The servant’s brows narrowed. He paused a moment, then seemed to make up his mind. “Very well. Wait here.” He scurried off.
HaRed shifted his weight from side to side, leaned his head against the wall, and eventually sat in the entry and stared at the ceiling.
At last the servant returned with a look of satisfaction. Self-importance, arrogance, and stupidity all mixed together on his face. Apparently the direct method had not worked, though in truth HaRed hadn’t expected it to.
“Master YuLooq is unavailable,” the servant droned. “Perhaps sometime next week, if you would be so good as to send a messenger in advance, a private audience could be—”
HaRed stood, shaking his head. “There isn’t time, fool!” He stepped into the green bath of the foyer and leaned in close to the servant’s twitching face. “I don’t believe you really told Master YuLooq what I said.” He spoke softly, knowing a whisper would be more menacing than a shout. “But because I am a nice chap who is easily misunderstood, I’m going to give you another chance.”
The servant glanced to either side.
HaRed knew what he was thinking. Where are the other servants? But HaRed also knew there were other servants, and he would need more than an intimidating manner to gain an audience with YuLooq.
“Now,” HaRed continued, “you will go back to Master YuLooq and you will introduce me. You will use my name and my father’s name. And you will use my brother’s name, Runt. And this is what you will say …”
A moment later the servant whirled into one of the many openings that led deeper into the house. HaRed wondered if he had overplayed his hand. What if the servant were merely cowering in some dark antechamber, too frightened to do anything?
At last YuLooq came, accompanied by two toughlooking bodyguards who did not seem like the sort to be easily intimidated. YuLooq scowled. “What do you want?”
HaRed bowed. “Master YuLooq. Thank you for allowing your humble servant a small morsel of your time. You will not be disappointed.”
YuLooq sat on fat haunches. “I am already disappointed,” he said in a low sandpaper voice. “I was dining. You interrupted me.”
“Please accept my apologies. But this matter is urgent. You may remember that a few weeks ago my brother, JaRed, also known as Runt, was commended by the king for a supposed act of service that left the escape tunnel of Tira-Nor permanently and irreparably destroyed.”
“What of it?”
“The king seemed most displeased.”
“Perhaps. But wasn’t this brother of yours promoted to the kingsguard?”
“Indeed he was. Yet I suspect his promotion was born of necessity rather than good will.”
YuLooq squinted, then cocked his head to one side. His lips and lower jaw moved as though chewing a bit of grain he had found between his yellowing teeth. “What do you want?”
HaRed decided to be blunt. “What would I get for bringing to the attention of the king certain information about a traitor bent on usurping the crown?”
YuLooq whispered to the bodyguards. They glanced at JaRed and left. The old mouse waddled nearer, his movements ominous. “That is a curious question, for the one who asks it may be worse than the one he pretends to reveal. Intrigue is no game. Your reward might be a slow, painful death at the hands of the royal prosecutor. Are you sure you know what you are doing?”
HaRed cleared his throat. “Quite sure.”
“Of course, you might receive the royal gratitude.” YuLooq smiled briefly. “If your information proves correct.”
HaRed gave another bow. “Not that I expect any reward, of course. My only desire is for the safety of my king. However, I am sure you understand the necessities and practicalities of life. To be frank, my talents are wasted. I have labored among commoners all my life. Not to complain, of course. ElShua knows we need commoners. But it seems to me the commoners who labor in the scavenging parties ought to be, well, common, if you take my meaning. Surely it would benefit both His Majesty and the blessed city of Tira-Nor were I to work where my services can be most profitably used.”
YuLooq’s eyes narrowed. “I believe something could be arranged. Quarters in the Lesser Families perhaps. Along with a monthly stipend. And a Title. It would of course depend upon the information.”
“I am quite certain the king would be interested to learn that the treason I speak of has originated very close to his own heart.”
YuLooq squinted. “How close?”
“One might say it is so close even a seer would not reveal it to him.”’
YuLooq squatted in the center of the room. His gaze flicked upward, as though he were tasting some delicious morsel of food. “That is quite an interesting thing to say.”
HaRed bowed more deeply.
“And how did you come to know of this treason?”
HaRed licked his lips. “I was there when it was born.”
Chapter Eight
Round Top
The alarm saved most of the scavengers’ lives. A few paused, as though not believing the attack could really have come. The rest fled immediately into Dry Gully. Though already exhausted when they heard the signal, they seemed to find new strength.
JaRed watched them scramble down the wall of loose dirt and limestone, then up the opposite bank, panic written on their faces. Their fear was fueled by the unknown, making it hotter and more insistent. They fled from something they had seen in their imagination a thousand times, but never in real life. This was just as well, for if they had seen, they may not have found the strength to run.
JaRed waited for LaRish and JoHanan—the rest of his three-unit—to come from the grass on the far side. Kingsguard units did not leave one another behind in battle.
Before LaRish and JoHanan had emerged from the tall grass of the opposite slope, JaRed saw to the north the nose of a black-and-brown rat sniffing the open air. The rat paused, then saw the gray flash of a fleeing mouse and charged after it down the embankment. A score of other rats appeared near the same spot, just to the north.
JoHanan shot from the grass on the opposite bank, followed closely by LaRish. They scrambled up the side of Dry Gully just below Round Top. Behind them, six rats gave chase.
JaRed peered down at JoHanan from the temporary safety of his stone perch. JoHanan jerked his head toward Tira-Nor, meaning JaRed should go back alone.
JaRed didn’t move. It was too late for any of them to make it back to the city unscathed. The first skirmishing rats to the north had already cut off their line of retreat.
“LaRish,” he shouted. “JoHanan! Turn back. Turn south.”
JoHanan apparently did not hear. He kept streaking along the narrow, grassy path that lay between the high upper bank of Dry Gully and the sloping limestone wall of Round Top. He was coming closer to JaRed’s perch … and closer to more rats.
LaRish swung himself up onto the path behind JoHanan from the gully, then looked back. Behind him, rats poured over the opposite bank like flood water breaking over a dam. He looked up at JaRed as JaRed continued to voice his warning.
“Go back,” LaRish shouted up at him. “That is an order.” Then he flew after JoHanan.
The battle of Dry Gully ended in less time than it takes to read about it. Like all battles, it consisted mostly of confusion, fear, pain, death, and surprise. The stories of fierce bravery and unabashed cowardice would be remembered later, long after the fighting ceased. In the suddenness of the moment words like courage and fear didn’t exist. There was only the feeling of one’s breath catching in the throat as time slowed to a crawl.
JaRed watched the brown-and-black rat slink toward the mouth of the grassy pathway to the north of Round Top, its fur oily and flecked with foam. There was little JaRed could do. The path down Round Top lay on the eastern side of the hill. To get to JoHanan and LaRish he would have to go the long way around. The western slope dropped off in a sheer cliff taller than a full-grown man. JaRed could look down, but he could not get down. Not without ser
ious risk of injury. And JoHanan did not know what lay just ahead of him as he retreated.
The two enemies collided with rib-crushing impact. The rat, who was moving more slowly, took the worst of it. He fell backward into the gully, a look of terror contorting his face as he clawed at the air. He landed like a bag of flour on a rock sun-bleached to the color of an old bone.
JoHanan almost fell with him. Indeed, he would have fallen had LaRish not been there to grab him by the fur of his neck and pull him back to safety.
Below them, the injured rat cursed and threatened them from the gully floor.
The other rats closed in from both sides, two from the north end of the ledge and dozens from the south.
LaRish and JoHanan stood back-to-back on the grassy ledge, trapped between the converging rats.
LaRish brushed aside his whiskers with one paw. “So,” he said to the massive black rat edging ever closer to him. “I am to keel first a lieutenant, yes? What is wrong with you, lieutenant rat? Why do you come so slowly? Do not tell me you are afraid of a leetle mouse?”
The insult worked. The black rat charged.
LaRish waited, his body seeming to melt into the ground. For a split second JaRed thought LaRish had waited too long, the rat had gotten too close, and La-Rish would be pinned beneath the larger body. But LaRish twisted and heaved, leveraging the rat’s force in one continual motion that carried the surprised creature over LaRish’s back into the yawning space above the gully.
In an instant the other rats closed the distance. They swiped, clawed, and bit, shrieking the fierce and distinctive war cry that sounded to JaRed like the cries of a thousand tormented souls.
JoHanan dispatched one of the rats with a bite to its throat, but another rat blocked their retreat. A great monster with mottled fur and a whiskerless nose pinned JoHanan on his back and poised to rake the prince’s belly with his hind claws.
JaRed leapt. He had no plan; he knew only that he could not let his friend be ripped open. He hit the rat’s head with his shoulder a split second before he struck the ground. The rat gave a grunt of pain and was thrown halfway off the ledge.
A shaft of fire stabbed JaRed’s chest. Pain exploded in a white-hot ball around his heart, and his jaw stretched open. His lungs quivered weakly but would not open to draw air. He lay on his back, his legs twitching as though he were reaching out for his own departing soul.
JoHanan rolled away, kicked out with his hind leg at the mottled rat’s face, missed, and tried to stand. The rat pulled itself back up onto the ledge and grabbed one of JoHanan’s legs.
JaRed heard cursing to his left. He turned his head and saw rats piling up single file behind LaRish, calling on Lord Wroth to smite all mice with lingering diseases, lightning, and death.
JaRed’s breath returned in a rush. He sucked in great gulps of air and turned onto one side. The fire in his chest subsided, but a long line of pain ran down his spine. He shoved the pain aside and drew himself up on wobbly legs. Yes, he could stand, but could he run? Well, he would have to.
The mottled rat pulled himself back onto the ledge and blocked the path. His sides heaved as he panted for air.
Unfortunately, the same thing that prevented the rats from converging in force on the three mice—the narrowness of the ledge—also worked to their advantage. There was not enough room for the mice to use their natural quickness in such a close fight.
What the mice did have was a strategy of cooperation, something the rats had never fully developed. The rats of the west rarely cooperated for any reason other than fear. They knew nothing of loyalty or covering another rat’s back. Many of them had watched their companions torn to shreds by GoRec and laughed about it.
But now only one rat lay between the three mice and the Shade Gate. JoHanan and the rat seemed to understood this almost simultaneously. A look of grim determination spread across the rat’s face. It hunched down, gathering itself for a tremendous blow.
JaRed did not wait. He charged, darting dangerously close to the ledge, and bit the rat on the ankle.
The rat gave a startled cry just as JoHanan delivered a resounding kick to the point of the rat’s nose.
The rat howled miserably and fell backward against the cliff wall, clutching his nose with one paw and his wounded ankle with the other.
JaRed pushed JoHanan forward, past the rat and toward safety. “LaRish,” he cried. “Come now!”
LaRish, who seemed to be enjoying himself, knocked a fourth rat over the ledge, then followed JaRed and the prince up the slope toward the Shade Gate. The rats followed, but were not fast enough to catch them.
“I thought you didn’t like running from rats,” JoHanan said as they ran.
“I am a generale,” LaRish shouted. “I subscribe to the ancient wisdom of Frevoirzheis!”
“What’s that?” JoHanan asked.
“Fight like a man,” LaRish said, “but run if you can.”
GoRec’s skirmishing force came across Dry Gully to the north and headed for the city in a ragged line. On the lower slopes of the field, kingsguard mice rose up from their hiding places in the grass and brought the line of rats to an abrupt halt. The West, Open, and Shade Gates would be kept open as long as possible before the wallstones were tripped.
It was no secret that members of the kingsguard were often arrogant. Sometimes they were condescending, too, for the king regularly pampered them with meals from his table. Commoners envied the kingsguard for their position of prestige and relative luxury. Members of the kingsguard did not have to labor in the fields.
But the kingsguard were also exceedingly brave. When the terrified scavengers began to return to Tira-Nor, screaming, “Rats! Rats!” the kingsguard mice leapt into action. Each warrior scrabbled for his place at the head of the line, hoping to be among the first to come to the defense of the defenseless. Each knew that later they would face the king and, worse, LaRish, and none wanted to be last out of the barracks.
Small battles erupted near West Gate and North Gate, which had to be closed after an orderly retreat. Mice, fighting in the open in their disciplined threeunits, inflicted great damage to the first of the rats, who seemed surprised at the intensity and effectiveness of Tira-Nor’s initial resistance.
Kingsguard mice wounded two dozen rat skirmishers and suffered only two seriously injured mice. Not a great strategic victory, but an important one for morale. When Captain Blang saw he had established a temporary but firm perimeter for any remaining scavengers who might be slow in returning, he turned to the last limping and terrified mouse to hobble through the line to safety.
“Where is LaRish?” he asked. “Where is Prince JoHanan?”
The tiny mouse shrugged. “Behind us, my lord.”
Captain Blang cursed the rats under his breath and looked around.
An unplanned truce fell across the battlefield as the rats retreated toward the tall grass to regroup. A silent, heavy peace settled on the bleeding combatants. Mouse warriors sucked in great gulps of air, glaring ferociously at the ever-increasing horde of rats. Opposite them, new rat fighters arrived on fresh legs, bearing unbloodied hides and expressions of hunger.
“Lieutenant KoVeek,” Blang snapped.
At once a young officer appeared by his side.
“Captain?”
“I need five volunteers in the next thirty seconds. Let it be known that any who come with me will probably not come back alive. When I am gone, you will command the retreat into Tira-Nor.”
“Where are you going, Captain?”
“To find Prince JoHanan and General LaRish.”
KoVeek took a deep breath. “I wish to come with you, Captain.”
Captain Blang shook his head. “I need you here, Lieutenant. Now, get me those volunteers.”
KoVeek started to argue, but stopped when he saw Blang’s expression. “Yes, Captain.”
Then, as KoVeek turned to go, Captain Blang touched his shoulder. “Wait a moment. Look to the Shade Gate!”
&nb
sp; Coming from behind the rats, LaRish, JoHanan, and Runt were almost on top of the skirmishers, attacking from the rear.
Close to the thinly defended Shade Gate, the rat line turned, swelled, and buckled as if struck by a giant fist. Three rats went down in a tumble of flying fur and twisting claws. Screams, shouts, and curses drifted across the prairie.
Several rats, recovering more quickly than the others, tried to jump onto the twisting mass of tails and teeth. But only one landed any kind of blow. Mouse warriors from the kingsguard recognized what was happening and rushed forward to form a protective line.
JoHanan and LaRish broke free, leapt the few lengths to the safety of their peers’ protection, then glanced back.
But JaRed son of ReDemec had disappeared.
JaRed saw the clawed fist of an enormous rat, its fur caked with sewage, a second before it delivered a stinging blow across his cheek. He twisted to his right, and the rat’s second blow landed with the force of a hammer on his shoulder.
JaRed gave a cry of pain as the rat’s claws sank into his flesh. Blood pulsed onto his fur in a long, jagged line.
The rat hissed into JaRed’s face a foul stream of breath as rotten as an old cabbage. “That,” he snarled, “is for Lord Wroth.”
Thanks to LaRish’s training, JaRed attacked without thinking. He kicked up with his hind legs, arcing his back for strength, and felt the claws of his rear feet bite into the rat’s belly.
The rat shrieked and leaned back to avoid JaRed’s kicks ... just as JoHanan hurled himself into the rat’s vulnerable ribs.
The rat’s mouth opened in surprise at this new pain.
“That,” JoHanan spat, “is for having bad breath.”
The kingsguard closed around JaRed as more rats spilled from the grass to the north, coming like a wave, stretching, it seemed, to forever and beyond.
LaRish yanked JaRed to all fours. “You can run, yes?”
JaRed nodded, the pain in his shoulder white-hot as nausea roiled in his stomach. His heart pounded like a sledge-hammer against his chest. The world swam. It seemed he had been fighting and running and fighting and running for days.
Runt the Brave: Bravery in the Midst of a Bully Society (Legends of Tira-Nor) Page 9