The land Robin and his men were in now was tundra. So cold their breath made white clouds form. Yet, they were able to get by with short sleeves and pants—probably because they were used to roughing it in any kind of weather. Regardless, there were no blizzards. Robin personally hated extreme heat the most.
The horses seemed playful in this area, once the ones who'd nearly been kissed by Machin Shin had settled down.
Breath making clouds near Robin's ear, Zelena asked, "How exactly do you intend to help Granny with her money problems?"
Gripping the reins determinedly, Robin replied as he felt a chilly wind slap one of his earlobes, "I'm going to sneak into the palace. It's not well-guarded…and they have loads of fantastic jewelry. I've heard they can't keep track of it." Robin's gelding tossed his neck then broke into a brisk pace. Zelena rushed her horse to force him to keep up with the muscled beast. Zelena's horse was more proper and shot furtive, condescending glances at Robin's gelding.
Robin himself was falling in horsey-love for the lad. He'd never intended to keep a horse—no matter how well one worked for him nor how much he liked it. But in this moment, he found himself fancying keeping this once-wild warhorse.
"I intend to 'let myself in' to their ice palace, disguised as guards…find some of their laundry hanging on a line…perhaps not their underwear…and we'll find the room of jewels." Robin's teeth smashed together when his gelding stopped suddenly, nearly tossing Robin off his back and down a cliff. Robin glanced down and saw a frozen stream about two hundred miles below. He chuckled to himself, thinking how exhilarating it'd be to make that drop. Since it was Robin, he would manage to break his own fall and slide down gracefully like he was skiing. Yet, he was glad he'd managed to hold on.
"I'm sure," Robin said, smiling warmly and squinting under the bright sunlight, "they've heard of Robin Hood. But," he added flippantly, "so long the royal crest of this kingdom isn't on anything we steal, we can sell it in our country. Of course, I'll need to steal a few goods to sell for myself, get a nice meal for you and me to enjoy together, because why not? Though my face is on so many wanted posters, I'm sure anyone serving us will be suspicious where we got the coin…maybe we'll dine in a restaurant or two in a country between here and home."
Robin tugged the horse in a different direction. Zelena did her best to heel him so she could keep listening in spite of the paved road being better for one horse than two. Her gelding kept stepping in brush more than road. "Either way, most of what I'm stealing is going to Granny. My men aren't so benevolent, however. They can frisk the guards, get some watches and earrings. Little John used to be the best guard frisker—they never even knew he was there or felt him removing their jewelry. Think that's why Marian fell in love with him."
"How do you know if we're going in the right direction?" Zelena asked, using magic to stop her hair from swirling around her neck in a curly wind.
"Well, first we've got to get off this cliff," Robin reported, but he flicked his thumb above a tree. Zelena tilted her head, causing her horse to turn in the direction of her line of sight. Zelena quickly whoaed her horse behind Robin's, blocking the Merry Men. Their warhorses halted without guidance at the sight of their brother immobile except for his shifting ear.
Zelena saw triangular palace turrets knifing the sky. They sparkled up a rainbow where the sunlight grazed it. For they were made of ice. Steel-strong ice.
"Not all the cold in this country is from the position," Robin explained wryly on his bouncing mount. "Some of it originates from the palace. Elsa is very powerful. Someone burned her family's castle down, so she made the palace with her ice powers. After hanging the offending party. I'm sure the Ogre Slayer could do this too if he wanted—I heard his light magic is the strongest in all the lands! But not many people with magic can do something like that. The palace Elsa made is larger than any mountain—and she made it in all of two days, from what merchants told me." A goofy grin crawled on his lips. "You know, merchants love to talk to outlaws…if you're a princess, you wouldn't know about such things, but trust me."
After his speech, he shifted his reins into one hand and rubbed the place in his head where the arrow had struck before he met Emma.
A commotion behind them drew their gazes back just in time to catch a frazzled Marian accidentally signal her mount to buck. The warhorse complied, tossing her high up in a tree then stepping two inches away to rip up a particularly tasty-looking blade of grass and make little happy noises. Marian scrambled back on her equine, her cheeks flushed with mortification.
Something glittering beyond the trees sidling the path drew Robin's attention. There was a frozen lake a couple of feet off, viewable through the gaps in the trees. Below the top layer of the ice was a sword.
Robin halted his horse as a man swung upside down on a tree, aiming to take Robin's head off with the axe in his hands. Unfortunately for the upside down man covered in what looked like a black jumpsuit complete with a hood, he swung right over the man on the horse, lost his feet's grip on the tree, fell into a booby trap, and set off a bomb in his own face. The Merry Men heard the unmerry explosion and one shriek of pain. Then silence that burned and blistered the backs of their necks.
"Holy shit, mate," one of Robin's merry men, gasped, pacing his calm mare through his own hysterical anxiety. "What kind of hellhole is this?"
"Keep your eyes peeled for booby traps," suggested Robin. "I'd wager after that bit of luck, any booby trap in this ice continent might be fatal." He halted his horse and pointed a sturdy finger at a brown coil in a tree up ahead. "That's a net designed to look like a sleeping snake. We'd best jerk our horses to the right so we don't end up in that net. I think," he mused, cupping his chin in his hands, "that net might be designed to choke whoever it catches…or squeeze them to death."
A moment later, another bandit came waddling up to them. Sneakily maneuvering his body, he had his wild eyes fastened on the prize. He got caught in the net, and it gripped him. Tightened around him. Then ate him with a loud belch and contented sigh.
Shakily, Zelena the princess pondered, "If the bandits aren't the ones setting those traps—"
"We do not want to meet whoever is," Robin assured her, arching his horse off the path so the rope wouldn't catch them. "I would guess it's some cult. It's not Queen Elsa; I've heard she's not a terrible ruler. Doesn't mean I take issue piling our pockets with jewels of her home, but I know she wouldn't do something like this."
"And what are the bandits doing?"
"Stirring up mayhem," Robin replied. "They're able-bodied people who are angry they have to work." His horse used his tail to flick the next bandit who came running up to Robin. The bandit stumbled into a giant mushroom that opened up and bit his bicep. Horrified, the bandit watched the wound swell up to be twice the size of the bandit then smother him. Robin shook his head as he watched, thinking crossly whatever bandits were watching needed to stop thinking of snatching him up and thrusting his face over a cookfire.
"In their defense," Zelena uttered huskily, "they do have some impressive skills most able-bodied people lack. Hanging upside down from a frosty tree, clutching an axe, and beheading passersby? I've never met someone…quite so…determined." Laughing gaily, she mused, "My mother might give them a run for their money though…"
Robin loved her for her amusement. She had the power to change his life. He'd never been so affected by a woman's voice before.
His horse came so close to a noose hanging from a tree that Robin flew over the horse's neck. His ankle got caught in the rope. When Zelena flew to his side with a dagger, he thought for sure she intended to cut his ankle off after everything he'd newly witnessed. Instead, she cut the rope. He stared at her with surprise. Inwardly, he kicked himself as his foot dropped roughly to the ground. His heel hit a rock.
Then an ogre appeared, so suddenly and without previously showing itself in spite of its massive size. It reached down and picked up one of the wives on her horse, bringing her to his gaping mouth.
All of the Merry Men, the wives, and Zelena aimed their arrows at the ogre. Different parts of his body. He had the horse's head halfway down his throat when the arrows struck.
Robin's was in the perfect part. It split the ogre's skull open, unsheathing its brain and making the pink thing tumble behind him and into a booby trap, which exploded with bomb. The warhorse and his rider fell roughly back to the ice-sprinkled ground. The horse was calm, but his rider was jittery and made more so by the way her horse's hooves slipped beneath her.
"Let's get out of here," advised Robin, staring at the dead ogre with nausea. "Before something truly vile happens to one of my people."
They picked up the pace, keeping together and rushing on their way on bated horseshoes.
Failing to notice a bandit in one of the trees a few yards off, the imp managed to knock a bucket of ice water on top of Zelena's head.
She drew her breath in sharply with a wince and veered off-course. Next thing she knew in her haze, the bandit had leapt in front of her and was about to take a chunk out of the side of her jaw when Robin struck him with his arrow.
"These termites." Robin raked a hand behind his hair. "There's so many of them."
Shivering, Zelena used her magic to dry herself off. "In all honesty, every country needs a rebel. Ah…that's better. Let me see if I can enact a protection spell to keep these rogue brutes off your Merry Men."
A woman bandit was trying to sneak up on one of the men and whack him on the head with a large stick. Zelena used air to whip her rear end so hard she dropped the stick and launched herself in the air, clutching her bum. The stick tumbled to the ground, and the man she'd been about to whack got a good look at her insane, angry face and shrank away, wincing at the smell. His mare obeyed his movements but wasn't fussed.
The protective spell had only been activated five seconds before a bunch of rose thorns launched at their party and stuck to the protective spell.
"Whoa," Robin commented, raising his head and glancing briefly at some of the thorns stuck to Zelena's protective layer. "Some of these bandits know magic."
"What is their beef with foreigners?" Zelena grumbled, scowling darkly as she glided her horse behind Robin's. "I have half a mind to bring a cyclone right by their ear and send them tumbling for Oz. Damn straight better leave us alone. Should've already learned their lessons, all those beady termites watching us go on our merry way. You hear that?" she bellowed with the help of magic. "You bandits better leave us alone from this point forward, or I'll suck all of you in a cyclone and send you," she blew a kiss and waved, "sailing for a different world…probably in the galaxy of chaos. So give it up." She returned her voice to normal, huffing irritably.
Robin thought to himself the princess had no idea how beautiful she was. But he stopped looking at her out of his peripheral vision and relaxed in the out and beyond line of sight.
The rest of their trip to the large ice palace was uneventful, up until they nearly tripped over a battle between cults. The people of separate opinions were fighting with swords, wanting to force the other into their own cult. Half of them were dead.
Robin commented, "One step down for mankind…the need to bully people into feeling the same way about the world as you do isn't anything but a cancel culture."
A furious face covered in blood turned with his sword raised at a woman. The man glowered heavily at Robin's men and snarled, "What do you want?"
"I?" Robin uttered dryly. "I am but a simple thief. You men—and women—carry on with your fighting. I want no part of it."
Slamming his sword down in the bloody ground, the man snapped, "That's because you're a weasel." At that moment, the woman brought her sword down and killed him.
Dryly, Robin raised his eyebrow and remarked, "At least I'm a live weasel." Their party circled around the feuding cults. None of the Merry Men were aware, but the cults would feud until the last two were standing. The two would be so full of animosity that neither would realize they were on the same side. Both would be confused by the battle, and only after the last one had defeated his prey would it occur to him he killed his best friend.
Robin found the line of guard uniforms as easily as a chicken lays an egg. All of his people hastened to pull the guard cloth over their own attire.
As Robin had heard, Arendelle's palace wasn't well-guarded. Solemnly studying the doors as they circled the palace, Robin kept an eye out for the door he thought was likely closest to Arendelle's unguarded treasures.
A skilled thief, he guessed right on his first try. A maid rushed by them, carrying a tea set. She worried over her bottom lip with her teeth, too consumed in her duty to see them.
They had deposited their horses at a safe area outside the palace grounds and now trampled through a skinny hallway that climbed upwards. With light blue walls, hard floor, and light stemming from the walls, Robin felt a bit suffocated. The ceiling was high above their heads, palace cold enough to make their breath form white clouds.
At the end of the hallway, they came upon a room with a door partially ajar. Robin swept his gaze through the room and was thrilled to discover the large chamber at least a mile across and forward. The white tables had dark blue tablecloths on them, above which the jewelry was displayed.
Unlike the hallway, the blue light in this room came from the ceiling. Unlike in the hallway, the ceiling here wasn't too high. Each of the pieces of jewelry were well-lit by the light.
Robin had never seen anything like it. He had nicked plenty of goods from the rich. He'd heard Arendelle was home to the finest jewelers in the worlds, and this glittering blue room proved the gossiping merchants right. Though Zelena took his breath away, these jewels had a similar effect but seemed to stuff his esophagus against his tonsils. He was left with the sensation he couldn't breathe.
The miners helped the jewelers get their hands on the rocks they increased the beauty of, but being a miner was dangerous. Mainly because the bandits sometimes waited for a man to leave a mine before trying to conk him on the head with a pumpkin. Not because they wanted jewels. The bandits of Arendelle ate humans. Thus, the miners had to leave the mines clutching a dagger or a large stick, prepared to kill a bandit or risk losing his own life.
Some of the jewels were so perfectly chiseled with the light of the room, they looked like stars that stepped down from their celestial home and snuggled down in their surrounding holder.
Guard pockets were filled to the brim with priceless jewels. Robin's main theft was the largest, most expensive necklace that looked like it was striped onyx and diamond.
Turning away, his eyes landed on a pretty engagement ring. Out of his peripheral vision, he made sure Zelena was occupied before he snapped the box shut and stuffed it in his pocket.
