Chapter 12: Boats in the Daylight

Johno could still feel a warm breeze fluttering the sails of this Arendell ship. They had long left the Skagerrak strait and were making their way up Norway's Atlantic coast at a quick clip. Perhaps there was even something magical about the south wind pushing them along. Johno frowned at the though. The trolls' magical stones certainly were useful—the first one had allowed the bandits to rescue Askel from that sorceress's summer prison. But the Boreal Bandits had a proud tradition of running unchecked through the northern forests, eluding the gendarme of any kingdom through cunning and skill. They channeled the craft of legends: the agility of Flynn Ryder, the guile of Ali Baba, and the wild abandon of Jack Sparrow. That had always been an unstoppable combination, all without the use of magic.

But this was not Johno's place to question. Askel had handed leadership over to the Bandit Queen, and she decided they would use magic—had assured them even that they would need it to go against the ice witch of Arendelle, and rescue the young princess from under her. Why the Bandit Queen was obsessed with this princess was another matter that Johno knew not to question. He simply piloted the boat. Someday perhaps, after the Bandit Queen's reign, Kjerstin would ascend to rule their band of thieves, and he would become a captain of the bandits. Until then, he would do his job well.

He looked around the deck. Even in the afternoon sun, there was not another person to see. A dozen of Arendelle's merchant navymen were locked up below deck, and there would be one bandit standing watch. The other four were somewhere on this deck, lurking in the shadows like thieves in the night despite the broad daylight. Good. They were doing their job well too.

He scanned the horizon. Empty ocean to the west and north. Empty woods along the coast to the east. Empty ocean behind them—wait. Was that something. "Oy, Hamburt! We need fetch the spyglass!" Johno called out.

From behind a coil of rope, the bandit known as Hamburt stood, dove below deck, and emerged a moment later with a telescope in hand. Hamburt wasn't his real name. His mother died in childbirth, and never had a chance to name him. He was raised by the bandits, under the name of "you boy," until he started growing whiskers, then it was "you boy." When he joined Kjerstin's crew, she decided he needed a proper name. He wanted the moniker Thor. She decided Hamburt was more fitting. He was not amused.

"Nah, bot Johno. You isn't the captain. I's Thor to anyone else," he answered. But he did as he was told anyway, and extended the spyglass to scan the waves behind them. "Yeah, I see it. It's a ship."

"Well, go on. What colors she flyin'?"

"Don't see no colors. She got white sails. White flags too—'ay Johno, you reckon she's surrenderin' to us?"

"Don't be daft. What kind of white flags she got?"

"They're white flags. They don't have kinds. I guess this kind is kind of shiny. A little blue, like snow…"

"Let me see that spyglass!" Johno grabbed the telescope from Hamburt. "A frozen ship…. So the ice witch cometh."

Johno wore a smile as he put down the spyglass. This would be their chance to prove to their Bandit Queen that they could take on Elsa without using magic.


Anna had given up trying to cheer up Decker, and now she was giving up trying to find anything about the Bandit Queen from Kjerstin. All the ballooner would answer was, "You'll see soon enough."

Well now it was true. Their balloon had arrived at the island of Spitsbergen, landing gently on a frosted beach. Far up ahead in the valley Anna could see the imposing fortress of ice and stone.

"Is that really where we're going?" she asked.

"I'm going to our encampment," Kjerstin answered, indicating to a small tent city, with dim smoke curling into the sky. "But you and your entourage… yes our Queen requests your audience in the castle." She grabbed Anna's shoulder, and for the first time held a look that could convey concern. "Good luck," she said, and with that, Kjerstin turned and started making her way to the camp.

"Huh. Some castle," Anna looked on. "Well … Decker, Olaf. I guess that's where we're going."

With a gulp, she led the other two onward.


Kristoff had to admit that traveling by ship pulled by a magic ice whale was much quicker than sled, as he saw the coastline passing by. But although it was quicker, it didn't feel faster. There was no thrill of dodging trees as you weave through a forest, no bounce as every pebble in the path gets amplified through the runners of the sled, no feeling of flying. Just a chill in your face from the wind buffeting against it. Kristoff buttoned up his vest and hunkered down near Sven. The reindeer was curled up in a tight ball against the foremast.

"Well bud," he began. "How do you like your first boating experience?"

Sven gave him a look that simultaneously conveyed incredulity, contempt, and seasickness. Sven had a talent for such looks.

"Wow, that bad huh? I guess it doesn't help that the ice deer is below deck with Elsa and Pebble. Yep just us boys and the open ocean up here." Kristoff sat down and leaned his head against Sven. "Just you, me, the Norweigan woods, and empty waves."

Hrrph, Sven answered.

"No way. It's too late in the season for anyone else to be sailing this far north... Unless they were also going to Svalbard, like those bandits that kidnapped… Anna's ship!"

Kristoff leapt up, and searched the horizon. There up to the north, there was a ship! He grabbed an icicle and broke on end off, using a trick he learned from Olaf.

"Here Sven, bite this." He offered the thin end of the icicle to the reindeer who promptly chomped it. Kristoff inspected the bite mark, but deciding that it wasn't the right shape, crunched the end as well and worked it into a spherical lens. Looking through the make-shift telescope, he could see the ship up ahead was flying the teal and purple of Arendelle. It really was Anna's ship! And under whale-power, they would overtake it in a couple minutes.

"Elsa, Elsa. We've found the ship!" Kristoff shouted as he burst through the door leading below deck. "We've found …" he trailed off as when he saw the Queen, curled up against her snow deer, a pained expression painting her face. "Are you okay?"

She gave him a halfhearted smile before answering, "Just seasickness."

"Haven't you ever been on a boat before?"

"Not since I was really little. Unless the frozen fjord incident counts." She slowly climbed to her feet. "Anyway, what's this about a ship?"

"Right! Up ahead, it's the ship Anna sailed off in. We're catching up to her. Be there any minute now."

"Anna's …" As the words settled into Elsa, she raced up the stairs onto the open deck. Kristoff followed, in time to see her standing at the bow, singing out to her ice whale. At least it sounded like singing, combined with slow, stretched words.

The whale started slowing, gradually coming to a rest parallel with the Arendelle boat. Elsa waved her arms and formed an ice bridge between the two ships. "Come on!" she shouted over her shoulder at Kristoff. Instinctively, Kristoff followed.

What they found was disconcerting. "There's nobody here." Kristoff said to an empty deck.

"Where is everyone?" Elsa wondered aloud.


"Right. 'Ere's the plan," Johno whispered to the shadows below deck, where he knew the other five bandits were lurking. "Hamburt and Dave cross to the ice boat."

"I's Thor, I is." Hamburt interrupted.

Johno went on, "I spied through the spyglass that it was pulled by a whale. Never seen a boat like that, but I reckon it just takes a little spike from a javelin to spook the whale off. That cuts off their escape. The other four of us wait in ambush near the prisoners. Remember, she has magic, so we's got to test her before we's spring the trap."

With directions given, Hamburt and Dave crawled out a viewing hatch, and silently made their way underneath the ice bridge to the boat beyond.


Elsa didn't like it, but she forced herself to go below deck. That's where the prisoners would be. Somewhere in the hulls below would be the brig.

As she stepped down the stairs, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"What, Kristoff?" She turned, only to see that Kristoff was still twenty feet behind her on the deck. That was weird.

She took two more steps, her hairs standing on end, frost forming on her fingertips. When she felt another tap on her shoulder, on instinct she wheeled around and flung ice from her hands. But it only froze the wooden railing. There was still nobody there. Her heart started pounding; she could feel anxiety welling up.

After two more steps, she felt another tap, but this one the cold steel of the blunt end of a sword. Again she whipped around, and caught a fleeting glimpse of light bouncing off metal. It was far too short of time to take aim with a bolt of ice, but unconsciously icicles were forming around the stairwell.

So there were bandits down here, but they were staying in the shadows. She tried to stare into the shadows, let her eyes pierce the darkness. Another step, and she saw a blade swing down. She ducked, but it still grazed her shoulder. That blade had come from right in front of her, but she couldn't see the wielder, hidden as he was.

She closed her eyes and thought to herself, Don't see it. Feel it.

She stood there, waiting, until she felt the waft of another sword swinging her direction. With only the smallest of winces, ice flew out of her shoulder blade, along the sword, around a pair of hands, and then exploded outward until it latched onto the walls of the stairwell.

Elsa opened her eyes to see a tall, red-haired bandit with his hands frozen in place in a web of ice. I did it! she thought with a smile. She looked at her prisoner and allowed the ice along the sword to thaw, until it fell to the ground with a clang.

Picking the sword up, she continued down the stairs. There would be more bandits down there, surely waiting in ambush. But so would the crew and … Anna. And if she could take on this one bandit, a few more shouldn't be a problem, she thought.

She realized she was wrong, the instant she saw the flashes of light of two swords swinging at her from opposite directions. She ducked, and panicking, closed her eyes, held her own sword upward, and unconsciously dropped the temperature as low as she could. She opened her eyes after she heard a crash, and felt bits of metal falling onto the back of her neck. Her own sword had shattered. But the recoil had sent the pair of bandits bouncing off back into the shadows against the wall of the ship's hull.

They would regroup soon, and attack swiftly, these monsters that had kidnapped Anna and were now trying to slice her open. Elsa felt a rage coursing through her that she hadn't felt since her brush with the Weasleton goons in her ice palace. She felt her eyes narrow. I can be a monster too. If they want to get me, let them get me through ice. Elsa stepped down, and covered the floor of the ship with a layer of slick frozen water. Then, holding her arms out, called razor-sharp icicles forth from all of the walls. Let's see them hid in the shadow now.

From the last remaining shadows, a pair of swords appeared flying through the air. Elsa ducked and twisted and sent two blue bolts of magic at the projectiles, freezing them to the roof of cabin.

Still the icicles grew. With a grunt, a pair of lumbering bodies charged from the far end of the cabin, aiming to tackle Elsa. But the ice was slick, and where they were sliding, Elsa was nimble. She slid out of their path, twisted quick behind them, and with one shove they were flat on the ground. With another bolt of blue magic, their hands and legs were held together in frozen shackles.

In the next room, she found a dozen sailors locked in the brig. She recognized their faces, but only remembered one of their names.

"Mister Errol, what's happened? Where's Anna?"

The sailors all stared at her, dumbfounded. Still unable to grasp what had just happened.

Until finally the captain answered. "Mister Errol, your Queen just asked you a question. And while he answers, would it trouble your majesty to let us out? Keys are on the wall."

As Elsa fumbled with the keys, the first mate finally seemed to find his voice. "Seven bandits took the ship. One went ashore with Anna and the snowman. And the Texan. The other six were sailing with us."

Elsa looked up at him, as he added, "And thank you, your majesty, for rescuing us."

"Six bandits … but I only found three below deck…"

"The rest must be above," Answered the captain.

"Oh, no! Kristoff." Elsa turned and ran back the way she had come. The dozen sailors, sensing urgency, dashed after her.

Above deck, they found Kristoff, wrestling with one more bandit. When the bandit saw the crew and the half-crazed queen, he stood up, raised his hands and said, "Alright. I surrender."

"Where are the other two bandits?" Elsa asked.

"They took your snow boat." He answered, gesturing to the broken ice bridge that now led nowhere.

Kristoff jumped up and grabbed him by the bandana. "Listen, punk! Where's Sv—"

Harumph! Kristoff was cut off by a shout from Sven, as Moby the Snow Whale pulled Elsa's ice boat alongside the Arendelle ship once again. Elsa's snowdeer stood beside Sven, each deer with a bandit pinned under their front hooves.

"Ahoy Kristoff!" Pebble called out from the bow of the boat.

"Pebble, what happened over there?"

"These two spooked Moby by trying to throw spears at him. But I guess they weren't expecting reindeer, 'cause Sven and this Dasher here managed to run up and pounce on them. Eventually I managed to calm Moby and tell him to take us back."

"You can speak whale?" Elsa asked

"Uh-huh!" Pebble answered, then sang, "Thaaaaannnnnkkkkk yooouuuuuuuuuu Moooobbbbyyyy."

Kristoff smiled, but as he scanned the crowd of sailors his face contorted back to a frown. "Where's Anna?"


As Anna and her entourage approached the icy fortress, Anna could make out a single person standing on a balcony overlooking the valley. She was wearing a long purple cape that … wasn't that the cape Elsa wore at her coronation? And was that Elsa's tiara?

"Hey, I don't know who you think you are, but that crown belongs to the queen of Arendelle!" Anna began shouting.

"Funny you should mention that," The Bandit Queen replied, her voice distorted through echoes down through the icy castle behind her.

"No, look! It's one thing to kidnap me, it's quite another to insult my kingdom by…"

"Insult your kingdom? I suppose I should be glad you finally developed a sense of patriotic pride, after all those lectures and speeches from your father. Heaven knows it took long enough."

Anna was close enough now that she could pick out some of the features of the Bandit Queen, and there was something familiar in the eyes. "How do you know…?"

"Anna, don't you recognize me?" The Bandit Queen pulled down her bandana, revealing a face that had frequently haunted Anna's dreams, but one she hadn't seen in over three years. "Don't you recognize your own mother?"