Revolting Rose

Chapter 8/Part 1 - Nonsense Knows no Bounds

Pagne hated riding Duskerro. The silly horse-rat's loping was making him feel terribly ill. Every time he would lean over to ease his stomach, Saloonka panicked and almost slipped from his shoulders, but staying upright was not much better. With each lurch forward, he was battered in the face by the sideways map in Saloonka's mitts.

Fortunately, Duskerro was following his nose rather than the fiend's directions.

"If your plan is to ride into the middle of the battle ahead of us, by all means, keep the map there so we won't have to see our enemies when they mutilate us," Pagne said as they passed by the line of Tyvern tents at the back of the battlefield.

Duskerro caused quite a stir when he burnt through one of them.

"You knew where the battle was, and you didn't think to point it out to me? You're shirking your duties as a marble, and it will have to be reported. As such, I expect a full report on yourself by the morning," Saloonka sneered down at him, then broke into a grin more suited to showing his teeth than a display of joy. "Or I'll eat your face, you delicious little cream-puff, you."

"I can see it quite clearly now. If you'd put the map down, you would too," Pagne said and tugged on the map, accidentally bringing Saloonka down with it.

The fiend barely managed to grab onto Pagne's foot after he fell from his head.

"I'll help you back on this silly critter if you spare me from having to write that report, and don't eat my face."

"Franz, you are quite daft sometimes. It worries me," Saloonka replied as he bounced along the rocky ground on his back. "And you, Duskerro, you're going to have to scamper faster than this if we want any chance of surviving."

The grip on Pagne's ankle tightened as the fiend hit a sizeable bump and used the momentum to flip and twist back onto the saddle.

"I don't want to do this," Pagne protested as Duskerro galloped at full-speed toward the clashing forces. "I never said I'd fight for you."

"Shut up, Franz. You need battle experience and you'll do as I tell you." Saloonka said and scrounged around in the saddle bags. When he came back up, he was holding a pair of rat-faced masks with giant, glass eyes and metal snout. "Put this on." The fiend held one up and pulled the other over his own head.

Pagne accepted it and buckled the straps behind his head. At least with his face covered, none of the Tyvern soldiers would be able to recognise him. But then, to Pagne's horror, Saloonka pulled out two mismatched socks and fed his horns right into their mouths.

Pagne tried to knock them off, but the fiend stopped him. "They'll chew my horns off!" he shrieked.

"Stop being so daft, they're just socks," Saloonka said, then thrust a pair of small hammers into Pagne's hands before he could save himself.

"What am I supposed to do with these?"

"You will figure it out, or you'll die."

Saloonka drew a hooked iron bar from the side of Duskerro's saddle and turned to face the action. "Get us to that mountain, Duskerro." he said.

Pagne waved his tools around wildly as they rode into the fray, and he would never forget the first time that his hammers made contact with another being. There was a crunch and a splatter, followed by apologetic gushing shouted back at his victim. Saloonka had a soldier hooked by the back of his coat, and was using him to trip up countless others.

The goblins swarmed in and, rather than finishing them off, they helped the fallen fellows to their feet and got back to fighting fairly.

"I want to go home!" Pagne screamed and pummelled another soldier that had latched onto his leg.