by Adam Clark
“Do you have any idea of where we’re actually going?” Grigor asked Napalm over the howling blizzard. The pair were both dressed normally, Grigor with his suit and fur cloak wile Napalm wore the traditional pirate garb. The rest of the group, however, were all wearing thick bright parkas with fur hoods held up close over their faces. The Ty-rap-o-saurus had to cut a hole in the back of his parka to accommodate his dinosaur tail.
They were somewhere in the wintry wastes of the ice planet Tarth, around 40 clicks north of the quick-stop that was the only settlement on the planet. They’d anchored the ship to the surface and it was currently floating high above the storm cloud.
“I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure where we are. I told you earlier, I’m just going on a hunch!” Napalm shouted back over the blizzard.
“You guys had better work out were we’re going soon before I get seriously angry!” Illana called out from inside the dark hollow provided by her hood. Grigor and Napalm looked at each other.
“I reckon we should probably figure out where we’re going… sooner rather than later” said Napalm.
“I agree. You know what, we’ll head back to the ship and re-think our plan. Which way was it?” Grigor looked around at the group and noted the silence. “No one was checking which way we’d come?”
“I thought you were doing that” Chainsaw boy shaped parka pipped up.
“Aw, come on, that’s the least original novel device ever! Whatever, we’ll go, um… “Grigor spun round and pointed in a random direction “this way!” He set off into the blizzard, quickly disappearing in the wall of white. The rest of the group hurried after him to keep up.
They walked arbitrarily through the deep blizzard, never entirely certain of where they were actually going, just stumbling for what seemed like an eternity. Grigor ploughed right on through curtain after curtain of snow. Chainsaw–Boy was a little bit confused by the whole situation, he was sure he didn’t see a blizzard from the sky where they drew anchor.
“Grigor, Napalm” he called out to the two darkened shapes a little way in front of him, they clarified into two people as he got closer. “I didn’t see this blizzard earlier, could something be up? It seems awfully suspicious that it would just roll in like this.” Napalm had turned around to address him while Grigor stopped looking into the whiteness.
“It’s the Ice-Wolf, Grigor and I can both feel his magic.” Grigor nodded, still looking ahead. “It’s entirely possible that he’s playing with us, or it’s a test. We just have to carry on until we find something out here. If it’s any consolation, even if we’d remembered where the ship was, we wouldn’t be able to find it, this is strong magic.” Grigor looked over his shoulder and interjected.
“We’d best head on now, I doubt the Wolf will kill us in this blizzard, but you guys will stay warmer by moving, and we’ll get to wherever we need to go a bit quicker.” He swung about and carried on the relentless march while Illana and the Ty-rap-o-saurus caught up.
“Man, this shit is freezing yo, you hear me! F-ree-zing.” Out of all of them, being cold blooded meant that the Ty-rap-o-saurus felt the cold the worst. His suit had special warming coils that were charged by a battery hung around a chain on his neck. Even out in the terrible weather he was still wearing sunglasses and a cap.
They carried on walking for another hour, filled with cold trudging and vocalised begrudging, until the wall of white turned a lot darker, and they walked directly into the mouth of a huge cave.
“That’s really weird” Chainsaw-Boy said, “it feels, not like I’ve personally done this before, but like someone else I’m linked to has done this before. Sort of like psychic déjà vu.” Everyone shook the snow out of their hoods and hair before giving Chainsaw-Boy a ‘you are weird’ glare. Under the pressure of his break from deemed normality he added, “just ignore that, I must be going snow crazy, more talking to myself, you know. ”
The cave had a deep blue hue in its ambient light, it was made entirely of ice, such a pure ice that the walls looked like deep sapphires. The cave wasn’t very deep, and quickly hollowed out into a medium sized circular room, with a raised circular pedestal in the middle. On top of this sat a very large white wolf.
“What business do you intend to conclude on Tarth humans?” The wolf said. It sat tall and proud,it’s streamlined coat shone with a gloss that could only be produced by a magical creature and as it spoke, the troupe caught flashes of incredibly sharp teeth.
“We are after the 3rd piece of awesome, the cajones of Ice-Wolf.” Grigor said, taking a step forward and standing in front of the pedestal, looking up at the wolf. “Can you help us with this?”
The wolf looked down with an air of indignation, “no, I cannot. I sense you already hold the spirit of the barbarian king, but you are not Argennon. Explain this.”
“Argennon is dead, Volkang was resurrected and killed him, and he has the Dragon Heart.”
“I see, well giving you the cajones is not simple…” The wolf stopped, sniffed and looked down, slightly agitated. He quickly returned to sitting up proudly and curled his tail around his feet. “You, pirate, step forward, I have a feeling I know you but I cannot place you.” The wolf was slightly alarmed, he was one of the most powerful creatures in the universe and was very wise, but he just could not remember this pirate. The wolf’s knowledge was never in question, so what was happening here?
“Yes, you know me, Ice-Wolf. But my scent changes century to century, I’m not surprised you don’t remember me.” He paused for effect. “My name is Napalm, and I raised you.”
The wolf eyed him suspiciously from his pedestal. He jumped down to the snow covered ground of the cave, and ran on all fours over to Napalm. He sniffed the air round the pirate, and circled him twice.
“You are the one who raised me.” The wolf said, sitting down in front of him. The wolf’s head was level with his shoulders, and he stared into him with ice blue eyes. “In this case, I will help you out. But first I need to explain the cajones, and how they work.”
The wolf turned around, agile and quick, and jumped back up on to the pedestal. On top of the pedestal he returned to his proud sitting position. “It’s true that the cajones are one of the 5 Pieces of Awesome. But they are not like the others, they cannot be passed from creature to creature, like the spirit or the soul, neither are they real objects, like the Dragon Heart or the motorbike. Thecajones are a manifestation of bravery and courage, so they are not transferred but earnt.” He bent his head low to the ground sniffed, then looked back up and appeared to see something outside of the cave.
“Very odd,” he mused to himself, “it can’t be connected, but, the timing...”
Grigor took a step forward. “What are you talking about? How do we earn the cajones?”
“I think the universe is answering your question.” The wolf replied, looking down on the group. Without warning, the ground started to shake. Illana and the Ty-rap-o-saurus both fell over, more due to the tiredness instilled in them by the hours of intense cold. Grigor pulled out his sword by instinct and spun around, before realising he couldn’t stab an earthquake, Napalm and Chainsaw-boy both stumbled but managed to stay upright. The wolf however, did not move an inch throughout the few seconds of the floor moving. The blue ice walls held up strongly against the violent movement of their foundations.
“I didn’t realise they have earthquakes on this planet” Illana said, standing back up once the rumbling had stopped.
“We don’t” said the wolf from atop his pedestal.
“Then what was that?” The Ty-rap-o-saurus asked.
“The third Giant.” Another rumble shook through the ice cave.
“That can’t be. There were only two, and I saw the previous version of you kill the
m!” Napalm told him.
“Yes, but I have explored the inner prison of the planet, it is too large, even I haven’t seen all of it. I had a hunch that there was another Giant down there. All the original records were lost, so this is entirely plausible. The reason it’s come out now, when you five stand before me, is no co-incidence. This I can assure you.”
“Are you suggesting that this is our chance to earn the cajones?” Grigor said, starting to become interested. He practiced a few swings with his flaming broadsword at imaginary foes. “Yes, let me at this Giant!” He turned around, screaming his own name as he charged out of the cave.
“Your barbarian friend’s enthusiasm is commendable, however I believe he underestimates the voracity and size of this enemy.” With this the wolf stepped down and trotted out of the cave, while the other members nervously followed him.
The blizzard had completely cleared to reveal an artic plain beneath them, a mountain behind them and mountains all the way towards the horizon left and right. The white plain would usually just contain the great hole created all those centuries ago, and a lot of snow. Today however it contained those three things, along with a gigantic man.
The giant stood at least a mile high, the clouds listing lazily around his chest, occasionally obscuring its head and shoulders. This was a good thing because the giant was horrendously ugly.
Another article was added to the plain in the form of Grigor running down the slope from the cave mouth to the plain. He had run about three hundred meters before he stopped, turning around to shout back to the group.
“He’s a lot further away than he looks!” Grigor’s bloodlust was starting to fade as he realised that it would take a solid hour’s of charging at the enemy before he’d reach it. He tramped his way back up the slope to re-join the group. They all turned to the wolf to see what he would do.
“I’m sorry to ruin your plans, but getting rid of this evil is more important than wasting a chance to kill it on a hunch.” He turned to Napalm, “thank you very much for raising me, I am eternally grateful. Goodbye.”
The wolf then stood solidly on all four legs facing the far away giant, and braced himself as he opened his jaw wide. A blue light began to form the open jaw as if coming from inside the wolf. This light grew and grew until it was a blinding blue orb in front of the wolf. The Giant’s massive head slowly turned from scanning the horizon, to staring directly down at where they were all standing.It’s building sized red eyes stroke terror into Illana, Chainsaw-Boy and the Ty-rap-o-saurus’ hearts.
“The last howl of the Ice-Wolf” Napalm said out loud to the group. They all took a few steps back away from the wolf, feeling the static tug lightly at their hair. Eventually the light was so blinding that the group had to hold their arms over their eyes.
Without warning a shockwave pushed its way over the group and out over the plain, creating a small tidal wave of snow, the epicentre of which was the wolf. Following this shockwave the light got so bright they all had to close their eyes, when they opened them an ice-blue streak was flying across the sky like the trail left by a plane.
It headed directly towards the centre of the Giant, almost identically to the one that killed the previous giant all those centuries before. Due to the immense distance it took about fifteen seconds for the beam to hit it. For most of those seconds it seemed as if the beam was never going to reach its target; as if time had slowed right down, and had no intention of speeding back up again.
When it did hit however, another source of light blinded the group, this time it was more similar to the world’s large spark. Once their weary eyes had re-adjusted they noticed something was wrong. The beam was now heading lazily off into space over the horizon, and the Giant was still standing, possibly even laughing. Looking at his glinting chest they noticed that this Giant had planned ahead.
In a hole burnt through his tunic by the beam they could see his undershirt, from their distance it appeared to be made entirely of tin-foil. They turned away from the traumatic hypnotism of the evil Giant’s laughter to look at where the Wolf was standing. The only problem was that he wasn’t standing there anymore. There was however, a small wolf cub, curled up in a ball by his furry tail, in the circle of scorched rock where the Ice Wolf had been standing.
Chainsaw-boy did a double take on the baby wolf. He then looked back at the Giant that was starting to rip up mountains that bordered the opposite side of the plain. “Is he doing what I think he’s doing?” Chainsaw-boy spoke to the group as the Giant felt the weight of one mountain he’d pulled up, dropped it, and began feeling the weight of another one.
“Looks like he’s choosing a freaking mountain for a club!” Grigor announced, his hand covering his eyes from the sun so he could get a better look. “These guys really do have the power to destroyplanets, I thought it was just an exaggeration.”
After fussily choosing a mountain that was taller than it was wider the Giant began wielding it. He held the mountain high over his head with both hands, and brought it down, crashing it into the planet and sending a mushroom cloud of snow up into the air, almost completely hiding the Giant.
Several thin, but miles long cracks began to appear across the plain. The shake of the floor had thrown all of them up in the air and they landed in various states of disarray. Due to the adrenaline they were all back on their feet almost instantly afterwards.
“What can we do!” Illana shouted, she was beginning to panic, and became a much higher pitch than normal. In fact the whole group was beginning to panic, looking around for something to fight with, anything that could be effective against a mile high giant. They all came up on a blank, except for Chainsaw-boy.
“Grigor!” He shouted, getting Grigor’s attention, “how far can you throw? Especially a human sized object.”
“Well I could most probably throw you into orbit, but we don’t have time for that now…” Grigor trailed off as the cogs in his brain started turning over. He looked at Chainsaw-boy with a stern look “you know exactly what your chances of surviving are if we try this right?”
“I’m fully aware, but I don’t see any other way of doing this, at least not a way that’ll work.”
“What are you guys talking about, what do you mean, chances of surviving?” Illana asked them worriedly.
“What’s your exact idea? You’re going to need more than just to hit him.” Grigor said, relatively calmly, which was more than could be said of Illana who was practically screaming now.
“What are you guys talking about?” Chainsaw-Boy turned to her and looked deeply into her face, making sure he held her gaze.
“I have to admit, I think you’re kind of person I could’ve fell in love with. So, I have to know, if I asked you out, would you have said yes?” She nodded, a singular tear rolling down her cheek while he smiled. “That’s all I needed to know. Ok, here’s the plan. Next time he raises that mountain, throw me at him, aim for one of the arms, that should make him drop the arm on himself and, voila, one dead Giant.”
A great boom filled the atmosphere of the planet, throwing the crew up in the air and down again. They picked themselves up with purpose this time, Chainsaw-boy walked over to Grigor, while everyone stepped back in silence.
“Throw me now!” Chainsaw-boy shouted. Grigor grabbed him by the feet and spun around three times, like a professional hammer thrower, and shot him off at great speed towards the Giant.
Chainsaw-boy flew through the air, both his chainsaw’s pointed forwards. The icy wind whipped at his face, and he couldn’t see, but he was determined in his mission. While he was flying the Giant had lifted the mountain up above his head, preparing to collide it into the planet for another time.
It took Chainsaw-boy very little time to cross the massive distance, and Grigor’s aim was dead-on, crashing directly into the shoulder of the Giant. He held both his chainsaw’s out in front of him, grinding away the flesh of the Giant as he passed straight through and
out the other side.
The Giant screamed out in agony, in such a low voice that he couldn’t be heard or felt. For the intrepid group of observers he was screaming silently, which only made the scene more disturbing. Because he was so big everything happened in slow motion. First, the arm holding the mountain above his head buckled at the shoulder, then it appeared to go limp under the strain. The point of the mountain then slowly descended towards the still screaming giant’s head.
The point of the mountain collided with the top of the Giant’s head. It then continued its descent back the planet’s surface, regardless of the obstacle now in its way. The Giant folded and crumpled under it, like a squishy accordion. Soon there was only an upside-down mountain left, accompanied by two arms sticking out at odd angles, and two legs stretched out in front across the plain.
It looked like a surrealist painting, almost as if you looked close enough you would find a deep meaning in the abstraction. The only deep meaning in this real-life scenario was that the Giant was now well and truly dead. A feeling of relief swept across Grigor and his group, Illana was still crying however, while the Ty-rap-o-saurus’ silence was broken by his shivering.
Napalm looked across at Grigor, “we had best get these guys back on the ship where it’s warm and that fella.” He pointed at the still fast asleep wolf cub. “We can come back and look for Chainsaw-boy’s body, we’ll give him a proper burial, worthy of the hero he is.
The troupe then trudged slowly and solemnly out across the plain back to the small dot in the sky they recognised as their ship, anchored about twenty miles to the south, along the mountain ridge. With the wolf cub curled up warmly in the breast of Napalm’s jacket.