Saga Of The European King

“It's going to be okay, Scruff,” said David to the puppy. As far as Scruff was concerned, everything really was okay so long as David kept scratching him behind the ears, rubbing his tummy and providing fingertips to nibble on, but David elaborated anyway. “Dad is here and we're still friends and we're going to kill Winter quick and then we're going home.” He pushed Scruff over with the ball of his hand so that he could delightedly spring back to his feet again. “And then all the kids will see you and they'll see the magic I can do, like fire, and they'll all want to come to our birthday this time.”

Scruff couldn't understand human words and was still figuring out a lot of doggy smells. All he knew was that he loved everyone and that the world was popping with pure, living excitement.

He snuffed and bounded and followed the world away from David, for he had only known the boy for a few days and had not yet grown into the role as guardian and constant companion. The most conspicuous smell-factory that worked upon his tiny pink nose was that of the pumping, thronging mosaic of scent that was his father's army of animal friends. Their familiar trails were flavoured with a strong tang of sympathy, fear and strung-outedness. He decided that he had to know what that was all about. He loped through their legs and beneath their noses. He sniffed a deer, he licked a seal's behind and he chased a cricket that had triggered his adorably unsharpened hunting instincts by acting in a perfectly normal crickety way. Before long, Scruff had stumbled and galumphed his way to the epicentre of the gathering. There was a clearing from which the forest hordes kept a respectable distance and refrained from the calls, the incessant mating and the predation which filled their days and which normally made such a commotion. The stillness was happening because Axe Axewound had been gravely injured, of course. Scruff had known that, but he had forgotten.

He ran out into the clearing to get a closer look. His father, the mighty Axe Axewound, was lying on a bed made of straw and flower petals. Roxy Tripfoot was knelt over him, whispering out a web of prayers. Astrid Gimmerleck was standing by a small fire, boiling a pot of water. She looked at Scruff, then looked sadly over at the still body of Axe. He looked asleep – only the slight crease of his forehead showed any evidence of the incredible and constant pain he was in. Somewhere, an unseen choir of young boys made beautifully sad sounds with their mouths and throats, but no one seemed to notice except us. Scruff sniffed and scuffled and looked around and then climbed up onto his father's chest. Astrid moved with the intention to brush him off, but Axe held up the arm that still worked and allowed Scruff to lap at his face and sniff at his neck until the cub was satisfied. As he did so, Axe let out a long croak, slowly raised his head by a few degrees and said, “I can't do it any more. You've got to. You've got to protect them.” before laying his head back down to rest.
Now, Scruff wouldn't understand those words for a few years but, when he did, he would know just how important they had been. This scene – with Axe's words and the petals and the whispered prayers and the unseen boys and everything – would be his First Memory and would stay with him until his dying day. Axe presently drifted away into the storms of pain again, so Roxy plucked Scruff off from his chest, set him down on the ground and pushed at his hindquarters until he decided that he should go off and play.

As he tumbled out of the crowd of animal friends, he picked up a thick, intoxicating smell that caught his fleeting interest. It was rather like the smell that hung everywhere in this place they were camped in, but much fresher and mixed in with a lot of dense, oxidey tinges. He thought it would be fun to find out what it was and so he padded out across the grounds of the White Roost - past the creaking, incoming wagons heavy with barrels of the President's favourite booze for restoring his peace of mind - out into the scrub, where he found Cajun hiding in a bush. Hiding in bushes was all part of being in the CIA. Cajun could hide in any bush you'd care to point out. In this bush (which was a young hop-hornbeam), he'd not only hidden himself, but his armoury of crazy Dragon-tech weapons. You may recall that Dragon-tech can make all kinds of scary and dangerous things happen. Since he'd turned his weapons on the President and thrown in with the King, Cajun's supply of awesome paranormal spy gadgets had been decisively cut off. Some of his former colleagues had probably already been dispatched to neutralise him. These are just some of the reasons why he was hiding in a bush, fiddling with his guns. Scruff didn't know any of that. He was just curious about the smell of gun-oil and old dragon and thought it was weird that a person was crouching behind a bush. There was a fresh, mixed-up, meaty fragrance about the bush too, and Scruff wanted in on that. Cajun, however, was not good with dogs. He knew how to disable an attacking dog by yanking its forelegs apart and thus splintering the creature's ribs into a dagger that would pierce its wild heart and was well practised in the manoeuvre, but that was about as far as Cajun's experience went with their kind. Scruff's infantile cuteness did not stir him very much either. His maternal instinct to look fondly upon anything with dimensions that resembled a human child's had been conditioned right out of him, in case he needed to assassinate a baby in the field of operations or perhaps use on to overthrow an island republic in some way. He'd never done these things, but a CIA guy needed to be flexible at all times. He shooed Scruff away, not wanting the company of a puppy and a little embarrassed that his bush had been compromised so easily. But Scruff would not be shooed. Every time Cajun moved, the delicious, vibrating meaty smell came off him in great orange-pink waves. Scruff acted like his shooing hands were, in fact, hands of plenty, hands of fun. He leapt and danced there in Cajun's shadow and then a funny thing happened: Scruff laughed.

It did sound exactly like a baby's laugh, for Scruff was still shaped like a wolf cub, but it was close enough to cut through Cajun's stonewall of training and cause him to stop trying to shoo Scruff away. Instead, he reached for the sausage in his pocket, which was still pretty fresh, broke off a piece between his fingers and threw it as far as he could. Scruff lumped off after the morsel, found it easily amongst the grass and shnuffled it up greedily. He had not been eating solids for very long, so he did not appreciate how odd the sausage tasted. He looked up dreamily from the slobbered-upon patch of earth that been host to his snack and became aware of an intense buzzing noise behind him. He turned and snapped at the air, hoping to catch a fly like the had seen the older, cooler wolves do, but there was no insect nearby. The buzzing, it seemed, was less of a noise and more a sensation, and seemed to be coming from within his body. He yelped and jumped and worked himself into a real tizz, you should have seen it, trying to escape his own tummy. He bolted to the comfort of his father's chest again, was plucked off again and by then the buzzing sensation had stopped and he had forgotten what he had been scared about. He wandered off to the outskirts of the camp where he saw Bernadetta Leathervest camped out at the edge of the maple trees that marked the entrance to the woods that made up the most of the White Roost estate. The President took his hunting in those woods. He didn't hunt very often, because he was a busy serpent and / or was far too drunk to concentrate, but he did like to give out the image of being a President who took the time out to go killing things. Occasionally, an enemy typical of the Potomac tileset – a swan or a grey fox or a Senator or some other creature – would pop out of the woods with the intent to stir things ups a bit. Whenever this happened, Bernadetta would leap out from her campsite, quickly and joylessly kill whatever it was that had dared to show its face, frisk its body for any gold or saleable gear it may have been carrying, then go right back to her campsite until it happened again. But aside from the conundrum of someone who smelled and moved like a man, but who looked mostly like a woman, and the rusty excitement of a fresh kill lacing the air, there wasn't much happening there to interest Scruff, so off he wandered once again. A wagon, containing Colonel Glowfist, was the next thing he happened upon. The archmage smelled very interesting indeed. There were recesses of his enormous body that had not been washed in years, full of moulds and yeasts and octopus parasites from all over the world. He also reeked of sweaty frustration, which mingled with the vapours of freshly cut wood and the never-insignificant tang of blood. Scruff scrambled up into the wagon and found Colonel Glowfist lying on his greasy back, trying very earnestly to carve strips out of a stout length of wood with a ceremonial Aztec sacriknife the King had gifted him. He was making a wizards' staff that would help him walk, look totally cool and could be loaded up with spells every morning, in case the Colonel came across any asses that needed kicking. That was the thing with magicians and the like – the more crippled or decrepit or messed up they got, the more powerful and dangerous they became. Look at Terrorthaw – he was always getting dropped off cliffs or blown up or turned on by his own beasts and every time he came back with all sorts of new tricks and powers.

But anyway, Scruff hadn't met Terrorthaw yet, and he was more interested in Colonel Glowfist's stump, which had the lingering taste of dragon spit caked over the day-old blood and the happy smell of the King's laughter. He tried chewing at the Colonel's bandages as an experiment, which produced the surprising result of Glowfist swinging the proto-staff vaguely in his direction. Scruff took note of this, but since there was little in Glowfist's demeanour to suggest that he meant to harm him, he carried on chewing at the bandages. Colonel Glowfist let out a frustrated grunt and then, quick as a flash, incanted and gestured out a very minor confusion spell that struck Scruff right in the brain. At that instant, the buzzing returned to Scruff's stomach but with a sharp and urgent intensity it had previously lacked. The sudden sensation was pretty scary, so Scruff yelped and fled from the wagon as fast as his adorably soft paddy-paws could carry him. Colonel Glowfist was left to wonder why Scruff had not at all staggered around like a drunkard, urinating profusely, as was the normal reaction in mammals to a confusion spell.

Scruff whimpered at maximum speed back to his father's chest, though he did fleetingly consider looking for David, even though he clearly was not the dominant party in his social circle. It was quite a long way to run for a little cub who'd already nearly run his legs off and, what's more, he was both interrupted and knocked to the ground (which wasn't very far away, so don't worry) by the tympanic membrane-stretching castrophany of the King shouting, “You don't understand!” as he burst out of Will Smith's office. He was followed by Will Smith and the Angel Cowboy, close behind him, hands over their ears, trying to get him to stop running about in circle and to calm down. Will Smith's approach was to crack wise at the King and look annoyed to a comically heightened degree. The Angel Cowboy just grabbed the King by the shoulders, released a hundred different pleasant spells and spoke directly at him. Scruff was amazed at how quickly the King stopped rampaging and at how strongly he reacted to the pleasant smells that the Angel Cowboy was hurling at him with gale force. The King meekly took a few leaves of paper and a fancy Bic that the Angel Cowboy handed to him, stared absent-mindedly at them for a while and then signed them. The Angel Cowboy then took the papers back, peeled them in two, handed the King his copy, doffed his hat and walked over to Will Smith, who still had his hands over his ears, just in case. The Angel Cowboy handed the remaining copy of the papers over to Will Smith, who cracked some more wise and then marched back into his office. Then the Angel Cowboy turned around, looked directly at Scruff, winked and then disappeared. Scruff had a distant feeling that something significant had happened. He loped up after the King, who was walking slowly off towards nowhere in particular. He smelled sad, so he tried nipping at his heels to distract him from that. It worked pretty well. The King looked down at Scruff and immediately scooped him up. Scruff rode in his wooden hand over to David. On the way, they passed the crowd of American people who had turned up to help the King annex their country. The people in the crowd were packing up their things and starting the long journey home. All the King could do was shrug at them. He must have shrugged a hundred times that day.

“I found your puppy. You mustn't let him get lost,” said the King to David while handing him the little ball of wolf that was Scruff. “King's can't lose their Adventure Friends, you know.” David obediently took Scruff into his own hands. Scruff wasn't very comfortable there so he had to go down on the floor by David's feet.
“David, we'll be travelling East very soon. We need to catch up with your mother and slow her down long enough for ... one of Mister Smith's friends to launch his own ships and get to Europe ahead of her.” said the King. He was unusually quiet, but quite typically grave.
“Are we going to Europe, Dad?” said David at the mention of his homeland. The King laughed for just half a second.
“Well, we can't trust your mother to be there on her own. Think of all the trouble she would cause!” he looked at David hopefully, but David just stared back, blankly. “You've seen how much trouble she's caused us already - how she took me away for the past few years. We need to find her and ...” David's expression had not changed.
“And tell her to stop.” finished the King, uncertainly.

Scruff had never had a mother, just a warm corpse and a feeling of bewilderment. He couldn't well read the emotions that David was showing with his body and his scent right at that moment. But Scruff would come to learn all about David and his feelings regarding his mother. It was a good thing he was such a clever puppy, because there would be an awful lot to learn.

End Of Chapter 83

So the King laughed for three days. Ha ha ha. Ho ho ho. Like that.

A great wodge of recovery had taken place amongst his Adventure Friends. I mean, the were still mostly kind of messed up, but they were feeling much better, thank you, than they had when they had lost that fight with a freaking dragon. Colonel Glowfist's bloody stump had healed over and a new foot had begun to grow out of it, but it had ceased its growth at around dinnertime of the second day and just sort of stuck out from the stump, small, half-formed and obscenely useless. Colonel Glowfist wanted to cry but he couldn't because the King was laughing and he was laughing too. Roxy Tripfoot felt the same way. Her dragon breath sickness had cleared up but the poison had soaked through her physical body and afflicted her chi glands. She found, to her incredible laughing horror, that every last rabbit she summoned came out of her sleeves dead and with an expression of excruciating and confused pain on their face that asked, “Why? Why has this happened to me?” The wondrous gift that she had been given by her chaotic gypsy god had become a depressing and unhelpful curse. Roxy had enough curses on her plate as it was, what with her people being corrupted by Draculas and all that guff. When the King was done laughing, she prayered up her chaotic gypsy god and tearfully asked him to take back that which he had given her on that moonlit initiation ritual so many years ago. But her god was in a difficult mood. At first he pretended to be offended by her request but Roxy could tell because he did that trick a lot and so she kept asking. He just responded with a chain of non-sequiturs like,
“Where's it at, pussy-cat?” or “Ducks ducks ducks,” until she got frustrated and hung up.

Axe Axewound was in a stable condition and it looked as though he would not die. It was hard to get a look at him most of the time because his animal friends were huddled around him day and night. The King had to ask about him through Astrid Gimmerleck. They tried for it not to be awkward between the two of them, but it didn't work. The King was just so ashamed of the way he had acted around her the first time they had met at that Viking disco.
“His breathing is normal and he even spoke today.” Astrid blushed as she spoke. “He even called out your name.”
“Okay. That's good. That. It's good.” said the King, wanting so hard to be somewhere else. It wasn't good really. Axe had taken some knocks before, he'd even once been swallowed whole by a gluttonous Spaniard, but this time it looked really serious. He decided to go with his gut and went somewhere else. It was time to talk to Will Smith.

The King walked past the sizeable army of United States folk who had been patiently waiting for him to stop laughing so they could enjoy living in the United States, as ruled by the King, which is what he'd promised them when he'd ran across their nation drumming up support. The problem was that, even though he'd beat the President Of The United States in a fight and should, by all rights, be the unquestioned ruler of all of his lands, that didn't seem to have happened. Will Smith had promised to explain it all to him. He gave a non-committal wave to his amassed and hopeful armies, walked across the street from the White Roost and ducked into Will Smith's office.

Will Smith had been busy. He'd recruited some bruised Senate members and some Expedition slaves, retrained them for admin duties, got some local contractors in to build an office and was back at work. When the King walked in, he caught Will Smith talking on his Magic Telephone. It was smaller than the one the King had, but it was of the same basic design.
“Hey, I've got one of those,” said the King to Will Smith.
“Just one?” said Will Smith, arching his eyebrow up to the very limit of his forehead. “Listen Erik, a very important new client has just come waltzing in my front door. Yeah, you know the one. Alla best to the wife, now.” Will Smith put down his Magic Telephone and smiled at the King. “I don't know what you did to piss off Erik Rage-Eater! so much, but I've got to hand it to you – I haven't heard the crusty old boy so lively in years. Time we got prop'ly introduced, Your Highness. Ah'll be Will Smith.” he said, putting out a hand. Will Smith's adorable son, who'd been sitting on a swivel chair gobbing on the head of a plastic elephant, took the opportunity to point something out.
“Daddy, he's a King!” said the child.
“That's right, boy. A real, live King. Don't get many of those around our part of town now, do we?” The boy shook his head without taking his lips off the toy turtle. “And you know, a couple of grandaddys back, we Smiths were kings too.” The boy laughed at this, as if it were a joke. The King didn't think it was very funny. He opened his mouth to say something, but Will Smith wasn't the kind of man to let someone else speak before he was good and ready for them to do so.
“This is my son, Your Highness. He's a real ladykiller with that turtle of his. Lookit him go! Uh! And while we're introducin' people, let me meet you up with a friend of mine. He's what you might call an Adventure Friend of mine.” said Will Smith, leaning back in his chair and indicating towards the kitchen. Out of that kitchen walked the Angel Cowboy, holding a fresh cup of steaming coffee.
“Howdy, your majesty. Pleased ta meetcha.” said the Angel Cowboy, his head bowed low and his eyes half-shut. The King had seen a lot of kinds of people. He had been to India. But he had never seen anyone like the Angel Cowboy. He was a man of the Plains, like Cajun, but he had a quality to him that transcended race, fealty and creed. There was nothing that the King did not like about the man. The King held out his remaining hand and swore he could feel a jolt of electricity run through the unfeeling wood as the Angel Cowboy shook it.
“Charming, ain't he?” chewed Will Smith. “That's why I hafta send him away.”
“Where is he going?” said the King, suddenly afraid. He was still holding the Angel Cowboy's hand. Will Smith's smile became even wider and more mischievous, if that was even possible.
“I think you'd be familiar with the place if you saw it.” said Will Smith.
“Europe?” the King guessed. He was familiar with a lot of places, we've discussed, but he was pretty good at guessing things.
“Smart for an out-of-towner, ain't he?” said Will Smith. The King looked at the Angel Cowboy. He wanted to know what was going on He wanted the Angel Cowboy to tell him.
“Now, Your Highness, let me clear up these waters a little bit. My friend here takes great delight in muddying them up and watching good folk stagger around blind while he hee-haws there in the background. He's a good man, really, you have my word on that, but we've all got our little imperfections, aint that right?” The King nodded. He never wanted the Angel Cowboy to stop talking. “Now what, by your reckoning, is the reason that my friend Mistah Smith here took his fancy Expedition out across the country, eating up a good deal of precious time and money, I might add, to come and lay eyes on you?”
“I've heard of his family's plight, Mr. Cowboy. They were dethroned by that beast many years ago. I've set that right, and the United States is once more in the hands of the Fresh Kings.” said the King. He shifted, then added, “I had wanted to add this fine country, with all its wonders, to my own. But I see that its new King is a just man who is spoken highly of by my Adventure Friends. Rule them strong, King Smith. Rule them true.” Will Smith let out a shriek of laughter at that and the Angel Cowboy chuckled politely and put his hand up to his mouth.
“Okay okay, lissen.” said Will Smith, getting serious now. “One, okay – I know I don't know a whole lot about You-rope and I'm sure it's the greatest place in the world, but round here you don't get to rule a nation just because someone came round and beat up the head of state. Two – that snake was a thorn in my hunky side, true, but I don't want his job. When alla your Adventure Friends were turning in their appraisals of my very good character, did they happen to mention what it is I do?” The King glared at him. He didn't really like any of this. He'd been good-natured and cool enough to not declare himself King Of The United States when he totally could've and now the returning Fresh-King-In-Exile was giving him static.
“They said you were a merchant of some kind.” said the King, plainly. Will Smith raised his eyebrows, wanting more out of him. “A – a super merchant.” muttered the King.
“Hell yes,” punched Will Smith. “Now, let me show you the kinda thing it is that a Super Merchant does with his precious time and money.” He turned in his chair and shouted out across the office, rattling his staff. “SIKE! Get yo' big, ugly ass out here.” He turned back to the King and smiled until a huge Navajo man walked up to the desk. The King recognised him instantly, even without his ice-gun. It was the Secretary Of Homeland Security. The King instantly struck a Battle Pose and the music got tense, but Will Smith flapped his hands around and frowned until he settled down again.
“This here is Sike. He's my man on the inside, understand?” said Will Smith, still frowning.
“He dared to fight me! He nearly killed Ba'al – him and that... and that ice-gun! I'll tear him apart, Will Smith, I most certainly shall!” roared the King.
“Sit down.” said Will Smith petulantly. He kept on repeating it until the King actually did sit down. Then Will Smith continued. “He had to do all of that fighting and ice-gunning because he still needs to be part of the President's staff when all the dust settles and everyone goes back to work. He's going to lay down the blame for your little terrorist invasion of the White Roost you did back there and then we'll be able to nail the President for a terrible failing of his administration, won't we?” The King blinked. “Course, we'll need to get a new Senate together if we're going to start the big old impeachment process. Looks like someone's little Expedition took out most of the Senate the other day, doesn't it? Not all of the Senate, just the ones who weren't on the payroll like my man Sike here. But hey, I know some guys who'd make great Senators.”
“So you -do- want the President out of the way!” said the King, trying to keep up. “Why didn't you let me finish him off? Where is he now?”
“He's back at home, sleeping it off.” said Will Smith. “Do you know how expensive it is to get a load of dudes together to move an unconscious eight hundred foot long dragon across the street and put him to bed? I could tell you how much.” Will Smith picked up some bits of paper but the King really wasn't very interested. “You're not getting it. I don't need the President dead, I need the President to be in just the right place at just the right time.”
“So you can become President?” asked the King, determined.
“Ah don't need to be President, dope. It's a fool's game, if you don't mind me saying so. Okay. Let me put it like this:”

And, oh boy, Will Smith laid it down, big Willy Style. I'm talking rapping.

You know back in the day
When every Smith was a slave
When they kicked my house out our house
And when they sent us away

There was SHAME
Cause there's this big snake
Who'sa takin' alla fame

But then it HIT US
Like a slap inna face
That bein' merchant class
Aint any big disgrace

You know ah been told
That power is a lie
But that aint quite right
And I'd like to tellya why

It looks COOL
To stand up tall to a King
But try that at work and it's a diff'rent thing

You'd be out on the STREET
Just the shirt on your back
Drop a rung down the ladder
Aint no romance in that!

So keep your crowns and your titles and your Independence Days
I aint running no damn nation, cause I know the stuff that pays
You want power, you want money? Well you better get in line
Cause the Will Smith Corporation won't give you a single dime

Uh
Uh
Yeah
Will Smith
Yeah

When the beat finally stopped, the King understood. He then suddenly felt a very strong urge to get out of this country with its strange laws and terrifying implications. He wanted to be back in Europe, where things were earthy and straightforward and nobody rapped at you when they had something to say about the corporate oligarchy. He looked at the Angel Cowboy, who'd been sipping his coffee, which somehow managed to stay steaming the whole time, while this whole conversation / song had been going on.
“Wait.” said the King to Will Smith. “Why is he going to Europe?”
“I'll be dropping by to start what you might call a Formal Trade Agreement. We reckon there's a lot that our nations can offer each other. Once I get your hancock and your kindly permission, I'm going over there to meet with whoever you've got running the place and kick things off with a little present that my friend Smith here's cooked up.” said the Angel Cowboy, smoothly.
“But I'm the King of Europe,” the King pointed out. Why not send the trade goods back with me? I'm heading home as soon as I've hunted down my ex.” Will Smith and the Angel Cowboy looked at each other.
“Well you see, about that.” said Will Smith. “I think you're going to be pretty busy with that. Ya see, the big thing that we're going to nail the President with is the illegal war that he and his fine honey of a Secretary Of Defence declared on our new best friends, the Kingdom of Europe.”
“What?” blurted the King.
“Sorry to have to break it to you like this, Your Highness,” purred the Angel Cowboy, “But near every single one of our brave boys in uniform are getting shipped out to war tomorrow morn.” The King started screaming. Will Smith tried the flapping thing again to get him to calm down, but that wouldn't work. Papers began to fly off of Will Smith's desk and the Angel Cowboy's coffee mug cracked open, spilling coffee on his boots. The Angel Cowboy ran over to the King and gently grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Now son, calm yourself please,” said the Angel Cowboy, who was the only being in existence who could get away with calling the King Of Europe 'son'. “Don't worry about that army, we can deal with them our way. All you need to do is stop Miss Oranje. A man who beat the President Of The United States into submission can surely handle one little ex-wife, can't he?”
“You don't understand!” bellowed he King. “You just don't understand!” and then he ran out of the office with such speed that all of the papers on every desk whirled up into a little circle and everybody's hair was ruffled.

“You don't understand!” shouted the King to all the folk standing patiently outside. They didn't, that much was true. Then he was gone.

End Of Chapter 82