Righty delivered a thunderous right uppercut to Big Frank’s stomach that literally lifted him three inches off of the ground. Big Frank doubled over, but before he could even let out what would surely have been a frightful gasp for air Righty slammed a vicious brass knuckle uppercut into his chin, shattering it into pieces.
He then squatted low, and just like the countless pieces of lumber he had lifted day in and day out for years in the lumberyard, he picked Big Frank up over his head, and then he tilted him to where his head was facing the ground and then brought it down with all his might like a hammer into the ground. He heard his neck snap.
About six seconds had transpired.
Righty turned around, the look of a wild animal in his eye. Big Frank’s four toughs had a look of horror on their faces. Righty had no doubt each and every last one of them was a killer, but it was clear they’d never seen a species like Righty.
“Well, who’s next?! What are you all waiting for?”
Spider Eyes looked at his three remaining companions and then over at Tats and his crew of three.
“Say something fast, or I’ll choose,” Righty barked.
Spider Eyes took one look at his three companions, and they seemed to give him some kind of nod. Spider Eyes reached into his pocket, pulled out thirty-five one-hundred-falon bills, put a small clip around them, and then tossed them to Righty.
Righty caught the money without taking his eyes off Spider Eyes, and then he resumed swiveling around. His fearsome eyes penetrated to the marrow of each man’s soul.
He continued this for as long as three minutes, everyone in uncomfortable silence. The only noise, the slightly heavy breathing of Righty. No one else dared to whisper.
It became clear to Righty that he had made his point, and it was time to let bygones be bygones. He figured that was something he was going to have to learn to do often in this business, once a problem had been fixed, that is.
Righty put his brass knuckles back in his pockets and pulled out a small sack.
He kept his eyes on Spider Eyes, while saying, “Tats, get over here.”
Tats trotted over.
“Stand by him,” he motioned to Spider Eyes.
Looking at Spider Eyes, he told him, “I made a deal to deliver this to Tats, and it looks like you got in the way.” His eyes seemed at that moment to look more like those of a Chihuahua.
“Come here, Tats.” Tats stepped forward.
Keeping his eyes on Spider Eyes, he handed the bulbs to Tats, who took them nervously and put them into his pocket.
“To prevent any more misunderstandings like the ones we had today, let’s get a couple things clear. First, I don’t care about your hierarchy amongst yourselves. That’s your business. But when I make a deal with any one of you directly, whoever interferes is going to have a problem with me. Is that understood?!”
Spider Eyes and the other toughs nodded.
“Secondly, I’m a businessman. I’m looking to make money. If I wanted to do that by fighting, I’d be in a ring somewhere. Play straight with me; I’ll play straight with you. Cross me, and, well, I’ll probably lose my temper. Is that understood?”
The toughs nodded.
“Any questions?”
Spider Eyes spoke up. In spite of his diminutive size, it seemed clear to Righty he was now first in command, now that Big Frank was no more. “We can turn this around today. We need more and fast.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“You bring it; we’ll get rid of it.”
“I’ll need half upfront each time, and it’s 800 falons per bulb from now on.”
Spider Eyes nodded, and the next thing Righty knew he had 20,000 falons in his hand.
“I’ll bring fifty bulbs tomorrow,” Righty said. “Same time.”
Righty walked to Charlie, who still stood there gallantly, having not been frightened by the brutal brawl, and mounted him.
“Sir,” said Spider Eyes, as Righty prepared to leave, “what do we call you?”
“Didn’t Tats tell you? It’s Brass.”
Righty whistled a merry tune all the way home. He had about a year’s pay in his pocket and a reasonable expectation of doubling that tomorrow. He felt the only problem in the whole wide world was getting more plants and fast.
Chapter 20
When Harold the Loyal, formerly known simply as Chip, took off into the air following his meeting with Tristan, who had given him strict orders to bring back the head of the treacherous Max, his experience in his now greatly enlarged body was so novel that it might be comparable to the experience a human would have if he suddenly found himself from one moment to the next with wings where arms once hung.
With what felt like a mere nudge against the air he found it responding with great upward thrusts propelling his body higher and higher. What he had once considered flying now seemed as cumbersome and inefficient as walking up an icy hill.
A thrill swept over him at the realization of his newly bestowed powers, and he had to rebuke himself sharply to not go getting giddy. After all, he had work to do, and if he didn’t do a darn good job, he could kiss this new outfit goodbye and would be lucky if he kept his head.
Speaking of heads . . . there was a certain head he had to take. Max’s. Apparently, it was Max who had turned the pholungs against Master. Turned them against him!
The nerve of that treacherous blackguard was really something. But he clearly had more than nerve, for to turn all of the pholungs against Master must have taken some incredible cunning. Had he blackmailed them? Lied to them?
Then, the most blissful thought imaginable occurred to him as he realized his utter ineptitude in deciphering the uncountable layers of deception and chicanery Max must have used to accomplish a nearly successful coup d’etat against Master. He didn’t have to. Master had figured it out to the “t.” Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so sure that Max was the one who spawned the rebellion.
Kasani! It felt good to be back with Master. Being back with Master meant long missions, following orders, and leaving the complicated stuff to The Wise One. All Harold had to do was make sure he fulfilled Master’s orders, brought him the gory proof, and then, if he had any luck—and his gut told him he did—Master would have another mission for him. That would be just dandy for Harold because with this new body he reckoned he was going to be a lot more useful to Master than he ever was before.
A tear rolled down his feathery beak at the thought that he might indeed help Master reclaim his glory. This all almost seemed just too good to be true.
But there was one problem. He was feeling a bit guilty. Not because he didn’t want to kill Max, but because he reckoned he probably did. Max had stolen Laura right out from under his beak just because he caught some large worm, and Laura didn’t have the sense to see the infinitely superior value to the spinning maneuver he was working on, and which he had since formally decided to call Cyclone.
Well, Koksun, sure as hell knew Cyclone worked, as it had saved his life from that serpent that had him cornered at that tree, and from that pack of wolves, and now where was Koksun? Lapping up milk in the house of some kindhearted soul. You see? Harold was no fool, and if he took the time to learn something, it was because it was worth a darn. Neither Max nor Laura could see that then, but they were about to see that soon enough.
But that was where the guilt kicked in. He was sore enough about Max stealing Laura to kill him for that alone, and he probably would have already done it, if not for the fact he believed that Max was Master’s loyal servant, and to kill a loyal servant of Master’s—odious though he may be—was never acceptable.
But it turned out that Max wasn’t really so loyal after all and that in fact he had no choice but to kill him. What can I say?, he concluded with a slight shrug of his feathers as he soared thousands of feet above the ground, if a broken clock can be right twice a day, then sometimes business and pleasure can mix.
But this was going to be professional. Maste
r had asked for two things and two things only: to kill Max and to bring his head. Thus, there wasn’t going to be any overdoing things.
Then a fearful thought came to him: What if I fail?! After all, he was enjoying this new body , sure, but did he have adequate control over it?
If he failed Master, he knew he would die, and would deserve to. That scared him some. But what scared him a whole heck of a lot more than that was the repercussions of failure to Master. After all, if Max held such sway over the pholungs—who were still at large—he was still a threat. That had to be why Master was off hiding in the forest and already picking his successor when Master used to lead armies to astounding victories.
It’s because of Max! A chill ran down his spine even colder than the icy wind brushing against him at this seldom-touched height. Could Master be afraid of Max?
He didn’t like that word one bit. He supposed a better word would be “concerned.” After all, Master had been dealt a stinging defeat. Harold couldn’t deny that. He knew Master’s army must have been defeated for Max to be able to convince the pholungs to turn on him. No way would they have dared if Master’s army had still been intact. Things had gone really sour for him.
But if he could get Max out of the equation, Master just might bounce back from this defeat. And he suspected his next mission would be the pholungs. They were out there, somewhere, lurking about, probably ready to kill—or try to kill—Master at the first opportunity. No doubt they were scouring far and wide in a large group, just as they had attacked him, for they wouldn’t have a chance otherwise.
That had to be why Master had made him so much bigger. Not to kill measly old Max. He felt relatively confident he could have done that with Cyclone even at his former size. No, Master had much bigger plans. Of that, he was now certain.
(well, you better figure out if you can use this new body; after all, Master’s waiting)
He looked down towards the ground and discovered to his shock and delight that what had seemed a dramatic change in terms of his ease of travel now seemed rather miniscule compared to the unbelievable improvement in his vision. His eyes now seemed to him like powerful telescopes.
What surely would have been a mere blur before at this height instead seemed as if he were observing it from ten feet away. He saw wolves prowling about, no doubt in search of some hapless prey.
Well, I don’t particularly like wolves, so I think this might be as good as any place to see if I can still do Cyclone.
He selected a wolf and kept his eyes peeled on him as he began spinning faster and faster and faster. At about a hundred feet from the ground, he felt the speed was getting a bit difficult to control, so he stopped spinning and instead began a steep swoop with his razor-sharp right wing jutting out like a sword and aiming for the wolf’s head.
At the last second, the wolf must have heard something because it spun around.
SWISHHHH!
Its head went rolling off its torso and onto the ground. Harold went soaring far back up into the sky, another mission on his mind now. He didn’t believe in pointless slaughter, and although testing out his Cyclone prowess in his new body for the purpose of carrying out an important mission for Master was hardly a pointless slaughter, he did feel an aching hunger in his stomach, and he reckoned that he could kill two birds with one stone.
He went swooping down again, and this time as he got close he decided to try out his vocal chords:
“RAAAAA!! RAAAAAA !! RAAAAA!!!!” he screeched out in high notes—a sound so terrible he almost scared himself senseless.
The surviving wolves went running for their lives. In a split second, Harold scooped up the wolf’s body and went soaring high up into the air again. Once he was at about a thousand feet, he took a huge bite out of the warm carcass. He had never tasted anything so good in his life as the warm meat now in his mouth, and he licked at the blood spilling from his beak, wanting as little as possible to escape.
There was no doubt about it. Harold liked his upgrade.
Harold decided it was time to kick it into high gear. After all, if Max had turned the pholungs against Master, Kasani knows whom else he might be recruiting. Success breeds enemies, and he imagined there were a lot of people who hated Master just for his powers.
Harold now looked like an arrow shooting across the sky, as his speed left one hundred miles per hour behind like a donkey racing a thoroughbred stallion. He was headed northwest towards the location the konulans had been told to stay put.
Having flown all the way through the night, he was nearing the area by the next afternoon. As he neared the area, his telescope eyes looked downward, scanning the general area meticulously, hoping against hope that the little rascals would be there, but not expecting that his luck could be that good. Surely, Max had organized some perfidious mischief already.
When he saw the little devils far below, looking to him like mice with wings (his idea of what truly constituted a bird had changed considerably over the last couple days), his joy soared even higher than the two thousand feet at which he was currently soaring.
And, not at all to his surprise, some unwarranted party was underway. He could see them frolicking about, flying in circles, and having a grand old time. It reminded him a lot of when they were looking for the knighting of a commoner in Sodorf. Had it been left up to them, the knighting of Pitkins would have gone unnoticed, and although success had escaped Master by a sword’s edge, he had accomplished major victories before being undone by Max.
Every time he had been so unfortunate as to be paired up with one of these flying mice, it was all he could do just to concentrate while his busybody of a “partner” kept chatting constantly and asking if they could call the surveillance off early that day. Harold—then Chip—had been immeasurably relieved that most days none of the flying mice wanted to accompany him.
There, down below, he saw Max showing off as if he was something really special. He flew up into the air with a worm, let it drop, and then swooped down and caught it with his beak right before it touched the ground. He could see even from up here that Laura was beaming with delight while this shameless showoff performed this trick again and again. And worse still, Laura didn’t even seem to be getting bored with it.
Seeing such a shameless traitor being worshipped by his fellow conspirators was simply more than Harold could take. None of these mice knew just how lucky they were at the specificity of Master’s instructions. Had a bit more leeway been provided, the whole lot of them would have been hunted to extinction, but he figured Master had a grander scheme in mind.
Then, he saw that Max was getting ready to show off again. He almost retched when he saw Laura’s parents were as impressed as their naïve daughter. Was it possible perhaps some of them were innocent? He noticed that along with his increased body size his brain appeared to have grown a bit larger, and he noticed that he was thinking more than he used to.
That sent a startle down his feathers that he would have preferred to do without. He had heard Master once or twice tell the Konulans not to think too much when he gave instructions, because thinking was the scaffolding of rebellion.
Harold found now he had never truly appreciated his quiet world that he had before, where the only thoughts on his mind pertained to carrying out missions. Now, he was thinking, which implied he too might be in danger of becoming a traitor. He attempted to calm himself with the realization that Master was far more intelligent than he was even with his new body and brain, and he surely wouldn’t have entrusted such an enhancement if the scaffolding of rebellion could possibly form in his mind.
Returning to the business at hand, he figured it was possible that some of them were innocent, and, after all, perhaps with Max gone the flames of treachery that burned in their hearts could be extinguished.
This realization brought him to a state of euphoria, as he realized in one fell swoop, he was going to carry out an order by Master, restore the Konulans to their once-loyal (albeit distractible) tempera
ments, and get rid of a personal enemy. With any luck, Laura would find a noble suitor who would steer her on the right path. He now felt no sting in his heart at her rejection. After all, he’d just as soon be attracted to an insect, given his elevated status.
SILENCE.
Although silence permeated the air above the frolicking Konulans, it was not for lack of activity. For as Max dove down towards the wriggling worm, which was hoping against hope to land in a hole, by which it could escape these cruel fiends, there was something else diving, and much faster, as it had already had a thousand feet of free fall by the time Max began his descent from a mere two hundred.
As Max neared the ground, ready to once again scoop up the worm in his beak and show Laura’s parents he really was “the one,” all of a sudden he heard the most horrible shriek from his beloved.
The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four Page 29