Draconnic Shennanigans - Episode 22

Chapter 22: Rats! Rats! Twice as Big as Cats!

 Jeremiah had to admit that the dinner was acceptable. Most of the Ash Elves were still as stiff as old boards and closed mouthed but Estella was a reasonable cook and Thorian hadn't been too bad at chopping vegetables. Kaelin had even lent a hand with the peeling and paring of vegetables, with Lady Zilvra showing an interest in learning the technique. Apparently the high and mighty Matriarch of the Ash Elves of the Snake Clan had come to the conclusion that her only skill being how to give orders wasn't going to wash in the surface world and was actually willing to learn how to bow to the changing world, rather than force the world to change to her. Well, wonders never ceased.

Having packed away enough food to make up for at least two of the missed meals he'd been suffering from in the passed few days, Jeremiah excused himself to discover whether he could locate the library. The Ash Elves were suspicion but seemed too busy clearing out the dead from the werewolves' massacre to think about it for long. Granted them seemed to be managing to clean house fairly rapidly but Jeremiah did wonder why they were bothering. From what had been said in the kitchen, Zilvra was considering abandoning her ancestral home so why they were bothering to empty it he didn't know.

 Making his way down an outer corridor in the upper floors, he happened to glance out of a window, his attention captured by a pulsing blue glow.

The kervead's were still massed at the end of the bridge. Between them, geckos and spiders had beaten them back but the scavenging little insects were still swarming like some earth bound horde of locusts and the citadel's animal defenders were beginning to falter, undoubtedly stuffed to the gills and bloated to suffice. It seemed that the Ash Elves were rotating the duty of keeping up the effort to clear out what was baiting the insects and keeping up the powder barrier that was repulsing the insects where predators were failing.

Jeremiah frowned. They even had that Hatchling thing down there, picking out the large specimens of glowing scavenger from the swarm. Jeremiah tilted his head to see his own Ash Elf puppets come marching from the door of the citadel carrying yet farther of the more complete members of the fallen for disposal over the edge of the bridge. He frown again. One of them was carrying the corpse in its arms as if it had some care for the body it held. Now that shouldn't be. Jeremiah drummed his fingers on the window sill. His creatures shouldn't be showing any concern over the fallen and he remembered the song in Michael Azrael's magnum opus when the wizard's creations realized that they were their own creatures and they could chose. He turned his head slightly as he heard the deep thrum of a cello somewhere in the distance. Yes, that one bore watching closely. Maybe he should make sure that it was at the front next time they were involved in some fighting. That way fate and chance could make the decision, without him having to make the call on whether or not it was passed being valuable. Speaking of which...

Jeremiah spotted where his centipede was curled up, the unnatural stillness of it making the clean up crew give it a wide berth. He clicked his fingers and it trundled without wavering across the courtyard and out of the main gates. The Ash Elves cried out and half drew their weapons. Jeremiah smiled at the thought of the fun he could have with them and their little hatchling but then he counted them again. They weren't all there so soon enough he'd have the survivors after him and they knew this warren better than he did.

With a long suffering sigh of disappointment, he concentrated, sending the centipede rattling along the outside of the balustrade, stepping over the geckos and spiders clinging there until it contacted the outer edge of the swarm of the kerveads. The little glow bugs immediately pulsed with interested at this perambulating feast that willingly stepped towards them. When the centipede stepped on to the edge of the precipice leading into the chasm below the bridge the kerveads immediately attacked, latching on to its legs, swarming up on to its armor. Unconcerned by this attack, the centipede began its last march into the depths of the gorge, leading the swarm over the edge even as the kerveads' scissoring jaws began to pick it apart. Cloaked in shifting light, heading the tumbling stream of destruction, the centipede pushed on into the depths, its last journey traced in the ribbon of blue it lead, falling forever into the void.

Jeremiah waited and as he expected, a glowing blue skein of light unraveled up out of the void, unattached and uncontrolled by any mob of mindless bugs. He smiled as the power spilled towards him, slipping through the panes of the window without effort. As if the merely physical could control the magical. He drew a deep breath as the power pooled in his eyes and soaked in, the pleasing warmth spreading throughout his nervous system.

"Ah," he breathed, "That is ever so much better."

He watched the clean up crew settle back into their task, their urgency momentarily relieved by his centipede's death but still hurrying to clean the worst of the mess out of the building. He did understand it, a little. It was possible that, while the citadel smelt of all the dead bodies within it then the kervead's would continue to try and force their way over the bridge, which meant they would not be able to leave. That was an unpleasant consideration and Jeremiah turned away from the window. Now the library, now that was a much more pleasant consideration.

Ulrich helped carry one end of the stretcher down into the vaults below the citadel. Zilvra had chosen only two of her eldest brothers to help with the task, the others joining the rest in the far bigger task of trying to clean out the tangle of bodies that was strewn across the floor of the main hall. They had finally made it that far and Zilvra had taken on the task of finding all the bodies of the Matriarch and her council. Ulrich had found himself helping carry one of the stretchers they had mocked up to carry the dead down to their final resting place. Put of him objected to being just a pack mule but the other half was intrigued to see some where he doubted Top Worlders had ever been allowed to see before. Besides it was either this or find some way for his centipede to be useful. He'd told it to obey Kaelin for the moment and he supposed that was safer than telling it to obey Jeremiah. He wasn't sure he liked the fact that the fat priest had disappeared after dinner but as long as none of the bodies they were hauling away suddenly stood back up he'd be fine with it.

The vaults were actually a main chamber with only a couple of side rooms. They were mostly empty save for the columns that supported the massive weight of the citadel above them. Formed of dark polished stone that gleamed in the light of dim lanterns, the space echoed to their footsteps as, without speaking, they carried the Matriarch and laid her out in state upon the stone bier in the middle of the room.

Ulrich snapped his head sideways, catching someone watching them out of the corner of his eye but it was a relief carving on the walls, the image of a cruelly indifferent woman gazing down her nose at this scene of suffering.

There was a moment of confusion as the Ash Elves faltered, unsure as to where they could lay out the other members of the council that had been killed in the slaughter of their people and in the end Zilvra lowered her end of the stretcher, straightened, went across to the other stretcher and lifted the body off of it. Turning she laid it out on the floor beside the bier and straightened out the limbs, smoothing down the clothes. The two brothers with them looked at each other in confusion, or maybe it was shock, but they didn't say anything as they turned and headed back upstairs to collect the next of the fallen.

It was a long, slow job that was depressing in the extreme, not helped by the reliefs carved into the wall. There were plenty of portraits of Ash Elf Noblewomen and Ulrich suspected that they were passed Matriarchs. All of them were depicted as indifferent, cruel, uncaring and cold. In the glimpses he caught of Lady Zilvra's face he could see her trying to copy that look of disdain but every now and then distress would break through. By the end eleven bodies were laid out in total, five on either side of the bier, with the Matriarch holding the center to make the eleventh. They were silent as they looked upon the head of the Snake Clan laid low. Zilvra's fists were trembling and she was biting her lip that hard she was bleeding, whimpering as she tried to stop the water that shivered down her checks. Ulrich stood beside her, unsure whether he should touch her or whether that would result in her smacking him.

Her brothers went to one of the side rooms and came back with several jars that they opened and started to pour the white powder within over the bodies, the skin of the corpses being to sparkle as the dust settled over them, coating their still forms. They walked back and forth in silence, mixing the dusts, turning the dead pale with the coating of it. All the time they worked Zilvra stood, trying and failing not to cry, trying to live up to the expectations that had been molded on her from birth. At last they placed the last empty jar back in the anti room and came back to Zilvra. One of them handed her a fire stick. She looked at it for a long moment before she could bring herself to lift a hand and take it. Even then she stood for several more minutes before, with a strangle noise in her throat, she struck the fire stick and tossed it on to the bodies.

With a dry bark, the flames engulfed the bodies, bright white and searing, so hot they were near smokeless. There were no words spoken as they witnessed their people consumed down to ash, Lady Zilvra trembling as the flames burnt.

"What was the point?" she whispered.

"Lady Zilvra?" Ulrich asked.

"Just what was the point?" Zilvra asked again, louder this time, but he wasn't sure who she was asking.

"Just what was the point!?!" Zilvra screamed, whirling to face the uncaring faces on the walls, "What was the point of all the pain, all the cruelty? What was the point of telling me that it was necessary to be the strongest, the most powerful? What was the point? What have we gained? The approval of the Begetters? Well where are they? Where were they when you all died? Did they bother to come to save us? Did they care!?!"

Her brothers were backing away from her, while Ulrich stood, numb with shock but something told him that this had been building for a while, possibly for years.

"Just why?" Zilvra continued, "Why if this was the Begetter's will are you all dead? I'm left as Lady of a castle of nothing, a castle of dust and bones and nothing. All the damn promises and they are all nothing! I've given everything I cared about, I gave up my friends, my brother, I gave up what I knew was a better way just to make you proud and this is all I get! Nothing, a great big, steaming heap of nothing. Everything I did for the family, all the times I did what you told me was my duty and this is all it's brought to me! A dead family, a dead clan and a fastness of nothing! Well you can keep you rules, keep your ways and keep your damn, useless gods! I don't care any more! I... I..."

Her voice cracked into choking, screaming sobs and Ulrich caught her as she crumpled, landing on his knees as she shuddered against him in a messy sprawl. There was nothing else he could do as she bawled, great, racking convulsions that twisted through her with the pain of years. All he could do was kneel there and let her ugly cry until there didn't seem there could be any possibility of there being more tears within her and then she cried some more.

Behind them the fire burnt, consuming the head, heart and soul of the Snake Clan, turning to ash all that had been and had been carved as a course for the future, a course that would no longer be followed.

"I don't care. I don't care," she sniffled as exhaustion finally wore her out but Ulrich was fairly sure that she did care and that was the problem. She'd had to wear the mask of indifference for so long that she hadn't realized its weight until it had finally crumpled and cracked. She cared but she wasn't used to being allowed to care. She cared but had buried that part of her so deep that now that its grave had been ripped open she was red raw and bleeding, her soul skinned and flayed open.

A hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up to see her haggard older brother there.

"Let us leave this place," her older brother said.

"Excellent idea, old boy," Ulrich nodded and tried to move his legs. He grunted as the cramp and numbness bit.

"I say, good chap," he grunted, "Could you give us a hand here, I can't feel my feet at all." The Ash Elf looked up and said something in their lilting tongue. After a moment the other one arrived out of the shadows that were growing back as the funeral fire died. By main strength, they got Ulrich and Zilvra on their feet and helped them up the stairs. Once upstairs Zilvra asked if Ceann Mor could be brought to her. The dragon-spider hatchling was yawning fit to split itself when its body guard brought it up from the courtyard and once it had been spilled on to the bed it trampled a depression in the covers with all eight feet before curling up and going to sleep. Ulrich was fairly sure that Zilvra was asleep before her head hit the pillow. Once the door was softly closed behind them, he turned to the body guards of Ceann Mor.

"Would you be willing to stand guard here for a while?" he asked. They frowned at him.

"We," he looked at the two who had been with him in the vaults, "Need to... to clean... to clean the nursery." After a moment the eldest two nodded and one of them said something to the others in their lilting tongue. The guards nodded and took up their positions.

As Ulrich turned away, towards the staircase that he really didn't want to travel, he found himself at the shoulder of the most talkative Ash Elf. 

"Why do you wish to do this?" the Ash Elf asked.

"Don't want to," Ulrich admitted, "But it needs to be done. If we don't we are never getting out of here, those bugs will keep coming and this is not a job I would want to lumber on anyone else. I've already seen what is in there, it won't be a shock."

"But not pleasant all the same," the Ash Elf observed, "You surface people are strange. You would have fought us to the death in the Temple if the Lady Zilvra had not come to an accord with you and yet now you are distressed by the murder of our children."

"They were children," Ulrich stated, "Only the vile and the depraved harm children, any children. Even the Orcs and Orc-crossbreeds leave children alone when they come raiding. Anyone below twelve they leave untouched. Do you know what they say? They say that children are too good to spoil, which in their language means too good to permanently scar. Even orcs and Orc-crossbreeds recognize that children should be protected. Older than that and well, they expect you to be able to defend yourselves, women as well as men."

"That at least is the same as us," the Ash Elf nodded, "Lady Zilvra is good with a blade and I should know, I trained her myself. I do not know why you humans deny your women folk the right to defend themselves."

"Probably because too many men figure that if women could defend themselves then they wouldn't get a look in," Ulrich replied with a smile. There wasn't any smiling when they reached the nursery door. Ulrich stopped and had to stiffen his spine with an effort of will. What had happened here was beyond...

"There are somethings that need to die," he found himself muttering, "Somethings really, really need to die."

"So mote it be," the Ash Elf echoed, "So mote it be."

Ulrich turned and pulled out a thankfully unburdened sheet from where a cupboard had been tipped over.

"Can we take them down to the vaults?" he asked as he spread it out on the floor, "Throwing them... throwing them off the bridge... doesn't seem right."

The one who had been speaking to him, looked at him and after a moment nodded. The other was already wrapping a limp form in what was left of the bed clothes, the tears streaming silently down his cheeks.

It was an awful job and one that would give Ulrich nightmares for months afterwards. The stones of the bier were still warm when they laid the burden of the sheet on top of it, being careful to make sure that nothing rolled out and on to the floor. Part of Ulrich knew that the poor little bundles wouldn't feel anything any more but a great part knew that any such accident would just make it even worse, if that was possible.

The whole time the clan children were burning to ash he wanted to turn, to walk away, to leave and yet he couldn't go. He could only stand and watch as a generation disintegrated into dust and ash and the living learned what it was to cry.

It was only afterwards as they were making the long march up the stairs again that he spoke once more.

"Does the citadel have anything like a medicine area, potions, that sort of thing?"

The Ash Elf looked at him.

"I am going to need something to settle my stomach," Ulrich admitted, "Or that dinner is going to be a waste."

After a long look at the third member of their little troop, who hadn't stopped silently crying since they started in the nursery, the Ash Elf nodded and lead all them to a store room deep in the citadel. Going through the jars, Ulrich found several that were labelled specifically for spider bites. Those he pocketed before accepting the two bottles that the Ash Elf held out, one to calm the roiling in his stomach, the other to induce dreamless sleep.

Ulrich nodded his thanks and turned towards the area of the citadel he was told held the bedroom that were now free. No one had to comment about why they were now free.

Finding a modest one, Ulrich unbuckled his swords and let them drop. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he sipped down the potion to calm his stomach.

"Well here's a pretty kettle of fish," he said out loud to the room but to his father in his head, "You always said I would always run from my responsibilities. Well, here I am, helping clean up the results of a massacre that I didn't help create and teaching a whole people that they don't have to be absolute blackguards to get by in the world. Did any of our glorious ancestors manage that?" He drained the flat bottomed flask and set it down on the floor for want of a bedside table. With a heavy sigh he pulled off his boots.

"This has been a long and horrible day," he said to no one in particular, before he uncorked the second flask and downed the content in a single gulp. He barely got his legs up on to the bed as the darkness closed in on him, someone seemed to have connected lead weighs to his eyelids.

"Hope the others think to ask for some of that stuff," he yawned, "They... going...to... need..." The snore echoed round the room.

The library was as vast as Jeremiah had hoped and feared. Deep in the bowels of the citadel the arches of it had been carved directly into the wall of the cavern, creating a purpose made cave that sprawled in a mess of walkways and stone book shelves, some as a series of nooks for scrolls and some as shelves for books. There were small books and large books, tiny books that looked like private journals and great tomes so big it would have taken two people to lift them from the stone tables on which they rested.

Jeremiah ran a hand along a shelf and rubbed his fingers together. No dust so they had been rigorous in the care of the library but no scholar or mage came out of the shadows to challenge him so he assumed that they had all been killed with the rest of the clan. The mighty brought low, now that was appealing. If only he'd been able to have a hand in it. He wondered if there was any way he could come to his own accord with the beasts. He glanced at his arm. Maybe little Kaelin had out smarted herself. If her bite could be used to slow the beasts down long enough for them to listen to him then maybe he would be able to offer his serves to them. After all, Kaelin's grandfather did seem to have rather grand vision for the future, a vision at odds with the current King.

Jeremiah smiled as he wandered his way further into the maze of dark stone stairways and book cases carved into the walls, his way light by Hat's glow as the Moth rode on his miter.

Ways and means, ways and means. If he could make his own agreement with the werewolves, well then, there were all sorts of ways he could get back at King Tatsuya for sending him on this ridiculous quest, him and everyone else who had ever slighted him, Jeremiah the mighty. Jeremiah's smile widened he knew exactly what he'd offer the pack in return for their services and it would rid him of Kaelin's provoking presence at the same time. After all, it was about time she learnt that she should honor her father and grandfather all the days of her life. He stopped and frowned round at the library. This was going to take too long. Tied as he was to this ridiculous party of misfits he didn't have time to spend in here. They would want to leave, well he would say in the morning but, mornings and nights had little to no meaning down here, were the only light was candles and lanterns. Hat clattered his wings. And the occasional very useful moth, Jeremiah added to himself.

A flock of squeaking, fluttering things whirled passed him, chattering in their high pitched voices, hunting the insects that would have damaged the books if they had a chance. Jeremiah wondered if their were any bat clans among the Ash Elves. Not that it mattered as Kaelin's grandsire seemed set on destroying them all.

Jeremiah paused on a staircase, one hand on the railing, the other hand stroking the spines of the books set in the wall on the other side of the steps. Hat clattered again and Jeremiah smiled, flexing his fingers and beginning to weave the magics together.

The light in Hat's eyes blazed more brightly and he launched himself from Jeremiah's miter, whirling away through the cool air of the library, leaving behind him a glowing blue trail that Jeremiah followed as he huffed and puffed along. Deep in the library he turned a corner to find Hat struggling to haul a regular sized tomb out of the bookcase. Jeremiah grinned, a feral, ghastly grin, as the green covered book fell into his hands.

"Ah there you are," he said to the book, fingers tracing the remains of the embossing on the orc-crossbreed hide cover, "Now I wonder if you were made from one of Thorian's relatives. Wouldn't that be just delightful? A fitting enough punishment for the times he has tried to make me look ridiculous." He turned and looked back the way he had come through the library. "And now I have all three and now we will see what fun we can have."

He took a couple of steps forward and then stopped. Just which way was it to get out of the library?

Kaelin helped lift her own wheelbarrow and then helped lift an Ash Elf's wheelbarrow and tip it over the edge. Thorian wrapped his arms around his own and tipped it over the edge of the balustrade. At least there was no noise when what they were moving fell into the void of the chasm below the bridge. Hearing them strike the bottom would have made it all just so much worse. As it was the glow down there was swirling into bonfire heights, if a bonfire was made of blue flame and utterly silent. Again, something she was grateful for, the blessed silence of not being able to hear the bugs begin their work of breaking down the fallen. She had kept a close eye out for any more of Jeremiah puppets as an Ash Elf had whispered to her of the centipede's weird behavior and the trail of light that had spun up out of the void after it had disappeared into the depths, set on its own death march by a will not its own. Kaelin noticed that smaller members of its species were now come to the feast of kerveads, carefully picked off the light bugs from safe perches. Any other reason they needed to do this job and get away as quickly as possible. The kerveads were the bottom of the food chain so a massing of them like this was going to result in every predator the Underworld had gradually being pulled towards here. First it would be the small predators, like the geckos and young centipedes, probably even rats as well, but then the larger and larger carnivores would scent a meal and come looking, until carnivores large enough to threaten them would show up. Then it would become a horrid spiral of them killing or being killed and their deaths pulling in more kerveads and so the circle of scavenger to predator to prey would go round and round and round. It was possible that this massacre was going to disrupt the food web system down here for years, maybe even decades. 

There were days, she reflected as she lifted another corpse into her wheel barrow, in which she fully understood why just about every living creature hated werewolves. Her kind were chaos makers. Where ever her kind ran, disruption and upheaval came in their wake. They were like magnets for it, or maybe they even caused it, just by existing. No, she decided as she looped her arms under the torso of one of the fallen, while a still living Ash Elf lifted the feet, no just by existing, by hunting, hunting without restraint or care for the balance of the world around them. Hunting with only the fever of more and more and more pulsing in their veins, more prey to chase, more flesh to rend, more blood to spill. Killing more than they could eat, just because they could kill and kill again and again, the moonfever burning in their blood, urging them to...

She lifted the piece of a body and dropped them into the wheel barrow and stopped, staring at nothing.

"What's up Kaelin," Thorian called as he lifted the handles of his own barrow to take it outside to the bridge. He recognized that look on her face. A big think had just struck her and she was working out how to say it.

"It isn't full moon," she said.

"What?" Thorian frowned.

"It isn't full moon," Kaelin stated, looking round at him, "New moon, the time of the black sky, that was only three days ago, so we are no where near the full moon." She grabbed the handles of her wheelbarrow and lifted it, talking ad walking at the same time.

"Yeah," Thorian frown as he trundled along beside her, "And that means... what?"

"That Greely shouldn't have been able to wake the beast," Kaelin stated, "He should have just been a man. And as for the new ones, they definitely shouldn't have been able to make the change."

"But you do," Thorian pushed his lower lip out, "You make the change."

"I know," Kaelin struggled to explain it, "I was born with this curse. I am a born werewolf, I've been changing ever since my first day. I've never had a choice but to be a werewolf, its all I know but because I was born with it, it has affected me in a different way. I can call the wolf up, whenever I need to but I can't fully change. I can't go full on wolf. I'll always be bipedal, even when I've called up the beast and I'm not as infectious as a full werewolf."

"So Jerry isn't going to start howling at the moon?" Thorian asked.

"No, no he won't," Kaelin said regretfully, "He'll just have some very bad hair days. And maybe an urge to bark on occasion."

"Oh," Thorian thought about it for a moment, "Shame."

"So how do these others, these werewolves as you call them, differ from you?" the Ash Elf working with them asked.

"Full on, infected werewolves?" Kaelin replied, "Bigger, stronger, and with less mind than I have when I change. When I've let the beast out of his cage, I can still recognize my friends and allies. Full on werewolf? Not a chance. Particularly the recently changed with just kill and kill again until there is nothing alive in their area and then they'll charge off hunting for more. The only ones safe are fellow werewolves and they'll pack up with people they don't even like when they are human, or what ever they were originally."

"So what has changed?" the Ash Elf asked.

"They shouldn't be changing at this time of the month," Kaelin informed them as they creaked round the spiral leading to the front door, "That was one of the reasons Grandfather wanted to breed as a creature should breed, rather than just increase the pack by infecting new ones. We puca born might be weaker than an infection made werewolf but we can change when ever we like once we're old enough to control the change. Infection made werewolves should only be able to change at the times of the full moon, the high tides." She changed her description. The Ash Elves would have no idea what a full moon was but Ulrich had told them about the fate of the Clan Keep of the Kraken Clan. If there were underground seas, then they would have tides and therefore the tides would be greater at the times of the full moon.

He thought about it for a while.

"I think I see," he spoke at last as they tipped their grizzly burdens over the wall of the bridge. It was probably disrespectful but the mortal mind couldn't keep being locked on to the grief and distress of their current tasks, it had to find a distraction and talking about what Kaelin had worked out was as good as any. "So some how they have found a way of violating even that unnatural order, so they can change when ever they like."

"The very old ones like Grandpa gain that ability as they age," Kaelin informed them as they headed back inside, "But only when they are very old and not many werewolves live that long. If they aren't killed off by normal people then they are killed off by the pack itself. Fighting, well, its a way of life among werewolves."

"That I can understand," the Ash Elf said unexpectedly, "It is much the same among us. For the women it is different but for us, we have to fight for every breath we take and every meal we eat. It is only if we please a woman and have her favor that we are safe. No one wishes to anger a woman by slaying her current favorite."

"Current favorite?" Kaelin asked, "What happens to her old favorites?"

"They are either traded away, given to a sister, becomes one of her guards, or well," he shrugged, "There is always death."

They reached the main hall and started lifting bodies from the piles that were being stacked up at the foot of the stair cases. It was a way of making the task efficient. They used the barrows that had been found while the rest of the Ash Elves scoured the citadel to discover the bodies. The only blessing was that most of them would be near the main hall. The Ash Elves wouldn't have run, they would have clustered and fought, like another pack defending its territory. There was no life outside the pack or clan so they would have fought to the death.

"That's the other thing," Kaelin heaved up one of the battered werewolf corpses, "They should have turned back."

"I do not follow you meaning," the Ash Elf piled his barrow high with loose pieces.

"The werewolves," Kaelin lifted another and dumped it in her barrow, "When they die, they should have turned back into who they were when they were infected, they shouldn't stay wolf."

"And yet these have," the Ash Elf lifted the head of one of them and gazed at it. He lowered it and shuddered as Jeremiah's puppets marched passed him, two of them dragging their burdens, one carrying it with more care.

"How do you stand to be around those things?" he demanded.

"Not out of choice," Kaelin stated, "But this is the clan I've been forced into so I don't have much choice."

He was silent for a while and then spoke as they turned again to take the bodies outside. "That I understand."

Kaelin had no idea how late it was by the time the rest of the Ash Elves reported that  they could find no more bodies in the rest of the citadel but she could tell from their faces that they were angry about something.

"What's going on?" she asked the one she'd built something of a friendship with.

"There are not enough bodies to account for all of our people," his face was set in grim lines, "And we are missing the children."

"The children?" Kaelin frowned, "But the nursery..."

"The babies of our clan have been murdered but the children of our people are missing," his face was forbidding, "As are many of our women folk and our younger warriors. You said that you had just found the village when we were in the barricades, what did you mean by that?"

Part of Kaelin wondered if their accord was about to be broken.

"The numbers of my Grandfather's pack have been increasing beyond what they should have..." she trailed off and swore, "They've changed when they are infectious!"

"What do you mean?" the Ash Elf demanded.

"An infection made werewolf should only be infectious itself at the times of change, at the high tides," she snapped, "They aren't only changing when they shouldn't be, they are infectious when they shouldn't be. Hellfire! This is going to Hell in a hand basket!"

"Your Grandfather has infected our women, our children and our young warriors!?!" the Ash Elves were turning ugly.

"Yes!" Kaelin snapped back, "And I don't like it any more than you do! I thought I'd killed that son of a harlot years ago and I am sick to the back teeth of finding out that I didn't!"

That silenced them.

"You tried to kill your own Grandfather?" the Ash Elf asked after a moment.

"Yes!" Kaelin snarled, "I hate that son of a witch! I hate what he is, I hate who he is, I hate how he treats everyone and everything around him as his playthings! If you wrote the word hate on every stone in this building it would still not be enough to show how much I hate him! I wish he was DEAD!"

The stones rang with the echo of her shout. The Ash Elves stood watching her.

"If that is so," their spokes person said, "Make sure you kill him and we will consider the Blood Feud between our people settled. You have a turning of the tides to make sure it is done."

"Oh it will be," Kaelin's voice was colder than Arctic ice, "It will be."

There was nothing more any of them could say after that so Kaelin went in search of a long, hot bath. She didn't usually bother with getting washed and certainly not with baths but the smell of death was clinging to her like a shroud and besides, it was the principle of the thing. Her grandfather couldn't stand baths, they weren't of the wild, so laying back in the hot water and allowing it to plaster her hair to her scalp was a symbolic flip of the finger to his memory.

Afterwards, she headed up to the kitchen again. Thorian was deep into having supper but Kaelin found that she was still too wound up to eat and went to find a bedroom, preferably one with carpets on the floor, a big fire place, a book or two and the biggest, softest bed possible. She knew it was petty, trying to stick one in the eye of an old mutt that wasn't even there but right now she was feeling petty. She even went digging through the wardrobes to see if she could find a change of clothes. Her old ones were well passed needing a launder and they were wearing thin anyway. She tried on a few of the clothes. They weren't bad, the under shirt and trousers at least. A little long in the arm and leg but a sharp knife and a quick tacking job had that sorted. She looked in the mirror and liked what she saw. Going to close the wardrobe door something caught her eye. She pulled it out. It was a sleeveless, hooded jerkin of black leather with some very interesting designs worked on it in black thread. She liked it. She liked it even more once she'd put it on and buttoned up the front. Smiling she pulled the hood into place.

She let out a very undignified 'Eeep!

Stepping closer to the mirror she waved a hand. An empty room gazed back at her out of the mirror. Looking round she snatched up Haggis and gawped like an idiot, despite the fact she couldn't see how ridiculous she looked.

In the mirror Haggis hung in midair, apparently levitating of his own will.

"Parp pah putt?" Haggis asked.

"I know," Kaelin stated, "This is funky. I wonder..."

She flipped the hood bag and reappeared in the mirror.

"Oh," she grinned and flipped the hood back up. She vanished from the mirror again. She flipped the hood back and appeared again.

"Oh this is fantastic," she grinned.

"Purp," Haggis agreed. Kaelin put her hood back up and vanished again.

"Oh this is going to be fun," she said to no one in particular as she reappeared once more. Still grinning she shut the wardrobe and walked across to the bed. This development opened up all sorts of possibilities.

She stretched out on her side under the covers and yawned. Well, time enough tomorrow to settle her score with her grandfather.

Estella wandered through the halls, her six remaining talisman flitting about her or riding on her shoulder, gradually herding the scattered craftsmen together and towards the kitchen where Thorian sat up to greet them with one of the Ash Elves to try and convince them that Estella wasn't going to eat them anytime soon and that they were free to leave. It would probably be a good idea for them to at least walk with the Ash Elves until they were out on the surface because the wildlife down here was not friendly at the best of times but they were free to leave after that.

Valodrael purred at the memory of some of the wildlife they had come across at the start of their exploration of the Underworld.

"I would have thought that those werewolves would have been more to your taste," Estella observed in her mind, even as another part of her mind listened to what the red finch was chirruping to her.

"Oh yes," Valodrael gurgled, "They were delicious but that basilisk was a new flavor and I like it."

"You are such a glutton," Estella said in the vaults of her mind even as she smiled, apparently at nothing. Her talisman cartwheeled through the air together, happy that their mother was pleased about something.

"Ah but what other pleasures have I to pursue while I am waiting to have another body?" Valodrael bubbled, rippling under her skin, "You know I can't be out for long enough."

Ahead of them someone scuffled in the shadows and bolted, the talisman following them for a little way out of curiosity.

"They are so funny when they do that," Valodrael burbled, meaning the bolting craftsman, "It would be so funny to chase them."

"Aren't we?" Estella asked as she skipped down a corridor, the toad talisman croaking in her ear as it clung to her shoulder.

"Yes but it is so slow to chase them like this," Valodrael churned, "I'm talking to harry and hustle them. To run and sprint and CHASE them!" He rippled again, suppressed instincts fighting against his containment.

"In time," Estella promised him, "As soon as I find a source of talisman wood large enough. Then its just a matter of discovering the right runes to sustain the containment. I'm sure that's what went wrong last time, you're too much of a load for talisman magic to support on its own."

"Just as long as you are sure that this time we will get it right," Valodrael grumbled, "The last time nearly snuffed me out. I haven't survived nigh on five centuries to be ended on the verge of regaining my freedom."

"I don't want you to die either," Estella admitted, "You're the only friend I have."

"Am I?" Valodrael sloshed as they prompted the last craftsman down the necessary corridor for them to reach sanctuary, "I thought that you and Seraphar were friends. After all, she is looking after..."

"You know," Estella nodded at nothing anyone else could see, "You are right, you are my closest friend and I'm not going to let you get hurt trying to cut us free from this very messy dynamic."

She 'borrowed' Valodrael's sense of the area around her. She was fairly sure that all the craftsmen were safely either in the kitchen or heading in that direction. She stretched and turned. She'd seen a very nice looking bedroom back aways and wanted to try out the bed. She should have had an adults bed by now. Even if her time in the nursery hadn't been cut short, she should have had a husband and an adults bed by now. Well, that hadn't happened and wasn't going to happen. What came of being broken merchandise.

Valodrael growled and the talisman clustered closer, sensing all was not well.

"What is it?" Estella crouched, looking round, instantly alert, trying to sense what had Valodrael's hackles up.

"What you were thinking," he snarled in the vaults of her mind, his anger making her heart pound, "If the gods were just I would have been able to eat him as many times over as he had made you cry!"

"Yeah, well the gods aren't just, that's why they are gods," Estella observed, "And speaking of such..." she crouched and peered carefully round the corner. Jeremiah was smiling and humming to himself as he came wandering done the corridor. The talisman squeaked collectively and dived for Estella's satchel. Estella glanced round and saw that there weren't any doors she was going to reach before Jeremiah turned the corner. She didn't like the priest. There was something about him, something that put her in mind of her father's friend and that made her stomach churn. She pressed a hand to her middle to calm the sensation. She straightened and drew a deep slow breath. Taking another she flattened her self calmly against the wall, folded her hands in front of her and took another. Still, quiet, calm, still as shadows, as quite as stone. To stand so still that she was the wall, the wall was her.

Jeremiah was humming a happy tune under his breath as he rounded the corner and wandered along it. Pushing open a door, he smiled and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind himself.

At the corner, a piece of the wall breathed out and became Estella Blackwood again. She glared at the door Jeremiah had gone through. The talismans peered out of the satchel and peeped nervously.

"Are you sure I cannot eat him?" Valodrael growled.

"As much as I think the world would be a cleaner and a safer place without him at the moment I think committing what would be straight up murder wouldn't help our relationship with the others," Estella's mouth was a thin line.

"He smells of blood," Valodrael hissed in her mind, "He smells of murder."

"Maybe but I have heard a little about these King's Specials, none of them tend to be what you would call law abiding people and unfortunately the talismans are only seen as things, not people so the most we could get him for is willful destruction of property," Estella explained, "Not good enough to excuse murder. However, if he lays one finger on me then you can eat him all you want."

She turned and walked away down the corridor. She'd pick a different bedroom, one that was further away from Jeremiah.

"We will have to hope that he does that soon," Valodrael grumbled.

"What?" Estella blinked in shock. There had been times before, especially when she was younger, when they had used her youth to draw all the wrong sort of people to her, just so Valodrael could feed on them and cleanse the world at the same time but it had been a while since Valodrael had suggested that they do such a thing. Estella had thought it was because she was getting older and therefore growing out of being bait for such people.

"The smell of his god is stronger upon him," Valodrael rumbled, "He has a complete collection now. The door creaks, do we want to be there when it opens?"

"Considering I have no idea what you are talking about," she muttered.

"The god thing that the priest makes his offering of suffering and discord to," Valodrael bubbled, "The priest now has all the keys to open the door to his prison and he is eager to escape. I do not think that the priest realizes what he has tied his soul to."

"And you do?" Estella replied without speaking aloud.

"Oh yes," Valodrael purred and growled in the same breath, "My father was there when he was sealed away, he told me the stories. It will fun to see the priest's face when the truth will out."

"But how likely are we to survive?" Estella asked.  As much as Valodrael cared for her in his own way, his idea of fun could sometimes be rather distorted.

"All the more reason to hope that he makes his move soon," Estella felt Valodrael's grin, "If I eat him before the door opens then his god can scream all he likes."

"If you won't possess him because of the smell of his god wouldn't eating him be even worse?"Estella asked as she closed a bedroom door behind herself.

"His god acts through him," Valodrael turned in her mind, "He would fight me for ownership of his puppet. He is stronger than I am but he can't control things outside of his puppet's flesh, only act through him."

"So the puppet can die," Estella nodded as she encouraged the talisman to come out of the bag and explore the room, "And if the puppet is dead..."

"His god has to start all over again," Valodrael grinned, "I wonder how he'd like the taste of failure for a change."

"Indeed," Estella turned to the bed and stretched, wondering if she should warn the rest of the King's Special. Then again she was new to them, they were in two minds about her relationship with Valodrael and more than a little scared of both him and her. That and there was already a far amount of distrust for Jeremiah in the King's Special, if she was reading the room right. Probably best to leave well alone, she decided as she unbuttoned her jacket and laid it on a chair. A sudden squeaking and a clatter made her turn round.

The talismans had pulled something off of a dressing table and were dragging it over the floor towards her. Estella walked over and picked it up. The appeared to be a heavy bracelet made out of gold and set with beautifully cut and polished gems. She smiled and slipped it over her hand so that it hung round her right wrist.

"What do you think?" she asked her little friends. They squeaked and bounced round her feet. She tipped her head listening to their chatter. Frowning at the bracelet she saw what they were talking about. The bracelet had a rotatable middle band that could be turned to change the patterns on the surface. She gave it a turn and the lines of gold around the emeralds shifted into a new position. The gold glowed, warm against her skin, spilling light out from a series of points to make a map of runes round the band.

"What the flip!" Estella squeaked herself and the talismans went into raptures, cavorting round her feet, swooping through the air. Then the bat winged cat smacked into her cheek and tumbled to the floor.

"Ow!" Estella exclaimed, lifting her hand to her face and then dropping to her knee, "Oh you pour dear, you..." she stopped as she realized that she couldn't see her own hands. "What?" she gave the bracelet a frantic twist... And the talismans squeaked again as their mother popped into existence in front of them again.

Estella hummed to herself, ignoring the feeling of Valodrael chuckling at her. She picked up the bat cat, popped it out her lap and twisted the bracelet again. She disappeared and the bat cat wriggled frantically over on to its feet, hissing lustily as it stood apparently on thin air.

"Well that is useful," Estella smiled as she turned the bracelet off again, "Now to bed the lot of us. Long day ahead of us tomorrow." She burrowed under the bed clothes and closed her eyes as the talismans settled around her.

It was hard to know when he woke up. That was something he hated about this underground land Jeremiah decided, he hated the fact that it didn't have proper time. He lay in the bed, listening to the dark. This daft citadel of stone didn't even have the decency to creak and groan like a proper house did. It was just silence, with the barest sighs from the multitude of bugs that still shifted and poured in the chasm outside...

Jeremiah rolled off the bed and came to his feet as the war pick smashed down on the pillow, sending feathers into the air. Through the blizzard of down, he saw something hop on to the bed, chattering in a guttural tongue, its silhouette distorted by two huge bat like ears. Beyond it others moved in the shadows.

Jeremiah barked a series of words that tasted of blood, his fingers flicking through the air.

The things screamed as the stream of white hot sparks engulfed them and rendered them down to the bone. Jeremiah was just beginning to grin when the fourth one bounded out of the corner it had be sulking in and shrieked at him. The sound was more a ripple of force, the air distorting in front of it and rolling towards Jeremiah like a tide.

"Klu'ga-nath!" Jeremiah howled back, spitting blood. The thing reeled as that power filled name bounced it attack back at it. It shook its head hard enough to make its ears flap and then focused again, raising its war pick in a fist. Jeremiah was already there, flicking the bed sheets up and over its head, wrapping the end he had in his fist round it and pulling it tight, entangling the writhing bundle. It yelled with muffled anger.

The thing writhed and wriggled, kicking and screaming. Jeremiah seized his mace of office from the pile of his things, tipping them on to the floor and smacked the flailing heap as hard as he could. It yelled and there was a long sounding rip as the point of a dagger burst through the cloth and tore it open. The thing shook itself free of the cloth and stood up. Jeremiah smacked it again, a fleshy sounding thud.

Else where in the citadel, Kaelin rolled over and sniffed in her sleep. In another bedroom Ulrich slept long and deep, blessedly dreamless. Thorian snored, flat out on his back, sounding like a saw mill in full swing.

Jeremiah yelled as the thing rolled to its feet a second time. Blast it all, where was any help when he needed it? The door was thrown open by his three puppetted Ash Elves. The thing stopped advancing towards Jeremiah, turning to face this new threat, unsure about these Elves with glowing eyes. As one the puppets drew their swords as they marched into the room. The thing howled and leapt.

It batted aside the first sword and the second but the third slammed into its chest that hard it was lifted off its feet. The squirmed for a moment and then hung limp. The Ash Elf tipped it off on to the floor.

Jeremiah stepped towards it. It definitely had something in common with the goblins but the ears were too big, the arms too long, the nose squashed to its face in a folded triangle and it was the wrong color entirely. Jeremiah scratched at his beard and then he smiled. Lifting his hands he began to chant.

Once the little abomination was standing silent and with glowing eyes, he waved them all outside before turning to how they had managed to sneak in. One of the lead glass windows flapped on its hinges. Stamping across to it he went to pull it shut and realized that there were no scratch marks on the window sill. Frowning he peered all round the frame and finally spotted the scratch marks on the lintel of the window. Some how the little creeps had climbed down the outside of the fortress and opened his window from above and very professionally it was done too. They hadn't broken a pane but managed to slide something through the gap to wiggle the catch loose.

Jeremiah banged it closed again and turned back to the bed. The bed. The bed with no pillow and no sheets thanks to the little monsters.

None of Jeremiah's puppets made any change of expression as the door to his bedroom banged open and he stomped down the hall until he found a bedroom on the inner corridor that was both unoccupied and thankfully windowless. Without a sound they took up their stations outside the door as Jeremiah banged it shut.

Ulrich wandered down to the kitchen the following 'morning', if such a thing existed in this place, drawn by the smell but as he came closer to the kitchen his nose wrinkled. There was something most definitely burnt going on. It was a good thing that the long years in his father's house had taught him how to control his expression because other wise, when he looked into the kitchen, he would have burst out laughing.

Lady Zilvra stood at the range prodding at something that was burnt on to the bottom of a pan.

"Good day to you, my lady," Ulrich could help but smile, "What troubles you today?"

She frowned, that delightful pout that made the end of her nose turn up.

"Humans do this... cooking... thing all the time," she pocked the black lump with a wooden spatula again, "It does not do this."

Ulrich didn't trust himself to speak for a moment and before he could rally something that he could say without laughing at her  he felt a prod in the small of his back.

"Step aside," Thorian instructed and walked up to the range, hooking down a frying pan as he did so. Ulrich found himself suitably impressed as the orc crossbreed set to work on the breakfast with a skill and a flair he would never have expected. Slices of meat and bread were soon sizzling in the pan as there didn't seem to be any eggs or bacon. As he found himself putting the ever pouring kettle on the range to heat through Ulrich found himself reflecting on the fact that the Ash Elves might find the change in diet did them good as well. From what Zilvra was saying as she took lessons on cooking, the Ash Elves did have access to things like eggs, cheese and bacon but they were high class trade goods, stolen from the world above and therefore reserved for people like the Matriarch. There were vegetables down here but by the sounds of it they were tough and tasteless.

Kaelin wandered in part way through the breakfast preparations with a face that was ironically hang dog. Without saying a word Ulrich poured her a cup of tea and spooned in a generous bloop of honey.

"Do you have any idea how expensive that is?" Zilvra wasn't overly pleased that it was being dished out freely.

"In the Underworld? I confess I do not," Ulrich admitted, "But on the surface world it is more readily available and for those that do not appreciate having to wake up it is something of a tonic. Here, please try it." He poured out a second cup. Zilvra picked it up and sniffed, unconvinced. She took a sip. She sipped again, trying the flavor more thoroughly.

"It does improve the taste," she admitted.

"There is much to be discovered yet," Ulrich smiled at her.

"Indeed," she agreed and was then distracted by the flock of talismans that flew through the door as Estella walked in and slide on to the end of the bench. The craftsmen who had been steadily joining them, promptly shifted up the benches, as far away from her as they could get. She pretended not to notice and seemed to be keeping Valodrael from giving any one a jump scare.

Kaelin was beginning to look half way human when Jeremiah wandered in, dressed in a new set of trousers so he had been raiding the wardrobes and cupboards of which ever room he'd found for himself. More pressing was the fact that he was trailing something waist high, bandy legged and long armed with huge ears. Zilvra dropped the frying pan she was holding at the sight of its purple and black tiger striped form. Thankful it was an empty frying pan but the clang it made echoed around the kitchen.

"Where did you get that?" she demanded.

"It and its little friends came to pay me a call last night," Jeremiah smiled, "I presume you know what it is then."

"That is a Vigor," Lady Zilvra actually lent over to study its face more closely, "I never thought I could see a real one so close and not be fighting for my life."

"Oh, would you prefer it the other way?" Jeremiah lifted a hand.

"Perhaps it would be a better idea to ask her why she never thought to be this close to a live one and not be in deadly danger," Ulrich suggested, stepping up to Zilvra's shoulder and laying a hand on his sword.

"It is because they are some of the best assassins that were ever created down here," Zilvra answered Ulrich, not giving Jeremiah time to speak, "The Bat Clan created them years ago and where then driven forth from the Underworld for their appalling lack of judgement."

"Lack of judgement? What were they trying to create?" Kaelin's tone was wry as she eyed up the snubbed nosed thing.

"They were supposed to be an improvement upon the base design of the goblins," Lady Zilvra explained, still staring at the Vigor as it stood unmoving, glowing eyes not registering the presence of others in the room, "Smarter, more agile, they were said to be able to see in the dark and their screech is known for knocking their targets insensible. They proved to be too smart, violently intractable and they rebelled from their creator's guidance, much like the lesser species and the traitors did to the Begetters."

There was some shifting among the crowd in the kitchen at that but Ulrich glanced round and shock his head. Yes what Lady Zilvra had just said was insulting but it had been barely a day since she had made the decision to leave behind all the training that she had been undergoing since she was born. Decades of thinking in a single way were not easy to leave behind and she was highly distracted by the presence of the Vigor. He'd had words with her about it later, for the moment he too wanted to know about Jeremiah's new pet.

"What happened after they escaped their bondage?" Ulrich inquired.

"They have been a plague and a pestilence upon the Underworld ever since," Zilvra straightened from her scrutiny of the Vigor, "They are assassins at the beck and call of orcs and goblins, though what is traded for in return for their services we have ever been able to ascertain. They kill from the shadows and fade back there without trace. I have heard stories that say that they ply their trade upon the surface world as well. They are like vermin, we stamp out one nest and think we have completed the task only to have them rear their ugliness else where again, killing the worthy as if it were a sport."

She turned at last to Jeremiah.

"Who did you upset so much that they were willing to crawl down whatever den of filth these things call home to hire their services?"

"I honestly have no idea, my dear," Jeremiah spread his hands wide, "I am as much in the dark as you as to the truth of these matters. Although, saying that, they gained entry to my bedroom via the window, which had been left unlatched  by persons whom shall no doubt remain nameless." He looked at Kaelin and beetled his eyes brows at her. Kaelin ignored him.

"Don't look at me," she said as she shoveled breakfast into her pie hole, "I don't even know if you went to bed before or after me, let alone which room you were in and I wasn't about to start looking. I'm not that desperate."

"I too would believe that the window was securely latch when you sort you repose," Zilvra supported her, "The Vigor are known for being extremely deft with locks and latches of any kind, another reason they earned their creator's our censor. Nothing is safe when they decide that they want to possess it."

"Well then," Jeremiah's eyes gleamed with an unholy joy, "I do believe that in that case I will be keeping my unpleasant little friend here. I believe that he will be extremely useful to me in the future. The only question now being what shall I call him."

"Stabby MacStabface?" Kaelin suggested, taking a swing of her tea. Jeremiah closed his eyes and took a deep breath with the air of one eternally asking for greater strength. Thorian sniggered from where he was standing by the range.

"As much I am sure that there are some members of our team who are immature enough to be amused by your juvenile antics, Kaelin," Jeremiah said, "I and the more intellectual members of the group prefer a name with some measure of sophistication."

"Oh," she swallowed her mouthful, "It's sophistication you want." She sat back.

"Er?" Thorian hesitated, "What's so-fish-tic-cake-tion?"

"Fancy pants ness," Kaelin tossed over her shoulder before folding her arms as she looked at Jeremiah. "If it is fanciness you're after how about Karma."

Jeremiah frowned.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but I am afraid I don't quite follow your logic," he admitted.

"You may remember a certain ally we had made not long after we came up into the mountains in the first place? Short, green, large ears, named after the first place he nearly died?" Kaelin folded her arms.

"No, can't say I recall..." Jeremiah shook his head slowly.

"He held the lantern for you to treat Ulrich's arm after he was bitten by the spiders," Kaelin glared.

"No, still isn't..."

"Blast it all!" Ulrich exclaimed, "She's talking about Stink of the Midden! The goblin you murdered to fuel your pray to whatever god you happen to be praying to."

"I wouldn't say murdered," Jeremiah smiled, "After all, murder only happens if it is a person who is killed, if it is an animal it is a sacrifice."

Kaelin surged to her feet but was stopped by Thorian's hand on her shoulder.

"He ain't worth it," the big orc crossbreed said with a disgusted look at Jeremiah, "He ain't worth it."

"No I'm not worth what ever petty retaliation she can think of, my dear Thorian," Jeremiah agreed, "I'm worth far more than anything her feeble mind can come up with, am I not, my dear? After all, retaliation would only be possible if she could think like a human and not a dog."

Thorian turned away and picked up the cleaver and set about chopping some root vegetables with unnecessary force, while Kaelin sat back down and picked up a knife. She started stabbing it into the table top, digging it into the wood grain, gouging deep cuts into the table top, glaring at Jeremiah all the time.

"Of course you know I am correct my dear," Jeremiah smiled, "After you, you did the last rights for Stink of the Midden yourself. It was a rather touching gesture, though wasted on a beast."

Kaelin stabbed the knife so deep in the table top that it stood there quivering after she let the handle go.

"You didn't get all the goblins," Ulrich said quietly, not sure he could keep his voice level, "Two of Stink of the Midden's friends got away. I'd say you left a loose end dangling there old boy."

"Oh I wouldn't say so," Jeremiah smiled, "After all, that would require goblins to be able to have friends and any proper person knows that is impossible. Their kind can't have friends, they don't know how to. It is probably something to do with their deformity making their brains defective."

There was a resounding crack as the cleaver split the chopping board in half.

"I'm going to check whether the bridge is clear," Thorian muttered as he left the kitchen. Without a word Estella swing her legs over the bench and left as well, Kaelin rising to join her. Ulrich and Lady Zilvra stood up to follow them, so the rest of the Ash Elves copied them out. After a moment the craftsmen strangled out after them.

Jeremiah smiled and sat down to have breakfast all to himself.

As it was he had plenty of time to catch up with them. The craftsmen had to be fitted out with their own packs and the other three of the King's Special explored the rest of the storerooms to fill their packs to over flowing with items. They were not going to be going short on provisions on this leg of the journey, even if some of the food items came from species that they didn't recognize.

Gathering in the courtyard, no one inquired if anyone had told Jeremiah that they were ready to leave so they were both mildly disappointed and unsurprised when the Vigor staggered out through the main doors, weighed down by a pack nearly twice its size with Jeremiah strolling along packless behind it, he three puppeted Ash Elves following after him.

"Should have guessed," Kaelin muttered, "Some stinks like to cling to those that don't deserve it."

"And some people don't like to take a hint," Thorian added, "Even if you say it louder than words."

The Ash Elves were standing with the craftsmen, who looked nervous about traveling with their once captors, especially when the group with the Hatchling came out of the citadel to line up with the others. The Hatchling seemed to have grown from the size of a small house cat to the size of a large house cat overnight and was now riding on its minder's back with its head craning over their shoulder.

"We will head for this place called Nether Wallop," Lady Zilvra was saying to Ulrich as she tucked a white piece of cloth in her pack, "I will speak to my little brother before we go on to this Wizard's Tower and see if he has any knowledge of the upper world that will help us. I also need to tell him the fate of our clan. It is not going to be an easy thing to tell. I..." She faltered.

"I think that your brother will think that you have done the best thing possible for the future of your people," Ulrich took her hand, "I know that the other Matriarch's would not approve of such a decision but they have not been faced with such circumstances as you have been. Traditions only protect a people as long as the standard that created them is maintained. When the circumstances change so must tradition or they become a curse driving their people to extinction."

She smiled at him.

"I feel that I am the most under prepared Matriarch in our history," she admitted, "And the most sorely tried. My mother would have a convulsion to know that I draw strength from the words of a lesser being but I find myself wondering if that is why we are now faced with this. If all we can do is take from others who is really the lesser?"

She looked at the craftsmen with a puzzled frown and Ulrich squeezed her fingers. She would learn, that was the main thing. Yes some of her words and belief systems were insulting but she was willing to question them and learn to change them. Yes, it would take time but she had been in this one track mind set for so long it would take awhile to change it. He frowned when he realized that four of the Ash Elves were standing by Kaelin and Thorian.

"A safe guard," Zilvra dropped her voice as she set a glance in Estella's direction, "Just in case your guide turns out to be less trust worthy than we think she is. All I ask is that you come back to me. My people will be horrified but I wish to see you again."

"In that case, I will do my utmost to return to you my lady," Ulrich smiled and bowed to her, "Until we meet again, adieu."

"I..." Lady Zilvra bit her lip, "Oh Begetters take it!"

"My...?" Ulrich started asking and found himself being most thoroughly kissed, his arms full of Lady Zilvra's trembling form.

The world was being to spin by the time she stopped and Ulrich found himself grinning a little foolishly.

"Just come back," she whispered fiercely before stepping away to cross to where the other Ash Elves were waiting for her and taking Ceann Mor up on to her shoulder. Turning to look at Ulrich once more she then lead the way across the bridge where the animal defenders of the citadel were mopping up the stragglers of the kerveads. Below, in the chasm, the blue light pulsed and followed as the corpses of Snake Clan and werewolf alike were consumed. Lady Zilvra refused to look down.

"Having fun?" Kaelin asked as they crossed the span.

"Oh what?" Ulrich asked, still grinning a little foolishly as he swung up on to the back of Peter the Centipede.

"Oh never mind," Kaelin muttered.

"What?" Ulrich asked again, still grinning and then Estella turned her head to grin at him and he had the uncomfortable feeling that another one was also grinning at him, one that had far more teeth and appetite than was comforting. He shivered, suddenly utterly sober.

Estella laughed and turned back to leading them into the maze that made the Underworld, her little talismans flittering around her.

They seemed to be making better time than they had in the days before, between Estella's guidance and the Ash Elves' knowledge of the dangers of their subterranean home leading them passed many dead ends and some of the move aggressive denizens of the Underworld. The party though was not without their worth as Kaelin remembered the light sticks Risgath had given them. Though the 'lights - regular' didn't burn with the searing bright light Jeremiah had used at Black Randel's cabin, they were more than bright enough to light their way and the Ash Elves took care to not look at them directly, the white glow brighter than they were used to.

It was as they were walking own one tunnel that an Ash Elf put his hand on Kaelin's wrist.

"Douse the light," he commanded and despite Jeremiah's half mutter protest, Kaelin immediately up ended the stick into a patch of dirt immediately smoothing the radiance and clapping the dark of the underground down on them.

Only it wasn't completely dark, a blue-purple glow lighting the way ahead. Cautiously they made their way towards it. As they drew closer and they eyes adjusted to the different light they saw that it was patches of some sort of leafy plant growing out of the damp ways of the branching tunnel, spreading fronds that glowed in a graded shade of blue at the tips of the lacy fern like branches to a lilac purple at the base.

"Tell me, are these pretty things any good for eating?" Jeremiah asked, stretching out his hand towards one.

"Only if you wish to turn your stomach inside out and then throw up your skull," one of the Ash Elves drawled.

"My good sir," Jeremiah smiled but withdrew his hand, "I do not believe that such a thing is possible."

"Really?" the Ash Elf asked with a nasty smile, "Why don't you try it and find out then?" His grin suddenly fell off the front of his head.

"Ah," Jeremiah smiled, "I think in this case I will bow to your greater wisdom." He matched action to words but the Ash Elf didn't pay him any attention.

"Oh this isn't good," Thorian went to draw his sword but then didn't, hitching up his trousers instead.

"My dear Thorian..." Jeremiah started.

"Just shut up," Thorian snapped, goosebumps rising on his arms, "Just shut up and started stamping! These ain't the usual sort of rats!"

"What?" Kaelin asked, staring at the twin swarming tides that were running towards them.

"They only got one eye!" Thorian yelled as he started jumping up and down, trying to aim his boots at the patches of floor covered by wriggling, furry bodies. Kaelin gaped as she saw what Thorian meant. Instead of the two eyes the rats should have had, one on either side of their heads, these rats had one huge eye in the middle of the top of their heads, one great, blood shot eye that popped and goggled. Kaelin yanked Haggis round and blew for all she was worth. The rats screamed, a horrible compound noise, like the shriek of a frightened crowd but they kept coming.

Jeremiah dug frantically through the pack on the back of the Vigor, hunting desperately for something he remembered seeing when he had packed it. With sweaty fingers he found the globes marked 'for rats'. With a yell he threw one and it shattered just before the feet of his Ash Elf puppets. The stink that rose made his eyes water for a moment. He made his Ash Elves march through it and the rats flinched back from the smell but then the vermin tide came on.

Ulrich drew his sword and flourished it, grinning as he realized that his left arm was finally no longer hurting.

"Charge!" he yelled and kneed Peter the Centipede in the... chitin. The Centipede surged forward and Ulrich lent over sideways sweeping the flat of his sword through the swarm on the left, Peter backing it up with his hundreds of legs, stamping hard enough to impale a couple of rats on his many feet, breaking that swarm in two but the shrunken swarms did not run. Instead they swirled and reformed, great arched teeth bared in hissing challenges.

Estella took one look at the swarm coming up on their right and twisted the bracelet, vanishing from sight.

"Looks like our so called guide thought this little blip was above her pay," Jeremiah sneered and then went pale as a liquid sucking noise filled the air.

A black wave of sludge rushed, apparently out of some point by the wall, into the tunnel and heaped up into a quivering, crunching, oozing mass that stretched and twisted and surged with a tendon cracking, splintering noise into the shape of a dragon with a hide made from the dead space between stars and eyes were light went to die, reality bending and straining to contain him.

"I didn't know we were having lunch out," Valodrael swilled, a tongue the shade of nightmare flickering around alabaster fangs.

Jeremiah rolled his eyes. Some people where given to being overly theatrical. The rats on the right flank understood the situation a lot better, seeing an predator that out weighed every cat in existence suddenly in front of them, their fur shifting to white, the terror shaking through them as Valodrael's world ending eyes lighted on them and a sound of hunger rumbled up from his belly.

"Well," Kaelin said tightly, locking her muscles into to place to stop herself from running, "You don't see that every day."

"Oh Mama," Thorian whimpered, fingers flickering in as many gestures to ward off evil as he could remember, his efforts to jump on the swarm momentarily forgotten in the face of Estella's friend. He'd heard what the others had said about Estella hosting a dragon but he hadn't understood what they had meant. It was worse than anything he'd imagined.

"Nice of you to join the party!" Ulrich laughed, high on sheer reckless abandon. Zilvra's Ash Elves hurried around him, stamping with all their might as the rats swirled and squealed. Valodrael chuckled, a slushy, dirty sound.

"Its Thorian time!" Thorian yelled and threw himself in a perfect body slam on top to the right hand swarm. There were some gristly  crunching noises from below him and the swarm broke in two. One half promptly recoiled and crawled over Thorian, making him yelp and yell as it bit and nibbled. The second half coiled in a circle, members falling back and rubbing their snouts, squeaking as the repellent Jeremiah had thrown burnt their noses and singed their fur.

On the left flank there was much yelling and squeaking and waving of arms as rats tried to swarm up the trouser legs of Zilvra's Ash Elves  and Ulrich yelled as one leaped as he swung down and attached itself to his hand by biting clean to his knuckle bone. He swiveled on Peter's back and smashed it against the wall until it let go.

With a roar Thorian surged to his feet and stamped twice, red light growing in his eyes.

"Nasty, horrible, little bitty biting monsters!" he roared, "What we ever do to you? You could have left us alone!" The rats screeched back as he stamped on their tails.

Estella's talismans whirred above the fray, piping and whistling for their owner as Ulrich and his mount missed stamping on any rat below them. At his side, Zilvra's Ash Elves kept the rats from consolidating their efforts, their sharp toed boots kicking rats left and right but the little vermin wouldn't take the hint, driven on by some will beyond that of an ordinary rat, their single eyes popping and goggling until it looked like they would start from their heads.

Valodrael drew a breath that rattled like a freezing gale in the rigging of a doomed ship and then breathed out a wave of black cold that left a layer of dark ice slicked over the stone of the tunnel and froze several rats to the floor, cutting on of the secondary swarms in half, the survivors crying out as they blundered in two smaller swarms, they bulging eyes milky with a darksome cast and they bumped into each other, too stunned by their sudden lose of sight to use their noses.

Thorian jumped and stamped at the swarm milling round his feet, shaking his feet between each jump, trying to dislodge the rats that attached themselves to the boot leather over his toes.

The two swarms on the left flank milled and squawked but couldn't make good on the damage done to Ulrich. Behind him, unseen Jeremiah put himself as far away from Valodrael as he could without leaving the safety of the group. He turned from checking that the dragon hadn't noticed his move to realize that he had been so distracted by its appearence that his puppets had just stood there in a row, like targets at a coconut shy.

"Get back to work!" he ordered, red in the face.

"You call yourselves rats? Ha!" Kaelin barked, trying to distract what ever will was driving the rodents, "I've seen more impressive hamsters!"

Several rats, from different swarms, reared on to their hind legs and shrilled that her mother mother was the hamster and that her father stank of elderberries!

"Well really," Kaelin exclaimed.

Jeremiah fished through the pack on the Vigor's back a tossed another flask of the repellent at the swarm closet to him. It yelled as a single beast and the rats swirled in confusion, choking on the smell coming from each other's fur. Seeing that swarm distracted, Valodrael turned his head and traced a symbol in black ice on the floor. The swarm facing Thorian screamed as the collective paws of the rats froze to the bare stone, skin turning black as the ice rose in beautifully deadly needles over their toes.

"Now I'd try and insult you at this moment," Kaelin called out, "But I'm finding it hard to find the words to describe how utterly useless you are." Unfortunately her attempts to taunt the will behind the swarms upset the talisman instead and they flocked at her, twittering and tugging at her hair. "Ow! Get off! I wasn't talking to you!" Kaelin yelled.

Panting with the effort, Zilvra's Ash Elves kept the swarms by Ulrich reconsolidating.

"How much longer... must we... do this?" one asked.

"You're doing better than Jerry's friends," Ulrich called encouragement, "I don't think his have done anything for the last ten minutes." Jeremiah glared but whether that was in response to Ulrich calling out his puppet's performance or because of the nickname Ulrich had just use, Kaelin couldn't decide.

"Mash them!" Thorian's big boots went to work on the rats frozen to the floor in a series of broken crunches. But he was the only one, the living Ash Elves were tiring fast and their stamps were mistimed and the rats swirled around their feet unharmed. Estella's talismans dived towards her as she reappeared.

"Yes, yes," she reassured, "I love you all too, sorry for scaring you like that. No I not... oh honestly, now is not the time for this." She frowned forbiddingly as they tried to cling to her. "If you want a cuddle get rid of that lot!" She jabbed a finger at the swarm threatening Lady Zilvra's Ash Elves, seeing just how tired they were becoming. She realized that they probably hadn't slept more than a couple of hours the night before and it was taking its toil. With chirrups turned mean and edged the talismans dive bombed the rat swarm, raking with claw and tooth.

With one last toot, Kaelin gave up on trying to magic the swarms. What ever was driving these pests, it was stronger than she could match, even with Haggis' help. She tried to wiggle in to help Ulrich and the living Ash Elves but struggled to find a gap in the leaping, jumping mess.

Valodrael suffered no such hindrance, his greedy gaze falling on the swarm of blind rats he had not frozen to the floor. They had clustered together for reassurance in their suddenly darkened world, the touch of others of their kind bringing comfort as they tried to work out where the fighting was going on. Their noses kept twitching towards Valodrael, his scent of cold, fresh night overwhelming all the other input their scene of smell could pick up. His claws flexed on the cold stone of the tunnel floor as he prowled towards them, savoring the moment as the rat swarm began backing up, nervous of the thing they could smell approaching them but could not see. A tongue, impossibly long for the mouth that contained it flicked out to lick at eager chops.

The rats squeaked and several widdled out of fear.

Valodrael struck, maw gapping impossibly wide to engulf the enter swarm in one go, rats draw into the fang edged jaws by a force, a vacuum they could not fight. They screamed as Valodrael tipped back his head and gulped. Jeremiah shuddered as he watched the wriggling, fighting mass sliding down Valodrael's long throat, his whole neck bulging with the thrashing mass, the rats rippling under the night dark skin like fish inside a pelican's pouch. He was unable to tear his gaze away as one rat swelled under the oil like flesh of the back of Valodrael's head, the surface stretching until it looked fit to split, every detail of the rats agonized, silent scream visible, paws out stretched, scrabbling for a hand hold that didn't exist. Then the rat's skull began crumbling, flesh and bone melting, disintegrating, the sharp details of its out stretched tongue becoming soft and squishy before fading and vanishing directly into the black flesh of its killer. Valodrael rumbled with satisfaction.

Near Thorian's feet a clump of rats turned tail and ran squealing and screaming, the sharp smell of their panic filling the air as they fled. Thorian went to follow them and yelled as a rat bit deep into his calf muscle near the back of his knee, the rodent's teeth grinding together in rage. An Ash Elf also cried out, rats gnawing through their clothes to get at the flesh beneath.

The rats round Ulrich and Peter the centipede struggled to land a solid bite but Ulrich and Peter also struggled to hit the smaller groups of rats left, Peter nearly tangling his legs in the effort.

"Just what does it take to hit these things?" Ulrich demanded, "We had less trouble with the werewolves!"

"I hate little foes!" Thorian bellowed, "I hate, hate, HATE little foes! Give me big foes! Give me foes I can hit with mah sword! Give me a foe I can hit! Not these scrawny, squeaking piddlers!" His boots kicked several rats sending them flying through the air but they bounced on impact and flipped on to their feet, fangs bared in hissing challenges.

Jeremiah fished out yet another globe of rodent repellent from the pack on the Vigor's back. The blue eyed goblinoid silently bent so that its knuckled braced on the floor and with stood the fuss without a murmur. Jeremiah swung his arm and smashed the globe full in the middle of the swarm by Ulrich, some of the rats falling to the floor choking and gasping, eyes bulging as they struggled to breath passed the fumes, some of their fellows fleeing one way and some the other.

"Oh this is ridiculous!" Kaelin snarled as she watched the two groups of rats swirl and turn back to snarl at them all, "This is getting frustrating!"

On the other side of Ulrich and Peter an Ash Elf cried out as his foot slipped out from underneath him and he landed on his backside.

On the other side of the knot of tunnels Valodrael struck out again, snatching up several rats that vanished, squealing, into his maw. He shuddered as their wiggling forms slipped down his throat, purring as his tongue flicked through the air.

Jeremiah twisted his fingers through the air, muttering a pray until he could unleash it on the nearest group of rats he could see. They squeaked, milling in confusion as each squealed that there was either the nicest smell ever or the biggest predator ever coming towards them. Ulrich took advantage of it slapped them with the flat of his blade, confusing them even further but they still didn't run.

"I've had enough of this!" Kaelin screamed, bones crackling and refusing into new configurations. Rats screamed and squealed as she laid into them like a terrier in a rating ring, spines cracking between her teeth, bodies tossed into walls, furry hide parting round her claws.

Thorian glanced round as Valodrael's tail flicked near him and then smiled as he had an idea. He lunged forward, grabbed the end of the tail and yanked, intending to swing the big dragon like a flail. Instead Valodrael's tail tore free at its base with a ripping, gurgling sound.

"You dare touch me!?!" Valodrael hissed but Thorian was carrying on with his initial plan, swinging the tail like a whip, lashing at the last swarms of rats in front of him, the black sinewy length disintegrating in midair, splattering the rat swarms with thick black gloop. The rats howled, a shockingly loud sound, their flesh sloughing off the bone, their cries turning liquid and bubbly before falling silent.

"Oh," Thorian stopped swinging, "I didn't know that it was going to do that." He stared at the puddles of mush where the rats had been moments before. Something hissed near his hand. He looked down and yelled, flicking the last length of the tail away from himself, shaking his hand to make sure that not one drop of acid was left on his skin.

"Ah, ah, ah," he half yelled and half gasped. Something moved near him. Thorian felt himself go cold as Valodrael stalked passed him, the cold of the night sky breathing off his hide. There was a very unimpressed rolled to the dragons shoulders as he paced to the puddles of gunk that had once been his tail plus some very unlucky rats. As he set his feet in the puddles the muck surged up over his claws, crawling up his legs until it could flow over his skin and rebuild his tail from the base up.

"Er," Thorian gulped as Valodrael's eyes of perishing light turn on him, "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"Seriously?" Estella asked over her shoulder as she urged her talisman on with their efforts to disrupt the swarms of rats still attacking Kaelin, Ulrich and their allies, "You pull a stunt like that and don't expect to be in trouble?"

"Um?" Thorian mumbled as Valodrael stalked up to him, slamming his snort into Thorian's sternum, making him fall back into the to the wall of the tunnel as Valodrael's tongue uncurled and lapped up the side of his face.

"Oh yuck!" Thorian exclaimed but found his urge to squirm away cut short by Valodrael's claws pushed up against his stomach. Valodrael smacked his lips.

"You taste..." Valodrael paused.

"Um... tasteless?" Thorian guessed hopefully.

"Not worth my time," Valodrael sniggered and pulled his claws away, swinging round to walk up to his favorite girl. Thorian slid down the wall and sat there shaking for a while.

There was a scream as the Ash Elf who had fallen to the floor was swarmed under by rats.

"Oh hell!" Ulrich yelled and pulled Peter the Centipede over side ways in a move very like some dressage moments, causing Peter's many, many feet to trample over the swarm, even while the other Ash Elves struggled to heave their comrade up off the ground. The Ash Elf screamed and writhed and bucked and shrieked and then finally, blessedly fell silent.

"Oh hell!" Ulrich yelled again and then ducked on instinct as something large, hairy and thoroughly peeved off vaulted over his head. Kaelin smashed down on top of the wriggling heap that had once been an Ash Elf and was now merely a pile of blood slicked rats. Said rats screamed under her weight and then screeched again as her arm flung them against the wall. Sweep after sweep threw rats across the tunnel, smashed them into walls and crushed them into the floor.

"You see Thorian," Jeremiah called over, "That is how you are supposed to help a friend, not by sitting there on your butt." He did not mention the fact that he himself was stepping away from the combat and calling up his body guards as Valodrael prowled nearer to him.

"Oh shut up," Thorian muttered, "I did this side didn't I? Even if some of you didn't like the way I did it."

Valodrael turned his head to glare at Thorian and then snatched up a rat that lay writhing with a broken back, flicking it to the back of his throat before he swallowed. Seeing this Jeremiah decided to walk further away from the Void Dragon.

"You know something," he smiled as he walked over to Thorian, "You are right, my dear Thorian and I should apologize. I was being most inconsiderate. Please forgive me."

"Ah shut up," Thorian muttered, rubbing his ears, "I have a head ache coming on."

With one last squeal the last rat perished beneath Kaelin's boot. With a grinding, cracking crunch she forced the beast back into his cage.

"Is he...?" she asked but the Ash Elves were already wrapping their comrade up in a mixed of his tattered cloak and the blanket that had been rolled up in his pack.

"Damn, damn, DAMN!" Kaelin punched the wall and then wished she hadn't as her knuckles started to bleed.

"Such things happen in this realm," one of the other Ash Elves said, "It is the way of our land, though I have to say that this is the first time we have lost a comrade to such small creatures as rats." He bent and picked up a rat that had been flattened.

"It appears that they have been tampered with," he stated, turning it so they could all see the single eye glaring even in death.

"This is not good," Ulrich observed to no one in particular.