Growing Together Chapter 12

The Spanish army marched quickly. For one thing, they were all combat veterans who knew how to march in rough terrain, and for another thing, marching quickly helped them stay warm. Their Comandante and their princess rode white horses in the middle of the formation, so their presence could inspire the others. The men carried a mix of polearms and crossbows, along with two arquebus teams; the officers carried swords, and the Comandante carried a lance as well.

The Comandante had served with these men for years, and had already seen more than enough bloodshed for one lifetime. He was hoping for a quick campaign with a minimum of violence. The Princess Urraca, on the other hand, was dreaming of a bloody little war that would intimidate the peasants in her new kingdom, and quell any rebellious thoughts that they might have harbored. Her first concern was the crown she would wear when she took the throne of Arendelle. She'd seen Queen Elsa's crown – that bit of costume jewelry was barely fit to be called a coronet! It certainly wasn't worthy of a real Queen. She might have to raise the taxes in the realm for a while, until she could afford enough gold to make a real crown, but that would be a small price for her kingdom to pay in exchange for them having a glorious queen they could be proud of.

As they climbed the mountain pass, they noticed that the trail was covered in rough snow, and it grew worse as they went higher. "There must have been an avalanche here recently, Your Highness," the Comandante commented.

"That's good luck for us," she replied haughtily. "It means there will be no avalanches tumbling down on our army." A minute later, they found the first traces of the Stavanger army that had been caught in that avalanche. There were a lot of those traces sticking up out of the snow.

"That's not good luck for us," the Comandante said respectfully. "The whole plan depends on our allies' ability to quickly overrun their chosen province. If they lost too many men in the snow here, they won't be able to do their job, and that ruins our excuse to enter the country and stop them."

"We will proceed, regardless," the Princess retorted. "We've come too far to let ourselves be stopped by an avalanche that has already happened. You attend to your battle, Comandante. Let me handle the statecraft."

"As you wish, Your Highness," the commander nodded. The army marched on, trying to ignore the sight of frozen arms and legs jutting out of the snow. They had seen battle before; they had seen death before; but the idea of being taken out by an unstoppable, invulnerable enemy like an avalanche reminded them powerfully that their lives were but a vapor and could end at any moment.

They approached the summit at last. On the other side lay the peaceful, defenseless kingdom of Arendelle, ripe for the plucking, like so many other peaceful kingdoms before it. Part of that kingdom was in the process of being annexed by Stavanger. The Spanish army's job was to roll into the rest of the kingdom to "protect" it. They had to move fast in order to get in front of the Stavanger force, which was already in front of them. The men were beginning to tire from the strain of climbing a mountain pass on an unusually rough trail. The Princess was working on a quick speech to inspire them when the Comandante approached her again.

"There was supposed to be be a messenger or two from our allies waiting for us at the pass," he said, "but there's no one there at all. I don't like the looks of this. Something has gone wrong."

"Comandante, you are beginning to tire me with your endless worries and complaints!" she snapped. She'd chosen this man to lead her army because he was known to be competent, but also because he was a distant cousin of hers. She didn't want any help from someone who might think of leading a coup d'etat against her and crowning himself King once the victory was won. Now she was having second thoughts about this man. Would he be complaining like this to a male officer? "Everything is still going according to plan, as far as we know. Now get up front and lead your men into our new kingdom!" He nodded slowly and trotted his horse forward.

He passed some oddly-shaped snow mounds as he passed through his troops. The men were tired from all this up-hill marching; they didn't even try to march with precision as their commander passed them, but just kept putting one foot in front of the other. If a real battle was awaiting them, he might have worried. But all they had to do was reach the agreed-on border and face the Stavanger army, who would obediently stop advancing and take up defensive positions. They couldn't pass through their ally's army, so they had to take the long way. That meant a lot more marching before they were through. He noticed more of those snow mounds ahead of them. He idly wondered what was buried underneath them. Standing stones, perhaps? Those were common enough in Scandinavia. They weren't blocking his army's advance, so that was all that mattered. In a matter of minutes, his leading troops would cross the border into –

He heard a woman's voice shout something, and stared in horror as the snow mounds suddenly rose up into huge, monstrous-looking snowmen all around them.

His men fell back, crossing themselves and exclaiming, "¡Madre de Dios!" But the snow monsters had them surrounded; there was no place for them to fall back to. The Comandante dismounted before his panicking horse threw him, drew his sword, and shouted, "They're only made of snow! ¡Luchamos!" He charged at the nearest one to set an example, ducked under its huge fist as it swung at him, and plunged his sword straight into where its heart should be. The monster didn't even flinch, but brought its other fist straight down at him. He pulled his sword out and rolled away from the blow, but a third swing of those massive fists didn't miss. He was knocked senseless.

The rest of his army didn't fare much better. By weight of sheer numbers, they were doing some harm to the snowmen, but those numbers were being whittled down fast. Their polearms did little or no harm to the snow monsters; neither did their crossbow bolts; and the one arquebus team that got their weapon into firing position just shot a hole in the nearest snowman. The creature glanced at the hole curiously for a moment, then charged and stomped their weapon into matchsticks as the men fled.

In twenty minutes, it was all over. Amazingly, there were no fatalities. Nearly half the Spanish soldiers were unconscious, though, and many of them had suffered injuries of various kinds. The others had their hands up and their weapons on the ground, surrounded by the remaining snowmen. Princess Urraca was one of them; her horse had thrown her into a snowbank, and she'd been picked up by a snowman and deposited among her soldiers, almost gently, it seemed to her. Four civilians approached them from just over the crest of the pass, two men and two women. One of the women was instantly recognizable by her blonde side-braid. She was walking slowly and leaning hard on her husband's arm.

"The Bringer of Summer again," Urraca said acidly. "What's the matter, Your Highness? Is all this cold air playing havoc with your powers?"

"Maybe we should call you the Bringer of Discord," Prince Anders shot back. "Someone in your position shouldn't be antagonizing her captors."

"We were hoping you'd say something like, 'I surrender,' " the redheaded woman added.

"I've been captured in Stavanger's territory, when I was doing nothing wrong, by a hostile act of Arendelle," she protested. "When the other European powers hear about this –"

"...they'll ban you from their lands for life," Elsa interrupted. Her voice was weak, but still carried authority. "Doing nothing wrong? Your army was a few hundred feet from my realm, armed for invasion and battle, in violation of the Treaty of Westphalia. Don't play innocent with me, princess. I don't believe you, and neither will anyone else."

"My soldiers were on their way to stop Stavanger's invasion of your territory!" Urraca exclaimed. "You should have welcomed us as peacemakers, not attacked us without a provocation!"

"A clever story," Anders said thoughtfully. "Too bad for you that there was no invasion of our territory by Stavanger. We already have all the peace we need. Your 'help' is unnecessary, and also unwelcome."

"No invasion?" The Spanish princess couldn't believe it. "You mean you don't know about the battalion of soldiers who crossed your frontier earlier today? They must be halfway to your capital by now!"

The four of them looked at each other, seemingly baffled. "Did you see a battalion between the capital and here?" Prince Kristoff asked Princess Anna.

"No," she said blankly. "Did you?"

"Not me," he shook his head. "Prince Anders, did you see a battalion?"

"Yes, for a few moments," he replied. "They must have gotten caught by that avalanche. That was sad, very sad." Urraca recalled the frozen arms and legs sticking up out of the snow. Had the entire Stavanger force been wiped out?

Avalanche... giant snowmen...

"You!" She pointed a furious finger at Queen Elsa. "You witch! You did all this! You're no Bringer of Summer – that name was just a ruse to fool me! I've guessed your secret! You're a winter witch! Admit it!"

Elsa roused herself again. "It's not the victor's job to confess to the vanquished. You aren't giving the orders here, Princess. I'm sure you find that galling, but that's what happens sometimes when you invade a peaceful country. Kristoff, Anders, please tie up the prisoners."

"Are you going to be okay for a few minutes?" Anders asked, worried.

"I'll save my strength," she nodded. "I've got to mend those snowmen before the rest of the Stavanger force gets here."

"What do you mean, 'the rest of them'?" Urraca demanded. "I thought you wiped them out!"

Kristoff began slicing up sections of the Spaniards' mountain-climbing ropes with his dagger, and Anders used them to tie the soldiers' hands and feet. "We've taken out all the ones who have come after us so far," Anders explained. "Oh – you mean your allies didn't tell you they were going to double-cross you?" At her blank expression, he went on. "We found out that they've divided their forces, and their best men and their best commander haven't gotten here yet. We assume that they're planning to grab another chunk of Arendelle while you're looking the wrong way. Of course, both the army they're supporting and the army they're outwitting have been taken out of the battle, so no one knows what they'll actually do, not even them. But the Arendelle Defense Forces have eliminated two armies so far, so I'm not too worried about the third one." Elsa sat down in the snow to rest; Anna stayed close to her.

It took them nearly an hour to bind all their prisoners, including the lightly injured ones. Elsa designated some of her snowmen to guard them. The Comandante eventually regained consciousness. When he looked around and saw the situation, he shook his head (which made it hurt even worse) and formally surrendered his force to the Queen of Arendelle.

"We understand that you are a soldier following orders, and that you did not initiate this invasion," she replied. "You fought bravely against overwhelming odds. When we return you to España, you will be permitted to keep your sword."

"Thank you, Your Highness," he said humbly.

"And what about me?" Princess Urraca demanded.

Anders answered that. "You'll travel home in the same ship as your soldiers, whatever kind of ship that turns out to be, even if it's a cattle barge. Elsa has learned humility from the things she's been through, and that will make her a better queen. It's time you learned some humility, Princess."

"So who is going to teach you humility, witch-lover?" she snapped.

"That's Prince Witch-Lover to you," he snapped back. "I was born in humble circumstances, and I'll never forget where I came from. That makes it that all the more satisfying to remind you that I outrank you now, and you'll speak to me respectfully or I'll tie that pretty little mouth shut!" She was shocked into silence. No one had ever dared to talk to her that way before! But he was right about outranking her, unfortunately. There was no hope of using her feminine wiles to influence him, like she did when they first met; he was clearly smitten with that bruja he'd married. She'd bide her time and see if another plan suggested itself to her. Perhaps that second force from Stavanger would gain the upper hand and set her free. If they did, her first act would be to tie that insolent Prince's mouth shut!

"While you're thinking that over," he said reasonably, "allow me to explain something to you. The truth is that neither you or any other nation is ever going to be a threat to Arendelle again. You've seen the kind of fight that our Queen can put up, and this was only her first battle! She'll get better with practice, I'm sure. Our peaceful kingdom is more invasion-proof than any fortress-city you can name."

"And when she's old and feeble, what then?" Urraca asked sweetly.

"Then her children and her grandchildren, who will have the same power she has, will carry on in her place." Anders had no idea if that was true or not, but he wanted to plant the idea in this Princess' mind while he had the chance. "Arendelle is going to grow stronger, not weaker, with the passage of time. Be sure to pass that on to any aggressive sovereigns you might meet in the future, and especially to your own royal family. Warn them to keep their greedy hands off of our kingdom, or we'll defeat them even more thoroughly than we defeated you." She had no answer to that at all.

o

A/N
Anders' line, "That's Prince Witch-Lover to you," was inspired by an exchange between Cdr Rabb and Petty Officer Coates in the JAG episode "Answered Prayers."