Ghyran came later, a realm that pretends to be soft—green, wet, growing—yet its roots strangle just as well as any chain. The forces of Order crawl over it, trying to “heal” it, trying to make it pure-pure again.
We came to spoil it.
It was on the edge of a half-drowned grove that I first saw Clawlord Varkh Ironbite—not in a council, not in a safe tunnel, but in the churned mud with corpses sinking around his boots. He fought like a collapsing wall: heavy, brutal, inevitable.
And yet his line wavered. Even Stormvermin can hesitate when the air itself tastes wrong.
So I did what I do.
I climbed onto a broken stump behind the ranks—behind, always behind—and I roared the words that make rats forget fear. I spoke of teeth. Of hunger. Of the Great Horned Rat, counting every bite taken in His name. I made death sound like a promotion.
Varkh heard me. I saw it in the tilt of his helm, the way his stance steadied. He took a step forward, then another—then the whole formation surged.
After the fight, he stalked up to me, axe dripping green, eyes like slit lanterns.
“You,” he snarled. “You make-force bend rats with your mouth.”
“I make them brave-braver than they are,” I said. “I make them win-win.”
He laughed—harsh, pleased. Then he jabbed a claw at my chest.
“I stay with my killers. You squeak your war-words. We kill-slay many.”
A fine bargain.
That night, our Gnawline was formed —forty bodies eager to be used. And he set his elite twenty to guard the sharpest point: The Fangs of Molarus.