Lunlins - A Tale of Friendship, Fear and Flatulence

Nathan Lusher

Description

If you like a hearty helping of humour with your fantasy adventure, then you're in for a real treat... Adults and youngsters alike will enjoy this intriguing and highly amusing tale. Have you ever wondered how 'normal' people would fare when tasked with the sorts of quests and challenges that appear in fantasy novels? How would a mere mortal overcome the stresses and anxieties of everyday life and rise to the epic challenge laid out for them? Why don't fictional characters ever go to the toilet or break wind? Why don't they ever have panic attacks in moments of intense stress or gag at foul odours? If you yearn for answers to such deep and philosophical questions, then this book is for you. When a note arrives in the village of Lunton, speaking of attacking wart-faced ogres known as the Ugbards, the peace-loving Lunlins are thrown into disarray. Gradwin and Rentuck (two useless hunters who only ever seem to catch things that are very slow or already dead) head to The Belch Inn and drown their sorrows with a pint of Garg, or six. On waking up bleary-eyed the next morning, they discover that their village was attacked while they had been sleeping off their over-indulgence in a muddy stream. With all the houses destroyed and the occupants missing, it falls to the inept pair to go in search of their friends and family, despite their hangovers and general incompetence. The tale follows Gradwin and Rentuck through the highs and lows (mostly lows) of their adventure, as well as providing some insight into their friendships, fears and, occasionally, their flatulence. The odds are stacked against them from the beginning and the chances of it ending well are remote, but I think you'll agree that their story is one well worth reading.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure fiction
• Adventure
• Fantasy
• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838595647
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Nathan Lusher

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover illustration by Julia Clark

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ISBN 9781838595647

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Contents
PREFACE
A CALL FOR HELP
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORNING AFTER
THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE
INTO THE FOREST
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
AT THE WATER’S EDGE
GOODBYE ADWOOD
THE GREAT STORM
A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIEND
BOGSWAMP FOG
DARK
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
PINK RIDGE MOUNTAIN
THE MOUNTAIN CAVE
WHERE THE UGBARDS DWELL
BREAK-IN
CAPTIVE AGAIN
RESCUE PART 1
RESCUE PART 2
THE AFTERMATH
PREFACE
There is (or was, depending on where and when you’re reading this) a planet in our universe that, much like Earth, is teaming with life. Most of it is covered in dense forest and a network of streams, rivers and seas. The planet is called Abba and its inhabitants, Abbalings, have made comfortable lives for themselves by cutting down sections of the forest and creating settlements surrounded by trees. Each of the villages exist completely independently of one another and most Abbalings have never even seen anyone from another tribe, living in blissful ignorance of what is going on beyond their wooded perimeter. Without advances in technology like telephones and computers, the only way they’d ever come into contact with another group would be to, heaven forbid, actually leave their village!
This story is about one particular village named Lunton and its occupants, known as Lunlins. When they find themselves in more than a spot of bother after being invaded, it falls into the hands of Gradwin and Rentuck (two useless hunters who only ever seem to catch things that are very slow or already dead) and the village chemist, Krableg, to rescue the rest of the Lunlins from the foul and vicious Ugbards.
The tale follows the trio through the highs and lows (mostly lows) of their adventure as well as providing some insight into their friendships, fears and, occasionally, their flatulence. The odds are stacked against them from the beginning and they probably should have stayed at home and waited for someone else to do something, but I hope you’ll agree that their journey is one well worth reading about.
CHAPTER 1
A CALL FOR HELP
As the sun rose over the small, green village of Lunton, the Lunlins went about their usual activities. The elders slowly emerged from their sleeping quarters and sipped hot tea, whilst contemplating the day ahead and watching the other villagers busily going about their business. The farmers picked fruit and vegetables ripened to perfection by the long, bright summer days of late. Younglins played in the fields and streams, and generally got in the way of, or in some way aggravated, the rest of the villagers trying to get on with their daily chores. All was good in Lunton.
A school trip was underway and a group of younglins stood at the edge of the forest that surrounded their village, listening intently to their teacher’s words with wide eyes. She was teaching them an important lesson about the fruits of the forest or, more specifically, the berries of the forest.
“These ones are hallyberries,” she said, holding out her palm for the younglins to inspect. “These are delicious and you can eat as many of them as you like!”
“Hallyberries,” the class repeated in monotone, as though they were chanting some ancient incantation. They stared eagerly at the small, red sphere in her hand.
The teacher bent down into the bush, rummaged around and then re-emerged with a second, almost identical berry in her other hand. It, too, was small and red but, with this one, she delivered a harsh warning.
“These are maryberries,” she said sternly and looked into the eyes of each of the younglins in turn. “These are things of evil! If you eat these, you’ll go into a sleep so deep you may never wake from it!”
The class gasped collectively and then chanted “maryberries” just as they had before.
“The way we tell the difference,” she went on, “is in the smell. Hallyberries have hardly any odour at all but maryberries are somewhat pungent.” She wafted the maryberries towards the younglins who sniffed hard and made sounds of acknowledgement. “And that concludes the lesson,” she said abruptly and threw the berries into the bushes.
***
Gradwin poured another cup of tea and sat himself down at the family table, looking rather smart in his clean, white long-sleeved top, beige waistcoat and dark green trousers. He gazed out of the window to the woodland at the end of his garden. His mind wandered to thoughts of a successful day’s hunting when a large, dark figure abruptly broke his peaceful view.
“Huh?” exclaimed Gradwin, spitting tea all over the table and spilling the remaining contents of his cup into his lap. “Argh!” he yelled, after a short pause, as the message from his burnt legs arrived at his brain. The figure at the window then revealed itself to be Gradwin’s closest friend, Rentuck, arriving unexpectedly early for their day’s hunting. Unlike Gradwin, he seemed to find the whole scene before him most amusing.
“Sorry, did I startle you?” said Rentuck, still grinning as he stepped through the door.
Gradwin said nothing and frantically tried to wipe the tea stains from his trousers.
No one really knew how, or why, Rentuck and Gradwin had become friends. They always seemed to annoy one another and most people that knew them considered them quite an odd pairing. Rentuck was a well-built man, with a thick mop of scruffy, ginger hair sticking out from his head. His solid jaw was lined with a dense, orange-tinged beard, which often had bits of food dangling from it. Rentuck regarded it as something of a pleasant surprise if he happened to find some forgotten food in his facial hair. He wore brown dungarees over an off-white, almost yellow, jumper. Gradwin, by contrast, was well-groomed, with short, dark slicked-back hair and a clean-shaven face. He was also much shorter and slimmer than Rentuck, who towered above him. Gradwin was always clean-clothed whereas Rentuck’s attitude was that it’s only going to get dirty again anyway. Nevertheless, the two men were hunters and they had partnered-up in their expeditions for as long as either could remember. The reason for this was also a mystery, as they had very little success hunting together. The elders once remarked that their secret to success was failure, but neither Gradwin nor Rentuck had a clue what that meant.
Given the choice, and with no family to speak of, Rentuck would probably have lived his life as a loner but he was sensible enough to know that he’d have even less success if he went hunting by himself. It was bad enough hunting with Gradwin. So, it was really a relationship of convenience.
After some more aggravated trouser scrubbing, Gradwin and Rentuck gathered their hunting equipment into two large, green sacks and headed out of the back door.
“I’m off now!” shouted Gradwin as he stepped out into the garden.
“Good luck!” came the muffled response from his wife, Anyeta, who was upstairs wrestling with the task of clothing their two youngest children. “It would be nice to have something other than rats and swamp-snakes for dinner,” she bellowed from the window, although the men were now conveniently out of earshot; or at least pretended to be.
It’s usual for Lunlin families to be quite large and Gradwin’s was no exception. It consisted of two twin boys of three years, named Ergo and Argo, and a daughter of thirteen, named Emaya. Emaya was a keen writer, and a particularly vigilant one at that. She seemed to have a gift for being in just the right place at the right time and usually when the subject really didn’t want the event documented! As her father and Rentuck approached the woodland at the end of the garden, she rose from her chair, hurriedly threw some items into her writing bag and stealthily followed the two of them towards the forest.
Upstairs, Anyeta continued the usual game of dressing the twins, which typically consisted of one jumping out of their trousers just as she managed to get the other into theirs.
“Stop wriggling!” she shouted at one twin as the other scrambled out of his clothes.
“They fell off!” replied the now naked twin, just before the two of them collapsed into a fit of giggles and the whole process started again.
***
Rentuck and Gradwin were now out of the garden, across the stream and had reached the edge of the thick, green woodland.
“Any idea what’s out here today?” said Rentuck, as he and Gradwin entered the woods.
“It’s a warm morning, so there sh