by Craig Zerf
Cabbie faced the worried looking band of subnormals. ‘Good people,’ he started and then, realising the inaccuracy of that statement corrected himself. ‘Dear medium bad, or perhaps slightly good, beings of the sylvan variety. What our esteemed elven friend was eventually going to say, after giving you a good, and justifiable, bollocking regarding your recent apparent flirtation with the dark side, is that you are either for us or against us.
Those who are for us please take one step forward and those who are against us, please proceed directly to the wooden chopping block that our Mister Budget and his fellow dwarves have so efficiently erected.’
After a quick sideways glance at the group of axe-wielding dwarves, standing around a knee-high stump of wood and sharpening their blades with grey whetstones, the subnormals got the hint and fell over themselves to take the necessary single step forward. (Or short flight forward in the case of some of the fairies).
Cabbie grinned hugely. ‘Welcome to the quest.’
Later on, in the early evening after the basis of the quest had been explained to all newcomers, the newly enlarged force of questarians settled down around a couple of huge fires and partook of some victuals that had been prepared largely by their newest members.
Biggest and Cabbie were eating with Lycan as, unlike the pixies and sprites and fairies who ate mainly fruit and raw vegetables, Lycan ate red meat, bleeding rare, well salted, with all the fat on and in large quantities. This menu suited Cabbie and Biggest down to the freezing cold ground on which they were encamped.
Biggest had distributed his Blutop to all and sundry with great largess and the talk was flowing freely. Dreenee, already full of ripe apples and strawberries, sat next to Lycan and absent mindedly scratched him behind his ears as he ate his venison. Every now and then he would growl, as is a wolf’s wont when he is consuming his evening repast, and Biggest or Cabbie would lean over and casually strike him with a backhanded blow to his canine-like cranium. After this he would wag his bushy tail, whimper respectfully and carry on chewing at the animal protein in front of him. Lycan was, for the first time in his werewolfy life, truly happy. No-one expected him to think, they asked him very few questions and, when he got hungry, all he had to do was whine and look pathetic and Dreenee ensured that he was fed. It had been less than one whole day and already Lycan was regressing to such a canine-like state that he had, by now, almost forgotten how to express himself in human vocal terms.
The fairy-folk, who were not averse to using a little magic themselves (although it was of the wild type, largely unplanned and totally unpredictable), were busy discussing shop with Master Smegly and Plob.
‘No, I disagree,’ said Plob as he shook his head vigorously in confirmation of his discord. ‘One can’t go around unleashing magic will-he-nil-he on the unsuspecting public like some sort of enchanted jack-in-the-box.’
‘Of course one can,’ retorted Puck. ‘In fact this one,’ he said pointing at himself. ‘Does it all the time.’
‘But what’s the point?’ asked Plob. ‘With such uncontrolled magiks all you can create is…is…’
‘Mischiefs,’ laughed Puck.
‘Exactly,’ confirmed Plob. ‘And what is the point of that?’
‘That is the point,’ answered a small winged fairy as she buzzed around Plob’s head. ‘That is what we are. Sprites, fairies and such-what. We delight in tomfoolery and misbehaviour. Trickery and artifice, illusions and sleight-of-hand. That is our power.’
‘It is also your curse,’ added Master Smegly. ‘This penchant of yours for misconduct has oft had you spilling over into the realms of evil and this behaviour will, thus, no longer be tolerated. For the remainder of the quest you will use all of your powers for good and only for good. Any transgression from this rule will be met with much sternness and harsh measures of retribution.’ The master stood up, his expression imperious. ‘Let that rule be known and understood by all, lest its misinterpretation bring pain and heartache to any who lapse inadvertently in this, their newly-appointed mission.’
He then turned and walked over to Legles and, after putting a comforting hand on the elf’s shoulder, drew him to one side. ‘You have a great talent, my boy,’ the master told him. ‘You have all of the traits of a first-class leader. You are noble, principled, incorruptible and fearsomely accomplished with that bow of yours.’ Legles graciously nodded his head in appreciation.
‘Unfortunately,’ continued Smegly. ‘You also have a huge talent for being a complete pain in the bum and a stand-offish, sulky spoiled brat.’ Legles bridled in shock at Smegly’s straightforward accusation and muttered a half-hearted denial under his breath.
‘It’s no use denying it,’ said Smegly sternly. ‘And it has got to stop. Right here and right now. From this moment forth you will carry yourself with decorum and restraint. No more outbursts of temper. No more sulky huffs and a lot more understanding and acceptance of your peers and your submissives. The time draws ever closer to what I fear will be the final and telling battle with the forces of iniquity and we will need you and your troops more than ever at that final confrontation.’
‘My troops?’ asked Legles.
‘Yes,’ affirmed Master Smegly. ‘I am putting you directly in charge of the band of subnormals. I suspect that they are more important than any of us know and you, with your sylvan background, are the only one who can truly get the best out of them. Now follow me.’
Smegly walked back to the fires with Legles in tow and, after he had warmed himself up a little next to the roaring orange and blue flames, he clapped his hands and called for everyone’s attention. ‘Fellow questarians,’ he said. ‘I have had a brief chat with Legles, son of Istar the first of the inner lands, and he has graciously agreed to assume the sole leadership of our new friends, the band of subnormals. Friends, I give you – Legles. Bowman-of-the-gods.’
A small smattering of applause greeted this followed by a tiny whine of relief from Lycan who by now had reverted to a completely animal stage and was relieved that his final human duty had been disposed of.
‘My good companions,’ started Legles. ‘My friends. I accept this responsibility with great pride and also humility. I will strive to do my duty to the best of my ability and the first thing that I would like to do is to insist that from this moment on the so-called band of subnormals are referred to as the Excellents. Thank you.’
And there they all stood. A master magician, his assistant, an ex-accountant and an ex-almost-knight and apparently a thief in potential, a semi-psychotic tavern waitress, a Cabbie who was once a knight, a huge trogre, an elf of supernatural toxophilitic ability, more than a score of axe-toting dwarves, a werewolf who was fast going animal and a gaggle of semi-magical ex-evilish sylvan creatures of the wood nymph variety. All in all, a collection of over fifty souls who were now committed, to more or lesser degrees, to the quest that Plob had embarked upon in a time that now seemed so very long ago.
The Evil ones still outnumbered them by a ratio of some five to one.
But it was a start.
A good one.
The first concerted attempt to break out had happened at about six o’clock that morning, just before sunrise, and the captain’s small detachment were struggling to hold their ground.
King Bil, in a rare moment of lucidity, had decided that being trapped in a castle with nigh on three hundred other souls was not good. Leastwise because the tiny remnants of plumber that still resided in the back of his mind had become vastly offended by the unsanitary stench that was beginning to assault his nasal cavities due to the fact that a couple of gaurderobes are no substitute for water-borne sewage when it comes to evacuating human excreta.
So the new king had called his second, third forth and fifth in command to him. He had also insisted on the presence of a man called Tolley because he had large Dumbo-esque ears and a generously proportioned, bright red nose which the king thought to look hilarious. And anyway, Bil liked to share his rapier-like wit with his subjec
ts by making comments like ‘you’ve got a big red nose, ha-ha-ha’ or ‘hey, big ears, give us a flap, ha-ha-ha,’ which normally proved to be right up their depressively low IQ’ed street and went down a treat.
Tolley thought the king’s humour to be a trifle heavy handed but then at least it did make him feel important and, when you looked like Tolley, even this sort of acceptance to the group was better than no acceptance at all. And let’s face it, he was being insulted by the king and how many people could say that? The best that most people would ever do would to be insulted by a teacher or government official or, at the very best, perhaps some minor royal so far removed from the actual throne that you would need an extremely powerful pair of far-lookers to even see the castle. Oh yes, Tolley smiled, now that he thought about things he realised that he had made it. This would be a thing to tell the grandchildren. If he ever had any.
The group of commanders, and Tolley, trooped into the royal throne room, arrayed themselves in front of the king and waited for their royal leader to notice them.
Finally Bil acknowledged them. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘You called, King Bil ,’ responded his second.
‘Yes,’ agreed Bil. ‘Me called King Bil. What you called?’
There was a moments puzzled silence as the second tried to work this one out. Tolley, in a display of relative cerebral brilliance, arrived at the answer first. ‘Him called Blog, sire’ he said.
Blog nodded and voiced his agreement.
Bil looked perplexed, and then worried, and then pissed off. ‘How dare you call yourself Sire?’ he screamed. ‘I’m the king around here. Not you. Only the king can call himself sire. Where do you get off calling yourself Blog Sire? You’re fired, Blog Sire, finished, kaput, nada. Now bugger off and take that stupid looking floppy eared, red-nosed moron with you.’
‘But, sire…’ started Tolley.
‘What?’ shrieked Bil. ‘Are you two brothers? How dare you call yourself But Sire. I sire. Me, me and only me. You two, Blog Sire and But Sire, get out of my throne room. Now, is anyone else related to these two treasonous brothers?’
‘No, sire,’ replied the number three in command as the two other ex-favourites ran from the room.
‘All right, No Sire. You can bugger off as well.’ Bil paused and waited for the guilty party to scuttle from the room. When nobody moved the King went apoplectic with rage. ‘Which one of you is No Sire? Come on. Own up. Own up. Ownup. Ownupownup.’
The number four in command, sensing an opportunity for fast track advancement, pointed at the number three. ‘It’s him, sire,’ he accused.
Bil went purple. ‘Him Sire. Well who the bloody hell is No Sire?’
The number five, realising number four’s game, pointed at him and shouted ‘That one.’
‘Get thee hence,’ screeched Bil. ‘You and the whole Sire family are in deep, deep crud. Now get out.’
The number five in command stood proudly to attention in front of the king, the sole survivor of what could possibly be called a battle of wits, although a very low-level one using little wit, but still, an achievement to be proud of.
‘What’s your name?’ the king asked of his new second in command.
‘Patruk, sire’ blurted out the hapless survivor, his mouth working just that little bit faster than his brain.
Bil went completely insane.
Patruk, whose surname actually happened to be King, didn’t even bother to wait for Bil’s command as he turned tail and fled from the royal throne room.
It took King Bil de Plummer the rest of that day to regain a slightly even keel, find and promote a new team of commanders and explain his plan to them. It was, against all expectations, quite a good plan. Simple, doable and effective. Basically all that had to be done was to collect all of the scaling ladders from about the castle, lash them together to form a lightweight but strong portable structure, lay it across the blackened stumps of what remained of the burnt-out bridge and, under the cover of darkness, storm across and kill all and any who dared get in the way.
And so it was that the next morning the captain and his men found themselves fighting valiantly for their lives.
Captain Bravad had split his detachment into three small teams. Number one team consisting of Berm ‘brick wall’ Odger, Dill ‘the demon’ Bacchus, Partlee ‘dog’ Nobee and Mr Tipstaff. Team two being Grunchy ‘Masher’ Fromson, Spectal ‘Killer’ Petreson, Wogler ‘Barbarian’ Manger and the captain himself in control. The third team, Pactrus ‘pace man’ Petracis and Pups Slobberer the dog were being held in reserve as well as being used as runners to fetch additional weaponry, water, bandages and arrows.
Team number one would rake the charging enemy with an arrow storm (although, due to their lack of numbers it was more like an arrow drizzle. Still, even ten or twelve accurately discharged arrows landing amongst a tightly packed group of men attempting to charge across a rickety construction of wooden ladders balanced over a moat tends to be quite seriously off-putting).
Team two would then form a shield-wall (again, perhaps wall is a little ambitious. More like a shield-picket-fence). And run forward at top speed, ancient limbs creaking, old sinews groaning, and go crashing into the enemy that had made it through the arrow drizzle and, whilst swinging massive overhead strikes with their battleaxes, drive them back into the moat. They would then quickly disengage and then team two would rake the survivors with arrows once again.
They had done this perhaps four or five times already this morning and, although the detachment was still relatively unscathed, they were tired. Tired as only extremely old men can be tired. Bone weary, stiff, sore and completely dehydrated. The captain knew that the next skirmish would be their last. Bil’s cohorts gathered together at the gate and, after downing a quick shot of cherry bandy each for a bit of the Old Dutch courage, they attacked once more.
Team number one gritted their teeth and drew back on their long bows, team number two tensed their protesting muscles and shouldered their axes once more and, with a loud splintering crash, the makeshift bridge collapsed into the moat taking perhaps ten men with it to a watery grave.
‘Yes,’ the captain punched the air in jubilation.
The detachment lived on to fight another day.
Chapter 28
Typhon the Dark awoke from his slumber, arose from the feather bed, put on his blood-encrusted leather singlet and strode downstairs as he sheathed his black blade that he had kept at the ready next to him through the night.
He noticed the three men, standing in the shadows under the eaves, as he exited the building. He noticed that they were armed. He noticed that they were big and he noticed that they were extremely bad looking.
He also noticed that the tallest one, the one standing slightly in front of the other two, had a subservient, ingratiating grin on his battle-scarred face. The other two, stood back, eyes cast down and feet a-shuffle as the leader greeted Typhon.
‘Good morning to you, your magnificence,’ he smarmed obsequiously as he touched his greasy forelock.
‘What?’ questioned Typhon as he strode towards the stables.
‘Pardon us, sir, for our presumption,’ the apparent leader continued as the trio jogged after Typhon. ‘But we heard the rumour, sir, and we came to look and, sir, we couldn’t help but to notice that the rumour appears to be correct.’
‘Sir,’ barked Typhon. ‘You forgot to say sir again, you obsequious toad.’
‘Sir, sorry, sir.’
‘That’s better,’ acquiesced The Dark One. ‘Now do tell. What rumour might this be?’
‘That you’re a demon,’ blabbered the leader.
‘Sir,’ snapped Typhon. ‘I’m a demon - SIR,’ he finished with a bellow.
The trio went into such a paroxysm of bowing, fawning, scraping and forelock tugging so as to actually cause two of them, the leader and the one with the scraggy ginger beard (yes I know that I hadn’t mentioned the beard before but it wasn’t necessary), to cramp over as t
heir overworked thigh and abdominal muscles went into repetitive stress spasms and caused them both to prostrate themselves on the sod in front of the Dark One. The third rogue, (no beard, the shortest of the three, mulberry birthmark on the right side of his face - there, happy now?) sensed that he was looking a little prominent in his upright position and so threw himself to the horizontal alongside his partners.
Typhon the Dark, mightily impressed at such an outstanding show of first-class grovelling, stopped in mid stride, placed his fore-claws upon his hips and contemplated the prone trio of ne’er-do-wells.
‘Doest thou posses transport?’ he asked, to be met with a triplet of blank stares. ‘Steeds?’ he continued to a repeat of the uncomprehending gapes in triplicate. Typhon sighed. ‘Have you got horses, you sub-moronic triad of imbeciles?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the moron in chief. ‘Good ones. Fresh stolen only yesterday.’
‘Good’ affirmed the Dark One. ‘Come with me.’
They rode hard through the whole of that day, Typhon and his demon steed out in front and the moronic trio strung out behind him like a trailing tail of stupidity. Tough, well-armed and violent but stupid nonetheless. Not that evil has the sole agency for idiocy, far from it, but still, it was nice to know that our heroes were a cut above Typhon’s triplicate trio of twits.
They stopped at another wayside inn that night and, as was to be expected, the chain of events that ensued were almost a carbon copy of the night before. Except that this time Typhon had a lot less work to do as his triad of hard-hitting nit-wits showed their mettle by dispatching all but the most resilient of dissenters.
The next morning five more unctuous creatures wished to join the ranks of the foul individual that was represented by Typhon the Dark. And the next day, many more. And the next. And the next.
For Evil does beget Evil - and don’t you forget it.
