I skidded through the piles of settling ash, doing my best to avoid the wrath of the rat king. Ash was very nice, and I had made it, but I was still no closer to destroying the vicious squeaker than when I had started. Still, elation filled my bones. The act of passing the fire qi through death had not only transformed it but somehow purified it. The implications were immense, but there was no time to process them then.


    For-Molsnian’s screams chased me across the battlefield of the tavern as I danced away. Over by the hearth, Mama, the pixies and the others were still coughing, but staggering upright again. Nasty smoke hung thick and noxious but Mama swept it away with a well aimed gust of air qi.


    I spun with a grin… and For-Molsnian’s maggoty visage filled my vision. The lone red eye shone lurid, fixed on me with murderous intent.


    “Playing, are we?” he snarled. His pointed rat snout was barely an inch from my own beautiful velvet one as he grasped at me with claws and tails. The smell of him, even in ghost form, was overwhelming.


    I back-pedalled, bashing into furniture and debris as the rat king’s body rose with his fury, all of him growing larger, snakelike tails whipping out, chunks of ghostly flesh rotating around… was it his core? That I had not seen before.


    Before I could reach it a demonic wind screeched through the tavern, blasting me aside, turning tables and hurling tankards. From the edge of my vision, I saw Polly-wally sailing through the air, but Mama leapt up and grabbed her in her jaws, crouching low, pulling the other tiny ones close to her body.


    With supreme effort I faced into the wind, lifting my chin proudly, narrowing my eyes against the onslaught and growled my challenge.


    Rat-wraiths came at me from all directions, above and below. Their tails bound them to their king, and he used them like flails, swinging the rats towards me and ripping them back before I could strike. Their ability to phase through solid matter was vexing.


    Drops of corrosive acid sliced through the air like nasty, toxic kisses. I dodged as they split, spinning, managing to spare my eyes, but not my precious nose. A yowl of pain ripped from my throat, but I kept on twisting and dancing, leading the attacks away from my loves, batting it aside with pure, unsophisticated death qi.


    Where the acid was intercepted, the demonic qi puffed away into harmless smoke. Where they connected with flesh and fur, I was left pitted and singed. It hurt, but that was okay. Could I—


    “This is dull,” shouted For-Molsnian. Drops of green acid splattered from his maw, dissolving his own ghostly flesh, but I think he was past caring. “Feed me your core.”


    A fresh slew of acid cut through the air.


    I soared over the wreckage of the tavern, over toppled tables, and shattered glass, landing hard behind a cracked stone bench with a bruising crash, hearing the very stone that shielded me sizzle and pop a second after.


    A flash of grave cold gave me a moment’s warning.


    For-Molsnian’s head burst through the stone. Power to my legs carried me away. He roared his fury, but I was fast. I did not tire, he did not tire. But he was landing blows, and I was not.


    Three of my whiskers were sacrificed as I misjudged a turn. More fur on my back. At this rate I would soon look like my Maud’s old quilt. I fought on, paying the price with my beauty.


    I skidded across the bartop, dodging blows, and a torch fell from a sconce, setting fire to a smashed bottle of spirits.


    “Turn this to ashes,” said the rat, and his eye burned.


    The whole place got deathly quiet for one horrible second.


    Then, suddenly, I was outside.


    How did I get outside?


    I was falling, spinning through space, looking down (or up?) at River’s tiny, watery, worried face. Oh.


    My ears rang as I looked at the remains of the tavern. One entire wall had been blown away, blasted out, taking a chunk of the bridge and the ravine with it. I felt very strange. My ears rang, my vision fuzzed. Then someone caught me. Modde. Modde caught me with his feet.


    They felt gentle and furry.


    “You taste hurt, Jenkins,” he said as we flew.


    “I AM HURT.” My ears were still ringing.


    “Sure we cannot help?”


    “You are helping,” I said. “Now put me down so I can kill him.”


    “And just how are you going to kill him?”


    “Alright, I might need a little help,” I admitted under my breath.


    “Finally.”


    He deposited me, none too gently, on the remains of the tavern floor, and retreated, narrowly avoiding a snapping wraith.


    If only I could fly.


    Later.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Now.


    Kill the rat.


    Kill the rat, and go home and be happy forever.


    The floors were rattling and shaking. The damnable squeaker was blasting chunks of stone out into the void. Soon there would be nothing left.


    Modde returned, dropping Hush beside me. Then Thimble. Mama was huddled on one of the remaining ledges looking dazed. She leapt across to us on shaking legs.


    “ARE YOU OKAY?” We all shouted at the same time. “YES!”


    As one, we turned to the wraith.


    Black shadow rippled across my coat as I imbued every last part of me with death qi, darker than night, abyssal black, sucking in the light with deadly beauty. Hush, Thimble and Mama burst into dazzling suncats, sunbeams rippling across their fur.


    They advanced with glowing golden steps with me, the void star at their head.


    The rat king screamed and retreated, shielding his face, but that was not enough. He would only come back again if we didn’t finish this. How to kill that which was dead and make it stay dead? How to coax a spirit to move on? We had done it in the village…


    Everything slid into place.


    “You’re just an angry ghostie, aren’t you?” I murmured.


    Another massive flagstone went spinning out into the ether. The rat roared as I jumped high, clawing my way up the scruffed cabinet towards him.


    “Just an angry ghostie who needs to move on.”


    I felt the familiar snatch at my qi as a dozen smaller rat-wraiths ambushed me through the walls, each ugly face familiar. Shadow claws raked my spine. They were cutting me to the bone, surrounding me, hounding me, pushing me towards the open air. That was fine, I needed him closer so I pretended to go… waiting for the right moment. Waiting…


    Hush lost a swath of fur to the acid, Mama caught another nasty slash to her side.


    “What happened to you?” I asked. “To make you this way?”


    I attacked, battering him with all the death qi I could muster, coaxing, pushing, channelling the same energy into him as I had into the fire. Change. Change. Do not fear the transformation.


    Something gave.


    For-Molsnian split open. He raged, his wraith-breath scouring the paint from the walls, vengeful chunks of him rotating, phasing in and out. Orbiting around that round, dark, corrupted centre. There in the centre of the debris, a stone-hard orb… glistening. His core. Not the sort of glistening that a Star would do, or the Sun on diamond drops of dew, but the glistening of malevolent, gross, slimy goo.


    It was solid.


    “What happened to you?” I asked again, relentless. “To make you this way?”


    “Greed!” shouted Hush, her eyes shining like miniature suns.


    “Was it greed?” I asked, looking deep into that single crimson eye.


    For-Molsnian did not respond, just keeping up his attacks, back and forth. My family was by my side now, fending off the smaller rats, pouring sunlight into the wraith, golden teeth biting and dazzling.


    He faltered. Without hesitation, I had him by the throat, biting down with all my might. I would pump him full of death qi till he burst like a dam.


    “What happened to you?” I mumbled around bulging, bubbling, acid-flecked rat neck. A paw passed through my face, but I did not flinch. “What happened to you?”


    A wraith with Brosnod’s head poked up out of the floor.


    “Hunger,” it said. Thimble grabbed it between shining jaws.


    Another head sprouted beside it, then another. Mama pounded on one, Modde grasped another. I clung onto For-Molsnian’s fat, wriggling neck with all the strength I had.


    “Hunger,” they all said. “Hunger. We were starving.”


    “Tell me what happened.”


    “Disease came, the corn was mouldy. We ate it anyway.”


    “So hungry.”


    “There was nothing left.”


    “Nothing.”


    “So hungry.”


    “It turned to rot in our bellies.”


    “We turned to rot.”


    “Then there was no more food. Not good, not mouldy.”


    “Our babies were dying.”


    “Our skins were sagging.”


    “Our bones were showing.”


    “We were hungry.”


    “We were weak.”


    “Hungry.”


    “So hungry.”


    “Dying.”


    “WE WILL HAVE IT ALL,” roared For-Molsnian, from between my jaws. “I WILL HAVE IT ALL. I WILL NEVER WANT AGAIN!”


    He flailed, his body splitting further into pieces, some solid, some translucent, the weeping eye oozing ectoplasmic gunk. My teeth slipped through his flesh, no matter how I clung on. Winnows of corruption sprouted like thousands of tiny, grasping hands, grabbing grabbing grabbing at my own neck.


    I was forced to rip myself away, but not before I spied his core once more. Ignoring my own hurts, I lunged for it, shoving death qi into his body, so much death qi, feeding it in, shoving it forward, every part of it that I could reach, both solid and incorporeal. Not tenderly, (because he was still a disgusting upstart squeaker), but perhaps more tenderly than I would have ten minutes before. Go. I could feel him coming apart. Being remade.


    “I hope this will be enough,” I said.


    With a last mighty push, I chomped down with one stupendous gulp.


    For-Molsnian’s core slid down my throat.


    It was the most disgusting thing there ever could be, coating my oesophagus with bile.


    The demonic qi fought with me, but it was mine now, inside me, and I smothered it with death qi, compressing it, coaxing it towards… something new. Like I had sent its owner. Pushing my way in, seeking to break it down like I had done with the fire qi, not to destroy but to transform.


    In that timeless moment, I saw all my lives.


    I felt all my feelings.


    The love, the sorrow, the joy, the pain. The loss. I saw it all. I felt it all. I was spinning above River once more in an ecstasy of pain and madness and feeling. I saw, not just mine, but the rat king’s too. I saw his colony of rats, his children, felt his deep, abiding sorrow as his family starved. I felt his resolve, to save them, to do better. I cried with him, I cried for him, and ached and I wailed… and then… It was done.


    The core let go, dissolving into particles.


    When I opened my eyes, I could feel the void showing through them. Everything was shadows. Everything was peace, the remains of the vast room was utterly still. Like the world was breathing out.


    I blinked, and slowly the shadows became normal again. Except for one cheeky catlike shade that winked at me before sliding under the remains of the bar.


    My family had stopped shining and the scene was lit only by Modde’s soft radiance. Over towards one of the still standing walls, a shutter fell off its hinge with a clatter. Somewhere in the wreckage, a troll groaned and sat up, grasping her head.


    “Is it done?” asked Hush, looking around at what was left of the tavern.


    “It is done,” I said.