Annan got up and went to the door, asking someone outside to prepare another roast lamb.
"I can eat... live ones..." Jerry said.
"Maria wouldn't eat like that."
At the mention of Maria, Jerry settled down. "Fine... human thing..."
"You can call me by my name. Annan."
"Fine, Annan... thing..."
Annan let it go and sat back down. "Let's talk business. How did you end up with the McKinnon Ratfolk?"
"We... protect... Greyfur Rats..."
"Greyfur Rats?"
"They... release... divine power."
Annan pieced it together: the Greyfur Rats were Ratfolk priests. Jerry had accompanied the Champion Rat Squad to protect them, but Blackwatch had found an opening and broken through their defenses. Jerry and some of the Champions had escaped.
Was the Ratfolk priest Blackwatch captured grey-furred?
Annan hadn't looked closely. He'd thought all Ratfolk were dark brown.
"Why did the McKeon Clan mobilize the Rat Nest?"
Blackwatch had probably already wrung the truth out of the Greyfur Rat priest, but it wouldn't hurt to ask again.
The answer was much as Annan expected: after easily swallowing up the western Northern Frontier, the McKeon Clan had grown tired of its bitter winters and the Demons' savagery. Now they wanted a piece of Middle Earth.
But Ratfolk were greedy and cunning. Without enough to gain, it was hard to get them to act together.
What had driven the McKeon Clan south this time was... a divine oracle from the Great Horned Rat.
"Are you sure you weren't deceived? The gods have been missing for three years."
"The McKeon Whitefur Rat Prophet... said so!"
Annan asked him, "Who do you trust, the Prophet or me?"
Jerry looked at Annan as if to say, Do you even have to ask?
"Let me put it another way... Do you trust the McKeon Clan, or your