The Prince, the Princess, and the Other Wizard
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Castle is magic, but I have no magic. Or Castle. Rating: K+ for language Time: A few months after The Princess and the Wizard.
"Snakes?" Castle said.
"What kind of snakes?" Kate demanded.
"Actually, they're giant snake people." Sven admitted.
"What?" Kate yelled.
"Will someone tell me what giant snake people are?" Rick asked.
"What kind of snake people?" Kate said.
"They're T'solvard." Sven admitted.
"Obviously, there are too many for you dwarves to handle." Kate said contemptuously. "So you want us to do it."
"We'll help. But with your weapons you should have no trouble with them."
"What are giant snake people?" Castle yelled.
"Just what the name implies." Kate said. "They're like snakes, but intelligent. Well, not all that bright, but intelligent. They go from maybe twelve feet long to about twenty. They have two pairs of arms and usually attack from an upright position. And they have huge mouths full of sharp teeth."
"Are they poisonous?" Rick asked.
"No, but they're very dangerous." Kate said, then turned back to Sven. "How many are there?"
"Many."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Many, many."
"That's the only key to the Magical Gate of Severand you have?" asked Medusa.
"The only one."
"Just when turning people into stone would come in handy, I can't do it any more."
"Okay, okay." Rick said. "If we have to go after the damned snake people we will. We need to decide who will come with me."
"Me." Kate said quickly.
"Just once couldn't you…"
"No, I couldn't." She said quickly.
"I'd suggest we take all of thr M60s we can." Bravin said. "My platoon has twenty four people…"
"Add in my LRRPS." Ryan said.
"And me." Ann said.
"And me too." Medusa quickly said.
"My infantry squad." Added Sergeant Wiggins, the leader of Castle's infantry squad.
"My Kit Carson Scouts." That was Sergeant Tranh, an ex-VC who'd changed sides. "Bring machine gun and RPG."
Someone said something in Vietnamese. Sergeant Tranh translated. "The two Hoa Hao want to go as well."
Castle looked at Master Sean.
"Do you have any really good anti-snake people magic?"
"Um, anti-snake people…Not that I can think of…Rather uncommon…Er, not much call for that sort of thing,..I'll stay here I think."
"Okay." Castle said. "We don't want to take too many people, just in case... Well, just in case. Pappy, you're in command until I get back. If anything happens to me and Bravin, you're to continue to track this wizard down and get Queen Johanna back. And I don't want to take too many M60s with us."
The dwarves gathered, all armored and armed. They led Castle and his troops down a wide staircase into the depths of the mine.
They went down further and further. As they went down, the passageways got narrower and darker. Soon the only light was from some sort of fungus growing on the walls.
" I hear slithering." Cried a dwarf who was on point. That's as far as he got before he was overwhelmed by the snake people. They were as advertised, big, nasty and with big mouths with razor sharp fangs. Their arms weren't that strong, but they did carry swords and knives.
A half a dozen machine guns opened up, shredding the first group of snake people they'd run into.
"Prince Richard," Sven said, "From here on there are side passageways everyy few hundred yards. The snake people will be able to attack us from the sides and come from behind us."
Castle reorganized his troops. One group in front, one in the rear, one on each flank and the command group, the dwarves, the women and the reserves in the middle.
"When we come to a side passage, fire a grenade down it." He ordered. "Rearguard, fire a grenade behind you if you hear something. Fire a grenade if you think you hear something. In fact, fire a grenade every once in a while just for the hell of it."
And so they moved down the narrow passageways. Since their amminition was resupplied by Queen Johanna's still potent magic, they didn't bother trying to conserve their ammo. The lead group fired ahead of them whether they saw anything or not. When they came to a side passageway, they'd fire a half a dozen grenades followed by a dozen bursts of machine gun fire. Occasionally, a snake would get through, usually wounded, but did little damage.
"That one sliced Willmoes' left arm." Doc Park, the Aero-Rifle platoon medic called out. "Can we stop while I bandage him up?"
"Okay, we'll stop here. Drink some water and don't stop shooting just because we've stopped moving."
"How far are we from the key?" Kate asked Sven.
"Not far. There's a sharp right turn about fifty yards ahead. Then we go about another hundred yards and we get to a large open space. There should be more light as well. The key is on the far side."
They turned right and ahead of them they could see more light.
"So far, so good." Rick said.
They came out into a large open space and were hit by snake people coming from every direction, including above them. Worse, the leading snake people were the biggest anyone had ever seen. When they lifted themselves up, they were a good ten feet tall, had swords in each of their four hands, and had truly huge mouths.
The biggest of them headed straight for them and grabbed Specialist Grogan from Castle's platoon in his mouth. He lifted the screaming soldier up and bit down hard. Grogan fell in two pieces. He didn't scream for long.
Castle found himself being attacked by a snake whose arms had been shot off and who was missing part of his head. He was trying to hammer Castle into the ground with what was left of his head. Kate fired her AK 47 into what was left of the snake's head and it fell over.
"Be careful!" Castle screamed. "Don't shoot into your own people." in spite of the order, several friendly fire incidents took place. Gradually, the snakes were killed off. Soon there were none left.
"Wounded?" Castle yelled.
"Grogan's dead." Park yelled.
"Kemper got shot in the ass by someone." Doc Mellon said. "I can patch him up, though. But he won't be sitting for a while."
"Anyone else?"
A half a dozen people had cuts and stab wounds, but none appeared serious.
"I got shot by some asshole." Esposito, Castle's platoon sergeant said. "It's nothing the docs can't fix. I can still function."
"We have healers back at the mine entrance." Sven said. "They can help."
"Can they help Grogan?" Castle asked.
"He's dead. He can't be helped."
"I thought Queen Johanna's magic was supposed to protect my people." Rick said to Kate.
"There are limits to magic, just as there are to your science."
"Are you sure that this Wizard of Dok isn't interfering with your mother's magic in some way?"
"Am I sure? No, but I think it's highly unlikely."
"But still possible?"
"Yes."
"Is the key here?" Castle asked Sven.
"I have it already Prince Richard. We should have an easier time going back. The largest one we killed was their king. They'll be demoralized."
They headed back to the surface, carrying their dead comrade and their injured friend. They fired at everything they saw, or thought they saw, until they got back to the entrance of the mine.
"Okay. We'll bury what's left of Grogan and rest for the night." Castle said.
"Prince Richard, we would be honored to inter your fallen warrior with our fallen warriors." Said Sven. "In the meantime our healers can help with your wounded."
The head healer was the shortest, skinniest and oldest dwarf woman Castle had ever seen, but she got the other healers busy and in no time everyone was better. Even Kemper could sit comfortably.
Ann Hastings helped as well. As a former witch cop she had several first aid spells she could use. Even Master Sean proved useful.
The next day they headed for the Magical Gate of Severand. It took half the day to get there.
"The gate is as advertised." Castle said. "There's a wall of fog on either side. I'm going to have the command track try to go around the fog."
"You're wasting your time." Kate said.
"It'll only take a few minutes."
And that's all it took. As the command track drove paralell to the wall of fog, the wall extended, the end always being just ahead of the track. Castle stopped the track and picked up a large rock and threw it into the fog,
"We should have heard some noise when the rock hit the ground."
"Unless the rock hit the ground on another Earth." Kate said.
"So we open the gate."
The gate opened easily and the gate was wide enough and tall enough for the tanks, their largest vehicles to go through easily. The problem was with the helicopters.
"I'd hate to try to fly my bird through the gate." WO Peters said. "It wouldn't take much to accidentally hit the side of the gate and tear off the rotors. Maybe we coud fly over the gate?"
"We can use the ACAVs to drag your birds through." Castle decided. "I don't want to take any chances. This planet is weird. I don't really want to find out just how weird it treally is."
Once through, they found the land on the other side of the gate to be very different from what they had been in. It was dark and rainy on the other side of the gate and the trees were bare of leaves and sparse.
"Cheerful place." Bravin said,.
"We've seen worse, sir." Esposito said.
They went on until they found a place where the road was slightly wider and they found they could push the trees down with the armored vehicles. Castle set his command up in a defensive circle, with the choppers inside the circle along with the mortar track and his command track.
"Damn!" Castle said. "it's starting to rain. I sure as hell hope it isn't the kind of rain that brought us here."
The rain was cold and steady but it was nothing like the rains that had accompanied their journeys here.
"We can sleep inside the tracks if there's enough room. Otherwise use tarps and rig them against the sides of the tanks and tracks. I'll be setting up a rotation for guard duty."
The small command settled down to sleep.
At around midnight, Castle woke himself up to go check the guards. Kate sensed he was leaving and began to get up with him.
"No need." He said. "I just need to go check the guards. I'll be back before you know it."
She mumbled something and went back to sleep.
Castle walked around to each vehicle and made sure every guard was alert. They were. He was headed back to the command track when he felt a strong breeze on his back. Then he was grabbed from behind by two powerful arms. He tried to grab his M16 and then his .45, but his arms were pinned,.
"Contact!" He yelled as loud as he could. "Contact."
Whether it was his yell or someone seeing something, at least two machine gunners opened up. People began yelling as the boiled out of their sleeping quarters and began firing.
Castle was just about to pass out from lack of air from the powerful arms crushing his chest when he heard and felt rounds being fired into his attacker.
"Are you all right?" Kate yelled, firing more rounds into the head of the fallen attacker.
"Let me catch my breath." Castle wheezed.
"Next time I'll go with you." Kate yelled over the sound of gunfire.
"Agreed."
The attack was over almost as quickly as it had begun.
"What the hell attacked us?" Castle asked.
"The Wizard of Dok's flying monkeys." Kate said.
Castle examined his attacker.
"Flying monkeys my ass." He yelled. "This is a flying gorilla or great ape. He's huge."
The dead assailant was taller than Castle and heavier, but with very long arms and short legs. He was wearing clothing, however: A green hip length jacket and black trousers. He had a wingspan of some twenty feet with wings that strongly resembled a bat's.
"No weapons?"
Kate shook her head.
"They're big and strong, but stupid. They'd do more damage to themselves with weapons than to their opponents."
Castle told his people to go back to sleep, but not many people got much sleep for the rest of the night.
TBC