Ride High Seven Dwarves
There were only seven of us then, enough for a decent stand, enough for any fool to think highly of himself. I thought the whole idea was ridiculous, but it was the Prince who helped us out. After the wedding, before the honeymoon, he told us that one of the small villages on the outskirts of his land were under attack. Being the kind hearted dwarves that we were; we accepted this task with joy, hoping to stay in his good favor. Besides, it certainly beats trying to clean up the house. Without Snow White, it quickly grew into a mess. Worse than before, actually. If only we knew what was going to happen.
Of course Grumpy bitched and moaned about it the whole time. He actually punched Happy in the throat for even suggesting a song. The rest of us laughed, and thought about sending Grumpy to anger management. At least I did, as the leader of this motley gang of bearded dwarves. So we armed ourselves, mostly with axes, and shields, loaded up the horses with food and made our way to the village. Not a single song was sung on that trip.
“And I thought our place was a mess.” Sneezy said as we made our way into the small town, lit by a few torches and only having a few old buildings. As sarcastic as he was between sneeze fits, he was right. This poor town had it bad, and all the villagers had been dirty for several days. It seemed that showers came as sparingly as hope around this place. I said nothing, knowing that being high and wise would probably go unanswered. I was the damn Doc of course. I had to prepare for myself, to lead the way.
After talking to some of the locals, we found out that there had been some kind of band of bandits lurking around the area, causing chaos in the surrounding area. Any men worthy of defending the town were all gone, died defending the small piece of land they had. I thought we would have been made fun of by this point, being the small and hairy people that we were. It seemed that any help was going to be good help for them. So we prepared ourselves. We waited for them on the first night, sticking in pairs, with Dopey joining Bashful and Sneezy. It took a few hours before the actual battle happened, but when it did, it seemed like forever. That’s all I remember.
At the end of it all, it was me and Bashful who survived the whole damn thing. Sleepy was picked off during his guard duty, kind of ironic actually. Dopey was killed defending the little kids from the village, we found him with a single arrow in him. While these deaths touched me deeply, it was the finding of Grumpy and Happy, back to back, that made me grow cold. Surrounded by motionless enemies, they slumped there quietly. But their actions spoke volumes.
Happy went toe to toe with the bandit leader and was his equal when he was injured; Grumpy screamed his battle cry and rushed to his side, holding back endless waves of enemies. I was patching up Bashful when I heard his last cry. Between the two of them, they had at least twenty or so dead enemies around them, including the leader of them. A tragic loss none the less.
It took us a few days to clean up the mess and help the villagers, who hid in their houses the entire time; get back into the shape of things. We were nearly there when the Prince’s Royal Guard showed up to tell us to go home. Our job was done. Silently, we went on our way.
“Again we are defeated.” Bashful said, much to my astonishment as we left the town. We rode home, side by side, and started to sing in memory of the friends we lost. We might have won the day, but at the greatest cost.
