Date: October 30, 542, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The Rat Queen was smarter than he had thought.
She did not charge into battle. She retreated deeper onto the dais, and her offspring — dozens, hundreds of small, nimble creatures — surged at Datuk, shielding her with their bodies. They did not fear death. They pressed forward, and every bite, every scratch, every claw strike was not fatal, but exhausting. Blood flowed from a dozen minor wounds, and Datuk felt his shirt, already torn, turn into wet, sticky rags.
Datuk smashed them. The axe worked without pause, and his arms, covered in foreign blood, knew no fatigue. But there were too many. They poured from every gap, and even his Berserker Spirit, pushed to its limit, began to falter. The skin on his body, once crimson, started to pale, and the bulging veins, strained to the breaking point, pulsed with each heartbeat.
"Vermin!" he roared, hurling aside another carcass. It flew to the wall and slid down with a dull thud.
He pushed forward, meter by meter, and each meter came harder. The rats squealed, bit, scratched, and his clothes, already tattered, became shreds. His legs sank into a morass of blood and bone dust, and each step demanded inhuman effort.
The Queen watched. Her green eyes, cold and calculating, tracked his every move. She did not intervene — only directed. And her offspring, obedient to her will, attacked in perfect coordination, like a single organism. One group distracted from the front, another flanked, a third tried to bite his legs. It was tactics honed to perfection.
*She's no fool,* Datuk thought, hacking a path through. *She's experienced. She knows numbers are her advantage.*
He lunged forward, and his axe, tracing a wide arc, took off three rats' heads at once. Blood sprayed his face, but he did not even blink. A path to the Queen opened for an instant, and Datuk, seizing the moment, jumped. He vaulted over two carcasses, pushed off a third's back, and used the momentum to close the distance.
The Queen had not expected such agility. She recoiled, but it was too late — the axe was already flying toward her neck.
The blade sank into flesh. But not as deeply as he would have liked. The Queen jerked, and the strike, instead of severing her head, merely slashed her snout from ear to jaw. Blood gushed, and the rat shrieked — a high, piercing sound that made Datuk's ears ring.
One of her eyes, the left, was gone. In its place remained a bloody socket from which dark, thick fluid oozed.
"Die, beast!" Datuk rasped, raising his axe for another blow.
But the Queen retreated. Swift as a snake, she slid deeper onto the dais, and her offspring closed ranks again, cutting Datuk off from his target. They swarmed him from all sides, and he had to defend himself, losing precious seconds.
"Carrion!" he roared, but the Queen did not answer.
She stood in the shadows, pressing a paw to her mutilated snout, and her remaining eye, green and hateful, stared at Datuk. There was no fear in it — only rage and pain.
Datuk was already winding up to hack through the new wave when the hall shook.
Heavy, measured footsteps came from somewhere deep. The stone floor trembled, and small pebbles bounced in time with those steps. Datuk turned, loosening his grip for a moment.
From the shadows, from a passage he had not noticed before — wide, low, hidden behind a pile of bones — something emerged.
It was enormous. Twice as tall as the Rat Queen, with powerful, bulging shoulders and long, muscular legs armed with claw‑like sickles. Its fur was dark gray, almost black, and along its spine jutted bony growths like spikes. Its head was massive, with a wide jaw, and from its mouth protruded two long, yellowish fangs coated in grime.
The Rat King.
It walked slowly, but in that slowness was such power that Datuk instinctively tensed. Each step of the beast echoed in his chest, and the air around it seemed to grow denser, heavier. Its eyes — two red coals — glowed in the darkness, and in them there was no fear. Only rage. Only the desire to kill.
The King walked past its offspring, ignoring them, and stopped in front of Datuk. The Queen, pressing a paw to her ruined snout, emitted a short, sharp squeak — a command. The offspring froze, waiting for new orders.
"And here I thought the fun was over," Datuk said, and in his hoarse, ragged voice there was no fear. Only excitement.
He grinned — wide, predatory. The axe settled on his shoulder, and he, not taking his eyes off the King's red gaze, waited.
The King lunged forward faster than such a mass should have been able. Datuk barely raised his axe, but the monster's claws slid along the blade and, meeting no resistance, sank into his chest. Four lines. Deep, bloody. Pain flared, sharp and burning, and Datuk, roaring, stepped back.
Blood — his own — gushed from the wounds, soaking his torn shirt, making it heavy and sticky.
"Good," he rasped, not taking his eyes off the King. "Good!"
He gripped his axe. The skin on his arms grew redder — the Berserker Spirit was working at its limit. Veins bulged, and molten metal seemed to run through them. Pain receded to the background, replaced by rage.
"Let's see who takes who!"
The King growled — low, long — and that growl, full of ancient, animal power, echoed through the hall, bouncing off the walls. The Queen, standing in the shadows, emitted a thin, piercing squeak — the command to attack.
The offspring, hundreds of red eyes, closed the ring. They did not attack — they waited, frozen in tense silence.
Datuk stood in the center of that ring, his axe covered in blood, glinting dully in the torchlight.