S2.3: Bulb attack!!!

“So there I was doing the whole Brienne of Tarth thing, completely in the zone and oblivious to anything else. Like a Zen master / mistress. Those turnips didn’t stand a chance! 

“So I wasn’t to know that nasty bulb-spiders were sneaking up behind me. Anyway, Hipparchus hadn’t warned us. He bangs on all the time about me not playing with his maps, little bulb dolls (weird, that, for a grown-up!) and stupid little rakes and yet he doesn’t predict a murderous attack on my life! So it wasn’t my fault.” 

pTravis feels obliged to defend Lottie’s tutor. “He said that no one - none of his ‘remote faculty’ of bulb-spider trackers anywhere in the country - had predicted that the sudden warm rainy spell had started the bulb migration early last year and so the people who usually spot them first - and thus warn us of their path - hadn’t been on careful look-out so early in the season. It really was most unfortunate.” 

“Hmph! Anyway. The next thing I knew was that I had two huge bulbs jumping on me, both too close for me to let Anduril: Flame of the West taste tender bulb flesh. 

“Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw Fabian, some way off, and also being attacked by a couple of bulbs. I don’t know why but I suddenly threw the Flame of the West as high and far as I could towards him. I suppose I didn’t want the bulbs to get her and I thought she might help Fabian but as soon as I’d thrown her, spinning through the air, I realised it was a stupid thing to do. Fabian has no arms or hands to catch even a sword offered slowly and gently, let alone one slicing through the air at a million miles an hour! 

“But, in my struggle I still managed to see that, just as the sword was coming towards him - now handle first, now point first - he first pulled his head out of the way and then, just at the right moment, lurched to one side and caught Anduril’s hilt in his mouth and with a rapid double motion - I didn’t really see how - he ‘dispatched’ his bulb attackers. Gone. In a flash. 

“But that didn’t really help me because he was miles away and he’s only a snail.” 

“A racing snail!” 

“Yes, but how fast can a racing snail really slither? My bulb attackers just smirked, sniggered, belched and farted and then began, horribly, to sing…”