The First-Talon watched the eyes of the Talon-Commander of Clan Red-Eye in the split second he had before the latter lunged with his machete, killing instincts well and truly taking over now.

Marcus’s hand flew of its own accord to protect him, firing an arc of chained green lightning at Skeever’s body, which the ratman only narrowly managed to meet with the edge of his weapon. He was pushed back, slowly being dragged from the circle by the power of Marcus’s new ability.

“Deekius, I am being sure!” Skeever roared. “He is being a thorn in my side even in death!”

Marcus grimaced, one eye flying towards Silas as he made his final inkings on the edge of the star-platform. Behind him, his basic barricade was slowly being torn apart by the claws of the ratguard, who had managed to rip through pieces of the doorway.

“Is this the ending you wanted, Skeever?” Marcus asked as he pressed forward, focusing all his remaining strength and willpower into his flaring fingers. “For the sake of the camaraderie we once shared, I’ll offer you this: drop your weapon, and I shall go in peace. Tell your King you did your duty.”

“Tsk!” Skeever grimaced. “You are thinking I will ever trust the word of a human?”

“You dare talk to me of trust?” Marcus screamed back, sounding more rat-like by the second.

Slowly the ratman began to press forward, his blade deflecting the energies of Marcus’s lightning right back at him, so that its thin, deathly tendrils ripped past his shoulders and impacted the furniture and walls behind.

“Sire!” Silas wailed. “I am ready!”

Marcus saw the crimson eyes of Skeever fly towards those of Silas for only the briefest of moments before he turned his attention back to Marcus, taking another beleaguered step towards him.

“You are being a fool, Marcus,” he growled against the cacophony of Marcus’s cackling light. “You are thinking this creature will truly help you escape?”

Marcus saw the intent in the rat’s eyes. He saw him eye Silas again as the Putrefact knelt to intone the words of Summoning – words that Marcus could barely even hear over the chaos that was to be his final moments in the Underkingdom.

“Try it,” he said. “And I will kill you.”

Skeever Steelclaw licked his lips, clenched his fingers tighter around the handle of his Brother’s blade, and grinned.

“You. Will. Try.”

Before the final syllable even left his mouth, he had tossed his weapon at Marcus’s throat, and the killing light of the Gloomraav traveled with the blade – turning the weapon into a vicious boomerang of magical energy that flew for Marcus’s head.

Had the luck of his God been with him, the attack would have severed Marcus’s forehead and sent nothing more than a blathering numbskull into the surface-world. Instead, it tore clean through the Red-Eye insignia Marcus wore upon his helmet and continued on its path of destruction around the room, breaking everything in its path and even slicing through the ratguard who had just managed to get the door open.

But Skeever did not wait to see the results of his desperate attack. As he had launched the blade, he had leaped for the crouched form of Silas, and only Marcus’s lean, lanky body allowed him to intercept the rat and hold him down, pinning him to the chamber floor.

“SILAS!” Marcus wailed as Skeever bit down on his arm with raw, animal strength. “NOW!”

But the Putrefact needed no further instruction. Before Marcus’s eyes, he saw the room begin to spin, then felt a distinct feeling of weightlessness accompany the sudden change in motion. The Summoning Chamber of Grindlefect melted away – a kaleidoscopic vision of browns and greys mixed in with the vibrant crimson of Marcus’s blood rising like a levitating stream above his arm, where Skeever’s teeth had made their mark. The ratman himself had cried out in fury in the very moment when the spinning room finally disappeared entirely, the last sights being those of the ratguard blundering their way into the room and seeing nothing but Silas’s doubled-over form bowed before them.

The world vanished as all light receded. Nothing remained except pure, unfiltered color – a spectrum of light that Marcus could barely comprehend. The entire floor had opened up and swallowed him. The ceiling had broken and given way to the deluge of otherworldly light. It was like the most lucid dream or a hallucinogenic trip brought to vivid, full, and blooming life around him. All sound was gone. All pain – a memory. Nothing but he, his body, and the feeling of motion as he traveled through means unknown towards a destination he could no longer even remember.

Skeever tumbled beside him, his voice lost in the unknown passage between lands. His weapon was gone. His claws, teeth, eyes, and mouth all dribbled and frothed, alight with agony. Perhaps such teleportation magics were inherently dangerous for Ratkin. Perhaps their brains simply could not cope with the sudden onrush of stimuli. Even Marcus was having trouble focusing as he floated towards the twitching rat.

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Skeever seemed to acknowledge his presence. For, as he swam towards him in the psychedelic void, the Ratman’s beady eyes lighted on his face. His face – and the pale hand outstretched towards him. The one that did not bear the marks of the Gloomraav.

“Take my hand!” Marcus shouted, his voice practically a child’s whimper.

Even in this moment of lucidity, Marcus was struck by just how powerful unchecked hatred could be. He saw the shuddering eyes of Skeever see his hand, watching as his fingers stretched towards him. He saw the Ratman look up at him with quiet, seething disdain – disdain born from the fact he had let this human command him all this time. Marcus saw, as clear as the deluge of colors that cascaded down all around them, just how palpable Skeever’s anger was – and how resolute was his belief that Marcus had betrayed him and his people.

Love for his race, and hatred for another. That was the dichotomy that ruled Skeever Steelclaw.

And it was that same dichotomy that made him relinquish his one good arm and kick away from Marcus, floating silently into the psychedelic ocean until he finally disappeared from view.

“Skeever…” Marcus murmured as the lightshow finally began to recede. “Damn you…”

…

He awoke to a sight that he never thought he’d ever see again and had to blink through the hazy blur before his face to assure himself that he was really looking at what he thought he was:

A clear, crisp, pale blue sky.

He took it in. He focused his vision, seeing the sun of mid-afternoon peek through a small wisp of cloud before vanishing again like a celestial deity playing a children’s game.

He breathed. Air. Pure. Unfiltered. A little humid, perhaps, but anything was a blessing compared to the corrupted stank he’d had to put up with in the cavernous realm that now lay below his feet.

As he lay, enjoying the feeling of the sun on his grime-soaked skin, he suddenly began to make out thin trails of black streaking their way through the air – like small blankets being draped across the day. Like little columns of smoke being belched by a cheerful bird gracing the heavens with its flight. Or…or like…

“MOVE!”

Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him up, throwing both of them into the rain-beaten mud of the jungle that had suddenly burst into view before Marcus’s unblinking eyes. Just as quickly as he had picked out the sight of the smoking column streaking towards them, the thing exploded and threw up a blanket of dirt and vegetation across their backs.

“Alright, up, son!” the voice of Marcus’s savior grunted. “The next Hakka volley’s comin’ in three. That’s plenty o’ time ta hog tail it outta dodge!”

Marcus found himself unable to even protest. Without another word, the owner of this voice lifted him up and slung him over his shoulders, sprinting through the thick jungle overgrowth towards a destination that must have been deeply ingrained in his mind – so singular was the path he tore towards it.

Marcus then looked down at the hasty feet of his savior and noticed something even more shocking to his system than the blue sky and clean air of the surface:

This man was a human.

A great, burly mountain of a human, true enough. But – everything – down to his physique, his relative lack of skin-hair, his tailless behind…everything about him just screamed ‘human.’ Everything, that is, except the iron collar affixed to his neck. And the disconcerting, laser-focused imprinting of ‘#621’ along its dull length…

But his voice, gruff and tinged with what sounded like a blend between a country accent and that of an old English peasant farmer, only cemented Marcus’s suspicions.

“By the blazin’ balls of Anathemus!” he laughed, panting with every frenzied step. “I knew that damn light was the work o’ magic. Thought maybe we had a new shaman to help out Jun-Ei, but hot-DAMN did we strike it lucky! Woulda helped you out regardless o’ your station, good sir. But ho-ho! When I saw it was you lying there, smiling up at these skies like you’d never laid eyes on ’em before, well! I knew I’d done the right thing taking the chance during the daily barrage. Name’s Marvin, by the way. Marvin Trellosk. Farmer – well, ex-farmer, technically, owing to the whole slavery thing. But – hey! Now that you’re here, I’m thinkin’ we don’t got nothing to worry about no more! No, sir! Not when we got –”

“Y…you,” Marcus stammered.

Marvin glanced around to see Marcus hanging off his shoulder, bloodshot eyes glaring at him like a hungry gremlin.

“You…you’re human…”

The sprinting ex-farmer smiled a toothy smile. “Sure am, bucko,” he said. “Same as you. Am I your first? Hope I make a good impression. The way I hear it, you’ve been hanging with rats for way too long.”

“Rats…” Marcus mumbled, taking in the sights of increasingly dead or burning trees and foliage around him. “Where…where are we?”

“Questions for Jun-Ei, son,” Marvin rumbled as he quickened his pace. “Brace yourself – next barrage incoming!”

Before Marcus could ask any follow-up questions, the piercing, shrill din of another arcing projectile screamed through the sky towards them, hitting a tree to their left and engulfing it and the small primates that called it home in white-hot fire.

White-hot…Marcus thought. Come to think of it…this increasingly ruined jungle environment does remind me of something…

Another rocket screeched through the air to batter a small river running alongside them, throwing Marvin momentarily off course and sending him careening towards a nearby cave.

“Almost there!” he roared above the din of the next rocket flying right towards them. “Let’s see if you really do have the luck of the Gods on your side, son!”

“W-wait!” Marcus shouted as he looked up to see the dark pillar of screaming death homing in on them as though it were watching them with a killer’s own eyes. The feet of this former farmer weren’t going to outrun it. Not even with all his tenacity and almost childlike confidence. Not this time…

***

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