Chapter 15: Arm, Meet Rat

When he felt the stupidly gleeful giants' attention must be elsewhere, Tim once again timidly poked his head out from a hallway leading out into the courtyard. Not much had changed, with the various small groups still battling each other. The hero and demon still fought in the middle, and from the looks of it, their fight was stuck in a stalemate. Of course, Tim could only guess that part, since he wasn't much of a fighter himself, but he figured it was a good guess anyways, since neither side seemed too injured or hard-pressed to survive.

"Philbert, are the rats ready?" Tim whispered to his companion, attempting to be as quiet as possible.

"Yes, yes Tim. The lesser ones move, move."

"Perfect…" Tim said as his voice trailed off into silence. His eyes darted to and fro, drinking up every detail the courtyard contained, from the rampaging giants being held off by shaking formations of soldiers, to the smaller demons fighting individually and in groups, and to the two main characters of the fight, their battle almost defying common sense.

"Aha! There, Philbert, do you see?" Tim exclaimed, pointing at something only he could see in the formations of soldiers desperately holding off the laughing giants. "Tell your king the operation is a go!"

Tim smirked. He'd always wanted to say that. But despite his childish humor, his words held real power now.

The rat king sat as if raised from the dead. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, but then a faint chittering and chattering could be heard approaching with a frightening speed. Those sounds, almost too quiet to be heard over the clamor of battle, increased in volume until one of the joyful giants cocked his ear with a confused frown. Its stupid-looking mouth opened in confusion, and then the unsaid questions were instantly answered as what seemed like a sea of squirming, shrieking rats burst out of the doorways, hallways, pipes, and other secret pathways left by construction that only the smallest of creatures could use.

The flood of rats scurried closer and closer to the combatants. Their response to it was the common, instinctual fear all living beings share when confronted with an unexplained, unprecedented, and almost supernatural attack. Distantly Tim heard a soldier shout "Fuck this! I ain't paid to fight fucking rats!" and break from the line. This was the only catalyst the demoralized men needed, and the entire formation disintegrated back towards the gates.

The giants however possessed neither the brainpower nor the visual accuracy required to make a quick decision like that, so instead they stared at the approaching horde in confusion. At least, until the first few rats reached the legs of the closest giant, and the screaming began. It started softly, a nibble here, a nip there. More and more rats swarmed around their feet, climbing up their legs, and swirling around their massive chests, biting and clawing as they ascended. The giants, once so tall, once so filled with power, shook the ground as they fell like redwoods, crying at bone-shaking frequencies.

Yet to the demon army, even more terrifying than the swarms on the still-twitching bodies of the giants was the strange grinning man running at them, carrying a rat larger than they had ever seen on his shoulders. They parted from his manic laughter like flies from a carcass even before they heard the horn to retreat, for what hero could command a cataclysm like this?

But Tim wasn't done. The duelists still fought, ignoring everything. How arrogant!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Elsewhere in the courtyard, hero and demon clashed, the brightly shining longsword of the cleric hero fending off the graceful scimitar swipes of her gray-skinned opponent.

"This really is a pity," Elena grinned as she parried yet another lunge of the demon.

Mavier wrinkled his brows in mock confusion as he swept the claws of his free hand towards Elena's side. "Pity? What a novel concept, from a hero!"

A screeching of metal sounded as the unarmed strike was deflected by Elena's armor. "Well, I've honestly been pretty bored here, and you lizards are always good for a workout."

Mavier scowled in rage at the slur, whispering something under his breath. He twisted his body for another graceful strike, hiding his empty left hand behind his back. The blow was once again parried, as he expected, but the gout of fire erupting from his left hand was not. It was met with a remarkably satisfying grunt of pain, and the demon smiled. It was the first decent blow either of them had landed since the fight had started.

Then, both of them heard a strange sound. It was a sound that was not often heard in the world. A giant screaming in pain and fear. Hundreds upon hundreds of rats were swarming over the fallen and writhing bodies of the giants Mavier had brought with him, and audible biting and chewing sounds were emanating from the lumps.

Despite Elena being a great hero, and Mavier being a demon, both parties could only stop and stare in morbid fascination.

In the corner of their eyesight, they could see a disheveled half-elf with two rats of varying sizes on his shoulders jogging towards the open gate. "What the fuck?" Elena said, voicing what the demon clearly felt. Still, despite the strange sight, they found their eyes inexorably drawn back to the wave of brown and black rats boiling towards them.

Mavier, a demon, was a bit more used to these strange sights. He snapped out of his daze first and quickly weighed his options. He grabbed the animal horn at his waist and sounded the retreat. That noise snapped Elena out of her daze, and with an "Oh no you don't you lizard fuck!" she swung her longsword towards the retreating Mavier, ignoring the advancing rats.

The demon lazily parried her longsword, reluctantly turning back towards his opponent. She picked up the pace and he steadily retreated backwards under the furious storm of attacks from the mail-plated hero. He looked afraid and distressed. Elena grinned and pressed the attack, failing to realize it was a ruse even as he glanced at the scene behind Elena. Before he could offer any taunts over the situation only he could see coming, the first rats reached the hero and leapt onto her shield-arm.

Elena was so caught up in her chase of the demon that she didn't register the new additions to her shield-arm, but then the smallest rats managed to squirm through the gaps in the joins of her armor and started to bite. It started as pinpricks at first, almost negligible to an excessively defense-focused hero, but as the small rats bit through the straps and more of the horde joined in ripping off her armor, even she could not fail to notice.

"Well, it looks like I shall bid you adieu," Mavier laughed. While he did not know where the rats had come from, anything that hurt the hero was a blessing in his eyes. The demon turned his back to the now-occupied hero and jogged off into the woods with his remaining troops, sharp-toothed smile widening with every scream of pain from the hero.

Back in the courtyard, Elena threw down her sword and desperately started to muster her divine power in an attempt to save her shield arm. The holy light within her body began to shine, and one by one the rats tearing at her bare arm fell off with squeaks of pain. Each time the light pulsed, more and more of the rats abandoned their target and started to flee. Soon enough, all the rats were gone, but Elena almost wished they would come back so she wouldn't have to look at what was left of her arm. Even though they had only swarmed over it for not even a minute, the flesh on her arm was completely missing, exposing the ravaged blood vessels and destroyed muscles. She bled crimson freely, which poured out onto the ground and turned black as it mixed with the soil. Even though adrenaline dampened most of the pain, she felt the bile rising towards her mouth as she attempted and failed to move what was once her arm. She sank to her knees in the ashen hellscape, clutching her ruined shoulder.

Around her, the swarms of rats dripped from corpses of humans, giants, and demons alike towards the treeline where Tim waited. Soon, all was quiet except the whimpers of the maimed and dying.