Robert and Jonas sat furthest from the entrance to the cage, getting ready to rush out of there and run. For the last three minutes Anna had been holding her left hand on the door. She knew that as soon as she forced it open the fighting would begin.
'Deep inhale, slow exhale. Deep inhale, slow exhale. Let the training guide you. Just like you have always done it' she thought to herself, repeatedly.
"You ready?" she asked Robert.
"Yeah, we're ready" the said at the same time.
Anna took her last breath, closed her eyes as they glowed, she felt her muscles being empowered. She knew that her control was less than stellar, and that she only had enough magic to fight for a couple of minutes. She dug her feet into the planks and pushed against the cage-door. The metal started ringing from the force, bending the bar she had in her grip outward, followed by a loud clang from the hinges where they were fastened. The door was
"GENERAL!" the closest soldier yelled as he pulled the sword from his scabbard and spurred his horse into a gallop towards the escapees.
Anna had jumped down and felt the snow-covered ground give away under her feet as she sprinted forward, all the men had their swords drawn now. Anna was between the cage and the horse. Behind the man on the stallion were six men ready to fight, to her right four men had dropped from their saddles and drawn their shields. To her left, three guys had done the same. In the front where the General was the last eight soldiers was ready to fire crossbows at Anna. Everyone of them had their eyes on her, the priest and the blood mage was a minor threat compared to the monster they had to face.
With each step Anna took she could feel the rush of power coursing through her, every nerve, every tiny hair on her body tingled with anticipation. This was what she knew best, for three years she was forced to hurt others, for three years she was alone, for three years she hated fighting. But for those three years she never had something to fight for other than herself, now she had a friend, by extension a family to protect. And she had Jonas, still undecided if he was a friend or foe.
Everything slowed down, she was ready to unleash her inner demons once again. And she was going to make damn sure these guys wasn't going to see the next sunrise. As she got closer and closer to the charging horse she felt that feeling again, a satisfying hatred. Hatred for the hooded men, hatred for the kids, and hatred for everything Westergaard. She was now a few feet from the horse and in under a second the fighting would truly start. Well, fighting for them, massacre for her.
The man had initiated a swing for her head, she ducked under the swing, grabbed the left hind leg on the horse and turned. She pulled as hard as she could, actually managing to stop the charge, even pull the horse multiple feet backwards, making the rider tumble forward. The six men behind him was her next targets, she moved faster than the men could react to. The first two were gone in matter of seconds with a blow to the stomach and chest, the other four saw it all and stopped advancing.
"GET HER!" the general shouted to his men, they had lost their focus for a split second and that was enough for Anna to hit them with a dense blast of magic. Throwing them fifteen yards or so backwards. The crunching of bones when they got hit was loud enough to hear over the rumbling sounds of footsteps approaching. It brought her a sick kind of joy hearing it. She heard the men getting closer and turned around, she honed in on the man who had tossed them into the prison. The general. Fury flashed in her eyes as they started glowing brighter than before, a low growl emanated from her throat.
Robert, along with Jonas kept to the cage, everything had happened faster than they expected. As Robert had tried helping Jonas out. Jonas had pulled him back, shaking his head. He had felt it safer inside a cage where her magic had a lower chance of getting to them. And seeing as none of the guards paid them any attention, Robert had let himself be pulled back. Her eyes had been their main focus, especially to Jonas. He knew something was up with her, but he hadn't expected to see two different colors in them. One white, one purple.
"You!" Anna said as she lunged straight ahead, the men pulled their shields in front of them. Anna smirked and brought her fist into the first man she encountered. The shield was made to protect from external magic, not for brute strength protection. Like the man she had hit in the mansion, the shield bent and tossed him backwards into another one standing behind him. To her right a sword was aimed straight for her. She twisted out of the way and grabbed his arm, her leg pulled up and her right foot hit the man in the shoulder. As she applied more force to his arm and ripped it off, the man screamed in agony. Anna picked up his sword and she was surrounded.
To Anna missing half an arm was proving to be a hindrance during a fight, it made her feel off-balance. Especially now that she was faced with soldiers standing all around her. The one standing directly behind her saw his opportunity to strike, he brought his sword down in a fast motion towards the redhead standing in the middle of their circle. Barely registering but once again dodging it. She stumbled as her magic induced strength waned slightly, it made a window where three swords was slashed in her direction, one of them struck her leg and cut her pretty severely.
She fell to her knees and grit her teeth. Pain wasn't an unusual thing to her, but this was the only time it could cost her, her life. The general had advanced into the circle and tried to stab her in the chest. Her instincts were faster than her brain and she lifted her right hand to block the sword, her mind knew her hand was missing, but her muscle-memory hadn't adapted to this fact yet.
'Shit, I'm dead!' she thought as she closed her eyes, but the sword never made contact. When she opened her eyes she was as surprised as the general holding the sword. Where her hand had been before, there was now a remake of it made from the purest ice, with a sword through the palm of it. As the frost crept across the metal, the wielder let go and took a step back. An intense cold radiated from the newly acquired hand Anna had, everyone's eyes was focused on the icy appendage. Even the general stopped completely in his tracks, and the temperatures plummeted around the redhead.
It took exactly two seconds to go from cold, to frigid, to absolute flesh numbing freezing. Not even the shields could block it. They were made for blasts and directed magic, but when even the moisture in the air froze, the shields was of very little help. The hair on everyone crusted over. The men in the imminent vicinity of Anna could feel their eyes freeze along with the skin on their faces. No soldier moved an inch, not because they didn't want to, they couldn't. Their muscles and clothing was devoid of any movement.
Anna was out of her reverie by now and blinked a few times, she pulled the sword out of her hand and winced as it was fully pulled out. 'It hurt?... The ice hurt?... My hand is ice? What the fuck!', she turned it around and she looked on as the hole in the palm closed itself. She tried wiggling a finger, it responded. 'Holy. Shit. This is strange... It's ice.. ICE!'. She saw what happened around her when she was done marveling at the weirdness, she scrambled backwards when her eyes met frozen men, then she looked to the cage. She gasped in fright, inside the cage there was frost, not as intense as outside it but it was there. Robert and Jonas were shivering, teeth clattering, arms hand hands creating friction to warm them up. It enveloped everyone on the field. She had no control of it, she tried to stop it but luck seemed to have taken a day off. And Jonas noticed the fear building in her body.
"It's just magic Anna, you can do it!" he said a little louder than normal talking.
"I DON'T KNOW HOW!" She exclaimed.
"Then.." he shut his eyes, racking his mind for ideas, trying to think of anything, "..use every ounce of magic you have left, without any magic inside you the ice has nothing to draw power from".
Anna nodded and let every last drop of magic flow from the back of her neck, through her shoulders and into her arms. She pushed it out of her body, and into the forest with a loud explosive like sound, levelling a large chunk of trees and freezing the barren ground the wave left behind. Then she flopped backwards on the ground, panting and heaving for air. At least she didn't pass out this time around. The ground and the men defrosted. They didn't survive. Their hearts had stopped, and didn't start again upon heating up.
Jonas put his arm around Roberts shoulder when warmth returned to him, and they made their way to Anna. She was clutching a hand to her head and her nose and ears was bleeding profusely, covering her cheeks and ears.
"Are you okay little one? You gave me quite a scare, but we need to get out of here" Robert told her.
"I know, I know.. Just.. Give me a minute.. My head is killing me" she panted.
"That ruckus is going to attract people. People we don't want to find us. We don't really have a minute." Jonas stated matter-of-factly.
"Just give her a damn minute, without her we would be hanging in the gallows in a weeks time, beheaded if we were lucky"
Jonas sighed and let the subject drop, he had never felt the exhaustion a user felt when they depleted their reserves, but he had heard stories. According to the stories it was an immense pain that made a migraine look like nothing in comparison.
Anna regained some of her bearings and stood, "Let's go, you're right, we need to get out of here.. Are there any horses left?" she questioned.
"Some of them ran towards the town, I didn't see where the rest went. And then there is the ones that got caught in the crossfire. Oh and Anna?" Robert said.
"Yeah, what?"
"Well done" he patted her head and scruffed her hair.
"Don't do that again" she commanded.
"Sorry, reflex. You remind me of my daughter, she's also a strong kid" he smiled.
"Do you want us to go and check in on them? Assuming..." she didn't finish the sentence, "I'm sorry.. I didn't mean to.. What I'm trying to say is.." she was at a loss for words and suddenly her feet was very interesting.
"You don't think we planned for something like this? They left for Corona, in the north, the moment i went to get you out.. And by the way", she looked up at him, "You suck at comforting people" the men laughed in unison.
"That.. was mean, I don't have a lot of practice with people" she huffed, "Let's go to Giral-..".
"No, we go east" Jonas interrupted.
"What's in the east?" Anna asked in confusion.
"Escain, the land I grew up in. We'll go find a clan of blood-mages, they can help us figure out what to do about this, new power, you seem to have very little control over" Jonas pointed at her still shivering a small bit, "Now move. You got your minute".
"You mind? I know you like the cold but this is too much" Kristoff said, he could feel his lungs having a hard time breathing in the cold air.
"It's.. it's not me" Elsa said as her magic flared, she calmed it with success. The cold turned to its normal wintery temperature Kristoff could handle.
"What was that?" he asked.
"I have no idea, maybe it's the changes the old lady talked about?" She tried reasoning. Only to feel it growing ten seconds later, this time her eyes reacted as well, glowing the pure white color of snow.
"Kristoff, get away from me. NOW!" Elsa was not able to hold the magic back for long.
He saw what was happening, the horse beneath her had frozen, and he didn't need to be told twice to get the hell away from his sister. He kicked his heels into the side of his race bred mare and took off, when he was far enough away Elsa lost her hold on it in. As he looked back to his sister a flash of white light filled his vision. Around her everything froze over in the blink of an eye, and then it was over, as soon as it had started.
'This must be a side-effect of her growing abilities' he thought.
He turned the animal around and slowly trodded back to his sister, from afar she looked fine, but upon closer inspection the chest region of her disguise was covered in blood. It made Kristoff ride faster, he needed to get to her side, she was swaying a little and was on her way to falling of the ice sculpture between her legs. He wasn't in time to catch her, so she tumbled to the ground and landed with a soft thud. A groan escaped through her lips and Kristoff was at her side faster than a hound chasing a rabbit. He lifted her by the shoulders, the chill caught him by surprise. Which is saying something, considering his sisters skin was always cold.
"Oh my god, you got blood all over Sis.." concern was written all over his face.
"Don't worry, I'll just freeze it and make it dissipate" she waved her hand, but nothing happened, "Kris, my magic. It's not working" she gasped, sat wide-eyed, covered in blood.
"I don't know what the hell is going on with you. But this is serious Els, we need to get the trolls to check on you again"
"NO! No more trolls, I know how to fix this, the old lady told me how to. Let's just.. Let's just get back home. Now"
"Whatever you say Sis" his concern turned to a light annoyance, she shouldn't let something like this slide. He knew his sister well enough, and she had never refused help from the trolls before. And now she was listening to some old lady who supposedly, which was the important word, knew everything about hybrids. Reluctantly he helped her up on his mare and they left the frozen scene behind them.
Wimarc was on his way through the halls to send his letter with a carrier pigeon when a servant ran up to him.
"A letter, for you sir" Wimarc took the rolled piece of paper, it had a black ribbon on it. It was a bad omen, nothing good is written in a letter with a black ribbon around it. When he had a hold of it the servant let go, bowed and ran back the way he came from.
The enchanter let out a deep breath and prepared for the bad news, whatever it was it wouldn't be good. And he was right. He read the contents and felt anger well up inside him, their project was destroyed, the explosion had happened sooner than anticipated, a lot sooner. A general had gotten there on the command of Aurali and taken three prisoners. A girl from the project, Jonas and a priest. They had left the mansion about two days ago and would be arriving in just under eight days.
Furious with this information, Wimarc let a black mist swirl around him. The stone walls shook and every servant in the area left with quickened feet. No one wanted to be caught up in his outrage. Come into contact with it and your flesh eroded, only your bones would be untouched. Wimarc was seething, all he had worked on for the last 30 years. Up in smoke, all because of an old man, wanting to teach his son a lesson. A lesson that had cost him his life, and subsequently the most advanced magic that had been seen since the first mage was born. Now all he had was a single one of the kids, and he couldn't lose her too. So he sat out to bring her back himself, on his way back to his office he turned a corner and bumped into the king's son, Hans.
"Oh Wimarc, I didn't see you there.. You alright?" Hans smirked when he saw Wimarcs angry expression turn to a delighted one.
"Hans, how nice to bump into you like this. I was just about to ask your father to allow me to bring you with me" Wimarc bowed his head in curtsy.
"Uuh, what are you planning this time?" his smirk grew.
"Nothing in particular. Just a little witch hunt for a certain young girl" Wimarc said.
"Am I right to assume that this young girl is one of your.. investments?" to this Wimarc chuckled.
"You would assume right, yes" and Hans' grin had never been more serene.
"Good, I've been meaning to test out this power you've given me" he held out his hand and let a similar black mist cover his palm.
Hans along with Wimarc walked to Wimarcs office and packed a bag of different herbs, powders and scrolls. In another bag they packed several surgical tools and tubes together with some lower-class clothing. When all was ready they left for the throne room to notify the king of their plans. It wasn't necessary but respect commanded them to at least tell the King, that they would be indisposed for an unknown amount of time.
Hey there, again. Irregular updates caused by a lack of patience.. When I get done with a chapter I just run it through a spellcheck program and post them. Now that the story has been "established" I feel it's easier to keep writing. I've never written something with a plot really, so I hope that my idea for this story is going to be something people want to read. If not, meh, it still is quiet fun for me :D
People I've shown this to and two readers have adressed Annas possible lack of ability to rule.
We'll see what happens to her and her title later on so if you are one of those people then rest easy, it will be adressed at some point. Not gonna say when but it will.
I actually never expected this to even get 1 follower, so to a complete amateur 16 followers and 9 favorites is heartwarming, and I hope that it's showing in my attempt at using a broader vocabulary :) Also the reading-level isn't as advanced as I would like, but I'm trying, I just don't want to use words I can't use properly :)
Love Mr. Turtle