Within a remarkably short time, Goodgulf had galvanized the sleepy capital into a drilling militia. Marshaling Minas Troney’s resources, the Wizard personally drew up ration lists, fortification plans, and lucrative defense contracts which he himself filled. At first there was a clamor of protest against Goodgulf’s extraordinary powers. But then an angry black cloud began growing over the city. This, plus a few unexplained explosions in Opposition newspaper offices, silenced “those damned isolationists,” as Goodgubf dubbed them in a widely publicized interview. Soon after, stragglers from the eastern provinces told of hordes of narcs attacking and overwhelming Twodor’s border outpost at Ohmigoshgobli. Soon, Twodor knew, Sorhed’s dogs would be sniffing at the city’s very pants cuffs.
Moxie and Pepsi fidgeted impatiently in the waiting room of Goodgulf’s palace offices, their feet dangling a foot or so short of the plush carpet. Although proud of their new uniforms (Goodgulf had commissioned the pair as Twodorian lieutenant colonels), the boggies had seen little of the Wizard, and the rumor of narcs had made them mickle itchy.
“Can’t he see us now?” whined Pepsi.
“We’ve been waiting for hours!” added Moxie.
The shapely elf-receptionist shifted the torques in her clinging blouse indifferently.
“I’m sorry,” she said for the eighth time that morning, “but the wizard is still in conference.”
The bell on her desk rang, and before she could cover the speaking tube, the boggies heard Goodgubf’s voice.
“Are they gone yet?”
The elf-maiden reddened as the boggies bolted past her and through the door to Goodgulf’s office. There they found the Wizard with a fat cigar between his teeth and a pair of bleached-blond sybphs perched on his bony knees. He looked at Pepsi and Moxie with annoyance.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” he snapped. “In conference. Very important.” Goodgulf made as if to resume his conference.
“Not so fast,” said Pepsi.
“Yeah, fast,” Moxie emphasized, helping himself to the dish of black caviar on Goodgubf’s desk.
Goodgulf made a deep sigh and bade the languid sybphs withdraw.
“Well, well,” Goodgulf said with strained affability, “what can I do for you?”
“Not as much as you seem to have done for yourself,” said Moxie with a black-smudged grin.
“Can’t complain,” Goodgubf replied. “Fortune has smiled upon me. Help yourself to my bunch.” Moxie had just finished it and was going through Goodgulf’s drawers for more.
“We grow fearful,” said Pepsi as he plunked himself down in an expensive troll-hide chair. “Rumors run through the city of narcs and other foul fiends approaching from the east. A black cloud has appeared over our heads and utilities are down eight and a half.”
Goodgulf blew a fat blue smoke ring.
“These are not matters for small ones,” he said. “Besides, you’re stealing my lines.”
“But the black cloud?” Pepsi asked.
“Just a few smudgepots I planted in the Knockon Wood. Keeps the folk hereabouts on their toes.”
“And the rumors of invaders?” said Moxie.
“Simply that,” said Goodgulf. “Sorhed will not attack Minas Troney for a while yet, and by then the rest of our company will have brought reinforcements to the city.”
“Then there is no danger yet?” sighed Pepsi.
“Trust me,” said Goodgulf as he ushered them out the door. “Wizards know many things.”
The surprise attack at dawn the next day caught everyone in Minas Troney by surprise. None of the planned fortifications had been completed, and the materials and men that were ordered and paid for through Goodgulf’s office had never appeared. In the night a vast horde had completely surrounded the fair city and their black encampments covered the green plains like a week-old scab. Black flags with the Red Nose of Sorhed fluttered all about the city. Then, as the first rays of the sun touched the band, the black army assailed the walls.
Hundreds of narcs, their minds aflame with cheap muscatel, threw themselves at the gates. Behind them tramped companies of renegade trolls and rogue pandas, slavering with hate. Whole brigades of psychotic banshees and goblins raised their shrill voices in a loathsome war cry. At their rear marched nibbicks and vicious mashies who could bay low many a brave Twodorian with a single stroke of their deadly meat tenderizers. From over a rise appeared a bloodthirsty mass of clerk-typists and the entire June Taylor Dancers. A sight most horrible to behold.
This, Goodgulf, Moxie, and Pepsi watched from the walls. The boggies were much afraid.
“They are so many and we are so few!” Pepsi cried, much afraid.
“True heart is the strength of ten,” said Goodgubf.
“We are so few and they are so many!” cried Moxie, afraid much.
“A watched pot never boils; whistle a happy tune,” observed Goodgubf. “Too many cooks spoil the brouhaha.”
Reassured, the boggies donned their greaves, corsbets, gauntlets, and shoulder padding and slathered themselves with Bactine. Each was armed with a double-edged putty knife, its blade both keen and true. Goodgulf wore an old deep-sea diver’s suit of stoutest latex. Only the well-trimmed beard was recognizable through the helmet’s little round window. In his hand he carried an ancient and trusty weapon, called by the elves a Browning semi-automatic.
Pepsi glimpsed a shadow above them and screamed. There was a swooping sound and all three ducked just in time. A laughing Nozdrub pulled his killer-pelican out of its power dive. The sky was suddenly full of the black birds, each piloted by a begoggled Black Rider. The marauders flapped hither and thither, taking aerial photographs and strafing hospitals, orphanages, and churches with guano. As they wheeled above the terrified city the pelicans opened their fanged maws to disgorge blank propaganda leaflets down upon the illiterate defenders.
But the Twodorians were harassed not only from above. Land forces were now battering the main gate and toppling men from the ramparts with flaming matzoh balls and the collected works of Rod McKuen. The very air was alive with the whizzing of poisoned boomerangs and high-velocity Dog Yummies. Several of the latter dented Goodgulf’s helmet, giving him a near-fatal migraine.
All at once the front ranks parted before the walls and the boggies cried out with astonishment. A monstrous black peccary galloped to the gate. Its rider was the Lord of the Nozdrub. He was dressed all in black; great tire chains hung from his leather jacket. The huge wraith dismounted his tusker, his engineer boots sinking deep in the hard ground. Moxie caught a glimpse of a grotesque, pimpled face; the fiend’s fangs and greasy sideburns flashed wetly in the noonday sun. The lord leered evilly at the ramparts of Twodorians, then lifted a black penny-whistle to a gaping nostril to sneeze a single, ear-splitting blatt.
Immediately a squad of gremlins half-crazed by cough syrup trundled out a huge female dragon on black roller skates. The rider patted its horned snout and climbed on its scaly back, directing the attention of the beast’s single bloodshot eye upon the portal. The huge reptile nodded and rubber-legged on its wheels toward the wooden gate. Horrified, the Twodorians saw the Nozdrub ignite the dragon’s pilot bight; he spurred the monster’s flanks and the torrent of fiery propane belched from its open jaws. The wall burst into flame and crumbled into ashes. Narcs eagerly hopped over the licking tongues and poured into the city.
“All is lost!” Moxie sobbed. He prepared to throw himself off the wall.
“Despair not,” Goodgubf commanded through his little window. “Bring me my white robes, and quickly!”