through the fog.
I might die today, echoed his mind, as though detached from the fact.
His stomach seemed on fire.
Behind him, he heard his master reciting the morning prayer. He knew, without looking, that Baracha would be kneeling with his arms folded across his chest, his face turned towards the faint hint of the sun. Today he would ask for courage in his prayer, and the blessings of the true prophet Zabrihm.
Ash, too, knelt on the flat rooftop, and assumed a posture of meditation.
'Come,' he said to Aleas. 'Join me.'
Why not, thought Aleas, and struggled with his load until he was kneeling beside him.
Aleas breathed deeply, seeking stillness. It would not come easily, though, for his body was agitated, tense. It was at times like this that he wished he genuinely believed in the power of prayer like Baracha. Instead, he performed his own litany: his own private call for meaning.
I do this for my friend, he asserted. Because he deserves my loyalty, and because I was born of Mann, and have much to redeem for my peoples' ways. If I die, I do so with righteousness.
If I die, I -
Footsteps, sounding from across the rooftop.
'Your army,' announced Baracha dryly, climbing to his feet.
Aleas turned his head, as a man appeared out of the fog and stepped towards them, his eyes goggling as he took in their attire.
'So you crazy fools really mean to go through with it, eh?'
'You're late,' responded Baracha.
The man plucked the tattered top hat from his head. 'My apologies,' he said,' and he bowed so low that the hat in his hand almost scraped across the concrete roof. 'The directions your girl gave me were somewhat scant, but I'm here now, and I have what you need.'
As they all gathered to face him, Aleas could smell the man's stench even across the distance of several feet. His thinning hair hung in lank strings from his scalp, flaked with dandruff, and his scrawny body hunched unprepossessingly beneath a soiled flapcoat. When he scratched at himself, Aleas could see the man's fingernails were caked with dirt. When he grinned, his teeth resembled a brown mush.
The newcomer exhaled wetly as he extracted something from the deep pocket of his coat. It was a rat, and the creature began to struggle as he held it out by the tail. The animal was entirely white, its eyes pink.
From another pocket the man took out a sachet of folded paper. He opened it up with one hand to reveal a minute amount of white powder.
He blew it into the face of the rat. The creature twitched and made a sound that might have been a sneeze.
Fascinated, Aleas watched as their visitor began to swing the rat to and fro, the animal struggling all the while. At a certain moment he exaggerated the swing, so that the rat sailed upwards, around, and right into his gaping mouth. He clamped his mouth shut, the pink tail dangling limp from between his lips.
The man looked, in turn, at each of their faces, registering shock save for Ash, who had known what to expect.
The rat man hunkered down on his hands and knees. With his chin almost touching the roof he tugged at the tail, drawing the white rat from his mouth. He lay it out upon the concrete, where it appeared to be dead.
He blew air against its tiny face. The rat stirred, twitched its whiskers: its eyes cracked open. It rolled on to its side and gazed at him as if mesmerized. The man gathered up the creature into his hands, then he climbed carefully to his feet. He next approached each of the Rshun in turn. At each one, he squeezed the animal so that it ejected a squirt of urine on to their clothes. The stench of it filled Aleas's nostrils.
The stranger drew a canvas bag from another deep pocket. He dropped the rat inside it, then with great care he plucked one of his hairs from his own head and used it to tie the bag closed. The rat started to struggle within, the bag hardly seeming secure.
'Here,' he said, offering Ash the squirming bag. Ash squinted at it. He gestured to Baracha, and the man offered the bag to the Alhazii instead.
Baracha was even less keen. 'The boy can take it,' he decided.
And so Aleas was burdened with yet another item to carry: this time a sack containing a struggling rat.
'He is a king amongst rats,' explained the man to Aleas. 'They will come for him, when he calls them.'
'And when will that be?'
'Right now.'
Aleas looked about him. He could see nothing, certainly no rats.
'Our thanks,' said Ash gruffly, and handed the man a purse of coins.
The man bowed again, less pronouncedly this time. He tapped the top of his hat after he had replaced it upon his head. 'I would wish you good luck, but that seems a rare commodity these days. Anyway, it's hardly worth squandering on fools. Goodbye, then, Ash. May your end be a glorious one.'
With this final blessing he hobbled away.
*
'When I said we required an army,' muttered Baracha, as they crossed the street and approached the bridge, 'I was talking in a literal sense. Men and such. Men with weapons. Armour. Discipline.'
From the edges of their vision they could see shapes emerging and scattering in the fog. The rats were coming out.
'These are better,' said Ash.
The Rshun stopped before the squat sentry post that barred their way on to the bridge. A masked Acolyte stepped out, hand resting on his sword hilt. He began to speak, but stopped abruptly when Ash thrust a knife into him, twisting it up into his lung.
Ash withdrew the blade, air whistling from the gaping wound. The man toppled on to his side, gasping like a fish out of water behind his mask.
Baracha stepped over him. A brief scuffle sounded from within the sentry post. He emerged grim-faced. They stepped on to the bridge.
Aleas still carried the bag in his hand, limp now. The king rat had stopped squirming. He cast a look over his shoulder and saw a shapeless mass following behind them. The tower loomed overhead, hidden eyes watching their approach. Loopholes ringed the lower reaches of the temple, jutting out from its sheer sides so that archers could fire straight down. Aleas tried to walk normally in his robes and with his heavy burden.
They halted at the base of the tower itself, in front of the massive iron gate. A grate slid open, at waist level, revealing only blackness beyond.
Aleas moved as instructed. He pulled open the neck of the bag, easily snapping the hair which bound it, and emptied the animal through the hole.
Almost immediately its fellow rats emerged from the fog and rushed for the gate. The three Rshun swung away to either side, batting the swarming creatures from their legs. Against the gate, the rats piled upwards like a drift of leaves until they were able to squirm through the open grate.
'Smoke,' demanded Ash, flapping his open hand. Aleas fumbled beneath his robe for one of the small bags filled with jupe bark and barris seed, and tossed it to him.
Shouts sounded from within. An alarm went up, a bell clanging fiercely.
The farlander bent and lit the bag's fuse with a match. He tossed it to the ground, where it began to spew clouds of white smoke that helped to augment the natural cover of fog. A bolt shattered at Aleas's feet and without even thinking he raised his double crossbow to aim at a loophole some twenty feet above his head, and snapped off a shot. From a different loophole a rifle spurted a blast of smoke and a hurtling lead shot, which couldn't be seen save for its bloody and instantaneous progress through Baracha's left ear.
'Aleas!' bawled the Alhazii. Aleas twisted and fired again.
While he was at this business of returning fire, Ash and Baracha were working to free one of the two small casks of blackpowder that hung beneath his robe. Baracha ignored the ruin of his ear, which hung in tatters, dripping blood. 'You tie knots just like my mother,' the Alhazii grumbled to Ash, both of them struggling to get the cask loose. More shots crashed down. The noise was deafening, shards of wood flying up around their feet. The cask finally came loose. Aleas reloaded his crossbow and huddled by the side of the gate, knowing they would be
