"Come on, Berwald, that was a low blow!"
"Learn to take a joke, Mikkel."
After the group's outburst of laughter over the joke Berwald cracked at Mikkel's expense, Emil took the last morsel of delicious roast from his plate and ate it, appreciating both how Natalya was able to prepare it as well as the quality of the meat.
It had now been just over a week since they stole those royal taxes, and the people of Ivrark were thrilled when Natalya had them turn the money back into the magistrate's office. In addition to welcoming the dwarfs back into town as heroes, the villagers were happy to provide them a few modest gifts that included generous treatment at the pub and nicer cuts of meat.
They were eating one of those nice cuts of meat right now, collected from town this morning when Natalya and a couple dwarfs stopped in. The others were thrilled when they returned home, although they were short a member as Raivis stayed in town for a couple drinks at the pub he used to frequent. It was now just past a lovely warm sunset that ended the beautiful day, so they had set up the dinner table outside.
Finishing that last bite of roast, Emil started looking around the table for the bowl of potatoes, only to be distracted by a figure approaching from the woods. He recognized the missing dwarf just as Raivis stumbled into a tree.
"Hey, who put that tree there?" Raivis whined as he bounced off the tree.
"Oh boy," Lukas grumbled as Raivis made his way to his empty seat at the table, "Here we go."
"Hey guys, listen," Raivis greeted, "You're never going to believe what I heard at the pub."
"What's the buzz?" Eduard pried.
"There's going to be a royal wedding," Raivis announced as he tried to pour himself some ale, "The Queen is getting married."
"Again?" Berwald sniveled.
"That's not good," Mikkel murmured as he took away Raivis's cup and placed it beside the potatoes Emil was looking for.
"What's on the reception menu?" Emil asked.
"Who is she marrying," Natalya inquired from the head of the table, just to Emil's right, "Did she finally settle for the Baron?"
"No, no," Raivis corrected, "She's marrying that Prince from Ixaidel."
Out of the corner of his eye, Emil saw Natalya pause to think about that detail.
"Why would he do that?" she muttered.
"Why would you care?" Raivis dismissed.
"Can someone pass the potatoes?" Emil requested, earning a glare from Mikkel for no reason.
"When's the wedding?" Natalya asked, a sad tone in her voice.
"Next week, in the Palace gardens," Raivis answered, "A small little affair, only the leading members of the royal court."
"Potatoes, please?" Emil repeated, only for Mikkel to wave at him to wait.
Natalya suddenly rose from her spot, prompting everyone to silently watch as she walked away into the forest.
"What was that all about?" Eduard muttered as he turned back to his own food.
"You idiot," Tino scolded, "Can't you see she loves him?"
"She loves him?" Eduard chuckled, "He tried to kill her last week."
"Yes, exactly," Tino insisted, "What do you think love is?"
"Love is someone passing the potatoes," Emil interjected, finally prompting Mikkel to grab one of the nugget potatoes from the bowl.
"I love you, Emil," Mikkel teased before tossing the potato at him, hitting Tino instead, "That was for him."
"Good aim," Tino retorted.
After rolling his eyes at the two of them, Emil looked behind him to where they had extra food at the side, and saw the pot that would still have more potatoes and roast. If Mikkel wasn't going to pass the bowl along, there's no reason Emil couldn't just get up and help himself to the pot.
"What about Natalya?" Raivis addressed as Emil got up from his seat with his plate, "Should someone go after her?"
Emil walked over to the pots of food, and looked inside the potato pot to see there were still a few more in there.
"She's a girl, and girls cry," Lukas dismissed, "It's not a big deal."
Just as Emil had the spoon in his hand to pick out more potatoes, he suddenly heard something hit the ground directly behind him in a clatter, prompting him to turn and look. A strange pile of what looked like wooden oval disks of various sizes had landed in a heap on the ground between him and the table. Confused, he looked up to see that the others were also looking at it in confusion.
"What is that?" Berwald asked.
The pieces suddenly start moving, lifting themselves into the air.
"It's black magic!" Lukas claimed as the pieces gathered together to shape themselves into a human form, holding a wooden mallet.
"Guys, guys!" Raivis shouted, "Behind you!"
Emil broke his gaze from the figure to look at Raivis, who was pointing at a second figure assembling itself behind Eduard and Berwald. It was going to be two of these strange figures against the seven dwarfs, it seemed.
Emil looked back at the first one, just in time to see it swing its mallet directly at him. He immediately dipped to his right side to avoid the downwards swing, and moved towards the table, nearly avoiding a collision with Tino as he moved out of the way. As Emil collided with the table, he saw the second figure swinging at Eduard, Berwald and Lukas.
"The stilts!" Tino called out, directing everyone to rush over and arm themselves.
Emil turned to look at the first figure again, who reacted to Tino's call and managed to reach the stilts first, slamming the mallet on the stand and destroying their most important equipment.
"Emil, duck!"
He hardly had a moment to react to Mikkel's instruction before getting pulled down to the ground. The second figure was swinging their mallet across the table, knocking all the food off and over the heads of Mikkel and Emil.
"Inside the house!" Lukas commanded, "Move, move!"
"Under the table, Emil," Mikkel directed, "We won't make it to the house!"
As they crawled underneath the table, Emil watched as the second figure swung as Raivis and Eduard, hitting a tall skinny tree beside them instead. The force of the blow cracked the trunk, making the tree fall directly onto the table, its branches trapping the two dwarfs underneath.
Emil crawled over to under Natalya's unoccupied seat at the end of the table, and from there he could see the other five dwarfs fighting off the two figures. Raivis and Eduard had just gone through the front door into the house, while Lukas climbed onto the roof as one figure chased him. Tino and Berwald were intercepted by the other figure by the front door, and were dodging the swings of that mallet.
"Emil, this way," Mikkel urged, "We can get out through the branches at this end."
Emil spun himself around, and saw that Mikkel was at the other end of the table, holding some branches in place to reveal an opening, just big enough for them to crawl through. As Mikkel crawled through the opening first, Emil shuffled over to that side of the table, trying his best to ignore the shouting and swinging of mallets behind him. Once Emil reached the end of the table, Mikkel had already made his way out from their enclosure and was holding the branches for him.
As Emil crawled through the branches, a loud crash sounded behind him, accompanied by a scream that sounded like Lukas.
"Woah," Mikkel exclaimed, "That figure just smashed a hole through the roof!"
Finally clear from the branches, Emil stood to his feet at the foot of the table, and looked back at the cottage again. The figure who had been chasing Lukas on the roof now stood over that hole, and immediately jumped inside to where Emil could hear Lukas, Raivis and Eduard shouting and screaming. In front of the house, the other figure was smashing the walls and small windows as Berwald and Tino tried to play whack-a-mole inside.
"What do we do, Mikkel?" Emil asked.
"Let's help Tino and Berwald first," Mikkel guided, "Let's give this one a distraction."
As they approached the figure from behind, Emil noticed movement behind the house, just in time for Natalya to climb onto the roof in alarm. She glanced in his direction, so Emil pointed at the figure to indicate that they needed to stop it. She nodded at him, before she lowered herself and crawled across the roof to sneak up on it.
"Hey," Emil shouted at the figure, "Over here!"
The figure turned around to look at him, and immediately swung the mallet in his direction, prompting Emil to duck out of range while Mikkel did the same.
"Come on," Mikkel taunted, "Can't you swing better than that?"
The figure swung again in the other direction, making Mikkel run into Emil and knock them both to the ground as they successfully evaded another swing. As Emil sat up, he realized that the figure was now standing over the two of them, who were prone on the ground and trapped. Just as the figure raised its mallet into the sky to swing down, Natalya rose to her feet behind it, watching the mallet closely.
Just before the figure could swing, Natalya reached forward and grabbed something from mid-air, pulling it towards her. Her action made the figure's mallet swing behind it in Natalya's direction, as if she were controlling its motion.
"It's on strings," Natalya yelled, "Push it towards me!"
Emil immediately scrambled to his feet, accompanied by Mikkel, and they pushed the befuddled figure towards the house until it was pinned against the wall. Above them all, Natalya was holding what Emil could now see as a bunch of strings over the figure's head. With the solid grasp in her left hand, she pulled out her dagger and tore through them all with one sharp slice.
The figure immediately collapsed to the ground, in the same lifeless heap of wooden oval discs it arrived in.
Before he could inspect the discs, Emil heard the shouting from inside the cottage, and remembered who was still in there. Natalya also turned to look in the direction of the screams, and immediately bolted towards the hole in the roof. Emil could only watch as she leapt over the hole in a beautiful jump, collecting the invisible strings as she did so. Once she landed, she immediately sliced through them with her dagger, before releasing her grasp and looking down inside the hole.
"Are you guys okay in there?" she called down.
"We're fine," Lukas called back, much to Emil's relief.
Emil looked back down at the heap of discs on the ground, being inspected by Mikkel. Berwald was rushing outside to join them, while Tino looked through the hole in the side wall.
"What are these things?" Tino asked, "How did you defeat them?"
"They had strings holding them up," Emil explained, "I barely saw them myself, they were clear ones that were nearly invisible and stretched out into the sky."
"They were puppets," Natalya identified as she rejoined them from above, "All I did was slice through the strings with my brother's dagger."
"Puppets?" Berwald tested, "Why would we be attacked with puppets?"
"I don't know," Natalya disclaimed, "All I can guess is that Erzsébet might be behind this."
Francis caught his breath as he laid on the floor of his study, once again subjected to strange magic that made him fall from his chair.
It had taken a few days for him to magically scan the Bueswood Forest from his remote hideaway at Virside, but he did finally manage to find the secret lair of Princess Natalya and her band of thieving dwarfs. He reached out with his magic to coordinate an attack, which manifested in the form of two wooden marionettes.
The spell had gone well until he was suddenly disconnected from the two marionettes. As Natalya sliced at the strings, Francis felt jolts of pain through his entire body as he lost control of each marionette. This magical backfire forced him out of his chair and onto the ground, with the image of his death flashing before his eyes as he recovered.
Once he could feel that his body was no longer in distress, Francis focused his mind on the sensation he felt. This strange backfire of magic, the jolts of pain, and the image of his death were all triggered when Princess Natalya sliced through the strings. It was the same sensation that had happened before with Princess Madeline, when she had frozen his fingertips while breaking his spell in Coit. But how could Princess Natalya cause such an event by slicing strings with a dagger?
Francis gasped in dread as he figured it out.
The strings were sliced with a dagger.
The same dagger that was destined to stab his frozen heart.