***
The next morning dawned bright and fair…as most mornings did, here on the shores of the Middle Sea. Ah, for the blowing storms of the North, thought Barin, the crisp chill wind that whittled the skin off your face. And the winters, of course, were even more delightful.
Barin of Byssinnia had need of some sharp cold winds to the face this morning. He had dined and drunk far too well the previous evening at his host's house, and the three Ardathan slave girls had slaked even his great appetites. Today he was more than a little weak in the knees from his ordeal, and would have liked a day or two to rest from his evening of rest.
But the mincing figure of Avrum Ghul had awakened him at the first light of dawn, prizing a reluctant barbarian eyelid up with a slender white fingertip. "Come, Master Barin, your duty awaits. 'Tis a far ride to Zeelon, and your charges are anxious to be away." Ghul had then pranced away, his—her?—inky robes swirling.
Barin had let out a great yawn, tumbled a slave girl from either arm and a leg, then rose and stretched mightily. Seizing a leftover chicken carcass in passing—a man must break his fast, no matter what sorcerers or intelligent rats awaited—he strode out of his sleeping room, down a short hallway and into an open courtyard.
There he saw a fine roan, harnessed in red leather and all gaudy with ribbons and flowers.
"I'll not ride such a beast," he grumbled to himself, just as a huge black stallion was brought to stand beside it, and Barin noticed that the roan had no saddle. Instead, a strange contraption of steel and leather sat atop its broad back, strapped and harnessed carefully, a cage—if cage it could be called, with its front open—that had a tiny umbrella of red satin stretched across it.
"The beasts are to ride, I see, in their own tiny howdah," muttered Barin as he stalked towards the two horses. Just then, from a doorway across the courtyard, Avrum Ghul appeared and started towards Barin; on either side of the sorcerer, pacing him step for step—Ghul taking tiny mincing steps, to be sure—came the two brown rats. For their journey this morning, Barin noted with some amusement, they were arrayed in emerald-studded vests and high boots of green leather.
"Here is my gift for Glip T'onio," said Avrum Ghul, reaching down and with infinite precision placing first one, then the other rat in the contraption on the roan's back. "Have a care, swordsman, that they arrive safely. You will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams for this task. This, indeed, is but a tiny taste of your payment." Ghul tossed something towards the barbarian.
Barin snatched from the air a heavy leather purse that jingled reassuringly, stuffed it into his belt and nodded at the sorcerer. He wondered at the sudden chittering from the two rats, now above his own head on the back of the roan horse. It sounded to his ringing ears—too much wine, and one too many slave girls, he thought ruefully—almost as if they laughed at him.
Barin swung himself into the black stallion's saddle and called down to the black-draped Ghul, "Never fear. The beasties will reach Zeelon before the week is out, or I'm a southroner."
Barin reached down to seize the roan's halter, but Avrum Ghul called up, "No need, barbarian. The horse is trained to follow you. Do you lead the way and it will not leave your side."
Hmm, thought Barin as he felt the strength of the huge black beneath him, and eyed the trained roan that indeed fell in beside him and his mount as they walked toward the gates of the courtyard. These horses must be worth a great deal themselves, and this bag at my belly is comfortably fat. Perchance the man—or woman, to be sure—is mad, but the gold will go far to make up for that.
A small man dressed in rags and a slave collar drew open the heavy wooden gate of the courtyard and Barin urged his mount through, followed by the rat-ridden roan. Outside, where the barbarian had expected to see the same dusty silent street of the day before, he was surprised instead to find a wide passageway lined with fruit trees. He reached out to seize a ripe plum from a heavy laden tree, and took a bite from it before tossing it to his furry traveling companions; one caught it in a paw and they both seemed to chitter their thanks. At the end of the passageway was another wooden gate, with another slave to open it.
Beyond this second gate was indeed the street where Barin had been overcome the day before, lined on one side by the long wall with grinning heads atop. But the street that had been deserted the day before was now thronged with townsfolk—not moving about their business but clustered, mumbling and cursing, just outside the wide wooden doorway with the gold-hued plaque beside it.
"There! There are the filthy creatures!"
"Look you, they ride like men!"
"But take care, they have a guardian! See, his arms are as big about as my leg!"
"A barbarian, by the Seven Gods!"
Some of those gathered bore torches, Barin noted as he laid a warning hand on his sword hilt, but others held rocks and staves and there was even the glitter of steel in spots.
"Make way!" boomed Barin. "Make way!"
But the crowd had no intention of making way. Instead they surged forward in a thick mass, preventing the two horses from moving at all.
Barin drew his sword, a long sweep of steel as wide as his hand. He lay it across his lap, the sun glinting merrily off its sharp edge. "Come, good townspeople. Let us about our business."
"Aye, the business of destroying us!" shouted one stood far enough back to wave a fist threateningly. "You take those creatures to raise an army of their kind, so that they can come on us and take our city to rule!"
Barin's great booming laugh rolled out over the crowd like a juggernaut. "Ho, you fear a rat army then, do you? You are as mad as Avrum Ghul!"
"Avrum Ghul?"
"He speaks of Lord Ghul?"
"What do you know of the Lord of Koresh L'dar, barbarian?"
The brown rats on the back of the jittery roan set to chittering. Barin spared them a glance, saw that they had drawn their own tiny rapiers as he had his sword.
"Why, it was he who set me this task. Would you go against your lord's wishes?" he asked reasonably, though his hand never left the hilt of his sword.
"Pah, you ignorant cold-lander!" shouted a sturdy man in brown leggings who held a stave. "Lord Ghul lies this day, as he had for the last dozen, upon his sickbed in his great house in the hills. You come from the house of Finia Carazin, who plots to take over both Koresh L'dar and Zeelon when his lordship breathes his last. Now give us those evil creatures and we will let you live."
Barin thought over this pertinent bit of information as he eyed the crowd. Only a fool knows no fear, and he was greatly outnumbered. Still, he had taken on a task, no matter from whom, and his northern sense of honor would not allow him to give it up without better cause than this.
"No matter," said Barin, shaking his shaggy head. "I have promised to do this thing and it will be done. Now stand aside else you'll all get a taste of my steel."
An uneasy murmur was his only reply. Barin's hand tightened about the hilt of his sword and he could feel the berserker rage growing within him.
But a chittering arose, and not from the two brown rats that occupied the roan just to Barin's rear. No, this was a roar, a very deluge of chittering, and the townsfolk began to look about them uneasily.
Barin heard one of the brown rats that sat calmly a'horseback make one sharp high sound, and the broad thoroughfare erupted in a swirling mass of tiny brown, black and white bodies.
A man screamed. Another. And another. High piercing screams that echoed through the street. Men fell to their knees from the weight of tiny writhing bodies that leaped atop them. Others dropped to the ground, rats worrying their ears and scratching for their eyes. One man, covered in a pelt of tiny bodies, ran screaming full into a stone wall, to fall unconscious to the dusty cobblestones. Barin watched as his furry covering deserted him for livelier prey. Another man, blood streaming from thousands of gashes and tears, snatched desperately at tiny wriggling forms, jerking them away and flinging them from him. As each fell free, two more atta
ched themselves to his weakening form.
Barin, dazed in disbelief, watched the carnage behind him for a long moment until a high tinny voice called, "Ride, barbarian."
Freed from his mazement, Barin reached over and seized the skittish roan's halter, kicked his black stallion, and rode through and across the struggling mass of dying men. Not one rat paid either of the steeds the slightest attention.
Well, Barin thought to himself as the two horses reached the end of the street, it seems the story of the Seventeen was true, regardless of who told it to me. The barbarian spared one last glance behind him at the destruction in the street, looked over at his calm traveling companions—they were engaged in grooming splatters of blood from their shiny brown fur and their emerald-studded vests—and shook his head.
Southroners. Who could trust their trickery? Yet who expected anything else from them?
He kicked his horse and rode down the deserted street, the two rat princes on the roan at his side.
Doubtless it will be an interesting trip to Zeelon, thought Barin of Byssinnia.
#####
About the author of Lord Ghul and the Rat Princes
K.G. McAbee has had several books and nearly a hundred short stories published, some of them quite readable. She takes her geekdom seriously, never misses a sci-fi con, loves dogs and iced tea, and believes the words 'Stan Lee' are interchangeable with 'The Almighty.' She writes steampunk, fantasy, science fiction, horror, pulp, westerns and, most recently, comics. She's a member of Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers and is an Artist in Residence with the South Carolina Arts Commission. Her steampunk/zombie novella, BLACKTHORNE AND ROSE: AGENTS OF D.I.R.E. recently received an honorable mention in the 2013 3rd quarter Writers of the Future contest.
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Time Is of the Essence
Professor Challenger and the Creature from the Aether
The Case of the Sinister Senator
E.U.C.B.
With Murderous Intent
A Dilemma of Dark and Dangerous Dimensions
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Currents of Doom
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Soul of Diamond, Heart of Glass
Out of Time: An adventure of The Spectre
Monarch of the Seas
Souls Touched – Reasonable Rates
Cast Away the Works of Darkness
Oblique Vengeance
Double Double Cross
Optical Orifice of the Beholder
And don't miss Tales from Omega Station
Omega Station, aka the Rock. A barren, airless asteroid on the outermost edge of the galaxy, home of the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. Dotted with commercial, military and residential domes, the outer surface is the place to live for those who can afford it or are lucky enough to work there.
But the vast majority of the Rock's residents don't live in the surface domes; instead, they have tunneled downwards, moving ever further towards its fiery heart. The upper levels are safe, comfortable, secure—or as secure as anyone can be on Omega Station. The lower levels, now; they are home to the detritus of a double dozen races and species, all living in uneasy juxtaposition, fighting, loving, eating—and being eaten.
The Rock's location in space, the last real port before exiting the galaxy, has made it a valuable commodity to many governments and private corporations, as has the addictive drug straz, which grows only in its recycling vats. Control has been taken and given in a hundred bloody battles over the years, but those who live in the lower levels—and further down, in the Depths—are often barely aware of whoever claims to be in charge.
No one, really, rules the Rock, whatever they may claim, however many weapons and warriors they throw against it.
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And now available from all three authors with bonus material:
Tales from Omega Station: the Omnibus Edition
Lord Ghul and the Rat Princes Page 2