Chapter 103 - Oh, Rats

  Carver stalked through deserted city streets, heading toward his prey. The sun had been up for an hour already—not the time of day he preferred to be working his way into enemy territory, but the pirates were as active at night as they were during the day, if not more so. He’d still be using the cover of night, if it weren’t for two factors he’d learned from his scouts.

  The pirates had been busy last night, it seemed. They had a large shipment of new people arrive on one of their boats—unwilling guests of the pirate Domain, from the reports he’d gathered. Added to the enslaved people they already had on site, and there were a great many innocent victims being brutalized by this maniacs.

  That alone might have been enough to tip him into attacking immediately, but Gideon would still have preferred to wait until nightfall. The same scouts came back with reports that the pirates had been partying hard after their ship arrived, though. They’d seen it as cause to celebrate, apparently, and had done so with extreme gusto—well into the wee hours of the morning.

  Now, things were silent from that end of the city. Most of the pirates were sleeping off their night of debauchery, and they’d struggle to rouse quickly. It was the ideal time for a strike, but Carver knew he still had to be cautious.

  There was no need to attack directly, though. Not when he had so many more interesting tools he could use for the job. Gideon and his people had been working on new weapons and tactics for days now, against just such a time. He’d always known the so-called ‘pirates’ might not be great neighbors, and that he might have to take a firm hand with them. He had a number of contingencies planned which would be useful in such situations.

  While he’d never in a million years admit it to his subordinates, Gideon had a special delight in applying this particular plan. It was poetic in a way that he approved of deeply, and used measures so full of irony that it was a delicious setup, even if the pirates would probably never appreciate it.

  Running along behind Gideon was the rest of his “army.” The horde he led consisted of sixty-four zombie rats. These weren’t regular rats, but rather some Event-created mutants his people had run into near the fortress. The things were each the size of a beagle, and when they’d been alive, they’d been hell of a problem. He and his undead had wiped the rats out—the final blow had been when Carver started Animating the dead rats and sending them back after their living brethren. After that, no hole was so small the rats could escape.

  Gideon had to shut down all his Animated undead back at home, in order to pull this off. He’d hidden stacks of skeletons about half a mile down the waterfront, but those were for later. For the time being, he wanted to maximize the number of rats he had available.

  The scouts had been right. There were few guards out. He ran into one, sound asleep inside a stopped car. It was simple enough to identify the ‘pirates.’ They all wore the most ridiculous clothing, like they were trying to be Disney’s version of how a pirate ought to look. This one was no different, but sleeping, he was no threat.

  With a wave of his arm Gideon send the rats forward. They swarmed the car. The young man had made one terrible mistake when he’d fallen asleep, you see. He’d left both front windows of the car open, probably to get some cross-ventilation.

  Now the rats rushed in through those gaps, and attacked. There was a muffled cry of surprise as he woke, followed by a very brief scream.

  The rats didn’t take long to finish their job.

  Carver pushed ahead from there. He knew he had to be getting close to the Domain’s inner perimeter. There were two, he’d discovered. There was an outer edge, which was the nearest another Domain could be created. That was the maximum extent of the Domain’s power.

  There was also a smaller circle, a small radius around the core of the Domain. Within that inner perimeter, the person holding the control stone had far more power. They could command whatever defense forces the Domain had spawned for them—in Carver’s case, it was a full dozen tier one skeletons. Not enough to stop a concerted attack from pretty much anyone, but it was enough to give his people a little extra help while Carver and his army were away.

  One fascinating feature of the inner perimeter was that new monsters didn’t appear to spawn within it, at least not that he’d seen. There’d always been the worry in the back of Carver’s mind, that if some of these monsters were simply appearing, rather than being transformed from an already living thing, then one could in theory appear anywhere, any time. A monster could pop up while he was eating dinner, or sleeping in bed.

  But not within the inner perimeter. He could sense that zone was safe, now. Not only would things not magically ‘appear’ there, but if anyone entered the region with hostile intent, the Domain holder would sense it. Obviously, that wasn’t perfect. If regular mosquitos flew into his Domain intent on sucking people dry, Carver wouldn’t sense their approach. But he did sense the giant mosquitos that raided the citadel the other day.

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  All this meant that once he breached the pirates’ inner perimeter, their leader would absolutely sense his arrival. Even if he was sleeping, the sensation of a massive attack force like the one Carver led would wake him up in an instant. Their leader would alert as many people as possible, so if he timed this right, the rats ought to arrive almost precisely when the bad guys were at their most confused.

  One of the rats’ special packages was starting to slip off. That wouldn’t do. Carver ordered it to come to him, and he retied the flask so it would hold for the remainder of its trip. Only half of the rats had the flasks. There simply hadn’t been enough glassware available to make more, and even though one of his people had taken to Alchemy like a duck to water, there hadn’t been time to make more of the stuff, anyway. What they had would have to do.

  A little tingling told Carver he’d breached the magical inner perimeter. Interesting, that he could sense it. He wondered if that was part of him also owning a Domain, or if anyone could detect the edge. Something to ask his scouts, later.

  He passed final orders to his zombie rats. Since Carver wasn’t following them in, they were basically going to be operating on autopilot for the remainder of this mission. That was fine: he’d created the simplest possible mission, and they seemed to understand what they had to do. In a flash, the entire horde went rushing off to the north, while Carver turned west.

  The pirates were keeping most of their enslaved people in a warehouse near the Echo Center. It was only a short walk away, but it ought to be distant enough that Carver could rescue them while the rats kept the remainder of the pirates busy.

  Some of the enslaved would likely be inside the Center itself. There was nothing he could do for them except avenge them.

  The rats rushed on. They were completely out of sight within a minute, and Carver continued on his way. Now that he was missing the undead, he could move much faster, using pools of early morning shadow as targets for his Phantom Step. Where there wasn’t shadow, he created some with his Darkness spell. In short order, he’d reached the warehouse.

  The door was locked. That was fine; he kicked it, blasting the door off its hinges and sending it flying into the room beyond. Carver didn’t hesitate. He rushed in, drawing a longsword as he moved. He was fast, faster than anyone could have been under the old world’s rules, and the two sleeping guards inside were dead before they opened their eyes.

  He flickered forward, dashing through the space. It was a large open building filled with a bunch of jerry-rigged cages and what looked like they’d been kennels for large dogs. The stink was disgusting, and the whole scene was something out of a horror movie, but Carver set aside his disgust the same way he would have for a particularly disturbing surgery as he dashed through the space, scouting for additional enemies.

  There were two more guards at the opposite side of the building. Just four people to guard what looked like forty enslaved; that explained why they were storing these people in another building. Easier to keep tabs on them all in one place.

  Both guards were dead before they could sound the alarm. None of them were over tier three, and he’d left that behind some time ago.

  There was a middle-aged black man in the nearest cage, watching Carver with eyes that looked hungry instead of terrified. Carver went to the cage and spoke to the man. “I’m here to free you all. If I break you out, are you willing to help me get the rest of these people out of here?”

  “They kill anyone who even talks about escaping,” the man protested. Carver watched as hope and fear warred in the man’s face.

  He needed to feed that hope. He gestured to the pair of dead guards. “As you can see, I’m not worried about them. I can free you. I can free all of these people. Will you help me?”

  Carver added as much intensity as he could muster into those last words. He knew he’d never been the best teacher. His oratory skills were fair, but not flawless. But that was before. In the past week, he’d been forced to rise above his old limitations, to do things he’d never imagined he could, in the old days. Also, he’d added a Charisma stone to his other ones, not long ago. It was only tier three, but he hoped it might help encourage trust.

  Whatever the cause, the man snapped him a nod. “I’ll help. Let’s do this. How are you going to get us out? Did you find the keys?”

  Gideon shook his head. “I don’t need keys.”

  He grasped the padlock in his hands and twisted hard. It snapped off, and Carver tossed it aside, opening the door. The man stared at him in disbelief, but only for a moment. Once that door was open, he was out of the cage in seconds.

  “That’s amazing. Those crystal things?” the man asked.

  Carver nodded, moving to the next cell.

  “What about those assholes who captured us?” the man asked. “Won’t they be coming here soon?”

  “They’re going to be too busy, any second now,” Carver said.

  Alchemy was one hell of a skill. If Carver had known how good it was, he might have taken it himself, but it was fine to have a subordinate handle it instead. Terry had poured himself into the work, learning to create both healing potions and an explosive cocktail.

  By that moment, the rats would be pouring into the Echo Center. They were under orders to spread out, to move through the building, to reach every room they could. The ones without flasks would attack sleepy pirates, killing if they could, but mostly just to keep them all occupied while the flask-carrying zombie rats took up their positions.

  In the near distance, the first thudding explosion went off. It was followed by another, and another, until the sound was like the finale of a fireworks display mixed with the noise of a stone building collapsing.

  “Far too busy to worry about us,” Carver finished. He opened another cage and beckoned to the prisoner inside. “We have no time to waste, though, not if we want to rescue everyone. Quickly, now!”