"General Duke Vinfowler Spike looked behind his legions coming up short at the banks of the river Krungh. Through the swirling dust and fog of evaporating sweat and urine he could see the vast armies of the North spreading across the plain. Dismounting his Doghippus, he lifted his ample robes and decorations and gingerly walked through the weaker of his army, prostrate and moaning, to the river's edge. There he contemplated a small tree in the current, slightly vibrating, the river water flowing behind it, leaving a small dot of still water directly behind the trunk. He knew what he must do.
When the last of the two thousand obese eunuchs were in place across the river, he mounted his wild-eyed, fidgety beast and cantered across, in eight inches of slow moving water. Gazing across the fleshy dam, he bowed from the waist to the violent, roiling waters pummeling his doomed, beloved, gentle corps.
Mounting the bank on the far side the General Duke remembered a tale his father had told him long ago about a famous General Duke called Mosey that had parted a great river simply with his words. This was in a time of enchantment and magic before the Mostleader, El Shrubii, tangled the earth in famine and war".
from 'The Curse of El Shrubii' by Franklin Cincinnatus
