The Princess and the Wizard

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: There are Castles and castles in this, but I own neither. Rating: K Time: 1967 and elsewhen.

Author's note: To get a look at what Castle's unit looks like, go to http colon back slash back slash ctrp dash 3d dash 4thcav dot com backslash troop dot html Click on org chart.

"What now?" Rick asked.

"I don't know."

"Maybe we should drive around the pillar. There could be a road that no one remembers. You never can tell."

They did drive all the way around the massive pillar of rock and found it to be very smooth for as far up as they could see. They came back to where they had started.

"Hey, something's got the bird people upset." Doc Mellon said, pointing upwards.

Hundreds of birds were flying off the top of the pillar as fast as they could manage.

"What's gotten into them?" Castle asked.

"I have no idea. They do seem to be fleeing something."

"Oh shit!" Kemper yelled. "That's a dragon."

"It's worse than just a dragon." Kate said. "It's a red dragon. One of Meredith the Mad's minions. It looks like he's coming this way, too."

The massive red dragon landed a hundred yards or so in front of them. Clutched in one giant hand were three blue feathers.

"Look what I have!" he gloated. "These are the only blue feathers up there. Oh, those were the only blue feathers up there. I just gave those weaklings a shot from my ass and they flew away. It'll be days before they can come back without barfing all over themselves. And now it's your turn."

Castle grabbed the radio's mic.

"Pappy! Put a round in him."

The tank turret slewed around and a ninety-millimeter high explosive shell was fired and exploded against the dragon. The dragon just laughed.

"Us red dragons are pretty well armored against your puny human weapons."

Next Pappy tried an armor piercing round, basically a solid steel round meant to penetrate another tank's armor. This one bounced off the dragon. He just laughed.

"Nice try, humans."

He turned around and lifted his tail up to get ready to fart at them.

"Pappy!" Rick yelled. "His asshole can't be armored. The sphincter has to loosen when he farts. Fire an HE round there."

Just as the sphincter began to open, the shell hit it and penetrated deep inside the dragon before exploding. The damage was extensive with the dragon's intestines bulging out of his damaged sphincter. However, the stench was unbelievable.

Everyone in Castle's command track began vomiting. Rick and Kate, sitting on the open cover of the top hatch managed to vomit over the side of the vehicle. Those inside weren't so lucky.

Still in the middle of dry heaves, Castle grabbed the radio's mic from Kemper.

"Get the hell away from that thing now!" He screamed.

No one had to be told twice, although there were a couple of near misses as the vehicles sped away from the stink.

"Shit! And I just got my uni nice and clean." Kemper muttered from inside.

"You threw up all over me!" Alexis screamed at him."

"Seems like you returned the favor, sweet thing."

"Report." Castle said over the radio, "Did anyone actually get hurt? Anyone need Doc?"

No one reported any injuries, just vomiting.

"Okay, I can see a stream about two hundred meters in back of us. We'll head for there and get clean."

As they were cleaning themselves and the insides of the tracks, Pappy came over to see Castle.

"Sir, I think I can get close enough to that thing to grab the feathers."

"How?"

"I'll use gas masks."

"You had gas masks in Vietnam?"

"Before you came, sir, we were with some grunts and engineers were trying to smoke out some VC by pumping tear gas into one of their tunnel complexes. Sure enough, as soon as the gas goes in, it comes back up right under my tank. I wanted to move, but the engineers said I should stay where I was in case an VC popped out. They gave us gas masks so we didn't choke to death."

"You think it'll work?"

"If you think that was bad, sir, you should have seen me after my tank ran over a honey wagon in Korea back in the day."

"Okay. Do it."

Pappy dragged his gas masks out from the turret's bustle rack and got ready. They headed for the dragon. He hadn't moved and his guts were still splayed out behind him. Pappy decided to drive over the thing's head to make sure and heard a nice, satisfying crunch as the nearly fifty ton tank crushed its skull.

"Driver stop." Pappy said. "I can see the feathers. I'm going to dismount and grab them. Then we'll haul ass out of here. There are too damned many things that'll fuck you up around here."

Pappy did just that and drove back with three feathers.

Kate examined them.

"They're in good shape. We can use them when we get home."

Castle looked into the sky.

"We have company. Looks like out bird friends are coming back."

The birds circled their home, but didn't land. They did begin to land by Castle's column. One of them approached Rick and Kate.

"Greetings. Are you Princess Katherine and the wizard Rick Castle?"

"That's us." Rick replied.

"We cannot go back to our home for a while. The stench is too great, especially for the little ones. You have great powers to have destroyed so formidable a foe. May we stay with you over night?"

"Sorry about that, but we have to be on our way. Things to see and people to do, you know."

"I understand you came for some blue feathers. We can provide you with all we have if you'll stay."

"Like I said…" Castle began.

"Can I speak with you alone, great wizard?" Kate broke in.

Without waiting for a reply, she pulled him back behind the command track,

"The bird people aren't very good fighters on the ground and they do have women and children with them. And we're in a dangerous area. If we stayed the night, we'd have made friends. You never know when friends might come in handy."

Castle stared at her.

"You just want to snuggle up with me tonight."

Kate smiled.

"Why great wizard Richard Castle, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Okay, we'll tell the birds we'll stay the night because we're good guys and that now they owe us one."

Kate did more than just snuggle up with Rick that night and in the morning the bird people flew back home.

"Where are we going next?" Castle asked Kate over breakfast.

"The Amazons." She said around a mouthful of food.

"The river?"

"No. The land of female warriors. They spend their whole lives training for war and they think men are weak. They despise them. Especially since all men don't constantly train for war."

"So we just ask for…whatever they have and we get it and go on our merry way?"

"Not quite. We're looking for the Sword of Honor, an ancient blade crafted by wizard swordsmiths thousands of years ago. They'll ask us three questions and if we answer them correctly, we get the sword."

"I assume no one has answered the questions before?"

"Never."

"Why can't everyone be like those nice, friendly ape people?" Castle asked.

"Because this is the real world."

Castle grinned.

"Getting back to my unusual interest in sex, if the Amazons think men are weak and despise them, how do they make little Amazons?"

"They raid surrounding villages for men, take them back to their city and breed. The male babies are returned to the village of their fathers, the girls become Amazons."

"Do the men try very hard to fight off these raids?"

"No, not at all."

Castle just laughed.

They headed across country towards their destination. After midday, they saw birds circling ahead of them.

"Carrion eaters." Kate said, "Something up ahead has died."

"Or someone." Castle added, unhappily.

The dead were a flock of sheep and three shepherdesses. One girl was still alive when they arrived, but not for long. It wasn't hard to discover what had killed them.

"Zombies!" Castle said "They have lots of creepy, undead zombies?"

"Lots." Kate replied. "The girls were only armed with knives, but they destroyed several dozen zombies. Meredith the Mad uses zombies, so I imagine she's trying to overwhelm the Amazons and take the Sword of Honor so we won't get it."

"So, if I recall correctly, if you get bit by a zombie, you don't turn into one of the undead?"

"I don't know why you have such odd sexual fantasies about other races."

"It's just that a mommy zombie and a daddy zombie getting it on is something I'd rather not think of. I keep imagining them making out and her boob comes off in his hand."

"That does happen, or so I'm told."

They headed for the Amazon's town and did find a few more dead Amazons along the way. All had destroyed many zombies before dying themselves.

'There!" Kate cried. "There's the Amazons' city."

"And there are the zombies." Castle added.

He studied the scene through his binoculars. The city itself looked like something out of a sword and sandals movie, all white marble interspersed with statues. The Amazons could have been extras in those movies, standing shoulder to shoulder behind broad shields with a forest of wicked looking pikes sticking out to impale any zombie who came close. Many zombies had come to close, but he could see the dead bodies of Amazons as well. At a guess, the Amazons would run out of people before the zombies did.

Castle got on the radio,

"Okay, we outrange the bastards, so we'll do it our way. We'll line up line abreast, and slightly skewed so the fifty and one M 60 will bear on them. We'll open with the tank's main gun and then the fifties when they get in range. When they get in range of the 60's we'll back off and do it all over again. Just make sure to shoot at the zombies furthest from the Amazons. We don't want any friendly fire casualties."

Pappy's tank began firing shortly. Zombies were blown apart, but they didn't stop attacking the Amazons and head for Castle's troops.

"Zombies are very single minded, especially when they've been given a task by Meredith the Mad." Kate said. "I don't think they'll stop attacking the Amazons until the Amazons are all dead."

"That's good for us. I can move close enough for the fifties to do their work and maybe even close enough to for the M 60s and the everyone else to join in." Castle grabbed the mic of the track's radio.

"We're going to move up to about that pile of white rocks ahead of us. That'll bring us in range for Ma Deuce to do her work. Move when I do and keep an eye out. There may be more around." Then to Borden. "Driver, advance."

More and more zombies were destroyed by the weapons of Rick's troops, but they single mindedly kept attacking the Amazons.

"Shit!" Doc Mellon yelled. "Look. We got more company. Zombies coming over that hill."

Castle made a quick decision and got on the radio again.

"They're going to have to go right past us to attack the Amazons. We're going to back off maybe two hundred yards so there's plenty of room between us in case this bunch wants to come after us. Follow me."

They backed up and began firing into the new mass of zombies. The zombies stopped and milled around as if unsure of what to do.

"You have any experience counting hordes of zombies?" Rick yelled at Kate, "They're all bunched up. Hard to tell how many there are,"

"Five thousand, maybe a bit more." She replied.

TBC