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Chapter 17: The War in Molamse Part 2

Eeskit's ears flicked and he raised a paw up. The entire column behind him stopped silently. They waited for the next command.

There was a noise and Eeskit had almost missed it. Faint. Either far off or from something that had tried to be stealthy. He listened for a bit longer before signaling for one of his clan mates.

A white furred rat that had a leather hood over his entire head and two slits carved for eye holes, came running up. He didn't make a single noise as he came to a stop next to Eeskit.

“Go ahead, Borsquee," Eeskit gave the hand signals to his scout. “Stay low and quiet."

Borsquee nodded and unsheathed a well polished and oiled dagger. He put the knife between his teeth and scampered off on all fours.

Eeskit kept listening and waited for two minutes before he signaled the column he was leading forward.

Half the slave army was in the sewers, following Eeskit and his clan rats under the walls of the masters and eventually behind them. From there, the walls would be attacked from the front and the back. Even if the walls were manned by professional soldiers, their morale would break quickly, especially if the city began to burn as well. Why fight for a city that doesn't exist anymore?

The army of slaves, a mix of house slaves to gladiators to coal shoveler, they all were united and determined to fight and die to take the city and earn their freedom. They began to move again.

The sound of battle could be heard overhead. Gorston had found a set of ballista and some catapults in an abandoned siege foundry from some recently taken parts of the city. He was using those to attack the walls of the high class district of the city as a distraction. His attacks were half hearted and only meant to distract the enemy from the fact that half the army was under them.

They had been on the move since early morning, using the darkness to hide the movement of the thousands of individuals into the sewers. It wouldn't be long now though. The sewers were a maze. They had been built for a very old city and had been added on to haphazardly over the course of millennia.

Sha has apologized for its sorry state. While his family had access to the sewers and originally built it, the maintenance and expansion had been left to lesser families.

About another half an hour and the scout returned with news that the way was clear. The sound had been nothing but actual feral mice. Eeskit had shook his head the the lack of stealth his smaller and feral cousins showed.

With no apparent danger and a bit of a timeline, Eeskit allowed the army to move at a faster pace. Still, it was pretty slow. The sewers weren't very wide and he was trying to get tens of thousands through.

It was midday by the time they reached a set of locked gates.

Eeskit came up to them and pulled out Sha's key and slid it into the lock. There was a satisfying click and the gate swung open.

Cautiously, Eeskit went through, wary of ambushes as he stepped into an upward incline that also began to widen out before reaching the top and was flanked by tall walls of rock. It was a large run off ditch for the rainy season where the entire sewer would be filled to the top with water. Now it was bone dry, perfect for an army.

He crept up the incline, staying in the shadows. He gave a signal for the rest of them to stay behind.

The sounds of the diversion at the wall we're more clear now, but a bit distant at about half a mile away. Hopefully there were no soldiers here.

At the top, the incline, made of stony cement, flattened out into a wide basin where rain water would collect. Above the basin was the high class districts, ripe for pillaging and yet it wasn't.

Thousands of soldiers were there waiting in a battle line and they were already moving forward. They stood in their bronze armor and yellow dyed tunics with spears ready.

There was the sounds of yelling and screams suddenly behind Eeskit. He turned to see that soldiers were also rappeling down the sides of the walls and attacking. They came pouring over, catching the slave army that was mostly still inside the sewers.

They had been betrayed. Sha has sold them all out. Anger burned deep in Eeskit's heart and he imagined all the horrible things he would like to do to the otter master.

Eeskit knew that he had two options. He could order the retreat. It would be a bloody retreat since the army could only move so fast through the sewers and very few actually knew the way back. Or... they could fight and most likely die.

“Slaves came to fight," Eeskit said to himself and unsheathed his favorite jeweled dagger. “Fight for your freedom!" He yelled and threw himself at the attackers.

Other saw him attack and quickly regained their spirits. The counter attack was weak, but good enough to push out of the sewers, allowing more and more slaves to get out into the fight.

The soldiers were fierce and disciplined, quickly forming makeshift fighting companies even when surrounded on all sides. Once in a formation, they were even more formidable and many fell beneath their blades.

Eeskit saw that they were outmatched, but he had a few tricks up his sleeves.

The rat scampered on all fours with his knife between his teeth towards the nearest company of soldiers. They had formed a tight squared of shields and were hacking away at the sea of bodies.

A canine in rags and wielding a rusted sword, screamed in pain and fell away, clutching his stump of an arm. Eeskit slipped around him and used his falling form to cover him as he slide between the legs of the soldiers. They didn't see him. They never would.

Once surrounded on all side by the soldiers, Eeskit reached into his sleeve and pulled out a bottle of bubbling black liquid. He threw it straight up in the air and then ran away as fast as he could.

Only one of the soldiers saw the bottle in the air. He never thought of catching it and instead watched as it crashed to the ground and splashed the entire company with necrotic slime.

The air sizzled and filled with smell of rot as the armor and flesh underneath of the soldiers legs turned to liquid. They shrieked and fell into the liquid, feeding it more raw organic matter to turn into even more necrotic mass. The entire company was reduced to a sludge of bones and ooze in under two minutes.

Eeskit delighted at the sound. He had not used the Vermin's Nectar of Death in some years and he was glad that it still worked, but that was his only bottle at the moment.

One of the companies fell apart in front of Eeskit when a gladiator, a serpent had slithered into their ranks and had began to strike at them with all four of her limbs. Eeskit dove into their midst as well with his dagger.

Four soldiers lay dead at Eeskit's feet before they took notice of him.

A soldier lunges out with a short pike, aiming for the rat's head, but Eeskit dodged to the side and grabbed onto the pike so that when the soldier jerked back, it launched Eeskit into the soldier's face.

Eeskit stabbed with his blade, slashing off an ear and stabbing out both eyes before leaping away onto the back of another soldier who had been engaged in a fight with a pair of hungry looking elk. He cried out in shock and tried to reach for Eeskit, leaving himself open.

One of the elk charge and stabbed the soldier in the side with a long sword. The soldier gurgled something and lashed out, cutting the elk in the leg. Eeskit then stabbed the soldier in the side of the head.

The fight was not going well. Many of the slaves at the rear had seen what was going on and lost heart. They ran back into the sewers where most would end up lost would then wander for days before succumbing to thirst. The rest were being cut down in an alarming rate, but the slaves fought on because they knew that they would be killed regardless of if they surrendered or not.

Eeskit continued his attacks, cutting down foes left and right until he found himself without any enemies anymore. He looked around and saw the soldiers running yet no one was cheering.

Only the soldiers that had rappelled down on them were running. They were running towards the lines of their main force that had stopped marching and were forming phalanxes.

Eeskit's heart dropped. He looked back at his force. Scarcely a third of what he had brought with him were left and many were wounded now.

“It's pointless," Borsquee said, walking up next to Eeskit calmly. “No victory here. No victory ever. Hopeless cause." Borsquee, the white rat was calm. His blade was sheathed and he lacked the tired look of one that had been fighting for their life.

Eeskit turned to the scout. “We die anyways," he growled and tightened his grip on his knife. “For cause I... for cause clan believes in. Slaves die free."

“Or," Borsquee said with a raised finger. “Clan returns to home, to rejoin greater clan." He pointed at the soldiers who were simply awaiting for orders to attack. “We go to them. Clan survives. Slaves die. We no slaves any longer. That is deal I made."

Eeskit bristled with rage. “You made deal with masters!" He nearly stabbed the white rat then and there but he was quickly surrounded by several other rats and felt a blade press against his side.

“Be smart, Eeskit," Borsquee said. “You great vermin. Leader of clan. Come. Stay leader. No need to be dead." He nodded to the soldiers.

Eeskit took a step back. “I die dead then."

Borsquee sighed and stepped back towards the soldiers. “Is fine. Regrettable, but fine." He gesture to the other rats and they began to walk to the line of soldiers. Only three stayed with Eeskit.

“Traitors," one of the rats said, a younger one. “When greater clan learns, they will cut throats."

The others nodded in agreement, but Eeskit knew better. Back stabbing was the way of the vermin. No one would care. Some might even praise Borsquee for his cunningness.

“Now what?" Another older rat with only one eyes asked. “Death is certain if attack. Perhaps run and fight again later."

The comment made Eeskit think of the short conversation Gorston and Janice had not long ago. Gorston would have charged without any regard. He would have died fighting here without any remorse or regret.

“You told Borsquee that we fight and die free," the third vermin said. He was about the same age as Eeskit, but looked much more fit. “I say we do that."

Eeskit clenched his fist and felt his claws dig into his palms. He didn't actually want to die. Every moment since this rebellion has started, he had known that Janice, his queen, would save them and bring the slaves to freedom. It was fact in his mind and he still believed that, even with this defeat. She was always head strong and as much as he hated to accept it, being a vermin and all, he was a bit in love with her. It was why he put his life on the line climbing the walls of the middle class district and had actually nearly died there. It was why he went into the sewers and mapped them out where he nearly drowned in shit after stumbling across a patrol of soldiers. He did it all for her. Whenever he talked of fighting to free the slaves, he meant he was fighting for her. He didn't want to die, but perhaps dying for her wasn't so bad.

“We fight then," Eeskit said. “We fight!" He yelled and charged.

There was a full second before he heard a triumphant roar behind him and the earth shook as he charged ahead.

Borsquee hadn't made it to the soldier's lines when the charge came. He tried to run to get away, but Eeskit was fast.

With a swish of his arms, Eeskit sent out throwing knives that hit two of Borsquee's traitors in the necks. They clutched at their throats before collapsing from the fast acting poison on the knives.

The white rat raised up his knife to defend himself, but it did no good because Eeskit didn't just carry that one bottle of the Nectar of Death, but the Nectar of Life as well. It was no healing potion.

The bottle came at Borsquee and the rat instinctively cut at it, eyes wide in horror at his body's natural reaction because he saw the white liquid come out and cover him.

For a moment, nothing happened as the liquid was soaked into the skin of the white rat, then things happened very fast. His body began to bulge. Tumors began to grow across his body. His fur grew longer and longer. His teeth fell out and was replaced by tusks that grew through the bottom of his jaw. His skin stretched and stretched as every part of him grew at a disgustingly fast rate until it was just too fast and the rat simply popped like a pimple. Gore and blood. Bones and teeth. It went everywhere and only took four seconds for the entire scene to occur. One of the soldiers puked.

Eeskit took satisfaction in it, knowing that those that betrayed him died a horrible death for the Nectar of Life was reserved for those that had committed the worst of crimes, except it was usually applied slowly over the course of days and days.

The line of soldiers tightened their ranks and began to march forward now, their pikes laid out in layered rows to skewer anything that came from the front.

Eeskit doubted that he would make it past the formidable phalanx and was about to leap into it when the sky just above them and nowhere else darkened. Clouds formed from nothing and began to swirl. Then it rained a single tear of fire.