Let Slip The Princesses of War

by David Schenck

  “Look, Albert, nobody is going to kill you.” I said

  “I’m fucking going to kill him!” shouted Beauty.

  “I deserve it.” He managed through his tears. “Just do it!”

  I put my hand on his head, then pulled it back when he cried in pain. I wiped my bloody hand on his shirt (I mean it was already ruined). “It’s Ok Albert. You don’t deserve to die and you don’t have to, but we’ve got this mission and we rescued you because we need your help and, well, we can’t take no for an answer.”

  “Just kill me.” He moaned. “I do deserve it! I do! I killed them all!” He reached for the dagger at his belt and I think he planned to cut his own throat, but I grabbed his hand, weak from Beauty’s beating, and took it from him.

  “Who did you kill?” I asked him.

  “No! Just kill me! Please!”

  I slapped him, lightly, on the face, and then wiped my bloody hand on his shirt again (he really was going to need a new shirt). “Look at me Albert. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “No! I killed them all! All the dwarves! My brothers!” Then as if just saying it was a relief, he suddenly became coherent. “She came to me. I should have known that something was wrong, but the Magic Mirror is one of the great dwarven relics of old. This was my chance, you know? My chance to show them I could do something great. The mirror, physically isn’t anything special. Pretty much anybody could cast the mirror,” He looked at Beauty and me, “Well, not you. But any dwarf. If you had the shards, the glass of Robert, that part was simple. But the hard part was binding the Slave of the Mirror. It’s not really a slave, it’s more like an indentured servant. And, well…” He began to cry again. “Well, the hard part is the contract! I could finally do something, show them all that a lawyer could make a difference! Then once I’d made her the mirror, the first thing she did was use it to find and kill all the dwarves! I killed them all!”

  I stroked his bloody face. “You didn’t kill them. Mallory did! Yes, you were a stupid fuck. A fucking stupid fuck, but you can’t blame yourself. You underestimated her evil. Hell, the whole fucking world did the same.”

  He sniffed and blew his nose and then yelled in pain as he remembered that Beauty broke it. “Do you really think it’s not my fault? I was a stupid fuck. But maybe, occasionally, so is everybody?”

  “I do think it’s not your fault (it was so completely his fault! But I needed his help.). This is all on Mallory. And it’s not too late to make a difference. Help us fight back against Mallory. Help us defeat her. Help us kill her.”

  An odd look crossed Albert’s bloody face. “I will.” He whispered. “I will.” He said. “I will!” he shouted. Then in a whisper he added, “Just don’t let her hit me anymore.”

  I put my hand on his hand, “Oh Albert, I can’t promise that. But, if you are honest and loyal and brave and don’t say or do anything stupid or get on her bad side or piss her off, there is a pretty good chance that she won’t hit you…much.”

  Albert, hung his head. “I can’t do all that! She’s going to kill me.” Then, quieter, “It’s OK, I deserve it.”

  And he did deserve it. And I was certainly planning to let Beauty kill him as soon as we got our hands on the Magic Mirror.

  “Ok, Albert, let’s start over. Our mission is to steal the Magic Mirror and we need your help. Sounds like you know all about it. So, let’s make a plan.”

  Albert’s hand moved weakly to take the dagger from me, but I think it was some kind of sick joke. I helped him sit up, and got him a little cleaned up, got most of his bleeding under control and dusted off the piece of his scalp and tied it back on top of his head (I thought it would die there, but somehow it grew back together and after a few days you could hardly notice it.). Then we squatted down in the bloody mud hidden behind a heap of monstrous corpses and made plans for the theft of the century (maybe several centuries).

  “The Mirror is kept in the throne room of Mallory’s castle in the heart of The Dwarven Country. The castle sits right over the mines where the sands of Robert were mined. The Mirror is stronger there. One of Mallory’s greatest mistakes was taking the Mirror away from the mines. She won’t make the same mistake twice. The good news is that we can use the mines to get close to the castle, nobody except a dwarf could find his way through the mines and since there are no more dwarves, except me, I doubt they’ll be heavily guarded. The bad news is that Mallory isn’t stupid she put a spell-bound dragon to watch the mines, so they’re not heavily guarded, but still well-guarded.” Albert looked at Beauty as if he was afraid to admit it, but he continued. “I’ve got a healthy fear of dragons, and this dragon knows dwarf scent. As soon as we get within a few miles of the mines, he’ll know it. So, there’ll be no sneaking in unnoticed. Somebody,” And he looked at Beauty again, “will have to kill it (Editorial Comment: I’ve killed my share of dragons. More than my share.). Once the dragon is dead and we’re inside the mines then it’s just the standard sorts of traps for the unwary; spiked deadfalls, poison darts, giant rolling stone balls, pits of snakes, you know. Nothing we can’t handle. So that’s the easy part and the part I can help you with. I can get you right up to the throne room, but then it’s up to you two to, somehow, get into the throne room, without getting killed, steal the Mirror without getting killed and get away without getting killed. There’s one more thing, once we get to the mines, if I can restart the forge, I can make a glass casket.”

  Beauty interrupted (I think long explanations bore her), “If you make me kill you, your body won’t be pretty enough for a glass casket.”

  Albert gave Beauty a smirk. “The glass casket isn’t for me. It’s for the Mirror. Once you steal it, it’ll begin to scream. Mallory will hear it no matter where she is, and come looking for it. The glass casket will keep it quiet until we can get it back to Snow White. And once I put it in the glass casket, nobody except a dwarf can open it. Not even Mallory.” Beauty gave him a doubtful look, “Well, probably not.” Beauty kept looking at him. “Maybe not. Oh for the fucks sake! Who knows? All I know is once it’s in the casket, supposedly, you need a dwarf to get it out! Ok?”

  I could see what he was doing. He was making himself necessary, at least until we got the Magic Mirror back to Ms. White. And then, well, he’d have her protection. But, what could we do? He did seem necessary. And once we got back he’d be her problem. Unless, of course, Beauty defeated Ms. White in combat (and really what other outcome could there be?); then, I wouldn’t want to be the dwarf. Not that I’d ever want to be the dwarf. I don’t look good in a beard.

  So, we hiked to the nearest road and waylaid the first mounted group that passed our way and we rode north. Always north. Into the cold mountains of the Dwarf Country. It was a long hard ride and there was a fair amount of killing along the way. Once we reached the foothills, there were no farms anymore so food was scarce. Turns out hunting is a completely different skill than fighting. Beauty and I both tried to catch some of the local rabbits and birds, and we were both shamefully bested.

  Albert had recovered well from his wounds, although his spirits were low.

  I pulled my horse up alongside his. “It must feel good to be going home.”

  “It’s not my home.” He complained. “I’ve only be there a few times. I was born and raised and lived my whole life in Snow White’s country.”

  “What were dwarves doing way down there, so far away from Dwarf Country?”

  “Dwarf Country is a human concept. We dwarves live underground. We see the whole world as Dwarf Country. At least the part underground. My family followed a gem seam down there before I was born.”

  Beauty rode up alongside us. “Goblins ahead. Must be a patrol. There’s just six of them. On foot.”

  “How do you know? I don’t hear anything.” Asked Albert. Beauty quieted him with a look.

  We dismounted and hid the horses off the path. I felt bad, but I had to tie Albert to a rock. I didn’t feel like I could trust him.

  Beau
ty and I spread out alongside the path. When the goblins passed, she jumped out in front and I from behind. The fight lasted less than three minutes.

  After the fight, as always, we pulled the bodies off the road and did our best to clean up, so that a casual observer wouldn’t raise the alarm. We’d been lucky up to now. Apparently, Mallory was too busy to look in the Magic Mirror and send an army. But, we didn’t want any more mundane factors to give away our location and our destination.

  Beauty pulled the bodies off the roadway as I covered the bloody ground with fresh sand. Having done my part, I was surprised that Beauty hadn’t returned. I wasn’t worried, but I went looking for her. I found her hacking off one of the goblin’s legs. Behind her was a small stack of legs.

  “This is a hell of a time to start collecting souvenirs. And if you have to, ears fit better in the saddle bag.” I deadpanned, afraid of the only logical explanation.

  “They’re not souvenirs.” She deadpanned right back. “They’re dinner.”

  And there is was. “I’m not eating that, them, whatever. I’m not eating it.”

  Beauty shrugged her indifference. “Fine. Starve. Fail. Albert and I will do our best to finish the mission without you. If you’re too squeamish to survive, you don’t deserve to survive.”

  That smug fucking bitch! The only thing I hate worse than a smug fucking bitch is a smug fucking bitch who’s right.

  So, that night, we build a small fire, hidden in a cave, of course, and we ate one leg roasted, while Beauty smoke cured the others in strips. I barely choked my portion down, but Beauty and Albert ate it like chicken. I don’t know what my problem was. I did eat chicken, and they were no less alive than a goblin. I killed goblins and never really thought much about it. But eating them was something different. If I’m honest about it, the goblin didn’t taste too bad. But, even though we ate goblin, and pretty much nothing but goblin, for days, I never got used it. Even now, I get a little queasy thinking about it.

  We passed out of the foothills and into the mountains and over the mountains and saw no more signs of pursuit or patrols. We crossed the Einhorn Pass in the night and watched the sunrise on the Dwarf Country. Mallory’s castle was visible in the distance. It was an impressive sight. The castle was sited on top of the highest mountain, but it wasn’t built there, instead, the entire mountain top was carved into the form of the castle.

  “Did dwarves build the castle?” I asked Albert as we sat dangling our legs over the edge of a high ledge.

  “We did. Long ago, before we knew what she was, Mallory came to us and we made a trade. She taught us magical ways to work with metals and gems and we built her the castle on the mountain and gave her sovereignty over the Dwarf Country. Just the above ground part, obviously. But it was an uncomfortable marriage from the beginning. She was always jealous of the precious gems and metals we dug out of the ground and she demanded a tax, we, of course, refused. It was a demand tantamount to tribute, to a surrender of sovereignty. Eventually, she cut off all overland travel to the Dwarf Country. Economically it was a disaster. Using the new techniques, we could make fabulous objects, but we couldn’t sell them. It was, partially, as a result of the embargo that my family headed south, eventually into Snow White’s country. We also started projects to dig entrances to our caverns from outside the Dwarf Country. Mallory objected. That started the first Dwarven war. She beat us. The Magic Mirror was part of the surrender terms. Ancient history. We’d been at peace for hundreds of years when she asked me to recast the mirror.” He shrugged. “I knew she wasn’t a saint. I mean who is? What did I care for her arguments with the rest of you? Knowing what I know now, I’d refuse her. But knowing what I knew then, I’d most likely do it again. I guess I’m smarter but no wiser.”

  Beauty came up alongside us and stretched her arms to indicate the wide lands. “You’re telling me that there’s not a single dwarf in the Dwarf Country?”

  Albert looked down. “Except for me, not a one.”

  “How is that possible? How could she wipe out an entire species?” Beauty pressed on, despite my ‘shut the fuck up’ look, sometimes you need that verbal twenty percent.

  I thought Albert was going to break down, but he just said, “Well, there never were many dwarves to begin with. Maybe eight hundred here in the Dwarf Country and two or three hundred in the outlands. She’s a dedicated killer.”

  “Why so few?” Beauty wasn’t one for sensitivity.

  “Dwarven reproduction is tricky business at the best of times and outright impossible at anything but the best of times.” Albert said, kicking a rock off the side of the mountain and blushing furiously.

  “Why so tough? I mean, you get a boy dwarf and a girl dwarf and mix and whatnot and you get a baby! Right?” Beauty nudged Albert with her elbow and he almost followed the rock.

  Albert went from embarrassed to angry in a moment, “No! It’s nothing like that! You know nothing about it! The circle of eight is complicated!”

  Circle of eight?! What the fuck was the circle of eight? As in Snow White and seven equals eight?

  “Circle of eight?” I asked him (my sensitivity following the rock off the cliff), “Eight dwarves?” Or seven and…

  “You know what? Fuck you both! If you’re so fucking interested in dwarf sex, you can visit the hall of pornography in the mines. But I’m not going to be your fucking tour guide! You know, I’ll never have sex again…” He trailed off

  Hall of pornography? With dwarves? In groups of eight? The idea was both fabulously repellant and oddly attractive. It was beginning to look like I was never going to have sex again either.

  “Well, I’ve got seven short ugly friends I can introduce you too.” Beauty joked.

  Albert hauled back, his fist balled. I could have stopped him, he was so slow. Beauty must have had even more time to stop him. It’s to her credit that she just stood there waiting for the punch. He hit her hard and low. A viscous uppercut to the gut that lifted her clear off the ground. And tossed her off the mountain.

  “Albert!” I shouted. “Beauty!” I rushed to the edge and looked down, searching for her broken body.

  “Down here!” She called up. She hung against the sheer wall of the mountain supported by two daggers thrust into the rock. As I watched, she pulled one dagger out and thrust it in into the wall six inches higher and began her slow climb. When she reached the edge of the cliff, she swung up, landed on her feet and reached down to retrieve her daggers. “Had these specially made for rock climbing.” She said as they disappeared somewhere about her.

  Meanwhile, Albert was cowering as far from the cliff as possible. Clearly, there could be only one fitting punishment for such an act. Beauty stalked over to Albert and clapped her hand on his shoulder. Albert tried to jerk away, but her grip was unshakable. “Nice shot! I didn’t think you had it in you. Sorry if I was out of line.”

  Albert and I both burst out laughing from relief.

  “How come you have specially made daggers?” I asked her a little later. “You were naked and unequipped when Ben changed you back.” I never missed an opportunity to remind Beauty that my dog saved her. “You know, by pissing on you.” By pissing on her! I hope that the last memory I have before I die is Ben pissing on Beauty!

  She gave me a broad wink. “It’s not so easy to separate a girl from her favorite daggers.” I had then, and I still have, no idea what she meant.

  We headed down the mountain. Although narrow and steep, the path was relatively open and in good condition. It quickly became clear that the horses were more of a hindrance than a help, and much to their relief, we left them on a wide flat area that had a pool of water and looked to have enough vegetation for an extended stay.

  We reached the foot of the mountain without incident, although we must have been readily visible from the castle. In some ways, the lack of response was more unsettling. Where were Mallory’s troops? We were practically on her door step and… nothing.

  The base of the mountain was
riddled with caves. “Most of these are just decoys. They don’t lead anywhere.” Albert told us. “If you aren’t careful you’ll walk in and get lost and die. But this one…” Albert looked around confused. “No, this one… Wait. It’s over here, around this bend. Yes! This is it! Well, I’m pretty sure. I haven’t been this way in a while. Well, let’s give it a try and see.”

  “Wait a minute.” I stopped him. “What happened to pick the wrong one and die?”

  He waved his hand dismissively, “That was mostly for dramatic effect. Anyway, I’m with you. It’ll be fine.”

  It was not fine. We wondered for days, into and out of caves, frequently lost in caves. We ate the last of the goblin and only the tendency of water to pool on the cave floors kept us from dying of thirst. On the third day without food, I woke to find Beauty sitting on a rock, sharpening a knife and looking at Albert. I sat down next to her.

  “I bet he tastes better than goblin.” She stated without preamble.

  “I bet he tastes EXACTLY like goblin.” I told her.

  She shrugged. “He might. Of course, I’d kill for some goblin right now…” She let the thought hang there.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. We can’t eat him. We still need him if we’re going to complete the mission.” I reminded her.

  “We’re not going to complete the mission.” She sighed. “Everything hinges on the stupid dwarf. The only thing he might be good for is to fill our bellies. And he’ll probably manage to fuck that up too.”

  I laughed. “He probably would! Probably give us indigestion! Look. Let’s give it another couple of days. If it really looks like we’re not going to make it. Well… We’ll deal with it then. Ok?” I wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. I mean, I guess at some level she was serious. We ate the goblin and, hell, dwarf isn’t that far from goblin. Still, Albert was, more or less, a member of our party. Maybe not willingly and maybe he wasn’t particularly competent, but still, he was part of the team. I wasn’t sure what I would do. Would I let her kill him? Would I even have a choice? Could I really defend Albert against Beauty? Once he was dead, would I eat him?