Pieces of rubble fell from the cavern ceiling and danced along the barrel of his gun.

He barely even blinked. After his last shot, he hardly moved a single muscle. Now, he was pure focus. The only sound he heard was his own short, raspy breaths.

“Come on. Come on…”

The long, unbroken silence stretched out and lay across the city like a ghostly veil. But it did nothing to cover the litter of Ratman corpses he’d left strewn across the streets.

Vermin, he thought. Just like that bastard toad.

Whatever a human saw in them, he had no idea. When he’d first spotted the strange-looking man in the dank robe of the rat-priests, he’d hesitated for a split second before pulling the trigger. That had been his fatal weakness. In his profession, a split second was literally the difference between life and death.

He supposed it was hypocritical of him to fault the human hunkering down there with the scared little beasts. After all, he was guilty of the exact same crime – of being a traitor to his people.

“Fingel Darragut,” he murmured into the stock of his rifle. “The traitor of his House. Last of his line…”

No. That wasn’t how his story was going to end. He would be marked as a traitor in the Annals of Stone, yes, but it would not take long for his son to clear their family name. The boy was a natural Golemsmith. Before long, he’d revolutionize the whole industry. Then nobody would care what his talentless father did – a man who could do nothing but bring death from afar, sneering down at this war-torn world through the scope of his gun.

“Arnel,” he said. “Mariah – wait jus’ a bit longer,” he said as his eyes picked out movement behind the chapel’s broken windows. “I’m coming.”

Like a sudden swarm whipped up into a frenzy, the Rats spilled out from their hiding space, zig-zagging through the narrow streets towards his position, using the burned-out houses for cover.

“Finally lost yer minds?,” he said, pulling back his chamber and checking how many powder-shots he had left. “Alright. Let me send ye to yer filthy God.”

He popped a few heads left and right as they dived for cover, reloading with quiet intensity, imagining the head of that bloated frog Skegga with every skull his bullets dashed against the walls of his people’s former city. The recoil, by this point, barely even shook him. His shoulder was tight. His cloak was moist with sweat. His eyes were moving faster than the little beasts could. One by one, they fell before the marksman of Darragut.

“Where are you..?” he murmured through each new hit, scanning the church for the tallest one among them. Searching for the priest with the staff that had blinded him with his little magic trick.

And then, like a creature born of the stones themselves, he appeared.

He came striding out of a building a few meters south of the chapel, walking calmly as though he were an angel of the caverns come to pick up the dead and carry them down to the center of the earth to be with their fellows.

He strode right to the top of the narrow road running red with the blood of the Ratmen, and stopped.

Just…stopped.

He stared right up at Fingal, and the latter couldn’t help but stare back through the scope of his gun.

“What the…” he mumbled, hearing the screams of Rats as they cried out below for their comrades.

He’s a bloody nutcase, his mind told him as the black dot of his makeshift reticule danced between the eyeballs of the human’s face. He’s…he’s lost it.

Fingel’s fingers shook as he fought against the urge to pull the trigger. To cut the head from the snake. To end all this…

The world, once again, was wreathed in silence.

“You got some kinda death-wish?” he asked the form of the human staring up at him. Unblinking. Unafraid. Totally calm and collected in his filthy, flea-ridden robe.

Fingal reloaded. Checked his aim. Felt the trigger thrumb behind his forefinger.

One shot. That’s all it would take.

One shot to buy him freedom.

One head to carry home.

One path to secure his family’s future.

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He ignored the sweat pooling upon his hairy brow and grimaced beneath his cloak.

“Stone take you,” he spat. “You wanna go, boy?”

He licked his lips and steeled his resolve.

“Fine!”

He pulled the trigger.

The bullet whizzed through the air, knocking the stock against him, sending his death projectile towards his once chance in this life.

It phased right through the skull and embedded itself in the back of the chapel behind.

“…What?”

Fingel’s eyes beheld the form of the human slowly turning translucent in the wake of his shot. The ghostly form of the boy wavering like a silent specter being returned to the earth. And where the Shai-Alud once stood, now, there was nothing but air.

A deco-

His training kicked in before his head even finished forming the thought. He spun around, hearing the trapdoor open behind and three shadows surge towards him.

One he popped below the chest with a single round, fired point-blank. The others collapsed, prone, as they felt the shock of the bullet shred their friend’s body, and he desperately worked his fingers to reload, using all the time their momentary paralysis gave him. His chamber slammed shut. His stock came back up and then –

Pain.

He looked down to see the spear of the armless Rat embedded in his gut. He staggered, spat up blood, and looked to see the priest’s grizzly maw snapping at his face.

And with the gut-rending crunch of his bones, the world of Fingal Darragut ended in a haze of crimson-coated fangs.

…

“GATSKEEK!”

Marcus heard the scream before he registered that they’d manage to kill the Dwarf. He saw the pudgy being’s body fall from the tower, pieces of his face trailing in bloody chunks after him, before he hit the ground and became nothing but a pile of goo.

His weapon landed beside him, smashing upon impact.

But he had no time to lament the loss of such a technologically advanced piece of equipment.

He pushed through the cheering Ratmen and those who corralled around the Dwarf’s body to spit or defecate in his mangled remains and saw Skeever and Deekius carrying the shaking form of their comrade from the doorway of the spire.

“Be moving!” Skeever shrieked at his men.

Redwhiskers (he apparently survived) understood his master’s command. He corralled the other Ratlings together with a general shout and brought them back to the chapel, commanding them to take the Dwarf’s remains with them.

Marcus paid them or their bloody desire no heed. He followed after the three limping commanders as they threw themselves into an adjacent building with a long bar table covered in cobwebs and threw Gatskeek on the table.

Marcus watched from the doorway. He said nothing.

“Where is your healing magic?” Skeever shouted at Deekius’ snout.

“It is being spent with the apparition spell,” the priest explained. “Sire Marcus needed it to ensure us victory. I have follo-“

“I DON’T CARE!” Skeever cried, gripping the priest by his robes and pulling him to the floor. “Be fixing him, now!”

Marcus slowly entered through the commotion, ignoring both Rats as they scrambled on the ground, and his eyes found Gatskeek’s shuddering form.

“Gatskeek…”

A bullet had torn clean through the side of his abdomen. His ribcage, muscle, and bone, was fully exposed on his left side.

“Be fixing him!” Skeever wailed. “Fix him!”

“I cannot be doing the impossible!” Deekius spat back at his comrade. “He-Who-Festers’ will has been spent.”

“Then we take him to Fleapit, now!” Skeever replied, throwing spittle and phlegm across the floorboards. He rose to move the old, wounded warrior who groaned in pain and shoved him away.

“You…are being…ngh…fool, kinsman.”

“Silence!” Skeever roared. “You will be fixed. The capital is being two hours away. Be hanging on!”

“Skeever,” Deekius said, laying a hand on the hulking rat’s heaving shoulder. “Be looking at him. He is gone.”

“Don’t say another word to me, priest!”

“It is the way of such things!” Deekius continued in the face of his commander’s ire. “Talon-Commander Gatskeek is never being a believer in the Unclean One! His faith is not being strong enough to make it home. You know this is how things must be, Kin-“

Deekius’ final remark was cut off by the claws of Skeever scratching at his eyes. Both rats fell back against the wall, their teeth and nails slashing at the other, their bodies locked in animal combat.

“Enough!” Marcus shouted.

His voice – full of authority, yet clearly shaken – was enough to bring them back. Even if it was just for a moment.

Then his tired eyes looked down at Gatskeek’s pallid form. His chest, once rapidly rising, now started to slow.

“Do not…be wasting…effort…” he told his brothers. “Kinsmen…I am going…where…I…must…”

Both Rats looked away, Skeever gritting his teeth in consternation, Deekius bowing his head.

But Marcus didn’t. Marcus looked straight into the red-rimmed eyes of the dying rat.

And without even thinking about it, his body started moving towards him.

“Shai…Alud…” the old Rat croaked, coughing up blood and bile as his fading body rocked with sudden laughter.

“Gatskeek, I…I didn’t think…”

“No,” Gatskeek replied. “You…you…are…thinker,” he said through raspy breath.

Marcus wanted nothing more than to look away from the image of death he was staring at. He wanted to cross to the other room and shield himself from the reality of those pitiable eyes staring back at him unblinkingly while the blood of this warrior soaked his feet.

“Be…making…me…promise,” Gatskeek wheezed.

Marcus, not knowing what else to say, simply nodded.

The old rat raised a shaking claw. Marcus caught it, and steadied it in his grip.

Even in death, the old commander of Knifegut had strength running through his arm.

“Shai-Alud…” he coughed. “M…Marcus…be winning. Be…freeing us. Be freeing…ngh…them.”

The light began to die behind his pupils.

“Take…us…home…”

Marcus gripped the claw tighter as he felt Gatskeek’s strength begin to wane.

But the eye wavered. It was waiting.

“I will,” he said, without really knowing why he said the words. “I am promising.”

Almost as soon as the last syllable left his lips, Gatskeek’s soul left the world behind. His eyes glazed over, Marcus let his arm fall, and he gave one long, drawn out gasp that settled into the dead air of the city, and then was gone.

***

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