Chapter 108 - Rat Hunters, Part 1

Times got darker.

Fear and hunger were constant companions.

The great ratfolk conspiracy was moving toward its inevitable conclusion, and it seemed our fate to be drawn into it.

Yet along with the fear and horror, there was hope and heroism; along with losses, there was honor.

The hour of maximum danger has arrived, and I can proudly say that my partner and I were not caught off guard...

Elysia, 'The Adventures of the Dark Hero', vol. II

Printed in Riverheim, Kingdom of Arcadia.

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Dhalthar sat pensively on his throne. Around it was drawn a five-pointed star; a double circle surrounded her with the most powerful protective symbols. He had invoked all the great protective charms he knew to defend him against the calamitous forces that gnawed at his fate. Those runes were infallible against curses, diseases, bad luck and all kinds of deadly spells.

They were among the most powerful defenses the Black Magician had learned during his long career in search of the Dark Mysteries. The fact that Dhalthar found it necessary to expend so much of the carefully hoarded mystical power he required to summon them gave an idea of how bad things had gotten.

Dhalthar lowered the great head into his hands, his claws striking a tattoo on his temples. He was worried. Things were not going according to his plan. He could feel events beginning to slip away from him. His well-trained intuition could sense that forces were at work here that caused events to unfold in ways beyond the predictability of any ratfolk, however intelligent.

He wasn't quite sure how all of this had happened.

At first, everything had gone very well. His agents reported the destruction of the Black Boat and he learned that once again his unwitting pawns, Frey and Elysia, had done the job for him.

Just a few days later, the Council had authorized an increase in the number of invasion troops, and it seemed to him that a completely crushing victory over the humans was within his grasp. But then…

Then the damned plague had begun to spread among his warriors. Before long, the Underroads began to burst with sick and dying ratfolk. As soon as the corpses could be burned, dozens more appeared. Even the ratfolk slaves who worked in the funeral furnaces were getting sick. The symptoms; a dry, wheezing cough, malignant pus filling the lungs, and finally the onset of sudden spasms. They were remarkably similar to those of the disease that was killing humans on the surface. Perhaps it was the same plague. It would not be the first time that an epidemic spattered the two races.

As if the plague wasn't bad enough already, another threat had emerged. Huge, ferocious, hungry rats swarmed in the corridors. They were everywhere; they devoured corpses and supplies, fought over the crumbs, and defecated and urinated anywhere, helping to spread the damned disease and starving the army at the same time. Even now some of them lurked, with their transparent eyes, from the dark corners of his chamber; they avoided the five-pointed star, but chewed on the furniture. He could hear them moving below the throne. They must have been there when he cast the charms, and they had been trapped.

The situation wouldn't have been nearly as bad if the attacking creatures hadn't been rats. It was almost a sign that the Great Rat God had turned his muzzle away from the invasion forces and withdrawn his blessing from the army. Certainly some of the more superstitious warriors were beginning to mutter similar things, and none of Dhalthar's sharp speeches and lectures had succeeded in calming them.

It made no sense for him to point out that the humans were suffering just as much, if not more, from these twin catastrophes: their barns were empty because their food stores had been devoured by the horde of vermin. The ratfolk warriors simply did not believe him, since they had no access to Dhalthar's extensive spy network. They saw only that they were starving, that their comrades were getting sick, and that they were likely to be the next to hit the plague.

Morale had suffered, and no one knew better than Dhalthar that morale was, at best, a fickle thing within the ratfolk army.

He had done his best to hunt down those slackers who made disloyal and treacherous remarks. He had dispatched elite units of warriors to summarily execute deserters. He himself had destroyed several traitors with his most spectacular and destructive spells. But it had all been in vain. Corruption had set in, the army was slowly falling apart, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to remedy it.

Dhalthar kicked away a rat from underfoot, where he gnawed at the bones of the last messenger who had brought him bad news. The creature flew through the air and crashed into the curtain of spells that surrounded the pentagram. Sparks flew, smoke rose, and the rat uttered a hideous, high-pitched squeal as it died. The smell of burning fur and charred flesh filled the air as the creature fried in its own body fat. Dhalthar's whiskers bristled appreciatively, and a brief, savage, teasing smile appeared on his mouth before he returned to his musings.

Since word of the army's misfortunes had leaked to the great warren in the swamps, no more reinforcements had arrived.

What he had did not quite resemble the overwhelming mass of ratfolk warriors he had wished for, but it would be enough if Dhalthar drew on all of his cunning and farsighted planning resources.

Something would have to be done to salvage the situation, and done quickly while there was still an army left capable of fighting. He did not doubt that he still had enough warriors under his command to defeat the human city, provided the attack was swift and ferocious, and he had the advantage of surprise.

Even if the army was lost after that, it would have reached its goal. Bergheim would have been conquered by now, and Dhalthar could report his success to the Council. It would be up to his lords to hastily dispatch garrison soldiers to hold the city. If they didn't arrive on time, it wouldn't be Dhalthar's fault.

The more Thanquol thought about it, the more sense the plan made. He could still fulfill the mission he was assigned to; he could still get the share of glory from him. Then he could place the blame for the disasters where it belonged: his incompetent minions and those traitors to the skaven cause who had deserted the army just before the hour of triumph.

He reviewed the forces he had under his control.

He still had close to five thousand nearly healthy warriors drawn mostly from Clan Arkan. He also had several teams of stalkers and a squad of ninjas from Clan Furtim. The various foolish adventures undertaken by the treacherous chieftains of Clan Marchin and Clan Morbus had left him with only a small force of warriors each. However, Izak Grottle and his rat-orc army were still a formidable presence.

He knew that a simple frontal assault wasn't necessarily the best plan under the circumstances. He needed a bold attack that would lead to certain and overwhelming victory, and he thought he knew the way to achieve it.

His spies had told him that the head of the city, the human named Duke Emmanuel, left the city in the direction of Crownheim, leaving his female breeder daughter, named Emilia, in command.

His spies told him that the human female named Emilia would take advantage of her father's absence to soon hold a masked ball in a futile attempt to distract the chief's lackeys from the problems they were having.

If they could take the palace with all the human nobles inside, the human army would be decapitated and easy prey for the ratfolk attack. If things could be coordinated so that both attacks occurred at the same time, so much the better. During the night that the ratfolks took the palace, the city too would be engulfed in blood and terror. Perhaps, with his breeding female in Dhalthar's clutches, he could even persuade the humans to surrender.

He would have to do it soon if he was to have any hope of victory, but at least there was a chance he could snatch victory from the salivary jaws of defeat.

Before that, however, he had to find a solution to another slight problem.

He would have to nullify the warding spells around him in order to get out of the chamber and start issuing orders. With a long, suffering sigh, Black Magician Dhalthar began the incantations that would allow him to break out from within his own protective pentagram.