Growing Together Chapter 11
Two white-clad figures and one reindeer made their way up the Arendelle side of Farbar Pass. Prince Kristoff led the way, breaking a trail through the snow for his wife, who floundered along behind him. Anna would have quit this adventure hours ago if she'd been trying to rescue anyone but her sister. Sven bounded along beside them, behind them, and anywhere else he felt like going, joyfully oblivious to what was at stake here.
"Kristoff... wait a second," Anna called. She needed to take a break – this mountain path was steep. There was no place for them to sit, so they stood. Anna caught her breath and watched Sven playing in the snow; Kristoff looked up the trail toward the pass, trying to see if anyone was up there.
"Are we wasting our time up here?" she asked suddenly.
"What do you mean?" he wondered.
"How do we know Elsa and Anders are anywhere near here?" she said. "How do we know they aren't in some Stavanger dungeon? How do we even know if they're still...?"
Kristoff didn't answer. He was watching Sven licking up snowflakes out of the air. He suddenly pulled up his white coat sleeve, revealing the arm of a dark-blue sweater underneath. He held that arm out for a few seconds, then studied it closely. He smiled.
"Elsa is fine," he announced. "She's alive and well, and she's somewhere close by."
"How can you possibly know that?" she exclaimed.
"Look at these snowflakes on my sleeve," he explained. "They're all identical, and they're the same pattern Elsa used in her ice palace. I'd know that pattern anywhere."
She didn't bother looking at the snowflakes on his sleeve. She just threw her arms around him. "I knew there was a good reason I married you," she whispered. Then she let go and began charging up the mountain. "Come on! Let's go! We need to get a move on!"
"Whoa!" Kristoff burst out. "Slow down, Miss Hasty-Pants! We've still got a long way to go!" He had to hurry so he could catch up to her.
o
The royal fugitives were a few hundred yards below Farbar Pass when they looked back and saw a force of soldiers marching up the mountain toward them.
"Something's wrong," Anders commented. "If that's the Stavanger army moving in first, there aren't enough of them. They have an entire battalion of soldiers, maybe more, and I see only about two hundred men."
"Maybe some of them are still on guard against a sneak attack from Glauerhafen," Elsa suggested. "That's the trouble with truce-breakers – they assume everybody else is a truce-breaker, too."
"That's possible, but I still don't like it," Anders replied. "If Stavanger has split their army, that means we could be facing three separate forces, and we have plans to handle only two."
"There's another possibility," Elsa went on. "What if Stavanger is planning to go back on their deal with España? What if they're going to let the Spanish army stop their main advance as planned, and then send their second force in another direction, to bite off another chunk of Arendelle before the Spanish can react?"
After a moment's thought, Anders nodded. "That's the most likely scenario yet; I think you've guessed their plan. If that's the case, then their second force will probably be their first-quality troops. That would be Major Harstad and the best men from his First Infantry Battalion. The man is a professional soldier; facing him in battle is not something I want to do. We may have to come up with a third plan to deal with that third force, and I confess – I'm all out of ideas."
"As you often say, let's deal with one problem at a time," Elsa said, resting a hand on his shoulder. "That first army will reach our warning sign in about half an hour, and if they don't turn back, they'll be in position for you-know-what about half an hour after that. Let's wait and see if they do the smart thing and turn back." They found a spot where they could see almost all the way down the trail, tied their horses to a stunted pine tree, and waited. The snow continued drifting down around them; the scene was almost peaceful.
After about half an hour, he turned to his queen. "They must have found your warning by now. What do you think they're doing?" She had repaired the hole in the fake ice-cliff, and inscribed it with the words "Turn back or you will be destroyed" in both Norwegian and Spanish.
"If I know the military mindset, they're probably having a very brief discussion about it, and then ignoring it and continuing up the trail," she said sadly. "I really don't think my warning will do any good, but I had to try."
"You did your best to warn them," he nodded. "I don't like what's going to happen next, but they've backed us into a corner."
"On the day I accepted the crown, I promised I would spend my life seeking the good of my kingdom and my people above all else," she said grimly as she watched down the trail. "That doesn't leave me any room for personal feelings. I'll do what I have to do." He rested his hand on her shoulder; she leaned toward him, but he could tell that she wasn't relaxing at all.
A little over half an hour after that, the first soldiers came into view. There were about two hundred of them, and they wore brand-new uniforms from Stavanger. At least one of them was on the alert; he pointed at them from about two hundred feet away, and the entire formation stopped. A man with shiny rank insignia on his shoulders stepped forward and called to them, "Are you here on Stavanger's business?"
Anders stood up and cupped his hands to his mouth. "We are here to tell you to go back before we destroy you!"
The soldiers' answer was a crossbow bolt. Anders ducked, and the bolt screamed over his head. Elsa gasped, turned away from the soldiers, hesitated for a moment, and made a sweeping motion with her hand. The thick snow that lay uphill from her stirred and began sliding downhill, gathering mass and speed as it went. Within seconds, a powerful avalanche was thundering down the trail.
Elsa parted the snow with a gesture of her hands; the avalanche split in two for a few moments and passed on both sides of them and their horses, without touching any of them. The soldiers from Stavanger had no one with cold powers to protect them. They were simply swept away without a trace. In a matter of moments, two companies of Stavanger's best fighters were gone, as though they had never been there. The avalanche spent its fury as it rolled down the mountain. Then, all was quiet again.
Anders rested a reassuring hand on his wife's shoulder. He felt her shaking, and flung his arms around her just as her tears spilled over. "Why did they make me do that to them?" she sobbed. "Are there any horrors I won't have to go through on this trip?"
"I can think of one," he said softly. "You don't have to go through it alone." She clung to him until she could pull herself together again. "I wish we didn't have to do that, too," he went on. "But I really wish we could have done it to the Spanish instead; they've instigated this whole mess, and they're the ones who deserve it. They probably won't give us enough time to build up that much snow again, though."
"That avalanche will seriously mess up the trail," she said distractedly. "It will add at least an hour to their climbing time. Too bad we'll have no idea when they actually start climbing."
"If I had to guess, I'd say the Spanish are about half a day behind the Stavanger force," Anders thought out loud. "That gives us plenty of time to get to the top of the pass, chase the dragoons away, and get our second plan ready."
"And the rest of the Stavanger force? What about them?" Elsa wondered.
"I still don't know," Anders admitted. "The leader of that first force was not Major Harstad; he was too tall and his voice was wrong. I think we just took out the second and third companies of the Major's battalion; he's saved his first company, his best men, to double-cross the Spanish and grab some more of our land. Let's hope and pray that we can think of something before we have to face them." They reclaimed their horses and resumed their climb. They didn't feel like talking.
They dismounted well before they got to the pass; they didn't want their horses' hoofbeats to give them away. "I should go in first and see where those dragoons are," she urged him. "I won't make a sound as long as I'm walking on snow."
"As a man, I ought to demand that I go into danger first, but I can't argue with your logic," he admitted. "Please be careful! In fact, be extra-careful." They kissed quickly; then she crept toward the pass, walking across the top of the snow. She left no footprints and, true to her word, she made no sound.
She returned after about ten minutes. "They've dismounted, and they're just standing around, doing nothing. They must be waiting for their army to arrive."
"Were they on guard, or relaxed?" he asked.
"Relaxed," she answered. "They must have heard the avalanche, but they probably don't know what it did to the rest of their invasion force. How are we going to get rid of them?"
"Make a couple of your giant snowmen," Anders suggested. "This will be a test of our plan to fight the Spanish." She nodded and gestured with both hands at the snowy ground. It heaved, sparkled, and grew up into a huge, unfriendly-looking snowman, well over twice Anders' height. He noticed Elsa grimace as she brought the snowman into being; he'd never seen her show pain when using her powers before. It bothered him. She made another one, then glanced at Anders. "How many do you think we need to handle ten dragoons?"
"If you can make one more without hurting yourself, that will definitely do the job," he decided. She nodded, took a deep breath, and made a third snowman. The three huge creatures stared at Elsa, motionless.
"Go up the trail and chase away the soldiers at the top of the pass," she instructed them. "Then come back to the top and wait for us there." The three enormous snowmen nodded wordlessly, turned, and shuffled up the path to the pass.
"Spears and crossbows can't hurt them," Elsa explained. "Maces and clubs won't do them any harm, either. Only an edged weapon like a sword or an axe can injure them, and then only if it severs a limb."
"I suspect that those dragoons will be armed mostly with spears and crossbows," Anders nodded. "Their leader might have a sword, but one man against three big snowmen... I think the pass will be safe for us in a minute or two." They waited three minutes, just to be safe, then rode up to the top of Farbar Pass.
They expected to find the pass deserted, but it wasn't. There were two figures nearby, dressed in white, watching them.
Anders tried to take their measure from a distance. "They don't look like dragoons, but I can't tell if they're –"
"ELSA!" came a familiar female voice.
"Anna?" Elsa exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"We came to rescue you!" Anna shouted as she ran toward her sister, with Kristoff close behind her. They met in the middle of the pass and embraced each other tightly. Kristoff and Anders contented themselves with a firm handshake and a "Boy, am I glad to see you again!"
Anna was close to tears. "We thought we lost you at sea! Please don't scare me like that, ever again!"
"Believe me, it wasn't my idea," Elsa whispered back. The men waited, slightly uncomfortably, until the two sisters released each other.
"Well, that's that," Kristoff decided. "We came to see if you needed any help getting back to Arendelle, but when we saw those giant snowmen chasing the soldiers away, we knew you had everything under control. Shall we return to the palace and bring this adventure to a close?"
"No," Elsa said suddenly. "We can't. We're not even close to finished. There are two more armies climbing toward the pass, and they won't stop until they've divided up Arendelle between them. They mean to wipe out our family, too."
That stopped Anna in her tracks. "How are we going to stop them?"
"That's going to be my worry," Queen Elsa replied. "We have a plan, but in case it doesn't work, you two ought to get out of here."
"Forget it!" Anna replied, before Kristoff could even draw a breath to answer. "We came a long way to help you, and we're going to help you, even if all we can do is cheer you on." Elsa started to argue, but stopped herself. It was no use trying to out-stubborn Princess Anna. She turned and gazed down the trail, trying to see any signs of an approaching army of invasion. Her snowmen rejoined her after a few minutes, silent, ominous, and powerful.
o
A/N
Thank you, Ptahaegyptus2, for the first scene in this chapter.