The Rat Race

Back in town, Arlan spent the rest of the day doing odd jobs for coins and scraps. He scrubbed pots in a tavern kitchen until his fingers pruned, all for a bowl of thin stew. He helped a stablehand shovel manure for a few coppers more. All the while, in the back of his mind, he turned over what had happened in the graveyard. The thrill of seeing the cat skeleton move was tempered by the stark reality of how feeble it had been.

As evening approached, Arlan found himself wandering near the sewer outlet by the river, a place he usually avoided due to the stench. But the sewer slums sometimes harbored what he now sought: dead vermin. If he could find a fresher corpse – something small – perhaps he could successfully animate it and keep it intact. A rat would do. He swallowed bile at the thought that he was now actively looking for a corpse. Better a rat than robbing a grave again, he reasoned darkly, with a hint of wry humor. Who would have thought his life would come to this?

He poked around the refuse piles, using a broken stick to lift old rags and trash. The first dead thing he found was a bloated fish from the river, smelling so foul he nearly retched. No way to know how long it had been there – too decayed to be useful. Next he found the dry husk of a bird, just feathers and bones. He tried, quietly uttering the incantation again and pushing a trickle of power into it. The bird's bones vibrated but then crumbled to dust. Arlan sighed. Failure again.

It was getting dark, and the buzz of mosquitoes around the sewer water was thick. Just as he was about to give up for the night, he spied something under a broken crate: the unmistakable long naked tail of a rat. Arlan carefully lifted the wood. Underneath was a recently deceased rat, likely killed by a stray cat or poison. It was intact, though ants already swarmed on it. Gritting his teeth, Arlan brushed the insects away with a piece of cloth and picked the rat up by the tail. It was a large brown rat, common in town. Its body swung limply as he held it, and Arlan's skin crawled, but he forced himself not to drop it.

Holding the dead rat in one hand out away from his body, Arlan focused again. He slowed his breathing, recalling how the magic had felt earlier: like pulling on threads attached to the bones. "Raise Undead," he murmured, channeling power. The greenish essence seeped from his palm into the rat's corpse. The body twitched in his grip, causing him to almost fling it away in panic. But he held on, tightening his grip on its tail.

Small bones began to shift under the rat's mangy fur. There was a soft series of pops as the skeleton reassembled and aligned. The rat's dull eyes fell out—one plopping onto Arlan's boot—causing him to yelp quietly. But moments later, faint points of green light sparked in the empty sockets of the rat's skull. Its jaws opened and closed with a dry click.

Arlan lowered it to the ground and released the tail. The undead rat stood on its four feet, albeit unsteadily, and looked up at him with that eerie green gaze. It was missing patches of fur, and one ear was torn, but it was moving under its own power. "I… I did it," Arlan whispered, a grin breaking across his face. The surge of excitement was quickly tempered as the rat abruptly fell onto its side, limbs spasming. Arlan felt the sudden drain on his energy again—maintaining the spell was like flexing a muscle continuously. He knelt, extending a hand as if to steady the rat without touching it. He focused on sustaining the flow of magic, lessening it slightly so as not to burn out.

The skeletal rat righted itself. It chittered, though no sound came from its throat, only the clicking of teeth. It was awaiting his command, he realized. His first successful summon—albeit a tiny, rather pathetic one. Relief and pride bubbled up, and to his own surprise, Arlan chuckled. It was a slightly hysterical sound, but laughter nonetheless. "Hello there, little guy," he said softly, eyes bright in the gloom. The rat cocked its head at the sound of his voice, as if listening.

He needed to call it something. He wasn't about to refer to his first undead as "rat". A name came to mind, simple and fitting. "Bones," Arlan decided. "Your name is Bones." The newly-raised rat made a skittering movement around Arlan's feet, bones clacking softly under its remaining flesh. In that moment, Arlan felt far less alone than he had in a long time. It was dangerous, forbidden, and frankly disgusting work—but he had done it. He had a companion now, however weak. A strange grin tugged at his lips as he scooped the little undead rat up and tucked it gently into the large pocket inside his cloak. "Come on, Bones. Let's get out of here before someone sees us."