The Frogs Of War

Book 2: Firkin

by Andrew Harman

Genres: Fantasy; Humor & Satire

Synopsis

Never mind anti-anti-anti missiles or thermonuclear chilled eels, the Ultimate Weapons are Rana Militaria: The Frogs of War. Have your head off as soon as look at you they would. Hidden in a forgotten village of Losa Llamas, they are discovered by the slimy Snydewinder, ex-Lord Chancellor of Rhyngill and a thoroughly bad lot. And after a temporary halt, his world domination plans are back on track. Little do Firkin and his friends know that, when they attempt to help King Klayth out of a hole, they will fall headfirst into a whirl of time travel, Thaumaturgical Physicists and extremely unpleasant amphibians!

Release date: June 27, 2013

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 304

Sample

It was almost as if the weather could sense that something extremely unpleasant was about to happen. Almost as if the million-volt flashes of lightning, searing earthwards through the dark curtains of pre-dawn rain, were the involuntary nervous twitches of some giant meteorological mind quivering behind the sofa after an all-night horror-movie binge. The particularly unpleasant something would happen here. It would happen soon.

A giant crash of thunder shattered the sizzling silence of the torrential rain and echoed away over the mountains.

In a room standing as naked as the day it was built, stripped of anything even remotely inflammable and metaphorically blushing without even the smallest of tapestries to hide its architectural modesty, the Thaumaturgical Physicists of Losa Llamas made final feverish preparations. In the din of the rain which cascaded down in lashing waves and the elemental tantrum the tall black-cloaked figure of Arathoostra handed a heavy-set man a piece of chalk, five candlesticks, a protractor, a slide-rule and pointed impatiently at the centre of the cold stone floor.

‘C’mon, Alsos,’ snapped Arathoostra. ‘Hurry it up! We haven’t got all night.’ His grey-blue eyes flashed with eager excitement as he watched Alsos begin to measure out a series of lines and angles, fingering his lab-cloak and nervously tapping his pointy feet as he watched the shape form. Arathoostra revelled in the smug knowledge that soon they would set their collective shoulder of thaumic research hard against the barriers of ignorance and together, in one unified effort, force them back, splitting them asunder and letting in the light of intelligence. The glorious spotlight of ‘military intelligence’. He was blissfully unaware of that particular mutually exclusive concept.

Another torrent of rain crashed against the tiny window high in the stone wall, temporarily drowning the nerve-shredding sound of scratching chalk.

‘Stop making it squeak like that!’ snapped Arathoostra, kicking out at the kneeling figure of Alsos. ‘You know I hate it. You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you! Like you always do with your fingernails on the blackboard.’

‘No … I,’ began Alsos.

‘Get on with it!’ shouted Arathoostra.

Phlim brushed his long brown hair out of his eyes and rummaged in the capacious pockets of his lab-cloak, eventually pulling out five tall, tallow candles. Nervously he twisted the wicks until they were ready to light. Why it had to be him that lit the candles he didn’t know. Silently he cursed Arathoostra as he blew several strands of hair out of his eye and attended to another wick.

To everyone’s relief the sound of grating chalk on stone stopped and Alsos stood, moved away from the geometric shape, and addressed the group. He pointed to the five-cornered figure on the floor. ‘My responsibility for the Pentagon has been despatched,’ he said, ‘It is ready.’ A blast of cold blue light flashed and died outside, followed almost instantly by the type of deafening crash usually produced by several thousand tons of collapsing glacier. The eye of the storm moved in for a closer look.

Phlim edged forward and began arranging the candles at each corner of the chalk Pentagon, his hands shaking as he took out the box of matches. He prayed silently to fifteen randomly selected deities from the Thousand Fanatical Gods of Sweetly Favourable Assistance, whistled a swift psalm to soothe the soul of Aggrho the God of Petulant Misfortunes and gulped nervously as his troubled thoughts flashed back to the strings of calculations scribbled on the huge blackboard upstairs. Mentally he retraced his finger as he checked, double-checked and checked again. He couldn’t see any mistake. The figures were right. With a start he relived the bolt of fear as he had realised … too much energy in too small a space! Oh God! Any God! Is there anybody there?

He recalled silently the head-scratching months of brain-numbing calculations made by the whole team, trying desperately to disprove his theory. They looked at the size of critical matter, the inherent background decay constants, the rapid rupture coefficients and it all pointed to the same conclusion. If the ensuing implosion wasn’t contained accurately by the thaumaturgic wave guides, and the sophistry coefficient fell below 4.8, the energy build-up would cause fusion of the helium nuclei resulting in instantaneous worldwide atmospheric combustion. This had all led up to Phlim’s deeply scientific comment, ‘Woooof! There goes the neighbourhood!’ In the few areas which escaped utter incineration,* oxygen depletion would soon take its deadly toll. He shuddered as he thought of the engulfing flames and dropped the matches. Arathoostra turned on the trembling thaumaturgist. ‘Are you still fussing about the sophistry coefficient?’ he barked. ‘We’ve been through it a hundred times. The figures are correct, the Pentagon is the right size. There’ll be no problem. Trust me!’ he sneered with all the trustworthiness of a viper. ‘Light the candles – you’re wasting time!’

Phlim grinned feebly, brushed his hair away from his eyes and struck a match, With theatrical timing so devastating that it had to be coincidence, three million volts of static electricity discharged directly overhead with a brain-wrenching combination of blinding blue-white light and ear-numbing thunderclap. Phlim screamed, dropping the unlit match, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling in fear and crackling electric tension. Arathoostra rolled his eyes and uttered an oath beneath his breath.

Phlim trembled as he pulled another match out of the box and attempted to light it. His hands shook violently as he placed the head on the roughened strip. He closed his eyes, concentrating hard, snapping the thin shaft as he shook once again. Cursing violently he flung the tiny broken stick across the room, biting his lip and breathing fast as he pulled out another. He hated fire. Practz could stand it no longer; he gently removed the box from Phlim’s quivering hands and in a moment five tallow candles spluttered in gloomy anticipation of the event to come.

Now the scene was set. The candles cast five pools of yellow, shaky light onto the cold stone floor. The group of four Thaumaturgical Physicists stood in a square surrounding the Pentagon, three waiting apprehensively for the fourth’s command. Arathoostra flexed his long fingers and swam in the anticipatory throb of these last few minutes, like some cliff-diver standing cruciform atop a vast precipice certain in the knowledge that one step forward and the future would all be different, he would be committed, no turning back if the tide was out. This whole project had been his idea, his baby. Only he had any real idea what the potential outcome of this next few hours would be. That was, if the great cosmic coast-guard hadn’t lied about the phase of the tides.

Arathoostra’s grey-blue eyes turned a shade bluer, as they had a tendency to do when he was angry or excited. He was the driving force behind this entire experiment and it was on his tall, thin shoulders that the responsibility of starting the chant rested. He pulled the hood of his lab-cloak up and over his mat of black curly hair, preparing himself for the most momentous moments of his career to date. Alsos, Practz and Phlim pulled at their hoods and stood waiting. The room fell silent. Even the raging storm seemed to have stopped, its huge eye squinting through the tiny window in baffled meteorologic curiosity. Tension rose in the room as the mental preparation began. They knew that what they were about to attempt was dangerous. But only Arathoostra knew how dangerous. Only Arathoostra had any inkling of the trouble there’d be if the truth got out. Of if they got out. Deep down, in his heart of hearts, he knew he shouldn’t be doing it. Even deeper down, in his gut of guts, he knew he must.

Right now, in the few cold hours before dawn, in this locked room just below ground level with walls thick enough to withstand the largest of energy releases, here, in the opera of Arathoostra’s life, the fat lady was about to sing!

Arathoostra stood with his back to the tiny window, a black-cowled silhouette reaching out towards the candle-lit Pentagon. Quietly, from deep within the recesses of the hood of his ceremonial lab-cloak, he began to moan. A cold flash of blue lit his outline and another roar of thunder drowned his unearthly utterances as the eye of the storm shifted slightly to get a better view. Arathoostra coughed with irritation as he wondered if other great thaumic scientists throughout history had suffered such elemental intrusions. Had Gren Idjmeen suffered from wind during his development of the Gravitic Acceleration Constant? Had Leweepp Hastoor struggled bravely on to grow plates of mould despite monsoons and tidal waves? Would Dhah Whynn ever have propounded his theories of a unified creationist evolution based on observing lizards and turtles if he had spent fifteen hours a day sheltering from hailstones and forked lightning? Arathoostra doubted it.

He cursed his luck and began chanting again, stronger, his irritation bolstering his confidence. A low rhythmic moan, a cross between a hum and the sound in the dentist’s waiting room resonated in his nose. Alsos put his finger in his ear and joined in, holding his other arm out over the Pentagon, his barrel chest raising the volume dramatically. Phlim was last to join the rising crescendo of Alsos, Practz and Arathoostra, the pulsing incantation reverberating irregularly as Practz lost his pitching for a brief moment. They had practised this two thousand times. This was 2001.

‘NAAAAAAAAA,’ chanted Alsos.

‘NAAAAAAAAA,’ answered Practz, a fifth above.

‘NAAAAAAAAA,’ joined in Phlim an octave above Alsos, completing the chord.

‘NA NAAA,’ bawled Arathoostra above the chordal racket.

‘Bhumm bhumm, bhumm bhumm, bhumm bhumm, bhumm bhummmmmmm,’ they thrummed in unison, like boiling kettledrums before starting again. Phlim, for the two thousand and first time, found himself imagining a large hairy humanoid figure hurling a thigh-bone high into a clear primeval sky. He never had figured out why.

Outside, the storm (bored with the seeming lack of excitement) shifted uncomfortably, sending flashes of lightning down with seemingly redoubled elemental energy. The Thaumaturgical Physicists ignored it now as they immersed themselves in their work.

‘NAAAAAAAA,’ groaned Alsos again. The others joined in, raising the volume rapidly as the four men’s moaning mingled synergistically with the whole. Growing, feeding, resonating. Without warning Arathoostra raised his hands and began to chant a counterpoint across the slow monastic rhythm. It sounded like language, it had vowels, it had consonants, it had assonance, it even sort of rhymed, but it was incomprehensible to all but the four men gathered there. It was as if a tape recording of a traditional folksong had been finely diced, tossed thoroughly in a nice olive oil and glued back together again randomly. The frail voice of Arathoostra rose and fell in pitch as he struggled to control the complex melody. His brow, hidden deep within the folds of his cowled hood, knotted with lines of deep, straining concentration. It was a frightening scene. With their black ceremonial lab-cloaks, deep cowled hoods and the strange wailing chant it would have appeared to outsiders that four rabid were-monks were having a good night out. But there wasn’t a full moon and these were four Thaumaturgical Physicists approaching the conclusion of many years’ hard work. Tonight would see the culmination of all that effort.

Arathoostra was swaying uncontrollably, as if he were in a deep manic trance. Practz was breathing deeply as he intoned the backing chord. A sudden spark crackled off the edge of one of the candlesticks, earthing itself at a point dead centre of the Pentagon. Curiously, it was green. The intensity of the incantation rose another few vital decibels straining Arathoostra’s voice with the effort of keeping up. The edges of all the candles shimmered with green sparks, like verdant iron filings on flaming wax magnets. The air began to taste of ozone. Another bolt of lightning arced overhead and a mighty rumbling echoed over the mountains. The storm, still bored by what it considered to be an appallingly substandard group of absurdly amateurish folkies, trundled forlornly away over the mountains. But this time the rumbling showed no signs of diminishing. It reverberated long, low and loud. The floor vibrated as if dozens of stone trolls were rearranging several small continents in the next room. It became difficult to hear the chanting over the combined tumultuous noise. A green spark lanced off Phlim’s hooked nose, crackling onto the cold stone floor, badly singeing his eyebrows. The whiskers in Alsos’ moustache crackled like a Geiger counter in a critical reactor core, as tiny green sparks darted back and forth. The chant was racing to its climax. The insides of their noses tingled as it rose to an unbearable level, Arathoostra almost screaming the last few vowels over the rumbling floor. On cue, the four wizards reached out, grabbing each other’s wrists in a square around the Pentagon. A massive bolt of energy surged through their bodies as the thaumaturgic wave guide became whole, the chalk lines of the Pentagon shone with thaumic verdance, tiny green sparks fizzing around them, the rumble rising with terrifying intensity. Suddenly the floor exploded in a shower of flying stone fragments. Searing heat blasted the room, belching hot gases into the air like a red giant turning super nova after a particularly hot vindaloo. Fortunately it vanished just as swiftly. An uneasy calm settled behind it.

Something had happened. Something nasty. It had worked! Their hearts pounded with exertion and fear. After years of preparation the result of their efforts was before them. The four Thaumaturgical Physicists remained locked in their square, their eyes firmly shut. They listened intently, each hoping to hear another’s reaction before he risked opening his own eyes.

Almost as one they became aware of a new sound. It was quiet, regular and slow. It sounded like two very large clammy somethings calmly breathing; assessing their new environment. Arathoostra risked opening his cold blue eyes first and looked with disbelief at the two dark figures before them. He almost screamed with joy. The others opened their eyes with a sense of acute trepidation. Instantly, Phlim wished he hadn’t.

Inches away from their faces, completely filling the space between their eight arms, rose two walls of skin. Dark green skin, covered in knobbles and pits, glistening damply. The creatures squatted on four huge legs each, their webbed feet spread nonchalantly beneath them. Huge flaps of pale yellow skin oscillated beneath each chin, marking time with each creature’s breathing, as if some huge bellows were working inside them. Arathoostra broke the square, stepping back to stare proudly at the pair of creatures.

In front of them stood the fruit of their labours. The Ultimate Weapon. Ruthless, cold-hearted, thick-skinned and biodegradable. Rana militaria. The Frogs of War.

Arathoostra grinned at the other three, whispering in a voice harsh with exultant evil, ‘Now I am become the Angel of Death!’ His co-workers looked at him strangely.

Alsos shuffled uncomfortably round the giant amphibians, admiring the pillars of legs that would give them unstoppable all-terrain capability. They squatted moistly motionless except for the constant neck flapping and stared at the four men. Practz edged towards the door. This was more than he had expected. This was dangerous. He felt a sense of fear, betrayal and overwhelming stupidity all at the same time. The creatures exuded an air of immense power and almost complete disrespect for human life. Phlim was shaking again, nervously playing with his hair as he too moved towards the door. One word kept rising in his mind over and over again. He had to get it, he needed a lot of it, as much as possible. Distance. Three hundred miles between him and them would be nice, he thought. Now! A brief few lines of scripture floated heavenwards to any god that happened to be listening.

As if a giant statue had come alive, one of the enormous amphibians suddenly became aware of the fact that it had human company. Its dark soulless eyes focused as its giant head moved ponderously downwards. Without warning, and far faster than anything that big should be able to move, the frog’s mouth gaped suddenly open, a deadly pink blur lashed across the room and a moist sticky patch was all that remained where Alsos had been standing. The giant frog’s eyes bulged into the top of its mouth, pushing, as the struggling wizard began his journey down the vast amphibian throat. Practz and Phlim were out of the door in a flash, followed fractions of a second later by Arathoostra, slamming the door on the last muffled screams that marked the end of Alsos’ promising career. They stood in mortified silence in the corridor, Phlim trembling in abject terror murmuring reams of blessed gratitude in the direction of the Thousand Fanatical Gods of Sweetly Favourable Assistance.

‘Th … th … this never happened, all right,’ stammered Arathoostra feigning absolute terror with alarmingly consummate ease. ‘We saw nothing and we heard nothing, all right?’

Phlim nodded mutely, the whites of his eyes shining with luminous panic from behind a cascade of mouse-brown hair.

‘But what are we going to do with them?’ gasped Practz.

‘Leave that to me,’ said Arathoostra with the reassurance of an undertaker. ‘I’ll think of something.’

And as he stood in the cold corridor with dawn still a few hours distant, the storm grumbling over the mountains blissfully unaware of the sight it had just missed, he did indeed think of all the things he could do with the Ultimate Weapons. A wild and evil grin slunk across his face with vulpine greed and peeked into the chicken coop of future possibilities. He rubbed his hands together feverishly, his eyes glinting with cold blue malice and his heart pounding wildly as he thrilled to a new and terrifying vice.

Arathoostra had discovered power.

Oh yes, he told himself, I’ll think of something!

The first thing that Arathoostra thought to do with his pair of Rana militaria was to make them welcome, as one would any lethal eight-foot amphibian. He ordered a high-security holding pen to be built, together with a series of variable-terrain training arenas, all with virtual attack scenario capability. The output from several fish farms was directed straight to their pen and a team of keepers was appointed from the most trustworthy of orderlies available within the confines of Losa Llamas. He did everything within his considerable sphere of power to ensure that ‘his babies’, as he grotesquely thought of them, wanted for nothing.

The final few months of OG 1014* passed with alarming rapidity, and Practz and Phlim began to see less and less of their erstwhile leader. The restraints of Professional Integrity and the ethically binding Hypocritical Oath prevented them asking him what it was that was keeping him so engrossed for so long. When they did catch fleeting glimpses of a wraith-like Arathoostra snatching books from library shelves, like some book-thirsty praying mantis, or dashing down corridors, lab-cloak tails flailing, murmuring to himself with a wild glint in his eyes, it was as if they were complete strangers: he did his best to ignore them and return to his work, his work! Alarmingly, the boundaries of Arathoostra’s reading list had been flattened by the stampeding herd of information-hungry theories and ravening fact-starved possibilities that had been breeding in his feverish, seething mind. He devoured books, his tastes turning from the staple diet of thaumaturgical physics (pure and applied) alone, to the hors-d’oeuvres of parchments detailing the waterways network of the surrounding area, the mignonmorceau of seasonal temperature charts for the major mountain passes, or the exotic succulent haute cuisine of maps, charts and extensive cartographic studies oozing with succulent scraps, like relative distances between major expanses of fresh water, relative moisture contents of valleys and availability and positioning of fish farms and other aquatic breeding areas. In a matter of days Arathoostra had acquired the starved wild look that has attended driven thaumaturgists since the dawn of time. His hair grew long and wild and had a tendency to stick out at strange angles, especially at the sides where he had a habit of pulling at it nervously when he was excited, or when a new fact swam into view spawning new possibilities for his babies. The Ultimate Deterrent.

But the most worrying change was the look in his eyes. The bright, innocent cornflower-blue of the past was long gone, usurped by a sharp wildness cold enough to chill the hearts of glacial ice-flows. They roamed his sockets, like rabid lychees, spinning in power-hungry circles, snatching information from here, stealing facts from there, constantly on the move, betraying the perilously shaky footings of Arathoostra’s sanity.

He was extremely close to the edge.

It wouldn’t take a very big push …

Phlim looked from one dragon to the other in frustration, wishing that he knew what to do. The decision he made now would affect considerably his fortunes for the next few minutes. He had one of two choices to make and little or no indication as to which was right or wrong. Silently he floated a surreptitious prayer heavenwards, begging for divine assistance from Zhorroh, the far-seeing God of Jammy Timing and Narrow Scrapes. On this knife-edge of indecision teetered the chance to sidestep disaster and race forth to a stunning victory, or equally easily lose everything in a few short seconds. One choice, two dragons. ‘Decisions, decisions,’ he muttered under his breath. Practz tapped his fingers in vexed irritation while he waited for the outcome of Phlim’s pedestrian deliberations. It was always like this when his hand was close to the limit.

‘Red dragon,’ said Phlim, cringing as he expected a cry of victory from his right.

‘I can see that,’ chuckled Practz, grinning to himself as he picked up the tiny form, placing it in his hand and discarding the bamboo bird that he’d almost come to regard as his mascot. ‘One for Mah-Jh’reen!’ he yelled, sending a chill deep into Phlim’s shaking heart, and chuckled quietly. The two technicians glanced up from their rows of tiles and took their turns. Phlim watched the moves, eagle-eyed, waiting for his chance. He reached out, took his tile from the very short pile of remainders and deflated in the manner that you do if you are staring at twelve unique wonders, a winning hand, and you know that the tile you have just discarded was definitely the wrong one.

‘Red dragon,’ grunted Phlim, spitting the words out as he threw the tile into the middle of the table.

‘Again. Oh, my dear chap, that is sad,’ mocked Practz as he picked up the tile, declaring, ‘Mah-Jh’reen!’ He pushed his tiles over to reveal the limit hand ‘Saving the moon from the bottoms of thirteen green jade demons’.

‘It’s always the way,’ muttered Phlim, ‘If I’d kept that red dragon instead of the green one I would’ve gone Mah-Jh’reen.’

‘Oh. You’ve got my nine characters. And my two bamboo,’ whined Wat, the first technician.

‘No. I was dealt them. Well, you always try for silly hands so it serves you right,’ answered Gilbry, pulling a face.

‘I’ve got nothing now, and it’s all your fault.’

‘You’ve got a plum,’ said Gilbry, pointing to the single tile.

‘Oh super, four measly points,’ moaned Wat. ‘That’s really going to get me a long way …’

The argument stopped mid-sentence, distracted by sprinting footsteps screeching to a halt, a door bursting open, and a wet and panting figure clad in what remained of a white lab-cloak grabbing their collective attention firmly by the throat and holding it in stunned surprise. All four pairs of eyes stared at the dripping figure and came to more or less the same conclusion, at more or less the same time.

An unannounced intrusion, without knocking, probably means something unusual has happened. A technician with a sense of urgency probably means that particular unusual something is well into the realms of that which is not right. But a wet technician wearing a slashed and dripping lab-cloak and the expression and level of panic of someone who has all too recently witnessed things that people only normally see once in a lifetime, and then only briefly, probably means that this particular unusual something was not only horribly and drastically wrong, but was getting much worse. Right now. Alarmingly fast.

The technician trembled in a growing puddle of water and stared wildly about him in a frenzy of panic.

‘What’s happened?’ asked Practz anxiously.

‘… e …’

‘Yes and …’ he waved his hands encouragingly in an attempt to extract any information.

‘… e …’ repeated the terrified technician as a fish struggled for breath in his top pocket.

‘Do you know you’ve got a fish in your pocket?’ asked Phlim fiddling with his hair. ‘Do you think he knows he’s got a fish in his pocket?’

‘… eg …’

‘Does it have any “p”s in it?’ asked Wat and nudged Gilbry.

‘Shut up!’ snapped Practz. ‘This is serious!’

Wat turned faintly pink and looked at his shoes.

‘Come on, you’re safe now. Tell us what happened?’

The technician looked over his shoulder and twitched several times. His eyes shone with the glaze of the mortally terrified as the images of the recent past burned in his eyes. He struggled once again to speak. ‘… eg … eg … zzzz.’

‘I’m sorry but I still don’t understand a single syllable he’s uttered,’ complained Phlim. ‘It’s that fish, I tell you. Flapping about like that in his pocket’s enough to distract anyone.’

The technician suddenly stopped twitching and stared at Practz. It was like looking into a deep, dark well that contained its very own resident hurricane. Hollow, deeply terrifying and in a state of absolute turmoil. He opened his mouth to speak, finding his voice with a high panic-ridden scream ‘… eggs! … eggs! … eggs!… eggs!… eggs! …’ he cried, before collapsing in a wildly sobbing heap.

Practz’s chair crashed to the floor behind him as he leapt to his feet and flew out of the door, yelling to Phlim to follow and for Wat and Gilbry to take care of the technician.

It was only the fact that over the past few years he had become quite attached to the human race that made him move so fast. If what he thought was happening turned out to be even partially true then there were only a few people who could do anything about it. And one of them was probably already ahead of him.

Even though he was still minutes away, Practz could already hear the screams as he sprinted towards the Chamber. Human voices were twisted in the agonising yells of the mortally terrified, cries of pain echoing along the corridor to die at the same moment as the throat that issued them breathed its last breath. Deep, foundation-shaking crashes rumbled through the floor as carnage and wild destruction continued unabated. It was just like a barbarian’s Christmas Party.

But as terrifying as all these sounds were, they were as nothing compared to one sound that rang high and loud over the massive cacophanous maelstrom, punctuating the chaos with a rhythmic, maniac pleasure.

While misery, fear and death stalked The Chamber, one single human voice was raised in cracked and raucous laughter. Belly-rolling, white-knuckled guffaws echoed through the thick walls whilst hyenic, cacophanous cachinnations yelped and cavorted with manic menace, revelling in the foaming froth of carnage. But this laughter held no joy, cradled no mirt. . .