The Warlord’s eye rested balefully on his scout. ‘Shut your mouth, fool. If you’d done as I ordered and come right back to report, the way Cheesethief did, we might have been inside that Abbey by now!’

  Fangburn slunk back into the ranks. He hoped Cluny had forgotten, but Cluny rarely forgot anything on a campaign. The element of surprise had been lost: now he must try another ploy, the show of force. The mere sight of a fully armed horde had worked before, and he had little doubt it would prove effective now. Ordinary peaceful creatures were usually panic-stricken at the sight of Cluny the Scourge at the head of his army. The rat was a cunning general, except during the times when his mad rage took control of him, but what need of berserk fits for a bunch of silly mice?

  Cluny knew the value of fear as a weapon.

  And Cluny was a fearsome figure.

  His long ragged black cloak was made of batwings, fastened at the throat with a mole skull. The immense war helmet he wore had the plumes of a blackbird and the horns of a stag beetle adorning it. From beneath the slanted visor his one eye glared viciously out at the Abbey before him.