Testing, you know, disregard all that. I are sucking at LJ.
<lj-cut text="Gummy Abbens sighed deeply and puffed off of his wet, warped corncob pipe."> His toothless mouth flexed and he slapped his lips together in a way only he could do, something that many were thankful for, because if more people could do it, the world would be far more wet than it was now. He rocked back in the worm-eaten chair that was missing a leg and began to think. His brow furrowed into a tiny little crag, before popping back into the slightly smaller wrinkles that normally existed there.
The little Borogravian children sat arrayed in front of him, staring with wide-opened eyes at the old, smelly, bad-breathed old soldier. Nothing captured the mind of a boy like a war story, even if it was accompanied by spittle and tiny flecks of old vomit and what might have been corn once, several years ago.
"Numpersh! The battle of Numpersh! Hash any of you ladsh ever heard the tale of the battle of Cashtle Numpersh? No, I thought not. Sho, you shee, Numpersh was the biggest cashtle on the Smarl river at the time, don't shyou know. We Insh-and-Outsh had been plopped inner cashtle for monthsh, shurrounded by shwede-eatersh from Klatchistan... until we met our rabbit!"
-21 years earlier, in Castle Numpers, when Gummy Abbens still had fourteen teeth-
For a half-year, the Klatchistani warriors had been advancing up the Smarl river, smashing through the countryside and finally reached the outskirts of Borogravia and were closing fast on Uberwald. Borogravia, never passing up a challenge, garrisoned the castle at Numpers with soldiers from the Ins-and-Outs, Side-to-Sides, and the To-and-Fros. The Klatchistani had dug long siege trenches around the castle and had strangely-shaped biremes with roofs and hoarding to stop arrows sailing the Smarl.
Gummy Abbens sat on a crenellation and stared down at a party of robed Klatchistani as they tried to sneak across the Smarl. One large man with no left arm and a giant circular wooden mask painted green with feathers glued on led the pack. Half-heartedly, Gummy raised his crossbow and aimed at Mr. Green Feathers - just before a huge ball of fiery hay was launched from a catapult and landed with a scratchy-sounding "snrish".
Gummy, having never heard a snrish, sat and contemplated for a second on its existence. Snrish, of course, had to exist, because it's not like flaming balls of hay and straw could go "quack!" when they hit the ground, right? Such was the course of Gummy Abbens' mind. The phrase "a few bricks short of a wall" does not apply to Gummy's mind, because metaphorically speaking, not only is he missing bricks, the blueprints haven't even been drawn up yet.
Sergeant Horsebellicks slowly walked over to now-corporal Gummy. "Buck up, chappy, yes, indeed! We'll have these hairy dirt eaters out of our beautiful country in weeks, don't you know, yes! We'll be very milit'ry in our going about of it, because we are leaving the castle, and charging their lines in the morn!"
As Horsebellicks walked away, Abbens' face, along with the faces of all those in earshot, drained to a pure white. An assault on Klatchistani lines was... was... He peered over the wall again. Hundreds of naked men in feathers and the hides of several brightly colored animals that Gummy never knew existed in nature ringed the place. A large bireme with a sail woven from palm fronds floated along the river until more flaming hay bails snrished it into flames. Gummy peered toward the trebuchet that was lobbing the things and lamented all the good scubbo materiel being tossed at the enemy.
As arrows and small rocks pinged and panged against the wall, Gummy snuck down the stairs, down the wall and into the main inner courtyard of the castle. A fire and a clay pot sat in the middle of the brown grass, ringed by four or five men with only eight limbs betweenst them. Hobbling over, he sat down on the ground and dipped his hands in the soup bowl and tried to slurp some down before it dribbled onto the ground.
Thoroughly disgusted, all but one of the men left. Gummy looked up sheepishly and smiled at the remaining man, who was obviously very hungry, hungry enough, (or possibly deaf and blind), to stay there with the hand-soup-slurper that had just sat down in the circle. Gummy grinned with all his fourteen black teeth and said, “You want somes?”
The man cracked the tiniest of smiles and waved it away. “No, no indeed, good corp’ral, I have eaten my fill for today.” Gummy examined his bulk and imagined his “fill” had to have been several tub-loads of soup. A rusted corporal’s stripe was hanging by a few threads to the large man’s sleeve.
The other corporal leaned toward Gummy conspiratorially and whispered: “We’re charging the Klatchum-stammi lines tonight, don’t you know!” The tone of the man’s voice sounded almost happy – Gummy chalked it up to his own earwax because it is impossible to be happy about charging into the wake of hundreds of naked men with bows and large swords, unless of course you were daft. Gummy tossed around the monologue argument of Earwax vs. Being Daft until, as if by magic, Sergeant Horsebellicks goose-stepped into the circle.
“Belly up, men at arms, for we are going to clap our eyes on Glory, fight for our steak and bacon, long live the Duchess and so on and so forth! Klatchistan’s finest are arrayed around us, and it is up to us to un-array them from around us!”
Horsebellicks was not the public orator he thought he was.
“We will be charging into the enemies’ lines across the mighty river Smarl! Our milit’ry en-gin-eers have arrayed a pontoon bridge across it so we may have access to the enemy so we may… er… access him!”
Groaning inwardly, Gummy leaned back and propped himself up with his arms. Speeches were not his forte – especially not listening to them. “…and so on and so forth. Er… um… a slight addendum! There was not enough wood to make a full pontoon bridge…”
Gummy’s eyes boggled as the next few words smacked into his ears with the force of a drunk elephant.
“So, thusly, we have small… platforms with spaces in betweenst! We will be, ah, ‘hopping’ toward the enemy.” One smaller boy fainted and the large corporal sneered at him. Horsebellicks, looking about as certain as a child choosing between two types of candy, bowed barely and walked away with a speed about him.
Blinking and trying to wake himself (because obviously this was some kind of stupid nightmare like the ones he used to have about going to school in the nood), Gummy turned to the corporal, who looked barely phased by the… uh… developments.
After several hours, night fell. Night fell very, very hard. It began to rain, because the gods decided Gummy Abbens actually could be more miserable. (Really, they did. It was a bet between Nuggan and Offler. Nuggan won. He generally won bets involving misery.) Slowly, and sadly, forty-six Borogravian soldiers, the entirety of the Numpers garrison including quartermasters, cooks, and the one gardener. Horsebellicks, currently the commanding officer, stood in front of them.
Gummy looked around the rag-tag band to see if the large corporal was still around. He was not. A deserter, he knew. There had to have been many of them. ‘Charging’ the enemy was one thing, but ‘hopping’ them?! He himself had no clue why he hadn’t scarpered off with the rest of them. Oh, right… being totally encircled by Klatchistani tribesmen who speared anything coming across the Smarl that was any larger than a tomato.
Not that you could float the Smarl anyway – it was covered with debris and rocks as sharp as Gummy’s own sword. Even if the crazed tribesmen weren’t there, a sane man wouldn’t try to cross the Smarl unaided. But then, the advent of battle did many things to sane men. Things battle did include making sane men certifiably insane.
“Corp’ral Abbens! Stand up straight, laddy! Got to look right for Nuggan when we go to heaven, provided you haven’t been too Abominable in your spare time, yer!” roared Horsebellicks. Uncertainly, Gummy straightened himself halfheartedly as Horsebellicks shouted, with a bare quiver in his voice, “Charg- er, hop!”
As they dashed out of the gate and the arrows started falling down through the rain, Gummy saw the obstacles arrayed ahead of him. Five tiny rafts all lashed together with thick hemp rope. All were spaced too far from each other to make a large step across. Hopping would, indeed, be required.
Gummy clenched all fourteen of his teeth and planted his feet firmly on the slimy mud. Screams and shouts and the cacophons of battle echoed across the riverbed. Pushing himself, hard, he made the first hop. Arrows plooped into the water around him and one large javelin barely missed his ear. Borogravians dropped into the Smarl and bodies smacked like dolls into the sharp rocks.
As Gummy made it to the fifth platform he saw Horsebellicks’ blood-smeared, open-mouthed body drift by in the water. He stuffed back a vomit and made the last leap into the wet mud on the Klatchistani side of the blood-river. A tribesman rushed him and Gummy’s saber came down just in time to hack off his hand. Kicking the tribesman in his ceremonial voodoo beads, Gummy dashed past him and into another man.
The tall, naked fellow rushed him with a stone axe and with a quick, feral swipe, Gummy’s sword sat in the blood-drenched mud several feet away. Taking a fighting stance he swung at the axeman but the Klatchistani parried and lunged toward him. Gummy sprawled into the sand and mud and spat out the grit as he tried to bring himself up again.
The axeman that loomed over him warbled some weird language and prepared to raise the axe and finish poor Gummy off. He slammed his eyes shut and tried to imagine being home in Munz. So much he hadn’t done… In his hysteria, he almost heard a crackling noise in the air… followed by an ominous snrish.
A wave of heat came over Gummy as the Klatchistani caught fire and shrieked before diving into the Smarl to extinguish himself, only to be snapped on a rock. He leered back at Castle Numpers. A large man stood, oblivious to arrows, atop the wall as men in Borogravian uniform manned the hay catapults and fired volley after volley of crossbow quarrels.
The Klatchistani ran in terror. Pikemen and archers marched onto the shore and tore into the fleeing tribesmen. The large man soon strutted out of the castle’s sally port, his face beaming a grin that could melt wood.
“My my, but if we haven’t routed the whole bleedin’ enemy army!” bellowed the large man. Gummy blinked and saw corporal stripes, rusted and corroding, hanging by a thread from the man’s sleeve… he hadn’t deserted after all. He’d left to rally a bleeding army!
Effortlessly, it seemed, leaping the platforms before several soldiers began to lay more permanent log planks, the large man came straight for Gummy. “Oh, dear, you seem to be the only… er, survivor, corp’ral. I’m sorry for your loss. It was a damn daft plan, hoppin’ like rabbits in the face of the enemy. But by god, you did it! You are truly man of the hour, the proof of the pudding, et caterers! I do not know much of the world, or glory, or heroism, but I know good soldierin’ and I declare you the rabbit of Numpers! Now get bleedin’ armed, you ‘orrible man, and we’re off to put the fear o’ Corp’ral Jackrum into these swede-eaters!”</lj-cut>
<lj-cut text="Cut">Gummy Abbens sighed deeply and puffed off of his wet, warped corncob pipe.</lj-cut> His toothless mouth flexed and he slapped his lips together in a way only he could do, something that many were thankful for, because if more people could do it, the world would be far more wet than it was now. He rocked back in the worm-eaten chair that was missing a leg and began to think. His brow furrowed into a tiny little crag, before popping back into the slightly smaller wrinkles that normally existed there.
The little Borogravian children sat arrayed in front of him, staring with wide-opened eyes at the old, smelly, bad-breathed old soldier. Nothing captured the mind of a boy like a war story, even if it was accompanied by spittle and tiny flecks of old vomit and what might have been corn once, several years ago.
"Numpersh! The battle of Numpersh! Hash any of you ladsh ever heard the tale of the battle of Cashtle Numpersh? No, I thought not. Sho, you shee, Numpersh was the biggest cashtle on the Smarl river at the time, don't shyou know. We Insh-and-Outsh had been plopped inner cashtle for monthsh, shurrounded by shwede-eatersh from Klatchistan... until we met our rabbit!"
-21 years earlier, in Castle Numpers, when Gummy Abbens still had fourteen teeth-
For a half-year, the Klatchistani warriors had been advancing up the Smarl river, smashing through the countryside and finally reached the outskirts of Borogravia and were closing fast on Uberwald. Borogravia, never passing up a challenge, garrisoned the castle at Numpers with soldiers from the Ins-and-Outs, Side-to-Sides, and the To-and-Fros. The Klatchistani had dug long siege trenches around the castle and had strangely-shaped biremes with roofs and hoarding to stop arrows sailing the Smarl.
Gummy Abbens sat on a crenellation and stared down at a party of robed Klatchistani as they tried to sneak across the Smarl. One large man with no left arm and a giant circular wooden mask painted green with feathers glued on led the pack. Half-heartedly, Gummy raised his crossbow and aimed at Mr. Green Feathers - just before a huge ball of fiery hay was launched from a catapult and landed with a scratchy-sounding "snrish".
Gummy, having never heard a snrish, sat and contemplated for a second on its existence. Snrish, of course, had to exist, because it's not like flaming balls of hay and straw could go "quack!" when they hit the ground, right? Such was the course of Gummy Abbens' mind. The phrase "a few bricks short of a wall" does not apply to Gummy's mind, because metaphorically speaking, not only is he missing bricks, the blueprints haven't even been drawn up yet.
Sergeant Horsebellicks slowly walked over to now-corporal Gummy. "Buck up, chappy, yes, indeed! We'll have these hairy dirt eaters out of our beautiful country in weeks, don't you know, yes! We'll be very milit'ry in our going about of it, because we are leaving the castle, and charging their lines in the morn!"
As Horsebellicks walked away, Abbens' face, along with the faces of all those in earshot, drained to a pure white. An assault on Klatchistani lines was... was... He peered over the wall again. Hundreds of naked men in feathers and the hides of several brightly colored animals that Gummy never knew existed in nature ringed the place. A large bireme with a sail woven from palm fronds floated along the river until more flaming hay bails snrished it into flames. Gummy peered toward the trebuchet that was lobbing the things and lamented all the good scubbo materiel being tossed at the enemy.
As arrows and small rocks pinged and panged against the wall, Gummy snuck down the stairs, down the wall and into the main inner courtyard of the castle. A fire and a clay pot sat in the middle of the brown grass, ringed by four or five men with only eight limbs betweenst them. Hobbling over, he sat down on the ground and dipped his hands in the soup bowl and tried to slurp some down before it dribbled onto the ground.
Thoroughly disgusted, all but one of the men left. Gummy looked up sheepishly and smiled at the remaining man, who was obviously very hungry, hungry enough, (or possibly deaf and blind), to stay there with the hand-soup-slurper that had just sat down in the circle. Gummy grinned with all his fourteen black teeth and said, “You want somes?”
The man cracked the tiniest of smiles and waved it away. “No, no indeed, good corp’ral, I have eaten my fill for today.” Gummy examined his bulk and imagined his “fill” had to have been several tub-loads of soup. A rusted corporal’s stripe was hanging by a few threads to the large man’s sleeve.
The other corporal leaned toward Gummy conspiratorially and whispered: “We’re charging the Klatchum-stammi lines tonight, don’t you know!” The tone of the man’s voice sounded almost happy – Gummy chalked it up to his own earwax because it is impossible to be happy about charging into the wake of hundreds of naked men with bows and large swords, unless of course you were daft. Gummy tossed around the monologue argument of Earwax vs. Being Daft until, as if by magic, Sergeant Horsebellicks goose-stepped into the circle.
“Belly up, men at arms, for we are going to clap our eyes on Glory, fight for our steak and bacon, long live the Duchess and so on and so forth! Klatchistan’s finest are arrayed around us, and it is up to us to un-array them from around us!”
Horsebellicks was not the public orator he thought he was.
“We will be charging into the enemies’ lines across the mighty river Smarl! Our milit’ry en-gin-eers have arrayed a pontoon bridge across it so we may have access to the enemy so we may… er… access him!”
Groaning inwardly, Gummy leaned back and propped himself up with his arms. Speeches were not his forte – especially not listening to them. “…and so on and so forth. Er… um… a slight addendum! There was not enough wood to make a full pontoon bridge…”
Gummy’s eyes boggled as the next few words smacked into his ears with the force of a drunk elephant.
“So, thusly, we have small… platforms with spaces in betweenst! We will be, ah, ‘hopping’ toward the enemy.” One smaller boy fainted and the large corporal sneered at him. Horsebellicks, looking about as certain as a child choosing between two types of candy, bowed barely and walked away with a speed about him.
Blinking and trying to wake himself (because obviously this was some kind of stupid nightmare like the ones he used to have about going to school in the nood), Gummy turned to the corporal, who looked barely phased by the… uh… developments.
After several hours, night fell. Night fell very, very hard. It began to rain, because the gods decided Gummy Abbens actually could be more miserable. (Really, they did. It was a bet between Nuggan and Offler. Nuggan won. He generally won bets involving misery.) Slowly, and sadly, forty-six Borogravian soldiers, the entirety of the Numpers garrison including quartermasters, cooks, and the one gardener. Horsebellicks, currently the commanding officer, stood in front of them.
Gummy looked around the rag-tag band to see if the large corporal was still around. He was not. A deserter, he knew. There had to have been many of them. ‘Charging’ the enemy was one thing, but ‘hopping’ them?! He himself had no clue why he hadn’t scarpered off with the rest of them. Oh, right… being totally encircled by Klatchistani tribesmen who speared anything coming across the Smarl that was any larger than a tomato.
Not that you could float the Smarl anyway – it was covered with debris and rocks as sharp as Gummy’s own sword. Even if the crazed tribesmen weren’t there, a sane man wouldn’t try to cross the Smarl unaided. But then, the advent of battle did many things to sane men. Things battle did include making sane men certifiably insane.
“Corp’ral Abbens! Stand up straight, laddy! Got to look right for Nuggan when we go to heaven, provided you haven’t been too Abominable in your spare time, yer!” roared Horsebellicks. Uncertainly, Gummy straightened himself halfheartedly as Horsebellicks shouted, with a bare quiver in his voice, “Charg- er, hop!”
As they dashed out of the gate and the arrows started falling down through the rain, Gummy saw the obstacles arrayed ahead of him. Five tiny rafts all lashed together with thick hemp rope. All were spaced too far from each other to make a large step across. Hopping would, indeed, be required.
Gummy clenched all fourteen of his teeth and planted his feet firmly on the slimy mud. Screams and shouts and the cacophons of battle echoed across the riverbed. Pushing himself, hard, he made the first hop. Arrows plooped into the water around him and one large javelin barely missed his ear. Borogravians dropped into the Smarl and bodies smacked like dolls into the sharp rocks.
As Gummy made it to the fifth platform he saw Horsebellicks’ blood-smeared, open-mouthed body drift by in the water. He stuffed back a vomit and made the last leap into the wet mud on the Klatchistani side of the blood-river. A tribesman rushed him and Gummy’s saber came down just in time to hack off his hand. Kicking the tribesman in his ceremonial voodoo beads, Gummy dashed past him and into another man.
The tall, naked fellow rushed him with a stone axe and with a quick, feral swipe, Gummy’s sword sat in the blood-drenched mud several feet away. Taking a fighting stance he swung at the axeman but the Klatchistani parried and lunged toward him. Gummy sprawled into the sand and mud and spat out the grit as he tried to bring himself up again.
The axeman that loomed over him warbled some weird language and prepared to raise the axe and finish poor Gummy off. He slammed his eyes shut and tried to imagine being home in Munz. So much he hadn’t done… In his hysteria, he almost heard a crackling noise in the air… followed by an ominous snrish.
A wave of heat came over Gummy as the Klatchistani caught fire and shrieked before diving into the Smarl to extinguish himself, only to be snapped on a rock. He leered back at Castle Numpers. A large man stood, oblivious to arrows, atop the wall as men in Borogravian uniform manned the hay catapults and fired volley after volley of crossbow quarrels.
The Klatchistani ran in terror. Pikemen and archers marched onto the shore and tore into the fleeing tribesmen. The large man soon strutted out of the castle’s sally port, his face beaming a grin that could melt wood.
“My my, but if we haven’t routed the whole bleedin’ enemy army!” bellowed the large man. Gummy blinked and saw corporal stripes, rusted and corroding, hanging by a thread from the man’s sleeve… he hadn’t deserted after all. He’d left to rally a bleeding army!
Effortlessly, it seemed, leaping the platforms before several soldiers began to lay more permanent log planks, the large man came straight for Gummy. “Oh, dear, you seem to be the only… er, survivor, corp’ral. I’m sorry for your loss. It was a damn daft plan, hoppin’ like rabbits in the face of the enemy. But by god, you did it! You are truly man of the hour, the proof of the pudding, et caterers! I do not know much of the world, or glory, or heroism, but I know good soldierin’ and I declare you the rabbit of Numpers! Now get bleedin’ armed, you ‘orrible man, and we’re off to put the fear o’ Corp’ral Jackrum into these swede-eaters!”
<lj-cut text="Cut">Gummy Abbens sighed deeply and puffed off of his wet, warped corncob pipe.<lj-cut> His toothless mouth flexed and he slapped his lips together in a way only he could do, something that many were thankful for, because if more people could do it, the world would be far more wet than it was now. He rocked back in the worm-eaten chair that was missing a leg and began to think. His brow furrowed into a tiny little crag, before popping back into the slightly smaller wrinkles that normally existed there.
The little Borogravian children sat arrayed in front of him, staring with wide-opened eyes at the old, smelly, bad-breathed old soldier. Nothing captured the mind of a boy like a war story, even if it was accompanied by spittle and tiny flecks of old vomit and what might have been corn once, several years ago.
"Numpersh! The battle of Numpersh! Hash any of you ladsh ever heard the tale of the battle of Cashtle Numpersh? No, I thought not. Sho, you shee, Numpersh was the biggest cashtle on the Smarl river at the time, don't shyou know. We Insh-and-Outsh had been plopped inner cashtle for monthsh, shurrounded by shwede-eatersh from Klatchistan... until we met our rabbit!"
-21 years earlier, in Castle Numpers, when Gummy Abbens still had fourteen teeth-
For a half-year, the Klatchistani warriors had been advancing up the Smarl river, smashing through the countryside and finally reached the outskirts of Borogravia and were closing fast on Uberwald. Borogravia, never passing up a challenge, garrisoned the castle at Numpers with soldiers from the Ins-and-Outs, Side-to-Sides, and the To-and-Fros. The Klatchistani had dug long siege trenches around the castle and had strangely-shaped biremes with roofs and hoarding to stop arrows sailing the Smarl.
Gummy Abbens sat on a crenellation and stared down at a party of robed Klatchistani as they tried to sneak across the Smarl. One large man with no left arm and a giant circular wooden mask painted green with feathers glued on led the pack. Half-heartedly, Gummy raised his crossbow and aimed at Mr. Green Feathers - just before a huge ball of fiery hay was launched from a catapult and landed with a scratchy-sounding "snrish".
Gummy, having never heard a snrish, sat and contemplated for a second on its existence. Snrish, of course, had to exist, because it's not like flaming balls of hay and straw could go "quack!" when they hit the ground, right? Such was the course of Gummy Abbens' mind. The phrase "a few bricks short of a wall" does not apply to Gummy's mind, because metaphorically speaking, not only is he missing bricks, the blueprints haven't even been drawn up yet.
Sergeant Horsebellicks slowly walked over to now-corporal Gummy. "Buck up, chappy, yes, indeed! We'll have these hairy dirt eaters out of our beautiful country in weeks, don't you know, yes! We'll be very milit'ry in our going about of it, because we are leaving the castle, and charging their lines in the morn!"
As Horsebellicks walked away, Abbens' face, along with the faces of all those in earshot, drained to a pure white. An assault on Klatchistani lines was... was... He peered over the wall again. Hundreds of naked men in feathers and the hides of several brightly colored animals that Gummy never knew existed in nature ringed the place. A large bireme with a sail woven from palm fronds floated along the river until more flaming hay bails snrished it into flames. Gummy peered toward the trebuchet that was lobbing the things and lamented all the good scubbo materiel being tossed at the enemy.
As arrows and small rocks pinged and panged against the wall, Gummy snuck down the stairs, down the wall and into the main inner courtyard of the castle. A fire and a clay pot sat in the middle of the brown grass, ringed by four or five men with only eight limbs betweenst them. Hobbling over, he sat down on the ground and dipped his hands in the soup bowl and tried to slurp some down before it dribbled onto the ground.
Thoroughly disgusted, all but one of the men left. Gummy looked up sheepishly and smiled at the remaining man, who was obviously very hungry, hungry enough, (or possibly deaf and blind), to stay there with the hand-soup-slurper that had just sat down in the circle. Gummy grinned with all his fourteen black teeth and said, “You want somes?”
The man cracked the tiniest of smiles and waved it away. “No, no indeed, good corp’ral, I have eaten my fill for today.” Gummy examined his bulk and imagined his “fill” had to have been several tub-loads of soup. A rusted corporal’s stripe was hanging by a few threads to the large man’s sleeve.
The other corporal leaned toward Gummy conspiratorially and whispered: “We’re charging the Klatchum-stammi lines tonight, don’t you know!” The tone of the man’s voice sounded almost happy – Gummy chalked it up to his own earwax because it is impossible to be happy about charging into the wake of hundreds of naked men with bows and large swords, unless of course you were daft. Gummy tossed around the monologue argument of Earwax vs. Being Daft until, as if by magic, Sergeant Horsebellicks goose-stepped into the circle.
“Belly up, men at arms, for we are going to clap our eyes on Glory, fight for our steak and bacon, long live the Duchess and so on and so forth! Klatchistan’s finest are arrayed around us, and it is up to us to un-array them from around us!”
Horsebellicks was not the public orator he thought he was.
“We will be charging into the enemies’ lines across the mighty river Smarl! Our milit’ry en-gin-eers have arrayed a pontoon bridge across it so we may have access to the enemy so we may… er… access him!”
Groaning inwardly, Gummy leaned back and propped himself up with his arms. Speeches were not his forte – especially not listening to them. “…and so on and so forth. Er… um… a slight addendum! There was not enough wood to make a full pontoon bridge…”
Gummy’s eyes boggled as the next few words smacked into his ears with the force of a drunk elephant.
“So, thusly, we have small… platforms with spaces in betweenst! We will be, ah, ‘hopping’ toward the enemy.” One smaller boy fainted and the large corporal sneered at him. Horsebellicks, looking about as certain as a child choosing between two types of candy, bowed barely and walked away with a speed about him.
Blinking and trying to wake himself (because obviously this was some kind of stupid nightmare like the ones he used to have about going to school in the nood), Gummy turned to the corporal, who looked barely phased by the… uh… developments.
After several hours, night fell. Night fell very, very hard. It began to rain, because the gods decided Gummy Abbens actually could be more miserable. (Really, they did. It was a bet between Nuggan and Offler. Nuggan won. He generally won bets involving misery.) Slowly, and sadly, forty-six Borogravian soldiers, the entirety of the Numpers garrison including quartermasters, cooks, and the one gardener. Horsebellicks, currently the commanding officer, stood in front of them.
Gummy looked around the rag-tag band to see if the large corporal was still around. He was not. A deserter, he knew. There had to have been many of them. ‘Charging’ the enemy was one thing, but ‘hopping’ them?! He himself had no clue why he hadn’t scarpered off with the rest of them. Oh, right… being totally encircled by Klatchistani tribesmen who speared anything coming across the Smarl that was any larger than a tomato.
Not that you could float the Smarl anyway – it was covered with debris and rocks as sharp as Gummy’s own sword. Even if the crazed tribesmen weren’t there, a sane man wouldn’t try to cross the Smarl unaided. But then, the advent of battle did many things to sane men. Things battle did include making sane men certifiably insane.
“Corp’ral Abbens! Stand up straight, laddy! Got to look right for Nuggan when we go to heaven, provided you haven’t been too Abominable in your spare time, yer!” roared Horsebellicks. Uncertainly, Gummy straightened himself halfheartedly as Horsebellicks shouted, with a bare quiver in his voice, “Charg- er, hop!”
As they dashed out of the gate and the arrows started falling down through the rain, Gummy saw the obstacles arrayed ahead of him. Five tiny rafts all lashed together with thick hemp rope. All were spaced too far from each other to make a large step across. Hopping would, indeed, be required.
Gummy clenched all fourteen of his teeth and planted his feet firmly on the slimy mud. Screams and shouts and the cacophons of battle echoed across the riverbed. Pushing himself, hard, he made the first hop. Arrows plooped into the water around him and one large javelin barely missed his ear. Borogravians dropped into the Smarl and bodies smacked like dolls into the sharp rocks.
As Gummy made it to the fifth platform he saw Horsebellicks’ blood-smeared, open-mouthed body drift by in the water. He stuffed back a vomit and made the last leap into the wet mud on the Klatchistani side of the blood-river. A tribesman rushed him and Gummy’s saber came down just in time to hack off his hand. Kicking the tribesman in his ceremonial voodoo beads, Gummy dashed past him and into another man.
The tall, naked fellow rushed him with a stone axe and with a quick, feral swipe, Gummy’s sword sat in the blood-drenched mud several feet away. Taking a fighting stance he swung at the axeman but the Klatchistani parried and lunged toward him. Gummy sprawled into the sand and mud and spat out the grit as he tried to bring himself up again.
The axeman that loomed over him warbled some weird language and prepared to raise the axe and finish poor Gummy off. He slammed his eyes shut and tried to imagine being home in Munz. So much he hadn’t done… In his hysteria, he almost heard a crackling noise in the air… followed by an ominous snrish.
A wave of heat came over Gummy as the Klatchistani caught fire and shrieked before diving into the Smarl to extinguish himself, only to be snapped on a rock. He leered back at Castle Numpers. A large man stood, oblivious to arrows, atop the wall as men in Borogravian uniform manned the hay catapults and fired volley after volley of crossbow quarrels.
The Klatchistani ran in terror. Pikemen and archers marched onto the shore and tore into the fleeing tribesmen. The large man soon strutted out of the castle’s sally port, his face beaming a grin that could melt wood.
“My my, but if we haven’t routed the whole bleedin’ enemy army!” bellowed the large man. Gummy blinked and saw corporal stripes, rusted and corroding, hanging by a thread from the man’s sleeve… he hadn’t deserted after all. He’d left to rally a bleeding army!
Effortlessly, it seemed, leaping the platforms before several soldiers began to lay more permanent log planks, the large man came straight for Gummy. “Oh, dear, you seem to be the only… er, survivor, corp’ral. I’m sorry for your loss. It was a damn daft plan, hoppin’ like rabbits in the face of the enemy. But by god, you did it! You are truly man of the hour, the proof of the pudding, et caterers! I do not know much of the world, or glory, or heroism, but I know good soldierin’ and I declare you the rabbit of Numpers! Now get bleedin’ armed, you ‘orrible man, and we’re off to put the fear o’ Corp’ral Jackrum into these swede-eaters!”
<lj-cut text="title of cut">Gummy Abbens sighed deeply and puffed off of his wet, warped corncob pipe.<lj-cut> His toothless mouth flexed and he slapped his lips together in a way only he could do, something that many were thankful for, because if more people could do it, the world would be far more wet than it was now. He rocked back in the worm-eaten chair that was missing a leg and began to think. His brow furrowed into a tiny little crag, before popping back into the slightly smaller wrinkles that normally existed there.
The little Borogravian children sat arrayed in front of him, staring with wide-opened eyes at the old, smelly, bad-breathed old soldier. Nothing captured the mind of a boy like a war story, even if it was accompanied by spittle and tiny flecks of old vomit and what might have been corn once, several years ago.
"Numpersh! The battle of Numpersh! Hash any of you ladsh ever heard the tale of the battle of Cashtle Numpersh? No, I thought not. Sho, you shee, Numpersh was the biggest cashtle on the Smarl river at the time, don't shyou know. We Insh-and-Outsh had been plopped inner cashtle for monthsh, shurrounded by shwede-eatersh from Klatchistan... until we met our rabbit!"
-21 years earlier, in Castle Numpers, when Gummy Abbens still had fourteen teeth-
For a half-year, the Klatchistani warriors had been advancing up the Smarl river, smashing through the countryside and finally reached the outskirts of Borogravia and were closing fast on Uberwald. Borogravia, never passing up a challenge, garrisoned the castle at Numpers with soldiers from the Ins-and-Outs, Side-to-Sides, and the To-and-Fros. The Klatchistani had dug long siege trenches around the castle and had strangely-shaped biremes with roofs and hoarding to stop arrows sailing the Smarl.
Gummy Abbens sat on a crenellation and stared down at a party of robed Klatchistani as they tried to sneak across the Smarl. One large man with no left arm and a giant circular wooden mask painted green with feathers glued on led the pack. Half-heartedly, Gummy raised his crossbow and aimed at Mr. Green Feathers - just before a huge ball of fiery hay was launched from a catapult and landed with a scratchy-sounding "snrish".
Gummy, having never heard a snrish, sat and contemplated for a second on its existence. Snrish, of course, had to exist, because it's not like flaming balls of hay and straw could go "quack!" when they hit the ground, right? Such was the course of Gummy Abbens' mind. The phrase "a few bricks short of a wall" does not apply to Gummy's mind, because metaphorically speaking, not only is he missing bricks, the blueprints haven't even been drawn up yet.
Sergeant Horsebellicks slowly walked over to now-corporal Gummy. "Buck up, chappy, yes, indeed! We'll have these hairy dirt eaters out of our beautiful country in weeks, don't you know, yes! We'll be very milit'ry in our going about of it, because we are leaving the castle, and charging their lines in the morn!"
As Horsebellicks walked away, Abbens' face, along with the faces of all those in earshot, drained to a pure white. An assault on Klatchistani lines was... was... He peered over the wall again. Hundreds of naked men in feathers and the hides of several brightly colored animals that Gummy never knew existed in nature ringed the place. A large bireme with a sail woven from palm fronds floated along the river until more flaming hay bails snrished it into flames. Gummy peered toward the trebuchet that was lobbing the things and lamented all the good scubbo materiel being tossed at the enemy.
As arrows and small rocks pinged and panged against the wall, Gummy snuck down the stairs, down the wall and into the main inner courtyard of the castle. A fire and a clay pot sat in the middle of the brown grass, ringed by four or five men with only eight limbs betweenst them. Hobbling over, he sat down on the ground and dipped his hands in the soup bowl and tried to slurp some down before it dribbled onto the ground.
Thoroughly disgusted, all but one of the men left. Gummy looked up sheepishly and smiled at the remaining man, who was obviously very hungry, hungry enough, (or possibly deaf and blind), to stay there with the hand-soup-slurper that had just sat down in the circle. Gummy grinned with all his fourteen black teeth and said, “You want somes?”
The man cracked the tiniest of smiles and waved it away. “No, no indeed, good corp’ral, I have eaten my fill for today.” Gummy examined his bulk and imagined his “fill” had to have been several tub-loads of soup. A rusted corporal’s stripe was hanging by a few threads to the large man’s sleeve.
The other corporal leaned toward Gummy conspiratorially and whispered: “We’re charging the Klatchum-stammi lines tonight, don’t you know!” The tone of the man’s voice sounded almost happy – Gummy chalked it up to his own earwax because it is impossible to be happy about charging into the wake of hundreds of naked men with bows and large swords, unless of course you were daft. Gummy tossed around the monologue argument of Earwax vs. Being Daft until, as if by magic, Sergeant Horsebellicks goose-stepped into the circle.
“Belly up, men at arms, for we are going to clap our eyes on Glory, fight for our steak and bacon, long live the Duchess and so on and so forth! Klatchistan’s finest are arrayed around us, and it is up to us to un-array them from around us!”
Horsebellicks was not the public orator he thought he was.
“We will be charging into the enemies’ lines across the mighty river Smarl! Our milit’ry en-gin-eers have arrayed a pontoon bridge across it so we may have access to the enemy so we may… er… access him!”
Groaning inwardly, Gummy leaned back and propped himself up with his arms. Speeches were not his forte – especially not listening to them. “…and so on and so forth. Er… um… a slight addendum! There was not enough wood to make a full pontoon bridge…”
Gummy’s eyes boggled as the next few words smacked into his ears with the force of a drunk elephant.
“So, thusly, we have small… platforms with spaces in betweenst! We will be, ah, ‘hopping’ toward the enemy.” One smaller boy fainted and the large corporal sneered at him. Horsebellicks, looking about as certain as a child choosing between two types of candy, bowed barely and walked away with a speed about him.
Blinking and trying to wake himself (because obviously this was some kind of stupid nightmare like the ones he used to have about going to school in the nood), Gummy turned to the corporal, who looked barely phased by the… uh… developments.
After several hours, night fell. Night fell very, very hard. It began to rain, because the gods decided Gummy Abbens actually could be more miserable. (Really, they did. It was a bet between Nuggan and Offler. Nuggan won. He generally won bets involving misery.) Slowly, and sadly, forty-six Borogravian soldiers, the entirety of the Numpers garrison including quartermasters, cooks, and the one gardener. Horsebellicks, currently the commanding officer, stood in front of them.
Gummy looked around the rag-tag band to see if the large corporal was still around. He was not. A deserter, he knew. There had to have been many of them. ‘Charging’ the enemy was one thing, but ‘hopping’ them?! He himself had no clue why he hadn’t scarpered off with the rest of them. Oh, right… being totally encircled by Klatchistani tribesmen who speared anything coming across the Smarl that was any larger than a tomato.
Not that you could float the Smarl anyway – it was covered with debris and rocks as sharp as Gummy’s own sword. Even if the crazed tribesmen weren’t there, a sane man wouldn’t try to cross the Smarl unaided. But then, the advent of battle did many things to sane men. Things battle did include making sane men certifiably insane.
“Corp’ral Abbens! Stand up straight, laddy! Got to look right for Nuggan when we go to heaven, provided you haven’t been too Abominable in your spare time, yer!” roared Horsebellicks. Uncertainly, Gummy straightened himself halfheartedly as Horsebellicks shouted, with a bare quiver in his voice, “Charg- er, hop!”
As they dashed out of the gate and the arrows started falling down through the rain, Gummy saw the obstacles arrayed ahead of him. Five tiny rafts all lashed together with thick hemp rope. All were spaced too far from each other to make a large step across. Hopping would, indeed, be required.
Gummy clenched all fourteen of his teeth and planted his feet firmly on the slimy mud. Screams and shouts and the cacophons of battle echoed across the riverbed. Pushing himself, hard, he made the first hop. Arrows plooped into the water around him and one large javelin barely missed his ear. Borogravians dropped into the Smarl and bodies smacked like dolls into the sharp rocks.
As Gummy made it to the fifth platform he saw Horsebellicks’ blood-smeared, open-mouthed body drift by in the water. He stuffed back a vomit and made the last leap into the wet mud on the Klatchistani side of the blood-river. A tribesman rushed him and Gummy’s saber came down just in time to hack off his hand. Kicking the tribesman in his ceremonial voodoo beads, Gummy dashed past him and into another man.
The tall, naked fellow rushed him with a stone axe and with a quick, feral swipe, Gummy’s sword sat in the blood-drenched mud several feet away. Taking a fighting stance he swung at the axeman but the Klatchistani parried and lunged toward him. Gummy sprawled into the sand and mud and spat out the grit as he tried to bring himself up again.
The axeman that loomed over him warbled some weird language and prepared to raise the axe and finish poor Gummy off. He slammed his eyes shut and tried to imagine being home in Munz. So much he hadn’t done… In his hysteria, he almost heard a crackling noise in the air… followed by an ominous snrish.
A wave of heat came over Gummy as the Klatchistani caught fire and shrieked before diving into the Smarl to extinguish himself, only to be snapped on a rock. He leered back at Castle Numpers. A large man stood, oblivious to arrows, atop the wall as men in Borogravian uniform manned the hay catapults and fired volley after volley of crossbow quarrels.
The Klatchistani ran in terror. Pikemen and archers marched onto the shore and tore into the fleeing tribesmen. The large man soon strutted out of the castle’s sally port, his face beaming a grin that could melt wood.
“My my, but if we haven’t routed the whole bleedin’ enemy army!” bellowed the large man. Gummy blinked and saw corporal stripes, rusted and corroding, hanging by a thread from the man’s sleeve… he hadn’t deserted after all. He’d left to rally a bleeding army!
Effortlessly, it seemed, leaping the platforms before several soldiers began to lay more permanent log planks, the large man came straight for Gummy. “Oh, dear, you seem to be the only… er, survivor, corp’ral. I’m sorry for your loss. It was a damn daft plan, hoppin’ like rabbits in the face of the enemy. But by god, you did it! You are truly man of the hour, the proof of the pudding, et caterers! I do not know much of the world, or glory, or heroism, but I know good soldierin’ and I declare you the rabbit of Numpers! Now get bleedin’ armed, you ‘orrible man, and we’re off to put the fear o’ Corp’ral Jackrum into these swede-eaters!”
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