“It was silly of me to worry, wasn’t it,” said Maurice.

  Darktan stuck his sword in the mud. The senior rats gathered round him, but seniority had changed. Among the older rats were younger ones, each one with a dark-red mark on his or her head, and they were pushing to the front.

  All of them were chattering. He could smell the relief that had come when the Bone Rat had gone past and had not turned aside. . . .

  “Silence!” he yelled.

  It struck like a gong. Every eye turned to him. He felt tired, he couldn’t breathe properly, and he was streaked with soot and blood. Some of the blood wasn’t his.

  “It’s not over,” he said.

  “But we just—”

  “It’s not over!”

  Darktan looked around the circle.

  “We didn’t get all those big rats, the real fighters,” he panted. “Inbrine, take twenty rats and go back and help guard the nests. Big Savings and the old females are back there, and they’ll tear any attacker in half, but I want to be certain.”

  For a moment Inbrine glared at Darktan.

  “I don’t see why you—” he began.

  “Do it!”

  Inbrine crouched hurriedly, waved at the rats behind him, and scurried away.

  Darktan looked at the others. As his gaze passed across them, some of them leaned back as if it was a flame.

  “We’ll form into squads,” he said. “All of the Clan that we can spare from guarding will form into squads. At least one trap disposal rat in each squad! Take fire with you! And some of the young rats’ll be runners, so you can keep in touch! Don’t go near the cages—those poor creatures can wait! But you’ll work through all these tunnels, all these tunnels and these holes and these corners! And if you meet a strange rat and it cowers, then take it prisoner! Drag it to the cages! But if it tries to fight—and the big ones will try to fight, because that’s all they know—then you will kill it! Burn it or bite it! Kill it dead! Do you hear me?”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “I said, Do you hear me!”

  This time there was a roar.

  “Good! And we’ll go on and on until these tunnels are safe, from end to end! Then we’ll do it again! Until these tunnels are ours! Because . . .” Darktan grasped his sword but leaned on it for a moment to catch his breath, and when he spoke next, it was almost in a whisper, “because we’re in the heart of the Dark Wood now, and we’ve found the Dark Wood in our hearts, and . . . for tonight . . . we are something . . . terrible.” He took another breath, and his next words were heard only by the rats closest to him:

  “And we have nowhere else to go.”

  It was dawn. Sergeant Doppelpunkt, who was one half of the city’s official Watch (and the larger half), awoke with a snort in the tiny office by the main gates.

  He got dressed, a little unsteadily, and washed his face in the stone sink, peering at himself in the scrap of mirror hanging on the wall.

  He stopped. There was a faint but desperate squeaking sound, and then the little strainer over the drain hole was pushed aside and a rat plunged out. It was big and gray, and it ran up his arm before leaping onto the floor.

  Water dripping from his face, Sergeant Doppelpunkt watched as three smaller rats erupted from the pipe and chased after it.

  It turned to fight in the middle of the floor, but the small rats hit it together, from three sides at once. There was a brief struggle, a screech, and then the big rat was dead.

  There was an old rat hole in the wall. Two of the rats grabbed the tail and dragged the body into the hole and out of sight. But the third rat stopped at the hole and turned, standing up on its hind legs.

  The sergeant felt that it was staring at him. It didn’t look like an animal watching a human to see if it was dangerous. The rat didn’t look scared, merely curious. It had some kind of red blob on its head, the sergeant noticed.

  Then it saluted him. It was definitely a salute, even though it took only a second. Then all the rats had gone.

  The sergeant stared at the hole for some time.

  And then he heard the singing. It was drifting up from the sink’s drain hole and it echoed a lot, as if it was coming from a long way away:

  “We fight dogs and we kill cats . . .”

  “. . . ain’t no trap can stop the rats!”

  “Got no plague and got no fleas . . .”

  “. . . we drink poison, we steal cheese!”

  “Mess with us and you will see . . .”

  “. . . we’ll put poison in your tea!”

  “Here we’ll fight and here we’ll stay . . .”

  “. . . WE WILL NEVER GO AWAY!”

  The sound faded. Sergeant Doppelpunkt blinked and looked at the bottle of beer he’d drunk the night before.

  He thought it’d probably be a good idea not to mention this to anyone. It probably hadn’t happened.

  The guardhouse door opened and Corporal Knopf stepped in.

  “Morning, sergeant,” he began. “It’s that— What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing, corporal!” said Doppelpunkt quickly, wiping his face. “I certainly haven’t seen anything strange at all! Why’re you standing around? Time to get those gates open, corporal!”

  The Watch stepped out and swung open the city gates, and the sunlight streamed through.

  It brought with it a long, long shadow.

  Oh dear, thought Sergeant Doppelpunkt. This is not going to be a nice day. . . .

  The man on horseback rode past them without a glance, and on into the town square. The Watch hurried after him. People aren’t supposed to ignore people with weapons.

  “Halt, what is your business here?” demanded Corporal Knopf, but he had to run crabwise to keep up with the horse.

  The rider was dressed in white and black, like a magpie. He didn’t answer but just smiled faintly to himself, staring straight ahead.

  “All right, maybe you haven’t any actual business, but it won’t cost you anything just to say who you are, will it?” said Corporal Knopf, who was not interested in any trouble.

  The rider looked down at him and then stared ahead again.

  Sergeant Doppelpunkt spotted a small covered wagon coming through the gates, drawn by a donkey that was accompanied by an old man. He was a sergeant, he told himself, which meant that he was paid more than the corporal, which meant that he thought more expensive thoughts. And this one was: They didn’t have to check everyone who came through the gate, did they? Especially if they were busy. They had to pick people at random. And if you were going to pick people at random, it was a good idea to randomly pick a little old man who looked small enough and old enough to be frightened of a rather grubby uniform with rusty chain mail.

  “Halt!”

  “Heh, heh! Not gonna,” said the old man. “Mind the donkey—he can give you a nasty bite when he’s roused. Not that I care.”

  “Are you trying to show contempt of the Law?” demanded Sergeant Doppelpunkt.

  “Well, I’m not trying to conceal it, mister. You want to make something of it, you talk to my boss. That’s him on the horse. The big horse.”

  The black-and-white stranger had dismounted by the fountain in the center of the square, and was opening his saddlebags.

  “I’ll just go and talk to him, shall I?” said the sergeant.

  By the time he’d reached the stranger, walking as slowly as he dared, the man had propped a small mirror against the fountain and was having a shave. Corporal Knopf was watching him. He’d been given the horse to hold.

  “Why haven’t you arrested him?” the sergeant hissed.

  “What, for illegal shaving? Tell you what, sarge, you do it.”

  Sergeant Doppelpunkt cleared his throat. A few early risers among the population were already watching him.

  “Er . . . now, listen, friend, I’m sure you didn’t mean—” he began.

  The man straightened up and gave the guards a look that made both men take a step backward. He reached out and undid the thong holding a thick roll of leather behind the saddle.

  It unrolled. Corporal Knopf whistled. All down the length of leather, held in place by straps, were dozens of pipes. They glistened in the rising sun.

  “Oh, you’re the pipe—” the sergeant began, but the other man turned back to the mirror and said, as if talking to his reflection, “Where can a man get breakfast around here?”

  “Oh, if it’s breakfast you want, then Mrs. Shover at the Blue Cabbage will—”

  “Sausages,” said the piper, still shaving. “Burned on one side. Three. Here. Ten minutes. Where is the mayor?”

  “If you go down that street and take the first left—”

  “Fetch him.”

  “Here, you can’t—” the sergeant began, but Corporal Knopf grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

  “He’s the piper!” he whispered. “You don’t mess with the piper! Don’t you know about him? If he blows the right note on his pipes, your legs will fall off!”

  “What, like the plague?”

  “They say that in Porkrhinz the council didn’t pay him, and he played his special pipe and led all the kids up into the mountains, and they were never seen again!”

  “Good, do you think he’ll do that here? The place’d be a lot quieter.”

  “Hah! Did you ever hear about that place in Klatch? They hired him to get rid of a plague of mime artists, and when they didn’t pay up, he made all the town’s Watch dance into the river and drown!”

  “No! Did he? The devil!” said Sergeant Doppelpunkt.

  “Three hundred dollars he charges, did you know that?”

  “Three hundred dollars!”

  “We’d better get going, sarge,” said Corporal Knopf. “You get the sausages, and I’ll get the mayor.”

  “No, Knopf. You get the sausages and I’ll get the mayor, ’cos the mayor’s free and Mrs. Shover will want paying.”

  The mayor was already up when the sergeant arrived, and wandering around the house with a worried expression.

  He looked more worried when the sergeant arrived.

  “What’s she done this time?” he asked.

  “Sir?” said the Watch. “Sir” said like that meant “What are you talking about?”

  “Malicia hasn’t been home all night,” said the mayor.

  “You think something might have happened to her, sir?”

  “No, I think she might have happened to someone, man! Remember last month? When she tracked down the Mysterious Headless Horseman?”

  “Well, you must admit he was a horseman, sir.”

  “That is true. But he was also a short man with a very high collar. And he was the chief tax gatherer from Mintz. I’m still getting official letters about it! Tax gatherers do not as a rule like young ladies dropping on them out of trees! And then in September there was that business about the—the—”

  “The Mystery of Smuggler’s Windmill, sir,” said the Sergeant, rolling his eyes.

  “Which turned out to be Mr. Vogel, the town clerk, and Mrs. Schuman, the shoemaker’s wife, who happened to be there merely because of their shared interest in studying the habits of barn owls . . .”

  “. . . and Mr. Vogel had his trousers off because he’d torn them on a nail . . .” said the sergeant, not looking at the mayor.

  “. . . which Mrs. Schuman was very kindly repairing for him,” said the mayor, not looking at the sergeant.

  “By moonlight,” said the sergeant.

  “She happens to have very good eyesight!” snapped the mayor. “And she didn’t deserve to be bound and gagged along with Mr. Vogel, who caught quite a chill as a result! I had complaints from him and from her, and from Mrs. Vogel and from Mr. Schuman, and from Mr. Vogel after Mr. Schuman went around to his house and hit him with a last, and from Mrs. Schuman after Mrs. Vogel called her a—”

  “A last what, sir?” said the sergeant.

  “What?”

  “Hit him with a last what?”

  The mayor stared at the sergeant’s honest but puzzled expression.

  “A last, man!” he said. “It’s a kind of wooden foot shoemakers use when they’re making shoes! Heaven knows what Malicia’s doing this time!”

  “I expect we’ll find out when we hear the bang, sir.”

  “And what was it you wanted me for, sergeant?”

  “The rat piper’s here, sir.”

  The mayor went pale.

  “Already?” he said.

  “Yessir. He’s having a shave in the fountain.”

  “Where’s my official chain?” asked the mayor, staring around wildly. “My official robe? My official hat? Quick, man, help me!”

  “He looks like quite a slow shaver, sir,” said the sergeant, following the mayor out of the room at a run.

  “Over in Klotz the mayor kept the piper waiting too long, and he played his pipe and turned him into a badger!” said the mayor, flinging open a cupboard. “Ah, here they are. Help me on with them, will you?”

  When they arrived in the town square, out of breath, the piper was sitting on a bench, surrounded at a safe distance by a very large crowd. He was examining half a sausage on the end of a fork. Corporal Knopf was standing next to him like a schoolboy who has just turned in a nasty piece of work and is waiting to be told exactly how bad it is.

  “And this is called a—?” the piper was saying.

  “A sausage, sir,” Corporal Knopf muttered.

  “This is what you think is a sausage here, is it?” There was a gasp from the crowd. Bad Blintz was very proud of its traditional vole-and-pork sausages.

  “Yessir,” said Corporal Knopf.

  “Amazing,” said the piper. He looked up at the mayor. “And you are—?”

  “I am the mayor of this town, and—”

  The piper held up a hand and then nodded toward the old man, who was sitting on his cart, grinning broadly.

  “My agent will deal with you,” he said. He threw away the sausage, put his feet up on the other end of the bench, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and lay back.

  The mayor went red in the face. Sergeant Doppelpunkt leaned toward him. “Remember the badger, sir!” he whispered.

  “Ah . . . yes . . .”

  The mayor, with what little dignity he had left, walked over to the cart.

  “I believe the fee for ridding the town of rats will be three hundred dollars?” he said.

  “Then I expect you’ll believe anything,” said the old man. He glanced at a notebook on his knee. “Let’s see . . . call-out fee . . . plus special charge because it’s St. Prodnitz’s Day . . . plus pipe tax . . . looks like a medium-sized town, so that’s extra . . . wear and tear on cart . . . traveling costs at a dollar a mile . . . miscellaneous expenses, taxes, charges . . .” He looked up. “Tell you what, let’s say one thousand dollars, okay?”

  “One thousand dollars! We haven’t got one thousand dollars! That’s outrag—”

  “Badger, sir!” hissed Sergeant Dopplepunkt.

  “You can’t pay?” asked the old man.

  “We don’t have that kind of money! We’ve had to spend a lot of money bringing in food!”

  “You don’t have any money?” said the old man.

  “Nothing like that amount, no!”

  The old man scratched his chin. “Hmm,” he said. “I can see where that’s going to be a bit difficult, because . . . let’s see . . .” He scribbled in his notebook for a moment and then looked up. “You already owe us four hundred sixty-seven dollars and nineteen cents for call-out, travel, and miscellaneous sundries.”

  “What? He hasn’t blown a note!”

  “Ah, but he’s ready to,” said the old man. “We’ve come all this way. You can’t pay? What they call a bit of a problem, then. He’s got to lead something out of the town, you see. Otherwise the news’ll get around, and no one’ll show him any respect, and if you haven’t got respect, what have you got? If a piper doesn’t have respect, he’s—”

  “—rubbish,” said a voice. “I think he’s rubbish.”

  The piper raised the brim of his hat.

  The crowd in front of Keith parted in a hurry.

  “Yeah?” said the piper.

  “I don’t think he can pipe up even one rat,” said Keith. “He’s just a fraud and a bully. Huh, I bet I can pipe up more rats than him.”

  Some of the people in the crowd began to creep away. No one wanted to be around when the rat piper lost his temper.

  The piper swung his boots down onto the ground and pushed his hat back on his head.

  “You a rat piper, kid?” he said softly.

  Keith stuck out his chin defiantly.

  “Yes. And don’t call me kid . . . old man.”

  The piper grinned.

  “Ah,” he said. “I knew I was going to like this place. And you can make a rat dance, can you, kid?”

  “More than you can, piper.”

  “Sounds like a challenge to me,” said the piper.

  “The piper doesn’t accept challenges from—” the old man on the cart began, but the rat piper waved him into silence.

  “Y’know, kid,” he said, “this isn’t the first time some kid has tried this. I’m walking down the street and someone yells, ‘Go for your piccolo, mister!’ and I turn around, and it’s always a kid like you with a stupid-looking face. Now, I don’t want anyone to say I’m an unfair man, kid, so if you’d just care to apologize, you might walk away from here with the same number of legs you started with—”

  “You’re frightened.” Malicia stepped out of the crowd.

  The piper grinned at her and then stopped grinning. Malicia could do that to people. “Yeah?” he said.

  “Yes, because everyone knows what happens at a time like this. Let me ask this stupid-looking kid, who I’ve never seen before: Are you an orphan?”

  “Yes,” said Keith.

  “You know nothing about your background at all?”

  “No.”

  “Aha!” said Malicia. “That proves it! We all know what happens when a mysterious orphan turns up and challenges someone big and powerful, don’t we? It’s like being the third and youngest son of a king. He can’t help but win!”

  She looked triumphantly at the crowd. But the crowd looked doubtful. They hadn’t read as many stories as Malicia, and were rather more attached to the experience of real life, which is that when someone small and righteous takes on someone big and nasty, he is grilled bread product, very quickly.