Montadie’s bulk blotted out the sky. Her rattling war-croak shook the very heavens. Rats scattered, squealing, and pushing each other as she descended as violently as only a gigantic monster toad could. I rolled clear as she landed with an earth rocking thump. The slow were crushed, the cracking of their bones filling the momentary silence of the marsh.

The mud ran red beneath her bulk as Montadie turned to face the rat-king who swelled, bigger, bigger even than he was before, until he was as big as the giant toad he faced. The two giants each took a step forward. I stumbled as the earth rocked, mud, water, rats and wisps flew everywhere.

“I thought you had run like a coward,” For-Molsnian hissed, the sound of his voice rushing across the swamp like a hurricane.

“Your necromancer is dead,” said Montadie. “I have nothing to fear from you.”

“Fool. I will educate you.”

Green-brown qi crackled around his form, darkness gathering at his back. Where the green qi dripped, the ground sizzled. Where the darkness touched everything decayed, qi stripped, feeding the corpulent monarch.

Montadie’s good leg whipped out. I did not see For-Molsnia move, but move he did. With a gnash of his teeth, the darkness at his back swarmed towards my teacher.

Two score rats leapt onto her sides, fastening their fangs into her flesh, biting and clawing till her skin ran red. Liquid dripped from her sides, steam hissing as rats and swarm surrounded her. The energy field of her qi wobbled. Without taking her eyes off the rat-king, her tongue flicked out, slapping the demonic squeakers into paste in the mud. Her eyes glowed incandescent white.

Giant rat met giant toad. Tremors rippling out from their steps. Trees, bushes, rats, were flattened as they grappled.

I dodged a spear of darkness meant for my teacher, sprinted forwards only to fall again, burying my face in a pool of stagnant water.

“Hello, Jenkins!” it said.

“Hi!”

Someone dragged me upright, and then I was running shoulder to shoulder with a great white wolf. This particular friend had grown since I saw him last. Skol turned to grin at me, his tongue lolloping out of his mouth, as he snapped at the closest rat, breaking its spine with one bite. Another snatched at our qi but before I could blast it out of our way the ground rose, forcing its way through its eyeballs, and down its throat.

The small, vicious shadow at my ankles was Lavellan. Nadders wound ahead, a dark, deadly flash in the water. To the left, a flock of screaming geese was pouring out of the trees, their wings and beaks stretched wide. Wuot was at the head, honking for blood, while Thimble and Hush galloped beside her. An owl flew above them, and above him, flew a slightly diminished, slightly luminous and rather lopsided moth. Lopsided but alive.

I lost sight of them in the chaos but my heart sang as I leapt into the fray.

I was weary, oh so weary, but surrounded by my friends and fellow students I found fresh life. Moon qi was plentiful and I cycled the cold light through my veins with savage delight. Moon’s silver laughter followed me as I went hunting for Brosnod in the press. Whatever happened I wanted to make sure that particular rat died, preferably by my paws. I swerved to avoid one of Montadie’s limbs, ducked beneath corrosive darkness and the horrible green-brown qi that stung my paws and singed my fur. Briefly I fought with Hush and Thimble, the three of us back to back, united in our aggression and bloodlust.

I bounced across the battlefield, my tail held high, fighting off the weariness that I knew would envelope me soon. Having so many targets confused the demonic rats, and not just so many targets but ones who fought with wildly different styles and strategies. Nadders and Lavellan darted through the darkness, taking bites out of any rat stupid enough to be too distracted. Skol summoned blizzards with his breath, Ule and Moððe skewering the captive bodies with ranged attacks from the sky.

Where was Brosnod? I wanted to kill Brosnod.

On the edge of the marshes the mean girls were making mince-meat out of one of the rat-king’s right hand rats, while Wuot, and Hush cornered Of-Sleán. Somewhere along the way I picked up a vicious swarm of wisps that followed me, attacking anything with a pulse. It took me a while to shake them off, primarily by dancing above the rats on discs of air, then dropping down like a focused lump of sharp-clawed hail.

In the end I stopped looking for Brosnod with my eyes, searching only the ebb and flow of qi. His particular signature was one I would never forget and I was able to locate it, even in the chaos of battle. Swarming like flies, chewing through everything it touched, slippery oily, he was fighting on the opposite side of the masters.

With some difficulty, I made my way around them without being trampled. Indeed, I was more likely to get hit by a stray bolt or limb than a direct opponent, but eventually I made it, locating him as he drained the life from one of Wuot’s relatives.

Summoning ice from my dantian, I released three lances at him, one after the other, yowling as I attacked. The first two whistled past, by chance, the third struck, drawing blood and lodging itself in his shoulder.

Brosnod whirled, fists full of feathers, a snarl on his ugly face.

For some reason those feathers enraged me.

My fur exploded into dazzling righteous yellow sunlight. I sprang, claws glittering golden, and we went down in a tangle. The sunlight did not burn like fire, but it hurt his eyes, he could not look directly at me. It was like looking at the sun. I was the sun. A small sun, but the sun nonetheless. His blows went wide, mine did not.

“You cannot win this,” he said through clenched teeth, as I gleefully smashed his head into the muck.

“Why not?”

He did not reply. The golden light hurt him, but his qi was hungry for mine. I could feel myself weakening with the proximity. We were weakening each other. But who would last longer? A hot, foul smelling claw raked across my side, leaving four red lines. White hot pain shot through me, and suddenly all the cuts and scrapes and bruises I had taken that night flared hot and new. He threw me off, disappearing into a cloud of corrosive darkness.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Where it touched me, I sizzled, my flesh boiling in agonising bumps.

Darting back, I studied the darkness with narrowed eyes, breath rattling up and down my throat. Narrowly I avoided a projectile, hurtled from within, and was forced to dance away. My brain was growing sluggish. Too many hurts were making it hard to maintain my breathing. Rolling in the wet stopped my flesh sizzling, and I leap up, summoning a huge puff of air qi from my dantian.

A puff of gale blew away Brosnod’s darkness, revealing the snivelling rat crouched within, spinning corrupted qi between his fingers. Some of it was mine.

Sharp teeth lunged for my throat.

“You can’t defeat him,” Brosnod smirked into my face. “You cannot defeat me.”

“I don’t have to defeat him,” I said. We both ducked as flaming hot mud flew overhead. “My master will do that. You, I can kill.”

“He will just come back,” Brosnod said. “I will come back.”

I feinted right, forcing the stupid rat in the direction I wanted. My legs felt like they were made of water-logged mud. I needed to finish this now, before I could no longer stand. Or think.

“How?” I said. “You are not a cat.”

The look he gave me was almost pitying. “Idiot cauldron,” he said. His qi surged, grasping at me. But I was quick as a ripple.

I pushed him backwards, into the stagnant pond, hurling myself in after him, holding his head under. My legs fastened around his screaming skull and I squeezed tight, keeping him from the precious air. The pond spirit obligingly kept ahold of his hind feet and between the two of us, we watched over him as he drowned. Eventually Brosnod went limp.

“My apologies,” I said to the pond-spirit, as I clambered out.

“Tastes nasty,” it said.

“Spit him out,” I said, “as soon as we are sure he is dead. I will come and purify you later.”

Brosnod’s body landed on the wet mud with a slap as the pond spirit ejected the corpse as quickly as it could. The demonic rat looked smaller in death, although no less repugnant.

Around us the fighting was dying down.

The rats were dying. Their bodies littered the marshes. My friends were all alive, if looking distinctly worse for wear.

Montadie and For-Molsnian still raged, her moon-qi battling his swarming darkness. Their fight too had slowed, both monstrous beings labouring as each sought supremacy over the other.

I thought Montadie had the upper hand, but I could not be sure.

As I watched, transparent white the moon-qi concentrated around her form. Blinding, her skin gleaming and nobbly,

“Get down!” sang Moon.

I dived, as the light exploded outwards, slicing harmlessly over my head, but decapitating the rat next to me, who apparently was not fluent in celestial being.

The attack left a giant, ragged wound across the rat-king’s belly.

He roared, rocking back, and then… then he swallowed something. Something small and sharp. A crystal? Like the shards I had seen in the devastated village. The darkness around him shuddered as Montadie bounded forward.

A premonition rocked me, a shiver of pure terror washing down my spine.

The rat-king threw back his head, screaming, and light poured out of his mouth in a beam, pure, cold, incandescent. His entire body shimmered, each of his twelve tails glittering, every pore luminous, splendid. For a moment I could see his organs, outlined in darkness, each labouring thump of his blackened heart, his pericardium, his lungs. Pure white light shot from his eyes, mouth, paws. From every cut and wound, from the gaping wound in his belly.

The rat-king exploded in a shower of offal and viscera.

There was silence, then.

A shocked stillness.

Then the few remaining rats turned and fled. It was the work of moments to slaughter the last, and then… then it was done. We had killed them all. The forest was mine again, free of vermin. I had never been so tired, or so pleased.

The only thing that kept me on my feet was the energy from my second last meridian clearing, the flood of power never more welcome. I stood in the blighted marshes, paws aching. My coat was covered in grime and blood and bits of rat-king. Hush and Thimble staggered over, and sat on either side of me, all three of us drawing comfort from the other’s presence. The rest of my friends gathered, all of them tired and drained now the threat had gone.

Nadders was sleeping on Skol’s broad back in a tight coil. Sleep looked good. Exhaustion beckoned and I wanted nothing more than to stumble into a safe, cosy hollow and sleep for days.

“Thank you,” I said to Montadie, who had stopped shining quite so brightly.

My teacher glared at me, and I glanced guiltily at her many wounds. “How did you get here so fast?” I asked, quickly, before she could start berating me over my choices.

“Toad-stools rings are portals,” said Montadie. “In times of great need.”

“What?” I opened my mouth to complain about the trip I had made to visit that had taken me three days and nights. “I could have just taken a toad-stool portal to visit you?”

“In times of great need,” she repeated sternly. “They take many years to grow and cultivate, and only bear one use before they must recharge. We will not be using that one again any time soon.”

I wanted to ask more. But Thimble was yawning, and I was so tired.

And something was wrong.

Something tugged at me. At my qi.

Something like Brosnod.

I looked for his body, there it was. Still. Corpse-like. For a moment I thought I was imagining it, that the tug was the echo of the past.

It was not.

Another tug. Another.

I whirled, looking for the powerful demonic cultivator we had missed. Perhaps one was hiding in the reeds, lurking in those ever present shadows?

There was no one there.

Just swollen corpses and bits of rat-king.

I looked at Brosnod’s corpse again. It was gone as if it had never been. All the rats were gone. Except the bits of rat-king.

“Jenkins what is it?”

Bits of rat-king that were moving. A piece I was staring directly at twitched, then crawled across the mud. A crumbling pink bit of tail wormed its way forwards in a wiggling line.

“Montadie-” I said, but they had all seen it. Everyone, not just us cats.

Wuot, Lavellan and I jumped, trying to squish the bits beneath our feet but they squirmed through with surprising dexterity and strength.

The rat-king was reassembling, scraps squishing together, badly, haphazardly, so the joins were obvious, the oozing flesh bleeding scum and blood. Some of the bits were reconnecting in the wrong places but it did nothing to stop him. A wicked smile filled the wicked face. Ember glinted red where living eyes had once been. His qi signature was… different.

Montadie opened her maw and blasted the reforming monarch with all the flame she had stored in her belly. Which was substantial. I added my remaining store, as did the other Radiants who had befriended fire. We stood in a half circle, flame streaming from us, but the inferno of fire streamed right through him. The trees and bushes behind him caught ablaze, the flames rising high.

Lurid orange light lit the marshes and the reassembled body wavered for a second.

Then it collapsed in a gentle whoosh of ash, the pieces drifting away in the wind. The last to go was the head, For-Molsnian’s smile, mouth stretching wide, wider than it should, splitting open half his face and lingering. Then that too was gone.

“Is it over?” asked Hush, her voice small.

“We will soon find out,” said Montadie.