The once sprinting Kobolds of Grindlefecht had dropped their weapons before Talon-Commander Ix. They threw themselves to the ground, faces twisted, doubled-over with fear. As soon as the ashen cover had dropped, it seemed they had finally succumbed to rationality. They had realized just how insane all this resistance was.

“Talon-Commander?” the ratman shouted over the crying forms of the now supplicant Kobolds. “Shall we be taking them down?”

Ix calmly stepped forward, his small hands lowering the guns of his squadron.

“Talon-Commander?”

Something had possessed the Kobold in this moment. Looking out at a sea of dead brethren – it wasn’t as though he hadn’t done so before. But to be this close…to be staring into the dead eyes of those who still served Skegga, and to be looking at those still living who now wept before him…something snapped in the normally cool-headed Yip that he couldn’t explain. He had not the words. The only thing he was able to say was simply, “Why?”

He had known his Brothers to always love the spirit of community. Families danced round the totems of their old heroes - the greatest Yips who had made the greatest jumps in history. To see them reduced to unthinking, unblinking slaves like this...it didn't make sense. Skegga was strong, he had come to them with a great story of leaping to the heavens themselves under him, but the Yips Ix knew would never have chosen death over the chance for glory. It didn't make sense. They had always respected and revered bravery, not foolishness. They believed in power, yes, but knew the difference between naked bravado and true strength. Ix had followed Skegga in the past because he truly believed that the bloated fool presented the greatest hope for his people. Of course, he wasn't going to keep following him when he saw that his judgement had been wrong. Stubborness was not a Kobold trait. Pride came from realizing one's mistakes and altering one's perspective to reflect them. No matter what the shadow-rat used to walk among their villages and tell them all, that was something Ix could not forget.

No. No matter how much he wracked his brain trying to understand these foolish cretins that he once counted himself among, he couldn't understand them now. Not their aggression, nor their surrender. It just didn't make sense...

“We should be slaying them here and now, commander!” his ratman underling shouted, bringing him from the realm of reflection back into the cold reality of the present. “Shai-Alud Marcus is taking enough prisoners. These ones are deserving to –“

“Why?” Ix whispered again to the supplicant Kobolds he looked at down the barrel of his gun. Then, voice raising to a shriek of total, unbridled frustration. “Why do you fight-fight when you know you cannot win?”

In response, his misguided brethren simply wailed and beat their heads against the ground. Some of them seemed to be in the grip of a particularly nasty disease – their bellies were bloated and festering beyond all recognition – a fact that only served to irritate the Kobold more.

History would remember them as cowards. As worse than trash. All because of these...these idiots!

“Why do you do this?” he asked the surrendering loyalists. “Look at me! You could have been part of strong-strong side. You could have been making something of your selves! Instead, you are following dumb-dumb Skegga to grave!”

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“Talon-Commander…”

The firm, furry hand of his comrade gripped his shoulder, trying to impart some wisdom back into his small bones.

“Why are you so dumb-dumb!” he railed at the kneeing forces, walking up to restrain them as Sire Marcus had ordered them to do for any surrendering Kobolds. “You do nothing but make our race look bad-bad. Do you not see-see that we must work with our once-enemies to stay strong-strong? Can you not understand that…“

By the time he finished uttering his final word the first of the bowing Kobolds had looked up at him with the smile of one who was possessed. And by the time Talon-Commander Ix had realized what the creatures really bore in their stomachs, it was already too late.

…

Marcus felt the searing heat of the explosions at the top of the hill before he saw the billowing dome of flame that surged through the ranks of Ix’s men, accompanied by the shrill cries of the Kobold forces that cheered to see them burn.

“IX!”

“INTO THEM!” Skeever yelped, practically throwing his men forwards and ordering them to bring their spears to bear against the Kobold army that now turned back to its foes that had followed them, their faces smeared with macabre smiles that spoke of the desire, pure and simple, for bloodshed.

Theirs, and their enemies – they didn’t care now.

The rearguard of the red wave braces as they saw the ratguard charge uphill, Skeever and Deekius taking full command and making sure the Schiltron formation was well maintained and making good speed. Marcus would have been proud to see them work their magic were it not for the fear that had taken grip of his heart the second he saw Ix’s position go up in flames.

The logical part of his brain was trying to work now as best it could, trying to understand the smiles and screams of glee that dripped from the dwindling Kobold forces mouths.

These Yips had no weapons besides their feeble claws and teeth. They were more like rabid animals now than a species that had once called the North their civilization.

But where had their explosives comes from? Marcus wondered, scrambling up with the ratguard to watch the final throes of this battle take place – to see those bloodied scum pay for every ratman and Kobold they had slain this day.

Those…those cannons fell, Marcus told himself as he watched the Kobold rearguard ready itself to meet the steel-thorns of the ratguard. I saw it with my own eyes. They have no ballistics capacity. There’s no way they could have brought any kind of explosive devices to bear against us.

Unless they have a Gloomraava of their own…but no, he would have surely revealed himself by now, or succumbed to the power of the strange magic that dominates this world. Even Deekius couldn’t summon a pillar of flame like that which he’d just seen.

The only other possibility was…

Marcus stopped running. The next few moments of confused screaming happened as a series of flickering images locked in slow-motion: the ratguard charged, spears down and ready for the final strike, while the Kobolds took up their own people in their arms – those who had joined them from the remains of Ix’s now charred position at the top of the hill – and threw them into the ranks of the ratmen like they were living, sentient projectiles.

Kobolds with swollen bellies, trailing through the air with their knees bent, arms hugging their legs, before opening up and exposing their bare bellies to the ratmen spear-columns.

“To the skies, Brothers!” Marcus heard Skeever yelp. “Be bringing them down!”

“W…wait…” Marcus murmured, seeing the mad delight in the Kobold jumper’s eyes and knowing, only then, just how blind he had been this whole time.

“WAIT!”

Only Deekius heard the cry of his General and leaped to cover him from what came next: the Kobold jumpers exploded in a brilliant gout of searing fire that burned through the ratguard ranks, singing them in their armor and sending them flying back into the ruined village below. Marcus saw them burn through Deekius’ arms, watching the hope finally leave their beady eyes as the darkness of the Underkingdom once again gave way to utter chaos, and the loyalty of his rats was repaid in fire and blood and anguish.