Bzz—
Miller stood frozen, its ears filled with a piercing whine. A sudden blaze of lightning and fire lit up its eyes as they cleared.
The Brute Rat charging beside it became a heap of flesh with no upper body, splattering Miller from head to toe.
The downpour washed away the blood and jolted Miller fully awake. Seeing Ratfolk fall all around it, it wanted to flee this slaughterhouse, but the Ratfolk behind it shoved it forward.
Just as Miller thought its short life was over, a sudden drop sent it tumbling. When it could see again, it had fallen into a ditch. Ratfolk stamped across the ditch and over its body.
Miller seemed to realize something. It shifted carefully, hiding itself in the ditch, then covered its ears against the roar overhead.
Cold rain washed through its fur. Lying in a puddle thick with blood, Miller hoped it would all be over soon.
The noise above grew fainter...
It dreamed of its childhood, surrounded by its twenty-three siblings at their mother's side. Their lively voices grew farther and farther away. Their mother, softened by memory, looked at Miller and opened her mouth gently, but no sound came out...
A sudden feeling of suffocation jolted Miller awake. It lifted its head from the water that had flooded the ditch.
The cannon fire had stopped. Was the war over?
To Miller's dismay, the Rat Tide was still advancing, still dying wave after wave. Light and blood played across the stormy night like a silent Magic Film, just like one it had once watched from afar in a human Town.
Boom—
The stockpile of Cannonballs ran out again, and Annan opened a Portal to replenish it.
No one bothered protecting their ears anymore. The cannons had never stopped firing.
The long