Dil, Prod & Goliathmature

Sergeant Dil marched at a steady pace along the mud track, in quite a good mood now that the sun had come out and the birds had started tweeting again. The sun cascaded through the gaps in the leaves of the trees above him, nearly blinding him in places just because his eyes had become so used to the dimness of the clouds. The forest had begun to break into small dirt paths again, meaning he was probably getting quite close to home.
    A squirrel stood in front of him for a couple of seconds with a huge nut in his mouth, and gave Dil a very quizzical look, as if to say to him; ‘What are you doing here? Go away. My nut,’ then hurried off in a daze. Dil thought that was a bit weird, but didn’t bother mentioning it to anyone.
    Dil took his small metal helmet off and wiped the sweat away from his brow.
    Dil was looking forward to getting home a lot. He was looking forward to being able to sit down on something soft again, as opposed to rocks, jagged or otherwise. He wanted a big bed and a nice, fluffy pillow, warm to the touch. He wanted a decent shave, with a razor blade rather than a hunting knife. It had been so long since his aching, tired limbs had the chance for a decent relax. ‘Adventuring’, or ‘soldiering’, had really taken it out of Dil these last few weeks, trying desperately to get home. He wasn’t sure if he was an ‘adventurer’ or a ‘soldier’ anymore. He knew that he started off as a soldier, when he had first left his home, but the things he had been doing recently didn’t seem the sort of things that soldiers did.
    In his experience, being a soldier involved things like going with about a hundred other soldiers somewhere and drinking a lot. If there was any actual fighting to be done, there would never be enough people on the other side, so everyone just seemed to resort to having a drink instead.
    All the fighting Dil had been doing the last few weeks had seemed pretty unfair to him, especially as he had never really done any before. He supposed that fighting against the odds was more of an ‘adventuring’ thing rather than a ‘soldiering’ thing. But he was still pretty confused about the matter. In fact, he was so confused he nearly lost his way in the forest thinking about it.
    Another squirrel came out onto the track, looked at him, seemed to gesture something rude, and then ran off.
    As Dil continued, his companion, Private Prod, came jogging up behind him, trying to keep up with Dil’s long legs. Private Prod had become attached to Dil, almost literally. At first, Prod followed Dil away from their home motivated by simply blind ambition. He followed him through dangerous lands, dodging trolls, fighting wizards and many other troublesome people they had the misfortune to encounter over the course of their mission. When they eventually delivered the letter, they were very pleased to be getting home. Back to Pennyshire, city of eternal rain. Dil especially missed the rain.
    Prod puffed and wheezed like a big dinner lady running a marathon, trying to keep up.
    “Honestly, I don’t understand it!” Prod blurted out, suddenly.
    “Hmm?” Dil replied, not stopping.
    Prod tried his best to catch up in order to finish what he was saying.
    “I’m sure my father must have been a gnome or something. Surely no human should be as small as me! How short would you say I am? Four and a half feet?”
    “What are you blithering on about Prod? Come on, we’re nearly home!”
    “I’m under no delusions you know!” Prod continued, speaking his mind as he usually did. “I know I’m small, and most of the time it’s not a problem. You know, when I’m not walking, or trying to get something from a high shelf. But when trying to keep up with you, sir, it is a problem!”
    “Yes, yes, so you have said before,” Dil said. Though Dil liked Prod, his company was one of the things he would be avoiding when he returned home.
    They both continued to pace, dodging the logs and critters on the path, looking for the best route through the dense layers of trees.
    “What are you going to do first when we get back sarge?” Prod asked.
    “Have a bath I imagine. A long, hot, bath. I’m sick of smelling like the inside of a dragon’s ear,” Dil said, no closer to getting used to his own stench. It’s all very nice in tales and so on, the heroes go off and do things and get into scrapes. What people left out of those stories was the fact the heroes usually do so without anywhere to keep clean, or to go and ‘do their business’. It’s fine for about two weeks, but when ‘doing it like cats’ loses its novelty, you would give anything just to see a comfortable hole again.
    “I think I’m mostly looking forward to being able to eat some fresh fruit again. Everything that seems to grow outside of Pennyshire tastes horrible.”
    “Yes, well, I’m not sure you are supposed to eat grass, private.”
    “Why? It’s edible. Cows eat it.”
    Dil laughed.
    “Well you’re not a cow are you, Prod.”
    “No, sir.”
    Dil kept his eyes fixed upon the track as they walked, determined not to get lost and hit the river that he knew was somewhere nearby.
    Prod was about to regale Dil with the story of how he won the pub football league with his Sunday team, when he stopped in his tracks.
    “What is it? Why have you stopped?”
    “Because of him,” said Dil, pointing.
    A man of about seven feet in height, stood in front of them. His back was straight and his limbs were wide. Even though he was covered in heavy looking black chain mail armour, it was easy to see he was full of muscles. He wore a helmet that looked like a can of baked beans with a few holes in it. His impossibly dark eyes peered through menacingly. He stood perfectly still, with a very, very large battle sword held with both hands.
    Dil and Prod looked at him for a few moments, intrigued.
    “Who do you think he is?” Prod whispered.
    “I don’t know private, but he looks angry,” Dil whispered back.
    “But you can’t see his face...?”
    “Yes, well, If I had a stupid helmet like that I think I would be angry.”
    The two of them continued to gaze. Dil in particular was taken aback by the vastness of the black knight’s incredible sword. It seemed to stretch out forever, from the knight’s gloved hands to the muddy ground, that all of a sudden seemed miles away. Dil noticed the knight was blocking the small bridge that ran over a river.
    “Perhaps we should ask him to move,” Prod suggested.
    “Yes,” said Dil, unconvinced. “Actually I’m not sure that’s a good idea. That would be tempting fate a little, and I’m not sure we want to wind fate up at the moment.”
    The stand off continued as the two soldiers kept their beady eyes locked on the knight.
    “Hello?” Dil said to the man who was dressed to kill.
    The knight didn’t answer, just carried on standing perfectly still.
    “Okay, let’s just walk around him,” Dil suggested, and the two moved closer to the man hesitantly and carefully. They were only a couple of feet from the knight when he spoke in a deep, booming voice, that seemed to echo all about the trees around them.
    “None shall pass,” he said.
    “Ah, I see,” Dil replied. Made a little uneasy by the knight’s statement, they moved back again.
    “What do you suppose we do now?” Prod asked.
    Dil scratched his stubbled chin, something he often did while lost in thought. Prod scratched whatever was closest.
    “I shall try talking to him. Perhaps I can make him think we’re a couple of hard hitting, warrior, ‘adventurer’ types, who won’t stand for any funny business. Then he will have to let us pass,” said Dil, with as much authority as he could muster, considering that even he didn’t think it would work.
    “Go for it,” Prod said, patting him on the back encouragingly. “I’ll be right behind you. Six yards behind you.”
    Dil walked towards the knight once again, with his back straight and his upper lip stiff, trying to look tough and rugged.
    “Now, look here. We are soldiers, I mean adventurers... well, a little of both, or something, of the Pennyshire Brigade! This is the Pennyshire forest, and we demand passage back to our homeland. Stand aside in the name of the law...please.”
    There was a short silence. The black knight’s helmet rotated like an owl towards Dil, and his dark eyes glared back with intimidation.
    “None shall pass,” he said again.
    “Why not?” Dil asked, determined not to be beaten.
    “You will be killed.”
    “By who?” Dil asked, foolishly. “Oh, yes I see, you is it?”
    “Yes,” the knight confirmed needlessly.
    “I see,” Dil said, and walked back to Prod in a hurry, who was taking cover behind the nearest tree.
    “How did it go?” Prod asked when Dil returned.
    “Not well-ish,” Dil replied.
    “Oh, that’s a shame. It looked as though you were doing rather well. Now what do we do? We need to get past, otherwise we’ll have to swim for it.”
    “I know private, I know.”
    “We can’t fight him either. I mean, look at him! He’s as big as a bridge, we wouldn’t stand a chance!”
    “I know!” Dil replied, losing his rag. “I must try and use all my cunning and intelligence to think of a suitably fiendish plan.”
    “I’ve got an idea,” Prod offered.
    “I think you should probably leave the ideas to me, private. No offence.”
    “You wait here,” Prod said, and walked past Dil and over to the knight.
    Dil, completely bemused, looked in awe at Prod, his mouth hanging open in puzzlement and surprise. Prod didn’t usually have ideas, it wasn’t something he did.
    Prod stood in front of the menacing figure of the knight, who barely recognised his presence.
    “Erm, hello,” Prod said, smiling like a chimp with a handful of bananas. “Erm, sorry to bother you, but, erm, your shoelace is untied.”
    The knight stayed still.
    Dil, who lingered in the background, started praying.
    “Don’t you want to look down at your shoes and check?” Prod said.
    Prod carried on smiling, but the knight didn’t react.
    “Look, I’m really not even joking, you could fall over and hurt yourself,” Prod said. “Honest!”
    The knight continued to look through his cold, dark helmet at Prod, who just carried on smiling, trying to ignore the fact he would probably be a foot shorter at any second. But to Prod’s amazement, the knight bent over slightly. Because his helmet was so big and can-like, he had to bend over almost entirely just to be able to see his feet.
    Prod looked back at Dil and gave a thumbs up, smiling madly, his buck-teeth sticking out triumphantly.
    “You’re going to get us killed,” Dil mouthed to him, but Prod didn’t notice.
    As the knight was looking down at his feet, or at least trying to, Prod sneaked up behind him.
    At first, Dil thought he was going to just walk straight past and leave him behind. A few moments later he would have preferred it if he had. He didn’t want to believe his eyes.
    Prod stood on tip toes as he strained and pulled the knight’s underpants from under his chain mail. Prod’s face went red as he gave it everything he had. The knight gasped in pain as his pant elastic was stretched to near breaking point.
    Dil was horrified. However, his fear was pushed aside when he noticed the knight’s underwear. It had the words ‘Pennyshire ballet championship, year four’ written over it, along with a big smiley face. This confused Dil greatly, who eventually noticed that Prod had disappeared.
    Dil, unwilling to face the consequences of Prod’s insane actions, ran past the black knight, across the rickety bridge, down the path as fast as his legs could carry him, and off and away into the forest, totally directionless.
    The knight, on other hand, stood perfectly still again, holding his private parts, probably thinking he had been a little hard done by. A squirrel walked out in front of him and gave him a couple of nuts, as a sort of replacement.
    A few moments later, Dil caught up with Prod, and they stopped to try and catch their breath. Dil leaned against an oak tree holding his wheezing chest, as Prod collapsed onto the ground face first. Dil gave Prod a disapproving look, turning his nose up like a teacher who had just caught someone cheating.
    “That...gasp... was... a... very... nasty...gasp, splutter... thing... you just did, private!” Dil said, pointing an accusing finger at Prod, who had just about managed to stand up again. The look on his face reflected his disappointment and guilt, probably thinking that perhaps it was a cheap trick after all.
    Dil’s look of disapproval turned to one of happiness.
    “Well done! You never cease to amaze me private,” he said, and gave Prod such a pat on the back that Prod fell into a heap on the floor. But he was a lot happier with himself, and smiled a smile that stayed with him for a good long time.