by Craig Zerf
Rufin smiled back. ‘Yes. The trowel grows cold.’
‘Here comes my father,’ said Plob. ‘You’re welcome to ask him but, I’m warning you, he’s really big on dead is dead is dead, so I wouldn’t hold much hope.’
Death strode up to the group and then stopped and looked. Without conscious thought the pilots all stood to attention and saluted while Death added and subtracted and weighed what was left of their souls.
Smudger stepped forward and offered his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m flight lieutenant Samuel Smith and these are my chaps.’
Death took Smudger’s hand. And it was as cold as ice and as hot as Hades. And Samuel looked into his eyes and back at him stared the abyss. Abbadon and Gehenna. Domdaniel, Jahannan and Sheol. One hundred million, million souls. Pain and joy and agony and ecstasy. Emotion without end.
And he fell to his knees and begged forgiveness for all that he had done and not done. For he was in the presence of He Who Rides the Pale Horse and everything else counted for naught.
‘Rise, lieutenant Smith. You have done little evil in your life. And anyway, it is not for me to judge you. I am merely the custodian of life. I neither give it nor do I take it away.’
‘Sir, I ask that you allow my men and me to return so that we may carry on the fight. I am sure that I speak for all when I say that we would gladly return afterward, we merely ask a boon of some borrowed time.’
‘I have watched your war. Many times. Your presence will not make a substantial difference to the outcome. You have all done your work well. You should feel proud.’
‘Sir, may I ask…do we win the war?’
Death stood for a while, his eyes blank. Then he nodded. ‘Most times, yes. Not always.’
‘What do you mean. Sir? Either we win or we lose.’
‘Lieutenant, I could be trite with you and tell you that there are no winners in war. This would be a statement of truth, however, I am sure that is not what you mean. I do not see things in the same linear fashion as you do. I see all...I know all. Everything that has been, that is being and that will be. And I see it all at the same time.
‘Wow,’ said Smudger. ‘That must be very confusing.’
Death gave a glimmer of a smile. ‘Flight lieutenant, you have no idea. Even a simple chore like making tea becomes an almost Sisyphean task when attempted in n-dimensional space. I am sorry but I cannot help you and your men, however, you are welcome to stay in my domain as long as you want, whatever you wish for, within reason, will be made available and we shall talk at another time about what you will all do next.’
Death turned and strode away.
Stanley clicked his fingers and a table appeared with four wingback chairs arrayed around it. Another click and four crystal tumblers appeared on the table next to a bottle of fifteen-year-old Talisker single malt whisky and a bottle of Wyborowa wodka.
Rufin picked up the bottle and his eyes misted with tears. ‘Dziękują mały śmierć. Ten przypomina mnie mojego domowy,’ he said to Stanley.
‘To jest przyjemnością,’ answered Stanley. ‘Gentlemen, I shall leave you to your musings. If you want anything else simply click your fingers and I will come.’
Rufin turned to the rest of the group and held up the wodka bottle. ‘Yellow desk here husband,’ he said and poured himself a tumbler full. He saluted the others and then downed it in one.
Herr Martin Boredman was a bored man. He sat upright in his large, goose feather mattress bed chewing tobacco and spitting into a golden spittoon. Next to him lay the lithe, almost hairless body of a young man, perhaps eighteen perhaps a little younger.
The new Fuhrer had put Boredman in charge of the Goblin storage camps where all of the goblins were kept in readiness for the mass sacrifices that were needed in order to transport the Vagoth dragon fleet across the divide.
As well as simply storing, the wrenched creatures were being used for forced labour, making weapons, dragon tack and so forth. Most of them were very gifted craftsmen and the goods that they produced were superlative.
He climbed out of bed and wandered over to the window of his four-story mansion that overlooked the storage pens and workhouses. He spat a gobbet of tobacco juice over the balcony and then picked up his cross bow, putting it on his shoulders and twisting from side to side to limber up.
With a grunt of effort he pulled back the cocking lever, inserted a quarrel, rested on the balustrade and aimed at one of the goblins sweeping up the quadrangle. Slowly he squeezed the trigger. The bolt went high and right.
He reloaded, adjusted the sites and lined up again.
As he was pulling the trigger the young man, who had climbed out of bed to join him, smacked him on the left buttock. Boredman jerked upright causing the bolt to bounce off the outside lamp post, hit the next door buildings wall, ricochet up against the steel guttering and come careening back to plunge full length into his right thigh.
He fell to the floor thrashing around and screaming like a banshee. His lover ran around in tight circles, flapping his hands and also screaming blue murder because he knew that, as soon as Boredman recovered, things were going to go very badly for him.
Typhon didn’t bother to knock. Supreme commanders did not knock, they simply strode in. And anyway, he had been invited for drinks and eats by Herr Gooballs.
It was the first time that he had been in Gooballs’s quarters and the room was…odd. At first it was difficult to put your finger (talon) on what it was and only when the big T sat down in a chair did he figure it out. The entire room, window and all was cunningly crafted to just over one half scale. The glasses of ready cocktails, the plates, even the snacks were half size. It made one feel out of perspective with oneself and caused ones eyes to water and ones brains to flicker back and forth on constant double take mode.
Typhon could hear singing coming from another room, he grabbed a couple of drinks and wandered over. The door was open and there, sitting in a half sized bath, covered in bubbles, was the minister of propaganda, Herr Gooballs.
‘Ah, mine Fuhrer, welcome. I was just sitting in the bath you know. The hot water relaxes me. So…here I am…just sitting in my normal sized bath that any normal sized person would sit in. See, I even have normal sized soaps.’ Gooballs held up a scale replica of a full sized bat of soap. ‘And shampoo bottle. See, all normal sized, just like me.’
Typhon was a demon and, as such, was not fully familiar with human bathing rituals. For all that he knew it was normal to receive guests in the bath. He did wonder what all of the bubbles were for. Soap, he had seen before. But shampoo baffled him.
‘You have shampoo?’ He asked.
Herr Gooballs picked up a small bottle. ‘Yes, here. Many normal sized bottles of shampoo.’
‘Why?’ Asked Typhon.
Gooballs looked puzzled. ‘Umm…for the normal reasons, I suppose.’
‘I see. But why shampoo – can you not afford real poo?’
Gooballs thought for a while but the non sequitur floored him so he reverted to playing the host.
He stood up out of the bath and walked through to the sitting room, ushering Typhon before him. This wasn’t as awkward a moment as one might think because Herr Gooballs was actually fully clothed in his formal Vagoth attire. Black, silver trimmed tunic and trousers with deaths head badge and black cap with the rampant Bumsenfaust mailed fist sticking out the front like an armoured phallus.
He picked up a plate of crackers mounded high with caviar and offered them to his Fuhrer, but soapy water drained had down his arm and puddled the plate turning the expensive Hors d'oeuvre into a mush of detergent, water, biscuit and fish eggs.
Gooballs simply dropped the plate on the floor and helped himself to a drink.
Typhon grabbed another cocktail and downed it in one. ‘Don’t you have any decent sized tumblers?’ He asked. ‘Something that I can mix a proper sized drink in as opposed to these bloody thimbles.’
Gooballs eyes glassed over. ‘These are decent s
ized.’
‘No,’ said Typhon. ‘They’re tiny. Like you. Now get me a proper receptacle and fill it with booze.’
Gooballs’s left eye twitched frantically and the colour drained from his face. ‘I’m sure that I don’t know what you mean Herr Typhon.’
The big T unfurled his wings. ‘Listen to me, you miniature cripple. I am exhausted. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to send dragons across the divide? I don’t have time to play dollies with you and your scaled down accoutrements. Now. Did you ask me here for a reason or did you simply want to show me how “normal sized” you are?’
Gooballs held up his glass. ‘S’normal.’
‘God’s, you are pathetic,’ said Typhon as he strode from the room. ‘And weird, I mean who keeps bottles of fake faeces in their bathroom. Bloody sham poo…makes me sick.’
The minister of propaganda for the Vagoth Empire burst into tears and rushed through to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Herr Gobling, Chief of the Vagoth flying corps, strolled slowly down the ranks of flyers, inspecting them, chatting with the odd one and generally being imperious.
Next to him walked his second in command, count Rye Beena.
‘My dear count,’ said Gobling. ‘I have had an idea that will bring even greater glory to out beloved flying corps. I aim to show our enemies that we relish the prospect of battle, we court danger, we shall run up the flag and brazenly shout our presence to all.’
‘Yes, Herr Gobling?’ Enquired the count, politely.
‘Yes, indeed, my dear count. I propose, prepare yourself, that we paint our dragons in primary colours.’
They took a few more steps. Count Rye Beena’s face was a picture of discombobulation. ‘I’m not sure that I understand, my glorious leader.’
‘You know, slap some red and green and blue paint on them. Make them stand out.’
‘But Herr Gobling...umm…the dragon’s natural colours are already red and green and blue…also black ones and yellow ones.’
‘So,’ said Gobling. ‘Are you the sort of man to let such a simple thing prevent you carrying out my wishes? Are you, count Beena, are you that sort of man?’
‘No, my leader, I am not that sort of man. I…umm… we can paint the…umm.’
‘Gobling stopped walking. ‘Dammit, man. Do I have to do all of the thinking around here? We’ll paint the red ones blue…the green ones red…and the black ones yellow. Simple.’
‘What about the yellow ones?’
‘They can stay,’ said Gobling. ‘No wait…paint them red.’
‘The same as the green ones?’
‘No, idiot, the same as the blue ones.’
‘But, my esteemed leader, we haven’t actually mentioned the blue ones yet.’
‘Oh - well paint them…umm…yellow.’
‘Like the black ones?’ Asked count Beena.
‘No - like the yellow.’
‘I thought they were black.’
‘No they were…red? No, no…green. Look - just paint the dragons different colours or so help me I’ll send you to the Russian front.’
‘Yes, my leader.’
The two walked for a while.
‘Where is the Russian front, my supreme leader?’
Gobling thought for a while. ‘You know, I’m not sure. I have no idea why I said that.’
They walked for a while longer.
‘I shall call it, “Gobling’s Flying Circus.”’
‘Nice one, my leader. Got a good ring to it.’
‘Yes,’ agreed the fat megalomaniac dressed in baby blue. ‘I thought so.’
Herr Boredman hobbled along; he was carrying his crossbow and leaning on a stick, his thigh heavily strapped from that morning’s accident. The young spanker of Boredman’s bare bottom had been sent packing for his blunder. In a suitcase. In fact, several suitcases to various different destinations.
The camp secretary, corporal Kountalot, walked beside him. Boredman was on a camp tour, inspecting the workers, dealing out discipline and generally taking his bad mood out on innocents.
They came to a table where a young goblin was frantically putting parts together. Boredman picked one up.
‘What is this?’ He asked the goblin.
The goblin wound it up and placed it on the tabletop. It wobbled around in a random fashion. Every now and then a small brass bell would spring out of the side, ring twice and then retract.
‘Hmm, I see. And what is it?’ Boredman asked again.
‘If it please your honour. It’s a widget.’
‘Widget?’
‘Yes, sir. A genuine one.’
‘What does it do?’
‘Well, you see, sir, a widget is a general term for an unspecified device. For example, an economist might discuss the marginal cost of manufacturing a widget. The thing is, sir, that the expression was used so often that people began to actually demand widgets. We are the worlds largest widget manufacturer.’
Are you a good widget maker?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Boredman pulled out a watch on a chain. ‘Make one.’
The goblin worked swiftly, hammering, screwing and filing. Within a couple of minutes he had put together a genuine widget. He placed it on the table.
‘Very good,’ said Boredman. ‘And very fast as well. A little over two minutes. Excellent. So, tell me, goblin, if you can make one every two minutes and you have been here since the morning why are there are only…’ he counted… ‘One hundred and five in the box instead of one hundred and seven?’
The goblin cringed back. ‘I don’t know, your excellency.’
‘I am afraid that is not good enough.’ Boredman raised his cross bow and pulled the trigger.
The bolt missed the goblin, struck the metal-press on the other side of the table, bounced upwards, glanced off the roof and buzzed earthwards to bury itself in Boredman’s other leg.
Mister bushy eyebrows fell to the floor screaming for the second time that day.
‘Why!’ He screamed at the top of his voice. ‘Why me?’ He started to beat the floor with both hands like a child in extremis. ‘Mommy. Mommy, why didn’t you love me? I was a good boy. I rubbed your feet. I washed your back. I did all those things that only special sons do to their mommies. Why am I being punished?’ He stuffed his fist into his mouth and bit down hard. Blood poured down his chin and he looked at the floor in horror to see that he had actually bitten the end of his index finger off.
Mercifully, he passed out before he could do any more damage to himself.
Chapter 21
Plob and Spice had spent every waking moment training with the remaining ten members of the Dragonflight. But there is a limit to how much you can improve in a few days no matter how hard you try.
One thing was obvious, though. That was, the weaker flyers had been taken out in the initial disastrous encounter. The remaining ten were, to a man, hard as hell, fly by the seat of your pants, hotdoggers and, with their new improved firepower, Plob reckoned that the Vagoths were in for a surprise. He didn’t fool himself, in that he did not let the thought of coming through the next encounter alive cross his mind.
The Dragonflight had their pitched tents near to the dragon stables so as to be as close as possible when the call came. Plob and Spice had pitched their tents away from the others on the other side of the landing field.
That evening, after they had eaten and bathed, Plob crawled into his tent, wrapped a fur blanket around him and lay waiting for sleep that would not come, even though he was exhausted.
He heard a sound at the entrance to the tent and looked up to see Spice who slipped in and sat next to him.
‘Can’t sleep,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
Spice pulled her tunic up over her head and then raised her legs so that she could wriggle out of her underwear. Plob’s breath caught in his chest.
‘You now,’ she said. Her voice a husky whisper.
Right…we all know w
hat’s going to happen next. I’m not going to write about it in graphic detail because; firstly, I tend to get embarrassed doing so and, secondly, maybe I write something that I think is totally normal and everyone is like…eeuuugh, really. What a pervert…or something.
So, this is what I’m going to do. I’ll provide a list of words and then you can put together your own bedroom scene thereby relieving me of the responsibility.
Right – let’s go: Moist, Heaving, Flower, Purple, Grinding, Cleave, Forest, Manipulate, Pork Chop, Enormous, Sweat, Sausage, Juice, Poodle, Friction.
Afterwards they lay together in silence, hands and minds linked together. A lone candle flickered on the small table next to them, playing with the light and creating a world of undecipherable shadow hieroglyphics on the tent walls.
Spice sat up and rummaged through Plob’s knapsack. ‘Have you got anything to drink?’
‘Yep, there’s a flask of Blutop, courtesy of Biggest, in there somewhere.’
‘Can’t find it.’
‘Look harder.’
Spice upended the sack and spread Plob’s belongings on the floor. ‘Ah, there.’ She picked up the flask, uncorked it and took a swig. She shuddered and passed it to Plob who also had a mouthful. ‘What’s this?’ Spice asked, holding up a long black feather. ‘I mean, I know it’s a feather, but why do you keep it?’
‘It’s a present.’
‘From who?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Try.’
‘The son of Death.’
Spice laughed. ‘I don’t believe you.’
So Plob told her. He had met the son of Death around a year ago when he was last fighting against Typhon and his evil minions. The two of them had come quite close friends and, as a parting gift, he had given Plob a feather from Death’s pet cockerel and told him that, if he ever needed help, he should simply hold the feather, concentrate on him and he would come.
Spice looked a little sceptical but Plob assured her that he was telling the truth.
‘Well then, use it,’ she said.
‘Why?’
