Re: The Vivacious Deadlock: S3G6: Round One: Genreshift
10-01-2011, 04:57 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.
Lt. Cedric of the Spacemire Marine Corps slammed his robo-boot into the chest of the nearest android soldier. Its sleek laser pistol clattered to the ground and the robot landed on top of it, pinned under Cedric's weight. Instead of bothering to fire his weapon, he simply crushed its torso under his suit’s enormous bulk and powerful servos. He hefted his enormous chainsaw plasma rifle with one arm and opened fire on the crowd, not really bothering to aim for anything in particular. He didn’t have to. His battlesuit’s onboard AI adjusted his aim every couple of shots, and he automatically shot several targets neatly through the head while mauling the rest with bolts of searing plasma.
“Lieutenant,” noted the combat AI in a soothing female voice, “there’s an inbound assault vehicle on your six.” A helpful blue arrow pointed behind him on the hologram HUD floating around his completely unprotected head.
“Thanks, Val,” said Cedric, punching out an alien that was sneaking up on him for emphasis.
He glanced over his shoulder while still firing Sigrar blindly at the screaming crowd. Sure enough, an alien vehicle that looked like a motorcycle on steroids was barreling towards him, firing loud, inaccurate built-in machine guns at random angles while its pilot cackled wildly and waved around a Kogoblian battle standard. Lt. Cedric brought his plasma rifle around and fired off a few rounds at its massive front wheel, which somehow managed to roll at 60 mph even though it was covered in spikes. The shots bounced off it harmlessly, and Val re-calculated Cedric’s aim so that the next volley of plasma bolts ricocheted off the wheel into other hapless enemies.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you to retreat, Lieutenant,” his AI reminded him.
“Really?” grinned Cedric. “I was thinking just the opposite.”
He flicked his wrist and put out one hand, and his gauntlet automatically dispensed an incendiary grenade. A series of stylistically unreadable alien numbers lit up on the face of the small glowing explosive and began to count down. Cedric sheathed Sigrar into its enormous holster on his back and flexed his armored fingers, waiting as the Kogoblian warbike hurtled towards him.
“Throw it!” cried Val. His HUD covered itself in exclamation points.
The grenade ticked seconds closer to zero.
The driver gunned the engine.
“CEDRIC!”
The space marine’s fingers clenched around the explosive, and he threw it with as much physical force as an explosion from a regular grenade – at the ground. The incendiary bomb smashed into the street nearly a dozen feet from Lt. Cedric and burst open in a shower of space napalm, creating enough fire and heat to melt the surrounding cobblestones into a pool of lava. The warbike swerved to avoid it.
Cedric stood his ground and put out a hand.
As the giant death motorcycle shot past him at close to 80 miles an hour, he clamped his hand around a machine gun jutting out of the side and pushed off from the ground just as it was flying out from underneath his feet. He swung his far leg over the side of the bike and slammed his giant steel fist into the side of the shrieking Kogoblian’s head as he went past, knocking it off its bike and through two robots and a wall. He landed solidly on the driver’s seat and twisted the ignition, plowing straight through the crowd of rioting gang members.
No wonder this thing didn’t give the pilot a way to aim the guns.
Robots and aliens in all sorts of shapes, sizes and silly costumes hurled themselves aside as Cedric tore past them, shredding the road and sending cobblestones flying behind him as he aimed the warbike straight for one of the entrances to Matic’s stronghold. Two dozen plasma turrets sprouted out of the street and the fortress wall and primed their cannons. (The stronghold also deployed some spidery little security drones, but those were mass-produced and pretty easy to smash under a giant spiked wheel.)
“You’re insane!” screamed Val.
“You knew that when you got on board!” bellowed Cedric as he pulled himself back, lifting the gigantic spiked wheel clear off the ground and powering towards the door. Laser fire bounced harmlessly off the bike’s unstoppable armored chassis as he crushed his way through the turrets on the ground, spinning the bike’s front wheel at full power and aiming it directly at the armored front door of the stronghold –
---
The mighty oaken doors of Castle Matic slammed open, letting in a torrent of freezing rain. A distant bolt of lightning silhouetted a knight on an enormous armored warhorse rearing violently in the doorway. The second its front hooves touched ground, Sir Cedric’s mighty steed broke into a run, its horseshoes clanking loudly along the stone floor of the main hall.
The archers and crossbowmen posted outside the front gate poured in through the doorway, kneeling to take aim with sharp eyes and sharper arrows. Sir Cedric ducked over Horsegark, the Horse with No Name as crossbow bolts and shafts blurred past. A few bolts shattered against the warhorse’s ironclad flank, which did nothing besides make it even angrier. It took off down the hall, snorting and rolling its eyes furiously.
The hall parted in opposite directions up ahead. On a whim, Cedric wrenched the massive horse’s reins to the right, but it tugged the reins back and ducked its head, redoubling its speed. Cedric swore and covered his head with an arm as the horse put out a shoulder and smashed directly through the stone wall, shattering brick and spraying thick dust into the air. The unnamed horse quickly slowed to a rather angry trot, whinnying and snorting as it flicked its tail and blinked dust from its eyes.
The dust settled, revealing Castle Matic’s courtyard. Just a bit of moonlight seeped from between the dark thunderclouds, lighting up a trickling stream running through neatly trimmed grasses and around statues of hooded angels and dragons. Under the shade of a grove of perfect trees that just barely reached the top of the walls, a set of marble steps and a vine-covered archway led to nowhere in particular.
It was quiet. Peaceful. Hardly standard fare for an Archwizard.
...Wait.
It was quiet.
The archers hadn’t come after him.
He looked over his shoulder. He was well out of range, but no one had bothered to give chase; they were busy barricading the doors and trying to pull up the drawbridge to keep out the rioting peasants. Obviously there were still more guards up ahead that they were expecting to finish him off.
They didn’t know him very well.
Cedric turned his gaze to the tallest tower where Archwizard Matic would be –
And he was lucky he did that, because otherwise he never would have noticed the entire tree being swung down on him like a club. He pulled Sigrar from its sheath and slashed through it in an instant. The upper half fell harmlessly to one side, and the considerably shortened trunk thudded into the ground a few feet from Horsegark’s hooves. As he caught his breath, Cedric followed the trunk up for some 10 feet until he was eye-to-eye with a snarling ogre. Clothed, thankfully.
“You’ll not get past us, Sir Knight,” a voice called from the shadows. A knight in black armor riding a manticore stepped from the grove of trees. He drew a cleaver-like blade from his side. “I am Kirsch, captain of the Archwizard’s guard.”
As he spoke, a handful of knights entered the courtyard from subtly placed doors and drew around Sir Cedric, pointing spears at him and grabbing chains hanging from the ogre’s collar to pull it away. Horsegark pawed at the earth angrily, refusing to be fenced in. Cedric put a hand on its head and met Kirsch’s eyes hatefully.
“This battle ends here,” announced Kirsch.
Cedric laughed. “Once you’ve rallied the rest of your men, you mean? Need you a break, to erect another wall to hide behind?”
Horsegark put a foot solidly forward, and Cedric hefted his enormous blade.
“If you’ve come to put an end to me, you’ve not brought nearly a big enough ogre.”
Kirsch glared and flipped down his visor. “For the Archwizard!” he commanded.
The spearmen lunged and tried to stab through joints in Horsegark’s armor. A few spears got through, which made the horse rear into the air furiously. One knight saw his chance and maneuvered his way in front of the warhorse to try and get a clear shot at its underbelly. His armor made him a second too slow, and the horse brought its hooves down on him, delivering a crushing blow that made him crumple to the ground.
Sir Cedric raised his gauntlet and gathered a ball of fire around his off-hand. He swung his arm around behind him, hurling a scorching wave of heat and flame into the spearmen at Horsegark’s flank, and followed it up with a sweeping blow with his enormous sword at the knights on the opposite side, clearing away the attackers. As Horsegark tackled a hapless spearman in front of him and trampled him into the ground, the others scrambled to their feet and scattered, discarding their worthless spears and drawing short swords.
Cedric whipped the Horse with No Name’s reins, and it charged straight for Kirsch, but the ogre stepped in its way, bringing its tree trunk around and aiming a blow at Cedric. The knight hurled a ball of fire in the beast’s eyes, and it bellowed and stumbled backwards. Cedric pulled the reins to one side, stopping Horsegark’s charge as the ogre went for them again. It missed them completely, but one flailing arm hit Cedric solidly in the chest, knocking him off his horse.
Horsegark turned and ran past, getting out of the way as the ogre thundered towards Cedric. Cedric climbed to one knee and reached for his sword. As the ogre tried to bring its tree trunk down on him again, he slashed through it vertically, slicing it into two useless halves and cutting through the ogre’s palm. The ogre roared in pain and staggered backward, dropping its two pieces of lumber.
Sir Cedric tossed Sigrar to one side and cracked his steel-plated knuckles. Horsegark caught the sword in its teeth.
The ogre reached out to grab Cedric. The knight dodged to one side, but the ogre caught him and lifted him into the air, one mighty hand wrapped around his torso. It leaned in to bellow in his face. Cedric winced at the smell and wiped spittle from his face.
With the other hand, he grabbed the ogre by the collar of its rags and delivered a vicious right hook to its jaw. The ogre was much too large, heavy and stupid to feel much of anything, but the surprise made it drop him and stumble backwards. Cedric recovered quickly and followed his first strike with an elbow to the gut, making it double over, and an uppercut once its face was within reach.
Meanwhile, one of the footsoldiers tried to sneak up and steal the enormous broadsword from the warhorse’s mouth as it stood and watched the fight. Horsegark headbutted him in the face.
The other soldiers kept their distance.
The ogre managed to reach over its shoulder and wrench Cedric free of its neck, forcing him to break his sleeperhold by grabbing him by the face and throwing him violently at the ground. Cedric landed hard, just barely avoiding the marble steps, a likely fatal blow.
The enraged ogre raised its fists and prepared to bring them down onto Cedric with its full weight behind them – a certain fatal blow.
Behind him, a blade clattered against the ground.
Horsegark grabbed one of the chains on the back of the ogre’s collar in its mouth and wrenched it backwards, whinnying through gritted teeth. The ogre managed a strangled roar and grasped at its neck, bending over backwards and giving Sir Cedric a chance to tackle it in the stomach.
Unfortunately, its thick fat somehow managed to absorb the blow, and the ogre wrapped one mighty hand around Cedric’s chest. The chain on its collar snapped, and before Cedric knew what was happening the ogre had slammed him into a wall some four feet above the ground, where it slowly started to crush the breath out of him.
As he kicked uselessly and started to black out, Cedric desparately grabbed the ogre at the neck and the shoulder, digging his armored fingers into it and forcing its head and arm in opposite directions. The ogre clenched its bad hand and tried to bite down on Cedric’s arm. The knight gritted his teeth.
The ogre roared.
Cedric roared louder, and the ogre’s arm came clean off at the shoulder.
It staggered backwards, shrieking like an animal as blood spurted from the wound. Cedric didn’t wait to get his breath back as he landed on the ground. He stepped forward, whirled around and smashed the ogre’s arm against its own head, knocking it off its feet. Before it hit the ground he was already swinging it around again, and he slammed it into the ogre’s neck. The ogre jerked, so he did it again, and the ogre was still.
Sir Cedric’s chest heaved as he lifted Sigrar from the ground, gripped it in both hands and leveled it in front of him, glaring at Kirsch with what energy he had left. Horsegark trotted up next to him, snorting and flicking its tail from side to side. Behind his visor, Kirsch was somewhere on the razor's edge between triumphant that Cedric was on his last legs, and utterly terrified of him.
As the two knights stared each other down, the stream that ran through the courtyard flowed around Cedric’s feet, rising and swelling in front of him into a clear, hulking, flowing form with two glowing eyes. Kirsch threw his head back and laughed dramatically. The manticore growled along with him.
“FOOLISH KNIGHT!” he declared. “Your first error was trying to defeat me, and you have erred for the last time! I am Kirsch, loyalest knight to the Archwizard and the mastermind behind the takeover of the Kingdom of Anglemark! I have slain leviathans in the Sea of Seven Pillars, and I have tamed Ijarathea of the Central Forest! You can defeat my soldiers, but you cannot best me in the field of battle!”
“This water elemental cannot be harmed by fire or steel!” crowed Kirsch as Cedric looked into its eyes, sizing it up. “Just as the wind does not break a tree that bends, your blade will pass right through it, and it can quell the hottest of flames! I knew from the beginning that you would spend yourself on the ogre, so that I could end you at your weakest moment! Don’t you see?! YOU’VE FALLEN RIGHT INTO MY TRAP!”
(This, of course, wasn’t true at all. He’d had no idea who Sir Cedric was or that he had been coming, but he’d been hoping that bringing an ogre along would intimidate Cedric into surrendering without a fight. The elemental was just a defense set up by the Archwizard, but Cedric didn’t have to know that.)
“You never had a chance at winning, Sir Knight,” Kirsch continued as Cedric superheated Sigrar and sliced through the elemental, vaporizing it instantly. “I created the illusion that you were close to victory only so that you would play into my hands without knowing it! You never even knew there was a plan until it was too late, and now you shall fall before me, just as countless before you! This is the mind that Archwizard Matic relies on to fell cities and slay armies! As Sun Tzu once said-”
He yelped as the ogre’s thrown arm smacked into his chest and fell to the ground. The manticore sniffed at it. He flipped up his visor in disbelief, staring at the tiny puddle of water on the ground. “Y-you can’t just do that!” Kirsch stammered. He wasn’t even done with that speech.
Cedric shrugged. “’s made of water,” he grunted. The manticore put a paw over the ogre’s arm and began to gnaw on it as the knight climbed back onto his unnamed horse.
“Now listen, Kirsch,” growled Cedric. “My quarrel is with the Archwizard. If you're to put yourself in my way, you can do it yourself.”
“Guards! Finish him! Now!” yelled Kirsch, pointing his cleaver-sword at the bearded swordsman.
The guards stood right where they were. Except for the ones who were already dead.
“He’s wounded!” cried Kirsch. “He’s tired! You can kill him!”
“I said, you can do it yourself.” Horsegark pawed at the ground and snarled, like a bull preparing to charge.
Kirsch stared at the men, and then at the knight in front of him. He swallowed and raised his cleaver-blade. If they saw him being weak (and he refused to admit that they were already seeing it), he'd never manage to control his troops again. He jabbed his manticore in the sides with the heels of his boots. It growled, far more eager than he was to get into a fight, and it rushed at Sir Cedric without warning, baring its teeth and ripping up grass with its sharp claws as it ran. Horsegark boldly charged forwards without waiting for Cedric's command, and Cedric hefted Sigrar, gripping it in two hands because he no longer had the strength to hold it in just one. Cedric roared at the top of his lungs, aiming to end the fight in one slash of his godsword.
Kirsch ducked at the last second, and Sigrar missed entirely. Kirsch's sword bit through the flexible plates down Cedric's side, and he grunted in pain as the blade cut his flesh. As their mounts turned and charged again, the manticore thrust its stinger at Cedric, forcing him to block with his sword while Kirsch scored another hit with his cleaver-blade.
“Do your men know you fight like that?” called Cedric as they turned to make another pass.
“My men know I win,” Kirsch retorted. Cedric gave him a smile as they rushed each other again. Kirsch aimed a thrust at Cedric’s wounded side, but he blocked it with Sigrar as he slashed through the manticore’s wing as it extended it to trip Horsegark. The manticore cried out and kept running, blinded by pain. Cedric drove his armored boot into the side of its skull as he passed, and the manticore crumpled and fell sideways, skidding a few feet on the wet grass.
Cedric hopped off of Horsegark and strode over to Kirsch, whose leg was pinned under his mount. He pinned the manticore’s scorpion tail under one foot and drove his sword into it, splitting carapace and severing it the upper half. Cedric lifted Sigrar and swung it in a circle, burying the entire edge of the blade into the shrieking manticore’s side, finishing it off quickly.
Kirsch cried out, too, as the blade shattered his armor and buried itself in his pinned leg. Cedric dragged him free of the manticorpse, pulled him to his feet without a word and punched him square in the jaw, knocking him over again. Kirsch groaned and did his best to sit up as Cedric snapped his cleaver-sword over his knee and discarded the pieces.
“Where are the rest of you?” Kirsch managed to ask as Sir Cedric climbed back onto his horse.
He looked down at Kirsch.
“The other knights,” Kirsch repeated. “You can’t kill the Archwizard by yourself. How many more of you are there?”
Cedric sniffed and looked into the distance.
“Hope rides alone,” he said simply, and Horsegark thundered off, leaving Kirsch to lie and bleed in the pouring rain.
---
After countless turns, a jumble of staircases and not a whole lot of guards, Cedric and his nameless horse made their way to the roof of the castle, where a haphazard cluster of stone buildings built into either side of the inner wall formed the base of Archwizard Matic’s tower. The collection of roofs was a vast and uneven expanse of nothing, about fifty feet across and slick with rain. Steps were scattered around the roof, allowing easier access to roofs that were slightly higher or lower than the others, as if there were any place to go on the roof or a reason to get there.
In the distance, another of the castle’s towers crumbled under the weight of the swirling blackness gathering in the cloudy sky. The Archwizard’s influence, no doubt.
Horsegark slowed a bit as they climbed the spiral staircase along the outside of the tower. In the pouring rain, it would have been a slippery deathtrap, but the tower was covered in a tangle of vines that made for decent footholds. The stairs wrapped around the tower twice and ended in a square platform around the top of the tower, giving access to the doorway.
As he reached the top, Cedric checked his side. Valthen’s armor was no longer shattered, and it was just finishing knitting itself back together in a fiery red glow, the way it always did when he was out of battle. Which was rarely. As the cracks sealed and the glow faded away, thunder crashed loudly overhead, and a bolt of lightning struck the spire at the top of the tower. Sir Cedric gathered a ball of flame around his hand and hurled it at the doors, blasting them open violently.
The Archwizard stood on the opposite side of the room, with his back turned. The room was crammed full of musty shelves of leather-bound tomes and all manner of mystical devices that whirred and clicked and didn’t seem to do anything in particular, and yet it still seemed bigger than it did on the outside. Tables were strewn with books and potions that were almost definitely evil, and a marble archway sat in the middle of the room, vaguely flickering. Even worse, the modestly beautiful and utterly furious Princess Melissa sat on the floor with her hands bound to a table leg. On the other side of the room, a half-elven boy who Cedric didn’t recognize lay in a heap on the floor, wrapped in a wizard trainee’s robes.
Oddly enough, Archwizard Matic seemed completely uninterested in any of his captives, who he was no doubt keeping for nefarious purposes. Instead, he was rifling through numerous papers and magical texts scattered across an enormous workbench. Occasionally, he would glance out the window as if preoccupied by something in the night sky. Something like the swirling blackness, which was obviously his fault anyway.
“Unhand the princess, Archwizard!” bellowed Cedric as Sigrar erupted into flame. Horsegark snorted and stamped a hoof for good measure.
“Oh, god damnit,” muttered the princess. “Seriously?”
The Archwizard turned, a little startled but mostly just distracted. “Oh, a knight. Now’s not really a good time,” he mused, stroking his long wizardly beard.
“Nalzaki,” he called, snapping his fingers twice. “Take care of our guest. I have a world to save.”
As he turned back to his books, three horrible roars that could have made stone peel and trees wilt sounded out in something approximating a rough unison. Cedric whirled around in time to see an enormous tail shoot past and coil around Princess Melissa, snapping off the table leg she was tied to and dragging her out the door as she screamed something about how Cedric had better not fucking dare save her, she did not need his shit right now and you’re not even listening, are you?
Sir Cedric wasn’t listening.
Even though its feet were somewhere far below the platform, Nalzaki towered over him, slowly beating its 15-foot wings as it hovered with the princess dangling from its long, serpentine tail covered in armored scales. Each of its three necks bore a collar engraved with runes, and each of its heads ended in three wicked horns and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. Even as Cedric watched, one of its heads belched out a plume of of smoke. Its three pairs of eyes each glowed a different color in the heavy rain, but each looked a different degree of murderous. Behind it, the sky began to crack and split open.
A wicked grin crept onto Cedric’s face. He leveled Sigrar in front of him.
Finally, something challenging.
Lt. Cedric of the Spacemire Marine Corps slammed his robo-boot into the chest of the nearest android soldier. Its sleek laser pistol clattered to the ground and the robot landed on top of it, pinned under Cedric's weight. Instead of bothering to fire his weapon, he simply crushed its torso under his suit’s enormous bulk and powerful servos. He hefted his enormous chainsaw plasma rifle with one arm and opened fire on the crowd, not really bothering to aim for anything in particular. He didn’t have to. His battlesuit’s onboard AI adjusted his aim every couple of shots, and he automatically shot several targets neatly through the head while mauling the rest with bolts of searing plasma.
“Lieutenant,” noted the combat AI in a soothing female voice, “there’s an inbound assault vehicle on your six.” A helpful blue arrow pointed behind him on the hologram HUD floating around his completely unprotected head.
“Thanks, Val,” said Cedric, punching out an alien that was sneaking up on him for emphasis.
He glanced over his shoulder while still firing Sigrar blindly at the screaming crowd. Sure enough, an alien vehicle that looked like a motorcycle on steroids was barreling towards him, firing loud, inaccurate built-in machine guns at random angles while its pilot cackled wildly and waved around a Kogoblian battle standard. Lt. Cedric brought his plasma rifle around and fired off a few rounds at its massive front wheel, which somehow managed to roll at 60 mph even though it was covered in spikes. The shots bounced off it harmlessly, and Val re-calculated Cedric’s aim so that the next volley of plasma bolts ricocheted off the wheel into other hapless enemies.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you to retreat, Lieutenant,” his AI reminded him.
“Really?” grinned Cedric. “I was thinking just the opposite.”
He flicked his wrist and put out one hand, and his gauntlet automatically dispensed an incendiary grenade. A series of stylistically unreadable alien numbers lit up on the face of the small glowing explosive and began to count down. Cedric sheathed Sigrar into its enormous holster on his back and flexed his armored fingers, waiting as the Kogoblian warbike hurtled towards him.
“Throw it!” cried Val. His HUD covered itself in exclamation points.
The grenade ticked seconds closer to zero.
The driver gunned the engine.
“CEDRIC!”
The space marine’s fingers clenched around the explosive, and he threw it with as much physical force as an explosion from a regular grenade – at the ground. The incendiary bomb smashed into the street nearly a dozen feet from Lt. Cedric and burst open in a shower of space napalm, creating enough fire and heat to melt the surrounding cobblestones into a pool of lava. The warbike swerved to avoid it.
Cedric stood his ground and put out a hand.
As the giant death motorcycle shot past him at close to 80 miles an hour, he clamped his hand around a machine gun jutting out of the side and pushed off from the ground just as it was flying out from underneath his feet. He swung his far leg over the side of the bike and slammed his giant steel fist into the side of the shrieking Kogoblian’s head as he went past, knocking it off its bike and through two robots and a wall. He landed solidly on the driver’s seat and twisted the ignition, plowing straight through the crowd of rioting gang members.
No wonder this thing didn’t give the pilot a way to aim the guns.
Robots and aliens in all sorts of shapes, sizes and silly costumes hurled themselves aside as Cedric tore past them, shredding the road and sending cobblestones flying behind him as he aimed the warbike straight for one of the entrances to Matic’s stronghold. Two dozen plasma turrets sprouted out of the street and the fortress wall and primed their cannons. (The stronghold also deployed some spidery little security drones, but those were mass-produced and pretty easy to smash under a giant spiked wheel.)
“You’re insane!” screamed Val.
“You knew that when you got on board!” bellowed Cedric as he pulled himself back, lifting the gigantic spiked wheel clear off the ground and powering towards the door. Laser fire bounced harmlessly off the bike’s unstoppable armored chassis as he crushed his way through the turrets on the ground, spinning the bike’s front wheel at full power and aiming it directly at the armored front door of the stronghold –
---
The mighty oaken doors of Castle Matic slammed open, letting in a torrent of freezing rain. A distant bolt of lightning silhouetted a knight on an enormous armored warhorse rearing violently in the doorway. The second its front hooves touched ground, Sir Cedric’s mighty steed broke into a run, its horseshoes clanking loudly along the stone floor of the main hall.
The archers and crossbowmen posted outside the front gate poured in through the doorway, kneeling to take aim with sharp eyes and sharper arrows. Sir Cedric ducked over Horsegark, the Horse with No Name as crossbow bolts and shafts blurred past. A few bolts shattered against the warhorse’s ironclad flank, which did nothing besides make it even angrier. It took off down the hall, snorting and rolling its eyes furiously.
The hall parted in opposite directions up ahead. On a whim, Cedric wrenched the massive horse’s reins to the right, but it tugged the reins back and ducked its head, redoubling its speed. Cedric swore and covered his head with an arm as the horse put out a shoulder and smashed directly through the stone wall, shattering brick and spraying thick dust into the air. The unnamed horse quickly slowed to a rather angry trot, whinnying and snorting as it flicked its tail and blinked dust from its eyes.
The dust settled, revealing Castle Matic’s courtyard. Just a bit of moonlight seeped from between the dark thunderclouds, lighting up a trickling stream running through neatly trimmed grasses and around statues of hooded angels and dragons. Under the shade of a grove of perfect trees that just barely reached the top of the walls, a set of marble steps and a vine-covered archway led to nowhere in particular.
It was quiet. Peaceful. Hardly standard fare for an Archwizard.
...Wait.
It was quiet.
The archers hadn’t come after him.
He looked over his shoulder. He was well out of range, but no one had bothered to give chase; they were busy barricading the doors and trying to pull up the drawbridge to keep out the rioting peasants. Obviously there were still more guards up ahead that they were expecting to finish him off.
They didn’t know him very well.
Cedric turned his gaze to the tallest tower where Archwizard Matic would be –
And he was lucky he did that, because otherwise he never would have noticed the entire tree being swung down on him like a club. He pulled Sigrar from its sheath and slashed through it in an instant. The upper half fell harmlessly to one side, and the considerably shortened trunk thudded into the ground a few feet from Horsegark’s hooves. As he caught his breath, Cedric followed the trunk up for some 10 feet until he was eye-to-eye with a snarling ogre. Clothed, thankfully.
“You’ll not get past us, Sir Knight,” a voice called from the shadows. A knight in black armor riding a manticore stepped from the grove of trees. He drew a cleaver-like blade from his side. “I am Kirsch, captain of the Archwizard’s guard.”
As he spoke, a handful of knights entered the courtyard from subtly placed doors and drew around Sir Cedric, pointing spears at him and grabbing chains hanging from the ogre’s collar to pull it away. Horsegark pawed at the earth angrily, refusing to be fenced in. Cedric put a hand on its head and met Kirsch’s eyes hatefully.
“This battle ends here,” announced Kirsch.
Cedric laughed. “Once you’ve rallied the rest of your men, you mean? Need you a break, to erect another wall to hide behind?”
Horsegark put a foot solidly forward, and Cedric hefted his enormous blade.
“If you’ve come to put an end to me, you’ve not brought nearly a big enough ogre.”
Kirsch glared and flipped down his visor. “For the Archwizard!” he commanded.
The spearmen lunged and tried to stab through joints in Horsegark’s armor. A few spears got through, which made the horse rear into the air furiously. One knight saw his chance and maneuvered his way in front of the warhorse to try and get a clear shot at its underbelly. His armor made him a second too slow, and the horse brought its hooves down on him, delivering a crushing blow that made him crumple to the ground.
Sir Cedric raised his gauntlet and gathered a ball of fire around his off-hand. He swung his arm around behind him, hurling a scorching wave of heat and flame into the spearmen at Horsegark’s flank, and followed it up with a sweeping blow with his enormous sword at the knights on the opposite side, clearing away the attackers. As Horsegark tackled a hapless spearman in front of him and trampled him into the ground, the others scrambled to their feet and scattered, discarding their worthless spears and drawing short swords.
Cedric whipped the Horse with No Name’s reins, and it charged straight for Kirsch, but the ogre stepped in its way, bringing its tree trunk around and aiming a blow at Cedric. The knight hurled a ball of fire in the beast’s eyes, and it bellowed and stumbled backwards. Cedric pulled the reins to one side, stopping Horsegark’s charge as the ogre went for them again. It missed them completely, but one flailing arm hit Cedric solidly in the chest, knocking him off his horse.
Horsegark turned and ran past, getting out of the way as the ogre thundered towards Cedric. Cedric climbed to one knee and reached for his sword. As the ogre tried to bring its tree trunk down on him again, he slashed through it vertically, slicing it into two useless halves and cutting through the ogre’s palm. The ogre roared in pain and staggered backward, dropping its two pieces of lumber.
Sir Cedric tossed Sigrar to one side and cracked his steel-plated knuckles. Horsegark caught the sword in its teeth.
The ogre reached out to grab Cedric. The knight dodged to one side, but the ogre caught him and lifted him into the air, one mighty hand wrapped around his torso. It leaned in to bellow in his face. Cedric winced at the smell and wiped spittle from his face.
With the other hand, he grabbed the ogre by the collar of its rags and delivered a vicious right hook to its jaw. The ogre was much too large, heavy and stupid to feel much of anything, but the surprise made it drop him and stumble backwards. Cedric recovered quickly and followed his first strike with an elbow to the gut, making it double over, and an uppercut once its face was within reach.
Meanwhile, one of the footsoldiers tried to sneak up and steal the enormous broadsword from the warhorse’s mouth as it stood and watched the fight. Horsegark headbutted him in the face.
The other soldiers kept their distance.
The ogre managed to reach over its shoulder and wrench Cedric free of its neck, forcing him to break his sleeperhold by grabbing him by the face and throwing him violently at the ground. Cedric landed hard, just barely avoiding the marble steps, a likely fatal blow.
The enraged ogre raised its fists and prepared to bring them down onto Cedric with its full weight behind them – a certain fatal blow.
Behind him, a blade clattered against the ground.
Horsegark grabbed one of the chains on the back of the ogre’s collar in its mouth and wrenched it backwards, whinnying through gritted teeth. The ogre managed a strangled roar and grasped at its neck, bending over backwards and giving Sir Cedric a chance to tackle it in the stomach.
Unfortunately, its thick fat somehow managed to absorb the blow, and the ogre wrapped one mighty hand around Cedric’s chest. The chain on its collar snapped, and before Cedric knew what was happening the ogre had slammed him into a wall some four feet above the ground, where it slowly started to crush the breath out of him.
As he kicked uselessly and started to black out, Cedric desparately grabbed the ogre at the neck and the shoulder, digging his armored fingers into it and forcing its head and arm in opposite directions. The ogre clenched its bad hand and tried to bite down on Cedric’s arm. The knight gritted his teeth.
The ogre roared.
Cedric roared louder, and the ogre’s arm came clean off at the shoulder.
It staggered backwards, shrieking like an animal as blood spurted from the wound. Cedric didn’t wait to get his breath back as he landed on the ground. He stepped forward, whirled around and smashed the ogre’s arm against its own head, knocking it off its feet. Before it hit the ground he was already swinging it around again, and he slammed it into the ogre’s neck. The ogre jerked, so he did it again, and the ogre was still.
Sir Cedric’s chest heaved as he lifted Sigrar from the ground, gripped it in both hands and leveled it in front of him, glaring at Kirsch with what energy he had left. Horsegark trotted up next to him, snorting and flicking its tail from side to side. Behind his visor, Kirsch was somewhere on the razor's edge between triumphant that Cedric was on his last legs, and utterly terrified of him.
As the two knights stared each other down, the stream that ran through the courtyard flowed around Cedric’s feet, rising and swelling in front of him into a clear, hulking, flowing form with two glowing eyes. Kirsch threw his head back and laughed dramatically. The manticore growled along with him.
“FOOLISH KNIGHT!” he declared. “Your first error was trying to defeat me, and you have erred for the last time! I am Kirsch, loyalest knight to the Archwizard and the mastermind behind the takeover of the Kingdom of Anglemark! I have slain leviathans in the Sea of Seven Pillars, and I have tamed Ijarathea of the Central Forest! You can defeat my soldiers, but you cannot best me in the field of battle!”
“This water elemental cannot be harmed by fire or steel!” crowed Kirsch as Cedric looked into its eyes, sizing it up. “Just as the wind does not break a tree that bends, your blade will pass right through it, and it can quell the hottest of flames! I knew from the beginning that you would spend yourself on the ogre, so that I could end you at your weakest moment! Don’t you see?! YOU’VE FALLEN RIGHT INTO MY TRAP!”
(This, of course, wasn’t true at all. He’d had no idea who Sir Cedric was or that he had been coming, but he’d been hoping that bringing an ogre along would intimidate Cedric into surrendering without a fight. The elemental was just a defense set up by the Archwizard, but Cedric didn’t have to know that.)
“You never had a chance at winning, Sir Knight,” Kirsch continued as Cedric superheated Sigrar and sliced through the elemental, vaporizing it instantly. “I created the illusion that you were close to victory only so that you would play into my hands without knowing it! You never even knew there was a plan until it was too late, and now you shall fall before me, just as countless before you! This is the mind that Archwizard Matic relies on to fell cities and slay armies! As Sun Tzu once said-”
He yelped as the ogre’s thrown arm smacked into his chest and fell to the ground. The manticore sniffed at it. He flipped up his visor in disbelief, staring at the tiny puddle of water on the ground. “Y-you can’t just do that!” Kirsch stammered. He wasn’t even done with that speech.
Cedric shrugged. “’s made of water,” he grunted. The manticore put a paw over the ogre’s arm and began to gnaw on it as the knight climbed back onto his unnamed horse.
“Now listen, Kirsch,” growled Cedric. “My quarrel is with the Archwizard. If you're to put yourself in my way, you can do it yourself.”
“Guards! Finish him! Now!” yelled Kirsch, pointing his cleaver-sword at the bearded swordsman.
The guards stood right where they were. Except for the ones who were already dead.
“He’s wounded!” cried Kirsch. “He’s tired! You can kill him!”
“I said, you can do it yourself.” Horsegark pawed at the ground and snarled, like a bull preparing to charge.
Kirsch stared at the men, and then at the knight in front of him. He swallowed and raised his cleaver-blade. If they saw him being weak (and he refused to admit that they were already seeing it), he'd never manage to control his troops again. He jabbed his manticore in the sides with the heels of his boots. It growled, far more eager than he was to get into a fight, and it rushed at Sir Cedric without warning, baring its teeth and ripping up grass with its sharp claws as it ran. Horsegark boldly charged forwards without waiting for Cedric's command, and Cedric hefted Sigrar, gripping it in two hands because he no longer had the strength to hold it in just one. Cedric roared at the top of his lungs, aiming to end the fight in one slash of his godsword.
Kirsch ducked at the last second, and Sigrar missed entirely. Kirsch's sword bit through the flexible plates down Cedric's side, and he grunted in pain as the blade cut his flesh. As their mounts turned and charged again, the manticore thrust its stinger at Cedric, forcing him to block with his sword while Kirsch scored another hit with his cleaver-blade.
“Do your men know you fight like that?” called Cedric as they turned to make another pass.
“My men know I win,” Kirsch retorted. Cedric gave him a smile as they rushed each other again. Kirsch aimed a thrust at Cedric’s wounded side, but he blocked it with Sigrar as he slashed through the manticore’s wing as it extended it to trip Horsegark. The manticore cried out and kept running, blinded by pain. Cedric drove his armored boot into the side of its skull as he passed, and the manticore crumpled and fell sideways, skidding a few feet on the wet grass.
Cedric hopped off of Horsegark and strode over to Kirsch, whose leg was pinned under his mount. He pinned the manticore’s scorpion tail under one foot and drove his sword into it, splitting carapace and severing it the upper half. Cedric lifted Sigrar and swung it in a circle, burying the entire edge of the blade into the shrieking manticore’s side, finishing it off quickly.
Kirsch cried out, too, as the blade shattered his armor and buried itself in his pinned leg. Cedric dragged him free of the manticorpse, pulled him to his feet without a word and punched him square in the jaw, knocking him over again. Kirsch groaned and did his best to sit up as Cedric snapped his cleaver-sword over his knee and discarded the pieces.
“Where are the rest of you?” Kirsch managed to ask as Sir Cedric climbed back onto his horse.
He looked down at Kirsch.
“The other knights,” Kirsch repeated. “You can’t kill the Archwizard by yourself. How many more of you are there?”
Cedric sniffed and looked into the distance.
“Hope rides alone,” he said simply, and Horsegark thundered off, leaving Kirsch to lie and bleed in the pouring rain.
---
After countless turns, a jumble of staircases and not a whole lot of guards, Cedric and his nameless horse made their way to the roof of the castle, where a haphazard cluster of stone buildings built into either side of the inner wall formed the base of Archwizard Matic’s tower. The collection of roofs was a vast and uneven expanse of nothing, about fifty feet across and slick with rain. Steps were scattered around the roof, allowing easier access to roofs that were slightly higher or lower than the others, as if there were any place to go on the roof or a reason to get there.
In the distance, another of the castle’s towers crumbled under the weight of the swirling blackness gathering in the cloudy sky. The Archwizard’s influence, no doubt.
Horsegark slowed a bit as they climbed the spiral staircase along the outside of the tower. In the pouring rain, it would have been a slippery deathtrap, but the tower was covered in a tangle of vines that made for decent footholds. The stairs wrapped around the tower twice and ended in a square platform around the top of the tower, giving access to the doorway.
As he reached the top, Cedric checked his side. Valthen’s armor was no longer shattered, and it was just finishing knitting itself back together in a fiery red glow, the way it always did when he was out of battle. Which was rarely. As the cracks sealed and the glow faded away, thunder crashed loudly overhead, and a bolt of lightning struck the spire at the top of the tower. Sir Cedric gathered a ball of flame around his hand and hurled it at the doors, blasting them open violently.
The Archwizard stood on the opposite side of the room, with his back turned. The room was crammed full of musty shelves of leather-bound tomes and all manner of mystical devices that whirred and clicked and didn’t seem to do anything in particular, and yet it still seemed bigger than it did on the outside. Tables were strewn with books and potions that were almost definitely evil, and a marble archway sat in the middle of the room, vaguely flickering. Even worse, the modestly beautiful and utterly furious Princess Melissa sat on the floor with her hands bound to a table leg. On the other side of the room, a half-elven boy who Cedric didn’t recognize lay in a heap on the floor, wrapped in a wizard trainee’s robes.
Oddly enough, Archwizard Matic seemed completely uninterested in any of his captives, who he was no doubt keeping for nefarious purposes. Instead, he was rifling through numerous papers and magical texts scattered across an enormous workbench. Occasionally, he would glance out the window as if preoccupied by something in the night sky. Something like the swirling blackness, which was obviously his fault anyway.
“Unhand the princess, Archwizard!” bellowed Cedric as Sigrar erupted into flame. Horsegark snorted and stamped a hoof for good measure.
“Oh, god damnit,” muttered the princess. “Seriously?”
The Archwizard turned, a little startled but mostly just distracted. “Oh, a knight. Now’s not really a good time,” he mused, stroking his long wizardly beard.
“Nalzaki,” he called, snapping his fingers twice. “Take care of our guest. I have a world to save.”
As he turned back to his books, three horrible roars that could have made stone peel and trees wilt sounded out in something approximating a rough unison. Cedric whirled around in time to see an enormous tail shoot past and coil around Princess Melissa, snapping off the table leg she was tied to and dragging her out the door as she screamed something about how Cedric had better not fucking dare save her, she did not need his shit right now and you’re not even listening, are you?
Sir Cedric wasn’t listening.
Even though its feet were somewhere far below the platform, Nalzaki towered over him, slowly beating its 15-foot wings as it hovered with the princess dangling from its long, serpentine tail covered in armored scales. Each of its three necks bore a collar engraved with runes, and each of its heads ended in three wicked horns and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. Even as Cedric watched, one of its heads belched out a plume of of smoke. Its three pairs of eyes each glowed a different color in the heavy rain, but each looked a different degree of murderous. Behind it, the sky began to crack and split open.
A wicked grin crept onto Cedric’s face. He leveled Sigrar in front of him.
Finally, something challenging.