Rain poured down on the city of Cordoba as lightning flashed in the clouds. In the middle of the town's Eastern wall, a massive dust cloud rose and covered the surrounding area.
Inside the dust cloud, Jesus dueled a man-sized, glaive-wielding rat. With his shield, he blocked a heavy strike from the rat. With the sword he slashed, hitting the metal armor and sending his sword bouncing off.
The rat snickered at the human saying. ' kikiki! Stupid human. Underhive armor is impenetrable! Yes yes!'
Insulted Jesus decided to put the ratman's words to the test. As the rat went for a heavy swing. Jesus bashed it in the face with his shield, staggering it. Next, he thrust his sword into the rat's chest. The sword went through the leather and hit the chainmail under the leather. The ratman let out a pained squeak as the sword pierced its chest, but only a few Centimeters.
Jesus felt his sword get stuck in between the mail. 'Oh shit.' He thought as he looked up from the blade, only to see the wooden end of the glaive coming for him.
With a hard poke, Jesus was hit square in the face, breaking his nose. Making him drop his sword. With an overhead strike, the rat sent it's weapon down. With a loud bang, Jesus got hit on the top side of his helmet. Causing a slight dent to form and making his ears ring.
Jesus yelled in pain and grabbed the glaive handle with both hands. The rat was surprised, that the man was not dead. With a hard kick, Jesus sent the rat flying, without its weapon.
Ripping the glaive of his helmet Jesus walked, glaive and shield in hand, over to the rat laying in the disgusting, multicolored water. As the rat looked up at him in shock. Jesus stabbed the rat hard in its stomach.
As the light faded from its eyes and it sank into the disgusting water, it heard the man speak. ' Whos armor is superior now? You fuking rat bastard!' And then it died.
Jesus looked around the dust-filled battlefield, seeing many similar fights going on. There were no tactics or battle lines just lots of men and rats fighting all around. As he looked around he saw his sword still stuck on the sunken rat. He decided to put the sword back in its hilt and then he lifted his mighty ne glaive and yelled. ' Rally to me! Rally to me!'
Hearing Jesus words the Jesuits quickly formed up behind him as others followed. Together they started slaughtering the remaining enemies. With his new weapon and in an angered state, Jesus cut rats and men into pieces. As the dust started to settle, warrior Ledo came up to Jesus grabbed his shoulder and said. ' Master Jesus! We need to stop and get to new defensive positions! If we stay here we will die! There must still be at least 35 thousand of them out there!'
Hearing this Jesus calmed down. With a few commands, a new line was formed, mostly consisting of peasants. As he was about to order the men into the city's many choke points, he saw it.
With the dust clearing they could see that the entire gatehouse and parts of the surrounding walls had collapsed, creating a massive opening into the city. And there in the rubble, wounded men fought desperately, and in the middle was the Duke.
With horror, he watched as an endless tide of rats were charging towards the Duke and his men. As Jesus lifted his great new weapon.
Quickly Ledo intervened and said. ' No! Don't do it! It's too late! We have no chance of victory in the open!'
Jesus just looked at him and laughed saying. ' We have no chance you say? Hahaha! I say there is no such thing as chance! All there is, is adventure!'
Then he started running towards the Duke, shouting a mighty battle cry. ' For Iberia! Charge!' Repeating these words the Jesuit and regular soldiers charged.
The peasants hesitated until they heard a loud shout. 'For Cordoba! For our homes!' With that, the peasants charged, while shouting this battlecry. Bispo just smiled proudly from the back, mumbling to himself. 'Too easy.'
As two armies charged the ground shook and loud yells filled the skies. From the rooftops and broken walls missiles flew. From the sea on rats stones were thrown.
Using the force Jesus and his 3 followers shot forth past the Duke straight into the rat lines. Boosting their senses and reflexes with the force, they hacked and slashed rats into pieces. Seeing this the men's morale rose as they charged straight into the enemy. Then the armies clashed, and in an instant hundreds of unlucky men and rats who stumbled and fell to the ground, during the charge were crushed under their comrade's feet as they blindly charged to their certain doom. Hundreds died and more were wounded. Rat-ogres broke, crushed and sent men flying. Human spears skewered rats as Halberdiers cut them into pieces. Moles cut men apart with their massive claws as their riders poked eyes, heads and bodies to death. Rats wielding daggers and makeshift weapons killed the unskilled and unarmoured peasants. Peasants fought back wielding pitchforks and their own makeshift weapons.
A boy wielding a scythe cut the unarmoured rats like wheat. A rat with a dagger in hand saw the boy's scythe coming. Skillfully it went to block the attack. The scythe hit the dagger hard sending it flying into the rat's torso. Uncaring of the rat's dagger the scythe cut into the rat, stopping at its spine. The boy pulled the weapon towards himself, trying to free it. Only managed to get the blade stuck deeper in its spine as it dragged the limp body along the ground.
Quickly a man jumped In front of the boy, defending him from the incoming horde. With sickle in hand, he fought the rats, cutting a few small ones down. Seeing this fearsome man. A rat tossed his stone hammer at the man. Flying from a low angle the hammer hit the man hard in the balls. The man screamed in pain. ' Aaaaaaaa! My balls!'
Seeing the man in trouble. The boy with his leg on the rat's face quickly pulled his scythe out cutting the rat in two. Seeing the boy approach, the rats hesitated. The now unarmed rat took pieces of rubble from its feet and started stoning them. Quickly other rats joined in and stoned the two to death until new men took their place and cut the rats down.
Seeing this glorious battle the Duke of Segres quickly joined in. Fighting side by side the Jesuits managed to hold the rats back.
As the fight raged on more armored rats and Rat-ogres joined in, pushing the defenders back towards the cobblestone streets. Crossbow did their best to hold back the ogres, but one by one they ran out of bolts.
Noticing the diminishing missile fire, rat ogres charged. A fearsome armored rat-ogre with a massive Two-handed sword charged straight toward the Jesuits.
Pulling out his sword from a rat, Karl noticed the ogre coming. ' OOO, Guys, we have trouble!'
Warrior Bragi just scoffed and said. ' We can take it.'
Kicking an armored rat to the ground and cutting its neck, leaving it to choke on its own blood. Ledo turned to them and said. ' Jesus we need to pull back to the castle!'
'What and let the rats slaughter the entire city?' The Duke said in anger.
'I think Ledo has a point. Duke, you need to get those men off the walls and retreat back into the city. Lord Bispo has set up barricades in the city. There we will hold for as long as we can. '
The Duke hesitated but as he saw the beast approach he relented. ' Fine! Just hold them back a little bit longer! And don't die, we still need you!' With that said the Duke quickly left accompanied by a few of his men.
The Jesuits formed a shield wall, standing in the blood-covered rubble, surrounded by corpses they withstood the onslaught of rats. Their once-white tabards and cloaks are now covered red by the rat's blood.
Over his shield, Karl watched the rat-ogre as it closed in. Then he saw it, it's pure yellow eyes looking straight at him. As their eyes met the ogre turned towards Karl, finding its first prey. Karl panicked a little seeing this. ' Seriously! Why me man? Just my luck!' He thought to himself. He let the force flow through his veins, empowering himself. This time they would not move. They were determined not to let a single rat pass.
Rats made way for the ogre to pass, as it ran. When in range it grinned evilly and lifted it's sword. With a hard swing, the sword crashed into Karl's shield, bending it.
Warrior Karl fell to one knee as his hand broke and blood came from his mouth. To him, it felt like a 200-kilogram barbell was dropped on his shield with force. The rat-ogre was stunned, for no human should have survived that.
Taking this opportunity the Jesuits stuck the ogres sword hand. Striking gaps in its armor they pierced its exposed flesh, causing minor cuts and bleeding.
Pulling it's arm back it roared in anger, as Karl was dragged away by the other Jesuits to the back lines. Jesus stepped in front of the creature stabbing it in the leg as Bragi and Ledo surrounded it, attacking from the sides.
It sent mighty swings towards Jesus as the other Jesuits pushed past the creature holding the rats back. Jesus dodged the creature bobbing and weaving. With a mighty heavy swing, it sent dirt and rocks flying, like a shotgun's blast, killing a few peasants standing at the sides.
With a hard thrust, Jesus sent his glaive into the creature's neck, digging in deep. It let out a pained roar as it straightened it's back and sent a frontal kick towards Jesus.
With inhumane speed, Jesus managed to move his shield to receive the kick. Like a minivan hitting a deer, Jesus was sent flying. His hard armored body hit a peasant woman hard breaking her ribs. With He's body on top she hit the ground hard, smashing her head into the stone rubble, splattering her brains all over the ground.
As it was distracted Ledo pushed his sword through the creature's left back knee, cutting the patellar tendon.
It fell on its cut knee uncontrollably in pain. Using this opportunity Bragi climbed on its shoulders. The creature struggled trying to shake him off. Until Bragi stabbed it into the same hole that Jesus had made, now cutting even deeper. Feeling it's throat cut it grabbed Bragis hands and tossed him away.
Bragi flew a few meters before landing on his feet and stood up. Watching as the creature held its throat, choked on its blood and died.
Jesus felt his entire body ache in pain as he got up. Luckily his fall was softened by the dead woman under him. With a quick sign of the hammer, he said his thanks to her and joined his men.
3 Jesuits had died while giving them room to fight the monster. Now they had only 14 left and Jesus. As 2 of them had taken Karl away to the castle. In other parts of the defensive line, they could see other Rat-ogres tearing through the peasants and breaking their lines.
*
On a hill Overlooking the city was the castle of Cordoba. From the castle, the Duke of Cordoba watched the battle as he bit his nails in fear. His hair was disheveled and there were bags under his old swollen eyes. He mumbled to himself in a fearful tone. 'It ,it, it's over. The city is lost. I have been betrayed. Father, you, you. You liar, you told me the rats were defeated and gone. You told me not to worry. You said to only focus on managing a domain. You said I would never have to fight a war in my life. You said we didn't have any enemies around us. You, you lied to me! Curse you father and curse you king of Aragon. Where are my reinforcements? They have all betrayed me. Why? It's obvious, they are jealous of my success. My wealth and money. Damn then. Damn you all!'
Listening to this crazy talk his only child and hair Daroba kneeled and spoke pleadingly to his father. ' Father! Do not loose hope. The Iberian armies are coming. I'm sure of it. And even now we are not alone our alliance are fighting barely done there. ' Hearing this he calmed down a little until Daroba said. ' Please father. Let me lead our men into battle. They need us there.'
The Duke turned around and with anger, he said sharply. ' Absolutely not. I will not let you sacrifice yourself on the battlefield. That is the job of lesser men.'
'But father, I.'
'No! No! No!' he said as he walked In front of his son and said. ' Look at your self my son. You are small, no muscles and you are short. You are no warrior. No, you are a thinker. And we thinkers think and let the imbeciles fight. Do you Understand?'
Hearing his father's cruel words he frowned. His father was right he was not tall or strong but like all men he wanted to be. He wanted to practice with swords and do physical exercises. But his father just never let him, saying that it wasn't worth his time. He also didn't understand why he looked down on his fighting men so much. Through gritted teeth he answered 'Yes father.' and stormed off, leaving his crazy father with his own thoughts.
*
From the castle walls, Daroba and his father's men watched as their city was taken bit by bit. The defenders had abandoned the walls and now fought in the city. While some held the streets others fought on the rooftops, fighting for the high ground. The streets were littered with corpses and pools of blood. Some people who were unveiling to fight, now found themselves trapped in their homes as they tried to fight off the rats.
The battle had gone on for hours now making the rats stomach crumble. As a result, they started to eat the human corpses. Seeing this the Granadan men lost hope for their cause and started to flee. The rats noticed this and started to kill all the humans chanting. ' Death to all Humans! Meet for the feast!'
With the 10 thousand Granadans dead or captured for later consumption. The army was now down to 20 thousand.
After cleaning up the loyalist humans the rats took control of all the walls and attacked the city from all sides. None were spared the old, young, women, men or the disabled. All were torn to pieces as the rats advanced. From house to house they went killing families and dragging children from under the beds they ate them all. In the chaos of murder and destruction, candles and fires were left unattended, causing many fires to rise and burn the city.
Seeing these scenes Darobas's stomach turned and heart ached. Unable to watch anymore Daroba turned around. In the distance he saw the clouds start to break, banishing the dark and bringing the light of a new brighter world with it.
Taking this as a sign, he rallied his father's men. And as the gates opened a force of 100 horses rid forth with the sun shining behind them. Followed by a thousand men, leaving the castle almost unmanned.