Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

Soldiers streamed through the doors, doors which were ten feet tall and made of oak reinforced with steel, so it was quite fortunate after all that we forced our way through them just as they were opening to let out another wave of the Queen’s guard. We were doubly blessed in that we took them utterly by surprise, managing to overwhelm them quickly even though their numbers almost matched our own. But they were tired and confused and half of them didn’t even know the castle was being attacked, and after a terrifying ten minutes in which all I could do was keep my sword arm arm and duck as often as possible, half of the fight ended up back outside, before the Prince had his men abruptly retreat and we actually locked the a large part of the Queen’s guard outside in the courtyard.  

Five of the Prince’s men were barring the doors, and he sent half a dozen more after the few of the Queen’s soldiers who had run off into the bowels of the castle, in hopes of stopping them before they could alert anyone else.

“Well, getting back out is going to be a problem now,” the Prince panted, wiping the blood from his sword on a random soldier’s pants.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I suggested.

“Do you strategize all your battles like this?” he asked.

“Um… so far, mostly, yeah.”

“And it’s worked out for you?”

“Um… so far, mostly, yeah.”

The Prince shook his head. “I must be mad. You’re damned lucky we’re in too far to back out now.”

“I’ll say,” I replied, trying to ignore the sound of repeated, rhythmic pounding on the oak doors behind us.

“What now?” Jack asked.

“Now,” said the Prince, his gaze steely and his expression one an avenging angel might wear, “Now, we find the Usurper, and put her head on a pike.”

“This is getting a little darker than I expected,” I muttered under my breath to Ezu.

“This is a war, Rikki. Were you expecting them to put her on a time out until she thought about what she did wrong?”

“Sometimes I forget these are the Grimm’s stories, not Disney’s,” I shrugged.

“English, woman, speak it.”

“Technically, I think you should be speaking German, if we’re going to start pointing out inconsistencies.”

“Tell me, Collins, which way to the Queen’s chambers?” The Prince ordered. I jumped a little, I was actually surprised he had remembered my name.

“Uh, actually, I think she’ll probably be in her throne room.”

“Why would you think that?” the Prince asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

“...more climatic impact?” I suggested. That seemed to pull no weight with him, even though it was probably the actual reason. Fortunately for me, one of the men the Prince had sent after the fleeing guards returned just then--unfortunately, he had one hand clasped over the gaping, bloody wound in his abdomen.

“Your highness,” he gasped, stumbling forwards. Three other men rushed forwards to grab him, to draw him closer. “Your highness, the Queen, and her royal Guard… they’ve… they’ve been alerted, they’ve congregated in her throne room… she… she doesn’t know what we’re here for, she doesn’t know whose men we are yet, or our numbers… but she… she…” he couldn’t continue, and collapsed in the arms of the men holding him.

“I’m a lucky guesser,” I said.

“Rikki, people are dying,” Ezu hissed in my ear.

“Maybe I use humor as a way of coping,” I hissed back. To be absolutely honest, at that moment, I might have been one wise crack away from a complete breakdown. People were getting hurt, actually, seriously injured. Before, it had just all been silly, escape-by-the-hairs-of-our-neck-but-everyone-was-okay-in-the-end shenanigans. For the first time, I was suddenly very aware that we might actually not make it out of this alive, and that our actions had real consequences on the lives of the people, of the story book characters, around us.

I think Ezu must have seen how ashen my bloodless face was, and my expression of mild terror.

“Hey, Rikki,” he said, suddenly with a tone of unexpected gentleness. He squeezed my shoulder with his free hand and looked hard at me, his expression serious, his brows knitting over his mismatched eyes. “It’s going to be fine. We’re going to get through this. There’s still, like, a dozen more princesses to save after this. We can’t do that if we’re dead, right? So we’re going to make it through this one okay.”

“But what about everyone else?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

“They’re all trained professionals,” he said, gesturing to the men around us with the tip of his sword. “And they knew what they were getting into here. Most of them will be fine, I’m sure. And the sooner we stop that Queen, the less people will get hurt.”

“Will we really have to… to kill her to do it?” I couldn’t imagine killing anybody. I cried for the turkeys every Thanksgiving until I was ten, and even though they weren’t, well, evil, I couldn’t imagine I’d feel any less guilty about the Queen.

“Hey. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ezu said, offering me a smile. I didn’t give one back.

“That would be more funny if we weren’t talking about murder,” I pointed out. Ezu winced.

“Okay, maybe that was in poor taste.”

“What the hell are you guys doing?” Jack interrupted at that moment, shoving both my rucksack and the Book back into my arms--how had I forgotten about them in all that kerfuffle?--and bringing us sharply back to the real world. “We’re going to get left behind!”

Sure enough, the Prince had already ordered his men forwards, and the swell of soldiers around us was heaving off down the castle halls. I gave a cry of surprise, left all my worries temporarily behind me, and sprinted off through the clattering regalia of armor and shields and swords to catch up with the Prince at the head of the group, the book open in my hands and flipping furiously through it to find that page with the crude map of the castle plans.

It wasn’t as easy as just marching into the Queen’s throne room and demanding her to step down. There were other guards, and they rushed us and broke our ranks on the stairwell, when we had to file into a narrow line of two men side by side per step, and we couldn’t easily defend ourselves against the soldiers who ambushed us from the head of the stairs.

They forced us back, the sound of steel on steel echoing painfully loudly in that confined space, off the stone walls and the crimson tapestries that did little to dampen the noise.

“We’re never going to get through like this!” Jack shouted above the din, crushed between walls of armor.

“Where’s the Huntsman?!” I cried, but he was at the back of the group, unable to come to anybody’s aid without climbing over the heads of our own men, and probably doing more damage than good in the process.

It was no good, we were being routed, and before we had even made it to the second floor. The Queen’s guards were pushing us back down the stairs, where we would have to battle out in the open, and risk losing too many of our number.

But then something--or someone, tugged on my pant leg. I looked down, and saw the grinning face of Frank the Dwarf looking up at me.

“How did you get here?” I gasped.

“What, you doubt our fighting skills?” he snapped, the smile sliding off his face like butter. But then he shrugged and jerked with his head--his arms were full, of what I shall describe in a moment-- down the stairs. “But we did have a little help.”

I looked, and saw the rest of the Dwarves, and Roland, and almost two dozen other soldiers the Prince had left behind in the tunnels, all now returned and their arms laden with things that looked for all the world to be tiny cannons with handles ((A/N: I’m using 13th & 14th century “handguns” here)).

“What in the-” I gaped.

“Sure beats the hell out of their measly swords,” Frank grinned. “And look at that!”

Two soldiers were carrying between them a barrel full of what looked to be, and what I assumed was or was close enough to to count in a game of horseshoes, gunpowder.

“I… oh,” I squeaked. “That looks dangerous.”

“It is! Most people don’t use the stuff for mining, but we Dwarves are ahead of our time.” Frank winked conspiratorially at me. “I suspect the stuff might come in use.”

“Just don’t get us all killed, please,” I replied, with a nervous smile back. “But I’m glad you’re here, we’re not doing so good.”

“We noticed. Just wait a minute, and get ready to run on my mark,” Frank said, and then he disappeared, his diminutive head vanishing beneath swinging arms and twisting bodies. The somebody gave a sudden cry, and there was a small explosion that sent just about everyone, friend or foe alike, dropping to the ground with their arms over their heads.

Smoke filled the air from the blast of one of the crude handguns, and for a brief moment the fighting had ceased. Realizing that this must be the “mark” Frank was speaking of, I leapt to my feet--almost falling over backwards down the stairs as I did so, the burst had been painfully loud and really did a number to my ears and sense of equilibrium--cried out for Ezu, Jack, the Dwarves, the Huntsman, and hell, anybody else who could still stand, and began climbing over heads in a sudden dash for the top of the stairs.

Chaos broke out a moment later, but a different kind of chaos than before. This time there was no organized battle strategy, there was no clear sense of who was on whose side or any rhyme or reason to the shoving and buffeting and shouting that was happening. It was just half of the mob on the stairs pushing madly in one direction, and the other half pushing in the opposite direction.

The Huntsman, whose hearing was about ten times better than a humans, had been badly startled by the blast, and he went into a frenzy, roaring and thrashing and charged up the stairs, shoving everyone, friend and foe alike, out of his way as he barreled past, with several dwarves actually clinging to his fur, hitching a ride.

“Come on!” Jack shouted, shoving Ezu and I into the space he had opened up as he rushed past us up the stairs, and we sprinted after him before the gap could close again with fighting bodies.

Somehow, we broke the enemies’ ranks, along with about half of the Prince’s men, including the Prince himself. Many of the Queen’s guards broke off to try to stop us, and swords were drawn and clashing again in moment, just after I thought we had finally caught a break. One blade came swinging down at me, and I shrieked and somehow managed to parry it with my own, more by accident than design, and my attacker lost him balance and was sent tumbling down the stairs, over the heads of his own fellows. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was the first actual sword to sword combat I had been in, and I was a little proud of myself.

There was no time for gloating though. The Prince came out of nowhere and grabbed me hard by my arm. His hair was a sweaty mess, and a nasty cut on his forehead was leaking profuse amounts of blood into his right eye.

“Where now?” he panted. I flipped open the book, scanned the pages.

“Um… um… that way!” I pointed down the west side of the hall, hoping I was holding the map in the right direction. The Prince sprinted off that way without another word, leaving me to cry out in frustration and take off after him, trying to ignore the protests of my aching legs.

After me came Ezu and Jack, the Huntsman and six of the dwarves on his back, ever faithful Roland with the seventh piggyback style, even though one of his arms seemed to be hanging limply at his side, and maybe fifty, a little more, of the Prince’s men who could break away from the battle of the stairs.

By the time we reached the Throne Room, our numbers had dwindled to the twelve of us, and only two dozen of the Prince’s men. The other thirty had been forced to stop and fend off more oncoming guards, or those members of the Stair Battle that had come after us.

We were severely outnumbered, though decently armed considering, but we had no idea now much more unfair things were about to become.

The Throne Room was ahead of us. It was pretty obvious, the hallway terminated with a massive set of gold and jewel inlaid doors that were thrown wide open as if in greeting, displaying the luxurious audience chamber of the Queen for the world to see.

The room was long, and the throne itself was set at the furthest end of it, so the woman sitting upon it was a distant figure difficult to make out from the opposite end of the hallway.

What was easier to make out was the fifty or more personal guards--for God’s sake, how many men did this woman just have lying around to throw at random intruders?--lining either side of the thick, red carpet that led from the golden doors directly to the steps of the golden throne, twenty-five on each side, spaced about two arm’s lengths apart, and all armed with nasty looking spears.

I don’t know what our plan was at that point. Everything had pretty much gone to hell. We were down about a hundred and seventy men, our whole sneak-attack plan had lasted all of about five minutes, Snow White was still locked up in some basement somewhere, and now that we’d finally found the Queen herself, not only were we once again outnumbered, but she seemed to be beckoning us to her like a spider in her web.

Who knows what the Prince would have done had he gotten inside. He probably would have rushed right up to her and tried lopping off her head then and there, which most likely would have ended poorly for him. At that moment, I don’t know whether he was more blinded by thoughts of vengeance or glory, but he definitely wasn’t thinking clearly. It was perhaps fortunate for him, then, that neither was the Huntsman.

Having caught sight of the woman who had tormented him so much for so long, who had taken everything from him and treated him worse than a slave, worse than an animal, he was overcome by his rage and hurt. The dwarves clinging to him were shook off like droplets of water, and he bellowed his fury and charged, dropping to all fours and overtaking the rest of us in three quick bounds.

That was when things got a little confusing.

The Huntsman knocked the Prince, who was at the head of the group, over as he ran past. The Prince fell, hitting the ground hard, and his prone body tripped up me, Jack, Roland, and about fifteen of the other soldiers.

It was one huge confusing pile of cursing and angry thrashing about for a good twenty seconds.

At some point I lost my sword, and the Book, both knocked out of my hands in the fall and kicked away where I couldn’t reach them. I was reaching around for them, trying not to drown in flailing limbs, when someone grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me out of the twenty man dogpile. Ezu grabbed Jack next and kicked out at the Prince’s head, maybe to get his attention, maybe just to make his general feelings known.

“We have to move!” he shouted, and began to run for the open throne room door.

“Jack, grab my things!” I cried, pointing. Jack spotted them beside him and snatched them up before anyone else could. He tossed me my sword, which I somehow caught deftly in one hand. The Prince too had finally scrambled to his feet, but his blade was lost, kicked far away in the scuffle. He finally grabbed one off of someone else and took off after us, right on Jack’s heels.

The Huntsman had already burst into the room, and Ezu wasn’t far behind. I followed him a second later, my lungs on fire and my whole body feeling like it was just going to give out on me any second. I promised myself I would do more cardio after this.

I skidded to a halt the moment I entered the room, almost tripping again over the oddly plush carpet. I spun around, to see who else followed, just in time to see Jack, and Prince, and five or so soldiers slam face first into…

Nothing.

It was as if an invisible wall had stopped them, their faces smushed up against a plane of perfectly clear glass that I knew hadn’t been there before. I ran back towards the doorway, my hand reached out, and I hit the open space hard. But it wasn’t like a wall, or a glass. I pressed hard against the invisible surface that separated the inside of the throne room from the hallway. It felt more like trying to push two incredibly strong positively charged magnets together--try as hard as I might, I just couldn’t seem to break through to the other side.

“Jack!” I shouted, panic rising in my throat.

“Rikki, what happened, are you guys okay?” he called back. I was relieved to find that I could still hear him perfectly fine.

“I don’t know, it’s… it must be some sort of spell!”

“Oh God, you’re in there alone!” his eyes were wide, frightened. He didn’t know what this meant for us. I didn’t know either. I didn’t want to think about it.

“We’ll be fine,” I told him, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about, trying to assuage his fear, because maybe if he wasn’t scared then I wouldn’t be either. “We’re going to be okay, we can handle this, but you have to get Snow White!”

“What?” Jack said, as if I had just started speaking Martian. “Rikki, I think things have gotten a little more serious than-”

“No, that’s the most important thing! If you don’t save her, wake her up, then it’s all been for nothing!” I insisted, pressing myself up against the barrier as much as I could. “Trust me, if you can do that, then we’ll be okay here! But you have to go, now!”

“I… how? I don’t know what to do!” Jack said, his face twisting. He looked as if he might start to cry, and I had to bite my lip to keep myself from being overwhelmed as well.

“You have the Book! Everything you need to know is in the Book, it will tell you what to do. Just trust me! Go, go now!”

Jack looked down at the leather, beat up, mess of a book in his hands. Come to think of it, I don’t think he had ever read it before, not really. I’d have to tell him all about it, if we all came out of this alive.

He looked back up at me, his expression grim, but resolved.

“Okay. Okay, I’ve got this. I’ve got the Dwarves, and the Prince, and Roland and everyone else. We’ll find her, Rikki.”

“Go! Go!” I shouted, banging my fist against the barrier. Jack turned away, dragging the Prince, who was shouting and stabbing at the barrier with his sword, away, calling the few remaining members of the Prince’s army to his side. Hopefully, he would figure something out. Hopefully.

I turned away from the doorway myself then.

What I saw in the throne room was an odd scene of calm, compared to the hell we had just spent, what, a half hour, forty-five minutes, fighting through?

The Huntsman was standing in the center of the room, his massive, hairy shoulders heaving up and down as he panted heavily. Ten Guards surrounded him, their spears all pointed at his throat.

Ezu stood about halfway between the Huntsman and me, his sword drawn, but his expression uncertain, and he looked from me to the head of the room and back again, at a loss for what to do.

At the head of the room was, of course, the golden throne. It was easily seven feet high at its point, a ridiculously ornate affair with studded jewels and fine gold filigree, crimson velvet cushions, and curved, clawed feet.

Honestly, the overall effect was actually rather tacky.

But the woman sitting upon it, I had to admit, was anything but.

She was a creature of uncomprehending elegance, and I almost wanted to weep to look upon her. With hair as back as a starless night gleaming upon her head she didn’t need to wear a crown, it would have only detracted from her beauty. Her eyes were sultry and long lashed, and looked over us with an odd disinterest, like a cat watching a spider it hadn’t decided whether it should kill or not.

If Snow White was even fairer than this woman, no wonder the Queen wanted to kill her.

Not that I condoned such extreme measures or anything, but I supposed I could sympathize with being blown out of the water like that, to a certain degree.

In the stretch of silence that befell us, the Queen rose to her feet, her silken gown clinging to her frame like the Venus di Milo’s sheath.

“I am sorry I had to cut you off of your… compatriots like that,” she said with a voice like cream and honey, “I actually wanted that boy as well, the tall one with all the… hair,” she waved her fingers vaguely around her head, and I knew she meant Jack. “But I couldn’t let him in without including all the rest, and I have no interest in them. Ah well, two out of the tree isn’t bad, and I’m sure that other little rat will be dealt with soon enough.” She fixed her gaze upon Ezu and me, and I was suddenly glad I had already peed my pants that day.

“You two. You two have been disturbing my plans.”