The green gremlin fell, surrounded by a squeaking swarm of red-eyed rats. Blue cried out in alarm, but the sound was nothing compared to the screams and gurgles of pain as the teeth gnashed at the emaciated creature beneath them.
More of the vermin found their footing and Blue shuffled away, until his back touched the festering ribcage, pieces of fur still hanging from the bones, rotting tendons holding the structure together. The yellow gremlin was next to go, disappearing under a mass of black rats, its pitiful screams hollow in Fletcher’s ears.
Of the others, only the red one remained, having somehow managed to scramble halfway up the pit. It hung there, suspended, unable to climb any further. Beneath it, the rats squealed and leaped, teeth snapping below the gremlin’s kicking ankles. In the corner, Blue slipped beneath the ribcage, then pushed the sharp end of his bone through the gap and began stabbing at any rat that came within reach.
Fletcher watched in horror as a man leaned out and prodded the red gremlin, which fell screaming into the baying pack. There were yells of anger from some of the men, but they were only complaining because they had bets on it. Like a pack of piranhas, the rats stripped the tiny corpse until it was nothing more than a skeleton.
‘Blue wins!’ the gap-toothed man cried, greeted by a cheer from the men who watched. ‘Now, who wants to bet on how long he will last? I’ve got two to one it’s a minute!’
There was a surge of men, silver sovereigns held high as they rushed to take his bet.
‘I thought the winner got to live,’ Fletcher growled.
‘The show’s never been this good before,’ the man whispered out of the side of his mouth. ‘I ain’t gonna let it go to waste.’
‘I feel sick,’ Jeffrey mumbled, gripping Fletcher’s arm. ‘I don’t think this beer agreed with me. Take me outside, please.’
Below, Blue valiantly struggled on, a rat squealing as it was hit in the eye, another battering the ribcage beside it.
‘Let’s go,’ Fletcher said, shoving his way through the crowd. The tent was suddenly too small, too hot. He needed to breathe again.
They burst through the entrance and Jeffrey staggered away, dragging Othello and Fletcher behind him. He began to vomit, and Othello rubbed his back, turning his head away in disgust. The darkness of night had fallen, the last vestiges of sun sinking behind the horizon.
‘I took one sip of that stuff and poured it away,’ Othello said. ‘Like piss, fresh from the horse. Though drinking’s no more than a coward’s way to courage anyway.’
Courage. That was what Fletcher had just seen, from a little gremlin, fighting against insurmountable odds. As he pictured the struggling creature, his heart filled with resolve. He set his jaw and began to pace back to the tent.
‘Fletcher, wait,’ Jeffrey mumbled, spittle dripping from his mouth.
But Fletcher was already through the doors and barging through the crowd. He vaulted over the pit’s parapet with a single leap, then blasted the rats aside with kinetic energy, sending their heavy bodies thudding into the earthen walls.
He summoned Ignatius with a pulse of mana and the demon came out fighting, slashing back and forth with his claws. A wave of flame from his mouth sent a dozen rats to their deaths, but the scent of cooking flesh was too much for the others – the remaining rats fell upon their burned compatriots with squeals of joy.
Blue was locked chest to chest with a monstrous rat that had wriggled inside the ribcage, stabbing it repeatedly in the side with his bone. Fletcher drew his khopesh and neatly spitted the rodent, using the sword and body to lift the cage away. Then, as the cries of excitement began to die, he sheathed his sword and gathered the little gremlin into his arms. Blue’s skinny chest heaved in and out with exhaustion.
The crowd stared down at Fletcher in shock, then the gap-toothed man yelled.
‘What the hell are y—’
But he never finished his sentence, for the world flipped upside down and an explosion tore through the tent, shrapnel ripping through the crowd of drunken men like a scythe through wheat.
Deep in the pit, the flare passed above Fletcher and Ignatius in a wave of roiling fire. His ears sang with pain from the thunderclap of sound and he was thrown to the ground by a shockwave that rippled through the earth.
Then he was clawing his way out of the pit and over the screaming bodies of injured soldiers, Blue still clutched protectively to his chest. He felt a hand grasp his ankle and he kicked it away, stretching and pulling forward like a drowning man heading for shore. Ignatius tugged at his sleeve, guiding him through the smoke. Then Othello’s strong hands dragged him out and over the mud, until they collapsed together at the base of the hill. The dwarf’s relieved face peered down at him.
‘You’re alive,’ he breathed. ‘It’s a damn miracle.’