“So maybe up to seventy days? Oh, that is great. Great. So what do you expect me to do?”
“TLL I WHAT TO DO,” Cedric wrote. “HW TO TRIN TRIBS.”
Cedric discerned an advantage in the pending threat. If his tribes learned how to defend themselves, they also could learn how to attack as a disciplined force. Oh, they would fight anyway, Cedric had no doubt, and indeed, his tribes were ferocious fighters. They would take their toll of the attackers. However, fighting in a typical wild rat berserker manner was not effective, Cedric realized, and he could lose many of his subject Rats in the battle. Cedric wanted to learn how to organize a battle force, one which would react on command as a disciplined unit. He needed The Man to show him how to organize his fighting force.
The Man thought for a moment. “Why should I help you?”
“U R TRIB. ENMIS KILL U.” Cedric thought The Man’s situation was obvious. He was a part of Cedric’s tribal structure, and he was at risk, just as were all the Rats Cedric had brought together to form his kingdom. Although there was a possibility the enemy wanted to capture The Man and his special food supply.
“All right. I get the message. A question. Will your fighters follow commands under attack?”
“RTS WILL. ND HLP.”
“Hmm,” mused The Man. “Yes, I can see you will need help.” Cedric stared, unrelenting, focused on The Man.
“Listen to me, carefully,” The Man said, with a sigh. “Your fighters will need some protection, some armour. Shields, perhaps, although you may not be able to manage those. Something to protect your throats would be important, I have seen how you fight and kill. You need new weapons—something to serve as pikes, I think. You could use scalpels, they will be sharp enough. It depends on whether your Rats can hold something like a long spear? With the evolved opposing thumb-claw New Rats have developed, it should be possible. Perhaps with shorter handles they would serve as swords, as well. For wild rats, teeth and claws work well enough, I daresay. However with New Rats, we should be able to improve on those basics.”
Cedric did not understand everything The Man said. He squeaked his approval, notwithstanding.
The Man continued. “This is going to cost you, my furry friend. It is time you delivered, as well. Another television set, I think. For me. Yes, I want some entertainment, something to keep my mind off all these watching eyes.” He shouted, spittle flying, pounding his fist against broken floor tiles. “A television set, you little rodent. For me, this time. Understand?”
Cedric did not know why The Man wanted another television set. They had two already, the Rats watched them all the time. He would explore his request, later. He would see if the tribe could steal another one. The problem was coping with the heavy weight. Smaller items were easy. Food was simple. Rats had proven to be very capable of finding and stealing enough food for themselves and for The Man. Getting heavy items to the kitchen had proven very difficult. Heavy items needed help from men, which was difficult to arrange. However, if The Man helped train a force to defend his Rats against attack, the investment was well worth the cost, thought Cedric, satisfied.
***
Chapter 5
His Rat battle force was impressive, thought Cedric, as he surveyed the training activities of his tribes. The Man in The Kitchen had given him some excellent ideas for weapons and armour and how to utilize his Companions. Cedric had appointed each of his ten Companions as a section leader with the title of Capin. Each Companion was responsible for a section of a thousand fighters. Each section had ten Under-Capins acting as junior officers, controlling smaller groups of a hundred Rats each. As a result Cedric was able to field and control over ten thousand fighting Rats, and he knew they would constitute a very formidable force once he had established a level of discipline. His Capins were proving to be very adept in commanding their sections, and now that they understood the need for drilling and practicing, their effectiveness was improving. He was pleased with the progress of his plan to create an organized and disciplined fighting force.
Communication was still a major issue, although Cedric thought he had a partial answer and was trying to improve the process. He was the central point, and as Rats milled about he stood on the top of rough concrete stairs at the side of the deserted warehouse floor. All communications flowed through Cedric and his support group. He had runners, young Rats who were lithe and limber, ready to run across the floor of the warehouse or up to the roof and back, carrying messages written on squares of scrap paper. Capins, as well, each had two or three runners, ready to bring messages to Cedric. They would be at risk in battle conditions; however, the runners were very fast Rats.
In addition, Cedric was trying to use signal flags. The Man in The Kitchen had told him about semaphore and Cedric was experimenting with flags representing a variety of signals like ‘Attack’ or ‘Hold’ or ‘Retreat’, with flag colours to match the colours worn by each Capin and his tribe of fighters. The Capins had not yet adapted to these signals and Cedric wondered how to improve their reactions.
There was something called Morse Code which the Man had mentioned. However, Cedric did not think using large lights for signalling while in the middle of a battle would be practical. The flags were proving to be sufficiently awkward, and Cedric did not want to add to the Capins’ problems by asking them to carry lights as well.
He had equipped his fighters with swords and shields based on instructions from The Man. Their swords were either long sharp knives with serrated edges, or more spear-like, adapted from scalpels. His scavengers had found a storeroom filled with cartons of flip-flops, which they had ransacked and dragged back with a struggle. Cedric at first had been annoyed with the wasted effort, and then realized each flip-flop made an ideal shield. They were thick enough to withstand a dart thrown with force from a sling, and provided protection against teeth and claws. It was a start, and he wanted his Rats to use shields in hand to hand fighting, instead of using knives or scalpels in a two-handed fashion. Unfortunately, when the battle really heated up, they threw away their weapons and used claws and teeth instead.
Armour had been a problem. Necks and throats were vulnerable, and Rats also needed to protect their rumps from attack. The Man had rejected each type of material scavenged by Rats, until one team returned with leather samples. He agreed; leather was suitable and practical. Cedric and his tailors had quickly designed leather jerkins with high collars to protect throats and long enough to cover each Rat low on the rump. Now teams of scavengers were working tirelessly to supply enough leather to the Mice tailors, who were sewing and sewing, producing hundreds, thousands of these odd-looking garments.
In an attempt to ensure his fighters would engage in a disciplined manner, not as street scavengers, no matter how much opposition they encountered, Cedric also had increased the amount of training for all his tribes. Now, watching the training session, Cedric was growing more and more frustrated.
He had listened to The Man describe the use of assembling a force into squares for defence and attack, and he was trying to adapt the technique for his army. Instead of squares he was using circles. Each section was responsible for a circle, inside which Rats formed three concentric rows. Each Rat in the front row carried a sword and shield, the latter for protection of themselves and their immediate neighbours. Their swords were held with points facing out towards the supposed enemy, and Cedric anticipated a circle could be surrounded by enemy rats. This front row would bear the brunt of an attack. Rats in the second row held the longer scalpels, raised and ready to level, in support of the front row. Rats in the third row also held scalpels, upraised over the heads of the front rows. Armed replacements waited in the centre, ready to repel attackers who breached the rows, and were available to fill any breach created by enemy attacks. Finally in the very core of the circle arrangement, Cedric placed dart throwers, one hundred to each circle.
Rats had scavenged darts from what The Man called sports stores. Just as Cedric was learning how to equip
and train his fighters, the dart throwers were still learning how to use slings to throw their pointed weapons. He expected the darts to wreak devastation on an opposing force well before it reached the perimeter of a circle.
The composite formation was like some strange metal porcupine with extremely sharp and deadly quills, some of which it could fire at its enemy; and when the enemy closed, the remainder would be equally devastating. The challenge for his fighters, once they formed their concentric ranks, was to move in a coordinated fashion to attack or defend in any direction, all the while retaining their formation. Given some of the results, it was indeed fortunate his fighters used wooden spoons and plastic forks in training.
On the first day of serious training, Cedric indicated to his Signal Rat to ready the flag ‘Form a Circle’ for the Red section. He then issued his flag instruction, and the Signal Rat waved the red Form a Circle flag. The response was most unsatisfactory; half of the Red section recognized the signal while the remainder continued their hand-to-hand combat training. To make it worse, each of the Blue, Black and Orange sections thought the signal applied to them, so four sections attempted to form circles, some of which overlapped. Chaos ensued.
Cedric was almost apoplectic. He sent out his five referees, all blowing vigorously on their whistles, to bring the training exercise to a halt. At Cedric’s direction, his Signal Rat flagged ‘Assemble in Sections’ and then flagged ‘Urgent’. It took at least thirty minutes for order to be re-established.
Days passed, and gradually Cedric’s level of frustration decreased, while his optimism increased, as he discerned improvements his Rat forces’ abilities to understand and respond to flagged instructions. However, he could feel the jaws of the vice closing; on one hand he needed more time to train his forces, and on the other, his spies were becoming more and more convinced their enemy was preparing to attack. He continually worried one would happen before the other, with a balance not in his favour.
As he began to understand both the flexibility and the disadvantages of his force structure, he realized he also needed a fast response team. He selected volunteers, the fittest and brightest of the fighters in his tribes, until he had over five hundred Rats, the equivalent of at least half a section. He trained them separately, building in effect a rapid reaction cavalry force, heavily armoured and well-armed. He had selected these Rats for strength and speed, as well as for their weapons skills. He then worked with them to add an understanding of tactics. He bribed, cajoled, threatened, and explained, until he was confident they knew when to attack and when to conduct a tactical retreat.
Now, sooner than he expected, scouts rushed to him with news of large numbers of wild rats on the move. The streets were flowing with thousands of rats, came the reports, heading from all directions towards the warehouse. Some of the leaders were recognized and identified as New Rats, renegades, who Cedric had challenged and defeated, presumably now seeking revenge and perhaps wanting to capture the Man and the PCN feeder stock supplies.
Cedric arranged most of his forces in the large warehouse space outside the kitchen area. He also instructed three Capins to take their forces higher in the building, where they would hide until he signalled them to attack the invaders from the rear. He kept his rapid reaction Rats close by, in order to manage their effectiveness.
Al last there were tentative perimeter penetrations by wild rats. His scouts reported furtive scratchings, strange heads bobbed around corners and back, and occasionally a wild rat would be pushed into sight by the sheer weight of rats as the build-up of enemy forces increased. Cedric was proud of his Capins; they held their sections in tightly disciplined structures. He saw one of the renegade New Rats urging a small tribe of wild rats towards a waiting section; however, the wild rats were very apprehensive of the strangely garbed and equipped New Rats. Cedric signalled to one of his messengers and wrote a short, very cryptic message for his reaction force, instructing the messenger by signs for its delivery.
Moments later, after receipt of the message, fifty of the New Rat reaction force broke away from their fellows and attacked the renegade and his small tribe. In less than thirty seconds, his small group of fighters had slaughtered the tribe, and immediately returned to re-group, ready again to foray out at Cedric’s direction. His force was unscathed. Cedric was elated. The speed and disciplined performance of his rapid reaction force was just what he had been trying to achieve, and their instant success would build the confidence levels of all his fighters.
As if synchronized, groups of wild rats appeared from multiple locations around the warehouse and moved onto the floor, encouraged and pushed by renegade New Rats. Cedric counted a dozen or more attacking groups. He signalled his messengers, wrote short, cryptic notes and sent them to each of the seven Capins, with a follow-up message to his reaction force. Shortly after each messenger reached a section, and the instructions had been read and understood, central archers released hails of darts against the attacking forces. Their primary targets were the renegade New Rats. Hundreds of rapid response Rats, ten or twenty to a group, broke away from the main body and charged the survivors. Their relentless efforts, coming after the deadly hail of darts against the attackers, killed all the visible Rat renegades and most of their small tribes. Cedric’s sections, reflecting their discipline, had not moved or changed position.
Suddenly, wild rats attacked from every direction in a frenzied, leaderless, shrieking surge which carried them to and onto the waiting New Rat armoured sections. The wild rats died in the hundreds, and then in the thousands, as the New Rat defenders piked and sliced, hacking the enemy while holding firm in their discipline. Cedric sent out his rapid response force, directing multiple deadly attacks across the expanse of the warehouse floor. There was complete and utter slaughter as the attackers were overwhelmed. Cedric noted there were casualties in his forces; however, he was relieved to see there were very few fatalities.
Cedric estimated thousands of the invading rats had been killed, their bodies scattered across the warehouse, and as many had been seriously injured. These injured wild rats now were attacking each other, driven by instincts somehow triggered by their injuries, and as a result, a form of self-slaughter was underway. He had lost probably no more than a hundred or so defenders, mainly from his rapid reaction force. His Rat forces had behaved excellently, their discipline was surprisingly effective. Indeed, he was impressed that his fighters had followed his orders to the letter.
He instructed the Signal Rats to present victory flags in all colours. Later he planned to communicate his congratulations to each section. Cedric began to move away from his central location to check each of the sections, which were still holding formation; the Capins had not yet understood victory was theirs. A startled sound came from his nearby fighters, and Cedric looked first in their direction and then followed their shocked and fearsome gazes to the main entranceway to the warehouse.
He could not hide his shock. Cats, at least twenty of them—New Cats, far larger than New Rats—had softly padded into the warehouse, and now were sitting contemplatively, examining the warehouse with all its dead bodies. The New Cats did not carry weapons. Claws and teeth were weapon enough when deployed by a New Cat with a killer instinct inherited from non-enhanced cats. Their killer instinct was not just inherited; it had been increased, refined, sharpened, and driven to a warrior’s extreme, and Cats wielded their weapons without conscience. To Cedric’s dismay, the Cats all were now staring straight at him.
***
Chapter 6
Joseph Krowe waited in the kitchen, anxious for news of the battle. He could not leave the room; the Rats would not allow him to be exposed to any threat from their attackers. Rats were guarding him, ensuring his safety, and he would not challenge their tactics. He had found a discarded length of pipe and was ready to defend himself. He knew he had to guard the feeder stock, without which he would surely not survive for long. Rats were protecting him, and their obvious priorities had given him cause
to examine the relationship between himself and these mutated animals.
Oddly, the feeder crystals had commenced to glow a pale blue and he discerned a very faint, mental negative pushback from the PCN stock. None of the Rats were interested in feeding.
~~~
Cedric shivered and hid a rush of fear from his Rats and from himself as he realized the Cats’ intense concentration was simply a prelude to their intended attack. These Cats had identified him as the leader of the New Rats, and he was their intended target. They stared at him with their almost glowing yellow eyes, as though each Cat was imprinting him on some feline prefrontal cortex target acquisition function. He shivered. Those yellow eyes watched his every move.
He urgently instructed his signal Rats to wave attack flags for all the sections including those he had held in reserve. Then Cedric signalled his Rat rapid response force into action, just as the intruders commenced their charge. Cats and Rats met in a flurry of claw and scalpel, of tooth and sword, of snarl and squeal, with no quarter given on either side. The Cats were greatly outnumbered; each Cat was surrounded by hundreds, in some cases by thousands, of Rats. However, the overwhelming odds did not stop their attack, did not make them falter in their charge, even though they were counter-attacked and blocked at every turn. The struggles were ferocious, blood chilling in their intensity. Only one Cat was successful in its push towards Cedric. It ignored the howls of its fellows as they were impaled on scalpels and cut by knives; it brushed aside darts, it ignored thrusts and cuts, as it focused exclusively on its target.
Cedric moved to confront his attacker. He was supported on all sides by his fighters, and their stand was solid, unwavering. The Cat snarled, its jaws clacking as it snapped at defenders and swiped its sharp claws at armoured and armed Rats as it moved forward, closer and closer. Elsewhere, the remaining Cats were dead or dying, overwhelmed by Rat defenders. Cedric raised his scalpel, its edge gleaming its threat.
Shen Ark: Departure Page 4