The Princess's Servant

9. The Gates

The four suitors, the two servants, and the one princess stood atop a flat of cracked earth. It was a hot day, and any whisper of a cloud that might have offered them shade was burned out by the sun. The princess had led them to a large gate outside the city walls, where grains grew to their hips and the forest's cool shadow beckoned them in. Holden stared up at the great gate.

The doors themselves looked almost identical to the ones at the castle, he thought, though these were much more poorly maintained. What may once have been stained wood was now warped and peeling, with a sun-bleached front and splintering corners. The gate was as tall as three men stacked, and it was walled in by thick stone. Around the half-circle tower were four high platforms, each of them topped with a royal archer.

"I've brought you some tools," said the princess, hands on her hips as she squinted at the sun. "Bring me lunch."

The four suitors nodded with gusto and shouted affirmatives. Holden noticed a pile between them and the gate, and his eyes picked over the random goods. An axe, a cloth, a set of keys, a white flower, and a long starchy bone that he hoped wasn't human. Surely some of these tools would be more helpful for gathering food than others, Holden thought.

"Good luck," said the princess as she turned her back. Holden looked again to the edge of the wood and felt the forest's pull. He imagined what it would feel like to go bounding towards its shadowy depths, back towards his life; back towards his home. But he remembered the guard and the archers and their crazed commander and decided to not test his luck.

By the time he looked back, he was too late. The others had rushed the pile and scrapped for the best items. The knight and the barbarian fought for the ax, the pirate made off with the keys, and the sickly looking one took a deep whiff of the white flower. As he did, he fell to the ground in a heap. Holden hurried over, glanced at the others, and plucked the flower from his loose fingers. He stuffed it in his pocket before the others could notice.

Locksbane, he thought. Exceedingly rare and exceedingly useful. Holden moved from the passed-out boy and meandered towards the bone. He yanked on its dry knobby end, and wondered if something this lightweight stood any chance against an ax.

The barbarian shoved the duke into the dust and hoisted the ax above his head in victorious celebration. The duke groped the ground for the final item: the cloth. He pinched it in his fingers as though it were a white handkerchief.

"HA!"

The three conscious suitors looked to the pirate, who had been the first to reach the door. He fit the key into the lock and twisted his wrist. Everyone went still.

The pirate took the key out. "Not that one..." he muttered. He tried the second key and heard a click. "Ha ha!" He shouted, slipping inside the door in a flash. The great gate shut before any of the other suitors had the chance to see what was inside. 

The three faces listened and watched with great interest. There was an inhale of silence between the slamming of the gate of the ringing of a terrible roar. Leaves shuttered. Birds took flight. The pirate shrieked a high pitch scream and dashed out the door, fumbling with his keys to lock it behind him. 

The others watched him.

"What was it?" The duke asked. "What did you see?"

The pirate's eyes were wide like a bunny's and his beard quivered with his lip. "Land whale," he whispered.

The duke tilted his head, his blonde curling locks lifting above his armored shoulder. The barbarian shoved the man aside and pulled the keys right from the shaking pirate's hand. Gripping the ax, he unlocked the gate and entered the ring.

Holden peered through the crack in the door. His eyebrows lifted as he saw. The prince witnessed the gargantuan man dwarfed by the hairy haunches of a giant boar. It had tusks as long as Holden's arm and a tail that twitched like a whip. Its eyes shimmered with rage and its nostrils flared. Around its neck was thick rope tethered to the ground. The barbarian stood his ground and raised the ax up high. When the beast roared at him, Garg roared back.

"Aaaaargh!" The barbarian rushed forward. He raised his ax high in the air and was about to swing down when—

Tthhuck! An arrow landed right at his feet. Garg looked at the arrow and he looked at the archer. He raised the ax again.

Tthhuck! The archer stared at him. She readied another arrow.

Garg stood in the pen and felt the mud squish up between his toes as he shifted his stance. His arms twitched to raise the weapon a third time, but he was beginning to notice a pattern. To test this theory, the great barbarian raised the ax again—

Tthhuck!

Right between his toes.

The giant hollered and ran out the gate, taking a sharp right to start hacking at the platform base. The archer atop it started to lose balance as blow after blow fell up the wood, and her companion aimed a special green arrow. With the snap of the bowstring, the arrow pierced the barbarian's skin and sunk into his shoulder's bone. He cried out in anger and raised the ax once more before collapsing in a heap.

"Hm," said the princess as she pulled away from her spyglass. She took another sip of tea and looked out at the pigpen from afar. The tower balcony had indeed been a good place to view the fun, she thought.

The three conscious suitors stared at their fallen competitor. After more than a few concerning seconds, the perfectly still Garg drew in a snorting breath. The others let out a puff of air themselves and worried a little less that the princess might kill them. The three adult men jumped as a loud gasp rang out.

The one who'd called himself the Prince of Draconia shot up from his seat. The others looked to him as he yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"Is it over?" He asked. "Did I win?"

Nobody replied. They all turned their heads towards the gate as the Duke William scavenged the ax from the fallen Garg. With a brave shout, he rushed in and raised the ax high. And sure enough, the moment he tried to swing it down on the pig, the archers fired their arrows. The knight retreated.

"That was a bust," said the duke, an arrow or two poking out from his chain mail. "Do you think we're supposed to take out the archers first?"

Holden considered leaving these idiots to execute their one-step plans while he found a shady spot to rest, but the gleam of glass from the princess's tower caught his eye. He lowered his head and exhaled profoundly.

"Give me your cloth," said Holden, "and the ax." Holden faced the gate and prepared himself to enter.