The Shooting Party

“So what the hell is a ‘cockadoodle?’” asked Kelly. His voice was muffled by the thick scarf wrapped around his face.

He and Lynald were seated by the crumbling wall of an ancient stable on the edge of Leandir’s field, giving them a clear view of the tree-line. Lynald's cousins were behind similar half-walls and rocks in various states of disintegration. Their breath hung in the air as each man shivered in the freezing dawn. The sun was in hiding today and the pearlescent morning made the dying trees and mown wheat-stalks look tired and old. Kelly fought another wave of sleep as Lynald took another long pull at his flask of coffee.

“I thought I was on this holiday to recuperate,” grumbled Kelly. “How does freezing my bollocks in a field at six in the morning fit into that plan?”

“You’re getting out in the fresh air and taking exercise. That’s how,” said Lynald.

“That’s what walks and outdoor luncheons are for!” complained Kelly. He eyed the long rifles next to him warily. “You know I don’t like guns.”

“Come now, don’t be such a spoil sport,” said Lynald yawning. “This will be jolly fun.”

“You can have jolly fun, Ly-o. I’d rather stay in bed and read a book. Wish I’d brought one now. What’s taking so long anyway?”

“Would you just shut up for two minutes together? I’m trying to enjoy the morning and it’s rather hard with your constant stream of whinging.”

“Oh, pardon me for ruining your morning. Never mind that you’ve already ruined mine.”

“SHUT UP!”

“Git.”

“Ass.”

Just then there was a loud and rather wounded-sounding horn blast from the tree-line. A large orange cloth was being waved by Phelps the gamekeeper.

“That means we’re about to start.”

“You still haven’t explained to me what a cockadoodle is.”

“It’s a cross between a cockatrice and a dog,” replied Lynald.

“Good eating on ‘em?” asked Kelly.

“Of course not!” sniffed Lynald.

“Good fur?”

“No.”

“Then why are you hunting them?” asked Kelly.

“For the sport of it,” said Lynald with a snort. “Besides, it’s the one species in the forest these days that isn’t in danger of growing extinct. They’re a damn nuisance and they breed like rabbits,” said Lynald.

“Then why have a gamekeeper and fosterers?” asked Kelly.

“Oh, that’s one of Leandir’s little ambitions. He’s trying to improve the breed.”

“How?”

“He’s trying to breed a species of cockadoodle that can actually fly.”

“They don’t fly?” asked Kelly in astonishment. “Then how do we shoot them?”

“Ah, well, that’s the other reason for the gamekeeper and fosterers.”

“Huh?” asked Kelly.

“On your marks gentlemen!” came Cousin Leandir’s booming voice across the bare fields. “When you’re ready, Phelps!”

Lynald shouldered his rifle, but Kelly held back, desirous to see what was going on first.

“PULL!” shouted Phelps.

There were a series of twangs and simultaneously five feathery floppy creatures with beaks and long ears leaped into the air like they had been stuck with pins. There was a loud explosion as twelve rifles reported and clouds of smoke drifted across the foggy field. Kelly squinted, trying to get a better look at the proceedings when the wall next to him exploded. He felt a sharp sting on his cheek as he fell over backwards in his chair. Looking up, he saw a large bullet hole, the size of an apple in the crumbling stone wall.

“Nice shot, Cousin Algie!” cried Lynald in a dry unconcerned voice.

“Damn thing got away from me!” grumbled Algernon. “Alright there, Kenny?”

“Oh absolutely spiffing.” sneered Kelly under his breath.

“Tip top! No harm done!” said Lynald.

“Jolly good!”

“PULL!” shouted Phelps, and again there was a twanging sound and a chorus of gunshots.

Through his safe spot on the ground, Kelly took advantage of his position and watched at a low hole in the masonry. There were a few more explosions of mortar and crumbling brick, this time Kelly could see that every shooting station was affected. Shots were hitting walls and landing in the dirt several feet from their guns, and a few set a couple of trilby hats spinning. Most of the cockadoodle, apart from the two shot stone dead by Leandir, had landed without incident, waddling unconcernedly on the ground. Occasionally they were forced to leap out of the way of a gunshot, but they fluttered heavily back into place and to continue scratching at the frozen ground.

Kelly tried to get a look at the fosterers and noticed that they were all wearing very heavy leather clothes and wore metal helmets on their head, like jousting knights. At their feet were several hundred cockadoodle milling about and preening good naturedly. A fosterer would then seize a bird-dog in his leather gloves and load him into a device. The device looked something like a large crossbow or slingshot with a stiff leather compartment near the stock. The animal was placed in the compartment and a crank was wound. When Phelps’s cry of “PULL” echoed across the field, the fosterer pulled a lever and the bird was shot ten feet into the air to land with a soft feathery “plop” in the dust. The survivors waddled back to the other cockadoodle by the fosterers.

Whether there was food over there, or they sought out the familiar fosterer, or whether they simply liked being flung into the air was anyone’s guess. It was clear after the first six volleys that there was no imminent danger. Kelly judged that only 10% of them were doomed to die in this exercise, those being the unfortunate birds under Leandir’s keen eye. The kills by his kinfolk however, were esoteric at best and included trilby hats, a straw bonnet, a rifle barrel, a box of cartridges, a pocket watch, six clumps of sod, a folding chair, three walls, and a chipmunk. There was one moment of family camaraderie when all the men and ladies took up arms to decimate a burlap sack that had been caught up by the wind.

Kelly dodged away from his section of wall as another chunk of it was blown into powder and debris. The only sound that could be heard above the reports was the occasional “sorry.”

“Dear God, it’s like a war zone!” cried Kelly gripping his hat and lying in the dirt.

“Pretty much. Better vittles though,” said Lynald taking a pull at his flask of coffee. It was shot from his hand by a sheepish-looking cousin in the next “foxhole” struggling with the weight of his rifle stock.

“Sorry there!” he cried, dropping the gun causing it to fire into the air. There was a soft thump near Lynald as a dead squirrel landed on Kelly’s bowler hat. “You alright?”

“I’m fine, Neelan?” called Lynald sighing. “Just a tip: don’t point a rifle at anything you don’t want to die.”

“Right-o!” answered Neelan, shouldering the rifle again, backwards. There was another shot and when the smoke cleared one of the servants near the chafing dishes had keeled over.

“Did he just kill a man?” gasped Kelly.

“No,” said Lynald. “He just dove for cover the big baby,” sniffed Lynald.

“He alright?” called Kelly.

“He’s fainted, sir!” replied one of the servants attending to a young man whose face was the colour of cold porridge.

“Well pick him up and send him to bed,” Neelan said to him. “But none of you lot get any ideas about falling over like big nancies. The next man to go under is getting shot in the foot.”

"Bloody Elves," moaned Kelly and decided to curl into a ball unpon the dusty ground until they went in to lunch.


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CHICKEN SH*TFACED PART 2 of 2

By Monica Marier

This is the conclusion of last week’s story, which can be found  HERE

A special thanks goes to PJ Kaiser for helping me post this on her blog today in a time of techno-drama.

The night was in full swing when the two men trod shivering through the black soup of darkness. The lantern swung erratically in large arcs casting ghostly fairy lights and demonic shadows across gnarled trees. He and Vilori had followed the tracks as they led with distinct purpose to apple orchard that marked the edge of Uncle Red’s farm.

“Think the chickens got peckish and decided to have a late tea of apples?”

“Chickens don’t eat apples, Vilori,” said Harcourt. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “But I hope for our sakes they’re trying.”

“Why’s that?”

“Cause if they haven’t stopped at the orchard, and they’re headed due South… that means that they went into The Terrible Woods.”

“Which terrible woods would that be?” asked Vilori.

“That one! The Terrible Woods! Capital ‘T’—The Terrible Woods.”

“Is that really its name? How unimaginative!” cried Vilori in disgust.

“Yes. It was named by a town of very unimaginative people… WHO KEPT DYIN’ in the woods,” hissed Harcourt.

“What, is it Haunted? Do the ghosts come out at night?” asked Vilori with a snort.

“Ghost nothing! It’s full of dense bracken, sudden drops, peat bogs, wolves, bears, griffons, and dragons, AND poisonous spiders.”

Vilori stopped dead.

“How big are the poisonous spiders?” he asked in a hollow voice.

“They’re poisonous! Does it really matter how big they are?” replied Harcourt.

Vilori nodded. “I concede your point.”

They walked a few more yards in silence, following the razor straight lines of chicken feet and trying not to think of spiders. 

“Oh bugger,” sighed Harcourt. The lantern light bounced in his hand, but Vilori plainly saw the chicken tracks leave the soft earth of the orchard and trail into the tall grass bordering it. The grass had been trodden and bent in a tiny thin path no wider than an arm’s length. It led with mathematical precision to the forest. Vilori snatched up the lantern to examine the tracks.

“Well it looks like this wasn’t done by any man, Har,” said Vilori agog. “There’s no signs in the grass that anything bigger than a chicken has gone through here.

“Which means what?”

“Um… the chickens are in on it?” supplied Vilori uncertainly.

“What, like they’re?” asked Harcourt in disgust.

“Well, I don’t know!” mobilzin’ cried Vilori, waving his free arm in exasperation. “What other explanation have we got?

“A spell?” asked Harcourt.

“….yessss,” nodded Vilori nodding his head. “I’ve never heard of chicken magic before.”

“I have,” said Harcourt seriously. “I heard of men in the hot islands that puts paint on their faces and dances around fires and sacrifices chickens. ‘Hoo-doo’ they calls is. Barbaric,” he added.

Vilori sniffed in similar suspicion. “Ah, well that’s foreigners for you. Sacrificin’ all manner of things. As if pidgeons and goats and virgins aren’t good enough.”

“Goats was good enough for me granddad.”

“Indeed. So you think it’s some foreign hoo-doo thingummy stealing chickens with magic?”

Harcourt scratched his sandy chin. “Dunno. It’s better than your idea of mobilizin’ chickens.”

“Yeah, that was stupid, sorry,” sighed Vilori, flushing red.

“S’alright. I know it’s just ‘cause you’re pissed.”

“And how,” mumbled Vilori stifling a belch. “Well, into The Terrible Woods then,” he said tramping through the tall grass for the tree-line.

“You coming?” he asked when he noticed Harcourt lingering behing.

Harcourt nodded. “Yuh. Alright,” he said in a high voice. “Only be careful. The sudden drops in there can break your neck... and the spiders…”

“What do the spiders look like?” asked Vilori warily.

“They look like leaves.”

“Grand.”

***

“Is that a spider?”

“No.”

“Is that a spider?”

“No.”

“Is that a spider?”

“Would you give over already, Vilori!” Harcourt said through clenched teeth. He was trying to keep his voice down, but with Vilori buzzing around him like a gnat it was hard.

“Is that a —”

“SHH!” Harcourt waved at Vilori to shut up. “DO you hear something?”

The men strained their ears for the slightest sound when they both heard it. It was a warbling susurration, like the sound of hundreds of tiny voices having hushed conversations.

“What is that?” asked Vilori.

“It’s chickens! Must be hundreds of em,” said Harcourt advancing slowly. Vilori observed sweat trickling off his friend’s brow in the growing light. “There’s a light up ahead,” he said.

 “Someone’s got a fire lit, I reckon.”

“You were right! There’s Hoo-dooing and dancing afoot, no doubt!” hissed Vilori.

“Well the chicken noise is coming from there, so we’ll see.”

“Good. I’m ready to finish up and get to bed,” yawned Vilori. The night was getting colder and a thick mist was starting to rise from the forest floor, undulating in ghostly shapes in front of the lantern. They grew closer to the fire, and unsheathed their swords. Swords could only do so much in the face of magic, but they could generally sever a head from a neck, which was sometimes enough.

Cautiously, they peered over a bramble thicket to see what they were dealing with.

Both men dropped their swords in shock.

“Is that…?”

“It looks like…”

“Dear GODS.”

A large clearing was occupied entirely by chickens.

There wasn’t the slightest sign of human involvement; only avian. They weren’t milling about in typical chicken fashion, but they were evenly spaced in a circle, five deep around a ring of standing stones. Large fires had been lit in key places around the field casting a weird orange glow on the perfectly still birds. In the middle of the ring was a large flat rock lying lengthwise on the ground.

It was currently empty.

“How do chickens light fires?” wondered Harcourt aloud.

“What is this place?” Vilori managed in a terrified voice.

“It’s the faerie ring! It’s older than…than… really old stuff! It probably predates the word ‘old’,” Harcourt stammered, his face ghostly white.

“The chickens aren’t doing anything! They’re just standing there!” squeaked Vilori.

“No, see. They’re all looking outside the ring on the southwest side…. They’re waiting for something!”

“For what?”

As if in answer a loud roar shook the air and made each man cower with his face in the dirt. It sounded like someone trying to saw a bottle in half with cello string.

Vilori and Harcourt gibbered momentarily before rounding up enough sanity to look at what was approaching. Their swords were still on the forest floor, untouched.

A dark shape sillouetted in the firelight descended on the avian crowd. It walked upright like a bird, but there was something distinctly mammalian about it. It had a snout full of cruel teeth despite its coat of feathers, and its feet were definitely paws. It let loose another shriek, similar to a dog’s howl, but there was no mistaking the consonant and resounding “BWARRRRRK!” that shook the tree tops.

 Harcourt and Vilori were suddenly more sober than a teacher on Monday.

“It’s a cock-a-doodle,” said Harcourt.

“A what?” asked Vilori.

“Part dog-part rooster. Distant relative of the cockatrice.”

“Cor,” said Vilori. “What’s it got there in its paws?”

Squinting in the gloom the men could make out something round and flat with something lumpy on it. It was clutched awkwardly in the cock-a-doodles forepaws as it approached the flat stone in the middle of the ring. The beast then lay the object in the middle of the stone.

“I don’t like this…” said Harcourt, trembling.

“Why what’s he got?” asked Vilori, trying to make heads or tails of the dim shapes.

“That’s the carcass of the chicken we had for tea tonight,” he said.

Now that he knew what he was looking at, Vilori could indeed see a former chicken picked clean with bits of sage still stuck to its insides. It was even on the willow-ware patterned platter Harcourt’s Aunt had served it on and surrounded by wrinkly cold potatoes.

The cock-a-doodle roared again, and the susurration of idle chickens stopped. Silence blanketed the clearing, and even the crackle of the fires seemed to have stopped.

Then the cock-a-doodle began to utter strange sounds in a low monotone drone. After he began the chickens would answer him, all clucking in perfect unison to a strange rhythm.

“BWAARK BWARRK BWARRRK”

“Bok-bok bok-bok b-bok bwaark!”

“BWAARK BWARRK BWARRRK”

“Bok-bok bok-bok b-bok bwaark!”

“It looks like…” began Harcourt, afraid to finish.

“It looks like a ritual,” answered Vilori.

Harcourt and he exchanged glances of pure horror, before watching the birds and their master again, helplessly captivated by their own curiosities and the mounting terror of events.

The standing stones began to glow an unearthly green and the light channeled by the outlandish carvings in the stones fed into the oblong stone table where the sad remains of dinner sat. The boks and bwarrks grew louder, faster, more fervent as the light grew brighter. Vilori felt the hairs on his arm stand up and felt his ears block up as an oppressive cloud of energy grew around them. Just as the chickens were so frenzied that they seemed about to break out of their orderly ranks the last of the light flowed into the now-glowing dead chicken. Silence reined again.

The men held their breaths as they stared at the carcass. If birds could hold their breaths, it was very likely the chickens were doing the same. Only the cock-a-doodle seemed cooly confidant.

Then it happened.

It was subtle, but every eye, beady or otherwise, caught it.

One of the naked wings began to twitch.

Harcourt and Vilori didn’t know how they got back to Uncle Red’s farm. To Vilori it was all a blur, and if Harcourt remembered, he wasn’t saying anything. Uncle Red and Aunt Primula took it with the resigned attitude of “boys will be boys,” assuming it all to be a drunk hallucination and were kind enough to never bring it up again. It didn’t seem there was any harm done anyways, since all the chickens were back in their coops the following morning.

Although… and this was the strange thing…

…It seemed there was one extra bird.

Chicken Sh*tfaced Part 1 of 2

Vilori Reagan is a character from my 2nd book "Runs In Good Condition." He was such a crusty, rude unlovable character that he quickly became one of my favorites. Oddly enough, I started wondering what his youth had been like (before it all went wrong) and this ZANY story popped into my head.

“What is it?” asked Vilori Reagan in confusion. He scratched one of his pointy ears and smoothed his white-blond hair.

“It’s a chicken ,” said Harcourt in mild disbelief.

“You sure?”

“YES, Vilori! What did you think it was?”

Reagan examined the beady-eyed feather duster in curiosity and (he noted the sharp talons and spurs) some apprehension. “I’ve never seen one before,” he admitted.

“You’ve never seen a CHICKEN?” demanded Harcourt.

“Well not a live one anyways,” mumbled Vilori. “I’ve seen them in the poulterer’s windows and such. As a child I recall having a picture book about a little red hen but…” Vilori trailed off. The picture-book had had such jolly woodcuts in it of a fat flouncy chicken in a bonnet. The mad, twitchy, beasts going “BWARRRK” around him were not of the bonnet-wearing variety.

“I grew up in a mansion, you pillock,” he finished.

“What! Didn’t your family keep chickens on the grounds?”

“Might have done,” said Vilori looking around. He didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t been let out much in his youth. Having only just reached the tender age of 30, the immortal Elf hadn’t much been exposed to common things like boot-blacking, burlap, and scary flappy feathery things that went “BWARRK.”

“You’re such a nancy,” sighed Harcourt, fingering the hilt on his short-sword.

“So why are we looking at chickens?” asked Vilori in disgust. “What did your uncle want done?”

Harcourt eyed his friend nervously. “He… er… wanted us to find out why the chickens were disappearing at night.”

Vilori made a noise of utter annoyance. “But we’re bloody RANGERS, Harcourt! We’re not farmhands!”

“He’s family!” moaned Harcourt. “I told you we were doing it as a personal favor!”

“Yes, but CHICKENS?” moaned Vilori. “If his farm was being overrun by wild bears, I might concede his point, but disappearing chickens! What he wants is a good fox trap.”

“We  know it weren’t a fox. There’s no paw prints, no blood, no feathers, just a lack of chickens!”

“So, poachers?” asked Reagan sounding mollified. This was more like it.

“Dunno,” said Harcourt. “Haven’t been any strange boot prints.”

“Maybe it was Elves,” said Reagan darkly. “I’ve known a fair few that could walk without leaving a trail. And speaking of boots, I wish you’d told me to wear proper footwear. My slippers are all covered in mud.”

Harcourt looked down at the silk slippers on Reagan’s feet and shook his head. He decided that now was not the ideal time to mention that it was not entirely mud. “Eeeeyah. So anyways, come nightfall, Uncle Red wants us to keep watch.”

“So are these all new chickens?” asked Vilori.

“No.”

“Seems your Uncle has quite a lot of chickens despite the burglaries.”

“Well, that’s the strange part, you ken…” began Harcourt scratching his sandy head. “…they all come back.”

“What do?” asked Vilori in confusion.

“Most of these chickens were gone for three days… but just this Tuesday… they all come back.”

“Really? What do the farmhands have to say?”

“They don’t want to talk about it.”

Harcourt scratched his arm absently, his surplus of muscles bulging under his linen shirt as he did so. Vilori wished for a moment that he’d been blessed with a powerful farmer’s physique rather than the build of a female ballet dancer. It certainly didn’t earn him any respect in the Northern farmlands of Buncham.

“What do you think it means?” asked Vilori.

“I dunno. Something has the farmers around here worried”

“Then why aren’t they out in a bloody chicken pen at night?”

“They did that last Monday-week. The next day, young Alistair went missin’. Now they want Rangers.”

“Rangers?  I’m beginning to think that what they want is a wizard.”

“Well you know how farmers feel about magic.”

Reagan nodded. Farmers were down to earth people that knew better than anyone the trick to patience, determination and blind optimism. The idea of waving a wand to fix your problem was an insult to the farmer’s own special brand of country magic.

“Best get comfortable then” said Harcourt, shooing some chickens off a pile of sacking and sitting down. Vilori made a face at the none-too-clean seat and gingerly sat on it so that as little of his expensive clothes touched it as possible.

Hours passed.

Night fell and a few stars winked in the overcast night. A thin sliver of moon garnished the navy-blue cocktail of night which made Vilori look wistfully down the road to the pub.

“Do we get a dinner break?” he asked mildly still looking at the far away windows glowing yellow.

“I suppose we could in an hour,” said Harcourt who had begun staring with him. After all, it’s not like we’re expected to go without for 12 hours.

“Right,” agreed Vilori.

“And this way we won’t wake any of the house,” said Harcourt, pointing to the black windows of his uncle’s farmhouse.

“Right.”

The two men sat in silence a while.

“I mean it’s not like were even getting paid by my uncle,” added Harcourt.

“Uh-huh,”

A few soft “bwucks” were the only sound as they two men anxiously watched Harcourt’s pocket watch.

“Nice night,” observed Vilori looking about at the monochrome landscape.

“Very mild, yes,” said Harcourt.

…

…

“If memory serves, the pub does ploughman’s pie on Thursday nights,” said Harcourt.

“With those little round onions?” asked Vilori

“Yuh.”

Both men silently contemplated the virtues of tiny crunchy onions.

“Right! Best take our break now so we can concentrate on chicken-watching later, eh?” said Harcourt rising to his feet.

“Good plan,” agreed Vilori.

The two men, being very quiet so as not to disturb the household or the chickens padded softly off the farmlands and (when they were out of earshot) legged it down the road to the sign of the Fiddler’s Riddle.

A one hour break turned into a two hour long rest which turned into a “lemme buy yus jus’ wummore round,” and finally became a “we shu’ definly (hic) definly be getting’ back, we should. When the landlord shoved the two men out the door so he could finally get to bed, Harcourt and Vilori stumbled back to Uncle Red’s chickens.

“Shhhhh!” hissed Harcourt in a voice that would have woken stone.

“Whazzut?” shouted Vilori.

“SHHHHHHHH!” hissed Harcourt in a louder hiss, spraying his friend liberally in the process.

“I fink you’re deflating,” slurred Vilori. “I hear an air leak somewhere.”

“So we should ge’ back to the chickens,” mumbled Harcourt.

“Your uncles gon’ go spare,” mumbled Vilori.

“Nahhh nahh…. Nah… nah nah nah… nah…” said Harcourt shaking his head in intervals. “I mean, YES, but he’s not going to find out!!”

“Oh,” said Vilori flopping onto the sackcloth where he sat for a while, letting his organs sift through the hefty amount of toxins he’d just dumped in ‘em.

After an hour of silent processing a thought occurred to a slightly more sober Vilori.

“Harcourt?”

“Mm?”

“Have you noticed something?”

“What’s that?”

“That suddenly there’s a distinct lack of chickens on this chicken farm?”

Jumping to his feet (and managing to find  them on the second attempt) Harcourt blearily stumbled around the yard looking into the coops. They were, to the last bird, EMPTY. Blood and alcohol drained from Harcourt’s face.

“Oh bugger,” he gasped.

“Harcourt?” called Vilori.

“Yuh?”

“How organized are chickens?”

Harcourt pondered this for a moment, “The HELL do you mean, how organized’re chickens?”

“Well some birds travel in “V” formations, right”

“Yeah, well that’s PROPER birds, innit? Not bleedin’chickens.”

“So most chickens don’t walk in single file, do they?”

“No!” shouted Harcourt until Vilori’s question probed at him. “WHY?”

“Because these chickens did,” said Vilori pointing to a thin chain of chicken tracks leading out of the yard in a PERFECTLY straight line.

READ THE CONCLUSION HERE!