Joseph and Silver were panting when they finally lost Dula and stopped. He sat back against the wall and breathed deeply, while Silver lay down on the floor beside him. After a time, they looked at each other in the darkness.
“I’ve got to find my sword,” Joseph said.
“Maybe you left it back at our room,” Silver said.
“Or maybe they took it from me after bringing us here.”
They were silent for a moment.
“Still, it’s worth a look just to be sure. Better to only waste a moment checking it than hours wandering around.”
“So how do we get back there without meeting Dula?”
Another moment of silence passed.
“Is there a way around?” Silver asked.
“Around?”
“Our room is upstairs. Why not find another stairway, ascend those steps, and search on the second story.”
“What if we can’t find another staircase?”
“Why wouldn’t we find one? This hotel is huge, so there must be another one somewhere in this building.”
“I suppose.”
Sometime later, Joseph and Silver stood and continued searching the dark inn. As they walked along, Joseph though he heard footsteps, but whenever he turned around, all he could see was darkness. He hoped that what he heard was only echoes of his own movements.
They passed many doors along the hall, all of which were locked. This limited their ability to explore, but Joseph realized that their room was probably still unlocked. On the other hand, this meant that anyone could enter and steal his sword. He quickened his pace.
Silver dashed up beside Joseph to keep up with his master. Soon, they came to another set of stairs by the wall and ascended them. Joseph felt for the hand rail and held it, for the room was still dark. A giant rat met them at the top of the stairs. It’s nose poked around the corner as it peered at them.
Joseph stopped just below the top stair and waited. Silver stood in front of him and growled at the giant rat. It was a little smaller than Silver, and Joseph wasn’t sure if the wolf would be able to defeat the rat on his own.
He stepped around Silver, keeping a good distance from the rat, then backed away from it. The rat was about to take a step forward when Silver barked, and it scurried away into the darkness. Silver turned up his head and followed after Joseph. For awhile, Joseph kept glancing back to see if the rat returned, but he stopped after a while.
They continued on in silence for a time, before Joseph noticed another door along the wall. The door was locked, so he shrugged his shoulders and continued on. There were several more along the wall; he tried opening all of them, but all were locked as well. It wasn’t until he had lost count that one finally opened for him.
Inside the room, a bit of moonlight streamed in through the window. The first thing they saw was the unmade bed, as if someone had just slept in it. He stepped closer to find a few of Silver’s white hairs lying at the foot of it. This was the room they had woken up in.
Joseph scanned the room, but his sword wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Nor was there any object which he could use as a weapon against Dula. The only sizable thing in the room was an oil lamp sitting on the bedside table. It looked too fragile to use as a weapon and would be more useful in one piece—if he could find something to light it.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of scurrying feet coming from the hall outside. He stared at the darkness for a moment, before rushing over and slamming the door shut. He leaned back against it and slid down to the floor.
Silver walked over to him. “Something the matter, Joseph?”
“I think this inn has a rat infestation.”
No sooner had he said that than several rodents swarmed the door. Soon, they began gnawing at the wooden door. Joseph stood and pulled the bed up against the door to keep them from bursting in. He panted and held his hands on his knees.
“Come on, Silver,” Joseph said. “We’ve got to escape, before those rats come and overpower us.”
He rushed to the window and threw it open, but the sight outside made him gasp. The inn was perched on the edge of a cliff. If Joseph were to leap from the window, he would fall down into the rocks and water far, far below.
He turned, slumped onto the carpet floor, and looked to Silver. “We won't to be able to escape that way, Silver. It’s a bit too far to the rocks below.”
Silver’s ears drooped. “Oh, I see.”
“If only...” Then a small light caught his eye. Joseph glanced past Silver to see his sword lying on the floor where the bed had stood. He scrambled across the carpet, took it by the hilt, and held on tight. He nodded to Silver and went over to the door. A hole opened up in the door after only a moment and a rat nose poked through.
Joseph swung at the rat, but it pulled away. The blade struck the door, making a clean cut in the flimsy wooden board. He cursed whoever had been too stingy to buy sturdier doors.
The cut allowed the rat to easily enlarge the hole and crawl through. Joseph swung along the wall and sliced the rodent’s head off. It fell to the floor below, staining the bed sheet crimson. Another rat slipped through the hole, but this time Joseph could only scratch it. Then another went past him before he could even attack.
“Keep watching the door, Joseph,” Silver said. “I’ll handle these two.” Then he leaped at them. The three scrambled around on the floor, and Joseph returned his attention to the door.
Another rat peered into the room. Joseph split its head down the middle. It fell back into the hallway. The rat paws against the door slowed, but there were still many out there. As he focused on the hole, a pair of teeth came through on the other half of the door. Joseph jumped onto the bed as another rat chewed a second hole.
He slashed at it, but the rat pulled back before he could kill it. But another poked through to his right. He stabbed it through the eye. It scurried away back into the hallway. Every few seconds, another rat would poke through one of the holes, and Joseph would attack it, either killing it or scaring it off. After a while, he began to sweat.
One of the rats managed to slip past him as he skewered another. It bit him on the leg before he could back away. Silver dropped the dead rat he had been fighting and leaped onto the bed. He growled at it before snapping his jaws at the rat. The rodent scurried off the bed and Silver chased it.
A crack in the door began to form, going from right hole toward the other. When they connected, the top half of the door burst open and out poured several giant rats. Joseph slid off of the bed, joined seconds later by Silver who had blood dripping from his teeth.
The scratching against the door ceased. The five rats stared at Joseph and Silver for a moment, before diving at them. Silver leaped up and dug his teeth into one of them. They tumbled across the floor. The other four landed in front of Joseph.
Joseph slashed along the three giant rats. The first, he struck in the side, but they all scurried off before he could cut them. Silver continued wrestling with the other giant rat nearby.
As Joseph scanned the room, one of the rats ran across the floor. He slammed the tip of his sword but it missed the rat and struck the carpet floor. Another darted past and was gone by the time Joseph pulled his blade free. He held his sword along his leg and searched throughout the room for any sign of the rodents.
Suddenly, all four of the rats rushed at Joseph. He fell backwards onto the bed, and the rats ran under it. Quickly, he sat up and looked back and forth to each side of the bed. But then he felt one land on his scalp, and he remembered the hole behind him.
“There’s still more of them outside!” Joseph shouted.
He ripped the rodent off him and threw it to the floor, where it scurried under the bed. Then there came a crackling sound. Joseph turned to see what remained of the door crumbling. On the remains lay two large rat claws attached to long limbs, above which was a rat head.
The wererat stepped onto the bed. Joseph stood to meet him, coming up slightly below the monster’s height. The creature breathed a fowl odor on Joseph’s face. It took all he had to keep from vomiting.
It swiped a claw at him, but Joseph brought his sword up to block. As it leaned forward to bite him, he ducked down low and rammed his shoulder into it. The wererat fell back onto the foot of the bed. He aimed the point of his sword at its chest. Before it could move, he pierced its heart.
Joseph looked to Silver, who had killed a couple more rats and was now fighting another. “Forget that one, Silver. Their king is dead now. Let’s get out of here!”
He turned back to the door and jumped through it. On the other side, a couple rat corpses lay but no live ones could be seen. He heard the creak of metal behind him, then paws scraping against wood. Part of Silver’s white coat could be seen from the moonlight behind him. Joseph and Silver took off back into the darkness of the hotel, in search of some way out.
Part 1, Part 3 , Part 4
Contrast Light From A Window by George Hodan is licensed under CC0 Public Domain.