Tales of Mantica

by Rospond, Brandon; Waugh, Duncan; Werner, CL

  “Surely the ratkin will have ways to seal off something like this,” said Dunstan.

  “Of course they will. That’s why we’re doin’ this in five other places.” As Paddy spoke, there was another explosion from across the river. He nodded. “I studied the plans until me head was ready to burst. By getting water in all six locations, we ought to flood almost the whole system.”

  “Paddy, you’re a marvel!”

  “Th’ river’s doin’ all the hard work.”

  They went across to the site of the second explosion and the situation there was about the same, although one of the nearby houses had collapsed completely after the blast. Then they went back to the river and saw that it had risen even more and was indeed spilling over its banks in some areas. The next two sewer outlets would soon be covered, and Paddy hurried off to supervise the next explosions. Dunstan stayed and watched the river for a while. Duke Albustus found him there.

  “So it’s working?”

  “Seems to be. Accordin’ to Paddy, once all six explosions have gone off, we ought to flood nearly the entire tunnel system.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!” Albustus cried. “I had been steeling myself for some awful battle down in those tunnels, and now there won’t need to be a fight at all. Those awful creatures will be drowned instead!”

  A chill went through Dunstan. “Uh, my lord, I’ve dealt with rats and similar vermin, one way or another, for much of my life. And I’ve learned a few things. One of those things is that rats don’t drown easily. They can hold their breaths for an unbelievably long time. I wouldn’t be counting on this lot of rat-men to drown. At least not all of ‘em.”

  Albustus looked startled. “But… but if they don’t drown…”

  Dunstan nodded. “They’ll have to come up.”

  * * * * *

  By mid-afternoon, all six bombs had gone off, and the Allsop River was pouring into the ratkin tunnels. Dunstan didn’t doubt that quite a few of the ratkin would drown in the flood, trapped in deep chambers cut off by the rushing water. But the water would naturally make its way to the lowest levels by the most direct route. Many tunnels and chambers wouldn’t be flooded immediately, but as the waters rose, the ratkin would be forced up and up. They’d lose a lot of their weapons and their fiendish devices, and hopefully, much of their organization. But they’d come up, desperate and angry and ready for a fight.

  The big question was where?

  Paddy’s maps suggested a few likely locations; but while the engineer could determine with a certain amount of confidence the routes the water would take down, he couldn’t predict at all how the enemy might come up. So the defenders had to try and protect everywhere, and it wasn’t possible with the troops they had on hand. They established outposts with good views, sent out patrols, and kept striking forces in central locations to respond when they were needed. Dunstan and his troops were stationed on the eastern side of the river, close to their camps. Everyone was nervous, but most seemed confident.

  The sun was well in the west when the first reports of fighting came from across the river. Small groups of ratkin were emerging from sewer openings. Most were exhausted and disoriented and easily dispatched by the duke’s soldiers, but some fought back savagely. Worse, others escaped into the streets of the city and would have to be tracked down.

  Shortly after, similar reports started arriving from the east side of the city. Dunstan had a dozen patrols of about fifty troops each moving from place to place in tandem with the city guards. He kept the bulk of his halflings in the market district, ready to dispatch reinforcements wherever they were needed. For a while, the patrols seemed able to deal with the situation, but as it started to get dark, the ratkin appeared more frequently and in larger numbers. Dunstan had to send out party after party, and his reserves dwindled. Still, the fighting was going well and human and halfling casualties had been light.

  “If we can keep wiping them out as they come up in small groups, we ought to be able to deal with this,” said Lurry Bevrige, munching on a piece of bread.

  Dunstan shook his head. “We haven’t dealt with a tithe of ‘em yet, Lurry. There have got to be a lot more coming. Paddy, will there be areas down there that the water never reaches? How many could stay hidden below?”

  The engineer shrugged. “Hard t’say. If they had time, they might be able to seal off the tunnels leading to some areas. They have to have dug a lot o’ air shafts to keep from suffocatin’ down there, so there could be places where they could survive for a while.”

  “How long can we keep the place flooded?”

  Another shrug. “That depends on how long our hosts are willin’ t’have their sewers backed up and their waterfront under water. As long as we keep the river blocked, it will keep the tunnels flooded.”

  Dunstan nodded. “Can’t say I look forward to a fight, but I’d rather have it done with now.”

  It was fully dark when a message from the duke reported serious fighting in a section near the western walls. It seemed that the ratkin had secret tunnels which emerged into the basements of some of the larger buildings. They had emerged, slaughtered the people in the buildings, and when they felt strong enough, came out to fight. The duke wasn’t sure how many, but there seemed to be several hundred, at least. His troops were trying to keep them contained to that one area.

  “Damnation,” said Dunstan. “They could be doin’ that over here, too. We’re gonna have to start sending patrols house to house to check on things and warn the people to look in their cellars!” He dispatched messengers to give instructions to his existing patrols and then sent out more patrols. He only had about five hundred left in his reserve now.

  The night wore on and the fighting seemed to be dying down in the west. The patrols were still finding and dispatching small groups that were coming up, but everyone was getting tired. Dunstan started rotating his patrols, bringing some back to the marketplace to rest and eat, and replacing them with halflings who had not been out yet. And this could go on all night and into the next day…

  He had just sat down and leaned against a sack of turnips to try and catch a short nap when Paddy was suddenly shaking him awake. “Dunstan! Wake up!”

  “Wha…? What is it?”

  “Trouble! The temple district! Ratkin! A whole swarm of ‘em! The humans are beggin’ for our help.”

  He sprang to his feet and shouted for all his troops to get ready to move. In moments, they were trotting down the street toward the great square where all the main temples were located. “Did the messenger say how many?” he asked Paddy as they moved.

  “No, just that there were a whole lot of ‘em comin’ outta the temples. The bastards musta gathered in the catacombs underneath.”

  “Didn’t the bloody priests post guards?!”

  “Guess not.”

  “Gods!”

  “Yeah, them, too, from the sound o’ things!”

  As they got closer, the sounds of fighting were growing. Clashing weapons, men’s shouts, the higher-pitched voices of halflings, and the teeth-gritting squeals of the ratkin echoed down the street. Several great bells were ringing wildly. There was a strong smell of smoke in the air. Dunstan stopped his troops for a few moments to get organized. Spearmen in front, backed by swordsmen, archers behind. When all was ready, they started forward at a quick march.

  The street they were on emptied into the square on its eastern side. The great temples to the gods reared up on all four sides. They were huge stone structures many stories high with imposing facades and tall polished columns. The biggest was the temple for the Church of the Children, but there were others for different gods and beliefs. Dunstan was unsettled by this sort of architecture, but he supposed the gods liked it.

  At the moment, though, some of the gods’ houses were on fire. Flames poured out of the high windows, lighting up the square. Bands of soldiers, some human, some halfling, were battling the ratkin in half a dozen places. It was a swirling melee with little order that
Dunstan could see. More troops were spilling into the square as the city’s reinforcements were arriving. But more ratkin were pouring out of the huge doors of the temples, too. There didn’t seem to be any real order on either side.

  “We need to form a battle line!” Dunstan shouted. “This sort of fighting favors the ratkin!” There weren’t any enemies close by, so he used the opportunity to deploy his column into a fighting line about a hundred yards long. He had a few halflings with horns, and he had them blow for all they were worth. “Rally on us!” He waved to the friendly troops nearby and some fell back to join him, extending the line.

  As soon as they were in position, the halfling archers opened fire on any ratkin not closely engaged. This got their attention, and soon a mob of the vile creatures was forming, trying to work up the nerve to attack. They hesitated for a few moments, clearly not liking the solid line they faced, and that allowed the archers to hit more of them. But then a ratkin, much larger than the rest, came to the front and led them forward in a charge.

  The archers brought down a dozen more, but then the ratkin smashed into the line. The halfling spearmen impaled many, but once they were close in, all they could do was use their shields to try and keep them at bay. The second rank of swordsmen pushed in and slashed at anything they could reach. Archers stood on tip-toe and fired over the heads of their fellows.

  The fight only lasted a few moments. When their charge failed to break the halfling line, the ratkin fell back across the square. They left at least two score of their dead behind. A dozen halflings were down, too, although only four of them were dead. The dead and wounded were pulled to the rear and the line reformed.

  All the while, the other fights going on had petered out. The humans fell back to join up with the halflings, and the scattered bands of ratkin merged with the larger band which had made the charge. Dunstan didn’t have any authority over the human soldiers, but he took charge of them anyway. Well, most of them. There was a group of temple guards in gilded armor surrounding Prelate Lesnak who ignored him when he directed them to a section of the line. The priest looked dazed, but Dunstan noted that he carried an ornate mace and it was not unbloodied.

  Once he had everything in order, his battle line stretched almost the whole way across the square. Still, he didn’t have more than half his halflings and no more than five or six hundred humans. Where was everyone else? He rounded up a dozen runners and sent them out with orders to send anyone they could find to the great square.

  His archers and some human crossbowmen were firing at the ratkin, but the enemy was massing at the far end of the huge space and was barely in range. But more of them were still coming out of the temples to join the others.

  The ratkin he had seen so far had carried little in the way of armor, nor weapons larger than a dagger, club, or crude spear. But now twenty or thirty individuals came toward them and began to use slings to hurl stones. A stone the size of a fist flung by a sling could shatter an arm or a skull, and people began to get hit. Some had shields to cover behind, but others did not. The fast-moving ratkin made poor targets, and the archers had little luck in bringing any of them down. And unlike the archers, the ratkin slingers were never going to run out of ammunition.

  “We’re gettin’ the worst o’ this exchange,” said Paddy, dodging a rock. “We may have to go and drive those critters off, Dunstan.”

  “I know, but damn it, they outnumber us. Where the blazes is the duke and his men?”

  “Might be tied up fightin’ across the river. Have ye sent for help?”

  “I have! But you’re right, we can’t just stand here gettin’ hit. Let’s push and see what happens.”

  He sent the word up and down the line that they were going to attack. It took a while to get everyone ready, and they lost more people to stones in the meanwhile, but at last he sounded the horns and the line lurched into motion. Another one of his patrols showed up just as they began, and he formed them up with him as a reserve.

  They advanced across the square and the ratkin skirmishers fell back in front of them. But the rest of the enemy horde stood their ground on the far side of the square. That was odd; ratkin usually met an attack with a countercharge of their own. Had they been demoralized? Were all their leaders dead? I don’t like this…

  He glanced to either side, but there was nothing there except abandoned temples.

  Are they abandoned?

  “Halt! Halt!” he screamed.

  As he shouted, ratkin erupted from the doors of the flanking temples. Not a huge number, a hundred, perhaps, but they were flanking his line. If they got around into the rear…

  “Dunstan!” Paddy was there at his side. “You take care o’ the ones on the right! I’ll handle the ones on the left!”

  “How are you…?”

  “Just go!”

  He went. Crying to his reserve to follow, he ran toward the right end of the line. All the troops had halted at this unexpected attack, and the two ends of the line were curling back to try and face the ratklin on their flank. But now the main force of ratkin was surging forward again, too. If the formation came apart, they would be finished.

  Dunstan and his fifty halflings threw themselves at the ratkin on the right. The vile creatures seemed surprised by this sudden counterattack and flinched backwards, toward the temple they’d been hiding in. Dunstan pressed after them, cutting down several; his halflings killed more. The survivors scampered back through the huge temple doors. Dunstan halted his troops on the steps and looked back.

  On the opposite side of the square, there was a sudden burst of light, followed by crackling booms that echoed off the temple walls. More of Paddy’s toys? It seemed likely. The other ratkin flanking force fell back in disarray at this sudden shock.

  But the whole line was engaged now, and the ratkin had the momentum. Yard by yard, the humans and halflings were pushed back by a tide of black and gray-furred vermin. People were falling, and there weren’t many reserves left to fill the gaps. Dunstan brought his group back to the main line and tried to plug holes. The line contracted as the flanks pulled in toward the center and the ratkin threatened to lap around the ends, flanking them again. The ones in the temples, seeing their fellows winning, came out again and added their weight to the attack.

  Somehow, he managed to keep things from falling apart, and finally they were back on the east side of the square, the line was now a crescent with each end anchored on a temple. There was a single street to their rear which would be the only way out if they had to retreat again. He couldn’t tell how many they had lost, but it was far too many—and any wounded left behind wouldn’t survive long out there.

  Paddy came up to him and shrugged. “I’m all out o’ tricks, lad.” He looked around. “This could o’ gone better.”

  That was the truth, but they were still holding. A few score of men and halflings came up along the street behind them and he threw them into the line. Then the roof of one of the burning temples collapsed with a roar, and the commotion to their rear seemed to startle the ratkin. They drew off to regroup, giving the defenders a chance to catch their breaths.

  Dunstan did what he could to shore up the line, sure the enemy would be back. But his troops were exhausted, the archers nearly out of arrows, and many on the verge of panic. In the middle of the square, the ratkin were reorganizing, too; and to his dismay, another large group was emerging from one of the temples, and these were the largest ones he’d seen yet. Easily man-sized, some were wearing armor and carrying deadly-looking weapons. The lesser ratkin were driven into a frenzy by these reinforcements and leaped in the air and howled spine-chilling battle cries. They can smell victory.

  “Steady lads!” he cried, but his words rang hollow. They couldn’t hold, and they all knew it.

  But they didn’t run. They held their ground and gripped their weapons. The men knew that if they lost, then their families would be killed or worse. Their homes would be burned and the city of Norwood would become a ratk
in colony, a foothold for an invasion of the League. The halflings didn’t run, either. They’d pledged to help their friends, and they would hold to their word—to the last.

  The ratkin started forward, the newcomers leading the way. The archers let loose their last arrows and brought a few down, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Well, it’s been an honor, Dunstan Rootwell,” said Paddy, holding out his hand.

  “For me, too, Paddy,” said Dunstan, taking it. “I just wish that…”

  He was interrupted by a horn call. No, by a dozen horn calls. Their music rang off the sides of the buildings and filled the square. There was a roar in the distance, and the ratkin host came to a halt, the creatures looking around and sniffing the air.

  “Look!” someone cried.

  At the far end of the square, behind the ratkin, a column of armored cavalry burst into the open. A banner bearing the duke’s emblem was at the front. Hundreds and hundreds of horsemen emerged from the street, and without pausing, formed a line and charged into the enemy rear. Hundreds more men on foot emerged from other streets to join the attack.

  The ratkin were thrown into a panic and could organize no defense before it was too late. The horsemen slammed into them, skewering them with lances, or simply crushing them under the hooves of their warhorses. The infantry followed along, and in a twinkling, the enemy was hemmed in, trapped between Dunstan’s line and the duke’s men.

  Dunstan’s troops held firm and became the anvil for the duke’s hammer. Some of the ratkin fought fiercely, but many simply tried to get away. Few succeeded. There were a lot of them, and the slaughter lasted until dawn.

  As the ray of the rising sun peeked through the clouds of smoke and revealed the scene of carnage, Duke Albustus rode up to Dunstan and dismounted. “Hail, Master Dunstan!” he cried. “Victory, my friend!”

  Dunstan just stared at him, too tired to speak. Victory? Yes, it was, he supposed. But at what cost? How many of his people were dead? Hundreds, he was sure. Many more were wounded. It would not be a joyous homecoming. But it was a victory. They had done their job and could go home proud of what they had done.