“That ones not so bad?” I offered cautiously as Kat stepped through the portal and glared around the bar. The rats moved closer, then backed away quickly, as though the pixie stank.

  She was wearing a little Bo Peep costume. Setting aside whatever scaffolding was in play to allow her upper assets to defy gravity so much, her long, pale blue skirt came down just past her knees, and she wore sensible leather shoes.

  “Shiny.” I approved of the shoes.

  She slapped her shepherdess’s crook in her palm, then pushed back her bonnet to scowl at me. “I’ve had worse. Who’s the bar…rodent?” Her eyes flicked over the surrounding group of long-toothed furries.

  “Me-me,” Cheville said, shuffling forward and crouching down. “Pixle?” A pointy-nailed claw went to poke Kat in the midriff. I winced in anticipation. Sure enough, her crook hooked around his finger and twisted. Then she went for his nose, dragging his hand up behind her.

  Her tiny wings seemed more ornamental than useful most of the time. Now they sent her rocketing forward. As her fist smacked into Cheville’s face, he squeaked in pain and hopped backwards. Quick as a flash, Kat unhooked his finger and wrapped her hook around his front teeth. Her wings blurred as she shot back to where she’d been, yanking the rat’s head down with her.

  “No touching. Understand?” she said pleasantly.

  Cheville tried to nod but found that with his teeth immobilised, it was a bad idea. He blinked rapidly until she twisted her crook to free him.

  “Lovely. Now that we've established some boundaries, we can talk business. This is a bit of a shit hole, no offence, I’m not sure it’s even worth our time.”

  “Do it, Kat. Consider it an embassy, of sorts.”

  “If you’re sure… are we going to have portals here? It’s going to burn through the crystals fast; it’s a bloody long way. You—” she pointed at Cheville, and he tried to lean out of the line of fire of her finger, “might need to factor in recharge costs on the crystals.”

  “We might want to warn the humans before we sell any travel chits to these guys,” I muttered. “Can I leave this with you? Need to go and see the local king.”

  “Summon me a few thousand miles only to abandon with a bunch of hairy weirdos? Sure, leave me here alone. I’ll be fine,” Kat grouched.

  “Anyone who touches little Bo Peep gets eaten. Assuming you survive the experience of touching her.” I gave the rest of the customers a level five glare and suppressed a smile as they hastily backed away. “Righto. Plop, Alicya, where’s the palace or whatever?”

  “Good to see you, Kat,” said Alicya, both tails wagging in happiness.

  “I’ll find you later and give you a fuss, Ali. Don’t let scale brain get you into any trouble.”

  “We’ll be fine. Come on then.”

  Kat moved to hover in front of Cheville’s snout and began a rapid-fire interrogation as she gathered the information she’d need for a contract. Her voice faded as the door swung shut behind us, and we were back on the busy dockside street.

  “Alicya?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Which way?”

  “Plop?”

  I cracked my knuckles as I clenched my fists.

  “I don’t know this place, Bob. It didn’t exist last time I walked among the clans.”

  “The Mistress wouldn’t know, foolish huma—Bob. I will show you the Rathaus. Do not expect it to be a pleasant experience, though.” Plop stepped carefully into the road and made his way down the centre of the street, ignoring the ratkin that hurried to the sides to let him pass.

  “This lot are scared of you, but the other ratties stood up to us before. How come?” I wondered as I fell into position beside the strixkin.

  “Crew, well, the pack to these filth. They work as a team, so they’ll fight for each other. Don’t stand for long, as soon as one or two die. Cowardly creatures.”

  “Were there any in the fleet?”

  “Preykin don’t make good fighters, although there are exceptions. Phantikin form the bulk of our heavy infantry, but they are tricky to deploy from ships. They don’t like the sea,” Plop muttered.

  We passed a series of warehouses before Plop turned in land, and we left the sea behind. The sounds of hammers striking metal drifted across the rooftops, and the hubbub of a modest town replaced the wash of the waves. Everything still tasted of salt when I tested the local smells, but the damp-fur aroma of the ratkin was also noticeable, and seemed to get stronger the closer we got to the heart of the town.

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  Plop led us confidently towards a long, low building that occupied pride of place at the top of the small hill the town had been built on.

  “That’s it?” The place didn’t look like anything special; it was surrounded by wide grounds enclosed behind a low wall, and as we approached, I noticed the trash littering what I’d have expected to be a well-kept garden. Food waste predominated, but all manner of broken things had been dumped.

  I watched as a local approached the wall with a sack over one shoulder, which he tipped over the wall and onto the pile before casually strolling off, waving his tail at the burly-looking guard who stood to either side of the gate.

  They didn’t acknowledge the fly-tipping rat, but they noticed us as we approached. They shifted nervously, despite both of them being nearly seven feet tall and broad with it. Leather jerkins, covered in metal studs, encased them from throat to toes, and they each held a thick metal-shod staff in their right hands.

  “No pass-pass,” hissed the guard on the right. His voice was deeper than most of the other ratkin I’d met, who generally sounded like they were on helium. “Business?”

  “I am Moon Shiver, Mistress of the Night.” I snorted at Alicya's declaration, earning a glare from the werewolf.

  “It sounds like a dodgy adult movie title.” I shrugged.

  “Bob? Be quiet.” She turned back to the guards, seemingly immune to a level eight glare. “Admiral Scaredark has tested me, along with Vekusha of the Shesha.”

  The guard on the left moved forward cautiously and sniffed repeatedly. His nose ended up a few inches from Alicya and did a quick tour up and down her front. She didn’t seem too concerned by the giant rat bending forward to sniff at her crotch.

  I was trying to decide which of the guards I’d need to eat if it came down to it when he stepped back and nodded. Dammit, looking at the size of the bastards, I’d get so much damn biomass that I’d have to evolve again.

  “King will test-test,” he rumbled. “No predkin. Filthy feather-head can fuck-fuck off.”

  “I am Admiral of the Revenge Fleet, you vermin,” squawked Plop indignantly. “Appointed by The Wyrm and the Council! I'm not subject to the decisions of pests.”

  “Feather-head no pass-pass.” The heavy staffs shifted as the guards took them in both hands and levelled them at the Admiral.

  “It will be fine, Plop. Thank you for your help. Perhaps you’d like to head back to the dock?

  “But Mistress—”

  “It’s not like she’s in any danger. I’m here.” I gave him a pointy-toothed smile.

  “Pink-skin no pass-pass.” My head swung slowly back to the guards.

  “Can I just put them to sleep?”

  Alicya winced. “He doesn’t mean it like that! Bob, what do pink-sk—humans do when they're tired of their pets?”

  “Oh. But we don’t put them to sleep for the fun of it. It’s a mercy.”

  “Nobody ever looked at a human they loved and thought ‘the doctors bills are gonna be how much? You had a good run, Grandma'."

  “Well, that’s fair enough, but you can’t treat people like animals.” The guards hissed and chittered at me. “Hey! Most people treat animals better than they do other humans, as a rule. Animals are valuable.”

  “Buy and sell-sell us, yes-yes?”

  “Well, sure. Sometimes. Sometimes we breed you, though. Back home, some farmers hundreds of years ago used selective breeding to make a pig that weighed a ton. That’s a lot of bacon.”

  “Forced fuck-fuck to make food? Make preykin fat and juicy-juicy?”

  “You’re not helping, Bob.”

  “What? These guys aren’t animals. They’re practically people. No way we’d ever do something like that with them. Don’t they keep herds of sheep or cows or whatever?”

  “The taurkin might object to others keeping cows. And oviskin will ram anyone who tries to undercut their monopoly on the wool market.”

  “What about pets?”

  “Have flea-farm. They hop,” offered the left-hand guard.

  “See! And you love your pets, don’t you?”

  “No. Use for pranks. Fleas bite-bite.”

  I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Look, I’m not a bloody human anyway, and I don’t have time to be touchy-feely about your weird ass social dynamics. I need to speak to your king, and I’m running out of patience. Either fuck-fuck off, or I’ll make you.”

  “Maybe-Mistress has rude-rude pink-skin.” The pair of rats fell into a fighting stance and began to sidle around us.

  “The hell did I say?” Wrath was starting to build up a head of steam in my mind.

  “Gentlerodents, enough! He doesn’t understand your customs, or the very justified antipathy you have for the pink-skins.”

  I considered trying to adjust my skin tone, but imagined I’d end up looking like a relief map if I did. I could live with being called pink. At least I wasn’t being called stupid.

  “Idiot pink-skin doesn’t—”

  I snatched his staff from his hands and put one end on the ground. With a considerable amount of effort, I was able to bend the thing into an L-shape before tossing it back to him

  “Bob is a very clever dragon,” Alicya said carefully. “Let’s all choose our words wisely. I am happy for the King to test me, but we need to see him to make that happen. On my honour, no harm will come to His Cheesiness.” I raised an eyebrow at her, but she just shrugged.

  “I take-take. Bruntip, you stay-stay. Fix staff.”

  We left the other guard trying to straighten out his staff and were led towards the main entrance, a wide pair of double doors beneath a porch. Within, we were led to a throne room. A chair made of scraps of wood crudely nailed together stood on a low dias. The aforementioned chair was sadly empty.

  “King-king makes yellow-gold.”

  I liked the sound of that. “He can make gold?”

  “Finest yellow-gold in town. Why you think he king-king?” His tone suggested he didn’t think much of my intelligence. The feeling was mutual, and at least he was smart enough not to openly share his opinion.

  A set of curtains parted, and a very small rat-man wearing a very tall white hat walked in. “Who the hell are they?” he squeaked. “I told you I wasn’t to be disturbed during the Milking.”

  “You’re an outremonde,” I stated it flatly.

  “You too, huh? What the hell is a human doing here?” His tail curled up and carefully righted his hat.

  “He’s a diplomat from the Empire. We’ve stopped by the noble ratkin first on our grand tour. You know the local legends about Moon Shiver?”

  “The Lady of the Night?” He looked her up and down, then sniffed. “I figured you’d have fewer tits. Don’t you get cold? What am I saying? I can see that you get cold.”

  “King?”

  “Remy. Names Remy. You know what I have to do for you to prove you aren’t full of shit?” He rubbed his wrist across his nose, leaving a faint patina of snot on his matted fur.

  “Well, King Remy, Your Cheesiness, I’m happy for you to try and kill me.”

  His tail curled round, and a kitchen cleaver he’d had hiding behind his back sped across the gap to bury itself in Alicya’s forehead. She dropped like you would expect when someone's brain got chopped in half.

  “You couldn’t have avoided the brain? It takes longer when she gets hit in the head,” I grumbled, leaning down to yank the blade out of her skull. I weighed it in my hand and gave him a level three glare, but my heart wasn’t really in it.