Chapter 8
"What are they?" Anna asked, panicking as the sleigh sped down the trail.
"Wolves," her companion warned.
"Wolves?" She could see them now, closing in on the sleigh even though Sven was running as fast as he could. "What do we do?"
"I got this," he said gruffly, shuffling through the items in the back of the sleigh. "Just don't fall off and don't get eaten."
"But I want to help!" she cried. She was not a damsel in distress who would sit back and relax while someone else did all the work.
"No!" he commanded.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't trust your judgment," he argued.
"Excuse me?!" she cried, as he pushed her, back, hard as a wolf snapped at the spot where she had been standing. The push put her close enough to grab his lute from the back of the sled.
"Who marries a man she just met?" he yelled.
"It's true love!" she screamed back, swinging the lute around to whack away a wolf that jumped up behind him.
"Whoa!" he cried, and she thought she saw a glimmer of impressed surprise in his eyes for a moment – when suddenly a wolf grabbed him from below and dragged him off the sleigh. He just managed to grab a rope that was hanging off the sleigh and held on for dear life so that he was dragging along in the snow as Sven continued to race away from the wolves.
"Christopher!" Anna yelled for him, thinking something sounded wrong about that…
"It's Kristoff!" Of course he would feel the need to correct her even as he was dragged along in the snow, getting bitten by wolves. She had to do something!
Thinking quickly, she grabbed the lantern and broke it over the sleeping pallet rolled up behind the seat. It caught fire immediately and she tossed it out at the wolves, remembering at the last second to yell for Kristoff to duck! The fire scared the wolves off, allowing Kristoff to pull his way back up into the sleigh, hand over hand.
"You almost set me on fire!" he accused.
"But I didn't!" Anna reminded him, reaching out a hand to help him clamber back into the sled. She didn't mention that she definitely singed his precious lacquer when she set the bedroll on fire. She was sure he'd figure it out in a minute anyway - and probably be more mad about that than grateful she saved his life, and she didn't know whether to laugh or be annoyed about that.
In tandem, she and Kristoff both swung around and realized in terror that Sven was headed straight for a cliff. Why wasn't he stopping? But then she realized that the cliff was one side of a canyon. If Sven could jump the canyon, they would escape the wolves for good.
"Get ready to jump, Sven!" she ordered.
"You don't tell him what to do…" Kristoff yelled, thrusting a satchel into her arms, snatching her up in his arms, and tossing her out of the sleigh and onto Sven's back.
"…I do!" he finished, ignoring her shout protest at being tossed.
"Jump, Sven!" Kristoff slashed the harness to the sleigh as Sven sprang off the cliff. Anna held tight and shut her eyes until she felt Sven land on the other side of the canyon. She spun around to see Kristoff trying to jump out of the sleigh and toward her side of the canyon – and he almost made it. He landed, hard, on the sloping end of the cliff's tip, and looked down into the canyon below at his sled, which had caught fire after landing at the bottom.
"But I just paid it off," she heard him lament, and she had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. But then he started to slip downwards off the edge of the cliff. Thinking quickly, Anna tossed the ice pick, which was tied to Sven's harness, down toward him, yelling for Kristoff to Grab on! At the last moment, Kristoff grabbed the ice pick and, with Anna's encouragement, Sven pulled Kristoff up the slope to safety.
Anna looked down into the canyon at the burning sled. She felt terrible. Everything she tried to do always seemed to end in disaster.
"I'll replace your sled… and everything in it," she promised. It was the least she could do. Kristoff didn't respond, just made a frustrated sound and covered his face with his arm. "And I understand if you don't want to help me anymore," she said, and started to walk off. Maybe he needed his space, and anyway, she needed to get to Elsa. Now that they had escaped the wolves and crossed the canyon, the rest of the journey couldn't be too bad, right?
Anna was peering into the forest, muttering to herself and trying to figure out which way to go, when she heard a shout behind her.
"Hold up," Kristoff yelled. "We're coming!"
"You are?!" Anna bubbled, and then reminded herself to play it cool. She was pretty sure her enthusiasm annoyed him, and she could really use his help, even if he was unreasonably obsessed with his sleigh. "I mean, sure. I'll let you tag along."
She thought she saw Kristoff laughing out of the corner of her eye.