Terat crept up slowly, then stopped and listened. Then he crept up again, then stopped and listened. He then repeated the process, until he was on the top of the wall, and even then he just stuck his snout through the parapets and sniffed. He then looked over, and then put his head down.
This is it he thought this is the place I have seen in my dream.
The day before, Terat had been a normal Ratkin living a normal life in a normal invasion fleet headed for Stygia. The fleet in question was supposed to be well supplied, but a pirate raid, combined with a freak storm, had cut off their supply lines and decimated their stock of weapons and gun powder. So they had to go some fast, or else the whole invasion would fail. Unfortunately, rat-scouts and wer-rats had confirmed that the only place within striking distance with gunpowder was a Garmarian fortress, and, unless they wanted scythes and pitchforks, it was also the only place with weapons. The Storm Captain in charge of the raid, dreaded that he would lose all of the Rats in the invasion fleet, and still wouldn't have have anything to show for it, other then some piles of dead.
And then yesterday, Terat had had a very odd dream. It was so odd in fact, that he told it to his best friend who told him to tell it to the rat-priest, who brought him to tell it to his rat-chief, who finally brought him to the Storm Captain and Storm Priest who listened intently. When Terat had recounting his dream, he was declared a "Dream-rat" by the Storm Priest. Then the Storm Captain, having seen Terat's confusion, had explained to Terat that a Dream-rat was a chosen among Ratkins, who had been selected by Siçovul taun to fulfill Terat's dream in real life. Terat acted enthusiastic, but that was because he hadn't told them about the green shirted man.
So here he was now, after he had successfully killed six sentries and one guy who had simply been answering "the call" in the wrong place (his favorite part of the dream). Then, Terat had scaled the wall (it was as if the hand-holds had been made for him) and the last sentry was in his sights. What worried Terat is, he couldn't remember how he got from injured sentry with two canes, to explosion, to dodging bullets, to guy with green shirt. Actually, Terat had forgotten about sentry with two canes. But he had a grey shirt on so it was all good.
The man was walking to a tower on the wall, with a bell and maybe signal, but empty, and seemed to be hobbling as if both of his legs had been damaged, but that he had been declared "fit-for-due-tee" by some Garmarian or another. The man was making so much noise, that Terat couldn't even hear himself breath. Terat moved slowly, and silently behind him, waiting for him to enter the tower. When he did enter the tower, he had stopped, like he had to re-fix his boots, and that is when Terat struck.
Wait, how is he...
Terat had realized the ploy to late. The man had blocked Terat's knife with one of his wood covered clubs, and had brought the other one crashing into his skull. Terat flew back two tails and landed hard on his back, but wasn't out. He got up in time to see the man cocking his pistol. Without thinking, Terat threw his knife, which, as luck would have it, lodged directly in his throat and threw him down. However, he must not of died instantly, because his gun still shot off.
The shot had barely left the gun, before warning bells began to be run, and the area was almost immediately bathed in light. It was then that Terat noticed something: a thick double door was open about fifty tails away, and inside of it were barrels. On the Barrels, was a black skull with two torches and a musket, the symbol the Garmarians use for-
Gunpowder he thought that explains the explosion.
Wasting no time, Terat searched the body of the man he killed, and had found a wide barreled pistol with a single shoot and the hammer was seated in the middle of the gun, not to the side. Terat had never seen one before, and had heard only vague rumors of it (excluding its appearance), but somehow, Terat knew what this was. Despite having no skill with guns in the past, Terat leveled the flare gun at the powder stores and fired. The recoil was immense, knocking Terat off his feet, but luck was on his side, as a bright red light corkscrewed into the stores. Even if Terat hadn't been knocked over by the recoil, the actual explosion was much greater.
It threw large amounts of stones, metals, and other unidentifiable stuff into the air, and seemed to have woken up the garrison too. When Terat had gotten back up, about a dozen or so soldiers were leveling their guns at him.
None of the have green on.
Terat immediately ran at them, and apparently they were horrible shots as not a single one hit him, a very odd coincident. Terat was among them and, before one of them with a grey shirt could bayonet him, Terat had grabbed the guys gun, and had forced the but into his face. The man fell back stunned, and Terat wasted no time in bringing the pointy bit into the mans face. Terat then used the gun as a sort of pole vault (it was stuck) and managed to land his foot claws into another mans eyes. Another man, of a somewhat higher rank (or lower, Terat never learned how to tell how good something was) came at him with a sword, but, Terat was quicker, and all he hit was a blind man.
Terat took this opportunity to scamper away, and had just come to an open part of the wall, when he looked left. Sheite. There had formed up at least fifty Garmarians who were leveling their guns at Terat. Terat did a frantic scan.
All grey he thought good. They all are grey. Maybe the green shirt isn't here.
And with that, Terat fell down a hole in the wall, just as the bullets came at him. For a moment he just laid there, enjoying his new found luck. But something seemed odd, the location looked familiar but...
A bullet whooshed past Terats head, and he saw that he had disturbed a grey coated man with a repeating pistol. Terat got out of the way of his second shot, and was running towards him before the third shot fired. All in all, his neck gave a real good snap and he was lying face down on the ground, his pistol now in Terat's hands. Terat had started to head down the hall, when he heard a door slam open. He turned around with all his speed and fired the pistol at the man with the grey coat coming out of the door.
AHHHH, he screamed, clutching the stump were his hand was.
His gun had misfired, taking his hand along with it, and when Terat looked up he understood why. The man had a grey coat on, but it was unbuttoned, and undearneth he was wearing a nightgown which was-
Green...
For a moment, Terat considered fighting the man, maybe even kill him. Maybe he could even cheat death and-
no he thought ...this is how it is to end. yes.
Terat closed his eyes and embraced the coming lead.
