Chapter 7: A Lovely Day for a Ride.

Lofan and his companions’ sled had, some time ago overtaken the thug bats. Lofan just about managed to keep Hammer from whooping and hollering at the bats in triumph.

“I’m surprised these dogs run so fast” Lofan remarked.

The tiny legs of the pilldogs were a blur as they sped across the snows.

“Well, I guess, er… they have a lot of uh, energy when um… not making pills” Dookie posited uncertainly.

Hammer just laughed.

“These little dudes are just the best!”

The pilldogs yapped in agreement.

On they went.

“It isn’t so bad once you get used to it” Dookie said, eyes fixed on the slab and not the speeding scenery.

Lofan decided to be nice, and not point out that she hadn’t gotten used to it at all.

“It is exhilarating! Not as good as exploding, but, like close!”

Explodaheads are a simple folk, all about the thrills.

Lofan looked into the distant mountains, the atrocious arrow was still in the same position, there was nothing but Hammers manic chuckling for a while and the panting of the pilldogs. They drew ever closer to the Dragon Mountains.

“What is your village like Lofan?” Dookie asked, clearly wanting some conversation to take her mind off the fact that she was speeding along on top of a slab or rock drawn by pilldogs and guided by an explodahead. Lofan could not blame her for wanting some distraction.

So, Lofan distracted her by describing his village, a collection of cones made by the conepeople’s power, much like most conepeople settlements. He talked about the oinks (one-legged pig things). He talked about Atticus, almost boasting about how he won the giant furmine over. He didn’t actually have much to talk about, his village wasn’t anything special, but it was home.

He was relaying that sentiment when all three of them heard a roaring noises in the distance. The noises weren’t from the Dragon Mountains as they might have reasonably expected. The roaring noises were coming from behind, and were getting closer and noisier.

Dookie was the first to spot what the origin of the noises was.

“Oh dear ram riders!”

Neither goat nor sheep, though similar to both and coming in many hues, the ram riders ride upon motorcycles of all manner of construction. Most denizens of Elcon know the ram riders for their reckless riding and general disregard for the safety of all bikeless folk. The rams that give the name of the ram riders are proud warriors and hunters, protecting their flock, their ewes and lamkids. Though it seems they have the power in the flock, it is the ewes who make the bikes, cook the meals, care for the children and generally do most stuff that isn’t stupid stunts on a bike or driving off threats.

The ewes are fine with this, they have no desire to experience the cooking of a ram or the lack of a ram’s bikemaking skills. Besides, as long as one wasn’t caught up in it, most denizens admitted that the ram riders antics were very entertaining.

There was around ten bikes, well, nine bikes and one monocycle. Ram rider bikes take many forms, as the ewe mechanics are about as prideful as their rams. There was bikes with great twisting exhausts, bikes with wheel spikes, a bike that had two wheels side by side rather than one behind the other and many others. They came in all shapes and colours, several bearing a number of colours, there was even one bike that snapped and cracked between two forms.

The rams were doing tricks as they went, wheelies were common, but some of the stunts were more daring. There was a ram driving with his rear wheel up in the air, another ram was steering his bike with his horns, while on his back! That ram was actually steering better than some of the rams using their hoofhands.

It was in staring in fascination at these crazy denizens that Lofan noticed something odd. One of the riders was not a ram. No, sitting happily on a motorcycle that looked as if it was more rust than metal was a bat.

The bat appeared to be blissfully happy really, smiling as the wind whipped his ears back. Lofan was not sure how this came about, but it looked like the bat had… joined the ram riders.

One of the ram riders rode up behind the makeshift sled. He was a brown and white ram wearing a green fibre jacket with the sleeves ripped off(in reality, it never had sleeves). He had a braided beard with a metal spike through it. His bike was fitted with glossy silvery panels that seemed like blades. The wooden wheels of his bike were studded with spikes of this glossy metal. The smoke from its large flared exhaust seemed to wrap around to the front of the bike and sink into it.

“Wonderful day for a ride isn’t it eh?” The ram rider said politely.

Dookie was taken aback, she had heard ram riders were terribly uncouth, not having a manner that wasn’t as wild as their riding. Lofan however took this in his small stride.

“yes, quite” Lofan shouted, trying to make himself heard over the rumbling of the ram’s bike.

“say what is a bunch of ram riders doing with a bat?”

“Eh?” The ram rider had heard something from Lofan, and could see Lofan now, but he hadn’t caught what had been said. “Sorry dear lad, you’ll have to speak up!”

“i said; what is a bunch of ram riders doing with a bat?”

“Terribly sorry, but I can’t hear you milad!” The ram said in good humour.

Hammer decided to rescue Lofan from the bane of not being loud enough, Hammer never had problems being heard.

“Dude wants to know why you have a bat with you dude!” Hammer repeated.

The ram rider clapped his hoofhands together, Dookie whimpered at seeing the motorcycle free of direction. The ram-rider however just put one hoofhand on his hip and waved the other about as he explained.

“Well, we saw these bats flying above us and we decided to see what they were doing, you know, a bit of friendly inquiry, and well, they were so unpleasant we just had to find out what they were up to so Flotta here…”

The ram rider pointed to a ram that seemed to be riding a fat round rocket with two wheels poking out of it.

“…fired up his bike and snatched one out of the sky, he really wanted to catch a big one, but he got this one.”

The ram rider and his bike flopped unnervingly from side to side as he spoke, not once his hands coming to rest on his handlebars in the shape of horns. Dookie had her eyes closed by this point, she couldn’t bear to watch.

“As it turns out, Obby, the bat, didn’t much like his peers either, so he agreed to tell us everything in exchange for becoming an honorary ram rider with his own bike. So, we are headed to yonder mountains to check out the artefact he was talking about, we all thought it would be good for a laugh, eh boys?”

On cue all the ram riders, and Obby laughed.

“Oh, wait, you must be that weirdo party he talked about” The ram rider concluded.

“weirdo?” Lofan muttered.

Dookie suddenly felt all was right with the world, the ram rider was finally being really rude.

“Ah, well, sorry but we’ll be taking the artefact first!”

“But motorcycles can’t go up mountains!” Dookie blurted incredulously.

Now, as it happened, Dookie was wrong, she was underestimating the insane things a ramrider and a ramrider motorcycle could do. However, the ramriders were just as clueless as Dookie was. Lofan suspected that the ram riders would be able to ride up the mountains, so he was quite pleased with what happened after Dookie’s statement.

“Ah. I suppose you are right, well then, we’ll be off then, still got to hunt down some wild vegtables, don’tyaknow! Right boys, artefact hunt is off”

There was a series of awws.

“…and chasing down savage crops is next in the menu!”

There was a few hurrahs and with a “Awfully nice to meet you” the ram riders and their honorary ram rider were speeding away.

“did that really work?”

“Did what work?” Dookie asked, confused.

“that bluff that their bikes couldn’t work on a mountain”

“U-uh, ohohoh… ho. Y-yes, it did, my clever ploy succeeded!”

Lofan looked askance at Dookie, but made no comment.

“Well, I’m a bit disappointed, we could have gotten into a fight, I’ve heard ram rider bikes make nice explosions” Hammer complained.

In sort order after that expression of opinion that neither Lofan or Dookie cared for, they reached the base of theDragon Mountains, or more exactly they hit a big rock hiding under some snow and went flying off the slabsled, along with several quite confused pilldogs.