Sir Nathan and the Wicked Weather Warlock

A humorous fantasy adventure taken from the world of my Somewhat Silly Story series - written for the nephew of a co-worker to encourage him to read.

SIR NATHAN AND THE WICKED WEATHER WARLOCK

by Mark Simon Smith

Sir Nathan, the Hero of Mariskatania, stood atop the Royal Tower. His fierce gaze swept across the surrounding countryside, keeping a keen watch for signs of evil. Appointed by Queen Gobbledeegook, ruler of the land, his job as the leader of all the knights of the realm was to keep the land and its people safe.

And Sir Nathan was very good at his job.

He had single-handedly fought off the Face Eating Blob Monster of Nasty Tempers.

He had defeated the Krumpwhumpler Beast in time to be home for dinner.

He had captured the Over-Sized Monster of Sharp Teeth and Pain, locked it in a cage, and sold it to a travelling circus (where, quite to the surprise of everyone, it had fallen in love with Trixie the dancing bear).

The sun shone down upon the Hero like a spotlight from the heavens themselves. His plate mail gleamed in the light like a polished mirror and the Sword of Power glowed with its own inner power where it hung in its sheath on his back.

Had evil caught just one glimpse of Sir Nathan, it would have quickly realized the smart thing to do would be to quickly leave town and find some nice, quiet, out-of-the-way woods in which to hide.

The sun hung high in a dazzling blue, clear sky, having arisen earlier that morning after a two week vacation. The constant darkness had troubled the farm roosters of the land and the sun’s sudden return had confused them greatly. For the most part, they gave up on the whole c**k-a-doodle-do thing and just went off to hang out with the sheep. On this day, the sun seemed content to just hover in the sky directly above the Hero, shining its dazzling light down upon Sir Nathan and watching in fascination as its bright beams reflected off his armor.

“All is good in the land and the people are safe,” the Hero said to his horse, Tupolev. The steed’s silky mane looked like flowing cream in the sunlight and his tail streamed in the wind like a pennant of pure silk. He looked right at home clinging to the narrow spire atop the Royal Tower, due to a time earlier in his life when he had been turned into a squirrel. “With my magical sword, my might, my honor, and my trusted horse, evil will never show its face here in the land of Mariskatania.”

Shading his eyes from the sun with one hoof, Tupolev replied, “What about that invasion of squid last week?” The horse, like all others of his kind, could speak as well as the Hero, though he often chose to not reveal this secret to others. The only reason horses hung around with humans at all was because they had lost a bet in which the losers had to carry the winners around on their backs for a million years. Once that time was up, the horses would get back to the regular lives and try to forget ever having met humans in the first place.

“Well … that was different,” stuttered the Hero. “Besides, squid don’t have faces to show, so technically-”

“And that army of irritated snails? That was pretty evil, too.”

“Well, again … no faces, so-”

“And then there was guy … what was his name … you know, the one who could turn people into dung beetles? He was pretty evil and had a face.”

“Oh, be quiet!” snapped Sir Nathan. He had been amazed on the day he had discovered his horse could talk and had been trying to get Tupolev to shut up ever since.

The Hero was about to order his horse to go fetch them a snack from the palace kitchens, when the brightness of the day dimmed. A lone cloud floated through the sky, drifting across the face of the sun and blotting out the light. Sir Nathan waited for the cloud to pass, so as to better see to the distant horizon and detect any evil lingering there (and so his armor would appear dazzling to anybody looking his way), but the gloom lingered longer than he expected. Despite the stiff breeze whipping across the land, flickering the royal pennants atop the flag poles and ruffling his horse’s mane, the cloud seemed determined to park in front of the sun for the rest of the day.

The sun hastily dropped towards the north, hoping to catch the cloud off guard, but the haze easily kept up, moving as if under its own power and completely ignoring the wind. The sun darted back to the south, then west, then east, but the cloud had no trouble in following. As Sir Nathan and Tupolev watched, a second cloud, dark grey and heavy, joined the first. Then a third and a fourth. Together, they kept the sun’s light blocked and the land was cast in a dim shadow.

Sir Nathan was puzzled (and more than a little disappointed his armor no longer gleamed in the light). He had never before seen clouds act in such a matter. He found them to be quite rude.

No longer able to keep watch for evil invaders, the knight climbed down through the hatch in the tower roof and descended the spiraling staircase to the ground below. Behind him, Tupolev lingered a bit longer, clinging to the tall spire in a way a horse shouldn’t have been able. He then reluctantly climbed down and followed the knight.

Had the sun’s light been a bit brighter and the horse lingered a bit longer, he would have noticed a single, dark figure standing on a distant hill. A flicker of lightning forked through the sky, and the figure was gone.

* * * * *

As the Hero lay sleeping that night, dreaming wonderful dreams of smiting his enemies, and Tupolev snuck down to the palace kitchens to raid the cupcake supply, and the queen attended a late night meeting with the Chief Butler about the mysterious disappearance of large quantities of cupcakes from the palace supplies, a figure in a hooded cloak walked unseen through the streets of the village.

A frisky dog noticed the figure’s passing and started to bark excitedly, when suddenly the hound was enveloped in a thick fog that blossomed from nowhere. Hidden deep inside the heavy folds of the fog, the dog could only whimper in confusion.

A pair of knights, patrolling the streets, thought they saw something in the shadows, but suddenly had more urgent matters to deal with as a heavy rain sprang out of nowhere, drenching them to the bone. Just as abruptly, the rain cut off and a chill wind blasted them as if all of wintertime cold had been bottled up and released all at once. The rain water running through the seams and crevices of their armor froze solid in an instant and the guards were frozen in place.

A heavy lock, built by the Royal Blacksmith and openable only by a special key carried by the Chief Butler, held shut a side gate on the palace walls. The shadowy figure approached the gate and studied the lock carefully. Had anyone been watching, they would have swore that a bolt of lightning only a foot long sprang from the figure’s hands, striking the lock in a flash one hundred times brighter than the sun. The lock fell to the ground with a dull clang, melted in half. The steel ran like melted butter and sizzled as it dripped onto the dew-soaked grass.

The hinges of the well-oiled gate made no sound as the figure slipped through, moving as softly as the nighttime wind. Within seconds, the mysterious stranger had entered the palace. As the door clicked softly shut behind the intruder, its surface became crusted with frost. The ice buckled and groaned, sealing the portal shut more securely than any lock could.

* * * * *

“No! You shall never take me alive! Goodness shall always overcome evil, no matter how terrible and naughty you are!” The Hero screamed and thrashed as the grip of the monster’s tentacles tightened around his body.

The giant octopus plucked the knight off the ground as easily as a child picks a flower, lifting him high  in the air. Just as suddenly, the monstrous creature slammed Sir Nathan down to the ground. Fortunately, the Hero landed mostly on his head and therefore, the damage was minimal. Sir Nathan had suffered many blows to the head, both when protecting the land of Mariskatania and during daily sword practice with the other knights of the realm. One more bump to his head wasn’t going to make a difference either way.

The Hero’s horse stood by, watching the entire battle.

He didn’t move to help.

He didn’t rush forward and attack the octopus.

He didn’t even hand Sir Nathan his sword.

Instead, he merely looked on, an embarrassed look on his face, and said, “Would you wake up, you oaf!”

Sir Nathan sat up and looked around in confusion. Instead of on the deck of a sailing ship, he was merely sitting on the floor of his chambers in the Royal Palace. And instead of caught in the tentacled-grip of a giant octopus, he was merely wrapped in his bedsheets, the linens twined tightly around his torso and legs.

He cleared his throat and looked up at the horse, wondering how long his steed had been standing there, watching. “I was … uh … I was just practicing … you know … my battle techniques.”

“Uh huh, I totally believe you,” said Tupolev in a tone that clearly indicated he didn’t.

Sir Nathan pushed at the sheets and tried to stand, but was so tightly entangled, he fell back down to the stone floor. “Unhand me, you agents of evil!” he shouted as he punched at the sheets. A small battle unfolded between Sir Nathan and his bed clothes, until the knight finally laid his hand upon the hilt of his magically sharp sword and hacked his way free.

Tupolev shook his head sadly.

The Hero kicked the tattered sheets away (the third set he had sliced apart in vicious battle that week) and started to lace himself into his plate mail while his horse stood in the doorway, patiently waiting.

“Well, my fine steed,” the Hero said as if nothing odd had happened, “I assume you’re here to wake me for breakfast. What fine meal has been prepared for us this morning?”

“I’m thinking breakfast may have to wait. There’s something you need to see first.”

His stomach rumbling, Sir Nathan followed Tupolev down the hall to the palace’s nearby throne room (though Queen Gobbledeegook preferred a large comfy chair over any fancy, uncomfortable throne). The room was amongst the largest in the palace, long with a high ceiling bordered by stained glass windows. On a sunny day, colored light from the windows danced along the walls and floors like jeweled butterflies. On this day, however, the sun’s light was muted and the colored windows sat dark and boring. At one end of the room stood a small stage on which was the queen’s comfy, upholstered chair from which she met with her citizens and handled all the matters involved in running the land.

At the moment, the room was empty … except for the thick blanket of snow covering the floor.

Sir Nathan looked at the fine powder, like fine sugar, lying in heaps and mounds across the room. He looked at his horse. He looked back at the snow.

“Why is there three feet of snow in here?” he asked, as if Tupolev had the answer.

“That’s what I wanted to show you,” replied the horse patiently.

“But … but … but …” stuttered the Hero.

“Exactly,” agreed Tupolev.

Sir Nathan waded into the room, shoving his way through the drifts with some difficulty. His breath fogged in the chilly air. Without realizing he had done so, the knight drew his Sword of Power and held it defensively in front of him.

The snow didn’t take it personally.

“How is this possible?!” He gestured up to the ceiling with the sword. “The windows are unbroken - the snow could not have come in that way! It would take five hundred men working all night to haul all this much snow in here! And, we’re in the middle of summer! Where would this much snow even come from?! It’s impossible!”

“Not impossible,” said a quiet voice.

Sir Nathan wheeled to face the queen’s comfy chair, the snow swirling around his armor-encased legs. The voice had come from the direction of the throne, but the knight saw no sign of anyone there. The snow was deep and undisturbed, with no signs of footprints. The queen’s comfy chair was a single mound of deep, white powder.

“Who said that?!” snarled the Hero. His voice carried the threat of a solid smiting. He pointed his Sword of Power at the throne, the blade steady in his hand.

“Why, I said that, the new ruler of this land,” said the voice, a hint of amusement in the words. “From now on, the people of this land obey me. They will worship me and do as I command and bring me all their lollipops, or they will be sorry.”

Sir Nathan hadn’t been randomly chosen to be the Hero of Mariskatania. He had been hand-picked by Queen Gobbledeegook and although he sometimes got carried away … and tended to accidentally hack apart many innocent objects that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time … and had once chopped a large hole in a very important part of the palace that happened to hold up many other parts of the palace and the entire northern end of the building had collapsed … still, he was brave and bold and would let nothing threaten the safety and peace of Mariskatania.

Shuffling slowly through the snow, the Hero moved towards the voice, his blade held high. “The only thing getting worshipped around here is my blade after it smites you right on the head! I’m going to smack you into the middle of next week! I’m going to wallop you so hard, your eyebrows will hurt! Then I’m going to lock you in the deepest, darkest, most miserable cell in the dungeons until you can learn to play nice with others!”

The mysterious voice, which had been soft and quiet up to this point, started to laugh. It was a creepy sound, like a creaking door banging in the wind. It started low and slow and built up to a barking sound that seemed like it would never stop. The mound of snow covering the throne shook from the noise and a miniature avalanche erupted on its surface. Sheets of powder broke free and slid down from its peak and the whole pile shook until it looked as if it would collapse.

And, when it finally did break apart, the owner of the voice was revealed. Sitting on the queen’s throne was a strange man, cloaked in a dark, grey robe. He had been sitting beneath the mound of snow as comfortably as if sitting in the shade on a warm day. How he managed to find himself buried there, or even inside the palace itself, Sir Nathan had no idea. Nor did he care. There was an intruder sitting before him, making threats, and it was the Hero’s job to take care of such things.

“Foul creature! How dare you bring your evil filth into the Royal Palace! How dare you defile the queen’s throne with your touch! I shall smite you big time!”

If the man was concerned about the armored knight steadily advancing towards him, he showed no sign. The man wasn’t terribly tall (but then, neither was Sir Nathan). Nor did he appear to be terribly old (but then again, neither was Sir Nathan). As a matter of fact, what could be seen of his face beneath the deep hood could have just as easily belonged to a young man not quite a teenager. Yet none of that mattered, for if he somehow had been able to make his way into the palace unseen and was somehow responsible for the ridiculous amount of snow, then Sir Nathan had no choice but to smite the intruder.

“Surrender now!” cried the Hero, raising his blade high, prepared to bring the magical weapon swinging down with all the power his arms could muster.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said the young man quietly.

From where he watched in the doorway, Tupolev would swear all he saw was the slightest twitch of the intruder’s fingers. Instantly, a stiff wind sprang up out of nowhere, even though they were indoors. The cold blast buffeted at the horse and his hooves slipped along the chilly, stone floor. The wind was so strong, it was actually pushing him out of the throne room. At the same time, the gust hammered at the Hero. It scooped bucketfuls of snow from the floor and wrapped the knight in a tornado of white coldness.

Tupolev tried to force his way back into the room, but was having little success. His eyes squinting against the ferocity of the wind, all he could see of Sir Nathan was a flurry of pelting snow flakes with the Hero’s sword swinging wildly around from inside as if the knight could slice the wind apart.

Untouched by the mysterious gusts, the intruder sat on the throne and smiled.

“You see?” He stood, raising his hands to the ceiling, the loose sleeves of his robes falling down around his elbows. His skin was covered in cool, blue lines, like the patterns of snowflakes that seemed to glow in the dim light. “Not even the famous Hero of Mariskatania can stand against me and my powers! I can blast you with all the fury of winter’s worst blizzard!”

The raging cyclone of snow whipping around Sir Nathan grew in size, the soft flakes becoming pellets of hail that pelted the knight, pinging off his armor like rocks striking a bell.

“I can drown you in the raging floods of the spring rains!” the man shouted.

In the blink of an eye, the snowstorm assaulting the Hero vanished. In its place, a dark cloud formed amongst the rafters of the room’s high ceiling and a waterfall of rain fell from its underbelly. The flow of water turned the snow around Sir Nathan’s feet to slush and washed his footing from beneath him. He fell in a clatter of armor. The water, trapped by the banks of surrounding snow, rose quickly and threatened to drown the Hero. Tupolev still fought against the hurricane-force winds and was unable to move to the knight’s aid.

“A little too wet for you?!” cried the intruder. With a single flick of his finger, the rain stopped and the cloud faded away. “Perhaps you’d like something drier!”

He wiggled his fingers again and a raging sandstorm whipped through the room, blasting out from directly in front of the intruder and hurtling along the entire length of the room. Coarse sand was driven by a hot wind. Snow drifts and the Hero alike were scooped up by the force of the storm. The snow was instantly melted, the moisture evaporated by the heat radiating off the sand like a blast forge. Buried as he was amongst the sand, Sir Nathan was invisible, but Tupolev could clearly hear his armor banging around as the knight was carried away.

Just as quickly, the sandstorm stopped. Silence instantly returned to the room. The winds battering the horse ceased and Tupolev fell forward as he suddenly found himself pushing against a force no longer resisting. The steed scrambled quickly to his feet and ran to the end of the room where Sir Nathan lay in a ragged pile. Bits of his armor lay scattered about the floor, knocked loose by the force of the strange magics of the intruder, dented by hail, and scratched by sand.

All that remained was the Hero’s helmet, now badly dented. As was normal for Sir Nathan, all he wore under his armor was a pair of flowered underwear.

“Sir Nathan!” cried Tupolev, bending low to lift to the visor on the knight’s helmet with his teeth. The horse could feel the heat radiating from the metal, even though it had been engulfed in the hot sandstorm for only a matter of seconds. “Speak to me! Are you okay?”

A groan echoed from inside the helm. “Mom?” The Hero’s voice was weak and somewhat confused sounding. “I don’t want to go to school today. I’m just … gonna stay home …”

Tupolev turned to face the intruder, who still stood unmoving by the throne, a small smile on his lips. Besides being able to speak, the horse had also been knighted for his many brave deeds in his days spent as the Hero’s steed (an act Sir Nathan had fought against, as he didn’t want his horse forgetting just who was the knight and who was the mount). Tupolev wasn’t about to stand idly by while a vile, evil foe threatened the land and assaulted its citizens.

The horse quickly thought through every word he had read in the Basic Knight Training Manual, a collection of 32 chapters, 2,809 pages, and 72 color illustrations given to every person taking the required two-hour class to become a knight in Mariskatania. It had been written by the queen’s daughter as an extra-credit project for school. The manual included several tricks to use when confronting evil villains, such as pointing over their shoulder and shouting “Look over there!” and then jumping at them while they weren’t looking. Tupolev felt it was perfect for the current situation.

Taking just a single step towards the intruder, he said, “You’ll never get away with this.”

The young man chuckled. Tupolev was really getting tired of the sound.

“I’m pretty sure I will. Do you not see what I am capable of?”

Tupolev took a few more steps forward. “You may have temporarily put off the wrath of Sir Nathan, Hero of the land, but he’s dealt with far more foul creatures than you.”

“Yes, possibly, but in every one of those situations, he had to get close enough to his enemy to swing that ridiculous sword of his.” The man gestured towards the crumpled form of the Hero. A low moan escaped the knight’s lips, along with a mumbled something about a dog eating his homework. “My magical powers are no match for his thick muscles and dim brain. He’ll never get close enough to so much as muss my hair. No one is capable of standing against me! No one can possibly thwart my infinite powers! You, and everyone else in Mariskatania will remember my name, forever!”

“Why?” asked the horse. “Is it really weird?”

“What?! No! You’ll remember it because-”

“Is your last name Fartsy or something silly like that?”

“What?! No, it’s not Fartsy! Why would you think my last name is Fartsy?! You’ll remember my name because-”

“Oh, I know! It’s because it’s a rhyme, like Bink Stinkums or Scoop Pooper or Art Fartsy!”

“MY NAME IS NOT FARTSY!” The intruder’s face was red with rage and he screamed so loud his voice cracked with an awkward squeak.

“Okay, okay, settle down,” said Tupolev, rolling his eyes. “Sheesh.”

His voice now harsh and strained, the young man said in what he hoped was an intimidating tone, but actually just sounded like someone getting over a cold, “My name … is Seth Death-Breath … and no one shall stand against me.”

Tupolev chewed on his lower lip, swiveling his ears and eyes from side to side as he thought things over. “Seth Death-Breath … Seth Death-Breath … yeah, I’m not so sure that’s as tough-sounding as you think it is.”

“Quiet!” snapped the intruder. “It doesn’t matter!”

“Now, if you had gone with Art Fartsy, then I can guarantee no one would have forgotten your name,” the horse said in a matter-of-fact sort of tone.

“I said be quiet! My name is Seth Death-Breath and you all shall bow down to me! My powers are unstoppable! Your heroic knight is useless! I shall rule over you all!”

Shrugging, and not really caring about the intruder’s name one way or the other, Tupolev walked slowly forward in what he hoped was a casual, conversational way. “I think you underestimate the might of the Hero. Time and again he has - look over there!”

The horse nodded with his chin at some unseen, imaginary thing behind the intruder, then bolted forward in a clatter of hooves on the hard, stone floor. For half a second, the trick worked. The mysterious young man turned to look to see what the horse was pointing at, but quickly caught himself and turned back to see the steed charging full speed straight for him. The intruder didn’t know how much horses weighed and he didn’t want to find out the hard way by having one crash into him.

He crossed his arms in front of his face. The strange patterns on his forearms flared, glowing from within with a clear, blue light. The intruder’s eyes glowed with a matching brilliance. A beam, no thicker than a human hair, shot out from a spot between the man’s face and struck Tupolev square on the nose. The horse was engulfed in a criss-crossing pattern of light, like a spider web made of spun moonlight. Just as quickly, the light flared, then vanished, and the steed quite surprisingly found himself encased in a solid block of ice.

His legs were outstretched, caught in the middle of his galloping stride. His tail and mane flowed out behind him, his nostrils flared wide. And he was immersed, from head to toe, in a chunk of clear ice that would have been right at home in a field of icebergs. Sir Nathan still lay huddled in a ball, moaning, unaware of the situation.

As Tupolev’s eyes darted frantically about, the intruder stepped slowly off the small stage and came to a stop directly in front of the horse. He reached out with one hand and stroked the smooth, slick surface of the ice. “Not my best work,” he said, “but you kind of forced my hand. Still, it seems to have done its purpose. I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere soon. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a land to conquer. You know how it is … queen’s to kidnap, guards to destroy … busy, busy, busy.”

The terrible villain walked calmly out of the room without a backwards glance at the incapacitated Hero and his frozen steed.

Encased in inches of transparent ice and looking exactly like the world’s most realistic ice-sculpture of a horse, Tupolev forced himself to remain calm. If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to suffocate. Sir Nathan didn’t seem like he was likely to be any help any time soon. Working feverishly, the horse used his tongue to lick a hole through the ice, breaking through just as he felt his world start to go black from lack of oxygen. After that, there wasn’t much he could do other than wait. Either Sir Nathan would finally come to his senses and cut him free with his sword, the ice would melt, or someone else from the palace staff would find him.

“I’ll be okay,” Tupolev thought. “I just need to remain calm. I’ll be just fine, someone will find me soon. As long as it’s not-”

“Hello!” said a voice, filled with cheerfulness. “I was just walkings by and saw you was sittings in here, all by yourselfs, and so thought I would come sit with you and keeps you company.” It was Garbuggle, an ogre Tupolev and Sir Nathan had met from the Eager Angry Ogre Tribe who had just kind of followed them home one day and had been hanging around the palace ever since.

Unfortunately, ogres weren’t terribly smart and Garbuggle was dim, even for his kind.

He had once accidentally nailed himself into a crate and had it shipped across the Sea of Silliness while trying to mail some cupcakes to his mother.

He had burned down almost half of the Swamp Forest of Misery just by trying to fetch a pail of water.

He had even tried to build a ladder to the moon using nothing but sausage links. A roving band of wolves, drawn by the smell of the sausage, had dragged the ogre away and kept him in their stone den while they were trying to figure out if he was good to eat.

They kicked him out after he accidentally burned down the den while trying to tell the pack a bedtime story.

If Garbuggle tried to help, the odds were someone was going to get seriously hurt.

With his mouth frozen in the block of ice, Tupolev found it difficult to communicate through the small hole he had melted. “Ar-uggle! Go geh hep! Go geh the Eef Utler!”

“What’s that you’re sayings to me now?” the ogre asked, scratching his ugly, mottled head. Ogres were ugly in the same way that water was wet, and Garbuggle was no exception. Babies cried when he walked past. Dogs fainted and cats covered their eyes. Elderly men and women just tried to put a bag over his head or, failing that, put a bag over their own head. “You is wantings me to go to bed? No? Go be Fred? Go eat bread?”

Tupolev’s groan of disappointment was loud enough, several deep cracks formed in the block of ice that held him.

“You knows what? I is having a hard time understandings you, since you is frozen in that there cold waters. I is going to gets you out of there, then you can tells me what you want. Oh, look! Sir Nathan’s sword! I’ll just use that.”

* * * * *

Sir Nathan and Tupolev stood talking in the throne room.

The shattered block of ice had been carted off. The Hero had donned his back-up suit of armor. The horse’s left ear, most of his tail, and one leg had been magically reattached to his body by one of the senior students at the Royal Institute of Hocus Pocus.

Garbuggle had been given a bowl of pudding as a reward for his help and sent to his room. Somehow, he managed to set the bowl of pudding on fire.

The Hero’s mood was grim. Other than getting eaten by a few dragons and stepped on by a giant, he wasn’t used to being on the losing end of a battle. On top of that the foul intruder, Seth Death-Breath, had apparently kidnapped the queen while Sir Nathan had been incapacitated. The knight had regained his senses in time to stop Garbuggle from “helping” free Tupolev from the last chunks of ice that clung to his mane. Wearing nothing but his battered helmet and flowered underwear (which had a large quantity of sand trapped inside), he had gripped the Sword of Power firmly and rushed to the queen’s chambers.

Missing a leg, Tupolev had elected to stay behind and just sit quietly.

The Hero had been too late - he could tell by the looks the palace guards gave him as he approached Queen Gobbledeegook’s rooms. The heavy door was splintered open, ripped off its hinges as if by a tornado. The inside of the chambers were a mess, the furniture thrown about with such ferocity most of it was destroyed beyond repair.

There was no sign of the queen - just a note left behind, made of tiny, puffy clouds that hung motionless in the air. “I HAVE YOUR QUEEN - SURRENDER THE HERO OR ELSE SHE DIFS”

“The queen!” Sir Nathan cried out, pointing at the letters with his sword. “She is gone! That foul, terrible, naughty villain shall pay for this! Evilness shall never succeed so long as goodness and honor are around! And if that Seth Poopy-Pants thinks he can threaten the queen with … say, does anyone know what ‘DIFS’means? Is that like those custard-filled cakes they make down in the kitchen.”

“No, sir,” replied one of the guards, walking up beside the Hero and snapping to attention. “I believe it used to say ‘DIES’ but Winchell here was messing around with the message and screwed up the E.”

Another guard, standing off to the side with his head bowed and looking like he wished he were anywhere else but where he was, coughed out a mumbled apology.

Sir Nathan had glared at the guard with his best, most intense glare of disappointment.

Now, with his horse patched up and ready for battle, Sir Nathan was ready to ride into action. The problem was, where exactly should they go?

Riders had been sent out, scouring the land for signs of the evil magician, but the guards had yet to return with any news. All Sir Nathan could do was wait, ready to move once sign of the foul Seth Death-Breath had been found.

After several hours, a palace guard burst into the room, clutching a handful of hastily scribbled notes. Shuffling through the pages, he said, “Your Hero-ness, all these reports from the riders are showing no signs of the villain nor of the missing queen. From the slopes of Mount Thunder to the cliffs of the Hundred League Crag of Imminent Doom to the snows of the Dangerous Desert of Disasters, all riders are swearing they can find no trace.”

Sir Nathan looked from the guard to Tupolev. Tupolev looked from Sir Nathan to the guard. They both looked at the guard, who finally noticed their stare and wondered if he had something stuck in his teeth.

“Did you say … the snows of the Dangerous Desert of Disasters?” the Hero asked slowly.

The guard shuffled through the notes until he found the correct scrap of parchment. “Yes, sir. Private Plinkle rode fast and hard and reported the desert sands were nothing but snow and ice as far as the eye could see.”

“And … nothing about that strikes you as … odd?”

The guard looked from the Hero to the note and back to the Hero again.

“Uh …”

Without waiting for further explanation, Sir Nathan vaulted onto Tupolev’s back and the duo charged down the halls and out the front gate, the knight screaming about honor and goodness. Four minutes later, they charged back in through the front gate, with Sir Nathan yelling something at Tupolev about making sure he “went” before they left.

As the horse galloped down a side hall, he could be heard yelling back, “Well, I didn’t have to go then!”

* * * * *

On a normal day, the Dangerous Desert of Disasters was a hot, dry, sandy place. An endless sea of dunes marched from horizon to horizon, like waves frozen in time. However, nothing was normal on the day Sir Nathan rode in from the north.

The sky, normally clear and home to the sun, blazing down from overhead, was grey and overcast. The wind howled and shrieked, carrying a biting sting of cold that infected everything it touched with frost. The desert itself was covered in an endless blanket of snow and ice, the sands buried deep below and frozen solid.

The landscape changed from one of green grass and warmth to frozen wasteland in just a matter of a few hundred yards. Fortunately, Sir Nathan and Tupolev were used to the hardships of their work and pressed on, despite the flying sleet that stung their eyes. Shortly after they had passed into the frigid desert, they came upon a border of ice pillars, rising jaggedly up from the ground like upside-down icicles. Each was easily four or five feet tall and as thick as a man’s leg. They marched off into the distance, to the right and to the left, forming a weird sort of picket line along the borders of the desert, with a space of ten feet or so between each one and the next.

Without understanding what they were looking at, Sir Nathan and his steed rode on, the only sound the crunch of Tupolev’s hooves through the crust of snow and the howl of the wind.

As they passed between two of the crystal clear pillars, the ice of each suddenly flared with a blue light. Tupolev stopped in his tracks, looking back and forth between the two. Abruptly, out of nowhere, a pair of white tornadoes formed out of the snow-filled air. They twisted down out of the sky, sucking the sleet and hail out of the sky with a deafening roar. Like vicious guard dogs, they hit the ground and both moved straight towards the Hero and his horse.

“This borderline of icicles is some sort of trip line!” Tupolev shouted above the sound of the funnel clouds. “They must sense anyone passing through and automatically trigger the creation of those tornadoes! That foul weather-magician must have put them here!”

“Oh … yeah … sure, I was thinking the exact same thing,” the Hero shouted back, in a tone that said exactly the opposite. The knight’s thoughts when confronted with such circumstances were 1) Hey, look, a bad guy (or monsters or swirling snow tornado) and 2) I think I’ll hit him (or them or it) with my sword. Figuring out why the bad guys (or other assorted enemy) were there or what they wanted was just never that important to Sir Nathan. Smite first and ask questions later - that was his style.

The Hero vaulted off the horse’s back and ran charging towards the nearest whirlwind, his Sword of Power held high. Tupolev sighed, wondering why retreating was never an option, then ran after the knight.

* * * * *

The ice monster lay shattered at Sir Nathan’s feet, broken into a million pieces of fine, clear ice like so many pieces of glass. The Hero’s armor hung in shreds on his body, ripped apart by the fierce creature’s claws. His skin was covered in goose bumps as he stood atop a snowy mound in what was normally the very hot Desert of Disasters, a frigid wind blasting him from the dark, grey sky above.

The snow tornadoes had been difficult to destroy, seeing as how there was very little to them except for snowflakes and wind.

The lightning storm that had raged down from the heavens out of nowhere, attacking with ferocity and determination, had been even more of a challenge. Multiple blasts of electricity, arcing out of its belly, had blasted some parts of Sir Nathan’s armor clean off, while melting other parts completely together. Tupolev was missing most of his hair.

They had battled living creatures magically crafted from every sort of weather, attacking from above and below, and had bested every single one. The massive ice beast, standing nearly thirty feet tall, had come dangerously close to eatingTupolev not once, but twice. Only Sir Nathan’s courage, strength, and magical sword had freed the steed and defeated the monster.

Now, wearing little more than a dented helmet and his flowered boxer shorts, the Hero grimly advanced through the snow towards a dark figure standing untouched by the wind on a low hill to the south. Tupolev followed close behind, head bowed low against the stinging wind, wishing he had worn a sweater that day.

“Goodness shall never fail in its fight against evil!” The Hero shouted through the gusting wind. “Give up now! Surrender, free the queen, and I shall show you mercy!”

Seth Death-Breath stood calm and still, his arms tucked into the sleeves of his grey robes. Queen Gobbledeegook stood nearby, trapped in a cage of thick ice and stone. The spell-caster scowled, wondering how such a short, frail-looking knight could have fought his way through all the protective forces with which he had surrounded himself. However, he hadn’t become a terribly evil weather-warlock by letting things get in his way. With barely the twitch of a finger, he caused a ten thousand pound cube of ice to break its way free from a nearby glacier. It floated straight up, shifted over a few feet, then dropped squarely on Sir Nathan’s head.

“That was easy,” Seth said to himself. “I should have just done that in the first place.”

He walked towards the cube, wondering if he had been lucky enough to smash the knight’s horse at the same time. The block of ice, as big as a small house, suddenly split down the middle, the halves falling away on either side. Between them, the Hero stood, his weapon held before him. The blade was wet with melting ice.

“Nice try,” snarled Sir Nathan. “It will take more than that to-”

A tornado, spinning with dizzying speed, its innards filled with the crash and flash of deadly lightning, twirled down from the clouds above and plucked Sir Nathan off the ground. The twister coiled back up into the clouds, sucking the knight out of sight. The booms of thunder shook the ground.

“That pathetic slob doesn’t know when to quit,” murmured Seth. “That lightning will reduce him to tiny chunks of nicely cooked knight. Now, where’s that horse of his?”

He started to step around one of the giant hunks of ice when a noise drew his attention. It was a high-pitched shriek, faint at first, but growing in volume. The spell-caster looked up in time to see a dark speck high above, growing in size as it fell from the clouds. It was the Hero, screaming the whole way as he fell to the ground. With a massive thud, the knight landed right next to Seth in an explosion of snow and ice. When the cloud had settled, the warlock could see a deep hole plunging down into the earth, so deep he couldn’t see the bottom.

After a moment, he heard the heavy breathing and grunts of the Hero as he used his sword like a pickaxe to climb his way back up out of the hole.

“Are you kidding?!” Seth Death-Breath shouted, his voice echoing against the hard, icy walls of the shaft. Sir Nathan paused in his climbing to look up, wondering what all the excitement was about.

The spell-caster peppered the Hero with chunks of hail as big as a melon. He assaulted the knight with lightning bolts powerful enough to blast through rock. With wind, rain, sleet, and anything else he could think of, he pummeled Sir Nathan time and again and always, the defender of Mariskatania came back for more.

* * * * *

Tupolev stood putting the finishing touches on a snow-horse he had built. It was quite realistic and was the mirror image of the Hero’s steed himself (but without all the hair fried off by lightning).

Freed from her cage, the queen stood nearby, admiring the sculpture and praising the horse’s work.

A few yards away, Seth Death-Breath lay on his back, breathing heavily. The ground around him was littered with chunks of snow and ice of various sizes, scorched black from repeated lightning strikes, and scoured down to the bedrock by the hurricane-force winds the spell-caster had summoned.

Sir Nathan stood over him, his helmet held in one hand and the Sword of Power held loosely by his side in the other. His flowered boxers looked as if they had been set on fire, crushed, torn, and then set on fire some more.

Which they had.

“So,” said the Hero in a voice that could have just been discussing the price of cupcakes, “now are you ready to surrender?”

The spell-caster was unable to catch his breath. He was completely exhausted and didn’t have the energy to so much as lift his head from the ground. He had never felt so battered and bruised in his life … and the Hero hadn’t so much as touched him, let alone done any smiting with the Sword of Power. Seth Death-Breath had cast every single spell he could think of at the knight and the Hero had just come back for more. He had used every bit of energy he could find, assaulting Sir Nathan with everything he had and with everything nature could throw into the battle. However, the Hero’s strength had proved too much.

He could barely nod his head in answer to Sir Nathan’s question and was relieved when the knight lifted him off the ground and gently placed him on the horse’s back. He was so exhausted, if Sir Nathan had told him to simply lay where he was for the next ten years as punishment, he would have gladly accepted.

As they turned north, slowly making their way back to the palace, the dark clouds slowly parted. The sun shoved its way through and started the bathe the land in its golden light. The snow and ice started to quickly melt as the air temperature warmed and soon trickles of water were flowing joyfully amongst the dunes of sand emerging from beneath the snow blanket.

“You shouldn’t feel bad,” Tupolev was saying as they crested a long, low dune. “Other than the queen’s twin two year olds, no one has ever bested Sir Nathan in combat.”

“Hey! That’s not fair!” shouted Sir Nathan. “They cheat!”

Seth Death-Breath felt a smile creep onto his face as he listened to the knight and horse bicker about whether or not the twins filling the Hero’s helmet with pudding was technically an act of war. He was looking forward to a nice, relaxing rest in an out of the way dungeon cell for a while. After that, he was going to see if he could get a stress-free job teaching weather spells at the Royal Institute of Hocus Pocus. He’d let somebody else try to take over the world … fighting Sir Nathan, Hero of the land of Mariskatania, was tougher than it looked.