I had not made it two feet when a brilliant white light seared into my retinas, rendering my eyes useless. I staggered forward, flailing wildly, stupid and helpless.
“Selladore! Glob! Ugh – Edgar! Thy king is blinded, help!” I called out.
They must have run in and suffered the same fate; I heard the chorus of their shrieks. We four blinded fools clattered into one another as we raced around whatever chamber we were in. The roars of the unseen creatures were deafening, coming from every side. I tripped over something soft and furry, sailed arse-over-bosom through the air, and landed in a clanking heap on the floor. My sword fell from my grip, leaving me defenceless. I felt hot, stinky breath in my ear, and span around to punch with all my might whatever beast was coming for me. My armoured fist connected with the monster’s fleshy hide, and I heard a squeal. The monster backed away as I rubbed my eyes hastily, urging them to adjust to the light.
We rode (and jogged) for two days through the cherry blossom forest, and the journey was largely uneventful except for one point where Edgar got dragged away in the night by a swarm of goblins and we had to go and get him before they could dissolve him in their subterranean gunge tanks. Aside from that the forest was lovely, and I wrote down in my diary that I simply must take Astra this way on the route home.
When I awoke it was mid-afternoon and my skin was hot and my mouth was dry. With a groan I tried to move, but something held me in place. I glanced down at my body and found myself quite naked, roped to the mast.
“Ugh.”
I always wake up naked after I black out. I’ve no idea at which point in my bloodlust-filled rampages I decide it’s a good idea to strip down to my skivvies (and then out of them), but it seems to be a running theme. Almost every siege I’ve commanded has ended with my swinging bollock naked from the castle’s chandeliers with a knife in my teeth. My soldiers have come to expect it, and mostly leave me to my own devices.
A fly landed on my nose. I tried to blow it off, but it crawled up inside my nostril; Selladore found me cross-eyed and screaming. He kept his distance.
“Are ye alright, laddie?” he asked.
A gigantic honk of my schnoz sent the fly hurtling out across the deck. With my nose free from intruders, I regained my composure and regarded the captain. He was ashen and bloody, his whole body ravaged with deep cuts and shrapnel wounds, and his red eyeshadow was smeared across his face. The boa was still pristine, slung over one shoulder. I noted Glob and Edgar behind him, sitting together in exhaustion, equally battered. I felt proud of them.
“Aye, Selladore, I have calmed myself. I… apologise for the bloodshed I did inflict before thee.”
“I’ve never seen anyone fight like that, ya devil! Are ye sure ya don’t fancy staying aboard a while? I could use a first mate like you. Together we could be the scourge of the sands.”
“I thank thee, Captain, but I must decline. My darling Astra needs me, and I am for her as long as I draw breath. Prithee, untie me. Mine bloodlust is sated.”
With only the briefest moment of apprehension, Selladore untied me and handed me my blood-drenched clothes, which he informed me had been found in a heap in the crow’s nest, somehow. I crossed the deck to check on Glob and Edgar, then glanced around the ship. This was not One Ball; the sails were black, the deck was larger, and there were not burning corpses everywhere. I supposed Selladore had commandeered one of the ships from those ugly twins I decapitated earlier.
The ship was thundering across the sands; we would be at the mines in no time. I leant over the railing and glanced behind us, and small on the horizon I saw our old ship, wrecked, engulfed in flame. The charred mast of One Ball twisted and cracked as I watched, and fell with an enormous weight, smashing through the deck to the lower floors.
Then, before my very eyes, the sand around the ships began to swirl; the dunes shifted and throbbed like mercury. Then, from beneath the sands, a writhing cluster of thick, red tentacles burst forth, each one the length of the ship’s mast. The whipping limbs wrapped around the ship, clenching it tightly. Even though we were many miles away, I heard the colossal sound of the hull crunching as it was compressed with unfathomable force. The ship cracked in two, its hull burst apart from the pressure, and the tentacles dragged the remnants beneath the dunes. Not a trace was left, and all was still.
“Beautiful, aye?” said Selladore, by my side.
I didn’t say anything for twenty five seconds, gaping open-mouthed at Selladore.
“What about that was beautiful?”
Selladore stroked his chin, as though he’d never before considered this.
“Nice colours, I suppose.”
If I’d known that was lurking beneath the sands, I’d never have tried galloping across them on the back of a blasted pig. Well – alright, I still would have, because Astra is worth any hardship – but I’d have been a damn sight more cautious. It’s probably better I didn’t know, really. And the more I thought about the thunder bird and the sand pirates and the monstrous desert kraken, the more I questioned what the hell that jangly old woman was thinking when she decided to set up Inebrium in the middle of a savage hell-plain. Probably just chewed a few too many Boogie Tree leaves.
*****
We arrived at the edge of the desert in the late afternoon, just as the sun was doing that thing it does where it goes low and turns everything orange and everyone looks gorgeous. As abruptly as it began, the desert ceased. The sands stopped dead, lapping harmlessly against angular slabs of grey slate. Cracked hills wound away into the distance peppered with vivid pink cherry blossoms, lined up along the hilltops in long enchanting avenues. I stood abreast with Selladore, Glob and Edgar in quiet awe.
“Great Gods… I’ve never strayed this far west before,” breathed Selladore, turning to me. “You know, I’ve been thinking about your quest. True love, romance, adventure and all that, and, if you don’t mind – I’m coming with ye.”
I had been feeling forlorn about saying goodbye to the captain, and as he said this my inner voice leapt into the air and squealed with delight. I am a king however, and as such I felt it more appropriate to greet his declaration with a regal nod and a noble smile.
“T’would be a pleasure, Captain,” I replied.
Edgar and Glob, who had equally taken a shine to the captain, cheered at this news. Edgar even attempted a joyous celebratory cartwheel which obviously went horribly.
“Aye,” said Selladore. “And besides, you saved this buccaneer’s rotten-hearted life from those thrice-damned Gristle Twins. I do believe I’m indebted to ye, King.”
He turned to his crew – those who hadn’t been sliced to ribbons earlier that afternoon – and gave command over to his first mate, a fearsome looking woman with stormy black hair and an ornately carved peg arm.
“Be good to her for me, Rosa. I’ve some landlubbin’ to do for a spell. I’ll find you again when the time is right.”
I found myself grinning like an idiot to hear the word ‘landlubbing’ used in earnest. Or used at all, to be honest. God I love pirates.
The woman nodded and set out about yelling orders. The plank was extended, but this time I was gently led down it rather than shunted off the end. Our bold trio was restored to a gay quartet once more, and with long avenues of bowing cherry blossoms lining our path to the horizon, we were in the highest of spirits. I rode my chubby sow under the charming pink boughs, and reaffirmed my vow under my breath.
In Which Battle Breaks Out And I Get Ever So Slightly Carried Away
The cannonball burst through the ship’s hull sending splinters the size of bananas stinging through the air, pinged neatly through a bewildered crewmember’s torso, and came to rest in a collection of grain sacks. The newly disembowelled pirate glanced down at the gaping hole in his stomach, murmured something inconsequential, and collapsed backwards into a collection of pots and pans.
In Which I Meet My First Ever Pirates And Get Made To Walk The Plank Six Times In A Row
The jangly woman wasn’t joking when she said we wouldn’t last an hour.
Barely twenty minutes into our flight, a bellowing horn blast rattled our ribcages and sent Margaret into a panicked bucking frenzy. Given that I’d only been mutilated half an hour earlier and hadn’t quite mastered the art of riding one handed, I was immediately slung from my sow and treated to a mouthful of hot sand.
It’s a curious experience, having your hand neatly clipped off by a mythical creature. The bird barely seemed to move; its feet stayed planted on the ground, its feathers never ruffled. Without a sound its gyroscopic head simply pecked at me, and its beak snicked off my left hand with all the clinical efficiency and utter nonchalance of a barber’s scissors. A millisecond later, the bird’s head was back in place, its eyes watching me with faint curiosity.
After several joyous hours of gorging and wining, my face had turned purple and my waistline was thrice its usual size. I was staggering around the bonfire trying to find somewhere to wee, but every dark corner was occupied by lecherous couples engaged in rampant canoodling and/or unbridled fondling. Eventually I decided there was nothing else for it and whizzed in a pair of old boots I found under a bench.
In Which We Cross The Desert And I Go Temporarily Bonkers
We spent the next evening in the wizard’s clearing, figuring that we’d already been doomed once so what the hell difference did it make. The next morning we set out early after a breakfast of delicious sausages (which Margaret did not approve of one bit) and an entire wheel of cheese, which we devoured in about fifteen minutes and had us all gaseous and bloated for the whole morning on the woodland trail.
In Which, Much To My Chagrin, I Have My Doom Prophesied
I don’t know how long I was unconscious for; all I know is that I was brought back around by a hand plunging into the snow, fingers outstretched and grasping. The probing hand happened upon my regal face, and as it prodded my buried flesh, I heard excited yells coming from above ground. The fingers gripped my face by the nostrils and hauled me up through the snow, slowly and painfully excavating me, inch by inch, and the wrenching agony wasn’t helped by the fact that the mead had worn off and I was now deathly hungover.
It turned out that the prince’s home city of Bloodroot was far, far away, because nothing is ever easy. To reach his castle, we would have to traverse the Klinghorn Mountains, plot a course through the Goochi Desert, navigate the gloom of the Mines of Mupplecock, and cross the Sea of Pìss (pronounced peace).
