Chaps earlier than usual today. Enjoy your weekend folks!

Deekius gazed up at Regurg as the latter's blade came crashing down to cleave his skull.

And then, without warning, the Talon-Commander's arm stopped – seemingly on a whim.

To the onlookers, it seemed that Regurg had suddenly been paralyzed for, though his sword arm twitched and wavered, his eyes moved around frantically, and a low, pained howl began to emanate from his lips.

His body shook with perspiration and bulging muscles – muscles that were contracting and spasming as they followed commands independent of their owner. Slowly, with what looked like great effort, Regurg lowered himself into a kneel before the Gloomraava and his head jerked up to look at Deekius' eyes.

"C-commander?" one of the fort rats called.

No response came from their leader. Instead, the same low, animal mewl escaped from his throat, through his teeth clenched and chittering, close almost to shattering as they ground against each other.

"By the Unclean…" the Marrow-rats of Deekius murmured, their claws involuntarily flying to grab at their throats as they watched the neck of the squirming ratman bulge, seeing dark veins throb against his flesh.

Then, in a fluid movement that lasted only for five seconds, Regurg plunged his shortsword straight through his throat, twisting the blade as it emerged on the other side.

He fell to the ground, coughed up a torrent of his blood, and after twitching wildly for a few moments, lay still as a rock.

In the minutes that passed between the ratman's death and the Gloomraava's piercing victory cry, the seventy rats of Spearclaw fortress' garrison were silent as a crypt, eyes glued to the inert form of their once valiant leader who had dared to defy their King that had abandoned them.

When Deekius' staff slammed into the ground, every pair of eyes then settled on his hooded form.

"Be seeing the power of He-Who-Festers!" he yelled, throwing his arms wide and wading into the pool of Regurg's still spilling blood. "He has bestowed I, his servant, with the power to hold life and death in my claws! He is giving me this because I am calling the Shai-Alud to this place, and I am following him to the ends of this earth. Imagine what he is giving you, if you are joining with him!"

The rats started murmuring amongst themselves, and those of Clan Marrow were forced, for once, to admit that the old religion did indeed have more power over the minds of their kind than they and their King had thought.

"Down in Razork the Shai-Alud is waiting for you," Deekius cried, throwing mucus-caked spittle from his gnashing jaws. "He is coming to free us all! He is coming to kill the Kobolds and Boss Skegga. He is coming to take us against the surface and win this world! Be joining us in the Skittering to end all Skitterings – the Skittering that will be bringing the End!

Be joining us," Deekius added as he still saw some apprehensive faces in the crowd. "Or be following this heretic to your grave."

Now, the rats' choice had been made for them. Those who had once smeared the walls of their fort with their fecal matter to mock the rat that stood before them now bent the knee and kissed the ground he walked on. Not a single soldier still stood when Deekius' dark eyes swept over them.

Seventy new men for Sire Marcus, he thought. They are not being good men. But they are being ours, now.

He handed his staff to one of the Clan Marrow rats and kicked at the dead-eyed form of Regurg beneath him.

"Be preparing this one," he said. "I will be eating his stomach first –"

Deekius' wishful thinking was interrupted by the cacophonous drone of something flying through the air beneath the fort's hill – something discharged with such force that it shook the very ground of the Underkingdom, reverberating off the stone walls and causing the stalactites of the ceiling to crumble and break. Before the sound caught up to them, the ratmen of the fort then saw one of the huts of Razork disappear in a fiery explosion that tore it from its very foundations, leaving a trail of smoke a debris in its way.

"By the Unclean One!" they screamed as the sound of the earth-shattering cannon rebounded in their ears.

"Ah!" Deekius spat as he came to stand among them on the battlements, looking down at the carnage with crazed glee.

"So now you are invoking the name of the Unclean? Well, let his name become your battle cry, because we are going down there to kill his enemies!"

…

The explosion tore through the air and ripped into the first hovel of Razork with such intensity that Marcus had to fall prone and cover his ears. Even then, the ringing he felt was deafening.

He looked up to see Skeever shouting something in his face. At least, he assumed he was shouting. His ears could still not be commanded to catch up with reality.

"Form up!" he cried, leaving his latest 'experiment' where it lay in the farm. "Get the Spinerippers into a wedge formation."

His final command had barely left his lips before Skeever obeyed without question.

"AH!" Rekul was screaming beside him, Marcus's ears finally transmitting the pathetic pitch of his voice. "Th-they are bringing dwarven big gun to us! We are being doomed, Sire! We – we are bei-"

"Get a hold of yourself, ratman!" Marcus roared at the little beast, almost ready to slap some sense into him if need be. "They can't have more than one cannon, or they'd have fired again already. Besides, have you forgotten what we have on our side?"

Marcus looked with the mayor over the farmlands that had become entirely cleared – the Glitterpaks coerced away by ratman spears into a single pen that lay at the very end of the village.

"Sire…" Rekul gulped. "Against a Dwarven gun…"

The rat suddenly felt his soul stiffen, for he looked up to see the face of the Shai-Alud brimming with a smile.

"I know," he said. "They're certainly making things interesting for us."

Another boom from the dwarven gun struck Fort Spearclaw above them all – ripping apart its Northern battlements and surely killing every last crossbowman that was lazily dozing on the walls.

"By the Unclean…" Rekul murmured.

So shaken was the little rat that Marcus's reassuring but firm hand on his shoulder startled him almost as much as the din of the great cannon.

"Go to your people," he said. "Evacuate them. Force them out with some of the Marrow rats if you have to. But tell every single one of them that the time has finally come to push their enemies back to the abyss they crawled from. The time has come for them to defend their home."

The white rat sniffled, eyes glazed with tears.

"S…sire!"

"Be drying your eyes before you go, mayor," Marcus replied. "It won't do for your people to see you like this."

"Be listening to the Shai-Alud!" Tekris bawled from behind as he grabbed the mayor and started dragging him up the burning hill of their home with the rest of his wranglers. "There are still being rats we can save if we are moving quickly!"

The old wrangler turned and spat at Marcus's feet one final time before sprinting off with his esteemed leader practically swinging from his waist.

"I am hoping you know what you are doing," he said. "We are raising those Glitterpaks since they are being babies. We would not be wanting them to die in vain."

"You have my word they will be put to good use," Marcus said. "More than that – they will light the way forward for your entire Clan."

"I am holding you to that, human man," the farmer smirked, before finally dashing off.

It's funny, Marcus thought. They often say that Scorched Earth campaigns of burning farms, infrastructure, and enemy resources are a key component of victory in a state of Total War. Yet, here we are, not only destroying these resources ourselves, but actively weaponizing them against the enemy.

In spite of the roaring of the great dwarven cannon, Marcus managed a thin smile in the darkness of the deserted farms.

"Sire Marcus!"

It was at this moment that Ix and his Kobolds came charging through the farmyard fences, practically swinging from the sides of their panting Spinerippers.

"Ix," Marcus nodded as he made his way towards the burning village, watching the Marrow-rat cavalry take up their positions on the left and right flanks of the place. "I'm hoping you bring me some good news."

The little Kobold drew stuttered breaths as he ran beside him. "Judge by big-big cannon, sire. Do you think Ix's news is good-good?"
"I suppose I don't need scouts to tell me when my forces are being shelled by artillery," Marcus said, another cannonball smashing into the farm they'd just left behind, forcing both man and Kobold into a low crawl across the dirt. "Enemy composition?"

"At least 500," Ix said, drawing a mirthless chuckle from Marcus. "Bigger than ordinary raiding force. Big-big, and mean. Skogs and slingers march-march together."

They mean to take us down in one swift, decisive attack, Marcus thought. It's just like I predicted, Boss Skegga is making a push to secure a new border which will enable him to encircle and starve out Fleapit. But what's making him act now? Why commit such a horde at this specific moment…?

Marcus's thoughts were interrupted by a horde of rats waving shortswords, bucklers, and rickety crossbows through the burning village streets towards him.

He rose, hailed them cautiously, and then realized with a start who the leader of this new pack was.

"Sire!" Deekius roared above the flames that licked the hovels all around them. "We are evacuating from Spearclaw. Thirty rat-swordsmen and forty crossbow are awaiting your command."

"In the name of the Unclean One!" a particularly amped-up crossbowman wailed. "Be pointing us at our targets and watching them die, Shai-Alud!"

Marcus glanced at Deekius's proud face, wondering what kind of 'inspiration' the rat priest had drilled into these guards.

But that was a question for another time. For now, they had an army with a very loud demon at its head to beat back.

"You will all have your parts to play in paving the way for Clan Red-Eye, no, the ratman Empire's counterattack against the Kobold menace!" Marcus shouted over the roar of another cannonball flying high and overshooting the village. "Boss Skegga will learn to fear the name 'Spearclaw!'"

Amidst the cheers of these new warriors, Skeever stumbled his way out of a fiery alley, having been aiding in the evacuation of the villagers that still lived.

"Skeever," Marcus asked. "Are the Marrow cavalry in place?"

The Talon-Commander nodded. "All is being ready, Marcus."

"Alright," the General replied. "Here's the plan."

###

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