Revolting Rose

Chapter 22/Part 1 - Food Fight

"Is Prince Zaech at the party? Surely he would not agree with having my invitation revoked!" some nondescript Lady shouted at Skarra, while a few others protested with frowns and crossed arms.

"The Prince is absent," he replied.

"Then I don't want to be there," she huffed and trudged away from him.

"But aren't you his attendant? Why would you be there without the Prince?" another interrogated him.

Skarra searched the sky and sighed, reluctant to answer such a question. He could not imagine Zaech coping a single day on his own, and dreaded to think what a hopeless spectacle he would make of himself in front of his mother.

"Prince Zaech supports Saloonka as the Overlord of this country—"

His explanation was cut short by the cluster's sudden shrieking and scattering when a pack of parsnips on the hunt hurtled past. Fortunately, Skarra had leapt onto a high cap when the vegetables rushed by, just escaping Saloonka and his followers as they rollicked through after them.

The uninvited folk had no chance of out running them.

Following overhead, Skarra watched as they were swept off their feet and carried away. There was no telling where the horde was going, erratic as it was for them to navigate while the stalks of the city bent and wobbled unpredictably under their combined weight. Flight gave him no advantage either in the thickest tangles of Hereth, where all he could do was hop across caps and squeeze between shelves.

Eventually it became too difficult to follow the parsnips through the most dense places, but the colourful flood of scurrying Underlings was easier to track, even at a good height above. As soon as he got a sense of their direction, Skarra saw that they were headed for a severe bottleneck that would squash the front-runners like pumpkins.

With a hasty swoop down, he grabbed a fungal house just below its cap, but could not get it to budge with any amount of flapping. Fortunately, he had made enough fluster that the underlings noticed the blockage with enough time to do something about it.

Those outrunning the others formed themselves into a chain of two dozen danglers under the nearest shelf. The lowest hanging, a Tyvern farmer, whose arms looked so frail Skarra might pull them from their sockets if he tried to hold them, was his only chance. So he took the risk for the good of the horde.

With a great heave together, they managed to bend the stalk to ease the flow through, opening the way to the hedge gate to the East of the city. Most made it through safely, but Skarra could tell by the grating of teeth and sounds of strain that the farmer could not hold much longer...

...but his choice to let go might have been the wrong one.

With a sudden whip, the shroom swung back through its earlier position and beyond. Three surprised elder Dames and himself were hurtled at high speed over the horde with the gate approaching dangerously fast.

Skarra opened his arms and managed to scoop the airborne Ladies into a bundle, and with a well timed sweep of his wings and turn of his tail, pulled up and over the hedge without so much as a scratch on their skin. With the hedge cleared he slowed to a safe glide and helped them back to the ground, but they did not seem intent on resting in their old age.

"Where's them parsnips?" the shortest barked and waved a cane menacingly.

"Over there, Fert!"

The shout had barely broken the air before their skirts were hitched and their legs were scrambling, and despite flailing more than enough, half the horde had overtaken them before they had moved more than a rope's length. Realising the futility of their dash, the three Ladies stopped and turned back to Skarra. The first held a cane, the second a purse, and the third a creature resembling a large, long-haired rat, each in a manner that was equal parts inviting and threatening.

"Such a fine young bird. Would you be a dear and fly us a bit further?" Fert asked with a puckered smile.

"There might be a sweetie in it for you," cooed the handbag-holding Lady as she pulled a lump of something out of it. It was small, slightly oozing, and barely-contained inside a lettuce leaf.

"Wasn't that your toffee from supper, Soyle?" the animal handler whispered. "And I don't think Madam Snoof likes flying."

"Hush, Maude," the other two snapped.

Skarra carefully folded the lettuce leaf over the toffee, then scooped the ladies back into his arms. "You can save the toffee for later," he said, carrying them over the horde. "Did the parsnips break loose?"

"The snips were set loose to find the stolen spuds," Maude replied.

There was some shuffling and wriggling that was making the ladies hard to hold. The toffee keeper was digging in her purse again, and produced three pairs of goggles. She shared the eye protection among the ladies.

"Always come prepared, you never know when a bird will sweep you off your feet," she said with a stiff chortle that turned into a wheeze.

"Dame Soyle?" Skarra squawked and checked his clutch of ladies for the familiar face of his father's favourite.

"Still just a Lady. Not until I've had my last dinner will anyone be calling me Dame," she waffled. "It's good to see you again, lad. How's your father?"

"Roosting after a whizzpop accident."

"That's just like him. Used to roost a lot after our whizzpop accidents, that bird! Why, if my hips were still what they were back then..."

"Last week?" Maude murmured.

"Yea, just once last week if you can believe it! It was twice the week before."

"Not that sort of whizzpopping." Skarra stifled a chortle, then almost choked on it when he caught sight of the frenzied vegetables scurrying beneath them. "Don't parsnips eat potatoes?"

"With any luck they'll only get a few before the horde can stop them," Fert said with a feisty shake of her cane.

Skarra could only imagine how concerned Goldilocks must have been with this development. She loved those potatoes, so for her sake he would not let them come to harm.

The parsnips chased the Tyvern soldiers to a thicket of trees that Skarra was certain had not been there a month ago. Yet it was as withered as any wood that had stood for hundreds of years.

He set the ladies down and called his brothers from the sky with his loudest alarm-coo. They answered the call, some more readily than others, and landed in a cluster around him.

"We need to hold back the parsnips," Skarra told them and checked the distance of the horde behind them. They were closing in fast, but there was no time to spare. "Herding formation. Swoop them back towards the horde."

It was little use. No amount of swooping could slow the vegetable assault. Then Boris made the disastrous mistake of catching one in his talon. Strong as he was, the parsnip lashed him mercilessly with its tendrils until it brought him down. Hyris and Ieli were grounded soon after when they also interfered too closely with the vegetables.

One by one Skarra's brothers dropped to the scourge.

To his astonishment, the trees may have been barren of leaves, but they were far from lifeless. Their branches bent and bowed around the fellows who came in reach, then they passed the Tyvern between their branches, moving them deeper into the Grove while the front line of trees raised their roots and jabbed their twigs at the encroaching parsnips.

Deep in the treetops, Skarra spied the three old Dames, desperately trying to get Madam Snoof to safety. Against his better judgement, Skarra went in after them. He cleared the line of parsnips with a high hop, but he had to be as agile as a falcon to dodge the grasp of the trees until he had Madam Snoof in his arms. Only then did he let the boughs scoop him up and reunited the animal with Maude.

He could not protect the whole Tyvern army, but he might have a chance of saving the three Ladies.