Page 79 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

“It’s pronounced Nyle!” Knight Kyle lashed out, ripping off his helmet as if to show Morfran his knightly identity. “Nyle! The K is pronounced like an N! No one ever gets that right!”

“I will never understand names in this kingdom,” Morfran muttered, maneuvering away from a swing and landing a heavy strike on the knight—who took the hit but managed a decently deep slash across the side of Morfran’s rib cage. Pain flared like he’d been scorched by a line of fire, and he stumbled and tripped over the corpse of the other knight.

Knight Kyle grinned nastily, raising his sword. And that was when a flash of pink drew both of their attention to a spot in the yard.

It was Drezella’s pink cloak. The little girl was darting to and fro, from injured rebel to injured rebel like a small, delicate-winged dragonfly over a moat.

To Morfran’s horror, Knight Kyle realized exactly what she was doing. He abandoned his killing blow against Morfran and began to march on her.

“Drezella,” Morfran coughed out, trying to fight through the pain to rise. “Drezella!”

She was oblivious to the knight advancing on her, occupied with a bleeding rebel lying on the cobblestones.

“Drezella!”

The knight raised his weapon, and Drezella turned slightly, seeing the sun’s reflection glint off the sword, seeing the blade as it fell.

The knight flew off his feet like a cannonball had barreled into him. Morfran’s breath was gone from his lungs, disbelief writhing throughout him as he tried to grasp what he’d just witnessed.

Drezella’s gaze fell towards the direction the projectile had been fired from, fastening on a lone figure just a few feet away. A figure that was hulkingly huge, covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe, and dressed in nothing but a loincloth.

It took Morfran a few seconds to recognize him, mainly because he wasn’t equipped with a seventy-foot-long beard. Rapunzo. Gone was his long rope of hair. In its place was a fashionable, trimmed beard not unlike Morfran’s. Randy the Duck sat atop one shoulder and a massive pack was slung over the other. He reached into it to pull out a stuffed bear, holding the critter threateningly like a weapon as he glared down at her.

“Little woman,” he growled.

Drezella stared with wide eyes before her gaze fell to his knees, where there were bleeding scuff marks. Slowly, without removing her gaze, she scooped out her Special Paste and gently swept some on the wounds.

Rapunzo blinked as the paste soothed his scratches. He blinked as the evil little woman continued to stare up at him with her big round eyes. Then he frowned as he lifted his healed knee and looked from it to her. “What did you do?”

“I healed you,” she announced.

“You…healed me?”

Drezella nodded with a proud dip of her chin. “That’s what a Fleet Foot Club member does.”

Slowly, he lowered the stuffed bear. “I shall not kill you then, little woman.”

Morfran had reached their side. The instant Rapunzo saw him, his face lit up like a thousand rising suns. “Bosom brother!” He yanked him into a hug that, like last time, nearly popped his eyes from their sockets, only unlike last time, Morfran was smiling, as well.

“It’s good to see you, too, buddy,” Morfran grunted out. “And out of your tower. I like the new trim, by the way.”

“I used the kit you mailed me, the Handsome Devil Beard Grooming Kit 3000!” Rapunzo beamed, releasing him. “Then I thought about what you told me, so I jumped out of the tower—”

“Really? Wasn’t it, like, four stories high?”

“—and ran here, where everyone said you’d be!”

Morfran blinked. “You ran clear from Atlantis 2.0?”

“It was but a light jaunt.”

“You’re inhuman.”

“Then I joined in the fight against Lord Morfran’s men, and ate some jam, and killed that knight there, and met this little woman.” He gestured to Drezella, who was finishing lathering paste on a nearby rebel and helping him rise. “The small ones aren’t evil, I don’t think.”

“Bernard,” said a slight soldier approaching them, then, with a little bit of confusion and a lot of fear, added, “Rapunzo?”

Rapunzo had that stuffed bear cranked back and ready to launch in .03 seconds flat. Morfran blurted, “Wait! It’s just Bronwen!”