SquidgeWorld Archive

Once upon a time, and a very long time ago it was, there was a country of rolling green hills and deep cheerful valleys, and to the north and east of this country there was a little kingdom called Metra. Metra had no hills, for it lay in a deep, forested valley that was bordered by the stark wall of cliffs which separated all of that country from the Sea. It was a prosperous kingdom and no more wicked at that time than any other, but it had a castle which was built from the dark stone of the cliffs and finished with ebon wood taken from the surrounding forest, and the appearance of this was so foreboding - for it looked almost as though the castle had grown from the cliffs instead of merely being built beside them - that visitors had been known to falter at the gates for fear of what dark power might dwell within such a place.
 
The king of Metra at that time was a man of great ambition and no little wisdom, and after putting the matter off for as long as he was able it was at last arranged that he should take a wife, that he might be provided with heirs to continue his line. After much searching - more than the usual amount, in fact, as many a king amid the green sunny hills could not convince even one of his daughters to leave them for the ominous palace of Metra - a suitable princess was at last found and brought to Metra to wed the king. And at his first sight of her he thought that she would suit his gloomy castle quite well, for she had hair as black as the ebon wood of the forest and a sweet yet somewhat melancholy nature. They were wed with much pomp and fanfare, as a king's marriage is an event as much for his people as for himself, and immediately settled down to the business of producing heirs.
 
The Queen's first child was born a year and a day later; and the christening was yet another generous celebration for the people of Metra, for she had borne an heir to Metra's throne. The child was so beautiful, with his father's golden hair and his mother's dark eyes, that all those who saw him said he was like to an angel and his mother took to calling him by that name instead of the one he had been christened with. And as is the way of such things, he soon became known throughout Metra as Prince Angel.
 
Prince Angel grew no more quickly or slowly than any other child, but grow he did until he was a fine young man. He was brave to a fault, but also wise beyond his years and possessed of both his father's shrewdness and his mother's kind heart, and when he rode through the kingdom on his white mare people looked at him and were glad to think he would someday be their king. He grew alone, however, for the queen his mother had after his birth apparently become sadly barren - sadly, because she would happily have filled the castle with royal children had she been able. And as the years went by her melancholy grew beyond all reason, for although she loved her son she was consumed with desire to have a least a daughter besides him to love as well. But after so much time had passed, none believed such a thing would ever happen, not even the queen herself.

It so happened that one wintry day when the queen was sitting at her chamber window doing some needlework, she pricked her finger and a drop of red blood fell to rest on the polished ebony of the windowsill. The queen sighed over it, for it looked more beautiful than a ruby sitting there and so engaged her fancy, and said softly to herself, "Would that I could have a little daughter with lips as red as this drop of blood, skin as white as fresh snow, and hair as black as the ebon wood of my windowsill!" And then she turned away from the window to tend to her pricked finger, as she did not wish to stain her embroidery.

She did not, therefore, see the drop of blood vanish into the polished ebony windowsill, and the small chill as of snow that touched her she thought to be only a winter breeze and so moved with her sewing to someplace warmer, thinking no more about it and in fact remembering the incident not at all.

It was to the surprise of all including herself, then, when the announcement was made in the Spring that the queen was once again with child. The announcement still caused much rejoicing in Metra, however, and by autumn the queen was delivered of a tiny girl-child with hair as black as ebony. The queen looked on her much wished-for daughter, touched her fair skin and red lips and named her Snow White...and then she died, whiter than fresh snow herself although no blood save that which was normal had she lost in childbed. And her handmaidens swore that from that day onward, each time they opened the shutters of their dead mistresses chamber window there would come a noise like wild laughter and drops of blood would splatter across the ebony windowsill. But handmaidens are known to be flighty and prone to hysterics, so nobody paid much attention to their stories.

The king was, of course, dismayed over his wife's death, for although their marriage had been a political arrangement she had been a good if sad queen and had borne him one fine son to continue his line and one lovely daughter who might someday win an alliance for him through her own marriage. He also was aware that the people of his kingdom had loved their queen, perhaps even more than he himself had cared for her, and so he adopted mourning as was proper and waited a year and a day before allowing his ministers to begin presenting him with prospects to become the next queen. There was no hurry, as the kingdom already had an heir, and so on this occasion he was free to take as much time as he liked in the choosing of a new wife.

During this time, Prince Angel mourned his mother and spent as much time with his baby sister as he could, and as she grew to toddling size he even took her for rides on his white mare, much to the consternation of the nursery maids - some of them former handmaidens of his mother - who attended her. And when his father finally announced that he had chosen a new queen, a beautiful and refined lady from a kingdom so far away that hardly anyone had ever heard of it, the prince was gladdened to hear that the lady was herself barren and would no doubt be much pleased to gain a lovely little daughter to pet and spoil. And so it seemed to be at first. The new queen of Metra had chosen new apartments for herself in the palace, commanding that her predecessor's chambers be left exactly as they were, and if she had not taken an immediate interest in the nursery she had at least cooed and fawned suitably enough over the little princess whenever the child was brought out, and was wont to give specific orders regarding the manner of the princess's dress, that it might match or at least complement her own. And all of these things were seen as signs that she was a good-hearted woman, even if her bearing was at other times haughty and her manner vain.

Alas, though, the new queen's nature was anything but good, and her heart, had anyone been able to see it, would doubtless have appeared black as pitch. For this vain, proud lady with her long raven hair and cold black eyes was a powerful dark sorceress, far older than she appeared, and the dark and forbidding castle of Metra had appealed to her as a place where she might make her home for a very long time indeed.

The king, of course, knew none of this, although others within his castle became aware of their new queen's less-than-gentle nature all too quickly. Some few were even pleased by the knowledge, as their shrewd, ambitious king was yet a fair man, and just, which traits had frustrated the plans of his not-so-honorable ministers on more than one occasion. And the young prince was very like his father, and had even less tolerance for injustice, so the thought of seeing him take the throne in his father's place was very little to their liking. The new queen, however, had subtly let it be known that she had no more liking for certain of the king her husband's actions than some of his ministers did, and that she considered the young prince with his high ideals to be a less-than-good choice to succeed his father to the throne were Metra to grow and prosper as it should.

The king's first and second ministers - his closest and most trusted advisors - took this encouragement and at once began to work upon a plan which would gain the favor of the queen: the removal of Prince Angel from Metra. Killing him was out of the question, and arranging an 'accident' for him would have been nigh to impossible. Finally, however, they settled upon a course of action which would suit their needs, and which was made all the more wicked as it would be the king himself who sent his son away.

The king of Metra, although shrewd, was in many ways a superstitious man, and it was this fact his ministers used against him. They approached him with an air of grave concern about a matter they purported to be of some urgency, and once alone informed him that through their studies they had discovered a terrible curse lying unaddressed over their kingdom: an only son could never hold the throne of Metra unless he were to go out into the world and prove himself first. Should he not do this, luck would turn against him and so against the rest of the kingdom as well. They painted the probable consequences in the blackest possible terms, pretending great distress over the idea of sending the prince out of Metra in such a manner while yet insisting that it was the only way to save the kingdom and the prince himself.

The king was greatly alarmed by this, but also somewhat relieved; for being ambitious himself and knowing his son to be the same, he had secretly begun to fear that the prince might decide not to wait for the fullness of time and old age to give him the throne of Metra, and that he might hasten the succession along by other means. The king had no evidence that this was the case, but the story his ministers told gave him the opportunity to see his son sent away for a time, and in a manner which would not excite the ire of the general population but gain their support instead. So he at once had a proclamation sent out, and afterwards called his son to him to inform him that he must leave at once or risk bringing great ill-fortune upon the kingdom that would some day be his.

Prince Angel was, of course, much shocked by this, but there was no arguing with his father, who insisted (at the behest of those same treacherous ministers) that he must leave without delay. He begged the privilege of saying goodbye to his baby sister, who was yet too young to understand what was happening, and then arming himself and donning his traveling cloak he mounted his white mare and slowly rode past the cheering people of the village, leaving Metra with a heavy heart.    

From her chambers, the new queen watched him leave - not from her window, for it did not face the road, but from a large silver mirror in a frame of finely carved and polished ebon wood. This mirror she had secretly caused to be created before she had taken up residence in the castle, and after performing much magic upon it she had used a dark rite to summon a spirit from the forest and had imprisoned it within the mirror, shackling it to her will so that it had no choice but to do her bidding.

She watched the prince for a good long time, until she was sure in her own mind that he was bowing to his father's command and would not turn back, and then she commanded the mirror to show her the thing she most wanted to know. "Mirror, mirror, in my thrall," she murmured, "Who is the fairest of them all?"

The mirror's surface speckled with dewy red droplets, and then the roiling blackness of it cleared a silver oval at its center to show the vain and evil sorceress an image of her royal self in all her glory. "Good, good," she purred, pleased that all was as it should be, and with a wave of her hand commanded, "Sleep mirror sleep, thy secret to keep." The blackness withdrew, leaving a polished silver surface, and the queen swept off to distract her suspicious husband from thoughts which might lead him to question his ministers' tales of curses and ill-luck or his own fears regarding his son's ambitions - fears which she herself had so carefully and subtly nurtured.

Several years passed, and for the people of Metra those years were not so good. For a shadow of fear had grown into the village from the forest beyond, and rumors of some fierce beast lurking in the forest and thirsting for flesh and blood were passed from ear to ear as the men worked in the fields and the women clustered about the village well. Some even spoke in whispers of dragons, for many of those devoured had been virginal young daughters and it was well known that dragons hungered for such meat above all other kinds. A few young men had also been killed while in the company of young women - devoured, it was assumed, as no remains save torn cloth and splatters of blood were ever found.

The king was dismayed by these rumors, for although he was skeptical of the stories of unnatural beasts and especially of dragons, it was clear that something had taken up residence in the forest which had a preference for young, tender meat. He conferred with his royal huntsman on many separate occasions, inquiring as to his progress on finding and killing the elusive beast, and even rode out himself with his royal guard, combing the roads and fields for signs that the 'beast' might go on two legs instead of four and thus be a monster more easily dealt with at sword point or the end of a gibbet than with arrows and spears and the hunter's art. Never a sight or track did they find, however, and the villagers learned to keep their daughters always in sight as they went about their work, never leaving them to go off on alone for fear that they might not come back.

The huntsman shook his head mightily over these goings-on but had no better solution. He was a stout, good-natured fellow by the name of Franklin who had woodcraft and to spare, and he had a son Daniel, called Danny, who was very like him in looks and temperament although not so highly skilled. Franklin sent Danny out every day, first in one direction and then in another, and he himself would take the direction opposite, and yet never the smallest clue did they find save more torn garments and blood littered about the forest floor. This the king found to be a matter of some concern in and of itself, but the queen placated him with soothing words. The huntsman, she said, was ever so good at what he did. Did he not bring back the tenderest meat for them, and the finest hides and pelts? Was it not through the efforts of he and his son that the forest remained clear of outlaws and interlopers, and before the coming of this mystery had not the people of Metra been far safer than those of any other village? This new threat needs must be something wholly unnatural to have eluded him for so long, but she was certain that he would in time find it and bring the corpse of it back as a trophy that the people might know they were safe - or that due to his relentless hunting of it the creature might even be frightened away and choose to leave Metra altogether.

The king was quite disposed to listen to the soft words of his wife, whom he had come to trust as her words were so often exactly what he wanted and needed to hear, and so his suspicions were quieted and he let the matter rest. And in fact the killings did stop for a time, just as she had said they might, and even the huntsman agreed that it was possible the beast, whatever it had been, had moved on or perhaps even died. And with this the king was completely satisfied, and caused a proclamation to be made that the danger was past.

The people of Metra, however, did not give up the new caution that marked many of their daily actions. Too many of their children had been killed - simply vanished in the forest, with barely a trace left behind to reveal their fate - for them to be as ready to relax their guard as their king had done. And many were the whispers that began to be passed from ear to ear saying that this shadow had only fallen on Metra after the king had sent Prince Angel away, near to five years previous. Would he return, they wondered, riding back up the road on his white horse, driving the shadow away with his mere presence? And if he did not return, what would become of their kingdom?

The huntsman heard of these tales from his son Danny, who was well-liked in the village, and from Simon the Skinner, who was not well liked at all. Simon was a leering, oily man, tall and gaunt with lank dark hair and unnerving pale eyes. He often worked with the huntsman, being extremely crafty and woodwise himself due to the nature of his profession, and although he had taken up tanning as well after the death of the village tanner some ten years previous and was exceedingly good at it, he had always been known by the title of Skinner and most likely always would be. Simon lived on the outskirts of the village, the better to keep the smell of his business away from those who need not be afflicted with it, and this location along with the man's cunning had made him quite valuable to Franklin as one who could come and go mostly unremarked. He also heard many things which were meant to stay secret, and these he duly passed on for certain considerations - considerations which Franklin did not approve of, but which he could not deny were he to keep Simon's services and his silence.

Simon's retelling of the village's tales of Prince Angel was accompanied by many a sneer, and elicited a sigh and a shake of the head from Franklin. Neither of them believed for one moment the story of curses and ill-luck which their king had proclaimed was the reason for sending his heir away; in fact, both men were quite convinced that the young prince who had been Angel in name had shortly after his leaving become an angel in fact as well. It did not dismay either of them that this would mean Metra was without an heir, for the queen had reassured her favored huntsman - he had in fact become known in the village as the Queen's Huntsman - that she would certainly take up the responsibilities of the crown should any unforeseen misfortune befall the king.

In truth, on more than one occasion Franklin had wondered that the queen could know so much of what was said in the village, as she rarely left the castle for any reason. She had brought no servants with her when she had come to Metra, and the few handmaidens she allowed to serve her were rarely seen in the village either. Franklin had looked in vain to find anyone who might be spying for the queen, and charged his son with keeping his eyes and ears open at the tavern each night to see if anyone was paying more attention to the gossip than they should be. And even in that he had been disappointed, for Danny could only report that men from the village came and went irregularly at the tavern, and that the only visitor who ever seemed odd was the castle's stable boy, a hulking mute with the mind of a child who could follow simple instructions when he was given them but could in no way be used as a spy. So Franklin had reluctantly been forced to conclude that the queen did her spying with magic, and had made sure he was twice as careful in both word and deed as he normally would have been. It would not do for such a powerful woman to lose faith in him or have cause to question his loyalty.

And he was loyal, completely loyal. Simon...well, Simon was what he was, and he served his purpose. Danny, however, Franklin was not sure about. His boy thought too much about trolls and dragons and heroes and other nonsense which Franklin had waited in vain for him to outgrow. He felt certain that with such ideas in his head Danny would never be able to serve Her Majesty in the manner which she required, which put him in a very precarious position whether he knew it or not. Soon, very soon, Franklin knew he would have to test his son and let Danny's reaction determine his fate.

As luck would have it, a bare fortnight after he had decided this, Franklin was summoned by the queen and at once made haste to her apartments by a way known only to himself. She was, as always, sitting before her large ebon-framed mirror, and he dropped to one knee and swept off his hat the moment he was near her. "My Queen, you summoned me. What is your command?"

"Something a bit different this time," she told him. "I have been made aware of a...problem which will arise, the thought of which causes me great distress. I would see you address this problem at once, this very night." She passed a fair hand across the face of the mirror and the Huntsman looked up, prepared to identify his target from the image which would be shown against the black depths; on seeing what appeared, however, he could not hold back a small sound of surprise. The queen looked at him with her hard black eyes, frowning at this reaction. "Huntsman?"

"Your Majesty," he replied at once. "I...I was merely surprised. This is not a target of the usual sort you send me to deal with."

"You do not wish to..."

"I wish only to be sure that you wish this one to be the same as the others," he disclaimed quickly. "I would not want to make a mistake should you have something else in mind."

The queen was mollified by this. "It shall be the same," she told him, and handed him the golden box which she always placed into his hands after setting this particular task on him. "Bring me her heart."

"And the rest?"

She waved a disinterested hand; the image on the mirror disappeared. "I trust in your discretion. As you have said, this one is...different. Not even the least trace must remain to be found, not the merest drop of blood or the tiniest button."

"They will not be. Need I be prepared to mount a large search on the morrow?"

"At the behest of the king, you mean?" The queen laughed, a cold, cruel sound. "He'll not notice her absence - and if by chance he were to do so, I should tell him that she was being cared for elsewhere as I had found those servants entrusted with her to be unsatisfactory." She waved her hand again. "Go now, and do as I command. The brat has been put to bed, and the servants who are there will not trouble you."

Franklin rose, bowed deeply, and then left the queen's rooms by the same way he had entered them. He did not leave the castle, however, but went around by another secret way, unseen, to reach the nursery of Princess Snow. And on entering it he found the truth of what the queen had told him, for the nursery maids who were present posed him less than no trouble at all - because they were all dead, lying in various still heaps about the outer room of the nursery with crushed throats and broken necks. The huntsman passed them without another thought, going into the nursery proper and from thence entering the princess's bedchamber.

The princess was there, tucked into a pretty little bed shaped like a large swan, and Franklin did not quite sigh. He saw it now, the problem the queen sought to prevent with this sudden action. Even at the tender age of seven, Snow White showed every sign of growing into a stunning beauty. Which was a pity, as Her Majesty did not suffer the existence of any who might be said to outshine her own beauty within the bounds of the kingdom.

He bent down, composing his face into a kind, fatherly mask, and gently shook the sleeping child awake. "Princess," he whispered, holding one hand near to her mouth lest she attempt to scream. "You must come with me, there is great danger. Be a good child and do not make a sound."

When she nodded, he swept her up into his arms and at once hurried from the room, clapping a hard hand over her mouth when she would have cried out at the sight of the dead nursery maids strewn about the nursery floor like so many discarded dolls. Out through the empty corridors and then down through the cold stone passages of the secret way he went, swift and silent, until he emerged into an isolated clearing right beside the black wall of the cliffs and dropped his shivering, crying burden onto the leaf-littered ground. Simon was already there, skinning knives in his belt and a grin of gleeful anticipation on his face. "Well well, what a surprising little present we have tonight!" he cackled.

"Enough with your noise," Franklin snapped. "We're still that close to the castle, and to the village - set her to screaming and death will be the best thing that could happen to you. We need to pick a place to do this where no one will come across any sign..."

"I know a place." The new voice intruded into the clearing and made both men put their hands to their weaponry, but Danny took no apparent notice as he stepped into the small clearing. The stocky young man was like his father in build and feature but unlike him in coloring, having his dead mother's bark-brown eyes and hair. Those eyes were usually warm and his face full of good-humor, but neither were in evidence as he looked from his father to Simon and back. "Shouldn't have stopped to meet up with Simon, Dad - there's folks about in the forest tonight. I sent them in the other direction or they'd have been on you by now."

Franklin's hand was still on the hilt of his long dagger. "Why are you here, Danny?"

"I figured out what you were doin', and I came lookin' for you," Danny replied, sounding more than a little offended. "You should have told me, Dad - you should have told me a long time ago. I could've helped."

"What could you possibly have done other than get in the way?" Simon sneered. "You fat pudding of a boy, you're barely worth the penny your skin would fetch."

"I know the forest better than you," Danny shot back. "You've been the one leavin' things behind, Simon, 'cause I know Dad's not that sloppy or that sick."

Simon smiled, showing a few too many of his stained teeth. "I enjoy my work."

"Yeah, way too close to the castle, and the village," Danny told him. "If you want to hide somethin', you don't go leavin' parts of it scattered all over for people to find." A scowl appeared on his face, making him look far more like his father the huntsman than he normally did. "I trust Dad, but you like the killin' way too much - it ain't to be done for shits and giggles, it's somethin' necessary."

"Enough, Simon," Franklin said before the taller man could open his mouth again. "He's right. " His hand had left the dagger's hilt, and he wiped a tear from his eye. "I'm so proud of you, my boy. I never thought this day would come. You know a suitable place?"

"I do." Danny took hold of the terrified little girl and swung her up over his shoulder as a man might heft a sack of grain and with no more care about it. "I know a place where no one goes. I'll be back tonight, an' you can take the heart up to Her Majesty. Got somethin' for me to put it in?"

His father slowly pulled out the small golden chest and handed it to him. "Don't get blood on the outside, she doesn't like that."

"I never thought this day would come either," Simon put in, leering. "I thought that someday I'd be killing you instead of watching you kill for the queen."

Danny turned a cold eye on him. "Follow me an' I'll leave your body there with the kid's," he said. "Only person who knows the place is me, only person who's gonna know it is me, got it?

Simon just cackled, but Franklin gave him a shove and the noise stopped. "Go, Danny, and come back as quickly as you can. Her Majesty is not a patient woman."

"She don't have to be, she's the Queen," Danny observed with a shrug. He resettled the crying burden on his shoulder more comfortably and then trotted off into the woods and quickly vanished from sight.

"I underestimated him," Franklin said, more to himself than to Simon, nodding sagely. "We'll see when he comes back. And you," he rounded on the still snickering man, "You get yourself back to your place and stay there, d'you hear? Because he's right, your...proclivities are going to be the end of us all."

Simon stared at him out of his deep-set eyes. "What if he doesn't come back?"

Franklin snorted. "He will - he can't lie, my Danny. And besides, if he decided to be so foolish as all that...why, he knows that you coming after him would be the least of his problems."

 In truth, however, Franklin had his doubts. His son was tender-hearted and had a fanciful turn of mind, and the man who was the Queen's Huntsman was not sure that his boy could complete such a task as he had taken on. He waited with some trepidation for his son's return, and was relieved beyond all measure when Danny came back just before sunrise and presented him with the golden box. A quick glance inside showed that it did indeed contain the heart, and Franklin gave his son a quick embrace before taking the box up to the queen's chambers to be delivered into her own hands.

Danny made himself busy about their comfortable cottage while his father was gone, readying things for their breakfast, and if he was quieter than usual all that day and into the evening his father thought no more about it. But as he lay in his bed that night, staring up into the darkness, Danny could only think of the task he had undertaken that day and how he had carried it out. He felt it would be a long time, even a very long time, before he was able to sleep unbothered by thoughts of what he had done. And he was resolved, and had sworn himself an oath, that he would not allow such a thing to happen again were he at all able to prevent it.

One day some few years past that dark and horrible winter's night, and a fine sunny late summer day it was in contrast, a rider came into the forest of Metra. Although he seemed to be riding in a straightforward manner rather than skulking about in the shadows, he yet avoided the road and instead rode through the forest, not making directly for either the castle or the village. Danny was aware of him within an hour of his arrival, knowing the signs of the forest well, and being unsure of the stranger's intentions he followed him in an attempt to find out what those intentions might be. In truth, what little of the stranger Danny was able to glimpse perplexed him. He was a man of middle years, dark golden hair just beginning to be touched by silver, and he rode a fine white stallion - and yet his clothing was neither that of a nobleman nor of a poor horse thief. He was also well-armed enough to be a knight, although he wore no armor save for a plain studded leather jerkin, having upon his person a long sword in a scabbard, a long knife in his belt and smaller ones in each boot, and a bow and arrows strapped to the back of the saddle overtop of his rolled traveling cloak. But a knight, Danny knew, would have ridden right up the road to the castle. Could this be a hero? Danny would have been the last person to deny they needed one, but although the signs were there he was still somewhat unsure. He decided to keep following the stranger until the man stopped for the night, and then he would see what happened from there.

The man rode in this perplexingly purposeful yet aimless way for a good long while, and then he stopped and made camp in a seemingly random clearing near a small stream. Danny kept his watch as the man tended to his horse, set a small fire over which he spitted a rabbit he had extracted from a bag that had also hung behind his saddle, and then settled down beside the fire and began to unwrap a bandage that was wound around the palm of his left hand. Without looking up from his task, he called out softly yet clearly, "There's no need to keep lurking in the trees. You're welcome to come share the fire, if you care to, and what supper I have tonight if you have no provisions of your own. You've been following me all this day, I don't believe we are any sort of threat to each other."

Danny was surprised, but not overly so; he'd seen enough already to know that the stranger possessed a fair amount of woodcraft, whoever he was. He stepped out of the trees and took a seat on the opposite side of the fire from the other man. "Appreciate it, although I've got provisions of my own I can add to yours. You're a hero, right?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "Why would you think that?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "What else would you be, carryin' a sword like that? You don't act like a thief, or an outlaw - not that we usually see any like that in Metra, an' when we do they don't stick around long." He cocked his head, a little wistfully. "I've always wanted to meet a hero, but we don't see any of them at all."

The man considered him for a moment...and then he held out his hand although he didn't quite smile. "I'm Nicholas."

Danny took the hand gladly. It was smaller than his, but stronger. "Danny. So, a hero?"

"I suppose so." Nicholas did not quite sigh. "You're not the first person who's called me that...but I don't really like it all that much. The way I see it, I just do what needs to be done: fight evil, defend the innocent, try to see justice served..."

"That's what heroes do, yeah." The other man gave him a faintly exasperated look, and Danny grinned at him. "Hey, just 'cause you don't like it don't mean it's not true, right?"

That made Nicholas smile, ever so slightly. "I suppose you're right, yes. And what about you?"

"Oh, I'm no hero," Danny disclaimed immediately. "I just live here, you know?"

"All right." Nicholas went back to unwrapping the bandage on his hand. "You've got a good amount of woodcraft, though - I knew someone was out there, following me, but I never did get a good look at you. At first I thought you might be a huntsman from the village here, or perhaps from the castle."

"No, not me." Danny shook his head. "Just grew up in these woods, know 'em like the back of my hand. You were sneakin' around, I wanted to see what you were up to."

Nicholas nodded. "That's fair enough." The bandage was off now, and he tossed it into the fire and began cleaning the wound it had covered with a cloth dipped in the mug that sat at his knee, making a very thorough job of it. "So you're guarding this part of the forest?" 

Danny shrugged. "Could say that, I suppose - do my best, anyway." He squinted at the other man's hand. The wound was healing, but still ugly. "From a knife?"

"A badly-wielded short sword." Nicholas was concentrating on rewrapping his hand in a clean strip of cloth he'd pulled from the bag on the ground beside him. "Some idiot in a red tunic - from the sound of the nonsense he was spouting, he was part of a group of guards who had deserted their duty and were trying to make a name for themselves as outlaws instead." He tied a knot, tightening it with one end of the cloth held between his teeth. "Their king was probably better off without them, if he was anything to go by - it wouldn't have taken the enemy long to discover that the men in red tunics are easy to kill."

"I'll have to remember that," Danny said, fascinated. He leaned forward. "Have you ever fought a troll?"

"Unfortunately. They stink to high heaven, my eyes were watering from it every time I've ever encountered one. And they're clumsy and not too bright, so you almost feel bad for killing them - almost, because they do eat people just as happily as they'll eat cattle, horses and sheep." He saw that Danny wanted more and added. "You don't really fight trolls; you have to trap them, like an animal, and then kill them with a spear. Through one of their eyes is best, drive the spear right into the brain so it's over quickly; some of them don't have hearts and they remember scents very well, you don't want to take a chance that the one you trapped will get free and start hunting for you."

"I'd always wondered if that story was true - that trolls will track people, that is."

"They will." Nicholas had dumped the dirty water out of his mug and laid the cloth out on a rock near the fire to dry. He checked the roasting rabbit, turning it a bit. "You can use that to lead them into a trap, though, so it's not entirely a bad thing. The bad thing is when they catch a human someplace, eat them, and then track the scent back to the village they came from."

Danny's eyes were wide. "That's somethin' I've never heard. Good to know, though, even though we don't have trolls here. Although we do have a stable boy at the castle what's monstrous big and clumsy and not so bright, but he don't eat people that I know of. What about giants?"

"Giants mostly live in the North," Nicholas told him. "I've only seen one."

"Did you kill him?"

"Her." He sighed. "Yes. She'd gotten a taste for human flesh, I'm given to understand that it happens to them sometimes. She was snaring people who strayed out of the fields into the woods near where she'd made her home, cooking them up like we might a rabbit or a pheasant." He saw the look of awe on Danny's face and shook his head. "She wasn't that large of a giantess. She was like...an old woman, the kind every village has one of to its name, the kind that's not quite right in the head. I felt bad about having to kill her, but reasoning with her didn't work - she was too far gone."

"You tried to reason with a giant - sorry, giantess?" Danny's eyes were practically bugging out of his head. "I've never heard no stories of anyone tryin' that. Wasn't it awful dangerous?"

"She wasn't that fast..." Nicholas began, and then he shook his head again. "Well yes, it was. But it had to be done, even though I wasn't all that happy about having to do it."

Danny digested that with a thinking frown. "If you'd had your way, what'd you have done with her?"

"Gotten her back to her own kind so that they could take care of her," was the immediate answer. "There just wasn't any way to do it, though. You can trap a giant, but they're far too large and strong to capture and hold for any length of time."

"Yeah, and even if you could, you wouldn't be able to get it to do what you wanted - not if the giant was nuts like that." Danny decided that the subject of the giantess was upsetting to Nicholas and switched to another monster. "How about dragons, you ever fight any of them? They eat people too."

From the shadows under the trees where it was tethered, the horse snorted. "No, actually they don't - and you, settle down back there," Nicholas called to the horse, which stamped and snorted again and then did as it was told. "That's a myth," he told Danny. "Dragons don't eat people, and they never have. They're thinking creatures, not anything like a troll, and they're far more intelligent and reasonable than even a normal giant is said to be. Dragons only attack people if the people attack them first, and sometimes not even then."

Danny cocked his head. "Don't they have treasure, big piles of gold and stuff that they keep in their dens, stuff they've stole from kings and such?"

Nicholas shook his head. "Not that I've seen. And they don't have any need of treasure, so razing a kingdom to get some wouldn't make any sense - they're quite logical. Their eggs are golden-colored, though, so that's most likely where the stories came from. That's also one of the few times when they'll attack humans, when they feel their eggs are threatened. Dragons are very protective of their family." His mouth twisted slightly. "Moreso than humans, sometimes."

"Yeah, ain't that the truth."

The melancholy agreement narrowed Nicholas's dark eyes, but he didn't comment. Instead he said, "A few months ago I was in Mercia hunting a wolflike creature, the villagers called it a garoul, a man-wolf. Have you ever heard of those?"

Danny hadn't, and so the conversation was steered away from more locally unpleasant topics until well after the rabbit had been consumed and the fire had died down. Surprisingly, to Nicholas anyway, it was Danny who brought it up again. "I'll stay here tonight, help you keep watch," he said. "Metra's got...well, it's..." He blew out a frustrated breath. "It's my dad," he blurted out finally. "Him and Simon - that's Simon the Skinner, he lives just outside the village. Dad's bad - went bad, anyway, I don't remember him always bein' like that. But he's plenty bad now, an' Simon's worse, and I'm thinkin' they're one of the only two things in Metra that a hero like you'd come here to stop."

Nicholas stopped poking down the fire and raised a sandy golden eyebrow. "What's the other one?"

 "The queen." Danny swallowed. "Dad's the Queen's Huntsman."

The other man nodded. "I've heard strange tales about Metra recently, but they weren't why I came here." His dark eyes took on a faraway look. "I had a dream, three nights running. My...someone told me to come here, that there was great evil at work in Metra and it had to be stopped." A bitter little smile quirked one corner of his lips. "She told me that I was done proving myself, but my greatest challenge was yet to be faced. I'd thought that would be the King."

"No, it ain't the King."

Nicholas was surprised all over again. "You sound very certain about that."

"I am - dead certain. I'll take you to 'im if you want, first thing in the morning." Danny glanced up, then away again. "Can't go in the dark; it ain't safe, even for me."    

"In the morning, then," Nicholas agreed quietly, suddenly feeling very glad that his mount would doubtless alert him to anything that drew too near his camp during the night. 

He woke at dawn the next morning and found that his new companion had already risen and was burying the remains of the fire with damp earth. "Won't do to burn the forest down, then I'd have noplace to live," he said cheerily when he saw that Nicholas was awake. "Good mornin'!"

"Good morning," Nicholas replied. He checked his weapons, shook out his traveling cloak prior to rolling it up, and then went to check on his horse, which he led to the edge of the clearing. "We'll have to find some berries or something..."

"Got it covered," Danny interrupted him with a grin. He tossed over a little cloth-wrapped package, which Nicholas opened and found to contain a seed cake and a strip of dried meat. "Had that with me, I already ate my share. You can eat it on the way. Where we're goin', it's a ways from here an' the forest is pretty thick for a horse, might take us a while."

"Thank you. And I'm sure he'll manage, or he'll find his own way and catch up to us." At Danny's look he smiled slightly and shook his head. "He's a very intelligent creature."

"Has to be, if he can do that." Finished with clearing the camp, Danny led Nicholas and the horse into the pathless forest in a direction that angled obliquely away from the castle and village of Metra but toward the tumbled, rocky foot of the steep stone cliffs. Some hours of walking, mostly in silence, saw them reaching a place where the moss was thick as a fine carpet underfoot and the forest canopy overhead so dense that even at high noon only the sun could barely find cracks to squeeze the smallest rays through. An irregular pool of blackness gaped in the craggy stone, and from it crept a foul odour as of death that turned the beauty of the place to uncertain horror. "We're here."

Nicholas had been afraid Danny would say that. "You said you'd take me to see..."

"I did, an' I am." Danny interrupted somberly. He waved a hand at the dark cave. "He's in there. Along with plenty of others, unfortunately. But he's in there."

"Explain," Nicholas demanded. His hand had fallen to the hilt of his sword. "You say the king of Metra is in that, that..."

"Buryin' cave, I call it," the huntsman's son said. "I didn't kill the ones that are in there, Simon did that, but I brought the bodies here so he couldn't do nothin' else to 'em." He shuddered. "Killin' 'em ain't enough for Simon, he's...unnatural that way. I haven't been able to stop the bastard, but I can take the bodies and put 'em up safe here where he can't get at them."

Nicholas swallowed, feeling the smell of rot and decay stick in his throat. "And the king?"

Danny's face hardened. "Simon started it, Dad finished it," he said darkly. "I was still livin' with Dad in the village then, but he'd sent me off to do somethin' else...I didn't realize what they were up to until it was too late. I went after 'em, but I couldn't get there in time." He shook his head, jaw setting. "I stopped Simon, though - got him by surprise that day, I did - took a stick of wood to his head, actually thought that I'd killed him and weren't sorry about it at all. An' then I brought the king's body back here where it would be safe. Knew someone would come lookin' for him someday."

"The queen?"

"Was the one what told Dad to kill him."

"My God..." Nicholas simply couldn't find words to express his horror. He started forward, was stopped by the other man's hand on his arm. "I have to go in there, I have to see him."

"Yeah, I know - 's why I brought you here, remember?" Danny pulled a small lantern out of the bag he had with him and held it up. "If you've got one of these, we'd best have 'em both. It's dark in there, pitch dark."

Nicholas saw the sense in that. Caution and forethought and keeping a clear head had kept him alive this far into his career as a hero, and he was disappointed that in his shock he'd been ready to plunge into a pitch-black cave of unknown proportions and challenges without thinking to take some kind of light with him first. He didn't have a lantern of his own, however, only a few bits of candle which wouldn't do any good, and so they lit Danny's lantern and Danny led the way with it into the cave.      

 On entering the charnel smell almost choked Nicholas, although Danny appeared not as bothered by it. The huntsman's son waved a hand at several openings in the walls that appeared to have caved in. "I did that, blocked 'em off," he said quietly, almost reverentially. "Don't nobody need to see that. But him, I had to do better for him." He led Nicholas further in and held up his lantern to illuminate a dark opening surrounded by eggshells and ivy and bits of an iron chain. "I got to the king quicker, so I was able to fix things up a bit and figure out a better way to keep Simon off him. I knew he'd find this place eventually."

Nicholas looked at the strange arrangement, recognizing its purpose at once. "Simon is a changeling?"

"Summat like that, yeah. Treatin' him like one has worked so far." He gestured with the lantern, making the shadows swing around them. "Go ahead. It's too small for both of us in there."

Nicholas started to take a deep breath and then stopped himself; in that atmosphere, it wouldn't have been the best of ideas. Carefully, he stepped across the marked threshold and into the cavern beyond.

The body of a man in what had once been fine clothing lay upon a rough bier made of piled stones in the center of the small, dark space. The corpse's face had long since disintegrated to a rot-covered skull, but its silver-gold hair shone in the uncertain light...as did the bent and tarnished crown that graced its decaying brow. "He didn't go easy," came Danny's respectfully quiet voice from behind him. "He didn't go easy at all."

Nicholas, his eyes experienced in noticing the signs that defined how a battle had gone, could see that. There were rents in the fine rotted clothing that had been made by a dagger or a short sword, and a hole in the corpse's breast which marked the place where an arrow had no doubt delivered the killing blow from a cowardly distance. He drew his sword and dropped to one knee before the bier, tears stinging his eyes as he bowed his head. "I will avenge you, I swear it," he whispered. "On my honor, Father, I will see that those who did this face justice."

Danny had stayed just without the arch of the rough doorway as the chamber was quite small, but he could not for the sake of the light of the lantern he held go very far and so could also not fail to hear the tearful vow - or the name Nicholas had bestowed on the corpse. His mouth dropped open. "You're...you're Prince Angel?"

The man kneeling before the bier gave no sign of having heard him. The light of the small lantern spun fine the gold of his cropped hair as well as that of the corpse, his father, the betrayed King of Metra.  A moment of silence more and he stood, sheathing his sword but not turning. "The dream, it was my mother who told me to return to Metra. I came back...to confront him," the revealed prince said softly. "He exiled me on the word of his ministers all those years ago, ran me out of my home that same hour, I barely had time to say goodbye to my sister..." His back stiffened as a new thought hit him. "My sister?"

"Fine last time I saw her, which weren't all that long ago," Danny reassured him quietly. "But we can't talk about that here...Your Highness."

"It's still Nicholas." He turned around with reddened eyes, swiping at them defiantly with the back of his hand. "That is my name, after all. It was my mother who called me Angel. Father..." he faltered slightly. "Father hated nicknames, he said they were only useful for building strange histories that people would make into fairy stories in later years."

"You're well on your way to havin' that already," Danny informed him, not without sympathy. "Once things started to go bad in Metra, folks around here blamed it on you bein' sent away. The stories say you'll come ridin' back to the castle on your white horse someday and the darkness will flee before you."

As if on cue, from outside came the angry neigh of the white stallion. Nicholas immediately stepped out of his father's crude crypt and drew his sword again. "Someone's out there."

Danny had drawn his long knife. "Bet I know who. Hope he don't hurt the horse..."

"He won't - he can't." Surprisingly, Nicholas smiled for a moment. "I'll explain it to you later, but trust me, he can't do a thing to that horse. Hold up the lantern, I'll go..."

"No, I will and you'll hold the lantern," Danny interrupted, shoving the lantern into the prince's free hand as he said it. "You did your confrontin', it's time I did mine - years past time, in fact. And I know their tricks, so you stay well behind me until we're both in the open."

Nicholas had little choice but to do as he asked, as Danny had already moved ahead of him and there was no way to take his place. Almost at the entrance to the cave the huntsman's son swiped with the knife, jumping to one side, and an arrow fell to the ground in two pieces. "Coward!" he called out. "Ain't no way to fight."

"I'm not fighting, I'm hunting," replied a rich, jolly voice that rang against the dark rocks. "But come on out, boy, and let me have a look at you before I kill you."

"Better you than Simon, unnatural git that he is. You knew he was some sort of changelin', right Dad?" Danny was silhouetted in the entrance now, and then he stepped out and moved away from it, making room for Nicholas to follow - which the prince did as quickly as he could.

And then he stared. "Good lord, how could he not have known," he murmured. The...creature standing near the hefty, jolly-looking man with the bow who just had to be Danny's father was quite obviously not normal, and it was grinning and sniffing the charnel-scented air as a regular man might sniff the air a feast. "How sure are you of the leash that holds this creature in check, Huntsman?" he called out. "

Franklin laughed. "Since it rests in Her Majesty's fair hands as well as my own? Quite sure," was his answer. "And who might you be?"

"Nicholas."

"He's a hero," Danny added. "He was comin' to see the king."

"So you escorted him straight here and made the introductions, I see." Franklin nodded. "Interesting indeed. Well Nicholas, I'm sorry to say that you're a few years too late to gain an audience with His Majesty, although I feel certain you already know that."

"I do, although I may have seen more than you would wish." Nicholas cocked his head. "It looks like he died hard, but ultimately from a coward's arrow through his heart - a hunting arrow, I believe, rather than the type carried by a common man." He waved a hand at the bow the huntsman carried. "Do I stand in the presence of that coward?"

The words had been offered as a challenge, and this time Franklin's laugh was deeper, but there was a dark edge to it and his pleasant, grandfatherly features twisted into something much more unpleasant. "Oh, heroes. So amusing! But so very, very rude and unmannerly. And we just can't have that in Metra, Her Majesty doesn't like it." He made a gesture and Simon started forward, still grinning manically. "Simon will see to you. I need to have...words with my disgracefully disobedient and traitorous offspring."

"I ain't the one who's a traitor, Dad." Danny stood his ground. "I ain't the one who killed the king."

"No, but you are the one who killed his pretty little daughter - cut her heart out and hid the body, did you not?" Franklin laughed when Nicholas gasped and Danny flinched. "So I see you hadn't shared that with him yet, you naughty, naughty boy."

"Prob'ly because I didn't do it." Danny's voice was quiet. His back straightened and he looked his father in the eye with sad defiance. "I didn't do it, Dad. I took her off someplace safe, an' she's been safe ever since." He scowled. "I can't believe you'd thought I'd hurt a little kid, no matter who ordered it done. An' it makes me sick that you'd have done it if I hadn't stopped you."

The huntsman's laughter died as he saw the truth in his son's face. "And when did you learn to lie to me, hmm?" he wondered aloud. He drew his long dagger. "You're a traitor to Her Majesty, son...and for that you will die."

Nicholas saw Danny adjust his grip his own knife, but then Simon was leaping over the uneven ground towards him and he had to duck out of the way quickly to avoid the madly cackling creature's rush. And then he had to do it again. He frowned. Simon, whatever he was, had a good deal of speed, and even had he been a normal man Nicholas would have expected him to be fairly strong due to his profession. The image of the rotted ruin that had been his father came back to him. The King of Metra had been an active man, and an accomplished swordsman, yet this creature had managed to inflict a great deal of damage on him before his death.

Of course, the king hadn't been a hero. Nicholas smiled. He was, whether he liked the title or not...and he had beaten worse things than this twisted creature. He shifted his sword to a different guard position, one that would enable him to recover his stance more quickly, and looked Simon in the eye. "Will we just be jumping around, then?"

 "I'll have you," Simon growled. "I'll have you!"

"You won't have anything if you keep dancing around," Nicholas taunted. Simon feinted with his long knife - it looked to be a skinning knife - and Nicholas slapped it aside with his sword.

Simon pivoted away from a slash that would have laid his side open. "Let's try that again," he hissed, and lunged to one side...where he was met by the sword, which tore his sleeve and cut a thin red line in the flesh underneath. He lashed out and heard cloth tear, and then they were apart again. Nicholas pressed what little advantage this gave him, going on the attack, and Simon closed with him eagerly but to no avail, as he wasn't able to get inside the smaller man's guard.  A few more failed attempts at this and he smiled, then threw his knife and rushed.

Nicholas managed to deflect the knife, causing it to inflict only a glancing gash on his leg rather than stabbing him through, but his own leap backwards to avoid a grappling match resulted in him losing his balance on the uneven ground and losing his sword at the same time. Simon pounced, prepared to use his greater size to pin down and overpower his now unarmed opponent, and Nicholas grabbed the first thing that came into his hand and thrust it upwards before throwing himself to one side. He rolled back to his feet with his sword once again in hand, full ready to continue the fight...and then he stopped, straightened, and stared, his sword dropping to his side in shock. For the stout little stick he had employed to be a distraction had caught Simon the Skinner under the chin, impaling him grotesquely through the mouth. The man was quite dead.

He wasn't the only one who was surprised by this outcome: Franklin saw what had become of his partner in crime and, abandoning the cat-and-mouse game he had been playing with his son, sheathed his dagger and drew his bow again, notching a cruelly-tipped hunting arrow to the string in one smooth motion and aiming it with deadly precision. "You will die for that," he snarled, and loosed the arrow.

Nicholas was caught off-guard by the swiftness of the action, but Danny wasn't; with a cry of denial he leaped forward, interposing himself between the prince and the deadly arrow. It caught him just below his chest, sinking in so deep that it looked as though it might be coming out the other side, and he fell to the ground clutching at the shaft. He looked up at his shocked father with cold eyes. "You killed...the king, an' I couldn't stop you," he choked out, blood already bubbling at his lips. "I won't let you...kill his son."

He fell back onto the moss, unable to speak more, but the last thing he heard and saw brought a final, pleased smile to his lips; for Nicholas had roared in rage and leapt for Franklin with sword in hand, looking very much like an avenging angel.

Nicholas, in truth, was seeing nothing but red. His hatred for this man, the man who had killed his father, who had taunted and now murdered his own son at his very feet, passed all reason and he attacked Franklin like a wild man. Now it was Nicholas who was the cat, and it was with pleasure that he saw the fear grow in the stout huntsman's face with each taunting feint and deft slice. The bow he had already cut from the man's hand, taking part of a finger with it. "No more cowardly killing for you," he snarled.

Franklin fought back with more skill than might have been expected, but the long knife he had again drawn from its sheath at his belt was no fit match for a fine, long sword wielded by a furious and extremely well-trained prince. Very quickly he found himself disarmed, unable to run...and then staring up at the enraged man he could now well believe was the young Prince Angel come back to destroy them all, as he was looking at that moment very like his father the king had looked on the day Franklin's arrow had killed him. This thought was the last he ever had, however, for it was then that the point of the prince's fine, long sword stabbed down into his chest and ended the life of the Queen's Huntsman between one heartbeat and the next.

Nicholas pulled his sword back out and wiped it on the dead huntsman's clothing before sheathing it and going back to Danny. He turned the still-breathing body over and removed the loosely curled hand from the shaft of the deadly arrow that he might examine the wound. It was, as he had suspected, a mortal one. Nicholas hesitated but half a second, and then pulled the arrow out and tossed it aside, wincing when Danny twitched feebly at the pain of it. "I'm sorry, but stay with me just a few moments longer and all will be well, you've my word." Tearing the bandage from his hand, he drew a small sharp dagger from the top of his boot and with it opened the half-closed wound on his palm. Holding his bleeding hand over the terrible wound the arrow had left, he caused drops of ruby-red blood to fall into it one by one; the wound glowed softly golden after the fourth drop, at which point he quickly withdrew his hand and clenched the bandage against his palm to staunch the bleeding again. "See? You'll be fine now," he murmured quietly to Danny before attempting to stand up...and promptly toppling over onto the mossy forest floor, insensible, as a faint red mist swept over him like a tide of ghostly blood.

When he came back to himself, the first thing to meet his opening eyes was Danny sitting beside him with a frown on his face. Nicholas sat up, pressing a hand to his head against the momentary dizziness that assaulted him, and looked around. The bodies of the Huntsman and Simon the Skinner still lay where they had fallen, his horse was nearby and watching him with a sharply un-horselike gaze, and from the light of the sun filtering through the trees he could see that not very much time had passed at all. He flexed his hand, feeling the newly-wrapped bandage, and found a smile for Danny. "Thank you."

"Least I could do," was the solemn reply. "The horse said you healed me. And talkin' horses aside...can you do that because you're a prince, or was it somethin' else, somethin' you picked up from one of your adventures?"

Nicholas shrugged. "No idea. It was one of the questions I'd planned to ask," he swallowed, "my father. Although I suspect he knew nothing about it."

"Yeah, prob'ly not. He'd of told you if he had." Danny frowned a moment more, one hand toying absently with the ragged hole in the front of his leather jerkin and the tear in the fabric of his tunic beneath it. Then he sighed, looking over at the corpse of the huntsman. "My dad, I think he started goin' nuts when my mother died, near to ten years ago. Before that, he'd never have even thought of workin' with somethin' like Simon, or killin' kids, or of betrayin' the king - or you, for that matter. I don't really know what went on in his head to change that, don't think anyone did."

"It's no fault of yours," Nicholas said quietly. "You were just a boy."

Danny quirked an eyebrow at him. "I'm only a year younger than you." The frown came back. "Speakin' of which...you look a lot older than you should. That healin' thing what did that to you? Do you give up some of your own life when you save someone else's?"

It was Nicholas' turn to sigh; he looked away. "Not that it's important, but...I lose about a fortnight, I think. For every drop."

"So you've done it a lot, huh?"

"Not as much as you might think, time adds up rather quickly." But the prince shook his head. "Once I realized...well, I was more careful once I knew what it was doing to me, but it's not like I could just let innocent people suffer or die when I had the means to spare them."

"The redshirts were innocent?" Danny gestured toward the wrapped bandage. "You said that's what that was from."

"I only encountered one of them. I wasn't trying to kill him. He was so inept, he practically fell on my sword." Another sigh. "His wound only took one drop. Hopefully he learned his lesson."

"I'm sure he learned some kind of lesson." And probably made up a tale for the fireside into the bargain, all about a mysterious stranger or somesuch that had tested him and found him worthy. Danny had heard a few stories like that over the years, he had to wonder now if at least some of them were about Nicholas. He wasn't going to ask, though, at least not right now. He heaved himself up off the ground, brushing away leaf litter and moss from his breeches. "Well, we'd best drag the bodies into one of the caves. There's a little one can be caved in a ways toward the back, an' I've got a bit more of that iron to lay across the threshold."

Nicholas stood up as well, a curious brown look going from the grotesquely impaled body of Simon the Skinner and back to Danny again. "You really think he might come back from that?"

"Don't want to be findin' out," was the reply. "Still ain't sure what he was in the first place, no sense in takin' the chance that I might turn around in the woods someday and find him behind me with that creepy grin on his face. You watch him, I'll be right back."

He disappeared, leaving Nicholas staring at the body in renewed horror, and returned moments later with a length of rusted iron chain in his hands. He tossed it on the body of Simon the Skinner, and Nicholas jumped backwards with an oath when said body writhed and hissed beneath it. "Thought so," was all Danny said. "Knew I killed the bastard with that stick of wood to the head the first time." 

"Perhaps we shouldn't bury him," Nicholas said suddenly. In truth, he did not want to touch whatever Simon was, especially knowing that it was not truly dead. "What if we disposed of him in a more...permanent manner?" His horse stepped nearer, bobbing its head. "If something were to eat him..."

Danny gave him a strange look. "Are you feelin' alright, Nicholas? Horses don't eat meat, an' even if yours does one horse ain't gonna be able to eat all of Simon in one go."

"This one can, because he's not truly a horse." Nicholas patted the animal's neck. "Several years ago I heard about a dragon who was supposedly eating virgins, but when I went to investigate I discovered that it was actually the king and his men assaulting the dragon, not the other way around." He shook his head, rolling his eyes. "They thought there was treasure in the dragon's cave, so they'd taken some girls in the dead of night and made it look like the dragon had done it - they didn't do a very good job, but a bunch of scared villagers wouldn't notice that, and they didn't. And the dragon didn't know that I'd figured it out, so I ended up fighting with him as well as with the king's men. He killed my horse before he realized I was on his side, but after that we wiped out the soldiers together and then settled down to talk the matter through." He smiled. "We definitely had a problem. The king wasn't going to take the deaths of the soldiers lightly, and as long as the dragon was there he'd keep trying for the treasure - which didn't exist. And the dragon couldn't exactly walk out of there without being seen and pursued, especially as one of the soldiers had gotten a lucky hit in and damaged one of his wings so he couldn't fly."

Danny was starting to grin now. "You fixed it, didn't you."

"I couldn't leave him helpless to get away, he was innocent of any wrongdoing," Nicholas disclaimed. "But I was in trouble too, because without my horse I was going to have to walk back to the village, which would have meant facing the villagers and the king, which most likely would have meant my death. The dragon came up with the plan that he'd take the shape of my horse - although as a stallion rather than a mare - and we would both ride to the village, where I would prove that the tales which had come back with the soldiers who had escaped were lies because my horse was definitely not dead. I told them that the dragon had been consumed by his own fire after I'd killed him and unfortunately his treasure had vanished like the morning mist on his passing, and they could go investigate his former cave as much as they liked to be sure of that point. Then I informed them that the good news was he'd taken no virgins, and their daughters were even at that moment serving as 'guests' of the king." His smile took on a wicked tilt. "I left before they stormed the castle en mass, but I'm fairly certain they had the daughters back and a position open for a new king by nightfall."

Danny goggled at him. Then he turned to the now amused-looking horse. "You're a dragon? And you're still bein' his horse?"

The horse snorted, and then its velvety muzzle elongated and took on a shape much more reptilian. "He is worthy," it said. "And, like him, I had nowhere else in particular to go. I have found it quite enjoyable to travel the length and breadth of this country without being pelted with arrows or menaced with swords." The reptilian muzzle did something that resembled a smirk, only toothier. "And we've hardly stopped at a single kingdom where pretty girls did not beg to brush me, and plait my mane, and offer their mares for my pleasure."

Nicholas snorted much as the horse just had. "Offers which, I might add, he has never yet once turned down. And at least two of the mares gave birth to pegasi instead of normal foals, from what stories I've heard in the taverns."

Danny leaned forward, wide-eyed, much as he had the night before when asking for tales of trolls and giants. "Taverns? You've had tavern wenches?"

Nicholas tried for offended, but could not keep it up when the horse/dragon laughed at him. "Oh go on with you, at least none of mine will have wings to give me away, if there are any. And not so many tavern wenches," he informed Danny. "They're usually disease-ridden from being passed around, and they're likely to rob you. Innkeepers' daughters, however..." He laughed when Danny did, but he sobered quickly. "Anyway, we have settled that we can keep this Simon creature from returning from the dead, and we will entomb the Queen's Huntsman in one of the caverns. But is it safe for you to tell me now?" he asked in a lower voice. "About my sister?"

"T'was the first time I caught Dad and Simon at it," Danny replied. "There was no mistakin' who she was, so I stepped in quick-like and took her from them - told Dad it wasn't a job he should trust Simon with, an' that I had a place where no one would ever find the body and see what had been done to it." He made a face. "The queen, she's just as unnatural as Simon, only worse because she don't dirty her own hands an' just orders it done like she was askin' for fruit or sweetmeats to be brought to her. All them pretty girls that've went missin' in Metra since you were exiled?" Nicholas acknowledged he'd heard about that. "Well, folks in the village thought it must be a monster of some sort in the forest, maybe even a dragon because they were mostly virgins - and your pardon for that one," he nodded to the horse, "but it's not like they know no better. But it was Herself all along, orderin' Dad to bring her the girls' hearts so she could eat them."

The horse made low sound like to a growl, and Nicholas paled. "She..."

"Eats them," Danny repeated more clearly. "She'd give Dad a little gold box to bring the hearts back in; he gave it to me when I took the little princess, and warned me not to get blood on the outside of the box 'cause the queen didn't like it." A shadow passed over his face at that. "Was the first time he'd ever told me he was proud of me - proud of me, for killin' a scared little kid in her nightgown, how messed up is that? And Simon said he'd thought he'd be killin' me someday to keep their secret, said it right in front of Dad like they'd worked it all out together. Most likely they had at that." Taking a deep breath, he shook the melancholy off; there would be time for his personal grief later, but now was not that time. "I made it look good until I was sure we were nowhere Simon could have followed, and then I got Snow calmed down a bit and convinced her I wasn't gonna hurt her. I took her to some people I knew I could trust, and then I hunted up a little yearling deer and took its heart to put in the box instead." He didn't quite smile. "Left the rest of the deer with them, no sense it goin' to waste. Queen never knew the difference, 'least not from what Dad said about it, and I kept on pretendin' that I was with him and Simon for as long as I could."

"Until they killed my father."

"Yeah, until then. Couldn't cover that up, not after whackin' Simon like I did, so I just never went back to the village. Stayed out in the forest, messed up their plans as much as I could without gettin' caught, even warned away some people I caught on the road, sent them right back out of Metra by tellin' them there was a monster loose in the kingdom and they'd best not visit until we'd killed it." He straightened a bit. "Told 'em I was workin' for the king."

"I'd say you were." Nicholas was silent for a few moments, apparently lost in thought, and then he straightened. "I owe you a debt I can never repay, Danny," he said finally. "Anything that is in my power to give you, you have but to name it and it shall be yours. And should I succeed in destroying my stepmother and taking the throne that is rightfully mine, I should be eternally grateful if you would agree to take your father's place as well, and serve your new king as you did your old one." Danny appeared shocked to speechlessness by this, and with a smile Nicholas clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder. "I would very much like to go see my sister now, if you are willing to guide me there."

Danny nodded slowly. "If we go fast, we can get there before dark."

The horse snorted, and with a suddenness that made Danny jump back it enlarged into a good-sized green-gray dragon with silver and green feathered wings and silver horns upon its wide, scaled head. "After I have fed on this meat here," and he hooked the body of Simon with a silver claw and dragged it to him, careful not to dislodge the iron chain, "I will bear you both much faster than either feet or hooves could take you. We shall be there before dark, and back again if need be." He preened one wing. "Perhaps the princess would like to plait my mane."

"I used to take her for rides on the white mare's back when she was barely more than a baby," Nicholas said, smiling in fond remembrance. "She loved it then, I know no reason why she would not love you as much now."

"Most likely she will," Danny agreed. "She's a sweet kid, Snow, and she loves animals. Bob and them have a little dog, it follows her around everywhere she goes. He complains that she's spoilt it absolutely rotten." He eyed the corpse that wasn't marked to be eaten, then sighed and went over to it and began to rifle the pockets. "Let me get Dad's stuff first, he'll have keys and things we'll want later on."
       
"True, we will." Nicholas went to help him with that task, and then the two of them dragged the body into the waiting cave and sealed it in behind a pile of loose rock. Nicholas took another opportunity to visit his father's makeshift tomb while Danny again waited by the entrance, coming out with the king's signet ring, which he tucked into a pouch at his belt. "I can't wear it, not yet," he told Danny. "Not until the queen is dead."

The dragon had finished by the time they came out, and was licking his silver claws clean of blood much as a satisfied cat would. There was no trace left of Simon the Skinner save a small bloody spot on the ground. "He was a changeling," the dragon confirmed. "And a flesh-eater, and a host of other things besides. But he won't do any of it again now. The other one is seen to?" When Nicholas nodded, the dragon stretched out his wings and shook them, then changed and faded back down until he was once more mostly a white stallion - just a bit larger and heavier this time. "Come on then," he said. "Mount up, both of you, and point me in the direction you wish to go. I could do with a good run."

Only an hour later, the white stallion slowed to a more normal pace and Danny and Nicholas both dismounted. Danny led them up a rough track that ran between the thinning trees and odd boulders until they emerged in a clearing where crouched a small, rustic cottage - oddly small, in fact, as the whole thing was only as tall as Nicholas and he would have had to go on all fours to get through the front door. Danny walked right up to the cottage and bent over to knock, and a moment later a small panel in the door slid open and a suspicious blue eye peered out. The eye blinked, and then a gruff voice demanded rudely, "What do you want?"

"Brought a visitor."

The eye glared at him. "Don't want any! Go away."

Danny didn't appear discouraged by this. "C'mon Bob, you know I wouldnt've come out here if it weren't important - too big of a risk."

In answer, the little panel slammed shut. Then the door opened and a white-bearded old dwarf stepped out, scowling. "It had best be important, or you'll feel the back of my hand - or the sole of my boot, or maybe both together. Now what..." That was when he spotted Nicholas, and his scowl deepened. "You brought another great big oaf here, that's it?" He squinted, then snorted. "A hero? What do we need with a hero? Put him back where you found him, you great fool, there's nothing a good-for-nothing hero can help us with."

"It's not you he's here for, and he ain't just a hero," Danny said quietly. "Look at him, Bob, look real close."

The old dwarf squinted again, and then he shook his head. "Boys!" he called over his shoulder. "Be gettin' your lazy arses out here this minute! I want you to make sure these old eyes aren't deceivin' me."

Two more dwarves came out of the house, also scowling. "We ain't lazy, Da," one of them complained. "Uncle Tony'll eat up all the cake if we're not..." and then he stopped and stared at Nicholas. "Well that ain't what I expected - thought you smelled Doris's cake an' came runnin'."

Danny grinned at him. "If I had I would've - your sister makes great cake," he replied. "But this is about the kid. "

"Yeah, think we can both see that," the other dwarf snarked at him. "You finally lost what little mind you had, bringin' him here?"

"I know what I'm doin'." Danny's jaw set. "This here's Nicholas. You could at least try to be polite."

"Don't got much use for heroes - nor for politeness either, when you show up unexpected with a visitor like this," Bob snorted. "Most especially not that visitor."

Nicholas just looked at him, puzzled by the hostility. "Have we met, sir?"

"No." The old dwarf spat, then rolled his eyes at Danny's meaningful look. "Boys, mind our 'guests', I'll be back out directly," he said, and then stumped back into the cottage.

His two boys looked Nicholas up and down and apparently found him wanting. "Pleased to meetcha, Nicholarse," the slightly taller one said. "I'm Andy."

"And so am I," the slightly shorter brother. "No, we ain't twins. And you've lost what little mind you'd got, haven't ya?" he tossed at Danny.

"Like that skinnin' abomination won't be figurin' it out, you'll lead him right to us," the other Andy agreed.

"I won't, because he's dead - for good this time," Danny told them. "An' the Queen's Huntsman is too, and no, the queen don't know yet 'cause it just happened a little bit ago."

Both dwarves started. "Both dead?" the older, taller one questioned. "You...an' him?"

"Mostly him," Danny admitted, not seeming bothered by it. "Although I did help a bit."

The dwarves turned on Nicholas. "You killed Danny's dad?"

Nicholas nodded. "Because he tried to kill Danny, yes."

"Nice bit of an afternoon for it," chimed in an older dwarf who came wandering out of the cottage. He had a piece of cake in his hand and a vague expression on his face. "It's a really lovely afternoon, wouldn't you say?"

"Ignore Uncle Tony, a rock hit him at the mine and he's gone a bit barmy from it," the younger Andy instructed. "Everythin's the weather to him now."

Nicholas looked at Danny, who shrugged. That was when Bob came back out, trailed by a young female dwarf who must be the cake-making sister Doris, and who was holding the hand of a little black-haired girl who was quite obviously not a dwarf at all. The girl squealed when she saw Danny and would have run to him if Doris had not held fast to her; that was when she noticed the stranger in their midst, and she immediately stepped back with wide eyes. "Who is he?" she whispered.

"He's a friend," Danny told her gently. He went to the little girl and went down on one knee so that he could talk to her. "Snow, this here's Nicholas, and he's a hero - although he don't like to be called one very much. But I think you might remember him by another name, one from when you were real little, just a baby. And maybe his white horse, too?"

The little girl looked from Nicholas to the horse, and then her brown eyes widened. "Angel?"

Nicholas dropped down to one knee just as Danny had, although he did not draw closer; tears were starting his own brown eyes, so very like to the color of hers. "Our mother called me that," he said slowly. "It was one of the first words you spoke, when you were little more than a baby and just learning to talk and toddle about."

She took a step forward, Doris reluctantly letting go of her at Danny's nod. "We'd ride...we'd ride on your white horse. And when we came back, the 'maids would scream and cry."

"They're foolish, they do things like that," he replied. "Do you remember when I came to say goodbye to you, Snow? You were barely three years old, I know you were too little to understand why I had to go away."

"I remember you didn't come back." He winced, and she took another step. "The 'maids said you'd had to leave to save all of Metra, and you couldn't come back for a very long time. They told me the story over and over again until Stepmama made them stop."

"I came back as soon as I could," he told her gently. The tears had begun to drop from his eyes, and he made no move to wipe them away. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here to protect you from her, Snow. Would that I could have been."

It was apparently his tears that decided her, for all at once she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. "Brother!" she cried. "You came back, you came back!"

"I came back," he agreed, enfolding her in his arms as though he would never let her go. "And you are well and safe, and that is all that I could wish for."

Doris was crying on Danny's shoulder at this touching scene, and when her brothers looked as thought they might make some comment Bob threatened them with the back of his hand. The older one, farther from the hand, lowered his voice but spoke up anyway, "Dad, this don't solve the problem - two may be dead, but that bitch of a witch is still alive and she's the one wanted to kill Snow in the first place. If she spots him anywhere near here..."

"She don't know he's here, and she don't know Dad and Simon are dead yet," Danny hissed back. "She won't be expectin' Dad back to the castle before tonight, so she won't have no cause to look for him before then at least."

"Then by nightfall you and this Nicholas will be long gone from here," Bob ordered. "Do I want to know how you got here so fast in the first place?"

"Prob'ly not," Danny admitted. "Weren't nothin' to do with bad magic, though."

"Didn't think it was, you're not tainted that way," the old dwarf said. His eyebrows suddenly knitted together, and his perpetual frown deepened. "Danny, that there's an arrow hole, right where you should be dead to find one."

"My dad," Danny said simply. "Nicholas fixed it."

"He can heal?" the younger Andy questioned. He turned startled, hopeful eyes to his father. "Dad..."

Bob stumped a bit, looking over his shoulder to where his brother was watching the clouds with a dreamy expression on his face. "I don't know, son. And I hesitate to ask. Messin' about with magic..."

"But if he could fix Uncle Andy..." His father glowered at him, and he shook his head. "I know. Magic ain't good for us."

"I don't think what Nicholas does is magic, at least not like what the queen does," Danny put in. He removed Doris from his shoulder, where she'd been getting a bit more comfortable than he was comfortable with, and faced Bob directly. "It's somethin' in his blood, I'm thinkin' his mother's people had it." He made a face. "It costs him to use it, though, a fortnight for every drop he says - that's why he looks so much older than he should."

Doris looked from her uncle to her father and sniffed. "We can't ask him, then."

"He wouldn't think twice about doin' it," Danny informed them. "He told me he kept doin' it even once he figured out what it was doin' to him, said he couldn't let innocent people be hurt if he could stop it."

"Sounds like the kind of thing a hero would say," the younger Andy snorted, and got smacked by his father for it. "Da!"

A shadow fell across them; Nicholas was standing there, Snow clinging to his hand. "Sir," he addressed Bob. "Snow has been telling me about your brother. I may be able to help." He squeezed his sister's hand. "It's the least I can do."

Bob snorted. "Like takin' care of a little bit of a thing like her's been a burden." He squinted up at the prince. "Danny told us about that, what you can do. You think it can work on somethin' like what's happened to Tony?"

"I did something like that once," Nicholas answered slowly. "Snow said it's been almost a year that he's been like this?" When the dwarves all nodded, he nodded back. "I think it will work, but even if it doesn't no harm will have been done."

"To Uncle Tony," the older Andy observed pointedly. He raised an eyebrow. "You pay the cost either way, am I right?"

The prince shrugged. "It's a very small cost..."

"Those add up, them little things," Bob observed, giving him a hard look. He seemed to reach a decision. "Alright, since Danny's done assured me this ain't no magic that you're doin', that it's somethin' natural...you can try. Even if it just stops him talkin' about the weather for a bit it'll be worth it. But you," he shook an admonishing finger at Nicholas, "you ain't payin' us back for savin' an innocent child from that monster your idiot father took to wife, you understand me? We're decent folk, you don't owe us nothin' for being what we are."

Nicholas bowed his head in assent. "As you wish it, sir. I'm sorry if I gave you offense."

Bob grunted and gave one of his boys a shove. "See, that's manners. You're supposed to have 'em too. Now go get your uncle over here and don't upset him."

That Andy went to do as he was told, while the other one hung back out of hand's reach from his father. Nicholas sat down on the ground, putting him just below eye-level with the dwarves; Danny sat down as well, and Nicholas gave his clinging sister a gentle little push in his direction. "You'll have to go sit with Danny, Snow. I'll be right here."

She left him reluctantly, but snuggled into Danny's lap and at once began examining the holes in his jerkin and tunic. "I'm gonna have to get that fixed," the huntsman's son commented to no one in particular. "How'd you do it last time, Nicholas?"

"I put it in water, and had him drink it," he answered. A threatening gesture from Bob, and the remaining Andy darted off to the well. Once a cupful was there and a wondering Uncle Tony had been seated in front of him, Nicholas unwound the bandage from his hand. He shook his head when Doris exclaimed at the sight of the wound. "No, that was caused by the point of a badly-wielded sword, I just don't see the sense in cutting myself again when I've already got a wound here I can use."

"You'll be lettin' Doris fix that up when you're done," Bob told him, and stopped the protest the prince would have made with a sharp look. "That's right, boy. Now, let's see if this'll work."

Nicholas nodded, and used the point of his dagger to make the wound in his hand bleed again. He let a single drop of his blood fall into the cup, hesitated, and then let a second fall as well. Then he handed the cup to Tony, who took it and drank it down absently, still looking at the sky and seeming mostly unaware of anything else. A few seconds passed...and then a golden mist seemed to pass over the dwarf's face and he blinked, then blinked again. He frowned at Nicholas, then at Danny, and then turned and frowned at his staring brother. "What's all this about, then?" he demanded, not sounding so dreamy now. "I know it's a fine day and all, but why are we sittin' around in the yard like this?"

The two Andys whooped, Bob wiped a tear from his eye, and Doris sniffled. Nicholas smiled, then grimaced and stiffened when the red mist rolled over him. He heard several voices exclaim in surprise, and then Danny and his sister were sitting on either side of him and Doris was tutting over the wound on his palm. "It's goin' to scar," she scolded. "Be a right nasty lookin' one too. Pick a different hole next time, you're lucky you didn't lose the use of your hand by messin' about with this one like I can see you have been."

Nicholas just nodded; there really wasn't much defense he could make for himself on that score. "I thank you for seeing to it for me, my lady."

"Ain't no lady," she corrected, but she was blushing. "Dad's right, though, you've got nice manners."

"That ain't manners, that's flirtin'," one of her brothers observed over her shoulder. "No wenchin' with our sister, hero, she ain't that kind of girl."

"I might be," Doris countered, elbowing her brother before he could move away. "You ain't got nothin' to say about it if I am."

"I do!" her father called over, scowling. "Doris, you behave yourself!"

"Yes Dad!" she called back, and winked at Nicholas before going back to work on his hand.
      
      She was just finishing when her father and uncle came back. "How much d'you know about your stepmother?" Bob wanted to know.

Nicholas sighed. "Very little, I'm afraid. I've heard rumors she's a sorceress, and what Danny's told me leads me to believe she might be insane..."

"Nope, not really." Uncle Tony shook his head. "She's a witch is what she is. I heard tell about one up in the North that did like this one does, drank the blood of the young to stay young herself." He spat in the dirt of the courtyard. "No, the question you've got to ask yourself is how's she decide which girls to pick, hmm? I'll tell you how: She looks in the mirror."

The prince's eyes widened. "In the dream that led me back to Metra, my mother said to find the mirror, that the mirror would guide me truthfully for the sake of her blood. But I didn't know what that meant."

"The witch has a silver mirror," Bob told him. "A big black thing it is, in a frame made of polished ebon wood." He grimaced. "We made it for her, I'm sorry to say, me and Tony. Didn't know what kind of evil she was at the time, it was afore she married the king. We thought it was to be a present for him."
      
"We don't know what she did to that mirror, either," Tony told him. " 'Cause it weren't no magic mirror when we made it, no sirree. But she'd said somethin' about bein' able to see so far because the silver was so fine and the wood was like to the trees that were all over the valley, an' then after we met Danny here and heard what'd been goin' on in Metra...well, we put two and two together."

"So you're sayin' she did somethin' to the mirror, and now it shows her stuff?" Danny was nodding. "Dad had said a time or two that he didn't know how she was findin' stuff out, stuff that went on around the village. He had me huntin' high and low for her spy, but weren't none to be found - he'd pretty much made up his mind that she was doin' it with magic. I guess he was right."

"And that means we have to get out of here immediately," Nicholas said, climbing to his feet. "The moment she realizes her huntsman hasn't come back, she'll start looking for him. And if we're here..." He bowed to Bob. "I much better understand your dislike of visitors now, sir. I won't return until I'm sure it is safe to do so."

"You be careful, when you find that mirror," Tony cautioned him. "No tellin' what that witch's done with it, no tellin' at all. She's a mighty powerful one."

"I'll be careful," Nicholas promised. He caught his sister when she flung herself at him, then pushed her back gently so that he could see her face. "Snow, I have to go now - I won't be the reason she finds you, not after Danny and Bob and his family have taken such care to make sure you'd be safe from her." He ran a hand over her hair and tugged gently on an ebony braid. "I'll be back, or Danny will in my place, that I promise." He embraced her one final time, and then he handed her over to Doris, who was sniffing again. And then with a nod to Bob he and Danny once again mounted the white horse and quickly rode away into the forest.

Bob stared after them, frowning. "Ain't the kind of day I expected to have," he muttered, but then his eyes lit on his brother who was frowning at a loose hinge on their cottage rather than staring dreamily into the sky, and he didn't quite smile. "But mebbe that ain't a bad thing, 'least not entirely."

Nicholas and Danny rode hard until they were well away from the home of the dwarven miners, and then Danny directed their mount to the place where he had lived for all the years since he had left the village. It was a spot where the black stone of the cliffs had stuck a long, rambling finger out into the valley, in a little glade of startlingly white-barked trees that bore dainty heart-shaped leaves on their shivering limbs. Danny's hovel - or at least, it looked that way from the outside - was concealed in a fold of the rock, but the rough exterior proved to be but the entrance to a tidy cave with simple furnishings carved from the pretty trees outside. It even had a decent-sized hearth, which was apparently where the seed cakes of their morning's breakfast had been baked. Danny confirmed this with a nod, using flint and tinder to rekindle the hearth fire after scraping out the ashes. "I'm not bad at cookin' for myself," he admitted. "And I've got a few folks who trade with me, skins and meat for grain, that sort of thing."

Nicholas nodded. "So you have allies in the village, then."

"Yeah, a few." Danny sat back on his heels. "Not that they know everythin', I've had to be real careful." He held up a small, battered iron cooking pot. "There's a spring out the door and to the left, if you get that filled with water I'll make us a stew. Not like we can get anything else done tonight except for plannin' what we're goin' to do next."

"Very true," Nicholas agreed, taking the pot. He exited through the crude-appearing - although not crudely constructed - hovel-like entrance to the cave and found the spring, filling the pot with clear, bubbling water. He whistled for his horse, frowning around at the trees, a thought teasing his mind. Something about what the witch had said about the mirror the dwarves had made for her...suddenly, he smiled. When the horse appeared, he waved his hand at the white-barked trees. "You can shift here, she can't see you," he said. "I think she can only see where the ebon wood grows, and there's none here at all."

The horse shifted back into dragon form, shaking out its green-gray wings. "Convenient," it said. "The reason he's never been found?"

"I believe so, yes - and thank goodness for that." Nicholas cocked his head at him. "That Simon creature didn't disagree with you, did he?"

The dragon rumbled a denial and shook its head. "No, although he left a bad taste in my mouth. Foul creature." He settled down beside the spring, drawing a silver claw through the water in an aimless fashion and making ripples that drew tiny silver fish to the surface to see what the disturbance was. "Go, rest," he said. "These people don't know how weary the healing makes you, but I do. You'll need to be fresh to do what needs to be done on the morrow."

Nicholas stroked his hand over the nearest folded wing. "You're a good friend, Harald." He smiled. "If I can retake my throne, we'll have to get some more mares in - you can have a harem, like that merchant we met with his caravan of silks and spices from the East."

Harald - for that was the dragon's name - snorted, but his scaled muzzle smiled as well. "And breed up a herd of winged pegasi at the same time? Metra will be famous throughout the country."

"Better for that than what it's famous for now," Nicholas replied wryly. "We'll have a much easier time getting you mares than we will me a princess - no king in his right mind would send his daughter here now. We may have to go adventuring again if I mean to get a wife any time soon."

"Then we'll go adventuring again." Harald shrugged his wings and settled down further, idly watching the little silver fish. One great eye angled up, piercing his companion with a firm look. "Go rest, Nicholas."

The prince rolled his eyes. "Mother hen," he accused good-naturedly, but did as he was told, going back into Danny's comfortably concealed home. "I think I know why the queen's never found you," he announced, handing over the filled pot. "It's the trees here."

"Yeah, thought of that myself when we rode up. Lucky thing I liked the trees here and found the spring and this little cave." Danny busied himself adding dried meat and some hastily chopped root vegetables to the water, then threw in and handful of herbs that had been hanging near the hearth to dry. He hung the pot on a hook over the hottest part of the fire and then pulled down a clay bowl from a shelf. A handful of roughly ground grain from a nearby sack went into the bowl, and then a half-dipperful of water from the pot; he quickly kneaded the mixture and shaped in into several small cakes, which he set on a small, flat projection of rock inside the hearth. Then he stood up. "We'll have a decent enough supper in a bit," he said. "Horse all settled in?"

"Dragon, at the moment," Nicholas corrected. "He's made himself comfortable by the spring, and he says that Simon left a bad taste in his mouth."

Danny snorted. "He's always left a bad taste in my mouth, an' I didn't even eat him." He waved Nicholas to the broad, sturdy couch - which most likely was also his bed, Nicholas assumed - that sat before the hearth, then plopped down beside him with a sigh. The couch was well-stuffed, most likely with springy moss from the surrounding forest, and very comfortable. "Stew'll be done in an hour or two - longer it cooks, the better it'll be," he said. "So, what are you thinkin' of, for tomorrow? We can't use the road. Them tales they tell about you ridin' up on the white horse, the whole village would explode if they saw that."

"Which would do more harm than good with what I must accomplish," Nicholas agreed. "I do not think those within the castle will be overjoyed to know I still live, or that I've come back."

"Most likely not." Danny fixed him with a concerned brown eye. "So, sneakin' in. I know a couple ways - in fact, I know the way Dad used to use when Herself summoned him, and it's a way nobody else knows. So we can get in. But what about the queen?"

Nicholas frowned, shaking his head. "I'll have to kill her, I know that," he said. "But as to how, that I don't know." He returned the brown look with one nearer to amber. "You're sure you want to come with me? She won't be the only one I have to kill, and I'm afraid it won't be very...heroic."

Danny shrugged. "This ain't heroics, this is you avengin' your father's murder and takin' back your kingdom," he said. "Two different things. It'd be heroics if you were some other hero who wasn't from around here and you were doin' it for Snow."

"True." Nicholas thought about that, sinking a little further into the couch. He covered a yawn with one hand. "My father's ministers shouldn't be all that difficult to dispatch, I'm easily a match for both of them now. But my stepmother...I don't know what to do about her. If she sees me coming we're both dead, and Metra with us." He looked over at Danny again. "Promise me. If I die, you'll take Harald - that's the dragon - and Snow and flee this valley. There'll be nothing more anyone can do here, and...and I promised her one of us would come back."

"Yeah, I noticed you did that." Danny hitched himself around a bit so he was facing the prince. "You're not gonna die, Nicholas. But I promise that I'll always look after Snow, because I'm the King's Huntsman, yeah? That's my job...that, and lookin' after the king."

Nicholas blinked away a blurriness in his eyes and managed a crooked smile. "Thank you," he said. He sighed. "I've no idea how we're going to get rid of my stepmother. I don't even know if she can be killed."

"Then I guess we'll just have to try it and see." Danny grinned at him. "We'll come up with somethin'."

"I suppose we'll have to." Nicholas was smiling, though. He went back to watching the fire, thinking, and gradually his eyes closed and sleep overtook him.

Danny stood up, careful not to disturb him, checked the fire and then went outside. He thought he might have a bit of a chat with Harald about adventures while their supper was cooking.

That night, asleep again - this time on his bedroll before the fire after a hearty supper - Nicholas heard a sweet, sad voice calling his name and peered around into the mists that cloaked the darkness surrounding him. "Mother?" he called back.

"Angel." The mist shimmered, and his mother appeared before him exactly as she had in his other dreams, the dreams that had led him back to Metra. She looked very like his sister, with long raven hair that fell almost to her feet and soft brown eyes. "My Angel, my child. To save your sister and take your throne, you must do three things. First, you must call upon the spirit trapped within the mirror to gain its aid - you must call upon it by my blood."

Horror rose in him. "It...this spirit is what killed you?"

"I made a pact, although I knew it not at the time," she corrected. "A pact in blood: my heart's desire fulfilled for my life. The spirit is not to blame, it did not know that I called it in ignorance." Her eyes caught and held his. "Stand well back from the mirror and call on it thusly: Mirror, by the blood I call; Speak to me as is thy thrall. You may ask any question, and the mirror will answer you truly for the sake of my blood which you bear. And if you grant it a boon, it will be loyal to you although no less dangerous. This is the second thing you must do."

"Alright, I'm to call on the spirit in the mirror for help," he agreed. "And I'm to grant it a boon to gain its loyalty. What is the third thing?"

She shimmered. "When all is done and you rightfully bear on your finger the ring of your father, you must free the spirit from its prison of silver and ebony."

He was taken aback. "But..."

"You must do this," she insisted gently. "My Angel...this spirit must be freed. Caged, it is a danger to all who come near it. Once released, it will return to the wood until it is called again."

Nicholas didn't understand, but he nodded. "I will do as you say, Mother." He hesitated. "I...I miss you, Mother. Did you know my sister is being raised by a dwarven mining family on the outskirts of the kingdom?"

"My pretty Snow is safe and happy, and all will be as it should be." She raised a shimmering white hand to touch his cheek. "I love you, my Angel. You will be a fine king...and Snow, a fine queen."

She vanished, and Nicholas sat up from his pallet before the hearth with a start, one hand going to his cheek; he could still feel the touch of her loving fingers there. "I know what I need to do," he told the fire quietly.

"Yeah, and we can do it in the morning," Danny rumbled sleepily from the couch. One hand reached out blindly and patted the prince's head. "Go back to sleep, Nicholas. Can't do nothin' tonight - an' we still have to figure out how to get past the queen. Maybe we can get her out of the castle or somethin'. In the mornin', though, when we've both got clear heads."

Nicholas lay back down, smiling in spite of himself. The King's Huntsman was apparently a mother-hen too.
     
      
The next morning they set out towards the castle, going carefully and slowly so as not to stumble upon anyone who happened to be about in the forest - a large part of their plan involved arriving at the secret entrance to the castle unnoticed. And so it was with some dismay that Nicholas saw a sturdily-built man emerge from the trees ahead of them when they drew near the village, although Danny greeted him with an upraised hand. "Ho, Dorian," he called out, not over-loudly. He slid off the back of the white horse when the man just stood there staring at them, walking over to him but stopping well shy of the distance where a long knife could reach him. "Dorian, what's the matter?"

Dorian pointed at the white horse with it's golden-haired rider. "That's...that's..."

"Prince Angel, yeah," Danny confirmed, not truly surprised by the man's reaction now. "He'll ride in on the road later, got some other stuff to get done first."

The other man shook himself. "Danny, where's your Dad? And that Skinner, are they together, out in the woods someplace?"

"Well, you could sort of say that's where Dad is," Danny told him. "He's dead, Simon too - an' Simon was a changeling, just like I thought."

Dorian nodded. "You're not the only one who thought it," he confirmed. "So you're sure..."

"That he won't be comin' back this time?" Danny did not quite glance back at the white horse. "Yeah, I'm sure. Where he's at now, he ain't comin' back from there, no way no how." He moved closer, aware of Nicholas hastily dismounting as he did so. "Dorian, what's happened? Why were you out here?"

"I was lookin' for you, and hopin' I'd find you instead of your father," Dorian told him, swallowing. "Danny, some of the boys went astray huntin' rabbits this morning, they were chasin' one of the dogs. They found a dead man." He swallowed again. "It was Michael, the stableboy. But he's been dead a long while, if I'm any judge...an' I was just sittin' beside Michael last night in the tavern, twice as large as life."

"How long do you think he's been dead?" Nicholas had come up beside him, and when Dorian tried to kneel he pulled the man back up. "There's no time for that now, Dorian, although I appreciate the sentiment. How long?"

"Mebbe as long as a year, P-Prince Angel."

"And did you see Michael this morning at all?"

Dorian shook his head. "Once we found the body, we searched for him high and low. The room that was his above the royal stables ain't been lived in for a long time, the dust's as thick as my hand." He looked sickened. "And Her Majesty's horse is gone, too."

Nicholas blew out a breath that almost sounded like a curse. "There's your spy, Danny," he spat. "She was using magic, all right, just not the kind you or your father thought." He returned his attention to Dorian, hoping the man wasn't too awe-struck or too terrified to be of use. "Dorian, I need you to show Danny this body. I'm going to be dispensing some justice inside the castle...and I need to know, are the people of Metra loyal to the queen, or to myself and my father?"

"You," Dorian answered without hesitation. He cocked his head. "The king...he ain't comin' back, is he?"

"You're lookin' at him," Danny told him. "I buried his dad myself, in a safe place, to keep that Simon off of him - that was when I left the village." He looked at Nicholas. "You don't want me to come with you?"

"I need you to make sure that's Michael, and take a guess at what killed him," was the reply. "And then I need you to get the villagers together and let them know what's going on. I'm going to go do...what my mother told me to do." He met the concerned darker brown eyes of his friend with his own. "If I have to go after her - and I'm afraid I will - I'll send Harald back for you, all right? I know I'll need your help."

Danny nodded, grim-faced, and clapped a hand on the prince's leather-clad shoulder. "You be careful, Nicholas. And I'll...remember my promise if you ain't."

"I never had any doubt," Nicholas told him. He nodded to Dorian. "All the horror my stepmother has perpetrated on Metra ends today, you have my word. And Danny is the King's Huntsman now, so in my absence his word is my word."

Dorian's eyes widened. "Yes...yes sir, Your Highness," he stammered. "We'll be ready and waitin' when you come back."

"Good man," Nicholas told him, and then he was back on his horse and they both disappeared into the forest, heading for the secret entrance to the castle which Danny's father had made such horrible use of.

Danny tugged on Dorian's arm. "C'mon, man, we've got the King's business to be about, now haven't we? An' we'll have to be findin' another tanner for the village, too..." 
        

The Second Minister of Metra was a fussy man of small stature and very little physical courage who was yet very much aware of his own importance. He indeed spent a good deal of his time making certain that no one else forgot exactly how important he was either, and had made the servants of the castle so afraid of intruding upon him that they would not come near him unless directly ordered to do so. Therefore he could not have been more surprised when he was suddenly accosted as he walked down one of the castle's cool stone corridors by someone strong and wiry who smelled like a peasant and had the temerity to press a blade to his throat; a cautious glance showed that blade to be a fine, sharp dagger fully a hand and a half long, and he swallowed convulsively but carefully. "What...?"

"I should kill you right here," a rough voice murmured by his ear. "But I think instead we'll take a little stroll through the family wing."

The Second Minister swallowed again. "You'll...you'll get no satisfaction there," he stammered. "Her Majesty is out..."

"I'm well aware of that." The body he was being held against withdrew by an inch or two, although the dagger remained in place. "Walk, or I leave you here in two worthless pieces instead of one."

He walked. The corridors were deserted, especially once they reached the family wing and approached the queen's chambers. The minister balked at the doors, but at the urging of the dagger he opened them and let himself be forced inside. Once the doors had shut behind he and his captor, the rough voice said, "Does she allow anyone into this room? Have you ever been in these rooms before?"

"Of course not!" the minister squeaked, shocked. "It wouldn't be...she'd never allow it!"

"Lucky for you." And then he was shoved farther into the room, the dagger miraculously doing no more than scratching his throat. "How shocked would you be to discover that the Queen's Huntsman has visited these rooms on a regular basis for years, Minister? The gifts he brought to her here...well, I suppose he couldn't very well have delivered them anywhere else, considering what was in them."

"Wild tales abound in the commons," the Second Minister snorted, straightening to glare at the man...and then he quailed. "P-Prince Angel?!"

The man smiled. "I'm surprised you remember me, Minister - it has been full seven years since I last set eyes on you. Let's see, when was that? Oh yes, it was the day you convinced my father to exile me from Metra."

The Second Minister's hand went to his throat. This was not a young prince easily overridden by his paranoid father...this was a hardened adventurer returned home to seek vengeance. Desperate, the sycophant attempted to bluster. "Your father will not approve of your abuse of my person."

The smile again; it made the minister's hair stand on end and caused his bluster to stammer into silence. "I believe my father would be completely approving," the prince said, almost conversationally. "Since I'll wager you had no small part in bringing about his death."

The minister fell back a step. "He's dead? No! Her Majesty said he would return..."

"I certainly hope not, considering the state his body was in when I found it." Prince Angel's brown eyes darkened almost to black. "You deny any involvement?"

"Yes, of course I do!" The minister stamped his foot like a child. "I'll not deny we wanted you out of the way, but I had no part in any plot to kill His Majesty!"

The prince just looked at him, and then he shook his head. "You know, I can't tell whether you're lying or not." He advanced, making the other man retreat, until they were standing before the large mirror in its ebon frame, and then he called out, "Mirror, by the blood I call; Speak to me as is thy thrall!"

The Second Minister was by this convinced that Prince Angel was now quite mad, until a groan was uttered behind him and he spun to see the silver surface of the mirror now roiling black and with drops of red blood beading upon its surface. His legs failed him, and he fell to the floor whimpering as a voice like the creaking of black branches replied, "Prince, by blood of she who bore you; Question me, the right is yours."

"Where is my stepmother?" Prince Angel asked. "I have pledged myself to destroy her."

A silvery hole opened in the blackness, showing a familiar cottage with an even more familiar girl-child pinning laundry on a line in the yard. "The Queen seeks the Princess Snow."

"She knows where the dwarves cottage is?"

"She has known that always. But it was I who told her the princess dwelt there. This morning, when as is her habit she demanded to be shown the fairest in the land." The prince cursed under his breath, and the mirror added, "To serve is not my choice; I am bound by trap and treachery within this frame of ebon wood."

"I had heard as much." He thought for a moment. "She is a powerful sorceress. Can she be killed by normal means?"

The image of the cottage was swallowed up by blackness. "Most things living may die by a sharp blade well wielded, Prince. And the Queen, for all her age and power, is living still."

"Thank you, that is what I needed to know." He looked into the blackness. "One question more: What would it take to free you from this trap?"

To the minister's surprise, the roiling stilled, the mirror becoming as placid as a still pool. "You would free me?"

Prince Angel shrugged. "You gave my mother her heart's desire, though she called on you in ignorance, and you have helped me. What shall I do for you?"

A shiver passed through the blackness. "To break my frame ere the queen be dead would destroy me utterly. Kill her, then free me from my prison and I will return to my rightful place."

"Agreed. Anything else?"

Another shiver. "She devours her sacrifices in front of me. I...hunger."

He didn't seem surprised. "Would a traitor do, this man here before you on the floor? I would have killed him myself, but you may sate your hunger with him if he is suitable."

"Aaaahhh." The eager, ravenous groan made the Second Minister squeal and attempt to scurry back, but he met the point of the prince's suddenly drawn sword. "Yes, I will have him. Bring him to me."

"You can't..." The sword point nudged him, and he attempted to scoot away from it without drawing any nearer the quivering mirror. "You can't!"

In response the sword point poked him again, driving through his robes and digging into the flesh beneath, and when the minister attempted to scramble to his feet his robes were grabbed by an iron fist and the prince snarled down at him, "For my father, and my sister, and all who your greed have robbed of life and happiness," and then he was shoved away violently and found himself face to face with the mirror. For a terrified instant he was paralyzed, staring into the black depths, smelling old blood, and then the blackness surged around him and he screamed.

Nicholas backed away, not turning his back until he was at the door; he knew that, had he been inattentive and drawn too close, the starving spirit trapped within the mirror would have happily devoured him as well no matter what arrangement they had made to the contrary. He edged out of the room, then thinking quickly he ducked back into the shadows and made his way to the doorway of the chamber where he knew the First Minister was working on affairs of state - the state he had usurped from the kingdom's ruling family. The prince hissed at the tall, spare man until his head lifted from his work, and then he whispered in a gruff voice as like to the Huntsman's as he could make it, "My Lord, you must go quickly to Her Majesty's chambers. The Second Minister has already arrived, and seeks to take all the prize for himself."

The First Minister scowled, standing up. "What prize, what nonsense is this? Show yourself!"

"By order of Her Majesty I dare not," Nicholas continued in the same voice. "But you know me, you know my service to Her Majesty. Hurry! Go to the queen's chambers, walk to the mirror which stands alone in a frame of ebon wood and knock upon its surface, then say, "I have been sent by my ruler; I am like to the other which you have already accepted, but far more worthy."

The First Minister hesitated, and then he nodded. He had long known that the queen was a sorceress, and it would be like the Second Minister to try to gain advantage over him. "I will go at once. Will you..." But even as he reached the door, he found no one there. Shrugging - he'd always thought the Huntsman a bit strange - he straightened his robes and hurried to the queen's chambers, determined to take what was rightfully his.

From the shadows, Nicholas smiled a grim, satisfied smile...and then he fled the castle for his horse that luckily was not really a horse, knowing that he must be swifter than true hooves could make him if he were to save his sister from the monster that was their stepmother.

Snow was in the courtyard of the dwarves' cottage, hanging out the laundry that she and Doris had just washed clean. Doris had gone to take the midday meal to her father, brothers and uncle at the mine, and the little yellow dog Saxon had followed her, so the child was alone. Snow was not worried about being left alone, however, as the track which passed the cottage was a little-used one and only rarely brought visitors to their door. She would hear a stranger approaching long before they appeared, and so would have plenty of time to hide herself in the cottage as she had been taught to do.

She was occupied with her task, and with both joyful and worrisome thoughts of her newly-returned brother, and so was startled into dropping a little shirt into the mud when an old, creaking voice said," Well now, here's an industrious child!"

An old, bent woman was standing at the edge of the courtyard, a large basket over her arm and a twinkle in her black eyes - a peddler woman, by the look of her. Her clothing was worn but not ragged, and her smile was friendly. Snow drew back a step, frightened, but still made a little courtesy to the woman. "Good mother," she said. "We don't have need of anything this day, but I can offer you a drink from the well if you are thirsty."

"Ah, such fine manners too." But the woman was shaking her head. "How do you know you don't need what I have if you don't know what I have, child?" she asked, chuckling. "Why, my basket may contain the very thing which would make your life complete!"

Snow's brown eyes widened at this, but she shook her head politely. "No, I do not have need of anything, good mother."

The old woman hobbled a bit closer, still smiling. "Ah, but do you want something? You're young yet for corset strings or silken flowers, but..." she fished under the tied-down cover of her basket and pulled out several strands of color, "...pretty ribbons for your hair, perhaps?"

Snow put a hand to one of her neat black plaits, but shook her head.

"Hmm, a difficult customer...or perhaps a customer in difficulty. Aye, I'd bet my eye tooth that's the case." The old woman tucked the ribbons away again, and withdrew in their place a shining red apple. "Shall we barter, then? A drink of cool water from your well, as you have already offered me. And in return, I shall give you this."

The apple gleamed in the sunlight, and its sweet perfume spread through the air. Snow sniffed, smiling in spite of her fear, and then she nodded. She hurried to draw up the bucket from the well and filled a clay cup with fresh, clean water, which she carried over to the old woman and handed to her gingerly, still keeping as much distance as she could. The old woman laughed, shaking her head. "Why child, to be so afraid of an old peddler woman on a fine sunny day! Who would wish to harm a pretty thing like you?" She held out the apple. "Here, take it, and our deal will be done."

Snow hesitantly took the apple from her hand and then withdrew again. Raising it to her nose she sniffed it and smiled. "It is a very fine apple, thank you."

"And this is a very fine cup of water, thank you," the old woman told her, still laughing. "Go ahead, eat it up! I wish to see you enjoy the fruits of your first barter."

Snow smiled back and lifted the fruit to her mouth, but before she could take even one bite a loud cry startled her and her brother dove into the courtyard like an avenging angel, knocking the apple from her hand. The pretty red-cheeked fruit rolled and bounced until it hit one of the puddles that had formed under the wash-line and then it lay there steaming, making the water bubble and turn green. Nicholas tugged his sister over to the drawn bucket and plunged her hand that had been holding the apple into the clear water, for her skin was reddened as though it had been burned. "Thank goodness I got to you in time," he breathed. "That old woman..."

 The old woman, who had been staring in disbelief at the smoking apple, screamed in rage. Nicholas put his sister behind him. "Snow, it's her, run for the mine!" he instructed. "I'll hold her off, just run."

She tugged at his tunic plaintively. "But Brother, I..."

"Go!" he insisted. "Get to the dwarves. You'll be safe with them, and Danny is on his way."

"But I want to be safe with you!"

"I know." Something was happening to the old woman, who was howling and cackling and smoking herself, and he didn't much like the look of it. "But it's not safe for you here. Now run, quickly!"

Snow ran. Nicholas moved quickly to get between her flight and the witch's sudden lunge, shaking his head and drawing his sword. "No," he said, straightening. "No, you'll deal with me now. After all, I still need to avenge my father's death."

She sneered at him, ichor dripping from her blackening teeth. "He's not dead. You have no proof, and therefore no place."

"He is, and you know it. I found his body...and I have his ring." Nicholas stared her down. "Which means I'm king and you're...nothing."

"I'll show you nothing," she hissed, and then with a final howl the writhing underneath her skin became an explosion and she became...the mute stable boy Danny had described, in all his hulking glory. Who sneered the witch's sneer at him, and said with her voice, "Nothing is you, little prince. Shall you run now? Or shall I kill you here in front of this hovel?"

"I'll be sorry to defile my friends' yard with your remains," Nicholas replied, shifting his stance. "Yield and I'll make your death quick and painless."

Another sneer. "Tsk tsk, young prince, such dishonor you show to your enemies." The monstrous form spread its huge hands wide. "I am unarmed."

"You have magic, and that is weapon enough," was the prince's reply, but he sheathed his sword, unbuckled his sword belt and tossed it into the grass. He spread his own hands. "Very well then, now we are both unarmed." The stable boy drew a long black dagger from his belt and Nicholas rolled his eyes...and pulled his own smaller blade from his boot. "Really now, make up your mind."

"I'll feed what I leave of you to a wild boar," was the reply. "But your heart...that I'll have for my supper, with your pretty little sister's as starter to whet my appetite."

Nicholas began circling. "You'll touch my sister over my dead body."

"Agreed," the witch hissed, and lunged at him. He darted nimbly out of the way, but the large form was quicker than he had assumed it would be and only fast footwork saved him from being stabbed through then and there. He moved back, more cautious now. Apparently the lumbering form of the stable boy had only been clumsy and slow because the witch had wished it to seem so. He was fast now, fast as a dragon.

Unfortunately, Nicholas's own dragon was off fetching Danny from the village. He would have to defeat this monster on his own.

Some ten minutes later, Nicholas was trying hard not to wonder when the dragon would get back. He had sacrificed his dagger to remove his opponent's after a few too many cuts and near-misses proved to him that he had no hopes of winning otherwise, but that had shifted the fight into hand-to-hand combat and he was already limping and beginning to tire while the stable boy/witch seemed as fresh as though the fight had just started. Nicholas ducked another lunge and, in a sudden burst of inspiration, threw himself onto the broad back and locked one arm hard around the witch's throat.

The witch roared, massive hands grabbing at him. Nicholas pulled as hard as he could against the vulnerable windpipe, in doing so leaning back farther out of the reach of the grasping hands...which almost at once stopped flailing at him and instead latched onto his arm in a crushing, twisting grip. Desperate, Nicholas threw himself forward again, using his weight to knock the larger form off balance, making it pitch forward onto the ground, crushing hands releasing their grip on him and extending instinctively to catch itself...and allowing him to shift his weight even further forward to force the huge head face-first into the noxious green and black puddle left by the poisoned apple. The witch howled in agony, rearing up and throwing Nicholas off her back, clawing at her face. He hit the ground hard but forced himself to roll out of the way as the huge form stumbled blindly around the yard and finally fell writhing on the hard-packed earth, her borrowed skin rippling and bubbling and then finally collapsing into dry gray parchment stretched over yellowed bones. The desiccated corpse lay there for a moment, one clawed hand stretched in his direction...and then it collapsed into gray dust which quickly began to scatter into oblivion under the touch of the warm summer breeze. Nicholas lay there, cradling his broken arm and almost sobbing in relief. He heard a shout from the woods, a dragon's roar and Danny's voice calling his name...and then his thoughts scattered to oblivion as well.

When Nicholas finally opened his eyes again, he was surprised to find himself lying on a soft bed in a comfortable, inviting room rather than on the hard ground outside the dwarven miners' cottage as he had expected. He sat up with a groan and squinted out the nearby window, seeing woods. Where was he?

He was just about to get off the bed and start investigating when the room's door opened and Danny stuck his head in. "Hey, you're awake!" his friend said, coming the rest of the way into the room. " 'Bout time, you had everyone worried. Feelin' okay?"

Nicholas nodded, grimacing when it hurt. He was bruised and sore, which was only to be expected after the past few days he'd had, and his arm...wasn't broken anymore. A quick physical inventory revealed that the majority of the injuries from his last few fights had disappeared, including the wound on his hand. His brown eyes widened in dismay. "No..."

"Yeah," Danny told him, not without sympathy. "Apparently you aren't the only one in the family can do that trick. It was Snow's idea, she pulled a pin out of her apron and pricked her finger with it before the rest of us had any idea what she was up to."

Nicholas sighed, flexing his formerly broken arm. "I'm grateful she thought of that, even though I'd rather hoped she wouldn't be burdened by such a double-edged gift. Is she all right?"

"She's fine, can't even tell she did it."

"No, at her age I'd suppose the loss wouldn't be as visible." The prince ran a hand through his silver-touched golden hair. "Where are we?"

Danny, surprisingly, grinned. "The dwarves' house," he said. "Although it's not anymore, not really. A few surprisin' sorts of things happened after you killed the witch. Come on, see for yourself."

Nicholas took the hand his friend extended and slowly got to his feet, letting Danny steady him until he caught his balance, and then steady him again when taking a step proved that he hadn't really had it caught yet after all. "Apparently that old witch, she got around," Danny was saying as he led Nicholas out into a whitewashed hallway and down a curved flight of stairs. The great room at the bottom of the stairs was stone-flagged and high-ceilinged and as well-appointed as anyone might have wished a country house to be, and through the open-shuttered windows the smell of an early autumn came blowing through to mingle with the sooty warm scent of the fire that burned so merrily in the hearth. "Their family pissed her off when she was passin' through some years back - when they made that silver mirror for her, in fact."

A tall man was rising from a chair near that fire, and he strode across the room in a few steps to tower over Nicholas, a grin splitting his face. "Prince Angel," he smirked with a slight bow. "Glad to see you up and about, your sister was some worried."

Nicholas looked up into the man's face, wondering why he looked so familiar...and then he saw it. "Andy?"

"That would be me, yeah - back to my proper height an' all. Bein' short wasn't to my likin' all that much, or to my brother's or sister's either, or to our dad's. Uncle Tony, though, I'd have to say it weren't much of a difference for him."

"Yeah, thanks for killin' that bitch of a witch for us," came from the other side, where the other Andy, also restored to proper height, was striding up. He made the same short bow his brother had. "Dad's off swearin' over the mine, tunnels is all too short for us now unless we go on our hands and knees. And Doris is out with Snow and Uncle Tony huntin' mushrooms to go with supper."

Nicholas let Danny lead him to a chair by the fire, which he gratefully sank into; his head was still spinning. "You were all enchanted."

"Yep, by that bitch of a witch," Andy the First confirmed. "It was pure dumb luck you killed her here in the yard, had to have her blood spilled on our ground to break the spell."

"And it was also pure dumb luck that Snow's yellin' got us all out of the mine before it happened, or we'd likely still be in there an' tryin' to dig ourselves out," Andy the Second put in. "Was a whole lot of dumb luck goin' around earlier today."

"Thank goodness for that," Nicholas said faintly, nearly overwhelmed. He'd only been out to save his sister...

"We know you were just tryin' to save Snow," Andy the First said abruptly, apparently reading his mind. "No way you could have known about us, and the spell wouldn't let us tell anyone. Why'd you think we were all so cross all the time?"

"It must have been absolutely maddening." Nicholas looked up at him. "I'm still sorry I didn't know," he said sincerely. "You've been so kind to my sister."

"She's a good kid - deserves to be a princess, her," Andy the Second observed, grin softening into a smile. "Although she might've picked up some bad habits from Doris along the way, you'll be havin' to watch out for that when you take her back home."

"Yes, home." Nicholas's gaze dropped to the flickering fire. Home. He hadn't had a 'home' in Metra in seven long years, thanks to the scheming of his father's ministers and his 'bitch of a witch' stepmother. And poor little Snow hadn't been treated as the princess she was since she was a little girl; she was nearly a young woman now, and the rough peasant life of a dwarven mining family was all she'd known for years. Life in the castle, constrained by protocol and surrounded by fawning servants, fluttering handmaidens and scheming sycophants was going to be a horrible shock to her. And all too soon whatever ministers and advisors that remained were going to start pressuring Nicholas to use her bridal troth to cement an alliance with some potentially threatening kingdom somewhere - just as they'd eventually start pressuring him to take someone else's princess to wife for the same reason. He became aware that someone was shaking him, albeit gently, and looked up, seeing Danny's worried face. "What?"

"You kind of wandered off and left us there," the other man said softly, pulling up a footstool and sitting on it, not letting go of his grip on the prince's arm. "The Andys went out to have another look 'round the place, they're still gettin' used to bein' their right sizes again - and wait 'til you see their dad, he's bigger than they are. So since we've got some privacy...want to talk about it?"

Nicholas looked at him, and then dropped his face into his hands. "I don't know what to do, Danny. I'm...I'm king now. I have to go back and...and..."

"Kick ass from one end of the castle to the other?" Danny finished for him. He didn't quite chuckle when Nicholas raised his head again, frowning. "I know, I know - but that's what you've got to do, yeah? Can't take Snow home until that's done, and Bob already said they'd be keepin' her here until it was safe. And of course I'm goin' with you to help out, I wouldn't miss that for the world."

Nicholas stared. "You're...you're going with me?"

Danny rolled his eyes. " 'Course I am! Ain't like you could do it all by yourself, have to have someone you can trust at your back - and it's not like I wanted to let you go by yourself the first time. I wouldn't let you go back there alone, stupid."

Nicholas stared for a moment more, and then he blinked. "That's King Stupid, you know. But only to you, King's Huntsman."

Danny saw the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his friend's mouth, and he grinned. "I'll only use it when I think you need it."

"I'm counting on it." Nicholas smiled back. "So we leave tomorrow to go storm the castle?"

"Not too sure how much stormin' there'll have to be - I'm pretty much sure they'll see you ridin' up on the back of that big white horse and run the other way," was Danny's reply. "I'm lookin' forward to seein' that."

"As am I," Nicholas said, nodding, inexplicably feeling better about things. Somehow, with such a friend as Danny by his side, he felt that in the end all would be well. "As am I."  

The End