Chapter Ten: Sea Turtles
The Emerald Glory lurched. Elsa found herself suddenly entangled in the bedding, and she freed herself just in time to see Gerrik pulling himself off the floor where he'd been thrown. Faster than she could think he'd found his belt from where it had been cast the night before and with a shing and a faint glimmer she knew he was armed.
The door burst open.
"Your Majesty, we're under attack! Quickly-"
It was Ser Al Roff, from the dinner the previous night. Gerrik stayed his blade. The sailor's words caught in his throat at the sight of them, Gerrik naked with a sword in hand and Elsa similarly disrobed in bed.
The moment to act was then. Elsa drew up her magic, picturing an icicle in her mind.
She redirected the magic at the last moment. Instead of spearing the man through the chest, a gust of arctic wind blasted the door shut again. Then Elsa vaulted out of the bed, heedless of both the men's eyes, and with a bit of concentration formed clothing around herself.
"Gerrik, dress. Quickly." With a deadly look she pinned Roff to the floor as effectively as any ice could. "You've just made a very powerful enemy, sailor. You will mention what you saw here to no one. Am I absolutely clear?"
Maybe it was the ice blast that had just shot passed him with centimeters to spare. Maybe the occasional pop of musket and boom of cannon fire stressed the urgency of the situation. Either way, Roff was sufficiently cowed. "Y- yes, Your Majesty."
"Who is attacking us?"
"I don't know, the Captain ordered and I came to fetch you immediately."
Gerrik had just fastened his breeches with his belt, scabbard at his side, blade again in hand. Without waiting for his tunic she said, "Roff, you lead. Gerrik, behind. Go!"
Just outside the door was a bit of water, washing back and forth across the deck as the Emerald Glory lurched. Elsa wasn't sure just how bad a sign that was, but the three didn't stay long enough to contemplate it.
They saw a group of armed sailors rushing up onto deck, and then passed another two who ran below. When they reached the closest ladder Ser Roff scaled up onto the deck immediately. The slight but noticeable haze and acrid smell of gunpowder and a sudden shower of wooden splinters disinclined Elsa in following him up, but in just moments Captain Zissou was above the opening. She saw that in his hands was a pistol, and he didn't stop packing shot into it as he called down to her.
"Two ships, m'Lady! We thought they were pirates at first, but th' bastards are flying Southern Isles colors. Stay there, well away from the sides of the ship and we'll make short work of them!"
And then he was gone, shouting orders to the crew.
Elsa looked at Gerrik. He glanced back up the hole in the deck and shrugged. "Along the center line here is the safest place, Elsa." Almost without pause he added, "Your Majesty."
There was another quick series of booms, and this time Elsa felt the Emerald Glory shudder before rocking to one side. She quickly braced a hand against the wall to keep on her feet. Gerrik did the same, but he must have seen the brief flash of fear across Elsa's face because he said, "It's alright, Your Majesty. She'll sway back and forth, but you can tell we're fine because she'll right herself again. As long as we don't start listing to one side or the other we'll be fine."
A closer series of booms indicated the Emerald Glory was returning fire. One of the two sailors that they had passed earlier ran back up and barely touched the ladder in his haste, a wild look in his eye and soaked from the waist down.
Another volley of cannon fire. It seemed off the mark, the Emerald Glory barely shivering. Then they heard a sharp crack! from above, and a second later a shout of, "The mast!"
Gerrik's eyes widened and suddenly he was lunging for her. He brought her to the floor and hunched his back as a second, lesser crack gave way to the sound of splintering wood. Elsa figured it out only a second after him and freed one arm. As the mast came crashing down she threw up a shell of ice as strong as she could make it around them.
Suddenly the sounds of battle were that much quieter. Opening eyes that she realized she'd squeezed tightly shut, Elsa said, "We aren't dead."
Gerrik barked a short laugh. "Yeah, Odin's fucking beard, I guess we aren't."
"Huh. I never took you for a pagan," she laughed. Looking around, they were encased in a cramped half-sphere of ice. It was very clearly cracked, but it hadn't shattered and a bit of wavy light made it's way through the uneven ice to Elsa's right.
Slowly this time, the Emerald Glory swayed to one side. It didn't sway back.
As the angle of the listing grew a bit steeper they heard the sound of wood being torn apart again, then abruptly the floorboards directly beneath them shifted. Above, the dome had a few more cracks and the light shone through from above as well as to Elsa's right.
"I think that's the mast above us," Gerrik said, moving his head vaguely to the shadowed area that was now more beside them than above them. "Can you get us out of this, er. . . without also letting it crush us?" The mirth that had been there moments before was now replaced with panic.
Elsa waved a hand. The ice grew thicker, and the light dimmer. She hadn't crushed them at least.
"I can't melt it." There was a touch of fear in her voice.
Before Gerrik could say anything, another volley of cannon fire hit. The mast slid again. The floorboards at the edge of the sphere to Elsa's left ripped down and away from them under the massive weight.
Mustering herself, Elsa looked back at Gerrik above her. She brought to her mind memories of the night before, of the feel of his bare body intertwined with hers, and waved her hand at the ice to her right again.
As her magic started to fade away, the cracks in the sphere around them quickly spread. She shot her palm out and the darkened areas solidified and thickened. In just a moment an opening formed where it should, the full cacophony of the battle returning once again.
Gerrik slide over and straightened to poke his head out, then swore and ducked back down.
"The ship is being taken."
"Did you see the Captain?"
"Yes, and a few others. It looks like he was coming this way but the boarding party stopped him. He's still fighting, but we are losing. We need to get you off this ship."
"No. Get out there and make sure no one gets close to me."
Gerrik hesitated but a moment before doing as he was ordered.
Elsa followed him up. The cannon fire was still going, pounding the port side to which the Emerald Glory was already listing. On the deck, a group of about thirty men in the grey, black, and blue uniforms of the Southern Isles circled the remaining sailors of Arendelle. Still Captain Zissou fought on, never letting the enemy get close enough to finish them. Gerrik was between her and the boarders, blade drawn.
The Queen closed her eyes. With a sharp raise of both hands suddenly there were two long icebergs, one along each side of the ship as barriers to the cannon fire. She opened her eyes and the tall, thin things immediately rolled in the water and fell flat. The one to starboard fell towards the attacking ships with a splash that rose higher than its sails. The one to port loomed over them as it came down. Elsa tried to control it, but stymied its fall for only a moment before it crashed into the sea, clipping the side of their ship and sending chunks of ice sliding across the deck as it did.
The cannon fire from the ship to port started again. From the fallen ice, now a sheet across the water between them, Elsa grew another barricade. Shorter this time and thicker, it effectively kept the enemy ship from doing any more damage to the Emerald Glory's hull. The ship to starboard was unfurling its sails and running.
By this time the sailors on deck had taken notice of Elsa's presence. Captain Zissou attacked to try to press the advantage her distraction caused, but the enemy were disciplined and held. At the same time one of the Southern Isles sailors, probably an officer as he was decorated with emblems and had a pistol in hand, quickly took four musket men from the circle and split off to face her.
The remains of the mast crumpled the deck to one side of the deck and left ripples and tears across the rest. With a sweeping, two-handed motion, streaks of ice shot over the uneven wood and erupted up as bristling spikes in front of the five men.
"Sailors of the Southern Isles! Yield, now!" she called out.
They had only been thrown off balance. The one with a pistol raised it as the others tried to level their muskets.
Elsa would never know if the decorated man's intentions were to capture her or simply end the war then and there by killing her. Gerrik vaulted on top of the ice she had made and lunged. As his sword struck the officer's chest, a white puff of smoke escaped the pistol.
Suddenly the ice spikes were much longer.
The pain was all-consuming.
For an unknowably long time, Elsa, Queen of Arendelle, was a vessel with no thoughts or deliberate actions. There was just the pain.
The first thing that pierced the tortured veil around her consciousness was her own voice. She was screaming, she could hear that much. And once she realized it she stopped. But the pain didn't go away.
Next Elsa realize her eyes were clenched shut and opened them.
She was on the deck of a ship. Her head was turned sideways, and a line of men in Southern Isles colors lay bound and face-down over there. The Queen looked up and saw a mast and sail, and the Arendelle flag at the top.
Someone stepped over her and it took an unusually long time for them to come into focus. It was Gerrik, his face etched with concern an highlighted with blood.
She hurt. She hurt a lot. Elsa looked down her length to see what was wrong and the sight nearly made her sick.
Just under her hip, the meat on the side of her left thigh had a chunk missing. Like the void left behind when one takes a scoop out of pudding. Blood welled up from the wound.
Elsa remembered the cut she'd gotten on her arm days before. Pressing both her hands to the injury, she vented all that she was feeling in the form of magic. Rough ice formed over the wound and it burned. She screamed through clenched teeth, but quickly arranged the ice into the ice cloth of her dress.
Ser Roff was there suddenly. He moved with quick, unsure motions. Before she knew what was happening he put a leather-bound stick between her teeth with one bloddy hand and raised her leg up with one another. The muffled noise that erupted from Elsa was terrifying, and the last thing she saw before clenching her eyes shut again was ice as it shot out across the wooden boards around her.
When Queen Elsa next opened her eyes Gerrik was above her, alternating between looking down at her in concern and warily look around them. Despite the pain, Elsa lifted her head and looked around as well. The dead were scattered about, sometimes rolling towards the port side with the listing of the ship. The exceptions were the five enemy sailors, held a meter off the ground by the spears of ice that had killed them.
Live Southern Isles prisoners were arranged on the deck a ways off, somehow in the turmoil her magic had caused the Captain must have turned the tables on them. Arendelle wounded were gathered closer, with Ser Roff darting from one to the next.
Captain Zissou stood amongst the chaos calling orders. He seemed to have wasted no time in assessing the state of the Emerald Glory, and a messenger was returning from below decks.
"Captain," the Queen heard the man shout over the continued cannon and musket fire. "We're taking on too much water. We're going down!"
"Son of eh grotesque mummer's pet monkey an' a Danish fucking whore! I'd feared as much from how far we're listing. Get all the men out o' there, I'll have no one drown until they're off my ship!" The sailor took off again. Zissou looked at Elsa, then back at the advancing enemy before coming over and kneeling down to her right. "M'Lady, they're closing for another attack, we're sinking, and you're wounded. We can't lose you! I'm going to order the surrender."
Elsa grabbed the Captain by the shoulder and hauled herself up into a sitting position, which momentarily stopped him from acting on his plan. Of the two enemy ships, one was just coming around the ice barrier Elsa had erected between them. The other was naught to be seen. Elsa looked at the Southern Isles colors flying above the rigging as the advancing ship turned her guns towards the bow of the Emerald Glory.
"Help me up," she commanded.
Gerrik was at her wounded side, and both he and the Captain started to protest. She reached out so that she gripped them both and pulled herself to her feet. Her left leg gave out immediately but she stayed up long enough for Gerrik to get his shoulder under her arm.
The sight of the enemy ship's colors fired her again. Letting go of the Captain with her right hand, she rose it in front of her and froze the water around the vessel. As careful as she could be not to puncture it, Elsa completely encased up to it's gundeck, but even then it was still able to move somewhat.
Then she froze the water underneath, essentially lifting the entire ship out of the water as the ice buoyed up from below. Elsa also made sure to also freeze a wide expanse around the disabled ship it so it wouldn't roll over like her ice walls had previously. Her powers had significantly different effects here at sea than they did on land due to how ice floated, but she was quick to learn.
"Alright," she said woozily, "Now you can put me down." Gently she found the deck again and lay back, exhausted. "Captain, can we take that ship?"
Her eyes had shut on their own, but she could hear well enough. "I- I've never boarded a ship that's on ice before, m'Lady, but-"
"Get us right up to the ice and I'll take care of the rest."
"Aye, m'Lady!" he said, and took off to give the necessary orders.
With the main mast in the center having taken down the smaller mast at the stern, and extensive damage and listing that made rowing impossible, the Emerald Glory limped through her final journey.
Elsa found herself looking around again. Here eyes caught on the dead men hanging from her icicles and she melted them. The bodies flopped to the deck. The realization finally hit her that this was what a war was like and she turned her head to vomit. It hit the boards in three short torrents before sliding down the slope of the listing ship. Only afterwards did she feel a twinge of shame.
Among those emerging from below decks was Victoria. She was disheveled and cradled her left arm, which angled oddly between her elbow and wrist. The front of her dress was soaked with blood. Immediately the nearest sailor led her to where the other wounded were being gathered and treated.
"Victoria, where is Fawkes?" she heard Gerrik ask.
Elsa wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her ice dress and turned. Victoria didn't say anything. But without words made it clear: Fawkes hadn't made it.
Some of the sailors had stopped at the sight of their Queen, prone, wounded, emptying her stomach where she lay. They were interrupted as they drew near to the Southern Isles ship because the sailors aboard opened fire with muskets, but with another look and a wave of her hand Elsa covered the gun ports and iced them up over the railing on deck.
The Emerald Glory hit with a thud. "Gerrik, help me up again." This time he didn't protest and she leaned heavily on him as her leg gave out.
Elsa was the first onto the ice, carving out a crude set of stairs as she did. The Captain was close behind, then those still fit to fight. Each step was torture, but she pushed on. Thirty feet up and she was almost to the edge. Two men, one in the rigging and one in the crow's nest, took aim at her as she came into view. She didn't have the time or concentration to disable them. With a quick ice spear each, she killed them, their icy bodies falling to the deck amidst their comrades. Then she extended the ice again to unnerve the enemy, encasing the ship in a dome of thin ice with just the masts poking through. She made sure there was just a little bit light streaming through.
Finally, she grew icicles on the inside of this dome. The only indication from outside were dark spots that formed where the spikes lengthened.
Swiftly she punched a hole in the ice wall she'd created, the effort unbalancing her enough that Gerrik had to practically lift her from the ground. She found her feet again in just a moment.
"You attacked my ship," Elsa whispered.
Silence from the darkened cavern.
"You attacked my ship!"
Nothing but the sound of fear.
"I could kill you all now, but I'm feeling merciful. Your Captain will come out here and surrender or I'll close this back up and let you all freeze to death."
More silence.
"Wrong choice, Captain."
She started to grow ice across the opening she'd made.
"Wait!" she heard several voices call from inside.
"Best get out here quick!" she called, still slowly closing the ice.
The Southern Isles Captain emerged. He held a pistol. From below him a jut of ice sprang, encasing his arm.
"Drop the weapon and yield!"
He snarled and his hand loosened around the grip of the firearm. "Aye, ice witch, we surrender! And curse you for it!"
Zissou went to bind the man and pulled him out of the way so the sailors of the Emerald Glory could board and took the crew for prisoners. Elsa quickly melted all of the ice above the deck to make it easier.
"What's your name?" the Queen asked the enemy Captain.
"Captain Hoarace Westergård of the Southern Isles."
"Westergaard?" she asked, not bothering to pronounce it correctly. "You're one of Prince Hans' brothers?"
"A cousin, ice witch."
She couldn't reach him herself, so she punched him in the face with a ball of ice. Elsa imagined it was much like how she'd seen her sister hit Hans. It hurt her leg to move so abruptly, but she didn't allow herself any sign of pain.
"Call me ice witch again and I'll fold you in half and freeze your cock to your chin, Captain Hoarace."
"She's not joking," Gerrik said from beside her. "I've seen her do it."
Hoarace Westergaard spat blood before saying, "Aye, of course Arendelle would torture prisoners. Common decency doesn't exist up north."
Captain Zissou finished binding him then. "To hell with common decency you attacked at night without warning, two on one, 'ye cowardly shit! You're nothing but the puddle of piss and vomit around any low life drunk in any back alley in Europe. You-"
He cut himself off and looked at Elsa. "May I?"
She grimaced. Then she thought of the rapidly sinking Emerald Glory, only temporarily above the waves because she'd frozen it into place. It struck her that she'd lost her maidenhead on that ship, and soon it would be at the bottom of the Baltic sea. Elsa nodded once and Captain Zissou punched Hoarace Westergaard in the gut.
Elsa held up a hand to Zissou after that. They were still on the ice next to the enemy ship, with the prisoners and wounded being brought up to their new ship. Zissou knew enough to turn the captured Captain so that he was sick away from everyone, then he swung his charge back around.
In a gentler voice, Elsa asked. "What are Southern Isles ships doing a month out from Southern Isles waters? This isn't even the route to Arendelle."
"We've got more allies than you realize."
Elsa thought about that a moment. "You're here to get Fredrickstad on your side."
He didn't respond, but Elsa was sure she was right.
The ship's name turned out to be Seeking Suzanne's Luck. She was battered from the fight with the Emerald Glory and from being iced up out of the water, but she could still sail. Once the prisoners were contained below and Hoarace Westergaard was locked in the officer's quarters with two guards Captain Zissou allowed fifteen minutes to salvage as much as possible from the Emerald Glory.
Then Queen Elsa melted the last of the ice and they set off in pursuit of the second ship, their sights set on Fredrickstad harbor.
Gerrik held her up long enough to watch as the one remaining mast of the Emerald Glory sank beneath the waves of the Baltic Sea.