Emah winced, her face a mask of sweat, her breathing labored. Her damned ribs on one side lanced pain with every stumbling step, and now her shoulder burned and stomach roiled with whatever those robed ratfolk had thrown at them. Holding the torch aloft with that arm involved more effort than Emah cared to admit. All she wanted to do was stop… to close her eyes, drop to the floor, and curl into a ball.

Ahead, the black shadow of Destiny led them with loping strides away from the ratfolk temple. Occasionally the great cat would briefly pause, yellow eyes scanning the darkness and nostrils flaring. Emah thought the panther was scanning for Maly as much as finding a way to safety. At least she hoped that was the case, and hoped equally that the creature was helping guide and comfort her friend through whatever link they shared. Why had she jumped into the crowd like that? What could she have possibly hoped to accomplish?

“Come on,” Kami urged to Emah. The brothel owner maddeningly did not sweat at all, seemed utterly in control of her breathing as if on a leisurely stroll. Yet behind the wooden half-mask, Kami’s eyes were as wide as Emah’s, as furtively searching the darkness. “The crates won’t hold them long, and then they’ll be upon on.”

“I know,” Emah growled. She pushed herself off an earthen wall that she had gripped briefly for relief and, with a groan, willed her feet forward despite every muscle protesting.

It had all happened so quickly. The scene at what could only have been a temple was unlike anything she could have imagined; dozens upon dozens of the small, furred ratfolk swaying in unison to a robed figure upon a raised dais at the feet of an enormous statue of a man with a rat’s head and tail. In front of the leader sat a golden and jeweled box that sparkled in torchlight, stolen from Sami Suttar’s home and formerly guarded by an animated suit of armor. The ratfolk had all been participating in a ritual of some kind, Emah supposed, a ritual that somehow involved the box. Whatever the ratfolk leader upon the dais had intended, she and her companions had interrupted it.

Without warning, her friend Maly had disappeared into the crowd, pushing her way forward. Then the figure upon the dais had noticed them, pointing an accusing clawed finger. The entire room had turned, and a wave of… something had rippled through the mob. Ratfolk faces that had been surprised, frightened, and confused suddenly all contorted into rage. With a collective squeal, the swarm of the creatures had surged at them.

Emah could hardly remember the moments from then until now. Eerie green, throbbing balls of light hurled from the back of the crowd at them, arcing lazily like catapult stones and splashing as they struck the floor and walls. She had been focused on the crazed, frothing ratfolk at the front and ignored the orbs of energy, and one had hit Emah in her shoulder. A searing, nauseating pain throbbed through her, like a burn and punch in the stomach all at once. She’d doubled over, gagging, and then called for a retreat.

Destiny had stayed to fight, ripping at ratfolk with its white teeth and claws. Yet through tear-blurred eyes Emah had seen the mob engulf the black panther, and in a heartbeat, it leapt from the fray. As it pushed past her, Emah had seen its fur matted in blood.

Then they ran.

Through the ratfolk tunnels they’d fled, the echoing wave of chittering, screaming madness behind them. At one point they’d passed a stack of wooden crates and Kami had, almost casually, scattered the heavy boxes across the tunnels behind them. The wave of frenzied ratfolk had hit the obstacle, the lead creatures stumbling and becoming crushed by those behind them. The maneuver had bought them some distance, and Destiny had used that distance to find their way to smaller and smaller passageways, always sloping upwards. Emah thought that they might actually make it back to the Oakton streets alive… Unless the ratfolk had circled to another tunnel to cut them off. Unless the panther had mistakenly led them to a dead end. Unless her legs gave out to exhaustion and pain.

And where in the blazes was Maly?

Through her weary and pain-filled haze, Emah realized that whether her friend had made it out of the mob alive was, for now, irrelevant. Perhaps Maly had died, perhaps she’d been captured, or perhaps she was now finding her own way to the surface. The implications of the mad Stone Islander’s impulsive dash into the temple would have to wait. For now, Emah, Kami, and the panther must survive their pursuit, and it was Emah who most threatened their progress.

It could have been a full bell in time or several, she couldn’t be sure. Everything for Emah was a shroud of pain, sweat dripping off her chin, into her eyes, making the grip on the flickering torch precarious. Every muscle burned with fatigue, and every labored breath felt like someone stabbing her repeatedly. Kami pulled her forward, sometimes physically and sometimes with urgent words. Emah remembered no details from their flight from the temple, only flashes of Destiny’s yellow eyes, Kami’s harsh and urgent voice, and the constant, menacing echoes of the ratfolk horde.

At one point, Destiny growled and leapt forward, into the shadows. Emah was sure the mob had cut them off, that they now faced enemies from the front and back, that she would die in darkness and dirt. She would not see her father again, not see the sun and sky. A wave of resignation and weariness overtook her in that moment. Emah would not see her father, but she was eager to reunite with her mother. So be it.

Heartbeats later, Kami was gripping her bicep and pulling her ahead, yelling something, before sunlight broke above them.

A barrel’s top had apparently been tossed over a ragged hole. Destiny had knocked the barrier aside and disappeared above. Kami yelled something else to Emah, which she dimly took as some sort of instruction. Emah nodded and leaned against the tunnel’s earthen surface, panting and closing her eyes, while Kami wriggled upwards through the opening. Then unnaturally long arms, like vines, snaked towards her, pulling her up and into the light.

Emah briefly noticed the blue sky above and their surroundings, dappled with wispy clouds. They were in an alley somewhere, trash piled all around them between tall wooden walls. Kami held her, frowning behind her half-mask.

It was the last thing Emah remembered. She tried to say something, but her eyes rolled back in her head, sounds muffled, and then there was darkness everywhere.

---

The world blurred into existence as Emah cracked open her eyes and looked around woozily. At first, nothing looked familiar, and she frowned in confusion. She lay in a large bed, in a dark bedroom that was not her typical cramped room at the Heart and Dagger, its windows covered by curtains. No light shone through the windows, which meant it must be nighttime. Emah blinked, her mind working slowly. Then she rubbed at her eyes with a calloused hand and looked again.

Ah, she did know this place. She was back in the musty, unused bedroom within Sami Suttar’s house, on a lonely cul-de-sac street within the Coins. It was the same place she’d woken up the day before, after getting pummeled by the enchanted bronze armor upstairs. Was it yesterday? She had no idea. Yet, perhaps foolishly, then she’d pushed herself out of bed to accompany Maly, Kami, and the panther down into a hole in the home’s basement in what now seemed a mad pursuit of ratfolk. Their journey below came rushing back to her—the endless maze of warrens, the torchlit and pressing gloom, the bizarre temple scene, the flight from the frenzied mob to the surface. And Maly, missing.

Emah took stock of her own injuries. Her midsection had new bandages, and her ribs still felt tender and sore. She suspected that moving would again prove to be agony. In addition, her left shoulder was also bandaged, covering where the glowing green attack from the ratfolk faithful had struck her. Thankfully, she no longer felt the roiling nausea from before, though her shoulder throbbed dully. At the edges of the bandage, the skin showed small, dark, spidery veins that could have been signs of infection.

Someone had left a waterskin within reach of her good arm, and Emah reached for it, slaking her thirst with small sips at first, then slurping gulps. The effort of drinking made her dizzy, and she closed her eyes again. Her ears quested past the closed door, listening for any voices or movement. She heard nothing. It must be the middle of the night, she thought dully. Who was here, sleeping or keeping watch? How much time had passed? Was Maly okay? Had there been signs of the ratfolk’s pursuit? Emah cursed her injuries and fatigue, willing herself to stand and find answers. Yet her battered body refused, and soon she had fallen back into a deep stupor.

---

“So let me get this straight,” Emah said, shaking her head and spooning soup to her mouth between sentences. “The panther yells ‘Get the box’ to you, and you just… jump into a horde of ratfolk? What was your plan?”

Maly grinned, her freckled and pale cheeks flushing slightly. “I, uh… well, my plan was to get the box. Which,” she said with an upraised finger. “I will point out that I did.”

It had been three days of bed rest for Emah, and on the morning of the second day Maly had knocked at Sami Suttar’s front door. Kami reported that the young woman clutched the golden, jeweled box in her tattooed arms, and that she looked bedraggled and in need of a bath. By the time Maly had cleaned up and slept for a full day and night, Emah was close to being on her feet again. The two hugged awkwardly, Emah favoring one side, and wept. It seemed that neither Destiny nor Kami had wished to remain for the reunion, which left the two friends to chatter away.

“Where is the box now?” Emah asked, wiping her bowl clean with an end piece of bread.

“Kami has it,” Maly said. “In the attic, where it was before. She said that if the rats wanted it, she’d know they were coming that way. She’s sleeping up there, too. Though Emah,” she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I don’t know if the woman actually sleeps. Really. Oh, hey… more soup?”

Emah grinned and offered her bowl gratefully. “Yes, please.”

When Maly returned with the steaming bowl and a new hunk of bread, the black panther Destiny padded at her side. Behind them both, Kami entered the room. The bejeweled box, the size of a small backpack, was tucked under one arm.

Kami appraised her behind her wooden half-mask. “Maly says that you are healed?”

“Near enough to swing a sword, I suppose,” Emah nodded, and Kami nodded once back. “Does your question mean we have a plan?”

The Kaizukan woman paused, an expression on her mouth that looked almost pouty with her bee-stung lips. “We do not. It’s why I’m here. I thought we could discuss what happens next.”

While Emah slurped soup, Maly pulled a small chair from the corner to her bedside. Kami remained standing, and Destiny stretched out against a far wall beneath the only window. Maly had opened the curtains that morning, and the day outside looked sunny and bright.

“It seems obvious,” Kami began without preamble once Maly had settled into the chair. “that the ratfolk below Oakton are led by the figure upon the dais in the tattered robes, and that he…”

“She,” Maly corrected.

“Oh?” Emah couldn’t see it because of the mask, but she assumed that Kami had raised an eyebrow with the question. Otherwise the woman hadn’t moved.

“She yelled at me, in my mind,” Maly nodded, “the same way Destiny communicates. Definitely a ‘she,’ and young. I also don’t think she was leading those ratfolk so much as controlling them.”

Kami stared at Maly and Emah urged her on with a wave while she continued to eat.

“Yeah. She tried it on me, but either Destiny was protecting me or it only works on ratfolk or… I don’t know. Anyway, didn’t you notice how they all turned feral all of a sudden? That was her. I think if we take her out, we solve the ratfolk problem.”

“That is quite the leap of logic,” Kami frowned.

Maly shrugged a pale shoulder. “It makes sense, though.”

“What’s in the box?” Emah interjected, nodding her chin at the item beneath Kami’s arm.

“I did look, of course,” Kami said. “It’s… unnerving. I don’t know what I expected, but not this.” She knelt and placed the box upon a rug, its lid facing Emah and Maly so that, when opened, they could see inside. Emah stopped eating and the two of them leaned forward to see as Kami unlatched the chest and opened it.

Inside was something tightly wrapped in gray linen. It looked like…

“Is that a… hand!?” Maly squeaked.

“Yes,” Kami confirmed. “A severed and mummified hand. And not small and clawed either. It is a human hand.”

“Gross,” Maly winced.

“My thought as well.”

“So,” Emah wiped the last of her second bowl with the last of her second piece of bread. Before popping the bread in her mouth, she said, “the magical rat-priestess wanted the hand for some ritual, which we didn’t let her finish. Why haven’t they come and taken it from us? They certainly have the numbers, and I wouldn’t have been able to fight back.”

They all sat in silence for several heartbeats. Kami snapped the chest shut and stood, the box at her feet. “Perhaps they did not think we would come back here. It is a big city, and their warrens are vast. Or perhaps the priestess also needed rest, or to regain control of her people. I cannot say.”

“Maybe they took us being there as a threat to their home,” Maly offered. “A sign from their rat god, or something.”

“If that were the case,” Emah said, swallowing the last bite. “They would have spent these days fortifying their defenses. Maybe collapsing tunnels. That feels right… that we scared them as much as they scared us. Whatever ritual that priestess wanted to do isn’t as urgent as important as making sure we can’t just walk back into their domain unmolested.”

“I don’t want to go back down there anyway,” Maly said, and then her eyes widened with a thought. “Please don’t tell me whatever plan we make has us going back down there.”

“No, on that I agree,” Emah said, placing her empty bowl beside her on the bed. “Let’s figure out a way to lure the priestess to us.”

“With the box as bait? Interesting,” Kami mused.

They all looked down at the box, jewels glinting in the afternoon sunlight. Silence filled the room as their minds worked.

It was because of the silence that they heard the screaming from outside.

Next: Screaming!?