by Craig Zerf
Now he had to figure out some way to undertake mass sacrifice and blood collection and he would be ready for a full-blooded attack on Plob and his bleeding heart philanthropic friends.
It was the 29th of October 1940, England, United Kingdom. Flight Lieutenant Smudger Smith, flying officer Jonno Johnson, flying officer Belter Bigstone and Polish pilot officer Rufin Kowolsky, were returning from a punitive strike against a German bomber offensive. It had been a good hunt. Between the four of them they had downed nine enemy aircraft, however, they were now perilously low on both fuel and ammunition and were heading home.
‘Good one, gentlemen,’ said Smudger. ‘Proud of you chaps.’
‘Stop it, captain,’ replied Belter. ‘You’ve got me all blushing like a bride on her wedding night.’
There was general laughter over the R/T.
‘No peanut butter for chrysanthemums,’ added Rufin. ‘It leaves marks on the partridge.’
‘Captain.’ Belters voice crackled with urgency.
‘Roger, Belter.’
‘Three o’clock. Angels eighteen. What do you see?’
Smudger shielded his eyes against the setting sun. Suddenly they sprang into view. ‘I see trouble. Junkers, Dorniers, Heinkles, Messerschmitts. Maybe three hundred?’
‘I concur, captain.’
Smudger thumbed his R/T. ‘Sector control, sector control, this is 121 Eagle, come in please.’
‘Go ahead, Eagle.’
‘Control, please be advised that we confirm three hundred plus bandits coming in over Dover at angels eighteen. Where are our fighters?’
‘Radar is down, Eagle. Please reconfirm, three hundred plus bandits.’
‘I confirm.’
‘We’ll try to get the big wing out there as soon as, Eagle. In the meanwhile, we recommend that you attack.’
‘We roger that, control. Please be advised that there are only four of us and we are low on ammo and fuel, so not sure how long we can keep these buggers interested. Please send more partners to the dance as quickly as you can. Eagle out.’
‘Control out, and good hunting, gentlemen.’
‘Well, you heard the man,’ said Smudger. ‘Let’s go, boys.’
‘Tally ho.’
‘Once more into the breach.’
‘The bicycle puts fluff on the peas.’
Chapter 17
Death exists.
I’m not talking about the concept of death. Nor some form of ancient god thereof that has been brought to life by the mass-mind of worship.
For example; other inevitable occurrences, like disease, exist only as a thing that happens. There is no Disease with a capital D as in Death.
There is the concept of love. There are many gods of love. But there is no - Love. No Birth, no Honour, no Happiness and no Wisdom.
There is only Death.
Only Death exists in a solid, non-ethereal, practical way. He puts on robes of darkness every morning, he eats meals, he worries about the state of the universe in general and…he has a child.
Stanley.
The son of Death.
‘Black,’ thought Stanley. ‘Always black. Not even a colour, simply an absence thereof.’
The boy was depressed. People joke about the fact that death is hereditary…but in Stanley’s case it literally was. When it came down to it, death was simply natures way of say… ‘You’re fired.’
And dad would never let him get involved in the family business. In fact, only the night before they had been preparing dinner, Stanley was chopping the carrots - dicing with Death, as it were - and he asked his dad if he could maybe do a couple of pick-ups. It was his time to start helping with the whole, ushering of souls thing, he told the father of darkness. He hadn’t even bothered to answer.
It’s not that it sucked being a teenager…it’s just that Stanley had been a teenager for about as long as he could remember. Which is like, forever.
It’s not as though it sucked only wearing black, Johnny Cash did well out of it…it’s just that, if he tried to wear another colour, red for example, by the time he had pulled the shirt over his head it was black.
It’s not as though it sucked waiting to take over the family business…it’s just that, when your father is the Alpha and Omega, time without end - well, forever is a long, long time to wait.
And when you put all of these little niggles together…it did suck a bit.
Also - he never met any girls. Well, he did, but they were dead. And the biggest problem with dead people is that they are incredibly boring. Most of them are so shocked to have gone over that they hang around in the processing areas like a bunch of sheep. He supposed that was where the expression, “Dead Boring” came from.
Anyway, Stanley decided to take a walk to the processing rooms and watch the newcomers. He had nothing else to do.
When he was about halfway to the halls he heard an unusual sound. Unusual for the land of the dead, that is. Laughing. Voices raised in excitement. Friendly banter. He walked swiftly over the small hill to see who it was.
Four men. All dressed in similar fashion. Dark blue uniforms, white jumpers, large, fur-lined leather boots, fur-lined leather jackets and some sort of small leather hat or helmet. One was smoking a pipe.
Stanley hurried forward to greet them.
King Bravad had broken up the thirty-six flyers into six wings of six. He then allocated the most experienced in each wing the rank of “Dragon Wingman”. He had kept both Plob and Spice out of the general dragon force and had designated them the rank, “Dragon Commander.” The rest of the flyers were designated the rank of “Dragonman” and the whole team was top be referred to as the “Dragonflight”.
They had spent every waking moment of the last week training, puzzled that they had not been attacked but thankful for the respite. After a gruelling week Plob had told the king that he was relatively happy that they would be able to put up a good show when the Vagoths next came at them. Particularly now that captain Bhature had provided them with an early warning system.
He was wrong.
With Typhon’s new Goblin-sacrifice enhanced power he managed to send a much larger flight than ever before.
Fifty Vagoth dragons penetrated Maudlin’s airspace at some ten minutes after first light. The attack consisted of twenty heavies and thirty fighters. The Dragonflight took off with fair warning and were in the air to meet them.
It was a massacre. Plob would never forget the screams of dying dragons and men. Dragons turning and climbing and diving and firing. Everywhere, balls of burning plasma flashed through the air. Beasts colliding in midair, riders dropping to their deaths.
His own Dragonmen’s fire as dangerous as the enemies as it sprayed randomly around the sky.
He managed to bring down four enemy fliers, Spice managed one. The rest of the Dragonflight knocked down another three for the loss of twenty-six.
In one attack the Dragonflight was as good as finished.
Chapter 18
Once again German bombs rained down on London. Explosions ripped through the capital, levelling buildings and creating fires and dealing out the cards of death in an indiscriminate fashion.
And amongst the wreckages and ruins scurried the heroes that were the citizens of London.
Blean dragged the second body from the burning building just before the thatch roof collapsed. Above he could hear the sounds of the enemy dragons shrieking as they fired, indiscriminately, into the city of Maudlin.
A dragon tumbled from the sky as the T.A.D.S locked onto it and filled it full of arrows. He heard screaming from another burning building and ran in, looking for someone else to save.
Against all of the odds and then some more, the old man in London was completely unscathed. The five hundred pound bomb had landed in the street outside and completely levelled his house…except for the toilet.
And there he sat, pants around his ankles, a telephone book, cut in half, in his right hand in lieu of toilet tissue.
&n
bsp; On his face a look of complete bemusement.
‘I only pulled the bloody chain,’ he kept saying to himself.
‘Come on,’ shouted Blean, as he rushed through the streets of Maudlin. ‘Let’s start a bucket chain to put this fire out.’
‘I’ll help you,’ chimed a passer by.
‘Sorry,’ replied Blean. ‘No time for that. I’ll do it by myself.’
In the next street a group of newly orphaned children attacked a fallen Vagoth flyer with pitchforks and cudgel, beating and stabbing him to death, looks of stolid concentration on their young, fire streaked, faces.
The ambulance pulled up next to the burning pub. Above the door hung a crooked sign, ‘English spoken here…Australian understood.’
A woman lay bleeding on the pavement, thrown there by the bomb blast, her broken leg twisted at an impossible angle underneath her. She was laughing.
‘Are you alright, Madam?’ Asked the driver, worried that she may be hysterical.
‘Oh yes, my good fellow. It’s just funny because I think that’s the first time I’ve ever actually been thrown out of a pub.’
And so it was. Across time and space the separate battles raged as, unbeknown, two very different peoples fought two very different enemies that were, actually, the same.
Chapter 19
Plob had fought in battles many times before. He had fought using magic, swords and conventional weapons. He had fought alongside the hobby-horsemen of the Hors-doovrees and British secret agents. He had seen death in many guises and had taken his first life when only fifteen years old. But never before had he been exposed to such wanton destruction. Such a one sided annihilation. And it was his fault.
He had told the king that they were ready. He had assured him. He had filled his fellow dragonmen with confidence. And then he had led them to their deaths.
Now the Dragonflight consisted of him, Spice and ten others. The next enemy attack would finish them.
He heard a low buzzing sound and looked up to see captain Bhature and science officer Roti approaching on their grav-scooters. Both had looks of restrained excitement on their faces.
‘Plob,’ said the captain. ‘I think that we can help. Science officer Roti has been doing extensive research on your dragons and their method of fire production. He has come up with a formula of different crystals that, if fed to them in the correct dosage, will not only triple their fire output, it will also increase heat, speed and explosive capabilities.’
Plob waved him away. ‘No point, captain. We’re finished. We have no more flyers.’
‘I assure you, this could turn things around. They won’t have any answer to this magnitude of firepower.’
‘So?’
‘So get some more flyers.’
‘Where?’
The captain shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well neither do I,’ answered Plob as he stood up and walked away. The teenager wandered aimlessly for a while, wallowing in self-pity and guilt and doubt. Eventually he simply sat down in the middle of a field and did nothing. After a while he heard a noise behind him and he turned top look. It was Biggest.
The Trogre ambled forward and offered Plob a flask. Plob remembered the flask well; it was a magical gift that had been bestowed on the Trogre some while back by master Smegly’s master. It contained a never-ending supply of Blutop, a rough sugarcane spirit that could double as a silver polish and a rust preventative. He took a swig and shuddered. Took another. Passed it back.
Biggest squatted down on his haunches. ‘So, boy, yous is givin’ up?’
‘Yep.’
‘Jus’ like that?’
‘What else can I do, Big?’
‘Well, for a start, not giving up comes to mind. You know, my frien’, my daddy used to say to me, “Biggest, you is acting like da most uselesseses piece of poo dat I has ever comed across, I auta beat you to death wiv a big stick or summat.”’
‘Oh,’ acknowledged Plob. ‘So?’
‘So, nuttin’. Youse my frien’ so I’s not gonna talk to you in dat less dan respectful way.’
The teenager thought for a while. ‘So what you’re saying is; I’m acting like a useless piece of poo?’
Biggest shrugged. ‘I didn’t say dat. I intimated it through da subtle use of homily and moralising discourse regarding my paterfamilias and what he did say to me when I was feeling down.’
‘So, in this scenario, I’m the useless piece of poo.’
‘Acting like,’ said Biggest. ‘Acting like one.’
‘So what do you advise I do?’
‘O dunno, in da scheme of things at da moment I is just a simple weapons system for shooting down dragons. You, on da udder hand, is a Dragon Commander and a magician, but I can say dis; doing anytin is betta dan doing sod all.’
Plob flushed up with shame. People had died and he had decided to wallow in self-pity instead of doing anything. Instead of even trying to do anything. He stood up. ‘Thanks, Big. I’ve got things to do.’
‘Dat you do, my young fren’. Dat you do.’
The massive Trogre sat alone for a while and drank from his magical flask. He was a good boy, dat Plob, he thought. Especially for a human.
Biggest didn’t blame the teenager for becoming a little confused, after all, it must be difficult to think properly when you spent the majority of your life with your brains less than three feet from your bum.
The new dragon fire formula that Roti had formulated consisted of a blend of Natrium, Brimstone, Charcoal, Iron filings and Grain alcohol.
Boy mixed up a batch and fed it to one of the riderless dragons. Then they watched and waited. After ten minutes the dragon belched lightly, producing a small ball of flame and then…the beast simply exploded.
The explosion itself was large enough to leave a sizable crater in the field and quick action was needed to douse the fires that had started on the dragon pens from bits of burning dragon.
Roti did some quick recalculations. ‘Right. I see what went wrong.’ He wrote frantically on a small piece of paper which he handed to Boy. ‘That’ll fix it.’
Boy stood with a look of horror on his face. ‘Gods, how am I goin ta stick the poor brute back together wa’ this?’ He waved the tiny piece of paper in the air.
Roti throttled back frantically on his IQ, knocking about one hundred points off so that he could figure out what Boy was talking about. ‘No, Boy. It’s the new formula mix. The dragon’s gone, nothing that we can do about it. Mix up another batch of crystals according to the weights on that piece of paper and let’s try again.’
Boy mixed up another batch. Plob led another dragon in. It fed. They waited, crouched behind any cover that they could find. After twenty minutes all seemed safe.
Plob told boy to saddle the dragon and he did so, pulling the stomach cinch in gingerly as he did.
‘What’s its name?’ Asked Plob.
‘Petronus.’
The teenage magician climbed aboard. ‘Right, Petronus. Let’s fly around a bit and see what we got.’
He took the beast up to treetop level and pulled a couple of slow, easy turns. Then he climbed high, did a barrel roll and then dived. The dragon responded perfectly.
‘Right, mister dragon. Let’s get serious.’ He lined up with a tree at the end of the landing field. Aimed about halfway and…squeezed the firing reins.
Three white-hot balls of plasma shot from Petronus’ maw in under a second. The fire travelled at least four times quicker than any that Plob had seen before. When the plasma stuck the tree it didn’t merely burn, it literally exploded into ignition. One moment it was there, the next, a smoking stump of smouldering ash.
Plob pulled the dragon into a sharp right turn and fired again, a long pull on the reins. The dragon discharged a massive volley of flaming balls. A holocaust of fire ripped through the trees, sap exploded in the heat and leaves crackled to nothing in seconds. He pulled up and picked a target further away, some four hundred yards. He lined up, fi
red. Another trio of flaming rounds of plasma scorched through the air and struck their target.
Plob weaved back and forth, firing and firing again until, when he pulled the reins, the dragon merely hiccupped and discharged a small puff of smoke.
He guided Petronus back to ground, his heart filled with elation.
Forty-three rounds. Forty-bloody-buggery-three rounds of white hot, balls to the wall, destruction.
Maybe there were only twelve Dragonmen left but next time, Plob vowed to himself, they would take a few more enemy with them before they cashed in and went to the other side.
Chapter 20
Smudger shook his Zippo and then tried, once again, to light his pipe but it was obviously out of fuel.
‘Here,’ said Stanley. ‘Let me.’ He snapped his fingers and the bowl of tobacco started to smoulder.
Smudger nodded his thanks and puffed the pipe into life. ‘So,’ he said. ‘We’re dead.’
Stanley nodded. ‘Afraid so.’
‘Darn it. Must say, can’t remember much. We attacked that bunch of Krauts, I think I ran out of ammo…or fuel…or both. Next thing…burning…then here. What about you chaps?’
Jonno and Belter shrugged. ‘Pretty much the same, captain,’ said Belter.
‘Friction causes soap bubbles,’ agreed Rufin with a smile.
‘I don’t suppose that we could…well…be sent back?’ Asked Smudger. ‘It’s just that, we’re at war, you see, and I’m pretty sure that we’re the good guys.’
Stanley shook his head. ‘Sorry, chaps. Not much chance of that on account of being, well, dead.’
‘Deceased,’ said Smudger. ‘Who would have thought?’
‘Bereft of life,’ added Belter.
‘Gone for a Burton,’ sighed Jonno.
‘Bowling made the sheets mouldy,’ stated Rufin. ‘We rest in peace.’
Smudger grinned. ‘You know, that one almost made sense, Rufin old chap.’
