Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter Thirty-Two: Giants

Greg could see almost immediately that his friends were outmatched.

The dazzling lights and vertiginously open spaces of the human city had momentarily bewildered their opponents, and Leopold's madcap charge had thrown them off-balance. Once the battle began in earnest, however, their superior numbers, superior weapons, and superior training began to tell. The palace guards closed ranks and pressed inexorably forward, beating Leopold's men back; at the same time, their rear guard performed a flanking manoeuvre, aiming to surround the Bannockburn party and cut them off from all hope of escape. In a flash, Greg realized that the stage was being set for a massacre. Thus far, no cats had died in Leopold's counter-rebellion. That was clearly about to change.

And what could Greg do about it? He had been given a sword—a good one, light and strong and sharp at the pointy bit—but he was worse than useless with it. He was as likely to stab himself as anyone else, and probably more likely to stab his friends than his enemies, because they were closer and not expecting an attack from behind. As a result, Greg wasn't even trying to stab anybody; instead, he was holding the sword awkwardly aloft, as if it were an umbrella someone had asked him to look after for a moment, or perhaps a leg of lamb he was hoping to get a good price for. This was the extent of his martial prowess. He was lucky he wasn't already dead.

A flash of light caught the corner of Greg's eye, and he looked up. It was only a particularly glaring and obnoxious advertisement: a flashing, pulsating electronic billboard depicting a bikini-clad woman laughing and plunging into the surf off a picturesque beach. The woman loomed above the square like a giantess, her carefree young-and-beautiful laughter seeming gargantuan and almost grotesque. Of course, since Greg was still only about one-twentieth of his normal size, it was logical that—

Yes.

That was it.

Yes yes yes.

They were out in the open now. Catland was far below them. Above them there was only the blank, neon-blurred sky.

And that meant that the carefree bikini-clad lady was not the only giant in town.

Greg dropped his stupid little sword to the ground and reached for the necklace he had almost forgotten he was wearing. Around him the battle was raging fiercely, but Greg had been sensible—and cowardly—enough to place himself between the enormous Graydon Heppingworth and the equally enormous Gurgeon, which made him pretty safe for the time being. He hesitated for only the briefest of moments, savoring what was about to happen. Then he slipped the necklace off, and all at once he was enormous. Tiny cats clashed at his feet. They weren't much bigger than his feet, actually. Their swords made cute little tinny sounds as they struck vibrating blows against each other, and Greg took a moment to appreciate how utterly silly the whole thing looked from his new, godlike viewpoint. Then he started to kick.

If you had told Greg that the most heroic moment of his life would involve viciously kicking dozens of cats and sending them sailing, mewling, through the air, he not only would not have believed you, but he would have thought you were a very strange person and probably avoided your company in the future.

Nevertheless, it did.

To do Greg justice, he didn't kick frantically or indiscriminately. His approach was methodical and dispassionate, as if kicking cats were simply one of the day's ordinary tasks, like sifting the mail or taking out the rubbish. He would choose a target—a cat whose shining armor identified him as a member of the palace guard who were loyal to Glimmerind—rotate to face it, pull his foot back in preparation, and deliver a smart, deftly calculated blow that was more impetus than impact, sending the cat flying while doing a minimum of damage to its little armored body. Then he would select another target, turn, pull his foot back, and kick again. Once or twice his blows failed to connect, but not often. For the most part, the cats were too busy with their swordplay to notice the Divine Foot of Justice until it was already swinging down upon them like a pendulum of doom.

And it must be admitted that Greg was enjoying himself. There was something viscerally satisfying about this little game he had invented for himself—cruel and unfair as it undoubtedly was. It was like playing Whac-a-Mole with actual moles, which is a terrible thing to do that I am not at all recommending, but which is almost certainly enormously fun until the police arrive.

So Greg kicked, and smiled grimly, and kicked, and kicked again. He was so enjoying himself that he never even noticed the arrival of the news van. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that Greg was still wearing the magical cloak that made him look like a calico cat—albeit a now-enormous one—because if he hadn't been, he would have been obliged to answer all sorts of awkward questions later on. As it was, the news media were getting some terrific footage of a man-sized cat booting cat-sized cats hither and thither while the latter fought each other with swords. The newspeople could hardly believe their good fortune. Little did they realize that the fun was just getting started.