"There's no sign of anything around here right now, catgirl," Frey commented as he looked down the alley. He shook his head and placed one of his strong hands under his chin like a thinker. "Not even the smell."
Elysia didn't know how Frey could smell anything but the stench of garbage that filled Blind Alley, though she didn't doubt that Frey was telling the truth. In the past she had seen too much evidence of the dark hero's keen senses to doubt him now; for she Elysia she learned that her mate possessed a sense of smell only slightly worse than her own.
Elysia kept her hand on her sword hilt and was prepared to call the guard in a matter of seconds. Since the boy brought her message to her, she began to suspect that it could be an ambush, but there was no sign that it was true. The ratfolk, if he was a ratfolk, had foreseen things well and had given himself plenty of time to disappear.
Elysia took another look down the alley. There was not much to see. A little lantern light filtered through the windows of the shops and taverns on Cheap Street, though not enough for him to make out more than the outline of the rubbish and the walls of the buildings looming up. on both sides of the alley, cracked and weathered.
"This is going to hit the Labyrinth," Frey commented. "There are a dozen entrances to the sewers down there. Our mousey friend will be far away by now."
Elysia thought of the meandering set of alleys that comprised the Labyrinth. It was where the poorest and the most desperate wretches of the city lived. She did not like the prospect of walking through that area in broad daylight, especially in order to find a ratfolk there in the dark of that cloudy, moonless night. Still, Frey was probably right: if it was a ratfolk, he'd be in the sewers by now.
Elysia returned to the street and stood under the lantern that illuminated a pawnbroker's sign all night. She unfolded the rough parchment and inspected the note. The calligraphy was strange, with jagged-edged letters more like runes used to enchant weapons than the human alphabet; nonetheless, the language was clearly human language, albeit badly worded and poorly spelled. She said like this:
Friends, be warned! Evil wererats of the treacherous Marchin clan, may they be doomed to syphilis forever, especially that evil enemy Heskit Un Hoj, plan to attack the Faculty of alchemists tonight when the moon has set. They want to steal your secrets for their own heinous uses. You must stop them or they will be one step closer to conquering the surface world."
your friend.
Elysia handed the letter to Frey, who read it, then crumpled it up in her powerful fist and snorted in contempt.
"It's a trap!"
"Maybe... but if so, why didn't they just lure us here and attack us?"
"Who can know how a rat's mind works?"
"You know very well that not all ratfolks are hostile. Some of them may want to help us."
"What happened in Riverheim was just a stroke of luck and a script convenience."
"In agreement. Let's say there's a chance that one faction resents another and wants us to settle the score with the enemy faction."
"And why don't they adjust them themselves?"
"I do not know. I'm just thinking out loud. Tonight is a public holiday and there will be only a few people at the college. All the others will be at the banquet given by Duke Emmanuel to the Guild of Alchemists. Maybe we should alert the guard."
"And tell them what, Elysia? That a ratfolk has sent us a note to warn us that his brother is going to raid the Duke's special armory? Have you already forgotten what happened the last time we tried to warn someone about the ratfolks?"
"Are you saying we shouldn't do anything?"
"I'm not saying anything like that. I'm just saying that we should take care of this by ourselves, without anyone else's help."
"What if it's a trap?"
"If it is, it is. Lots of ratfolk will die for daring."
"We might as well die."
"In that case, it will be a heroic death."
"We'd better head back to The Stinky Pig first. Heinz must be wondering where we have gotten ourselves.
♦ ♦ ♦
"Have you delivered the note like I told you?" asked The Black Magician Dhalthar.
"Yes, yes, oh most ingenious of lords!" replied Tell-Tongue.
"Good. You can go. Stay prepared to receive future orders. If someone asks you what you were doing on the surface, tell them that you were spying on the big male to prepare to kill him. In a sense, it's the truth."
"Yes, yes, oh, the most intelligent of advisers!"
Dhalthar rubbed his front paws. He had no doubt that the big stupid male and his accompanying female would fall into the trap he had cunningly set. The beautifully composed and lovingly written message would see to it. Then all he had to do was wait and make sure that no matter what happened, Heskit's warriors would fail. And he knew the exact way to do it.
♦ ♦ ♦
Heskit oversaw his contingents of warlock engineers with pride. He watched a team of flamethrower-wielding ratfolks test the operation of their bulky and dangerous weapons with all the care of well-trained engineers. The smaller of the two lovingly tapped the fire drum to make sure it was full, while the other kept the barrel pointed at the ceiling for most of the time, just in case of an accident.
Clusters of sweaty slaves rested for a moment, breathing in ragged gasps, tongues lolling from their long, backbreaking labor. They had worked hard and with loving dedication to prepare for that night's mission. They had spent many hours in the task of attracting the sewer guard to points far from that place, and many days of effort with lined peaks, so that the noise was muffled, to finish those structures. Then the ramps were all in place and they were ready to board the surface and invade the human lair.
Heskit inspected the work with highly experienced professional eyes. During his apprenticeship, he had supervised the construction of scaffolding on a large Ratfolk warship destined for sailing in the north, scaffolding that had collapsed on a very rare occasion killing those on top. "It was the wonder of my burrow." Heskit thought proudly. Well, after tonight, his fellow engineers would have even more to marvel at. He would surpass the invention of the farsqueaker, and do even more than his master had done for the ratfolk cause with the invention of the portable torture machine. Tonight he would possess all the proudest secrets of the human race, and then he would enhance them in a thousand different ways.
Heskit knew that he had chosen the moment well. That day was a Human Feast, and the human guard, compared to the usual number of members, would be no more than a skeleton, plus the guards would all be drunk. At that very moment, the members of Clan Furtim were moving across the surface to get rid of the few sentinels that had remained at their post. Soon the time would come to put the plan into action.
A poisoned windthrower sped by, his face hidden behind a metal gas mask. Only the caster's nervous eyes were visible through the quartz lenses. She clutched her glassy sphere of chemical death to her chest to protect it from accident, as a mother bird would protect a precious egg.
Heskit's stopwatch chimed thirteen times. He tugged on the small chain to remove the ornate brass object from his pouch, raised it to his ear, and was rewarded by the loud ticking sound from within the lovingly crafted mechanism. He opened the lid of the stopwatch and looked at the dial, which showed a small ratfolk running with its little legs back and forth with each heartbeat. His long tail marked the thirteenth hour, as did the short sword he clutched. It was thirteen o'clock exactly, in hours and minutes. Heskit turned and signaled for the operation to begin.
♦ ♦ ♦
Elysia gazed at the exterior of the new Faculty of Alchemy. It was an impressive building, more like a fortress than any academic college I had ever been to. The tall, broad towers at each corner would have been more appropriate for a castle than a place of study and research. All the windows that were at ground level were covered with iron bars. The interior could only be accessed through a huge archway through which a horse-drawn carriage could pass.
A soft thud told her that Frey had just arrived and that she had probably fallen into a flower bed.
"Be quiet!" Elysia whispered to him. "Actually, we shouldn't be here."
It was true. Only authorized members of the Guild of Alchemists, their apprentices, and members of the Duke's private army were allowed access to this top-secret place, on pain of death or at least a long stay in the dungeons of the infamous duke's prison.
"The sentinels are all too drunk to notice anything, catgirl. It is an ignominy, but nothing else can be expected from humans."
Elysia reached out and pulled the new cloak from her and placed it on the low wall. The fabric was torn with bits of broken glass and spiked nails driven into the walls. Despite everything, the cat girl thought bitterly. "A torn cloak is better than a wounded hand." She glanced at the sentinel booths by the long gates and had to agree with Frey: it was disgraceful.
One of the sentinels was so drunk that he lay asleep next to his post. But Felix thought there was something strange about the man's posture, and he cautiously approached him to look at him. As he did so, she saw more silhouettes lying down. Was it possible that all the sentinels were drunk and asleep? She moved closer to take a closer look, and drew her sword.
The sentinels were not drunk, but dead. Lying in a pool of blood, they still had a knife stuck in their backs. She bent to examine one, immediately recognizing the manufacture for the ones he had seen in his encounter with the ratfolk assassins at The Stinking Pig.
"It seems that our friend was telling the truth" she said to Frey when he met her.
"In that case, let's go inside and have a look".
"I was afraid you were going to say that".