The Red Baron vs Monster Zeppelins in Hell | Werewolf the Podcast Episode 261

Episode 260: The Red Baron vs Monster Zeppelins in Hell

Hell descends into absolute chaos as two battles rage simultaneously across reality itself.

On the ground, the Professor fights through a collapsing supernatural battlefield overrun by the horrifying “kittens of doom” — tiny relentless predators tearing through demons, monsters, and ancient war-beasts alike. Exhausted, wounded, and waist-deep in blood-soaked mud, the Professor faces what may finally be his last battle when one of the monstrous lion-headed Balakalavians arrives… alongside the terrifying Fairy Foxglove.

Meanwhile, high above the battlefield, Wing Commander Montgomery Fortescue and Lady Luck wage war in the skies aboard a battered Bristol F.2 Fighter against living nightmare Zeppelins made of flesh, lightning, eyes, and screaming horror.

As monstrous airships descend upon Hell itself, an unexpected ally arrives:

The Red Baron.

Together, the legendary WW1 flying ace and the Wing Commander engage in a supernatural aerial battle against eldritch Zeppelin horrors before turning their attention toward each other in the ultimate gentlemanly duel.

This episode combines:

• supernatural horror
• cosmic fantasy
• WW1 aviation combat
• dark comedy
• eldritch monsters
• historical fantasy
• British humour
• apocalyptic battlefield horror

Perfect for fans of:
The Magnus Archives, Welcome to Night Vale, Old Gods of Appalachia, dieselpunk horror, supernatural war fiction, and dark fantasy audio dramas.

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Transcript

Professor

The battlefield had settled into that peculiar hour of war where everything stops feeling dramatic and starts feeling like poor life choices repeated at scale.

About an hour in, you stop being heroic.

You start being… available.

The kittens of doom were still at it, which is quite something when you consider their size. One expects a certain decline in morale, or at least interest in sustained homicide. Not these. They were relentless. Tiny, furious, and apparently fuelled by whatever fundamental error had allowed them into existence in the first place.

They moved and consumed everything.

Monsters, demons, things with too many joints and opinions about mortality… all of it reduced to frantic, confused retreat under an avalanche of fur and enthusiasm.

The ground had become something else entirely.

Not earth.

Not battlefield.

More a kind of theological slurry.

Mud, blood, and the unfortunate remnants of things that had once been very confident about their own invincibility. 

I was standing in it up to my waist, which, academically speaking, felt like a strong argument for never standing anywhere ever again.

My sword hung in my hand.

Or rather… it suggested hanging.

Chipped. Battered. Offended by its own condition.

My shield was no better. It had the air of something that had tried its best and was now considering retirement.

And I, regrettably, was much the same.

There is a particular difficulty in melee combat that no one ever explains properly in books or lectures. It is not the killing. Killing is straightforward enough once you’ve committed to it. The difficulty is the uncertainty.

With a shield wall, the things you are fighting should be on the other side of the wall of shields. Makes the enemy easy to find and identify.

With open melee, you’ve no wall of shields to bisect you and your enemy.

You have no idea where the next opponent or opponents are coming from.

Not knowing where the next thing trying to kill you or to be killed is coming from is much harder to deal with.

Not knowing if there is a next thing coming is difficult to deal with.

Not knowing whether you are currently winning, losing, or simply participating in an extremely violent misunderstanding is difficult to deal with.

Everything is close.

Too close.

Then too far.

Then suddenly, they’re inside your personal space, making poor decisions for you with blades.

I adjusted my stance… what remained of it… 

There is a point where the stances of sword work fail because you are too… I apologise, dear listener, but at this point the use of the laziest word would be a better describer than all else. 

Stances fail because you are too fucked.

My sword master would have called this stance something like…utterly fucking knackered stance three.

In this sudden, unpeaceful moment of not fighting. I tried to breathe and recover as I watched the chaos still unfolding before me.

I saw the vampire woman standing on the back of some downed giant thing, her arcing swords cutting swathes through the waves of ever oncoming kittens.

For her, it had to be only a matter of time before she fell.

To her left, I could see that the Valakavian.

He was hard to miss, really. 

You don’t often overlook something that looks like a theological siege engine built around the idea of anger.

Except now he was… struggling.

Which was new.

The kittens had found him.

Of course they had.

They clung to him, little bodies swarming over impossible muscle and ancient brutality. He was no longer fighting so much as attempting to remove history from himself by hand.

His weapons were gone.

A lot of his flesh was gone.

His enormous hands swept across his torso, trying to strip the kittens away in frantic motions.

But it wasn’t helping.

Every kitten removed was relocated and replaced by another.

It looked like he was dissolving as tiny lumps were taken from him.

His arms now.

Then his shoulders.

Then his chest again, like some sort of recursive punishment.

And I watched, with a sort of revolted but exhausted academic fascination, as the tiny creatures carried on with what they do best.

They bit.

They tore.

Not quickly. Not cleanly.

Patiently.

Painfully.

Like teeny tiny scholars of degradation.

Even from here, I could see the flesh going in strips. Not dramatic. Not theatrical. Just… inevitable.

Blood formed a misty pink cloud around the flailing giant.

The Valklavian was screaming in both pain and frustration.

Which was nice.

I mean, I know that was cruel of me, but…

Fuck him.

Yes, it is quite difficult to watch something being flensed by kittens.

It really is…

But I coped.

Barely… enjoying every second of it.

One develops a certain professionalism in these matters.

I exhaled.

Somewhere between a sigh and a surrender, and sniffed the air.

‘Right,’ I muttered to nobody in particular. ‘This is getting somewhat out of hand.’

Coincidentally, at this point, I watched the giant finally raise an arm that had been stripped to white visible bone.

‘That looks rather sore.’ I again told the no one who wasn’t listening.

Oh, how the monster screamed.

It was… Well, to be honest, it was… nice to hear because when it finally stopped, it would mean that he would not be an issue for me to deal with.

I nodded my head in satisfied horror once he was silenced.

‘A toast.’ I told the air, which rudely did not offer a reply, as I reached into my satchel and retrieved my much-loved hip flask.

There is always a moment in prolonged engagements where one must reassess priorities. Hydration, morale, and the philosophical question of why one is here at all.

And maybe why one is still alive.

I took a drink.

In this case, a fine blend was more appropriate than a malt for the old palette in a battle.

I think this was the Knockdhu blend that rinsed the mud from my mouth and throat.

So smooth.

A perfect peaty palette-cleansing swallow; war is rough enough, and this did its job of soothing me.

I lifted the pewter hip flask that had been in my life since the Indian Sepoy Mutiny in 1857.

It was a little dinged and tarnished as a container.

But it held its contents well, which were.

Warming.

Comforting.

Entirely inappropriate for the circumstances, which is precisely what made it correct.

I allowed myself a second sip.

Then a third, well, more of a glug, because the universe was clearly not consulting me on operational decisions anymore.

‘Mm,’ I said quietly, as if making notes.

A high-pitched scream very close that turned into a gurgle brought me back from the whisky-filled moment.

It was as though I had stepped away and forgotten what was happening for a while.

‘Still happening, then.’ I again addressed the no one who was definitely not interested in conversating with me.

A polite cough came from behind me.

‘Fuck.’ I said.

Another polite cough

My head nodded forward, and a smile creased the now-drying crust of blood, guts and gore that grittily covered the skin of my face.

I let go of a little laugh, raising my head again before addressing the cough that would not be linked to anything good.

I could just tell.

I prepared myself.

Another cough.

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn't aggressive.

Just… courteous.

The sort of sound that implies manners have been observed even while interrupting your imminent death.

I winced.

Of course.

Because, of course.

There was something behind me.

There is always something bad behind you in situations like this. It is one of the few fundamental constants left in existence.

I did not turn immediately.

That would have implied eagerness to see my fate.

Instead, I raised a hand slightly, as though to acknowledge both the presence and my mild disappointment in it.

‘One moment,’ I said, taking another careful swallow from the flask. ‘If you don’t mind.’

Whatever it was, it could apparently wait.

Good.

So could I.

Eventually, I sighed, carefully screwed the lid closed, checking that it was tight. It would have been a liberty to survive and have lost its contents to my satchel before tucking the flask away with great reluctance.

Once the flask stowage was safe and assured, I retrieved a kerchief from my back pocket.

It had formerly been a handkerchief.

Now it was more of a historical document. Mud, blood and something I did not want to identify in polite thought, decorated it.

I looked at the now soiled rag, considered its life choices, and then threw it into the dirt.

Back of the hand it was, then.

I mean, that was not any cleaner really, but…

Efficiency over elegance.

I wiped my mouth, taking my time to do so.

Finally stood.

And turned.

Now, one expects certain things at eye level.

A man.

A weapon.

A monster with a theological grievance.

What I did not expect was…  a crotch.

Specifically, a giant crotch in every sense of a giant crotch.

Which is never a good opening sentence for any encounter you intend to survive.

I tilted my head back slowly, working my way up the structure in front of me.

Which he was.

A structure, I mean.

A tiny leather thong first covering the not-so-tiny… **cough**

Unnecessary.

Deeply unsettling.

The thighs.

Then a humungous tattoo’d covered torso.

Then, mountains of muscle were arranged into what could only be described as ‘architecturally aggressive.’

And finally, the head.

A big bloody lion's head.

Of course, a big bloody Lions head

Because subtlety had long since left this battlefield and was presumably hiding somewhere in a different narrative entirely.

It was one of the twin brothers.

The Balakalavian, or the Valakalavian, stood above me like a walking declaration of administrative violence.

‘I am Gigio…’ He started.

I waved him into silence before he could let rip with his entire self-identification.

‘I know, old chap. I know… I know all of it. Can we just… You know, assume introductions and get on with the task in hand?’

I was now leaning on my sword with both hands, using it as a third support.

He looked to his tree-sized club nearby.

My eyes went to the big tree-sized club.

It was a big, tree-sized club.

Not currently in use, which I found oddly more concerning than if it had been.

I exhaled slowly.

‘Well,’ I said, mostly to myself. ‘This is inconvenient.’

I was already mentally preparing the necessary calculations. Angle, distance, likelihood of survival, the usual comforting nonsense.

I even felt a flicker of confidence at this.

Foolish, in hindsight.

Because that’s when I saw her.

Fucking Fairy Fucking Foxglove.

Sorry about the language, but she is all of those words.

She was there.

Sitting on his left shoulder demurely.

Legs crossed like she had always been there.

Like she belonged there.

Tiny.

Green.

Utterly pleased with herself.

She looked at me.

Waved.

Blew a kiss.

I gave her a big, bright smile.

‘Yes, of course,’ I told the world.

And in that moment, something in me, something small but essential, just… gave up.

Not dramatically.

No speech.

No heroic collapse.

Just a quiet internal resignation, like a clerk closing a ledger and deciding not to open another one ever again.

The Balakalavian shifted slightly.

Foxglove smiled wider.

And I heard myself say it before I could properly object.

‘Ah,’ I muttered.

A pause.

Then, with the weary certainty of a man recognising an overdue appointment with fate itself:

‘Well, I am going to die… properly… for the first and last time.’

Wing Commander Montgomery Fortescue the third, and the really rather annoyed, what?

The little Bristol two-seater fighter roared like an enraged cathedral organ held together by failing canvas, failing prayer, and several failing engineering decisions that, in hindsight, should probably have involved more sobriety.

I could feel every vibration of the machine through the control column.

Every shudder.

Every complaint.

The old girl was already working beyond the physics she could cope with.

She was breaking.

But not broken.

Not yet.

But she was beginning to object strongly to the requests I was asking her.

Which, frankly, was fair.

‘Bit lively today!’ I shouted over the engine noise.

Behind me, Luck cackled like a woman who had mistaken warfare for an especially energetic garden party.

‘CACKLING’

She stood in her seat now, somehow not falling to her death.

Lucky that, eh, what?

Her Lewis gun swooped back and forth, hammering in furious bursts, and somehow the gun never ran dry of ammunition.

‘WOOOOOHOOOOO!’

Never overheated and jammed as it should.

A river of brass casings fell from the weapon.

They literally poured from the plane. 

Every now and then, one would come spinning past my shoulders.

All those burning bullets the gun released went skyward, stitching lines across the monstrous airships. 

Somewhere above us, one of the living Zeppelins screamed.

Now.

I understand that sentence may require clarification, what?

I shall not provide any because, as you can tell, I am a little bladdy busy.

Just accept that the zeppelin was screaming.

Some things simply arrive in one’s life fully formed and screaming.

The screaming thing was enormous.

A great swollen horror drifting through the clouds like God Himself had suffered a nervous breakdown and started breeding whales with thunderstorms coming out of their arses.

Its skin pulsed.

Not fabric.

Never fabric.

Wet.

Veined.

Occasionally blinking.

Which I deeply resented.

Zeppelins should not blink.

Especially all those eyes, what?

It violates the social contract that should have been non-negotiable.

‘Got the bastard!’ Luck cried.

I glanced upward just in time to see one of the great monstrosities erupt in purple flames. 

The Lewis rounds had torn through some vulnerable internal organ or gas bladder, or perhaps the very concept of buoyancy itself.

The creature convulsed.

Lightning and stinking offal burst from the holes created in its skin.

Blood and gore rained from the sky. 

God forbid anyone being beneath that waterfall of fowlness.

And then it began to fall.

Good Lord.

The size of it.

It came apart slowly as it descended, burning flesh peeling away in gigantic flaming ribbons while ropes and dangling gondolas whipped through the clouds behind it.

It was dying, but it was going to fight that death as it did.

Below, the battlefield vanished beneath its shadow.

Then impact…

Dear God, goodness.

The impact was brutal.

Even the sky shook in response to it.

Mud flew

Fire reached out from it into the sky, lighting the darkness and blinding me for a moment. 

Even from thousands of feet above, I felt it through the aircraft.

A bloom of shattered earth erupted around our little fighter.

Luck whooped victoriously.

‘Wahooooooo! That’s one down!’

‘Bravo, old thing!’ I shouted in exultation.

Which was the spur for the world to attempt to murder us.

Again.

The remaining Zeppelin moved with horrifying speed.

The thing’s tentacle-like ropes lashed through the sky like striking serpents.

I rolled hard to port.

The little plucky plane responded.

A little too slow.

One of the ropes wrapped around the tail of the Bristol with a sickening jerk.

The aircraft screamed.

Not metaphorically.

I mean, the actual wooden frame emitted a shriek of tortured stress that sounded remarkably human.

‘Oh bollocks,’ I muttered.

The Zeppelin pulled.

And suddenly we were no longer flying.

We were being claimed.

Dragged up through the clouds tail-first toward an opening maw at the front of the airship.

‘Ah, that is not good.’ I let slip.

‘British fucking understatement at its best.’ Shouted Luck and then laughed. 

She was my co-pilot in the oncoming crash of sorts.

The controls of my kite fought and struggled against the constricting restraints that held it tight.

The Bristol bucked and rattled violently.

Canvas tore somewhere behind me.

The altimeter spun with deeply concerning enthusiasm.

The little plane and I had managed to somehow reverse the direction we were being drawn.

‘Ah, hah!’ I yelled into the night.

‘Take that, you blighter.’

Luck’s machine gun stopped its rattle and was replaced by a manic laugh as a hand came from behind me and pointed in the new direction that I had fought hard to take.

‘Ah… Well, that’s not cricket, what?’ I told the hand's owner.

She had drawn my eyes to…

…erm… the ground that, now, was there.

The mud rushed up to meet us, not giving us a comfortable landing if we… hit it.

Closer.

Closer.

Ah.

I remember thinking, with surprising calmness, that this was probably it.

No dramatic final charge.

No glorious sunset.

No poetic last words.

Just an exhausted RAF officer and his luck about to become an unusually patriotic crater.

Funny thing, acceptance.

People think it arrives nobly.

It does not.

It arrives like paperwork.

A quiet internal voice saying:

Well.

That appears to be that.

I tightened my grip on the controls.

‘Sorry, old things’, I whispered to the Bristol and the lady as I girded my loins in preparation for a sudden stop.

And then…

Red.

A crimson blur tore through the clouds above us.

The triplane descended like divine vengeance with absolutely no respect for international boundaries.

Twin Spandau guns opened fire.

The sound was unmistakable.

Short.

Sharp.

Violently German.

The Red Baron.

Of course, it was the bloody Red Baron.

The Fokker triplane slashed across the Zeppelin’s side in a burst of fire and tracers.

The creature reeled.

Actually reeled.

The living airship shrieked in pain as black fluid exploded from its side.

Its tentacle holding us convulsed.

Then let go.

The Bristol dropped freely for one terrible moment before I hauled back on the stick with everything I had left in me, eyes closed and swearing with quiet deference.

The aircraft groaned.

Shifted and shuddered.

Wires went ping.

Wooden stanchions cracked.

The engine sputtered for a moment, then restarted from the sheer willpower I exerted on it.

‘Come on…’

‘Come on, old girl.’

The pointing finger had not had time to be withdrawn within the period that all this had happened. 

The hand now changed from a finger point to a fingers-crossed gesture.

I mean…

When the very embodiment of Luck crosses her fingers, then we can accept that things are somewhat bad…

…what?

I started grinning, leaned back as though that would help the plane level out, and closed my eyes.

Luck was laughing.

‘Laughter.’

She was enjoying herself.

The plane struck.

It shook, and I heard screeching and crunching as the plane shuddered and rocked. 

This was it, and time was slowing so we could experience every single painful detail of our… crash. 

Then nothing.

I could still hear the engine.

I could still sense the air whipping past my face. 

I opened my eyes.

We were still in the air.

Bairly.

Flying.

About three damn feet above the churned airfield.

What had been the crashing sound? 

An ear flap of my flying hat was lifted, and a warm kiss was planted on my cheek.

A feminine, grateful laugh and then.

‘laughter. You seem to have left your undercarriage in the mud, what?’ was said.

I laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because the alternative was screaming.

‘WE’RE STILL ALIVE!’ Luck bellowed.

‘Yes, madam, we are but… but I am afraid only somewhat temporarily!’ I shouted back.

Above us, the Baron banked elegantly and came around for another attack.

Magnificent bloody pilot, what?

The rather arrogant bastard waved and released a pearly smile that I could see even though there were 500 yards between us.

I adored him immediately.

The Zeppelin recovered and surged toward him, lightning crackling across its bloated flesh.

‘Right then,’ I growled.

‘Round two.’

‘Tally ho!’

I pulled the Bristol upward.

The engine howled.

Mud and fire vanished beneath us as we climbed directly toward the monster.

Luck opened fire first.

The Lewis gun chattered furiously.

The Baron swept across from starboard simultaneously, his red triplane cutting through the smoke like an executioner’s blade.

We struck together.

The Zeppelin burst apart.

Not exploded.

Burst.

Like an overripe corpse kicked down a staircase by an angry god.

Not a description from my imagination there.

I had actually seen an angry god kick a corpse down the stairs once in Peru.

Fire blossomed through the Zeppelin's body.

Lightning erupted wildly into the clouds.

Chunks of burning flesh and metal rained downward in every direction.

The shockwave rocked both our aircraft.

And then suddenly…

Silence.

Well.

Relative silence.

Just engines now.

The storm dissipated.

The sun woke up and arrived.

The Baron flew alongside us.

Close enough for me to see him clearly in the cockpit.

Calm.

Perfectly composed.

As though we had merely concluded a pleasant tennis match.

He raised one gloved fist in salute for the job done, and his gratitude at the destruction of the monster blimp.

I returned it instantly.

Luck waved both arms like an escaped lunatic jumping up and down in an extremely un-British manner.

I mean, I could forgive her in her excitement.

That’s what a gentleman does in these cases.

The Baron actually laughed.

I could see it even through the dirt and other things smeared ones goggles.

Then he pointed toward me and then himself.

A challenge.

I nodded and gave him a salute that would have made the old parade ground sergeant cry with pride. 

Ah.

Of course.

Naturally.

Now we were two

Two apex predators that had survived.

Two apex predators that could not live in the same sky without testing ourselves against one another.  

‘Ah, now the real game begins.’ I said to my little wreck of an aircraft, giving her a pat.

And I smiled despite myself.

‘Luck,’ I said quietly.

‘Yes?’ she replied.

All of a sudden, she was radiant and beautiful again.

Not a smear of mud or blood on her flying kit.

Her long auburn hair was now dry and fluttering like a flag in the aircraft's draft. 

‘I believe the Baron wishes to murder us somewhat politely.’ I said with an inner joy.

‘Oh, good,’ she replied. ‘I was worried things were going to get dull.’

Oh, you do not get this type of filly these days, what?

The red triplane peeled away sharply.

I turned to her.

‘May I ask a boon of you, my dear?’ I yelled to be heard.

She nodded.

‘Could I request that you stay out of this conflict of ours, old thing?’

She looked deep into my eyes for a moment.

It fair made a man question himself, that look.

Then she gave me a thumbs-up as if from a Roman emperor and nodded, adding a smile many men would have died for and that many men had died for.

I laughed with the sheer joy of what was about to happen and rolled after my gallant opponent immediately.

The Bristol lunged into pursuit.

And somewhere deep inside me…

Beneath the terror.

Beneath the exhaustion.

Beneath the absolute certainty that this was all completely insane…

I felt it.

Joy.

Pure.

Terrible.

Aviator’s joy.

The sky opened around us like a battlefield built for gods.

And we went to war.