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FG: Chapter 59
🕑 Added 2024-05-22 14:31:01 +0000 UTCMarcus stood beside Deekius on the battlements of Spearclaw, watching the dwarven milita’s mass exodus back to their homestead.
They had gone, surprisingly, without incident. Perhaps it was due to Marcus’s allowing them to watch their Commander’s execution. Perhaps it was because he had given them the dignity of looking their leader in the eye as he died. He had even allowed them to take his body home with them to ‘Give it back to the Stone’. Marcus assumed this meant they would bury him and erect a stout grave for the stout man.
The execution had been a simple one – death by hanging – and Marcus had commissioned the construction of a simple gallows for the occasion. Skeever had scoffed, saying that enemy commanders were often given up to the Queen of the Clan that conquered them, but Marcus had managed to dissuade the grizzled Talon-Commander. After all, he told him, did Skeever really want his beloved Queen to taste of the rock-solid flesh of a dwarfling? Her teeth would chip and shatter on impact.
Begrudgingly, the ratman had agreed.
He was not the only rat with reservations. Marcus had known that the ratmen would have jumped with pure joy to see the Dwarf commander’s end, but he had kept the death of Commander Corvaughn of House Darragut as a quiet, somber affair – attended by only his Dwarves and a detachment of ratguards to ensure no man attempted to play at being a hero or a martyr. The Commander had obviously trained his men well. As he was slain, his eyes popping out of his thickset skull, fists clenched and feet barely kicking, his men had bowed their heads and intoned a slow, solemn prayer. They spoke of the watchful nature of the Stone. They spoke of how Corvaughn’s body would soon sit within the hallowed walls of the Underkingdom, where the Stone does not forget. Where it does not forgive.
Marcus had looked him in his grey, dull eyes as he died, flailing like a fish on a line. It had given him no pleasure to see the Dwarf expire. Of all the beings he’d met in this desolate realm where only might made right, the Dwarves were too much like human beings. They were too much like him…
“They shall be remembering this day,” Deekius told him as they both watched the unarmed Dwarves leave the fort in shame. “Those that are surviving the journey back home shall be telling their people of us.”
“Good,” Marcus replied stiffly. “Let them tell of the hospitality they received here. Let them tell of how they were soundly defeated and then offered a fair deal by their enemies who they once thought nothing more than mindless rodents skittering in the dark. Let them tell of the Battle of Razor Ridge and let all listeners know that the ratman Kingdom is now a force to be reckoned with. But not one that can be accused of barbarism.”
“You are caring too much of these things, Sire,” Deekius murmured. “Our kind are not having historians as yours do. Rats of legend are being known for slaughter only. Great destruction, we are remembering. That, or the spreading of disease to the surface. I have many stories of great, wise Greyfax of Clan Red-Eye. He was being a rat who knew how to please the Unclean.”
“I’m sure he was,” Marcus said, leaning on the hard, chipped stone of the fort battlements like he held the weight of the world on his shoulders. “But I’m not looking to go down in history as a butcher, Deekius. If you do want to change this world and have a real place on its stage, you’ll have to change how people perceive your kind. That takes more than just winning a few battles or spreading a few poxes.”
The rat-priest considered this with a twitch of his snout. “So, this is how humans are thinking,” he said. “It is being intriguing. I have not thought much on what the future shall bring for our people. It is being odd that, only now, I am considering what our next steps shall be bringing us.”
Marcus was suddenly taken by the hollowness of the rat-priest’s voice. It felt like the little beast had aged considerably in the last few hours. Even his shoulders looked like they were slumping a little more than usual.
“Deekius…”
A gruff cough from behind both rat and man caused them to turn and see Skeever at the top of the North battlement steps.
“The last of the Stunties are being evacuated,” he said, clearly unimpressed by the line of Dwarven soldiers carrying their fallen hero below. “Though I am still thinking we could have been making use of their armor.”
“Their guns will be enough,” Marcus replied. “I’m not about to add insult to injury by having these proud warriors march home naked.”
“It would be a sight to see though,” Skeever sneered, nudging Deekius as he came to stand beside him. “What are you thinking, Gloomraava? Are Dwarven balls being as pudgy as their faces?”
“I am trying not to think upon this,” Deekius replied with a tight smile. “But no doubt their genitalia will be…in proportion.”
Marcus shook his head at them both, feeling like a disappointed father about to reprimand his children. Yet he also saw the steady camaraderie that seemed to have formed between the two of them.
“We’ve come a long way since we first met,” Marcus said, looking out across the blighted battlefield where the Spinerippers of Clan Marrow were still feasting on the dead and the dying. “And with any luck,” he whispered to himself. “We have only a short time left…”
“The Gloomraava of Glumrot are reporting success,” Skeever said. “A Spineripper rider is coming through two hours ago. Head-Priest Koresh is saying they have at least 900 Kobolds under their watch, now. He is conducting sermons and holding them at Fort Greenwall. He wishes to know when you will be joining them.”
So the little bastards pulled it off, Marcus thought, surprised that the priests of Glumrot had come through on their promise to produce a miracle for him. It had meant their clearance of Fort Spearclaw had been worthwhile after all.
Then again, recalling the feat that Deekius had just performed upon the Razor-Ridge, he had no right to be surprised at all by the priests’ success.
Though he did have to admit that the rat-priest was looking a shade paler than usual…
“Send a rider immediately,” he said. “We shall return to Fleapit to resupply and rendezvous with King Shrykul before linking up with Koresh and our new Kobold reserves. On the way, our newest regiment can fine-tune their aim.”
Skeever rubbed his forehead as all of them heard a flurry of gun-shots go off and watched as a ratman holding a smoking arquebus smashed into the wall beneath them.
“E-Eek!” he screamed. “I - I am being sorry, Sires!”
“They will be needing much practice,” Skeever groaned. “These Dwarven boom-sticks are being as dangerous as they are loud.”
“I wouldn’t worry, Talon-Commander,” Marcus said as he placed a reassuring hand on Skeever’s shoulder. “After all, they have quite the teacher.”
He watched with no small degree of pride as Ix instructed both his Kobold team and the rats in the proper operation of the Dwarven rifles. The little Kobold had taken to the weapon like the trained marksman he was. He already seemed well-versed in its operation. It helped that Ix was himself passionate about learning new things generally, and looked upon his new students as a minor deity would bask in the glow of his first worshippers.
They would become an entirely new regiment. They would give the rats the technological advantage they had always lacked in the Underkingdom. And Ix would be at the head of their sharpshooters – a Kobold hero that would inspire the new recruits. He would give them the impression they could rise through the ranks as he had.
Of all the decisions I made, Marcus thought. Saving him was undoubtably one of the best.
But as it often did these days when he thought of his successes, his mind suddenly turned to darker thoughts. Bloody Skegga and the Kobolds in Grindlefecht that would be waiting for them…the Yokun prisoner in the dungeon of Fleapit…
“I am going to retire for a while,” Marcus told his men. “Ready the army to move through the Southern Tunnels towards Fleapit. We should make good time if we leave in around two hours. Let the soldiers rest, let the hungry eat. But we will not sit here and rest on our laurels. Besides,” he added. “We have some new toys to show good King Shrykul.”
He cast his eyes over the wrought-iron giants of the abandoned cannons. A legion of Spinerippers were being shackled to them as Marcus spoke.
“If anyone needs me,” Marcus said. “I will be in my quarters.”
Both Skeever and Deekius bowed as they watched him go.
“Sire?” Skeever asked. “Once we are linking up with our Brothers at the Gulch…what comes next?”
Marcus smiled thinly as he limped down the battlement steps towards his quarters in the fort.
“What do you think?” he shouted back. “The end.”
Comments
Namel909
IX best waifu XD sss . Also …. screeee , he got the guns but no way to make new ones or fix damaged ones dss or make new ammo …. So it is a limited resource sss
