Энди Вейр - Rat

“Rat!” he yelled and sat up. His arm screamed in pain, and he lay back down, wincing.

Clwydd looked at his leg. “I’ve lost too much blood.”

Glawyn stood, despite the pain and used his good arm to heft Clwydd to his feet. “Come on. We can get in to town through the East Gate. We’ll get some priest to help you out.

The going was slow. At first, they were alone on a sea of dead men, the battle having moved on to the streets of the Low Quarter. Then, bit by bit, a line of hobbling, limping, wounded formed and headed toward the East Gate.

By noon, Glawyn and Clwydd were through the gate, along with countless other wounded. They collapsed on the ground where numerous priests of Crianna and other gods and goddesses milled around, healing those who could be helped. Many used magic, but most used bandages and compresses, their magic exhausted for the day. Some priests prayed desperately to rejuvenate their magic, though they knew it was unlikely.

Rat heard a crashing shudder from above. Though she did not know what it was, she suspected it was a bolder from an Orcish catapult landing above her. Dust and brick fragments crumbled from the ceiling as Rat covered Talfryn’s body with her own.

She got a few scrapes and bruises, but was otherwise none the worse for wear. Talfryn, unhurt, was petrified.

Rat looked at the cracked and crumbling ceiling. “This place could cave in any minute,” she declared.

“What?” Asked Talfryn.

“We have to go, now.” Rat hurriedly grabbed up her trail ration kits and took Talfryn by the hand. “Come on.”

“You said we’d be safe here!” Talfryn cried.

“We are,” Rat lied. “We’ll just be safer somewhere else. Come on.”

She led Talfryn out of the lair and in to the sewers. She did not know a lot about cave-ins or sewer integrity. But she did know she didn’t want to be in them if they collapsed. “We’re going topside,” she declared. Come on. To the secret door.”

“But there are Orcs up there.”

“I don’t think so. Not if they’re lobbing catapult rounds at us.”

“What?”

“It means they’re not here yet.”

She pulled Talfryn through the sewers until she reached her secret exit. They both emerged from the box to see a site of devastation. The building over their home had been demolished by the catapult round. People were pulling bodies out of the wreckage.

“Let’s go,” said Rat. “Don’t let go of my hand. Not even for a second.”

“Ok. Where are we going.”

“Good question,” Rat replied. The obvious choice would be to flee to within the city walls. But it was so obvious everyone would be doing it. The mob would be terrible. Staying in her lair wouldn’t work, because it might collapse. The sewers in general were too much of a risk. She formulated a plan.

“Ok, here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to stay right here. In this alley. If there aren’t any catapult shots for an hour and the tunnel hasn’t collapsed, we’ll go home. All right with you?”

Talfryn nodded.

They waited an hour, taking in their surroundings. Often, soldiers would run past the mouth of the alley. Sometimes, they would see wounded straggling back. All the while, they heard the relentless catapult fire hitting the city proper and the mages in the city returning fire… literally.

It became clear to Rat that the catapult shot which hit the building over her lair was a freak miss.

Rat and Talfryn went back to the lair to discover it still in one piece.

She put Talfryn on his bed. “All right. We’ll be Ok, now. Even if the Orcs win. We’ll be Ok. Got it?”

Talfryn nodded.

Shortly after Glawyn and Clwydd had collapsed on the ground where the wounded were accumulating, a priest had come buy and bound Clwydd’s wounds to staunch the bleeding. Since then, hours had passed with no help from the overworked priests. Once, it looked as if a Priest was ready to help, but then a severely wounded man distracted his attention.

Finally, as the evening came, a haggard and blood covered priest came over and looked at Clwydd’s leg and arm. “The leg will recover in time,” said the priest, matter-of-factly. “But the arm has grown gangrenous. We’ll have to take it off.”

Clwydd closed his eyes and prayed.

Glawyn hung his head low, feeling bad for his new friend, and feeling worse for his shameful relief that it was not him losing an arm.

That night, Talfryn slept in Rat’s bed, too scared to be more than a few inches from her.

And so ended the first day of the Siege of Tordanal.

In the Battle of Tordanal, history would record that the Orcs cut through the defending lines as if they weren’t there, and penetrated 4 blocks into the Low Quarter from the South, and 5 blocks from the North. For the next several days, they advanced slowly, taking heavy losses in the street to street fighting. Then, on the seventh day, they retreated out of the Low Quarter, for reasons known only to them.

They set up defensive lines several hundred yards outside the city, encircling it, and blockaded the Mwyridion river. The Orcish long range weaponry, catapults, proved ineffective after only the third day, as the Mages Guild managed to erect partial magical defenses that could deflect a bombardment. The defenses were not perfect, and some stones got through, but after a while, the Orcs stopped even trying.

Thus, the Siege of Tordanal began.

Talfryn and Rat walked down the dirty streets of the Low Quarter. A dead man was seated against one of the buildings.

Talfryn walked up to the body. “Hey, Rat. Dead guy.”

Rat looked over. “I know. Come on.”

“Shouldn’t we see if he has food?”

Rat shook her head. “Look at him, Talfryn. He starved to death. Starved men don’t have food. You should know that by now.”

“Ok,” said Talfryn, returning to his sister. “He ate people anyway.”

“What?”

“He ate people. All the time. Sometimes he killed them first, instead of waiting for them to die.”

“What makes you say that? Did you know him?”

Talfryn shook his head. “He ate people, though.”

“What an imagination you have.”

“Where are we going?” Asked Talfryn.

“Hunting,” said Rat, patting her crossbow.

“Wharf or Sewer?”

“Your pick,” she said.

Talfryn thought long and hard, embellishing to extremes his thoughtful pose. “Wharf.”

“Good choice,” said Rat. “Let’s go.”

In the five months since the Siege began, the city had starved horribly. Oddly, it worked out that the rich starved, and the poor survived. While the rich were used to simply buying food, the poor knew how to steal, grow, and catch it. Also, the Low Quarter was infested with vermin which served as a decent food supply. And, the Low Quarter lay against the river, where people would fish.

The supply lines to the city had been cut. The occasional blockade runner would get through the river from time to time and bring much needed food, but it was nowhere near enough for the shrinking population of the city. Fishing could not happen on a scale to feed the city, as any boats that set out from the protection of the wharf were generally attacked by the blockade. But, anyone with some string and a hook could try their luck at the river.

Rat let Talfryn pick the location because she knew he would pick the wharf. He always did. She had no intention of going to the sewer right now. There had been no new outbreak of disease lately, and that meant the number of bodies laying around town was down significantly. When that was the case, there tended to be a lot of people in the sewers hunting rats. Those same people were the ones who usually ate the dead bodies, so Rat had no desire to meet up with them. The wharf was an all around better place to be.