The Red-Eye Clan was a minor clan under the McKennan Ratfolk. Of middling strength, it had planted itself in demon territory like a nail.
The Ratfolk Elder had almost certainly come because of the human soldiers who had appeared to the north.
A Ratfolk Priest of the clan had been killed by humans on an ally's territory. It was an outrageous humiliation!
"I warned you Ratfolk that the demons' weak point was the ocean. The McKennan Ratfolk agreed to help defend it and sent you here to hold the coast. Now humans have marched onto the West Coast right under your noses, and you come demanding answers from us?"
The tall Biross swept her snake eyes over the small, hunched Ratfolk Elder.
They were of roughly equal standing. Amusingly, on the Main Plane, snakes and rats were natural enemies—snakes ate rats.
"Six-Armed Snake Demon, you demons knew a group of human soldiers had landed and were fighting our clansfolk. Where were your Gargoyle troops then?" the Ratfolk Elder hissed.
One spoke the Demon Tongue and the other the Ratfolk Language, but each understood the other perfectly.
"Observing the battle, of course," Biross said frankly, then mocked her ally. "I never expected the Red-Eye Clan to be so weak. You couldn't beat a group of ordinary humans without a single transcendent among them, and even your Priest failed to make it back."
"They had a Dragon with them. Are you saying you demons didn't notice?" the Ratfolk Elder asked sharply.
"Are you accusing us of withholding intelligence?" Frost settled over Biross's face in an instant. "I prepared the traps for the Imperial soldiers. You failed to seize the opportunity, just as you did this time."
Biross had personally designed the traps meant to slaughter the Blackwatch Legion. One led into another,