Helga: Out of Hedgelands, Rick Johnson [suggested reading txt] 📗

buzzing away beside you? They’re hardly Beasts of Fortune, no matter what they claim—let’s see, for a leader we have barkskin overalls and worker-beast boots, a fearful hammer and saw at the belt, and a twinkle in the eye—Bah! Hardly stuff to raise up worry. Seems to me, I buy you off, you tell me where the riches are, and I take the rest for slaves! Or, you don’t like that deal and I just split you open stem to stern and take the Royal Eyeballs and call it good enough.”

“Nay!” Roolo said angrily. “Talk that way, you’ll never win the grandest prize of all—and you, being the greatest freebooter of them all, would not settle like that—and on that point, I’ll stake my wager.”

“These beasts are our friends now,” Bomper added. “We protect our mates—you treat them as you treat us, or no deal.”

“Curse your impudence!” Sabre Tusk snarled. “You’re rascals and that’s for certain.” But the Rummer Boar also stroked his moustache thoughtfully, then stepped forward and squinted at Roolo, then Bomper.

“A trallé for the two of you,” Sabre Tusk said, “but nothing for those other bilge-swilling liars—they live to be fools yet another day, but no charity from me.”

“Not today!” Breister challenged. “We are Beasts of Fortune, like yourself. Leave us out of gettin’ and we might not play nice any longer—it’s not the hammers and saws you have to fear, but this!” He picked up a long staff lying at his feet and held it threateningly. “To be fair, I need to even the odds a bit—as a Beast of Fortune yourself, you’ll understand the rules of this business. You force my hand and I’ll use this flicker pole against you.”

“Oh, my—save me from such a fate,” Sabre Tusk roared. “He’s got a wooden pole and he’s going to use it against us!” Looking around at his men, he said, “Show this idiot what we will answer his mighty pole with, lads!” Instantly, drawn swords, dirks, razor-edged boomerangs, and battle-axes appeared on every side.

“Now, as I was saying,” Sabre Tusk declared, “Two trallés for the fools who have entertained me—I admire their spirit—for the rest of you ‘Beasts of Fortune,’ as you call yourselves, the sand that fills your boots as you run out of here with your heads still on.”

Turning back to Roolo and Bomper, Sabre Tusk growled menacingly, “Now, I advise you two fools to accept my offer not to split you in half and accept the trallés—but you show me the goods and gold before we pull our cutlasses back from your heads.” The Rummer Boar directed two of his crew to position themselves behind Roolo and Bomper, with cutlasses raised above their heads.

“And as for you, Master Sir with the Terror Pole, we’ll just take that, if you please.” Sabre Tusk was about to direct others in his crew to take the flicker pole from Breister, when a strange clattering and oogling caught everyone’s attention.

Glancing up the hillside at the top of the beach, every beast blinked or startled with wonder. Like a fantastic tsunami, an immense moving wave of lizards was flowing over the top of the hill and down toward the beach! Most amazing of all was that a Cow ran at the head of the on-rushing stampede! Although individual lizards were not large, the immense numbers of them made a terrifying sight—especially with the sound of their sharp claws clattering across the rocks on the hillside.

Gooodg-Oog-looo! Oog-Oog-looo! The on-rushing wave of lizards descended in a seemingly endless cascade over the brow of the hill, charging full speed directly at the beasts standing on the beach.

The Rummer Boars, except for Sabre Tusk, did not waste time in retreating to their boats. Running clumsily through the sand, nearly stumbling and falling, Sabre Tusk’s crew jumped in their boats and pushed away from shore, leaving their Captain behind. They did not row for the ship, but stopped some yards off shore to see what the lizards would do when they reached water’s edge.

Sabre Tusk did not frighten easily and his focus on the promise of riches was not diminished by a few lizards—even tens of thousands of them. Breister, for his part, was nearly speechless—he was certain that his daughter Helga was the Cow running among the stampeding lizards! Found!

Roolo and Bomper, although extremely doubtful about the wisdom of being overrun by thousands of sharp-clawed lizards, remained true to their new-found friend and refused to move until Breister did. Toshty and Annie, of course, being “one for all, and all for all,” stood their ground also. So, as the mass of lizards flowed ever closer, the group on the beach remained in place.

When the charging lizard wave hit the beach, however, the stampede suddenly stopped. The lizards scattered and scuttled across the beach in a disorganized fashion, as if each lizard were searching for something in the sand. Slowly the immense faceless herd became, one after another, individual lizards looking for the best possible nesting site. Little by little, each found spots to their liking and began digging out a sandy hollow to lay eggs.

Coming over the brow of the hill, Helga had immediately noticed the beasts standing on the beach, and quickly recognized her father and friends! The joy of that recognition pushed the terror and tension of her recent ordeal to the back of her mind and she put on a new burst of speed as she rushed toward reunion with Breister.

“Helgy! Helgy!” laughed Breister, grabbing his daughter and pulling her close in a joyful embrace.

Sabre Tusk, in spite of himself, had eyes as big as saucers. Roolo and Bomper smiled broadly and Toshty and Annie slapped her on the back in welcome.

“As I breathe, Helga,” Breister said happily, “you certainly made a dramatic entrance!”

“Yea, verily,” Helga laughed, “it’s been quite a day—started off racing against monitors snapping at my heels, survived a Godgie stampede, and ended up finding you and the others!”

Looking around at the other beasts, Helga’s eyes settled on Sabre Tusk. She did not need any help to assess his character. “Who’s this Hunky-Junky?” she asked.

“H’yart, there, now,” Sabre Tusk snarled, “stop your buzzin’ like a pack of flies! There’s serious business we’re about—I’ll just call me crew back and we’ll be on with things!”

Sabre Tusk, however, had not counted on a change in heart of his crew who had been floating some yards off shore. With the beach now endlessly covered with lizards, the keelboats began pulling hard toward the ship. Sabre Tusk called for his crew to come back, “Land, you scoundrels! Beach those boats and help me out, you scalawags, or I’ll boil your spleens in rum and feed them to you!”

“Nay, Captain! Nay, our dear and worthy Captain!” the call came back from the keelboats. “We see you in no danger—for you, yourself, said you had nothing to fear from those ‘fools’ and ‘so-called Beasts of Fortune’ as you named them! So, since we’ve been plotting for a chance to maroon you these past weeks—seems right to us, to let those as command others like they was lizards, to stay among the lizards! We’ve elected Saltface as our new captain and we’ll be sailing off to better haunts without you!” So saying, they left Sabre Tusk raging on the beach, surrounded by Godgie lizards.

Fuming, but unable to do anything to stop them, for an instant Sabre Tusk simply screamed after his crew, then turned on Breister again.

“You bilge-sucking, lying Cow! You’re responsible for this! You and your lizard-loving daughter! You tricked me! I should have known!” With a roar, the Rummer Boar leaped at Breister, knocking him to the sand. As Sabre Tusk hit him, Breister’s flicker pole flew from his grasp. Breister rolled once and, pulling his hammer from his belt, bounced back up, facing Sabre Tusk.

“I’ll slice you to shark bait,” the Rummer Boar cried, slashing his cutlass at Breister.

“Not this time, Rummer-Sum!” Breister returned, parrying away the cutlass blow with his hammer.

Despite Breister’s courage, a carpenter’s hammer is no match for a heavy cutlass. The enraged Rummer Boar demonstrated why he was known to be a terror in battle. Slashing with a speed that seemed to cut light itself into small bits, Helga could see no way to stop Sabre Tusk’s attack on her father. It was just a matter of time before the much more skilled Rummer Boar would overcome her father. Quickly picking up her father’s fallen flicker pole, Helga began to work it furiously. With incredible speed, Helga waved the flexible pole, making the tip a blur of motion above her head. An undulating, whisper-like song sounded across the beach.

“Oh, Ancient Ones, help me, help me please,” Helga pleaded silently. Despite the fatigue that made her arms feel heavy and weak, she kept the pole moving furiously. The whisper-like song grew louder. Very soon, a few seabirds fishing off shore changed their direction and headed for the beach. Then, great numbers of birds, appearing from all points of the compass, began gathering in immense flocks wheeling overhead: sea birds, hawks and eagles, sparrows and jays, every kind of bird within miles! Descending en masse, the birds began settling down to roost on every available perch—as near to Helga as possible. Fluttering and flapping, cooing and cawing, chirping and squawking, pecking and pooping—the flocks covered the area around Helga.

Sabre Tusk’s attention was no longer on Breister as the immense flock began to descend around him. Instead, he tried to escape. Running as best he could through the vast gathering of lizards, stumbling, tripping, falling, crawling, he scrabbled across the beach like a crab. The immense maze of lizards, however, left hardly a patch of sand to walk on. Soon, the Rummer Boar captain, who had made little progress through the lizards, knelt among the lizards, screaming, weeping, and blubbing like a wild beast. He was rapidly becoming splattered with black, yellow, white, and brown bird droppings.

To Sabre Tusk’s disgust and horror, his elegant and dramatic oversized hat was nearly dripping with the slimey, smelly mess—becoming a veritable poop umbrella. Some of the birds who commonly made their livelihoods as pick-pockets and petty thieves, swooped at the Rummer Boar’s necklace of golden shark’s teeth, quickly picking him clean.

“What a lot of ships!” he cried! “We’re being boarded! But let them come and I will squash them between my fingers!” Jumping and leaping at the swooping birds, Sabre Tusk tried in vain to capture them between his thumb and forefinger. Pinching at the wheeling birds as if he could pop them between his fingers like bugs, the Rummer Boar’s ranting grew wilder and wilder. “Shim, my mate—turn the wheel to starboard! We’re being boarded—turn away, turn! Starboard! Shim! Shim! Are ye deaf? Why don’t you turn the wheel? Shim! Where are you? Why don’t you answer me?”

But the only answer Sabre Tusk received was a direct hit on the nose from a very sloppy bird dropping. “Yieeeah! I’m hit—” he cried, falling to his knees and crawling over and among the lizards. The once fierce Rummer Boar, now reduced to the appearance of a filthy wildman, wriggling among the lizards, broke into a crazed, delirious shrieking.

“Oh, darlin’s, make room for me, please!” Sabre Tusk wailed, talking to the lizards. “Don’t let them poop on me! Help me, protect me hat! They’re soiling my feathers! Your kingdom is big and vast! Who is your king? Take me to him to plead my case! I’ll serve him forever if his army will protect me against all that poop falling from the sky!” The poor beast, his mind snapped, crawled senselessly among the lizards, stopping here and there to plead his cause.

Getting little response, he