This chapter's pretty short. It's more of a supplemental than anything. You learn about the rats' take on the humans (my view of it, anyways), and some other random stuff about when Ripred was young. I hope the names I made up for his siblings sound okay. Making rat names that actually sound like Suzanne Collins did them is pretty hard, although using a thesaurus helps a lot.
Killers? My responses to Father's revelation were mixed. First came realization. Finally, I knew what Mother and Father had been talking about! Then I felt a prickle of fear crawl up my spine. I had come that close to a killer; that close to being killed. They hadn't looked particularly lethal, but if they had spotted me and my sister, two defenseless pups, they could have obliterated us in an instant.
Father paused a moment, to let the sinister nature of his statement sink in, then continued on. "The first thing that you must know is that the killers are not native to the Underland. While all of the other species in the Underland, gnawers, crawlers, spinners, even treacherous fliers and nibblers, have lived here for many generations, the killers came to the Underland less than four hundred years ago. They originate in the Overland, an enormous world of light far above.
"In the Overland, killers are allowed to run rampant. Instead of living with the world, they live against it when it suits their wishes. There is nobody to stop them. There are gnawers in the Overland, but they are many times smaller than us, smaller than you were as newborns, even. The killers have therefore multiplied, and spread across their world in untold billions. It is said that the Overland was once a place of great beauty, but the countless masses of killers have decimated it, leaving their world a shell of what it once was.
"Not content with destroying their own world, several hundred years ago, a group of killers stumbled upon the Underland. The group was led by a ruthless and somewhat insane tyrant, Bartholomew of Sandwich. When Bartholomew entered the Underland, the first creatures that he met were the diggers. The diggers are gone now, so nobody remembers what they were like, but it is said that they were wise, kind, strong, and powerful, with claws that could burrow through hardest stone.
"The diggers lived in the north of the Underland. When Sandwich first saw the cave in which they lived, he wanted it for himself, and even though he had no right to it, Sandwich and his men fought a war against the diggers for the cave.
"The war was long and bloody, with many killed on both sides. However, the fight eventually began to turn the way of the diggers. In an act of cold-blooded genocide that earned the killers their name, Sandwich tainted the river so that any digger who drank from it would die at once. The entire population was killed, and Sandwich and his men took the cave for themselves. It is now the city of Regalia, where the majority of the killers live.
"Over the last few centuries, the killers, or 'humans' as they call themselves, have committed many more atrocities against the gnawers and other Underland creatures, although none as great as the evil inflicted upon the diggers. Sandwich is long dead, but he was merely one of many. The humans are monsters, every one of them, and must be eradicated from the Underland." And on that grim note, Father's story came to a close.
One of my sisters, curled up against Mother, asked, "But what happened to the diggers? Did any survive?"
"Perhaps a few managed to escape the poisoned river. Who knows? Nobody has seen a digger for over three and a half centuries," said Father. "Now, get to sleep, all of you. It's been a long night."
I curled up with my siblings, but I barely fell asleep at all that night. My mind was teeming with new information and questions, and it was many hours before I was finally enveloped by slumber.
…
Throughout the next few days and weeks, I pondered over the story of the killers and diggers many times. However, there was so much to see and do in those days that it was not long before the story and the majestic vision of the humans mounted atop their fliers were only vague memories.
My siblings and I grew and developed. We reached the month-old milestone, and were approaching two months. Our coats had completely grown in, and we were starting to look like fully grown gnawers (according to Mother).
We still drank Mother's milk occasionally, but we were no longer dependent on it. Father had to hunt twice as much to bring home food not only for Mother, but also the six of us. Crawlers, twisters, flutterers, different kinds of fish… all were infinitely more satisfying than milk. We were too young to hunt for ourselves, of course, apart from searching for mushrooms, which were more plentiful but less nourishing than meat.
Most importantly, we had our names. My sister (the one who'd snuck out with me) was named Flayclaw. My other sisters were named Bristlecoat and Rustbolt, and my brothers were Rockrind and Darkmuzzle. I, of course, was Ripred. Nobody ever totally explained how I got my name, although I believe it had something to do with the fact that I tore at my food whenever I ate. Still, where "red" comes from, I don't know. My fur isn't even remotely reddish.
My siblings and I would, with strict instructions from both parents to stay together and not wander far, often go and play games with the other gnawer pups that lived in the lower caves. This was more fun for my siblings than for me. They all took naturally to playing with other pups, whereas I always seemed to be the one left out. There was something different about me, something that made the others wary of me. So, while my brothers and sisters scurried through the wide caverns and tunnels playing "tag" and roughhousing, I would stand alone and daydream. Many of my daydreams centered on killers and fliers. I imagined singlehandedly fighting an army of the monsters, killing off hundreds of them, and removing their blight from the Underland. I was the hero of the rats, in my daydreams.
In reality, I was anything but a hero. On the rare occasion that I would try to join in with the other pups, they would shun and ignore me. Even, to a certain extent, my siblings. I expected Flayclaw to stick up for me (since the night we'd snuck out together, I'd felt that we had a special connection), but she was just as cold everyone else.
One young rat was particularly brutal towards me. His name was Cleaver, and he was about a month older than me and my siblings. He would smack me with his tail when nobody was looking, or even scratch me, leaving glaring red marks on my delicate young coat. It was mainly because of Cleaver's bullying that I began to detach myself from the group. While they laughed and played together happily, I found myself ignoring Mother's warnings and wandering through the stone tunnels alone, far from the other pups. Once or twice I even went back to the ledge where I'd first spotted the killers, but I never saw or smelled so much as a trace of a human or a flier.
Another of my favorite spots was at the bank of a river that flowed through the caverns. I would sit at the edge, perched atop a stone, and indulge myself in ludicrous daydreams about being a hero. Occasionally I would snap up a few shrimp from the river bottom. Shrimp tasted delicious, but were hard to get because of the rushing current of the river, which prevented me from going in too deep.
The only times when I was truly happy and content in those days were when my siblings and I were back in the cave, curled up in a bundle to sleep. Mother would tell us stories, amazing tales of the strange creatures that inhabited the Underland, spinners, nibblers, hissers. None of my brothers or sisters seemed to care for the stories all that much, but I listened in fascination, eagerly drinking in every word.
We began to learn how to read. Gnawers can't hold a pen, and can only write with difficulty, scratching letters into stone, but reading was essential for learning the Tree of Transmission. I took to reading and transmitting messages quite well, better than any of my siblings or the other rats my age. None of them besides me cared for transmitting much, which was a shame, as a message is only worth sending if there is someone to receive it.
All in all, for better or for worse, life went on. It was sad at times, lonely most of the time, but I continued to grow and change, along with everyone else.
Then one day Mother took us on a trip to the Garden of the Hesperides, and my life changed forever.
Anyone remember Cleaver? He was mentioned briefly in the Code of Claw. Ripred hid under his body while escaping from the man-eating mites. I decided to create a sort of Bartimaeus/Faquarl style rivalry (read the Bartimaeus trilogy, people!) between him and Ripred, so you'll be seeing more of him in coming chapters. Also... what else? Oh, yes. Flutterers are my name for Underland moths.