"I'm telling you I saw it last night," Elysia insisted. The other guards were staring at her in the darkness. Overhead she heard the rumble of wheels as a cart passed over the top of a sewer manhole. "I saw him in the guard office. It was about ten meters from us. It was Fritz Helstaff, and he is the man we saw talking to the ratfolk."
"Yeah, sure," Rudi said as he cast a concerned look behind him. "And he was secretly plotting on the Emperor Sebastian Kaisar Octavian and the sorcerer Rubert Schröder."
"I am telling you that it was Fritz Helstaff who spoke to the ratfolk."
"You're not from Bergheim, are you, young Elysia?" Hef spoke in a calm, hopeful tone, as if he was genuinely concerned with clearing up any false apprehensions the catgirl might have. "Do you know who Fritz Helstaff is?"
"The head of the Bergheim secret police, that is; the scourge of mutant scum in this city," Spider chimed in, and the back of her jaw twitched. Elysia didn't know that the twins were such big fans of Helstaff. "And the head of the secret police doesn't go around consorting with wererats."
"Why not?"
"Because he is the head of the secret police, and the head of the secret police would not do that kind of thing. It's obvious, isn't it?"
"Well, it's irrefutable logic, Rudi; but I tell you that I saw it with my own eyes. He was the man who was in the sewers."
"Are you sure you're not mistaken, catgirl? It was very dark down there, and your Darkvision is not perfect."
"I'm sure," Elysia replied. "I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life."
"Well, even if you're right, and hey, I'm not saying you are, what can we do about it? We cannot go before Duke Emmanuel and say: 'do you know that your most trusted adviser has been sneaking through the sewers under your palace in the company of giant talking rats?' She didn't even smile as she said this.
"I would ask you how many sleep roots you have been chewing and order his personal guards to lock you in a cell." Spider added.
Elysia knew that they were right. What could they do? They were just ordinary guards, and the man they were talking about was the most powerful person in the city. Perhaps it would be best to forget the whole thing. He would soon be far from here, and that wasn't her problem.
But the thought of her bothered her. What was the terrible and feared lord of the duke's secret police doing in the company of the ratfolks? What influence could they have on him?
"Well, that's enough," Rudi declared. "Let's get back to work."
♦ ♦ ♦
The Tzarkal host leader looked up at his Vermin Warriors. They filled the chamber of that tunnel and the musk scent of him was sweet. His heart swelled with something akin to pride. These were large, stocky ratfolks, with glossy, well-groomed black fur that matched their handsome black lacquered armor and rune-encrusted black iron helmets. They were the elite: well-fed, well-garbed, well-disciplined, ratfolks who were as much above the lowly clanrats and slaves as he was above them. He commanded two dozen of the best warriors his clan could provide, and in the coming war that number would grow to two hundred or more.
He didn't need all of his strength for that mission, since it was simple: the elimination of some pink-skinned human-things; something easy. The Black Magician Dhalthar had made it clear that this would be the case, and despite not liking the new boss, he was in total agreement with him. He even doubted that he would need more than four vermin warrior claws to take down a few lowly human-things warriors. Behind him, Dhalthar gave an impatient little bark, and the rat-troll with him roared angrily.
A slight shudder of fear ran through Tzarkal as he beheld the formidable muscles and claws of the gigantic hybrid. It must have cost the sorcerer a good chunk of his manastone stash when he bought it from the Shaper Clan Transmutation Lords, and from what Tzarkal understood, he had proven himself worth every ounce of that mineral.
Despite that, he would not allow himself to be rushed. There were certain conventions that had to be observed, and he had to maintain face with the soldiers. He kept the slightest trace of the anxiety he felt from showing in his bearing, and suppressed the urge to excrete the musk of fear.
He twitched his nose authoritatively, then flicked his tail to attract everyone's attention. Two dozen pairs of alert pink eyes turned to look at him.
"We will go to the great stench below the human-city," he told them. "We are going to kill five human-things that guard the tunnels. They are enemies of our clan lord and have slain-slain a clan brother, yes. Vengeance and human blood will be ours. Fight well and they will be your most breeders and most mana stone. Fight badly and I will chew your insides with my own fangs."
"We hear you, host leader" they responded with deafening shrieks. "Glory to the clan! Vengeance for our clan brother!"
"Yes-yes, blood-vengeance for our clan-brother!" Tzarkal grinned, exposing row upon row of sharp, serrated fangs. In ratfolk culture this was a threatening gesture, and the followers fell silent. He was pleased by the fear he imposed on them.
Yes, he wanted revenge for Squal, for they had belonged to the same brood and, fighting together, had worked their way to the top of the clan. Through conspiracy and murder, they had come to power. He understood his brother's ambitions, and insofar as he trusted anyone, he had trusted Squal. He wanted to shed the blood of those who had killed him. That would make up for him, to some degree, for the inconvenience of having to find another ally in the great game of clan politics.
Perhaps The Black Magician Dhalthar would serve him, if he didn't try to plunge a serrated knife into his back first. Well, time would tell.
He sank his teeth again, and the vermin warriors relaxed. He was eager to visit the bowels of the city once more. He liked to sneak through the vast stinking maze. It was a change from that monstrously barren Underway outpost he had been forced to occupy ever since Gritch, Warmaster of Clan Scritt, had subjugated Clan Arkan and ordered them to invade the human city. He was glad that the stupid human-thing had had enough sense to contact them for a solution to his problem. The guards were a potential threat to the grand plan, and nothing must threaten the pawn they had on the surface before they took over the city.
He wasn't sure what Gritch's grand plan was, but that didn't matter. He was a simple and evil soldier, and it was not his place to philosophize about the methods the Rat King chose to command dominance over him. His task was simply to eliminate the enemies of Clan Arkan, and that was what he intended to do.
♦ ♦ ♦
Elysia was uneasy. It wasn't just the number of rats she'd seen that worried her, but the way they followed her. She told herself not to be stupid, that the rats weren't following him, that they were just there as they had always been inside the sewers. Her imagination was playing tricks on him, as it often did.
Her eyes swept over what the other guards called 'the cathedral', the confluence of several of the largest sewers in the city. It had been designed in a style that she thought she recognized as characteristic of dwarven architecture, and that she called Humanamete Dwarf. She knew that the dwarves who had built those sewers were refugees who fled the Mountains when their lands became too dangerous. They had come to the human territories with a wealth of engineering knowledge and a tremendous nostalgia for their ancestral homes, built beneath the mountains.
Surely the man who was then ruler of Bergheim, an enlightened man, had put his knowledge and skills to good use to improve the sanitation of the city, which would grow in the future. And they had responded to the challenge by creating places that looked more like grand temples than sewers.
Powerful arches supported stone constructions that had withstood centuries without maintenance. Intricate stone carvings adorned the arches, bearing the ancient dwarven symbol of the hammer and shield. The work had been beautifully executed, yet it was also functional. Of course, time had eroded much of it, and crude patches of plaster and brickwork filled in the cracks where human maintenance teams, less skilled than the original builders, had carried out emergency repairs. But that place located almost below the Duke's palace was a sewer fit for a King.
And then, Elysia suddenly realized. She saw how vulnerable those ancient master builders had made the city vulnerable. She recalled Frey's account regarding how the ratfolks intended to attack Riverheim, the capital city of the Riverland duchy and her first encounter with Ratfolks; from the least expected direction: from below.