The legend of Martin - "Knight Riders"
Pete told me the legend of Martin. What kind of legend is it? The very same Pete is also a part of it.
Martin from the Land of Castles was ten, when someone in white appeared in his tiny room and gently said: ‘Such Flandern’. They say that night was bright as day: the sky was cut open by fiery winds, dogs howled fearfully in the yards. The visitor could not lie: beautiful was Flanders and its fields abundant. Find Flanders. A spanner became Martin's hand. His father's helmet became martin's head. The car became martin's body. And so Martin became a driver.
For six years Martin burned the doubters with his flamethrower. For six years he slashed the dissenters with blades — violently, brutally and merrily. For six years his simply-called ‘Wagen’ was rammed, mangled, deprived of wheels and weapons and blown up — to teach the boy. Martin learned. No more teachers were left standing.
Older boys were afraid of him, but those old enough to be his parents soon began to accept him as an equal. And Martin would have been an ordinary raider if it weren't for August Donner. August quickly saw a future leader in the boy, and became his mechanic. And at the same time, he brought many experienced drivers to Martin.
A sixteen-year-old Martin gathered an army under the white cross. Formidable drivers of perfect machines. Knights of the White Cross. Knechte. The First Expedition. Such Flandern.
Psycho Pete was the first to be visited by foreigners from Castle Country. Lunatics were circling around the Knights like vultures. There was no shooting. Martin, calm and collected, climbed out of the car with a banner and waited for the leader. Pete rode up to him and started shaking with laughter — a bit from the boy's self-importance, a bit more from Fireblood he'd taken before departure. The boy pulled his hand and looked him in the eye. Fireblood all but evaporated. The two leaders disappeared in the ‘Wagen’ and were not seen for twenty minutes — an eternity. And then the ‘Wagen’ doors swung open, and they both emerged — at the same time, so no one could suspect that one had killed the other.
The Lunatics retreated. Knechte continued on their way through our lands.
Inside the ‘Wagen’ Pete learned who Martin was. But why let the army go, he never said. Everyone knows that Pete was only afraid of death — that's why he's so mad. But, in the words of metallic singer Sokol, who heard the legend from me, ‘Rage of a maniac was killed by a sixteen-year-old piece of granite.’