by Royston Wood
Chapter Six
War Council
In the hall before us there are maybe twenty people sat around an enormous U shaped table carved from stone. They are all dressed in what I think of as medieval clothes: variously coloured tunic tops, woollen tights on their legs, leather shoes or boots on their feet and capes draped over their shoulders or hanging over the backs of their wooden chairs. Notable exceptions to this are a striking looking figure with a golden crown and dressed in a purple robe, sat at the centre of the bottom of the U, and an older looking bloke with a huge drooping white moustache, who is sat on the right side of the U in full plate mail armour, a feather plumed helmet on the table top in front of him.
A man wearing a deep blue cape and a matching floppy cap, like one of those French hats but really big, is on his feet, gesturing with one hand as he shouts over the various arguments that seem to be going on around the table, “…your points are well made but the city must be our main priority! If the city falls, then the whole Fantasy Realm will be destroyed!”
The figure with the crown seems to be the only one not trying to make some point to all the other. He is sat in his chair with a deep furrow on his brow. When he sees Bunsen and me enter the hall he pushes himself to his feet and hammers his fist down on the table top so hard it makes the glasses on it jump.
“Silence!!” he bellows.
The racket in the hall stutters to silence and all eyes turn to the figure with the crown, the King I’m guessing, then, following his gaze, they turn to look at us.
“Victor!” exclaims the King, rising to his feet. “Did you stop them? Have you the Portal!?”
“No!” answers Bunsen on my behalf. “Cretin has escaped with the Portal.”
There are gasps and curses from all around the room. Immediately the shouting starts up again.
“Silence!” bellows the King again and the room falls reluctantly quiet once more. The King’s eyes move around the room, making eye contact with each person there, one at a time, as he continues, “It is not the news we wanted to hear but we must listen to it! Then we must plan what we can do.”
“We must protect the city! Without...” begins the man in the blue cape, springing to his feet.
“Mercator, sit down and be silent!” snaps the King. “You will get your say but we must listen to all. And we will start with Bunsen and Victor,” he says, nodding in our direction and gesturing that we should take the two remaining seats on the left side of the U.
We stride and flap over to our seats, although Bunsen lands on the table itself. Bunsen begins to relate our tale.
“I will not waste time with long words: Cretin has escaped. I have sent guards after him but fear that he has too much of a head start. In any event, there is a maze of tunnels down there that we knew nothing of. No doubt Cretin has explored them and knows exactly where he is going whereas the guards are likely to get lost.”
“Should we send more guards to help in the search?” queries the King.
“I fear it will be a waste of time, Your Majesty. I’m sure Cretin has a fast exit planned. I imagine that once he is clear of pursuit he will take the time needed to work out how to activate and control the Portal. Then he will simply step through a doorway to his stronghold, where he will be safe from immediate capture. Then he will open a doorway to Horrorville and the Werebeast Army will start to mass.”
There is a general rumbling and muttering at this but the King raises his arm for silence and asks, “Victor, what happened after Tim Armadillo teleported you to block Cretin’s escape?”
“Er...” I begin. I’m meant to be acting like Victor and it’s not very heroic. But then I’m not used to being asked questions by a King. I’ll have to stick to the same story I told Bunsen, which is mostly true anyway. “When I arrived in the tunnels I was upside down and landed on my head. Unfortunately it left me dazed and seems to have messed up my memory a bit. When Cretin and the other werebeasts attacked I was confused. I managed to get one of them but the others caught me. They were going to finish me off but Bunsen and the guards arrived and they ran off. Er...sorry?”
The King dismisses my, sort of, apology with a majestic wave of his hand. “It was a desperate plan in any event. Your odds were never good but Tim Armadillo could only send one and you were the obvious choice.”
“His odds would have been a lot better if he hadn’t been landed on his head,” mutters Bunsen. “Where is the wizard anyway?” he asks, looking around the faces at the table.
“He is in the Wizard’s Tower, preparing spells for the war,” responds the King. “And that also is what we must do. Sir Rosmarus, please update us with the standing of our own army.”
The man in the plate mail armour nods his head at the King and then rises to his feet. “My liege, the army is in good order. The moment the alarm was raised the garrisons were assembled and all is being prepared in readiness to march upon the enemy...”
The bloke in the blue floppy hat and cape - Mercator? - leaps to his feet. “March upon the enemy! We should defend the city walls! This is where our strength lies!” There is some rumbling of agreement from the people sat around him.
“Peace Mercator!” snaps the King, in a very un-peaceful way. “As head of the Guild of Merchants and Shopkeepers you will have your say in a moment. Sir Rosmarus, please continue...”
“My liege,” the knight says with a bow to the King and an angry glare at Mercator. “What our friend Mercator says is true,” he begins, almost growling the word friend. “We would be in more of a position of strength if we stayed in the city. The city walls would give us a great advantage in defending against the Werebeast Army.”
“So why this talk of marching out!” snaps Mercator.
“There are many reasons,” says Sir Rosmarus, stroking his long drooping moustache. The moustache makes him look like a walrus. Except that he isn’t huge and blubbery. And he doesn’t have flippers and a tail. And walruses don’t wear armour. Or have legs. Maybe he doesn’t look like a walrus.
“Firstly,” continues Sir Rosmarus, “our cavalry will be our best weapon against the werebeasts. Mounted on horseback they will be able to outmanoeuvre the enemy and will have an advantage of strength and speed. But not if they are stuck behind the walls of the city.”
“Possibly, but our archers will have fine target practice from the walls,” counters Mercator, to the murmured approval of his supporters.
“What about the people outside the walls?” asks Bunsen from beside me.
“Thank you, Bunsen,” says Sir Rosmarus with a nod in his direction. “That, indeed, is the second reason to march out. We also need to protect the people that are not in the city; the farmers, the fishermen, the forest workers, the miners and so on. If the army sits defending the walls of the city there will be nobody to stop the Werebeast Army ravaging the land and slaughtering the people.”
“We can bring them into the city!” snarls Mercator. Next to me, Bunsen rumbles deep in his chest.
“We could,” agrees Sir Rosmarus, “but the werebeasts will still ravage the land. They will burn the crops and kill the livestock. Then we will be stuck in the city with our food slowly running out.”
“We have vast supplies of grain and salted meats,” points out Mercator.
“Which will soon disappear with all the extra people in the city,” counters Sir Rosmarus.
“There is another factor to be taken into account,” wheezes a small figure huddled in a blue robe, seated to the right hand of the King. “The longer the Portal remains open, the more werebeasts Cretin the Cruel can bring through from Horrorville. Even as we speak werebeasts may be marching into the Fantasy Realm. If we simply defend the walls of the city and do nothing to stop him, his army may grow to such a size it will simply swarm over the city walls and crush us.”
“Caspar is correct, my liege,” agrees Sir Rosmarus. “We have to march in order to shut down the Portal. The longer we wait the
harder the task!”
“We don’t even know how big the Werebeast Army is,” counters Mercator. “There may be far fewer than we fear. Anyway, Cretin’s stronghold is twenty leagues away. The cavalry may move swiftly but the foot soldiers will take four days to cover that distance. By then the army will be too big to tackle in the field.
“Your Majesty,” continues Mercator, turning to the King, “our only chance is to defend the walls. If the land is ravaged we can restore it. But if the city is lost there will be no hope of returning order to the rest of the Fantasy Realm after the war. We will be left without a ruler, without law and without organisation. It is vital that the city is protected or we risk losing all that makes us civilised.”
The King manages a small smile at the obvious hint from Mercator that if the city isn’t protected then the King will be in danger. “Mercator, I suspect that as the richest man in the city it is your money and position that you would most like to protect.”
Mercator frowns at this and declares, “Your Majesty! I would give up every coin I have to assure your safety and the defence of the Realm.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Mercator, for the cost of providing silver weapons to all the soldiers is going to have to come from somewhere,” declares the King.
Mercator’s frown twists into a grimace.
“And whilst I appreciate your concern for my safety,” the King continues, “I can assure you that, if I decide the army is to march to war, I will not be left unprotected in the city: I will be marching with the army!”
“Your Majesty, is that wise?” asks a younger looking man in a silver grey, padded quilt jacket.
“Possibly not, Thomas, but I fear there may be no ‘after the war’ as Mercator puts it; at least not for us. And I cannot allow my army to go to war without me leading the way. But whether to march out and face Cretin in the field or to man the walls and defend the city: I am still undecided...”
Whilst listening to all of this my mind has been racing, trying to work out an answer to the problems. The city needs to be defended because that is where a lot of the people are and it’s where all the rules are made that organise the Fantasy Realm. But the people outside the city also need to be defended. If the army stays to defend the city they will have the advantage of the walls but they won’t be able to use one of their best weapons; the horse mounted cavalry. And with every passing moment more werebeasts could be swarming into Cretin’s stronghold, ready to ravage the land. But the foot soldiers cannot move fast enough to get to Cretin before he has built a huge army...
So, what we need to do is...
“I have it!” I suddenly find myself on my feet with everyone looking at me. What do I see in their eyes: despair, defeat, hope? All of them I think. My stomach tightens and my heart starts pounding. Under the weight of all those stares my mind grinds to a stop. “Er...”
I can’t dither now! I’ve got to be the brave, bald hero. Sorry - brave, bold hero. The image of me with a bald head makes me smile and my nerves fade away.
“It seems to me...” I shout. Victor’s voice is much louder than my own and his deep tones shake dust from the wooden rafters holding up the roof, high overhead. “It seems to me,” I say again in softer tones, “that the most important thing is to shut down this Portal thing as soon as possible. If we can do that then Cretin’s Werebeast Army will be small enough to defeat. But the army will not be able to get to Cretin’s stronghold for four days and by then the Werebeast Army will already be too big. In which case, it would be better to stay here and defend the city walls.”
“Yes, that is what I have been trying to...” begins Mercator before the King waves him to a stop.
“The problem with that,” I continue, “is it means Cretin will have nothing to stop him massing an army big enough to destroy the city anyway, as well as everyone outside.”
“Yes, yes! We know all this,” snaps Mercator. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Bunsen scowling at him, wisps of smoke leaking from his jaw. “But what do you propose we do about it!”
“Yes, Victor,” says the King, his elbows resting on the table and his hands steepled under his chin, as if in prayer, “what do you think we should do? I would welcome your advice.”
The stares from everyone around the table seem to be drilling into my head. It’s like being hit and I take a small step back, feeling unbalanced. Will my ideas work? Or will it lead to defeat?
“Er...well...I think we should attack Cretin and defend the city.” I pause to try and get my ideas lined up in my head, ready to say more, but Sir Rosmarus, thinking I have finished, gets to his feet with a clank of armour.
“My liege! With respect, I think Victor is more used to adventuring on his own or in a small group and does not grasp the tactics of fighting with an army. We do not have enough soldiers to march against Cretin and defend the walls of the city. The force on the march will be too small to deal with the Werebeast Army in the field and there will not be enough men left to defend the walls properly.”
“Noted Rosmarus. But I think Victor has more to say,” says the King, gesturing for Sir Rosmarus to sit.
“Er...yes your King, er...Majesty,” I stutter. Then more steadily, “The foot soldiers cannot get to Cretin’s stronghold fast enough to be able to defeat Cretin’s army. So, they should stay to defend the city. But the cavalry can ride much faster and could arrive at the stronghold before the Werebeast Army is too big.”
“Mmmm,” mutters the King. “It has merit. But will the cavalry be able to get there in time? Rosmarus?”
Sir Rosmarus sits for a moment, stroking his moustache in thought. “My liege, it will take the cavalry a full day to travel the distance,” he says. “I fear by then Cretin will already have amassed an army too large for the cavalry to deal with on their own, without the backup of the foot soldiers and the archers. It won’t work,” he concludes with a shake of his head.
“Wait!” I cry. “The final part of the plan is for me to try and sneak into Cretin’s stronghold and shut down the Portal before the Cavalry arrive. If I can do that then the Werebeast Army won’t be too big for the cavalry to beat!”
I’m pleased to see that the stares from around the table seem to be more full of hope than defeat now. Except for Bunsen, who is giving me a vicious glare.
“I hope you don’t think you’re sneaking off to battle Cretin without me!” he growls, scratching at the stone tabletop with his claws as he turns to confront me. “If you’re going on a suicide mission to save the Realm then I’m coming too!”
The King manages another small smile at the sight of a tiny dragon facing down the huge hero towering over him. Not that I feel much like a huge hero: I’m still Tyger Pants on the inside. And I hadn’t really thought of it as a suicide mission!
Still, I’ve just got to play along as Victor until dad turns up to the rescue. I quickly look around the room, hoping to see dad suddenly striding through a doorway or something. Come on dad, where are you?
“It is a good plan Victor,” says the King, dragging my attention back. I smile, feeling I might be getting the hang of being a hero. “And I can see it succeeding,” he continues. My smile broadens to a grin. “Except I don’t see how you are going to get to the stronghold before the cavalry, unless you can run faster than a horse.”
My shoulders sag. I hadn’t thought of that. How can I get to Cretin’s stronghold really quickly? Ooo..
“Can’t the wizard send me there by magic?” I ask.
“No,” says the King. “A wizard can only use each spell he knows once a day and he’s already used it to send you to stop Cretin escaping.”
“And we,” says Bunsen, stressing the we, “don’t want to arrive in the middle of Cretin’s growing army on our heads!” He snorts and a spurt of flame shoots from his jaws.
“Well, what about some other spell? Perhaps he could cast a spell on me...” I catch a warning glint in Bu
nsen’s eye, “...us that would make m...us run really fast or…”
“I am never going to let that buffoon cast a spell on me again! Not after the last time!!!” snaps Bunsen in a sudden rage. Hopping up and down, a full-on blast of flame roars out of his mouth and hammers into the table top, lifting him into the air.
There is a scraping of wood against stone as the chairs of those closest to him are hastily shuffled backwards. The blast doesn’t last long but as it dies away I can see a puddle of lava lying on the floor through the hole he’s just melted in the stone table.
Totally awesome! The heat was incredible and the way the blast of flame thrust Bunsen into the air was like a rocket or a jet plane!
Mmmmm? Like a jet plane?
“Hey! Bunsen why don’t you fly us to Cretin’s stronghold?”
“Don’t be stupid Victor, I’m only ten inches long!” snarls Bunsen.
“Oh yeh.”
For the first time the room is silent: I’m trying to think of a plan and everyone, even Mercator, seems to be in a stunned shock. The only noise is the plink, plink of the super-heated molten rock slowly cooling.
If only Bunsen wasn’t so small. “Bunsen, if you were bigger, would you be able to fly to the stronghold in time?” I query.
“What, you mean if I was the size of a normal dragon?” Bunsen snarls. “If I was the size of a proper dragon?!”
“Er…y-yes,” I stutter, feeling I might have said something wrong.
“Yes! Real dragons can fly like the wind,” Bunsen snaps. Then he sighs, his shoulders slumping. “I can barely manage a light breeze these days,” he mumbles, his head sinking towards the table top, where it disappears through the soot blackened hole.
“Your Kingliness,” I say turning to the King. “Could the wizard use his magic to make Bunsen big?”
“I am certain Tim Armadillo can do that,” says the King, rising swiftly to his feet. “Gentlemen, I approve Victor’s plan! He and Bunsen will go with all haste to the Wizard’s Tower and from there fly to Cretin’s stronghold in an attempt to shut down the Portal of Infinite Power. Rosmarus, you will mobilise the cavalry and I will lead them to the stronghold to confront Cretin’s Werebeast Army. Meanwhile you will command the rest of the army in the defence of the city. Mercator, it falls to you to organise bringing those outside the city within the walls for protection. Do we all understand what we need to do?”
There are various nods from around the room and the King dismisses us.
Bunsen is leading me from the room, presumably in the direction of the Wizard’s Tower, when the King calls out, “Victor! Bunsen! You have the most important part to play. The Portal must be shut down. If that fails we are all doomed!”
It’s not the most cheery thought to be taking with us.