Hey there folks, firstly, a huge apology for the lack of posting on here. If you’re reading this, my thanks to you! It turned out that 2023 was very much a year of transition for me and as such, was not the most conducive for creativity. I still wrote plenty, in fact I did a couple of my best pieces, however, I didn’t have the bandwidth to be posting as regularly on here as I would like.
But, the aforementioned transitions mean I now do have the bandwidth and so I have started 2024 as I mean to go on, by setting a very manageable goal to help me write much more regularly, and I felt like a good idea to get back here, as I already have plenty to share with you for 2024. The posts won’t be on a set schedule, my creativity doesn’t really allow for that, though I know there will be way more than last year, and I now have weekends off, so expect posts on the Sabbath.
Now, let’s get this story finished!
RECAP: When we last left Kris, all those months ago, he was in the forest, in the dark, all alone, surrounded by what he described as a ‘chittering’ and, he pulled out his Trusty Stick and readied himself for battle …
In his relatively short life, Mike had wronged very few people. Not because he couldn’t, just because he hadn’t really thought of doing so. Mike just wasn’t built like that. Pretty much all and sundry had agreed Mike was just a nice fella, a good egg as they called him, a truly upstanding chap, they had mostly agreed at Mike’s wake in The Turnip. So it was truly hard for him to understand what came chortling over him as he giddily, drunkenly flapped about the lad. He suddenly felt the most unusual twitch at the edge of his mind and he felt overcome with the notion of causing some mischief, which was many degrees naughtier than he’d ever been inclined to do before.
Mike rounded upon the lad and as he found himself behind him, he shifted back to Vampire form and placed a swift and firm kick on the lads arse, sending him flying into the dirt.
“Mammy!,” cried Kris, all courage having temporarily fled from him as he heaved himself up on all fours, only to find Calihari shifting forms to sweep another leg into the lads rump, once again spilling him over, this time onto his side. The Vampires once again chittering about him in their bat forms, passing around a tiny cup of wench blood as they chuckled and flapped and chittered about.
Mike groaned over onto his back once again, this time finding the mettle to cycle his legs into the air and flick himself up, his Trusty Stick aloft and in front of him, able once again to shakily stand, unable to see the Vampire couple behind him, sharing the weight of the thick hefty log they were swinging into the lads bottom, again spilling him on his front, armour clattering as he lost his balance.
Mike suddenly had the idea it would be deeply funny to….. urinate on the lad. The thought clouded his entire mental landscape, becoming all that he could consider, indeed it felt at that point to Mike as if it was the only logical thing to do. And so that’s what he did, just like that, Mike allowed his little bat bladder to loosen, chittering as he watched the lad stumble about on his knees, once again trying to gain his balance as he waved his stick about, Mike chuckling a stream of bat piss down upon the lads daft head… Mike started to vacillate with a shivery delight of a kind he had never felt before.
“Yessssssssss Miiiiiiiiike” shouted Calihari, albeit in the tongue of bat. “Pisssssssssss upon the fooooooooooool. Yesssssssssssss’, a stream of bat wazz steaming from him, down all over the lad.
Valhari cackled as she joined in, thick streams of bat peepee joyously soaking the idiot below them.
Kris managed to right himself and unsteadily waved his Trusty Stick about, the bat piss thickening his shame, the chittering growing ever louder with every moment, his stick rarely coming close to catching the bats as he blindly swung about so infused he was with rage, until a bat flew a boozy, wavy pattern in front of him, allowing Kris to take his chance as he whacked the stick in an arc ahead of him, managing to catch bat-shaped Mike squarely, the bat flinging from the end of the stick into the nearest tree, where he thudded, cleanly knocking him out.
“NOOOOOOO” screamed Calihari. “MIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE……!”
Valhari swooped alongside his wife, each of them grabbing one of Mike’s wings, flapping him swiftly as high as they could, clearing the trees and circling for a moment to spout their vitriol.
“Weeeeeeeeelll getttttt yooooou, you priiiiiiiiiick” chided Valhari as they spirited their companion away, leaving Kris defeated, crumpled upon his knees, a prolonged, tired moan rumpling from him as he fully noted his defeat, there in the cold, brutal woods, alone, covered as he was in bats piss.
*****
Kris slowly wended his way back through the woods, the tears turning all he looked upon into globulous messes, making everything a sad and painful blur.
Just once, he thought, why can’t anything go right just once…
As he came upon the outer edge of Crock, out of the corner of his eye jumped a lumpen shape, smelling thickly of daffodil, breath steaming from what Kris assumed was a mouth, the breath tainted with the hoppy tang of the Farmer’s Ale Most Foul.
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” screamed The Crone, grabbing Kris around his shoulders.
“You’ve been pissed all over by the bats, haven’t you, you silly bastard!”, the Crone fair legging it back into the village as fast as her stumpy little legs could carry her, cackling and screaming as she went.
“HE’S FUCKED IT UP, THE DAFT LITTLE TWAT! HE’S ACHIEVED FUCK ALL BUT MANAGED TO MAKE HIMSELF A SPONGE FOR THEIR PISS!!”
As Kris stumbled, he could see the twinkles of the candles being lit about the village, a murmuration bubbling afore him as the village awoke, causing folks to start out of their huts, all in order to pile their woes upon him.
“BEHOLD” shouted Butcher Mulvey, “It’s Kris Piss!!”
The laughter resounded about Kris, each clang of his coming into the village weighing more heavy as he wearily continued, with him becoming increasingly desperate to close the door of his hut, flop upon his bed and try to forget all that had just happened.
“HERE HE IS” chortled The Scribe, as Kris passed him by, “from this day forth, he shall be renamed Walter Passwater, the pissy lumber pile of a prick as he is!”
“AHA!” roared Blacksmith Pulvery, “HERE WANDERS IN OLD KRIS PISSBODY”, the laughter cacophonously exploding once more.
As Kris reached his hut, he found the entrance blocked by Lord Barry, standing wanly with his candle-less hand held out.
“Stop there, dear young fool of a boy that has clearly failed in his attempt to vanquish the foulest of foulnesses from our most humble village”, The Lord’s head bowing dramatically as he intoned. “You must appreciate, you can no longer be upholding the partaking of activities or the holding of an abode in this hollowed village any more, as is the decree I shall be handing down to you now, at this most difficult and upsetting of moments”
“Please…” begged Kris. “I’ve nowhere else to go, and you must understand, I did clobber one of them right good! Cleaned him right out I daresay!”
“This is neither helpful, nor compensation nor what the decreed venture you set out to achieve was to be achieving, of this I am sure you are aware boy.”
With that, Lord Barry cleared his throat and proclaimed at the top of his voice, “FROM THIS MOMENT FORTH, YOU, HENCEFORTH REFERRED TO BY MY GRACIOUS SELF AS KRIS PISSLIPS WILL BE BANISHED TO THE OUTER REALM, NEVER TO GRACE OR TO SUNDER THE GOOD NAME OF THIS VILLAGE AGAIN, THIS I DECREE WITH ALL OF THE POWERS VESTED IN ME BY OUR DEAR KING, ARTHUR OF ALBION” The Lord clasping his bony hands about The Basin of Sunderment, shaking it aloft to emphasise each word.
“NOW, BEGONE YOU SHALL!”, the Lord yelled, and with that, The Basin of Sunderment, a tool rumoured to be a gift from Merlin, that most exhalted of wizards, apparently after spending a fine and ribald night in The Turnip, getting fair hammered on the Farmers fabled Mushroom Stout.
“BEGONE GOLDEN CHILD!,” harrumphed Lord Barry…. and with a flash as yellow and as stinking as the bat’s piss Kris had been shamefully drowned in, Kris found himself alone, in the darkest of all of the dark places.
Kris sat down, albeit upon the part of the blackening void that functioned as somewhat of a ground, took off his oversized helmet and once again started to cry. The tears spilled all down Kris’ cheeks, as the cold of the Outer Realm began to seep into his very bones and the sadness embedded itself deep within him.
It all seemed so silly. His wanting to be a Knight, his trying to find his way by showing a strength he was never sure that he had, what in Albion was he even thinking, trying to fight not one, but three Vampires, all alone like that? The sobs escalated from him as a truth that it seemed would forever be with him finally stole over and within him. Kris was now also convinced that he was just a silly streak of piss.
“There there my lad.”
The gentle tap on the shoulder made Kris jump back, so far he banged himself right up against what passed for a wall at the back of the Outer Realm. Kris leapt back, holding his Trusty Stick aloft, fearful piss dribbling down his legs, fully prepared for this to be his final moment when he realised he was looking into the handsome, sculpted face of his dear friend and Knight.
“Graevey!!” he exclaimed. “How in Albion did you get here? I thought no folks could ever find their way to or from this place?”
“Ah, you see dear lad!” shouted the Knight. “I have my ways. I’ve spent many a night with a witch, or, on nights when the moon was particularly full and the farmer had a particularly fine batch of the old Elderflower wine on the go, several witches, and often, in turn for a fixing of a gate here, or a patching of a fence there, they have been inclined to teach me a thing or two. I’d nipped back to Crock for a catch up at The Turnip and found out what had occurred to you my lad. I didn’t have either the heart or the inclination to leave you on your own here.”
Kris flung his arms around Graevey’s thick chest, buried his head in his warm, tight bosom and allowed the sobs to escalate to a proportion the Knight had rarely heard before. Graevey gently patted Kris on the back, as his other hand held his nose.
“By Jeebus lad, you really have had a rough old time of it, haven’t you?” said the Knight. “Still, there’s plenty we can do to get you right. Which is why I’m here. I have a gift, and some advice, which if you follow, will get you returned to your homestead and shown to be the hero you so clearly have the potential to be…”
Kris pulled back from the embrace and started to wipe his eyes with the back of his mucky, piss stinking hand. “Well crumbs Lord Graevey, I don’t think there’s any good to be had in my doing anything. I think it’s clear that I’m naught but a useless bastard.”
“Now now lad, do you think me daft?”
“No! Of course not!” Kris shouted.
“Well then, you need to heed my words then. I have a plan that will help you get those bastarding, bloody, piss streaming, shape shifting bats dealt with once and for all, just you mark my words! But first, here…”
Graevey pulled a sword from a scabbard on the back of his armour. “Here you go, its about time you were trusted with one again”
“But, but, the thing with Petticoat!”
“Never mind that. That was an accident, and naught but piss poor luck. I’m a bloody knight and if I say it’s time for you to own a sword, then it’s bloody time!”
Kris held the sword two handed in front of him, the sword somehow gleaming with an innate light that shimmered through the dark of the Outer Realm. Kris started to enjoy the feeling of the finely balanced weight in his hands as he allowed himself to feel a mighty, renewed bravery rise in his chest.
“Does she have a name?,” he asked, tremulously.
“This, my lad, is Betty. You could go do far as to say she’s my Beryl’s sister, as she was made by the same fair hands of Satwick the Master Bladesman…”
“Betty….,” murmured Kris wondrously.
“Now lad… lets get you out of here, lets get you cleaned up, lets get that armour scrubbed and reshaped and let’s gather together our plan.”
Graevey clapped his hands loudly, and the pair found themselves materialised outside a rough shack on the edge of the foul woods that found Kris pissily defeated just a few hours before.
“Come now lad” said Graevey as they headed inside. “Let’s make this the last time you’re ever made to look and feel a fool….”
TO BE CONTINUED LATE 2024 IN THE EXCITING SEQUEL - HERE THEY COME, THE BATS THAT KICKED MY ASS!!!