The wound in his side was fire and ice. Fire that burned his flesh with the pain of it and ice that crept toward his heart as the blood oozed from the wound. The soft keening of his death chant awoke the ancient rat. Yasheya lay back against the crumbling wall, the strength of his days like sand washing away in a storm-burdened stream. "Hola! Friend rat, picker of bones!" he cried, his eyes staring into the dark. The rat, the long swift gray thing that stirred in the ancient walls, lifted its head, harkening to the old man's invocation. Yasheya dipped a finger in the pool of blood at his feet. He held it up to his lips and blew gently on it, as if sending the red-blood rich scent of it through the ruins. "Smell it, bonepicker. Arise and come to me. An invitation to a feast." The rat arose from the gray dust and broken bones of its centuries-old nest.
