Free Monthly #11 Ducks and Dragons
A Short Story for Jared Leys
Introduction
Sometimes, fun things come from the most random places.
(Jared Leys on Twitter I mean X I mean who cares what it’s called) asked a fundamental question: “Next big thing in the fantasy genre?” The options were dragons and ducks.I said, “you know what would be a hoot?” and I committed to writing about an army of ducks. As a bonus, I wrote about a goose and a dragon (that one is coming tomorrow). For now, I present Ducks and Dragons.
Ducks and Dragons
“They’re despicable!” Doffy said in his raspy voice with spit flying from his bill. Deidra, his wife, stood next to him in support. They were leaders of their flock and were looking to present a defiant front against their foes. Doffy allowed the quaking crowd to do their thing until they settled back down. There was an occasional whistle and honk that emanated from them, but Doffy had no way to track them down to give a personal nod of appreciation.
After a minute, Doffy was able to continue. “I am a mallard and a drake, as you can tell, and I say that the dragons have got to go! I say that with this in mind: Only one kind of drake can rule the skies. Only one. Their reign of terror must come to an end!” He paused for the ducks to go wild once more. “Now it is time for us to stand up and fight! Form up! Form up my mallard friends! We shall teach the dragons how we can join together into battalions and form a murder of mallards! We shall show them that they are nothing compared to the might mallard!”
Doffy and Deidra waited at the front of the assembly as the many lines of ducks organized themselves and awaiting orders. They would fly in formations in coordination with one another. Each row of ducks was twenty long and consisted of both drakes and hens. All would be needed for the battle against the dragons. Doffy had seen their provocations and responded in kind. What he hoped would put an end to the dragon’s terror only antagonized them all the more.
The last few months bore down on Doffy. The dragons wiped out New Duckington a month ago and the month before that Duckwater, Minnesota. The foul fiends who feasted on waterfowl had gone too far. They attacked not just friends and family; they attacked many humans who fed bread to Doffy’s people! That was the final straw for Doffy.
By the time all v formations were in the sky, somewhere around two hundred of them, dusk could be seen fast approaching on the horizon. They would have to time their attack when the dragons were busy minding their evening ablutions before flying for the night. They were like scaly owls without a conscious in Doffy’s mind. He did not care of their intelligence, but the fact they would so blatantly attack others without regard for what chaos or devastation resulted, that was his concern. That was why something had to be done. To put an end to the terror of dragons that flew about their lands.
As Deidra set the course, Doffy went about to each formation to make sure they knew which of the other formations they would need to coordinate with. When all was to his satisfaction, Doffy returned to his wife and their bills touched briefly as they flew. It was dangerous to attempt such a thing, but as leaders of the charge, they had already accepted the fate that they felt awaited them.
The duck army arrived too early for the intended surprise attack. Doffy veered off to the side and found a place for the flock to land and rest before battle. Half an hour went by and the dragons could be heard moving about, preparing for flight. Doffy saw this as an opportunity to rally his flock and turn them into the murder of mallards he wanted them to be. They needed to be fearless, and it was up to him to convince them that it was possible to defeat the dragons.
“I am your leader, and I will not lie to you my fellow friends. We are not felines; we are not predators by nature; we are docile creatures. We do not like rabbits, and we do not like dragons. We are a good people, a good species, we know our place in the world, and we stay in our lane. However, much like that fable of the gander, the Jerry of legend, we have a choice to make. Are we simple ducks who accept our deaths and the destruction of the givers of bread? Or are we mallards who can band together and form battalions of unstoppable warriors?
“I do not presume to know what is in your heart but let me tell you what is in mine. I see the dragons for what they are. Terrorizers without remorse. The cruelest scaled beings we have ever laid eyes on. Those dragons are nothing but selfish sinister scaled serpents that fly. Serpents have dignity about them, but they are not cocky. They are not flying high like they rule the sky. Serpents do not even do that while on the ground. They know their place, and they do not boast. They do not go out of their way to disrupt the order set forth by nature. These dragons go against nature. They are not our friends. They are our enemies.
“What is in my heart is not hatred or envy, it is of vengeance. It is of giving all that I have to defeat the dragon threat once and for all! I ask all of you, will you join me? Will you join with Doffy and Deidra as we fly into battle? Will you?!” The flock erupted into a frenzy to show their willingness to follow him. Doffy lifted his bill high and raised his right wing. “Ducks of Dwacklingham! I see an army of friends, of brothers and sisters. You’ve come to fight as warriors against the threat to our homes, and warriors you are. The choice is simple, we go home and live out our days in fear of fire from above, or we strike the fear in its heart and rip it from our minds. What each and every one of you does today is for a brighter tomorrow, for a mallard tomorrow. I choose to stand and fight for all ducks of all kinds, for all fowl, for all who are terrorized. That is something that is not taken lightly. That is something I choose for my ducklings.”
Doffy began to honk to emphasis what he said next and the flock joined in the commotion as emotion welled up in all of them. “Who here will join me in the charge? Who here will be warriors this day? Who will rip the scales and flesh of dragons?! Who will fight for freedom from fear?! Then to the skies so we may soak the ground in dragon blood!”
The host of mallards flew, and with the leadership of Doffy, they caught the dragons by surprise as they left their roosts in search of prey. When the prey becomes the predator, the predator is bamboozled. It was the lesson Doffy learned from Jerry the Gander of legend, and he was not about to let some goose show him up, a great drake such as himself. Oh no, that was not an option. Upon rising higher than the dragons, the signal whistle was given, and all the formations drew close into battalions while still holding their shape. They turned downward and became as arrows striking at the tops of the dragon’s heads and at the fleshy pieces of the wings. They dedicated three battalions to a dragon, one for the head and one for each wing.
When the first wave made contact, the second wave darted down. When the second wave made contact, the third did the same as those before it. By the time the third wave struck, the first wave of battalions were ready to go again. And so the sequence of events played out as thousands of ducks repeated their efforts. Many lost their lives when they did not duck in time to avoid flame, and many more when they did not cease their attacks to fly away before the dragons could react to the ducks upon them. The dragons began to drop, slowly at first, until only the few largest dragons remained in the sky.
The ducks consolidated as each dragon lost their ability to fly or were knocked unconscious by the ducks, and each consolidation increased the rate at which the dragons fell. The last three flew in formation of their own in an attempt to repel Doffy and his army, but they were unable to hold out. Their last stand was to let loose fire that fried over two hundred in one go, but the act also made them vulnerable to the rest of the army.
With the falling roars of the last dragon below them, Doffy called out that victory was achieved. This was no fable or fiction, this was real. Where the geese believed a legend of a singular gander taking on a dragon was told, soon they would speak of the army that Doffy built. The murder of mallards that rushed out to meet the dragons of North America and defeated the dastardly dragons before they could devastate the land had succeeded in their goal. Not many were left, but that made it all the more heroic and worthy of Jared the Great.
It was not the hubris of one duck, but one duck with a plan and support from his species. He could not have done it alone, and he could not have seen how any of the dragons could have been fooled by Jerry. All ducks would be proud of the events that took place, and all ducks would know that they could come together and do great things. That was all that mattered to Doffy.
I hear that there’s more drops of short stories the last Sunday of every month!