"I hope you found out more about the Shaper Clan's plan."
Dhalthar allowed some of his anger and impatience to surface in his voice. Over the past few days, Tell-Tongue had spent considerable sums from Dhalthar's treasure chest, but she had yet to see any results. The little ratfolk had a gasping coughing fit.
"Yes, yes!, oh, the most insightful of gentlemen!; that's how it is."
"Good! Good! Tell me! hurry up Hurry!"
"Not at all good, oh most magnanimous of lords!"
"What? What?"
Dhalthar leaned forward to glare at the little ratman, watching him cower. Few could resist the fierce gaze of the Black Magician's red eyes when he saw fit to use it.
"Unfortunately, the evil members of the Shaper Clan have already put their plan into effect."
"Keep going!" Dhalthar yelled, cold fury filling his heart.
"My kinsman heard how the Beastmaster was bragging. It seems that a barge of grain containing the Shaper Clan's secret weapon will arrive in town tonight. Once it arrives, the city will fall. My relative knows that he has something to do with the city's grain stores, but he isn't sure what exactly. The members of the Shaper Clan are very cryptic and have specific words for many things."
"May the Great Rat God chew your kin's entrails! Has he heard anything else?"
"Only that the barge has been painted black to hide it from human eyes, and that it will arrive tonight. Perhaps he has already arrived, oh most magnificent of lords!"
Dhalthar's fur stood on end. What could he do? He could mobilize his troops to prevent the execution of the plan, but that would mean making an open move against Clan Shaper, and every instinct the Black Magician possessed rebelled against that.
And what if he mobilized the troops and they couldn't find the ship? Dhalthar would become a laughing stock, and that he could not bear. There was no time to lose. He knew that the situation required urgent and desperate measures.
He quickly picked up quill and parchment and scribbled a hasty message.
"Take this to the burrow where the large male and his accompanying female live. Make sure they get it. hurry up Deliver it personally!
"Wh… personally, oh most revered of wererats!?"
"Personally." With his tone of voice, Dhalthar made it clear that he would brook no arguments. "Go away. hurry up hurry up Runs! No time to lose!"
"Immediately! O mightiest of lords!"
♦ ♦ ♦
Brothvil raised his rheumatic, hate-filled eyes. He coughed, but the sound of his coughing was lost amid the dry coughs of other ratfolk in the halls.
At last his patience had been rewarded. The long hours he had spent lying near Dhalthar's lair had paid off. Somehow, Felcald knew that the Black Magician had been behind the failure of his carefully conceived plans.
And where did that elusive Tell-Tongue go at this hour?
The pontiff knew there was only one way to find out.
♦ ♦ ♦
"He started the fight!" Elysia declared, and she realized that her voice sounded like a moan. She looked around the room they shared, and her eyes fell on the packages of clothes Frey bought for her. She still hadn't opened them.
"So you say," Elissa replied, adamant. "I think you're just a wild beast. You like to hit people like Hans."
"Poor Hans has left a bruise on my chin!" Elysia demanded with an angry tone.
"Serves you right for cutting his face off." Elissa insisted.
Elysia shook her head in frustration. She was about to enter a dangerous path when the window broke inwards.
Elysia flung herself at the girl to cover her as shards of glass began to rain down. Luckily, not many fell on them, and Elysia rolled to her feet and probed the bedroom in the light of the lantern. On the floor was something big and bulky. She immediately drew her sword and touched him with it, but nothing happened.
-What's that? Elissa asked as she sat up with an attitude of fear and
wrap yourself in the robe.
"I don't know," Elysia replied, leaning in to look at him closely. She then recognized the shape and what she was carrying around her. "It's a brick, and it's wrapped in parchment."
"What? It will be the young Baron Stern again. He and his cronies always break windows when they get drunk!"
"I do not think so." Elysia replied as she unwrapped the brick. The wrapping was the same thick piece of rough parchment in which all the other ratfolk messages had arrived. She unfolded it and began to read.
Friends, the Black Boat brings doom to your city! Come tonight and bring certain death! You must stop her! Go soon! Soon! You don't have much time! It will destroy your grain!
Elysia stood up and began to dress. She remembered what Frey told her that she should do in case a message arrived.
"Run to get paper! I need to send a message. Move on! Hurry!"
The urgency in her voice made Elissa leave the bedroom without asking any more questions.
♦ ♦ ♦
Telltale Tongue rubbed one paw over the other and offered a prayer of thanks to the Great Rat God. She had delivered the message without being torn to pieces by the terrifying greatsword of the armored warrior.
Within minutes of throwing the brick through the window that he learned belonged to the female named Elysia, he saw all the lights in the tavern come on, and soon after, the armored warrior and his female companion ran out of the room. building with weapons and armor equipped.
"A job well done." She told herself with satisfaction, and she got up to leave. She sniffed hard to clear her nose.
She hadn't been feeling too well for a few days. She wondered if she was going to fall for the strange new disease that was rumored to be spreading through the ratfolk camp… a plague-like disease that was killing humans.
Telltale Tongue fervently hoped something like that wouldn't happen to him. He was still young, he had many goals to achieve, and it wouldn't be fair for him to die without having achieved them.
She nearly fainted when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and a horrible gurgling voice whispered in her ear.
"Are you going to tell me what you've been up to! All! hurry up Hurry!"
Despite the large plug of snot filling his nose, he recognized the oppressive stench of Caldovil.
♦ ♦ ♦
"What's the rush, cat girl?" Frey's voice thundered. "We don't even know where we have to go."
"To the river," Elysia replied, experiencing a strange sense of urgency. The note said they didn't have much time, and the ratfolk confidant had never lied to them. "A boat has to arrive by force by the river."
"I know, cat girl, I read the message too; but it is a very big river. We can't cover it all."
"It's a barge! There are very few places where you can moor a barge, and you have to follow the navigable channels."
Elysia considered the possibilities. What certainty did they have that the Black Boat was going to moor, instead of, let's say, explode? None, actually; she simply expected it to tie up. Then she came up with it. The large grain stores were located by the docks, and the note had mentioned grain; at least, she hoped that she had.
"The barns," she murmured. "The northern docks are close to the barns."
"Then the northern docks seem like the best bet." Frey conceded as he weighed his greatsword.
"Well, we have to start somewhere." And they continued running.
Elysia truly hoped that the tavern boy had managed to deliver the note written by Frey to Osval yerónimo.
♦ ♦ ♦
Skitch cursed as the barge veered off course again. It was not a ship ratfolks were used to handling, and the helmsman had had much trouble with the treacherous currents on the run downriver.
Skitch hoped they would arrive soon, for if they did not reach the man-burrows during the hours of darkness, the whole plan would fail. The barge, painted black so as not to be conspicuous on this moonless night, would be as visible in daylight as a human baby among a litter of pups.
Well, he supposed the boat was necessary, since there was no means by which such a huge number of specimens could be transported through the Underways without arousing suspicion.
He knew that the last thing his lord wanted was for The Black Magician Dhalthar or the humans to have the slightest idea what was going on.
It was well known that the plans of Dhalthar's rivals were prone to failure if he learned of their existence. Skitch shuddered to think what would happen if the humans found out what they were doing.
He shook his head and went back to surveying the charge of creatures clawing at the cage bars, desperate to be free.
"Soon! Soon! My little ones!" He told them, with a certain sense of affinity for those short-lived vermin that his powerful intellect had created. He knew they were imperfect, like himself; they would only live a few days.
The boat continued through the night, getting closer and closer to the sleeping city.