In Which I Throw Somebody Out Of A Window And Then Get Beaten Up

Impetuous, I leapt from Alfonso’s back and began to sprint to the city gates. I heard Selladore call out for me, somewhere far behind, as though in another world. All that mattered now was Astra.

With the grace of a sunbeam I raced betwixt the baffled guards, who could only turn and call out to me in vain. I lighted over the city streets, unable to think of anything but my beautiful wife. The city was but a blur. I shouldered my way through the throng of peasants and followed signs for the cathedral, readying myself for the fight of my life. I could hear the church bells!

I whirled around and pounded the cobbles heading for the cathedral, grabbing terrified townsfolk on the way and shrieking at them for directions. Guards from every street corner were starting after me, but I did not care. The time for action was finally at hand!

I found the cathedral (an enormous and showy thing with little in the way of genuine character) squatting atop a heap of marble stairs. Aha! I leapt up them three at a time, my sword waving wildly above my head, fire churning in my irises. At the top of the staircase were two enormous oak doors that rose twenty feet above me. With a rebel yell I threw them open, sending choirboys flying in all directions.

“I object, you bastards,” I cried, hearing my own, frankly quite magnificent voice echoed back to me a dozen times. I didn’t know whether it was the right point in the wedding to object, but surely the congregation would get the gist.

The cathedral was vast, packed to the rafters, and every head swivelled in my direction. At the far end, through an enormous stained glass window, sunlight streamed into the hall. I had arrived at the perfect moment: the wedding was well underway, with every single pew filled. Dignitaries, diplomats and generals, high priests and witches and wizards and useless socialites, all clad in marvellous colours, all stood on their feet, every twitching eye locked on my own blazing pair – hungry for vengeance! Hungry for justice! Hungry for salvation! Hungry for – Astra!

And there she was.

My girl. She stood a hundred feet before me, as beautiful as all the youth that has ever been lost, as kind and tender as a dandelion’s kiss on a summer breeze. She was all in white, a veil over her face, haloed in a ray of golden light. She raised a hand to her mouth as a gasp shook her, and I knew that her body was in that instant filled once more with hope. I was her hope, and she was mine, reunited at last – O, my heart was ablaze!

“My love, I have come to rescue thee!” I cried, laughing as I raced down the aisle toward the altar, past two hundred heads a-gaped and be-hatted.

Then I saw him, too – the wicked Prince Vena, stood beside my beloved, his eyes fixed on me. He was shorter than I had envisaged: twisted, wicked and wreathed in a cloak so impossibly black that it gleamed purple in the light. He looked at me, his mouth ajar, and I knew then that never in his wildest dreams did he imagine I would catch him.

“What are you doing?” he babbled, half a second before I headbutted him off his feet.

As I dove on top of him and began throttling him, I pondered on the possible meaning of this odd utterance.

Surely he should have known precisely what I was doing, given that he had kidnapped my wife and held her hostage for a month and was forcing her to marry him at swordpoint. As I hoisted the evil prince above my head and flung him arse-first through the nearest stained-glass window, I couldn’t help but feel troubled by his words.

The cathedral was silent as I sheathed my sword and straightened my tunic, satisfied that the immediate threat had been vanquished. I turned to Astra then, at last, eager to calm my frantic eyes with the grace of her visage, and soon after for our lips to lock, for our souls to sing once more in perfect harmony. I turned to Astra, but she had vanished. There was just some woman in a white dress wearing a rolled-up veil, staring at me with her mouth open.

“Where… where is Astra?” I asked.

The woman continued to gawp, looking from the man-shaped hole in the window, to me, and back. Something was amiss, it seemed.

Ohhhh.

Oh dear. Ohh shit!

Realising my error, I apologised profusely (and more importantly, quickly) to the bride for defenestrating her husband-to-be, bowed, and hurried away down the aisle before anybody could gather their wits. Heckles began to sail overhead as I scurried towards the door, head down, mumbling apologies. You can imagine the abuse:

“You monster!”

“Who even are you?!”

“Wanker!”

That sort of thing.

But no matter! Bones heal and windows can be mended. My love was so close I could almost hear the rhythm of her heartbeat on the breeze! It was time for action; I would save Astra or be stabbed to bits in the process.

I slung aside the choir boys that had regrouped in an attempt to block my exit, and exploded forth from the cathedral, still trailing one particularly determined young lad from my ankle. I kicked hard and he tumbled away down the stairs to the bottom, whereupon raising my eyes I saw a large group of soldiers assembled. The crest of Bloodroot – what appeared to be a screaming turnip with a knife in it – adorned their armour. They drew their swords as one, and the mob regarded me in cool silence.

“Aye,” I growled, my voice carrying far across the newly-emptied square. It seemed the civilians had sensed battle on the air and fled. A wise choice.

“So this is how it’s to be then, is it? Fifty to one, in the name of love? If that be so, there is only one thing for it.” I curtsied politely and flourished my blade. “En garde one and all, ye sowbreathed pack of chubworth oiks!”

Quietly regretting using the word ‘oiks’, with a roar I sprung from the top step and fell upon the whole festering pack of them, booting and biting like a peasant on swamp salts. In kind, the small army of Bloodrootian soldiers formed a tight circle and began laying into me. Soon I was pinballing around them, shrieking like a spanked hog, being slapped and kicked from all angles. I managed to get a couple of desperate little jabs in, but largely their fists crashed down with impunity. I had to admit, so far my rescue mission was faring terribly. ‘Goodness me,’ I thought to myself as someone planted their foot hard in my arse and I flew across the circle, my head whipping back from the acceleration, ‘I hope Astra doesn’t stumble across me like this. How undignified.’

Just as I was beginning to wonder if the soldiers were ever actually going to stab me or merely nipple-twist me to death over the course of four hours, I heard a scream that, just for a change, hadn’t originated in my own windpipe. I looked up through my bleary, punched-to-ribbons eyes, just in time to see a red flurry dart between the ranks of soldiers, parting limb from owner with the grace of an early spring snowfall. I recognised that shade of red – a feather boa – Selladore!

With a cry of joy I rallied, wresting my head free from the armpit of a hairy soldier and crawling towards my companions. Close behind the pirate was Glob, grim-faced as always, with Edgar sitting atop her shoulders, frowning menacingly. Bringing up the rear came Boomlay, sleeves rolled up past her elbows, a knife between her teeth. As I watched, she took the blade in her hand and shanked a tall officer in the leg. I laughed to see it, impressed. Or at least – I started to laugh, but then somebody stabbed me in the shoulder and the whistle turned into more of an anguished bellow.

My four darling companions battled their way to my aid in the middle of the circle, finding me quite battered and dazed; I later realised, with a quantum of gratitude, that somebody had beaten my already-broken nose so hard that it had actually reset in perfect, regal alignment. Selladore extended a manicured hand to me as I lay on the floor and heaved me to my feet. We exchanged a brief nod, then turned back to the advancing goon squad.

Newly impassioned, I took the fight to the soldiers. The crooked nature of our assembly no doubt worked in our favour; the soldiers had trained all their lives to fight thick-necked, mail-clad soldiers, not a smelly stable girl, not a gibbering old woman, not an angry little worm.

We pushed forward and forced a gap in the circle. Boomlay turned back as we ran and began waving her hands in a strange pattern, and the air around her began to warp and bulge. Selladore grabbed the witch to pull her along with  us, but she batted his hands away.

“They’ll catch us!” she cried, shoeing the pirate off. “You go on ahead, I’ll hold these hooligans here.”

With that, her spell was complete, and the limbs of every single soldier gave out. The entire battalion clattered to the ground as one, where they flopped around yelping in horror. The soldiers groaned and frothed and fumbled, but they could not get up. In a merry flash, the fearsome city watch of Bloodroot had been reduced to a rubbery heap of band-legged man-meat.

“What have you done to them?” asked Selladore.

“Oh, nothing, I’ve just temporarily removed all their bones,” said the witch. “But I can’t hold the spell forever. You must hurry on without me! Rescue your love, King Athelstan – and then pay me my bloody money back!”

But I didn’t hear this because I had already hurried on without her and was fifty metres across the square, sprinting towards the palace.

Well, I say sprinting, but my gonads had taken quite the hammering moments prior, and so perhaps ‘hobbling bow-leggedly’ would lend a more accurate depiction. It wasn’t long before the pirate, the stable girl and the worm caught up to me, and together we hurried across the city.

Before long, we drew up before the castle gates. The drawbridge was still lowered; it seemed word had not yet reached them of our arrival. Our armed approach alerted the guards however, and as we crossed the drawbridge at a cautious pace, the trio of plumed soldiers beat a hasty retreat. Selladore laughed at their cowardice, but something seemed amiss. We advanced slowly, lest there be a trap in place.

“My friends,” I breathed, as we gingerly stepped forward. “I would thank ye one and all for coming to mine aid. Perhaps I was wrong to hurl abuse at that witch whose name I have forgotten, and to ask all of thee to die for me. I see now that true friendship is not demanding all thy companions die horribly in the name of thy love life, but in fact, doing all thou can to ensure that thy friends do not die.”

Selladore clapped me on the back. “Aye, that’s why we’ve come, dear. You’re an idiot, but you’re alright. It’d be a terrible shame to see ye cut to pieces, this close to saving your girl. You can’t ask someone to put themselves in danger for you. You have to earn it.”

“My companions, forgive me. It seems I have been a – what is it my subjects cry at me – a ‘total knob’. I do declare that mine headbrain, as well as mine regal heart, be humbled and most sorry and apologetic also.”

“Bollocks,” said Glob, and I turned to her ready to give her a lecture for being so uncouth at my moment of humble revelation, but then I saw what she was looking at and I too, did curse aloud.