The Wacky Wizard Wars: Madcap Wicked Wizards and Witches Star in a Comedy Hit

Copyright © 2019 Christina Clarry and Maxine Alan-Hart

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781838599553

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We dedicate this book

to all the amazing children

who inspired

and challenged us

to weave words

that would delight and encourage them

to open magical books

and

to our own

extraordinary families.

We love you.

Contents

Preface

A Long Time Ago

A Short Time Ago

Present Time

The Traitor

Fango

Journey Into Danger

Gnashers’ Old Home

Batty Bird

Kielder Forest

New Neighbours

The Meeting

Return to School

The Emergency Meeting

The Film is Cast

Guarding Batty Bird

The Filming Begins

The Alarm is Raised

Mortor Returns

Mortor’s Plan

The Press Arrive

Mortor and the Drones

Change of Plans

The Wacky Army Sets Off

Panic

The Wacky Army Arrives

The Rescue Plan

Golden Warriors

Chaos in the Clearing

The Battle

The Guardian’s Plan

The Banquet

Letter from the Authors

Acknowledgements

Preface

The Wacky Wizard Wars is a sequel to The Great Wizard Wars.

This is a work of fiction in the fantastical, humorous genre aimed at 8–11 year olds and parents who enjoy reading to younger children.

New readers will pick up the story line as the first book is summarised in the early chapters.

Children who have read the first book will not be disappointed by any repetition for the early chapters elaborate the action scenes and magnify the major characters.

This book is a collaborative work between two writers.

Maxine Alan-Hart, a vet with a huge sense of humour, has contributed great editing skills and introduced magical touches throughout. Her introduction of gibber juice is side-splittingly hilarious.

Christina Clarry has been privileged to teach children in both junior and high schools in Zambia and South Africa.

Both are Roald Dahl fans. They enjoy creating unpalatable characters that meet their comeuppance in far more unpalatable ways.

Diana Awlins, a professional Canadian artist, is the illustrator with a unique style. Her interpretation of the protagonists shines in her delightful caricatures.

All the characters are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. The names allocated to some characters are our favourites.

Oh! Just in case any real or would-be witches and wizards out there are tempted to read this book … no offense intended! Our characters aren’t based on you. They are the products of our wild imaginations.

A Long Time Ago

WAR 1

During the Dark Ages a really nasty wizard set out to conquer the world. His name was Mortor. He was one of the High Born power-hungry sort.

For this mad idea, he needed an army.

‘A load of dimwits will be easy to control. I’ll lure them with promises.’ He laughed. ‘Empty ones!’

Mortor rounded up bunches of backward wizards and witches, who loved brawling and squabbling.

‘Who wants to rule the Earth with me?’ Mortor asked.

That didn’t impress them at all.

‘Duh! Rule a pile of dirt? No way!’ they replied.

‘I’ll give you lots of power,’ Mortor offered.

That worked. Power to them meant bludgeons and maces they could bash each other with. They rushed to join his Dark Army to get their hands on some.

But they had a slight problem. Mortor wanted these weapons saved for walloping GOOD wizards and witches.

‘Why? Don’t matter who we clobber,’ they argued. They were itching to settle old scores with each other.

Mortor took a deep breath and counted to ten. He was the only one able to. He had the numbskulls he wanted, but they were testing his patience.

‘BECAUSE THAT LOT ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN STOP US. WE HAVE TO THRASH THEM FIRST!’ he ranted.

Mortor brainwashed his gullible crew into thinking they were deadly and gave them the title Deadly Wizards and Witches. They liked that a lot, but they weren’t sure what it meant.

Mortor was horribly SCARY, so they listened to him … most of the time.

Fed up with the trouble Mortor and his thugs were causing, the good wizards and witches raised a Golden Army to deal with them.

‘It’s time to sort out that miserable mob,’ their leader, Lanzor, cried. ‘They’re capturing dragons to fly and fight on. The dragons are our friends. If we rescue them, they’ll help us.’

Once freed, the dragons joined forces with the Golden Army.

They were a breathtaking sight as they swept through the skies together.

The Dark Army turned to trapping warhorses to ride instead. These awesome creatures had wings of razor sharp swords.

The fighting became serious and led to the first Great Wizard War. There were spectacular battles in the sky. Golden Warriors riding dragons clashed with Deadly Wizards and Witches on warhorses.

Neither army won. There were heavy losses. When both leaders fell in battle, a truce was finally agreed.

The lazy, good-for-nothing survivors of the Dark Army slunk away from the battlefield. They left the bodies of Mortor and his not-so-lucky brawlers behind.

All the wizards and witches who had ‘died’ became preserved in crystals. Death was NOT permanent in this magical world. If a spell of life was found in the future, they could be revived for as long as the spell lasted.

The clever, good side didn’t fancy fighting Mortor and his bruisers again whenever this spell was discovered. So they took the crystals and hid them in a fortress.

The crystals containing the bodies of good wizards and witches were also moved to the fortress.

The survivors of the war went their separate ways. The good wizards and witches lived together peacefully.

The not-so-good lot returned to squabbling among themselves. They splintered into small groups and clobbered what was left of their brains out of each other.

It would be a long, long time before another High Born leader as treacherous as Mortor was equal to raising another army out of the scrofulous descendants.

A Short Time Ago

WAR 2

The dim-witted lot didn’t learn from their mistakes. They remained stuck in their old habits and continued to use weapons from the Dark Ages to bash each other with. By the 21st century, the only thing they had learnt was how to make gibber juice from the gibberberry bush. Their brains were so frazzled by this potent drink that most of them forgot how to cast spells or got them horribly wrong.

In contrast, the good wizards and witches made rapid advances. They learnt to combine hi-tech with their magical lives.

History tends to repeat itself when lessons are forgotten.

In 2017, a vile wizard named Cryptor broke the long-standing truce.

Cryptor was also a High Born and had the same crazy ideas as Mortor. He recruited feeble-minded airheads for a new Dark Army.

His aim was to trounce all good wizards and witches before any attempt to rule the world.

He captured a young dragon and an awesome snake to use them for his potions and spells. Ordinary frogs and toads weren’t potent enough.

When the news broke that a new Dark Army was being built, a modern Golden Army was raised. The Golden Warriors had the ability to wipe out the rotten bunch with hi-tech weapons, but they were honourable. They chose to fight them the old fashioned way and called in their friends, the dragons, to help.

The aim was to simply overpower the rabble. A risky move. The bad lot always prefer to play dirty.

Both sides raced to find a spell of life to revive their warriors from the first Great Wizard War. The side that discovered the spell first would have a much larger army.

By pure accident, the dimwits found a spell at the same time that the clever ones did.

An evil witch, Cyanor, slipped into the fortress where the crystals of the old Dark Army were hidden. She revived all the ancient warriors except for one. Cyanor left their leader, Mortor, in his crystal. This witch wanted to command the Dark Army herself.

To get her evil horde out of the fortress, Cyanor took two hostages. With the hostages’ lives at stake, the foul mob was allowed to leave.

Cyanor led them to the woods to join the new Dark Army of brawlers waiting there.

The hostages were tied up and left under the guard of zilants.

These mythical creatures were half dragon and half snake. They were being controlled by an evil spell. And they were NOT happy with this.

The wicked bunch planned to ride the zilants into battle thinking they were safe from attack while they had hostages.

A daring group of friends set out on a rescue mission.

There were two boy wizards, Danny and Josh. They were brothers.

Danny, the older one, was a natural leader. You’d want him on your side in tough situations. He was tall with a head of jet black hair and dark eyes that absorbed information which he analysed in a flash.

Josh was bright for his age. He had