A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) (24 page)

Jaek’ Kol looks directly at me as he breaks my Emerald Joy.

“
Hrr, hrr, hrrrr.”

He stalks me. I maneuver to keep the fire between myself and Jaek’ Kol.

I am defenseless.

There is nothing for me to do. Maybe I can withdraw. I’ll move away, back down the trail I entered.

The ‘Snow Devil’ now has me trapped in the confined space of the deep snow trail.

The iceman chargeth.

I drop and scramble between his legs, and I’m up, running back to the fire.

Jaek’ Kol is at the back of my neck.

At the last second I fall while scissoring my legs to catch one of his legs. Grape-vining the proffered foot, I roll.

Jaek’ is tripped up! I dropped him face first, right in the fire!

I’ll keep his knee locked out as I spin into his leg to latch his foot!

“rrrr-RARRRRR!”

“Scream and holler all you want, this here ankle lock is gonna hold you in place, big ‘un!”

“rrrr-RARRRRR!”

“Oh no you don’t! You ain’t going nowhere, you pale gorilla! You are going to enjoy that fire’s warmth whether you want to or not!”

“rrrr-RARRRRR!”

“Yessir, I bet that fire does hurt, don’t it?”

- - -

He’s a little gamey, but I am refreshed after a meal of fresh meat.

- - -

I scavenge the high-altitude albino ape-man’s supplies for material.

I find a few parcels of food and a small still he used to produce his own, foul, home brew.

There are a few flasks, and a glass bottle in a crude, heavy form.

I can’t think of any use for these items, unless...

(
! plinck !
)

- - -

I use a femur from the Himalayan Lycanthrope as a frame for my device, and the still for a channeling mechanism. The bottle serves as an ectoplasmic charging chamber.

I scavenge the sad remains of my prized La Mat and the contents of my holster’s ammunition to complete my project.

With a newly formed weapon in hand, I resume my journey.

- - -

…

I...

...

am...

...

cold....

....

hungry...

....

alone....

...

lonely...

…

The blizzard consumes... all...

…

No visibility...

...

cold...

...

hungry...

...

alone...

...

loneliness...

...

Miss Plumtartt...

...

Miss Plumtartt...

…

Ipswich...

…

She spoke my name...

…

‘Ichabod’...

...

That moment …

...

in Paris...

To awaken...

‘Her’...

I kissed...

my Princess...

Was it real?...

Did it really happen?...

Or did I dream it?...

…

When we crossed the Atlantic, s
he kissed my cheek.

She was proud of me; maybe more.

…

Ohhh...

Ohhh, Miss Plumtartt...

I'm sorry...

I failed you...

Miss Plumtartt...

I failed you, Miss Plumtartt...

...

cold...

…

hungry...

…

alone...

...

- - -

“Wake up, you little American Bug!”

I am kicked in the face.

The kick, combined with the Prussian Pillock’s accent, snaps me out of the funque into which I had slipped.

“Thanks, I needed that, you monocled madman.”

I come to my senses on a vast plateau.

A dark and frozen wasteland.

I grab my weapon and spin up the ‘Beauties’ as the Bavarian Bombast exclaims:

“Was zur Hölle!?! Mmm-Bwuhahahahaha! Is that some sort of caveman club you have devised, Herr Munchkin?”

Herr Doktor Himmel relaxes in his outrageously ostentatious and luxurious, monster-pulled sled.

Scores of horrible creatures scuttle over the ridge behind him. Massive horrors surround him. The beastie that just kicked me in the face backs away to afford the Doktor a better view of yours truly.

“Vas ist this you clutch in your dirty human hands? A bone? A bit of tubing? An old glass jar?”

I only have one shot with my improvised device.

I take it.

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!

BUH-BUH-BUH

BOOM! BOOM! BOOMITY!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOMITY!

BOOM! BOOM!

BAH-BOOMITY-
BOOM!!!

“Got him!”

More than a dozen kritters got fried in that discharge. The P.G.D.D. exploded in my hands and face, but I don’t care! This is my first moment of happiness in months. The fancy sled got blown to pieces, and the Dok... No!

Twenty feet back from where he was standing a moment earlier, the Bavarian Dastard sits up from the snow.

Momentarily dazed, he angrily gets to his feet.

Quickly covering the ground to where I have been blown back by the discharge, the Dirty Deutschman reaches out with his suddenly tentacled limbs.

Augh! These tentacles have got me! I am bound up tight!

“Now, you shall pay for your insolence, you insignificant interloper.”

My arms are pinned. I’m being crushed. I can’t breathe.

“And this, I think, belongs to me.”

Doktor Himmel has the scroll!

“Mwuhuhuhuh”

“Mwuhuhuhuh”

“Mwuh-
Ahhhhhh
-Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

The Doktor holds his prize, the lead pipe containing the Dread Scroll of Unutterable content, above his head.

“At last, the U’llighi is in my possession! Let the Great Invasion begin!”

He’s screwing the end cap off the pipe. Dang, as soon as that cap came off, all the critters got excited!  Golly, there must be hundreds, no, thousands, no, tens of thousands of inter-dimensional horrors claiming this Tibetan Plateau. They have gathered to welcome their wrongful poobah of another plane.

Doktor Himmel is pulling the scroll from its lead shelter. The hordes of horrors have taken up an excited chittering.

The diabolical Doktor displays the thing to his rapt audience.

They cheer him wildly.

He begins to read aloud from the scroll.

The abominable insect speech subsides.

KUH
rr
r
r
r
r
R
R
R
A
C
K

The sky makes a loud and distressing noise.

KUH
rr
r
r
r
r
R
R
R
A
C
K!!!

The sky makes another, even more ominous sound.

The monsters are going berserk with joy!

The Doktor continues his terrible spell.

He holds the scroll aloft...

                              … and it is speared out of his hand.

The implement of its removal is quivering, where it has plunged into the ground.

The scroll has been punctured by an emerald spike, protruding from an iridescent green ball, affixed to the end of a pink parasol
.

Persephone

“All equipment and personnel, this is it!” I bellow as I charge ahead of my gathered forces.

The horse rears to flee, but with my new-found Gung Fu-trained agility, I merely use this as a propellant, to spin and continue my forward motion.

I top the icy ridge.

It is as I had sensed. Untold thousands of hideous creatures, great and small, fill this vast plain. A glowing sea of phosphorescent abominations writhe before me.

I almost relinquish my pre-battle meal, but manage to control my nausea.

The hordes of creatures are oblivious to me as they are in a terrible state of frenzied excitement.

There! Not too terribly far away are two men. No, it’s one man and he is being held by the other fellow’s tentacles.

KUH
rr
r
r
r
r
R
R
R
A
C
K
(The Sky!)

Herr Himmel is holding my Ichabod!

KUH
rr
r
r
r
r
R
R
R
A
C
K!!!

Himmel intones the manifestation!

Seeing my Ichabod draws my hand to his gift for me as it always does when I think of him.

Instinctively I target the foul scroll.

My pink parasotal missile flies from my hand.

Bullseye!

“I say, good show!
”

Ichabod.

“Miss...”

“Miss...”

“Miss ... Plumtartt?”

A vision of womanhood, idealized, stands atop the icy ridge.

Indifferent to her harsh surroundings is this figure of legend, a warrior Goddess.

From her boots, (heavily constructed, they follow the form of her strong legs, all the way past her knees) to the top of her head, (incongruously adorned by a familiar gentleman’s hat) she exudes confidence, and control.

Around her waist, she wears a skirt. It’s quite short, in fact, presumably allowing freedom of movement.

Her bodice is a corset of heavy leathers, firmly strapped into position. The contours of her remarkable form are securely supported.

Bucklers adorn her forearms.

A confident cock of her shapely hips lock out to one side.

A mischievous fire blazes in her eyes.

“Fraulein Sour-tartt! So, you made it after all, ja?”

“That’s Plumtartt. Miss Persephone Plumtartt, but you, Herr Doktor, may call me the Bringer of Destruction. Your destruction.”

Persephone

“Ahahahahahahaha!”

Herr Doktor Himmel stands in a writhing sea of inter-dimensional horrors. The size of some of the horrors is staggering. My human size is tiny in comparison.

“Really? Do you think you can stop what cannot be stopped? You? You, and whose army, mein Leibchen?”

“
My
army, Herr Doktor!”

Suddenly, pair by pair, thousands of green points of light blink into existence, each marking the presence of a set of Mr. Temperance’s ‘Green Beauties’.

Tens of thousands of well-armed soldiers and their frightening equipment clear the ridge, stretching out for a mile in either direction.

Thousands of soldiers come into view, armed in Mr. Temperance’s prototype he designed while in Hawaii. From their shoulders, a harness is suspended. This is secured around the waist, to support a structure in front of the user. A triangulated point is formed. On this steady platform, a Gattling Gun of sorts is mounted, but it has no crank to rotate its many barrels and feed its ammunition appetite. Instead, it operates by means of compressed air, stored in tanks on the backs of the soldiers. With the freedom gained by not having to manually crank the devices, the gunmen enjoy a two-handed grip on their deadly devices. Two thumbs comfortably rest on a single trigger. A large supply of ammunition is available via two great round magazines, side mounted on the guns. The destructive power is amplified exponentially by ectoplasm, for each barrel is coupled with tubes of emerald fury from Mr. Temperance’s Plasmo-Gasmic Discharging Devices.

These soldiers so equipped are interspersed with personnel armed with individually-powered Voltage Disruptors.

Thousands of soldiers armed with polearms, and every other fighting blade known on Earth, mix in amongst their well-armed brethren; their weaponry cast in Ecto-Plasmic Resin.

The dynamo crews have the electricity supply prepared. The Voltage Disruptors should be engaged.

The incendiary brigades, armed with catapults, flaming spears, javelins, and a nozzled weapon with just a bit of flame at the front, are prepared to ignite a torrent of fiery death.

Mixed in with all units are the funny little monks. They are chanting in low choruses of ominous portent.

Ah, here we are, one by one, the big guns are wheeled in, pulled by their teams of massive elephants. Gigantic Voltage Disruptors have an uncanny, futuristic appearance almost as alien as the disgusting, writhing mass in the frozen meadow below.

“This is our world, Doktor. We shall not relinquish her Sovereignty.”

“We shall conquer this puny world, and have you grovel at our feet!”

“rrrRRRRAAAARRRRR!!!!”

(they cry)

“rrrRRRRAAAARRRRR!!!!”

(we respond)

              The obscene creatures fling themselves upon our human armies.

KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! CHITTER! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! SCREETCH! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! HAH-WHOOSH! EEE-AYE-rROARK! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! SCREETCH! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! SCREETCH!

{A thousands of times over.}

These men and women know that the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

They combat unthinking murderous monsters, bent on the enslavement of our planet, and our entire universe. We are the ones who will deny them this precious world.

By my lights, do we give it to them!

Such a display of raw power! The explosive mêlée is devastating in its concussive brutality.

“Those devils mean to escape! Put the cats on them!”

Scores of gigantic Siberian Tigers chase down and slaughter the fleeing demons.

The men of real genius should be proud of their marvelous inventions, and their noble defense of our home planet. Professor Tesla, and the brave scholars of Graz. Mr. Temperance, … Mr. Temperance!

I look once more to the two individuals on the field below.

Seeing the battle go against him, Doktor Himmel returns to the dreadful scroll.

He utters a few malevolent words.

“Hahahahahahaha”

“He cannot be stopped, now!”

K
rr
r
R
R
R
R
R
A
CK
-K
U
H!
!!!

The sky....

I am looking through a hole in the sky.