In a cold chamber where only the dimmest light of a flickering flame burned for warmth, Verulex of Clan Glumrot lay sweating, his body doing what it could to rid its host of the toxins that had addled his veins.

"By…the Unclean," he muttered in his sleep. "May that Yokun…drown…in her…poisssssson."

He gripped his pillow and screamed into its soft surface, cursing the day he decided to volunteer for his expedition. He had begged his King to see the Shai-Alud for himself. And now that he had, he found his spirit…wanting.

"Unclean One," he groaned, the world of his chamber swimming around him as he clutched his pillow tightly to his bosom. "Why do you sssssend usssss ssssssuch a weak…mortal..?"

He knew his wounds would heal. He knew, by the grace of He-Who-Festers, that his magic would be enough to stem the flood of toxic energy flowing through him. Perhaps such chemicals would destroy a lesser rat. But not those of Clan Glumrot – born in spume, breathing corrupted air - bred for resisting even the most harmful of environments.

"My faittttth," he whispered, as though the words would not quite come out even in his hallucinogenic state. "…issssss being tesssssted…"

So fixated was he on carrying on his one-sided prayer to his Lord that he did not hear the guards outside his chamber slump to the ground.

"Unclean…" he muttered, drooping to take up his notched staff and hold it aloft with both his bandaged claws. "Lord…why have you forssssaken your people with a weak sssservant? Do you ssssseek to tesssst me, Lord? Do you really wissssssh me to follow him?"

The door to Verulex's chamber opened steadily. The pitter-patter of tiny paws resounded from the dark entrance only for a moment before the door was once again shut, and the only sound in the room came from the wheezing form of the Gloomraava of Glumrot.

"I am sssseing now," Verulex told the shrine in the dark corner of his chamber – one full of his own dung piles and sprinkled with spume, lovingly cared for. "You…are tessssting me."

"And you have failed."

As the voice of the interloper hit Verulex's ears the priest spun to try and catch the dagger that shot out of the air. But his assailant was faster, cleaving through the ratman's grotesque fingers and piercing his already wounded neck.

Verulex fell against his bed, the last vestiges of life within him summoning the most potent magicks of his kind – magic that reached out with invisible fingers to curl around the heart of his attacker and stop his blood flow before it was too late.

But Verluex then felt an altogether new sensation. He felt a force push back against him. He felt a power that mirrored his own. He felt…resistance.

And then his eyes finally opened. The horrid reality of his last minutes in this world exploded in a vibrant mix of sweating fur, ruby eyes, and snarling, salivating teeth.

"You are being strong, Brother," Deekius told him. "But there is more to living in our world than strength. Only the truly faithful are knowing this."

Verulex's mouth lolled open, his face twitching as he felt his Brother priest's dagger penetrate deeper into his neck, carving through muscle and tendon and stopping any breath he still had to breathe.

"He-Who-Festers is choosing me," Deekius told his slowly dying face. "There is being only one Gloomraava that speaks for one Clan. Soon, I shall be the Gloomraava that speaks for them all."

The dying priest's claws struck out, flailing, desperate – demonstrating little more than Verulex's final spasms before his throat was finally severed entirely.

"B…Brother…" he managed to gargle.

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"Be looking carefully, Verulex," Deekius replied. "I am wanting you to know it was me."

The final cut was then made. The eyes of the old, flailing ratman suddenly became nothing but two oval voids of nothingness, and the tongue that had slaved over every word of the Unclean for decades lolled to the side like a listless snake. Deekius withdrew the Yokun Wakizashi, watching its long surface sheen with his Brother's blood, and let Verulex's old body fell from his hands.

Then, smiling silently to himself, the Gloomraava of Fleapit took his leave.

…

It didn't take long for the alarms of the castle to ring out, and for the guards to rush to Shrykuul's chambers to tell him they needed to evacuate, right now.

"Be silent, churls!" the King roared, angered at having been woken from one of his few moments of respite from satisfying his Queen's nightly needs.

When the guards explained to him that not one, but two Talon Commanders now lay slain under his roof, his face went a shade of white that would have shamed even a blind albino.

"By the Unclean…sound the alarms! Search the castle grounds!"

"It will not be necessary," came the call of a rat that entered behind the guardsmen. "It is seeming that head-priest Verulex is succumbing to his wounds atop the Foundry tower. He is giving his life, as is noble Festicus, for the good of our Clan."

Shrykul balked at this information, distrustful of the priest merely by dint of his caste. He was getting sick of constant preaching, and, even upon being told that it was in fact Deekius who found the body, was about to fly into a lecture that would end with more heads rolling.

"The Gloomraava speaks the truth," another voice said, appearing from the shadows behind the sorrowful priest. "Verulex died a noble death this night. I saw the wounds that the Yokun made against him. They were wounds that could only have been made with a weapon sharper than any blade forged by you Ratmen."

"This is being true, Sire!" one of the guards then shrieked. "We inspected the body – the killing stroke was made across the throat, with a strike far thinner and far deeper than any of our weapons could cut."

"Indeed," Marcus stated. "Perhaps you underestimated the professionalism of your Yokun foes."

Shrykul's face dropped to stare at his hands, trying to keep them from shaking before his subjects. Here, under his watch, the loyal servants of his Brothers had been slain…by Yokun of all things. It meant too much for his mind to calculate right now. It meant the other Clans would call for nothing short of total war against the surface when they found out…it meant retribution from his Brother Kings, perhaps even punishment…how he would avoid this he didn't know. But he knew what his Kingly duty now required of him. That was where he would focus his mind.

"We shall be making preparations," he said quietly. "We shall be sanctifying the bodies in the Grand Cathedral of the Unclean immediately. We shall be readying them for return to their Clans. That much we owe our Brothers. Guards!" he suddenly cried. "Leave us."

Shrykul did not wait to see them go, but he did feel something that surprised him.

The hand of the Shai-Alud hovered on his shoulder, the human's smiling eyes brimming at him with something he never expected to see in this moment: hope.

"They came for me, King Shrykul," Marcus said. "The responsibility for these noble rats' deaths is mine."

Shrykul flew to deny this, but the will of the human seemed even more resolute than it was before. A change had come over him.

"I will make you a promise, my King," he said. "That from this day your war will be prosecuted to the utmost of my abilities. I will lead your people against the threat to your tunnels and crush your enemy – Skegga – and all who swear fealty to him. I will start by questioning the Yokun prisoner in the dungeons below. We must understand our enemies if we are going to be able to soundly defeat them."

The King nodded slowly, his head swirling with the necessity of the funerary arrangements and the need to inform his Brothers of their commanders' passing.

"Yes," he said. "That would…be best."

"Rest assured," Marcus continued. "This insult to your Clan will not go unpunished. I believe I owe it to the memory of both Festicus and Verulex to guide their forces against the threat that is coming for us. And believe me when I say that it may be coming sooner than we think."

Shrykul looked up at this human – this being who bore the face of Sire Marcus – and saw the new determination that lay behind his eyes. Perhaps it was an effect of the Place Beyond where he hailed from, perhaps it was righteous anger at the deaths of his fellow commanders. But there was something there that the King could not quite place…

"Wait," he said. "Guide their forces?"

Marcus smiled again. It was not a smile that invited disagreement. Shrykul knew then that this was a real commander standing before him now.

From the looks of the reverent priest standing behind him, he wasn't the only one.

"King Shrykul," Marcus said. "I think we should have a talk."

###

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