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.
They woke up in the afternoon when their stomachs told them they were hungry.
"Castle, did you let the squirrels sleep with us?"
"Sure. The little guys snored, but once I went back to sleep, I slept right through it. Why?"
"Well, that means this is an enchanted forest."
"Enchanted by squirrels?"
"No, silly. They're squirrels by day and fairies by night. Once the sun goes down, they'll want to feast and drink, dance and sing, and make love. Don't squirrels turn into fairies where you're from?"
"No, they just drive dogs crazy."
"What an odd world."
As Kate spoke, the squirrels suddenly sat bolt upright, then dashed into the deeper forest.
"I guess they decided to go home." Rick said,
"This is their home."
And in seconds, fairies came flying out of the forest and flew around the column.
One, not even five feet tall, with long blonde hair that was all that covered her body, flew to Castle and Kate. She took their hands.
"Come. We'll dance. It'll be fun."
"No thanks, we really have things to…." But Castle found himself ten feet off the ground, dancing with Kate in his arms. Alexis was dancing with Kemper, but the rest of the men were dancing above the ground with fairies.
"No, this is not going to happen!" He said sternly.
And that was the last thing he really remembered until he awoke the next morning.
"Kate!" He called out, and found her right next to him.
"Yes?" She said softly.
"Last night. Um, things aren't really clear. I remember dancing in the air, feasting and drinking and….We made love?"
"Oh, yes. We certainly did." She said with a smile.
Rick stood up and pulled Kate to her feet.
"I feel great. I was up al night, but I feel better than I have in years."
"Spending the night with fairies will do that to you."
"Or maybe it was spending the night with you?"
She laughed.
"We'll have to try it again and see if it works as well, but I do think it was the fairies."
It took them two days to get to Witch City. It wasn't what Castle had been expecting.
Castle had Borden pull his command track to the head of the column so he could get a better look at Witch City.
"This is not at all what I expected."
"Things seem to be quite different back where you come from. What do witch cities look like there?"
"Nothing like this. This looks like something out of a B grade Hollywood movie, Gidget Goes to Oz or something."
"I have no idea what that means." Kate said.
As she spoke, a teenaged girl riding a broomstick with go faster stripes on the side pulled up beside them. Her bikini wouldn't have made a decent sized handkerchief. She pushed her aviator sunglasses up onto her sun-bleached blonde hair and whistled.
"Bitchin' ride, man. Wanna drag?"
"No." Castle said. Kate just glared at the girl.
"Maybe later, Dude."
She roared off.
Before them was a small beach town, no different from many beach towns in say, California. They had surf shops, bars, restaurants, none of which seemed to require much in the way of clothing, and lots and lots of women.
Big Kahuna stood up on his track and looked around.
"Oh, man. Look at those gnarly waves and dig the surf bunnies. We're in paradise, man. Surfers' paradise."
"All those women are witches?" Castle asked.
"Of course. Who would you expect to find in a witches' city? Goblins?"
"Where do we go?"
"The headquarters of the coven is down by the beach. The big building made out of bamboo with a thatch roof."
The column drove through town, not attracting as much attention as Castle had thought they would, Then again, who knew what kind of beings came to Witch City? They stopped in front of the headquarters. They were met with a woman in a blue bikini who had a badge on one bikini top strap.
"Sorry, sir. You can't park here. You'll have to park across the street. The parking meters will take any kind of gold or silver coins you have."
"Thank you, Officer…" Castle stopped.
"Officer Ann Hastings, sir. Welcome to Witch City and have a nice day"
They parked their vehicles and put coins in the parking meters. When they headed back to the coven's headquarters, they were met by a tall, curvy redhead wearing a black bikini.
"Good day." She said. "I'm Martha, the head of the Witch City coven."
"Good day." Kate replied. "We're Princess Katherine…."
"We know who you are, Princess Katherine and your alleged great wizard friend and we know why you're here. The coven's council is debating your request, but I doubt you'll be allowed to take the Potion of Potions away. If you'd like to wait at the Surfside Inn, you may. Your drinks and food will be paid for by the coven."
She turned to Rick.
"You're the alleged wizard?"
She made odd motions with her hands and shook her head.
"As they said, you have no magical powers, not even an amulet such as anyone could buy."
"As I've told people, in my own country I'm not called a wizard, but a first lieutenant. And while you may not be able to find any trace of magical powers, there are dead crystal spiders, dead vampires, a beaten ape, a dead dragon, and lots of dead zombies who could attest to what I can do."
Martha looked at him coldly.
"Would you turn around, please?" She said.
"Why?" Castle asked.
"That's odd. You should have been incapable of not turning around."
"Too bad. We'll be having lunch if you need to try any other Jedi mind tricks on me."
Martha left and Castle gathered the troops around him.
"I don't trust these people, so only half of us go into the Surfside Inn. Kate, Alexis, Kemper and Big Kahuna, you're with me. Kahuna, you're our surfing expert, so keep your eyes open. Track commanders, send half your men in with me and tell the ones who stay to stay close to the weapons and keep their eyes open. Pappy, you're in charge, Keep one other person in your tank. Any questions?"
There were none and Castle and the rest went on in.
"One thing. No alcohol, people. We're all armed and I don't want anything bad happening."
They found seats and a waitress came to take their orders. There was a band playing and Kahuna didn't think much of it.
"Slow and dreary. My old man would have loved this shit. You'd think a surf town would have something better going than this shit."
A waitress overheard him.
"You don't like the music?"
"It'd be great for a funeral, but for surfing, it sucks."
"Hey, Alice. This dude says your music sucks."
Alice, who was playing an electric guitar, stopped in mid song. The rest of the band, a drummer, keyboardist and a bass guitarist also stopped and glared at Kahuna,
"You think you can do better, asshole?" Alice said.
"You ever hear of Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar?"
"Never."
"Mind if I borrow your guitar. I'll do a little Misirlou."
Kahuna began playing and it was obvious that it was like nothing the local witches had ever heard. They tapped their feet and wiggled their asses in time with the music. When he was done with Miserlou, Kahuna jumped off the stage and began teaching the witches the surfer stomp. Then he got back up and went into Surfing USA.
Castle could see that curious witches were coming in off the street to hear this strange, but exciting music.
That's when he heard the screams.
"Everybody outside!" he bellowed. "Get to your vehicle and start up."
Once in his command track, Castle saw what the problem was.
"A giant! That bitch Meredith sent a giant?"
It was a giant, at least twenty feet tall, with one eye and a short stubby horn growing from the top of his head. As Castle watched, the giant grabbed a surfer and threw her towards the shore. The witch, however, somersaulted in mid air and gently floated to the ground.
Castle saw Martha and a dozen or more witches run out of their headquarters and face the giant. They were being slowly pushed back by something as the giant waded to land.
"Make it stop. Make it stop." Someone was saying.
Castle looked down and saw he had a track full of witches. Apparently when he'd ordered everyone outside and into the tracks, they all thought he meant them. He saw that the girl huddled nearest to him was the teenager that they'd met on the way in. She was in a fetal position and sobbing. The rest of the witches were the same.
"Make what stop?"
Kate replied to that.
"I can feel unrelenting evil coming from that thing. It's probably a spell made to affect the witches since I can only feel a little of it. It's terrifying to them."
"Shit." Castle grabbed the mic. "Pappy, start unloading on that bastard. Everyone else, open fire as well. And be damned careful. There are too many witches near that big bastard."
Before Castle was done giving orders, Pappy had fired a high explosive round into the giant's gut. Blood poured from the wound and the giant looked around to see what had caused the injury. Before he spotted the tank, another of Pappy's rounds hit him. That was followed by a barrage of fifty caliber bullets, LAWs, RPG rounds, grenades and small arms fire. Pappy kept working on the giant's stomach and he fell to his knees.
"Pappy, try an anti-tank round to his head. Aim for his eye."
There was a few seconds' delay, then a flat crack from the tank's 90mm gun. The giant toppled over.
"Fire a few more of those into his head, Pappy. Make sure. Everyone else, cease fire."
Castle looked around. Most of the witches were still sobbing on the ground around him. He could see Martha was the only witch still standing from the coven group. Even she looked like she'd fall over pretty soon.
Castle could see the witches still on the beach gathering around the giant, confirming that he was dead.
"I think it's time we had a little talk with the head witch about that potion thing."
"You might want to give her five, sir." Doc said.
"Why?"
"She's busy tossing her cookies now."
Doc pointed and Rick could see Martha on her hands and knees, throwing up. Around her were the other witches, also throwing up.
"Did you actually kill that monster?" That was the teenaged witch.
"We killed the monster." Castle replied. "Of course, if I'd have had the rest of my people here, we would have gotten him a lot sooner. But he's dead."
"You mean there are more of you? Far freaking out. Just like you?"
"Well, no." Rick replied. "We're Cav and if you ain't Cav, you ain't shit. Then there's our brothers the treadheads, and the grunts."
"Grunts come in two flavors, so to speak." Kemper said. "Straight leg and airborne. And we have gun bunnies, snake eaters, rotorheads and REMFs."
"Let's not forget the jarheads and their friends the pecker checkers, skivvy wavers, airdales and the gator navy." Doc added.
"And zoomies," Borden added. "Both fast movers and big ugly fat fuckers."
"Puff the magic dragon." Castle added. "And let's not forget arc light."
"Arvins and Ruff Puffs and we can't forget the Diggers. There are millions of us." Kemper concluded.
"Wow!" The young witch said.
TBC