Well, here I am! With a new chapter! This chapter is dedicated to shortbandie9! Happy Birthday, shortbandie9!
Disclaimer I don't own Max, or Fang, or Iggy, or anything!
The carriage came to an abrupt halt. The door opened and two guards yanked Fang out into the castle courtyard. Fang fell face first into the dirt.
The two guards laughed, spat on him and called him atrocious names. Fang snarled and his eyes blazed.
The guards ceased laughing and dragged him into a building. They shoved him into a room and locked the thick door behind him.
The room was pitch black, and no man could ever hope to see in it. However, Fang was no normal man. He could see clearly in the dark as well as in the light.
Fang leaned against the stone wall and sank to the floor. He studied the room around him. For one thing, the floor was made of thin, dry dirt. Another thing that he noticed, was that the door that he came through was not the only door in the room. In fact, an entire wall was a door. However, all hopes slowly faded away when he realized that it was a drawbridge, and could only be opened from the outside.
What kind of a place was this? Was he to be executed? Probably not, because the steward bought him. The king doesn't buy prisoners.
Fang waited for hours. Finally, the large drawbridge door in his room started creaking. He stood up and hauled the cumbersome iron weight behind him.
Slowly, by surely, the large door creaked upwards and a sliver of white light shined from below the door. Rapidly, the sliver of light grew wider until the whole door had risen into the ceiling.
Fang stumbled out into the light, and his inhuman eyes immediately adjusted to the harsh sunlight. His highly sound-sensitive ears were bombarded with the thunderous noise of a fanatic crowd cheering.
There was the king himself, seated high up on a balcony, overlooking the large dirt arena where he now stood.
There were an assortment of knights is polished armor with deadly weapons in tote. What was worse was that the top of the arena was roofed off with a thick net, which now made it impossible for Fang to escape.
Fang could see the sky through the net. Freedom was so close, yet so far away.
"Ladies and gentlemen! We are pleased to bring you the final round in our tournament. Instead of fighting a dumb beast, or even each other, our brave knights will fight a fallen angel! The knight who defeats this foul, vicious monster will earn the right to rescue princess Max from the castle, then bring her home to marry our great and mighty king, KING DYLAN!" The announcer boomed over the crowd.
The king was young for one thing. Probably a year or two younger than Fang was. The king had royal robes on and eyes the color of a running stream in the spring. However, Fang saw the coldness behind those blue eyes. A crown that was probably a size or two bigger than necessary was placed on his sandy blond hair.
The crowd cheered louder than before, and Fang winced at the deafening roar of cheers and applause. Fang's mind was racing at all of the new information that he had learned.
Princess, what princess? Why did she need to be rescued? Oh, and the first knight to kill the monster?
"The fight will begin…now!" shouted the announcer as the knights raced towards Fang, with their deadly weapons in tow.
Whoa, this fight was totally rigged. Fang was still attached to his weight in chains and his wings were bound against his back. He couldn't walk, much less fight like this. Some 'tournament'! It as more like a race seeing which knight could run towards the poor, defenseless winged guy the fastest.
Fang waited for his unavoidable death. The first knight charged over towards Fang, and swung his heavy looking, razor sharp, battle axe over his armored shoulder. The knight let out a 'terrifying' battle cry and cleaved the axe down towards Fang's head.
At the last second, Fang back-stepped, but held our his arms, exposing the chain that held them together. It was too late for the axe-wielding knight to change his weapon's course, because the extremely sharp axe cut right through the chains that held Fang's arms and feet together.
Now Fang was free to run and fight back, with the heavy chains and weights off. He still had the bracelet/ anklet part of the chain left on him, but the rest had fallen off.
The knight grunted as he hauled the axe over his shoulder again.
Not my weapon of choice Fang thought.
The other knights had caught up with him now. There was roughly eight knights in the group. Thirteen… there was no way that Fang was going to survive fighting thirteen armored, trained, and armed knights all at once. He didn't have a choice, thought. At least, not until his wings were free. He would then steal a sword from one of these jerks-in-shining-armor and quickly hack his way through the net and to freedom.
Fang just wanted to feel the cool breeze rush through his feathers again.
The first knight came at him with a sword held up high. The knight swung the sword diagonally, but the agile Fang bent over backwards, and before the knight could blink, Fang twisted the guy's arm and broke his wrist. The knight's sword skittered to the dusty ground. While the guy howled over his broken wrist, Fang aimed a high kick at the knight's head and struck.
Fang's foot came into contact with the knight's helmet so hard, that it left a huge crater in the front of the helmet. The helmet made a satisfying ringing noise, like the chime of a bell, when Fang had kicked it.
The small holes that the knight used to see through were so distorted from the large dent that he couldn't see. The knight must have figured out that he was beat, because he ran around in circles, then finally passed out on the ground, either from pain or that huge bump on his head from where the helmet had knocked against his skull.
The crowd was silent. The monster wasn't supposed to beat the knights. It was supposed to get slaughtered.
Fang was more than happy to disappoint them. He didn't want to be the source of the bloodbath.
Another knight came at him with a mace. Fang sidestepped and kicked the knight in the breastplate. Either Fang had become stronger than he thought, or the armor that the knights were wearing was for show purposes only, because the metal crumpled under Fang's fist like aluminum foil. The knight had dropped the mace on impact and Fang picked it up and struck it against the knight's cheap helmet. The knight didn't move.
Fang knew that he didn't kill anybody, because he was a hunter by trade. He knew exactly when an animal was dead. These metal clad buffoons were merely unconscious. Fang wasn't like humans. He wouldn't kill a man unless it was absolutely necessary.
Fang wanted to kill them for taking away everything that was important to him, but that would make him no better than the humans.
Two other knights came at him, one with a club and another with a sword, the poor fools.
The guy with the club swung at Fang in a powerful overhand blow. Fang had sidestepped the predictable move easily. Instead, the blow had landed on the knight with a sword. The knight with the sword crumpled to the ground.
The knight with a club stared at his fallen comrade.
"Whoops." The club-guy said. Fang smirked and nodded in a agreement as he punched the guy's lights out.
The crowd was so silent, that you could hear a feather drop. (A/N: Get it? A feather? Because Fang's part bird? Oh never mind.)
Then, one person clapped. The slow, steady clap grew into a thunderous applause. Then the crowd began cheering, then chanting 'angel!'.
Fang was so stunned, that he almost didn't see the battle axe guy coming up from behind him. A woman in the crowd shrieked as the knight swung at Fang.
He barely managed to evade the axe, but the axe still nicked him.
The axe grazed Fang's ribs, but it also severed the leather strap that had previously been binding his wings together. Without thinking, Fang spread his wings out to their full size, scaring the living daylights out of the remaining three knights.
One of the knights was frozen in fear and Fang knocked his legs out from under him, and kicked the guy's helmet. The terrified guy was out cold.
Another knight was stumbling backwards, and managed to trip over one of his fallen brethren. The knight flailed, and his own weapon fell on him with a heavy thud. The guy was down for the count.
The crowd was cheering wildly. This time not for the knights, but for Fang. The last knight had foolishly dropped his weapon and was running in confused circles. With one mighty thrust of his wings, Fang catapulted into the air and the crowd was in rapture. Fang flew as high as the net would allow.
Then, he tucked his wings in. Some people in the audience screamed, believing that Fang was about to splatter to his doom. However, Fang had carefully aimed at the naive knight. At the last possible moment, Fang unfurled his sleek black wings and landed right on top of the knight with ease. Of course, the knight crumpled from the unexpected weight and was knocked unconscious.
The crowd roared with approval. Fang had never dreamed of the day where humans would one day be cheering his name like he was a hero. Curiously, Fang swooped into the air and flew in a celebratory lap around the arena.
The crowd cheered, yelled, whooped and hollered even louder than before. Fang then landed with such grace, that it put even a swan to shame.
Fang looked at the king, wondering what his expression would be now that his 'champions' were out cold in the dirt and the monster that they had been ordered to kill was the one who did it to them.
The king was glaring at Fang, his blue eyes scowling at Fang's obsidian colored ones.
A cruel smirk grew on the king's face at he snapped his fingers. One of king Dylan's guards blew a sharp note on a whistle and twelve archers appeared on the king's balcony.
More archers appeared in the gate where Fang was previously imprisoned. Fang froze and the crowd sank into a shocked silence.
King Dylan was about to give the signal for the archers to shoot when a marvelous idea crossed his mind.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our champion!" The crowed stayed in shock for another moment, then cheered as loud as ever.
"This… thing will retrieve the princess and bring her back to me. I will wed her and the kingdom will have a new king!" shouted 'king' Dylan.
So this guy needs a princess to be king? How is this my problem? I don't want to get some stuck up, bratty princess and drag her all he way back here! Unless… Fang thought.
"What's in it for me?" shouted Fang. The audience gasped. Fang's acute hearing picked up on some of their hushed whispers.
'It speaks!' was the most popular phrase being spoken. Fang grimaced.
"I… I will free you!" shouted king Dylan who appeared to be stunned that Fang could talk as well.
"Then what? Hunt me down like an animal again? I don't think so!" Fang shouted. Most of the crowd was shocked speechless. "Here's the deal, free me and let me live in peace and then I'll rescue your princess!" Fang said.
King Dylan pondered on Fang's words.
"Very well! You shall retrieve the princess, bring her back here, and in return, I'll give you your freedom!" king Dylan boomed. The crowd roared in approval.
Fang nodded in agreement. Some of the archers came into the arena and escorted Fang into the building. The drawbridge- door closed behind Fang. Lucky for the archers, there were torches lit. The archers steered Fang down passageways and past various doors.
They finally reached a large, cherry-wood door. The door opened, and there in his young glory, sat none other than king Dylan himself. The 'king' was guarded by half a dozen guards, all armed.
"Well, this certainly wasn't expected. No matter. I don't have to waste the lives of my knights in attempts to rescue the princess." said Dylan. He chuckled darkly.
"Here are the rules. You go to the castle, rescue the princess, no stopping for sightseeing. I will expect to see you in three days. Otherwise… well you will be hunted to extinction. Got it?" asked Dylan.
Fang nodded shortly. He wasn't planning on running away. He wanted to be free for real. No longer worrying about people harming him. He could fight, he had thoroughly proved that, but all Fang really wanted was to live in peace.
Fang sort of pitied the poor princess who would have to marry this king, who wasn't even brave enough to rescue the princess himself.
If he just rescued the princess, he would get his freedom and acceptance. Besides, how hard could rescuing some prissy little princess be?
Ta-da! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it! Here's a little song I just made up!
If you liked the story hit 'review'!
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If you liked it and you know it, then a review would surely show it.
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Great… now it's stuck in my head! Well, HaPpY bIrThDaY to shortbandie9!