Out of all the different Blessed in the penal battalion, the General’s dogs had been reduced to three. Wretch, Fingers, and the four-armed man. They shared a space far too large, their steps echoing through the empty hall. They’d been sealed once more. But this time, there was plenty to do.
A trio of rats slunk under the door to Wretch’s room. A mirror still rested on a cupboard, dust collecting in the corners, and a lonely gas lamp cast the interior in flickering light as the vermin approached without fear.
Vermin heed your command. That was the first part of his new blessing. And he could feel them all around. More than one could have ever guessed, scratching their way through barrels and stacks of supplies all through the stronghold. Like tiny points of black ink in his vision.
The three rats stopped as if frozen before him, seated on his knees on the cold stone floor.
Two hundred yards in approximation. That’s my range of command, Wretch thought.
He could command them, force them to his will. Some fought against it, but none so far had been able to wriggle away from his grasp. Rats mostly, but even insects buried in the remaining food-stuff, though those were far harder to reach.
The three rats before him had been particularly strong-willed. That’s why he had chosen them.
Vermin, huh? How about crows? Or bats?
He pushed that aside for the moment and opened his eyes. Three sets of beady eyes stared into his. This much alone would be an adequate Blessing for a Blaze, if close to a disappointment. But his new power held more potential than just leading around some rats.
Those who bow to you may carry your Blessings as if their flesh were your own.
He held out a clawed hand over the three furred bodies. “Now little ones, bow to me.”
His eyes lit, and he projected the full intent of a Blaze. A being far away from the mundane. The shadows cast from the gas lamp flickered. The three vermin quivered. One rat, the smallest amongst them, frothed at the mouth and fell to the floor in violent spasms.
Dead.
The other two squealed in unison. To his mind, a string of black formed between the two and his flame.
Is my intent strong enough to kill? That’s a first.
He breathed out between sharp teeth. New sensations brushed against him. The murky sight of a horrific beast and the scents of forgotten supplies in the next room over.
Their sights were his. Even if it taxed him.
“Now we are talking,” he said. His own words echoing in the ears of his vermin.
He reached out to the leftmost creature, pulling at the string attached between them. Could such a frail little being truly carry his blessings? To heal wounds, to brandish the forms he had collected, both for a brief moment and permanently.
Tricky.
He gave the vermin a quiet command. Without hesitation, the fatter one attacked its kin, clawing and biting at the other in a burst of aggression and squeaks.
He watched for only a moment. “Enough,” he called.
The pair separated instantly. The smaller one had a bleeding ear and wounded tail, dripping blood onto the stone floor.
He focused on the black string that bound them together and then on his blessing of regeneration. Nothing happened. After a few moments of effort, he understood it. He lit a fire to the black string, sending waves of his own power through the connection to the unfortunate creature.
Its flesh squirmed, and the creature shivered in pain. The tiny wounds healed as though the flesh had been his own.
“Take heart, that much I have endured a thousand times.” He gestured a clawed finger upwards, and the squirming flesh ceased. The rat wobbled back to its hind legs.
Now for the more interesting part. He lit the string once more. This time, projecting the creature to change forms entirely. To turn into a Blessed hound he had slain as a hunter, beginning with the head.
The rat broke into a high-pitched scream. Its neck and joints cracked, its skull growing larger. Its throat transformed, and its cry turned into a wail. The head grew too quickly, its weight too much for the rest of its body to hold. The jaw thudded to the floor. The violent transformation continued, squirming flesh, elongating teeth, and bulging eyes rolling in their sockets.
It proved too much. The burning string severed, an ache in his mind and a pulse of borrowed flame returned to him as the rat grew still with a final spasm.
Wretch tilted his head, gazing upon his first creation. The dead rat now held a head twice the size of its regular body, a long tongue falling out between its unfinished maw. The changes had proved too much, too quick, too violent for the weak body.
Had he taken such a change upon his own form, his maximum flame would have been reduced, limiting the amount of changes he could carry. For a brief moment, he had felt the same happen, but as the creature died, the limit had broken.
“More practice needed. At least the flame was refunded to me upon death. And besides...”
He turned his concentration to the flame raging within him. It was strong and deep, replenishing in a raging inferno.
“I have much flame to spare.”
He turned his eyes to the last rat remaining. It shot to attention at his gaze, standing on its hind legs like a soldier.
“I’m content leaving you as an extra pair of eyes. Now go.”
The rat scurried off, the connection extended and offered him another view from the ground as the creature eagerly shot under the door to search for a way out of the dogs' abode.
“Plenty of new toys for us. Even if we failed,” a thick growl echoed between the stone walls.
Wretch turned to where it came from.
The mirror. The monstrous reflection within stared at him with exposed fangs.
“Did you miss me?” Wretch asked. He knew that whatever hid beneath the shallow glass was a part of him. Yet he couldn’t quite stop himself from responding.
“I was always with you. But much work remains, there are enemies all around us. And we are stuck here. Our claws carving stone instead of skin, flame twisting rats instead of limbs.”
Wretch scoffed. “I’m more than senseless aggression, all in due time.”
With a pulse of willpower, he silenced whatever fraying piece of his mind the thing resided in and focused instead on the rat bound to him.
He watched its point of view as it passed by Fingers' room. The tiny Blessed was huddled together in a bed, knees to the chest. Wretch had dragged Fingers through hell. Despite it all, they had both grown stronger, and more importantly, they were alive. Only three dogs could say that. Unless others had already found a way to break the curse placed on them.
He left those thoughts for later. The rat scurried forward, propelled only by his order to search for a way out of the prison. It didn’t take long. A hole drilled in the wall had been fitted with a pipe a size too small, leaving a gap no larger than half an inch. That proved plenty for the rat.
It tumbled out into a well-lit corridor. The brightness burned in its beady eyes, and a pair of camouflage trousers came into view. Yelps echoed, and army boots thumped against the stone. The rat did what vermin often do, scurrying towards the closest dark crevice.
He ordered it onwards with closed eyes, further down the corridor and down the stairs. It passed the range of his command, but the connection still held.
Seems the ones bound to me have a longer range. Let's have a look around, shall we?
That night, claws scratched against stone. Rats crawled up pipes and under doors, entering the prison of the General’s dogs before leaving. They moved along hastily raised beams above the unknowing army of Nov Yanosk.
From a dark corner in the stronghold, Wretch watched it all. His senses split between a dozen points of view. The pit with a thousand frozen corpses, the kitchens' half-empty storage rooms. Even the much more proper abodes of the Blessed.
He watched Astrid as she turned back and forth in nightmares, soothed by a purring cat, Kattla as she drank deep from a reeking bottle, and even Dalynja the Beast-breaker writing letters into the night. The former hunter turned officer who had been beside him on his first excursion into the wilds looked haggard and thin. Her giant dog was not in her room, but instead prowled the streets outside the fortress.
He watched over them all. It struck him then how far he had come. He had long left the domain of humans for the unnatural. But this was something more akin to a being of myth. A true nightmare.
When the night turned to its darkest hour, one particularly curious rat even found its way into the sloped elevators built along the exterior of the ruined bridge that marked the heart of Voska’s defenses. Through the murky eyes, Wretch watched the rows of cannons and shuddering soldiers along the precipice. The tiny creature climbed to the highest platform even as the wind ruffled its fur and fresh snow stung its eyes.
Finally, it gazed upon the battlefield over the lip of the defenses. The burning ring that marked the front was closing in on Voska’s true heart. The Gulschak war machines, crawling through frozen mud even at this hour, an inch at a time. Waves of artillery struck trenches now only half a mile from the fortress itself, sending fresh waves of infantry in their wake to contest the next blasted yard of dirt. It was apparent to anyone that Nov Yanosk’s forces did not have much more to give.
The rat squeaked into the freezing wind. Wretch knew that for Blessed like him, time was running out. But for vermin, the true feast was only just beginning.