Chapter 3: Barbarian War
KRACKOOM!
The boom of a heavy cannonball from out of the sky rattled the castle gate, its drawbridge previously lowered to let the gray knights face the oncoming barbarians. Onto this bridge strode the Castle Crashers, weapons at the ready. They only had to look once to see how the battle - no, the slaughter - was faring.
"Outnumbered, outgunned, and getting massacred," said Lumiere. "Even by generic fighter standards, this is pretty messed up."
"Indeed," concurred Gottfried. "The gray knights are in dire straits this day."
"I warned them about their equipment at the end of the last war," quipped Anton.
KRACKOOM!
Another cannonball crashed down nearby, smearing a defending gray knight into a gory pulp. A spray of his blood spattered onto Saul's helmet, bidding the advancing barbarians to press their assault.
"Never mind," said Saul. "Can we just get to killing?"
A barbarian's arrow glancing off Lumiere's helmet confirmed this motion.
"Forward, Castle Crashers!" boomed Gottfried. "This day, we fight!"
They charged across the bridge and into the fray. Their endless years of training served them well as they cut through their admittedly formidable foes. From Gottfried's streams of deadly lightning and Lumiere's burning blasts of fire to Anton's speedy finesse and mobility and Saul's brute strength and ferocity, the Castle Crashers fought with vigor unlike any experienced in a long time. At last, they vanquished their foes, but more barbarians approached. The remaining gray knights stood to face them head on.
The Castle Crashers advanced to aid them.
As one barbarian beat down a gray knight, an intervening bolt of lightning from Gottfried's sword blasted the barbarian away. The grateful gray knight rose to his feet and picked up what little remained of his sword for battle. More barbarians closed in around the five knights, but the Castle Crashers cut them down and/or blasted them to smithereens all the same. There was one instance when two barbarians tried to pull Lumiere apart by his arms, but he quickly torched them.
Proceeding further, they spotted another gray knight futilely attempting to resuscitate his fallen comrade, oblivious to the hooded thief approaching him from behind. There would be time to mourn the dead later; Anton quickly cut down the thief before he could raise his bow. As he glimpsed the curved instrument of war, its bowstring still freshly taut, he scooped it up and mounted it on his back.
"This'll come in handy," he thought to himself.
All around the Castle Crashers, the barbarian horde advanced, but still the four brave champions carried on. Well, there was that one time when Gottfried had an iron crossbow bolt stuck in his right buttock, that other time where several barbarians dog piled Anton (before he cut them all off of him), and that time where Saul accidentally gassed Lumiere along with several other barbarians with a burst of poison magic. Come to think of it, the fight was a lot rougher for the Castle Crashers than some historians and bards would want to tell of.
But I digress.
Eventually, the four heroes reached the outer palisade of the barbarian stronghold, where they were greeted by a large wooden tank with a flaming ram's head likeness of metal mounted on its front. Atop its back rested two great cannons poised to rain death on anyone who stood in its way.
"Fear the Ram-Mobile!" a gruff voice boomed from inside. "How...aptly named..." said Lumiere moments before it slammed into him.
"Castle Crashers, attack!" cried Gottfried as he leaped at the oncoming vehicle. With swing after swing of his sword, he chipped away at the Ram-Mobile's shell. The boom of one of its cannons did little to faze him until the cannonball crashed down near Anton and Saul. Distracted, Gottfried paused his assault to glance back, but found relief in seeing them unharmed. He turned back to see the vehicle's shell being cranked up to reveal its barbarian crew.
One of the barbarians pounced on Gottfried and tackled him to the ground, but the red knight flipped him over with his shield. Anton and Saul charged at the tank, their weapons brandished high to aid their leader. As Anton neared the tank, he kicked his flying ice board out from under him, letting it skewer another bandit as Saul jammed his halberd into Gottfried's attacker. A second cannonball crashed down, this time scattering the three knights as the tank lowered is shell.
Lumiere staggered to his feet, but the splash of a third cannonball bowled him back down.
"This is taking too long," said Saul. "I came here to kill stuff, not break stuff."
Anton, recovering from the splash of a fourth cannonball, eyed the crossbow bolt from eight paragraphs ago as he finally pulled it out of Gottfried's buttock. "Gottfried," he barked, "cover me!"
Gottfried complied, and Anton charged at the Ram-Mobile. Sidestepping its next charge, he jammed the bolt into one of the wheels, letting the vehicle grind to a halt. The shell rose again, and this time, the entire crew jumped out for battle. Again, the Castle Crashers found themselves in pitched combat, but this time, the barbarians seemed set to overwhelm them. All except Lumiere, of course; he was busy dusting himself off from his repeated knockdowns. That is, until he saw the Ram-Mobile's exposed engine. Without a second thought, he conjured a fireball in his palm and heaved it in a high arc.
KADOOJ!
In an instant, the Ram-Mobile was replaced by a towering inferno, and its barbarian crew inexplicably flopped on the ground, dead.
"Let me guess," said Anton. "All according to plan."
"Not exactly," said Gottfried. "I simply acted out of necessity. But that matters not for now. Our goal remains in sight."
"Wait. You mean our goal is before or after those random barbarians I killed in their sleep after Lumiere blew up the Ram-Mobile?" asked Saul, his halberd drenched in fresh blood.
"Damn it, Saul," groaned Lumiere.
So, after yet another boring excursion across a bridge-type thing infested with more barbarians, the Castle Crashers finally entered a decrepit arena, its stands packed with barbarian spectators. At the far end, before a large red door with a yellow frowny face emblazoned on it stood a beefy barbarian, his arms and torso seeming too large for his legs. He let out a battle roar that sounded more like a bear yawn before the door exploded loose from its hinges and flattened him. Into the arena stepped a colossal barbarian chieftain, his horned mask almost a part of his already grotesque face. On his back rested a huge plank covered with iron spikes.
"That's a big barbarian," gasped Lumiere.
"Yes, we can see that," said Anton.
"Brega! Brega!" chanted the crowd of barbarians from the stands.
"And the crowd doesn't like us at all," said Lumiere.
"Yes, we can hear that," said Anton.
The massive barbarian charged at the Castle Crashers, belting Gottfried away with a mighty swing of his fist. The red knight's shield mitigated the damage from the punch itself, but he had to spring up on his own to recover. A ripple of applause washed over the crowd. The other Castle Crashers rushed the barbarian boss with vigor and vim, but to little avail as he beat them back with the plank on his back. Anton and Saul landed on their feet, Lumiere his face. Anton dove at the chieftain's legs with his katana brandished. He missed as the giant jumped over him and barely flinched in the face of first a crash from Saul's halberd, then a fireball from Lumiere. He then rushed at the orange knight and flattened him with his plank.
At the farthest row of the stands, three of the four captive princesses were hoisted away, leaving the red princess tied to a large wooden pole. Only Gottfried paid this deed heed...before Lumiere came skidding at his feet.
"Dude, what this guy eat for breakfast?! Jet fuel?!" squealed Lumiere as he rose up.
On cue, the barbarian boss pulled forth a giant glass bottle of noxious liquid and gulped it down.
"Apparently, so," grunted Anton.
One obnoxious belch later, he sailed across the arena, leaving behind a trail of rancid fire that scorched Lumiere. The Castle Crashers regrouped at the far end of the arena, seeing their husky foe tired.
"Saul, to my shield!" shouted Gottfried.
"Oh, yeah!" squealed Saul, hopping onto Gottfried's shield.
"Lumiere, light him!"
"Done," said Lumiere, setting fire to the head of Saul's halberd.
"Anton, strike at the legs again!"
"Didn't you see what he-?" started Anton.
"Just do it!"
As the Husky Barbarian Chieftain lunged forward, Gottfried blasted Saul into the air off his shield, and Anton formed a hoverboard of ice and rode out to lash at the giant's legs. Once again, the barbarian jumped over him, but this time, he met a mighty surge of lightning from Gottfried's sword, followed quickly by the descending Saul's fire-infused halberd to the skull.
YYKABOOJ!
The fire and electricity reacted together to create a massive explosion that felled the barbarian. Anton kicked off of his board to rejoin Gottfried and Lumiere. Saul flipped back and landed beside his comrades, dazed and smoking but still able to fight.
The entire crowd was stunned silent until...
"Boo!" Saul barked, forcing the barbarians to flee the stands like whimpering puppies. "Wait! Come back! We only want to kill you a little bit!"
"Let them go," said Gottfried, returning his attention to the red princess.
"Help! Please! Somebody! Save me!" she cried.
"Pipe down, princess," said Anton. "We'll cut you down."
"Allow me, brothers," said Gottfried as he leapt up to the pole and cut the princess free. Gently, the red maiden fluttered down from the pole and landed on her feet...which just so happened to crunch Lumiere into the dirt. Again.
"Oh, come on!" groaned Lumiere as the red princess stepped off of his head.
"Oh, fair one, behold thy humble servant, Sir Gottfried the Gallant of the Castle Crashers," said Gottfried, kneeling before her.
"My hero," sighed the red princess.
"Oh, no, milady. Merely one of your four heroes."
"One of four? You're the one who cut me loose from the pole, aren't you?"
"...Well, yes..." stammered Gottfried.
"Then you're the one who saved me. Therefore, you're my hero. You know what that means."
"No, I do not."
Saul and Anton uprooted Lumiere in time for the three of them to witness the red princess smothering the surprised Gottfried's helmet with a kiss.
"Oh, come on!" exclaimed Lumiere.
"She's just doing her job," quipped Anton. "Get used to it."
