[Danny]

i feel i've been neglecting UO in favour of Fragments. i think fragments is better, but UO was my first, so i've written some more.

so here it is... the triumphant return etc.

CHAPTER 41

“I tell you, it’s creepy.”

“I can imagine. I’m glad my pants don’t talk to me!”

“Shh…”

Volt and Rettick shut up, but could hear nothing.

“What?”

Mildar made an exasperated sound. “I heard something; shut up!”

They fell quiet again. This time, they heard a faint rustle of leaves. They prepared for flight, in case it was caused by wildlife. When the cause of the rustling emerged, however, it was almost as far from wildlife as possible.

“At Last! I thought I’d never see another slig!”

Volt and Rettick were speechless. The slig before them was quite tall, and a darker shade of green than they were. It was clearly quite a bit older than them, but wasn’t haggard and grey, in the same way most old sligs were; this slig had obviously been keeping fit. Even Mildar seemed surprised at the sight of a slig among the forest mudokons.

“I’m Mebek. I haven’t seen another slig for years! I’m so glad to see you!” He turned and called into the trees, making the same chirping noise that the mudokons had made.

“He says we’re unarmed,” translated Mildar.

At his call, the mudokons began appearing, as if from nowhere, until they were completely surrounded.

“Don’t worry; they won’t hurt you. They were a bit suspicious at first, but as long as you don’t do anything to lose their trust, they’ll be fine with you.”

Several mudokons approached Volt and Rettick, chirping loudly. [“They’re just asking Mebek about you.” Mildar translated.]

“So where have you come from?” asked Mebek.

After a second, Rettick replied. “We used to work in the factory.”

Mebek looked puzzled. “Factory?”

Volt looked at him, concerned. “Was the factory not there when you came here? You must have been here a long time, if you’ve never heard of Grozit’s Weapons Factory.”

Mebek looked at him in surprise. “Grozit? Short, wide glukkon? He’s alive?”

“Well, yeah. Why did you think he was dead?”

He sighed. “Because he never came back for me.”

This took a second to sink in, then Rettick worked it out. “You knew Grozit?”

“It sounds like we have a lot to talk about. Would you like to accompany us back to our village, and we can exchange stories.”

Just as suddenly as they had arrived, the mudokons began to disappear into the trees once more. Mebek turned and began to walk off.

“Come on!”

Puzzled, Volt and Rettick followed.

CHAPTER 42

Jal shook his head, as he walked in the darkness. Arim had run away somewhere, along with Neb and several other mudokons. Ana had gone to find them, and now she was lost as well. He, Bil, Int, and the others had been searching for hours, to no avail. The missing mudokons hadn’t shown up in any of their houses. After two hours, Jal had left Bil and Int to continue their search, and had gone to find Meet and Sillan, whom he hadn’t seen for a while, and was worried about.

What was wrong with those idiots? Couldn’t they see that cooperation with the sligs was the only way that they were going to achieve victory in the upcoming battle? And now they’d split the tribe in two with their pathetic posturing. Jal hoped that they were happy. Well, no, he hoped that they were miserable; he was being ironic.

Was that Sill? He thought he could see that silvery shape hovering down by the river. He changed direction to meet them.

“Hey! Sill!”

The silvery shape moved; it was him. As Jal ran towards him, he saw Meet standing beneath him. The two were never far apart. Meet turned to face Jal.

“Hi.”

Sill bleeped a greeting.

Jal, a little out of breath, tried to tell them everything. “Greeb’s back, but the-”

“We heard.” Meet never sounded too cheerful, but he sounded particularly low today, for obvious reasons. “Ana was just telling us.” He nodded his head in the direction of the river, where a figure that Jal hadn’t noticed was sitting dejectedly by the waterside. Jal walked down the bank and sat beside her.

Ana looked up. “It’s all falling apart, isn’t it?”

Jal put his arm around her. “We’re just having a few problems. They won’t last. We have a common enemy, after all.”

“Incal’s left as well. With Arim, probably. They were two of our best warriors, and they took a lot of others with them.”

“Bil’ll find them. Him and Int have organised a search party.”

“What if they’ve left the valley? For good, I mean?”

Jal said nothing, but sat there with Ana for a long while, watching the river go by.

There was a bleep from Sillan and a call from Meet. Jal stood up, and saw a large party of mudokons heading towards them. He could see Bil, Int, and Arim, as well as several others, both from Arim’s runaways and from the search party. The tall mudokon with the purple skin and long feather that walked beside Int was probably the one known as Incal.

“Hey, Ana! They’ve found them!”

As Ana stood up, her face lit up, and she ran to Arim and threw her arms around him. Then she hugged Bil. “You found them! Well done!”

Bil was quite surprised to see Ana. “We were worried about you; we thought you’d be with this lot. When you weren’t, we didn’t know what to do.”

“I was here with Sillan and Meet, until Jal came along.” She pulled back, and looked Bil in the face. “Have you lot sorted everything out now?” She looked from Bil and Int to Arim and Incal, who looked at their feet.

Bill put his arm around her. “We’ve come to a compromise. We thought of a way of deciding whether or not we should cooperate that we all respect.”

“What?”

Bil drew a deep breath. “We’re going to ask Mat and Ulis.”

Standing behind Ana, Jal didn’t understand the significance of this, but Ana was shocked. “It’s that serious?”

Bil nodded. “They need to know. I mean, we’re about to go to war. They deserve to have a say in who we ally with.”

“But we haven’t had to take a problem to them for years!”

“This is a big problem.”

Jal shook his head. “Hang on, who are Mat and Ulis again?”

Bil turned to him. “Our King and Queen.”

“Well, surely they deserve a say, then! I mean, if they’re King and Queen…”

Bil sighed. “It isn’t like that. You don’t know Ulis. She’s very secretive. None of us have ever even seen her, apart from Mat, of course. She doesn’t like crowds, and she doesn’t like responsibilities. Mat is normally her spokesperson, the one we see. Ulis hasn’t even left her hut for more than a decade. They don’t bother themselves with the running of the village, although they like to be informed. We’ve told them that we’re going to war, but we never asked them. If we ever have an argument than we can’t sort out by ourselves, we take it to them. They’re kind of the Ultimate Supreme Court, but we haven’t asked them anything for a long time.”

“So this is serious, then?”

Bil nodded. “Very.”