Page 59 of Green City Wars

Around him, his fellows in adversity are hunkering down and waiting. The Maulers, a scatter of gangster rats, Maria. Tybelle, making a big show of finding all the fuss beneath her. A couple of belligerent moles and three guild squirrels sufficiently pissed that their work rota’s been screwed over. Tekki the Ratsnake, even, for some damn reason. There are at least two score Reds out there by now, and at least as many Grays, and they’ve all got popguns. The odds, Skotch reckons, are looking somewhat stacked.

“This would be a fine time for someone to pull out a real clever surprise,” he remarks.

Wizzo grins at him. Skotch would love it to be the grin of a rat with a real clever surprise, but Gehirner don’t tend to bare their teeth for that sort of reason. Instead he mostly reads as “deranged anarchist with a crossbow.”

The squirrels start the crossing. A few have found some rat punts abandoned by their gondoliers, but the rest are just wading. It’s chest or even neck deep to a squirrel, along the shallower paths they’re taking. At least it means that when Fischer and Wizzo start shooting, it’s not like the soldiers will have many ways to dodge. Still, they push through the waters briskly enough, guns held above their heads or slanted over shoulders.

At a point that almost seems mutually agreed on, the shooting starts. A handful of popguns from amongst the Maulers spit out at the exposed squirrels. Considerably more return fire from out across the waters, with the main intent of keeping the defending snipers occupied in ducking rather than picking off targets. Fischer and Wizzo each claim a victim, but other than that it’s mostly just spent ammo and the oddly muted sounds of airguns and spring-locks clacking. A little percussion solo without rhythm, going nowhere.

Skotch is actually looking in the right direction when it happens. The Reds wade forwards, two or three finding a nubbin of higher ground to stop and take a shot, then reload or retension their guns and wade forwards again. Abruptly the leader is down, though. Flailing into the water, gun splashing and sinking. Red stains spreading. No immediate panic, because the others out there think he’s just been shot. Except that’s not what’s happening and another two squirrels go under in sudden struggles before anyone works it out. Then the Redcoats are backing up, and a moment later the sheer nastiness of it—an invisible enemy utterly unsuspected—has them flooding back to the dry land of the periphery.

The Grays, who weren’t being beset, see their frenemies pulling out and instantly assume they’ve been screwed over. They also retreat, despite Szerky’s shrill voice yelling at all and sundry. Some squirrels are shooting into the water. For a moment a whole mob of Reds are shrilling and chittering at the Grays—who, to their eyes, got away without loss—and the Grays are posturing right back. Skotch holds his breath in case the whole tenuous alliance falls apart right there and then, but that would be too much to hope for. Szerky gets in amongst them, snapping and snarling and forcing the two sides apart by sheer force of personality. Order, alas, is restored.

The new forces begin to slither up onto the central island, now their surprise value is spent. Newts, and no more than a dozen. Skotch has never before looked on something as inoffensive as a newt and felt a shiver, but honestly this pack is channelling their prehistoric giant ancestors. They have knives and a couple have what look like spearguns, and they’re painted up in toxic waterproof colours.

“Who the hell are you?” he asks them.

“Gasthofmund Irregulars,” says the lead newt, who has an honest-to-Jeff eyepatch strapped about its slick head. “The Baron sends her regards.”

The last member of their impromptu conspiracy spoken for, then. And it doesn’t do much to balance the numbers, but it’s bought time and given the squirrels a nasty scare.

Szerky obviously has a sense that the defenders are trying to run out the clock, though. It’s only a few moments of her bawling out the commanding officers before both bands of squirrels are coming on strong. The newts blink laconically and slide into the water again, but this time Skotch doesn’t reckon they’ll make enough of a dent in morale to get the same results.

Someone elbows him in the side. It’s Nimoy. The chrome-domed rat wordlessly hands him something. He asks her what it is and she ignores him entirely. When he looks down he understands why. Earplugs. She and the other Ratlabs techies are passing amongst the defenders, giving them out to anyone with external ears. Wizzo grins at Skotch, every bit the rat with a clever plan after all.

Then they’re all putting their heads down below the parapet because the squirrels are coming for a second try, keeping up a barrage of shots to occupy the minds of the defenders. The front ranks of the Red force are using spars and long knives to investigate the water ahead of them, and the Grays follow suit quickly enough when they spot the tactic. Skotch sees a couple of them go down to newt-related incidents, but now that they’re wise to the threat they can counter it easily enough. Wizzo comes within a millimetre of taking a pellet through the head as he tries to line up a shot, and one of the gangster rats takes one in the haunches and goes down squealing. With the earplugs in, it’s all weirdly numbed and distant, like something Skotch is telling Lulu second-hand.

Speaking of Lulu, he looks round to make sure she’s not about to try some dumbass heroics like trying to fly out and convert the whole Gray force to the cause of being nice guys or something. She’s nowhere to be seen, though, and Skotch realises he can’t see any of the Mauler’s bird contingent about, nor Keaton the bat. Another trick, another scheme, he guesses. And then there’s something big coming on.

It’s the fox, the one the Reds hired. There’s a pair of Redcoat soldiers trying to ride the damn thing, knives in their teeth as they cling on for dear life. It’s going to be the vanguard for the assault, on the basis that the water barely slows it and it’ll make a mess of anything rat-sized when it arrives. The Grays’ badger is behind and to the right, built lower to the ground, so getting a lot wetter as it advances and obviously not enjoying it very much.

Skotch looks at those oncoming lupine jaws. He’s almost the only animal amongst the defenders even approaching a fox’s weight class. It may be time for that old berserk-raccoon-in-a-corner routine. Maybe Tybelle will step in, but probably the cat feels she’s taken enough scratches today and doesn’t fancy anything approaching a fair fight.

The fox is well into its charge when Nimoy’s device goes off. Way too close, by Skotch’s estimation. He himself discovers that rat-made earplugs are maybe a bit small for raccoon ears, because the sound is high and skull-piercing and has him curled up and trying to bury his head in his own belly to blot it out. In the instant before he loses interest in the battlefield, he sees the fox go absolutely cross-eyed, caught right at the epicentre of the sound-gun. The big Gehirner staggers and collapses, then drags itself away with blood coming out of its ears and nose. The badger, a bit further back, also decides this wasn’t part of the contract and turns its flash of a white tail. Badgers, as everyone knows, never run from a fight, and, like lots of things everyone knows, this turns out to be a lie.

Wizzo, ears plugged, pops up and starts shooting, Fischer too—the frog not having the keen high-frequency hearing of a mammal.

The squirrels fall back again, but not all the way. Sound falls off sharply with distance, and enough of them grit their teeth and start shooting at the sound-gun when they’re out of the worst of it. Nimoy hurriedly tries to take the machine down, and gets an arm laid open for her pains. The next two bolts strike the machine itself, and it yawps a final ear-breaking screech and then goes silent.

There’s a final pause, right then. The squirrels maybe waiting to see if some other technological monstrosity will rear its head to combat them. A rat in a giant robot suit, that kind of thing. Honestly Skotch is waiting for the same, because he’s allied with anarchists and mad scientists and none of them filed a battle plan with him.

He looks round at his allies. Nimoy’s arm is being stitched up meticulously by one of the gangsters. Wizzo winds the intricate clockwork of his crossbow, retensioning the string. Fischer has a philosophical look to him as he checks the popgun’s action. The newt with the eyepatch has lost a couple of her followers by now. Her single golden eye is hard and staring and she has a knife in each four-fingered hand.

Tybelle yawns.

“How’s it going, Doc?” Skotch asks.

“Almost,” says Meece. “Where is my line out? When I am done, I need to transmit. I must spread knowledge of this, or it’s for nothing.” They’ve all done away with the earplugs now, and Skotch can hear the worry in his high voice.

“You should have one, Herr Doktor,” says Wizzo, eyes narrowing. “The Saint, she has reception here. She got that call, that sent her away.”

But Meece has only static. A complete thesis and no electronic door to nail it to. “I don’t understand,” he whispers.

“I do.” Maria the possum ducks in. She’s been out of the fighting so far, waiting for her moment. “Ain’t in the skill sets of those clowns to mess with the comms network”—a contemptuous wave at the reforming Reds and Grays—“but we know someone who can.”

“You think Benson?” Skotch asks her.

“I think,” she agrees. “Not gonna actually send guys with Uzco collars down on one side or another, but happy to nail the lid down then open the coffin up later, see who’s still standing.” And she’s right, it’s exactly the sort of slow-and-steady minimum exposure thing the old turtle would do.