Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

'That's my poison taster!' said Rose. 'Gods of death, we have to dig him out of there! We need to learn if the little bastard's alone!' He shoved Pazel to one side, clawing at the plank, which was loose already. 'Help me, Haddismal!'

'He'll be long gone by now, sir,' said Haddismal, squatting next to Rose.

'Pull, damn you! There are baffles in the floor! He's crawled right into a box!'

Sniraga growled and clawed at the gap. Rose squeezed her aside, jamming his toe under the board as it started to lift.

'Those baffles are rotted out,' said Fiffengurt from the back of the room. No one heeded him. Rose and the Turach wrenched and pried at the board. Over the slop of bilgewater, a sound of scurrying could indeed be heard from beneath it. Was that a voice, too? Pazel pulled himself up against a crate, listening. The board was starting to give way.

Steldak's voice rang out suddenly from beneath it. 'Not yet! Not yet! He isn't close enough!'

Neither Rose nor Haddismal showed the slightest reaction to the voice — of course not, Pazel thought, he's using ixchel-speech.

'Captain,' he rasped, his throat still terribly painful, 'you might want to stop that.'

Rose looked daggers at him, and gave a monstrous heave. The board lifted some ten inches, ancient nails popping from sea-rotted wood. Rose bent down to peer into the dark space beneath.

'There you are!' he cried.

The board shattered. Something wet and furious struck Rose in the face. It was a huge white rat, twice the size of Felthrup, and its head was thrust into Rose's mouth. Human and rat fell backwards, the beast clawing, Rose flailing and bucking on the floor. At last he got a grip on the squirming animal and flung it away from him with all his might. The rat's head was a hideous, hairless knob, scarlet with blood, and even before it struck the wall behind Druffle it had begun to talk.

'Glory!' it howled, from atop a crate some eight feet above the floor. 'Glory to the rats of Arqual! Glory to the Angel of Rin! Death comes to the false priest, the heretic captain who mocks the Ninety Rules and their Maker! Death to his godless crew, death to this temple defiled!'

'That's Mugstur!' gasped Pazel.

'Kill it!' screamed Rose, all but incoherent with blood.

Two Turachs sprang at the rat, but it squirmed away, shouting in ecstasy. 'Victory! Victory for Arqual where the Angel reigns! Victory to Magad, our Rin-given emperor! The hour is come! Rats of Chathrand, come forth and fight!'

And the rats came. Out of the shattered floor, the frothing bilge, they leaped and squirmed, eight, twelve, twenty, more struggling behind. Like a welling stain, they spread in all directions, and with them spread a chaos beyond anyone's control. The Turachs stabbed and stomped, killing many, but the creatures were entering the vault faster than they died, and the floorboard was in too many pieces to replace. The Turach with the lamp whirled, slamming it into Big Skip's chest and cracking the glass. The lamp sputtered, darkening.

Rose was choking, with a sound like a slaughtered bull, even as rats climbed his limbs and boiled across his back. Master Mugstur had bitten off part of his tongue, and Rose had inhaled enough of his own blood to drown a smaller man. The four bound men were screaming for their hands to be freed. Sandor Ott gazed at the bald-headed, gore-stained rat who shrieked the praises of his emperor, and for one instant appeared to forget where he was.

That instant was all Thasha needed. With a blow fuelled by rage, she drove her fist down against his knife hand, and at the same time slammed her head back against his face with all her might. Both blows connected; the knife flew from Ott's grasp, and Ott himself staggered backwards into the open doorway.

Thasha knew her only chance was to press the attack, and she did. Whirling straight into a third blow, she struck at Ott's sword-arm just as he started to draw the weapon out. It was a point-blank strike to the forearm: the spymaster snarled with pain. And then he took her. Ott's right hand, the one that had held the knife, was not too wounded to strike her bare-fisted. He smashed her chin with an upper cut. She struck back, lightning-fast but weak; she was stunned. He brought his hand slicing down against her neck. Thasha's knees buckled, and as she fell her head struck the edge of a crate. Eyes locked on her, Ott flung a fist sideways at Neeps (who was lunging in desperation) and knocked him flat on the deck. Then he drew his sword.

Pazel cried out and heaved to his feet. To his amazement, Rose also lurched at the spy. But they were both a step too far away, and too late. Thasha looked up, bloodied, disoriented. Ott grimaced and swung.

The blow was meant to kill, and would have, but for the violent collision of a body with the spymaster's own. Hercol had driven like a cannonball through the last Turachs in the passage, and the force of his leap at Ott knocked over half the men still standing in the liquor vault. Pazel was crushed once more beneath Rose, but over the captain's shoulder he saw Hercol fighting like a man possessed, his face contorted with an emotion more acute than hate. Agony, thought Pazel. Agony he doesn't mean to get over. Hercol's momentum never seemed to break, only turn into spiral energy as he rolled and whirled Ott through the room, smashing, bludgeoning him against crate and floor and soldiers and carcasses of rats. Ott's sword was gone, his blows Hercol did not seem to feel. When at last he managed a damaging blow to Hercol's jaw the Tholjassan rose with a cry and hurled him the length of the room.

Ott struck the back wall and fell senseless upon a carpet of squirming rats. When Pazel's eyes caught up with Hercol the man was pouncing, Ott's own knife in his hand, drawn back over his shoulder with the point aimed downwards at his old master's throat.

'Kill!'

Hercol froze. The voice came from just above him. It was Mugstur, perhaps the only conscious creature in the room less rational at that instant that Hercol himself. Mugstur's mad, bulging eyes glared down at him, urging him on.

'Kill, kill! It is the promised end! The Angel comes! Arqual shall be purified through blood!'

'Diadrelu,' said Hercol, and he was suddenly, obviously, a man broken by grief. He stabbed not downwards but upwards, driving the knife into the white rat's side.

Master Mugstur did not seem surprised by what had happened to him. 'The Angel comes!' he cried, gurgling. 'The Tree bleeds, the Nilstone wakes, and a thousand eyes are opening! Glory! Glory! War!'

Mugstur gave a last twitch and fell limp. Hercol lifted the creature on Ott's knife, then lowered the blade and let the rat slide onto the motionless spymaster. 'No more dreams of glory,' he said. 'They are finished, for all of us.'

But it was not finished. Ott stirred, moaning, and as he did so the white rat twitched again. The next moment it was on its feet, bleeding but very much alive. And at the same moment all the surviving rats grew still, and raised their narrow faces to look at the men. They were knowing looks, looks of conscious intelligence.

'War,' said Mugstur, and the rats began to grow.

9 Umbrin 941

The humans rushed bleeding from the Abandoned House. Rose was the last one out of the liquor vault, and he personally cut the bonds on the four prisoners, screaming orders at them as he did so. Haddismal carried the half-conscious spymaster, Neeps supported Pazel, and Thasha tried her best to drag Hercol into the passage, as he swung and stabbed and bludgeoned and hacked, and a mound of twitching fur rose about him.

The rats of Chathrand were awake, and mad. They had swollen to the size of hunting dogs, and their voices — mewling, screeching, speaking — were so loud and hideous that the men fell back as much from the force of them as from the creature's tearing nails and bolt-cutter jaws. When Rose at last heaved himself up onto the mercy deck, he found Fiffengurt and twelve men ready to skid a carriage-sized packet of sparwood over the hatch. The captain rolled aside, shouting, 'Do it!' No sooner were the tons of wood in place than they heard the first rats slamming their thick bodies against the door.