Amber’s eyes gleamed. “Rats! Beneath any city there are thousands of rats.”
“Oh! We could use the same summoning magic,” Peretta said, understanding what she meant. “Call up the rats from the sewers, from the alleys, gutters, and midden heaps.”
A D’Haran captain with his group of beleaguered defenders shouted a cry of defiance as they were surrounded by overwhelming enemies. Raising his sword, the captain yelled for the others to join him in a fight to the death. He led a hundred soldiers against a wall of ancient warriors marching through a square.
“Quickly!” Amber knelt and placed her hands against the flagstones of the square. Peretta and Oliver joined her, shoulder-to-shoulder. “Remember what we used for the scorpions. Call them—call them all! Can you feel them?”
Oliver sensed the tingling in his fingers. “Yes, I think so. Little and furry, but with sharp teeth.”
“And hungry,” Peretta added. “They are very hungry.”
With their combined gift, they reached out, sent a call. While the minds of the scorpions had been tiny and susceptible, the rats were more intelligent. But the three young companions were able to convince the rodents that this was what they wanted to do.
Oliver could sense scurrying feet, furry bodies rising up from the sewers, running through the gutters. The creatures swirled out of Tanimura’s underbelly, all claws and teeth, naked pink tails and red eyes.
The D’Haran captain’s sortie slowed, defeated by a horde of enemy soldiers that surrounded them. Blood sprayed as ten enemies fought against every defender, hacking them down one by one, until the brave captain himself was dragged to the ground.
As the defenders fell, though, the rats boiled up from the streets in a brown wave of death, just like all the scorpions that had erupted from the desert floor back at Cliffwall. They were dirty vermin that lived beneath the moist and noisome shadows of the streets, but they also defended their city.
The invaders howled and flailed as they suddenly faced this ravenous wave that fell upon them, thousands of furry bodies that crawled up their legs and gnawed their skin, tore through chinks in their armor. Though they thrashed their weapons and clawed with their gauntleted hands, the enemy soldiers could not fight against it. Their voices became a panicked outcry, and their disciplined, regimented advance across the square broke apart.
Oliver, Peretta, and Amber watched, shaking with fear and awe, as innumerable rats fed upon the enemy.
CHAPTER 82
Tanimura had already fallen. General Utros knew he had won.
From his high vantage above the city, he could watch the ebb and flow of the fighting. He had encountered setbacks, as in every war. One entire division led by Second Commander Halders had entered the thick forest in a flanking move, and had never emerged. Something in that dark woods had defeated them.
But Utros had more soldiers, many more. King Grieve’s Norukai had caused great carnage in the harbor and on the waterfront, but they were mostly broken. He had never relied on those brutish allies for this conquest, though he was happy to let them bear the brunt of so many casualties. He would mop up the rest of them as soon as he quelled the other fighting, but that wouldn’t take long.
First Commander Enoch had taken five thousand men in a central prong straight into Tanimura. Second Commander Arros drove another division of five thousand along the western hills and into the rich nobles’ district. More of his soldiers, tens of thousands, were still on the outskirts waiting to surge in and plunder. Tanimura could do nothing to stop his victory.
But he couldn’t understand what Nicci was up to. What did her brash message mean? She was in no position to make demands.
As Utros stood pondering, the pale young captive struggled in his grip. He squeezed his gauntleted hand around the girl’s throat and lifted her off the ground. Her small feet jittered and twitched, trying to touch the dirt, but Utros raised her higher, squeezed tighter. With minimal effort he could crush her larynx and snap her neck, but he needed the girl to speak first. “Tell me again what Nicci said. Every word.”
“Meet her,” the captive gurgled. “Nicci demands it. On Halsband Island.” The girl flailed her hand toward the barren island connected to the main city by new, rickety bridges.
Ruva chuckled. “Each of the messengers said the same words.”
“Why? What does she want?” Utros pressed his face closer to the dying girl, who showed no fear. Her mouth gaped like that of a fish left to bake in the sun, but she couldn’t speak any words. He paused, furrowing his brow. “I recognize your garments, your pale skin. You are one of the worms hiding in our sacred capital of Orogang. You attacked my men.”
The young woman clutched uselessly at his hand, trying to draw a breath. “You attacked us! Orogang has always been ours.”
“Orogang is mine—my capital.” Utros squeezed tighter, and her eyes bulged. “Why does Nicci want me to come to that island? Why?” Forgetting himself, he squeezed too hard, and her neck cracked. The girl fell limp.
Disgusted, Utros tossed her body to the ground, discarding her beside the other four Hidden People who had delivered exactly the same message. Through his golden half mask, he frowned at all the broken corpses, turned to Ruva, then to the open island. “Is it a trap?”
Ruva’s eyes carried an edge of madness. “It may be a trap, but it will not work. Never! We are stronger!” The sorceress had grown more violent, more volatile than he had seen her before. She claimed that the Keeper called to both her and her sister through the veil, but Utros would not release them to the underworld. Not yet.
Ruva suddenly calmed, considered, then shrugged. “How could Nicci possibly lay an ambush there? It is open, indefensible.” She smiled. “No, she wants to surrender, beloved Utros. There is no other explanation.”
Utros shook his head in consternation. “Why would she do that? Even if we come to terms, Nicci thinks that I can snap my fingers and stop the army? They’re starving, and now at last they have their victory. I can’t control them, nor would I want to. After today they will all eat well even if they have to pick Tanimura clean.” He swelled his chest. “Afterward, my army will be strong and ready to march again, the way they were meant to be.”
“If Nicci wants to surrender, let her do it,” Ruva said, sounding hungry. “Then we can kill her.”
Ava’s spirit shimmered before them, pale and insubstantial, more diluted than he had ever seen her. “Kill Nicci the way she killed me!” Ava folded herself on top of her twin sister, and they both laughed. “You must confront her. She creates her own doom.”
“Yes, beloved Utros. You must do this. We want her, my sister and I. And you want her. Nicci opens her arms to embrace death, and we will kill her.” Ruva was ready to explode with eagerness.
Utros remained wary, but he allowed himself to be convinced. He also wanted to crush the sorceress who had taken his precious Ava from him. “Yes, you deserve your revenge, and I will grant it. I wanted to face Nicci on the battleground, but this saves me the trouble of finding her.” He turned away from the dead messengers, thinking no more of them. “Bring a hundred troops as an escort. We will meet her on the island and put an end to this.” He bunched his fists. “She is a fool.”
The joy in Thorn’s voice was palpable, and she showed her exuberance by decapitating her opponent. “That’s seventy for me, sister.” The ancient warrior’s neck stump spouted blood, and the lumbering body took two staggering steps before it slumped forward. “Seventy! Can you beat that?”