“Okay,” Marcus began. “Skeever has run me through the basics of your Northern tunnel geography. Here’s how I see things.”

Marcus stood up and began pointing out various locations on the dark paper map as he mentioned them, making a few extra doodles with his quill pen as necessary to illustrate the finer points of his battle plan.

“Your main advantage is this chasm itself. Skegga would lose far more men than he would gain in a long, protracted assault on this place’s reinforced position. Without any kind of aerial support, he would have a tough time taking Fleapit itself.”

“So you’re saying we’re safe?” Feticus asked.

“Not exactly,” Marcus replied. “I think Skegga’s strategy lies more in bleeding you out. It would make sense – the destruction of this village here, Gulchnavel…I’m assuming it served some kind of economic purpose?”

Shrykul nodded. “It is being main source of Gulch fish for Clan.”

Marcus had expected as much. “If I was him, I’d be pushing against this village here,” he said, circling the small form of Razork on the West corridor of the Warrens. “Skegga has the advantage of being able to quickly reinforce his men from his defensive line of forts on the other side of the Black Gulch border. This allows him to launch quick raids that could probably hamper this village, which would lead to your eventual encirclement.”

“T-that’s it!” a new voice squeaked. “That’s exactly what is – what is being…”

The timid albino rat sank back in his chair almost as soon as he raised his voice. The other rats had practically forgot he was there.

“Brothers,” King Shrykul said. “Be allowing me to introduce Ricket. He is being Mayor of Razork village.”

Marcus nodded to the timid little creature, smirking a little at his shaking body. This was evidently not a rat bred for combat.

“Speak freely, Ricket,” Shrykul told the little guy.

“I – y-yes, Sire,” he squeaked. “I am being in agreement with Sire Marcus. We are having suffered for weeks. Kobolds are – how does the Shai-Alud say it? Bleeding us dry.”

“Which is exactly why you are being here,” Shrykul said with a smile. “We will not be letting your village fall. You are having our greatest farmlands and Glitterpak wranglers.”

Marcus thought about what nutritional value these rats extracted from those bloated beasts that dominated the skies above their home. If his intuition was correct, the floating gas bulbs had a very different application.

Verulex, however, urged him on.

“What isssss thisssss about enccccirclement, Ssssshai-Alud?”

“Skegga means to back you into a corner,” he replied. “He is cutting off your supply chains one by one and starving you out. He doesn’t need to attack Fleapit directly – and Knifegut’s current state means he now won’t even try.”

“But then wh – why does he not simply destroy our village, Sire Marcus? He is only stealing some of our meat, and picking off some of our rats.”

Marcus pointed out the village of Razork and circled it neatly. “Skegga probably knows our only recourse is to move troops through Razork. He wants to provoke us into massing our forces there so he can funnel us into this area between the forts of Gromelin and Tarakht. King Shrykul, this looks like a mountainous region.”

The King nodded slowly. “Razor Ridge. It is being called throat of the fat-beards. Two stone cliffs on either side look into the ridge below. It is being only pass into Dwarf lands.”

“In other words,” Marcus continued. “A chokepoint. He wants us to commit our forces there – bait us into a frontal assault and then, with reinforcements from his line of fortresses, finish us while we have no room to maneuver.”

“He is thinking we are fools!” Festicus screeched.

“He is being right,” Shrykul said. “We should have been pushing back against the Dwarves years ago. Now, we are paying the price.”

“But Ssshai Alud,” Verulex asked. “Sssssssurely you are having alternative plan?”

The rats listened intently, leaning forward as much as their stiff chairs allowed them to.

“Nope,” Marcus said simply. “I intend to do exactly as Boss Skegga wishes.”

The Rats glared at him, and slowly the assembly’s eyes turned to the King.

“I am thinking the Shai-Alud was being a hero, Sire Shrykul. Not a butcher.”

Marcus ignored the quip from Festicus, and began scribbling on the map again.

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“Broadly speaking,” he said. “There are two conditions that, once met, signal the inevitable end to any war. One: the enemy no longer has the capacity to move. This is a condition Skegga hopes to achieve. If we give him any more time, he will achieve it.”

The Ratmen waited. Marcus let them.

“And the sssssecond condition?” Verulex hissed.

Marcus smirked. “One combatant establishes aerial superiority over the other.”

Amidst the sea of their blinking eyes, Marcus then began another series of doodles which were focused on the village of Razork, the ruins of Gulchnavel village and the twin forts of Taracht and Gromelin that lay on the opposite side of the Black Gulch.

He explained his plan in broad strokes, going through the rationale behind his hypothesis, and the practical application his theory held if it was correct. Then, he explained exactly how they could turn the tide of this war, ending with the stipulation that they’d have to act quickly.

When he finished crossing out both depictions of the twin forts, he put his quill down and sat back. Waiting. Observing the incredulous faces of all the ratmen assembled.

Slowly, he began to see the lights of bloodlust and conquest glaring in their eyes, spilling from their flaring nostrils.

“Thissssss isssss a mosssst devioussss plan,” Verulex said. “I am not believing the Sssssshai-Alud would truly have had a Rat’sssss sssssoul within him…”

“How…” Festicus stumbled, looking from Rat to snarling Rat. “H-how do we know this is possible?”

The Rats looked towards the small form of Ricket who, now, had ceased shaking entirely. Now he sat rigid, his eyes glued to Marcus’s markings on the map.

“I – I suppose…” he fumbled. “That is – we – we have never tried…we have only ever needed…”

“We would still be having the problem of Skegga’s army,” Shrykul said. “Any engagement at Razor Ride would be costing us much, even if we were able to be cutting off Skegga’s reinforcements so…completely.”

On this, Marcus decided to address everyone.

“You will all have noticed the Kobold auxiliaries outside,” Marcus said, meeting their disgusted stares head on. “Their leader – Ix – has told me much of how your enemy thinks. You think them simple-minded, and utterly without the concept of loyalty. But, in truth, they are loyal to one thing and one thing alone: power. As soon as they doubt the strength of their God, they will turn tail and flee the field. The battle will become little more than a cleanup operation. And there’s nothing better than death from above to call into question the Divinity of a loving God.”

Festicus, for the first time since they had met, actually smiled at Marcus, showing all his jagged teeth in the process. The notion of slaughtering the Kobolds was tantalizing enough for him. Slaughtering them once they’d abandoned all hope? That really got his Clan Marrow heart racing.

Verulex, as befitted his nature, stayed quiet. The Mayor seemed totally out of it, and King Shrykul stood with his hands cupped over his nose, considering the possibility that all the things Marcus said might actually be true.

It was now or never, then. He held their entire future in his hands. He wasn’t going to waste his words this time.

“King Shrykul,” he said. “I request permission to travel to the village of Razork with a small detachment as soon as possible to verify my theory. If this works, you could be sitting on the greatest strategic advantage your species has ever known.”

The King was sitting silently, eyes closed, head far back in his seat.

Skeever shifted beside him. He had hated the idea when Marcus had revealed his hunch to him. Good, honorable Skeever didn’t believing in deception, it seemed.

But honesty and honor weren’t how you won wars. The Rat would either learn that, or perish. He’d have to make the choice.

The King turned to face him, looking at the Shai-Alud of legend with his dark, weary eyes.

“But you want something in return, Sire Marcus,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Marcus didn’t hesitate, even as the other rats had perked up their furry ears with interest.

“I have two conditions for my helping you,” he said.

Shrykul narrowed his eyes but never let his smile drop once.

“This is ridiculous!” Festicus stammered. “No human can be making demands of a King of our –“

“Be holding your tongue, sssssoldier of Marrow,” Verulex broke in. “Thisssss isssss being no ordinary human.”

Shrykul barely seemed to hear any of their verbal sparring.

“Name them,” he said.

“First, when we retrieve the Prime Putrefact, you will command him to send me home immediately, releasing me from your service and any further commitment to your cause.”

Shrykul didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t even blink. And Marcus, feeling the eyes of the rest of the audience on him, fought against the notion that he’d just made a huge mistake.

But then the narrow beads of the Ratman king settled, and he gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

“I am supposing it cannot be helped,” he said. “The Shai-Alud is valuing his past more than his present or his future. He could be a prophet among us, but does not care.”

Marcus ignored the little part of his brain that agreed.

“You wished for honesty, King Shrykul,” he said. “I am giving it to you.”

The Ratman monarch huffed. “Before I am agreeing, in front of my council, I would hear your second condition.”

At this, Marcus smiled, casting a sidelong eye at Skeever.

“Skeever-Steelclaw shall take command of the vanguard force that rides out with me,” he said. “Furthermore, he shall act as my personal bodyguard.”

Skeever’s eyes flared with flame as he started to comprehend what Marcus had just said.

“W-what?”

Marcus watched Shrykul’s lips curl into a macabre smile.

“S-sire,” Skeever railed. “My King – surely you cannot be considering this?”

“You once promised to be serving me and my realm, Skeever-Steelclaw,” Shrykul replied, still with his eyes glued to Marcus’s. “Are you forgetting this?”

“No – n – no, Sire, of course, but –“

“Then your realm is calling, my soldier. Will you deny it?”

Skeever cast a fierce look at Marcus that said, You kept this from me.

And, Marcus, with the tiniest shrug of his shoulder, cast a look back that replied, Of course I did.

Meanwhile, the rest of the room waited on the King of Clan Red-Eye’s determination. Every rat present knew Shrykul. They knew of his valor in battle as a young rat. They knew of the valiant sacrifice he made in laying with the Queen of his Clan, and they knew that, with a mere twist of his whiskers, he could flay this human’s skin from his bones and see what a Shai-Alud was really made of.

But what they didn’t know – or had never tried to see – was the almost childish joy that erupted from him as he laughed before he gave his answer.

“Done,” he said. “Festicus – be getting this man 70 of your finest cavalry. He is riding out tonight.”

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