The running of the monitor trains usually avoided the annual Godgie Stomp, but the long rains this year had delayed the caravans far too long. As soon as the rains stopped, Mudpot ran out his monitor train, hoping to beat the first herds of the Stomp. It was running a risk to cross now, but financial ruin was the alternative. Waiting until the final stomping herds had passed would delay the caravan for several more weeks. It was a gamble that the Dragon Boss and Monopole had taken and the gamble had now been lost. As Mudpot watched the vast Godgie herd descending upon his caravan, he knew the caravan was doomed.
Racing toward the monitor train, tens of thousands of Godgies swarmed in a maddened surge across the plain. Gooodg-Oog-looo! Oog-Oog-looo! The low “goooodg-oog-looo” calls of the surging Godgies, combining with the clacking claws of the advancing multitude, ripped the air with a surreal unbroken thunder. Although the Godgies were relatively small, the vast stampeding herd caused the earth to fairly tremble.
As the leading edge of the Godgie horde closed on the monitor train, Mudpot could see the gleaming yellow eyes and rapidly flicking tongues of those in the front rank. The great mass of rushing lizards followed the leaders at the front and the leaders followed ancient instinct. Whether the leaders were actually leading the surging herd or being pushed by the unstoppable pressure from behind did not matter.
When the flood of lizards hit the caravan, the Godgies streamed over and through the monitor train as if it were just another part of the landscape. Hissing and twisting violently as the Godgie’s claws raked across their backs and heads, the monitors lashed out with their jaws. Straining at their harness, they broke free and all-out bedlam ensued.
Mudpot, at the center of the dust and chaos, was overrun and knocked to the ground by the frenzied jumping and skittering herd. A shower of sand and gravel kicked up by the Godgies’ feet pelted Mudpot in the face. Any vision of the horizon or the sky lost beneath the endless, ever-widening waves of Godgies, he struggled to rise, yelling and trying to swing his whip. Choked by dust, clothes slit to ribbons by numberless clawed feet running across him, bleeding as if cut twice across every inch of his body, he sank helplessly beneath the onslaught.
The monitors, famished after their long run, struck out ferociously at the Godgies swarming over them. Frenzied confusion erupted as the hungry monitors lashed out with their massive jaws. One hapless Godgie after another was snapped in half by the monitors’ razor-sharp teeth. But the vast herd kept coming, oblivious to any danger.
When the first wave of Godgies hit the caravan, the monitors went berserk. Snapping and slashing with their teeth, they twisted with all their strength in their harness, trying to catch the Godgies in their powerful jaws. In the first seconds of this chaos, one of the monitors directly behind Helga jerked at the harness with such power that one side of it snapped. Sensing the new freedom of movement, the monitor gave a sharp slashing bite at the other side of the harness with his teeth. The tough harness did not break under the bite, but it was weakened enough that when the monitor yanked back the other direction to catch a Godgie it, too, snapped.
The leading team of monitors was now free and began feasting on Godgies. It would have been better for them to run. Like a single massive wave, the Godgie horde overwhelmed the monitors with the sheer power of an unending rush of bodies. Snapping and chomping at the Godgies, ever fighting, never wearying, still not even the ferocious monitors could stop the Godgies or turn aside their flight. Soon, they, too, lay silent beneath the still surging horde.
When the harness had snapped, Helga had pulled with all her might and she, too, became free from the caravan harness. Unlike the monitors, Helga sensed that her only hope was to keep running, just as she had been running—but this time at the head of the Godgie Stomp! Flying like the wind, with Godgies running all around her, Helga again was running as if her life depended on it. She realized that running with the Godgies was the only way to keep from being trampled by the Stomp. And off she went, forcing her exhausted body to its maximum speed, running neck and neck with the Stomp.
Reginald to the Rescue
When Captain Red Whale Gumberpott and Fishbum first slipped over the side of the Daring Dream to escape the coming onslaught of the Wrackshees, neither had any idea what they would do next.
“Quiet now, Fishbum, my good mate,” Red Whale whispered as they struggled against the eddies surrounding their ship. “Let’s head to the stern and cling to the rudder until we see what’s about,” Red Whale continued. “Once we see what’s up, we’ll make a plan.”
“What if they slaughter the crew?” Fishbum asked, sorrowfully.