Widdershins

by Alexander, Alex

  ‘I wonder which will win. I would have put my cheese on the big one. But, you never know with these things. Toss of a coin, really.’

  ‘Yes, Your Foulness, toss of a coin,’ said Balthazar. But whilst the Chieftain was gazing below, Balthazar had taken fate into his own paws. He’d squatted over the chamber of one of the guns and managed to stir up just enough pee to wet it. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but sometimes you had to do things you weren’t proud of.

  ‘Come over here, Balthazar, you’ll get a much better view of it all. Oh, and send those guns below.’

  ‘Certainly, Your Hideousness,’ said the cat.

  The swarm of rats approached and wrapped themselves around the guns. Balthazar placed a claw on the damp one.

  ‘This is for the big human,’ he said.

  Squeak, squeak.

  The rats didn’t look like they understood, but nodded anyway and carried off the guns.

  Balthazar would have crossed his fingers, but it’s not something cats can do.

  Below, on the outskirts of the hall, an orchestra of makeshift percussion instruments had started to play. Empty jam jars with grease paper lids, wooden bowls and metal pans, hollow bones and upside down chamber pots. As one, the rats slapped their tails against their drums and the beat beat out. None was particularly big enough for a loud sound on its own, but together they filled the hall with a thunderous measure.

  Each thud brought Niclas that much closer to soiling himself.

  One of the guns arrived at his foot.

  He bent down and picked it up. It was heavier than he’d thought. He’d anticipated it being heavy, it was made of solid iron, but it strained his arm and shoulder to lift it. He looked across at the Witchhunter. The man had picked his gun up and was inspecting to see that it was loaded. Niclas thought he’d best look over the gun too, to check everything was in order. Not that he would have known what to look for.

  The Witchhunter’s eyes looked focused. They stared across the ten paces into the boy’s, ignoring the scurrying rats below and the flickering oil wicks above.

  Niclas tried to stare back with the same cold hearted expression, but his hand was shaking, the gun slipping, and sweat was running into his eyes.

  The drums were beating faster, building to their crescendo.

  I’m going to die, thought Niclas, this is it, kaput, finito, the end.

  Then he saw something he didn’t expect. A flutter in the Witchhunter’s gaze. A drifting of the man’s firm emotionless eyes that went up and to the right. Niclas tried to follow it, but he couldn’t see anything there. Just a hanging lantern and rats crowding round the ropes above.

  The drums ceased.

  Silence.

  The sound of Niclas’ breath drawing shakily through his open mouth.

  The sound of the Witchhunter taking a deep, calm breath.

  The man raised his gun out straight.

  The boy lifted his and pointed it blindly, closing both his eyes and then opening one because he decided he’d probably need it.

  Balthazar had anticipated the boy would need to grieve, but figured it would be a learning curve that would make him stronger. Or, if not stronger, he would be scarred for life and remain the silent type from that day forth. Either way, the cat wouldn’t mind.

  What he hadn’t foreseen was what actually happened, which, when it happened, happened far too fast for the rats to keep up with.

  The Witchhunter lifted his gaze from the boy and landed it upwards to the top of the ziggurat. His gun arm followed, finding the Rat King in the iron-sight. He squeezed the trigger.

  The gun misfired.

  Niclas blinked. He touched his chest softly, to check he was still alive. His finger hovered over the trigger, hesitantly. It took him a few seconds to work it out, which was just about all they had.

  He turned his gun towards the ziggurat. Then aimed up, to the nearest lantern, and let fly a shot.

  Nothing could have prepared him for the kick. He landed on his rear and the gun flew from his hand.

  The shot glided towards the lantern of oil, missed it, and obliterated one of the rodents balancing on a rope.

  The rat didn’t squeal. It died instantly. Its corpse, what was left of it, not much to be honest, swung through the air and landed splat on the stones below.

  Balthazar raised a paw to catch his sinking head.

  ‘Outrage!’ screamed the Rat King. ‘Betrayal!’

  And so, hysteria ensued.

  There were headless chickens with more sense than the panicked swarm of rats. They ran to and fro over each other fighting to get through. Though they out numbered the humans ten thousand to one, this thought was somewhere at the back of their minds. The one currently at the helm and directing their squabbling feet was: I’m next! I’m next. And so it quickly became every rat for itself.

  The Witchhunter slapped his gun and tried the trigger again. When it still didn’t fire, he opened the chamber and rubbed the powder between his fingers. It was damp and smelt like…

  …he scowled.

  Niclas was scrambling across the floor trying to get to the fallen pistol. But the rats, at the screeching commands of the larger warrior rats – the generals of the horde – were starting to rally together.

  The Witchhunter strode towards the boy, squashing rodents below his feet, he recovered the fallen pistol and held the swarm of rats back by casting an aiming arm.

  The smaller rats were afraid. The larger ones, not so much. They knew the workings of human weapons, and they knew the gun had had its shot.

  But they didn’t know this gun.

  The Witchhunter pulled a vial of gun powder from his coat, popped out the cork with his thumb and scattered it in front of him. The warrior rats sneezed and he fired the gun’s second shot. The powder flashed and the blast blew the rats to smithereens. The hysteria returned, and any rats with all limbs still intact routed.

  ‘Up!’ said the Witchhunter pulling Niclas to his feet.

  Above, at the sarcophagus, the Rat King had turned on Balthazar. His giant warrior rats circled the cat, barring his escape.

  ‘Balthazar,’ said the chieftain, ‘what is the meaning of this? You planned this, didn’t you? Think you can outsmart me do you? Think I don’t know what’s going on? You’ve come for the gold! You greedy betrayer. I shall have you dead! I shall have you tortured! I shall make an example of you! In the name of the rat code I shall…’

  He was clearly very angry. His whiskers were wriggling like spider legs, his nose throbbing with rage, and he was spitting with every word he squawked.

  Balthazar had had enough.

  He lifted his right paw and sprung his claws one by one.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I never really liked you anyway.’

  The cat dug his claws into the fat rat and tossed him off the ziggurat. He screamed all the way down, bouncing and splashing over jewels, coins and fearful rats.

  The warrior rats watched their king fall. Then they turned slowly to face the cat, teeth coming out, tails coiling up, furry backs arching, noses twitching. They charged.

  But they were little trouble. They were dealt with deftly – necks broken, bellies sliced open, tails and limbs torn off.

  ‘Eugh… how unpleasant,’ said Balthazar, trying to flick the blood from his paws.

  Niclas and the Witchhunter had clambered up the first few steps. They were kicking the rats away, holding them back. Well, the Witchhunter was, Niclas was just being useless.

  Balthazar soon arrived next to them, skinning several rats as he did so.

  ‘Balfazar, wot do we do?’

  ‘I’m thinking,’ said Balthazar. And he was, but the only solution that presented itself to him, was to push the Witchhunter into the swarm of tail and teeth and make off whilst they fed.

  Time was short, and the swarm was quite literally pulling itself together, climbing up the steps at all sides.

  ‘’URRY!’ screamed Niclas.

  ‘I’
m thinking,’ replied the cat.

  They didn’t have much longer. The Witchhunter knew what to do. He had one last shot to make.

  He raised his gun.

  ‘What are you going to do,’ said Balthazar, ‘shoot them all?’

  The man declined to reply. He squeezed the trigger.

  The cat and the boy watched the shot exit the barrel and strike a lantern in the distance.

  It burst into flames, dropped and sprayed burning oil across the floor, scalding the rats nearest and sending the others back into writhing panic.

  ‘Cor, nice one gov,’ said Niclas.

  Balthazar was not amused. The smell of melting rat flesh just made everything worse.

  Still, the fire broke apart the swarm and allowed the two humans and the cat to make it halfway down the hall. But the diversion didn’t last. Soon, the swarm was back, moving as one great big flesh eating cloud once more.

  It surrounded them.

  ‘They’re all round!’ said Niclas. ‘We’ll be et for sure. Sir, oh, sir, ’elp us, do summin.’

  Balthazar hissed at the approaching rats, but couldn’t stop them all from leaping past. Two made their way up the Witchhunter’s legs, over his back and up to his throat. He snatched them up and broke each of their skulls with two fierce clenches.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have another shot in that thing?’ said Balthazar.

  The Witchhunter looked up. There was another lantern hanging above them a little towards the exit, but his guns were empty.

  ‘Not for that,’ added the cat, ‘for me.’

  Niclas screamed.

  A rat had crawled through his waistcoat, out onto his shoulder and sunk its teeth into his ear lobe. He grasped hold of it and tried to yank it loose, but it was as good as trying to yank free an earring. Its jaws were tightly clamped. The pain was intense. And so Niclas gave it more than a yank – a great big two handed wrench – and the rat came off tearing a chunk of his ear with it.

  He glowered back at the vermin, squeezed its squirming, wriggling body, said: ‘Piss off will ya!’ and launched the critter up through the air and into a distant lantern.

  The lantern wobbled, fell, shattered, and burned the rats beneath it viciously, creating a perfect path through to the exit.

  Balthazar and the Witchhunter shared a look of bemusement.

  ‘Crikey!’ said Niclas. ‘Wot’re the chances o’ that?’

  One by one, they leapt over the flames, through the rodent chaos and out of the great hall.

  The rats assembled behind them. In the flickering light, six foot shadows with six foot tails chased them out into the passageway.

  The Witchhunter stopped.

  ‘Gov, wot you doin’?’

  ‘Come, boy,’ said Balthazar, running on.

  The man had remembered the darkness. He put away his gun and made ready his pocket flame.

  ‘They’re gainin’, they’re gainin’.’

  ‘Hold this,' he said, handing Niclas the little firebox. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

  Niclas stalled, dithered, then saw the vicious vermin shadows and fled after his master.

  The Witchhunter wasn't afraid. He emptied vials of gunpowder from his pocket, plucked out a match and struck it against the wall.

  Just then, the giant shadows gave way and the army of ravenous rats came dashing around the corner.

  The match dropped. The gunpowder caught, flashed – exploded.

  A cloud of dust and dirt and bones and bricks blew through the tunnel.

  At the exit where the wall opened, Balthazar was waiting for Niclas.

  ‘Quick boy, run!’

  ‘I am, sir! I am!’ Niclas skidded through the opening and bent over to catch his breath. ‘Don't worry, sir, ’e’s comin’, ’e’s just behind me.’

  Looking back, Balthazar could just make out the Witchhunter sprinting away from the dust cloud.

  ‘Go on, boy. I’ll wait,’ he said.

  ‘…’

  ‘Go!’

  ‘Yessir!’ Niclas ran up the steps, out of the catacombs and into the sewer tunnels, the pocket flame providing just enough light for him to see the way.

  Balthazar stayed for the Witchhunter. He pushed a loose brick back into the wall beside him and watched as the stone ground together and the doorway began to close.

  The Witchhunter slowed – stopped. He wasn’t going to make it.

  The two stood facing each other, until the wall sealed shut between them.

  Back above on the streets of Laburnum, in an alley somewhere west of the Brewery Quarter, a drain was pushed aside and to the astonishment of one stray dog, a boy and a cat surfaced gasping for air.

  They lay there breathless for a while, adjusting their eyes to the morning light and taking in the city air. Laburnum wasn’t known for clean air. When people went away and returned, their first nostalgic reminder was usually how difficult it was to breathe. In this case, Balthazar and Niclas had gone away somewhere with a far worse climate, a place that quite literally smelt like every toilet in the capital.

  Niclas lay watching the open drain. Waiting.

  ‘’E’s not right behind us is ’e?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Balthazar. ‘I tried to…cough…hol…coughcough…holdoor…cough… sorry, furball.’

  ‘Should we go back, sir?’

  ‘Go back? Are you well? We can never go back there. Never.’

  ‘…’

  ‘I’m sure he can take care of himself, boy, he’s a grown man.’

  ‘But the rats…’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘And I’ve got ’is box fingy…’

  ‘Unfortunate.’

  ‘I should ’av’ waited… It’s my fault.’

  ‘He wasn’t our friend, you know, he would have killed you.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘One of those things, Niclas, one of those things.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘There are people, as I’ve said before, who condemn the things we practice. For no reason at all, they seek to harm us and in some cases – murder us…’

  ‘But you made a deal with ’im?’

  ‘He’s a madman. You can’t make a deal with a madman. They’ll stab you the moment you turn your back on them. Trust me, it’s better this way.’

  ‘…Alright, sir, if you says so…’ said Niclas, ruefully.

  ‘If you must worry about something, worry about us. That little incident has cost me dearly, I’m not even sure we’ll have enough in the purse to last the week. That’s right, no more trips to the bakery, no more detours to the market, no more gifts or luxuries…’

  Niclas looked like someone who’d had a death in the family. No more croissants, no more cinnamon buns, no more chocolate pretzels.

  At least he had his priorities right.

  ‘Now do come on,’ said Balthazar. ‘You need a bath. We both need a bath.’

  When Niclas and Balthazar returned to the Queen’s Garter that morning, someone was waiting for them.

  Little Ron had been camped up outside, across the street, on a stakeout. He wasn’t allowed to sleep until the next guttersnipe relieved him of his duty, and by this point, he’d been up all night and was beginning to feel it. He’d been biting his finger nails to keep awake, but he’d run out of nail to bite and was now resorting to his dirty finger tips.

  You’d think a small boy sitting on the street with a flat cap overturned in front of him would get at least a few pence to help him on his way. Or perhaps a rich family would take him in, save him from a life of crime and he’d turn out to be related to them or something nice like that. Alas, things like that don’t happen in Laburnum.

  Children on the street are normally moved on in much the same manner rats on the street are moved on. With a firm boot.

  The Brewery Quarter is one of the worst places to beg. No one has any money to spare, everyone’s too busy getting drunk and the sort of folk who congregate in such a place, frankly, don’t give half a
damn.

  But Little Ron wasn’t there to beg. He was there to watch. He’d waited hours for this glance of Niclas and the black cat with the white patch under its neck. And seeing them woke him up faster than a cupful of espresso liqueur. He snatched up his flat cap and picked up his painted sign which read:

  Me leggs dante wrok. spar ah farvin

  …and ran full pelt out of the Brewery Quarter heading south.

  ‘Mornin’ young sir,’ said Madame Spriggs, powdering her nose.

  ‘Mornin’ miss,’ said Niclas.

  ‘Blimey! Wot’s that smell!’

  ‘Uhh… smell? Wot smell, miss?’

  ‘That stink. It reeks!’

  ‘Dunno, miss, me nose ain’t so good these days.’

  ‘Wot ’appened to your ’ead ’n’ all?’

  ‘Sorry miss?’

  Niclas felt the side of his head, his ear was sore, a raw gash weeping at the bottom of his lobe. Blood came away on his fingers. It had dried into his neck and down his waistcoat. A dark, rusty crimson.

  ‘Crikey, uh…’ Niclas remembered the psychotic rat that had taken the piece out of his ear. ‘Not sure how that ’appened, miss,’ he lied. ‘I ’ad a rough night see.’

  ‘On the drink were you, young master?’

  ‘No, miss, never touch the stuff. I’d like to go up to me room now, if that’s alright.’

  ‘Certainly, little sir, I never meant to keep you. But, you did ’av’ some family in ’ere earlier, lookin’ for ya.’

  Niclas stopped at the stairs. Balthazar, didn’t hear this, and continued up to the room, eager for a bath.

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Yeah… two uncles, one had a funny lisp. We’ve got a no questions, no answers policy, so I didn’t say you woz ’ere. But they said they knew you woz, and that they’d be back another time.’

  ‘Ok… Fanks, miss.’

  ‘If they come again wot shall I say?’

  Niclas didn’t have any family as far as he knew. And how could he have an uncle. He didn’t have a mother or a father or a brother or a sister. Actually, it occurred to Niclas, he didn’t know what relation an uncle was. Maybe it was just another term for a friend… he’d heard that somewhere.