To Live and Die in the Hollow
A Gloranthan Doodle by Raynart Finn
Wake up. Throw up. Eat up. Breakfast. Go to cess-pit and help Sikbuket clean it out. Delicious. Lots of flies. I like flies. Shame though, they're too small to shag. So I eat them instead. Mmmm. Crunchy.
Sikbuket has a new scab beneath his left eye. Looks contagious, so I have a grope, and let him have one of my flies in return. Lovely.
Barkrot calls us together after breakfast. Seems there's a caravan of oomans heading south towards the Hollow. Must've got lost or else they're just plain stupid. Most oomans are. Lost and stupid, I mean. Anyway, Barkrot says we've got to hike up the north ridge and see how many fighters and womens they've got. That gets us all excited. We haven't had a ooman womens for a few weeks now, not since the end of Dark Season, and a few of us have got ball-ache. Snatchrub chewed one of his off the other day, coz it was aching so much. Looked tasty too. And it got infected. Some bastards have all the luck.
So me, Sikbuket, Snatchrub and Glabber make the hoof-hike up the north ridge, scattering the goats (I saw mummy!) and pausing once or twice for a quick in-out-ah (I had mummy!). Nice day. All grey and drizzly. Then we head west at the ruined fort and hunker-down low as we get nearer the ridge, overlooking the road that goes down to the Hollow. Snatchrub reckons he can smell womens, but I think he's a lying bastard and tell him its probably his other knacker starting to fester. Sikbuket tells us to shut-up, or he'll make us have sloppy seconds. Again.
We can see the caravan. Two carts led by a horse apiece. Dead easy, this. We could have 'em in a jiffy - bit of in-out-ah - and then back to the camp for a right-old knees up. Their knees, up and over their necks, that is. But Sikbuket says we've just got to count fighters and see if there's any womens. We can't see womens, but we reckon there must be some hidden in the carts.
Sikbuket's all for going back now, but Glabber says to him to hold-up and wait for a breath. There's four of us and we're all contagious, and Glabber's got six arms, so we'd scare the shit out of them if we went in screaming and spitting and pissing at them. Sikbuket's not sure (coz he's a chicken. Well, half goat, half chicken), and tell us Barkrot'll mangle us with our own innards if we try it on. Only if someone tells Barkrot, Glabber says, and then the fight starts, coz Sikbuket pecks out one of Glabber's eyes and then Snatchrub joins in.
Next thing, there's the three of us jumping up and down on Sikbuket's head like bastards, and Sikbuket's stopped crowing. That'll teach him, the nancy boy, Glabber says, and wipes his tentacles clean of the feathers and brains. Yes, says Snatchrub, and offers me one of Sikbuket eyes. Nice snack.
So we crawls, belly-flop style, down the hill and through the long-grass, towards the carts. They've stopped by the stream to water the horses, and I think to myself that I fancy the one with the blinkers and knitted blanket. I'll have that one after my ooman womens.
Coz there are ooman womens. We can all smell them now. All sweet and clean and scrubbed. Smell the men too, but I prefer the horse-stink, which has flies in it and smells like rotten grass. We'll kill the men. We might shag one or two for fun, but we'll kill 'em anyways.
Glabber's first out of the grass. He's there, screaming like a bastard and running around the horses waving his tentacles at them. Snatchrub waits for the warriors to make their leaps at Glabber and then he's up and into the back of the first cart faster than Barkrot coming. I sets-up a hollering and charge at the back of one of the warriors, goring him on my horns. He screams and there's bloody blood blood all over the place now. Glabber's got a tentacle round one of the warrior's necks and ripping an arm off with another. The third warrior - last one - shits himself and starts running. I let him get some distance while I get my horns out of the dead geezer and then I take aim and gob. Spit hits the back of his legs and starts burning. He's screaming like a bastard and rolling on the floor. Tosser rubs his steaming legs with his hands and screams more as his fingers melt off. I piss meself laughing and Glabber lobs the head of the first warrior at the Finger Boy.
"This was easy." I says to Glabber and he agrees. "We wuz right to mangle Sickbucket. We can have some in-out-ah now without his moaning." So we go round to the last cart and find Snatchrub.
He's standing there with a filthy grin on his face and a stiffy like a plank. But he's standing all wrong, and it's then that I notice the spear poking out his arsehole. I starts to shout at Glabber, but there's a sound like a crack, and something hits him square in the face parting his head just like Sickbucket's parted when we all stamped on it.
Now I know something's up and I don't want to end up on a stick like Snatchrub. So I start running but there's that sound again and something's stuck on my leg. I look down and see the arrowhead poking out of my knee and stop running. It hurts like a bastard now and there's blood pumping about six feet ahead of me.
I turn and look back. Tall ooman womens with red hair and a wild look is standing at the bach of the cart holding a big bow. Fit. I'd like to jump those bones and have some in-out-ah, but there's a look about her that says 'Do Not Know Who You're Fucking With', and I remember something Barkrot once said about eels in a jar with razors and red hair.
And then she's got her bow up with a big arrow in it and
she's pointing it at me without so much as a waver. My leg's gone numb
now, and I think about the horse with the blinkers and get myself really
excited. All flies and horse breath and....
