Luke tucked the book back into his pocket, then climbed onto the back of the golden chariot to get a better view of the chamber. The precious metal and jewels rose up in tall peaks on all sides.
“Heru must be in here somewhere,” he contended. “The Movers won’t have spent that long hiding him – there’s no way Sneer expected us to get this far.”
“It wouldn’t have taken much,” Cleo pointed out. “Shovel a pile of coins over his sarcophagus and we could easily walk right past him without even knowing. It could take us years to search every inch of this place.”
“I know what we need,” said Resus. “Dave!”
Chapter Five
The Attack
“Dave?” said Luke. “Who’s Dave?”
Resus reached into his cape and pulled out what looked like a large lump of writhing gristle. “This,” he beamed, “is Dave!”
Cleo squealed and took a step backwards. “What is that thing?”
“It’s a leech,” Resus explained. “You’re not the only one who likes animals, you know.”
“That’s not an animal!” cried Cleo. “It’s a … thing! Where on earth did you get it?”
“I found him under a rock at the bottom of my garden,” Resus explained.
Cleo didn’t look convinced. “You found something that size under a rock?”
“Of course not,” said Resus. “He was much smaller when I found him, but I’ve been feeding him up.”
“On what?” demanded Luke.
Resus shrugged. “Leftovers from the zombies’ bins, mainly,” he answered. “That and other small animals. He’s grown into a fine figure of a leech, don’t you think?”
“It’s grown into a blob!” exclaimed Cleo, repulsed.
“Maybe,” Resus said defensively, “but a blob that might be able to help us find Heru.”
“I don’t get it,” admitted Luke. “How can a fat, disgusting leech like that help us find Heru?”
“Do you mind?” snapped Resus. “You’ll hurt his feelings.” He stroked the creature’s back and mumbled words of love into what he hoped was its ear.
“Sorry,” said Luke, rolling his eyes. “What I mean is, how can a magnificent specimen of leech-kind like Dave help us find Heru?”
“Simple,” grinned Resus. He placed the leech on the floor and produced Heru’s heart from his cloak. “Leeches like blood, right? Well, if we give Dave here a drop of Heru’s blood, he’ll get a taste for it and slither off to find some more.”
Luke held up his hand. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you trying to tell us that Dave is some kind of sniffer leech?”
“There’s only one way to find out…” Resus held the heart out in front of Dave and squeezed it tightly. A few drops of thick, dark liquid forced themselves through a valve at the bottom and spattered to the ground. The leech slithered forward and sucked them noisily from the sand.
“I knew it wasn’t completely dry!” exclaimed Resus, tucking the heart back into his cape.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” groaned Cleo.
“Look!” cried Luke as the leech raised one end off the ground and appeared to sniff at the air. “I don’t believe it. I think it’s working!”
Slowly, Dave the leech began to wriggle towards a nearby pile of treasure. When it got there, it sucked a gold coin in through the gaping hole that was presumably its mouth and quickly expelled it from the other end, leaving the coin coated in a sticky, clear mucus. More coins and the occasional jewel fell to the same fate.
“And you wanted to take that stuff home with us,” Luke said to Resus.
Before long the leech had vanished under the mound of treasure, although the trio could still hear the squelchy sucking noise as it progressed.
Cleo had her eyes screwed shut. “Tell me when it’s over,” she wailed.
“It will be pretty soon,” Resus assured her. “If Dave has tunnelled into that pile, I’m willing to bet that’s where the rest of Heru is.”
“Then we’d better get him out before he ends up as leech food,” suggested Luke. Grabbing a golden plate, he began to scoop coins from the pile. Resus found an urn and did the same.
Cleo gingerly plucked one coin at a time from the heap. “If I touch that thing – even accidentally – you’ll pay,” she growled at Resus.
A few minutes later, Luke stopped shovelling. “Look…” he hissed. Through the coins they could just about see a face made out of sapphires, rubies and diamonds. “That’s Heru’s face. It’s the sarcophagus!”
The trio doubled their efforts until they had dragged the last of the treasure away from the coffin. Dave was slithering up and down on top of the lid, leaving glistening trails of goo in its wake.
Resus collected up the leech and tucked it back under his cloak. “Good boy,” he crooned. “Go and find a treat: my Uncle Baz’s spleen is in there somewhere.”
Eep!
Cleo threw Resus a stern look. “Eurgh! Gross!”
Luke gripped the lid of the sarcophagus. “Ready?” he asked the others. Together, he, Resus and Cleo swung it open to reveal the mummified pharaoh. Heru’s eyes flickered open.
“It’s you three!” he cried joyfully. “Duke, Creases and Theo.”
“Er … Luke, Resus and Cleo, actually,” smiled Cleo. “But you were close…”
“I was, wasn’t I?” beamed Heru. “Hooray for me! So – are we there yet?”
Luke wasn’t quite sure how to reply. “Er … are we where yet?”
“That’s just it,” said Heru. “I don’t know! Otto Sneer said the Movers were taking me on a little holiday – but he wouldn’t say where.”
“Don’t get too excited,” said Resus. “I think you’ve been here before…”
Heru sat up and gazed around him at the coins and jewels piled almost to the top of the cavern; the golden pillars studded with precious stones; chest after chest of glittering treasure. “Oh, goody,” he squealed, clapping his hands. “I’m home. How lovely!”
Parp!
“It would be lovely if Resus’s little pet would stop doing that,” muttered Cleo, clamping her hand over her nose to block out the noxious gas.
“That wasn’t Dave,” insisted Resus. He winced as the stench reached his own nostrils. “In fact, if anything, that smells like…”
“CHARGE!”
Suddenly thousands of tiny, grey creatures stampeded into the cavern from every direction. They clambered over the mountains of coins, leapt out from behind golden pillars and jumped over chests of treasure. Occasionally one of them would let off a burst of gas from its behind, which would propel it forward a few metres.
“Oh no…” breathed Luke, his eyes wide with terror. “Goblins!”
The creatures were all over the trio in seconds, pushing them down and sitting on their arms, legs and shoulders. The children struggled to break free, but a couple of blasts of gas quickly subdued them.
Sitting up in his sarcophagus, Heru could not have been more delighted. “Entertainment, too,” he enthused. “This is wonderful!”
“It’s not wonderful,” croaked Luke through a faceful of gas, “and nor is it entertain—”
He stopped. A small goblin had appeared in his line of vision and was now striding up his stomach. It stood to attention on his chest. “Squiffer,” Luke growled.
“I might have known you’d be here!” yelled Cleo.
“You be silence!” shouted the goblin. “I be here to make special announce.” The creature blasted a stinking fanfare from its bottom. “Please be bowing for glorious head of goblin family.”
The other goblins chattered excitedly at the announcement. Resus tried unsuccessfully to shake a couple of them off his legs. “And how do you expect us to bow when you’re holding us down?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Squiffer considered the problem for a second, then trumpeted a shorter fanfare. “Please be lying still for glorious head of goblin family.”
A large goblin wearing a tin-foil cape and
woollen baby booties strutted into view. He paused at Luke’s feet for a moment to survey his prisoners, then marched up to where Squiffer stood waiting.
“This be the Great Guff,” proclaimed Squiffer. “He be lovely head of— Aargh!”
The Great Guff kicked Squiffer off Luke’s chest. “They be know who the Great Guff is,” he barked. “Every people be know who the Great Guff is!”
At this the rest of the goblins cheered and farted noisily. The Great Guff threw his arms in the air to accept the adulation, revealing gold bangles from wrist to shoulder.
“My jewellery as props, as well,” squeaked Heru joyfully. “How can this performance get any better?”
“I tell you how,” smirked the goblin leader. “Today be the day the Great Guff be get married!”
The goblins cheered again.
“Married?” exclaimed Cleo. “Who to?”
The Great Guff turned to indicate a small female goblin draped in so many gold chains that she could barely walk under the weight. “This be my soon wife,” he crooned. “Princess Poot.”
“Princess Poot?” spluttered Resus with a giggle.
The female goblin clambered across the mound of coins and bent down to press her face against the vampire’s. “Yes,” she blustered. “I be Princess Poot. This be princess bit…” She planted a kiss on Resus’s lips. “…and this be poot!” She spun round and let off a burst of rancid fumes.
Eep!
“Yuk!” Resus closed his eyes and twisted his head from side to side, trying not to choke on the pungent gas. Goblins all over the tomb burst into laughter and added to the stench.
Heru looked as though he might faint with happiness. “A royal wedding!” he shrieked. “I must get dressed in my most regal finery…” He was just about to clamber out of his sarcophagus when a mob of goblins scurried over, each aiming a jewel-encrusted dagger at his chest.
“You be going nowhere,” growled the Great Guff.
Chapter Six
The Lock
Heru sat back down again, his eyes wide as the points of the daggers pressed against his bandages. “I say,” he cried. “This is hardly sporting! What’s going on?”
“I was about to ask the same thing,” said Luke.
The Great Guff picked up a diamond necklace from the mound of treasure at his large feet. He paused to kiss Princess Poot on the cheek, then hung it around her neck. The weight finally became too much and the female goblin crashed face first into the treasure with a squeal.
“I be explain what be going on,” declared the Great Guff loudly as his fiancée struggled to sit up. “Round smoke man give goblins many shiny ’longings if they be keep squishy pump from bandage wrap.”
There was a brief silence while everyone ran through this sentence in their head a few times.
Resus was the first to speak. “Er … what?”
Luke sighed as the meaning of the goblin’s words hit him. “He means that Sneer has promised the goblins all this treasure if they stop us from giving Heru back his heart.”
“What?” exclaimed Heru. “But this isn’t his treasure to give away! It’s mine!”
“The heart is yours too,” Cleo reminded him, “but that’s Sneer for you.”
“I’m one of Scream Street’s founding fathers,” protested Heru. “If some jumped-up landlord thinks he can treat me like this, he’s got another think coming!”
“Round man be thinking you be saying that,” said the Great Guff. “Goblins – be close bandage-wrap box!”
The goblins already surrounding Heru suddenly pushed the pharaoh flat on his back and slammed down the lid of the sarcophagus. The mummy hammered on the inside of the lid. “Help!” he yelled in a muffled voice.
The Great Guff gave a wicked smile and let out a rasp of gas. “Be take sparkle nose for goblin ’longings,” he commanded. One of the goblin guards grasped hold of the diamond on the coffin lid that represented Heru’s nose and twisted it until a loud click! echoed around the tomb.
“Oh no…” hissed Cleo, paling.
“What?” demanded Resus.
Before Cleo could reply, the Great Guff ordered the goblins to do the same with the remaining jewels.
“Be take sparkle eyes!”
Click! Click! The goblins turned two large sapphires in their casings and pulled them free.
“Be take sparkle mouth!”
Click! Click! Click! Three glistening rubies were plucked out by strong, leathery fingers.
The Great Guff grinned. “Now goblins be take away shiny stones.”
Cleo struggled against her captors. “No, you can’t!” she shouted. “If you take those jewels out of the pyramid, you’ll bring the curse down upon us all!”
The goblin leader scuttled over to peer down at her. “No,” he snarled, his breath almost as smelly as his trousers. “I be bring curse down on you!”
Princess Poot had finally managed to pull off the heavy necklaces and she now sat up, spitting out gold coins. “What I be miss?”
“You be miss nothing, my soon wife,” beamed the Great Guff, taking her hand. “It all be start … now!” Screwing up his face, he let out the loudest rasp Luke, Resus or Cleo had ever heard. A cloud of green gas erupted from his behind.
At the signal, the goblins clutching the jewels from the sarcophagus raced away while the others whooped and pumped with delight. They jumped off the children’s arms and legs and began to stuff as much treasure as they could into their pockets.
Resus sat up. “It’s official,” he said as the goblin leader and his fiancée ran out of the chamber, hand in hand. “The Great Guff has finally gone insane.”
“He’s not insane,” said Cleo, climbing to her feet and hurrying over to Heru’s sarcophagus. “He’s clever. Very, very clever.”
“Clever?” asked Luke, joining her. “But he’s let us go. Look – they’re not interested in us any more.” All around the tomb, goblins were giggling with delight as they gathered up fistfuls of treasure. “That doesn’t seem very clever to me.”
“He’s made sure we can’t return the heart, though,” said Cleo unhappily.
“What?” cried Resus. “How?”
Cleo ran her fingers over the indentations in the golden face on the lid of the coffin. “Those jewels weren’t just for show,” she explained. “They were part of a locking mechanism put there to stop thieves breaking in and stealing the pharaoh’s body.”
Luke’s face fell. “You mean…”
Cleo nodded. “Unless we can get those jewels back, Heru’s sarcophagus will never be opened again.”
Luke pressed his palm against the lid of the sarcophagus. “Just a bit of metal separating us from the third founding father,” he sighed. “Sneer’s really got us this time.”
“And Heru, too,” Cleo reminded him. “He’s stuck in there for all eternity now.”
“This is ridiculous,” moaned Resus. “OK, so we’re missing a couple of jewels to activate a lock – but we’re surrounded by treasure, remember. There must be other diamonds and rubies we can use.”
“I’ve no idea if it’ll work,” said Cleo, “but it’s worth a try.”
“Right,” said Luke. “We need one diamond, two sapphires and three rubies.”
“Quite a shopping list,” Resus commented.
The trio joined the goblins in rooting through the mounds of treasure. Two minutes later, Cleo had to choose a different pile to search as one of the foraging creatures trumped loudly upon discovering a chest filled with golden cutlery.
Luke pulled off his jumper and used it as a makeshift bag to collect a small pile of sparkling blue gems from beneath the golden chariot.
Resus was forced to wrestle a ruby out of the hands of a particularly fat goblin wearing a crown and twelve pairs of silver earrings.
Eventually the trio gathered around the sarcophagus again to combine their loot. “You’re the expert with locks,” said Luke, handing Resus a ruby.
The vampire took the precious stone and l
owered it into one of three hollow dips that formed Heru’s mouth. He twisted it left and right, but it wouldn’t sit properly in the hole – or in either of the others.
The trio tried the gems one by one, but none of them matched well enough to slot in perfectly and turn the locks, despite Heru’s constant encouragement from inside. “Come on! Even my dimmest slave could have unlocked this thing by now!”
Resus gripped a large diamond in his fist. “If we do get this open, I’m gonna shove this one right up his nose.”
Luke almost got one of the eyes to twist into place out of sheer force, but he had to give up when the edges of the sapphire began to cut into his hand.
“It’s no good,” grunted Resus, hurling a ruby across the cavern in frustration. It knocked a goblin off the back of a hyena statue with a yelp. “They just don’t fit.”
Luke sighed. “I’m almost tempted to try to smash into the thing.” He and Resus glanced at Cleo, expecting her to protest.
“Don’t look at me,” she declared. “I’m out of ideas too.”
“Hmm. I might have something that could help…” Resus reached into his cape and produced a spiked metal ball that was connected to a wooden handle by a thick chain. “The mace,” he beamed. “A little souvenir from Count Negatov’s castle.”
Luke took the weapon from him. “Heru – it’s Luke,” he called out. “We’re going to try to break you out. You might feel a little bump…”
“A little bump?” said Cleo.
“OK, then,” called Luke, “a big bump!”
“Something between the end of the world and a planet dropping on your head,” added Resus.
Luke readied himself. “One … two … three!” Swinging the mace high into the air, he smashed the ball against the lid of the sarcophagus. There was a loud clang! that sounded like a gong exploding, then the ball ricocheted backwards, pulling Luke off his feet and dragging the spiked ball from his grip.
Resus and Cleo hurried over to help him up. “Forget about me,” insisted Luke. “Have we broken the lock?”
Rampage of the Goblins Page 3