“You must be joking,” Maly said, crossing her arms and frowning. “We are not going down there.”

She, Emah, and Kami stood huddled in a musty, stone-walled cellar of the house that was once Sami Suttar’s, at a lonely cul-de-sac in the Coins. Torchlight from a short and portly City Watch guard revealed wooden shelves that had been emptied of whatever they once held, all except a few empty boxes and frayed, decaying sacks. Patches of pallid mushrooms sprouted on the earthen floor.

And there, against the western wall, was a ragged hole that looked as if it had been gnawed and clawed open from beyond.

Behind them, the liquid shadow that was Maly’s giant cat companion rumbled a low growl. The nearby Watchman yelped and moved as far as he could away from the beast. Emah couldn’t blame him. Destiny the… panther, Maly had called him? Everything about the panther’s presence spoke of a dangerous predator.

“No, I’m not scared,” Maly whispered harshly over her shoulder. “I’m just being practical. That is a deathtrap. Look how small the hole is! Emah, tell him.”

Emah sighed and immediately regretted it. Her entire torso was a quilt of bruises, and Maly had said perhaps her ribs had broken from the ancient bronze armor’s immense blow. Breathing at all hurt, but anything more sent spines of agony coursing through her. She winced and said through gritted teeth. “It’s small,” she agreed. “But the rats look like they made it big enough to go two abreast and carry whatever it is they stole upstairs. We’ll have to crouch, but we can fit.”

“Oh, well that’s just…” Maly threw up her hands in frustration. “Why do we care what they stole, again? Can’t we just wait for them here? Lay a trap or something?”

“They’re not returning,” Kami said evenly. The woman had said little since Emah had risen, though she’d asked after Emah’s health tenderly enough. Emah thought that Kami must be feeling vulnerable after having revealed her otherworldly powers and strength. Certainly, Maly had given Kami a wide berth, like she would spontaneously burst into flames at any moment. The three of them were overdue to have a long talk, and soon. That is, assuming they survived the, as Maly called it, deathtrap before them. “They stole what they wanted.”

“We’re not going after the box they stole,” Emah clarified for Maly. “Our contract is to ensure we exterminate the ratfolk or keep them from entering Oakton. This hole leads to wherever their warren is. At least that’s the theory.”

“Emah,” Maly pleaded. “You don’t follow a bear back to its cave.”

“You do if you’re trying to kill it,” Emah shrugged, and winced with pain. No more shrugging either, she scolded herself. “And what do you know of hunting bears, anyway? You’ve never left the city.”

“It’s an expression,” Maly pouted.

“One you made up,” Emah chuckled, and then told herself definitely no more chuckling. Fire blossomed in her chest and side.

“I will go first,” Kami said grimly, and took a step forward.

“No wait,” Maly held up her hands. “Destiny says he’ll go first.”

The panther stalked forward, and they parted to give him access to the hole. His yellow eyes glinted in the torchlight.

“Watchman,” Emah said to the man at the far end of the cellar. “I assume we are going alone?”

The man’s eyes were wide on his sweaty face. “We– we’ll guard the house, ma’am. Unless… unless you need us?”

She remembered Sergeant Mewa and his handsome face and strong arms. He had been a capable warrior, and intelligent, and he and his two Watchmen had been torn apart by the rats. She had been in bed when they’d taken his body away, so she hadn’t even paid her respects. A wave of sadness for a man she hardly knew washed over her, a regret of lost potential of someone she would have liked to know better. This terrified man before her was everything Mewa was not, and she could see no value in him accompanying them. Indeed, it seemed Inspector Calenta had assigned her greenest and least capable members to the house while she dealt with whatever else was happening in the city.

“No,” she told the man. “But give me your torch.”

He almost stumbled forward to comply. By the time Emah had turned with the wooden tool in her grip, the panther had disappeared.

Maly whimpered. “He says it’s all clear and that we should follow.”

“Let’s get this done,” Kami said, and ducked her way into the savage, black gash in the wall. Emah stooped after her, holding the torch in front of her. A long, earthen tunnel ran down and away in the darkness. “Stay close, Maly. We’ve got this.”

She moved forward, her ribs flaring with pain with every step, following the ratfolk to their lair.

---

Emah wasn’t certain how much time had passed in the tunnels beneath Oakton. The place was an immense warren worthy of any rat’s nest, an intricate series of passages dug through hard-packed earth in all directions. It smelled of fur and feces, a subtle but ever-present stench that had Emah feel unclean. As they proceeded, it became clear that the ratfolk had been able to access points all across Oakton. In addition, there were either many more of the creatures than any of them had suspected or they had been tunneling beneath the town for a long, long time. Perhaps both. Yet despite frequent droppings, discarded or broken tools, and remnants of food, they had neither heard nor seen the ratfolk yet.

Destiny the panther had assured Maly that he could find their way back when their task was done, or at least that’s what Maly informed them that he’s said. Yet even without the great cat’s tracking senses, it would not have been difficult to navigate the maze of tunnels in a general way. To get to Oakton, take a tunnel sloping upwards.

To find the true home of the ratfolk, go down.

They did not speak overly much while exploring the black tunnels. Maly relayed Destiny’s reports from ahead, that he was following the strongest scents, and now and again Emah and her friend would banter about the terrifying press of darkness all around them to keep one another sane. Kami never participated in these conversations, which usually was the reason they all fell silent. Their recent employer seemed tense, angry, and relentlessly focused on completing their mission. Emah was reminded again that, if they all survived this contract and were going to continue associating with the brothel-owner, they would need to have a serious discussion to build trust.

Every step sent a stab of pain into Emah’s side, and the relentlessness of it meant that her entire body ached. She proceeded forward as best she could, keeping eyes scanning the torchlit shadows and ears questing for any sounds but their footsteps and ragged breathing. The lack of ratfolk was an eerie thing, and their absence sat in Emah’s stomach uneasily.

Suddenly, Maly froze. Kami and Emah stuttered to a halt behind her.

“What is it?” Emah whispered.

Maly held up a hand, as if listening, but Emah heard only silence.

“Destiny says there are rats ahead,” Maly breathed quietly. “Sentries.”

“Okay,” Emah nodded, transferring the torch to her free hand and quietly unsheathing her blade. “We should…”

“I’m not afraid of them,” Kami growled, and strode forward, past her startled companions.

“Kami, wait!” Maly whispered urgently, but it was too late. The woman had already disappeared around a bend. There was a squeak of alarm and another of pain, and then Emah was there, sword out front. One crumpled ratfolk lay at Kami’s feat.

“Curse these creatures! One got away!” Kami grunted in frustration.

The panther growled, and Maly nodded in response. “That was dumb,” she snapped, and Kami blinked in surprise. “You want the whole army of them on top of us? We could have done this silently.”

“I thought–” the Kaizukan woman began, and then shook her head, exhaling forcefully through her nose. “You’re right. I apologize.” She looked at Emah briefly and said, almost demurely. “What do we do now?”

“It went to sound an alarm, I assume,” Emah said through the throbbing pain in her side. “But the fact that there are guards means we’re close to something. Let’s hurry and see if we can find a place to hide. If not, we fight.”

The panther huffed and began loping forward. The others followed, though running in a crouch was agony for Emah’s battered side. For the next stretch of time—it could have been minutes, it could have been a full bell, she couldn’t be sure through her near-blinding pain—they weaved through even larger tunnels, the ground hard-packed and well-trod. Echoing from nearby passages and around curves they heard the telltale chittering and squeaking of ratfolk, and Maly told them breathlessly that the panther smelled the things everywhere.

Eventually, they found that they had been largely circling a central destination of some kind, complete with tattered, mismatched cloth and burlap flaps as doors. Perhaps it was the topmost section of a larger living area, or perhaps the barricades were meant to distinguish the warren from other traveling passages beyond. Regardless, Destiny led them past several of the doorways and to a passageway blocked by a long woolen cloak that what looked like it had once belonged to an Oaktowner. The large black beast pushed its way past the cloak and the other followed, into an empty chamber beyond.

“He says there are older smells here, nothing new,” Maly whispered, her face slick with sweat in the torchlight. “It’s as good a hiding place as we’re likely to find.”

“I was… rash,” Kami said. Unlike Maly and Emah, she neither seemed out of breath nor sweating. “I should not have charged those sentries in the darkness without help.”

“We all agree,” Emah gasped, and sat, back against one earthen wall, trying to catch her breath and find respite from the pain. “Don’t do it again. We need each other alive.”

They were in a modestly sized space, but it was certainly a chamber instead of a tunnel. Roughly square, with several sleeping pallets made of straw, scraps of clothing, and various trash. A low, battered table was its only furnishing, and atop the table was a curious, crude statue made of wood that nevertheless distinctly appeared to be a naked man with a rat’s head and tail. If Emah were to guess, it looked like an idol of some kind. Did these ratfolk worship a rat… god? The idea made her uncomfortable, for it meant a level of intelligence that she hadn’t attributed to them. Perhaps extermination wasn’t the aim here, but diplomacy instead? Her mind whirled, thoughts scattered by stabs of pain.

“What is this place?” she said in quiet wonder. “What are these creatures?”

No one answered.

Emah squeezed her eyes tight, her breathing shallow. Her ribs hurt terribly. Her thoughts were a jumble. Would she die down here?

Unbidden an image of her mother appeared in her mind, face strong and smiling. Her mother’s natural countenance was intimidating in its seriousness, like a predator. But when she smiled, those white teeth contrasting with the dark chocolate of her skin, well… the whole world lit up, her father used to say. Emah couldn’t remember the sound of her laugh, though the image of the smile was enough in this moment to lift her spirits. She fixed her mother’s happy portrait in her mind, focused on it while walling away the pain into a smaller and smaller space, until the little package of pain was a fraction the size of her mother’s countenance. Then, like a portrait on a wall, she tucked the pain behind the image, blocking it from view. For one long, even breath she stared at her mother’s dark eyes, her full lips, drawing strength. No, she decided. She would not die down here, in these rat warrens away from the sun and her father.

She exhaled and opened her eyes. Maly and Kami looked at her, concerned, while the panther prowled at the far end of the room near another tattered cloth.

“You okay?” Maly mouthed, eyes wide.

Emah nodded. With only a small grunt she stood. “Let’s go and do our job,” she whispered, and realized that she had not sheathed her mother’s sword. The blade shone in the torchlight, flashing like the smile in her image. She grinned.

Destiny pushed through the cloth hanging and the others followed. Beyond was a passageway, branching left and right.

“Which way?” Emah asked Maly.

The woman cocked her head. “He says the rat smell is strongest to the left. And…” her whispered voice trailed off and she swallowed.

“What is it?” Kami said, her face narrowed with suspicion.

“And he says there are a lot of them.”

“Are they coming towards us?” Emah asked, eyes searching the small living space for a defensible position.

Maly paused, waiting for the answer, and then shook her head.

“You didn’t want to have them all swarm us,” Kami hissed through clenched teeth. Her tone suggested that she did not like speaking of her own mistakes, but Emah did appreciate that she asked the next question before acting independently. “Do we go crush them now or flee?”

Emah looked from the Kaizukan woman to her friend’s wide-eyed face to the black mass of the panther. She sighed.

“Let’s go see what they’re up to,” Emah said.

Next: So many rats!