Chapter Thirty Three

Operation Røyk

VALLOKEN

Crossing into the city itself was a nightmare. The fighting had spread far faster than Val had expected, almost like a forest catching fire. It'd taken a risky trip over the bridge that connected the palace to the heart of the city in the midst of the fierce firefight. At any moment, a tank salvo could have been discharged from either side, destroying the bridge but somehow, both Elsa and Val had averted that.

Once over the bridge, the firefight was even worse. Arendellians were formed in tight columns - by company, it looked like - while the Northuldra were spread out in loose order as guerrilla fighters, forging ahead in front of the regular infantry to screen the advance. The Southern Isles soldiers were desperately trying to hold their positions, but there hadn't been enough time to dig in and fortify their positions. Even the reinforcements that had arrived to aid the enemy weren't enough, nor prepared to face a full onslaught by the Arendellians and the Northuldra. A few sorcerers were aiding the Southern Isles, but they were being systematically dispatched by the Northuldra, who were fully aware of their presence courtesy of the forest ambush.

All around, civilians were fleeing the streets, some stumbling and getting gunned down by the enemy. Children were being carried away by fear-stricken locals, the elderly were trying to hobble to safety, while able bodied men and women helped to get others clear of the line of fire.

As Val stuck close to Elsa who was busy fending off uncoordinated attacks from passing enemy soldiers and low-level sorcerers, his eyes swept across the streets, trying to find an officer of high enough rank. He had to get his orders relayed to the very top of the chain.

"Have you found who you're looking for yet?" Elsa asked as she countered another rifle volley from two enemy soldiers and sent them careening into the side of a building with a sheer blast of ice sorcery. On the way over, she'd readjusted the hood to obscure her features from view. It wouldn't do to have these many people see her joining the fight in public as it would raise too many questions that she evidently didn't want answered. This late at night, the shadows did all the work to conceal her identity.

"Still looking," Val mumbled, glancing about frenetically. As his vision swept across the landscape of conflict, he caught side of a blurred three bars on someone's shoulder. He did a double take. It was a captain on the other side of the street, directing a loose squad of Arendellian soldiers to lend another platoon some covering fire.

There were more enemy sorcerers joining the fray now, most likely dispatched by Bjorn in a desperate attempt to quell the attacks. These sorcerers had begun to converge on their location, and Elsa was busy dealing with them. Val looked over at the opposite side of the street. To hell with it.

Breaking cover, he dashed across the street, leaving the safety of Elsa's protection. She shouted his name but he ignored her, making it the last few steps across the street and narrowly avoiding a salvo from an enemy jeep's guns. Bullets whining and whizzing past him like flies, Val kept his head low and scrambled frantically to the side, grabbing hold of the captain who was similarly seeking cover from enemy fire.

"Captain!" Val physically spun the officer round to face him.

The man's eyes went wide. "Your Highness! What-"

"No time to explain." Val cut him off. "Who's in charge of this entire operation here?"

"General Oddvar, Sir. The-the tribesmen who came to free us spoke with him. They made an alliance to help free the kingdom."

"Are you in direct contact with your superiors?"

The captain looked at him in confusion. "Yes, Sir."

"Good. I need you to get me a direct line to Oddvar. Now."

"Yes, Sir." The officer fumbled with his earpiece to establish communications. "Major Helge, Sir. Is Colonel Morten there? Please patch him through. It's an emergency, Sir. Direct orders from Prince Valloken. Yes, Sir. I said Prince Valloken."

Val waited impatiently as the captain made the necessary arrangements to reach the general.

"Colonel Morten, I have to speak with General Oddvar. Sorry, Sir, orders from the Prince himself."

Damn the chain of command, Val found himself swearing under his breath. He'd forgotten how troublesome the military was. Finally, he was patched through.

"General Oddvar," he snatched the earpiece from the captain. "This is Prince Valloken."

He heard a hard swallow on the other end of the line. "Your Highness, what's going on?"

"I see you've already begun pushing the Southern Isles hard. I have some new orders for you. I have reason to believe that the enemy is stretched terribly thin as it is. You need to take your men and storm the palace. The guests from my homecoming dinner are still trapped inside, including our own nobles and Prime Minister Johan. You need to get them out, and recapture the palace."

Oddvar swallowed again. "Yes, Sir."

"Also, I need you to start evac immediately. We can't have civilians caught in bloody urban warfare. Assign companies, hell, battalions if you have to. Just protect the people and marshal them out to the western border of the kingdom."

There was a moment's silence. "On it, Sir." The general's voice came crisp and clear over the channel.

"Good." Val passed the earpiece back to the captain and urged him along. "Go."

"Risky move there." Elsa back-pedalled, blocking another surge of energy from an enemy sorceress as she finally caught up with him.

"This is war after all." Val grimaced.

"Down!" Elsa pulled Val to the street pavement as bricks flew out of the wall as though they were magnetised. They flew into the hands of the Southern Isles sorceress, who levitated the bricks and hurled them right back at Elsa and Val.

Promptly, Elsa froze the bricks in mid air and pushed them back towards the sorceress. As she did so, she side stepped and swung her arm diagonally upwards, launching a second tirade of ice which hit the unsuspecting enemy sorceress in a flanking attack. With the last of the sorcerers dealt with, she turned back to Val.

"You've got your message across?" She asked.

He nodded. "Our army will take care of the evacuation." Sighing in relief, he let his shoulders slumped forward a little as he cleaned his spectacles.

"The fight isn't over yet." Elsa said, eyes darting round in a composed but alert manner. "I've been sensing something throughout the past ten minutes. I thought it was the Southern Isles sorcerers at first. But now it's getting clearer."

"What?"

"The energy signature. I sense the remnant sorcery of a Blood Mage in the atmosphere." Elsa's brows furrowed below her hood. "It's nearby."

"Bjorn?"

"No. It's his signature, but it's as if he left a part of it somewhere. Somewhere near us."

Confused, Val turned to the only thing he understood. Technology. Pulling up the map of the kingdom on his tablet, he began applying various filters and used satellite scanners to feed information back to him as he simultaneously cross referenced radiation signatures. Something caught his eye on the map and he looked down at the tablet again, his finger swiping furiously to pull up an overlay he'd just generated. "Strange. I'm picking up traces of contained radiations all over the kingdom." He stared at the map, where there were fourteen spots on his map marked in red by the overlay.

"I've a feeling they're related to the sorcery I'm sensing."

"I've only seen this signature in-" Val's jaw tightened and he blinked, adjusting his spectacles. "Incendiary devices."

Elsa looked confused. "Explain."

"Bombs." Val's face had grown ashen as he remembered overhearing the Southern Isles soldiers talk. "So that's what they were talking about. Bjorn has bombs all over the city, placed in strategic spots meant to cause the most amount of damage. He must have had the bombs positioned after we escaped from Arendelle." Val rattled off quickly, his mind spinning. "That's what the soldiers meant by 'Operation Røyk'. It's his failsafe. If Bjorn loses control of the kingdom, he's going to destroy it!"

Elsa remained silent but had a particularly unsettled expression crossing her features.

"I can trace their incendiary signatures and pinpoint their precise locations." Val stared at the map, zooming in on the closest one to their spot. "The first one's below the bridge connecting the palace to the rest of the city." He looked up sharply at her. "We crossed the bridge on the way here. Was that where you first started sensing the blood sorcery?"

She dipped her head confidently.

Groaning, Val took off at a brisk pace, prompting Elsa to follow closely at his heels. "That bridge has stood for centuries. It's a historical relic and that bastard intends to blow it up!"

Elsa did not answer, but froze another enemy squad of soldiers where they stood before they could fire their rifles at the duo. The streets were getting more chaotic by the minute, even as the fighting raged on further into the night. They reached the edge of the bridge and Val began to descend the steep slope made up of grass, soil and stone.

"He'll have placed the bomb underneath the bridge to blow its foundations." At the base of the slope, Val stood at the edge of the water which lapped near his feet, glancing out at the many pillars spaced out along the span of the bridge. "Somewhere out there."

"Stand back." Elsa put a hand on his shoulder, and he back-pedalled a couple of steps. She stooped to a knee, placing both hands at the edge of the water. It froze over, expanding outwards rapidly till all the water spanning the entire length of the bridge was crusted over with thick ice in both directions.

Val tested his weight on the ice and found it as stable as rock. Taking small but quick steps, he navigated over to the first column and shone a light to examine it. "Clear." He mumbled, shuffling over to the next one. There was no bomb there either.

"The eighth one." Elsa said.

"How do you-"

"Trust me."

Forcing down his questions, Val did as she instructed, and hurried over to the eighth pillar for fear that the ice would soon melt and sink him into the water. Shining his light at the column, he stiffened as he saw a strange item attached near the base.

"It's here." His voice came out in a deathly whisper. He reached out to begin disarming it. A cold hand grasped his wrist, jerking him back.

"Don't!" Elsa hissed, "It's warded."

Val blinked. "What?"

"Remember I told you I sensed blood sorcery? It gets stronger the closer we get to it." Elsa stared at the bomb and motioned stiffly at it. "And it's not just an ordinary bomb anymore. Bjorn placed wards on it to make sure that no one can tamper with it after it's set. His blood sorcery will probably trigger the bomb if anyone tries to disarm it."

"Wait, so-" Val scratched his cheek, frowning. "If I touch it, I'll blow up?"

Though she didn't respond, the expression on her face told him plenty. Val took a hurried step back from the bomb. "Then what now?"

"I can pick apart his wards." Elsa crouched before it, her hands hovering. "I've trained enough Blood Mages to know how they think and operate."

With bated breath, Val watched as the old sorceress worked. Her ice sorcery intertwined with the surface of the device, and a dark red energy was emitted, as if Bjorn's Blood Sorcery was trying to counteract Elsa's own magic.

The two energies wrestled, but Elsa's precise shifting of her fingers seemed to overpower and separate the dark red energy signature into many tiny streams, which lingered for a moment, then dissipated into the air.

"It's done." She levered herself to her feet. "It's safe to disarm."

Val immediately got on his knees, studying the bomb at close range. There it was, an incendiary device with a complex mechanism - one that he recognised. A tiny smirk. There we go. Standard modern military grade explosive, the kind he knew how to disarm from his time studying combat electrical systems as a hobby.

"I need something sharp." He patted down his pockets, trying to find something to help him pry open the bomb's hatch.

Forming an ice pick on the spot, Elsa handed it to him. Cold to the touch, but not to the point where it was unbearable. Working quickly, Val jammed the sharp edge of the ice pick into the gap between the bomb and its hatch. Popping it open, he squinted at the wiring.

Red wire, blue striped with yellow, black, zebra wire, green…He mentally checked off the list of wires in his mind as his fingers went to work purely on muscle memory.

"Can you make pliers?" Val asked.

Elsa handed him pliers made out of pure ice, sturdy and strong as if it were real metal. At this point, Val wasn't even surprised anymore, his mind laser focused on his objective: disarm the bombs.

This was his arena now. While he was out of his depth when it came to combat or sorcery, this was where he excelled. His fingers worked deftly at the wires, his eyes narrowed and jaw lightly clenched.

"How long will this-"

"Done." Val disconnected the last wire and watched as the bomb's mechanism shut down, losing all signal. He levered himself to his feet and turned to Elsa. "Thirteen more to go."

"No." Elsa's face hardened.

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I promised Talya I would get you to safety. I intend on doing so."

"That was before we knew about the bombs." Val waved at the disarmed bomb that lay at his feet. "I can't just leave the city."

"The army-"

"We don't have time to call in the bomb squad. Besides, it's too dangerous, what with the Blood Sorcery surrounding it and all. You are the only one who can neutralise the wards, and I know the fastest way to disarm the mechanisms." Val squared his shoulders. "I can't just leave the city knowing that the entire kingdom is still in danger. I won't."

Elsa scowled deeply at him from underneath the hood. "Your sister is going to be very unhappy when she hears."

"Let her." Val said glibly. "There's more at stake here than we realised. At any moment, Bjorn can decide to detonate his bombs if he deems the city a lost cause."

Sighing in displeasure, Elsa glanced back in the direction of the city where gunfire and roars continued to overlap each other. A tank explosion went off somewhere in the distance. "Then we better hurry,"