Tyger Pants - Cretin the Cruel

by Royston Wood

Chapter Five

  Bunsen

  I’m too busy jabbing at the Editor’s screen, in the hopes that if I hit it enough times it will make the stupid thing work, to notice that the guards have finally turned up. The jabbing doesn’t do any good so I shove the Editor into my pocket with a growl of frustration.

  “I see you’ve got one of them Victor, but where is Cretin? And have you got the Portal?”

  Startled I look up. There’s a dragon stood before me!

  The dragon is exactly like I had always imagined a dragon to be: shimmering green scales; long curving neck and whip like tail with barbed tip; almost triangular head made up mostly of jaw, full of gleaming pointed teeth; and a ridge of spikes running along its neck, back and the length of its tail.

  Absolutely awesome!

  Shame it’s only about 10 inches long though. That’s a bit of a let down. He’s kind of dwarfed by the guards standing behind him. At least I’m guessing it’s a he: I don’t know how you tell the difference with dragons.

  “Victor! Have you got the Portal?” the dragon demands.

  Portal? Was that the plastic doorway thing Cretin the Cruel was waving around? Dad said they had stolen it didn’t he?

  The dragon stretches out his leathery wings and flaps into the air, rising until he is at head height. He stares me in the eye, head tilted to one side. “Are you in there Victor? You are not acting like yourself.”

  Rats! Dad said I mustn’t let them know I’m not Victor or it will all go wrong! I have to be Victor. I have to be a fighting hero.

  “Er...” I begin. It’s not a very heroic start. “I am Victor.” Lame!

  “Yes,” says the dragon with a frown. “You are Victor.”

  Hey, maybe I’m better at this than I thought.

  “But what is wrong with you. Have you had a bang on the head?” he asks, flapping around to inspect the side of my head, where Cretin’s knife hilt had smashed into it.

  “That’s it! Bang on the head,” I manage.

  “Ok. We’ll take it one step at a time then. First thing, sit down; it’s not easy hovering in front of you!”

  I plonk myself on the floor. The dragon lands between my legs and says, “The most important thing is, have you got the Portal?”

  “That plastic thing? No. Cretin ran off down the tunnel with it.”

  “Blast!” he snaps. And he does! A tiny spurt of flame leaks out from between his teeth and scorches the stone floor between my legs. I shuffle back a bit on my bottom and drop my hands to protect my er…bits.

  “Right! Flint, you deal with the wererat, the rest of you get down that tunnel after Cretin,” the dragon snarls at the guards, who quickly carry out his orders.

  “Ok Victor, you can tell me what happened on the move. I don’t rate their chances of catching up with Cretin,” he says, waving a wing tip at the retreating backs of the guards chasing down the tunnel, “which means we have to get back up to the palace to plan for war!”

  War! What war?

  “If Cretin uses the Portal to unleash his Werebeast Army we’re in for a war to end all wars!” snarls the dragon, as if he had heard my thoughts. “And what War Council will be complete without you, Victor my old friend?”

  Old friend? This dragon seems to know me very well, or at least Victor, and I don’t even know his name. I try and think of some subtle way of asking.

  I fail.

  “Who are you?”

  The dragon frowns at me.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. “Bang on the head.”

  “I am Bunsen, head of Palace Security.” When I still look blank he adds with a sigh, “We go adventuring together, fighting goblins and trolls and raiding evil temples?”

  “Ah! Of course, Bunion!”

  “Bunsen!” snaps Bunsen with a frown.

  “Yes, Bunsen, my old friend!” I reach over and give him a hero style manly hug. It’s a bit awkward, what with all the wings and swords and knives and stuff in the way.

  When I release him Bunsen shakes out his crushed wings and nods. “Well, at least that’s a bit more like the gormless clot I’m used to,” he mutters. “Come on Victor, on your feet. You can tell me what happened on our way up to the palace, right from the point when that useless wizard teleported you off to block Cretin’s escape.”

  Getting to my feet I grab one of the flaming torches from the floor and we head off across the cavern, me taking huge strides with my massively long legs and Bunsen flapping along at head height. There’s horrible smelly black smoke coming off the torch, stinging my eyes and making me cough. I hold the torch higher, which helps a bit.

  I’m not sure what to tell Bunsen about my fight with Cretin. Dad said it’s important that everyone here believes I’m Victor and I’m not sure I acted much like the real Victor would have done. I think it was when I tried to make him act like me that it all went wrong!

  We’re most of the way across the cavern and about to enter a tunnel on the other side and I still haven’t said anything. Bunsen gives me another hard stare.

  “Victor, can you remember what happened?”

  Can’t remember! Brilliant: that’s always a good excuse! I decide to play on the bang on the head that everyone seems to think I’ve had. Probably best to work it in to my story right at the beginning, to cover up any non Victor like things I might have done.

  “It’s all a bit hazy,” I say. It’s a nice beginning I think, giving me lots of chances to dodge awkward questions. Now, how did Bunsen say Victor got here? Oh yes... “When the wizard teleported me...er...um... I think...ah! yes...I think I must have arrived upside-down.”

  “Pah!” interrupts Bunsen. “That sound about right! That wizard is useless. I mean, look what he did to me! Sorry, go on…”

  Wondering just what this wizard did do to him, I carry on with my tale as we enter the tunnel. “I...er...tried to twist around but...er...landed on my head! I was dazed and confused when Cretin and the other werebeasts came running across the cavern. That was how they managed to catch me. I managed to get the wererat but the others overpowered me. I think they were about to kill me when they heard you coming and fled.”

  “With the Portal…” grumbles Bunsen, spitting out flames and wisps of black smoke.

  “What is this Portal thing anyway?” I ask.

  Bunsen scowls at me. “How can you forget something so important!”

  “Er…bang on the head?”

  “It’s the Portal of Infinite Power,” he snarls.

  We stride and flap our way through the maze of tunnels for a few moments in silence.

  “And why is it so important,” I prompt.

  “You really did get a bang on the head didn’t you! The Portal is magical. It can open a doorway to anywhere!”

  “So?”

  “So?” Bunsen snaps. “So, Cretin will use it to open a doorway to Horrorville and march his Werebeast Army through. If we can’t stop him in time, the Fantasy Realm will be crushed beneath their marching feet and slashing claws!”

  The bloke from the message on dad’s Editor had said something about an army of werebeasts in the Horror Section hadn’t he? He had been worried that they might break out. Well, it looks like they’re going to break out here!

  We come to a jagged opening that looks like it’s been blasted through with dynamite or something. The tunnels so far have been hacked out of the rock, or maybe formed naturally, but as we step through the opening I can see that the walls of the passageway beyond are made of carefully cut stone blocks.

  Bunsen sees me looking curiously at the difference in the walls. “We’re in the cellars of the palace now. This must be where Cretin broke in to steal the Portal of Infinite Power,” he explains.

  “We’ll have to block it up or we’ll get all sorts of vermin wandering into the Palace from these tunnels,” says Bunsen, wrinkling his nostrils as if there’s a bad smell.

  “What, like rats and st
uff!” I exclaim, quickly scanning the floor to make sure there aren’t any about to scurry up my trousers.

  “Rats? No, these old cellars are stuffed full of rats and mice already; it’s only the flames from your torch keeping them hidden away.” This doesn’t reassure me much. “It’s dwarves that you’ve got to watch out for,” Bunsen continues. “Little blighters! It’s safe enough when they’re deep underground but give them a way into the Palace like this and they’ll nick all the beer and steal all the kids quicker than you can say, ‘We should have blocked up that hole!’.”

  “Steal all the kids?” I’m a little alarmed at this. “Do they use them as slaves or something?”

  “No, they eat them. A dwarven delicacy apparently. But you know all this already, Victor. I hope your memory comes back soon! Of course we probably won’t have to worry about the pesky dwarves soon,” he adds.

  “Why not,” I ask.

  “Because we’ll all be dead!”

  Not knowing what to say I force a grin and follow Bunsen as he leads us through a door and up some stairs, keeping an eye out for scurrying things and kidnapping dwarves hiding in the shifting shadows. My previous mental image of cheery, round faced, friendly dwarves is erased, replaced with creepy, shadow faced, leering dwarves, as we walk along dingy corridors, go through more doors and climb more stair, steadily making our way out of the cellars and dungeons under the Palace. I breathe a sigh of relief when we eventually reach a level where windows let daylight in and I can get rid of the stinky torch.

  We flap and walk along a couple of corridors lined with the sort of stuff you might expect to find in a palace; statues and paintings and suits of armour and the like. But then we turn down corridors of bare stone, passing harassed looking people burdened with bundles of laundry, trays of plates and cups and stuff. I’m guessing these must be the servants’ corridors.

  Squeezing past a servant with a tray of empty glasses we turn a corner, step around a wooden screen and find ourselves in a large hall, full of confused noise and din.