He dove back into a hole and I followed him. The whole nest was shaking as the clockwork soldiers approached. I couldn't even guess how many were making their way through the field and to the nest. Rats scurried to and fro in panic.
The place was on full alert, with little pink rat babies hustled to safety, food relocated to new areas, and even some rat servants struggling under the Rat Queen to drag her to a new home, if need be.
"Will none wake my liege?" screeched Durga.
The rats cowered. The rats in the room avoided looking at her.
"I will do it," said Switch.
The blind queen sniffed in Switch's direction.
"My willful little kaba. Your sacrifice will not be in vain."
"Thank you, Mother Queen." Switch dashed off again. I followed closely behind.
"You don't have to follow me," he said after a moment. "This is my burden to bear."
"What in the world are you talking about? What kind of weapon is this? Who is this liege?"
"The Rat King," said Switch. "I am seeking an audience with him."
"So? Can't you just like, drop in and say hello?"
Switch kept running. "It doesn't work like that. He's not like the Queen. We have to wake him."
"Can't we just shake him awake or something?"
Switch took another turn in the tunnel. "Just stay back near the opening. He will need you to lead him to the surface."
I didn't like the sound of that, but it did no good to argue. Switch was resigned to his fate. I would make up my own mind once I finally saw this so-called Rat King. If he was anything like the Rat Queen, I could probably just roll him over on his back and he'd be helpless.
Then I saw him.
At first I thought it was just a bunch of rats sleeping on each other. There were seven heads that I could see. Each head was deformed and looked like a cross between a regular rat and the Rat Queen herself. Ugly and sleek, their nostrils flaring and mottled, their whiskers uneven and varying in shades from black to white. But there was just one huge ribcage between them that rose and fell as it rested. From that torso were seven pairs of arm/legs, each ending in long, misshapen claws. It was as if seven rats had been mashed together into one, without anyone bothering to smooth out the inconsistencies.
"THAT'S your rat king?" Fortunately, mindspeech was utterly silent, so we didn't risk waking the thing prematurely.
"Yes."
"I think I'm starting to understand," I said. "We need to get out of here, weapon or no."
"It's the only way. We can't take on all of those soldiers without it."
"He looks like a tough customer," I admitted.
"He's more than tough. The Rat King has only been roused once before. It was a massacre."
"So you won?"
"Both sides lost," said Switch. "The Rat King does not distinguish between friend or foe."
"You're serious? This is nuts! We can't wake this crazy thing if it's..." suddenly I understood. "It's going to eat you, isn't it?"
Switch crept forward. "He always demands a sacrifice once he wakes. The lotus makes him very drowsy. He will be very hungry. It is tradition."
"I didn't think the lotus worked on rats?"
"It works on the Rat King." He didn't explain further.
"This is dumb," I said sternly. "I am not going to let you get eaten just because of some tradition." Switch was still moving forward. "Switch, stop it."
He got closer, sniffing. It was clear my rat friend didn't want to walk into certain death. But he did it anyway. I beat him to the punch.
"WAKE UP UGLY!" I mindspoke into the Rat King's mind. Or one of them, at least.
One of the heads woke up, squeaking grotesquely. "RUH?!"
Switch hopped backwards. "What have you done?"
"I woke him before you did something stupid," I said. "HEY UGLY!"
Two more pairs of eyes fluttered open. The Rat King roared and snorted, slowly struggling to its seven pairs of feet. It was enormous, bigger than the Rat Queen.
"Get back, Switch," I said.
The many eyes of the Rat King rolled. Three heads looked at Switch. Four looked at me.
"That's right!" I tried to broadcast at all the heads at once. "You hungry? I'm big, fat and slow!" I wiggled my behind at him. "Just like you. Dinner's served!"
With a bellowing roar, the Rat King lunged forward.
It had never occurred to me that the thing couldn't even fit through the tunnels. The rats had built the tunnels around it.
"WHO!" said one head.
"DARES!" said another.
"WAKE!" said a third.
"ME!" shouted the fourth.
The effect was four voices screaming in my head at once. The world spun. I fell backwards as one of the huge rat heads slammed into the tunnel opening.
My plan had worked. I had the Rat King's attention.
I shook my head, trying to orient myself. All those voices...
Three pairs of claws tore through the ground at high speed. It didn't matter that the Rat King couldn't fit in the tunnels. It could dig as fast as seven rats!
I turned and ran. I could only hope that it paid no attention to Switch.
The roar behind me indicated the Rat King had not given up on eating me. The earth exploded, dirt and roots flying everywhere.
I took off in a panic, running as fast as my little rat legs would propel me. I didn't even know where I was going.
I could hear the thrumming of the clockwork soldiers marching towards the hive. I took another turn.
The crazy Rat King was tearing through earth as fast as I could run, blasting tunnels and collapsing chambers as he went.
I caught a flash of nurseries with pinky little rats and veered away from them. I didn't want to give the Rat King any ideas. He kept coming.
"COME!"
"HERE!"
"YOU!"
It lunged as I stumbled from the mental cacophony. I was totally disoriented. Suddenly I couldn't tell which way was up or down. Even my sense of smell was muddled. It was so hard to concentrate...
"Here!" Switch flashed into view at the far end of a tunnel ahead of me. "Follow me!"
I took off after Switch as a huge claw slashed the ground. The Rat King kept coming.
Switch darted left and right, up and down, flashing through the tunnels so fast that sometimes all I could see was his tail. I did my best to keep up.
The Rat King never lost track of me. But then, with seven noses, I supposed it never would.
And then we were outside. I dove to the side.
The clockwork soldiers had just entered the clearing where we had defeated the first one. One of them was bent over, holding the key in its two knobby arms. The key! That's what they were after!
The clockwork soldier's head turned to track me. WHIRR.
I hurdled forward toward it.
It lifted its rifle. The ground trembled beneath me. The Rat King burst forth with a roar, blasting dirt and lotus flowers everywhere.
The clockwork soldier was knocked sideways, the key flying high up in the air. It landed on the head of another soldier with a clank, knocking the mechanical down. Two more soldiers went to pick it up.
I ran towards them.
The Rat King caught my scent. With another roar he lumbered forward, gaining momentum now that he was above ground and there was nothing to slow his bulk. Nothing but lotus blossoms and clockwork soldiers, that is.
I skidded between two soldiers. Their heads spun to track me as I passed, then spun back just in time as the Rat King bit the heads off of each of them with a click of its mighty jaws.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Three rifles fired into the Rat King. The bullets struck home, but he didn't even flinch. He just roared and kept barreling down after me.
I ran towards the three clockworks who’d already fired. They aimed at me, but they were too slow. The Rat King was faster, landing on them in a rage.
Six of the Rat King's heads wishboned
the clockwork soldiers, tearing them limb from limb. That left one of his heads free to keep tracking me. I was beginning to understand what Switch meant about not wanting to wake the Rat King.
I made sure the Rat King saw me. Then I kept charging forward, closer to the CLICK-CLICKing.
I broke into a clearing. Dozens of soldiers were clearing lotus blossoms. They were lined up in row after row. The clockwork soldiers' heads moved in unison to face me.
I ran around to the side. They all lifted their rifles.
Lined up as they were, the Rat King treated them like blades of grass. He charged down the line of soldiers, tearing them apart. Some turned to retaliate, but it was like a snail batting at a lion. They couldn't move fast enough, their weapons didn't seem to harm the Rat King, and they were ill-suited to deal with the kind of rampaging fury that was seven rats fused together.
I zigzagged in and out of their ranks. Where I went, the Rat King followed, tearing up dirt and plants, smashing clockworks. I knew I couldn't keep this up forever.
BLAM! A sharp pain tore through my tail.
"AAAGH!" I shouted. The bullet had grazed the middle of my tail.
The delay nearly cost me my life. The Rat King raked my side with one of its claws.
I rolled, just in time to avoid the other three claws that came down in rapid succession.
The Rat King reared up over me. He would surely finish me off.
I closed my eyes.
BLAM! BLAM!
Clockwork soldier after clockwork soldier fired. As they moved closer, they batted at the Rat King with their rifles.
It was a big mistake. The remaining clockworks were torn apart. There was the sound of a trumpet.
A clockwork soldier, his torso permanently attached to a crude-looking wooden horse with legs instead of wheels, charged forward with a cavalry saber. The clockwork soldiers had a captain! Of course.
The clockwork captain whistled through the clearing. I rolled aside as his horse rushed past me.
The clockwork captain collided with the massive Rat King, his saber plunging into the thing's huge torso. In response, the Rat King tore the captain's arm off.
Blowing its horn again, which I dimly realized was actually connected to the clockwork's head, the captain rolled backwards. The remaining clockwork soldiers swiveled around and marched in a perfect reversal of the way they came.
We'd won!
The Rat King turned back to me. "NOW!"
"WHERE!"
"WAS!"
"I?"
My head throbbed. My tail was bleeding. My side hurt. I was a goner if I didn't come up with a plan soon. Reasoning with the Rat King was certainly not going to work.
It charged after me. Taking one more deep breath, I ran back the way I had come.
I caught sight of Switch. "The key!" I shouted. "Turn it in the hill!"
"What?" Switch shouted back, hopping back and forth over the key.
"Turn it IN the hill!" I zigzagged, trying to keep clockworks and flora between me and the King.
The Rat King didn't bother to dodge any of the debris. He just blasted right through it.
Switch lifted the key up against the base of the nest's hill and twisted. A portal opened in front of him, large enough to contain the Rat King.
As I neared the open portal I flattened out, splaying my limbs in all four directions and lowering my head.
I spun almost three hundred and sixty degrees as I skidded towards the portal. I saw Switch, the portal, the nest, some destroyed clockworks, the Rat King charging towards me, then Switch again. If I went into the portal and the Rat King came in behind me, I'd be trapped with the Rat King. And dead. If I went in and the portal closed, the Rat King would still be on the loose and there'd be a LOT of dead rats.
Fortunately I stopped, my nose nearly at the edge of the portal. I exhaled and made myself as flat as I possibly could. Air rushed past me, over my head.
One of the Rat King’s heads got out a, "HRH?" as he flew through the portal.
Switch turned the key by body-slamming it sideways. The portal closed.
I rolled over, panting.
"Why in the WORLD would you call that thing your King?" I got out.
Switch's blurry features hovered over me. "Because that's what He told us to call him."
Then I collapsed into unconsciousness.
* * *
When I woke up, the rats were fiddling with the key.
"What are you doing?" I hopped to my feet. "Get away from that!"
Switch was leading them. I should have known. "We're trying to let the Rat King out."
"Why would you want to let that thing back out?"
"That THING is our King," sniffed Switch. "He saved our nest."
"I had a little something to do with that too," I grumbled.
"We need the King back," said Switch.
"And how exactly are we supposed to get him back, hmm?"
The truth was I wasn't sure what happened to living things inside the portals that the key created. The King could have been dead for all I knew. But I was just as eager as Switch to find out—if the children had indeed been trapped in a portal, what happened to the Rat King might provide an answer about what happened to the children.
"Last time he was released, he eventually fell asleep from the violet lotus."
"But I thought rats were immune to the violet lotus?"
Switch shook his furry head. "Big creatures fall asleep." The Rat King apparently qualified as a "big creature."
Other rats were busy around us, gnawing down lotus blossom stalks and dragging them over to where the key lay.
"So you're planning on sedating him?"
"Yes. But we can't get it to work. Every time we use the key, it opens to nowhere." To make his point, Switch lifted the key against the hill and twisted it.
The portal opened. There was nothing inside.
"Don't touch that!" I shouted.
The other rats cringed, but Switch sat there with his usual "what's the big deal" look on his furry face.
"I'll do it." I walked painfully over to the key. "It's got to be in the same place as where we first used the key. You're about a foot off."
My guess was that the key opened a portal the first time it was used on a space and "remembered" that space. You could place the key anywhere in the area where the portal originally opened, and open it again. Who knew how many of these portals were scattered around the world?
I propped the key up. Despite my bravado, I wasn't sure if I was right. "You guys ready with the lotus dust?"
Several rats were poised over the blossoms, ready to jump on the backs of the flowers. They couldn’t all hear my question, so I assumed the answer was “yes.”
I turned the key.
The Rat King was in mid-roar. In fact, it was the same roar he was making when he went after me. Since I was off to the side, I couldn't only seven snouts poke out.
"NOW!"
The seven rats landed on their blossoms, all aimed at the entryway to the portal. Black dust spewed into the Rat King's many faces.
He took one, two, three steps out and collapsed onto the ground face first, snoring thunderously.
I turned the portal and it closed.
"Glad to see that worked," I said with a rat's grin. "I leave it to you guys to drag his carcass back into the nest."
But other rats had already been hard at work while I slept, clearing a large enough hole for the Rat King's body. They began pushing and pulling him into it.
"Queen Durga wishes to speak with you," said Switch. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, but decided it couldn't be any worse than what we already experienced.
I followed Switch once more into the winding tunnels. Only this time I could make out the Queen's scent better. I was getting used to life in the nest.
Ratlings and food that were hastily evacuated were being moved back to their rightful places. So the nest was abuzz once more with rats zipping to and fro.
"Scrap," boomed the Queen. "Come here."
I wasn't afraid of any of these rats any more. I walked straight up to her nose.
She didn't get any more attractive up close. But her teeth, which protruded OVER her mouth, fascinated me. It was all I could look at as she mindspoke to me.
"We have decided to assist you. Although we cannot guarantee the human kaba's survival, we can tell you where they were hidden."
"Thank you, your uh...highness."
She inclined her head. "And you must never return here. Those monsters were after the key you brought with you."
I found it ironic that Queen Durga called clockwork soldiers monsters. I didn't bother to ask what she considered the Rat King to be.
Although I wasn't happy about leaving the safety of the nest, leaving the Rat King behind suited me just fine. I didn't think I could sleep knowing he was dozing somewhere nearby.
"That's very generous of you," was all I could come up with.
"Switch will take you to the place where HE brought them. It's scent-marked in a way that only my kaba know." By "he" she meant Piper.
That made sense, I suppose. "When do we leave?"
"Immediately. We cannot take the risk."
"I understand." It would have been nice to rest more though.
Another rat scurried up to the queen and whispered to her. "Looks like we will eat well tonight," said Durga. "A large beast has fallen asleep in the lotus field."
The rats twittered in excitement. I felt bad for the poor thing that blundered into the lotus field.
"Good luck, Scrap. Though you are not kaba, you have the soul of one."
I would have blushed if I were a rat. I bowed, not exactly sure that rats did that but did it anyway, and backed out of the room.
Switch was waiting for me at the entrance. "We have a new harness for you."
"For me?" I'd forgotten that Switch carried the key on his back for our entire journey here. Now, it was my turn to shoulder the burden.
The harness was made of rat hair. Of course. It was a disturbing reminder of Heave's harness for Switch. But I accepted it with grace. They key was already fastened to it, so I wriggled into the harness. It was much more sophisticated, with a spot for the key that held it tight. It wasn't the most comfortable situation, but all things considered it kept my legs free.
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