Walther wasn’t sure if he believed the plague was spread that way. What he was sure of was that Fritz hadn’t been killed by anyman, sick or not. His killer was a monster, a rat bigger than a sheepdog, with fangs like daggers. People might laugh at him for believing in such a beast, but when he caught the giant, he would drag it out into the light of day and make his detractors eat their words.
The tannery was a filthy shambles. Housed within a boxy building with mud-brick walls and a floor that was depressed a good three feet below ground level, the tannery had acquired a thin scum of ice along much of the floor. With none to maintain the place, run-off from melting snow in the street had seeped into the building to form a crust of dirty brown frost. The big clay pots where the tanner stored the acids he used to cure hides still exuded the stench of urine despite being frozen solid. A motley confusion of half-cured goatskins and ox hides drooped from ropes suspended from the ceiling while a stinking heap against one wall denoted skins Fritz had never gotten around to.
Rats had, however. The pile of skins showed every sign of being rifled and pillaged by the vermin. Pellets littered the floor around the hides, scraggly scraps of fur and hair were strewn about. Any hint of flesh clinging to the skins had been plundered by the marauding rodents. Nor had the animals contented themselves to the meagre pickings left by the tanner. Several dozen rat carcasses were lying frozen to the floor, their skins turned inside out as their cannibalistic comrades stripped them clean. Walther had no idea how a rat managed to so utterly devour another rat. He was fairly certain he didn’t want to know.
More important than the common vermin, however, had been the spoor of the giant. Walther had spotted a few of the monster’s paw-prints in the ice and the terriers had uncovered a rat pellet as big as his own hand. It was obvious the giant had marked out the tannery as part of its range. The giant would be back to forage, and the rat-catcher would be ready for it.
A dozen box-like traps had been set up around the tannery. One thing Walther had always noticed about rats was their tendency to scurry in straight lines, keeping one flank against a wall at all times if possible. Playing upon that verminous habit, he placed his traps against the edges of the walls, far enough away from any holes or windows the giant might use to creep into the building that it wouldn’t get suspicious. Each of the traps was the product of his own design, operating upon a counterbalance that would use the giant’s own weight to trigger it. The rodent would slink into the box to retrieve the scrap of beef placed inside as bait. The increased pressure would tip the counter-
balance and release the taut bowstring suspended above the box. Walther knew the design would work. He’d spent several hours adjusting the counterbalance after normal-sized rats sprang some of the traps. The bowstring had sliced the inquisitive vermin clean in half.
‘Aren’t you going to arm the rest of the traps?’ Hugo asked when Walther rejoined him in their hiding spot between the wooden vats Fritz had used to soak the hides after curing them.
The rat-catcher sighed as he climbed down between the vats. He pushed away the affectionate welcome of the terriers and explained to his apprentice for the fifth time why some of the traps weren’t armed. ‘A rat is a clever brute,’ he reminded Hugo. ‘The traps will be new to him. He’ll study them a bit when he sees them, sniff about and then play it very careful. Now, if he nips inside real quick, he might get away. So I leave the traps closest to the windows and holes baited but unarmed. That way he can get inside and treat himself to a bit of beef. It’ll make him figure the other traps are safe too. And that’ll be his last mistake.’
At first Hugo nodded, but then he began to shake his head. ‘I don’t see how this giant can get inside unless we leave the door open. The windows are too narrow and those holes you are talking about wouldn’t let Alex wiggle through.’ Hugo patted the head of one of the ratters, provoking a frenzy of tail-wagging.
Walther sighed again and explained again some of the peculiarities of a rat’s physiology. ‘A rat’s skull isn’t solid,’ he said. ‘The whole thing can dislocate, sort of collapse inwards so the vermin can squeeze into tight places. If its flattened skull can fit, then the rest of the brute will follow. I’ve seen one-pound rats crawl out of holes no wider than my thumb. Our giant has lots of options to get back in here if he has a mind to.’
The explanation seemed to sink in this time. Hugo’s eyes roved across the walls of the tannery, staring at the narrow windows and peering into the dark recesses of the holes in the plaster.
Walther left his apprentice to his vigil, turning his attention to the cold meal Zena had prepared for him. A bit of rye bread, an almost shapeless nub of cheese and a sausage that he prayed hadn’t been bought from Ostmann. Not the most lavish supper, but it was the thought that counted.
As he moved to take his first bite of the bread, Walther’s face turned upwards. His hand froze before it could reach his mouth. His eyes bugged in shock. A grim pallor spread across his skin.
Staring down at him with beady red eyes was a creature spawned from a madman’s nightmare. Squatting among the rafters, its whiskers twitching, its hideous naked tail dangling obscenely from its hindquarters, was the giant rat. The smells of the tannery must have hidden its presence from the dogs and the rat-catcher’s labour with the traps had kept his own attention focused downwards, not upwards. How long the wicked thing had been sitting up there, watching Walther and Hugo, it was impossible to say. Perhaps it had been the smell of his supper that had lured the giant from whatever hole it had been hiding in. Whatever the circumstances, Walther was getting his first glimpse of the monster he had taken it upon himself to track and trap.
Hugo’s words about needing bigger dogs came back to him as an unheeded premonition. The rat seemed to Walther’s eyes to be as big as a pony, its back arched, its fur standing out in angry bristles. Its ghastly fangs, those chisel-like teeth which had visited such horrendous damage upon Fritz, glistened in the darkness.
The traps were a joke! This brute would never fit inside one of them! With those fangs it could gnaw its way clean through even if it did get caught. The bowstring wouldn’t make a scratch on all that bristly brown fur.
Walther was about to whisper a warning to Hugo when one of the terriers, noticing the rat-catcher’s fright and following the direction of his gaze, looked up and saw the giant. A low growl rumbled from the dog’s throat.
The giant rat’s beady eyes gleamed from the shadows, its hideous fangs clashing together. Walther had half-expected the monster to flee when the dog growled at it. For a second, disappointment flickered through his heart, fear that his quarry would escape.
Disappointment evaporated as stark terror raced down the rat-catcher’s spine. The giant wasn’t scampering off. Instead it launched itself from the beam, leaping straight at the littler dog. Horror flared through Walther’s mind as the verminous body hurtled past him, its bristly hair and scaly tail brushing against his cheek. The colossal rodent struck the terrier head-first, the momentum of its leap sending both itself and the dog crashing against one of the vats, knocking it over.
A sickening yelp escaped from the little dog before its life was crushed between the rat’s snapping fangs. The monster held its victim by the neck, shaking its own head from side to side to dig its fangs deeper into the terrier’s throat. Blood sprayed from the mangled dog, steaming on the icy floor.
Without thinking, the stunned rat-catcher struck out at the marauding rat. Walther’s pole cracked against the brute’s flank. The giant didn’t even squeak in pain as it dropped the dead dog and spun around to bare its fangs at the man who had dared attack it. Blood dribbled from the giant’s whiskers, flecks of foam oozed between its sharp teeth. There was an almost calculating malevolence in the rat’s eyes as it glared up at Walther.