She did.
“What the hell is that thing?” Alice said.
“The rat king,” I said. “And back away!”
The shield couldn’t buy me victory, but it could buy me time. I slammed the shield in the dirt and positioned it so it stood upright. As the creature drew down on me, I pressed against it. The rats tore at the shield, striking it and tearing it apart piece by piece.
I was doing the same with my arm—growing sore now—as I hacked one head from its shoulders after another.
There were so many rats! Too many! How many did I have to kill before this thing fell?
The rats gripped the shield and yanked at it. If it couldn’t destroy the shield, it could tear it away.
I changed tack and sliced at the gripping claws. But the shield wavered, losing its moorings and any second now it was going to—
The shield flew up and struck me on the chin. It knocked me back on my ass. Dazed, I knew I was in trouble. I ordered my legs to get up, to move, but they wouldn’t respond.
The Rat King was a shadow of its former self. Four rats left? Five maybe?
I swung wildly with my sword but a rat caught my arm and knocked the blade from my hand. It sailed through the air.
Too far for me to reach.
I kicked at the approaching heads with the heels of my boots.
But it was no good. It was only a matter of time before they closed on me…
The throwing knives!
I pulled one back but my vision was cloudy and unclear. I couldn’t hit a barn door if I tried.
The rats were on me. They seemed to grin as they bit at my boot. I felt blood gush from the wound as my boot turned soggy.
“Yaaaaaa!”
It was an Amazonian hunting cry.
A warrior flew into the fray, wild and stabbing and swiping, severing one head after another.
The Rat King loathed to give me up but if it wanted to survive, it had no other option.
Who was this wraith of death? Had someone taken pity on me from the crowd? Had the mayor seen how valiant I was and decided such a gladiator deserved life?
No. It was Alice. She had come to my rescue.
She swung the blade like she was chopping wood, but it was working. The Rat King backed off.
I got to one knee and wobbled. Alice was at my shoulder, helping me up.
“Did you kill it?” I said.
“Not all of them,” she said. “But it’s running away.”
The blood fell from my face. “It’s not running away…”
Only the final rat remained. Alone, it was of little danger. But the Rat King had more than one trick up its sleeve. It chomped at its comrades’ fallen bodies, slurping on the blood and making itself stronger.
“It can’t escape,” Alice said. “It’s trapped in here with us.”
“No, we’re trapped in here with it,” I said. “If it eats enough of its fallen brothers and sisters, it turns into a far deadlier creature. The True Rat King. Imagine a rat twice my size and with an insatiable appetite. It won’t stop with us. It will climb into the crowd and then escape into the city. It’s a one-rat plague. I can’t believe they were so stupid to import one here.”
“We have to stop it,” Alice said, determined.
We attacked it from both sides. Me, with my throwing blades, Alice with the sword. The rat gorged on the meat and had already swollen to twice its regular size.
The crowd had turned quiet, needing to run away to safety but on tenterhooks, waiting to see if we would reign supreme.
My blades found the rat’s body, its neck, its back… but small blades would not stop it. Only decapitation would end it, would stop it from gorging and growing ever stronger.
I ran out of knives. I had to stop it from eating. I had to give Alice a chance to sever its head from its shoulders.
I leaped and landed on the rat’s back. It turned and snapped at me with its jaws, kicking and flailing with its giant claws.
“Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!” I bellowed.
Alice swung the blade so wildly I thought she was aiming at me. She sliced the rat across the chest and then skewered it through the heart.
The rat still wouldn’t stop gorging.
Alice swung the blade around and removed its head. She was off-balance and almost lost her feet.
But she had done it.
A thick puddle of blood spilled from the creature, turning the fighting pit floor red.
I rose to my hands and knees and struggled to breathe. Alice acted as a crutch and helped me to my feet.
We stood side by side, caked in blood and guts. Alice raised her hand to the crowd. They got to their feet and roared with excitement.
“You said I didn’t have to kill anything,” she said out the corner of her mouth.
“I didn’t know they had something like the Rat King here,” I said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered turning up.”
Alice kept waving. “These people are nuts.”
“You’re telling me,” I said. “Let’s get our money and get the hell out of here.”
The best ship I could afford was a refurbished shuttlecraft from an Enforcer war frigate. She didn’t look pretty but she ran like a dream. I took us off the planet’s surface and into outer space. I plotted the trajectory to Rogiz 4.
I unbuckled my seat and hissed through my teeth as I limped into the back. The entire ship was tiny. It was essentially a single room. It was designed for emergency landings, not for longterm living. We were in such a rush to leave we still wore our dirty clothes.
“Don’t you need to watch the controls?” Alice said.
“I input the coordinates,” I said. “Computer will take us there. It’s not far.”
“How long before we get there?”
“About four hours.”
Alice grabbed the First Aid Kit from the bathroom and got on her knees.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m—”
“A Titan,” Alice said. “I
