shall be slaying this heretic in seconds."

"Be still," Deekius warned the soldier as he craned his neck, staring down the hopping form of Regurg currently engaged in psyching himself up. "And do not be intervening. No matter what."

Both ratmen squared off in the middle of the cragged peak Spearclaw was built upon, their toes grinding grey pebble between them. The rats of the fort slung their weapons and respected the tradition with dignity, telling Deekius that there might still be some hope for these lazy wretches.

At least, he thought with a sly grin. We will be punishing them after the war is won.

A single bead of sweat dropped from Regurg's frayed brows as he circled the priest's tiny, hunchbacked form, and as soon as it hit the dry earth, he charged.

"Har-YAH!"

His swipe came down upon Deekius' staff and knocked the Gloomraava back against a haybale beside the fortress' North wall. Deekius rose, winded, and only narrowly managed to avoid the high slash of Regurg's next attack that shore through the hair on his forehead.

As the Gloomraava rolled to the side of the now cocky warrior, he saw the beast hold up his blade and display the specks of green blood that oozed across its edge.

"Be bearing witness!" he roared to the crowd. "Tonight, we are dining on Gloomraava blood!"

As his horde cheered him on from the battlements, Deekius' entourage began to surge forward.

But the ratman held up his gnarled claw, tasting the blood that dripped from his skull.

"I am telling you," he said. "Do not be intervening."

The rats of Clan Marrow then beheld the Gloomraava stand, lapping at the small rivers of blood that cascaded down his own face and snarling a devious, bone-chilling smile.

"The noble servant of weakling Shrykul is going mad!" Regurg shouted to his cheering men. "Well, should I be putting him out of his misery?"

"Be taking the head from his bastard shoulders!" his men yelled back at him.

Deekius, meanwhile, breathed deep the air of the Underkingdom. He stared forwards, eyes probing the body of his ratman opponent.

He placed his hands, palm up, on the ground.

He whispered words that the rats of Clan Marrow had never heard another rat utter.

"You are seeing your death, Gloomraava?" Regurg spat in the face of his apparent prostration. "Then, be allowing me to finish you!"

Regurg surged towards his opponent with a mad bellow of animal rage spilling from his lips. His bulging arm came swinging down in a mercy-strike that would have taken any rat's head clean from his shoulders.

Any rat, that is, except his opponent.

For when Deekius opened his eyes and looked upon the blade of the unworthy commander, he saw nothing more than a child paralyzed with fear.

###

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[IronLung]

Chaps earlier than usual today. Enjoy your weekend folks!


Deekius gazed up at Regurg as the latter's blade came crashing down to cleave his skull.

And then, without warning, the Talon-Commander's arm stopped – seemingly on a whim.

To the onlookers, it seemed that Regurg had suddenly been paralyzed for, though his sword arm twitched and wavered, his eyes moved around frantically, and a low, pained howl began to emanate from his lips.

His body shook with perspiration and bulging muscles – muscles that were contracting and spasming as they followed commands independent of their owner. Slowly, with what looked like great effort, Regurg lowered himself into a kneel before the Gloomraava and his head jerked up to look at Deekius' eyes.


"C-commander?" one of the fort rats called.

No response came from their leader. Instead, the same low, animal mewl escaped from his throat, through his teeth clenched and chittering, close almost to shattering as they ground against each other.

"By the Unclean…" the Marrow-rats of Deekius murmured, their claws involuntarily flying to grab at their throats as they watched the neck of the squirming ratman bulge, seeing dark veins throb against his flesh.

Then, in a fluid movement that lasted only for five seconds, Regurg plunged his shortsword straight through his throat, twisting the blade as it emerged on the other side.

He fell to the ground, coughed up a torrent of his blood, and after twitching wildly for a few moments, lay still as a rock.

In the minutes that passed between the ratman's death and the Gloomraava's piercing victory cry, the seventy rats of Spearclaw fortress' garrison were silent as a crypt, eyes glued to the inert form of their once valiant leader who had dared to defy their King that had abandoned them.

When Deekius' staff slammed into the ground, every pair of eyes then settled on his hooded form.

"Be seeing the power of He-Who-Festers!" he yelled, throwing his arms wide and wading into the pool of Regurg's still spilling blood. "He has bestowed I, his servant, with the power to hold life and death in my claws! He is giving me this because I am calling the Shai-Alud to this place, and I am following him to the ends of this earth. Imagine what he is giving you, if you are joining with him!"

The rats started murmuring amongst themselves, and those of Clan Marrow were forced, for once, to admit that the old religion did indeed have more power over the minds of their kind than they and their King had thought.

"Down in Razork the Shai-Alud is waiting for you," Deekius cried, throwing mucus-caked spittle from his gnashing jaws. "He is coming to free us all! He is coming to kill the Kobolds and Boss Skegga. He is coming to take us against the surface and win this world! Be joining us in the Skittering to end all Skitterings – the Skittering that will be bringing the End!

Be joining us," Deekius added as he still saw some apprehensive faces in the crowd. "Or be following this heretic to your grave."

Now, the rats' choice had been made for them. Those who had once smeared the walls of their fort with their fecal matter to mock the rat that stood before them now bent the knee and kissed the ground he walked on. Not a single soldier still stood when Deekius' dark eyes swept over them.

Seventy new men for Sire Marcus, he thought. They are not being good men. But they are being ours, now.

He handed his staff to one of the Clan Marrow rats and kicked at the dead-eyed form of Regurg beneath him.

"Be preparing this one," he said. "I will be eating his stomach first –"

Deekius' wishful thinking was interrupted by the cacophonous drone of something flying through the air beneath the fort's hill – something discharged with such force that it shook the very ground of the Underkingdom, reverberating off the stone walls and causing the stalactites of the ceiling to crumble and break. Before the sound caught up to them, the ratmen of the fort then saw one of the huts of Razork disappear in a fiery explosion that tore it from its very foundations, leaving a trail of smoke a debris in its way.

"By the Unclean One!" they screamed as the sound of the earth-shattering cannon rebounded in their ears.

"Ah!" Deekius spat as he came to stand among them on the battlements, looking down at the carnage with crazed glee.

"So now you are invoking the name of the Unclean? Well, let his name become your battle cry, because we are going down there to kill his enemies!"


…


The explosion tore through the air and ripped into the first hovel of Razork with such intensity that Marcus had to fall prone and cover his ears. Even then, the ringing he felt was deafening.

He looked up to see Skeever shouting something in his face. At least, he assumed he was shouting. His ears could still not be commanded to catch up with reality.

"Form up!" he cried, leaving his latest 'experiment' where it lay in the farm. "Get the Spinerippers into a wedge formation."

His final command had barely left his lips before Skeever obeyed without question.

"AH!" Rekul was screaming beside him, Marcus's ears finally transmitting the pathetic pitch of his voice. "Th-they are bringing dwarven big gun to us! We are being doomed, Sire! We – we are bei-"

"Get a hold of yourself, ratman!" Marcus roared at the little beast, almost ready to slap some sense into him if need be. "They can't have more than one cannon, or they'd have fired again already. Besides, have you forgotten what we have on our side?"

Marcus looked with the mayor over the farmlands that had become entirely cleared – the Glitterpaks coerced away by ratman spears into a single pen that lay at the very end of the village.

"Sire…" Rekul gulped. "Against a Dwarven gun…"

The rat suddenly felt his soul stiffen, for he looked up to see the face of the Shai-Alud brimming with a smile.

"I know," he said. "They're certainly making things interesting for us."

Another boom from the dwarven gun struck Fort Spearclaw above them all – ripping apart its Northern battlements and surely killing every last crossbowman that was lazily dozing on the walls.

"By the Unclean…" Rekul murmured.

So shaken was the little rat that Marcus's reassuring but firm hand on his shoulder startled him almost as much as the din of the great cannon.

"Go to your people," he said. "Evacuate them. Force them out with some of the Marrow rats if you have to. But tell every single one of them that the time has finally come to push their enemies back to the abyss they crawled from. The time has come for them to defend their home."

The white rat sniffled, eyes glazed with tears.

"S…sire!"

"Be drying your eyes before you go, mayor," Marcus replied. "It won't do for your people to see you like this."

"Be listening to the Shai-Alud!" Tekris bawled from behind as he grabbed the mayor and started dragging him up the burning hill of their home with the rest of his wranglers. "There are still being rats we can save if we are moving quickly!"

The old wrangler turned and spat at Marcus's feet one final time before sprinting off with his esteemed leader practically swinging from his waist.

"I am hoping you know what you are doing," he said. "We are raising those Glitterpaks since they are being babies. We would not be wanting them to die in vain."

"You have my word they will be put to good use," Marcus said. "More than that – they will light the way forward for your entire Clan."

"I am holding you to that, human man," the farmer smirked, before finally dashing off.

It's funny, Marcus thought. They often say that Scorched Earth campaigns of burning farms, infrastructure, and enemy resources are a key component of victory in a state of Total War. Yet, here we are, not only destroying these resources ourselves, but actively weaponizing them against the enemy.

In spite of the roaring of the great dwarven cannon, Marcus managed a thin smile in the darkness of the deserted farms.

"Sire Marcus!"

It was at this moment that Ix and his Kobolds came charging through the farmyard fences, practically swinging from the sides of their panting Spinerippers.

"Ix," Marcus nodded as he made his way towards the burning village, watching the Marrow-rat cavalry take up their positions on the left and right flanks of the place. "I'm hoping you bring me some good news."

The little Kobold drew stuttered breaths as he ran beside him. "Judge by big-big cannon, sire. Do you think Ix's news is good-good?"
"I suppose I don't need scouts to tell me when my forces are being shelled by artillery," Marcus said, another cannonball smashing into the farm they'd just left behind, forcing both man and Kobold into a low crawl across the dirt. "Enemy composition?"

"At least 500," Ix said, drawing a mirthless chuckle from Marcus. "Bigger than ordinary raiding force. Big-big, and mean. Skogs and slingers march-march together."

They mean to take us down in one swift, decisive attack, Marcus thought. It's just like I predicted, Boss Skegga is making a push to secure a new border which will enable him to encircle and starve out Fleapit. But what's making him act now? Why commit such a horde at this specific moment…?

Marcus's thoughts were interrupted by a horde of rats waving shortswords, bucklers, and rickety crossbows through the burning village streets towards him.

He rose, hailed them cautiously, and then realized with a start who the leader of this new pack was.

"Sire!" Deekius roared above the flames that licked the hovels all around them. "We are evacuating from Spearclaw. Thirty rat-swordsmen and forty crossbow are awaiting your command."

"In the name of the Unclean One!" a particularly amped-up crossbowman wailed. "Be pointing us at our targets and watching them die, Shai-Alud!"

Marcus glanced at Deekius's proud face, wondering what kind of 'inspiration' the rat priest had drilled into these guards.

But that was a question for another time. For now, they had an army with a very loud demon at its head to beat back.

"You will all have your parts to play in paving the way for Clan Red-Eye, no, the ratman Empire's counterattack against the Kobold menace!" Marcus shouted over the roar of another cannonball flying high and overshooting the village. "Boss Skegga will learn to fear the name 'Spearclaw!'"

Amidst the cheers of these new warriors, Skeever stumbled his way out of a fiery alley, having been aiding in the evacuation of the villagers that still lived.

"Skeever," Marcus asked. "Are the Marrow cavalry in place?"

The Talon-Commander nodded. "All is being ready, Marcus."

"Alright," the General replied. "Here's the plan."


###

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[IronLung]

'Offense is the essence of air power'

Henry H. Arnold


The roar of the dwarf powder cannon tore through the air of Razork village like an ancient demon awakened from a long slumber.

It's every shot rebounded with an echo that traveled through the tiny beating hearts of every Kobold that stood around it, each one waiting for the command to move out and slay what was left of the pathetic ratlings who still lived in their tiny little border village.

When the cannon was recalibrated and smashed clean through fort Spearclaw, a general call went up, and two hundred mounted Skogsriders raised their scimitars into the air and charged forward in a single organic mass – a living wall of biting, slashing claws and bloody teeth bared for their furry enemies. They needed no war drums, for the claws of their bouncing, starving mounts beat against the hard rock of the ground and sent an earthquake radiating up its grey veins.

The line of one hundred slingers followed them behind, each Kobold lamenting to his comrade Yips that they would barely have any good killing to do here. Their spirits were raised, however, by the suggestion from one of their lieutenants that, perhaps, they would be given the glorious job of 'rounding up' the wounded or lame that Boss Skegga was so found of taking as prisoners. Each little demon whooped and clapped his hoofed heels as he imagined it – taking a ratman, strapping him to their wooden beams, setting them ablaze and then delivering them to Skegga just before they took their last breath. With any luck, perhaps they could get the Queen herself. Perhaps Skegga would even allow them to have their way with her. As ugly as the ratling matriarchs were…females were females. Besides, one slightly more muscled Yip joked, none of Kobold kind had ever broken in a royal arsehole before.

Such philosophical musings were, however, rudely interrupted by one Kobold pointing up at the stalactite-laden sky and shouting something above the din of the cannon's roaring.

"Shut that Yip-Yip up!" came the shout of one of the Slinger Head-Yips, readying his claws to rebuke the screaming subordinate.

Yet, the perceptive amongst the Kobolds followed the eyes of their comrade and saw what he beheld: a cloud of puffing Glitterpak sailing above them, belching out their vile black gas.

"Glitterpak!" a Head-Yip squealed. "The smelly ratman-farmers are mad-mad! They have let their meals go-go!"

As powerful as the Yips voice was, his scream was lost to the thundering of the Scogs' scrabbling feet on the Underkingdom floor. They only noticed the puffing bulbs of dumb, grey life when the creatures started falling slowly towards them.

"EEEK!" one Skog rider yipped. "These ugly ball-balls are getting in the way!"

The riders at the vanguard of the formation quickly realized this Yip was right – the Glitterpaks had plummeted towards the ground with a speed that the Kobolds had not seen before, and had come to rest just above the horde of red waves.

"Pop these dumb-dumbs!" Came the collective shout from the head Yips – a shout that was, again, partially lost in the echoing of another cannon shot.

The scimitars of the cavalry sliced up at the stupid creatures, knocking them away like the gassy balloons they were. However, they could not penetrate the armed grey hides of the things.

"ARGH! Kill-kill! These dumb things get in our way-way!"

The cavalry charge – once confident and resolute – suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

Now, those looking on from the village of Razork saw the Kobold army come about and turn back on itself, Skogs bumping against Skog and Kobolds being thrown from their saddles as they tried to pierce the skin of the Glitterpaks to no avail, growing more and more irate with each useless poke and stab.

And all the while, their little Kobold lungs were filling with the black gas of the useless creatures, prompting coughs and sputters that did nothing more than spur on the fury of the yipping beasts.

Not a single one of them decided to scan the hill where the burning fort spearclaw still stood overlooking the entire flatlands of the North Warrens.

If they had, they would have seen the sight of one of their own, holding their doom within his tiny claws.

…

"Hold," Marcus told Ix. "Hold…"

The Kobold cavalry was, by this point, engulfed in a sea of gaseous onyx. The smell was rancid. Even from this distance, it was beginning to numb Marcus's senses.

It had had the same effect on him the first time he had taken a whiff of the gas and pondered where he'd smelled something similar before. It was only when he arrived in Razork that he'd realized, with quiet certainty, just how right he'd been.

Beside him stood the straight-backed form of the Kobold, Ix, his arms faltering every so slightly as he drew back the sinew on the string of his longbow and waited.

One single, flaming arrow flickered before him.

"Sire," he croaked. "I am never using big-big bow like this. I cannot promise I can hit-hit Skogs."

Marcus kept his hand raised, nodding to Skeever who waved to him from the left embankment of Razork village, he and his riders hidden from sight by the smoke left in the wake of the dwarf-cannon's onslaught.

"Who said anything about hitting them?" Marcus said, sweat pooling on his forehead as he watched the Kobold forces become more and more enveloped by the Glitterpak's gassy belches with each passing second.

They were scrabbling. Their formation was already broken. In the next few minutes, their morale and bodies would be broken, too.

"There is a famous quote from an old warlord of my world," Marcus said with a slight smirk. "'Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.'"

He looked at his Kobold archer that held the death of hundreds in his hands.

"Are you ready to become a destroyer, Ix?"

The little Kobold returned his Sire's dry smile.

"Ix only kill a few hundred Yip-yips," he said. "Not world."

Marcus had to laugh. Maybe these Kobolds had more intellectual wit than everyone thought.

But that idea wouldn't serve him here. Right now, he had to give the order to have an entire army of them burn.

Only when he could barely even see their furious forms from within the black haze did he finally give the command:

"LOOSE!"

Ix's tired arm released its projectile. The ratmen of Razork, the guards of Spearclaw, and the cavalry of Clan Marrow all watched it fly through the dark skies of the Underkingdom – a tiny, insignificant thing that trailed smoothly through the air until, finally, it plummeted towards the black-cloud that had enveloped the Kobold army.

And the skies of the Underkingdom were bathed in red.


…

All the Kobolds saw was black become a kaleidoscope of red-orange light.

Light that seared their eyes and threw them from their mounts.

No one saw which Glitterpak's spume began the chain reaction. In the years after the battle of Razork field, there would be no historians to extol the brave sacrifice of the first creature to die as its own plumes of expelled gas were ignited to become a blooming flower of carmine destruction that, in a matter of seconds, seared the flesh from the bones of every Kobold stuck within the cloud.

What future generations would all agree on, however, was the simple fact that the confidence of the army was snuffed out like the briefest of candles as the bonfire of the Sha-Alud swept over them.

The earth-shattering wail of the explosion came after the sight of the fiery sphere erupt amongst the horde. The ratmen hiding in the dark corners of Razork watched transfixed as the pillar of flame roared and flared up to touch the ceiling of the cavern, stretching out and silencing even the dwarven cannon behind it.

Then the screams came.

From within the bulb of fire, the Kobolds and their Skogs were cooked alive. Their skin was stripped from their bones and replaced with a bright sheen of living flame that jumped and followed them in smoky trails as those who were not immediately killed in the blast fell to the ground and rolled frantically without once looking to see what was coming for them, thundering up from the burning ratman village.

Two forces of Spineripper cavalry emerged like gnashing specters from the left and right ends of Razork, barreling down the open field towards what remained of the immolated Kobold line while their scorched bodies tried to wail for help from their God that had forsaken them.

The two wedge formations of Spinerippers bore the largest rats the Kobolds had ever seen – each one an armored knight of filth ready to rend their pray apart.

The Kobold slingers watched their cavalry fall away with shaking legs that simply would not function. And it was their firing line that saw exactly what fate awaited them. It was they, the historians of the Underkingdom would later say, who first heard the chilling call of the Shai-Alud as he stood on the hill above the scorched field and gave his second, and last, command to his forces that day:

"CHAAAAAAAARGE!"


###


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[IronLung]

"Without cavalry, battles are without result"

-Napoleon Bonaparte



In the aftermath of the Glitterpak bombing, there was a lull of perhaps forty seconds where nothing happened at all. Dazzled Kobolds – the ones still living – wandered aimlessly or crawled to return to their Skogs, only to find their mounts had become crisped-up polyps stuck to the still burning ground.

The ringing in their ears deafened them to the sounds of the Slinger-line behind them screaming for them to turn and face what was coming. As their senses returned to them, however, those of the Kobold cavalry horde began to feel the distinct ringing sensation running up their feet, setting their teeth on edge and sending shivers up their spines.

And when they turned to see the cause, it was already too late.

The first Marrow-rats smashed into the left and right flanks of the enemy simultaneously, their Spinerippers leaping into the fray to rip and tear the jugulars of two Kobolds at once, while the spears of their riders found the spasming bodies of the burning Skogs. The cavalry wedges sliced through the red-mist of the once-confident horde and pushed the survivors into a defensive circle – slowly chipping away at the edges of the formation until it gave way and the riders simply threw themselves from their Skogs and tried making a break for home. None of them could make it passed the watchful eyes of the salivating Spinerippers.

Bodies began to fly through the air, shedding bloodied limbs and decapitated heads that had been crunched by the Ratman mounts and simply tossed away. The Marrow soldiers lunged and thrust through the Skogsriders with such ease that the battle fervor that had overtaken them in their initial charge changed to the grim, macabre satisfaction of butchers slaughtering defensive lambs.

"This is not being battle!" one of the Marrows was heard to say over the blood-curdling sounds of the Spinerippers feasting. "This is being sport!"

The Kobold's squeals ripped through the dark skies as they died. One by one, two-hundred soldiers fell before the spears of seventy, their glorious victory cut short in a matter of minutes.

…

Up above, on the ridge occupied by the now-abandoned fort Spearclaw, Marcus watched the chaos unfold with cold, quiet detachment. He watched the red-mist that had once represented the enemy army to his naked eyes slowly wipe away as the tar-black armor of the Marrows overtook the field. Meeting cavalry on an open field was practically suicide in military terms, and the only thing that could effectively put up any resistance would have been a Schiltron formation (which he doubted the Kobolds had the ware withal to be aware of), a counter-cavalry charge (which was now impossible for them) or a sustained artillery barrage – and that dwarven cannon was now practically useless, thanks to the cloud of smoke that now hung over the sight of the massacre. Once again, disrupting the enemy's line of sight had been vital, but Marcus had had to acknowledge that even he didn't know how devastating the bombing run would have been.

Methane gas, he wrote in his notes as he observed the results. All this time…these rats had a source of power that they were using as a mere food supply. In fairness, I had my own doubts. The smells match, but methane on earth is colorless. Though I suppose that's my mistake – believing this world of fantasy creatures behaves the exact same as my world did. Sure, there's some similarities, but I have to account for the differences when I see them, too. This does open up some more possibilities, though – we share chemical compounds and structures. I wonder what else I can find here…could there be an equivalent to cyanide gas? Doubtful that this world has discovered the necessity for general warfare conventions or ethical guides to conflict…that, in itself, is a notion that I must remove from my brain if I want to win here…

His scribbles were interrupted by the sound of another bombardment tearing a chunk out of Spearclaw's walls behind him and Ix, whose eyes remained transfixed on the wholesale slaughter of his once-people.

"That's our cue, Ix," Marcus said. "Time to move."

The little creature nodded and followed the Shai-Alud down to the village.

…

The Slinger line watched their comrades die in silence.

Only when one of their number decided that something like victory could still be achieved did they take up their arms and begin their counterattack.

"We still have dwarf gun-gun!" many heard some Yips shout. "We can still win-win! Strike for eyes of soldier rats! Shoot them – quick-quick!"

The Slingers obeyed. They obeyed, having no recourse for their comrades that were still alive, trying desperately to flee for safety. Their clay-iron bullets bounced harmlessly off the reinforced armor of the Marrow soldiers, whose visors rose to prospect the tiny critters nipping at their hides. The Kobolds scrabbling on the blasted ground were killed in droves by spear and bullet alike. Only when the cloud of hazy smoke began to clear did the Slingers realize that their efforts had been in vain.

"Klegga save us!" they screamed. "Canon! Canon shoot-shoot!"

The Head Yips buckled as the Spinerippers finished off the cavalry in a cluster of grey and crimson. The commanders ran back to help load the canon, bellowing against all hope that the death-machine that had lit up the ratman village could strike a killing, demoralizing blow against the clustered cavalry who were now stuck wading amongst the bloated corpses of the dead Kobolds. Another charge was not forthcoming. They had sealed their own defeat.

"FIRE!" the Head-Yips screamed at the tiny troops loading the cannon with another explosive round. "FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!"

The Slingers on the frontline meanwhile made a stark realization that stopped their pointless assault – the cloud of blackened smoke had began to move. It began to creep towards them, filling their lungs only momentarily before it snaked its way towards the snout of the great cannon.

And those that understood what was happening understood it far too late.

"STOP-STOP THE CANNON!" the Sligners shouted, turning back and running towards the great hulking machine as it aimed directly at the slogging Spineripper cavalry. "STOP! STOP-STOP! STO-!"

The final exclamation of the Kobold raiders was cut short prematurely as the cannon belched its final fiery round right into the black maw of the smoke cloud that had just engulfed it.

Once more, light shone in the Underkingdom. The dwarf cannon's shot erupted in a hailstorm of flame and broken shards of metal that instantly impaled the throats of its engineers, and the great hulking beast disappeared under the strength of its own firepower.

Back in Razork, the evacuated ratman citizens gathered on the hill atop their village, seeing the broken Spearclaw fort shattered and broken behind them, but, in truth, not caring a jot about the fate of that useless building. Instead, they watched the light show the Shai-Alud had promised them: they watched the garrison of Spearclaw emerge from the darkened shaodws of their fields left flank and mow down the Kobold Slingers who still remained. The little demons' screams filled the tunnels, and it was said that on that day every ratman – even those secluded in the gooey-pits of Clan Glumrot – heard the wails of their enemies as they fell under the might of the Shai-Alud's army.

Mayor Rekul stood beside the Glitterpak Wrangler Tekris, both watching the sights of victory for their kind unfold before them in utter disbelief.

Finally, it was Tekris who opened his mouth to stutter a few words:

"Poor beasts," he said. "That there's being a waste of good meat."

But someone standing behind the ratmen disagreed – the rat holding a great wooden staff that had directed the black cloud towards the now wrecked dwarf cannon.

"No," Deekius said. "That is being victory."

The villagers watched the rest of the Kobolds be promptly mopped up like children – children falling under the men of spearclaw. These were warriors who had once sworn they would never again fight for King Shrykul. They were debased and disgraced, warriors without the wish for glory in their hearts.

And yet there they were, hacking away at the Kobold army until, in a matter of minutes, they cheered a vindictive roar for the man riding towards them – the man who commanded his Spineripper to hop atop the wreckage of the dwarven cannon and turn to meet his victorious soldiers as they rose their bloodied blades to chant his name.

"SHAI-ALUD! SHAI-ALUD!"

The man who had set the sky of the Underkingdom ablaze.

"He really is the one…" Rekul whispered. "He…he has risen."

The villagers around him, for once, all nodded in revered agreement.

"Well?" Deekius asked them all, like a father reprimanding his children for bad behavior. "Show him the respect he is deserving."

The villagers, with no exception, got on their knees so fast that it was said you could hear their joints snap from submission.

The rat-priest swept his hands over Marcus's triumphant form in the burning fields below.

"It is being a new dawn," Deekius told the rats of Razork. "He-Who-Festers is giving us His champion. Soon, the Underkingdom shall be ours. Then," he added, smiling under his hood. "The whole world."

###

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[IronLung]

-One Month Later-

-Fort Festigraf, edge of Boss Skegga's Territory-

Head-Yip Mivvy watched the deep green pools of the Black Gulch swirl with no alternative, stifling the yawn that was traveling up his tiny red throat.

He spared little thought for the chitter-chatter of his men as they boasted of the ratmen they would hang or strangle on the battlefield. In the wake of the Massacre of Razork Field, Big Boss had been mobilizing his forces and getting ready for ratman attack. For the first time – ever – the Big Boss told them it was time to defend against their enemies.

The furry little bastards would be coming for them.

Mivvy decided to join the rest of his Slingers on the western battlements of his fortress, who were currently engaged in the task of spitting as far as they could into the undulating waves of the great Gulch below them.

"Meh-meh!" Mivvy grunted as he came to stand beside them. "You call that spit-spit! This is spit-spit!"

He reeled back, retched, and spat a globule of puss that flew further than the rest – disappearing like a bubble in the dark emerald broth they were guarding.

"See?" Mivvy grunted as he elbowed the Yip beside him.

The Yip nodded somewhat hesitantly, and Mivvy took note. Lately, the excitement of his men had been low. Normally this wouldn't be an issue – Boss Skegga had enough Yips to replace each one tenfold. Lately, however, their fort on the edge of the Boss's stronghold had been getting less and less supply trains. The Yips were tired, and they were afraid – he could see that in their sleepless eyes.

"Boss-boss," one Yip murmured. "When we kill-kill the ratmen? My sword waits for them. It waits – but we don't go."

Mivvy watched his men nod furiously in agreement with this notion.

"Boss Skegga say 'wait and defend while I build up great army!' but we wait for two weeks now. Our bellies rumble-rumble! Why we not go, cross Gulch, and kill-kill all rats now-now!"

Mivvy listened to these complaints with an indignant sniff, and then closed his eyes as he allowed them to pass in one spiky ear and out the other.

Then, without warning, he kicked the first Yip that had dared voice opposition to Boss Skegga straight into the Gulch below.

And while the others yelped and pleaded for mercy, watching their friend sputter and die until a series of frothy bubbles were all that remained of his meek existence, Mivvy decided to raise his voice to a thundering falsetto:

"You bring dishonor to our fort-fort!" he screeched. "We are first defense against stupid rat-rats. Do you doubt Boss Skegga's plan? Do you forget that we have five-five dwarf big guns now? We wait for his word, we take the cannons south, and then we watch rat-rats burn. Patience is what you must learn-learn, my Yips! You must know this thing!"

He watched the forms of his men shudder at his very shadow, and tried his best to keep from smiling.

"Do not worry! I will be leading you into fight-fight. We of Festigraf will be famous in Kobold tale-tales!"

The Yips knees buckled, their fingers rose to point at him – at Mivvy, their glorious leader.

"Do not fear Mivvy!" Mivvy shouted, puffing out his chest and planting his spear in the ground. "He is brave, yes-yes, but you can be too! You can be-"

"H-head Yip?"

Mivvy rounded on the impenitent Kobold that had just interrupted him.

"WHAT-WHAT?! Do you want to join your friend-friend in the waters below? Are you so stupid that you wo-"

"LOOK TO THE SKY-SKY!"

Mivvy heard the words. He saw now that the Yips had never looked upon him with fear. Instead, they looked upon the balloon-beasts that were now floating towards the fort battlements, each one of them being ridden by a ratman carrying halberds and spears that could cut through the hardest leathers Skegga had provided them.

And the beasts they rode upon – it…it had to be them. The scourge of Razork. The Glitterpa-

"SLINGERS, FIRE!" Mivvy screamed. "FIRE – FIRE AT WI-"

Mivvy found that he was unable to finish his exclamation. Instead, he felt blood spurt from his throat and block the words, and his claws flew to grab the spearshaft that had just been launched by the one-armed rat that was staring down at him, jumping from his mount as he and his comrades kicked the Glitterpaks towards their walls.

Then the walls of Festigraf bloomed with hellish fire, and the fate of the recently drowned Yip no longer seemed so bad.

…

-Grindlefecht, Boss Skegga's Stronghold-

"SILAAAAAAS!"

The dark-skinned ratman carefully stepped over the beheaded Kobold Head-Yip lying at the foot of Skegga's temple entrance. He then narrowly avoided the mangled body of a dwarven prisoner – or, at least, what was left of him – as it was hurled in his general direction.

"Sire," Silas said as he ambled before the throne of the thundering Toad-God. "You are seeming upset."

"Upset?" Skegga roared, crunching down on five Kobolds that fit into the palm of his pudgy right hand. "UPSET!? You sneaking, sniveling, dirty rodent! Look at all these infidels that line our glorious golden hall! You think I shall stop at them, Silas? Should your Lord lose another single fort this day, it shall be your guts that coat the insides of my temple!"

Silas looked around him, feigning fear and appropriate levels of apprehension at the grisly tapestries of Kobold intestines and entrails that decorated the interior of the temple. With each passing day, and with each passing loss, it seemed the place of worship was becoming more crimson than gold.

These days, Skegga barely maintained a retinue of Honor-Guards. The last Yip that had suggested they forge a path towards Razork again had been tied to a stake and put to the torch. Yet another had been fired from the now operational cannons the sat atop the high walls of the fortress' gatehouse.

"I am hearing the reports of Festigraf's falling," Silas said carefully. "Most grave news."

Skegga's slimy hands practically crushed what remained of his floating throne's armrests.

"It was the beastly, bloated bugs!" he shrieked. "The dumb balls of meat and gas that burn brighter than even our dwarf guns when put to the flame! How were the Masters not telling us! How were we not knowing of the power of these little beasts?"

A sound question, Silas pondered. But then, none of us are knowing. None of us are ever being bold enough to assault our own source of nutrition in this cesspit. None, of course, except an outsider like this Shai-Alud. The one they call 'Marcus'.

Silas had learned much of this man over the course of the last month. And what he had learned filled him with a mixture of tepid excitement and existential dread.

But, more than anything, what he had learned was a simple fact that he had suspected when this war began but never truly known to a certainty. The reality of this fact had become so clear to him when he learned of the Kobolds catastrophic defeat on the field of Razork village. That had been it – their last main counteroffensive. Now, with Skegga practically shaking in his flying chair, they were simply hunkering down and waiting for the end.

And that – Silas knew – could take a very long time indeed…

"Silas," the odious Toad-God spat, his bloodied tongue flecking out to throw spittle and brain-matter at the straight-backed ratman. "You always stand so silent. Thinking you are oh so clever – don't you? DON'T YOU?!"

To this, the ratman said nothing. He simply waited for the tantrum to subside.

"Your precious dwarf-man assassin was a failure. Your raid against Razork was a failure. Since this Shai-Alud has risen, he has made nothing but a fool of you. How do you like that, ratman? You are a fool before a human!

And when he comes here," Skegga added, rising and taking his massive, infected gut with him. "It will be your head they shall take first. Your comrades will flay the skin from your bones when they discover your treachery! Mark you, you putrid little beast – if you value your life, you will show me results! You will tell me that your Lord is right to place his trust in a scheming little man like y-"

At that moment, the doors of Skegga's grand temple were thrown open and a pair of excitable Kobolds came charging through, each one carrying the end of a brown burlap bag.

"W-What is the meaning of this!" Skegga roared. "HOW DARE YOU DISTURB THE GREAT SKEGGA!"

"I am apologizing," Silas said, trying to keep from smirking. "These Yips are coming to you under my orders."

"YOUR ORDERS!?" the toad-pretender wailed. "What now, Silas? Have you chosen your tomb already? Shall we inter you in that little bag, and throw you back to your spume-covered Queen? Shall we take you now? Is that what you want? Is – is – is that…"

The interruption to Skegga's rant this time came from no one at all. His voice simply trailed off when the Kobolds, at a nod from Silas, emptied the contents of their bag onto the floor of the temple.

And a fly-ridden human head tumbled out with little fanfare.

Streaks of bloody blonde hair framed the young, but not distasteful, face. His sapphire eyes glared up at Skegga with dull intensity – just as they had in life. His open mouth betrayed lines of broken teeth and a tongueless maw that gaped up at the God as though in complete awe.

"Wh-what is…"

"May I be presenting to you the Shai-Alud," Silas said with appropriate pomp, giving a little flourish of his tail around the head. "He is being captured on the outskirts of Festigraf battle, his ratling friends fleeing as we are taking back the fort earlier today. As you can be seeing, he shall no longer be causing us difficulty. Human head is being easily removed from shoulders."

At first Skegga stayed stiff-backed and shaken, unwilling to even float forward and prod a single flipper at the fleshy skull.

"Is…is he…really dead?"

Silas stifled a laugh. "I am not knowing human that can live without skull, Sire."

And all at once, the rage that had boiled in Skegga's great stomach for the past two weeks suddenly subsided. He looked upon the vacant face of his hideous human, and took it up in his hands.

"You," he said, speaking directly to the still wet head. "You caused us quite a bit of trouble, didn't you? Little ugly man. Well, no matter. Look at you now – eh? Not so strong, not so inspiring. You're dead. Dead and gone, just like the rest of your precious ratling helpers!"

With a gargantuan spurt of sudden energy Skegga lobbed the head at the ground. It bounced, broke and splintered, spilling the contents of its skull across the temple floor.

"Put him atop our greatest spike!" Skegga roared. "Place him at the front of the stronghold. Let all the rats see what has befallen their savior! Silas – Silas my dear little servant – you have finally come through for your Lord! Perhaps you shall have a place by my side after all as I journey to the heavens unimpeded!"

Silas brushed off loose pieces of stray brain-matter from his jacket.

"Sire," he ventured. "With the Shai-Alud dead, the armies of Shrykul are being leaderless and shaken. They are being sure to be in their most vulnerable state. It would be wise, now, to be launching counterattack."

Skegga considered this, watching his Kobolds take the ugly head away gleefully, hopping about, slipping on the dried blood of their slain comrades.

"What did you have in mind, Silas?" the great toad grunted through his smiling jaw.

"A mass commitment," the rat replied. "We should be commencing two-pronged attack across both fronts. One to be wiping out Razork and its Glitterpak production capacity, another to be attacking from Black Gulch to be striking ratmen as they try to rebuild Gulchnavel village for food. Be sending all Yips from surviving forts and towns. Be letting them know the hour of your ascension is being –"

"We shall do better than that," Skegga murmured, chuckling ruthlessly as he rose to his full height to make his proclamation to all who would hear him within his walls: "Be sending a message to all who man the walls – Skegga himself shall lead this grand charge! All Yips are to ready for battle! Call up the engineers! Call up the palace guards – have them fitted with the armor of the fat-beards! Call every male and female Yip and be giving them a weapon! I shall put the skull of the rats' precious Shai-Alud on my tallest spear and ride my chariot into battle with him! Our time of victory is at hand, my children – and it shall be glorious. Oh, yes – glorious! Skegga shall lead you into our ascension - just as he promised!"

Silas endured the cheers of the Kobolds still living in the temple and then watched them go off to deliver the great proclamation of their God. A final Mustering – the creation of an army to end all armies. The fists of Skegga would come down hard, crushing what remained of the ratman Empire.

As Silas cleared the temple compound, he allowed himself a fleeting smile.

"Yes, Skegga," he murmured as he returned to his chambers to prepare for what was to come. "It shall be a glorious day for us all."

###

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[IronLung]

-Fleapit, Castle Carfaxx -

Marcus sat by the light of a single flickering candle, secluded in his private chambers.

Even within these stout stone walls, however, he could still hear the sounds of praise and worship echo throughout the city streets below. He could them calling his name – or, at least, the name they had placed upon his shoulders – over and over again until he felt it echo in his own skull.

"Shai-Alud, Shai-Alud…"

A name that is supposedly going to live in legend, he wrote in his parchment. A name that means so little to me yet everything to them. If the last month has taught me anything, it is that devotion is a powerful tool. I almost understand why those of the Unification Church back on earth used it – encouraging blind belief in something greater than yourself seems to be one of the easiest ways to move the souls of mortals.

He caught himself as he finished writing that last sentence.

"I'm even starting to sound like them," he said. "The rats of the Church of the Unclean."

His eyes turned to his newly embroidered trench-coat hanging beside his stone bed. The priests of Glumrot had come to him yesterday and Head-Gloomrav Verulex had personally bestowed the new threads upon him, telling him the high-collared attire was much more form fitting for a human than the dingy robe of their priestly order. Their priests, he said, had modeled the design after the Generals of Marxon II's army, but couldn't resist stitching an image of a ratman soldier wearing a pair of glasses on the sleeve. Marcus had stifled a laugh as he beheld the curious little emblem, but he thanked them all the same.

Afterwards, of course, they gave me their usual spiel, he wrote in his journal/makeshift history book. Asking me to at least join them in the Fleapit cathedral for the afternoon sermons. Recently, their ranks have begun to swell. Virtually all the ratmen from the outlying villages that still stood, even those far down South from places not even Skeever or Shrykul have heard of, have come to visit the church here and ask for the chosen one's blessing. They've come to see me, and I've refused them, and even that seems to play into the hands of rats like Deekius and that slow-talking Verulex. They tell their flock that I am testing them – that I shall appear when the time is right and they are found worthy. He-Who-Festers does not simply deliver his champion into the hands of any old rat. So, join up arms, Brothers, join the war effort as we eliminate the Kobold menace and you shall stand shoulder to shoulder with the Shai-Alud on his next campaign. You shall bask in his glory. You shall see his might for yourself…

Marcus stopped writing, slamming down his quill in sudden disgust.

The echoes of the outside world had started to dim, and he suspected that the Nocturnal hours had fallen upon the rats of the city. They had the uncanny ability to know when it was time for slumber – their body clocks had simply adjusted well to their environment. As all creatures did. All creatures, that is, except him.

He took up his pen again after running a weary hand across his grimy face.

I know what they want. They want to use me as their poster boy. They want me to be some kind of Messiah figure for their people. I would be lying if the sense of power hadn't seemed tempting but the more time I spend on the frontlines, the more death we bring to the Kobolds on the other side, the more I wonder: is leading this army of furry filth-lickers really what's best for this world? Can I really sacrifice the safety of Thea to reclaim my place back on earth?

His thoughts suddenly turned back to home, as they often did these days. He thought of Mari – her skin still chalk-white and sparkling during their visits to Santa Monica pier. She'd never tried to use him for her own personal gain. She'd never tried to warp him to become something he wasn't. To her, he was just a dweeb who thought too much about old men gunning each other down across time.

He had even caught himself thinking of Steven Barenz with a sense of camaraderie in the past week – as he'd heard report after report of the Kobold armies burn in the face of the Clans righteous fury. Though he and old Barenz couldn't have been more oppositional in nature, there was a certain satisfaction in having a rival on campus. He realized now just how much he'd actually enjoyed their little verbal spars – even though at the time it had seemed to strike fury in his heart. Everyone needed opposition – everyone needed their faith to be tested every once and a while. For every thesis, an antithesis.

And now I'm quoting Hegel, Marcus wrote. Strike me down for my insanity – I've become a popcorn Twitter philosopher. I can only imagine what these ratmen would do if they ever discovered something akin to social media in their realm! A way for them to transmit their propaganda instantaneously? That would get every Clan hot-and-bothered for He-Who-Festers in no time. That would prove to be an amenable solution to their species' crisis of faith.

But if I am honest, the rats are not the only ones in crisis here. I had planned the assault on Festigraf fort with the express purpose of forcing a surrender. I had hoped – in my naivety, perhaps – that this Skegga would either be forced to consider terms of negotiation, or his Kobolds would be provoked into open rebellion by this point. They know our greatest weapon and have no counter against it. They've been backed into a corner and the tunnels of the North run red with the blood of their tiny raiding parties. Our border patrol posts have made short work of any trying to enter the Capital's vicinity. We've even begun rebuilding Gulchnavel village so that food supplies no longer being provided by Glitterpak meat can be rejuvenated using the fish of the Gulch. Not the most delectable source of nutrition, but then again my human gut isn't exactly cut out for this place.

Marcus spared a look at the half-chewed black fish that lay beside his desk, its eyeball casting an accusatory stare at him.

The point is: there hasn't been a single successful Kobold incursion since the Battle of Razork Field. By now, tensions should be high in the enemy's Capital.

So why isn't this Boss Skegga simply giving up the goat?

I have a few ideas on that front. One: his grip on Kobold civilization is so strong by this point that they simply can't organize an effective resistance against him. Two: the Kobolds don't feel that we would ever accept deserters into our ranks – probably because they themselves have heard the rhetoric of the Church of the Unclean. All this talk of 'eradication' doesn't exactly inspire confidence in racial unity. Third: they have Silas. They have this so-called 'Prime Putrefact'. Perhaps Skegga simply believes that with such a sacred prisoner in his clutches, the ratmen will eventually be forced to sue for peace. He obviously doesn't know what it's like out there. These days, it's my praises they're singing.

The situation is remarkably similar to that of Imperial Japan circa March 1945, after the capture of Iwo Jima and Douglass' MacArthur's establishment of total air superiority over the Home Islands: how do you convince an enemy that they're beaten? With the prospect of launching a full-scale invasion that will cost hundreds of thousands of lives, how do you make an enemy see that they have no chance at victory?

The worst part is I know the answer. It's the same answer Truman gave Tojo the day he launched the Atom Bombs: a single, decisive strike.

But can I do it? I know what Shrykul wants. I know what Skeever would say. I know what Deekius has been saying for the past month, preaching about the prophesized 'complete and utter annihilation' of the enemy forces. But in truth, they're asking me to commit to genocide of an entire species purely because they've been manipulated into thinking a deity walks among them. Could I look Ix in the eyes and sign the death-warrant of his people? The little guy was on their side now – and, in fact, even the Talon-Commanders on the frontlines had to admit that he and his 'Yips' were the best damn marksmen they'd ever seen – but how long would that last if he realized his entire race was now doomed to extinction?

This, coupled with the messiness that will result from a full-scale invasion of Grindlefecht, has been driving me insane these last few days…but maybe, just maybe, I'm going about the problem all wrong…there has to be another wa-

"SIRE!"

Marcus jolted upright at the intrusion. A ratman had practically just barged through his door, falling to his knees only as an afterthought. When Marcus realized it was Skeever, however, resplendent in his newly fashioned suit of crimson Clan Marrow plated steel (a recent gift from Marrow-King Skylock himself for the Shai-Alud's most vaulted commander) he waved away his subordinate's supplication and bid him rise.

"We – we are having big problem," the ratman shrieked.

"Aren't we always?" Marcus replied, donning his coat and wiping away the fog on his glasses. "Tell me as we walk the halls, Skeever – I need a walk."

For now, he would have to leave his journal and his human worries behind.

Because he was about to re-enter the world of ratman politics. And in that world, he needed all his wits about him.

###

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[IronLung]

'No fighting in the War-room!'

-Dr Strangelove



When Marcus opened the doors to Shrykul's war room, he found it to be a hotbed of battle already.

"Thissss can not be tolerated," Verulex was hissing. "You are sssshowing disssssloyalty to your Brother clanssss, Fesssssticusssss."

"Oh , be silencing your long-winded mouth, Glumrot priest, or I will be shutting it for you!"

"I am not thinking the Queen of Marrow issss breeding cowardssss," the Arch-Priest replied. "Perhapssss my intelligenccce issss wro-"

"Be calling me coward again," the Marrow-rat growled as he rose to his full height, practically knocking the round table away. "And those unwise words will be your last."

"Peace!" King Shrykul yelled to them both, interposing his arms between them like a father reprimanding children. "Let us not be seen as savages when the Shai-Alud is joining us!"

Marcus waited a moment before he seated himself next to Skeever, who had taken to only sitting after Marcus selected a spot at the table, nowadays. Both the rats of the other Clans bowed low to show the proper respect for their General.

Not as low as usual, though, Marcus thought as he nodded back at them. You've been doing some thinking too, recently, haven't you?

Before them all was spread the map of the Northern Warrens, with a few new sites stenciled hastily over the last few weeks. Most notable was the sketching of Gulchnavel, cementing its fully operational status as a food supply, as well as the newly rebuilt fortress of Greenwatch – named thus because Marcus felt these rats needed some new, cleaner labels for their defensive sites.

His next order of business? The full introduction of soap to their Kingdom. Though that, he wagered, would be a tougher war to fight than the one they were currently embroiled in.

"What ails the leaders of our war effort?" Marcus asked, eyeing up both the commanders as they resumed their seating positions.

Shrykul cleared his throat. "Brother Festicus is having problem," he said. "His King requests that he return to man his old fortress in the East Warrens."

"It is being out of my hands," Festicus explained, casting a hateful look at Verulex. "The dwarves are growing bolder with each passing day. They are knowing we make war against the Kobolds who stole their homes. They are also knowing King Skylock is sending more men here to secure victory for his Brother, King Shrykul. Because of this, they are striking our borders with greater force than usual."

Marcus leaned forward to consider this. It made sense, of course. When your enemy is distracted by a war on another front, it would be in your best interests to strike fast and with force. Marcus had assumed, based on the information he'd been fed by both the Church of the Unclean and the warriors of Red-Eye, that the Dwarven kingdom was in disarray, barely holding on to its fiefs in the East.

"We have been fighting this war – the great war – for ages," Festicus continued. "It is our Clan that is calling the last Skittering to push Dwarves back."

"But you didn't finish them," Marcus stated.

Festicus puffed out his chest. "The stunted fat-beards are having cannons that could rip through ten legions of Marrow Spinerippers! Not even the combined armies of ratmen could crush them fully."

"We left them to die," Shrykul explained. "We are leaving Marrow to pick away at them as they starved themselves in their little corner of the Underkingdom. When Kobolds are taking Grindlefecht, we are thinking the Dwarves are being finished."

"Well, you thought wrong," Marcus said, leaning back. "Turns out they were just waiting for the right moment to pick away at you."

He turned to Festicus and fixed him with hard, serious eyes.

"Have you responded to your King's order?"

The Marrow rat grunted. "Not yet, Sire Marcus. But there is no response but to be complying."

"Or," Marcus said. "We make a counter-offer the King of Clan Marrow cannot refuse."

"You are not knowing my Brother well," Shrykul sighed. "He is not one for negotiation, especially with a human. Meaning no offence, of course."

Marcus kept his eyes on Festicus. "It won't be a negotiation," he explained. "I'm offering your King an edge over his Dwarven enemies. I'm told that Grindlefecht maintains an arsenal of six fully-functioning Dwarven powder-cannons. This is what I offer him."

Verulex and Shrykul practically almost fell out of their seats. Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus could see Skeever barely suppress a chuckle.

"This…this is being too uncertain," Festicus said, though his shifty eyes told Marcus he was intrigued by the proposal. It wasn't hard to read the face of a warrior – even if the warrior was a filthy rat. "How can we be sure we can be taking the cannons before Skegga is dismantling them?"

"We'll need soldiers strong enough and quick enough to get under their noses before their engineers have the chance," Marcus replied with a smile. "I can think of no soldiers better than the brave rats of Clan Marrow."

While the warrior began to return a sly smile, Verulex seethed at the other side of the table.

"Thisssss isssss being mosssst unorthodoxxxx," he hissed beneath his hood. "Ssssssixxxxxx Dwarven cannonsssss to one ssssssingle Clan? It isssss favoritissssssm, issssss it not, King Ssssshrykul? Isssss thissss the policcccy of Red-Eye now? To value one Clan over the contributionssssss of another?"

"I believe Clan Glumrot has received adequate compensation for their generous contributions to the war effort thus far," Marcus said, whirring on the little hooded priest before Shrykul could even say a word. "Skeever? How many temples to He-Who-Festers have been constructed recently in our new villages?"

"Two, Sire Marcus," the soldier replied steadily. "One for each village."

"And remind us to which Clan their Head-Priests belong to?"

"Clan Glumrot."

Marcus then turned his attention to King Shrykul. "Sire Shrykul, how many Clan Glumrot priests now perform sermons in the Grand Cathedral of the Unclean One?"

"Twenty-five," the King said, somewhat unwillingly.

"Twenty-five," Marcus nodded. "A full five priests more than those of Clan Red-Eye. Considering the growing numbers of the flock from across the North and South Warrens recently, I should think the Archpriest of Glumrot would be more than proud to see that the King of Red-Eye himself values his priests more than his own."

"We are forever grateful, Sire," Verulex murmured as he shifted in his seat, his teeth chittering as he licked at the poxes and boils that lined his snout. "But there are material issssuessss to be –"

"Furthermore," Marcus interrupted. "I believe my own personal Priest and Summoner, Deekius, has promised to give instruction to your own Gloomraava on the nature of his Incantations. Perhaps the priests of your Clan have forgotten that I have offered no similar benefit to Clan Marrow?"

"No – No, Ssssire, we –"

"They doubt our generosity, then? If that is the case, perhaps there should be a reshuffling of the robes of the Unclean," Marcus continued. "For, as He-Who-Festers says: 'the greatest of all poxes is a lack of faith.'"

The entire room waited for Verulex's response. They waited for some sly, poisonous words to drip from his bile-soaked tongue.

But, to everyone's surprised, he bit his lips, curled away into his seat, and stuttered out only a few more words with total clarity:

"…no, Sire. We are thanking you."

Marcus straightened up, refocusing his attention on the King.

"If this is amenable to you, King Shrykul, then a messenger should be sent to King Skylock in Steelclaw Bay tonight, if possible. Let them know that we take care of our own."

The King looked from Veulex to Skeever, and from Festicus to Marcus again, before he made any response.

"This can be arranged," he said. "Though I am having doubts that my Brother will be so agreeable to such a generous deal stamped with my name. He may be thinking I seek to betray him."

"Stamp it with mine, then," Marcus said with a wave of his hand. "If he doubts the generosity of the Shai-Alud, his own Gloomraava would turn against him."

Marcus paused after he said this, and for the first time began to take in the new tone that had settled like a gaseous cloud in the room. He caught himself, and straightened instantly, realizing that he'd probably just insulted the King of Clan Red-Eye by insinuating that his words meant more than the ratman's.

"I am sorry, Sire Shrykul," Marcus said with a bow. "I spoke out of turn. I merely wish to see this war ended soon, before the grip of insanity takes us all."

King Shrykul met his eyes and then laughed away his words with good cheer. "Be not thinking upon this, Marcus. You are being first among equals here. Remember that."

Marcus almost heaved a sigh of relief. He'd been lucky, he knew, to have been summoned on this side of this King.

"Now," Shrykul said. "Let us be getting to our next order of business."

The rats leaned forward as Skeever pointed to the now ruined fort of Festigraf on the opposite side of the Black Gulch

"Festigraf is being destroyed," he said. "As per Sire Marcus's suggestion. "However, our scouts did not report immediate signs of Kobolds being willing to surrender in the wake of the bombing run."

"Of course not!" Festicus roared cheerfully. "They are being mindless beasts."

Marcus held his tongue.

"Yesterday, however," Skeever said. "Clan Glumrot scouting party of pox-throwers are meeting Kobold raiding party on border of Gulchnavel village. They are saying they come to surrender to fort Greenwatch rats."

Marcus jerked up. "How many?"

"Two-hundred," Skeever replied. "Two hundred 'Yips' who say that they swam the Gulch to fight for Shai-Alud Marcus and are rejecting God Skegga. They say his recent failures are showing he is not true God at all."

Marcus practically exploded with excitement. "And?" he burst. "Where are they? We could use their help. We could even have Ix and his Slingers train them in the proper ways to ride Spinerippers. Hell, we could even have them pilot the new batch of Glitterpaks from Razork. Why wasn't I told of this sooner?"

The rats in the room all shrank before Marcus's eyes. And slowly, the excitement in his soul faded away to yet another stark realization of the reality he was living in. The reality of the side he was helping to win this war.

"Because we are slaying them," Verulex finally said. "To the man."

###

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[IronLung]

'Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.'

-Coretta Scott King



"You…you what?"

Marcus gripped the underside of the war-council table as he rounded on Verulex.

"The Koboldssss are being treacheroussss and ssssscheming," the robed rat said. "They are being thrown back into the gulch and left to rot there."

"I am betting it was a good sight to see," Festicus chuckled. "How I long to have been there to-"

"ARE YOU A FOOL!?"

Marcus's raised voice caught the rat-assembly off-guard.

"Two HUNDRED soldiers!" he practically screamed. "Two hundred! Do you have any idea how much of a difference they could have made to this war?"

Even Shrykul seemed to bite his tongue at this outburst, but Verulex, this time, was not to be cowed.

"You are wisssshing ussss to trussst in thossse little hereticsssss?" he spat. "They are an affront to He-Who-Festersssss."

"Has your God not eyes to see when fortune favors him?" Marcus retorted. "Think of how much Ix and his Yips have aided us – even now they train our marksmen to become better after mastering the longbow – and you not only turn them away but gut them like fish!"

"It isssss the will of the Unclean-One, Sssssire. You are not being one of usssss. You are not knowing what an affront it isssss to be harboring the enemy. He-Who-Festersss is leaving no room for doubtsssss – thissss Underkingdom isssss belonging to ratmen, and to us alone."

"Then he is a fool deity, just as Skegga is!"

"Marcus!" Shrykul shouted, banging his fist on the table with such uncharacteristic force that everyone jumped in their seats. "That is being enough! The name of He-Who-Festers shall not be mocked in my War-Council."

"You mock his own name with stupidity like this!" Marcus retaliated. "Why was I not informed of this, when I have explicitly explained to you all the importance of parley with your enemies? Your nation wishes to become an Empire – you can't accomplish this by simply eradicating all your foes, especially when they come to you on their knees! Those Yips could have had vital information on Skegga's defenses. They could have had weapons we could use! Tell me what madness possessed you to do th-"

"It issss the will of the Unclean!" Verulex howled, throwing a torrent of green bile across the table as his temper finally flared out of control. "The unbelieving are not being worthy to walk our Kingdom. Those who have thrown in with thissss heretic bosss Sssskega are desssserving of only death. Ssssshal we really be permitting thesssse cretinssss to join our Empire – thosssse who would be sssssooner planting a knife in our backsssss as ssssson assss we are turning away from them?"

"Sire, Marcus," Festicus said. "I am meaning no disrespect, but are you forgetting the sights we are seeing in Battle of Razork Field? These Kobolds are stringing up rats of Clan Red-Eye – rats tortured almost to point of death – and are parading them before us on the field of battle. They are being savages, Sire, they are not being capable of anything more."

Marcus turned to the broad-shouldered rat. "Don't tell me you agree with this insanity?"

Festicus did not bow before the accusatory stare of the human. "You are not fighting this filth for as long as we are, Marcus. Us, or them, this is the only way."

"And we are being on the right ssssside of hisssstory," Verulex sneered. "We have preached already to the villagessss of how the Koboldsss came before usssss on their kneesss, only to be lossssing their headsssss. Such gloriousssss ssssscreamsssss they are making. Ssssssuch lovel-"

"Oh, shut up – shut up, for once!" Marcus roared, standing abruptly, and making to grab the dagger at his hip. Only Skeever's sudden, firm grip stopped him from attacking the priest then and there.

"Sssssire Marcusss issss ssssshowing ssssskepticccccism about the Unclean One," Verulex said. "It issss ssssomething many of our priestsssss are noticccccing. Thisssss issss mosssst troubling."

While Marcus fought to break free of Skeever's hold, the latter calmly stood to address the ratmen.

"Where Sire Marcus is coming from," he explained. "There is being questioning of Gods all the time. These things are being natural. The Shai-Alud is knowing how important our faith is, otherwise, he would not be allowing Verulex to build churches to the Unclean in the new villages and Fleapit, remember?"

Marcus spared a look at his one-armed commander and saw the strict look in his eye. It was a look that he had never seen from a ratman subordinate before. It was a look that said, 'Let this go. Or you'll be in trouble'.

And so he put a stopper in his rage, grit his teeth, and sat back down, head bowed in his hands.

"Can none of you see the value in at least a little mercy?" he asked them. "Skeever, you know how much Ix has helped us."

"They have been most useful," Skeever agreed. "It was after all Ix who is cementing victory at Razork."

"But a few good Kobolds do not speak for a whole mad race," Festicus replied. "Brother Skeever, are we not both believing this? Or are you forgetting the bloodshed your men have suffered?"

Skeever cast one sidelong look at Marcus before bowing his long snout.

"No, Brother," he said. "I am not."

"Sire Marcus," King Shrykul then broke in. "We are appreciating your leadership, and your meticulous planning. But in matters of state and policy, you must be leaving things to us. If we are starting to treat our enemies with kindness, we will be destroyed from within. My Brother Kings can be overlooking a few Kobold auxiliaries, but they shall not be permitting large swathes of the enemy to live among us. I will not be having my Kingdom destroyed by Civil War because our Shai-Alud wishes us all to make peace."

"Such peacccce," Verulex added. "Wassss never an option. The yipping demonsssss chosssse their God. They chosssssse their death."

"And you have chosen yours," Marcus said, rising and ignoring Skeever's tugging at his wrist. Ignoring, too, the voice of Mari who pleaded in his mind to cool off his temper.

"A homogenous race has never once created a global society that could stand the test of time. An expansionist civilization needs to innovate. It needs to incorporate. It needs to welcome those who would serve a common cause – and it needs to give them a banner worth standing beneath. Anything less, and you don't get an Empire. You get a world-spanning ruin."

He bowed and then turned without listening to anything else. Someone might have shouted something back at him. Someone might have called him naïve, or ignorant of the ways of the society he was currently existing in, but he didn't care to hear. He'd heard enough. And he'd realized only now what kind of war they'd had him fighting here from the start.

"You might achieve victory for your people today," he said before he slammed the door in their faces. "But all you shall have won is a slow, protracted demise."

…

Idiots.

Back in his private quarters in the palace, Marcus's' quill was taking the words out of his arm more than he was telling it what to write.

Idiots! All of them!

His scrawlings were intense enough that he felt the parchment break beneath his fingertips.

Why should I have expected anything more? Of course, I shouldn't have. These rats are little more than the European Great Powers carving up China in the wake of the Opium Wars. They have an entire species arrayed against them – one which they know values strength over any kind of ideological devotion – and all they want to do is put them to the torch even as their spirits begin to waver in the face of weakening strength. I give them evidence of Kobold worldviews, showing them that they can contribute to the war effort, and they throw it right back in my face. I have handed the keys of victory to these creatures in order to watch nothing more than a genocide of their own making take place.

He threw down his quill and wiped a sweaty palm over his face.

Why do you care? A little voice in his head then asked him as he swung back in his chair. You weren't planning on sticking around here, were you? You didn't really aspire to make this kingdom a better place or some horse piss like that, did you? If you did, you're just as naïve as they think you are.

Marcus closed his eyes and rubbed his tired temples. No matter how many meetings they all had, he kept coming back to the same problem: they wanted him to give the command to make a final charge – to wipe the Kobolds from the face of the under-earth.

Not even Skeever could stop that from happening. Faced with the will of his King, and the representatives from two other Clans, the Talon-Commander had had to back down. Not that Marcus blamed him.

It's time to stop mulling over what you think should be done and start focusing on what is practicable. You want to go home, don't you?

Marcus listened to the little voice's question and held his quill between his fingers as he was about to write down his response.

Don't you?

Just then – a knock at the door.

"Sire Marcus?"

The voice was unfamiliar to him, so he merely gave it a curt response.

"I'm not receiving visitors," he said.

Normally, that would have prompted the guards at his door to spring into action and remove the adoring servant from his door. This time, however, he heard the hinge bolts clang as they hit the ground, and his door effortlessly creaked open.

"I said I'm not receiving any visitors!" Marcus repeated. "I don't care who you are or what Clan you hail from. Go and see a priest if you want to hear about m-"

When Marcus spun round, his voice caught in his throat.

What he was looking at was no rat. Its cloak was far too long, its skin far too scaly, its eyes far too slitted and colored with the dark amber of a predator.

And the blade it held in its hand was far, far too long. And sharp.

"I'm afraid I have to insist, Shai-Alud."

###

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[IronLung]

'War is the assassin's trade'

-Percy Bysshe Shelley



Marcus stared at the thin, slightly curved arm of steel that protruded out from the snake-humanoid's cloaked form.

His eyes then traced its lithe torso, seeing the thin dark wrappings that clung to its skin, clearly well suited for a night raid like this. The body suit was patched with form-fitting leathers around the chest and kneecaps for protection of only the vitals, and the long shawl that hung from the creature's face gave away nothing to Marcus except the amber eye-slits that blinked horizontally at him from within their visor.

From the black scales he saw between those eyes, and the long, thin tail that trailed from the creature's back, Marcus was certain of his assassin's species.

A Yokun…he thought. One of the beasts behind this whole proxy war.

He gulped, watching the serpent close the door to his chamber, noticing the bloodied snout of one of his guards lying just beyond the doorway.

Those guards were of Clan Marrow. Armed and armored. That means one thing: this guy's good.

Marcus licked his lips, thinking of any way he could alert the palace servants.

"I presume you didn't come here to talk," he said, moving slightly to his left, hand reaching into his pocket to precure Gatskeek's dagger.

He got his hand round the hilt. He blinked once, and then he was looking at the tip of the Yokun's blade, its edge glistening with ratman blood.

"Drop it, human," the creature hissed.

Marcus dared not even gulp – the sword (a Wakizashi, by the looks of it) was close enough to his throat that even a single twitch out of line would be instant death.

He let the dagger fall to the ground.

And he waited.

He watched the eyes of his enemy in silence, head rushing as he tried to think of a way out of this.

"I suppose negotiations are out of the picture?" he asked, raising his hands and keeping his body as rigid as possible. "If it's any compensation, I believe we could come to some form of mutually beneficial arrangeme-"

The Yokun had stepped behind him and tied a muzzle round his mouth before he could finish whatever 'plan' he was spinning on the spot to stall for time.

"Be a good monkey and keep quiet," the creature told him. "And you might just keep your head."

Marcus felt the arm of the snake coil round his neck, the other one jabbing into his back to propel him forward.

A woman…he realized, noting the inflection in her voice. And one who, it seems, wants me alive…

And without any other alternative, he allowed himself to be guided outside, stepping over the gradually pooling blood from the two guardsmen lying prone at his doorway.

Clean cuts – across the throat. Absolute precision, no waste, no struggle.

His eyes shot back to try and get a glimpse of his captor.

"Keep moving," she whispered.

You're good, aren't you?

The end of the hallway turned into a crossroads, and Marcus heard a general shout go up from deeper within the palace chambers.

Ahead, two guards ran in tandem with torches burning in their hands. As they turned they saw the pair moving down the dimly lit hallway and were about to call out for aid were it not for the two shuriken that stopped their tongues – embedding themselves deep beneath the chin of each paralyzed rat.

As they fell to the floor together in a spasming, twitching heap, Marcus's assailant finished them off with two masterful mercy strokes of her Wakisashi. It all happened so fast that Marcus couldn't be sure it had happened at all.

His assailant scanned the bottom floors as they entered into a long, spiral stairway that would lead out into the servants' quarters and then the front door of the palace. From the confidence with which this snake moved, avoiding contact with any guards by keeping to the pillars and shadows of the castle's environs, Marcus made two more assumptions:

One: she knew the layout of the castle and

Two: she'd already taken care of the guards at the front door.

So thorough must this girl's preparations have been, that when a general shout went up from the palace courtyard outside – just beside where the quarters of the Glumrat representatives slept – he was actually struck with surprise:

"H-help! Bloody murder…isssss…being…done! Asssssasssssinssss have invaded palaccccce!"

Marcus heard his captor hiss behind him.

You didn't realize it takes more than just precision to kill a Gloomraava, did you? Especially one of Clan Glumrot. You left old Verulex alive, and now you're going to pay the price.

As the snake-fiend practically threw Marcus down the right corridor that led towards the servants' quarters, he began to piece together what must be happening right now – a precision strike at the throats of the war-council…probably based on reports that a meeting had been held on this night, when we would all be gathered together.

And that meant someone gave her the intel…

The Yokun dashed through the servant rats who screamed as they awoke to Marcus's gagged form being bulldozed through the door to their quarters. The Yokun's blade flew to slice at their jugulars like it were a homing eagle, and she simply continued on her way into the long, vine-coated corridor that led down into the palace foyer. Into freedom.

"Wait," Marcus heard her say as she launched both her and him down onto the carpeted floor of the palace and scanned her surroundings.

Marcus could see nothing out of the ordinary – the lilac and strawberries of the foyer were just as bright as they ever had been.

…but, come to think of it, maybe they were just a little too bright to be believed.

As a hail of arrows came flying from the palace doorway Marcus felt himself thrown into the air and spun like a ragdoll as the Yokun's tail whipped about to slash at the storm of projectiles. When he landed, he did so in the snake-woman's arms, and she immediately took up her blade and placed the tip directly under Marcus's throat.

"Don't bother," she told the air before her. "Make one more move, and he dies."

Marcus's eyes flew to see what she evidently could see, and noticed the tell-tale signs of silhouettes glittering against the corrugated steel of the palace door.

Slowly, the spell of indivisibility was lifted, and Marcus looked upon a retinue of familiar, yet bloody face: Deekius, Skeever, and a detachment of Shrykul's halberd-wielding honor-guards.

The king himself stood at the center of their formation, clutching a strip of gauze to his bleeding neck.

"Tsk'alia!" Marcus heard his assailant scoff. "The rodent king yet lives…"

How had she hit them all at once? Marcus's mind railed with nothing else better to do. How could this single woman…without being detected…unless…

The realization pierced him with an intensity that matched the kiss of the Yokun's cold steel under his chin.

There's more than one of them…

That at least told him something: if there was indeed a team of assassins working together here, they had clearly spent themselves too thin, and one of them had been exceedingly sloppy.

She straightened up and pressed the Wakizashi's bloody tip deeper into Marcus's neck, so he could feel the thin trickle of his blood run in a little red river down his throat.

"Make one more move and he dies," she told the ratmen. "You understand, vermin? Your Shai-Alud dies here and now."

Marcus's eyes flew to each of the panting, breathless rats, settling finally on Skeever. He tried to communicate with his eyes flaring eyes and nostrils alone that the snake she-devil was bluffing – that she clearly wanted him alive. But judging from the sagging shoulders and sorrow-filled face of the Talon-Commander, he could tell he wasn't getting through.

"Be…letting…her…pass," Shrykul said. "There is…being…enough…bloodshed on this night."

The guards parted unsteadily, eyeing up the Yokun as she kicked at Marcus's legs to move him forward passed the crowd of his allies. As he looked upon Skeever's face – wracked with pain and fury in equal measure – he felt the ratman give his sleeve a reassuring tug.

"Hands off!" his captor hissed. "Or he dies!"

The rats gave them an even wider bearth, and Marcus had no choice but to stagger towards the exit, looking round only once to see the bloody form of Verulex appear at the top of the castle stairway and be cowed into silence by King Shrykul's shaking head. A sharp sting of pain beneath his ear jerked him back to face the slowly approaching palace gates.

"Eyes forward," the Yokun corrected him.

This time he let out a gulp. He knew that as soon as he left the safety of these gates, the chances of him returning were probably slim. And whatever the snake-fiend had in store for him, it hardly bode well.

The gates to the castle opened and Marcus was thrust into the streets with the Yokun's dark blade glancing his throat as she grimaced, looking about her fervently as though she was waiting for something.

Then, looking to the skies, she saw what she needed to see.

And Marcus's eyes went wide as he realized the situation was far worse than he'd imagined.

###

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[IronLung]

Marcus felt his throat bulge with an intake of Fleapit's dank air as he watched all his efforts over the last few weeks vanish, literally, into the air.

The ratmen he and his captor had left behind saw them, too, and he realized that this operation was more sophisticated than even he had given the Yokun credit for.

In the distance, floating up harmlessly to the black abyss above Fleapit, were all the Glitterpaks that had been corralled from the outlying farms in preparation for their final, simultaneous strikes on Skegga's last remaining forts in the North. A fleet of two-hundred, simply floating away, deaf, dumb, and ignorant of the promise of victory they represented. It was like watching the ratmen's chances of winning literally fly away from their grasp.

And he heard the snake-woman's biting laughter echo in his ear as she led him on, watching as the ratmen's secret weapon vanished before their eyes.

Chaos erupted next. The castle alarms were rung, and warriors jumped to the tallest towers they could to try and grasp at the disappearing Glitterpaks. Meanwhile, the citizens of Fleapit were crying out in fear lest someone strike even the smallest torch. Such an act would send the entire Capital up in flames in an instant.

With this chaos it would be a piece of cake for the serpent to sequester herself amidst the packs of rampaging rats that crowded the dark streets and exit the city with ease. Marcus would've once again remarked on the prowess of his sneaky captor, were it not for the fact that he had no intention of letting himself become the sacrificial lamb of some snake-cult. These rats might be barbarians, yes, but they were barbarians that at least saw him as a hero. Who knows why these sly serpents wanted him.

So, as the snake forced him down a dingy back-alley amongst the bustling, panicked crowd, he inclined his head an inch to the little creature that was standing atop Castle Carfaxx's tallest battlement, holding a longbow in his tiny hands.

Marcus didn't have to worry about the archer's line of sight. He saw, alright. Those little eyes would be able to spot a pin drop from a distance of ten-thousand feet. He'd relied on those sharp eyes before, and he'd do so again, now.

"On your knees, monkey," the Yokun snarled at him. "We're leave-"

Marcus's sudden headbutt stopped her words.

The pain reverberating across the back of his head told him that his impacting her scaled skull had done more damage to him than it did to her, but the intention was not to subdue her. Instead, Marcus felt her reel back and threw his neck to the left, creating an opening for the arrow that had been launched from the castle battlements to find its mark in the Yokun's shoulder.

Her shrill scream of pain was enough to almost paralyze Marcus's limbs, but as she stretched out her scaly hand to reach for the sleeve of his coat he stumbled forwards, fell into a mud-bath in the middle of the street, and began scrabbling through the dirt towards the safety of the castle walls.

"The Shai-Alud!" he heard the ratling civilians scream from their hovels around him.

"Protect him! Be kicking the tail of the snake-snake!"

"Idiots!" he heard the Yokun scream behind him as she tore at the throats of every raggedy ratman that threw himself at her to stop her way. Marcus looked back only momentarily to see her drowning in a sea of vermin, her blade skittering away as the swam took her.

You got cocky, he heard himself say in his mind. You underestimated your opponents' devotion for their precious Shai-Alud. And now, I don't even want to think about what the little ankle-biters will do to you.

He saw the iron gates come back into view before him and quickened his steps, spurned on by the calls of the people – many of whom had scaled the castle walls and were pouring into the courtyard, ordering their King and his warriors to get the get opened.

But, to Marcus's surprise, the iron bars remained firmly shut.

He stopped before them and grabbed two of them with both hands, wringing them like a madman and finally tearing the gag from his mouth to scream.

"SHRYKUL!" he called "OPEN THE GATES! OPEN -!"

His voice dimmed when he realized that the rats had abandoned their posts long ago at the foyer, instead chasing after the still departing Glitterpak fleet high above, obsessed with their perfect weapon sailing away on the still winds and being lost forever in the abyss of the Underkingdom's skies.

But one rat remained – the gate-guard himself. And it was those crimson eyes that stared down at Marcus from his post, and the General of the ratmen now knew, too late, who it was that had led the Yokun right to him.

The familiar face of Redwhiskers, Skeever's right-hand lieutenant, glowered down at Marcus.

"T-traitor," Marcus spat.

The snarling maw of the rat grinned right back at him before the world went black, and his senses filled with a cloud of poison smoke.

"Is that how you are addressing your captor, Shai-Alud?"

Marcus heard shouts from the courtyard as the King's retinue finally caught on to the distraction that had just been sprung on them.

But his world was now bathed in nothing but the inky darkness of something that was seeping into his nose, into the tear ducts beneath his eyes, and sending him off to oblivion.

"You will be speaking to me with more respect," the fading voice of Redwhiskers told him between the bars of the gate. "Or that word will be your last."

…

Marcus woke to the sound of raised voices and hissing that pierced his skull.

He groggily rose, eyes adjusting to the dark interior that stretched before him – a cobweb filled house. Judging by the lack of décor and cracks in the wooden floorboards, he guessed he was in the residential district of Fleapit, probably sequestered in some hidden hole the Yokun had prepared in the case of failure.

He felt the unpleasant, squelching feeling of ratman blood pooling between his toes, and looked down to see the dead bodies of two ratmen covered in rags, their stomachs opened and eyes glazed with the specter of recent death. Only now did he try to move, feeling his arms struggle against the thick ropes that bound him to the wall.

"He is up!" someone whispered before him – a feminine voice

"Leave him where he sits," another replied – another woman. "He is harmless, now."

"How do we know he does not possess incantations of his own?"

Marcus strained his eyes as two lithe shadows walked forward and knelt before him, staring at him with the eyes of hungry serpents.

"I am telling you!" a third voice cried. "He is just base human. He is being nothing without my Brothers, as all human are!"

Marcus saw both snake-women distinctly roll their eyes in annoyance at the third voice, ignoring it completely as they inspected Marcus for wounds.

"Sister?" one of them – the one to his left that Marcus assumed, by her greying scales, to be the oldest of the Yokun. "How do you fare?"

A third Yokun came into view from behind, leaning against the doorway of the house and peeking out every now and then to observe the streets outside. By the distant sounds of panic he could hear, Marcus knew the outside must still be in the grip of chaos.

The Yokun guard's hand flew to wipe at her shoulder, coming away with a spattering of her plumb-purple blood.

"It will take more than a rat's poisoned arrow to fell me," she replied to her 'Sister'. "These rodents do not yet seem to understand our blood's innate resistance to their poxes and poisons. Though I admit, the little beast made a good shot."

Marcus struggled against his binds, trying to shout that it was a Kobold that shot her – a talented little Yip by the name of Ix.

"He stirs," the old snake said. "Should we send him back to dreamland?"

"No need," the snake beside her said. "Let him see what awaits him with his own eyes. The Pale Matriarch's orders were to be gentle with him, after all."

Marcus felt the barely restrained desire to slit his throat radiating from the two younger snakes, especially the one hanging by the door.

But more even than they, he could feel the fury bubbling in Redwhisker's seething little form.

"You are failing!" he said with a stamp of his feet, coming to talk directly to the elder Yokun. "I am being forced to reveal myself to stop him escaping. Why are you not killing him now?"

"That wasn't the deal, little rat," the grey elder said from her dark veil, not even deigning to make eye-contact with the seething creature. "We take him alive, tonight."

"And what about me?" Redswhiskers stamped again like a rabbity old crone. "Where is being my reward? I am being promised riches of Yokun. I will be needing help to escape to new Clan. You will be taking me!"

"Out of the question," the wounded Sister by the door replied coolly, calmly. "The situation has changed. This Underkingdom is grown too hot for our blood, little rodent. We make for the surface tonight. You can come with us, or you can stay. But go we shall."

Both the other Yokun nodded and got Marcus to his feet.

"Possible exits?" the elder asked.

"Industrial sector," the snake door-guard replied. "Cover of smog shall be our advantage. The integrity of the walls on that side are structurally weak, and security detail is focused on the Palace district."

The snake women nodded sagely. "Then let us wait for a lull in the sentries."

Marcus was forced to marvel at the professionalism on display from the snakes. Their plan had backfired – they had wanted to get him out without a struggle. That must have been the point of enlisting Redwhiskers for help as the castle gate watchman for the night. How they knew that rat in particular harbored hatred towards him was anyone's guess. Perhaps they had more spies in the Underkingdom than even Shrykul thought.

One thing was certain though: they had clearly taken steps to ensure they had a backup plan in place and were now executing an entirely new escape plan on the fly. And they were good at it – Marcus had to admit.

These were trained agents. Focused and ever-present.

So, of course, as they moved him towards the door of the ramshackle hut and made ready to slip back out into the streets, Marcus had one question burning in his mind:

Just who the hell had sent them?

###


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[IronLung]

Marcus resisted the urge to administer another headbutt to the assassin-hit squad as the second youngest of the team – the one that seemed more attached to the elder Yokun than Marcus's captor - pulled him up by the scruff of his neck and heaved him over to the doorway.

"Any openings?"

"None yet, Sister," the wounded snake-fiend replied, her coiled tongue flicking out viciously as she watched with unblinking eyes the corridor of stone hovels that filled the residential district. They'd have to cut through another four blocks at least before they made it to the cover of Fleapit's Iron forges. But, Marcus had to concur with the wisdom of the eldest among them – if they managed to get there, they'd be home free.

And he'd be meat for this 'Pale – Matriarch' these serpentine ladies served was.

"There is no order to these blasted rats," the assassin watching the door hissed. "But…I can see a way forward. Beyond the two huts that flank us is a tunnel that descends down into the earth and seems to emerge five Kilometers East just before the entrance to the foundry. It seems entirely unguarded – mostly infants play around its lip."

Marcus's eyes bulged as he realized what they were talking about – one of Fleapit's aptly named 'Festering Fountains' which served the purely decorative function one would expect any simple water-fountain in a city would serve.

The only difference here was, of course, it was filled with rat-shit.

"Easy pickings, then," the grey-scaled elder murmured.

He strained against his bounds and tried to scream at them that – though he'd endured much in these Warrens – he was not about to trudge through five kilometers of shit and piss with them.

"It seems the Shai-Alud does not find our course of action to his liking," the Yokun holding him hissed in his ear. "Matron, is there no way I can take but a bite of this one before we move on? It has been some time since I have tasted human – and definitely not one from that allegedly comes to us from beyond the bounds of our world."

Marcus recoiled as he felt the lithe tongue of the she-demon slather itself across his cheek, licking the sweat that was falling from his brow.

"Patience," the elderly one – 'Matron' – hissed back. "The Shai-Alud belongs to the Pale Matriarch. Remember that."

Marcus was glad for the old one's wisdom, and intervention. The hungry snakeling backed off, pouted, and then joined the other two by the side of the door.

"We must fly, Sisters" the door-watcher said. "This most recent guard patrol barks that each house will be searched beginning with the first row of each block."

"Then we take our chances," the Matron said. "We are already behind schedule as it is. The toad's army moves out in five hours. We must be gone by then."

Toad's…army…

…Skegga…they are coming…

"Hey!" came the shout of Redwhiskers as he threw aside a wooden crate and stomped over to the doorway to confront the three Yokun. "You are not being good listeners, are you, snake-wenches! I am telling you you must escort me to Clan Marrow headquarters and be giving me my fair share of your Yokun gold!"

The Matron whirred on him, cupping her scaly hand over his mouth before he even had a chance to draw his weapon.

"Be silent!" she hissed in his face. "Does your kind not understand when circumstances must change? You brought us false intel. You told us the Gloomraav would die as any ratman would. You did not tell us of their protective incantations that almost cost us our lives."

The rat raged under the Yokun's claws, tearing them away and spitting in the serpent's face.

"I am not knowing your kind are so unskilled!" he roared. "Or that you are being so dishonorable in the face of one who is giving you what your precious servants could not!"

The Matron leaned back, straightened up.

"Is that so?" she whispered.

Marcus saw it then – the almost imperceptible nod she made to the hungry sister who began stepping, with unhindered grace, around to the back of the room.

Redwhiskers, meanwhile, saw nothing but his own crimson-rage.

"It will be taking one shout from me," he snarled. "Just one to make your little plan fall to pieces! Do not be crossing me! At least be giving me a piece of this filthy human."

The ratman's mad eyes flew to Marcus, and the latter saw the hungering snake-woman drew her wakizashi slowly from the scabbard at her hip.

"Sisters!" the doorguard hissed. "They are coming."

"Out of the question," the Matron told Redwhiskers, slowly drawing out the syllables of each word. "You know our offer, vermin. We offer you free passage to the surface with us. It will not be an easy life for you, but it will be better than bearing the mark of a traitor among your kind. Take it or leave it."

The rat's snarl of hatred was so profound that it genuinely shocked Marcus. He could only dimly recall their dispute in the tunnel leading to Knifegut back when he'd first appeared in this dismal realm. He'd done little more than corrected the ratman's hatred of the kobold prisoners.

But he was starting to realize just how much pride these creatures attached to their prejudice.

"Soap-sucking, surface slithering snake-bitches…" the rat murmured, staring down his two opponents and entirely forgetting about the third one creeping around at his back

Then, hearing the guards approach from the outside, he opened his mouth to botch the whole operation…

…and the blade of the Yokun who had crept up behind him pierced right through the back of his throat and was twisted before he could utter a single word.

Marcus staggered back against the wall of the hovel as he watched the rat lieutenant simply fall limp and bleed out on the ground, his little limbs twitching with the death throes of a slain animal.

His eyes were still brimming with pure, raw, passionate hatred. Hatred directly up at the last sight he saw in this world: the human who had come to be his 'savior'.

You really hated me, didn't you? Marcus found himself asking those bulging, bloody eyes as he slumped to the floor. Then again, you aren't the only one nowadays. Not by a long shot…

He didn't even notice the snake-assassin withdraw the blade almost as quickly as she had whipped it out and, without even bothering to clean the dirty blood of the rat from its edge, took Marcus by the shoulder and pushed him forward to the door.

"Don't weigh us down, human," she told his unblinking eyes. "Make no mistake, if you try any tricks again, we might have to tell the Matriarch that you suffered an unfortunate 'accident' on the road…"

Marcus gave her a silent nod in response, even as his mind raced with questions he needed answers to: Were these women really allied with Skegga? If so, why had they only come now? How long had they been plotting this? And why did they need him alive?

"How many smoke-bombs have you got, Sister?" the Yokun then asked the wounded door-guard.

The snake who had first abducted Marcus turned and licked her slitted lips, showing that the smiles of these creatures were just as terrifying as their blank, cold battle-stares.

"Enough, Matriarch willing."

A nod from the other two. "Alright," the grey Matron said. "We move out. Keep him close and keep him awake – don't let them think he's dead. He's our best ticket out if the Will of the Matriarch is not with us."

"Matron," the doorguard said, clawing at her open shoulder wound. "If we should fail –"

"We are Yokun," the Matron replied, cutting off the younger snake and laying an affirmative claw on her neck. "We are Sisters of the House of Whispers. We are the women who walk in the night. The claw that grips the knife that stabs. We do not fail."

If Marcus's soul wasn't already filled with abject terror, it certainly was now.

…but he also had to admit that another part of his brain was filled with wonder at these three, taking on the entire city by themselves, skulking through shadows to accomplish their goal, and clearly honor-bound to deliver him to their leader.

It was just a shame that he'd have to see them all dead before this night was over.

And, with utterly no idea of the thoughts running through their prisoner's head, the Sisters each gave a single nod before smashing the smoke-bomb just outside the entrance and flying from the hovel, taking Marcus with them into the dark.

They raced past the squad of confused ratguards, licking at their elbow joints with their swords as they went, disabling them all in one fell swoop of death that carried Marcus inexorably towards the shit-tunnel that gave them free passage to the industrial sector, leaving a trail of screaming civilians in their wake.

Soap, Marcus begged. My kingdom…for soap.

He held his breath as they all dove in.

###

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[IronLung]

Marcus closed his eyes to the heap of shit and piss that assailed his senses, traveling up his nose and smearing itself across his pale face as the Yokun hit-squad dragged him through the Festering Fountain supply pipe.

He only opened his eyes and drew deep the dank air of Fleapit when the emerged on the other side, smashing through the fountain in the residential quarter square and sending up a shockwave of terror that swept through the ratmen civilians enjoying their putrid shower.

The Yokun women did not spare a single moment. As a unit they surged towards the jagged iron towers of the Industrial Sector forges, Marcus still being held by the second youngest of their order. On the way, only a few guards were roused from their sprints down the alleys of Fleapit by the team, having only enough time to raise their spears or halberds in defense before they Yokun's Wakisashis slit their throats and left them gagging for breath in the dark.

To Marcus, the entire world was nothing but flashes of deep onyx and the puffs of smoke billowing from the great forces of Fleapit's East District, mixed with flashes of grey, blue, and swamp green that he caught from within the Yokun's visors. Occasionally such sights were bathed in corrupted crimson as some unfortunate peasant rat stumbled out onto the streets and was soundly silenced by the blades of the assassins as they bore their charge relentlessly towards the forges and foundries.

"Matron!" the youngest, wounded one shouted as they neared their destination. "Up top!"

The Elder's eyes flared as she looked to the skies and saw javelins flying at them from the puffing chimneys of the foundry towers, clearly workmen who had taken up arms and decided to try their hand at defending their trade.

"Tsk," the Matron hissed. "Ignore them. Into the shadows between the towers. Let them strike at nothing but air!"

The Yokun nodded as they advanced, Marcus at this point being carried on the back of the sister that held him captive. They snaked their way between the skeletal frames of the foundry pits, slashing away the life of any who dared to stand in their way, and Marcus spared a thought for all the innocent ratmen who had died by their scaly hands this day. If he knew his comrades like he did, they would seek to pay such deaths back tenfold…

"There!" the wounded sister shouted. "The wall comes into view!"

She was right. The thick, dark outline of Fleapit's East guard tower loomed above them, and the three assassins wasted no time in scaling the bricks with their bare hands and dispatching the crossbow-wielding guards atop the battlements with as much ease as a child cutting through a cake.

And when then they looked beyond the walls, they saw nothing but an expanse of darkness waiting for them.

"Let us fly!" the youngling spat.

But as she made to leap and finally be free of the putrid waste of a city, the Matron held her back.

"Sister," he said. "Look below."

The youngling's face was flushed with frenzy. Clearly her wound had caused her no small amount of trepidation – certainly more than she'd let on. But as Marcus watched the three of them step to the edge of the battlements and look over the side, he couldn't help but feel a swelling of pride within his chest.

An army of eighty Spineripper-mounted Marrow rats waited below, gazing up at them while their mounts leaped to claw their way up to maul the assassins.

And at their head was someone all too familiar to Marcus.

"FORWARD!" The great hulking image of Festicus roared above the din of his baying horde. "FOR THE SHAI-ALUD!"

The Shai-Alud couldn't be prouder. Not that he had any time to dwell on this.

The Yokun that held him put the edge of her blade to his throat.

"Do not come closer, filth of the underworld!" she hissed. "Or the human dies!"

"HAH!" Festicus roared up at them. "Be going ahead! We are coming to avenge our Brothers' deaths! By the Unclean, your heads shall be resting upon my spike by the end of this day!"

"Skittering rodent!" the young snake spat, but the Matron held both her charges back.

"We go higher," she said, nodding up at the smog-producing towers of the foundries they had just cleared. "Let their bestial mounts try and follow us there."

The three Yokun followed their Elder's plan without flaw, managing to clear the walls just as the first of Festicus's legion leaped to claw at their legs. The mounts had speed on their side, but the snake-women had stealth, and Marcus doubted they gave off any particular scents the Spineripper's could sense that he could not.

They had effectively blinded the army that had been lying in wait for them.

The Yokun leaped through the foundry pits and latched onto the towers with their claws, sheathing their Wakishashi's and scaling to the top of the highest tower, Marcus being dragged up after them wrapped in the tail of his captor.

He watched the legion of Festicus bark up at the women as they made their ascent, seeing the floor of Fleapit disappear entirely as they cleared the first of the smog-clouds above.

"Sister!" the youngest then shouted. "Where are we bound?"

"To them!" the grey Matron shouted back, pointing up at the last of the Glitterpaks that were floating by above. "We ride them out. Take out chances on the dead winds of this accursed place!"

Marcus was shocked by the level of dedication on display here, even as he tried wriggling against his captor's surprisingly strong tail.

The Yokun finally made it to the top of the foundry platform, seeing the Glittperpaks float by with almost lifeless abandon above the city.

"Finally!" Marcus's captor roared. "Let us fly!"

"Wait," the Matron ordered. "I don't like this. I will take-"

"We go!" the impatient snake that held Marcus roared. "I will not spend another second in this cesspit!"

She launched herself without waiting for her Sisters command towards the first Glitterpak she saw, trailing through the air with the dexterity of an Olympic gymnast, all while holding Marcus coiled in her tail who already knew, by the flickering color patterns that shone across the Glitterpak's body, what was about to happen.

"Sister!"

The youngling's call was not heard as the snake-woman made to grab the spiky folds of the Glitterpak's body and watched her hand simply cleave through thin air. Her eyes bulging, tail finally uncoiling, she let out a shrill scream as she plummeted towards the fifty-foot drop to her death with Marcus falling behind her.

He looked into her eyes as he fell, seeing the desperation that smeared across her face in the end. That's when he saw that, for him, there was actually no hatred there. There was instead merely a sense of duty. A duty that, the Yokun knew, had now been brought to an abrupt end.

Marcus would have assumed he'd meet the same fate as the bearer of those desparate eyes, but suddenly felt another lithe tail wrap itself around his waist from above, knocking him against the corrugated metal of the foundry silo and suspending him just below the lip of the platform. He watched as the snake-woman hit the ground – becoming nothing more than a wet puddle of burst flesh.

The other two cursed as the youngling pulled him up, pinning him to the floor and bringing up her Wakisahsi to slit his throat then and there.

"Sister," came the warning voice of the Matron.

"Tsk'althoka!" the young snake cried. "We would be better to end his life here and now, Matron! We would be doing this entire world a favor!"

"It is not the Matriarch's will, Sister."

"My brood Sister is dead!' the youngling screamed. "I – I will have vengea-"

"Yeeva," the Matron said quietly, placing an affirming hand on the young snake woman's shoulder. "She knew the risk. We all did."

The hard eyes of the young snake met Marcus's in that moment, and the latter was surprised to find what looked like tears welling up in the assassin's predator eyes. Such tears were abruptly wiped away, however, as her hand flew to grab at Marcus's arm.

"What…what is this?"

Marcus followed her eyes to see the small, almost imperceptible almond-shaped eyeball iris that was strapped to his sleeve, almost like it had been sown in there intentionally. Unless one had the perception of a hawk, there was no way anyone could have noticed it. Hell, he hadn't even noticed it himself.

So when the Matron snake shook her old head in disbelief, he was just as surprised as she was.

"A marker," she said. "The result of a basic incantation that allows the owner of the device to track the one implanted with it. Who knew these little beasts were capable of employing such rudimentary magic in such a clever way?"

"Devious, sneaky little wretches!" The young Yeeva spat. "You knew about this, didn't you, piss-blood?"

Marcus shook his head desperately – an entirely honest answer delivered at the same time as he made the realization: Skeever had briefly brushed his arm as the snake women had led him out of the palace, hadn't he? So he must have…

Skeever, Marcus thought. You really are a cut above your kind. If I get out of this, I swear I will raise you to the ranks of legend among your kind.

A sudden clanging of claws against iron drew the attention of the Yokun then, and both snakes turned to see the challenger that had finally come to face them on the platform.

"Be thinking you can outrun me?" Festicus said as he regained his breath from his ascent. "I am Festicus of Clan Marrow! Be meeting my eyes, for in them will you be seeing your death."

###

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[IronLung]

Upon the tallest silo of Fleapit's foundries, a duel was about to break out that would determine the fate of the entire Underkingdom.

Marcus often recalled tales of such duels in the books he loved to peruse as a child – fanciful stories of men and women going off to conquer fantastical realms and slaying dragons or witch covens after proclaiming the inherent purity of the human spirit.

Such tales rouse the hearts of young men. They become the same young men who run off to wars thinking that mass combat will afford them the same kind of moral superiority.

For Marcus - a man trapped in an ugly rendition of one such world - such superiority was a luxury he would never have. Heroes are supposed to bandy words with demons. They are supposed to show their valor in righteous battle.

But the battle that unfolded atop Fleapit's highest point was not honorable. It was not righteous.

Instead, one armored rat brought his vicious halberd to bear against two humanoid snake-hybrids, and the strikes they made were to kill, not to entertain their spectator.

First, the youngling threw Marcus aside and leaped directly for Festicus. The ratman anticipated the attack, shifting his weight to his right to sidestep and cleave the snake-woman from belly to breast. The attack was one of pure, raw strength, but it was one burdened by the heaviness of the creature's weapon. In the moment of impact the young Yokun twirled and slashed at the ratman's exposed neck, her blade coming away with his crimson blood gleaming along its edge.

He staggered, dropping to his knees just in time for the Matron to came at him with her mercy strike.

A strike that he met with his bare teeth.

His head jerked up. His mouth opened in a snarl, and Marcus saw his fangs clamp down on the blade as it entered its throat. The Matron's eyes narrowed as she tried to free the blade, watching the ratman's gums fill with gushing blood as the Wakizashi's edge nicked his tongue. Then, in her moment of pure confusion, his halberd swept the Yokun elder's feet.

"Sister!"

Festicus smirked as he felt movement behind him – the youngling spinning in a deadly pirouette that struck for his armored spine. The blessings of He-Who-Festers was with the ratman on this day, for the Yokun's blade merely pierced the outer layer of his armored hide and ripped the metal pieces away, letting them fall in a hail of iron that rained down on the spectators watching the small snippets of the battle they could see below.

The ratman thrust the pole of his weapon back to knock against the ribs of the youngling and push her almost straight off the silo's precarious platform to join the bloody mess that was her sister below.

"MMMHMMM!" Marcus wheezed from his position, still gagged. He couldn't help it. This fight was showing him just how skilled the Marrow rat truly was. And it was telling him that his spirit was still loyal to his Shai-Alud after all.

As Festicus turned to hack away at the thin leathers of young Yeeva's chest, the Matron regained her footing. She sent a flurry of blows angled down at the ratman's armpit joints that struck faster than Marcus's eyes could follow. All he saw, when he blinked, was that Festicus was reeling back, his mouth, elbows, and arms all bleeding profusely, coating the dark metal of the silo in his life fluids.

The Matron brought her youngblood back up to her knees, and both of them angled their blades at the mauled rat before them.

"Sire..Marcus," Festicus groaned, drawing his eyes towards the human huddled at the edge of the bloody platform.

With a single twist of his claws he ripped through Marcus's gag and the human heaved a wail of release.

"Festicus," he said, trying to maintain his commanding tone. "Stand. Down."

"I would listen to your monkey friend," the Matron spat through her smiling lips. "You face two Sisters of the House of Whispers, little cretin. We have slain more of your kind than you can count."

Festicus rose steadily, using his halberd to push up from the floor of the platform as the two Yokun circled, both picking their target that would end the miserable ratman's life.

"Clan Marrow…" he wheezed. "Never…back…down."

He turned to Marcus abruptly after coughing a torrent of dark crimson.

"I will be living…to see…those cannons," he sputtered as he brought his halberd back up, holding it across his chest straight backed and regal, like some Arabian prince's honor guard. "In the name of Clan and King…I will be living…to see…our victory!"

Both women's blades flashed through the air, trailing arcs of brilliant light as they curved to bring death upon the beleaguered ratman.

And the eyes of the rat flew to Marcus's as he swept up his halberd to meet the Matron's strike at his right flank.

The Wakizashi of the youngling flew to cleave through his ribcage to the left, and it would have done so if she had merely followed through.

Instead, Marcus watched as her arm writhed like it had a will of its own. She dropped her weapon and it slid across the platform while she screamed in agony – an animal scream that pierced not only the air, but the ears of her Sister who was taken off balance by the sudden change in her companion's demeanor.

And that opening was all Festicus needed cut right into her waist.

She opened her mouth in a gasp, arms flying to dislodge the blade while the ratman that held it grit his teeth and pushed through her scaled skin with all the force left in his hulking frame.

"SHAAAAAA-HAH!"

Marcus watched awestruck as the Matron's torso was cleaved clean through. Her legs flopped beneath the purple-soaked blade of Festicus's halberd while the rest of her body spun in the air, crumbled, and fell back to the platform in a heap of twitching limbs.

"SISTER!" Yeeva screamed, her arms still gyrating with a life of their own as Festicus collapsed to one knee, seeing the ghostly form of someone familiar appear just over the lip of the platform's north face.

"By…the Unclean…" he wheezed. "Could you not be coming…a little…more early?"

The hooded rat man that had his eyes trained on the twitching Yokun before him twisted his face into a smile.

"A Gloomrava of Glumrot isssss coming exxxxxactly when he issssss needing to."

"Look out!"

The shout came from Marcus as his eyes flew to the still spasming Yokun Matron's body. In a macabre display of pure, uncanny willpower, her fingers wrapped round her blade and sent it spinning towards the tiny legs of the newly arrived priest, drawing a cry of agony from him that sounded more like the shrill wailing of the undead than the pained voice of a rat.

Festicus watched his Brother go down and made to rise again to finish off the last female, but this time the Yokun youngling was faster – spurned on by the death of her senior.

She met Festicus' sweeping strike with such fury that the ratman was sent staggering back, and, holding the blade of her Matron in her hand, got the other around the ratman's throat and held him down, her nails penetrating deep into his neck and drawing tiny trickles of blood that traveled through her scaled veins.

"Miserable, scaleless swine!" she railed, pushing her Wakizashi closer and closer to the ratman's face, watching the life in his eyes and strength in his arms gradually fade away to nothing. "Vlitark take the Matriarch! You all die here and now!"

Festicus's arms began to give way. The power to even bite back at the vengeance-filled face of the snake was going – it was draining away like the rest of his blood. It seemed he would have to be satisfied with slaying one of them. An honor most of his Clan would still respect him for, even if it had to be in death…

But before he closed his eyes he saw the Yokra's go wide. He saw the passionate fires of fury die away on her scaled features and then felt the wet spew of her blood that had just spurted from beneath her chest. Both ratman and Yokun looked down to see where her discarded Wakizashi had just penetrated her lower abdomen and, as the blade was twisted, Yeeva finally fell to the side.

And revealed the human standing above her who had just stabbed her in the back.

Festicus wanted to laugh then more than any other time in his life. But, try as he might, all he could manage was a slight smile.

"You truly…are…having the soul…of a rat," he wheezed.

And as Marcus bent down to check the vitals of the ratman, discovering, too late, that there was nothing more to be done, Festicus of Clan Marrow closed his eyes and left the world of the Underkingdom behind.

###

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[IronLung]

"Festicus…"

Marcus stared down at the felled rat, watching as his great furrowed head lulled and fell to the side.

"Festicus!"

"He issss being gone, Ssssire," Verulex said behind him.

Marcus bent low and tried to rouse the great brute that had saved his life, denying that he was about to let another rat man die for him like Gatskeek had.

"Wake up, Marrow soldier!" he yelped in the creature's vacant eyes. "There's cavalry charges still to be led!"

No response. Sullen and vengeful, Marcus let the head drop.

I hesitated, he thought. I didn't act quick enough. If I had the damn foresight to grab that blade sooner…

"Be letting him be. He isss doing hisss duty to Clan and –"

"Oh, shut up, priest," Marcus spat, turning with fury to look upon the hooded cretin who was still managing to coax his anger even now. "Your Order might consider a single rat's life to be meaningless – something to just throw away in the service of your God, but this warrior deserved more than this."

The High Priest of Glumrot fixed Marcus with his puss-filled eyes. Those eyes spoke of toxic thoughts ruminating beneath them.

"Be turning your thoughtssss to vengeancccce, Sssssire," Verulex wheezed as he shambled over to the Matron's eviscerated body and prodded at it with the staff of his office, making sure the creature's life had finally expired. He then nodded down at the still breathing form of the unconscious Yeeva below Marcus, the soft skin of her belly weeping purple blood from the perforation Marcus had made as she took Festicus's life.

He scoffed at the priest and picked up the Wakisashi that had fallen at his feet, bending low and directing his hatred at the fallen Yokra who was mumbling as though in a dream-state.

Perhaps it was a meditation practice of their kind, Marcus thought. It didn't make any biological sense for a creature to immediately collapse into unconsciousness as she just had in receiving such a near fatal wound.

He leaned closer to her as Verulex amplified his voice and called down to the army still waiting below, telling them to send a detachment and a priest to sanctify the body of one of their dead. The enemy Yokun had fallen, and they would receive some special treatment of their own.

Marcus heard general cheers resound as this proclamation echoed all through the dim streets of the putrid city. But he ignored them. Instead, he craned his neck to hear what the felled serpent was saying. There was a word on her lips that he could swear had the ring of familiarity to it.

"Matriarch…Pale…Pale Lady…"

Loyal to a fault, Marcus thought. Even in death, you sing your leader's praises. If you are a representative of one of her soldiers, I'm sure she's a force to be reckoned with among your people. That's just another reason why you have to die.

He brought the edge of the Yokun's Wakizashi to her scaled, bloody throat, tensing up as he knew that he had to do this. He had to. He wouldn't hesitate anymore.

And just as he held her head in his hand and made to bring the blade across her neck, that's when he heard it:

"…Mari…"

His hand stopped.

His brain froze.

The Wakisashi wavered as though willing him to follow-through with his desire.

But a very different desire now burned in his heart as that word traveled through his entire system and sent shivers running down his spine.

"Matriarch…Lady…Maria…"

The blade clattered against the silo platform.

"What isss happening?" Verulex asked. "Ssssire, isss thissss beasssst resssisssting?"

Marcus shook his head.

"No."

"Then be sssslaying her and let ussss go. I sssshal be honored to be ssssshowing you Clan Glumrot'sssss wayssss of debassssing the dead."

Marcus could barely even hear the words of the priest. He could register nothing in this moment except the croaking of that name – Mari's name – emanating from the slitted lips of the downed serpent.

"Bah!" Verulex howled. "Be giving me the blade. I sssshal do i-"

"No," Marcus said, then turning to the priest as though he had just been transported back to reality. "No. We take her alive."

The priest cocked his vile, hooded head at Marcus.

"Your pity for thesssse foreign hereticssss isssss doing you no favorssss, Sssshai-Alud," he said. "The Koboldssss are bad enough. Now you are even ssssshowing merccccy to the killer of your commander?"

"We…we need to question her," Marcus explained, straightening up and trying to compose himself as best he could. "We have the opportunity here to find out what she knows, where she came from, even Skegga's force composition potentially. We can't afford to lose this opportunity."

He looked into the face of the ratman and saw what he had not quite been able to see in the war-chamber earlier that night. He saw the wrinkled eyes of the holy rat narrow, and the teeth flare in anger.

"Sssssire," the priest began, slowly. "You are not undersssstanding. I am being head priesssst of Glumrot. I am favored voicccce of He-Who-Fessssterssss. The bussssinesss of dealing with dead in battle isssss up to me."

Marcus faced the rat, feeling anger take him once again.

"And I am your Shai-Alud," he said. "You should be speaking to me with more re-"

Now, he saw something else that he hadn't seen before.

He saw the Wakisashi that glimmered in the ratman's right claw.

As the little priest spoke, he watched as the tip of the blade slowly rose to touch Marcus's reverberating heart.

"You are not ssssspeaker for the Unclean," the priest told him in a cold whisper. "You ssssshal never be. A human isssss a human, jusssst assss a Kobold isssss a Kobold and a sssssnake-bitch isssss a sssssnake-bitch. Hereticsssss, all of you. And one day, sssssooon, there ssssshall come a day when you are purged from our gloriousssss empire. And on that day, Ssssshai-Alud, you may sssssee which ratssss in thisssss realm are truly holding the power."

Marcus licked his lips. His eyes now swam to watch the edges of the podium. And he became acutely conscious of just how isolated they were up here, surrounded by the dying and the dead. Like the vicious little creature said, it was his domain.

He maintained his composure. He stalled for time.

"Are you threatening me, Verulex?"

The sly smile that crossed the priest's lips then was more chilling than anything Marcus had seen thus far in the Kingdom of the rats.

"I am but a humble sssservant, Sssshai-Alud," he replied. "We all have our placcce in ratman sssssociety. Even you, Ssssshai-Alud. It issss a beautiful thing, issss it not? He-Who-Festerssss issss a mossst generoussss God. He is even giving sssscum like you a placccce among Hisssss chosen people."

Marcus stepped back as the tip of the knife inched closer to his abdomen. He could swear, still smirking, that the ratman moved with him.

And so when there finally came the rattling of chains from the lip of the silo platform's edge, Marcus was more relieved than ever. And the knife that Verulex once dangled before him simply evaporated into ash.

Magic, it seemed, could hide even the greatest crime.

"Shai-Alud!" the voice of Deekius yelped from the edge of the platform, panting as he and a retinue of soldiers threw themselves over the lip and caught their breath. "You…are you being hurt, Lor-"

"Gloomraava Deekius," Verulex interrupted. "You are coming in good time. I am taking charge of thisssss Yokun bitch. We will be exxxxecuting her publicly tomorrow, after I take sssssome time to – time to –"

The priest collapsed suddenly, coughing up a miasma of his blood in the process.

"Gloomraava Verulex," Deekius said. "You are being maimed. Be coming down, we shall be administering to you."

"Be dealing with Brother Fesssssticusss firsssst, Brother," the old priest coughed as he allowed himself to be helped away. "He issss needing your care more than I."

Marcus watched as the small retinue of rats then took stock of their surroundings, seeing the chaos and carnage that unfolded in such a tiny area over such a short space of time.

"He was being a credit to his Clan," Deekius said. "This is great loss for our people."

Verulex, meanwhile, said nothing at all.

Marcus watched as the Yokun woman was spat on and then trundled off down the silo with the others, thankful that the old priest's wounds at least stopped him from having her slain then and there. Perhaps even he knew he couldn't go against the Shai-Alud's wishes publically.

But he'd just confirmed something that Marcus had already begun to fear – something that became far too obvious to him now after seeing the hatred burning in the eyes of Redwhiskers and Verulex both.

And, more than that, he needed to speak to that snake. He needed that more than anything. He needed to know…was it chance? Or…was Mari really..?

"Marcus," he heard Deekius say outside himself. "It is being alright now. Yokun are not being known to send more than single assassin team. If they are failing, it is because they are not blessed by their heretic Gods. Defeating them here is great victory for us all, and now, you are having nothing to fear."

The ratman lifted his arm to try and guide Marcus away but the latter rejected the help entirely. He crossed to the edge of the platform and looked down upon the city, seeing the crowds cheer to see him alive, wondering which of them truly did have any real love for him at all.

Then his eyes lighted on the descending form of Verulex, and he felt a very different idea take root within his mind.

"No, Deekius," he said. "I have plenty still to fear. But now I know what to do about it."

###

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[IronLung]

Note: Alright troops, it's my birthday tomorrow so I'm taking some shore leave. No new chapters tomorrow. Fantasy General will be back on Friday with a chapter that you won't want to miss...


Marcus sat silently in his chambers, his fingers drumming into the stone armrests of his chair that faced the balcony window.

Outside, there were chants being spurned on in his name. There were ratmen down there who were ready to throw their lives away just to get a look at him and to know, for certain, that he was still alive.

"They've pinned their whole hopes on me," he whispered."And yet, I'd sell them all out just to see Mari again."

He leaned back at stared at the empty ceiling above, tracing the cracks in the stones where the rats had probably done battle before.

"What kind of person does that make me?" he asked the vacant ceiling. "Someone worth believing in? Or something who lets his own selfish desires run his mind?"

The door to his room creaked open, and a small, robed rat shuffled in.

"I guess I'll find out soon enough," Marcus said as he turned to meet the visitor he had called to his room alone.

Deekius.

The rat-priest looked up at him with both awe and – Marcus thought – a small sliver of fear. Perhaps the rat himself now believed all the sermons he had delivered about Marcus the Shai-Alud. Perhaps he didn't, and the display of terror-stricken reverence was merely an act.

He bowed his head so low that his snout practically kissed the stones of Marcus's floor.

"Shai-Alud," he said. "It is being my honor to stand before you once again. How are your wounds healing?"

Marcus waved his trivial concerns away. "My bruises are psychological, at best," he said. "More importantly, tell me straight, can your Gloomraava do anything for Festicus?"

The rat-priest closed his eyes. His silence said enough.

"Then he truly is gone," Marcus stated, turning back to the balcony and the legions of baying fans waiting down there.

"We will be giving him a proper ceremony in the Grand Cathedral of the Unclean," Deekius stated. "Then, he will be afforded the highest honor – his body shall be returned to King Skylock of Marrow and consumed by their Clan's Queen. King Shrykul is making necessary preparations."

Marcus hesitated before he spoke his next words, his mind racing.

"Tell him to wait," he said.

Deekius blinked. "Sire? The King is giving order to –"

"Do the soldiers of Clan Marrow know their commander is gone?" Marcus asked. "Do they know how, and where, he died?"

"They…they are knowing the assassins struck here tonight. They are knowing their commander is pursuing them, but all his forces do not yet know he is perishing on top of the Foundry."

"Good," Marcus said. "We will be keeping it that way."

Now he turned back to the little rat-priest. The one who brought him here when it seemed his purpose in life had departed him. When he was at his most hopeless…

"The prisoner," he said. "Where is she being kept?"

"She is being taken to the dungeons on Gloomraava Verulex's authority," Deekius said. "Her execution is being scheduled for 6 hours from now. I am being sorry, Sire Marcus, but the priest of Glumrot is having final say in this matter."

"But not," Marcus added. "The sole domain of priest Verulex."

Deekius cocked his eyebrows at him, his fur furrowing beneath his hood.

"No," he said slowly. "But he is being senior priest here. Authority of Glumrot priests are second only to Prime Putrefact's."

"Yes, of course," Marcus replied. "And where is Gloomraava Verulex currently?"

"He is in his chambers resting," Deekius replied. "He is still recovering from his wounds – the poison of the Yokun Matron is working on him. But he shall be surviving yet. He is just needing rest after all his exertions."

"Yes," Marcus said. "He was gravely wounded. Wasn't he?"

Silence weaved its way between both rat and man as the hidden meaning in Marcus's words spilled out into the air around them.

"Deekius," the human finally said. "I know you have ambition in you."

Are you really going to do this? he asked himself. Once you take a step like this…there is no going back. This is the abyss.

Even as his mind fumbled, he recalled the image of Verulex's hateful eyes staring at him beneath his ragged hood. He recalled the feeling of the Yokun's blade against his flesh as the rat held it before him. And he recalled the ratman's statements in the war-chamber. He had realized, as he was brought back to this castle, why that little priest showed no fear in making such open threats.

Because he thinks I'm weak, Marcus told himself. He thinks my displays of mercy to be the whims of a coward. He thinks I am a tool to be exploited, and nothing more.

But I have tools of my own. I'm not just a history professor, anymore. Words no longer have to be my only weapons…

"Sire?" the ratman mumbled.

"I have heard the sermons you sing about me," Marcus said, stepping closer and bending low to look the ratman right in his sharp eyes. "About the power you wield now that He-Who-Festers has looked upon you as His chosen priest. After all, it was you who summoned the Shai-Alud. And it was you who called those illusions – at the palace doors and atop the Foundry tower – that led to the defeat of the Yokun assassins, wasn't it?"

"You are knowing my skills too well, Sire," Deekius replied with a humble bow.

Now's the time, Marcus. Do it. Show him who you are. Who you can be. Show them all.

"A rat like you," he began cooly. "A rat with such power flowing through him – a Gloomraava chosen by the Unclean – shouldn't a rat like that be the priest who commands the highest office of respect in this place? Shouldn't it be a priest of Fleapit – the priest of Fleapit – who speaks for the Shai-Alud and for his people?"

The light of an epiphany slowly began to creep into the rat-priest's dark eyeballs. His mind was catching up to the desire that lay at the core of his Shai-Alud's words.

"I could give you it all, Deekius," Marcus continued as he saw the light of the priest's own desires flare in his face. "You will be installed as the new Prime Putrefact. Your old leader – he was too weak. He was captured and rots with the enemy. This happened because He Who Festers did not see him as worthy. Not like you."

The eyes of the ratman widened now. Anticipation, excitement, and even a little bit of bloodlust had just taken root within his small mind.

"Sire," he smirked. "You really are having the soul of a rat."

This is it, Marcus. If you go forward now, there is no return.

One path led towards return to his home – the honorable path where he did his job and then shipped out. That was the path he had expected he'd follow. The path that had been causing him all his headaches recently. Now, with the Glitterpak gone, it would simply be even harder to force a surrender from the Kobolds.

But another path had just been opened – a path where Mari lay at the end. If it was true that she really was here, among the warriors of the Yokun, then that meant he'd be going home without her if he found Silas alive. It meant returning to his mundane life without the one thing that made it matter at all.

The right path was so obvious to him. So clear that it was almost comical.

But that's exactly the path he could no longer tread.

"I am knowing what you want to say," Deekius whispered. "If I may speak plainly, Shai-Alud, it is something your human honor will not allow you to voice. But you wish it of me, don't you, Sire?"

Marcus licked his pale lips, feeling the trembling that had set in them earlier fade away.

"Yes, Deekius," he replied. "I do."

A curt nod from the rat and – just like that – a conspiracy was born.

"How?" the priest asked.

"First, a promise," Marcus replied. "I want your word that you shall swear your fealty to no one but me, your Shai-Alud, from this night until the end of all nights. Do this, and I will give you all the honors within my power. King Shrykul will not deny me – I am the only hope of his ailing wife. The warriors of Marrow and Glumrot will fall into line – your sermons will see to that. And from this night forward, this empire will know the name of one priest only."

That was it. That was the final stoking of the fire that sent the rat into an almost trembling frenzy. And the future of the ratman race was decided by his last whispered words:

"Sire," he said. "This is a promise. Together, we shall be making history."

###

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[IronLung]

In a cold chamber where only the dimmest light of a flickering flame burned for warmth, Verulex of Clan Glumrot lay sweating, his body doing what it could to rid its host of the toxins that had addled his veins.

"By…the Unclean," he muttered in his sleep. "May that Yokun…drown…in her…poisssssson."

He gripped his pillow and screamed into its soft surface, cursing the day he decided to volunteer for his expedition. He had begged his King to see the Shai-Alud for himself. And now that he had, he found his spirit…wanting.

"Unclean One," he groaned, the world of his chamber swimming around him as he clutched his pillow tightly to his bosom. "Why do you sssssend usssss ssssssuch a weak…mortal..?"

He knew his wounds would heal. He knew, by the grace of He-Who-Festers, that his magic would be enough to stem the flood of toxic energy flowing through him. Perhaps such chemicals would destroy a lesser rat. But not those of Clan Glumrot – born in spume, breathing corrupted air - bred for resisting even the most harmful of environments.

"My faittttth," he whispered, as though the words would not quite come out even in his hallucinogenic state. "…issssss being tesssssted…"

So fixated was he on carrying on his one-sided prayer to his Lord that he did not hear the guards outside his chamber slump to the ground.

"Unclean…" he muttered, drooping to take up his notched staff and hold it aloft with both his bandaged claws. "Lord…why have you forssssaken your people with a weak sssservant? Do you ssssseek to tesssst me, Lord? Do you really wissssssh me to follow him?"

The door to Verulex's chamber opened steadily. The pitter-patter of tiny paws resounded from the dark entrance only for a moment before the door was once again shut, and the only sound in the room came from the wheezing form of the Gloomraava of Glumrot.

"I am sssseing now," Verulex told the shrine in the dark corner of his chamber – one full of his own dung piles and sprinkled with spume, lovingly cared for. "You…are tessssting me."

"And you have failed."

As the voice of the interloper hit Verulex's ears the priest spun to try and catch the dagger that shot out of the air. But his assailant was faster, cleaving through the ratman's grotesque fingers and piercing his already wounded neck.

Verulex fell against his bed, the last vestiges of life within him summoning the most potent magicks of his kind – magic that reached out with invisible fingers to curl around the heart of his attacker and stop his blood flow before it was too late.

But Verluex then felt an altogether new sensation. He felt a force push back against him. He felt a power that mirrored his own. He felt…resistance.

And then his eyes finally opened. The horrid reality of his last minutes in this world exploded in a vibrant mix of sweating fur, ruby eyes, and snarling, salivating teeth.

"You are being strong, Brother," Deekius told him. "But there is more to living in our world than strength. Only the truly faithful are knowing this."

Verulex's mouth lolled open, his face twitching as he felt his Brother priest's dagger penetrate deeper into his neck, carving through muscle and tendon and stopping any breath he still had to breathe.

"He-Who-Festers is choosing me," Deekius told his slowly dying face. "There is being only one Gloomraava that speaks for one Clan. Soon, I shall be the Gloomraava that speaks for them all."

The dying priest's claws struck out, flailing, desperate – demonstrating little more than Verulex's final spasms before his throat was finally severed entirely.

"B…Brother…" he managed to gargle.

"Be looking carefully, Verulex," Deekius replied. "I am wanting you to know it was me."

The final cut was then made. The eyes of the old, flailing ratman suddenly became nothing but two oval voids of nothingness, and the tongue that had slaved over every word of the Unclean for decades lolled to the side like a listless snake. Deekius withdrew the Yokun Wakizashi, watching its long surface sheen with his Brother's blood, and let Verulex's old body fell from his hands.

Then, smiling silently to himself, the Gloomraava of Fleapit took his leave.

…

It didn't take long for the alarms of the castle to ring out, and for the guards to rush to Shrykuul's chambers to tell him they needed to evacuate, right now.

"Be silent, churls!" the King roared, angered at having been woken from one of his few moments of respite from satisfying his Queen's nightly needs.

When the guards explained to him that not one, but two Talon Commanders now lay slain under his roof, his face went a shade of white that would have shamed even a blind albino.

"By the Unclean…sound the alarms! Search the castle grounds!"

"It will not be necessary," came the call of a rat that entered behind the guardsmen. "It is seeming that head-priest Verulex is succumbing to his wounds atop the Foundry tower. He is giving his life, as is noble Festicus, for the good of our Clan."

Shrykul balked at this information, distrustful of the priest merely by dint of his caste. He was getting sick of constant preaching, and, even upon being told that it was in fact Deekius who found the body, was about to fly into a lecture that would end with more heads rolling.

"The Gloomraava speaks the truth," another voice said, appearing from the shadows behind the sorrowful priest. "Verulex died a noble death this night. I saw the wounds that the Yokun made against him. They were wounds that could only have been made with a weapon sharper than any blade forged by you Ratmen."

"This is being true, Sire!" one of the guards then shrieked. "We inspected the body – the killing stroke was made across the throat, with a strike far thinner and far deeper than any of our weapons could cut."

"Indeed," Marcus stated. "Perhaps you underestimated the professionalism of your Yokun foes."

Shrykul's face dropped to stare at his hands, trying to keep them from shaking before his subjects. Here, under his watch, the loyal servants of his Brothers had been slain…by Yokun of all things. It meant too much for his mind to calculate right now. It meant the other Clans would call for nothing short of total war against the surface when they found out…it meant retribution from his Brother Kings, perhaps even punishment…how he would avoid this he didn't know. But he knew what his Kingly duty now required of him. That was where he would focus his mind.

"We shall be making preparations," he said quietly. "We shall be sanctifying the bodies in the Grand Cathedral of the Unclean immediately. We shall be readying them for return to their Clans. That much we owe our Brothers. Guards!" he suddenly cried. "Leave us."

Shrykul did not wait to see them go, but he did feel something that surprised him.

The hand of the Shai-Alud hovered on his shoulder, the human's smiling eyes brimming at him with something he never expected to see in this moment: hope.

"They came for me, King Shrykul," Marcus said. "The responsibility for these noble rats' deaths is mine."

Shrykul flew to deny this, but the will of the human seemed even more resolute than it was before. A change had come over him.

"I will make you a promise, my King," he said. "That from this day your war will be prosecuted to the utmost of my abilities. I will lead your people against the threat to your tunnels and crush your enemy – Skegga – and all who swear fealty to him. I will start by questioning the Yokun prisoner in the dungeons below. We must understand our enemies if we are going to be able to soundly defeat them."

The King nodded slowly, his head swirling with the necessity of the funerary arrangements and the need to inform his Brothers of their commanders' passing.

"Yes," he said. "That would…be best."

"Rest assured," Marcus continued. "This insult to your Clan will not go unpunished. I believe I owe it to the memory of both Festicus and Verulex to guide their forces against the threat that is coming for us. And believe me when I say that it may be coming sooner than we think."

Shrykul looked up at this human – this being who bore the face of Sire Marcus – and saw the new determination that lay behind his eyes. Perhaps it was an effect of the Place Beyond where he hailed from, perhaps it was righteous anger at the deaths of his fellow commanders. But there was something there that the King could not quite place…

"Wait," he said. "Guide their forces?"

Marcus smiled again. It was not a smile that invited disagreement. Shrykul knew then that this was a real commander standing before him now.

From the looks of the reverent priest standing behind him, he wasn't the only one.

"King Shrykul," Marcus said. "I think we should have a talk."

###

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[IronLung]

In the dreary depths of Fleapit's dungeons, a single Yokun waited for death.

The rusted pinnacles that dug into her wrists and legs cut her flesh with every move she made to free herself. She'd learned, moments upon being interred within the sandstone walls of this tomb packed with dirt, that attempting escape through conventional means would be useless to her here. These vermin were thorough in the indignities they visited upon the other races. She had known that since she was a hatchling.

Her eyes flickered up during regular intervals at the guards during their shift changes, noting every small movement of each rodent that came to keep her caged. She committed the minute gyrations of their tiny limbs to her mind – gaining knowledge that would normally take a human of Marxon's breed months of training and observation to pin down.

Such was the gift of her kind: memory, and longevity. They had whole centuries to measure the successes of their plots and campaigns, lifetimes to hone their skills with their blades.

And it had only taken Yeeva of the House of Whispers a few dull hours to plot her revenge.

Her kind were not as dull as the greybearded dwarves whose petty tribalistic squabbles reigned for longer than any of their Kings did. For a Yokun like her, blessed by the Silent Matriarchs, whose blood ran colder than even the most sinister predators of Thea's jungles, revenge was a matter of swiftly executed cause and effect.

The rat that's that killed her sisters, and the human that was to be their new God – she would have their heads. Damned be the orders of the Pale One! None of them would leave this nocturnal realm alive.

Yeeva was roused from her comforting thoughts of bloody murder by a door opening at the end of the dungeon stairwell. Light – candlelight – beamed its dim luminescence into the normally pitch-black prison ward and threw itself across the bars of her cell.

She strained her eyes to see the new arrivals to this den of debasement. One of them seemed rather tall for a rat.

"Give us the room."

Some hesitation from the guards meets this command. But then the second figure twitches slightly, perhaps in threat, and the ratmen assigned to watch over her prison march away, twisted tails between their legs.

She was alone with these two new figures, and as the candlelight held by the little one drew closer, she finally saw the face of the man who pulled up a dingy stool and sat across from her.

The Shai-Alud. The one the Lady called 'Marcus.'

"I hope they aren't treating you too poorly," he said.

She bared her teeth, but she said nothing. The other rat with him she didn't recognize. But she could smell the musky scent of his kind's vile magic on him. It made her stomach crawl. The pathetic tricks of ones like this had felled her sisters. It seemed ratman incantations were far more potent than her kind gave them credit for.

"Yes," Marcus continued after a time. "You know, our King – Shrykul – was planning your execution mere moments ago on the advice of one of our most esteemed commanders. I believe he said something about scooping out your entrails and tying them round your neck, forcing you to march around the city as your life slowly expired. I'm no expert on magic, but my Gloomraava Deekius here tells me such a method of execution is quite popular round these parts."

Yeeva watched the furrowed lips of the little hooded ratman upturn into a vicious smile. But she did not show fear. The first code of the House of Whispers was inked into her soul: never let the enemy see you bleed.

"Your execution means nothing."

"Indeed?" Marcus asked. "Then what I am about to tell you may mean less than nothing to you, but I have halted the proceedings. You won't die today, Yokun."

She raised an inquisitive eyebrow, momentarily forgetting herself. Was the human's statement true? It had to be. She could detect no fluctuations in his bloodflow, no twitches or twinges in his facial features that might reveal this to be a deception.

But she sat deathly still. She said nothing.

"The problem though," Marcus continued in the face of her silence. "Is that you and your team killed a lot of rats down here. Not to mention a high-born commander of one of our armies. That means there's plenty of rats out there baying for your blood, and I don't think I can keep them away from you forever."

Yeeva sat back and let herself smile. The human had no idea what he was dealing with. In spite of her teachings, she decided to satisfy her own desires and tell him exactly what it was he was speaking to.

"You know nothing, do you, monkey?" she snarled. "I am a blade of the House of Whispers – a Yokun honor-bound since birth to serve a single purpose. My entire life is lived in service to my Matriarchs, and to them is my body and soul are committed entirely. You think I fear death? You think your threats of rodent retribution mean anything to me? We of the Whispers learned how to die a long time ago. We our Calling comes we are always ready. So let them take me, human slave to the dark, and spare me the incessant yapping of your toothless gums."

The rat beside the human grew antsy, knocking his staff against the cage as though he were about to fly into a rage. But the human held up his hand, chuckling to himself.

"Eloquent for an assassin," he said. "You remind me so much of her."

The way he said those final words struck something in Yeeva's cold breast. He said them with fondness. Almost with…love?

"Leave us," he suddenly told his companion.

He sat forward, sighed, and fixed Yeeva with what she now saw were a pair of tired, bruised eyes. Only when his priest had closed shut the door behind him did he deign to say another word.

"I understand how someone in your line of work thinks better than you might believe," he said. "You probably see me as nothing more than a marked man who's living on borrowed time down here. Further, you don't care if you live or die. I'd wager, in fact, that because you and your 'Sisters' failed to extract me you consider yourself already dead. Your people probably think the same. So, I doubt they will send any help for you."

Yeeva did not give him the satisfaction of bowing her head in acknowledgement of these facts.

"But I'd also wager that you care about your Matriarchs," he continued after wiping his glasses on his sleeve. "Especially your 'Pale Lady'. Maria."

She stiffened. He saw it, and she cursed herself.

"Do not say her name, monkey. Your lips are undeserving."

"I don't disagree with you!" the human replied, finding this statement funny. "But your lady happens to quite like these lips."

"You now blaspheme before me?" Yeeva suddenly shrieked. "Do not speak to me of the Lady. What she desires from you is of no concern of mine. I had a duty. I failed. And now I am to rot or die. Get it over with before I break these chains and strangle you."

Between the pair of them, a drop of water somewhere nearby was the only sound that reigned for a few unbroken moments. But the stare of the human never dropped from Yeeva's gaze.

"Yeeva," he said. "Your Lady – Maria – I must know if she is like me. Is she human? Did she come from this 'Place Beyond'? Are her eyes the color of lilly-pads? And…is she ok?"

The snake reeled back, sighing deeply into her wall of her cage.

"…what she sees in you," she said. "I shall never know."

"So it is her!" the human practically jumped. "She's here, isn't she? She's alive, and she's been working with you. That's why she sent you to me, isn't it? I just wonder…how does she know I'm here? And what does she want? Why send a pack of assassins at all – if she had just sent me a letter, just asked me to come up to join her…"

"Because your ratmen need to die," Yeeva spat. "This whole 'Underkingdom' shall die. And tonight was only the beginning."

She was breaking her oaths – she knew it. But she also knew that watching the boyish smile fade from the human's face was giving her more pleasure than she'd had in weeks.

"Yeeva," he said. "I need you to tell me everything. I need to know what's happening to Maria up there. If you cooperate, I have the authority to orchestrate your safe return to your people. I need you to take a message to your Lady. I need you to tell her that I have found a way home. Tell her that-"

Yeeva spat a chunk of green slime at the Marcus's face, cutting him off entirely.

"'Home?!'" she cackled. "Lady Maria does not want your 'home'. She came to us when we needed her, and here she has chosen to stay."

"…What?"

The human trailed off, and Yeeva decided she was done with this trivial conversation.

"Enough," she snarled. "Put me to the sword or parade me before your filth-ridden 'city'. But I will give you nothing, human. I came here to do the bidding of my Lady and to get the measure of you as I did so. Now that I have seen who you are, I am unimpressed. The Pale Matriarch was wrong. You are nothing."

The human held her gaze for a time before slowly rising with a weary sigh. He crossed his hands behind his back, and then turned away as he delivered his final proclamation to the prisoner who was now, ultimately his.

"You aren't going to die today," he said again. "Because your life now belongs to me. See, I went through a lot of trouble to keep you alive and learn your secrets. And I'm afraid that, if you won't tell me what you know, you'll be dying for a very very long time."

Yeeva watched as the candlelight faded away. The door opened, and the Shai-Alud addressed the ratman who had been waiting there, patiently, for the human to return.

But he had brought something with him.

And Yeeva, for the first time in her life, felt her cold heart shrink at the words they shared:

"I must ask too much of you once again, Deekius."

Yeeva heard the snapping of pliers. The ratling of more chains. And at least a dozen other objects that clattered against the floor. Sharp objects.

"Believe me," the little rat replied. "This is being a pleasure, Sire."

###

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[IronLung]

The grand cathedral of the Unclean One stood tall and bright amidst the dark depths of Fleapit's underbelly. Its clangorous chimes, otherworldly glow, and stained glass windows depicting ratman heroes throughout time stood as a testament to the empire of filth and decay that now sought to stretch across the entire North Warrens.

Two bodies wrapped in ceremonial threads belonging to their respective clans lay upon the main altar to He-Who-Festers, a great statue of their horned, many-eyed God staring down at them as like a giant guardian watching His children finally sleep.

Before the grand altar, the Clansmen of the dead rats knelt, heads bowed, and fists clenched in reverence. They listened with total respect to the words being sung from the new Archpriest of Fleapit – the one who it was rumored would now be taking over completely from the old Prime Putrefact.

"Be letting the gaze of He-Who-Festers linger on these brave souls!" Deekius roared – his voice traveling through the bowels of the great church and causing every ratman assembled beneath him to tremble with fear and bloodlust alike. "They, your Clansmen, are giving their lives for the Shai-Alud! For a rat of the Underkingdom, there is being no greater glory! They are dying in righteous battle, filled with pox and drenched in the vile blood of our enemies! They are dying as true warriors of ratman Kingdom should!"

The soldiers and civilians huddled beneath the rat gave their thunderous thunderous assent, mailed claws knocking against their ribs and clanging on the plate of their armor. The Marrow warriors' fists beat the hardest, and the Gloomraava-touched rats of Glumrot screeched the loudest. Together, they looked the very picture of a unified people. One collective whole banded together by a shared purpose – vengeance.

Marcus watched the proceedings from the side, behind Deekius, his eyes passing over the warriors that lay supplicant before him. Whenever his stare passed over one of them, the soldier in question immediately dipped his head.

If they didn't believe in me before, Marcus thought. They do now.

Skeever stood to attention beside him, rubbing the phantom pains running up his dead arm.

"It is being a grim day for ratman Kingdom," the old warrior said.

Marcus spared him a fleeting look. "Indeed," he replied. "But rest assured, Skeever. Your comrades will be avenged."

The ratman didn't seem altogether reassured. But he held his tongue.

"You were asking me for report, Sire," he said, cringing as Deekius' raised his voice again to let his exhortations travel through the length of the cathedral. It was said that many of the civilians and warriors were actually assembled outside, unable to fit into the church's rows. The blinking crimson embers of their eyes could be seen if one focused enough on the windows.

"It is being as you said," Skeever continued. "Skegga is making push. A great mass of Kobolds are storming through to attack as we are speaking. Two forces are moving – one to assault Razork, and one to destroy Gulchnavel village. Skegga is seeking to throw everything he is having at us, abandoning forts he has left. Ix and Kobold scouts are reporting Tarakht and Gromelin are having only token defense left."

Marcus gave a curt nod. It is just as the Yokun had said. The last few nights of torture had borne some fruit, it seemed. Even if she still hadn't given him the exact answers he'd personally wanted.

"There are being two other things," Skeever continued.

"Do tell."

The old rat gulped, trying to ignore Deekius' continued screeching and the cheers of the ratmen who were listening. "The dwarf army Brother Festicus spoke of is on the move. They are destroying Clan Marrow fort Rekalspit on Eastern Border. Soldiers of Fort Spearclaw are saying that they have seen smoke from Dwarven encampments in the East. They are suggesting that Dwarf splinter assault force may be coming for us, but I am not being sure if we can trust this report."

"The guards of Spearclaw are among some of our most devout," Marcus replied. "If they think there's an attack imminent on our Eastern border, then we have to take the threat seriously."

Skeever nodded gravely. Marcus could tell the little rat was agitated. But a couple of Dwarves looking to pick apart the beleaguered ratman of the North weren't a concern. In fact, this situation might even present them with an advantage.

"And the second thing?" Marcus asked. "Tell me it's some good news, Skeever."

"It is…surprising, Sire," the rat said, watching as Deekius began to finish up his speech to rapturous applause and howls of glory. "Boss Skegga is leading one of his armies."

Now, Marcus's ears perked up.

"He is being seen heading South towards Razork," Skeever continued. "He is passing Razor Ridge within the next day according to scouts. I am thinking, this time, he means to push until we are obliterated."

Marcus wavered. "Force composition?"

Skeever shook his head. "His own army is numbering at least three thousand Kobolds," the ratman said gravely. "His detachment sent towards Gulchnavel – at least two thousand strong. They are having Skogsriders, slingers, and crossbows, Sire. Their vanguard is wearing armor plundered from dwarf supplies. Skegga must be having dwarven prisoners fit armor for his army. I…we are thinking this is being his Great Kleansing."

Marcus scoffed, a thin smile playing across his lips. "That arrogant toad…he's somehow gotten the idea that we're crippled, what? Because we lost the main Glitterpak swarm? Does he think me so basic as to base my entire campaign on the use of a single weapon alone?"

Skeever screwed up his face and twitched his scarred nose, "Sire?"

"Head to the War-council chambers, Skeever," Marcus said. "I shall meet you and King Shrykul there soon, after I've explained the situation to our soldiers."

Skeever hesitated. "'Our soldiers', Sire? I am thinking that the Clans are surely more divided now than ever. With both Talon commanders gone, the Kings of Marrow and Glumrot will be requesting that their soldiers be returned to them. They will be assuming we shall fall. I am thinking the situation is more grave than it has ever been before."

But Marcus, the veteran rodent noticed, never once dropped his smile even as he heard such concerns.

"Skeever," he said. "Have you so little faith in your Shai-Alud?"

"Ratmen of Clans Marrow and Glumrot!" Deekius howled. "To be closing our ceremony, let me be presenting you your General. Your savior that is coming to lead us in this darkest hour. Let us be welcoming SHAI-ALUD MARCUS!"

Later, Skeever would reflect on what he was about to see as Marcus then stepped forward and allowed Deekius to take his hand in his paw, absorbing the chants of reverence that issued from the throat of each and every ratman in the cathedral that night and, probably, each and every ratman in Fleapit who heard the Shai-Alud's name. Lately, it was a name spoken with the same degree of respect afforded even to the Unclean One.

And Skeever watched as the man they revered gave a single wave of his hand.

The crowd instantly went silent.

"Ratmen of Fleapit!" he shouted. "Your Shai-Alud has come to address you on this most gravest of days. On this day two heroes to our glorious cause have fallen, cut down by the dark blades of our enemies sent by Boss Skegga. And that fat toad even now gloats in premature victory. He is coming for us, warriors of the Unclean. Make no mistake of that."

Murmurs of fury permeated the crowd. Skeever noted how their ears twitched to hear Marcus's every word, their eyes hanging on his every subtle movement. When he mentioned Skegga coming for them, the crowd grew vicious. Skeever could sense the building tension even from as far back as he stood.

"Yes," Marcus continued. "He believes he has already won. He believes that crippling our leadership has struck a blow against our nation that we cannot recover from. He believes you will each lay down and offer your putrid bellies to him as he climbs over these walls and takes everything you care about. I ask you, men of Marrow, men of Glumrot, are you going to submit to him thus?"

The answer was so obvious that Skeever didn't have to hear it. Yet, still, when it came, it came with a fury the Talon-Commander had not heard in an age, not since the last Skittering was called.

"NO!"

They took up Marcus's name in a battle chant again, most of them already gripping their weapons before he even made his next announcement.

"Then the time has come for you to show this fat toad and his underlings who exactly you are," he said, pointing a gloved finger at the crowd that seemed to be directed at every ratman down there. "A time comes in all our lives when we must stand up – we must stand together, shoulder to shoulder with our brothers, and take up arms against a common threat. That common threat is here, Brothers. It is moving, and soon it will be upon our doorstep. We need an army united in a singular purpose, with a leader that can direct us towards the target of our righteous vengeance. I ask you, now, who do you wish to lead you in this time?"

"THE SHAI-ALUD!" the ratlings screamed – till the scream became an echo that weaved like a ghost through the streets of Fleapit so even the youngest rat could hear. "THE SHAI-ALUD! THE SHAI-ALUD!"

"Then let your will be done!" Marcus then shouted into the crowd. "King Shrykul has bestowed upon me the rank of First Talon! I will stand with you in the midst of the battle to come, and we shall defeat this menace once and for all. We shall push him back until he falls off the edge of this world. And we shall do so not as one Clan or another, but as a single entity. Ratmen – look at the Brother beside you. He is not just your brother in arms, now. He is not just your cousin from another Warren. Now, he is an extension of your very self. He is a weapon that shall come down upon the head of Skegga just as you are. He – and all of us here – tonight bear witness to history being made. Your time is now, ratmen! The time of your Empire has come!"

Skeever staggered back, absorbing the words of his Sire even as his ears failed to truly understand them.

First-Talon…

A name that granted power second only to that of a King of the Clans…a name reserved for only the most dire of circumstances.

Skeever looked at the pair of dead commanders beneath him, and then caught Deekius's smiling snarl as he watched Marcus raise his fists high amidst the screaming chorus of the crowd.

"It is being glorious, Brother, is it not?" the rat-priest said. "Be marking this moment, Brother commander, for history is being made."

###

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[IronLung]

"It will be a two-pronged assault", Marcus was saying to his new war-council, standing at the very top-end of King Shrykul's table. "He'll move through Razork, cut off our Glitterpak farms, and then head South until he hits Fleapit. Meanwhile, his secondary force will cut off a potential retreat in the East by taking Gulchnavel and holding fort Greenwatch. It's possible they might move to re-take Knifegut if Skegga's scouts report success on the Western front. Casualties don't seem to be a concern for them now."

Shrykul, Skeever and Deekius each nodded along as Marcus pointed out the tactically crucial forts on their ever-changing map of the Warrens.

"Skeever reports Skegga's main assault force numbers 2000 Yips and his secondary force about half that number."

"How can we be succeeding now?" King Shrykul asked, his fur looking a little more whitened than usual. The last few hours of his reign had not exactly been kind to him. "Those numbers far outweigh our reserves."

"Do not be thinking the Shai-Alud is not having plan," Deekius said. "He is always having plan. Be showing your faith, my King."

Both Skeever and Shrykul rounded on the priest, seemingly about to rebuke him for his brazen speech. Marcus, however, was done with such interruptions.

"In the East," he said. "Our best approach would be a swift evacuation of the garrison and the village rats. Have them move towards the Eastern Warrens and hold with Glumrot's border forts there."

"The priests of Gloomraava of Glumrot are already sending whispers on the winds to Fort Greenwatch," Deekius confirmed. "Our magic is giving us advantage of communication. They are already making preparations to go."

"Tell them to expediate their progress," Marcus demanded curtly. "Time is not a resource we have."

"At this point," Skeever broke in. "There are being few resources we have left at all. Marrow cavalry are numbering 300 strong. Glumrot spearmen and Fleapit soldiers are numbering around 500. Glumrot Gloomraava detachment are only eight priests. We could be using the rats stationed at Greenwatch."

"There is being no clear path through Knifegut," Deekius replied. "We would be sending those soldiers to die if we asked them to clear the fort out."

"Something I'm not willing to do," Marcus said with another curt nod. "Skeever, how many Glitterpak did we manage to catch."

"Fifty, Sire," the Talon-Commander replied. "The rest…we are not finding them and committing men to look would be wasting time."

"Fifty…" Marcus wondered. "Is it enough? Time will tell. Maybe He-Who-Festers has blessed us with fifty of the largest."

"Any more explosions like those of Festigraf and Razork," Shrykul sighed. "And you will be bringing the entire roof down upon our heads."

Marcus smiled at the King's joke – the kind of smile that told the joker that what he'd said wasn't at all as outlandish as it seemed.

"Shai-Alud…" the King murmured. "You don't mean to…"

"You didn't think I'd leave Greenwatch and its fort without a welcome gift for their new occupants, did I?"

Deekius sniggered. The other two rats looked the very picture of discomfort.

"Evacuate Razork, too," Marcus continued. "I won't risk the lives of hard-working rats in a futile effort to raise more Glitterpaks. We have fifty. It will have to be enough."

"New mayor Trellok will not be liking this…" Skeever mumrued.

"He'll bend," Marcus replied with a smile. "Tell him the order comes directly from his favorite experimentor."

Marcus then redirected their attention to Razork and the 'Razor Ridge' mountain pass that split it from Skegga's controlled lands in the far North.

"Few modern wars in my time are won through a single, decisive encounter," Marcus said. "But this war – our war – will hinge on our success in the battle against Skegga's main force here. We have one main objective: take Skegga's head from his shoulders. And, fortunately, the old toad is helping us out with that by appearing on the battlefield himself."

"What I cannot be understanding is why?" Shrykul asked. "Why would Skegga be showing himself on the field now?"

"Our High priest has some insights into that," Marcus said, nodding to Deekius to give the floor to him. The little rat priest took the chance to display his superior knowledge like a child being given candy.

"Boss Skegga is believing Shai-Alud is dead," he said with a smirk. "He is being mistaken."

"Obviously," Skeever replied. "But where is he getting this idea?"

"They are killing another human and believing it to be Sire Marcus. Their fool minds show themselves once again. Perhaps Skegga is finally being fooled by Kobold stupidity."

"He has fooled himself," Marcus interjected. "And we will take full advantage."

He pointed at Razork and Razor Ridge beyond it.

"Our best strategy would be to hem his army in at Razor Ridge. It provides the best chokepoint in the North. If we can funnel his forces in there we can effectively cut his numerical advantage in half. Our Glitterpaks can deal with those in the rear. Skegga – being as bold as he is – will probably be leading within the middle. He's stupid, but still has every reason to fear us. To him, right now, we're cornered rats."

"And a cornered rat is being most dangerous," Skeever replied with a smile.

"Precisely."

"The problem as I am seeing it," Skeever said. "Is how to force an army that size back into the Ridge. Not since the days of Greyfang himself is there being such a force to contend with in the Northern Tunnels. Every single Kobold must be rallying against us."

"After that little stunt Talon-Commander Verulex pulled, can you blame them?"

The rats each shared knowing looks with each other.

"I have issued a general commandment as First-Talon and Shai-Alud," Marcus told King Shrykul. "If Kobold forces, squads, or individuals surrender to our soldiers, they are to be captured and interred at Fort Spearclaw for the time being. In time, they will be integrated into our regiments."

He could see the fear this prompted in the King's face. And he could also see Deekius look down upon Shrykul as if from on high, the King biting his tongue as he caught the priest's eyes.

You want to tell me I can't do this, Marcus thought. But you know, equally, that this is beyond you now, Shrykul. You are looking at your people's new God – the Gloomraava of your capital and beyond are already seeing to that. Your Empire is slowly becoming a Theocracy. One that is out of your hands.

The question is, what will happen to it when it's out of mine? Think of that, Shrykul. Think only of the future. Right now, the present belongs to me.

"I shall…be reinforcing your proclamation, Shai-Alud," the King said.

Marcus feigned humility. "I would never presume to order you to do such a thing, Sire Shrykul. Your First-Talon is merely giving his general counsel."

"Sire," Skeever interjected, suddenly twitchy. "There is being another problem that must be addressed."

Marcus raised an eyebrow at the commander.

"The Dwarves of the East," Skeever continued, his gnarled fingers pointing out the tunnels that dotted the Eastern front beyond Razork and Fort Spearclaw. "We are knowing they have an army that is pushing against Clan Marrow. We must be considering possibility that they will be pushing against us."

"I'm not only considering the possibility, Skeever Steelclaw. I'm counting on it."

Once again, the ratmen assembly collectively flew to Marcus's eyes.

"You think that Ix's recent absence from his frontline scouting duties is a coincidence?"

"I had been having thoughts about that," Skeever admitted. "But…what is the Kobold having to do with the Dwarves, Sire?"

"There's plenty of resources that can be exploited in war," Marcus continued. "Weapons, raw materials, manpower, even the environment itself. But from what I know of the Dwarves, there's another resource we can exploit. There's a resource that's potentially more powerful than all these material things that we expect will win wars. And I've come to understand that this is a resource in such massive supply that practically every race that exists in this black underworld maintains its own personal stash."

The rats leaned forward, hanging on every word.

"Well?" Shrykul asked. "What is this ultimate resource you are speaking of?"

And Marcus, with an ironic smirk, gave them their answer:

"Hatred."

###

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[IronLung]

-East Warrens, Clan Marrow territory-

Ix scrabbled to the top of the rock ledges that afforded him a view of his primary objective.

These Eastern tunnels were far less hospitable than those of the North Warrens. The jagged rocks cut into his feet and he and his men had required great strength of both will and sharpness of eyes to see which crevices in the dark ground opened out into nothing but black abyss that stretched into the depths of the earth. It had taken them about a day's worth of traversal, and Ix had carefully had his men map the path back. Because when they returned through the tunnels back to the North, they would be running.

The reason for their speed was below the rock-ridge, ambling about a series of hastily constructed tents and fortifications.

A Dwarven camp.

Quite a sizeable one, Ix noticed as he and his men went prone, scanning over the lip of the ridge that would lead them into the East Warrens and Clan Marrow territory. Ix knew this to be true, because the corpses of the ratmen that he could see littering the ground between the Dwarven tents and little bonfires were many.

"There has been fight-fight recently," one of Ix's Yips observed.

"And Marrow rat-rats lost."

"It is as Shai-Alud Marcus is tell-telling," Ix whispered. "The Marrow rats die-die to Dwarves."

"Rats of Marrow are supposed to be tough-tough," another Yip yelped.

"They are," Ix replied. "But tough-tough is not enough against Dwarven guns."

He directed his squad's sight towards the chain-link fence perimeter of the Dwarves' camp. Beyond, a series of trenches had been dug, from which the long barreled rifles of the Dwarves gleamed in the dark of the Underkingdom. Ix could see the killing field that they had carved out of the dust and crags that spread out in front of them. Mountains of Clan Marrow dead littered the fields. It seemed that some of the rats had tried using their fallen comrades as meat shileds. It also seemed that this strategy had done little but buy them a few more seconds before the Dwarven firing line had chewed their armor to pieces.

None of them had even made it to the trenches.

Ix shook his head. The Dwarves were few in number, even fewer than the ratmen – every Yip of the Underkingdom knew that. But what they lacked in numerical superiority they more than made up for in terms of their sheer firepower. Ix remembered what just one of their functional cannons under Boss Skegga had managed to do – and how it sounded. His little Kobold brain could scarcely imagine what an entire array of them would be capable of.

"Come," Ix said. "We will be taking closer look."

The Kobold squad slowly, with great care, began descending the ledge and getting as close as they could to the Dwarven ranks. As they moved like silent specters, well accustomed to the dark, they began to see the details that were important for their mission: it looked like the Dwarves were getting ready to make a push against the North Warrens. They were tidying up their camp, making ready to scale the great rock wall that hemmed in the Marrow tunnels. Looked like a force of about 500 men. Nothing compared to Boss Skegga's legions on their way South. But Ix reasoned that a single Dwarf probably counted for at least four Yips in strength. Double that if he held one of those big shooters in his hands.

Ix hoped his assessment was correct. The Shai-Alud's plan was counting on it.

As Ix stopped his men behind a narrow overpass just above the army's position, he listened in to the speech that one of the little men was giving to a line of heavily armored, mean-looking troops. By the looks of the Dwarf – clad in silver-plated armor gilded and bearing the marks of several different blade strikes – Ix assumed this stuntie to be the commander.

"Ye know why yer here, ye bulging, mean, fur-bashin' bastards!" the muscly Dwarf was saying, his braided red beard flying around him with every shake of his head. "Yer here because we're the men who are chosen. We're the men who know that the war – the great war – doesn't stop here. It doesn't stop with the bloody weaklings of Marrow – Dulgaven spit on their furry assholes! It began with them, aye, but it will end with the death of Red-Eye. The wee bastards think we're distracted with our wee campaign in the East. Little do they know we're gonna march right into their doorstep while the Kobolds pick away at them. They fear the little yipping demons. I ask ye, men of Dulgaven, do you fear them?"

"NO!" the Dwarven troops howled.

"Do you fear the rats of Red-Eye?"

"NO!"

"Men of Dulgaven – what. Do. You. Fear?"

"NOTHING!"

"AYE!" the Dwarven commander shouted back, throwing spittle into his vanguard's eyes. "Fear is fer the hearts of children and cattle! Fear is nothing ta men made of stone. Men of Dulgaven – MEN OF THE EAST!"

"SEMPER-ROK! SEMPER-ROK!"

Ix listened with scholarly curiosity. He bet Shai-Alud Marcus would understand all these funny words better than he could. His mind was not a mind attuned to words and concepts. What he knew was power. And thus, he could understand that the leader's exhortations were powerful indeed – powerful enough to have a galvanizing effect on his men. It was what the Shai-Alud referred to as 'morale'. Even from up here, Ix could see their gauntleted fingers curl round their axes and broadswords. Meanwhile, the gun emplacements were almost fully detached from the trenches. The army would be moving out soon.

"Ok," Ix told his men. "Our times come-comes. And now we are knowing who to hit."

The other Yips gulped as one, looking at their leader with eyes filled with trepidation.

"A…are you sure-sure, Head-Yip Ix?" one asked as he produced his shortbow from behind his back. "What if Dwarves are not as dumb-dumb as the Shai-Alud is thinking?"

"He is not thinking they are dumb-dumb," Ix whispered back, nocking an arrow and aiming just below the Dwarf leader's furry helmet. "He is knowing they are hate-hating us. This is what makes them weak-weak."

Ix's arrow danced over the head of his target.

"Small, fat, and still-still," the Kobold smiled. "Nice-nice and easy."

"I, Corvaughn of House Darragut, shall be your beacon in the dark, lads!" the Dwarf Lord was saying. "Follow the light of me Warhammer, and watch the furry bastards of the North fall! Let them watch us climb their corpses to make Grindlefecht our home again! Let them tremble at the sounds of our guns! Semper-rok! SEMPER-RO-"

Ix's arrow found its mark in the Dwarf-Lord's shoulder before he could finish his fancy speech. The other Yips followed suit, each one bringing a hail of arrows down upon the dwarves who took cover behind their shields.

Not enough, Ix thought. They need to know-know it was us…

"AIIIIIE!" he squealed, encouraging his men to jump erratically in the pattern of the dance of Joy. "Dwarf-dwarfs are stinky! Stink-stink worse than ratmen of North! Now, Yips, back there we go-go to tell friends how stinky dumb-dumb dwarves are!"

And the Kobolds did not wait on their captain's command long. As soon as he finished his screeching the back of the rock ledge behind them was practically split open by the Dwarves long guns. The soldiers let up a collective cry of fury, and the weapons of every dwarf in the crags below were out in the next second.

"BLOODY YIPPING DEMONS!" Ix heard the Dwarf Lord bellow as he and his men made for the tunnels back home. "I'M GONNAE TEAR OOT YER INNARDS AND WEAR THEM AS A NECKLACE! I'M GONNAE DECORATE MY WALLS WITH YER BASTARD BLASPHEMOUS TONGUES! AFTER THEM! AFTER THEM!"

He has taken his wound rather badly, it seems, Ix thought. Sire Marcus, the dwarf-dwarf is angry like you thought. His army come-comes…

Ix led his men through the now crumbling tunnels, avoiding the shots fired by the remnants of House Darragut in hot pursuit.

Sire Marcus…IX thought as he and his men made their mad dash to Razork. I am hoping you know-know what you are doing…
###

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[IronLung]

"Are you prepared, Sire?"

Marcus stood atop Fort Spearclaw's battlements, watching the last of the Spineripper squads move into their allotted places on the battlefield that was soon to be made of the village's plains once again. The Glumrot spearmen and Pox-Throwers had already signaled that they were ready and willing, and Skeever's own band of swordsmen were sequestered here in the fort. Marcus had insisted that the ratman let him be – that having him and Deekius here with him would be more than enough protection. But the ratman was not to be convinced.

"The day the Shai-Alud is falling is the day the war is being over for us," he said.

Now, Marcus looked across the evacuated village and turned his thoughts to the question Deekius had just asked of him. Was he prepared? How could anyone be for what they were about to attempt?

700 Spinerippers split up into three 'V' formations of 225 each, 500 Glumrot spearmen supported at their flanks by a detachment of 100 Pox-Throwers. Skeever's personal band of 200, reinforced by an extra 100 recruits from Razork who had chosen to fight rather than flee.

Surprisingly, one of them was Mayor Tekal – formerly Head Glitterpak Wrangler, Tekal – and the incumbent mayor, Gekul – still pale, but a little less shaky.

Marcus had heard that the change in command had benefitted everyone involved.

He looked down at them – all good, strong rats, each with a certain sense of nobility, even. But the two he focused his attention on were those standing closest to him – his now personal Archpriest, Deekius, and Supreme Talon Commander Skeever Steelclaw.

"You two have been with me since the beginning," Marcus told them. "Since the first day I drew breath in your blighted realm. You ask me if I'm ready? I ask you – how many times have you both saved me from death's door since I came to this place?"

"It was with the will of He-Who-Festers that we succeeded," Deekius said, and the men waiting behind him sent up a cheer of devotion.

"Were that your belief in yourselves were as strong as your belief in your God," Marcus quietly lamented. "I dare say you wouldn't need him any more…"

A rumbling issued in the far distance. Across the fields, thundering towards Razork in a great mass of soot and dust, came Skegga's army.

"I suppose I should be flattered," Marcus mused aloud. "The great God Skegga comes to witness my 'resurrection' personally. I have to say I'm excited to meet him. I've never talked with a God before."

Deekius sniggered, as did some of the crossbow-rats on the walls.

"Our scouts are reporting two Dwarven Great Cannon," Skeever said beside him.

"Good," Marcus replied. "That's two more for us when the battle is over. This time, we won't be letting them go."

Skeever hesitated beside him as Deekius turned to whip up the fervor of the troops. Both man and rat watched as the first volley was fired – a great torrent of flame being spit towards Razork's reconstructed buildings, instantly smashing them to pieces.

Meanwhile, the Eastern tunnels sounded with a very similar thundering.

"You doubt me, Skeever, don't you?" Marcus said suddenly, knowing that this might be the last chance they had to speak with any pretense of civility before hostilities commenced.

The ratman swallowed his fear, and possibly his pride.

"I would never be – could never be – doubting the Shai-Alud," he replied. "But I am doubting the man who wears his mask."

Marcus smiled at that. When he wanted to, the little warrior did have some flair with words.

"You remember what I told you when we first came to this village, Skeever?'

"You are telling me to only tell you the truth."

"Correct. The fact you can still do so even through all this Messiah bullshit tells me I made the right decision in placing so much responsibility on your shoulders."

The ratman stiffened, perhaps from pride, or perhaps from fear – fear born from the fact the Shai-Alud had just disputed his own divinity. But he did not push that subject further.

"So when you tell me you doubt me," Marcus said as Skegga's cannons roared again. "I know that means we're walking a fine line between victory and total annihilation."

"Then be telling me which you are thinking it will be," Skeever asked his Sire. "Will the dwarves be taking the bait?"

Marcus's shoulders heaved the way they always did when he was forced to say things that would have been considered taboo or heinous back on earth.

That was becoming a theme, recently. And each time, Marcus noted, his trepidation over his words seemed to lessen.

"From what the rats of Marrow have told me of the Dwarves, they are a civilization totally dominated by an ancient honor-culture. To them, the notion of vengeance has no negative connotation. Entire Houses' offspring are trained from birth to eliminate a single Clan or individual due to some perceived slight made against their great-great grandfather. This is what they refer to as the 'Mandate of Stone.'"

Skeever nodded slowly, watching the cannons rip and tear at Razork, coming up just short of Spearclaw's foundations due to its elevated position.

"This makes its leaders men of honor," Marcus said. "And that's exactly what their weakness is."

Skeever – ever the consummate soldier – glanced up at his Lord in confusion.

"Sire," he asked. "How does honor make them weak?"

And Marcus, heaving a little less this time, replied,

"Because, Skeever, that's the sad reality of warfare: honorable men are often the first to die."

…



Boss Skegga was in his element.

He beat his great claws on his bulbous belly as his throne inched forward, feeling the thrum of the fully operational cannons he'd brought along with him, hearing nothing but the collective wails of 2000 Kobolds that were singing his name in victory.

He watched as the cannons belched their payloads at Razork and the town's pitiful buildings fell one by one. The ratmen were not even brave enough to sally forth from their hill fort nearby. They wouldn't face him.

"Because they can't!" Skegga yelled aloud, confusing any of the Yips who were listening to him. His honor guard's armor glistened in the dust of Razor Ridge, the gilded Dwarven craftsmenship impressive even to him. He reckoned they'd even give the Masters a run for their money.

As the army spilled out of the uncomfortable narrowness of the ridge and formed up around the great steel cannons, Skegga threw up his arms and addressed his flock.

"KOBOLDS!" he yelled, in a voice that traveled through the entire Eastern cavern, so that he was sure all of the ratmen hiding in their pathetic little tunnels could hear. "You have followed me as I slew the fat-bearded stunties in their homes, you have followed me as I told you of the Great Kleansing – and watched as I sweeped away the ratmen of the North! Now, you follow me on the final act. You follow me on the path towards my ascension! We shall raze the hovels of the disgusting rats and put their heads upon our pikes beside the head of their precious Shai-Alud!"

He held aloft his great winged spear that bore the head of the human Silas had delivered to him. Around, the Kobolds yelped with righteous fervor, every one of them bowing down to get as close as they could to their God's floating throne – even reaching out their hands to get singed by the flickering blue flames that gave it power.

"First – Razork!" Skegga roared. "Then Fleapit itself! Even now our Yips are pillaging to the West, tearing down the walls of the rats' forts and blocking off their retreat! Their feeble forces shall fall this day. All of them shall be trodden by the clawed feet of Skegga's chosen people! And once we have slain their king, and wiped our behinds with his entrails, we shall take the queen and put her to the torch!"

More cheers of affirmation. More roars of pure glee. The Kobolds were filled with battle-fervor, and Skegga, smearing a slime-covered smile across his face, decided he didn't need to follow Silas' plan.

Allow the cannons to soften up the village and make a few dents in the Spearclaw fort, he had said. Pah! What did a God have to fear of these infidels? His time had come. And he was not about to sit here and wait for the machines of the Dwarves to claim glory that belonged to him.

"HEAD YIPS!" he called, throwing spittle and mucus across his army's center. "READY YOUR SQUADS!"

The frontlines obeyed without question. The Skogs surged, even the ones with newly mounted slingers. The swordsmen beat their iron shields and called out a battlecry that shook the entire cavern. The crossbow-Yips followed and at the rear came Skegga with his hardened Kobold honor-guard, clad in the body armor of the dwarves.

And as the cannons made a final roar of power, Skegga threw up his arms and sent his only command flying into the dead air filled with the dust of his conquest.

"CHARGE, MY KOBOLDS! LET THE FINAL ACT OF THE KLEANSING BEGIN!"

###

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[IronLung]

Skegga's army was a wave of bloodlust. Each kobold coalesced into a single, writhing organic mass, issuing a battle cry that echoed through the entire North Warrens.

"RUN, MY CHILDREN!" the slime-clad God sang above them, flashing his spear bearing the decapitated head of the 'Shai-Alud.' Surely the ratmen would simply grovel at his feet when they saw it.

Skegga looked above his thundering throng of Yips and saw Razork village disappear in clouds of black smoke – the effects of his two Dwarven cannons smashing the place to pieces. Finally, he'd show these rats exactly who the real leader of this Kingdom was.

Then, he'd come above to deal with the Masters…

"SWEEP THROUGH THEIR TUNNELS IN A SWARM OF DEATH, MY CHILDREN! COVER THESE WARRENS IN RED! PAINT THE WALLS OF THEIR HOME WITH THEIR BLOOD! BLOOD, FOR YOUR NEW GO-!"

Skegga's voice became lost in another howl that pierced through the air, instantly cutting off his army's collective squeal of preemptive victory. He felt a distinct ringing in his ears, plunged a slippery thumb into them and then double-blinked to try and resolve the reality that was now unfolding before him.

The first line of his Yips had just been decimated.

At least 100 good little slaves…

And in the distance, far to the East of the ratman's pitiful little village, he saw the flash of an array of muzzles against the hard stone of the Eastern tunnels.

Then a voice reached his ears that could rival even his own Godly proclamations.

"MEN OF STONE!" the new voice bellowed. "CUT THESE BASTARDS DOWN! SEMPER-ROK! SEMPER ROOOOOK!"

Then the Kobold frontlines disappeared in a hailstorm of bullets.

…

"It's begun,"

Marcus nodded towards the newly emerged army that had set up a veritable firing range to the Eastern edge of Razork. He counted at least 500 men – small men to be sure – but men nonetheless.

More impressive than their stature were the long-barreled rifles they'd brought to bear in a matter of minutes, emerging from the contested tunnels of Clan Marrow and identifying their enemy within a matter of seconds.

"It is…as you are saying," Skeever said with a hoarse chuckle. "Dwarves are not taking insults lightly."

"The men of stone are being perhaps even dumber than the Kobolds who are still trusting in Skegga," Deekius tutted as the three commanders watched the Kobold lines falter and retreat under the sustained fire of the Dwarven gun emplacement. What helped the stunted men more was the fact that their guns were clearly lever-action weapons packed with gunpowder – which meant, of course, trails of expelled smoke with every shot that soon created a dense cloud around them. It gave the dwarven gunners a distinctly ghostlike impression – like these men were literally the specters of their dead come to seek retribution for the Kobolds grievances against them.

Macus had anticipated as much. Though, he had hoped their killing field to be slightly more effective – the Dwarven sniper who had assaulted him on the way to Fleapit had fired twice as fast as these men. But, still, the effect on the Kobold army was decisive. Already, their confidence was beginning to shake.

And that was exactly the right time to strike.

"Ok," Marcus said. "The toad is going to pivot and commit his force to assaulting our new friends. That means…"

"I am understanding, Shai-Alud," Skeever said, immediately turning to face the soldiers stationed behind him. "Rats of Spearclaw - we are riding! Let our names be those the legends are speaking of when they tell of the glory of the second battle of Razork!"

Amidst the rats' cry of joy, Marcus suppressed the sizable gulp that was rising in his throat.

He knew that some crucial engagements – even entire campaigns themselves – hinged upon luck. And Lady Luck had never been too fond of Marcus in his life as a student.

Especially when it came to understanding his enemies.

Still, he had committed himself now – and the loyalty of his followers depended on victory. A victory that would finally buy him a one-way ticket out of here.

So, as he watched their hidden forces begin to assemble, stalking forth from the dark corners of the blasted Razork fields, he decided, for once, to trust in luck.

…

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Skegga was wailing as he watched his lines of Kobolds become nothing more than puffs of crimson smoke in the wake of the stunties' assault. "TURN! RIGHT FLANK – CHARGE! BREAK FORMATION! KILL THE STUNTIES!"

He watched his Head Yips relay his commands with frustration difficulty – difficulty that was compounded by both the roar of his cannons and the screams of confusion that was assailing his ranks.

"CANNONS!" he bellowed. "FIRE-FIRE!"

"B-Boss!" one Yip from behind him stuttered, his voice all but a whisper in the midst of the yelps issued by another line of slain Kobolds. "We…we are not having clear shot-sho-"

Skegga swung his spear to pierce the ribcage of the complaining Yip and toss him aside.

"ARM THE GUNS!" he roared with pure hatred surging in his gut. "FIRE! FIRE! JUST FIRE!"

The guns instantly groaned as they began to turn on their axles, their wheels grinding against the ground as they made their slow turn towards the smoke-ridden Eastern tunnels that the bastard stunties had emerged from.

"How?!" Skegga asked allowed. Then, remembering himself, tore the heads of two of his guardian Kobolds who looked up at him with confusion clean from their shoulders.

How did the dwarven men know…why…why do they come now? his mind raced, panic beginning to overtake his battle fervor. How did Silas not know a Dwarven army was coming? Were there no signs? Are the little stunties smarter than they look?

No, he told himself. He had taken enough of them apart to know that they weren't as tough as they looked. Their brains were jelly and goo even if they said their souls were clad with stone and iron. They would break. He had numbers on his side. They could tear through as many Kobolds as they wanted with their silly guns. Eventually, he would break through their lines. All he had to do was throw everything he had at them.

His vile smirk, dripping with ooze and blood from blackened gums, suddenly came back as he watched his Kobolds charge blindly at the smoke crowd, the cannons finally ready to support them from behind.

He watched whole columns of his forces disappear in hazed of ichor and torn limbs, eviscerated heads and bloody, bullet-riddled organs. But it didn't matter. None of them stopped running. None of them stopped screaming his name with all the strength in their little lungs. They loved him. They worshipped him. And that was one thing the bastard Dwarves never had.

So, he turned with them and added his voice to the renewed echoes of victory, raising his human-tipped weapon high.

"B…boss…"

"WHAT!" he whirred, staring with bloodshot eyes at one of his Yips scouts that had come to tug at the folds in his back.

"B…b…boss…"

"If you don't spill your guts in the next second, I WILL TASTE THEM MYSELF!" he yelled in the little creature's face. WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT?!"

"The…the West!" the little Yip cried, pointing at what was once the army's western wing which, after their complete pivot, had now become their flank. "They…they…they are…"

Skegga's massive claw came down to silence the Kobold as his mind caught up with the creature's eyes.

"I…it's not possible…"

From out of the darkness of the Western tunnels, wedged at the side of Razork's trodden fields, a legion of ratmen charged, each one carried by a monster of teeth and claws.

"T…TURN ABOUT! TURN!"

But by the time Skegga had issued his command, it was already too late.

Two-thousand men could not hear one leader.

But they could feel the futility in fighting a cause that was now lost.

And for the Yips in the rearguard to turned to see death approaching them from their backs, such a reality was becoming all too clear.

…

"CHAAAAARGE!"

Skeever Steelclaw led the three formations of Marrow cavalry into the flank of Skegga's legion, his good arm raised, voice carrying through the chaos of Razork field, and as his Spineripper leaped to bite off the head of the first Kobold casualty of the battle, he gave his men a command that would stay with them for the whole duration of the battle to come.

"COME ON, YOU SONS OF MARROW!" he roared. "YOU ARE WANTING THE STUNTIES TO TAKE ALL THE GLORY?!"

He smiled to himself as his rats replied with total unity of mind – their spears smashing against the shields of the Kobold rearguard and sending the little beasties flying back spoke louder than any words they could form.

The rats tore through the Yips even as they attempted to turn and meet their charge, seeing their comrades up front get cut down by the dwarves and not feeling the blood of the men behind them start to run in rivers beneath their feet. The Spinerippers jumped gleefully into the horde, weathering blows that would have killed a lesser creature. The bloated Skogs of the Kobolds stood no chance against the real, toughened cavalry of the rats – cavalry honed through centuries of pain and strife on countless battlefields. Now, finally, they were getting a proper meal for their troubles.

And Skeever looked up, coated in the ichor of their prey, as he effortlessly speared through the guts of two other Kobolds, the three legions of cavalry pushing the enemy back into the Dwarven killing zone inch by bloody inch.

All the while, the Talon-Commander kept his sharp eyes trained on the increasingly panicked form of Boss Skegga.

Be staying right there for me, filth, Skeever told himself. For Gatskeek, Verulex, Festicus…and for Sire Marcus…I will see your gut impaled by my spear alone!

###

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[IronLung]

From his vantage point at the front of his makeshift gun-emplacement before the entrance to the East Warren tunnels, Corvaughn of House Darragut watched his enemies burn with righteous indignation.

"Take a good look, lads," he said, sniffing the intoxicating aroma of gunpowder – the greatest gift of Stone to man – "This is what a slaughter looks like."

His Handgunners heaved a collective "HAR!" in response, their breachers reloading their arqeubus after the next volley and patting their helmets to indicate that the gun chambers were loaded and ready to belch their payload at the enemy once again.

The cannons had given him pause, and yet he'd also looked upon them with almost childish wonder. He'd never even seen a fully functional 6-powder cannon in his time as a commander. And now, shining bright in the dead air of these putrid tunnels, there were two staring right at him.

But the queerest thing was that the Kobold horde never fired on their position.

It struck him as odd. Looking at his disciplined gun-line, entrenched and operating with machine-like efficiency, he admitted that an artillery strike would have proved utterly devastating. He'd kept his Thunderers in reserve in case of any enemy charge – and the power of their warhammers was enough to crack at least five Kobold skulls at once when the army did eventually come upon them – but their weakness was in their lack of mobility. Corvaughn's people were tough as stone, and unmovable. But just like their venerated mineral, their battle lines tended to be inflexible. It was a weakness he had always yearned to correct as a commander through the employment of cavalry. But, as of yet, no single creature in the Underkingdom could accommodate the sheer bulk of a strong dwarven lad.

So the cannons lack of discharge proved unusual – but not unwelcome. As his gunners continued their devastating volley, and the species that had mocked him openly back in his Eastern camp were utterly decimated, he scanned the battlefield and saw that his Dwarves were not the only species at odds with the Kobold menace.

"Commander!" one of his gunners shouted over his shoulder. "Ah can see ratmen in the rear! Furry bastards have just sent cavalry charges against the wee yipping shits. Their lines are breakin' something awful!"

Corvaughn looked upon the blasted battleground before the primitive ratman village and saw that his man spoke true. It almost looked like the furry shits were helping them out.

"Commander?" his man asked. "Do we fire on 'em?"

"Ye wouldn't have a chance of a clear shot at this distance," he grunted. "Keep pushing the red bastards back."

"We're gonna let the shit-eating rock-muncher's live, sir?"

A devious smile then coated Corvaughn's face. One that even served to strike fear into his questioning troops.

"I've got a better idea, lad," he grunted, a devious smile coating his face. "We're gonna kill two birds with one stone. Keep up the volley fire. Let the ratmen take the brunt of their infantry. Then, when the Kobolds fold and begin their retreat, take those furry mongos down."

…

In the very heart of the chaos unfolding before Razork, Skeever Steelclaw practically flew through the battlefield.

His Spineripper clawed and chewed through every Kobold Skog and Yip that dared raise a weapon against him, and his spear struck true against the shriveling bellies of Yips that hadn't even been able to turn to meet the coordinated cavalry charges head on. When the third legion of Spinerippers sliced through the Kobolds' rearguard, all hell began to break loose.

The Yips were sandwiched between two equally bloody fates: a bullet-ridden death or a tooth mangled one, and now, even with their great God waving his pointy stick above him, they were succumbing to panic. Skeever saw it in the eyes of every Yip who turned to try and repel the ratman riders. He saw that the army was mere moments away from breaking entirely.

And as Sire Marcus had taught him, there were ways he could speed that process up.

"RATS OF RED-EYE!" he roared. "RATS OF MARROW! THESE TUNNELS ARE BEING OUR HOMES – THESE BEASTS ARE WALKING ON OUR SOIL! SHALL WE BE GIVING THEM A SINGLE INCH MORE?"

The unified cry that was returned to the Talon-Commander shook the very walls of the Underkingdom itself:

"NO!"

A resounding surge trickled up through the ratmen as the Kobolds attempted to push them back with their shields. The riders propelled their Spinerippers forward with vicious kicks that would normally have caused the beasts to shake off their masters. But in the maelstrom of bloody chaos that unfolded before them, all the beasts could care about was satiating their appetite.

And so the Kobold lines began to shrink, slowly but surely, into bloody puddles of torn flesh and bones.

Yet Skeever grit his sharp teeth, feeling the crimson ichor of his enemies coat his furry chops as the order for the army to retreat had still not been sounded.

Idiot toad, he thought, looking up again at the practically shaking form of Boss Skegga – his great rolls of fat slipping over his floating stone throne as his honor guard charged the enemy. Such Kobolds were the only ones who were able to put up any hint of resistance – their halberds had reach, and the reinforced plating of their armor gave them an edge even against the serrated teeth of the 'rippers. Skeever saw them gradually began to form up and thrust their blades against the advancing cavalry, who were by this point becoming impeded by the sheer amount of bodies that were piling up before their onslaught.

Skeever dueled with one of the honor guard himself, feeling a rush of pain as a halberd nicked his shin and forced him and his Spineripper back. Their strike had been devastating, but it meant nothing if they couldn't entirely break the morale of the enemy. They had given them too much time to regroup, and now the little bastards had formulated a strategy that could nullify the cavalry entirely.

The Kobold honor guard sat behind their lesser men, thrusting over their shoulders. Meanwhile, the smaller yips raised their shields in a wall to block the onrush of cavalry, throwing their collective weight against the Spinerippers. It was a strategy that, if the Ratmen had time on their hands, could have been easily countered. But time was not a resource that Skeever's warriors had to hand, and he saw rows upon rows of Spinerippers begin to fall before the halberds and spears of the Kobold shield-wall.

It was a strategy they couldn't have developed themselves – the little Yips weren't smart enough. Yet, perhaps they had been smart enough to observe what had brought their enemies success.

Were they finally learning from their mistakes?

Skeever shook the thought from his mind. Now was not the time for admiring his foes. Instead, he rallied his men with a call to action that brought them charging right into the wall of thorns in a desperate attempt to break through.

But it was in vain. There were too many.

Hoping against all hope, Skeever looked above the wall of jagged iron and saw Skegga still pivoting in confusion. Whoever had taken the lead to formulate the anti-cavalry strategy, it certainly hadn't been him.

That's when the ratman realized something.

The big sack of shit was terrified, even as his force was beginning to hold their own at least on their flank.

Skeever knew terror. He'd felt it even since he was a mere pup. He'd known what fear was since first he looked up at the Queen that birthed him and seen her desire to crush him within her eyes. He'd had to fight his brothers, tooth and claw, for the right to suckle on her teats – for the right to survive. Ratmen were small, they were few, but they knew what fear felt like from the day they were born. Those that lived to fight did so because that's simply what life was in the Underkingdom.

But this toad – this bloated jelly-thing screaming in the center of the Kobold horde – he'd never learned how to push through fear. Skeever wagered he'd never had to fight for anything in his life.

So when the great toad turned suddenly towards his army's rear, and met the eyes of the Talon-Commander, Skeever knew how he could salvage this fight.

In one single motion, he forced his Spineripper to leap up at the shield wall, taking him far above the halberds that pierced his beast's stomach. He looked Skegga in his impish little eyes, raised his spear in his good arm, and hurled it directly at the toad-God's shaking form.

"FOR SIRE MARCUS!" he screamed into the incredulous face of the beast. "FOR THE SHAI-ALUD!"

Time seemed to stop in the moment his weapon left his hand.

All three armies collectively watched the bloody projectile, wrapped with Kobold innards, sail seamlessly towards the great fat toad as he floundered like a fish upon his runic throne. And the throat of every rat, kobold, and Dwarf gasped to see the tip of the spear find its mark – embedding itself in the great flabby mass of Boss Skegga's stomach.

The Kobolds around him lowered their weapons. They looked with new eyes upon their illustrious leader as both the ratmen and the Dwarves renewed their assault.

Because for the first time in their lives, they were seeing the impossible: they were watching a God bleed.

Skeever's rats rallied behind him as he plowed through the confused horde, carried forward by sheer battle frenzy as the word he had been waiting to hear sailed forth from the bloodied Skegga's now frothing lips:

"RETREAT!"

###

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[IronLung]

"Skeever…you crazy son of a bitch. Literally."

Marcus looked down at the destruction being wrought on the battlefield of Razork's field for the second time. This time, however, the devastation of Skegga's forces would be decisive.

This is your Ardennes Offensive, old toad, Marcus had thought as he watched the army approach. You might think this looks like a show of power. But it's nothing more than a desperate, last-ditch attempt to both subdue your enemies and galvanize your followers' faith in you at the same time.

When Dwarves had struck true, Marcus had heaved a sigh of hope for his own desperate strategy. Then, when he saw Skeever's spear pierce the old toad's stomach, sending a geyser of ooze spewing out into his honor guard, Marcus knew the pivotal moment in their plan had come.

"RETREAT!" Boss Skegga wailed – a bleeding God crying out for a savior.

"It transpires as you say, Shai-Alud," Deekius said beside him on the battlements of Spearclaw fort. "For there is only being one true God that rules this Underkingdom. And you are being his Champion."

Marcus grimaced at his High Priest's increasing confidence. He was probably the only one who'd always believed in him no matter what. Ironically, it's that same belief that Marcus had weaponized and used as a tool of control. But he didn't have to control Deekius. Deekius had been his from the moment the little rat had summoned him into this world.

Both man and rat watched as the Kobold flanks completely folded against the pressure from their sides and the desperate order of their commander. The Spinerippers turned into them as Marcus had instructed them to, and Marcus gave the signal for the last of their Glitterpak fleet to be released from Spearclaw's depths.

Just as they floated high above the fort's battlements, becoming lost in the haze of their own gaseous smog, a familiar face arrived at the gates of the fort. A small, red, hoofed Kobold who commanded his Spineripper with the expertise of a practiced rider.

"Ix!" Marcus shouted down at the new arrival. "You are, as usual, exactly where you need to be at exactly the right time."

"Praise be-be to Shai-Alud," the Kobold shouted back. "And to He-He who Festers."

Deekius cringed at the double pronunciation. His action provoked, even amidst the chaos of the field before them, a restrained chuckle from Marcus.

"Are you ready to show the Underkingdom who its true God is, Archpriest?"

Deekius looked up at his Lord through his ragged hood and twitched his mouth into a smile.

"I was being born for this, Sire," he said. "Are you being ready to show this soon-to-be dying God that the Shai-Alud is being alive and well?"

Marcus laughed again as he and the priest hopped aboard Ix's trained Spineripper, and the little beast started to lead them toward the dark edges of the battlefield.

"I'd like to say I was born for this too, Deekius. But the truth is, just like Ix here, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time."

…

Commander Corvaughn of House Darragut surveyed the retreating Kobold army from his vantage pointed near the entrance of the Eastern Tunnels, a grim grin of satisfaction stretched across his bearded face.

"Heh!" he huffed, commanding his gunners to reposition themselves and hold fire until their latest smoke-charges had cleared. "You gotta admit the furry sons-of-bitches got some fire in 'em. Never knew they had much of a mind fer strategy."

The Dwarves manning their arquebus looked behind them at their Lord and commander, furry eyebrows raised in question.

"Don't be worrying lads," Corvaughn added. "We're still gonnae shoot them in their furry red arseholes. But you've gotta appreciate a good opponent when ye see one, men. That's a lesson House Darragut was built upon!"

He held up his gauntleted fist and indicated the exposed flank of the ratman calvalry units as they slowly but surely pushed the retreating Kobolds into the canyons beyond the battlefield.

"Looks like we came here at the right time ta strike a blow at the scum of our Kingdom!" he roared, his Thunderers raising their warhammers high and punctuating his cry with beats of their fists against their iron-armored chests. "The rats thought they were clever little shits, using us ta take a dig at their enemy. Little do they know we don't forget. We men of the stone don't ever let a single campaign against our people slide. Mess with a man of the stone, and don't be surprised when the whole ceiling of yer home crumbled down upon ye!"

His men roared their assent as the ratman cavalry continued their bloody push, edging the diminishing horde of Kobolds into the chokepoint between the two great canyons that were once lined with Dwarven insignia – statues and checkpoints that would have indicated to any man of Stone that the city of Grindelfecht was nearby, and would offer shelter to even the smallest man. Thinking of these little beasties fighting within its bowels turned Corvaughn's stomach until he couldn't take it anymore.

"Close ranks, bring those guns up!" he shouted. "I see rats over there. AND I DON'T WANT TO!"

The gunners fingered the triggers of their weapons, aiming down their sights with the trained eyes of Darragut's famed snipers, and readied themselves for another earth-shattering volley that would win them this day.

"Commander!" a gunner shouted back before the first shots ever wrung out. "We've got incoming creatures above!"

Corvaughn glanced up at the cloud of black smoke that was slowly, with deliberation, moving towards their position at the tunnels. Here and there between the wisps of the cloud, Corvaughn could see the telltale signs of beings that looked like pufferfish sailing down towards them.

He narrowed his eyes, looking carefully at the spiky pores that lined their circular bodies and wondering at where he'd seen such creatures before. He couldn't help but shake the feeling of utmost familiarity permeating his mind – of trips he'd once taken to Gulchnavel where his Uncle had pointed out very similar creatures and told him a joke he had found very funny at the time.

What was the joke?

"They come, Commander!" another gunner shouted. "Permission to engage?"

The arquebus were raised. The men were ready. The bloodlust that ran their Dwarven blood was bubbling in the wake of victory and spurned on by their commander's flawless track record. They would deal with this incursion, take back Gulchnavel, and then head East again to slaughter the rats of Marrow.

Their commander, however, was so preoccupied with his memory that he merely grunted in blaze affirmation.

And that single mistake – just that tiny vocalization that would have meant nothing in any other circumstance – was what would earn him the title of House Darrugut's greatest disgrace.

For when the bulbous beings came so close that he could have touched their hideous, twisted face, he remembered what his Uncle had told him about the strange orb-creatures of the North.

"No!" he managed to shout just as the first shot rang out in the dark. "WAIT!"

His voice was swallowed by the hellstorm that erupted in the second the gunpowder discharge from the Dwarves guns made contact with the volatile chemical concoction belched by the Glitterpaks. As the battle before them raged on, the dwarven gunline disappeared in fire and rubble from the stalactites hanging above their position.

For Commander Corvaughn, the chance for glory disappeared along with them.

…

"REREAT! RETREAT!"

"B-but Boss-Boss, what about the cannon-"

"LEAVE THEM! Out of my way, vermin!"

Skegga inched his throne into the great canyons the heretics dubbed 'Razor Ridge', his army fighting back against the advancing ratman cavalry as they inched back to the safety of their walls.

"Boss-Boss!" one of his Yip honor guards yelped. "Let us help help yo-"

"DO NOT DARE TO TOUCH ME!" the toad bellowed, picking up the Yip with his bloody claw and dashing his brains against the wall of the canyon wall. "KEEP MOVING!"

He removed the spear from his body with a groan of pain and stared at his own purple blood spewing out of his belly. He stared at it even as his army was pushed into the canyons, squeezing what remained of their forces into the narrow stretch that would take them home.

Skegga no longer looked at the front of his horde – at the Kobolds dying line after line in the face of the monstrous beasts the ratmen had tamed. Instead, he focused on what lay behind, on his twin forts and the gleaming golden towers of Grindlefecht in the far distance. If he could make it back to those walls he could set up a defence. The rats had been smart – but they were still nothing but pests. The Dwarves had just been slain by the last of their miserable little bomb-bugs. They wouldn't be able to use them again.

"THROW YOURSELVES BEFORE ME, MY CHILDREN!" Skegga howled, his croaking voice echoing down the length of the red canyon. "YOU SHALL BE YOUR LORD'S SHIELD!"

The rats surged forward. The rat who had maimed him came at their head, leading them further and further into the ranks of the Yips, smearing the canyon with their innards.

They still have nothing! Skegga told himself. They are nothing. They…they had luck on their side. They have only little tricks that cannot be repeated. I'll…I'll get more Kobolds. I'll ask Silas what is to be done. Yes. Yes – clever Silas shall know. Without their Shai-Alud, these creatures are nothing. Without their precious savior, they have no chance against us! They…they have…

They have…

"B…Boss-boss!"

His Yip honor guard had made the same discovery he had in that moment. As the army edged towards the end of the canyon, the eyes of both armies flew skyward to see two figures that had just appeared on the lip of the East canyon wall.

Two shapes – one rat, covered in a filthy, flowing robe, holding aloft a fly-covered staff.

The one that stood beside him…

It can't be…

…it bore the form of a human who was about to give his final command.

###

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[IronLung]

-North Warrens, Black Gulch-

For the races of Thea, magic is a curious phenomenon.

Some say magic is derived from the Gods. It is a Gift bequeathed to only a chosen few who show devotion to a specific deity. For such weavers of magic, their powers are a product of divine ordainment – a sign that their deity looks down with favor upon them.

Another, alternate theory asserts that such magic comes not from Gods, but from belief itself. Magic, some scholars say, is derived not from otherworldly celestial beings, but through passionate emotions given form by sheer willpower and devotion to ideals that form the foundation of one's being.

For the ratpriests of the Underkingdom, there is no debate.

Twenty Gloomraava of Clan Glumrot stood at the edge of the Black Gulch, appearing out of the shadows of their tunnels to witness the marauding second army of Skegga. The yipping red demons crossed the narrow bridges of the Gulch with murderous intent, unaware of the destruction currently being visited upon their God. To them, they had been given the easy job – they had been selected to bleed the ratman in the West and cut off any potential for escape. Yet, as they marched the Gloomraav of Glumrot saw that the viciousness of these creatures was tempered, somewhat. Their limbs were either hewn too short, their legs stubby and uneven, or their backs hunched and distorted. They looked primitive - mutated beings that seemed pathetic even amongst the ranks of the screeching demons, but the Gloomraav soon nodded to each other as these sights confirmed the Shai-Alud's prediction.

"They are being the weak," one of their hooded number said.

"And the invalid," another agreed. "Skegga is leaving them to do dirty work. He is not wanting weaklings with him on his victory."

"If that is being so, then he is a fool God. He is not understanding that the body may be weak, but the faith can still be strong."

The other Gloomraav bowed their heads to the one that had just spoke – the head of their faction now that Talon-Leader Verulex had passed to the pox-garden of the Unclean One. Resplendent in his maggot-infested robes hiding pallid skin that seemed to endlessly shed his hair, this Gloomraav held back his choir before they delivered their chorus that would shake these Warrens asunder.

"These Kobolds shall soon be seeing that there is only one God to be following," he said. "He-Who-Festers does not require strength. All he requires is endurance."

"So shall it be, Head-Priest Koresh," the Gloomraava intoned. "By the fog and filthy air."

Koresh nodded at the prayer and signaled for his men to move out, slowly creeping their way towards the position Sire Marcus had marked for them – a high, craggy ledge high above the Gulch, one that oversaw the Gulchnavel village and its recently evacuated Fort Greenwatch on the edge of the fungal sea.

From atop that vantage point they knelt and watched, uttering prayers to the Unclean as the Kobolds spilled over the village and ransacked its houses with wild abandon, taking out their anger at having been left behind by their Lord. They were left with only confusion, however, as they came to realize with each break and stab and crash that there were no rats here. They were long gone.

And they grew so enraged that Koresh swore he could smell their anger.

They abandoned the village and bore down on the fort like a swelling red sea, teeth awash with spittle and spume, throwing themselves at the walls. One thousand Kobolds crashed through the ramparts of Fort Greenwatch, collapsing its buildings and gnawing on its very towers until they too came crashing down.

"Are you feeling it, Brothers?" Koresh asked. "The fury. The rage. Directionless and lacking. These Kobolds are being more like us than we are admitting, Brothers. It is as the Shai-Alud says – all creatures under the dark skies of the Unclean should be given the chance to bathe in his putrid light. Only then can we be carrying such light to the surface."

The Gloomraav coven nodded, each one beating his staff or flimsy, fly-covered fetish against the black stones of the Underkingdom, each one adding his own voice to the chant that was picking up all around them.

"Be feeling it, Brothers," Koresh continued, breathing in the stale air and feeling – yes – feeling the power of He-Who-Festers boil his blood, rush through his veins, pool at the ends of his fingertips.

He threw his arms wide, shaking in uncontrollable spasm as he took in the sight of the marauding Kobolds looting and pillaging, slashing at nothing and coming away empty-handed. Coming away with nothing but disappointment.

"Soon they shall be receiving a gift on this day more valuable than any bauble or trinket!" Koresh croaked, spittle flying from his gnarled lips like a rabid beast.

The chanting of his men continued, rising slowly as the destruction and disappointment continued below, and the swirling energy that the rats knew as nothing more than the essence of their God – the collective font of all the diseases and ugly things in the entire world – continued to enter them and make them its own, traveling through their every pore until their screams became a chorus of ecstasy.

"BE ILLUMINATING THEM, BROTHERS OF GLUMROT!" Koresh roared. The voice that echoed from his lungs was not his own.

The chants grew louder, till they reached a fever pitch that even the rampaging Kobolds could hear below. When they looked up, they saw nothing but hooded rats screaming a name they did not know. A name that meant nothing to them.

But a name that they would soon devote their entire lives to.

The first Yips to notice that something very bad was about to happen tried running, even knowing it was futile. They tried squirming away and, when they looked back over their shoulders, saw nothing but a green tide cascading towards them.

The Black Gulch had risen.

Geysers of the pool spurted and flared as though they were the limbs of an angered beast living beneath the cavern, and then slowly began to form into one gelatinous mass – a tsunami that roared with a sound that drowned out the collective cry of a thousand Kobolds as they dropped their weapons and sprinted for dear life.

But the others – those who knew their lives were now forfeit – dropped to their knees and begged for mercy.

Koresh saw. Not with his own eyes – but he saw. It was those Kobolds that the wave passed by as it came crashing down upon the army, swallowing them as well as the remains of the village and fort in its wake. The great deluge flushed away the evil of the North and cascaded through the tunnels in a great flood that flowed all the way to Knifegut fortress – where the spiderlings that had made that fort its home were swallowed, too – taking a few meals with them before their lives finally expired.

When it was over Koresh raised a single paw to silence his Gloomraav, and the evangelical rats began the slow, melodious chanting that brought the waters back to the Gulch, re-laying the foundations of their festering Lord's lands back with proper respect and appropriate humility.

As Koresh looked on, even he was surprised by the power that came from the unity of the three Clans under Sire Marcus. Even on such a small scale…the powers of belief in the true God of their realm was intoxicating.

Many Gloomraav had perished in the wake of the miracle. At least seven had succumbed to the whims of the Power of their Lord and sat with their eyes rolled back, brains crushed and sizzled to mush. They would be laid to rest when the time came.

For his part, Head-Priest Koresh came out of his possession and amplified his voice with the remainder of his power. He was addressing those who had collapsed before the might of their Lord. Those who were currently on their hobbled knees, merely soaked unlike their dead cousins. There were at least four hundred who had prostrated themselves as the disaster hit them.

They would do.

"Kobolds of the Underkingdom!" Koresh screeched. "We of Glumrot are coming to you as emissaries of the Shai-Alud! We are showing you the power of the God he serves – the one true God of this dark realm we share. You have been led astray by the greed of the toad called Skegga. You have been left to die while he is coveting glory. He is thinking you are weak, and dumb. But we watched as you withstood the great tempest of our Lord and came out unscathed! We have found you worthy!"

He could sense the devotion building in them already. It would take time. It would take energy. But time was what they would have once this war was won. For priests like them, time is the most precious, useful resource.

"So we are calling upon you as our Unclean One does!" he screamed into the ever-night of the Underkingdom. "Rise and be standing with us! Be avenging yourselves by siding with the victors of this conflict! Be walking in the light of He-Who-Festers – for He and only He is loving you. He welcomes you. You shall be his children. You shall be his WARRIORS!"

The drenched demons didn't even hesitate. They didn't even share a single loyalist stare at the Yip who bent his head to the priests who had summoned such power with their bare hands. They simply bent low and kissed the ground. They said the name of the one who they would follow now. They said it out of fear, out of pain, and out of sorrow. But they still said it. And that was enough.

Koresh smiled beneath his hood, feeling his hands shake as his body gave out.

"Be sending word to the Shai-Alud," he told one of his men. "We are succeeding. Now, it is being up to Deekius."

And he turned to face the Eastern tunnels, staring into darkness as unconsciousness finally overtook him. He fought it. He told himself he had to – even just for a few minutes.

Because on the other side of the North Warrens, a very different miracle was about to take place.

###

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[IronLung]

-North Warrens, Razor Ridge-

The jagged slopes of Razor Ridge shook with cries of conquest.

Within its narrow innards, the battle for the North Warrens was quickly reaching its climax. Inch by bloody inch, the Kobold army of Skegga was pushed back by the sheer mass of teeth and steel that the riders of Marrow and Red-Eye threw at them – their screams being lost as they choked on their own blood, or that of their comrades.

A wash of crimson stained the normally onyx walls of the ridges. It would be the last thing the Yips of Skegga saw before they expired – speared clean through by the coordinated advance of the rats or eviscerated by the fangs of their mounts.

"RUN-RUN!" their God bellowed in the wake of the chaos, adopting the fearful, timid screams and speech patterns of those who his webbed feet had always trod upon. "MAKE FOR THE FORT-FORTS! HIGH WALLS WILL STOP THESE VERMIN!"

Above the madness of battle, the general of the rats heard this cry all too clearly. He knew, then, that the army of the toad-man would have heard it, too. He knew they were doing nothing more than fighting for their own survival, now. Devotion was fading with every drop of Kobold blood spilled upon the blasted ground that was soon to become their graves.

"Not so Godly now," Marcus said to the rat-priest beside him.

He had seen the abject terror flash in Skegga's eyes when the toad saw that he, the prophesized Shai-Alud, was looking down upon him now. The architect of all the fat toad's pain.

Marcus had looked back, frowning slightly to see the impish, childlike figure that squelched upon a floating stone throne. Such a throne, barely holding the screaming tantrum that was its occupant, seemed more like a baby's highchair than the seat of a respectful monarch.

"He is still believing the End is not coming for him," Deekius said, closing his eyes to the world beyond his swirling thoughts and breathing deep the untapped power of his Lord. "He is having no idea what faith in a real God can be doing."

Marcus did not look at the priest. He kept his eyes on the form of Skeever-Steelclaw, his First Talon, as the ratman speared through another triad of Kobolds, kicking their Skogs away as they tried to push him off. He had led the charge spectacularly. More proficiently, in fact, than Marcus had expected. He had not even given the ratman the command to launch his daring attack upon Skegga's bloated form.

"Maybe Lady Luck is finally with me," Marcus mumbled, before glancing at his priest and noting his changed demeanor. The rat's veins bulged on his forehead. His fingers twitched, and his staff shook with an intensity that seemed impossible considering the rodent's size.

But then, Marcus thought. You've always been able to pull off the impossible, haven't you, Deekius?

"High-Priest," he said aloud, becoming alarmed by the froth appearing at his companion's furrowed lips. "Are you sure you can do this?"

The ratman shook with contained pressure, his body swaying with the unchecked energies of his Lord. He felt the power that many living upon Thea's surface feel, learn to control, and harness to create both beauty and devastation. But he felt also the overwhelming sense of triumph emanating from the other side of the Warrens. He breathed in the scent of death that lay like a stagnant blanket upon the air of the North. His Lord was with him.

"No," he answered his Shai-Alud. "The Will of He-Who-Festers cannot be commanded. I cannot be knowing if he shall find me worthy enough to guide His hand. But He is with me, Shai-Alud. As He is with you."

I certainly hope not, the Shai-Alud thought.

Both of them – man from beyond and rat of the realms – looked down on the bloody battlefield below them, knowing that without their final intervention, victory would be pyrrhic at best.

And Marcus wasn't about rest his laurels as a Fantasy General on a battle that wasn't decisive. Not after how far he'd come. How much he'd had to do to get here…

He bristled as Deekius' breathing grew more haggard. The ratman, though he wouldn't admit it, was struggling against the flow of energy within his being. Right now, the gap between him and the raw power swelling in his veins was getting thinner and thinner. Marcus didn't see Deekius in those dark eyes anymore. He saw a vessel for a thirsting God, snarling with pride to see his chosen species spill blood in his name.

"We've had to endure much, you and I," he said, knowing that he had to guide his soldier. "And yet I still seem to just ask you to do more. I've asked you to betray your own. I've asked you to rally three Clans to my side. I've asked you to place your trust in me – one who isn't even part of your kind. Now, I must ask one more thing of you."

He placed a firm hand on the ratman's shoulder, trying his best to channel all his strength into his arm so the rat couldn't feel that he was shaking at this final, pivotal moment.

"Fulfil your destiny as your God's chosen priest, Deekius of Clan Red-Eye," he said. "Crush the enemy."

Deekius' eyes bulged then with recognition and with pride. His pupils dilated, his shaking fingers curled round his staff and gripped the wood so tightly that cracks appeared across its surface.

And then, in one fluid motion, he walked to the edge of the ridgeline, raised his staff high, and made a proclamation to the entire Underkingdom:

"I AM DEEKIUS OF CLAN RED-EYE! BORN OF FLEAPIT, BLESSED BY THE HAND OF HE-WHO-FESTERS! I AM THE INSTRUMENT OF HIS WILL. I AM THE UNCLEAN HAND THAT SHALL LEAD YOU TO THE RIGHTEOUS PATH!"

The rats below felt the onrush of power surge through their veins, and Skeever bellowed the command for them to pull back. The time had come for the final curtain to draw upon this blood-drenched day.

Boss Skegga followed the thundering roar that sent shockwaves into the battlefield within the ridge, confusion and terror merging in his face as he watched the rat priest raise his staff high and slam it into the ridgeline.

"BY THE UNCLEAN!" Deekius roared with a voice that rang with the timbre of a thousand other voices. "LET THE GREEN LIGHT OF HIS VENEGANCE SHINE UPON YOU!"

As soon as the hilt of the rat-priest's staff hit the ridge it cracked into pieces, shattering and spilling wood shaving across the ridgeline like a flurry of shaven stars. He dropped to his knees and let out a cry that pierced the ceiling, and beneath the Kobold's feet, the earth began to quake.

"W-What is…" Skegga stuttered.

His Yips, meanwhile, had already figured out the problem. They were more than used to the vibrations of the earth, and they knew when those vibrations were thrown off by an exterior force. They knew when such a fact indicated that something was about to go very very wrong.

They saw the ratman cavalry fall back and pushed with them, seeing the slow inching away as a slow retreat.

They had been wrong.

"God Skegga!" a Yip honor-guard screamed as the walls of the ridge started to stutter like a pair of wheezing, cancerous lungs. "We must run-run! Go now!"

Skegga blinked, rose to slap at the Yip who had dared to command him, and then was thrown from his throne in the very next instant. The earthquake ripping through the ground under them had become more than even his floating throne could bear. He gripped on to the sides and tried to throw his gelatinous, bloated body back onto his chair.

"YIPS!" he cried. "PROTECT YOUR GOD! SAFEGUARD ME! CARRY ME HOME TO MY PROMISED LAND! YOUR GOD COMMANDS YOU! YOUR GOD –"

The explosion that then rocketed up the walls from the spot where the rat-priest was kneeling cut off any other salient statements from the great toad or his men. The ridge folded at the top, boulders splintering off from the walls and tumbling down to crush the Kobold army below. The Kobolds, already trapped and funneled into a wall of spears, now looked up to see a rain of rock from the sky. The hail crushed the army by the hundreds, spattering brains and limbs and pancaking entire pockets of the Kobold horde until finally their ranks broke completely. The Yips began issuing their own retreats and turned tail, sprinting for the safety of their forts and dwarven stronghold. Whether or not their God followed them was not their concern – he was left to those who were closest to him. His honor guard that carried him only under the pain of his wrath. Yet even they could not help but quiver in the face of the rat-God's power.

As the army fell line by line, their bodies baked into the very soil of the collapsed ridge, the ratmen of Skeever-Steelclaw watched a new wall of stone rise up before them – a new construction that would forever prevent any further incursions into their lands from their mortal enemies and their now-beaten God.

The Kobolds left numbered nothing more than a measly token force, and Marcus watched them carry off their screaming God with a smile.

Let him go, Marcus thought. We've done what we needed to today. If our forces in the West have met with similar success, we won't even need to fight another battle.

He placed a hand on the shuddering form of Deekius as the rat man swayed, like a great weight had just been placed upon his flea-bitten shoulders.

And he looked down upon the unbelieving rat-man below as an unnatural silence settled upon the world.

A silence broken only by the voice of the one who had brought glory to the true rulers of the Underkingdom. Now was the time that might have called for a fancy speech that said as much.

But Marcus preferred a simpler approach:

"Ratmen of the chosen Clans!" he called. "This battle is over. The false God has been vanquished. WE HAVE WON!"

In the near future, when the ratman Empire would value its history in very different ways, the scribes of Fleapit would write of this moment. They would write that the Shai-Alud shone like a green beacon with his hallowed priest, symbolizing the union between man and rat. They would say that the soldiers of Skeever Steelclaw fell to their knees and wept before their Lord, that the boulders had in fact killed Skegga, and that even the Spinerippers bowed in respect to the champion of the whole Underkingdom.

But the truth was more base, and yet more significant.

Because for the first time in their history, the rats of three clans raised their fists to the air of their realm, and their lips spoke only one name into the corrupted air that was now theirs, forevermore:

"HAIL, SIRE MARCUS! HAIL, THE SHAI-ALUD!"

###

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[IronLung]

-Fort Spearclaw, Clan Red-Eye territory-

Commander Corvaughn of House Darragut groggily woke to the reality of tight chains binding his pudgy feet and hands.

Blinking through the dirt and soot clogging his eyes, he slowly began to perceive the cracked wooden walls that encased him. He was in a small room with barely enough space to swing a rat. Before him was a simple crag of stone that looked like it had been hewed to resemble a table. He was attached to a wooden stake in the ground, the only light surrounding him being that of one flickering torch sconce. The light threw his muscular shadow across the wall beside him, but his pathetic stance made him groan with ruined pride. He was wearing a threadbare vest that was at least two sizes too large for him – the ultimate insult for a noble-born Dwarf.

"So, this is how it ends," he said to himself with a deep, throaty sigh. "Not with a bang, but with a whimper. At least ye won't have ta see yer old dad come home a failure, Malcolm. Ye'll grow up and avenge me one day. I already know you'll be strong enough."

He suddenly recalled the sneaky tactic that had led to his detachment's sound defeat without a single drop of blood being spilled or a single clang of blades. Memories of the aftermath were hazy and unreal. They had to be – because he had the distinct impression that the ratman swordsmen that ran down any survivors of the initial Glitterpak explosion simply disarmed his men and bound them up in chains.

That had to be a dream. A trick of the mind brought on by the noxious fumes of those fucking bloated gasbags. Ratmen didn't take prisoners, right?

A sudden drawing of a wood block on the other side of his cell door startled him, and he stiffened up, ready to spit in the face of the furry bastard that had probably come to gloat in the face of the defeated Dwarf. He wasn't about to take this insult to his pride sitting down.

But when a human (albeit a scruffy and foul-smelling one) entered his cell and closed the door quickly behind him, he swallowed the phlegm in his throat and channeled it into a gasp instead.

"Fuck me sideways…" he murmured aloud. "A Lank, walking among rats. I never thought I'd see the day."

Far from being insulted by his sleight, the human chuckled.

"Eloquent," he said, wiping his black-rimmed glasses with a dirty handkerchief. "I think I've learned at least five wholly new slurs since coming to this land. Some things never change. Lank is a pretty good one, though."

Corvaughn scoffed in the face of this human's laughter, shooting him a stare of confusion as the Lank sat opposite him and produced a bowl of water from behind his back.

"I'm afraid I can't attest to its purity," the human said. "But it's at least drinkable."

The Dwarf's eyebrows raised.

"If ye think this little chummy act is gonna get you anywhere, yer wrong, Lank. The fuck are you doing down here, anyway? Your Emperor don't make friends of the dirty furs."

"I don't represent any outside authority," the human said. "My name is Marcus, and I came here from another world. The rats of this Kingdom call it 'The Place Beyond.'"

Corvaughn huffed. "So yer a fantastical traveler, are ye? A traveler from another magical world?"

"That's what they tell me."

"Well then let me tell you something, Marcus of the Place Beyond."

Corvaughn leaned forward, teeth flaring with spite and hatred.

"Fuck you. And fuck where you came from. Fuck your rats, and fuck your 'kindness'. If ye think ye'll interrogate me and get me secrets, think again. Ye'd have an easier time drawing blood from a stone. So, say whatever bullshit you have to say, slay me like I know your rats want to, and then fuck right off back home."

The Dwarf sat back, infinitely satisfied with himself. On the other hand, Marcus accepted his statement with a shrug and a little tut.

"I believe you," he said with another shrug. "I don't expect you to talk. The hatred between your peoples is far too great for you to ever see eye-to-eye. You Dwarves aren't like the Kobolds. You can't be cowed by sheer force of arms or displays of superior religious faith. My understanding is that your numbers are even fewer than the ratmen in this realm. You're backed into a corner, not open to negotiation, and hoarding technology that only just barely gives you an edge. It's a path that leads only to one place: stagnation and death. Your only chance to regain a foothold in this place would have been to ally with one of the powers at each others' throats. The fact you chose not to do that tells me your people have chosen to die. You're probably prepared to die better than anyone in this entire underground realm."

"Don't talk like you know us," Corvaughn spat.

"Tell me I'm wrong then."

"Yer wrong!" the Dwarf roared, kicking at the water bowl to send it crashing against the left wall of the cell. "We've got hearts and skins of stone that have helped us endure longer than any of the freaks that put their mangy claws on our Kingdom. This place was ours, once. It will be ours again."

"History," Marcus sighed. "A sense of pride in a national identity that has since faded with time and conflict. Your entire war effort hinges on the belief you can go back to the way things were – that you can make this Underground yours again. I've seen it in my world. Most of the conflicts of our twentieth century could be boiled down to such desires. Problem with them? They all fail. Dreams of the past won't take you into the future."

"You think I expect a traitor to his own kind to understand?" Corvaughn snarled right back. "You have no nation, Lank. You got no stake in this. By the Stone, what the hell are you fighting for?"

"For the only thing that matters," he said. "For my home, and for the woman I love."

"Fuck me," the Dwarf groaned. "Don't make me fucking cringe."

"You did ask me, Sir."

"Don't call me sir," Corvaughn snarled. "You don't respect me any more than I do you."

"You're wrong on that," Marcus corrected, leaning over the table and resting his hands in its center.

He knows he's within striking distance, the Dwarf thought. He's doing this to show he isn't scared of me. Fucking snarky Lank.

"I find much to admire in you and what I've seen of your people," he continued. "I'd like nothing more than to talk the hours away with you, learning of your history, your tactics, your beliefs and your culture. Not for the purposes of exploiting you – though I know you won't believe that – but because I'd like to just go back to being a historian again."

He suddenly knit his brows and looked at his gloved hands – hands that had formed into fists of their own accord.

In his eyes now, Corvaughn saw someone different than the man that had first walked through that door. He saw the fires of war burn in those eyes, sights of horrors this Lank had seen and decided to wade through to get what he wanted. Such as it was.

"But I can't go back to that," Marcus said slowly, like he was having an epiphany right then and there before the dwarf commander. "I chose to fight. Or, more accurately, I chose to direct an entire species to fight for me. In my name. I wonder if that name's what's taken over now. I wonder if I can really go home with that name still hanging over me."

The Dwarf was listening to the ramblings of this man and suddenly came to the shocking conclusion that this wasn't just any traitor to his species. This wasn't just some rat auxiliary or sub-commander. The way he talked…

"By the fucking Stone," he said. "You're the one…you're the one behind the Glitterpaks. You're the one behind those cavalry charges. Pushing the screaming Yips back. You're calling the shots, aren't you?"

Marcus met his stare head on, looking as the hate in the dwarf's eyes began to melt away into fiery frustration.

"You don't have a fucking clue what you've done here."

"I've fought for what I care about," Marcus replied. "Just as you have."

"I've fought alongside my Brothers. I've fought to cleanse the filth of this world, while you've been out here spreading it this whole time. A Lank like you. And I thought I couldn't be more insulted."

The Dwarf spat into the empty bowl before him.

"You know, it's funny," Marcus said. "Had I been summoned on your side, I might have been a commander that could have salvaged your people from their impending doom. I might have even come to empathize with you. There's something to that, you know. Turns out building mutual understanding isn't as hard as we think. All it takes, it turns out, is proximity."

"Don't tell me you care about these fucking gutter-running rats."

"'Care' would be a strong word. But I understand them. I know what they want. I know how to lead them towards my goals."

"Then you're a bigger fool than I am," Corvaughn scoffed. "You really think these beasties give a damn about what you want? The second you start failing them, they'll find a way to kick you out and send you to the dirt. By the Stone, I never thought I'd see the day when a Lanky would trust a filthy rat."

Marcus shook his head, but he never broke eye contact with the Dwarf.

"I've come here to offer you my terms," he said.

"'Terms', he says!" the Dwarf shouted. "Boy, I gave you my fucking terms. Like you said, they aren't open to negotiation."

"Maybe not for you," Marcus replied, coolly. "But I think there's something an honor-bound Dwarf like you might care about more than your own sorry life."

The Dwarf grit his teeth. "Oh? And what might that be?"

Marcus leaned back and drew a deep intake of the Underkingdom's stagnant air before he finally came to the point:

"Your men."

###

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[IronLung]

Commander Corvaughn sat back, fury seeping from every pore of his pudgy features.

"In my world," Marcus continued. "There are many men such as you. Men of honor. Most of them fight to the last man, their hands stained with the blood of their loyal soldiers who will leave grieving widows and sons behind when they die. Such men, however, do not think of these things. Death and glory – that's their mantra. But some men exist who understand that there can be honor even in defeat – in giving his people the chance to fight another day. A chance to go home to their loved ones. I am willing to offer you and your people this."

"You mean," the Dwarf said. "You'll kill my men if I refuse your 'terms'."

Marcus shrugged. "The decision is yours, Sir. I know your men are probably as ready to die as you are. The question is, are you ready to let them? Or will you put your pride aside and allow them to go home to their families?"

The Dwarf snarled like a cornered panther, every fiber of his bulging muscles willing him to throw himself at the human and rip him to shreds.

"You speak of 'honor'," he spat. "Something you pretend to understand. But your words ring hollow, human. Ye don't fight with honor."

"No," Marcus agreed. "You did. And now, here we are."

Marcus let silence hang in the stank air of the ramshackle Spearclaw prison. His rats outside were ready in case the Dwarf tried to rampage through the door. He could do it. Marcus knew the strength in those bulging arms was probably great enough to break his binds and rend at least him and five rats limb for limb before the fort's ratguard put him down.

But he didn't. Instead, Marcus watched him sigh with the weariness of a man who realized, finally, that he'd been beaten.

"…what do ye want?" he eventually asked.

"Your weapons," Marcus said, keeping composed in spite of the fact he was finally coming to the crux of his argument. "Tell your soldiers to relinquish their firearms, tell them to drop their hammers, and tell them to leave every bullet behind. Their armor they can keep. I can't give you back your hurt pride, but I can promise your men a safe journey home."

Corvaughn's eyes buzzed with activity. His brain was a blur of possibilities, possible eventualities…each one warped by his anger in the face of utter capitulation.

"Ye want our guns," he said, slowly. "Ye want their power fer yer own."

He met Marcus's eyes again with pure spite.

"Ye could just kill us all and take them," he said. "Why are ye even offering me any deal?"

"Because," Marcus said. "I'm not here to commit genocide. I'm not here to extinguish the light that so clearly still burns in the chest of you and all your people. You've been at war down here for – what? Decades? Centuries? Perhaps, like these ratmen, war is part of your nature. Perhaps not. Perhaps there's something, or someone, who can give you something else to believe in."

Marcus stood, patting down his dirtied trench coat and smiling with a strange hint of nostalgia at the glasses-wearing ratman symbol on his coat-sleeve.

"Either way, I think you should be given the chance to make a different choice one day. You can't do that if you're all dead. And from what I've seen of your people, you don't deserve annihilation. Only one creature in this Underkingdom has to die, now. And his day is coming."

Commander Corvaughn scoffed in the face of the human's determination, keeping his posture straight as he looked up and addressed Marcus without hesitation.

"Ye've got some nerve for a Lank," he said. "I'll give ye that much. But don't spin me this shit about 'respect' for our kind. Your people above have only ever made war. It's the one thing you know how ta do – take the lands of others and leave nothing but scraps behind. Either that, or burn it all like a wee child playing with dangerous toys. Yer just like the rats. And now yer giving 'em even more dangerous toys ta play with. You mark me, boy, one day they'll turn those toys on you. And then ye'll have no one ta blame but yerself. Then, ye'll wish ye'd chosen a more honorable path."

Marcus crossed his arms behind his back. He was done with the conversation.

"Your decision, Sir?" he asked the panting dwarf. "Will you march your men home or watch them bleed out on our lands?"

"'Our lands!' Corvaughn spat. "'Our lands', he says!"

"I won't ask again, Commander."

"Fuck it," the Dwarf said – his voice guttural and cold. "Take the guns. Take the bullets. Let my people go in peace. But I've got one condition."

Marcus tried to keep from scoffing.

"Condition?" he asked. "You're in no position to-"

"Take me," the Dwarf said, eyeing Marcus with no fury now – only total conviction in his words. "Kill me here and now."

As Marcus opened his mouth to interject, Corvaughn continued, the utterly serious, morose tone of his voice stopping Marcus from speaking over what were the Dwarf's last words:

"Yer wrong about somethin'," he said. "Yeah, my men can go home. They can return to their families and fight another day. Yer giving us that much – whether it's out of a naïve sense of 'good faith' or just because yer time in this realm has left ye insane – that's somethin'. But fer those of us who abide by the Stone, who lead men into the meat grinder of battle, there is no surrender. There is no quarter. We don't go home. There's a line we cross one day – and when it's crossed, there's no turnin' back. I'm not going home as a failed commander. I'm not going home ta look my wife and son in their eyes and tell them I turned tail and fled from a buncha thieving rats and their Lank commander from the arse end of some other world. I am Corvaughn Knox of House Darragut – Dwarf of the Underkingdom and vassal of King Lokir Garrison, First of His Name. By my King, by the Stone, and for the honor of my House, I lay my body and soul to rest. Kill me however ye please, human. Feed me ta yer soldiers' putrid Queen or have yer barbaric priests put me ta the flame. I'm done with this life. I'm already dead."

If Marcus was the same man he was when first he'd set foot in this accursed underground, he'd probably have argued back when the Dwarf finished his death-speech and then sat back, staring off into a distance that didn't even exist.

Instead, he bowed, saluted the fallen soldier, and promptly exited the room.

To the guards waiting outside he directed only one simple command before shrugging again and proceeding to the fort battlements.

"He's a brave man," he told them. "Let him die like one."

###

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[IronLung]

Marcus stood beside Deekius on the battlements of Spearclaw, watching the dwarven militia's mass exodus back to their homestead.

They had gone, surprisingly, without incident. Perhaps it was due to Marcus's allowing them to watch their Commander's execution. Perhaps it was because he had given them the dignity of looking their leader in the eye as he died. He had even allowed them to take his body home with them to 'Give it back to the Stone'. Marcus assumed this meant they would bury him and erect a stout grave for the stout man.

The execution had been a simple one – death by hanging – and Marcus had commissioned the construction of a simple gallows for the occasion. Skeever had scoffed, saying that enemy commanders were often given up to the Queen of the Clan that conquered them, but Marcus had managed to dissuade the grizzled Talon-Commander. After all, he told him, did Skeever really want his beloved Queen to taste of the rock-solid flesh of a dwarfling? Her teeth would chip and shatter on impact.

Begrudgingly, the ratman had agreed.

He was not the only rat with reservations. Marcus had known that the ratmen would have jumped with pure joy to see the Dwarf commander's end, but he had kept the death of Commander Corvaughn of House Darragut as a quiet, somber affair – attended by only his Dwarves and a detachment of ratguards to ensure no man attempted to play at being a hero or a martyr. The Commander had obviously trained his men well. As he was slain, his eyes popping out of his thickset skull, fists clenched and feet barely kicking, his men had bowed their heads and intoned a slow, solemn prayer. They spoke of the watchful nature of the Stone. They spoke of how Corvaughn's body would soon sit within the hallowed walls of the Underkingdom, where the Stone does not forget. Where it does not forgive.

Marcus had looked him in his grey, dull eyes as he died, flailing like a fish on a line. It had given him no pleasure to see the Dwarf expire. Of all the beings he'd met in this desolate realm where only might made right, the Dwarves were too much like human beings. They were too much like him…

"They shall be remembering this day," Deekius told him as they both watched the unarmed Dwarves leave the fort in shame. "Those that are surviving the journey back home shall be telling their people of us."

"Good," Marcus replied stiffly. "Let them tell of the hospitality they received here. Let them tell of how they were soundly defeated and then offered a fair deal by their enemies who they once thought nothing more than mindless rodents skittering in the dark. Let them tell of the Battle of Razor Ridge and let all listeners know that the ratman Kingdom is now a force to be reckoned with. But not one that can be accused of barbarism."

"You are caring too much about these things, Sire," Deekius murmured. "Our kind are not having historians as yours do. Rats of legend are being known for slaughter only. Great destruction, we are remembering. That, or the spreading of disease to the surface. I have many stories of great, wise Greyfax of Clan Red-Eye. He was being a rat who knew how to please the Unclean."

"I'm sure he was," Marcus said, leaning on the hard, chipped stone of the fort battlements like he held the weight of the world on his shoulders. "But I'm not looking to go down in history as a butcher, Deekius. If you do want to change this world and have a real place on its stage, you'll have to change how people perceive your kind. That takes more than just winning a few battles or spreading a few poxes."

The rat-priest considered this with a twitch of his snout. "So, this is how humans are thinking," he said. "It is being intriguing. I have not thought much on what the future shall bring for our people. It is being odd that, only now, I am considering what our next steps shall be bringing us."

Marcus was suddenly taken by the hollowness of the rat-priest's voice. It felt like the little beast had aged considerably in the last few hours. Even his shoulders looked like they were slumping a little more than usual.

"Deekius…"

A gruff cough from behind both rat and man caused them to turn and see Skeever at the top of the North battlement steps.

"The last of the Stunties are being evacuated," he said, clearly unimpressed by the line of Dwarven soldiers carrying their fallen hero below. "Though I am still thinking we could have been making use of their armor."

"Their guns will be enough," Marcus replied. "I'm not about to add insult to injury by having these proud warriors march home naked."

"It would be a sight to see though," Skeever sneered, nudging Deekius as he came to stand beside him. "What are you thinking, Gloomraava? Are Dwarven balls being as pudgy as their faces?"

"I am trying not to think upon this," Deekius replied with a tight smile. "But no doubt their genitalia will be…in proportion."

Marcus shook his head at them both, feeling like a disappointed father about to reprimand his children. Yet he also saw the steady camaraderie that seemed to have formed between the two of them.

"We've come a long way since we first met," Marcus said, looking out across the blighted battlefield where the Spinerippers of Clan Marrow were still feasting on the dead and the dying. "And with any luck," he whispered to himself. "We have only a short time left…"

"The Gloomraava of Glumrot are reporting success," Skeever said. "A Spineripper rider is coming through two hours ago. Head-Priest Koresh is saying they have at least 900 Kobolds under their watch, now. He is conducting sermons and holding them at Fort Greenwall. He wishes to know when you will be joining them."

So the little bastards pulled it off, Marcus thought, surprised that the priests of Glumrot had come through on their promise to produce a miracle for him. It had meant their clearance of Fort Spearclaw had been worthwhile after all.

Then again, recalling the feat that Deekius had just performed upon the Razor-Ridge, he had no right to be surprised at all by the priests' success.

Though he did have to admit that the rat-priest was looking a shade paler than usual…

"Send a rider immediately," he said. "We shall return to Fleapit to resupply and rendezvous with King Shrykul before linking up with Koresh and our new Kobold reserves. On the way, our newest regiment can fine-tune their aim."

Skeever rubbed his forehead as all of them heard a flurry of gun-shots go off and watched as a ratman holding a smoking arquebus smashed into the wall beneath them.

"E-Eek!" he screamed. "I - I am being sorry, Sires!"

"They will be needing much practice," Skeever groaned. "These Dwarven boom-sticks are being as dangerous as they are loud."

"I wouldn't worry, Talon-Commander," Marcus said as he placed a reassuring hand on Skeever's shoulder. "After all, they have quite the teacher."

He watched with no small degree of pride as Ix instructed both his Kobold team and the rats in the proper operation of the Dwarven rifles. The little Kobold had taken to the weapon like the trained marksman he was. He already seemed well-versed in its operation. It helped that Ix was himself passionate about learning new things generally, and looked upon his new students as a minor deity would bask in the glow of his first worshippers.

They would become an entirely new regiment. They would give the rats the technological advantage they had always lacked in the Underkingdom. And Ix would be at the head of their sharpshooters – a Kobold hero that would inspire the new recruits. He would give them the impression they could rise through the ranks as he had.

Of all the decisions I made, Marcus thought. Saving him was undoubtably one of the best.

But as it often did these days when he thought of his successes, his mind suddenly turned to darker thoughts. Bloody Skegga and the Kobolds in Grindlefecht that would be waiting for them…the Yokun prisoner in the dungeon of Fleapit…

"I am going to retire for a while," Marcus told his men. "Ready the army to move through the Southern Tunnels towards Fleapit. We should make good time if we leave in around two hours. Let the soldiers rest, let the hungry eat. But we will not sit here and rest on our laurels. Besides," he added. "We have some new toys to show good King Shrykul."

He cast his eyes over the wrought-iron giants of the abandoned cannons. A legion of Spinerippers were being shackled to them as Marcus spoke.

"If anyone needs me," Marcus said. "I will be in my quarters."

Both Skeever and Deekius bowed as they watched him go.

"Sire?" Skeever asked. "Once we are linking up with our Brothers at the Gulch…what comes next?"

Marcus smiled thinly as he limped down the battlement steps toward his quarters in the fort.

"What do you think?" he shouted back. "The end."

###

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[IronLung]

"You once asked me a question," Marcus said, the flickering embers of his candlelights throwing his hunched shadow across the walls of his cramped chambers at the edge of Fort Spearclaw. "At the time, I don't think it was something I'd ever really thought about."

It was strange. He felt nervous addressing his guest, like the very first time they'd met on the battlefield of ideas. Then, he'd fought alone, against an armada. It seemed right that he should face his once-foe here and now, alone.

In life, that would have probably been a good thing. Away from the prying eyes and the chittering of the crowds, maybe they could have spoken more amicably. Or, at the very least, disagreed with each other without coming to blows.

"You asked if I could look upon a sea of soldiers' corpses and tell them their sacrifice was worth it. I'll answer you plainly: no. The dead don't write history."

The irony of this situation was not lost on Marcus. As he leaned back in his wooden chair, rocking like a man well beyond his years, he pondered how fickle fate could be. The ratguards of Skeever had waddled up to him after the battle, during their 'cleanup' of the wounded on the field. They had seemed agitated and then, as they drew closer, Marcus saw that excitement permeated every pore of their filthy bodies. They practically shook, giddy as schoolgirls, as they opened the sack they carried in their claws and spilled its contents at Marcus's feet.

When Marcus saw what they had just given him, he had simply stood motionless for perhaps a full minute.

They chittered amongst themselves, explaining that the stupid toad must have thought to wound the Shai-Alud by decapitating one of his own kind and waving it around during the battle.

But Marcus knew the truth. Skegga's cocky determinism and mass-committal now made sense in the context: the oafish toad had thought this human head was Marcus's.

And now here that head sat, in a bloody heap, almost unrecognizable were it not for its baby blue eyes that Marcus would know a hundred miles away. He had met such eyes with burning hate enough times to have a clear mental picture of the man who bore them.

"Somehow," he said, looking into the rotted skull of Stephen Barenz. "The fact they couldn't tell the difference between you and me is perfect. Just perfect – as elegant an encapsulation of their knowledge of variance within races as you or I could ever hope to see."

Before him, sloping ever so slightly on a dusty chair, Barenz's head sat and stared unblinkingly by way of response.

Marcus had very little notion of what wicked compulsion had compelled him to take the bloody thing and prop it up in front of him, and even less of an idea what had prompted him to pace the room as though he was about to engage the inanimate chunk of flesh in yet another one of their 'debates'.

"How long ago was that?" he asked the head, shaking his own. "Seems like a lifetime. Maybe it was – maybe time dilation works differently here. Who am I to know how this world operates? I'm just a General, eh?"

The head of his rival stared back, unimpressed.

Marcus leaned back in his seat, sagging and wheezing like a deflated balloon – all energy seeping out from every weary pore of his sweating body.

"You would love this," he said. "Seeing me doing exactly what you said 'my kind' do – making war and leading people astray. You know, when that Dwarf spoke to me, he reminded me of you, somewhat. So certain that your enemies are wrong. So ready to whip an entire nation into a frenzy because you think that, out of every scholar and philosopher in the history of the known world, you're the one who has the right of it. You've figured out the universe, and you're gonna make damn sure everybody knows it."

Again – no response. Marcus felt himself insulted. It was as though he actually believed the voice of Barenz – mocking and dripping with sarcasm – would emit from the drooping mouth of the head and rebuke him in death.

"But I can't hate you," Marcus said, closing his eyes to the sight of his dead opponent. "I never did, you know. To hate you would mean I would box you off, label you deviant, and then just be done listening to you. But I don't think ideas should exist in a vacuum. I don't think Echo Chambers are healthy for an intellectually curious society or for the promotion of critical thinking. And yet," he laughed, almost maniacally, "Here I am, leading a movement with myself as figurehead, even as I know the only result will be chaos."

He stood up and began pacing the four-walled chamber again, intent on delivering his thoughts to Barenz. On a few occasions as he spoke, he contemplated whether madness had finally overtaken him. Maybe some disease had finally gnawed away at his rational thoughts and was killing him slowly. He thought at one point that he might even be having a stroke.

But that would have been a far too easy way for him to go.

"I wonder how they did you in?" he mused, glancing sidelong at the unassuming head. "Treachery? Torture? Or just a quick and easy slash across the neck? The worst part is you died as a martyr, probably still believing everything you always believed. Never once questioning your place in this world or the place of others…"

Marcus sat down again, looking around him to make sure no skittering stalker was poking his snout where it didn't belong.

"I'll tell you something I think you'll like," he said. "The truth is: I wish I could be like you. I wish I could believe something so concretely – have it become such an inexorable part of myself that separating me from the idea would be like eviscerating an arm or a leg – and never once be forced to consider the flaws in my worldview. You and your Unifiers had it so easy, you just didn't know it. Just like these rat-priests. Just like the Kobolds who crawl beneath Skegga's feet. Or at least, who once crawled beneath them. Now, I have to give them something else to believe in."

He watched the skull carefully, as though probing for any minute movement of its charred lashes. But all he saw were the maggots moving underneath its eyeballs.

"It would be so easy to say that it's all guff," he whispered into his clasped hands. "I wish I could say 'to hell with it all!' and decry every churchgoer and pulpit-preacher and alleyway End-Times screamer who are so fixed on their ideologies that they can't see the suffering in front of them. But I can't. I can't make a monolith out of you no matter how much you'd do the same to me – to men like me who you saw as nothing more than stuck in the past. Maybe you had the right of it, there. After all, that's now exactly what I am, even if it is what's keeping me alive down here. Equally, we could see the irony in our current situation and say that I 'won' in the end. I have an army of rats that worship me, and you'll soon be dead in the dirt. I honestly don't know which one of us is the luckier man."

Marcus was suddenly jolted by the sounds of the ratman war-horns blowing outside, signalling the movement of their combined forces. It would be a long march back to Fleapit, and then to the Black Gulch where the end of this horror would finally come.

"Maybe I'm growing sentimental," Marcus said when the horns stopped their dolorous humming. "Maybe I just crave conversation with one of my own kind so much that I'm allowing you more concessions than I ever would were you alive. I wonder, would you do the same to me if our situations were reversed?"

Again, no answer from the head.

"Probably not," Marcus finished. "But a man can dream that people change. We're shaped by our experiences, after all. And I'm not the man I was when I stepped on that stage after you."

He rose and made for the door, looking back over his shoulder at the vacant skull that he was about to leave behind. In truth, his heart felt heavy. The action of conversing with his old rival was purely symbolic – he knew that. Yet, equally, he felt that something of Steven was still there. Something that was demanding an answer.

"I will say that you were wrong about one thing," he said, looking at the door like it would lead him towards a whole new plane of existence once he passed through its threshold. "Unity can be accomplished through war. I'm seeing the results of this every day. The real question is: is this the kind of unity we want?"

He decided to let the question hang. Somehow, no response was the most appropriate way to end his one-sided conversation with the last vestige of his past. For, this time, it was a question that neither man had the answer to.

Without another word, Marcus bowed and bid farewell to Steven Barenz, leaving the rotted skull of his foe shrouded in darkness forevermore.

###

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