Chapter 2 - THE COUNCIL OF VERY WAR
written by Tom McNally, illustrated by Bruno Stahl
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The King screamed his proposal to those assembled in the Grand Hall all through the night and well into the new day. The crowd was transfixed by his voice and by his six-hour Powerpoint presentation that added visual flair to his plans. It was produced by a video projector that the King's Father had found in a sunken ship a hundred years previously. That video projector was the cornerstone of the administration of Europe.
When it came to a vote for all of the King's guys and governors and Dukes and Barons and Ladies and Adventure Teams to decide on whether a war on Winter itself was a good idea or not, everyone, with one exception, voted 'Yes.' They always voted 'Yes' to whatever it was the King said because they loved him so much. And it wasn't just those people lucky enough to hang out with him who thought that the King was right about everything, but every last person in the Kingdom of Europe would say so too... with one exception. The people loved him because he was the head of their community and never let them down. Whenever something or someone threatened to mess everything up for Europe, the King would get up and do something right away and it always turned out cool. The Kings of Europe had been doing this for generations and everyone agreed that it was the best possible system of governance.
As soon as the votes had been counted by Sir Votecount, the King ran around the Grand Hall, shooed off the embracing slaves and gave a big, personal hug of his own to every one of the Dukes and Barons and Ladies and what-have-yous because he was so grateful that he could go out and put a stop to Winter and save one half of everybody's life from being cold and miserable and dark and bullcrap, with the approval of Europe's coolest people... with one exception.
The King walked slowly towards that one exception to the otherwise unanimous vote. He did not hug the man who had dissented, but instead he drew up close to him as he sat there at the Grand Table, and, with arms folded and a heart in his throat, asked, “Who are you, good citizen of Europe, who would rather be with Winter every year than rid of it once and for all?”
The man responded by pulling back his dark hood, revealing his horrible, skeletal, cybernetic face and looking up directly into the King's eyes, which was a rude thing to do, and pulling out an Uzi from under the table and firing it into the King's chest, which was worse than rude, it was illegal.
“I'd rather you died, King of Fools!” the dissenter opined as the Uzi's magazine emptied.
The horrible man was Terrorthaw, the King's nemesis. They had been friends once but had become bitter enemies, which is always sad. Terrorthaw was behind most of the bad things that happened in Europe – bad harvests, foul weather, rabble-rousing, jokes in bad taste and attacks by a giant mechanical woodlouse, or even a whole race of giant mechanical woodlice. Even if at first it didn't look like Terrorthaw was involved, it would usually turn out that he was masterminding everything. The King drew his mighty sword, Cutty, and deflected the spray of Uzi bullets faster than a cat could have done in a similar situation. Then the King lunged at the man who was, if you thought about it, just the other side of the coin to him, (which is a metaphor) but Terrorthaw had already produced a man-sized metal disc out from under his seat that had lifted him into the air with a stock science-fiction whoopy sound effect. Terrorthaw surfed the disk out through a window and escaped into the night sky, shrieking with laughter, even though this was a serious situation and not to be laughed at.
“I'll get you Terrorthaw!” screamed the King while shaking his wooden fist at the breezy hole in the window. It was a special window that broke easily and could be repaired without much of a fuss. It was Terrorthaw's regular window. He was always getting into these meetings and voting 'No' to anything the King had to say. It was so annoying. He was making it impossible to get a perfect feedback rating.
After that exciting interlude, the King invited his closest, most trusted friends and advisers to a secret war council in his rad bedroom. He had been to war with many of them and on little mini-sagas and adventures with the others. All of them had found treasure and magical artifacts with the King, had gone to strange foreign lands and crazy hellmensions and had fought monsters and assholes by his side. He trusted them. They were like a little community inside the bigger community that was the Kingdom of Europe. They were his friends on any adventure, big or mega-big. They were his Adventure Friends.
The King showed them his secret plans. He had made them by cutting up the pictures from a lot of old magazines and sticking the pictures up onto a big piece of coloured card. The coloured card showed them all what they would be doing.
“We shall need half of the European army to travel up to the Chillinous Plains in the outpost of Nord,” he said to General Majesty, who was the guy who had trained the King in soldiering and was a close childhood friend. General Majesty nodded, stood up from the King's bed and addressed the others,
“Gentlemen, Sally, I don't think I'm overstating things at all when I say that the Nord outpost in the Chillinous Plains is the scariest place in Viking Europe and the only part of Europe I would dread to venture in. Oh, our surveys say that there is nothing there at all. Nothing but the ice. Nothing but the howl of the cutting winds. Nothing but the vision of your own death's head grinning out at you from the blank abyss. The journey will be long and hard for me and the troops, but that doesn't bother me one wit. I shall stir the men from their beds and ride to Nord right away because I love the King. We -all- love the King,” he said.
General Majesty and the King hugged. The other Adventure Friends clapped politely.
The King turned back to the coloured card. He pointed at an important part of it and said,
"They'll need to build a totally awesome castle when they get there. It will have an indoor swimming pool and portraits with moving eyes on every wall. Mechanicus, you are equal to this task. You'll have to clear-cut the Forest Of Dark Ice for materials," he said, pointing to the patch of Cindy Crawford's hair that he'd pasted onto the card to represent said forest. "I will give you a company of the finest engineers and foresters in Europe. Be careful of the wild gods that are said to live there."
Mechanicus was sat of the edge of the bed. He heard this and he nodded.
“That should not be a problem, Your Highness. Properly staffed, it should be a simple matter to erect the sturdiest command base even in those harsh conditions. Those gods won't bother us at all.” he said.
Mechanicus was an expert engineer/builder who could invent anything and build whatever you wanted. He was from the future, but the King wouldn't find that out until later in the story. Mechanicus was a close childhood friend of the King's and famed throughout Europe as being the guy who made the pinball table in the Grand Hall, and the lynchpin of the merchandising enterprise that filled Europe's treasure rooms year after year. Whenever Mechanicus came up with a new invention, you could bet your last Euro that, by Christmas, there would be a mass-produced, miniaturised version of in plastic made available in every major retail outlet. He was visualising the Chillinous Plains Castle Playset in his partly-mechanical brain even as the King was telling him to build the actual Chillinous Plains Castle. Mechanicus was wonderful.
"As for the other half of the army," continued the King, "Half of that half will march with the rest of us out from Brussels, past the Lair Of Ba'al, into Viking Europe, skipping through the edge of the Kingdom Of Sharing into the Lands Of Winter,” said the King, stabbing a wooden finger into a multi-typefaced set of question marks that represented that location. “I will command them directly. The remaining quarter will stay here and keep the peace and protect the Kingdom under the watch of Commander Flightfeather."
Commander Flightfeather was part bird and part person and a close childhood friend of the King. The King had mended his wing when he had fallen out of the tree as a baby. He was nice and funny and of course he could fly, which was always useful. His presence among the Adventure Friends was also a very important message to the young people that the King was cool with all races, even bird monsters. The Commander nodded and sang,“Not even a tiny tuft of evil shall get inside this sweet place while I'm here,” The King held out some seeds on his palm to lure him closer and, when he was within range, they hugged.
"Accompanying me on my Adventure Team,” announced the King, “Will be Axe Axewound -”
“The fighter!” said Axe Axewound.
“Father Dominoes -”
“The healer,” said Father Dominoes.
“Colonel Glowfist -”
“The archmage!” said Colonel Glowfist, who was indeed an archmage.
“And finally, Sally Minefield -”
“The woman / thief, in case you need to open stuff," said Sally Minefield.
“Christ's balls, Sally - we all know who you are and what you do, all right. You don't have to say it out loud,” moaned the King. Everyone else rolled their eyes. Sally!
“Sorry, Your Highness,” said Sally.
“Don't be sorry, Sally. Be right.”
Everyone nodded and they all hugged one another, then the King started tickling Axewound and everyone then got tickling each other and they all fell around laughing and having a good time as friends.
Then the King stood up and cracked his wooden knuckles and they got serious again.
"Adventure Friends," he said. "Let's go kill us some Winter!"
End Of Chapter 2
