Plob Fights Back

by Craig Zerf

  So instead, he thought.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Okay, let us assume a few basic rules that we all might agree on. I am confident in the assumption; that which is, is. And that which is not, is not. Therefore, that which is not, cannot be is, because it is not. Do we agree?’

  There was a general mumble of agreement amongst the argumentors.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Plakus. ‘It’s a basic form of Parmezaneez principle of what is and is not. Carry on.’

  ‘Right - So assume that what the opposite of what I want to say is true, say that the universe stopped existing as you said, is would therefore be is not. Is not cannot be is. That's a contradiction and therefore cannot exist. As a result, and this is actually blindingly simple, the only possible answer to your question is…a fish.’

  There was complete silence for at least a full minute and then one of the argumentors started to clap. Slowly the others joined in.

  Plob grinned. ‘So, can I go?’

  ‘Oh no, absolutely not,’ said Plako.

  ‘But everybody’s clapping.’

  ‘Yes, they are. But not on account of you being anywhere near correct. They’re clapping because you delivered your theory with such confidence. Panache is highly respected in the philosophical circles. However, your theory is a pile of poo.’ So, sword or axe?’

  ‘Sword or axe what?’

  ‘Unfortunately, the punishment for producing such a faecal theory is fatal.’

  ‘Sod that!’

  ‘Look, young man who definitely exists, you seem like a nice person and so on and so forth but rules is rules.’

  Plob’s heart started to hammer in his chest so hard that his whole body seemed to bounce up and down in sympathy. Then he noticed that Plako was also bouncing slightly up and down at the same time. Even the trees were jiggling to the self same rhythm.

  The ground next to Plob reared up to become the loam lord. ‘I’d lie down if I were you,’ he said.

  Plob needed no further instruction and fell to the floor.

  Trees were bent aside and a roaring, liken unto the sound of a tsunami smashing into Japanese whaling ship, reverberated across the forest. A hand the size of wagon descended, grasped Plakus and picked him up.

  ‘Any last words?’ Rumbled the owner of the vast hand.

  ‘Man will never be free until the last ruler is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.’

  A few of the argumentors who were running away paused briefly to clap.

  ‘Good one, Plakus.’

  ‘Way to go, ex-philosopher.’

  A massive hand squeezed. Plakus squealed briefly and then went limp and was dropped to the ground. Plob looked up at his saviour. Two legs the size of oak trees. A barrel of a body and two arms that were far too long to be in proportion. Atop the whole massive assembly was to be found a head of gigantic proportions and, in the centre of the forehead, one round eye.

  The massive being knelt down next to Plob and extended a finger for the young magician to shake. Plob did so.

  ‘Greetings young enemy of the despoilers. My name is Robert, I’m an Ogre and I shall be your rescuer today.’

  ‘Hi, Robert. I’m Plob. I shall be your rescuee. Many thanks. And thanks to you, my loam lord. I must admit, I thought that you had abandoned me.’

  ‘Of course not, I merely went to get help. Now let us proceed to the goblin village.’

  Plob shook fingers with Robert again and the ogre stomped off into the distance. Plob and Terrane continued on their way.

  Chapter 29

  Science officer Roti swung the accelerator gun over the table and pointed it at the sliver of fingernail that lay on the titanium protection plate. There was nothing unusual about the piece of fingernail. Mister Roti had clipped it off his left hand thumb earlier that day. He had spent the rest of the day with chief engineer Subji connecting the six weft motors in series as opposed to parallel in order to increase the power output to the woof drive by a factor of five.

  ‘Right, captain,’ said the science officer. ‘As you know, the way that we travel through space is via the expansion of the empty space behind the craft thereby creating a perceived forward movement that is faster than light even though we are unable to perceive the movement due to the fact that we have not actually moved in space at all.’

  ‘Roti, remember…five years learning to fly this massive piece of hardware. I know how to make it go but I have no actual idea why it does. That’s your job.’

  ‘Okay, I’m just laying the basics out here to avoid any misunderstandings. So, in order to achieve this we need to have access to horrific amounts of energy - basically equal to the mass-energy of a medium sized planet. Obviously we cannot carry a planet with us so what we did is create a tiny singularity or black hole that we keep in the woof drive.’

  ‘I’m getting bored, Roti.’

  ‘Hold on, captain, almost there. When we were caught in the random black hole that brought us here I think that it somehow reversed the polarity of the singularity in our woof drive.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Watch,’ said Roti. And he flicked a switch that powered up the accelerator gun.

  The fingernail shimmered and then…grew. It grew until it was at least ten times its original size and then stopped.

  ‘What just happened?’ Asked the captain.

  ‘What you have just seen, captain, is irrefutable proof that the people of this planet are not giants. They are the same size as us, however, we have been shrunk by the reversed polarity caused by our excursion through the black hole.’

  Captain Bhature stood up out of his seat. ‘By all the gods, Roti. Does this mean that you can make us normal sized again?’

  ‘Theoretically, sir. But it took all of the power that we have to revert a small sliver of fingernail. I have no idea how we can raise enough power to revert the entire ship.’

  ‘Well work on it, my friend. Work on it.’

  ‘Aye aye, captain.’

  Spice pulled Plob hard up against her and squeezed. ‘You came.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Plob.

  Smudger held out his hand and Plob took it. ‘Well done for finding us, commander.’ Said the fighter pilot. ‘Did you bring a dragon?’

  ‘Actual, Smudger, I’ve made a bit of a cock up of the whole rescue mission thing. I brought a dragon but it’s more than a little dead. Bits and pieces all over the forest actually. Bastards jumped me as I got here. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Not a problem. I’m sure that we can make some sort of plan,’ said Spice as she snuggled up against Plob and purred like a cat.

  At the edge of the village clearing Farticus and a number of other dominatus level goblins were talking to lord Terrane. Plob noticed that the goblins were treating the loam lord with a respect that seemed to border on actual worship.

  Terrane saw Plob looking at him. The loam lord raised his hand, waved, and then abruptly disintegrated. Gone.

  The group of dominatus level goblins walked over to Plob, their faces serious.

  ‘Greetings commander Plob, I am Farticus.’

  ‘Greeting, Farticus,’ said Plob with a commendably straight face.

  ‘We have spake with the loam lord and he has commanded us. He has tasked us to stop hiding in the forests and to take fight to the despoilers. And, as he is our lord, we must obey, even though the mere thought of leaving the forest causes us great fear and sadness.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Plob. ‘So Terrane is a big deal around here? I thought that you guys were more into trees.’

  ‘Terrane is the loam. Without loam there are no trees. Without trees - no forest. He is our lord and saviour. So - we shall fight.’

  ‘Works for me,’ said Plob. ‘The more enemies that the Vagoths have, the better for us. Is there any way that we can help?’

  ‘On the contrary, commander, we must help you. How do you propose to get back to your kingdom?’

  ‘At the moment, not that sure, to be honest.’

 
; ‘The loam lord suggested that you steal some dragons from the Vagoths. Would you be able to fly them?’

  ‘Sure. But how do we get them?’

  ‘We will supply you with a guide. As well as this we plan to create a diversion whilst you are sneaking in. We are sure that it can be done successfully.’

  ‘Sounds good. When?’

  ‘Rest tonight, we plan to attack at first light. Commander, you can sleep in my abode with your lady. Middle class Smudger will be given an alternative place to slumber. Now, people, let us to bed.’

  Chapter 30

  Belief creates things.

  Real things.

  Father Christmas exists, ask any six year old. So does the Easter Bunny. And the bogeyman and the snakes that live under the bed. When we were young we could see their footsteps, they ate our mince pies and we heard them snuffling around the room when we had our head under the blanket.

  Then we grew older we no longer believed. There are no longer any footprints, we buy our chocolate eggs from a supermarket and we sleep with the lights off.

  Lack of belief can destroy things. No more Father Christmas. No more Easter bunny. No more Bogeyman. But they are never truly gone. They are still there, in the very back of our minds. Waiting.

  And in the dark recesses of the minds of the cave-dwelling goblins lurked some very ancient beliefs that were being brought to the fore by Typhon’s mass-sacrificing program. These were, the beliefs in the old ones. Those primeval beings that came before the gods. Those who were always there. The holy goblin trio.

  Nyx; the god of night.

  Nerus; the god of light.

  Norgam; the god of all the other bits, including social faux pas, bodily functions, words that rhyme with orange, the infinite universe and fresh milk for the tea.

  And so did the belief build up and the sun did set and the eldritch wind of creation did blow through the forest, feeding on newfound faith.

  ‘Brrr,’ said the Oak tree. ‘Didn’t fancy that wind much. Did you feel that?’

  ‘Yep,’ answered the evergreen. ‘Felt eldritch it did.’

  ‘Exactly what I thought,’ said the Oak. ‘Arthur, I said, that feels decidedly eldritch that does.’

  ‘Who’s Arthur?’

  ‘Me,’ answered the Oak. ‘I’m Arthur.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since yesterday, if you must know. I’m sick of just being, Oak. You know how confusing it gets? There must be over twenty thousand of us in this forest alone. All answering to the same name. So, I says to myself, why don’t you give yourself a name I says. So, Arthur it is.’

  ‘Arthur’s a silly name for a tree.’

  ‘Well, excuse me. What would you use?’

  ‘I don’t know. Woody. Planky. Mister Timber.’ The wind blew again. ‘Ooh, Arthur, I’m scared.’

  ‘Don’t be evergreen, it’s just a wind.’

  ‘Arthur?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hold me.’

  In the background a small Spruce sniggered.

  Farticus woke the three flyers well before dawn, handing them each a cup of steaming chestnut coffee, a liquid as bitter as a critics ravings and a strong as over-ripe Stilton.

  The clearing was full of goblins, all dressed in similar combinations of leather armour with jerkins of fish-scale steel mail. Instead of swords they favoured large curved daggers. There were some archers but the main carried either slings or three-foot long blowpipes that discharged poisoned darts.

  Farticus unrolled a parchment and laid it on the ground. He used his dagger to point.

  ‘Here are the dragon pens, on the West side. As you can see, there is a large barracks building on the East side. We aim to attack the barracks, thereby distracting the flyers from your endeavours. We will set fire to the buildings and then retreat back into the forest. Quick in, quick out. You will need to approach from the West, so will travel a separate route from the rest of us. To ensure that you don’t get lost I have organised you a guide.’

  A young goblin stepped forward. Unlike the others he was dressed in a plain brown jerkin with brown leather trews. He wore a wide baldric over his left shoulder and in it were slotted a selection of throwing knives.

  ‘Hello, my name is Eeeek!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Smudger. ‘Eeeeeeek?’

  The goblin gave Smudger an odd look. ‘No, Eeeek! Eeeeeek is the feminine version. If I had a sister she might be called Eeeeeek! I am simply Eeeek!’

  ‘Sorry, old chap,’ apologised Smudger. ‘Do you mind if we just shorten it to Eek? Much simpler.’

  ‘Actually I do mind. Eek is simply the onomatopoeic version of a scream. It’s like calling someone Argh or Ouch. Bloody silly.’

  ‘Right Eeeek!’ Said Plob. ‘Now that’s all sorted, I am commander Plob, this is Spice, the slightly confused gentleman is Smudger. Pleased to meet you, what’s our next step?’

  ‘Simple. We go to the base, wait for the attack, sneak in, steal dragons, you go, I go, happy days.’

  Lead the way,’ said Plob.

  Count Wolfgang Peesundbakon downed the glass of schnapps and poured himself another. ‘My dear Pieter Spittleundflem,’ he said. ‘I would never say anything against the Fuhrer, all that I am saying is, we are fighting a war on two fronts.’

  ‘Pah, hardly. A bunch of rock-riding hippies and a gaggle of amateur dragon flyers. I’d say one-and-a-half fronts at most.’

  ‘Well, those one-and-a-half fronts have razed two of our garrison fortresses to the ground, levelled the palace and killed over twenty of our dragons in their pens.’

  ‘But now, my count? The hippies are hiding in the hills and we shot down the last batch of amateurs that dared to violate our air space. As soon as the army can collect enough goblins together for the mass-sacrifice then we shall pour through the divide and overwhelm our enemies. After that, we come back here and burn the hippies to hell and back. End of story.’

  ‘Still…’

  The door to the mess burst open and Hienz Beenz ran in. ‘Kaptein Peesundbakon!’

  ‘What is it, Heinz?’

  ‘We’re under attack, sir.’

  ‘Rockriders?’

  ‘No, my kaptein. Goblins.’

  Count Peesundbakon jumped to his feet. ‘Arm yourselves people, quickly, to the walls.’

  The flyers left the mess at a run, booted feet crashing in the wooden floors. As soon as they got outside they could hear the sounds of men screaming and dying. Sheets of arrows and a hailstorm of stones poured over the walls with dreadful accuracy.

  ‘To the walls. Return fire. Sound the bugle.’

  The young bugler started to blow, the call to arms rang, loud and urgent, across the encampment. Hundreds of flyers and soldiers ran to the walls and started firing back with bow and crossbows.

  A small flask of lamp oil with a burning rag stuffed into the neck sailed over the wall and burst against the barracks. Immediately another twenty or thirty followed. The fire spread quickly, flames dancing high into the still morning air.

  Eeeek! Held his hand up and the three flyers came to a halt. The goblin pointed.

  ‘The fires have started. We must move quickly now.’

  They all broke into a fast trot.

  Private Albret Pawksosaje and private Gurted Schmaltzunpikel were watching the fight from the relative safety of the dragon pens. Both were eating sandwiches the size of a shoebox.

  ‘Ooh,’ said Albret, through a mouthful of sauerkraut and pigs knuckles. ‘What’s that?’ He pointed at a new explosion that lit up the sky with flames of blue and green.

  ‘Must be the schnapps stores,’ answered Gurted. ‘That’ll teach the officers for storing all their booze instead of drinking it like normal people do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Albret. ‘What’s the point of having twenty year old schnapps when the stuff we brew ourselves fresh out of the still works just as well.’

  ‘If it doesn’t make you go blind.’

  ‘Well, yes. There
is that. Of course the blindness is an unwelcome side effect but that hardly ever happens.’

  ‘Much anymore.’

  ‘Yep, much…anymore.’

  ‘Apart from private Skudunkle last week.’

  ‘Good old “Two-patches”. Mind you, he’s on light-duties now on account of his new perception problem.’

  ‘Lucky bastard.’

  ‘Oy, you.’

  The two privates turned to face Eeeek! and the three flyers.

  ‘Oh bugger,’ said Albret.

  ‘Right, fat boys,’ said Eeeek! ‘Up against the wall.’

  Albret looked puzzled. ‘I’m not fat.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Gurted. ‘He’s just big boned.’

  ‘Shut it, fatty.’

  ‘Hey, what’s with all the cacomorphobic talk?’ Asked Gurted. ‘Just because a guy’s a little stout there’s no need to get all insulting.’

  Plob could see that Eeek! was starting to lose control of the situation so he stepped in. ‘Gentlemen, if you could both draw your swords, drop them on the floor in front of you and step back, I am sure that I can persuade the goblin, who doesn’t like fat people, to refrain from throwing a knife into your eye.’

  ‘Can we keep our sandwiches?’ Asked Albret.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Two rusty, notched swords clanged to the floor and two stout soldiers stepped back a pace.

  ‘Well done,’ said Plob. ‘Now, we are the enemy and we are here to steal three dragons. If you do as you are told and no harm comes to us then I promise that no harm shall come to you either. Understood?’

  Two heads nodded and eight chins wobbled.

  ‘Do you think that you can help us to saddle up three dragons?’

  Nod. Wobble.

  ‘Well then, lead on.’

  The two Vagoths trundled down the length of the corridor and into the main pens, both still munching on their industrial sized comestibles.