By Maggie Finson

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Garret glared at Roric and the battle swirling around them faded to almost nothing. The knight showed that he wasn’t completely lost in the immediate confrontation when he almost negligently parried a thrust to his side by one of Aruendal’s men at arms, then sent the man spinning against the wall with the flat of his sword.

“You won’t live to enjoy saving your lady, cousin.” Roric grated out. “If she has even survived long enough to be rescued.”

“If she hasn’t I’ll curse your soul to an eternity of the torments you put her through.” Garret answered in a level voice that still carried through the din of battle. “And trust me cousin, I have the means to do just that.”

“Less talking, more action.” Roric responded with a sudden sweep of his sword meant to separate Garret’s head from his neck.

Garret’s answer was a lightning quick parry, and a return strike at his enemy’s sword arm.

“What next, lady?” One of the merchants questioned Mina as Garret’s troops surged through the opened gates.

We go help Anthalas hold that upper passage, and keep the murder holes from being used against our guys.” Mina responded while moving towards the stairs to the passage over the entrance, then pointed to a squad of Chalmnessa’s soldiers just passing. “You! Hold the gates!”

Anthalas stared at the entrance to the corridor leading from the courtyard and shook his head at the noise coming from there. More coming! Be ready!”

“Ho! Anthalas!” Mina’s voice carried up to him. “Don’t do anything hasty. We’re here to help! If you blast me, I will be most unhappy and will take the time to show you — personally — just how upset I am!”

“Watch that entrance.” The mage told the men with him. “If she’s unrestrained it’s okay, otherwise, you know what to do, just do your best not to hit her when you’re doing so.”

He punctuated that with a small fireball at the entrance to the wall itself as more of Roric’s troops tried to regain the murder holes and easier access to the gate mechanisms while shouting back to Mina. “The help would be appreciated since I’m running low on spells here!”

Bridgette shifted the sword in her hand and glared at the one woman she hated more than anything else in life. Even worse, the uppity little bitch was actually smirking at her. “Why are you standing there smirking like the village idiot who finally figured out what the thing between his legs is for? I thought you were going to come to me!”

If anything, Deirdre’s grin grew wider as she shrugged in response. “Umm, I changed my mind?”

“You, guards!” Bridgette singled out a group of scruffy guardsmen wearing Roric’s livery and peremptorily gestured for them to follow her and the guards she had brought with her. “Fifty gold to the one of you who brings her to me alive, forty if she’s dead when you do!”

The seven guardsmen first looked at her and her escort in something like alarm, then shrugged and joined her little group without protest.

“Oh, this is too good to be happening for real.” Deirdre carefully, and not all that well, held in a chuckle that appeared as if it could easily become very unladylike guffaws.

“What do you find so amusing about facing eleven soldiers instead of four?” Riddler grumbled without looking up as he worked at one of the simple ‘surprises’ he was rigging for said soldiers.

“Daddy!” The girl sighed and shook her head in near exasperation before stifling another laugh. “Have you really looked at the seven new ones dear Bridgette pulled in?”

“Been kind of busy here, you know.” He answered then paused to glance up, then lifted his head more slowly and let his gaze remain on the group. “Well, I’ll be d…”

“Don’t say it.” Deirdre cautioned him then grinned. “Even if you probably are for one reason or another.”

“Daughter, your blind, stupid luck is going to become a thing of true legends at this rate.”

“Well at least it isn’t bad luck.” She said with a smug expression.

The raven haired demoness watched for a moment, then started laughing without even trying to move away.

“Oh, keep laughing.” Bridgette grated out. “Especially when you’re strung up in front of your precious Garret and hanging there choking your life out!”

“Oh, I don’t think things will get that far.” Deirdre chortled as she waved at the added guardsmen Bridgette had commandeered. “Those added guards -- aren’t on your side! This is sooo priceless!”

“What?” The other woman screeched and turned to order all eleven guardsmen to take the insouciant little bitch. Only to discover that the seven newcomers had quite handily subdued the four she had entered the courtyard with.

“Oops.” Deirdre laughed then her expression changed into one that was deadly serious. “Now dear, you’re all mine. Do bring your sword along. The men won’t stop you from doing that. Just don’t try running away. I’d really be put off if I had to chase you down again.

Bridgette had no intention of even trying to run away. Screaming in rage, she ignored the traitorous guardsmen, spies, or whatever they were and charged straight towards her tormentor with sword raised for a devastating downward strike.

A space had cleared for the fight between Garret and Roric. Supporters for each man made certain no one interfered even if that did cause a few broken heads, or other less dense bones, on those who tried.

“Your.” Swing “Precious.” Clang! “Little bitch.” Crash! “Is dead already.” Zing! “Cousin!”

“I think.” Duck, Shing! “Not.” Garret got out in answer. “You.” Swhish, Bonnggg! “Talk.” Screech! “To much.” Clatter. “Cousin!”

Roric continued taunting while Garret kept raining blows and avoiding others in silence punctuated only by grunts of effort.

King Cedric and several of his advisors watched the unfolding battle for Lindsay from the vantage of a hill overlooking the valley the castle loomed over with varied expressions.

Vertigan, the spymaster, obviously uncomfortable in his light armor, observed the mayhem across the valley with more equanimity than others in the small group. “You do know that people are going to accuse Garret of breaking The King’s Peace after this.”

“Garret is doing his job.” Cedric answered with an idleness that spoke of having had this conversation so many times already that he was bored with it. “As my legally designated heir, even if not publicly announced as of yet, he is enforcing that peace. Roric broke it by taking Lindsay, doing whatever he did to his father to get it, kidnapping Garret’s fiancée, and collusion with Cardasia to take the throne by promising them some of the richest lands of our kingdom in payment. That spy we captured wasn’t all that good at holding information back, was he?”

“His interrogation was — umm — quite intense.” Vertigan answered with a small grin. “One can’t blame him at all for letting a few things slip.”

“No, I suppose not.” Cedric agreed, still watching the chaos of battle around and inside the castle. “Roric better hope Garret just kills him, though. If he falls into my hands he’ll wish that had happened.”

“Why do I get the impression that you hope Garret doesn’t kill him, your Majesty?” Vertigan questioned.

“I never did care much for the self important twerp.” Cedric answered with a shrug. “Or for his taste in women. Hopefully the lady Deirdre will solve that one for us. I know she would greatly enjoy doing so.”

“You seem very sure that she is still alive, my King.” The spymaster grinned.

“Well, for starters can you think of anyone else who could have successfully engineered fireworks striking the defenses and defenders on the walls, from inside?” Cedric questioned with amusement then added. “While pulling that feat off at precisely the right time to assist Garret’s siege efforts?”

“Good point, sire.” The spymaster nodded with a chuckle. “Things like that do tend to happen when she is in proximity to unfolding events.”

“Indeed they do.” Cedric agreed.

“Die bitch!” Brigdette screamed as her sword made a deadly arc for the other’s head. Only to be stopped in mid-arc by something that looked like the ugliest back scratcher in creation.

As the goblin claw hooked and held the sword, then almost negligently threw it aside Deirdre gave her opponent an evil little grin. “Now you know we don’t need extra weapons for this. I want to rip your throat out with my teeth and nails.”

“Easy enough for you to say,” Roric’s putative queen shot back, “while you hold a weapon and I don’t.”

“Oh, this?” The midnight haired hellion questioned as she waved the claw in the air then tossed it back to Riddler. “Hang on to this, daddy, but be careful with it. I have things to take care of here that are too personal for weapons.”

Adroitly catching the thing in spite of being surprised, Riddler stuck it through his belt and sighed. “You are sooo much like your mother.”

“Fool!” Bridgette crowed, lunging at her enemy with a needle pointed stiletto.

“Oh, I cheated, too.” Deirdre grinned as the mace she suddenly pulled out struck the knife out of Bridgette’s hand. “I know better than to trust you to fight without doing so, and if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying, isn’t that right?”

“Bitch!”

“From you, I’ll take that as a compliment.” Deirdre actually laughed while idly tossing the mace back to Riddler. “Now, can we get to the really fun things, like me wringing your skinny neck?”

Bridgette screamed in response, attacking with nails, teeth, and feet.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Riddler advised one of Roric’s men who had started moving to either stop the fight or join it as he waved the mace his daughter had just tossed him in the man’s face. “Trust me, if I hit you it would be a mercy compared to what would happen if you tried to interrupt that.”

The pair of screaming, cursing, flailing, scratching, biting females rolled into a puddle that wasn’t all mud and the guardsman reconsidered his actions with a shrug, dropped his sword to the ground and stepped back.

“Smart man.” Riddler approved.

“You’re slipping.” Anthalas informed Mina while pointing out several of Roric’s men who were still twitching, so must still be alive. “You left a few.”

“Well, you did ask me to go easy on them, didn’t you?” The ex-assassin questioned almost innocently.

“I’d kind of hate seeing you go all out against someone.” The mage sighed, but grinned at her as he did.

“You did, down in the dungeon with Eel.” She smiled back.

“I was kind of busy then, myself.” He admitted. “I missed it, I fear.”

“No matter.” Mina chuckled. “You’re a bad influence on me, sir mage. I’m losing my edge catering to your requests.”

“I seriously doubt that, my dear.” Anthalas shot back then grimaced as he glanced at the entrance from the walls. “More coming and here I am out of spells and without my tomes.”

“You can use a staff, as a weapon, right?” Mina asked without seeming to be all that interested in his answer.

“Yes, why?”

“Try this one.” She smirked, handing him a stave made from gleaming ebony wood with silver caps at both ends.

“This is magic!” He responded looking the weapon over with a curious expression on his rather plain face. “What does it do?”

“You’re the mage,” Mina answered simply, “you figure it out, but you can hit people with it until you do.”

“Where’s your hairpiece?!” Deirdre screamed into Bridgette’s face. “I was looking forward to cramming it down your throat and leaving it there this time!”

“Sorry, bitch, I didn’t bring it!”

“Oh, then eat this!” Deirdre growled back while pushing a noisesome mass of glop into her enemy’s mouth and industriously working to get it down her throat.

Riddler took advantage of the mass confusion around the best cat fight he’d seen in years by gesturing to the soldiers who had overpowered Brigdette’s men at arms to pay attention to keeping other Lindsian soldiers from interfering with the developing fight. In spite of wincing at one particularly well placed blow Deirdre got in on the other woman’s midriff he grinned proudly at one of the ‘merchants’ Garret had previously sent into Lindsay. “”That’s my little girl. Something, isn’t she?”

“Uh, which one would that be?” The soldier questioned while working to keep his attention on the people in the vicinity instead of on the rolling, spitting, screaming, clawing and biting blur of arms, legs, nails, hair, and young women.

“Why the one who’s winning, of course.” Riddler said as if that was perfectly obvious, then relented. “The Lady Deirdre, you know, the raven haired one on top just now -- oops, now she’s on the bottom -- oh, never mind. I can’t keep track of who is on top, the bottom, or sideways with those two just now.”

“Maybe…” the soldier grimaced in sympathy as Deirdre landed another telling blow and Bridgette pulled back a hand filled with midnight hair, “we should stop this?”

“Feel free to give it a try.” Riddler shrugged. “I’m not putting my precious self into the middle of that!”

It was clear that the soldier agreed with the thief as he shook his head and reluctantly turned back to watching for any of Roric’s soldiers foolish enough to attempt interceding in the squalling blur of mud covered females.

“Here’s your hair back!” Bridgette spit out while trying to wrap the deep black tresses she had pulled out of her enemy’s scalp around the bitch’s throat.

“Oh, do you want this tooth back?” Deirdre responded while cutting the other’s cheek with an incisor that had somehow ended up in her hand, successfully interrupting the attempt to strangle her with her own hair. “Here, let me put this back in your mouth.”

“I think it is time to add our own force to this fracas.” Cedric waved towards the bugler as he closed his telescope and put it back in its cover. “Sound the advance. I imagine things will be over with by the time we arrive, Garret seems to have things in hand. The gates are breached, his troops are swarming over the walls, and I see Roric’s troops seem to be wisely throwing down their arms.”

“Gilding a lily aren’t we, sire?” Vertigan questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, most likely.” Cedric nodded as he urged his horse forward to the notes of the bugle. “But it should be interesting to see the aftermath of all this. I am gratified to see that Garret has done his best to minimize the actual casualties on both sides.”

“I believe he owes a lot of that to his lady, sire.” Vertigan put in with a crooked grin. “Without those fireworks, it would have been a real fight on the walls instead of Garret’s troops simply overwhelming the defenders.”

“Oh, yes.” Cedric grinned back. “What a queen that one is going to make! I almost pity anyone trying to oppose her in times to come.”

Garret had Roric on the defensive with a sudden flurry of blows that ended up with his enemy splayed out on the ground and weaponless. “You’d be wise to just surrender, Cousin. If you get back up I may be tempted to go ahead and just kill you for the things you’ve done to me and mine recently.”

“It seems that you hold the advantage here, Garret.” Roric answered after regaining his breath. “Why not get it over with and kill me now, you know you really want to do that.”

“Oh, I’m not showing you any mercy here, cousin.” The knight responded without inflection in his voice and no expression betraying what he felt on his face. “Though I do admit that I’d much rather you tried something just now, killing you when you’re obviously beaten is not something I’d do. Though I’m sure if our positions were reversed you wouldn’t refrain from killing me.”

The defeated nobleman simply glared in response until Garret turned away slightly to issue orders to his victorious troops. Lindsay’s soldiers were throwing down their weapons and giving up in droves by then. With a speed no one thought him still capable of, Roric seized his sword and struck at Garret’s head with an almost animal growl.

The blow went true enough to strike, but glanced from the helm Garret still wore, knocking it off to spin in one direction while the knight collapsed from the blow. Though his triumph was short lived as surrounding soldiers swarmed him to the ground in response.

“Desist and lay down your weapons, in the KING’S NAME!!” A deep voice roared from the gates, stopping what little fighting was still going on. Eyes turned to the source to see Cedric, surrounded by his own warriors surveying the surrounding chaos without expression.

Onlookers cringed in sympathy as the pair of women performed a head over heels, flailing cartwheel into the side of a wagon with enough force to be heard above the other surrounding confusion then slid underneath the thing from sheer momentum. Screams, thumps, bangs, and one very solid meaty thud told people the fight was still going until an almost ominous silence fell from that area. Riddler started moving forward to see if either combatant was still even close to functional when movement from his goal stopped him.

Deirdre crawled out from under the wagon, slowly stood up then limping, bleeding, covered in mud and less mentionable things flashed a grin of triumph. She dragged the unconscious form of Bridgette behind her as matter-of-factly as if the other woman was the bundle of filthy laundry she appeared to be. “Now that was very satisfying, someone please tie her up so she won’t try getting into more mischief if she wakes up before all this is over with.”

Someone diffidently offered Deirdre a bucket full of water that the young woman upturned over her head before handing the empty bucket back. “Thanks, but I think it’s going to take more than a few buckets of water to make me presentable right now.”

The Lindsay man at arms who had offered the bucket in the first place nodded as the filthy, but still lovely midnight haired hellion began ineffectually dabbing a relatively clean part of her garments at her face while wrinkling her nose in belated disgust. The soldier shrugged and went back to the well for more water.

“I’d give you a fatherly hug,” Riddler finished tying the ropes he’d bound Bridgette with, wiped his hands as well as he was able and stood to face his child with a wry grin, “But I do have at least mostly clean clothes on here. Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes, daddy, I think so.” Deirdre smirked then grabbed him in a tight, if somewhat squishy, hug before he could get away from her. “That was more fun than I’ve had in a long time, you know.”

“Though I’m certain this has been brought up before,” the thief chuckled as he disengaged himself from his offal caked daughter, “you really should work on your definition of fun.”

“Yes, I have been told that before.” She agreed then turned towards the new commotion at the gates in time to see Garret go down to Roric’s treacherous blow and the entrance of King Cedric. The latter was far from her mind, though as she screamed. “Garret!”

“At least Roric has been subdued.” One of the soldiers commented as the girl sprinted to where her man had fallen.

“Good thing for him.” Riddler nodded sagely before following his daughter at a slightly less frantic pace. “She would rip things the treacherous bastard is quite fond of from his crotch and force feed them to him if he wasn’t already safely restrained.”

“You know,” one of the Lindsay men at arms said to one of Garret’s troops. “with all the trouble that pretty little lady has caused all of us here over the past few days, I could actually see that kind of thing happening.”

*

Cedric watched in almost bemused fascination as a disheveled, filthy form rushed up and cradled Garret’s head in her arms, gently kissing first the man’s forehead, then his cheeks, then his chin then finally pressed her lips to his before pulling back as he gasped, and opened his eyes.

“Oh Garret!” Deirdre looked into his still not quite focused eyes and kissed him again. “You did come for me! I love you sooo much, don’t die on me now!”

“Wha — what did you just say?” He questioned groggily still getting his swimming senses to try and show him something coherent but hoping he’d heard what she said right.

“That I love you, you big lunk.” She answered, kissing him again.

“Ohhhhh.” Garret groaned as he tried to lift his head to respond to her kisses.

“My lord, are you in pain?” A healer questioned at the groan he’d let out while maintaining a careful distance from the very aromatic apparition that was kissing his lord.

“Yes!” Garret answered with a wince as even that pronouncement sent sharp spikes of pain through his head. “Just my luck, isn’t it? She’s finally in the mood. And I have a headache!”

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