Fiend of the Seven Sewers

by Steven Butler

  In no time, I was lowered onto the platform and the trap-lace around my ankles had been cut loose.

  Tempestra offered me a hand and pulled me to my wobbly feet.

  ‘Good to see you, Frankie,’ she said with a mischievous grin. ‘And not a moment too soon, it seems.’

  ‘Tempestra! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!’

  ‘You honestly thought you’d seen the last of me?’ she laughed. ‘Dunglebrain!’

  ‘But how did you know where to look?’ I asked, giddy with relief. ‘I’ve been gone for—’

  ‘Three weeks, two days and seven hours,’ Tempestra interrupted. ‘Your mum and dad were in a right snivelicious worry-rumpus.’

  ‘Erm, I say, deary,’ Mrs Morkie stammered behind me. ‘I don’t suppose you can get us down too, could you? I can barely feel my footsies.’

  ‘Who are they?’ asked Tempestra. She glanced over my shoulder at the three other dangling figures.

  ‘These are my friends,’ I replied. ‘We were prisoners together. They have to come too!’

  ‘Aye aye,’ Tempestra nodded, and she busied herself marching along the row of cranes, ordering each one to be lowered with her sword raised above her head.

  ‘Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Mrs Morkie smiled a nervous smile and did a little curtsy, after she’d flopped onto the platform with a BUMP and clambered to her feet. ‘Any friend of Frankie is a friend of mine, my scrumplet.’

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Gully joined in. He was holding Viscera in his hand and carefully helped her into his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘Are we all present and correct?’ Tempestra asked.

  ‘AYE AYE!’ we chorused back.

  ‘AVAST!’ she barked, grabbing a pistol from her belt and firing it into the air for extra flare and fanciness. ‘To the BLISTERED BARNACLE!’

  I turned round to the staircase that led down from the platform and stopped.

  In all the craziness, we’d failed to notice Queen Latrina skulking towards us on top of her gigantic crocodile. Now the terrible creature was waiting at the bottom of the steps, its jagged jaws wide open.

  ‘Going somewhere, sea scumlies?’ Latrina broke the silence. She had the look of someone who’d just swallowed a wasps’ nest. ‘Have my brains been swizzled? Have my peepers gone potty? Who the blunkers are you rottly lot and what exactly do you think you’re doing with my flushables?’

  Tempestra sidled to the edge of the platform and glowered down at the pumpkin-sized ruler.

  ‘I AM TEMPESTRA PLANK, DAUGHTER OF CALAMITUS PLANK, THE FIEND OF THE SEVEN SEWERS, AND WE HAVE COME TO FREE YOUR PRISONER.’

  ‘Prisoners!’ I whispered in the goblin girl’s ear. ‘Free all the prisoners.’

  ‘And we have come to free ALL your prisoners, you hideous old humpler!’

  ‘HUMPLER!’ Queen Latrina gasped in horror. ‘You’ve made a honkly big mistake, Miss PLONK! No one leaves Gradibash unless I say so.’

  ‘Let us leave quietly and we’ll have no reason to boot you in the bumly-bits,’ Tempestra said calmly.

  ‘NOT ON YOUR NELLY!’ Latrina scoffed. ‘Your skuzzly feet are going nowhere near the royal rump, make no mistakings!’ She looked at the few members of pirate crew who’d swung ashore with Tempestra and laughed at them, then pointed down at the crocodile beneath her as if they’d failed to spot it. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Doris. She eats bilge-rumples like you lot for breakfast!’

  ‘That’s funny,’ Tempestra replied. ‘We eat crocodile nuggets for breakfast aboard the BLISTERED BARNACLE. Every morning! They’re delicious.’

  The queen laughed sarcastically, but it didn’t take an expert to see the twitch of nervousness on her grotsome face.

  ‘You might be all tallish and flashy with your swords and pistols and crocodile nuggets,’ Latrina sneered. ‘but you’re no match for my goblin guards.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Tempestra replied. ‘But they are!’

  She pointed back at the galleon and a bonejangling roar went up around the city. While Latrina had been distracted by us on the poodly-platform, the BLISTERED BARNACLE had moored right up against the plaza walls, and all of Captain Plank’s crew had gathered on deck. They were a fearsome bunch, poised and ready for battle. There were hordes of pirates, hollering and cursing, and amongst them I spotted…

  A great sob blurted uncontrollably out of my mouth.

  Mum and Dad were standing with Maudlin. Nancy was halfway up the mast with cutlasses in all four of her hands, Ooof was brandishing a mop and a broom from the hotel cloakroom, and the Molar Sisters were ready with their wands. Even Granny Regurgita was here!!

  ‘Frankie, my darling!’ Mum yelled. I could barely hear her across the fussing crowd. ‘We love you!’

  ‘You’re so brave, son,’ Dad joined in. ‘You’re a hero!’

  Before I could shout back to them, there was a strange grunt from below us.

  ‘BLUH!’ It was Queen Latrina. ‘Are those… are those more… are those more HUMANS?’

  In a flash, pandemonium broke out across the Poodly Plaza as the queen let rip a scream that could have shattered an iceberg. She yanked on Doris’s reins and the giant reptile bulldozed through the crowd, sending courtiers and civilians flying through the air like squat overdressed ping-pong balls.

  ‘DON’T LET HER GET AWAY!’ a deep and gravelly voiced boomed from the ship. I looked up and saw that Calamitus Plank himself was standing in the crow’s nest at the very top of the tallest mast, shouting through a rusty loudhailer.

  ‘GRAB ’EM, ME HONKERS! SHOW THOSE LAND-THUMPERS NOT TO MESS WITH THE LIKES OF US SALTY SEA DONKS!’

  With that, Captain Plank leaped down and his pirate crew came pouring across the gangplank or swung to shore on sail ropes. They teemed onto the plaza and started chasing the queen’s guards in all directions.

  I watched with the greatest feeling of happiness and joy as Nancy catapulted herself off the main mast and right into the middle of the action on two lengths of web, while Mum, Dad and Maudlin ran ashore, making their way towards me as they batted petrified Barrow Goblins aside.

  ‘GO!’ Tempestra barked. ‘Find your family. I’ll protect your friends.’

  I didn’t need to be told twice. Completely forgetting about any danger, I leaped down the steps two and three at a time, then sprinted across the cobbled square, dodging brawling pirates and hurdling royal guards as I went.

  ‘MUM!’ I shouted so loudly I thought my head might explode. ‘DAD!!’

  I skidded past Officer Flott as he was hit by a blast of tooth-fairy magic. The Molar Sisters were dancing in a circle, singing and swatting their wonky wands above their heads, conjuring little tornados. Flott was snatched off the ground and spun through the air like a furious frisbee.

  ‘Fantathtic!’ the triplets cooed in unison, twirling about and grinning gappy grins. ‘It’th tho lovely to thee you, Frankie!’

  I bounded past Ooof as he was attempting to fight with Officer Lickspittle. The little goblin kept jabbing him in the knees with her tiny sword, but it was like poking a rhinoceros with matchsticks.

  ‘Ow! Hello, Frankie! Ow!’ Ooof waved one of his tree-trunk arms and accidentally thwacked Lickspittle into a pile of stinking fishing nets that were drying in a corner. ‘Ooof miss you, Frankie!’

  ‘I missed you too!’ I shouted over my shoulder as I darted round our handyogre, ducking just in time to avoid his flailing fists.

  And then… there they were. Maudlin Maloney was slightly ahead of Mum and Dad, and she flung her gnarled hands round my waist, holding on tight.

  ‘Oh, you brainboogled wee eejit!’ she snivelled into my tummy as she squeezed me harder and harder. ‘My heart’s been hobbled! What did you have to go and do a thing like getting snitched for?’

  A large teardrop rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t help it. I knew the ancient old leprechaun had just been in a bad mood back at the hotel and she loved me really.

  ‘I’ve been worried sickly, I ha
ve. The girls have all been blurty and haven’t B-KAWKED once while you’ve been away!’

  As if on cue, Maudlin’s chickens appeared through the chaos and clucked around my feet. B-KAWK!

  ‘Oh, would you listen to that!’ the old leprechaun wept. ‘I haven’t seen Eggwina this happy in weeks! Henelope’s laid an egg with joy, look!’

  ‘Frankie!’ Mum and Dad caught up with Maudlin and threw their arms round both of us.

  ‘Oh, my beautiful boy!’ Mum blubbed. ‘My beautiful boy!’

  ‘You’re a sight for salty eyes!’ Dad sniffled, wiping his tears with the end of his tail. ‘Let me look at you!’

  We could have stood there hugging all day if there hadn’t been a raging goblin battle thundering around us.

  ‘It was Grogbah who had me kidnapped!’ I suddenly yelled as I came to my senses. ‘His mangy mother put me in a zoo!’

  ‘What?’ Maudlin gasped. ‘That skuzzling skrunt!’

  ‘There are still hundreds of creatures locked up in there,’ I continued. ‘We can’t leave them!’

  Just then Granny Regurgita hurtled through the crowd like a raging bull. She was clutching the goblin maiden with a face like a dropped omelette by the back of her frilly dress and she swung the wretched thing through the air and into an oncoming squadron of soldiers like it was a game of skittles.

  ‘Oh, it’s you…’ she growled when she finally glanced down and spotted me. ‘Look at the mess you’ve caused, boy.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’

  ‘I said we should just leave you to your new life as a goblin – it’d serve you right – but your mother was all squisherous and wanted to save you.’

  ‘It’s nice to see you too, Granny,’ I said. Believe it or not, that’s one of the nicest things she’s ever said to me.

  ‘So, what now?’ Dad shouted over the din. ‘Shall we get out of here?’

  ‘Not yet, Bargeous!’ Maudlin said. ‘We need to teach that quarrelish queen and her simpering son a thing or two.’

  ‘You mean we can finally grunch Grogbog?’ I asked.

  ‘When I get these scabberous hands on that little lumper, I’ll whomp him back to next Wungleswatch, the spineless spook! And his mother! Where’d she go?’

  I looked at the path of destruction left by Doris as she galumphed through the crowd and saw that it led straight to the doors of the palace. That lily-livered conk of a queen had scarpered off to hide!

  ‘The queen will be in there!’ I yelled, pointing to the glass building. ‘So will Grogbah.’

  ‘Righty, then,’ Granny Regurgita grunted. ‘Let’s go.’

  TAKE THAT!

  We fought our way through the clamouring goblins as quickly as we could, heading for Queen Latrina’s palace.

  ‘You rambunking wee jobby!’ I heard a voice yell ahead of me. ‘Maybe next time you’ll think twice before signing up to be a crone’s cronie!’

  It was Nancy! I didn’t care that she was in the middle of fighting a gaggle of royal guards, so I shoved right past them all and hurled myself into her giant spider arms.

  ‘No, you don’t!’ she yelped as I grabbed hold of her. ‘You’re not too quick for this Orkney Brittle-Back!’

  Before I could stop her, Nancy grabbed me by the ankle and was about to fling me into the lake, thinking I was another attacking soldier.

  ‘Nancy, it’s me!’ I yelped as loudly as I could over the deafening roar of the battle. ‘Frankie!’

  ‘Oh, my wee lamb!’ Nancy shrieked when she realised who she was clutching in her hands. ‘I was about to toss you away!’

  I looked up at Nancy and she beamed down at me.

  ‘My heart could burst, so it could! We’ve all been worried sick, Frankie.’

  ‘I missed you so much,’ I said as another tear ran down my face.

  ‘We missed you t— OW!’ We both looked down to see a particularly young Barrow Goblin whacking away at Nancy’s back legs with a rusty spoon.

  ‘One moment, petal.’ Nancy smiled, batting her eight eyelids at me. Then she reached down and picked the stumpy goblin up by the scruff of his collar.

  ‘I’m not sure you want to be doing that,’ she said to the wriggling goblin. ‘Does your moomsie know you’re out?’

  The goblin shook his head.

  ‘Have you noticed there are bloodthirsty pirates running about the place?’

  The goblin nodded.

  ‘Run off home, poppet.’ Nancy placed the goblin back on the ground and patted him on the back. ‘Be safe!’

  ‘Where were we?’ I laughed, as I watched the goblin child scarper in the direction of the town. I was just about to explain to Nancy all about what had happened, when a shrill and extremely loud voice echoed all around the Great Cistern City.

  ‘Shut your mumble-holes! All of you!’

  I looked up and saw that Queen Latrina was standing on the top tower of her palace, and she’d produced an even bigger and more battered megaphone than Calamitus.

  The entire crowd went silent as Barrow and Squall Goblins alike all turned to see what was going on.

  ‘As Your Royal Grumptiousness, Ruler of the Rabble and Godly of Goodliness, I want to tell you all that I’m very bored! Unless we’re winning… Are we winning?’

  Hundreds of Latrina’s royal guards all shook their heads in unison.

  ‘Then I’m very bored!’

  Nobody said a word.

  ‘Everyone knows that I’m supposed to be the winner at everything, I’m the queen, and when I don’t get my own way I get very cross and squitly.’

  Still nobody spoke.

  ‘With that in mind, I demand all of you prattly pirate-types to bog off back to where you came from. You’re different from us Barrow Goblins and that’s disgusterous!’

  All the Barrow Goblins in the throng cheered and whooped at this.

  ‘And… I’m also feeling very stroply at my own courtiers and every peasanty pook who lives in Gradibash. You’re all complete commonly skuzzlers and I want new subjects. Better, more worshipful ones! So, I command you to form an orderly line and jump into the poodly-pipe. Off you go!’

  There was a long moment of confused silence and then, to my astonishment, all the Barrow Goblins of Gradibash started milling their way over to form a long queue at the base of the wooden platform. They were actually going to line up, and one by one, hop into the gurgling grossness of the poodly-pipe!

  ‘No, wait! This isn’t how it should end!’ I yelled, but my voice wasn’t loud enough for everybody to hear across the plaza. ‘You don’t have to do this!’

  It was no use. The Barrow Goblins were already mumbling their goodbyes and not listening. How were we going to stop them? I couldn’t stand there fussing while the innocent citizens of Gradibash jumped to their poodly peril just because Latrina told them to!

  ‘Here, boy!’ Maudlin pushed her way towards me and Nancy. She reached into one of the many pouches on her belt and pulled out what looked like a tiny green snail shell. ‘Eat this!’

  ‘Eurgh, why?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s the shell of a shrillig, it’ll make your voice ten times louder! DO IT!’

  I placed the small thing on the end of my tongue and crunched it between my teeth, grimacing. It tasted like smelly feet and sour pondwater.

  ‘Go on, then, Frankie,’ Maudlin encouraged me as Nancy held me up as high as she could. ‘Quick or they’ll all be poppin’ their clonkers before you know it!’

  ‘Hello?’ I said, and my voice thundered across the crowd like a giant’s.

  Everyone jumped with surprise and I watched as they all turned to stare at me.

  ‘You don’t need to leap into the poodly-pipe because that ranciderous rumplet told you to!’ I bellowed.

  ‘But she’s our queen…’ a sickly-looking goblin whimpered.

  ‘SO WHAT?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t listen to him, you dirty bunch of snotlings,’ Queen Latrina announced. ‘I want all of you in that pipe – right now! I need to make
room for my adoring new subjects, so you’ve got to hop it!’

  All the Barrow Goblins turned to go again. This was MADNESS!!!

  ‘STOP!’ I yelled, and the entire city shook. ‘You don’t have to listen to her or Grogbah, if you don’t want to!’

  ‘The boy is right!’ Calamitus called from the top of the ship’s mast.

  Latrina screamed. ‘You be quiet, you dusty bag-o-bones. My voice-trumpety-thingumy-bob is much bigger than yours.’

  Calamitus opened his diamond-dentures to shout back, then suddenly looked extremely lost for words and shrugged down at me, Nancy and Maudlin with a muddled expression. Having an empty skull for a head meant witty retorts weren’t his greatest talent, I guess.

  ‘Now, I won’t say it again,’ Latrina growled, turning back round to glare at the crowds of upturned faces. ‘Take no notice of that bonejangled bungler and GET IN THE PIPE!’

  And that’s when things got interesting…

  ‘No!’ a single tiny voice called from the throng.

  For a moment, we all remained in confused silence. Had we really just heard that? Were our ears playing tricks?

  ‘No!’ came another voice, and another, and another. ‘No! No! NOOOO!’

  Queen Latrina’s jaw flapped wide open and her piggy little eyes nearly bulged out of her face.

  ‘What did you just say?’ she sneered. ‘Are you all boogled in the bonce?’

  ‘I don’t want to jump in the poodly-pipe!’ a goblin guard cried, puffing out his chest.

  ‘Me neither!’ called one of the royal handmaidens. ‘I’m not in a poodly mood!’

  ‘Mu… Mu… MUTINY MONGERS!’ Latrina hollered at her people. ‘Fine! Ignore my orders! Don’t flush yourselves away, you bundle of belchers. You can all stay right here where it’s nice and dry.’

  ‘Do… Do you mean it?’ I stammered in my booming voice. Maybe the queen wasn’t such a massive gonker after all? ‘Are you surrendering?’

  ‘NOT ON YOUR NELLY!’ Latrina squawked back at me, before shifting her loudspeaker down towards the palace doors. ‘DORIS! GET OUT HERE!’