Pretty Pretty Princess

by McKenzie, Shane

  “Tell me, Prince. If I cut off your foot and hung it around my neck,” Gwarp said through clenched teeth, “will it give me good luck?”

  “Quiet,” the Black Knight said over his shoulder. His voice was deep and whispery like steam bubbling from a bog.

  Everyone stopped, all eyes forward, all weapons at the ready.

  Francis held his breath and clung to the fat on Gavin’s back. Blood trickled from his nose and lips, but he didn’t dare move to wipe it away.

  The Black Knight sniffed the air, short shallow bursts at first, then long and hard.

  “Goblins,” he said. “All around us.”

  “I see them,” said the Shadow, and in the next instant, he shot straight up into the air like a marionette being yanked by his puppeteer.

  “Come on, you fuckin’ cowards!” Titan roared, swinging his massive broadsword through the air. The branches around him bent from the wind of the swing, leaves detaching and spinning through the air like dried beetle husks.

  “We feast tonight, brothers,” Wendeego said through a wet grin.

  “We’re about to fuckin’ die,” Gavin said. His tail straightened and balls of feces rolled from his rear, piling up beneath him.

  The trees rustled as if telling one another secrets, and in the next instant, something heavy hit the ground. Then another, and another.

  Bodies. Heavily muscled, the skin as verdant and sheen as a snake’s scales. Every one of them headless.

  A black streak through the air, then a light thump.

  “They are coming,” the Shadow said, holding five goblin heads by their black, coarse hair. The blood was orange and as thick as syrup, dripping from the neck stumps. Though dead, the faces of the severed heads seemed to sneer.

  Francis heard them then. The grunting and roaring and the thunderous sound of their feet stomping the earth as the goblins closed in on the group of knights.

  “Prince,” the Black Knight said as he pulled another sword from the holster at his hip. “Your princess awaits.” He tossed the sword toward Francis just as the first wave of goblins crashed through the trees.

  Francis tried to catch the sword, but his fingers wrapped around the blade as it spun toward him, and he yelped, turned to the side just in time before the blade lodged itself into him. The tip plunged into the dirt and the sword wobbled upright, missing Gavin by a hair.

  Snort!

  Francis hopped, his sliced fingers wedged into his mouth. “Ow! Owowowow!”

  The goblins came at a full sprint from every direction. Their yellow eyes narrowed to slits, rows of teeth like broken glass staked into their black gums dripping with saliva. Each one of them snarled as they stormed forward, holding their curved blades over their hideous heads.

  “That’s it,” Gwarp said. “Come and get it, you slimy cocksuckers!”

  A colossal goblin swung his sword down at Gwarp, but the tiny warrior rolled forward. The sword was planted into the earth, and before the goblin could even attempt to pull it out, Gwarp’s axe was buried deep in its groin, spilling pungent orange blood that reminded Francis of rotting octopus flesh.

  The goblin groaned and snarled. Two green, venous gonads plopped to the ground, and Gwarp stomped his foot down on them. Orange testicle custard sprayed over Gwarp’s boots as he severed the goblin’s leg in one chop, and when the beast fell backward, still bellowing, Gwarp leapt onto its chest and silenced the screams with a sharp edge and a hard swing. The dwarf wasted no time and was racing toward the next enemy before the first goblin had breathed its final gust of air.

  Bodies flailed and thrashed all around them, every man now locked in battle, outnumbered twenty to one. As fierce as the goblins appeared, they were no match for the skilled knights and warriors, their orange blood splashing across the soil and trees.

  Gavin squealed, running circles around a goblin who stabbed the dirt with its spear again and again, growling in frustration as the pig dodged each blow.

  “You won’t stick this pig, ya fucker!” Gavin dashed between the goblin’s legs, then kicked out backward. His hoofs smacked the goblin in the tailbone, sent it sprawling to the dirt. Gavin oinked as he bounded forward, jammed his tusks into the goblin’s throat, and thrashed his head.

  Francis wiped the sweat and tears from his face, spat the blood from his mouth, then leaned over to grasp his sword. There was a whistle and a whoosh of air above him, and just as he looked up and realized he had narrowly avoided being chopped by goblin steel, the creature swung its clawed foot and knocked the air from Francis’s lungs.

  As Francis sucked for oxygen, he rolled over onto his back and stared into a towering goblin’s green face. Its left eye socket was empty, the skin surrounding it heavily scarred and as orange as pumpkin flesh. The right eye was wide and as yellow as a drunkard’s piss. The goblin held its sword with both hands above its head, grinning its dagger teeth down at Francis.

  “No!” Francis searched the ground around him, found the sword, and grabbed it with shaking hands. By the time he had turned to face his attacker again, the goblin’s blade was already swinging downward.

  Francis gasped, gripped the sword’s hilt as tight as he could, and shoved it forward. He clenched his teeth, ready to feel his flesh split apart, ready to watch his innards spill into the dirt.

  When he felt the warmth splash across his face, he was sure it was his own blood.

  He gave it another second, waiting for the inevitable pain to come, and when it didn’t show, he allowed his eyes to crack open.

  The goblin still stood above him, but its head hung loose from its neck. A blade stuck out from the center of its chest, then retracted. Wendeego circled the goblin, his face and mouth already dripping with orange, and bit into the creature’s throat, ripping a chunk of meat away like a starving dog. A long tongue slithered from his mouth, swirled across his lips as he swallowed.

  Francis couldn’t help but scream, the warm goblin blood still raining down on him.

  “Nothing like fresh meat. Fill your belly while you can, Prince.” Wendeego wiped his mouth with his forearm, then spun around another attacker and sunk his teeth and blades into its emerald flesh.

  The goblin’s body slumped forward, impaling itself over Francis’s blade, its weight pushing it slowly down the sword with Francis pinned underneath, unable to free himself. The goblin slid all the way down to the hilt, its slimy viscera oozing out and across Francis’s belly like skinless, lubricated snakes.

  The hilt of the sword pressed down into Francis’s sternum, the weight of the goblin making it hard to breathe. Francis turned his head and gasped for air, the festering octopus smell washing over him. He couldn’t move, but he could still see the battle raging on over the goblin’s shoulder.

  The Shadow streaked across the sky above him, dashing from tree to tree with unnatural speed. It appeared that the goblins had attempted to set a trap from above, waiting within the branches until they could drop down and ambush them, but the Shadow cut them down before they had a chance. It was like a thunderstorm of gore and severed limbs and discarded goblin weaponry.

  The mountain of muscle who called himself Titan stood in place, swinging his broadsword in a wide arc, chopping any creature within range in two. A massive horde surrounded him, trying to close in and overtake him, but none could get close enough. The giant was dripping with blood, snarling like a bear as he swung. The goblins stomped over their fallen brethren’s innards as they paraded forward, feet splashing in puddles of orange blood.

  Francis wept, desperate to get out from under the monstrous corpse. The more he struggled, the harder the hilt seemed to press down on him, pinching off what little air he had. As uncomfortable as he was, the rest of the goblins didn’t seem to notice him pinned beneath the carcass. They ran right past without so much as glancing his way.

  I’ll just stay here until the battle is over, he thought. Unless the weight of this thing eventually crushes me.

  Just then, the corpse began to move. Shifti
ng from side to side, digging the hilt into his chest. Francis imagined it was another goblin who spotted his feet sticking out from under the body, and was now wrestling with the corpse to get at the trembling prince beneath.

  Francis tried to call out for someone, any one of the warriors, but couldn’t find the breath.

  “I know you’re a virgin, Fran, but goblin necrophilia? Really?”

  Gavin’s pink face appeared over the goblin’s shoulder, and he smiled down at Francis, his tusks dripping with orange.

  “Get me out of here,” Francis tried to say, but only managed to grunt and exhale.

  Gavin dug his snout into the goblin’s side, planted his hooves into the ground, and pushed, grunting and snorting as he worked. The corpse wiggled painfully a few times before finally rolling off. Nothing ever tasted as sweet as Francis’s first breath of fresh air, though tainted with death stink.

  But his relief only lasted a few seconds before he realized he was out in the open in the center of a heated battle. He started to run toward the trees to hide, grabbing Gavin by the back fat to pull him along.

  As he wrapped his fingers around a pink, spongy roll, his eyes coasted across the blood-drenched clearing. There were still living goblins, but most were in pieces on the ground. Every single warrior still stood, now laughing as they cut down the remaining enemies.

  “We’re . . . we’re winning,” Francis said, and couldn’t help but smile despite the pain in his chest, face, and fingers, and the piss soaking his pants.

  A short goblin ran toward them, fear, rather than aggression, etched across its hideous face. When it saw Francis and Gavin, it gasped, tried to turn and run the other way. A black streak hit the ground like dark lightning, a gleaming blade swiping across the air.

  The goblin stopped, wobbled for a moment, and then separated in two equally-sized pieces. Its orange and purple organs were piled up between the two halves, and the Shadow sheathed his blade and stepped over the mangled body.

  “Prince,” the Shadow said, his voice flowing from his mouth like burning silk. “The tower lies just on the other side of these trees. Your princess—”

  A pillar of flame engulfed the Shadow, washed over him like a red wave. It seemed as though the inferno had erupted from the heavens. The heat blast hit Francis and Gavin, threw them backward off their feet and into the trees. Gavin slammed against a trunk, squealed, and then hit the dirt hard.

  Francis managed to miss the trees, but his face scraped across the rough forest floor, filling his mouth and nostrils with dirt and dead leaves.

  He sat up, wiped his face, caught his breath, and then looked to see what had happened.

  The Shadow was nothing more than a charred skeleton, bits of red meat still clinging to the bones, swirls of smoke drifting off him like an evaporating soul. The bones collapsed into a pile, and in the next instant, the dragon roared from above them, flapped its wings once and nearly bent the trees in half with the force.

  Francis screamed, grabbed hold of the closest trunk before the wind from the beast’s wings could throw him across the forest. Gavin bellowed and squealed as his fat body sailed through the air, but Francis was able to reach out and grab hold of his tail just in time. The force of the flapping wings kept them in the air, hovering over the ground. Francis didn’t know how long he could manage to keep his grip on the wood, his nails digging into the bark as deep as he could manage.

  “What in the bloody fuck was that?” Gavin squealed as he kicked his hooves.

  “The Goblin Dragon.” The voice boomed from their left. Titan stood, unaffected by the wind. He growled and stared up at the dragon as it circled the forest, spraying gouts of flame over the surrounding foliage.

  The dragon roared again, then began its decent. It flapped its massive green wings even harder, snapping thick trees as if they were twigs.

  “Stay here, Prince,” Titan said with a chuckle. “I’ll handle the lizard.”

  The wind finally ceased, and Francis and Gavin dropped to the dirt. Francis’s skin burned as if he had been in the sun for too long, and a ham odor wafted off of the pig’s hide.

  No wonder the princess has been locked away for so long. How could any one man hope to defeat such a demon as this?

  “It’s impossible,” Francis said. “We’re all doomed.”

  “We’re all fucked is what we are. And if we were smart, we’d get the hell outta here now. While we’re still raw.”

  Francis started to agree, started to mount the hog and ride back the way they had come. He wondered if he could beg his parents to let him back into the kingdom if he promised to be more like the son they always wanted.

  No, he thought. I never expected it to be easy. And the princess is just on the other side of . . . the goddamn Goblin Dragon.

  “Wait,” Francis said. “Give them a chance. They might . . . ”

  Titan’s cocky walk became a full sprint, his massive sword held above his head. He roared as loud as the dragon, fearless as he stormed toward the monster.

  The dragon stretched its hellish maw wide and unleashed a tsunami of fire toward Titan, but the colossal warrior leapt over it, launching himself high into the air, his battle cry echoing across the darkening sky.

  The broadsword swung downward, the blade slamming into the dark green flesh of the dragon, right between its giant black eyes.

  “Holy shit,” Gavin said.

  “I can’t believe it. He . . . ”

  The blade bounced off the dragon’s hide as if it were made of stone. The sword was thrown from Titan’s armored hands, twisting through the air behind him. Before Titan’s body had a chance to fall, the dragon reared its head back, then lunged forward, snapping its jaws over the gargantuan knight.

  The thick metal of his armor was crushed like paper, and blood sprayed from the dragon’s mouth. The beast tossed Titan’s crushed body into the air with a flick of its neck, spat a ball of flame over it, and then swallowed the smoking flesh whole.

  “Fran?”

  “Uh huh?”

  “Run away?”

  “Uh huh . . . ”

  Francis climbed onto the hog’s back, unable to peel his eyes away from the fire-breathing behemoth on the other side of the clearing. Gwarp, Wendeego, and the Black Knight stood before the beast, all spattered in goblin’s blood, chests heaving.

  Francis grabbed two fistfuls of fat and loose skin on Gavin’s neck.

  “Let’s go!”

  Gavin oinked and started to back away.

  The dragon stood on its hind legs, stretched its wings out. A wall of flame exploded from its mouth as it roared again, the fire splashing over the trees, raining down bright orange cinders to singe Francis and Gavin.

  “Now! Get us out of here!”

  But when they turned to flee, they were face to face with an inferno. The fire roared as loud as the dragon, feasting upon the forest, the flames so thick there was no possible escape.

  “Remember when I said we were fucked?”

  “No,” Francis said, “there has to be a way out. We can’t die here today!”

  I should have never done this. What was I thinking?

  Gavin had no choice but to trudge closer to the dragon and the warriors as the trees burned, some of them beginning to crack and fall over.

  Gwarp suddenly sprinted toward the Goblin Dragon, rolling away from the balls of fire and the swiping claws. It was impossible to hear him over the crackling of the surrounding fire, but Francis could tell the dwarf was bellowing as he stomped forward.

  Wendeego followed behind, carrying blades in both hands, held out to his sides as he sprinted. Goblins’ intestines flowed off his body like tendrils as he went, orange blood misting off him.

  The Black Knight stood his ground, sword held at his side with a sturdy hand. He faced the dragon confidently. Though Francis was too far back to tell for sure, the Black Knight’s body language said it all, and for a moment, Francis still had hope they could win.

  Nothing can
defeat that knight. Not even a monster as deadly as this.

  The dragon snorted, two streams of fire shot-gunning from its scaly nostrils. The sun dipped below the horizon behind the monster, splashing orange and purple color into the ashen sky as if goblin gore was seeping into space.

  With one great flap of its leathery wings, the dragon tossed Gwarp and Wendeego into the air, flying backward like paper dolls caught in a cyclone. A pillar of fire blasted from the dragon’s mouth, engulfing the two warriors completely. By the time they hit the ground, both were nothing more than cooked meat and blackened bone.

  Wendeego’s scorched corpse disappeared into the burning forest. Gwarp’s hit the ground and slid across the dirt until he was almost at Gavin’s feet. Francis yelped and clutched the pig tighter.

  The impact had broken the body wide open, the flesh brown and well done. Smoke spiraled off the greasy, succulent meat, and Francis turned his head and immediately emptied his stomach.

  Still the Black Knight stood his ground, unfazed by the fiery deaths of his last remaining comrades. When he finally moved, the dragon lowered itself to all fours, its yellow belly scraping across the earth, pushing mounds of dirt to either side.

  The knight spun his sword over his onyx helmet, then stabbed the blade into the ground.

  “What the fuck is he doin’?” Gavin said.

  “He’s mad. He’s lost his mind.” A tear wormed down Francis’s cheek but evaporated before it could reach the corner of his mouth. “We’re doomed.”

  The dragon sprang forward and snapped its jaws over the knight, swallowing the man whole, sword and all. Then the beast’s black eyes landed on Francis and Gavin. It spat a wave of flame into the air, roared once, and then bounded for them. The Goblin Dragon’s clawed hands and feet quaked the earth as it raced toward them.

  “I’m sorry, Gavin. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

  “I’m with you, Fran. No matter what. I bet they got the finest, fattest sows in the swine afterlife.”

  Francis leaned over and wrapped his arms around his best friend, pressed the side of his face into the rough hide.