The day of the tournament arrived. The entire Kingdom of Wheatbelly turned out for the occasion: the royal festival planners had to set up another three hundred seats just to make sure that everyone could be accommodated. They knew that everybody still wouldn't be able to sit down because fat people are big fans of festivals, more so than your average peasant. It proved to be a bigger problem than they thought, however, because they had underestimated the number of people attending. Fat people attending.
The festival planners suspected that the copious amounts of free food had something to do with the problem, and it bothered them more than the national confetti shortage, but there was really nothing they could do about it.
No matter how hard they raged.
Meanwhile, Sir Horace was having trouble putting his left gauntlet on. Well, his squire, Gregory, was. As it said in the Tiny Book of Important Advice: Knight Edition, a knight "Never puts on his own armor, first of all because a knight must meditate upon the upcoming battle and second because putting armor on is really hard to do by yourself." It also had a good amount of other advice in it, such as when to respond to the summonings of a princess (no less than one hour after it arrives: otherwise you look desperate) and how to protect yourself from a soul sucker (simply shear off its ginger hair).
Sir Horace prayed to that little book.
Sir Horace could see the Queen sitting in the royal box seat from his tent. Her face was streaked with tears, and he felt a little bad for her. She was now out a daughter and a husband. Poor woman.
He didn't feel too bad, though, because if her husband hadn't died then he wouldn't be here, about to completely and utterly destroy the opposition.
He smirked. The Quest was already his. It had to be his, because if he didn't win, his knightly career would certainly be over.
The sky clouded over and it began to rain. This worried him because the mud could cause the horses to slip and that could lead to a potentially fatal fall. But then he remembered that jousting itself also sometimes resulted in fatal falls anyway, so Sir Horace dismissed it as a nervous thought.
Gregory managed to put the gauntlet on just as the horn blew, signaling the start of the tournament. Sir Horace grabbed his helm and his sword, yelled at Gregory to get him a lance, and jumped on his horse, hoping he looked regal and knightly and awesome.
The Royal Announcer stood up on his raised chair and announced the order of the competitors. Sir Horace was to joust Sir Bryan of the North.
The Announcer stood there for a moment before he realized that he had forgotten to announce in which order.
"And finally, Sir Horace and Sir Bryan will joust in the last round!" He yelled into his Voice Amplification Cone of Magic.
Sir Horace groaned. Not only was Sir Bryan a very good jouster, but Sir Bryan of the North was something of a legend -- he had singlehandedly killed three dragons, had a fabulous red beard, and was quite the ladies man.
It is no exaggeration to say that women died for him.
A very famous scholar once commented that every lady in the kingdom must be in love with Sir Bryan, and he was proven correct, seconds later, when every woman in the near vicinity rushed over as soon as Sir Bryan's name was mentioned.
He was, to the great regret of the scholarly world, trampled to death.
Sir Horace was annoyed, but he wasn't worried. He still had this in the bag.
Three hours later, Sir Walter DeGrey and Sir Frederick Falk were still hashing it out. The rain had turned the ground into a deep, nasty muck, and the horses were becoming tired. The crowd was still very excited about everything, but unfortunately, the Queen looked bored.
This worried Sir Horace, because if the Queen didn't notice how amazing he was, then she probably wouldn't give him the Quest.
That was unacceptable.
He got off of his horse and walked over to the announcer.
"Greetings, Sir! I would just like to inquire when the two knights will be finished jousting?" he said, pointing over to DeGrey and Falk who had just begun to charge at each other.
The Royal Announcer looked down from his raised chair at Sir Horace. "When one of them falls off of his steed. Are you not familiar with the rules of the joust, Sir Knight?" he asked, contempt dripping from every word.
Sir Horace grunted and walked back to his horse, Oscar III.
What an unpleasant man.
A few minutes later, DeGrey was finally thrown off of his horse. The crowd cheered: nobody much liked DeGrey. He was much too old, and besides, he had once kidnapped a princess himself.
Such an offense is socially unforgivable.
The Royal Announcer stood up and announced that Sir Horace and Sir Bryan would be the last jousters of the day.
Sir Horace got up on his horse and waved at the crowd. A few people cheered and whistled, but when compared to the reaction that Sir Bryan received, it was nothing. Sir Bryan was everything that Sir Horace wanted to be -- strong, handsome, manly yet gentle -- but now Sir Horace had to resign himself to beating his hero into the earth. Well, knocking him off his horse. Beating people into the earth is widely considered an 'unchivalrous' act.
Sir Horace walked his horse to the edge of the track and raised his lance. The Royal Announcer waved his crimson flag, both knights clapped their visors shut, and they were off.
Time seemed to move in slow motion. Sir Horace squinted through the slits in his helmet and adjusted the lance ever so slightly so that it aimed directly at Sir Bryan's chest. His horse moved like a liquid under him, and he steadied himself in his seat, preparing for the inevitable impact of Sir Bryan's lance. Sir Horace squinted through the slits again, judging the distance between himself and his temporarily worst enemy.
Ten feet. Five feet. Four, three, two, one.
Impact.
Sir Horace felt his lance connect with Sir Bryan, whilst simultaneously twisting in his seat to avoid the padded tip of the brightly colored length of wood. He could feel himself begin to slip out of the saddle, so he dropped his lance and hung on to his reins for dear life. It didn't matter that he dropped his best lance in the mud; all that mattered was that he didn't hit the ground.
Because if he did, he would lose, and that was not something that Sir Horace wanted.
It was not something he wanted at all.
He managed to right himself, and as he did so looked back at Sir Bryan, who had also somehow managed to keep himself upright.
Sir Horace swore under his breath. Now anything could happen.
Sir Horace signaled for a new lance and brought his horse around to face Sir Bryan, whose helm had a great blue tuft of feathers sticking out of it. They would have been a pretty sight if the rain hadn't made them sopping wet, which caused them to droop pathetically over the visor of his helm.
It also would have been pretty funny if Sir Horace's career weren't on the line.
Sir Horace received his lance and settled down into his saddle, prepared for the signal from the announcer.
Unfortunately, the Royal Announcer had somehow lost the flag in the ten seconds that Sir Horace and Sir Bryan had been jousting, and so therefore had to run back to the castle and find a new one.
The rain pattered on the knight's armor, and it pattered on the tents, and it pattered on the expensive hat the queen was wearing, causing the velvet to droop sadly. Her Butler had told her over and over again not to wear it, but had she listened?
No. Of course she hadn't.
He didn't care, though. He could retire in a year with a juicy bonus and move to some tropical island somewhere. Then he wouldn't have to deal with her constant breakdowns, her incredibly annoying romance novel addiction, and he also wouldn't have to deal with Fluffles anymore, her arse of a poodle.
Through all this, the fair went on. The jesters played and the peasants ate and a Gobbledegook escaped from its pen and ran into the woods, breathing fire and screaming absolute nonsense the whole way.
The crowd momentarily turned around to watch the Gobbledegook on its rampage, oohing and aahing and gasping dramatically, but quickly returned their focus to the joust when the announcer returned with the flag and began waving it here and there and everywhere.
Seconds later, the two knights were off, the hooves of their great warhorses thundering over the soggy earth.
Sir Horace knew that if he aimed his lance at Sir Bryan's chest, he would fail again and, in the worst case scenario, be unseated as a consequence. He decided that in order to avoid this, he would have to aim at Sir Bryan's left shoulder.
In order to do that, however, Sir Horace knew that the lance would have to be at an angle that could potentially throw him out of the saddle instead.
He thought about it for a moment and decided that he would have to make a last minute adjustment so that there would be a smaller chance of him unseating himself.
It was a lot to think about in ten seconds.
He peered out of the slits and again, judged the distance between him and Sir Bryan.
A countdown went off in his head.
Ten feet. Five fee--
Sir Horace realized that Sir Bryan was suddenly much too close for him to adjust his lance in time.
He hunkered down in his seat.
His lance struck something, which was good, but then he felt himself fly into the air, which was very, very bad. He hit the ground and the crowd went wild. Screams, cheers, shouts of glee and... and anger? What?
At the moment, however, Sir Horace couldn't focus on that because he was too busy trying to get his breath back. He eventually managed to retrieve it from wherever it went, and, as he shakily stood up, looked over to where Sir Bryan should have been on his horse, cheering and yelling and generally making all the ladies swoon.
But instead, his horse trotted around, a little confused but mostly upset that the grass was soggy, because wet grass is really gross.
Because there in the mud lay the great Sir Bryan of the North, the greatest knight in all the land. Unfortunately, it was determined that Sir Horace had been unseated first, which therefore meant that Sir Bryan won.
The crowd cheered, and Sir Bryan quickly got back up and began to smile and wave. Sir Horace sighed and shrugged his shoulders in defeat.
At least he still had two days to prove himself.
But then the queen jumped up and announced that since she was bored, she would randomly choose three knights for the quest.
And just like that, Sir Horace's hopes were dashed. Because of course the queen peeked through her fingers. And of course she chose those knights who she was most fond of. And of course they were Sir Bryan, Sir Adwr, and Sir Humphrey. Of course they were.
Sir Horace in the rain and the muck until a passing Royal Bodyguard kindly reminded him to pack up and leave unless he wanted to get his face smashed in.
Sir Horace had never packed up a tent faster than that.
Sir Horace then returned Gregory to the Rent-a-Squire store on 126 Roddenberry Road, gave Oscar III a carrot, and then trotted out of the front gate, leaving the accursed kingdom of Wheatbelly behind forever.
Two days passed. Sir Horace was well on his way back to his father's kingdom, where he was certain that he would spend the rest of his days jousting scarecrows and teaching pathetic squires how to hold a sword.
He was not looking forward to it.
It had been raining for most of the two days, but had fortunately stopped raining an hour before, so Sir Horace got off of Oscar III and put all of his armor and his books and his clothes and weapons and food in a tree to dry. Then he lay there, naked but for his shoes, bathing himself in the hot afternoon sun.
He lay there, peacefully, for about a half hour until he heard a wild Gobbledegook attack scream. He would have continued to lay there, tanning his body in the sun if he hadn't heard a human scream immediately thereafter.
He jumped up and grabbed his sword. Looking over the field, he could see a knight struggling to extract his leg from under the body of his dead horse. A Gobbledegook advanced across the yellow grass, breathing fire and yelling earsplitting nonsense. A calf waddled tentatively behind, braying in concern.
The fool, Sir Horace thought. He got in between a Gobbledegook calf and its mother.
Sir Horace decided to help and began to race across the field, still wearing nothing but his shoes.
The Gobbledegook was now about ten feet away from the knight, and a lick of flame burst out from between its lips.
The knight gave a little shriek and began to struggle harder.
At this point, Sir Horace still ran unnoticed. He held his sword out straight in front of himself and ran faster, his naked legs pumping up and down and up and down and up and down.
He gave a great roar and plunged his sword into its side. It gave an earsplitting scream and turned on Sir Horace. In doing so, it ripped his sword from his grasp and left him standing there, vulnerable and naked and afraid. It growled. Deep crimson blood poured from its side, smoking on the ground and leaving the grass blackened and slightly charred.
Sir Horace was now convinced that all was lost because he was pretty sure that his sword was still stuck in the Gobbledegook's side.
He was, in short, completely helpless.
He closed his eyes and began to pray.
"Our Lord in Heaven, may You have mercy upon my mortal soul and let me die this day in a swift and painless manner. Also, if you could tell my mother--"
He was interrupted by a veritable waterfall of scalding hot blood. He jumped up and began to wipe himself off, gasping and swearing and generally looking like a lobster who had survived the boiling pot only to fall into a vat of blood.
He wiped off his eyes and saw the headless body of the Gobbledegook fall over. The head gave a last breath of nonsense, rolled for a few feet and then came to a halt.
The knight who had previously been stuck under his horse stood there, panting. His sword was steaming with Gobbledegook blood, and Sir Horace realized that this knight must have been quite the skilled swordsman, because taking a Gobbledegook's head off in one fell blow is no small task indeed.
He wiped away what blood he could, straightened what remained of his hair, and held out his hand.
"Hello good sir! My name is Sir Horace McTodd, and I would like to thank you for your incredible bravery today. You saved my life, and I am now forever in your debt."
The knight took off his helm. "My name is Katelyn of Stonegate, and I am very pleased to meet you." Wavy black hair fell across the knight's back, and the removal of the knight's helm revealed beautiful brown eyes and cranberry red lips.
Sir Horace's mouth fell open.
Because there, standing in front of him, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
And he was quite naked.
Quite naked indeed.
ns 15.158.61.41da2
