บท 115: Chapter 115 - Rat Hunters, Part 8
Before her, Elysia saw the lights of The Stinky Pig, and a wave of relief washed over her. If the tavern was not entirely safe, it would at least be better than this nightmarish chase through the dark streets, with a horde of screeching ratmen trailing after him. She saw that Boris, Stephan, and a host of their companions were out in the street, cupping their hands to look into the distance.
"Alert! Ratfolks!" Elysia yelled and saw everyone reach for her weapons.
In a matter of seconds, the swords flashed in the light of the burning city. From inside the tavern, a series of armored figures emerged into the darkness. Elysia was relieved to see Frey's massive, armored figure between them, for under the circumstances there was something reassuring about the massive sword the dark hero clutched in his hands.
Elysia ran to the warriors as they prepared for the ratfolk attack. Behind her, the wererats, unwilling or unable to give up the heady rush of pursuit, closed in in an avalanche of fur and fury.
The catgirl moved through the group to stand next to Frey, whose eyes held the usual expression of insane glee that always appeared before combat.
"I see you've found our mousey friends, catgirl." Frey said at the same time that he ran a thumb along the edge of the weapon, producing sparks due to the friction of the gauntlet with the blade of the weapon.
"Yes," Elysia gasped, struggling to catch her breath before the fight began.
"Good work! Let's go to kill them!"
♦ ♦ ♦
Dr. Niccolev looked around her, certain that something was very wrong. Many of the warriors had gone to the battlements to watch the fire and had not returned.
Osval Yeronymus had already ushered the women back into the ballroom, and messengers had been running between Osval, Lady Emilia, and those outside.
It was crystal clear that something was up, and he needed to find out what it was. Niccolev would swear that Osval had ordered the orchestra to play louder to drown out the sounds of the riot, her intuition as a doctor told him so.
"It had to be like this" thought Niccolev, who knew that he had just guessed the truth. Something was happening, and in order to avoid panic, Osval was trying to cover it up.
He looked around at the others present, and adjusted his mask. Most of those in the ballroom were ladies of rank, along with a few hangers-on and sycophants, and others who were simply too drunk to leave the room. Of course, there were footmen and a few guards as well, but the situation was not very reassuring.
She looked in Osval's direction, curious as to what was going on. The secretary was dressed as a wood elf warrior, bow and all. Niccolev approached him, adjusting the garments of his clothing.
"What happened?" Niccolev asked.
"Riots in the city, Lady di L'Orme. Fires and maybe worse. With the permission of her highness, I have ordered the soldiers from the barracks to solve the problem."
"So, nothing bad happens in the palace?"
"Not that I know; but I have ordered the guards to double check."
"Let's hope that the causes are only looters. Things have been pretty bad lately."
"I fear the worst." said Osval, looking up as another messenger approached.
Niccolev agreed with him, as her senses as a magic user told him that powerful magic was concentrating near her.
♦ ♦ ♦
Chang cursed and ducked out of sight. That place smelled like a dung heap. Looking around her with her dark-accustomed eyes, she realized that she was, indeed, in a human toilet. "Well, there are worse places to hide." He told himself, but that was not going to contribute to the success of his mission.
He knew it would be useless, that he would not make it to the great room above the ballroom that he and the Black Magician had agreed upon. All the stolen palace maps that he had studied, and that he still kept in his memory, confirmed that. He wouldn't have time to get there, for even with his supreme sneaking and stalking skills, he doubted he could travel that distance without being seen by the mass of humans that crowded the palace corridors and headed for the battlements with the to see what was going on down there. He would have to settle for this place.
He took the backpack off his back and stuck a paw inside it. The heat and glow from the spy gem told her that he had arrived just in time, perhaps even a little late.
He wondered how long the Black Magician had been staring into the darkness inside the pack. He shuddered at the thought of Dhalthar's anger as he crouched down, nuzzled against the side of the stone, and gave a thumbs-up sign.
♦ ♦ ♦
Elysia ducked to avoid the blow of a jagged scimitar, and lashed out with her sword. The blade caught under the ratfolk's ribs, slashing upward for the ratfolk's heart. The ratfolk gave a bloodcurdling, high-pitched shriek, clutched at its chest, and died. He fell to the ground as the catgirl ripped the sword from her body.
Elysia looked at the melee around her. To her right she saw Heinz blowing the brains out of a Ratfolk chieftain with a club he held in his left hand, while he parried another's attack with a sword he wielded in his right. Boris and Stephan were fighting back to back amid the tide of wererats. Coming from somewhere further away, she could hear Frey's war cry.
At that precise moment it was difficult to tell how the fight was going. The mercenaries seemed to hold their own against the ratfolks, and the battle seemed to have attracted the attention of others.
Humans were coming out of the nearby apartment buildings. Some brandished bed warmers, pokers, and other makeshift weapons. Others carried swords or crossbows, and some held rather more useful-looking instruments of destruction. Apparently, the citizens had decided that they preferred to find their end in a confrontation with the enemies, rather than die burned inside their homes.
That's good, Elysia thought. The mercenaries needed all the help they could get, as more and more ratfolk streamed through the burning streets, drawn by the noise of battle.
As she stood there, a head flew out of the darkness, turning on itself and spraying blood from the severed arteries; everyone below was stained by drops of black rain.
The curve of her head led her directly toward Elysia, and she brushed it aside with her sword. Salty black liquid splashed across her face, and she resisted the urge to lick her lips clean. Looking down, she saw that her head belonged to a huge ratfolk warrior.
She quickly wiped her face with her cloak, worried that some creature would take advantage of her blindness and thrust into her.
Shaking her head, Elysia cautiously advanced towards the area where Frey's screams came from. Before her she did see a huge crowd and the dark hero standing on something that although at first seemed like a gigantic mountain of corpses, then she realized it was a plague cart. A tide of angry ratfolk was climbing to reach him, but they were mowed down by the hero's terrible sword.
In the distance, towering above the mass of smaller ratfolk, Elysia saw a large wedge of orc-like creatures. It became clear that Frey had seen them too, for he launched himself from the plague chariot into the seething sea of ratfolks, and within an instant, the gleaming greatsword Lævateinn had left a wall of wounded and dying bodies around him as it burst open. step towards the gigantic monsters that were his target.
For a second, Elysia hesitated whether or not to follow the dark hero, and then she moved forward.
"Follow me, boys!" she yelled. "Let's kill a few damn ratmen."
As she thrust left and right, she hoped that the mercenaries had heard her and followed her, otherwise she and Frey would have a hard time when they engaged the rat-orcs.
♦ ♦ ♦
Dhalthar glared into the spygem. His head was spinning, his brain was on fire, and the power of the manastone coursing through his veins like a drug made him feel dizzy and wonderfully good at the same time. At that moment, he was certain that he could perceive the underlying network of mystical forces centered on the crystal. He concentrated even harder to make it work.
At last, he had lit up the darkness; at last, he could see Chang's smiling face. Apparently, the master ninja had reached his goal.
"Good." Dhalthar thought. "It was time." He could barely contain the enormous mass of magical energy produced by the manastone that he boiled within. He felt so saturated with power that he felt like he might explode at any moment. His head was spinning and his vision blurred; everything seemed to ripple around him. He frantically tried to recall the syllables of the incantation he had memorized so long ago from the black book.
For a long moment, his words eluded her, twisting and slipping just out of reach of his thought processes. Dhalthar bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, and the pain seemed to sharpen his wits, for the words came at last to his memory. His lips parted, and his mouth spewed out the syllables of his ancient language, expelling with them a swirling cloud of dark magical energy.
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