Lief blinked. The last rays of the sun were playing tricks with his eyes. For a moment it had seemed as though the earth around the city were moving like water.
He looked again, and frowned in puzzlement. The plain was moving. Yet there was no grass to bend in the wind. No leaves to blow across the clay. What …?
Then, suddenly, he saw. “Barda!” he said huskily.
He saw Barda look up, surprised by the fear in his voice. He tried to speak, but his breath caught in his throat. Waves of horror flooded through him as he stared wildly at the moving plain.
“What is it?” asked Jasmine, turning to look.
And then she and Barda were crying out together, leaping to their feet.
Spilling from the city, covering the ground, surging towards them like a long, low wave, was a scurrying, seething mass of rats.
Rats in the thousands — in the tens of thousands! Suddenly Lief understood why the earth of the plain was bare. The rats had eaten every living thing.
They were creatures of the shadows. They had remained hidden in the ruined city while the sun glared down on the plain. But now they were coming, racing towards the scent of food in a frenzy of hunger.
“The river!” shouted Barda.
They ran for their lives. Lief glanced over his shoulder once only, and the sight he saw was enough to make him run even faster, gasping with fear.
The first rats had reached their campfire. They were huge. They were surging over the food and other belongings left scattered upon the ground, gobbling and tearing with needle-sharp teeth. But their fellows were close behind, leaping on top of them, smothering them, fighting one another for the spoils, tipping into the fire in the haste, squealing and shrieking.
And in the thousands more were scrambling over them, or wheeling around the struggling pile and scuttling on, sharp noses sniffing, black eyes gleaming. They could smell Lief, Barda, and Jasmine ahead — smell their warmth and their life and their fear.
Lief ran, the breath aching in his chest, his eyes fixed on the river. The water gleamed in the last rays of the sun. Nearer … nearer …
Jasmine was beside him, Barda close behind. Lief plunged into the cold water, gasping, and waded out as far as he dared. He turned to face the land, his cloak swirling around him.
The squealing, dark grey tide that was the rats reached the riverbank. Then it seemed to curl and break like a wave, and surged out into the water.
“They are swimming for us!” Barda shouted, struggling to draw his sword and pull it to the surface. “By the heavens, will nothing stop them?”
Already, Jasmine was slashing with her dagger, shouting fiercely, and dead rats in their dozens were being swept away by the tide. Beside her, Lief and Barda swept their blades across the water, back and forth, gasping with the effort of the task.
The water around them swirled with blood and foam. And still the rats came, clambering with bared teeth over their own sinking dead.
How long will our strength last? thought Lief. How long will it be before they overwhelm us?
His mind raced as he fought, his hands numb on the hilt of his sword. They would be safe on the other side of the river. The water was too wide for the rats to swim. But it was too wide for him, Jasmine, and Barda also. They would never survive if they cast themselves adrift in this cold, deep water.
And the long night was ahead. Until the sun rose again, bringing light to the plain, the rats would attack. Thousands would die, but thousands would take their places. Gradually Lief, Barda, and Jasmine would weaken. And then at last the rats would swarm over them, biting and clawing, till they sank beneath the water and drowned together.
The sun had set, and the plain had darkened. Lief could no longer see the city. All he could see was the campfire, flickering like a beacon.
It was then that he remembered that he had put the jar of fire beads in his pocket.
He took his left hand from his sword, plunged it under the water, and dug deep into his jacket. His fingers closed around the jar and he pulled it up to the surface. Water dripped from it, but the beads still rattled inside.
Shouting to Barda and Jasmine to cover him, he waded forward, unscrewing the jar’s tight cap. He dug out a handful of beads with his stiff fingers and threw them at the rats on the bank with all his strength.
There was a huge burst of flame as the beads struck. The light was blinding. Hundreds of rats fell dead, killed by the sudden heat. The horde behind them shrieked, and scattered from the burning bodies. The creatures already in the water scrambled and writhed in terror, leaping towards Lief, Barda, and Jasmine, their long tails switching and coiling. Barda and Jasmine slashed at them, defending Lief and themselves, as Lief threw another handful of beads, and another, moving slowly downstream to lengthen the wall of flame.
And soon a long sheet of fire burned on the river’s edge. Behind it the plain seethed. But where Lief, Barda, and Jasmine stood, panting and shuddering with relief, there was only rippling water, alive with red, leaping light. Dead rats were swept away by the tide, but no more took their places.
In a few moments there were splashes up and downstream as the rats began plunging into the river above and below the line of flame. But the distance was too great for them to swim in safety. The swift-running current pulled most of them under before they could reach their prey, and those that remained alive were easily beaten off.
So the three companions stood together, waist-deep in water, trembling with weariness but safe behind their fiery barricade, as the long, cold hours passed.
Dawn broke at last. Dull red tinged the sky. Beyond the line of fire a murmuring, scuffling sound arose, like a forest of leaves rustling. Then it was gone, and a great stillness fell over the plain.
Lief, Barda, and Jasmine waded to the shore. Water streamed from their clothes and hair, hissing as it fell onto the flames of their barricade. They stepped over the flickering embers.
The rats had gone. Between the river and the smoking remains of the campfire there was nothing but a tangled litter of small bones.
“They have eaten their own dead,” muttered Barda, looking sick.
“Of course,” said Jasmine matter-of-factly.
Shivering with cold, feeling as though his legs were weighed down with stones, Lief began trudging towards the place where they had eaten their food many hours ago. Jasmine and Barda followed him, quiet and watchful. Kree flew overhead, the sound of his beating wings loud in the silent air.
Little remained around the ashes of the fire except for three patches of brilliant red.
Lief laughed shortly. “They have left the Ra-Kachar garments and boots,” he said. “They did not like them, it seems. Why would that be?”
“Perhaps the garments still bear the scent of the fungus from the Hole,” Jasmine suggested. “We can smell nothing — but we do not have the senses of a rat.”
They looked around at the wreckage. Buckles from the packs, the caps of the water bags, the pipe that blew bubbles of light, a button or two, a few coins, and the flat tin box containing the last of the Water Eaters lay strewn on the hard clay among the bones and cinders. Except for the clothes from Noradz, nothing else had survived the rats’ hunger. Not a crumb of food, a shred of blanket, or a thread of rope.
“At least we have our lives,” said Barda, shivering in the light dawn breeze. “And we have dry garments to put on. They may not be the garments we would like, but who is to see us here?”
Wearily they stripped off their wet clothes and pulled on the red suits and boots of the Ra-Kacharz. Then, warm and dry at last, they sat down to talk.