Chapter 42: Vermintide
Suddenly, from the hole Carla was looking at, a creature grunted and launched itself at her.
('Vermintide dynamic' from Total War Warhammer 2 begins to play)
"AAHHH!" Carla screamed on the top of her lungs as the red-eyed creature pounced on her belly.
Everyone in the tunnel looked towards the direction of Carla, even the Terrin and his inner circle and Nigel dropped their attention towards the birds in front of them and looked attentively to what was happening in the distance.
"GET IT OFF ME!" Carla screamed as she struggled to get the snapping creature off her.
Then, Renaldo came to the rescue. He still held a small stone and hit the creature on the right side of its head with all his might, killing it instantly.
Carla gasped and they both saw that the creature that had attack her was a brown rat.
Suddenly from the other side of the tunnel, at the end of the lines of the Emberwings, screaming was heard, first from something else than the Emberwings, but then it also were some Emberwings themselves who were screaming.
The tunnel right of Blu, Jewel, their family and their friends (left of Terrin, his inner circle and Nigel) suddenly echoed with a loud "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!" of countless creatures and they all saw countless glowing red eyes charging towards them.
When those glowing red eyes came into the light, they all saw that it was a horde of countless rats who were charging at them. Blu, Jewel, their family members and friends let out a yelp of fear and flew back into the direction of the tribes and the Azul Clan. Even Terrin, his lackies and Nigel backed away to the other Emberwings.
From the upper parts of the walls, where some holes were in, countless rats also emerged.
"VERMINTIDE!" Willfried yelled at the top of his lungs as he, his family and friends flew back towards the 4 tribes.
"IT'S THE SVAKEN!" an Azul yelled.
Panic broke out within the tribes, and many started to fly towards the direction of the tunnel's exit, but it was still pretty far away.
"EVERYONE, RETREAT TO THE UPPER LEVELS! TOXIN BALL THROWERS, DESTROY AS MANY RATS AS POSSIBLE!" Alejandro yelled.
The birds did as they were told to do, as the screeching of the Svaken became all the more louder. Like the 4 tribes, the Emberwings were also making a retreat to the exit on the other side of the tunnel, since half of the Svaken were scurrying towards their side. Although retreating, Skarsnik and Gobbla were mowing down Svaken mercilessly, with Gobbla even devouring some rats.
Whilst most birds were fleeing, some Azuls, spix macaws and scarlets with toxin plant balls and toxin plant sacks flew in the direction of where the Svaken were coming from. They threw the balls into the swarm of running rats and many of them were killed on impact. At the same time, they opened the 'sacks' with their talons and sprayed lines of fiery sap over the rats, mercilessly ending their lives in the process.
They used this method for about a minute and a half, killing hundreds of Svaken who came to close to them, but after that, they used up all their ammunition.
"Retreat! We must get more toxin plants!" a female Azul yelled.
Andor saw this and ordered them all to retreat and get more ammunition from the other birds that were flying towards the tunnel's exit.
Just then, Tiago saw something in the distance. On the lonely large rock where Terrin had stood earlier, two large rats stepped up, both on their hind paws. One seemed to be a large brown one, holding two sharp sticks as 'spears' and the other, even a bit larger, seemed like a black rat, who held two sharped stone objects that looked like knives.
"Look there!" Tiago yelled as he pointed towards the two rats.
The eyes of Blu, Jewel, Jasmine, Thomas, Andor, Amalia, Willfried, Alejandro, Camila, Eduardo, Sapphire, Mimi, Roberto, Bia, Carla, Felipe, Mia, Arturo, Megeslav, Renaldo, Miguel, Skye, Henrik, Bruno, Astrid, Nico, Pedro and Rafael narrowed as they too now saw the two large rats.
"Are those…" Camila said.
Suddenly the black rat pointed his stone knife towards the direction of them all.
"Hrhn! Scurry forward, now-now, kill-death the bird-things! Fight! Kill!" the black rat yelled.
"NO WAY! IT'S QUEEK AND TRETCH CRAVENTAIL!" Andor yelled.
"Call me… Lord Craventail!" Tretch yelled back.
Suddenly, the two rats jumped of the rock and landed on their hind paws. Then, Queek started running into the direction of where the Azuls and the other 3 tribes were flying to, whilst Tretch went into the direction of where the Emberwings flew to.
What was so scary about the 2 rats to all, except the Azuls, Thomas and Jasmine, was that they ran like a human and they were almost as tall as Eduardo.
Bia looked dumbstruck by the unbiological sight she was seeing, as well as her siblings and their love interests.
"Looks like your scientifical and biological thoughts were wrong that day, sis!" Tiago yelled as they all flew in the direction of the exit. "There truly are vermin of unusual size!"
"Now's not the right time to remind me about that, Tiago!" Bia yelled back as they flew hastily towards the exit of the tunnel.
Eventually, they reached the exit of the tunnel, but it was complete chaos there. Some birds couldn't exit, because many were stuck from flying all at once into the opening.
When Blu and the gang arrived and saw what was going on, they got into complete shock, as they saw countless bird struggle to get their grip free. Alejandro, Camila, Andor and Amalia each flew towards a bird, grabbed them by their tails and pulled them as hard as they could back, so that there would be an opening between all the birds and that they could fly further into the exit.
This opening also had a stone door that could be closed when the wooden wheels on the other side would be turned. However, it would take much strength and time before those doors would be fully closed. And time was something the birds did not have, since the Svaken horde was getting closer and closer.
Eventually, Camila saw that some Azuls and other spix and scarlets were carrying some toxin plant balls and sacks.
"You! Yes you! Quickly, hold off their advance! Cook those rats!" Camila ordered them.
Some Azuls that hadn't passed the exit saw how dire the situation was and decided to gather their courage and flew in the direction of the Svaken.
"What are you doing?!" both Blu and Andor yelled at the Azuls.
"We're going to hold them off as long as possible!" one of the Azuls yelled back.
And with that, the Azuls and some other spix and scarlets began to use two tactics to fight the incoming Svaken horde. The majority were throwing toxin plant balls at them or were spraying it over the Svaken in horizontal or vertical lines, making the rats screech in agony as the fiery sap burned their bodies.
The few Svaken forces that weren't hit by any of the sap, would then be faced by some Azul warriors, who picked the rats up into the air and threw them onto the ground with a force that killed them instantly. Others picked them up on the ground and made such powerful jolts with their talons that the backs or the necks of the rats would back.
Two lines of a total of about 30 Svaken, however, managed to bypass even these warriors and made their way directly towards the panicking other birds, who were still entering the exit in large masses.
Tiago and Skye both saw a scarlet macaw with 2 toxin plant sacks in her talons. And as they saw the 2 lines of Svaken closing in, they decided to do something reckless.
They first took the sacks from the lady scarlet macaw, to which she yelled: "Hey!"
"Sorry!" Tiago yelled. "It's an emergency!"
Although the sacks were a bit heavy, both Tiago and Skye flew into the direction of the Svaken with high speed.
"TIAGO! SKYE! WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!" Jewel yelled at the top of her lungs.
"Cooking rats, mom!" Tiago said back as he and Skye opened the plant sacks with their claws and the yellow sap was pouring over the Svaken, with them screaming as the sap touched their bodies and ending their lives.
"Yeah!" Skye yelled victorious.
"Rat à la king is served!" Tiago yelled as he and Skye bumped their bellies against each other in victory.
After some time, the birds on the frontlines against the Svaken were getting out of ammo, but the morale of the Svaken dropped instantly as they saw all of their fellow rats being mowed down mercilessly.
"Retreat! Retreat!" One of the Svaken yelled as many more began to turn back from the macaws.
"Fight another time!" another Svaken yelled.
"Save my own fur!" yet another Svaken yelled as the rats retreated.
Queek however, seeing that his army was retreating didn't take this well.
"Come back-back, cowards-fools!" Queek yelled, but to no avail.
He snarled and grunted, but he kept going into the direction of the Azuls and the other tribes.
Back at the exit, most birds were now out of the passage, and it was time for Blu, Jewel, Jasmine, Thomas, Andor, Amalia, Willfried, Alejandro, Camila, Eduardo, Sapphire, Roberto, Mimi, Bia, Carla, Mia, Arturo, Megeslav, Renaldo, Miguel, Skye, Henrik, Bruno, Astrid, Nico, Pedro and Rafael to enter the exit. However, some of them also must stand guard to see if the Svaken would come back as they would close the stone doors.
"Go, go, go!" Blu yelled to his family and friends. "I'll stand guard!"
Andor, Amalia, Willfried, Alejandro, Camila, Jasmine, Roberto, Tiago, Bia, Carla, Felipe, Mia, Arturo, Megeslav, Renaldo, Miguel, Skye, Henrik, Bruno, Astrid, Nico, Pedro and Rafael went into the exit, with Jasmine, Amalia, Willfried and Roberto turning the wooden wheel. Jewel, Eduardo, Sapphire, and Thomas, however, stayed with Blu.
"What are you doing?!" Blu yelled. "Get to the exit, guys!"
"We're staying with you, little brother!" We're gonna guard the door together!" Thomas yelled as the door was being the rumble and close.
"No, Thomas!" You need to hurry, the Svaken have retreated!" Blu yelled.
"There's a big chance that they will come back, Blu!" Eduardo said sternly. "And I'll not put my family in danger!"
"Listen, guys, you have to go, NOW!" Blu yelled.
Jewel (stern): "No, honey! We're in this together, we're-"
But Jewel was cut off as she saw something big launch itself at Blu.
"BLU, LOOK OUT!" Jewel yelled at the top of her lungs.
Just as Blu turned around, Queek jumped onto him and they rolled a bit, until Queek was on top of Blu's belly.
"DIE-DIE, SPIX-THING!" Queek yelled as he was about to strike his stone blades into Blu's chest.
"Get of him!" Eduardo yelled as he flew with high speed at Queek and bounced him off Blu with all the strength in his talons.
Queek screamed and rolled a bit to the side, before standing back up and snarling angrily towards the 4 spix, punching a bit with his right front paw (where he led a knife) on the ground.
"Queek." Thomas said with narrowed eyes.
"Hrnh! I Warlord Queek!" Queek yelled.
As Blu got up, Queek let out a scream, his knives raised into the air and he began to slash like a berserker around with his knives, trying to hit one of the macaws.
Sapphire nearly dodged one of Queek's attacks and saw an opening. She clawed Queek with her talons fiercely and Queek even dropped his weapons out of the pain on his face.
Then, suddenly, Queek grabbed Sapphire's left wing and threw her on the ground and stood on the point of biting her with his sharp teeth.
"OH, NO, YOU DON'T, VERMIN!" Jewel yelled angrily and pounced onto Queek's head, making him loose his balance and fall on his back.
Jewel clawed Queek on his belly and face with both of her talons, but then Queek yelled: "HRHN, DIE-DIE, THING!"
And suddenly, he bit Jewel in her left leg.
"AAAHHHH!" Jewel yelped in pain.
"JEWEL!" Blu cried out and angrily launched himself at the big black rat. Blu clawed onto Queek's face, to which Queek loosened his bite and Jewel was able to escape.
Jewel screamed in pain as Thomas dragged her towards the exit, whilst Blu, Eduardo and Sapphire kept fighting Queek.
Queek was able to pick up his blades again and began to slash with an insatiable bloodlust at the three spix macaws.
"HRHN, HORNED RAT'S WILL!" He yelled as the three spix macaws flew up where he couldn't reach them.
Just then, Blu, Eduardo and Sapphire saw that the Svaken horde was returning to the exit, screeching.
"Oh, no…" Blu said to himself.
"Yes-yes! Enter-Breach the tunnel's exit!" Queek yelled as he scurried towards the closing door.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Eduardo yelled as he launched himself at the black rat. Queek, however, saw this coming and slashed with his blades.
"AAAHHHH!" Eduardo yelled as Queek's blades made a small but rather nasty cut onto Eduardo's chest. A little bit of blood was even pouring out of it.
"Eddie!" Sapphire yelled and launched herself at Queek, hitting him hard as the rat fell onto the ground.
The doors were almost closed, and Jewel yelled out: "Mom! Dad! Blu! Get in here, quick!"
Sapphire and Eduardo flew as fast as they could to the small entrance of the exit and Eduardo was still screaming in pain from the wound Queek had given him.
As Blu, Eduardo and Sapphire entered the small opening of the exit, Blu saw Queek charging towards the opening as well.
Blu then decided to do something reckless and flew at Queek with high speed.
"BLU!" Jewel yelled.
"BLU! Get back!" Nico yelled.
"SON, DON'T!" Camila yelled.
"NO, DAD!" Bia yelled.
Blu bumped into Queek with all his might, sending the big black rat flying backwards. And then Blu flew back with everything he got as he barely got into the exit as the stone doors closed.
From the other side, the angry screaming of Queek and the screeching of thousands of rats could be heard.
(Music ends)
Blu fell onto the ground, gasping for air as he saw many other birds do the same thing before him. They had just escaped the wrath of a vermintide….
To be continued…