Chapter Thirty Seven

Divide and Conquer Part II

MELODY

Melody pulled Kristoff down the hallway, skidding to make a turn as the erratic pounding of footsteps and thundering shouts grew increasingly louder behind them.

"Lose the sorcerers and catch up to Prometheus, you say?" Kristoff shouted sarcastically as they fled down the dimly lit passage.

"He can't be very far ahead!"

"They're coming!" Kristoff hollered, stealing a glance behind him. "We won't be able to outrun them at this rate. We don't even know where we're going!"

"We don't have a choice!" Melody shouted back, rounding another corner.

"What if they're leading us into a dead end?" With great difficulty, Kristoff unsheathed his already bloodstained knives from both his leg holsters as they sprinted down the narrow corridor. "We're supposed to be chasing Prometheus, and now we're the ones being hunted!"

"We have to keep going!" Melody grunted, feeling her chest tighten as she tried to run and speak at the same time.

"No, you have to keep going!" Kristoff screeched to a halt, spinning round to face the opposite direction where they had come from.

"What are you doing?" Melody yelled, slowing down. "Come on!"

"Go! I'll hold them off. Don't let Prometheus get away!"

Melody hesitated for a moment, before turning to go.

"I'll catch up with you later. Just go!"

"You be careful!" Melody warned, and took off running down the corridor, leaving Kristoff standing in the middle of the path.

KRISTOFF

The mountain man steadied his breathing and tightened his icepick grip on the knives as he waited for the swarm of bodies to show themselves round the corner. He could hear them approaching fast. Who would have thought that his life would lead him here? First, an ice harvester in the outskirts, then meeting Anna and having his life changed, and now he was a member of the Warriors, stuck in a war between his friends and an onslaught of angry young sorcerers. I miss the simple life of ice and reindeer.

He braced himself and waited for the horde to rear its head. Surprisingly, the shouts seemed to die down and he could hear the thudding of bodies as if they were collapsing on each other.

"What in-" Kristoff inched closer to the corner, knives still raised in a combat stance, ready for someone or something to lunge out at him. When nothing came, he peeked round the corner to see a messy pile of bodies all sprawled on the ground. "What's going on?" Kristoff looked at the dazed sorcerers in a heap.

"Help us up, man." A boy with a Molcorran accent groaned.

"And why would I do that?" Kristoff said suspiciously. "You've been trying to kill us."

"I don't know why we did that." Another boy with long black hair struggled to get up.

"Excuse me if I find it hard to believe that." Kristoff backed away as everyone started to stir from their stupor.

"Get off!" A young girl's voice squeaked from somewhere beneath the moving bodies.

"Look," Another girl with blonde hair freed herself from the mountain of bodies and came forward. "Everything's foggy, but I'm starting to see now."

"Yeah," the first boy with the Molcorran accent stood up. "I don't know what we were doing."

"Okay, time out." Kristoff looked bewildered. "So you're telling me that you weren't trying to kill us?"

"We were," The young girl with the squeaky high pitched voice pushed forward. "I think. But then suddenly it's like…something lifted."

"All of you?" Kristoff glanced round, to confused nods of agreement. "Ugh." He groaned and sheathed his knives. "I can't wait to get out of here." He turned back to the teenagers staring at him. "I…gotta go. Stay here." He turned to the boy with the accent. "I…I'll be back." Without another word, he sprinted away down the dark passage to catch up with Melody and Prometheus. Hopefully he wouldn't be too late.

TRACY

"Gah!" Tracy yelped and scurried away as dark red bolts of energy landed at her feet. She scrambled to her feet and raised her hand to block another angry attack of black magic from the Pilgrim.

"You ruined everything." The Pilgrim snarled and gave a wet cough, advancing toward Tracy, hurling yet another field of dark red energy at the young sorceress.

"Is it too late to say sorry?" Tracy weakly warded off another blast. The energy taken to break the Pilgrim's psychic control had pretty much drained her of her magic, and she was left almost defenceless against the angry witch.

She stepped out of the tunnel and back onto the narrow ledge where she had first arrived, the Pilgrim inching closer toward her. This wasn't going to hold for long, given the Pilgrim's infuriated state. And this, Tracy glanced down, Was not ideal fighting ground.

The Pilgrim wheezed angrily, and gathered a cloud of black magic in her hands. "You may have freed the sorcerers from my control, but you won't stop me from reaching immortality." The cloud grew bigger and became a dark red storm of lightning and turmoil. "Nothing will stop me now!" She screeched, voice breaking, and tossed the cloud at Tracy with all her might.

Tracy threw herself off the narrow ledge to avoid the Pilgrim's enormous attack, plunging down into the endless abyss below. As she plummeted into the bottomless depths of darkness, Tracy issued a silent prayer. Come on, open up. Please. One more time. A Crossing Point opened beneath her and she fell through it, vanishing from the catacombs.

"Oof!" She grunted as she hit the ground of the Crossing Zone heavily with a thud.

"Tracy!"

She heard a shout from nearby, and struggled to turn to where the voice had come from. "Hey guys." Tracy gave them a weak grin, her head still flopped on the ground. "I'm guessing it worked?"

"It did." Anna crouched down beside Tracy and put an arm behind her head to prop her up. "You broke the spell."

"Cool." Tracy struggled to sit up with Anna's help, and glanced up at Elsa. "Hey there. Long time, Snow Queen."

"Thanks for the help, Tracy." Elsa smiled. "And I'm sorry about dragging you, all of you, into this mess."

"Welcome to the club. Now at least I'm not the only one in the Warriors who's gone rogue." Tracy said. "The Elemental Sorcerers?"

"Right here." 'Sparkles' walked up to the group, followed by Jordan, the other girl and Will.

"So, no more fighting?" Tracy arched her eyebrows inquisitively.

"No, we're done."

"Actually, we're not. Not really," Tracy got to her feet. "The Pilgrim-"

"Where is she?" The fiery sorceress growled. "We still owe her for what she did to us."

"Chill, girl." Tracy raised both hands dramatically. She turned to the Warriors. "Not gonna sugarcoat it, but we might have a problem."

ANNA

"You might be understating things a little." Anna said. "This is a big problem."

"Yeah, we didn't plan this far ahead." Tracy admitted. "Personally, I didn't even think we would make it this far."

"I don't get it." Maui said, scratching his head. "You had the Pilgrim in the catacombs. Why come back now?"

"She's too strong, even though she's dying. And I'm all out of juice. The magic taken to break her psychic hold drained me." Tracy explained.

"So we're stuck here?" Will asked.

"I hope not." Tracy blinked.

"What do you mean, you hope not?" The fiery sorceress demanded.

"Your powers should be working," Anna said. She had already recited the spell that had deactivated the Qa'nneth. Now that the Pilgrim was no longer in the vicinity and the Elemental Sorcerers were out from under her psychic control, Anna had deemed it safe to "power down" the amulet. That way, Tracy could return with her Ha'naeth powers intact and co-exist with Anna on the same plain.

"The Qa'nneth is no longer a threat to you."

"Look," Tracy said. "Even with the Qa'nneth out of the way, I don't think I have the strength to conjure up portals right now."

"Please, Tracy, you have to try." Elsa pleaded. "We need two."

"Two?"

"One to get everyone back to Swynvort, and one to the catacombs. I'm going after her."

"Elsa, are you mad?" Anna almost shouted. "That's suicide!"

"She's right," Maui agreed. "You can't go after her alone."

"It's the only way." Elsa said stubbornly. "I can take her."

"No, no you can't." Anna argued desperately. "Look, there's something you still don't know about the Pilgrim. I didn't find the chance to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

Anna sucked in a long breath and held it there. Oh boy. Elsa that her sister didn't know that the Pilgrim was responsible for the storm that claimed their parents' lives, and Anna was genuinely afraid to find out what the newfound revelation would do to her sister.