Speech Increased To 2.5

by EdBoii

Battle of Hollow Shades Part 5

The Battle of Hollow Shades Part 5
Speech Increased To 2.5

---

Elsewhere on the field, the Great Grandmaster of the Knights of Toad swung his mighty tongue-mace in a wide arc and clobbered a half-dozen mudcrabs into paste with it. His war-opossums were all around him, unshackled from his throne, and set loose upon the enemy. They hissed! with mighty glee as they pried open the carapaces of the mudcrabs to feast on the fleshy insides, and made much slaughter wherever they tread.

All beside him, his most trusted knights continued the fight through their losses. Many toads lay slain all around, and death had spared neither peasant nor noble. In grief they had carried away the Earls of Frogsworth and Cantertoady from the battle, bloodied and unconscious. Though they held hope, they knew that the Duke of Wartswith would not survive the hour.

Many opossums and skunks had perished as well, and their riders fought on through their grief in their name. So that Fluffy and Cuddles the Raccoon would never be forgotten, they screamed their names as they waded into the mudcrab tide.

So much destruction... but now the Great Grandmaster had seen the evil of the Machine at work. Now he knew that their cause was worthy.

*Ribbit!* he croaked, and rallied his mighty knights to him. For it was time. *Ribbit!* and to the Machine! To end its hellish domain over the town of Hollow Shades and its swamplands! Honor and glory, death or victory to toadkind!

And they pressed on and drove a bloody wedge into the heart of the Mayor’s army, across the ashen glade and within tongue-lashing distance of the Machine’s unholy glow... and there, as the Great Grandmaster lifted his eyes to the Machine, the first of the horkers stormed through the mudcrab lines...

*Ribbit! Ribbit!* the great leader of toadkind croaked at his commanders and brave captains, to hold together and beat back this new unearthly tide... but the might of the horker would not be denied. The blubbery ones tore into their lines with a ferocity unseen since the great crocodile wars of 1227 BTE.

Titanic and unmatched in weight and girth, they used their tusks to gore and tear apart the front lines of brave toad knights, and the sheer power of their presence sent the lesser toads-at-arms into a rout. On the backs of the horkers were mudcrabs, too, and they leapt down onto the chaos the horkers left in their wake, to crush any hope of rallying the battle lines.

The Great Grandmaster watched in shock, even as his companions croaked and nudged at him to retreat.

He never saw the great White Horker approach...

Its advance was marked by a terrible rumble deep in the earth, and the sound of its mighty rolls of blubber as they scraped against the ashen dirt. It broke through the scattered mudcrabs with ease, and shoved aside its horker brethren like so many stalks of wheat. Unstoppable, the White Horker lowered its mighty tusks and pierced through Sir Leapylegs’ and Sir Jumpy’s armor. The two great knights struggled feebly for a moment but soon fell still.

Then it roared! and there were none who could resist. Knights and lords, opossums, raccoons, frogs, and skunks all turned and fled. The great army of toadkind was on the run.

All but one.

The White Horker looked down to find a lone warrior who still stood. The Great Grandmaster of the Knights of Toad held his ground and looked on the fell beast with passive, inexpressive, and valorous eyes.

*Ribbit* he said, and battle was joined.

***

On the far flank of the battlefield, our valorous toad saw the army of kin crumble and break, and the Great Grandmaster as he entered combat with the indomitable beast. His insides tightened and fear took hold of his amphibious heart, for he knew the day would be surely lost if he did not act soon.

*Ribbit!* he cried, and the exhausted mares at his side turned to look at him with shock.

“You can’t be serious!” Juniper had to shout to be heard over the din of battle. All around them a surviving detachment of frogs and toads had rallied to our brave heroes, to try and win back the flank and secure a safe retreat for the rest of the army.

“You can’t do it alone!” Jelly Squish hugged the toad to her gooey chest as tears pooled in her eyes. “I won’t lose you again. I can’t!”

*Ribbit* the toad of valiance replied. For as much as it pained him, such was the state of the battle that if he did nothing, they would all be lost.

Jelly Squish said nothing. She feared that if she let go he might disappear and never come back. That the world might lose all color and scent, and all her days from then on would be gray and empty, like a great stretch of road in the dead of night, that she must walk alone until the end of all things. She held him in her hooves and felt the slime of his body against her own, and the quiet beat of his heart over the sound of her sobs.

But she also knew that he was right.

*Ribbit*

She shuddered. But little by little her hooves let go of her love, and through the tears in her eyes, she managed a smile.

“Please promise you’ll come back...” she said, and her valiant knight nodded.

And he leapt away, into the fray and madness of combat, to aid the Great Grandmaster and bring down the terrible beast. For his kin, for his friends, and for the mare he loved.

Into battle!

Alas, he never reached him. Dark wings extended over the battlefield, and the sound of armored hooves as they cut through the wind reached our brave hero but a moment too late. From the darkened skies descended the mayor’s lackeys, a dozen bat ponies robed in midnight-cloaks. They crashed into the field with the power of gravity and their own wingpower, and wrought such havok as was before unknown to toadkind.

And our hero was their first target.

“Midflight! Down there!” the Mayor’s voice broke through the air as he waved an invisible hoof towards our valiant toad. Midflight Indigo, the leader of the bat ponies, ignored his master’s frantic pointing and dove down hard for the largest, most powerful, and most handsome toad he could see, for surely that must be their leader.

He was right. Midflight aimed his armored hoof and fell upon our brave toad like a meteorite. Locked in melee with a dozen mudcrabs, the great toad could do little more than glance up at the incoming pony before the inevitable impact.

“NO!” Jelly Squish screamed, held back by Juniper’s hooves as a dust cloud rose over the battlefield from the sheer power of the impact. The sound of it had hit them like a detonation, powerful enough to send the smaller frogs reeling and stumbling. Even the mudcrabs halted in their assault.

And when that dust eventually settled, a single bat pony took to the skies once more, to search for his next target. He left little in his wake... only a small crater, with the still body of a brave toad.

Author's Note:

F

Comments

[EdBoii]

10608256
Thanks! Super glad you're enjoying it!

10607911
YAAAH!

10607923
I'm very glad to hear that! Thanks a ton!

10608348

10608414
A very *Ribbit!* speech!

10608842

10609294
BOTH?!

[Lucerna]

Cuddles the Coon

It's obvious you are using it as short for raccoon, but incase you are unaware, that third word there is a racial slur for black people, similar to the n-word. So yeah.

Otherwise great chapter. Keep up the good work.

[EdBoii]

10609526
AWW HECK NAW.

Very sorry. I'm not American and English isn't my first language, so this stuff happens.

EDIT: I've fixed it! Deepest apologies if anyone caught that before I had the chance to edit it out.

[Lucerna]

10609533
Totally understand. It was an accident. Trying to talk about raccoons and accidentally saying racial slurs. Happens to the best of us.

And I'm relatively sure there's a pretty large percent of Americans who don't even know that it is a slur. At least, I didn't know until like 2 years ago.

[EdBoii]

10609557
I got the word from South Park! I thought it was just a short way of saying it... but of course, South Park being South Park, there was subtext to it... The more you know!

[EdBoii]

What in the...? Did I accidentally unpublish this? UGH. Sorry, everyone. Way to start the new year! Mistakes upon mistakes...

[Venerable Ro]

F

[HiddenEntity]

No...

[Linkonpark100]

64.media.tumblr.com/679f0907954851aa0ef92d49fe9432e4/tumblr_ouw62t3ueK1wsmahjo1_1280.jpg

RIBBIT

[sykko]

Horkers to the front of them! Mudcrabs to the left of them! Thestrals to the right! Ribbit and hop!

[Rudy45]

F