The Final Frontier, a fanfiction by Knightmare Adventurers Club member, Louise Foxe.
Pickle was strolling to the market on market day, humming a little tune to myself. He went into the tavern on his way. There were men drinking tankards of beer and then belching loudly! Others were merely talking to each other. He looked around to see if he knew anyone but he didn't so he turned to leave.
"Psst, Pickle" he heard someone whisper, but when he turned round to see who it was, nobody was paying any attention to him.
"Pickle, over here" he heard again. He saw a figure, huddled in the corner, beckoning to him. He was always wary of strangers, so he didn't go over straight away.
"Pickle, come on, it's me - Brother Mace". 'Brother Mace?' thought Pickle, 'in a tavern?!' nevertheless he crept over and sat down at a table beside Brother Mace.
"What is going on ?" he asked.
"Lord Fear is threatening to destroy the village and all its residents! He has more Frightknights than ever, and they're going to surround the village unless the Powers That Be surrender!!" Pickle was astounded. The Powers That Be - surrender!! - What would they do ? If they surrendered, they would be at the mercy of Lord Fear. What would he do then?
Pickle rushed back to the dungeon to tell Treguard. He found him sitting in front of the fire, staring into the flames.
"Master, Master," he blurted out, "Lord Fear is going to surround..."
"I know," said Treguard quietly.
"You know? How?" Pickle asked.
"Hordriss the Confuser told me. But Pickle we mustn't give up hope! We will fight and we will be victorious!" Treguard exclaimed.
The following morning Pickle, Treguard, Brother Mace, and Sir Hugh de Witless went to the village square. They rang the bell in the centre of the village. All the villagers came rushing up, concern showing on their faces.
"What is it?", "What's up?", "What's wrong?", "Who rang the bell" "Who !", "Why?", "Where?"!!. All these questions were hurled at Treguard and his companions.
"Silence", roared Sir Hugh de Witless. "If you will kindly quieten down, you will learn the answers to your queries."
Treguard spoke up.
"Lord Fear has spies everywhere, so I must be brief. Frightknights will surround the village. You will be trapped! We will have to surrender to Lord Fear and Aesandre. But all this can and will be avoided! But we must be prepared! Hordriss the Confuser promised to come up with something."
"We must have a reserve plan, though. Fire frightens animals, so all the village women bring fire torches. Frightknights always travel on steeds. The fire will frighten away the horses. Then comes the most difficult part of all! - Defeating the Frightknights! All the village children bring buckets of water. Hand them to your fathers. Your fathers will then throw the buckets of water at the Frightknights. They will rust and you will have a chance of defeating them!"
"Bring the Frightknights to the deepest ravine you can find in the forest. Place them in it and cover the gap over with clay. If this does not stop them, at least for a while, I don't know what will! We will be Victorious''
"Yeeaaahhh!!" shouted the villagers. Then they started chanting, "We will win, we will win, we will win!!"
But will they...
Three days later, the villagers were going about their normal work. Suddenly, a cry went up "Fire torches, buckets of water, take your places quickly!!". Soon a horde of Frightknights came riding up and advanced towards the people. All the women had fire torches, as planned, which they thrust at the magnificent steeds. They couldn't believe their eyes when all the horsed bolted! Some horses just followed the others, they didn't realise what had happened until they saw the fire torches, then they bolted in a flash!! Soon there wasn't a single horse to be seen.
So it was just the villagers and the Powers That Be against Lord Fear and his army. Lord Fear smiled a sickly smile and said in a menacing tone, "The Powers that Be are defenseless!!".
"Ha Ha Ha!" he laughed "Surrender now and you will be spared a fate worse than death. What were you hoping to do with the water?? - Wash the blood off the road?!!! Ha Ha Ha!! Frightknights, Attack!!"
At this, all the villagers threw their water upon the Frightknights, but all to no avail. The Frightknights showed no signs of slowing down, in fact, if anything, they fought on even stronger than before. Soon they had most of the village people captured, but some had managed to run and hide. One young boy dashed up to Treguard and cried "'Ere, Sir, what we gonna do now?!!". Treguard muttered a reply, but the noise was becoming so deafening, nobody could have heard him, let alone the young boy.
Then, everything happened all at once. A clap of thunder could be clearly heard, rumbling overhead. Hordriss appeared immediately afterwards. He closed his eyes and raised his hands towards the sky, then towards the Frightknights, chanting all the time.
The Frightknights stopped what they were doing, faced Hordriss, and then advanced towards him. As they did so, a noise erupted from their metal. Strangely, they appeared to crack up. Next, unbelievable but true, they smashed up into smithereens and the remains of their armour ended up on the cobblestones!!
"Hordriss!!" cried Treguard. "What type of magic was that?! It was so strange, yet so wonderful and magnificent. You saved the villagers and the Powers That Be!! How can we ever repay you?". Hordriss merely gave a little bow and said, "My payment is the fact that the Powers That at Be have survived", Then he disappeared into thin air.
The villagers gasped in amazement, but Treguard had already turned his attention back to Lord Fear.
"So your plan backfired, Lord Fear?" he jeered. "Maybe you should have planned it more carefully. After all you are almighty Lord Fear. Perhaps you should crawl back to your dingy hole and stay there. I think everybody would be grateful!!."
The villagers laughed and shouted things like "Hear hear!" and "Encore!". Somehow the ropes which had bound them up had untied themselves and had fallen to the ground as soon as the Frightknights had been destroyed. Lord Fear's eyes flashed with fury.
"You may have won this fight" he sneered, "but the battle is by no means over!!".
With that he disappeared in a cloud of thick, black smoke and left behind only the remains of his Frightknights.
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