-One Month Later-

-Fort Festigraf, edge of Boss Skegga’s Territory-

Head-Yip Mivvy watched the deep green pools of the Black Gulch swirl with no alternative, stifling the yawn that was traveling up his tiny red throat.

He spared little thought for the chitter-chatter of his men as they boasted of the ratmen they would hang or strangle on the battlefield. In the wake of the Massacre of Razork Field, Big Boss had been mobilizing his forces and getting ready for ratman attack. For the first time – ever – the Big Boss told them it was time to defend against their enemies.

The furry little bastards would be coming for them.

Mivvy decided to join the rest of his Slingers on the western battlements of his fortress, who were currently engaged in the task of spitting as far as they could into the undulating waves of the great Gulch below them.

“Meh-meh!” Mivvy grunted as he came to stand beside them. “You call that spit-spit! This is spit-spit!”

He reeled back, retched, and spat a globule of puss that flew further than the rest – disappearing like a bubble in the dark emerald broth they were guarding.

“See?” Mivvy grunted as he elbowed the Yip beside him.

The Yip nodded somewhat hesitantly, and Mivvy took note. Lately, the excitement of his men had been low. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue – Boss Skegga had enough Yips to replace each one tenfold. Lately, however, their fort on the edge of the Boss’s stronghold had been getting less and less supply trains. The Yips were tired, and they were afraid – he could see that in their sleepless eyes.

“Boss-boss,” one Yip murmured. “When we kill-kill the ratmen? My sword waits for them. It waits – but we don’t go.”

Mivvy watched his men nod furiously in agreement with this notion.

“Boss Skegga say ‘wait and defend while I build up great army!’ but we wait for two weeks now. Our bellies rumble-rumble! Why we not go, cross Gulch, and kill-kill all rats now-now!”

Mivvy listened to these complaints with an indignant sniff, and then closed his eyes as he allowed them to pass in one spiky ear and out the other.

Then, without warning, he kicked the first Yip that had dared voice opposition to Boss Skegga straight into the Gulch below.

And while the others yelped and pleaded for mercy, watching their friend sputter and die until a series of frothy bubbles were all that remained of his meek existence, Mivvy decided to raise his voice to a thundering falsetto:

“You bring dishonor to our fort-fort!” he screeched. “We are first defense against stupid rat-rats. Do you doubt Boss Skegga’s plan? Do you forget that we have five-five dwarf big guns now? We wait for his word, we take the cannons south, and then we watch rat-rats burn. Patience is what you must learn-learn, my Yips! You must know this thing!”

He watched the forms of his men shudder at his very shadow, and tried his best to keep from smiling.

“Do not worry! I will be leading you into fight-fight. We of Festigraf will be famous in Kobold tale-tales!”

The Yips knees buckled, their fingers rose to point at him – at Mivvy, their glorious leader.

“Do not fear Mivvy!” Mivvy shouted, puffing out his chest and planting his spear in the ground. “He is brave, yes-yes, but you can be too! You can be-“

“H-head Yip?”

Mivvy rounded on the impenitent Kobold that had just interrupted him.

“WHAT-WHAT?! Do you want to join your friend-friend in the waters below? Are you so stupid that you wo-“

“LOOK TO THE SKY-SKY!”

Mivvy heard the words. He saw now that the Yips had never looked upon him with fear. Instead, they looked upon the balloon-beasts that were now floating towards the fort battlements, each one of them being ridden by a ratman carrying halberds and spears that could cut through the hardest leathers Skegga had provided them.

And the beasts they rode upon – it…it had to be them. The scourge of Razork. The Glitterpa-

“SLINGERS, FIRE!” Mivvy screamed. “FIRE – FIRE AT WI-“

Mivvy found that he was unable to finish his exclamation. Instead, he felt blood spurt from his throat and block the words, and his claws flew to grab the spearshaft that had just been launched by the one-armed rat that was staring down at him, jumping from his mount as he and his comrades kicked the Glitterpaks towards their walls.

Then the walls of Festigraf bloomed with hellish fire, and the fate of the recently drowned Yip no longer seemed so bad.

…

-Grindlefecht, Boss Skegga’s Stronghold-

“SILAAAAAAS!”

The dark-skinned ratman carefully stepped over the beheaded Kobold Head-Yip lying at the foot of Skegga’s temple entrance. He then narrowly avoided the mangled body of a dwarven prisoner – or, at least, what was left of him – as it was hurled in his general direction.

“Sire,” Silas said as he ambled before the throne of the thundering Toad-God. “You are seeming upset.”

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“Upset?” Skegga roared, crunching down on five Kobolds that fit into the palm of his pudgy right hand. “UPSET!? You sneaking, sniveling, dirty rodent! Look at all these infidels that line our glorious golden hall! You think I shall stop at them, Silas? Should your Lord lose another single fort this day, it shall be your guts that coat the insides of my temple!”

Silas looked around him, feigning fear and appropriate levels of apprehension at the grisly tapestries of Kobold intestines and entrails that decorated the interior of the temple. With each passing day, and with each passing loss, it seemed the place of worship was becoming more crimson than gold.

These days, Skegga barely maintained a retinue of Honor-Guards. The last Yip that had suggested they forge a path towards Razork again had been tied to a stake and put to the torch. Yet another had been fired from the now operational cannons the sat atop the high walls of the fortress’ gatehouse.

“I am hearing the reports of Festigraf’s falling,” Silas said carefully. “Most grave news.”

Skegga’s slimy hands practically crushed what remained of his floating throne’s armrests.

“It was the beastly, bloated bugs!” he shrieked. “The dumb balls of meat and gas that burn brighter than even our dwarf guns when put to the flame! How were the Masters not telling us! How were we not knowing of the power of these little beasts?”

A sound question, Silas pondered. But then, none of us are knowing. None of us are ever being bold enough to assault our own source of nutrition in this cesspit. None, of course, except an outsider like this Shai-Alud. The one they call ‘Marcus’.

Silas had learned much of this man over the course of the last month. And what he had learned filled him with a mixture of tepid excitement and existential dread.

But, more than anything, what he had learned was a simple fact that he had suspected when this war began but never truly known to a certainty. The reality of this fact had become so clear to him when he learned of the Kobolds catastrophic defeat on the field of Razork village. That had been it – their last main counteroffensive. Now, with Skegga practically shaking in his flying chair, they were simply hunkering down and waiting for the end.

And that – Silas knew – could take a very long time indeed…

“Silas,” the odious Toad-God spat, his bloodied tongue flecking out to throw spittle and brain-matter at the straight-backed ratman. “You always stand so silent. Thinking you are oh so clever – don’t you? DON’T YOU?!”

To this, the ratman said nothing. He simply waited for the tantrum to subside.

“Your precious dwarf-man assassin was a failure. Your raid against Razork was a failure. Since this Shai-Alud has risen, he has made nothing but a fool of you. How do you like that, ratman? You are a fool before a human!

And when he comes here,” Skegga added, rising and taking his massive, infected gut with him. “It will be your head they shall take first. Your comrades will flay the skin from your bones when they discover your treachery! Mark you, you putrid little beast – if you value your life, you will show me results! You will tell me that your Lord is right to place his trust in a scheming little man like y-“

At that moment, the doors of Skegga’s grand temple were thrown open and a pair of excitable Kobolds came charging through, each one carrying the end of a brown burlap bag.

“W-What is the meaning of this!” Skegga roared. “HOW DARE YOU DISTURB THE GREAT SKEGGA!”

“I am apologizing,” Silas said, trying to keep from smirking. “These Yips are coming to you under my orders.”

“YOUR ORDERS!?” the toad-pretender wailed. “What now, Silas? Have you chosen your tomb already? Shall we inter you in that little bag, and throw you back to your spume-covered Queen? Shall we take you now? Is that what you want? Is – is – is that…”

The interruption to Skegga’s rant this time came from no one at all. His voice simply trailed off when the Kobolds, at a nod from Silas, emptied the contents of their bag onto the floor of the temple.

And a fly-ridden human head tumbled out with little fanfare.

Streaks of bloody blonde hair framed the young, but not distasteful, face. His sapphire eyes glared up at Skegga with dull intensity – just as they had in life. His open mouth betrayed lines of broken teeth and a tongueless maw that gaped up at the God as though in complete awe.

“Wh-what is…”

“May I be presenting to you the Shai-Alud,” Silas said with appropriate pomp, giving a little flourish of his tail around the head. “He is being captured on the outskirts of Festigraf battle, his ratling friends fleeing as we are taking back the fort earlier today. As you can be seeing, he shall no longer be causing us difficulty. Human head is being easily removed from shoulders.”

At first Skegga stayed stiff-backed and shaken, unwilling to even float forward and prod a single flipper at the fleshy skull.

“Is…is he…really dead?”

Silas stifled a laugh. “I am not knowing human that can live without skull, Sire.”

And all at once, the rage that had boiled in Skegga’s great stomach for the past two weeks suddenly subsided. He looked upon the vacant face of his hideous human, and took it up in his hands.

“You,” he said, speaking directly to the still wet head. “You caused us quite a bit of trouble, didn’t you? Little ugly man. Well, no matter. Look at you now – eh? Not so strong, not so inspiring. You’re dead. Dead and gone, just like the rest of your precious ratling helpers!”

With a gargantuan spurt of sudden energy Skegga lobbed the head at the ground. It bounced, broke and splintered, spilling the contents of its skull across the temple floor.

“Put him atop our greatest spike!” Skegga roared. “Place him at the front of the stronghold. Let all the rats see what has befallen their savior! Silas – Silas my dear little servant – you have finally come through for your Lord! Perhaps you shall have a place by my side after all as I journey to the heavens unimpeded!”

Silas brushed off loose pieces of stray brain-matter from his jacket.

“Sire,” he ventured. “With the Shai-Alud dead, the armies of Shrykul are being leaderless and shaken. They are being sure to be in their most vulnerable state. It would be wise, now, to be launching counterattack.”

Skegga considered this, watching his Kobolds take the ugly head away gleefully, hopping about, slipping on the dried blood of their slain comrades.

“What did you have in mind, Silas?” the great toad grunted through his smiling jaw.

“A mass commitment,” the rat replied. “We should be commencing two-pronged attack across both fronts. One to be wiping out Razork and its Glitterpak production capacity, another to be attacking from Black Gulch to be striking ratmen as they try to rebuild Gulchnavel village for food. Be sending all Yips from surviving forts and towns. Be letting them know the hour of your ascension is being –“

“We shall do better than that,” Skegga murmured, chuckling ruthlessly as he rose to his full height to make his proclamation to all who would hear him within his walls: “Be sending a message to all who man the walls – Skegga himself shall lead this grand charge! All Yips are to ready for battle! Call up the engineers! Call up the palace guards – have them fitted with the armor of the fat-beards! Call every male and female Yip and be giving them a weapon! I shall put the skull of the rats’ precious Shai-Alud on my tallest spear and ride my chariot into battle with him! Our time of victory is at hand, my children – and it shall be glorious. Oh, yes – glorious! Skegga shall lead you into our ascension - just as he promised!”

Silas endured the cheers of the Kobolds still living in the temple and then watched them go off to deliver the great proclamation of their God. A final Mustering – the creation of an army to end all armies. The fists of Skegga would come down hard, crushing what remained of the ratman Empire.

As Silas cleared the temple compound, he allowed himself a fleeting smile.

“Yes, Skegga,” he murmured as he returned to his chambers to prepare for what was to come. “It shall be a glorious day for us all.”

###

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