Chapter Thirty Two

War in the Streets

VALLOKEN

Shouts, thuds, screams and a rifle going off, and then silence. He glanced over at Peggy, who had already loaded both her pistols and had been holding them close to her chest. The ambush never came.

Val narrowed his eyes, feeling his heart thump violently in his chest as he tried to make sense of things. The soldiers had finally noticed that the guards posted outside the communications room had been shot and had rallied a whole squad or more, by the sound of it. But the room hadn't been breached, with sounds of conflict and shouts of desperation right outside their door. And then the muffled voice of Bjorn being played over the intercom. Val had to strain his ears to make sense of what he was saying, but he did hear Talya's name being called. So my sister's here.

The doorknob creaked and turned, and the door opened cautiously. Peggy raised both pistols, but Val held out a hand. The silhouette by the door was no soldier. The figure was that of a woman in a cloak. His eyes took a moment to adjust, and he realised who it was.

"You. It's you." Val finally let out a ragged breath of relief.

"But where's Talya?" Peggy asked as she lowered her weapons.

"I have to get you out of here." Elsa extended a hand to them. "More soldiers will be on the way. We have to move now."

"Where's my sister?" Val demanded. "Was she with you? How did you know to come here?"

"Your sister was with me." Elsa reassured them. "But Bjorn threatened to kill Arendellians if the both of you didn't show up to face him in the Audience Chambers." Her face was grim. "She went to fight him."

"What?" Val felt his heart sink. "Talya went to face Bjorn on her own?"

"She'll handle it. We have to leave."

"She's going to get herself killed!" Peggy hissed. "What was she thinking, facing a Blood Mage alone? She'll need backup, and I'm going after her."

"Don't be a fool." Elsa took her arm firmly. "They're both sorcerers of the highest calibre. You-"

"I was trained to kill them." Peggy had a look of resolve in her eyes. "I know I'm just a human but you of all people should know, we are more than capable of holding our own. Your husband proved that."

"I suppose he did, didn't he?" Elsa shook her head disapprovingly. "When did I get this soft?" She gave Peggy's arm a light squeeze. "Be safe. Look out for each other. I can't…lose the both of you too."

"You won't have to worry about that." Peggy flashed a confident grin. Before anyone else could say a word, Peggy had already taken off down the corridor.

"Come on," Elsa turned and gestured for Val to follow. "We have to get out of here."

"This is ridiculous." Val said in exasperation. "We can't just leave Talya and Peggy to fight Bjorn. We-"

"Listen to me." Elsa suddenly snapped, rounding on Val and giving him a mild start. "I agreed to come out of hiding to help save Arendelle, and that's what I'm here to do. But it starts with getting you out of danger first. I trained Talya to handle herself and I've seen her in action. She'll make it out alive. And Peggy - if she's anything like Janus was, which I suspect she is - she'll make it out too." She regarded Val with a look of genuine care. "But you, you're not a fighter. You know that. Your skills lie elsewhere, in things that the rest of us don't understand. Your skills in technology will help save Arendelle. But first, you have to be alive to use them."

Everything screaming at him to go to his sister's side. It went against all logic, and Val knew very well that there was nothing he could do to help his sister as she faced down the ruthless Blood Mage. If anything, he was going to end up getting in the way. No, he couldn't risk being a liability. But at the same time, knowing that he could do nothing to help Talya made him furious. Val fought down the anger and swallowed.

"So what now?"

"Once we're back in the city, we're going to be getting the civilians to safety. The Northuldra are freeing the Arendellian Field Army as we speak."

"What?" Val's eyes widened. "The Northuldra?"

"The Northuldra agreed to help us. Apparently Aslak's grandson was murdered by the Southern Isles soldiers and they want vengeance."

Jaw clenched, Val nodded grimly. "We watched him getting gunned down."

"It was enough to get the Northuldra back in the fight. Once they free the Arendellian Field Army, there's going to be fighting in the streets." Elsa went on. "We need to get the civilians out of harm's way. Leave the fighting to Talya and Peggy."

Sighing, Val relented grudgingly. "Okay." Something from the peripheral of his eye caught his attention and he went to the window. In the distance, smoke had begun to rise and gunfire could be heard. Strange. Frowning, he lifted the tablet's camera to the window and zoomed in on the disturbance. To his astonishment, the soldiers of the Arendellian Field Army were already pouring into the streets from the other side of the city, with armed Northuldra among them. A few Southern Isles patrols were being forced to fall back after firing a frantic salvo at the freshly released army.

"It's begun." Val reported. "The Northuldra have freed the Arendellian Field Army."

"Good." Elsa said. "Now come on, we need to get you out of the palace and on the ground."

Before Val could say anything else, footsteps pounding the floor began to draw closer.

"Get behind me." Elsa stepped forward and planted her feet, standing tall as four men dressed in the regimental colours of the Southern Isles rounded the bend and blocked their escape. The bars on their shoulders told Val that they were junior officers, just like the sorcerers that had led the forest ambush against the Northuldra.

"Bjorn's lieutenants." Val said in a low voice. "They're sorcerers."

Without turning round, Elsa gave a light nod. "I sensed their sorcery. Keep back. This shouldn't take long."

"Surrender yourselves." One of the sorcerers called out in an affected voice. "Or face the consequences."

"Hold on," Another sorcerer was staring at Elsa as though he couldn't believe her eyes. "Is that-"

Elsa moved like lightning before the man could even finish his sentence. Ice sparked and flew from her fingertips, sending a flurry of sharp ice and bits of hailstones flying towards the four sorcerers. They were blinded and shielded their faces, exclaiming.

One of them managed to raise a hand and the nearby wall began to crack, and stone dislodged from it. Stone flew at Elsa but she gingerly sidestepped the attack, darting forward at goddess-like speed to confront the sorcerers. At close range, her attacks were positively deadly. Ice flashed and counter sorcery was put up feebly to fend her off, but the four lieutenants were no match for her.

Elsa carved through the four sorcerers in swift, successive motions, ice surging forth from her ensorcelled hands and blanketing the immediate vicinity in a tirade of snow as a finishing manoeuvre. When the snow and mist cleared, the four sorcerers had fallen and Elsa was left standing.

Val hadn't even gotten the opportunity to process what had just gone down, but by the time he had, Elsa was already walking back to him quickly.

"There's no time. We need to get out of here now." She didn't look flustered or tired in the least, as though the altercation had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience for her.

Val swallowed. "Now that they know we're here, they're going to seal off the rest of the palace. There'll be no way out."

Elsa glanced at the window. "No conventional ways."

Following her gaze, Val swallowed again. "No. No, no, no. I'm not doing that again."

"Do you want to live through this or not?" Her tone was clipped severely in a "no nonsense" fashion which made Val stiffen.

"I-"

Elsa stretched out her hand towards the window. It froze over instantly, and she clenched her fist. The windows shattered outwards and rained glass. She took his arm and half dragged him over to the window.

"Oh shit, oh shit." Val repeated like a mantra as he looked down. Below him was the palace courtyard, a good three story drop from where they were. He could feel himself getting dizzy. "Maybe now's a bad time to bring it up, but I can't do heights."

"Yes you can." Elsa shoved away the remnant shards of glass still clinging to the window, and pressed her palms to the bottom of the window sill. The sill froze over, and ice began to extend outwards and sloped downwards.

Val watched in utmost terror as the ice formed a slide which spiralled all the way down to the courtyard. The slide stopped a distance away from where some of the Southern Isles soldiers were still patrolling the grounds.

"The sentries down there," Val began, adjusting his spectacles nervously.

"I'll be right behind you. Don't worry."

"Will the slide-"

"It'll hold your weight. Now go, before I push you over."

Val glared at his ancestress who levelled his gaze unflinchingly. He slowly climbed over the window sill and his feet touched the ice. It felt uncomfortably slippery and his heart began to pound sporadically.

"Are you sure-"

A shove to the shoulder sent Val tumbling forward fully onto the slide and he had to work hard to stifle the angry yell that was at the top of his throat. Sliding down the ice, Val struggled to remain in the centre of the downsloping platform, terrified that he would careen off the edge and land on the ground with all his bones broken. Fortunately, there was something about the ice - some sorcery perhaps - that kept him rooted and firmly planted even as he found himself skidding and drifting down steep curves and descents.

Nearing ground level, the soldiers finally noticed the commotion. One pointed at him, and three more brought their rifles to bear.

"Hell." He cursed, shielding his head.

A blast of sorcery came from behind him, throwing the soldiers on the ground off their feet and scattering for cover. Another hurl of ice sent two soldiers flying through the air like rag dolls. By this time, Val had reached the ground and scrambled off the slide as Elsa descended right behind him and sprang to her feet nimbly like a woman in her prime.

"Get to cover." She ordered, raising a forearm as a soldier fired his weapon at her. A human-sized stalagmite materialised in front of her from the ground, rising to intercept the bullets which ricocheted off the ice shield like water off a duck's back.

Frankly, this is embarrassing. Val felt powerless to help Elsa, but he wasn't about to bring that up right now, not in the middle of a fight at least.

He rushed for the side of the wall, crouching behind a large stone statue of one of his ancestors. Just in case, he slipped on his brass knuckles that Peggy had given him. A cocking sound made Val spin round like a cat, where a soldier was standing over him, aiming his rifle straight at his head.

"Don't move." The soldier warned. "The General's looking for you."

Val rammed his fist into the soldier's knee, feeling metal connect with bone. The soldier let out a cry of agony, buckling forward. Acting on pure instinct alone, Val threw his whole weight against the man's stomach and they both tumbled in a heap. Adrenaline pumping, Val grabbed the soldier's rifle before he could get up, and slammed the butt of the weapon against his nose. The soldier's head snapped backwards, thudding against the cobblestones.

Luck. Pure luck. Breathing heavily, Val took the man's pistol off of him, and stuffed it into his pocket. He needed some sort of weapon if he was going to be navigating through the war-torn streets. Levering himself to his feet, he was just in time to see Elsa finish off the last remaining soldier with a deadly efficient strike of her sorcery. She turned to him, face calm but body poised.

"We're clear." She said. "For now. You need to contact whoever's in charge of your army. Get them to coordinate a rescue and lead an exodus while the Northuldra and the Arendellian Field Army push back against the invaders."

Val pulled out his tablet and brought up a map of Arendelle. "The safest place to take them to is…" his eyebrows furrowed as he scanned the terrain of the kingdom. "The hills and valleys at the western border. I've already sent an S.O.S to Arendelle's allies. We-"

"What's an S.O.S?"

"Uh…" Just then, Val remembered that Elsa came from a completely different era. "It's…an emergency message sent out over the radio waves."

"Radio?"

"Think of it as a psychic ability or something. Arendelle's allies now know that we're in trouble and hopefully they'll send us military aid." Val grimaced. "Hopefully."