The Preposterous Tale of Sir Edmund The Courageous

Chapter 7 A Myriad of Confrontations

As Visazj gave his speech down below, Goldskull and his army had arrived before Krakkfaster's lair. "Hail! Thief dragon! Come forth!" Goldskull announced.
"Who is it that comes to me now?" Came Krakkfaster's voice from within "I have the knight. Must you also interrupt my slumber?" And with that his head appeared outside the cave, he glanced at the platoons of armed skeletons, standing arrayed in black armor and cruel weapons, flails and deadly sickles of war, and said "No army is welcome here, now get thee gone."
"I will not." Goldskull replied "I demand that thou return to me the cage of bone and the princess within."
"That I cannot do, for the princess is no longer in my possession." Krakkfaster said, a hot rage smothering underneath his cool demeanor.
"Then at least forfeit unto me the cage." Goldskull replied.
"No, for I am using it."
"Who art thou to question the authority of the Dead King?" Goldskull demanded "Can you not find some other storage crate to keep your filthy dragon-gold?"
"Not gold am I keeping but a foe!" Krakkfaster said, his rage beginning to boil over as his patience grew thin "And as to your first question, what authority have you here? This is not thy home, but the home of the Dragon King, to whom I am heir!"
"Is he not dead?" Goldskull inquired.
"Indeed he is, which makes me the King, and I repeat: get thee gone!" And with this Krakkfaster opened his mouth and let forth a blast of fire, but the skeleton soldiers stood their ground, weathering the fiery tempest as if it were but a gentle breeze. Then they advanced, and Krakkfaster roared as they came, smashing them to pieces as they marched.

This is what Edmund the Wise, Princess Maria, and Visazj returned to: several skeletons had begun trying to grab hold of Krakkfaster's arms, but he swung them into the air and sent them crashing down to the rocks below. Many skeleton physicians and holders of dark magic had begun to repair the fallen, pasting together broken bones and weaving anew the black magic that allowed them to move, so that neither side appeared close to winning.
"These ruffians are so distracted that sneaking behind them will be easier than before!" Visazj pointed out, leading the way as he and Princess Maria snuck behind the distracted dragon and skeletons into the cave. Once inside Maria ran to Sir Edmund, embracing him through the cage, Visazj too, flew to to imprisoned knight and began looking over the cage for the latch, but from inside the cage Sir Edmund said "Wait! Someone else is coming!" Visazj and Maria spun as the figure of two skeleton soldiers appeared in the entrance of the cave; it appeared that they had not been as unnoticed as they had thought.

"Why hello," croaked one of the two skeletons, bones a sickly ivory white "What a pleasure to meet you again your highness, Krakkfaster had claimed that you had been stolen. Allow me to introduce myself and my companion; I am Lady Faquien and this is my brother, Lord Maimack. But who is your companion?"
"This is the fairy that has helped save me." Maria said "I don't know its name."
Visazj snorted "I am no 'it' he said I am a Visazj, the only one so far as I know!"
"Well, if the princess and the Visazj have no objections, me and my brother will be taking that cage."
"I believe I have an objection!" Sir Edmund said "Being that I am still inside it!"
"I don't recall you being one of the people I addressed." Faquien said sardonically.
"Well I have an objection as well." Visazj said.
"Yes?"
"Well I seem to have lost it, wait a minute—" Visazj started twisting around as if searching for something, swooping around and ducking his head under his arms. Faquien stared at him bemusedly. After a long moment she shook her head as if clearing her mind from a fog, she seemed angry. "What did you do to me?" She asked.
"Me?" Visazj asked, "Nothing! I just lost my... Oh! Here it is, I don't very much like you."
"What?"
"'I don't very much like you.'" Visazj repeated "That was my objection."
"A very poor one," Maimack laughed "Not many people do." Faquien smacked his shoulder, rattling his shoulder blade against his ribs.
"Is that all?" Faquien asked Visazj, glaring at him, a deep red fire appearing in her empty eye sockets.
"Almost, just hold on a second, hold on... Perfect! Take the cage as you wish!" Visazj said. Faquien and Maimack turned back around, and found Sir Edmund, free from the cage and standing before them, barehanded but intimidating nonetheless. Maira crouched behind him, having opened the cage while Visazj had been talking.
Faquien's eyes flashed a brilliant red for an instant, before settling back down to a steady burn "What a backhanded move." Faquien said softly "I almost had pity on you Edmund, but now I must repay you." Then she rushed at Sir Edmund, swinging her sickle-like sword. Sir Edmund braced himself against Faquien's blow, but it was not aimed for him, she swung at Maria, the blade coming within inches of her breasts. Showing decent reflexes the princess yelped and jumped back but Faquien laughed, slamming bone cage shut with Maria trapped haplessly inside. "Fool." She muttered, then she began rolling the cage out of Krakkfaster's lair, Maria sprawled out like an octopus as she tried vainly to keep herself upright. Sir Edmund tried to intercept but Maimack blocked him with his sword, stalling until Faquien could push the cage out into the sunlight outside before he turned and withdrew from the cave himself.

"Well dang, she was actually being useful for once too!" Visazj muttered as Maimack withdrew.
"Well, I suppose we had better rescue her again." Sir Edmund said, retrieving his sword from the corner of the cave where Krakkfaster had left it.
"Why? She may have had one spurt of helpfulness but all in all I still don't give two lemon slices about her." Visazj said.
"Rescuing her is what we came to these forsaken mountains for in the first place." Sir Edmund said grimly "T'would be cowardice to give up now."
"You can 'T'would' all you like, she ain't the reason I'm here. And giving up seems like common sense at this point more than cowardice." Visazj replied but Sir Edmund was not listening, he was already at the mouth of the cave, looking out. Visazj flew over to him and looked over his shoulder "What is it?"
"Chaos." Sir Edmund said simply, not that it was entirely true, perhaps the events outside the cave were muddled but it was perfectly clear what had happened: Krakkfaster had a hold of the cage with Maria and was swinging it around as he fended off the skeleton forces. Faquien had been tossed to the side like an adolescent girl's rag doll, Maimack had evidently tried to resist and now was a pile of bones near the where Sir Edmund stood. Maira was throwing up whatever it was that the dragons had been feeding her in the last couple of days while Goldskull led an orgonized assault against Krakkfaster's left thigh, which was bleeding quite profusely but now, though a pile of bones were gathered around it that the Skeleton Mages dared not approach.

After a brief moment of uncharacteristic contemplation Sir Edmund charged, swinging his sword like only the most skilled of madmen knew how, yelling "Zanlar! Zanlar! Give up the maiden foul beast!" Furiously at the dragon and skeletons alike. For a short while both sides turned to stare at him, watching those age-spanning seconds as the knight ran toward their collective forces. Then Sir Edmund arrived, slashing Krakkfaster in the ribs right as Princess Maira projected a particularly green pile of mush directly onto some poor skeleton's helm. Then time seemed to start again, and the muddle of a battle that this was resumed with Sir Edmund joined in, slashing at the skeletons and dragon alike as the three sides recklessly fought to gain the advantage over the other two.
Then Visazj joined in, his inner trickster getting the better of him, for he did not really fight, but rather buzzed around creating as much added noise and commotion as was possible. Visazj claimed up skeleton spines, tugged on dragon ears, knocked on skulls to see if they were empty, flew around people's eyes like an oversized fly and soon he could not contain himself to only enemies, As sir Edmund swung his sword he flew up to his face and lifted his visor and said "Hello!" Before flying over to Maira to mess with her hair.
Somewhere during all of this he found a needle, or more likely a long piece of broken bone, and flying up to Krakkfaster he jabbed hard in the right eye. Krakkfaster yelped in pain as fluid started spurting from his eye. "How dare you do this to the heir of Krakk! First you massacre my grandfather and now you massacre my own eye!" He whined as he turned to glare at Visazj with his left eye, shying away as Visazj brandished his skewer menacingly. But then suddenly all the fighting and commotion stopped, everyone mulled over Krakkfaster's words and the full consequences of Krakk's death for a moment until, like lighting, it hit them all at once: Krakk's treasure was ownerless!

Very quickly everyone had gone from outside Krakkfaster's lair.