Plob Fights Back

by Craig Zerf

  The loam lord reared up out of the sod. ‘It is over,’ he said.

  ‘We know,’ said the gods in unison.

  ‘Are you guys going to always say things together like that?’ Asked the loam lord.

  ‘We speak as one unless we are not together,’ said the three that were once one.

  ‘Well…it’s pretty irritating.’

  ‘We know that,’ chorused the trinity. ‘And now we need to know, who else is fighting against the despoilers?’

  ‘The trees have heard, via their twitter network, that the rockriders of the Rohan have been on the warpath. Initially they were successful but have now been pinned down by the Vagoth dragon corps.’

  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, stepped forward. ‘I shall travel to see them.’

  ‘How will you get there?’ Asked the loam lord.

  ‘I am a god. I shall get there by simply being there.’

  He disappeared.

  There was a gasp from the surrounding goblins. Truly their gods were all powerful.

  Then he appeared again.

  ‘Sorry, forgot to ask for directions. Where actually are the rockriders?’

  ‘Like far out, man,’ said Halcyon as he turned to the Honcho. ‘Hey, check out the grey dude, Honcho, he like, just appeared, man.’

  ‘Take me to your leader,’ ordered Norgam.

  ‘Sure, grey dude, like, here he is.’ Halcyon pointed at the Honcho.

  ‘I am Norgam; the goblin 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.’

  ‘You are welcome here, Norgam,’ greeted the Honcho. ‘However, and I don’t want to come over all fascist, man, but these are frantic times, you dig, so, how do we know that you’re a god?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Halcyon. ‘Like you gotta show us that being a god is your bag, man.’

  Norgam looked at the rockriders for a while. And then he spoke. ‘What rhymes with orange?’

  ‘Hey,’ said Halcyon. ‘I, like, know this one, man. Nothing rhymes with orange, it’s like, non-copasetic with other words.’

  ‘There is a part of a fern,’ said Norgam. ‘That is called a sporange.’

  Halcyon stared in wonder. ‘Orange…Sporange. Hey, grey dude, you are a god.’

  ‘Yes, and we need to talk.’

  And so Halcyon told Norgam about how he discovered that the Vagoths were kidnapping entire settlements of goblins and how the rockriders decided to do war upon them as a result. He told of the rockriders’ early successes, their following failures and their latest achievements vis-à-vis the new camouflage sheets.

  Norgam related the tales of the goblin attack whereby Plob and his fellow flyers had stolen some Vagoth dragons and the consequent retributory raid by the once-proud-but-now-defunct-due-to-all-being-dead ninth legion.

  ‘But one thing that we can’t figure out, grey god dude,’ said Halcyon. ‘Is why the Vagoths are taking away all the little green dudes?’

  And, in as far as a grey-faced, huge black-eyed, no nostril, tiny-mouthed entity can look sad - Norgam did. ‘They are killing my people. Sacrificing them to the dark powers.’

  ‘Whoa, grey god dude,’ said Halcyon. ‘That’s like, super gnarly.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed the Honcho. ‘Bummer to the extreme max.’

  ‘What they, like, sacrificing the little green dudes for, man?’

  ‘They have declared war on Plob’s people and in order to cross the divide between here and there they need power. This power can only be gained through the sacrifice of a living being. The more sentient the being the more power gained. In fact, very soon, perhaps only days away, the Vagoth leader is going to perform a mass sacrifice. Perhaps as many as one thousand goblins. By doing this he will garner sufficient power to take over six hundred dragons across the divide. Plob and his people will be annihilated.’

  ‘This is seriously hairy, grey god dude,’ said Halcyon. ‘I say we split from here and go and give this Vagoth scuzz a beating and save all the little green dudes.’

  ‘Your concern is commendable, rockrider, however, the Vagoth flying corp would destroy you.’

  ‘They wouldn’t see us until we were almost there. Our new camo is truly righteous, man.’

  ‘And the moment that they did see you and you were attacked by six hundred dragons?’

  Halcyon thought for a moment. ‘Well, in that case they would pound us like a group of panty-waisters at a meat fascists BBQ.’

  ‘Exactly - there is no possible way that we can win against Vagoth air superiority.’

  ‘So what do we do, grey god dude?’

  ‘We do the hardest thing that there is…we do nothing. The sacrifices will be made and the Vagoth flyers will be dispatched. And then we shall fall upon the Vagoth army like the wrath of gods. We shall burn their city to the ground, we shall kill every last one of them and then we shall sow their fields with salt and drive away their cattle and poison their wells. When the flyers return there will be nought here for them. They shall be forced to live in a vacuum. No shelter, no food for flyers nor dragons and no water. They will not last a week.’

  ‘Grey god dude, that’s like, seriously cold, man. I like it not. It’s way harsh.’

  ‘Halcyon, my son,’ said the Honcho. ‘Remember, those who turn their swords into ploughs will ultimately end up ploughing for those who don’t.’

  ‘It is the only way that we can scour this place clean of the Vagoth stain,’ said Norgam. ‘So what I need you to do is to get your riders as close as possible to the Vagoth city without being detected. Then wait, you will know when the time comes to strike.’

  Halcyon nodded his agreement although his heart was heavy with sadness because he knew that, at the end of it all, one could no more win a war than one could win an earthquake.

  Chapter 34

  London. 13th November 1940.

  The Prime Minister rolled the Cuban cigar between his fingers before he put it to his lips and lit up. On his desk in front of him lay a paper flimsy. Across the top, stencilled in bold red in were the words ‘Bletchley Park - Top Secret.’

  He reread it. Again.

  It was short and succinct. ‘On the 13th of November approximately five hundred and fifty German bombers are scheduled to hit the town of Coventry. They will strike at nightfall.’

  And that was it. Two simple lines that had been decoded by the backroom boys using the newfangled Enigma-decryption techniques.

  Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill knew exactly what he would do. He would contact 12 Group commander Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Acting Squadron Leader Douglas Bader to get their big wing into the air and see off any attack on the West Midlands city.

  He picked up the phone.

  He put it down.

  If he did that then the Germans would know that the Brits had broken their codes. They would reprogram their blasted Enigma machines and that would be that. No more information. No edge. No advantage. But if he didn’t hundreds of innocent people would die. Women. Children.

  He picked it up again.

  He put it down.

  Could he afford to be a humanitarian? Was it not his job, as the leader of a country at war, to be utilitarian?

  He picked up the phone again.

  He dialled.

  ‘Hello, John. Bring the car around. I’ll be travelling to London immediately.’

  That evening 515 German bombers hit Coventry. Over 600 people were killed and over two thirds of the historic city was levelled.

  In 1945 Winston Churchill went on record to say, the fact that the allies kept secret the breaking of the Enigma code hastened the end of the war by at least two years.

  Chapter 35

  They say that in war the waiting is the hardest part. This is not true. Dying is the hardest part. Waiting is just…we
ll, waiting.

  Biggest sat next to his bundle of arrows and read a letter from home.

  Dear Son - this is your mother.

  Just a few notes to let you know I am still alive. I am

  writing this slowly because I know you can't read fast.

  You won't know the house when you come home... we moved.

  Your sister Bigeena, had a baby this morning. I haven't heard yet whether it's a boy or a girl, so I don't know whether you're an aunt or an uncle.

  We are all very proud of you and your brothers.

  Please try not to die.

  Mama xxxx

  Master Smegly was grey with exhaustion. He had maintained a magical watch on the inter-dimensional fluxes now for three days and nights without sleep. And he knew one thing for certain. The sacrifices had started. It was no longer days but hours away.

  He watched and he waited.

  Science officer Roti and chief engineer Subji had also spent over seventy hours awake, struggling against all odds to find a way of creating enough energy to reverse the polarity of their singularity driven size reversal.

  They worked and they waited.

  Plob stood in front of his team of dragon riders. His friends. They were the best of the best. He had told them that they were about to face unbeatable odds. He had told them that death was a certainty. And he had told them that they could leave and go home without any stain on their characters. Not one of them had left.

  They stood and they waited.

  And the sun rose as red as the blood of saints, lightning rent the air and storm clouds did billow and mock the light as darkness came.

  The darkness of over six hundred dragon’s wings blotting out the sun.

  Plob shook hands with each dragon rider before they mounted up. He gave special thanks to the spitfire pilots who, through no fault of their own save their bravery, were going to die again.

  ‘Smudger.’

  ‘Plob.’

  ‘Jonno.’

  ‘Plob.’

  ‘Belter.’

  ‘Plob.’

  ‘Rufin.’

  ‘Do not fear, my friend,’ said Rufin. ‘We can only do what we can and no more. Always remember; the brave may not live forever - but the cautious never live at all.’

  ‘Rufin - you can talk.’

  ‘Of course I can. Surely you didn’t actually think that a man could learn every word in the English language and then not have a clue on how to string at least a few of them together?’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘At the beginning of the war…the last one that I was in, not this one…I lost all of my friends. I vowed never to make friends again and so decided to never speak and thus, never communicate. But, as you can see, it didn’t work. Here, around me now, are my dearest friends. Goodbye, Plob, and good luck.’

  Rufin walked over to his dragon and mounted up.

  Finally, Plob hugged Spice. It was brief. They did not kiss. There was no need; they both knew how they felt.

  Plob climbed onto his dragon and clipped on his communication crystal. ‘Right, chaps, you know the drill. We climb hard and fast, come at them from out of the sun and don’t fire until you see the dandruff on their shoulders. And, in the words of Smudger - relax, no pushing, I’m sure that there’s enough of them for everyone.’

  The last dragon riders of Maudlin took off and headed towards the enemy.

  Chapter 36

  Halcyon led the way.

  Ten thousand rockriders of Rohan thundered down on the city of the Vagoths. The Honcho had put the colts on the flanks and the larger Bulwarks in the centre. The idea was to encircle the city bar a small escape route on the South side. But waiting behind screens of grass and wood were two thousand goblin slingers and archers who would quickly dispatch anyone who took the obvious escape route.

  And standing on a hill overlooking the attack were the three goblin gods.

  Halcyon heard the alarms sounding in the city. Bells ringing and bugles blowing. Before the rockriders were within a hundred yards of the walls, a rain of arrows began to fall on them. Thousands of yard long, steel tipped messengers of death. But each rider was equipped with a stout wooden shield that they held above their heads. The thud of arrows slamming into wood carried across the plains like the sound of a great hailstorm. Some of the riders went down but not many.

  The Bulwarks struck the wall like a herd of wrecking balls. Cracks appeared in the stone and the Bulwarks pulled back and struck again. And again.

  But the walls of the city were thick and strong and had stood for over three hundred years.

  Halcyon was on the verge of sounding the retreat when an orgy of lightning rampaged across the walls. Chunks of super-heated stone flew into the air and massive fissures materialised in the walls. Halcyon glanced up at the hill and saw the goblin gods, arms above their heads, surrounded by a pulsating glow of blue-white energy. As he watched them, they collapsed to the ground and the lightning stopped.

  ‘Charge!’

  The Bulwarks smashed through the remains of the wall en masse. Halcyon crushed a house in his path, his bow ready with arrow notched. But there was no resistance. It seemed as though the defenders on the wall were the only ones.

  Halcyon waved his arms ever his head. ‘Hold,’ he shouted. The riders halted. He beckoned to two of the riders on each side of him. ‘Something’s, like, not right here. Where’s the huge Vagoth army? Like, where are all the defenders, man? You two follow me. The rest of you dudes stay here and stay frosty, okay? Be ready.’

  The three Bulwarks trundled down the main street, as they approached the main square the sounds of cheering could be heard, and a brass band. The Bulwarks trundled into the main square to be greeted with the sight of thousands of civilians and military personnel who had discarded their tunics and insignia and weapons. People were singing and shouting.

  And, along the one wall of the square, stood three gibbets. Hanging from lengths of hemp were three bodies. A grotesquely obese man in a powder blue tunic, a dwarven hunchback and, what appeared to be a support system for a pair of eyebrows the size of hedgehogs. They were all patently dead.

  Two extremely stout men brandishing foot-long sandwiches approached Halcyon.

  ‘Greeting, noble rider of rocks. I am Gurted and this is my companion, Albret. Oh great rejoicing and happiness for you have helped to liberate the city. As you can see, we have already meted out punishment to the leaders most vile.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Albret. ‘Never again shall man keep his schnapps for many years in a barrel whilst the working classes are forced to drink theirs straight out of the still.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ shouted a man with a patch over each eye and holding a white stick. ‘Death to the vintage schnapps drinkers. Down with officers. Blind people rule.’

  Gurted held up a sandwich to Halcyon. ‘Would you like a sandwich. It’s pork knuckle and sour cabbage. Very nice.’

  ‘No, man. I don’t eat pork,’ answered Halcyon as he tried to work out what schnapps had to do with a mass hanging.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know, man. I just don’t dig on swine. Listen, where’s your leader? Why isn’t he doing the hemp fandango?’

  Gurted shrugged. ‘The Fuehrer has departed. When the lightning struck the walls he conjured a magik and he was gone, like a craven rabbit. Not even bacon?’

  ‘Down with craven, vintage schnapps drinking, rabbits,’ shouted the blind man who seemed to have lost his grip on reality along with his eyesight.

  ‘No, not even bacon. So who’s in charge?’

  ‘I love bacon,’ shouted two-patches. ‘It gives me a lardon.’

  ‘I think that Albret and I are. Are you sure you won’t have a pig knuckle sandwich? It’s got home made mustard on. Very good.’

  ‘I can see, I can see…oh, wait. No I can’t,’ said two-patches as he fell over his white cane.

  Halcyon shook his head and then looked around. People were throwing flower petals from the
higher buildings. A multi-coloured, multi-scented rain of joy scattered across the city.

  And Halcyon knew there would be no razing of cities. There would be no poisoning of wells and driving off of cattle and sowing of fields with salt. He had no idea what would happen when the dragon flyers returned but he did know that, at this very moment, there needed to be talk of peace and reconciliation as opposed to talk of hostility and bloodshed.

  He climbed down off his Bulwark and shook Gurted by the hand. ‘Thank you for your greeting, Gurted. Now, we need to talk.’

  Chapter 37

  The air was full of fire.

  About two hundred Vagoth heavies had peeled off from the main flight and were firebombing the city. Biggest and his entire air defence system had created a cloud of fury, throwing arrow after arrow until there must have been upward of two thousand in the air at the same time. Vagoth dragons screamed and squealed as they fell from the sky, riddled with wood and steel. But there were too many. Balls of burning plasma scoured the city, torching buildings and people alike.

  Plob and his riders flew like they had never flown before. They had one small advantage in that, pretty much anything in front of them could be considered the enemy so they fired at will. Vagoth dragons were flying into each other and blasting each other out of the sky as the melee degenerated into a massive orgy of aerial destruction.

  Belter was the first Spitfire pilot to go down, hit three times by as many enemies, he pin-wheeled out of the sky and exploded as he hit the ground. Two Maudlin riders followed soon after.

  Science officer Roti gabbed engineer Subji by the shirtfront and smashed him into the wall.

  ‘They are dying out there. Look. Dying - all of them. So do it. It’s the only chance that they have.’

  ‘But Roti, if we reverse the polarities by hard wiring the woof engines and reversing the urge power there is every possibility that we shall simply cease to exist.’