Hamnpork’s death and Darktan’s assumption of leadership

Hamnpork’s death and Darktan’s assumption of leadership turn a slow, precarious return from the stables into a test of what leadership means. Hamnpork dies exhausted, asking whether he is still the leader; Darktan answers that he is, then takes responsibility for the group after Hamnpork is gone. His first acts—honouring the dead rat with a burial and listening to Sardines’ advice—establish a new authority grounded not in confidence or ceremony, but in care for the group and the willingness to act when others are watching.

The return from the stables

Hamnpork is already in a weakened state as the Rats make their way back from the stables. Confused and half asleep, he manages to hold on to Sardines’ tail while they travel. The journey is slow: Sardines doubts that the old rat can manage the washing lines, and the group instead moves along gutters and drains, concealed by the night. By the time they reach the cellar, Darktan and Sardines are walking on either side of Hamnpork, who can barely move his legs.

A candle is still burning in the cellar, surprising Darktan after the events of the previous hour. When Sardines asks if Hamnpork has been poisoned, Darktan does not claim certainty; he says he thinks it was simply too much for him. The answer leaves the cause of Hamnpork’s collapse unelaborated, keeping attention on the visible fact of his failing strength rather than turning the moment into a mystery with a definite solution.

Hamnpork opens one eye and asks whether he is still the leader. Darktan answers yes and addresses him respectfully. Hamnpork says he needs to sleep. The exchange briefly preserves the old order even as its end becomes clear: Darktan does not seize authority while Hamnpork is alive, and Hamnpork’s question suggests that the position still matters to him, even in his last moments.

A death in darkness

Nourishing says he saw something, and Darktan glares at him; the scene does not explain what Nourishing saw. Hamnpork says that he will dream there and never wake up, then laments that this is not the way an old rat should die—not in the light. Darktan responds by urgently nodding to Sardines, who snuffs out the candle with his hat. The cellar is left in damp, thick underground darkness, the condition Hamnpork has asked for.

Hamnpork whispers that Darktan needs to know something. Sardines strains to hear the old leader’s final words, but the content is not disclosed. A few seconds later Sardines shivers and smells a change in the world. Hamnpork is lying very still. The narrative thus makes the succession hinge on a death whose private last message remains withheld: what can be known is that Hamnpork has died, not what he entrusted to Darktan.

Burial and the first decision

When someone asks whether they have to eat Hamnpork now, Darktan says that Hamnpork is gone and orders the group to bury him, marking the place so they will know where he is. The decision interrupts the practical expectation that a dead rat might become food. Darktan says the idea of eating Hamnpork does not feel right; he gives the old leader a place in the ground instead.

The order is not delivered as solemn ritual. A rat at the front of the crowd asks whether marking the place means marking it in the same way they mark places where they bury things. The joke sits beside the genuine change in practice: Hamnpork is to be remembered as someone buried, rather than treated as something disposed of. The group feels relief, although it had respected him, because Hamnpork was still unpleasantly smelly even by a rat’s standards. Respect and ordinary physical discomfort coexist, preventing the burial from becoming an uncomplicated ceremony.

Darktan’s order also makes his new position visible before he has settled into it. He is suddenly conscious of how closely the Rats are watching him. When he begins to protest, Sardines nudges him and asks to speak privately. Darktan follows him away from the group, acknowledging that the transition is not simply a matter of giving an order: he must now understand how the others will read his actions.

Sardines’ counsel on leadership

Sardines draws on his time hanging around in the theatre, where he says he picked things up. His advice is practical: Darktan is the leader, so he has to act as if he knows what he is doing, because if the leader seems unsure, no one else will know what to do either. Darktan answers that he only knows what he is doing when dismantling traps. The exchange sets his competence beside his self-doubt: he has a clear craft, but does not yet see leadership as part of it.

Sardines then explains why the group might follow him. Thanks to Nourishing telling others, Darktan is known as the rat who looked the Bone Rat in the face and came back. Sardines presents that reputation as a source of authority: a rat bearing the Bone Rat’s teeth-marks like a belt is not someone other Rats will want to challenge, and at a moment of need they want someone to follow. This is Sardines’ reading of Darktan’s standing, not evidence that Darktan feels confident in it.

He also interprets Darktan’s treatment of Hamnpork as leadership. Burying the old rat, marking the place, and urinating on top of him may appeal to both old and young Rats, Sardines argues, because it shows that Darktan is thinking for everyone. The act is at once irreverent and communal: it fits familiar rat behaviour while setting Hamnpork apart as someone whose resting place should be recognized. Sardines’s counsel turns Darktan’s unplanned decisions into signs that the group can understand.

An uneasy succession

Darktan tells Sardines that he will have to watch him, because Sardines thinks like Maurice. Sardines deflects the implication that he might compete for leadership: he is small, has to dance, and would not be any good at leading. His reply echoes the theatre background he has just invoked and leaves the new leader without a rival in this exchange, but not without a counsellor.

The transfer of authority is therefore neither a formal proclamation nor a triumphal ascent. Hamnpork’s final question, Darktan’s respectful answer, the burial, and Sardines’ private coaching assemble it out of moments of obligation and interpretation. Darktan begins as a rat who trusts his skill with traps more than his ability to command; Sardines helps him see that the Rats already have reasons to follow him. The death ends Hamnpork’s leadership, while the group’s attention and Darktan’s first choices make his succession real.