“No, I don’t think so,” Ethan said. He transfixed on the rat as it slowly stood again on its haunches. Ethan extended a hand toward the creature. “I don’t know why, but I feel like you mean us no harm.”
The rat stooped again, this time placing his muzzle under Ethan’s outstretched palm. The black eyes watched, but the rat made no move to harm the boy. Seth stood still, listening, sampling every vibration of the air with his finely honed senses. Levi held his weapon ready to strike should the beast make the slightest provocation.
Ethan laid his hand on the rat’s muzzle. The thick fur was surprisingly soft, though much of his coat still held the remnants of the dung heap. As he made contact with the creature, Ethan felt instantly at peace. He realized the feeling did not emanate from within, but rather from the rat. It meant only to help them.
Ethan spoke then, while his hand was still touching the rat. “Do you know who I am?”
Instantly Ethan felt the answer crossing the connection between them. Somehow, the rat understood him to be one sent from the Creator. “Can you help us to get out of this place to safety?” Ethan asked.
Ethan barely had time to discern a positive feeling before the rat pulled away and scurried toward one of the tunnels leading away from the central chamber. It stopped at the mouth of the tunnel, waiting. Ethan looked at Levi with a smile on his face.
“Now, wait a minute, Ethan. If you think I’m going to go traipsing off, following a giant rat through these tunnels your crazy.”
Seth had already stepped after the rat toward the tunnel. Ethan looked back at Levi and hunched his shoulders. “Call me crazy, I suppose.” Then he followed after Seth.
The rat went into the tunnel with both following. Levi took another moment to consider the situation, until he heard hissing echo from the tunnels behind him. “Wait up, lads. If you’re going on some wild goose-er-rat chase, then I better make sure it don’t have you for dinner!”
CAPTURED
Gideon only vaguely remembered being dragged from beneath a heap of rubble, which had buried him shortly after the shelling began on Nichol’s castle. He heard men’s voices all around him. The sun beat down upon him. His body ached all over. The dry taste of dirt lay on his lips.
The men stopped dragging him by the shoulders. Gideon heard a deep laughter. He raised his head to find a large man standing before him in the armor of a Wraith General. He supposed the man must be General Rommil, but he didn’t feel like raising his head to look into his face.
“So, priest of Shaddai,” Rommil said, “are you the Deliverer of God we have been hearing about all these months?”
Gideon tasted dirt when he tried to speak. His tongue felt pasted to the roof of his mouth. The general grabbed his tattered shirt and picked him up off the ground with one hand. “No. You are not him are you?” Rommil listened, then spoke again. “So, you must be the one who trained the boy. Gideon?”
Gideon noticed, vaguely, that no one visible had spoken to the general, yet he seemed to be getting this information on the spot. He wondered from whom.
“Tell me where your companion is?”
Gideon managed to speak. “You pulled me from a pile of busted rock and you expect me to know where he is? Find him yourself.”
Rommil listened to an unseen voice again.
“Very well, priest of Shaddai,” Rommil said, “you will be my guest aboard The Razor, my fastest ship. It will take us to Mordred. Perhaps, he can persuade you to give him what he wants.”
Gideon started to protest again, but Rommil’s fist smashed him across the face and all went black.
Daylight flooded into the tunnel near the end. Ethan, Seth, and Levi had followed the brown rat all the way to the outside of the castle. Smoke rose above the treetops nearly a half mile away. “That must be the castle back there,” Ethan said.
Levi sat on a nearby rock and examined himself. “This is without a doubt the worst shape I’ve ever been in.”
Ethan wrinkled his nose at the captain. “Yeah, the fresh air really brings out your stench, Levi. You and Seth should take the advice of our new friend over there.”
They watched the brown rat wading into a nearby stream. Where the river became white-water, he entered and held tight to the rocks, allowing the water to cleanse his thick coat of its filth.
“Our new friend?” Levi asked incredulously. “He’s a big, nasty rat.”
The rat exited the stream and shook his lean frame free of excess water, then began grooming his coat.
Seth smiled at Levi. “I’d say he’s a fair bit cleaner than you at the moment.”
“Well, you’re no better, Seth.”
Seth walked toward the stream. “Then I second the rat’s wisdom.”
Ethan smiled as he watched the rat cleaning himself. “He’ll need a name.”
“What on earth for?” Levi asked, bewildered.
“He helped us,” Ethan said defensively. “Not to mention saving your life.”
Levi relented a bit.
“And I think he can help us find Gideon. He may have been captured.”
The rat wandered back to Ethan’s side. He placed his hand gently on the rat’s head, still a bit concerned by the beast’s size. It stood slightly taller than any of them.
“What is your name?” Ethan asked.
Levi rolled his eyes. “Oh boy.”
Ethan ignored him. The rat responded in thought. Ethan tried to decipher it, but only grasped feelings. “I can’t figure out what he’s telling me.”
Seth splashed in the river, allowing the water to clean away the sewage and filth they’d been traveling through.
Ethan tried again. “Would you mind if we gave you a name?”
The rat responded with eager feelings of joy.
“How about Dung?” Levi said from his rocky perch.
Ethan shot him a defensive look.
“What? We found him in a dung heap, after all.”
Ethan smirked, hoping to turn it around on Levi. “Sounds good to me. What about you?” he said to the rat. Surprisingly, he found the rat amiable to the name.
He turned back to Levi. “Good job, Captain, he likes it. Now, go wash up or Dung and I are going to push you in the river.” To this sentiment, the rat rose up with an eager look in his black eyes.
His pounding skull invaded Gideon’s slumber. He roused, slowly at first, then remembering what had happened, he leapt to his feet. Chains held him fast to a steel plate mounted to the wall. He turned and yanked against them again and again, but could not break free. He pulled to the point of wringing blood from his wrists and ankles-no use.
Gideon examined the bars of his cage. Iron bars on three sides. He noticed the floor. It was uneasy-tilting slightly. They have me on a ship. He heard footsteps coming down the corridor beyond the wooden door before his cell. A key slid into the lock on the other side-tumblers slid into place.
Jericho stood in the corner of the lone prison cell, amused. The priest of Shaddai had roused by now from his fist-induced slumber. He pulled against his chains several times, straining his wrists and ankles against the manacles to the point of blood. Most amusing.
Footsteps fell on the wooden floor outside the room. The priest reacted. Jericho watched as the guard came in to find the priest apparently still unconscious. Not a particularly clever ruse. Nevertheless, the guard inspected
