Let Slip The Princesses of War

by David Schenck

  We’ll never know! Because the next day we found the cave! And found is the right word. At this point we were just randomly entering caves and waiting to see if Albert got the right ‘feel’. He got the right feel, more than you would expect, in the wrong caves, but finally he had the right feel and after an hour of ‘I can feel it!’ And ‘We’re getting closer!’ he found a cache of food! Apparently this happened all the time, so the dwarves hid food and water in the right cave, so that their half-dead kin could make it home alive.

  The food, some kind of twelve year-old stale biscuit, was the best thing I’d ever eaten! On a scale of goblin to ten, I’d give it a ten!

  “Ok.” Albert said, fixing his head lamp back on his head, as we relaxed after having eaten our fill. “It should be smooth sailing from here on out. Er, until we come to the part with the dragon and the fiery death.”

  Beauty rattled her sword in its sheath. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll all be wearing dragon-hide boot this time next year.” Little known fact: Dragon-hide needs a year to cure before it can be made into leather. I was surprised that Beauty knew that.

  We loaded the rest of the biscuits and water into our packs and Albert led the way. Now that we were in the right cave and well fed, Albert seemed more capable. He identified all the traps for the unwary and led us safely into the heart of the mountain.

  We stopped at a crossroads (crosscaves? crosstunnels?). “That way leads to the castle and the dragon and the evil queen and almost certain death.” Albert pointed at one passage. “This way, leads to the sea, where there should be boats provisioned and ready to go. You know, just to give you the option.”

  “So, this way to the Magic Mirror.” Said Beauty, striding forward.

  There was almost no warning, just a slight tremble, almost imperceptible, and then the tunnel wall crumbled and a giant circular mouth, lined with concentric rows of teeth came at us. We ran, of course. The Colossal Blind Rock Worm is known to be invincible.

  “The fuck Albert?” I shouted as the full length of the Worm piled into the tunnel. “You said, Dragon! You said spiked deadfalls, poison darts, giant rolling stone balls and pits of snakes! You didn’t say a gad damned thing about a Rock Worm! Are you trying to get us killed?!”

  But Albert was too busy pumping his dwarf legs to answer. The Worms, although proof against fire, blades, poison, explosions and suffocation, aren’t particularly fast. But, they are also tireless. That meant that, eventually, it would catch us and eat us. It was just a matter of time.

  “Down here!” Albert yelled. Indicating a side tunnel. Beauty and I were well ahead of him so we had to backtrack to reach his tunnel. Albert waited for us at the mouth of the tunnel and waved us on with a warning to stay to the left side. He followed us a ways, then he stopped. The Worm had followed us into the tunnel. Albert waited, more or less, calmly for the Worm. I wondered if he was planning to sacrifice himself. Maybe I should have stopped him. But as the Worm approached, Albert casually kicked a pebble sending it into a hidden switch that opened a giant hole in the cavern floor and the surprised Worm dropped out of sight!

  “Albert! You fucking incompetent asshole! That was gorgeous!” Beauty slapped him on the back hard enough that he lost his footing, but not his smile!

  “This way, ladies.” Albert bowed and indicated that we should continue along the passage. There was a congratulatory feeling in the air. It was understandable. When you escape from the unescapable, you feel good. The feeling even survived Albert leading us into a dead-end. It did not, however, survive the sudden reappearance of the Worm.

  So, there we were, backs against a wall of solid rock, the Worm swaying above us, teeth dripping rock dissolving (and I assume flesh dissolving) acid, prepared to die, when, with a pop, Dayton Mako stood before us. Shuffling his pack of cards, toothpick in his mouth, a fedora, with a feather, on his head and I think I caught a whiff of cologne.

  Mako gave a slight bow, “Princess Beauty! I could not help but notice your difficult situation.” A drop of acid fell on Mako, but passed right through him, doing no damage. “I would like to offer my services.”

  “What are you going to do?” Beauty asked. “Lose a card game?”

  Mako looked hurt. “No, my princess. I can make the Worm retreat.”

  Beauty shrugged, like it made no difference to her if the Worm stayed or not. “So, do it.”

  “If I were to, ahem, assist you in this way, do you think your gratitude might extend so far as to consent to, um, dinner with me?” He stammered.

  A date! This fucking insubstantial demon gambler picks this moment to ask Beauty on a date?

  “No.” Beauty replied.

  “The fuck woman!” Shouted Albert. “This nice, and might I add handsome, gentleman, snappy dresser too, will make the Worm go away and all you have to do is go on a simple date. Or would you rather be worm food.”

  Beauty pushed Albert aside and looked Dayton Mako in the eye. “Listen. Dates with me are not a bargaining chip. I date who I want. Generally, after I’ve known them for a while. That one time, I did married a guy who rescued me, but it was a One-Time-Thing. So, if you want to make the monster go bye-bye and after that take some time and get to know me and see what develops, great. But if you want some kind of sexual quid pro quo, forget it. I’ll take my chances with the Worm.” Then she turned to me. “I’ve heard that they have a spot on top of the head that might be vulnerable, like a fontanel or something.”

  Now, I didn’t want to die, but I had to respect her integrity. Albert was about to interrupt, and probably save the Worm the trouble of killing him, when Mako smiled widely, showing a row of pointy teeth only slightly less impressive than the Worm’s, and rose in the air to talk to the Worm. Seconds later, the Worm backed up, opened his mouth even wider and burrowed into the cave floor. As its tail disappeared, it sealed the hole behind it, leaving no trace of its passage.

  Mako returned to ground level and bowed again.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  “A gambler never tells.” He paused for a moment. “Nah, I’m just fucking with you. It was easy, really. Colossal Blind Rock Worms are inveterate gamblers. They can’t resist a wager. I simply bet him, earlier, that Princess Beauty would refuse my offer of salvation in exchange for a date. Thank you for the win.” He tipped his fedora to Beauty. “I’m a gambler too and I am willing to bet that once you get to know me, you’ll find me charming.” He flashed her a smile and disappeared.

  “He does have a certain style.” Beauty mused, almost to herself. “But that hat would have to go.”

  “So, Albert.” I said, conversationally, “Any other invincible monsters lurking about that you forgot to mention? Humm?”

  “I didn’t know! How was I supposed to know?! I haven’t been here in years. It’s not like Mallory sends me monthly updates! She also redecorates the castle without my approval!”

  “He has a point.” Beauty broke in. “We’ll just have to assume that Albert’s information is, at least, a little out-of-date. Anyway, no harm done.”

  I moved to Beauty’s side and pulled her chin down so I could see the top of her head and began feeling carefully.

  “What the hell are you doing, Rae?”

  “I’m checking your head for bumps. I think you might have a concussion or something.”

  She batted my hand away. “Fuck you Rae.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I’m not going to bore you with the detail of the dragon killing. I mean, we’ve all killed dragons. It’s no big deal.

  Except this time it was a BIG FUCKING DEAL!!

  Ok, so, we reach the part of the mines were the dragon is. And it’s a big dragon. I mean, we can’t see him yet, but we can hear him and we can smell him and he smells fucking huge! Sounds big too.

  So he’s bellowing in the depths of the mines, there is nothing subtle about this dragon, and, of course, we are heading right to him. As you can imagine, we come within sight of the dragon’s guard post, we can see t
he dull glow of his belly, we can smell the burning rock, we can feel the heat. Beauty, loosens her sword in its sheath. Somehow she’s got a shield and a helmet. She looks like a dragon slayer. I mean she is a dragon slayer. Maybe the best in the world. Maybe the best the world has ever seen.

  So, she’s all armored up. There isn’t even a discussion about it. Dragon, Beauty quod erat demonstrandum. She marches into the tunnel, sword out, shield up. From our position, just outside the tunnel, we can hear them. The dragon bellows, Beauty shouts, flame flows, there is clanging and ringing. All the sounds you’d expect, and nothing you wouldn’t expect, until I hear a faint ‘Help!’ I look at Albert to see if he’s heard it too. But he’s doesn’t look at me, he’s fixated on the tunnel. Then I hear it again. ‘Help!’ Louder. “Albert? Do dragons yell for help?”

  “The fuck I know? They speak Greek for all I care.”

  “Well, it’s just that I think I heard someone yell ‘Help!’ and maybe it’s the dragon. It couldn’t be Beauty. Could it?”

  Albert shrugged. “Not fucking likely.”

  “Maybe I’ll just go check.” So, rule one of fighting a dragon in a tunnel is one person at a time. The tunnel is narrow and you need room to maneuver. So, me going to check is just going to make Beauty angry, justifiably angry. Unless… Unless, she actually needs help. I mean, stranger things have happened. I can’t, right now, think of any, but I’m sure stranger things have happened.

  So, I enter the tunnel. I round a bend and I can see them in the distance. The dragon, all green and blue and sparking and Beauty silhouetted in pure black. They’re fighting, the dragon with flame and claw, and Beauty with her shield and sword. The dragon swings his head at Beauty and she meets it with a savage slash and flays his right nostril. Black blood splashes and burns, but Beauty stands firm. Too firm. She should be dancing, jumping, something. But she just stands there. The Dragon too. It’s a weird fight, nobody’s moving. I get closer and I can see why. The dragon has his foot over Beauty’s, a claw piercing her foot and pinning her in place. The dragon can’t move either, because if he stops occupying her sword hand, she’ll lop off his foot. It’s kind of a stalemate, but the perfect opening for a third party. Beauty is immobile, so I don’t have to worry about getting in her way. I lash at the dragon. He doesn’t even seem to notice as my whip wraps around his throat. I start to squeeze. It’s just a waiting game now. At any moment, he’ll start to suffocate and claw at his throat and die. Except he doesn’t. I squeeze harder, but nothing. I pull back, and I lash again. His mouth is open and I push right down his throat. The goal is find something vital and yank it out, but I can’t find anything. It’s all smooth and slippery.

  The battle keeps going, while I search for a way to kill the dragon. He spews flame, with my whip down his throat and I feel it! My hair isn’t like your hair, it’s alive and it’s part of me in a way that regular hair isn’t. It burns and I yelp and pull back as quick as I can! The tunnel fills with the smell of burnt hair. I examine my whip. A little singed, but still functional. I think about catching his other foot, pulling him off balance, but he’s got that claw in Beauty’s foot and I don’t want to hurt her. He opens his mouth to try and burn Beauty again and I see my chance. I lash at him, fast as I can and wrap his mouth and slam it closed. The flame he intended for Beauty spills out the sides of his mouth, out his nose, but it’s too much. Only a little can escape and the rest fries his brain. He drops dead at her feet.

  Maybe you missed the important part, so I’m going to say it again: I fucking saved Beauty! Greatest fighter in the blah blah and I saved her ass! Right? I mean, she was doomed, and I waltzed right in and saved the day! Saved the whole fucking year! I did it!

  So, I did my little victory dance, while Beauty was still pinned to the floor, you know, behind her back.

  “You need any more help?” I asked her as she sawed away at the dragon’s toe.

  “I’m good, thanks.” She called back. And a few seconds later she had the toe off the dragon and she turned to face me. The claw was still in her foot and it had to hurt, but she walked back to where Albert was waiting with almost no change in gait.

  “What the fuck is that?!” Albert had, apparently, never seen a dragon claw in a foot before.

  “What’s it look like you dumb fucking dwarf? It’s a dragon’s claw in my foot!” Then she sat down and slowly worked the claw out of her foot. She pulled off her boot and wrapped her foot in some bandages. I don’t know where she got the bandages, maybe it’s not so easy to separate a girl from her favorite bandages.

  CHAPTER 16

  “The throne room is on the other side of this wall” Albert whispered, patting the wall gently. From nowhere he whipped out a small oil can and carefully examining the solid rock he deposited precise drops of oil in several places. “Ok. When the moment is right, you push here and pull here and the door’ll open, you go in, get the mirror and we’re on our way!”

  “How will we know when the moment is right?” I asked him. Trying to remember exactly how he said to push and pull on the door, which was in no way differentiated from the rest of the wall.

  Albert walked a few feet away, jumped up on a little ledge and took a black cloth from his pocket and carefully cleaned part of the wall. It gleamed in the dim light and almost seemed to glow. “This is a view port. This is optical quality quartz that ends in a wide-angle pin-point lens. The image is a bit distorted, but you can see almost the entire throne room from here.” He jumped down and ran over to another little ledge. “And from here you can see the rest. I’m going to go try to restart the forge. If I can, as unlikely as it seems, we might just have a chance. If not, I highly recommend that we take a boat and get the hell out while we can. Just my opinion!” He added hastily as a flash of anger crossed Beauty’s face. Her earlier good mood had vanished after the Great Dragon Battle of ’81 (that’s what we’re calling it now).

  Beauty walked over to a quartz vein and put her eye to it. Not being a dwarf, she didn’t need to use the ledge. “And Mallory doesn’t know about all this? The door? The view ports?” Beauty seemed skeptical.

  “We dwarves have our tricks too.” Albert raised his bushy eyebrows in a way that I guess indicated trickiness.

  I put my eye to the other quartz vein. It was pretty incredible! I could see everything, just like I was sitting on a rafter above the throne room. I can see it, the Magic Mirror. Standing next to the throne, like a consort.

  “How long will the casket take?” Beauty asked.

  “IF I can start the forge, figure four days. A day to heat the forge, two days to mix the glass, make the molds and pour the casket and a day to cool and temper.”

  Beauty nodded to me. “That’s fine. We’ll need at least that long to figure the traffic pattern in the throne room.”

  You want to talk boring? Talk about standing for hours on end with your eye pressed to a little piece of polished rock watching people come and go in a big room.

  You want to talk exciting? Talk about after three days of horrible terrible boredom, watching the witch who took everything from you, the witch who killed your husband and your daughter, the witch who stole your kingdom, the witch who took your son and turned him against you, walk in, just feet away, and sit her ass on her throne.

  I wanted to open the secret door and rush in and take off her head and crap in the opening in her neck and slash open her belly and finger paint with her blood. And then, I wanted to do disrespectful things with her body.

  I looked at Beauty and I could see her struggling with similar desires.

  But we knew better. If we rushed in, we would be no match for Mallory. She would capture us or kill us and everything would be lost. So, we watched and we waited and we planned.

  Days pass. We don’t see Albert at all. I know we’re both worried that he’s abandoned us, or worse, but we don’t talk about it. We make careful notes. When there are people in the throne room. When it’s empty. For how long. Functionaries, Mallory. It’s not
a straight line. It’s not like a bank with regular hours of operation. Mallory comes when she wants. There are people in and out at all hours of the day. The only good thing is that there are no guard patrols. Nobody comes into the throne room just to check on things. When the room isn’t in use, it’s empty. It’s almost too good to be true. But this is what we’ve always heard about Mallory. Overconfident. It’s her great failing. We hope.

  You want to talk crazy? Talk about watching the woman who betrayed you walk in and kneel before the witch she betrayed you to.

  You want to talk really crazy? I mean really crazy? Talk about your son. Your only living child, who hates you, walking in and kneeling beside her. The three most important loves and hates in your life together just on the other side of the rock.

  So, I don’t know how it happens. It’s the worst possible time. Literally ANY other time would be better. But there it is. Remember the door in the rock, the door that’s not even really there, the door with the complicated opening process?

  That door is open.

  Beauty has some theory, about how I lost control and opened the door and rushed into the throne room, whip flailing. But I don’t remember it like that.

  So, the door is open and we rush in. Me first, with Beauty at my heels. In the throne room there’s pandemonium. There’s just a handful of guards. Why bother when Mallory, herself, is so powerful. Who could guard her? But Jinjur is there and Flynn is there. Beauty, knows her part. She attacks the guards and leaves Jinjur for me. But first I have to deal with Flynn. I can’t take the chance that he’ll be hurt.

  I look around. There’s chaos everywhere. Only Mallory is calm. Still seated on her throne. A cold smile on her lips. So, there is only one thing I can think of. I lash at Flynn and wrap him tight. Then, I pick him up. He’s lighter than I expected, even with the help of my whip. I twirl him over my head and throw him up to the giant beam that crosses the room high overhead. But I want him to stay there. To be safe. So, I let go of my whip and it wraps him tight to the beam.