by Craig Zerf
‘There was a really belligerent Oak tree there.’
‘Hmm…sorry, doesn’t help. All Oak trees are belligerent, most of them are so far up their own tap roots with their, “Ooh, look at me, I’m a deciduous broadleaf,” looking down on us evergreens like we’re the shirt tail relatives. Up theirs.’
Far away the flyers heard something shout, ‘Up yours, needle leaf.’
‘I don’t mean to push,’ said Plob. ‘But can you help?’
‘Yeah, sure. I’ll just have to send out a few tweets, see what’s going on, get some feedback and I’m sure that I can set you on the right path.’
‘Tweets?’ Asked Smudger.
‘Yep, I’ll use the twitter network. All of us trees do, well; we have to on account of not being able to walk. Hold on, here’s a likely candidate,’ said the tree as a sparrow landed on one of its branches. ‘Hey, bird, do me a favour would you and see if you can find where these gentlemen came from.’
The bird cocked its head to one side and twittered back.
The tree laughed. ‘Yes, I know. You can find your way home from another continent and they get lost in a shrubbery. Still, they seem nice even though they are so directionally challenged, now go tweet tweet to all your friends and get back to me.’
The bird fluttered off and disappeared into the forest.
‘Ok,’ said the fir tree. ‘The city, hey? What’s it like?’
‘Not bad,’ said Plob. ‘A lot of really big buildings.’
‘Is that so? Wow.’ The three stood for a while in silence (especially the tree who was a world-class stander). ‘Right,’ the fir continued. ‘What’s a building?’
The fortified garrison of Vogania squatted like a huge stone toad in between two grass-covered hills.
Although the garrison’s walls were nowhere near as big as the main city of Lutetia, they were still twelve foot thick at the base and some six foot wide at the top. They stood over twenty feet high. Every twenty paces was a reinforced rampart behind which stood a group of bowmen. The gate was ironclad oak with a steel portcullis. There was no moat because there was no need for one.
The garrison had stood for over one hundred years. An unconquerable symbol of the might of the Vagoths. Unassailable, insurmountable, impregnable…and about to get its big stony ass kicked.
Four thousand rockriders of Rohan appeared on the skyline of the overlooking hills, their hair tied up in ponytails, recurved bows in their hands and quivers of arrows on their backs.
A mighty horn did sound and echo around the hills. And the war cry of the rockriders of Rohan was heard for the first time in over three hundred years.
‘Riders,’ shouted Halcyon. ‘Let’s Rock and Roll.’
The thunder of rolling Bulwarks was so loud that it seemed to be the very sound of the heartbeat of Mother Earth herself. The rockery swept down on the garrison and the riders started firing their bows as soon as they came in range.
The Vagoths fired back but it was hard to hit the fast moving riders as they thundered towards them.
‘This is not a test,’ shouted Halcyon.
‘This is Rock and Roll.’ Shouted the rest of the riders.
‘We might be too old to Rock and Roll.’
‘But we’re too young to die.’
And the Bulwarks struck the wall like the second coming. Sheets of arrows swept riders from their rocks and Vagoths tumbled from the walls as the riders returned fire. The Bulwarks struck again and the huge wall crumbled. The rockriders rolled in, killing all before them.
Once the riders were inside the garrison the fight became a rout. A man in a black uniform with silver trim waved a white flag from a window in the central keep and Halcyon commanded his riders to stop.
‘Come on out, dude. Let’s, like, parley.’
The Vagoth officer walked out, flag held above his head. ‘We surrender.’
‘Good call, man,’ said Halcyon. ‘Excellent. Now, take your wounded and your non-wounded and, like, your cooks and stuff and go tell your Honcho that it’s over. The reign of the Vagoth dudes is, like, over. Tell him that the rockriders of the Rohan are coming and that we’re, like, seriously pissed.’
The officer nodded. ‘May I ask why?’
‘Sure, man, it’s because you dudes need to learn that you can't sleep beneath the trees of wisdom, when your axes cut the roots that feed them. Now go, this is no longer your land.’
‘There’s a lot of them,’ said Plob. ‘I’d say seven or eight hundred. And that’s just the ones that Smudger and I saw. There might be more.’
‘This is a major problem,’ said master Smegly. ‘If Typhon manages to create enough power to send even half of those here at once then we are up the proverbial.’
‘Got any suggestions, Plob?’ Asked king Bravad.
‘Smudger and I were talking…I think that we should break through again with two fighters and a heavy and try to destroy the palace. There’s a good chance that Typhon will be there. We get him and our problems are over.’
‘And if we miss him,’ said the king. ‘Then we kill a lot of innocents. Scullery maids, pages, cooks. I don’t like it. Master Smegly, your thoughts?’
‘Even if we kill him there is going to be considerable collateral damage. However, I don’t see that we have a choice.’
‘Who would go?’ Asked Bravad.
‘Myself,’ said Plob. ‘Belter and Rufin on the heavy.’
‘But nobody understands Rufin,’ said Braved.
‘Doesn’t matter. He understands us and whoever is flying the heavy is going to have to get low down and dirty, and Rufin has more bollocks that any other flyer I’ve ever seen.’
‘I agree,’ said Smudger. ‘Enormous bollocks. Size of a pair of grapefruits.’
‘Right,’ said the king. ‘Plob, make it happen and may the gods forgive us.’
Chapter 26
Science officer Roti rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. He was exhausted. He had spent the night working on a series of equations that were to the mind what an iron-man triathlon was to a body.
He was working on a hypothesis involving string theory, which is basically how gravity and quantum physics fit together. Using string theory he had come to the conclusion that the Paratha had not been sucked into a black hole but had, in fact, being subject to a wormhole in space.
Now, if one worked on the theory that wormholes are warps in the fabric of space-time that connect one place to another, and then one added the fact that black holes and wormholes are so similar at a quantum level that it is difficult to tell them apart then…then…something about a black hole compressing things, shrinking them down to a singularity.
Roti shook his head. He knew that he was on to something important but it kept sliding away from him like a bar of soap in the bath. He took a deep breath, stretched, and bent, once more, over his keyboard.
The three dragons flew in with the setting sun behind them. The fighters flew high and the heavy came in low, just above treetop level.
‘That’s the palace directly in front of you, Rufin. The one with white roofs and golden spires. Go in hard, Belter and I will keep any enemy fighters off your back. When you’re out of fire, head for the forest rendezvous point and the master will bring you back. Got it?’
‘Rotating wagon eel pie!’ Shouted Rufin as he flew the two-headed monster close to the tallest spire and opened fire.
Huge balls of flame rolled out of the heavy’s mouth and struck the base of the tower. The new improved feed meant that the fire didn’t simply burn, it exploded in a shower of vicious white-hot plasma and the spire tumbled to the ground. Rufin kept the dragon low and pumped round after round into the palace, wreaking a terrible destruction.
‘Bandits, five o’clock,’ said Belter. ‘Twenty plus taking off from the field. They’re coming to join the dance.’
‘Let’s get them,’ called Plob.
‘Tally Ho!’
The two dragons plummeted down towards the Vagoths. Plob and
Belter both waited until the last possible moment and then opened fire.
Plob took out two Vagoths with his first burst and Belter did the same. Then they were both turning and climbing and banking for their lives.
Plob kept a look out for Rufin because the moment that he had done his job and had gotten out of harm’s way then Plob was out of there. He wheeled hard right and popped off a spray of rounds, more to confuse things than to actually hit someone as it was all about staying alive and keeping the Vagoth’s attention off Rufin and on him and Belter.
Out the corner of his eye he saw Rufin powering towards the forest, still keeping low as he went. ‘Another twenty seconds,’ he informed Belter. ‘Then we’re gone.’
‘With you, commander.’
At the exact count of twenty both of them broke off and drove their beasts hard and high, jinking from side to side to put off enemy fire. At the zenith of their climb, they turned and dove towards the rendezvous point above the forest. They arrived there seconds after Rufin on his slower heavy dragon and then, the universe folded around them and they were gone.
‘Gooballs,’ said Typhon. ‘What is happening to my palace?’
‘It appears to be burning, my Fuhrer.’
‘Really, you think? Tell me, Gooballs, are you always an idiot or is it just when I’m around? Herr Gobling, how did this happen? Why weren’t your vaunted dragon fighters in the air in time to stop this?’
‘We were taken by surprise, my Fuhrer. Really, it wasn’t my fault.’
‘Well,’ said Typhon. ‘I could agree with you but then we’d both be wrong. Of course it’s your fault.’
‘But, my Fuhrer, I think…’
‘Gobling, hush…listen carefully…do you hear that? That’s the sound of no one caring what you think.’
Boredman giggled, a high-pitched adolescent titter.
‘What’s so funny, hamster eyebrows? Actually, Boredman, I’ve been meaning to have a chat to you for some time, now. What do you actually do? Seriously, what is your function in this ship of fools? I mean, you’re about as useful as rubber lips on a woodpecker. Now, tell me, gentlemen, what the hell is going wrong here? Not only is my palace burning to the ground but, on top of this, I have heard that a bunch of hippies have managed to destroy the Vagonia garrison, and that was meant to be impregnable.’
‘We were taken by surprise, my Fuhrer.’ Said Gooballs.
‘Oh, another surprise, my what an absolutely astounding day we’re having with all these surprises. Tell me, my compact colleague, how does one get surprised by four thousand ravage-bent reprobates riding rocks to render ruin upon my redoubt?’
‘They’re a peaceful people, my leader. We never suspected they would attack us.’
‘And why did they?’
‘I think that they were pissed at us because we took their candyman away.’
‘Candyman?’
‘Drug suppliers, my Fuhrer. The goblins that supplied them their magic mushrooms, smoking herbs and suchwhat.’
‘They would go to war over some dried mushrooms?’
‘Well, they take their leisure time very seriously, my Fuhrer.’
‘Whatever, take the army, find them and kill them. Then burn their villages to the ground, kill all of their livestock and…um…sow the ground with salt. Oh, yes, and write them out of the history books. That should take care of that little problem. Now please leave…I want to be alone.’
Chapter 27
Plob was white faced with anger and his entire body shook with pent up fury.
‘Be careful, my boy,’ said Bravad. ‘I am not only your friend…I am your king.’
‘I apologise, sire.’
‘Plob, I understand how you feel, but the master and I made a decision; as soon as you came back we were to send a second attack. There’s no way that they would expect it and we have told them to take out as many dragon pens as possible. Smudger had to go as he was the only flyer besides you that knew the layout. Jonno flew the heavy.’
‘But why Spice?’
‘Because she’s one of the best flyers that we have. This is a war, Plob. More than a war, it is a frantic fight for survival. We have to make tactical decisions based on things other than who loves whom, or who wants who protected. Now go and rest, you’ve done well.’
Plob stalked from the room, his legs felt disjointed and weak from the after effects of his fear for Spice’s safety.
‘Dinna fash yourself, Plob,’ said Boy. ‘She’s with two good men and she’s no mean flyer herself. She’ll be fine.’
As it happens, Boy was wrong.
The Vagoth flying scouts had seen the rockriders of the Rohan coming and so the occupants of garrison Bumsenfaust had prepared themselves for the attack.
Halcyon stood on top of his Bulwark and surveyed the scene before him.
‘Hey, like, the soldiers dudes have dug trenches across the valley to, like, impede our progress. Also, they’ve set up a row of ballistae on the ridge there and I can see some, like, arrogantly large catapults in the actual garrison itself. All in all, you know, like, a good job.’
‘So,’ said the Honcho. ‘What do you think that we should do?’
‘Hey, Honcho, I don’t know. I’m a lover, not a fighter. I mean, like, the extent of my military capabilities thus far is pretty much, like, charge and see what happens. This one calls for a little more sophistication.’
‘It’s worked so far.’
‘Yeah, like, once. I think that what we need is a slight variation on the charge. Honcho, could you call all of the kraal leaders here, I think that I’ve got an idea.’
The Honcho sent two riders to fetch the kraal leaders and, within fifteen minutes, they were all crowded around Halcyon.
‘Okay, dudes, I want you to round up all of the foal-boulders, colts and even wild-rocks that you can find. And I mean, like, all of them. Then we’re going to drive them down the pass, in front of us. You reckon you can do it?’
There was a chorus of, ‘right on,’ and ‘way to go,’ and ‘rock of ages, dude,’ and the riders trundled off to do as bid.
Two hours later the garrison commander watched in astonishment as his plate of food vibrated across the table and fell to the floor. And then pictures started to fall off the walls and furniture jiggled slowly sideways.
‘Earthquake!’ He shouted and ran for the door in order to get out of the barracks before they collapsed. As he got outside he was called by one of the sentries on the wall.
‘Overcommander, up here.’
The Overcommander ran up the steps to the lookout. And saw the most amazingly terrifying thing that he had ever seen in his life. Thundering down the valley towards the garrison were thousands, no…hundreds of thousands of rocks, from small pebbles to massive, house size boulders. The very earth shook in sympathy and dust was thrown high and wide. When the rockery got to the trenches the boulders simply rolled in and filled them up. And behind them, shouting and hollering and hooting, came the rockriders of the Rohans.
The massive rockery hit the garrison walls with such power that it didn’t even slow down, it simply flattened the entire fort. The riders swept in afterwards, firing their arrows into all that still moved. For they were the rockriders of the Rohans and they neither gave nor asked for quarter. Because…like a true nature’s child, they were born to be wild.
Afterwards Halcyon and the Honcho sat atop their Bulwarks and surveyed the destruction.
‘Hey, Honcho,’
‘Yes, Halcyon my son?’
‘Honcho, this is, like, bumming me out big time. I like this killing and destruction gig not at all. It’s, you know, totally screwing with my karma. This is not how I saw my life going, a few days ago I was happy and at peace and now…’
‘Ah, but Halcyon, Yesterday's just a memory, and tomorrow is never what it's supposed to be.’
‘I just want to be free again, Honcho.’
The Honcho leaned over and grasped the rider by the arm. ‘No one is free, Halcyo
n. Even the birds are chained to the sky.’
‘Cool, dude. Cool.’
The three dragons materialised above the forest. Smudger took a few seconds to get his bearings and then he led them towards the barracks.
They kept as low as possible to avoid direction and, within minutes they were over the main dragon pens. They all opened up at the same time, flaming balls of plasma exploding in and around the pens. Spice closed her ears to the sounds of the dragons screaming and agony as they burnt and exploded.
Ten, twenty, thirty pens went up in smoke. The trio turned and burned again, fires marching down the rows of pens like a holocaust of retribution. Spice saw riders running from burning buildings, trying to mount their beasts. She fixed on them and blasted them to death.
‘Bandits, twelve o’clock,’ said Smudger. ‘Lots of them, looks like we’ve been ambushed.’
‘Jonno,’ said Spice. ‘Break off and head for the forest extraction point. Go! Smudger, let’s see if we can slow these bandits down, give Jonno a chance to get his heavy away.’
The two fighters climbed to intercept the incoming Vagoths while Jonno urged his slow double-headed dragon back to the departure point.
Spice guessed about twenty Vagoths were diving down at them. She held her fire for as long as she could and, as she fired the Vagoths opened up. The air around her turned to fire. She felt her hair frizzling up and her eyebrows scorching off with a small puff. Her left sleeve caught alight and she beat at it frantically. Tempest screamed as a ball of plasma clipped her wing and she went into an uncontrolled spin. ‘Pull out,’ shouted Smudger.
At the last possible moment Tempest recovered and Spice drove her hard towards the forest. Smudger sprayed off as many rounds as he could before his dragon ran dry and then he flew after her.
But he could see that she was never going to make it. ‘Take her down into the first clearing that you see, dismount and run like hell before they strafe you. Don’t worry, Spice, I won’t leave you.’
