A Princess, a Spy, and a Dwarf Walked into a Bar Full of Nazis
Patrick Bollivar
It was a dimly lit country inn. Tendrils of smoke fogged the air, coupled with the stench of strong cologne. When a tall woman entered, her long legs showing under a short coat, she turned the heads of the soldiers. Wisps of blonde hair peaked out of the traveller’s scarf that covered her head and neck as she surveyed the room, smiled, and removed her coat. Bare shoulders and a sleek sparkling dress were revealed. After dumping the coat into the arms of her dwarf companion she strode to the bar.
“The name’s Jacqueline. Now who’s buying me a drink?” she said in a husky voice. Multiple men competed for that honor.
No one paid any heed to the shorter woman or the dwarf who had accompanied Jacqueline. They were fine with that, and quietly made their way to a table in the corner.
After ordering the largest beers on offer, they scanned the bar, including the stairs up to rooms above. Not much of an establishment, just a stopping point from A to B. The only locals were some women from the nearby town who appeared unhappy to be there, their faces overly painted to hide the strain from years of war. All the men were soldiers, many wearing SS uniforms. Some glared at the dwarf, but most eyes were on his sparkling lady friend.
“So, what do you think, Turk?” said the woman. She wore a grey jumpsuit under a leather jacket, her black hair done up in a bun. In the eyes of the dwarf she seemed no more than a girl.
“This plan is stupid, which isn’t a surprise, since it’s Jack’s idea.” Turk removed his own leather jacket, revealing thick, hairy arms, corded with muscle. He lit a cigar, leaned back, and watched as Jack charmed the whole bar with smiles and laughs.
“Jack will get the job done. We need to be patient.”
“Whatever you say, Princess.”
“Call me that again and I’ll shove my wrench up your arse.”
Turk chuckled. “Sorry, Briar. Looks like Jack’s hooked our man.”
The man led Jack away from the others and together they spun out onto the dance floor while a phonograph behind the bar played Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing, Sing, Sing.’ The Nazi officer led her in a classic ballroom dance style as they swept around the room. His stiff moves didn’t match the song at all, but Jack humoured him by following along.
The SS officer in question was Oberleutnant Heinrich Spindle. Jack’s connections in the resistance had led them straight to him. Spindle knew the secret route to the enchanted castle.
Briar and Turk ordered drink after drink while they watched Jack work. The cigarette smoke itched Briar’s eyes and Turk’s cigar wasn’t helping so she grabbed it from his mouth and smashed it into the ashtray. Turk shrugged, quaffed his beer, and waved at the serving girl for another.
“Excuse me, Fraulein,” said a young officer to Briar. He clicked his heels and gave a bow. “Might I have this dance?”
“No.”
“You can have me, handsome,” said Turk with a grin. He’d somehow lit another cigar without Briar noticing. The officer scowled at him and returned to his friends.
“Jack’s done it,” said Briar with a nod towards where Jack led Spindle up the stairs to one of the rooms while men hooted at them from below. “Let’s go.”
As they got up to leave, the young officer appeared with his friends in tow.
“Your little abomination was rude to me,” he said, his eyes on Briar, as if Turk was her servant. “The midget will apologize.”
“I ain’t no midget,” snarled Turk. “I’m a dwarf.”
The young officer scoffed. “What’s the difference?”
“A thousand years of protecting Princesses, and a fondness for axes,” said Briar. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we were just leaving.”
“I think not,” said one of the man’s friends. He stopped Briar with a hand to her chest and grinned unpleasantly.
From under her jacket Briar produced a large wrench, the size of a club. Teeth flew out of the man’s mouth as his head whipped sideways from her blow.
“Really?” said Turk before punching the young officer in the nuts. He lifted him into the air, and chucked him into the third man. “I thought we were trying to be subtle.”
“Change of plans,” said Briar as she punched another Nazi in the jaw, clubbed a fourth with her wrench, and dodged the groping arms of two more. “Now, we run.” She saw the serving girl, hiding under a table. “Get the townsfolk out of here. It’s going to get messy.”
Turk acted as a bowling ball through the pile of converging Nazis. Those that didn’t fly like pins out of his way met with Briar’s wrench. The pair barrelled out of the bar into the cool night air and made it to the bar’s dirt parking lot before lights from a vehicle stopped them in their tracks.
Dozens of rifle pins slid into place. German soldiers had disgorged from the nearby transport truck at the sound of the ruckus, and now had them in their sights. Briar dropped her wrench with a savage curse.
The young officer stepped outside, blood dripping from his chin. He wiped it with a handkerchief. “What is the hurry, Fraulein? I believe we have a dance to finish.”
“Sorry, honey,” said Briar. “The only dancing I do is with my fists.”
“Then we shall dance your way.” He signalled for the soldiers to advance.
A body fell off the roof and landed with a thud at Turk’s feet. Oberleutnant Spindle groaned where he lay. Everyone looked up to the open window above. Jack smiled and gave a weak wave.
“Would you believe he tripped?” Jack said.
Turk grabbed Spindle’s ankle and hauled him backwards. “Let’s go, Jack. We’ve got what we came for.”
Jack threw high heeled shoes to the ground, ran down the roof, and leapt over the soldiers. His wig fell off as he tumbled back onto his feet, revealing the short brown hair of a very skinny man. The spy grinned at the Nazis and blew them a kiss.
“Kill them!” snarled the young officer.
Before the soldiers could move a flash lit up the forest’s edge, followed by a boom. Something whistled past Briar’s ear and hit the truck. It exploded and the soldiers cart wheeled away like leaves on the wind.
A Sherman tank rolled towards them, a great green beast, the words ‘Grizzly One’ painted along the side. Its 75mm gun pointed straight at the Nazis. Those left standing wore faces wide open with shock.
Turk and Jack hauled the Oberleutnant up the turret and threw him inside while Briar hopped up onto the tank’s front. She smiled at the Nazis.
“May I introduce you to my friend, Lionel? He doesn’t like it when Nazis threaten me. Isn’t that right, Lionel?”
The tank’s engine growled. It sounded distinctly human. A voice spoke from a speaker. “That’s right,” said Lionel. “Now say goodbye. Fire in my hole!” Briar plugged her ears as the 75mm lit with a flash and the bar exploded in a shower of splinters.
***
“Fire in my hole,” laughed Jack for the twentieth time. “You’re so dirty, Lionel.”
“That’s saying a lot, coming from you,” said the tank as he drove them under a canopy of wild birch trees. “I don’t see why he wore the dress and not you Briar.”
“Because I look better in it,” said Jack.
“He’s right,” said Briar from where she stood in the command chair, her head out of the cupola as she watched the night roll by. “Just because I’m descended from a long line of princesses doesn’t mean I like to wear taffeta. There’s nowhere to hide my wrench.”
“How much further, Lionel?” asked Turk. He carefully watched their prisoner while sharpening his axe.
“Not much longer. We’re in the deep dark wood now,” said the tank. His voice spoke softly from the intercoms, as if afraid to be heard.
The forest of Urwald Sababurg had indeed grown darker. They smelled burnt cinder from recent fires as thick oaks and spindly beech trees drifted past, their shrivelled branches crooked claws that tried to reach out and grab Briar’s hair. The moon slid out from behind the clouds. Eerie light showered a hill not far away, where old stones leaned against each other, like the bones of some great dead thing. Briar shivered and slipped back inside.
“This place feels evil,” she said.
“It is,” said Lionel. The growl of his engine sounded rough, as if something choked the gas line. “Up on that hill. That’s where they shot me.”
“Major Malice’s men?”
“No, my own.”
Turk and Briar glanced at each other. Briar crawled up to the driver’s side of the tank. Electric sparks travelled past her along copper threads as she weaved her way between them. They extended from the tank’s controls to the Mason jar strapped to the driver’s seat. Inside the jar was the brain of Lieutenant Lionel Perkins, one time Commander of First Grizzly Battalion. She’d read his file at the department, before they shipped her overseas. A tough commander who’d cut his teeth in Italy with the First Canadian Armoured Brigade, he’d had more victories than anyone else in his division, but more casualties as well. She touched the Mason jar, and spoke directly to the glowing brain floating in the fluid.
“That wasn’t in your report, Lionel. What happened?”
“We were travelling with the army towards the Netherlands to reinforce General Crerar when Jack recruited us to capture Sababurg Castle. I figured it would be an easy win, less difficult than clearing the banks of the Scheldt River, but we lost the fight before it even began. Our tanks broke down as we travelled through the Urwald and we couldn’t fix them, no matter how hard we tried. It was like a dark magic had a steel grip on their pistons and wouldn’t let go.”
“Why did your men turn on you?”
“They didn’t at first, not until they started to disappear, one by one. Wolves, fast, deadly, dragged them away. We climbed that hill to escape them. It gave us our first view of the castle. Its windows glowed like fairy lights, beckoning me forward. My men wanted to retreat. We argued. Smitty, my gunner, shot me. My battalion walked away, left me to die.”
“And that’s when Major Malice got you.”
“The wolves did. They spoke, like humans were inside them. They dragged me to the castle, and, and did things to me. I woke up, transformed into the very tank I’d abandoned in the woods, just as my men had abandoned me.”
“At least you managed to escape,” said Briar.
“Being a tank ain’t too bad,” said Turk. “I knew a guy that got turned into a frog once.”
“Did he get turned back?” asked Lionel.
“Nah. Unfortunately for him, this was in France, and they do love their grenouille.”
“Turk!”
“Sorry.”
The joke had offended Briar, but Lionel chuckled. They rolled on in silence, except for the sound of the tank’s engine, which sounded closer to normal.
“Tell me, Briar,” said Lionel after a while. “How did you become involved in this?”
Briar sighed. “Our family comes from here. Sababurg Castle used to belong to us. It’s an old place, cursed with dark magic, or so my Gran said. She fled to Canada decades ago, to escape it. When Jack came searching for her he found me. My uncles and I were doing our part for the war, building Sherman tanks at a factory in Halifax.”
“That must have been hard work.”
“Nah. I grew up on a farm. My uncles taught me all about engines. By the time I was seven I could take a tractor apart and put it back together again. Tanks are easy.”
“Only if you buy us a few drinks first,” said Lionel. Briar frowned. “That was a joke.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
The engine coughed. “So how does Jack think you can help?”
“I know the secret to getting into the castle,” said Briar.
“Which is?”
Briar smiled. “Me, of course.”
“We’ve got company,” said Jack from the command post. Briar grabbed her submachine gun and opened the driver’s hatch.
Briar shone a spotlight into the forest. Eyes glowed in the black depths. “Don’t shoot, Jack. We don’t want to alert any patrols.”
“I’m not letting them drag me off,” said Jack, his itchy trigger finger caressing the co-axial machine gun. “The Nazis don’t like people like me, and they think they can fix my unnatural tendencies. I refuse to be made into some Nazi lab rat. I like me just the way I am, thank you very much. No offense, Lionel.”
“I’ll take care of them,” said Turk. He squeezed past Jack and jumped off the tank. The dwarf’s axe shone in the moonlight, as did his grin of pleasure. He marched off into the woods, alone.
“Is he crazy?” said Jack.
“My family deals with talking wolves all the time. He’ll be fine.”
“That’s not normal you know.”
“I know. Gran used to tell me bedtime stories about our crazy ancestors. How they’d get trapped in towers by evil usurpers, constantly fall asleep from a poison apple or some stupid spell, or get turned into one ungodly creature or another. We’ve always attracted strange shit. Like you, Lionel. When they introduced us, I didn’t even blink an eye at the fact you were a tank.”
“No, you didn’t,” said Lionel. “I did think it odd at the time.”
“Odd is my middle name.”
Howls sounded in the woods, followed by the bellow of a man. Then silence. When something rustled a nearby bush, Jack fired. Bullets bounced off the trees.
“Stop that, you idiot!” said Turk. He stepped out of the bush, his face covered in blood. Not his own. “Two got away.”
Turk shoved Jack down the hole and took over at the machine gun. “Get our captive to talk, Jack. Lionel, let’s move.”
They rumbled through the woods at twice the speed. Down below, Jack removed the gag on Oberleutnant Spindle.
“I’ll never talk, you pervert,” spat the Nazi.
“Takes one to know one. Admit it, sugar, you liked our kiss.” Jack pulled out a file, and began to sharpen his fingernails. Only then did Spindle notice how long and pointed they were. “I’ve heard of you, Oberleutnant.”
Spindle spat in reply. “When you’re captured, we shall fix you, and put down the midget like a rabid dog.”
“Oh, torturing you is going to be so easy,” said Jack. “Now then, shall we begin with a circumcision? I think my Jewish friends would appreciate the joke.”
Briar climbed onto the front of the tank and left Jack to his business. After an hour they arrived at the edge of the woods. A grass slope descended into a valley. At the bottom, resting atop a hill, sat Castle Sababurg. The lights in the windows flickered, from sickly yellow to unearthly green.
The wind sighed, as if happy to show Briar her old home. She didn’t feel happy at all. The sight of the place gave her knots in her stomach.
A thick nest of what Briar thought to be thorny vines surrounded the castle. Her binoculars however, revealed it to be endless coils of barbed wire, mounted one on top of the other. Mounds of it, rising a hundred feet high.
“There’s a way through,” said Lionel. “Inside is a maze of paths, peppered with landmines. I only managed to escape because of my thick hide. I can’t remember the way back, but Spindle knows.”
Briar cursed. “Turk, take a look.” She handed him the binoculars and pointed.
Six Panzer tanks patrolled below, their guns pointed in every direction. “I guess we know where the entrance is at least,” said Turk.
“How’s Jack doing in there, Lionel?”
“The German’s urine is staining my interior,” said the tank. He didn’t sound very upset by this. “I believe he’ll soon be willing to help.”
“Great, but how do we get through those tanks?”
“I’ll handle them,” said Lionel.
“You can’t take on six tanks!” said Briar.
“I’ll have to,” growled Lionel. “Besides, it’ll feel good to fight something my own size.”
“You’ll need a loader for the 75mm,” said Turk. “I volunteer.”
“Thank you,” said Lionel. “I didn’t wish to order anyone. I’m done forcing people to risk their lives for me.”
Briar jumped off the tank and ran for the trees.
“What’s gotten into her?” asked Lionel.
Turk patted the tank in sympathy and followed his niece.
He found her slumped against a tree as lightning flashed in the distance. “Storm’s coming,” Turk said.
“It always is,” said Briar.
“True,” said Turk as he lit a cigar. “How are you holding up, kid?”
“What do you think? Half my battalion wants to charge off to die.”
“I thought this was Lionel’s battalion.”
“You know it isn’t.”
The uncle nodded agreement.
“Turk, did you ever think you’d end up in one of these damn fool stories?”
“I have six brothers as short as me, and a niece as fierce as she is beautiful. What do you think?”
She gave him a shove. “You old charmer, you. I never really cared for Gran’s stories, you know. I was happy on the farm, fixing tractors.”
“Me too, Briar, but if this Major Malice character manages to unlock Sababurg’s secrets, it could change the tide of the war back to the Nazi’s favour. People like me, people like Jack, won’t be safe, anywhere. We need to end this.”
“Bloody Nazis,” said Briar, spitting. “I sure enjoyed punching them in the mouth.”
“Well, you’re about to get another chance.” Turk nodded to Jack as he approached. “He talk?”
“Sang like a canary,” said Jack as he wiped his fingernails with a handkerchief. “We’ll need to take him with us though. The maze is changed every night, with secret signs showing the safe path. Too complicated to memorize in a night.”
“That’s fine. Didn’t want a Nazi in the tank when I go to battle anyway.”
Briar gave Turk a teary-eyed hug. “Good luck, Uncle.”
“You too,” said Turk. He mashed the end of his cigar into his palm. “I need to quit these things. Damn smoke waters my eyes.”
“Ohhh!” said Jack. He gave Turk a hug too. “I love you too, you big softy.”
Turk patted his back. “Alright, alright. Get off me, you pansy. Take care of her, Jack.”
“I will.” Jack went back to the tank to collect the Oberleutnant.
“So Uncle…” said Briar. “In most of Gran’s stories, doesn’t the princess end up marrying some stupid boy?”
“Yeah, but it won’t be him, that’s for sure.”
Briar laughed. “Well, I’m not marrying a tank. Lionel is a little cold for my taste.”
“He’s a tank, Briar, what do you expect? Besides, it might not be him either. Sometimes the Prince doesn’t show up until the very end.”
“If he does I’ll punch him in the mouth too.”
“That’s my girl.”
***
Jack and Briar followed Lionel down the road towards the castle. Thunder boomed, and so did the guns of the enemy tanks. Dirt exploded around them. They crouched lower. Spindle stumbled. Jack hauled him up by his bound hands, and they carried on. Lionel responded with a crack of his 75mm. A Panzer died.
Almost there.
Acrid sulphur from gunpowder scorched their nostrils. A shell rocked the Sherman sideways, but Lionel didn’t stop. He kept on charging, his gun firing again. Two more Panzers out of commission. Too late the enemy tanks realized he intended to ram them. Close quarters now. Turk riddled the hulls with the .50 Cal. Lionel pushed one Panzer down a ravine as his turret swivelled and fired another shot.
A shell hit Lionel in his right track. The Sherman rocked sideways just as Jack dragged Briar and Spindle into the barbed wire maze.
“We have to go back!” Briar said.
“We can’t. Keep moving, sugar.”
Into the silvery growth of spiked steel they went as bullets and explosions continued behind them. Briar tried hard not to think of her uncle, or Lionel, out there. Her left hand held her M3 submachine gun at the ready, while in her right she gripped her wrench.
“This way, no this way,” said Spindle.
“You better not be lost, sugar.”
“No, no. It’s this way, I’m sure of it.”
The sky had lost all its light. Only their flashlights guided them now. There were brightly coloured clothes hanging on the wire at each fork. Spindle took different colours in different directions.
They rounded a corner and came to a stop. Jack let his grip on the Oberleutnant’s bindings go, raised his rifle. Before them sat a wolf on his haunches. He wore clothes, an SS officer’s uniform. Jack laughed.
“My, what big eyes you have,” Jack said.
“All the better to eat you with,” said the wolf. “Where’s your friend the lumberjack?”
“Back there. You’re welcome to go visit him.”
“I’ll eat the midget later,” said the wolf. “You look tasty enough for now.”
“I like men, not dogs. Stop flirting with me,” said Jack.
“I’m not! I wasn’t—”
Jack fired at the wolf before he could answer. Missed. Another wolf leapt out of the barbed wire, but Briar was ready. She clocked it with her wrench, right in the snout. The wolf fell and rolled. She placed a bullet in its skull before it could rise again.
The SS wolf vanished into the barbed wire before Jack could get off another shot.
“This way,” said Spindle, his voice shaken from the encounter.
The princess and the spy followed Spindle down the narrow trail. The castle loomed closer, backlit by cracks of lightning and booming thunder. After many more turns they reached the exit, guarded by two men.
Jack used his lanky form to spider his way between the barbed wire, snuck up on them, and rendered them dead with a few choice stabs. They walked out of the maze, and stood under the castle’s imposing shadow. “So what now?” said Jack.
“We go through the hidden door. I have the key,” said Spindle. He withdrew it from a chain under his shirt and held it up.
The air stirred behind Briar and she jumped away as the SS wolf charged, but he hadn’t been aiming for her. He chomped down on the Oberleutnant’s hand. Spindle let out a scream.
A bullet from Jack’s rifle killed the wolf, another shot silenced Spindle. “You okay, Briar?” he said.
Briar nodded, her eyes on the dead wolf. He looked so stupid, lying there in clothes. “I hate this place,” she said.
“Yeah, me too. So what do we do now? Cut open the wolf and get the key?”
“We don’t know where the hidden door is.” Briar glanced up at an open window. “Can you climb?”
“Sugar, I dance and gather intel. Isn’t that enough?”
“Fine. Hold my wrench.” Briar climbed the wall of the castle, her strong fingers digging into the gaps in the stone. She slipped through the window, and soon after found the hidden door at the bottom of a set of stairs. A fake wall opened, and let Jack inside.
A passageway led them through abandoned stables into an empty courtyard.
“Where to now?” asked Jack. Briar pointed upwards, and he nodded.
They made their way up the next staircase, towards the topmost tower. Anything that ever happened, happened in the topmost tower.
No guards here, and a door half ajar. “Too easy,” said Briar. She tucked her wrench behind her jacket again, and settled her M3 in both hands.
They slowly stepped inside.
A bed hidden behind a curtain took up most of the room. The air hung heavily with the smell of the flowers lining the walls. Lamplight flickered on sconces, the lightning outside close enough to affect the electric currents. Briar searched the shadowy corners of the room for any sign of hidden guards while Jack stepped up to the curtain and carefully drew it aside.
“Well hello, sleeping gorgeous,” said Jack.
A man lay there, under glass, his dark hair draped over his brow, his hands crossed over his chest. He wore a white hospital gown, though in this setting it appeared more like the slip of a wedding dress. An icy cloud circulated inside his glass tank, fed by machines hidden on the other side of the bed.
“It’s Lionel,” said Jack. “But why would the Major keep his body preserved?”
“Because he was my first success, and as you said, he’s quite gorgeous,” said Major Malice.
She stood by the door in a white doctor’s coat, beside two soldiers whose rifles were pointed at Briar and Jack. The princess and the spy dropped their weapons and raised their hands.
“I’ll admit,” said Jack. “I’d hoped Malice was a man.”
“So you could try to seduce me with your perversions?” said the major. “Oh yes, I know all about you, Jack. I’ve watched your progress with great interest.”
“How did you know we were coming?” asked Briar.
“The mirror in my office shows me all I wish to see in this land. I simply asked, ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most dangerous of them all?’ And lo and behold, your face appeared, Briar. You seem fond of Lieutenant Perkins, so I set his body here for you to find.”
“A trap, eh? Well done. Tell me, are you even capable of putting back his brain?”
Malice laughed. “Of course not! I barely understand how it worked in the first place. It’s almost like magic, the stuff that happens in this castle. No, Lionel’s body is quite dead, I’m afraid. Soon you will be too.”
The soldiers gathered the weapons from off the floor and left with the major, locking the door behind them.
“I don’t like the way she said that,” said Briar. “Search the room.”
They found the explosives hidden amongst the flowers. “That’s a lot of dynamite,” said Jack. “Timer gives us ten minutes.”
Briar ran to the window. In the courtyard she could see vehicles being loaded with crates. “They’re bugging out.” She smashed the glass and tried the bars. No luck.
“Nine minutes,” said Jack.
“Can you pick the lock?”
Jack examined the door. He tried his knife, but it bent. “Sorry, I don’t carry picks for fifteenth century keyholes. I’d need a hammer to open this.”
“How about a wrench?” said Briar.
Together they dismantled the door, removing the lock and all the hinges. After laying the door down, they stood and looked back at Lionel’s body.
“I’ve got a crazy idea,” said Briar.
They strapped the glass tank to the door, and climbed on top. “Hold tight,” Jack said. He grabbed the frame of the entrance and pulled them forward.
They rode the door down the spiral staircase, kicking their way around corners and picking up speed. At the bottom they careened past a soldier, who Briar silenced with a whack from her wrench. Once in the courtyard they leapt off the door and rolled towards cover behind some crates. The door kept skidding until it came to a rest against the vehicles being loaded.
Briar tried to peak around the corner, only to have bullets riddle the dirt nearby.
“Quite imaginative, little girl,” said the major. “Though I don’t know why you’re trying to save Lieutenant Perkins. I told you his body is useless. Your emotions have proven the better of you once again.”
“Only time will tell,” said Briar, and both her and Jack started giggling uncontrollably.
That’s when Major Malice took a closer look at the glass tank, and saw that the body had been replaced with all her explosives.
The timer hit zero. Briar and Jack plugged their ears.
***
The princess and the spy returned to the topmost tower and retrieved the body. They wrapped it in the bed’s silk sheets, and carried it down to the courtyard, just as a tank appeared through the smoke of the ruined vehicles.
Lionel had seen better days. His right track had lost its duckbill ends and was in danger of falling apart. His engine clanked. His chassis wobbled. The tank came to a stop in front of Briar.
“Is it done?” hissed Lionel, his voice like a steaming kettle. “Is she dead?”
“Yes,” said Briar. “She’s over there. And there. And I think a bit of her landed up there.”
Lionel chuckled, and then groaned. “It turns out this body feels pain,” he said. “Jack, is that me you carry?”
“It is, sir, but I’m afraid, that is, Malice said…”
“There’s no hope for me, is there? Well, at least she can’t do this to anyone else. Can I have it back please?” Jack carried the body into the tank, and laid it to rest underneath the man’s brain. Jack came out and stood at Briar’s side. “Thank you, Jack. Thank you Briar.”
“You’re welcome,” said Briar. “I wish we could do more, truly. Where’s my uncle?”
“Down the hill, sifting through the Panzer wreckage for working parts. He seems to think you can fix me.”
“I can. Don’t worry, you big lug. You’ll be right as rain, sooner than you think.” Briar gave him a pat and a kiss on his plating.
The lights of the castle suddenly brightened then began to flash in weird intervals.
“Uh oh,” said Jack. “Briar, what did you do?”
“Nothing!” she said as all the lights sank into a quiet darkness.
A single flashlight bobbed up the hill, held by a dwarf carrying a satchel full of spare parts. Turk’s light shone down, not on a Sherman tank, but on a body wrapped in silk bed sheets. It stirred to life. Lionel unwrapped himself from the sheets and stood up in amazement. He stared at his hands, felt his chest. Then he looked at Briar, and smiled.
“Don’t think this means we’re getting married or nothing,” said Briar. “I barely know you.”
“That can be remedied,” Lionel said with a flash of a smile.
Briar rolled her eyes. “I liked you better as a tank.”
“This is Lionel?” said Turk. “Nuts!” He threw down the satchel of parts. “Now we’re going to have to walk home.”
***
Patrick Bollivar has always enjoyed fairy tales involving princesses, especially the ones where heroes fight their way to the top of a tower. When not indulging his fantasies, Patrick works at the top of a tower at Vancouver Airport while his princess works from home, managing their two little dwarfs. You can read more of his short stories in Pulp Literature Magazine, Tesseracts Nineteen: Superheroes Universe, and Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland.