Chapter 9: The Wedding That Wasn't, Part 1

As the king, the Castle Crashers, and the gray knights adjusted their eyes, they saw a seemingly endless sea of assorted flowers lying in a field before them. In the distance, a huge castle towered over the field. Two other gray knights flanked the group with wheeled catapults, each loaded with a man-sized boulder and cocked to fire. The catapults' launching arms, needless to say, had scoops large enough to accommodate any knight.

"So..." said Saul. "What are we doing here?"

"Weren't you paying attention?" said Gottfried. "We're tracking down the kidnappers of the-"

"Hold it," interrupted Lumiere. " Gottfried, you just talked normally!"

"Yes, so, what of it?"

"You never talk normally!"

"Of course I do. I just prefer speaking as the knights of old did. And yes, I know none speak that way anymore."

"...Then, why do you keep talking that way?"

Gottfried breathed a sigh. "Someone must set an example."

"Speaking of examples," said the king, "will you three pay attention before I make one out of all of you?"

A gray knight stepped forth and presented a tattered map of the kingdom. "While you four were busy fighting in the cave," he said, "we managed to track down the green princess and her captors to Sea of Flowers Castle."

"Why do they call it that?" asked Saul.

Anton's reply dripped with sarcasm. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because it's surrounded by fields of flowers?"

The ram orb bleated as it munched on a nearby flower. Anton, taking the silent hint, straightened himself.

"Sorry. It's just...this has been really stressful. More so than usual."

"Don't spoil it," said Lumiere.

The king and his escorts marched naught but ten meters out of the cave when a swarm of huge bee people descended upon them and attacked. Fortunately, they were easily dispatched. Not so was another swarm of bee people accompanied by what appeared to be midnight blue beekeeper knights. One such knight almost reached the king and his horse, but Gottfried blasted him away with a lightning bolt before he could lay a hand on him.

"Oh, thanks," said the king.

"You are welcome," said Gottfried.

They reached the edge of an expansive cliff that overlooked the host castle and mounted the catapults to fire their payloads.

"Fire One!" barked the king.

The operators cocked the catapult arms and loosed the boulders in high arcs. To everyone's dismay but that of the Castle Crashers, the boulders bounced off the castle walls, leaving behind little more than small craters.

"Fire Two!"

"Uh, sire, that was all we had," said one of the operators.

"Not quite," said Gottfried, hopping into one of the catapult cups.

"What? You want us to throw people at the castle? Wouldn't that hurt?"

"Not at it; onto it."

"What?"

"He means we should launch ourselves onto the castle wall so we can storm it directly."

"Oh," said Lumiere and all of the gray knights.

"Capital idea," said the king. "Carry it out."

"Wait," said the second operator. "How do we know these things can even throw one of us?"

"Like this!" said Saul, triggering the other catapult with his halberd and launching himself at the wall. He landed safely atop the battlements and prepared to battle the guards stationed there.

"...All right, so, who's next?"

"Castle Crashers, we fly together," said Gottfried, beckoning Anton and Lumiere to join him on his catapult. Anton complied, but Lumiere hesitated.

"Hold on," he said. "Are you sure that thing can throw all of us at once?"

"How much did those boulders weigh?" asked Anton, prompting all of the other knights to try to calculate. "I'll save you the trouble. More than any four of us combined. Now, come on. We don't have much time."

"Okay."

"For the king!" shouted Gottfried as he, Anton, and Lumiere were launched together to join Saul amidst the chaos of battle.

The Castle Crashers bested laser blade, bomb, and cone head knight as they fought their way along the battlements. Their gray knight escorts proved surprisingly competent as well. There was the occasional complaint from Lumiere about the cone heads' laser blades being cheap knock-offs of fantasy weapons from some famous movie franchise and of Gottfried's seeming inability to pick a speech pattern and stick with it, but that's beside the point.

"This way! Hurry!" said Gottfried as he fought his way to a large stain glass window at the far end of the battlements.

"Wait," said Lumiere. "What's that window doing there of all places?"

"Who cares? Just come this way!"