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.
She trotted up to the platoon and stopped. The EL Tee walked over to her.
"There are zombies chasing me. About a dozen, perhaps more. They killed my horse, but I got a lot of them." She gestured with her sword, which had blood and scraps of flesh on it. "What happened to your crossbows?" She said, looking at their rifles. "No matter. I see you have knives. That'll have to do. Line up on either side of me. Hurry! They'll be here in minutes."
"How about we do this our way?" The El Tee said. "Williams!" He shouted. "Get your Dragunov and get ready. We have zombies incoming."
"Buffalo Bill" Williams had grown up on a ranch outside of Cody, Wyoming. He had hunted game to help feed his family since he had been in his early teens. He was easily the best shot in the squadron. The Army, in its infinite wisdom, had made him a telephone lineman. Once he'd been sent to Vietnam, the Army discovered they had plenty of linemen and a huge shortage of infantrymen. Williams was soon a grunt. Early in his tour he'd recovered a Soviet made SVD sniper rifle, commonly called a Dragunov. It was a semiautomatic rifle firing from a ten round magazine and featured a telescopic sight.
"Zombies, sir? For real?"
"That's what the young lady here says." He turned back to the blonde. "I assume that a head shot will stop a zombie?"
"You need to destroy the zombies' brains. But your man's crossbow is broken or defective."
Williams had placed his rucksack on the ground and rested the barrel of his rifle on it, getting himself ready.
The El Tee lifted his binoculars.
"Movement." He said." Straight ahead. Looks like just one."
If he'd had any doubts before that there were real zombies around, what he saw convinced him. The zombie shambled towards them, its body covered in sores and rotting in places. Its skin was an awful shade of grey.
Williams fired and the El Tee saw the zombie's head fly apart. Two more came towards them and both suffered the same fate. Five came at them. One was missing a leg and was being helped by two other zombies. Williams fired five times and four of them dropped.
"Shit!" Williams yelled. "I must have gotten a damned round reloaded by the VC. They never get the right amount of gunpowder in. I hit him in the damned chest."
Williams fired again and this time the zombie's head exploded. Two more zombies were destroyed and then Williams had to change magazines. Three more zombies came towards them and Willaims took care of all of them.
"Sir, something is weird here." Willaims said.
"What?"
"I fired ten rounds and should have had to replace the magazine but when I removed the magazine, it still had rounds in it. Look." He held up the magazine to show it was not empty. Williams began unloading the magazine. He'd removed ten rounds, and the magazine wasn't empty. "Makes no damned sense, sir."
"No more sense than us using no avgas to get here." The El Tee said.
"You killed all of those zombies with…. that?" Said the blonde. "Who are you? What are you?"
"I'm Second Lieutenant Joe Bravin, US Army, ma'am."
"That explains it. You're a wizard."
"I'm not a wizard, ma'am." Bravin said.
"The other one called himself a lieutenant. I saw him at Surf City when he destroyed a dangerous giant. He has iron wagons that make noise like that weapon of yours, but much louder."
"The other one, ma'am?" Johnstone said. "Do you remember anything about him?"
"Oh, yes. He called himself a first lieutenant which is apparently what a wizard is called where you're from. His name was…Richard Castle."
"Damn! So that's what happened to Castle's platoon."
"Castle's platoon? What happened?" Bravin asked.
"About three, four months ago, sir. A whole armored cav platoon from the 25th Infantry Division, the Electric Strawberry, just disappeared. No sign of them at all. Just after a big rainstorm, too."
"So, they got ambushed by the VC and got wiped out." Bravin said.
"No sir. They never found anything left of the platoon. Three tanks and seven tracks just disappeared. Even if the VC had stuffed the M-48s with C4 and blown them up, there'd be huge pieces of steel around. But there was nothing. They came here, just like we did."
Bravin turned back to the blonde.
"Do you know where this Castle is now?"
"Sure. He's at the castle of King James XVII who rules the Valley from the mountains to the Endless Ocean."
"Can you lead us there?"
"Sure. That's where I was going. Like I said, I was at Surf City when the great wizard Richard Castle destroyed an evil giant. I was a cop in Surf City, but there's really nothing for a cop to do in a city full of witches. I mean who'd be dumb enough to try to commit a crime with a bunch of witches around? The high point of my career was busting some teenaged geek witch for overdue library books. I decided to leave and decided to see what Castle was up to."
"How do we get there?"
"Just follow the Greensward. It'll lead us right there."
"How far is it?"
"Maybe five or six days by horse, but my horse is dead. We'll have to walk since your wagons have no wheels. I don't know how long that would take. Maybe two weeks?"
"My wagons are helicopters, and they don't need wheels because they fly." Bravin was getting a little tired of people saying his wagons didn't have wheels.
"Oh, by the way, my name is Ann Hastings." She walked past Bravin and looked at the chopper. "So, do you hook dragons up to these…"
"Helicopters." Bravin filled in for her. "Mr. Peters? Are we ready?"
"All set, sir."
"Okay, Sergeant Johnstone, mount everyone up. Make damned sure we don't leave anything behind we'll need later."
Bravin took Hastings to the Death from Above and put her inside.
"Are you sure this thing flies?" She asked.
"Positive." Suddenly he thought of something. "You said Surf City is full of witches. Um, are you a witch?"
"Of course. Why?"
"You don't really look like a witch."
"What do witches look like where you're from?"
Bravin thought about that for a second.
"Forget about it. "
The turbine engine started up and the rotors began to turn. Then the helicopters lifted off, one after the other.
"Oh my god!" Hastings screamed. "We are flying!" She grabbed hold of Bravin and held on tight. Bravin found that in spite of her wearing a chain mail coat, she felt nice against him.
After a few minutes, Hastings felt secure enough to look out at the scenery below.
"This is amazing."
"Yeah, as long as we don't run into a hot LZ."
"A hot what?"
"Someplace where people shoot at us when we land."
They'd been flying for about an hour when Hastings spotted something.
"Look! There! Coming out of the forest and onto the Greensward. Tracks. Thousands of tracks. A whole army would make a track like that."
It took another fifteen minutes to find the army.
"Goblins! Thousands of them. And they're headed for the valley. They must be planning an attack."
Bravin used his binoculars to check put the goblin army below. They sure as hell looked like goblins to him. One or two threw spears at the choppers, but they were a thousand feet high, and the spears fell harmlessly back to earth.
Prince Richard Castle was having breakfast with his wife, Princess Kate, as the regal beagle, Snoopy, who'd begun life as Magnus Colorado, a traitorous wizard in the service of King James and Queen Johanna, rested his head on Rick's lap and quietly begged for food. Castle took a small piece of sausage and gave it to Snoopy.
"Richard!" Kate said.
That meant he was in trouble. She only used his full first name when he was in trouble.
"Yes, dear?" He said, as innocently as he could.
"You don't need to feed Snoopy. The royal cook makes him three fine meals a day and a little snack before bedtime. He'll get all fat if he eats between meals."
Rick was saved from having to reply by the arrival of King James and Queen Johanna. Both Castles shot to their feet and bowed.
"Good morning, Your Majesties." They said in unison.
"Oh, no need for formality." King James said. "It's too early for that."
They sat and breakfast was served to the royal pair. Snoopy, knowing who the soft touch was went over and rested his head on Queen Johanna's lap.
"You're a good dog, aren't you?" Johanna said, holding up a whole sausage for the dog to gobble down. Rick said nothing but did smirk at Kate. She ignored him.
"I had the oddest dream last night, Rick. I think it may have been about your Earth, but I'm not sure."
"What about the dream made you think it was about my Earth?"
"The first part of the dream was in a very large, open space, covered in some sort of rock. Very smooth rock, I should say. Perhaps artificial. And there were flying machines there, much like you have described. They were painted in shades of green and brown. At first, I thought they were on fire in the back, but I think they were being propelled through the air. Some carried bombs, much like your mortar shells, but much larger and others had some sort of arrows under their wings. Well, they looked like arrows, they had fins of some sort, like the feathers on an arrow."
"Could you see any of the surrounding area? Trees or ground?"
Johanna thought.
"There were trees in the distance and the earth was red colored."
Rick nodded.
"It could have been an airbase in Vietnam or maybe Thailand. Or on some other Earth. I don't know. Could you see any kind of insignia?"
Johanna shook her head.
"Then I saw a ship from far above. It was huge. Much bigger than the galleys that ply the Endless Ocean. I could see people on her decks, but I'm not sure just how big it was. It was painted grey and had gun turrets like the ones on your tanks, but much, much larger, on the front. In the back was some sort of device carrying arrows, much like the ones I saw on the flying machines, but again, far larger."
"Could you see a name or an insignia? A flag?" Rick asked.
"No. I was too high up."
"Anything else?"
"Yes. The last part of my dream was in someplace much like the base you've described that you came here from. There were what you called bunkers and a few men wearing…green fatigues? Is that the correct word?"
"Yes. Fatigues."
"There were all sorts of vehicles and people about. Some of them I'm sure were just like your tanks and ACAVs. There were other large vehicles carrying people or supplies of some sort. And other vehicles…I just really don't know what they were. But there were also more flying machines."
"What kind?" Rick asked.
"They were painted the same color of green as your vehicles and carried people. I saw people get in them and then they flew away. Oh, most of the men being carried wore the tiger stripes you and your men wear. And the machines had some sort of things like oars on top that spun around so fast you couldn't see them, and they flew straight up."
"Helicopters." Rick said. "Anything else?"
"Yes. This time I followed right along with them. They flew for quite some time and then landed. They picked up some more men, including one that was badly hurt. They flew away again and then I woke up."
TBC