Chapter Seventy Three

The Battle of Christmas Morn

MELODY

Melody watched as Janus, Tracy and Peggy darted from the trench in the direction of the western flank. Musket balls zinged and pinged all around them, but none hit them, for Janus and Peggy moved at a speed faster than any human ought to be able to, with Tracy bringing up the rear while raising a purple shield of black magic to ward off enfilading fire.

"Melody," Elsa broke her out of her reverie. "We need to go."

"Right, right. Give me a moment," Melody narrowed her eyes and looked through the smoke and darkness. A faint light was beginning to illuminate the sky and it would be bright fairly soon, but it wouldn't make a difference given all the smoke covering the battlefield along with the blizzard harassing them all.

But nevertheless, her heightened senses cut through the smoke like a thin knife, parting everything till she could find what she was looking for. Her ears focused past the deafening shouts of the skirmishers around her, the cracks of the rifles and muskets and the cries of soldiers pitching backwards or slumping forward as a skirmisher's shot took them through the flesh. A sharp razor-sharp focus helped her pinpoint the familiar voices she sought, just in time as she laid eyes on her allies.

"There. Oliver and the Witch Hunters," Melody reported, pointing somewhere northeast ahead of them. "We'll rendezvous with them and help them hold our position, maybe even push back the Exonians."

Elsa stared through the musket smoke. "Fascinating," She turned back to Melody. "After you?"

"Sure," Melody leapt out of the trench in a single bound without the need to hoist herself over the edge. Landing nimbly, she heard the sound of a musket going off at about a hundred yards away at the same moment her feet crunched into the thick snow. The musket ball zipped in a trajectory right towards her, and she faded sideways with more than enough time to spare.

Instinctively, her free hand went to her quiver and pulled out an arrow, nocking it and drawing her bow with unparalleled speed and a steady hand. Her vision sharpened, cutting through the smoke once again to rest on her target, a lanky veteran in the muddy red uniform of the Imperial Horde with a musket pressed to his shoulder and wisps of smoke still billowing from the barrel of his weapon. She loosed, the arrow hurtling across the battlefield with practiced precision and striking her enemy in the knee, forcing him to jerk and pitch forward, in the process stumbling a couple of his companions. All that in a tenth of a second, and she turned back to see Elsa levering herself out of the trench.

"Holy…" Elsa trailed off, mouth agape as she stood up. "I've seen you shoot but never that quickly before."

Melody shook her head, still slightly disoriented by the entire experience, but feeling a sense of pride, confidence and courage nonetheless. "It's just instinct. Let's move!"

The two girls rushed through the smoke, weaving behind the scores of defenders, those of whom were brave enough to squat, kneel or lie prone outside the safety of the trenches to get better shots at the besiegers. Muskets and rifles went off all around them, coming from Arendellians, Northuldra and Danish skirmishers.

All the while, Melody kept her eyes peeled for Oliver and the Witch Hunters, who were still hunkered down behind firmly packed earthworks, firing in successive order at the enemy in the middle distance. She'd been right. The eastern flank wasn't as strong as it ought to be, with the enemy gaining ground slowly but surely. There weren't enough defenders to spread out across the width of the field, owing to the sheer number of Exonian infantry committed by Field Marshal Kane.

As they continued northeast, Melody could hear the shots from the enemy growing louder, the screams and shouts of Exonite becoming more audible. They were getting close.

Melody distinctively heard a rifle being cocked and her eyes snapped up ahead, seeing an Exonian rifleman at forty yards taking aim at her. Before she knew it, another arrow had been nocked in her bowstring and pulled back.

But Elsa was quicker still. Ice-blue light flashed, stabbing out across the darkness and ice slammed into the soldier, dropping him like a rag doll.

Melody loosened the tension in her bowstring while keeping her arrow nocked. "You're faster."

"Sorcerer's natural advantage," Elsa dismissed the compliment as they bent lower and ducked behind another few skirmishers.

"Huh," From the peripheral of her eye, Melody saw something red moving through the smoke and pivoted on the back of her foot, swinging her bow up as she drew, then loosed into the unknown. She heard the man scream and fall. "Guess I know how it feels now." Only if it is for a little while.

"Up ahead," Elsa pointed. "I see them."

True enough, Oliver and the Witch Hunters were just up ahead, visible through the smoke even without her heightened sense of sight. Melody sprinted the last couple of yards and slid to the ground beside her allies, joined swiftly by Elsa.

"Damn it!" Oliver started and cursed. "Didn't even see you coming. How the hell-"

"No time to explain now," Melody cut him off as the two Witch Hunters ducked back below the high earthen rampart and acknowledged her and Elsa. "How bad is it?"

"Hah!" Hansel snorted as he reloaded his long rifle. "I haven't had this much fun in ages!"

"Pretty bad then," Elsa said grimly, and turned to Gretel. "What's the situation here?"

"Most of the defenders here on the eastern flank are Arendellians, but they're pinned down hard by the Exonians," Gretel explained.

"Classic fire and movement tactics," Oliver added. "Half of their light infantry lay down suppressing fire while the other half advances, then they swap roles and repeat. But all things considered, we're still holding our position."

"For how long, is the question," Gretel said sourly.

Oliver fished out a small, leather flask. "Long enough for the rest to load up the ships I hope." He raised the flask to Melody before tipping its contents into his mouth.

"You're drinking out here? Now?" Melody looked at her friend with a mix of amusement and disgust.

"Figured if I die today, might as well go out with good whiskey," Oliver shrugged, pocketing the flask.

"See, that's where we differ!" Hansel shouted as he discharged his rifle over the earthworks. "I don't intend on dying today!"

"Neither do we," Elsa agreed firmly. "Which is why we're here to help hold the line."

"Plenty of room here," Oliver indicated the wide rampart before them. "I mean, not many Arendellians out here that are this close to the enemy."

Hansel roared as he loosed another round into the smoke. "Never thought I'd say this but I'm glad to see a sorcerer! When the bastards out there find out we have the Snow Queen down here, they won't come at us in such a hurry!"

"Here's hoping," Melody heard Elsa mumble as she took up her position at the far side of the rampart.

"Here," Oliver patted the snow beside him. "Saved a spot just for you."

"I'm honoured," Melody flashed him a grin. Her ears pricked up like a wild predator's as the distinct sound of a rifle being cocked reached her ears from somewhere in the vicinity of fifty yards behind the smoke. Hands flashed faster than her mind could react, and an arrow was flying from her bow before the rifle even cracked. A split second later, someone cried out in Exonite expletives.

"Shit!" Oliver gawked. "What the hell was that? How-"

"Later," Melody shouted as she nocked and fired again at another target. She didn't have time to explain. Not now anyway. Her eyes narrowed as her vision sharpened and allowed her to see another wave of Exonian light infantry being dispatched to join the fray. Involuntarily, she let out a sharp exhale. "We have more incoming!"

"How do you know?" Hansel shouted as he fired into the smoke.

"Call it instinct!" she responded as she shot another four arrows in rapid succession, all of which hit her targets exactly the way she'd intended.

"I see them!" Elsa reported a few seconds later, shooting a stream of ice into the musket smoke, briefly illuminating the surroundings as the ice slammed into the soldiers, their light-blue silhouettes standing out against the thick smoke.

"There we go," Melody muttered as she steeled herself for the fierce onslaught ahead of her. Something told her that her newfound abilities were about to be pushed to the limits.

JANUS

As Melody had assessed, the west side of the battlefield wasn't very well defended. The Northuldra and Danish skirmishers who made up the best infantry units in the Coalition were staggered almost in an arc, with the centre of the battlefield holding out well and the sides curved inwards due to the constant bombardment from the overwhelming numbers of Exonian infantry.

Janus spotted Elsa's Northuldra friends, Honeymaren and Ryder, somewhere to his right together with a couple of their tribesmen. All of them were taking turns at firing, reloading, and trying to hold off the Exonians as best as they could.

The sky was fully lit now by grey clouds, so they must have been fighting for quite some time now. A fully fledged blizzard plagued them now, making the firefight even more tedious, what with the snow and wind in their eyes. But Janus found himself undeterred by any of it, his sharpened senses compensating for the wretched weather and putting him at a physical advantage to everyone else on the field right now, with the exception of Peggy and Tracy. As he continued shooting down the enemy methodically, he could only hope that Elsa and Melody were holding out fine on the eastern side of the battlefield.

"You think they'll break?" Peggy asked in a loud voice as they took cover in an already packed trench.

Janus kept his eyes on the enemy behind the smoke as he mechanically shot arrow after arrow at them. "Who?"

"The Exonians," Peggy levelled her rifle to her shoulder and pulled the trigger, the kick from the weapon barely staggering her. "Also come to think of it, what about the defenders?"

"We just gotta plug the hole!" Tracy launched another tirade of black magic at a knot of enemy skirmishers, the blast catapulting screaming men in all directions. Immediately, like the dozens of times before, the Danish and Northuldra moved up an inch just as the next volley of enemy muskets forced them to halt. "Push back and we'll be alright!"

"Fairly optimistic of you," Janus muttered, putting an arrow through yet another eye with lightning precision. He pivoted slightly, nocked and aimed again, and shot a particularly tall Exonian in the heart. "I'm going to run out of arrows soon."

"That never stopped you before, did it?" Tracy said cheerily in spite of their dire surroundings. "Besides, you're bloody superhuman now. You gonna use any of that or are you gonna waste all my effort conjuring up that spell?"

"She's right," Peggy shouted. "We could be using our heightened strength and speed to engage the enemy head on and force them back!"

"No, not yet!" Janus shot down another two soldiers. It sounded appealing to him, but he had no idea what the limits of his newfound abilities were. Would he survive a straight shot through his head? Besides, he had to make sure Peggy got out of this alive too. Or Elsa will kill me. "We've got to be careful!"

"Oh, bugger that. You're both practically invulnerable right now!" Tracy rebutted, a wave of black magic pulsating from her hands and consuming the Exonian soldiers in the droves. "Look, if you're scared, don't worry. I'll cover both of you!"

"The herd is thinning," Janus observed. The latest wave of Exonian soldiers was dying out, having been neutralised by the combined might of the skirmishers and the Warriors. "We need to save our strength for when the next wave attacks and the defenders are about to break!"

"And that's probably coming right about now," Peggy said tightly. "Listen. Can you hear that?"

Janus had been so focused on holding the line that he hadn't picked up on whatever Peggy had heard. But shutting out all the other noises of the battlefield and the howling winds, he honed his senses in on the opposite end of the field, where the Imperial Horde had been mustered. And behind the Exonian soldiers muttering to one another as they waited to be deployed, he heard the familiar, chilling voice of the emperor. "Report, please."

"He's here," he growled.

"Who?" Tracy asked.

"Westergaard."

"Oh, bloody hell," Tracy swore as she dispatched off one of the few remaining pairs of Exonian skirmishers with her sorcery. "What's he saying?"

"The attack is proceeding according to plan," Kane's unmistakable deep voice reported calmly. "As expected, the Coalition's few defenders have exhausted themselves repelling our infantry while buying the rest time to board the foreigners' ships."

Janus' jaw tightened. So all this was just to tire us out? Then what in hell is Kane's real plan?

"Excellent," Hans said. "Now pull the infantry back. I think it's time the Eternal Horde introduced themselves."

ANNA

"Fire!" An Arendellian captain bellowed again, his command echoed by other lieutenants on the wall.

Another volley of round shot slammed out, the thundering roar of the artillery having little effect on Anna's ears, seeing as how she'd already grown accustomed to it. Still, there was nothing quite like seeing the steel balls arc through the dark skies and fall in a calculated trajectory, plummeting and crashing into the Exonian infantry formed in a mix of line and column. But yet, the enemy still kept on coming.

"They are persistent," Field Marshal Frederick said as he watched the battle beside her. "Though I find it hard to believe this is Kane's trump card. After all we've faced during the campaign, I'd expected…more."

"Honestly, me too." Anna agreed as she watched the enemy artillery answer with another round of twelve and eighteen pounders from across the field. The sorcerers defending the fortress unleashed their magic, routing the steel balls in mid air or disintegrating them with countless different forms of mystical energy. "They're just throwing their infantry and artillery at us, knowing we can fend them off. But then again, we made it pretty damn hard for them to conduct this siege."

Field Marshal Frederick nodded. "Quite right, Ma'am. Nevertheless, we cannot drop our guard. At this stage, I simply cannot anticipate what Kane will do next."

Anna grimaced. No word had come yet, but she assumed the next wave hadn't fully boarded yet. Sooner or later, she would have to withdraw half of the defenders from the field to board the ships. Whether or not the remaining soldiers could hold the fort was the question. With the League of Sorcerers and the Warriors in play, Anna hoped they would be able to.

She glanced at Talya, who'd taken a position in between two twenty four pounders at the far end of the wall facing the field. The girl was working alongside the rest of the sorcerers, preventing the enemy artillery from destroying the fortifications and the defending guns. Looking at her now, Anna wondered how she'd ever believed Talya was an envoy from Agrabah. In spite of her best efforts, she'd been a fool to be so gullible. But on the bright side, it seemed Talya wasn't the enemy. She'd saved Anna and countless others from being crushed by a steel ball after all.

And somewhere on one of the other walls of the star fort, Eleanor was aiding Deirdre and the sorcerers in repelling any flanking manoeuvres and artillery shelling. It was hard to believe the woman who'd first been responsible for the Empire was fighting alongside the Coalition now. Anna found herself still feeling incredibly skeptical about the former Empress and her true intentions. But she supposed Eleanor's current actions were speaking louder than her words ever could.

Meanwhile, Kristoff was off at the coastal road coordinating the evacuation of the third wave, leaving half the number of trench defenders as there had been yesterday night. To compensate for their lack of numbers, the rest of her friends were down in the trenches below, using the smoke, earthworks and palisades as cover to hold the line against the Imperial Horde. Anna couldn't see them through all the mayhem, but she knew they were definitely making a difference down there.

From the corner of her eye, she saw rapid movement and spun like a cat, anticipating danger. But it was just one of Frederick's officers bearing the insignia of his reconnaissance unit dashing up the remaining few steps, looking utterly dishevelled.

He came to an abrupt halt before her and Frederick, then saluted. "Your Majesty. Sir."

"At ease," Anna waved away his salute.

The lieutenant turned to Frederick. "Sir, my men spotted mass movement from the trees behind the enemy line. We couldn't make out what they were. They swarmed out of the forest in close order, but yet not formed in column. We…we-" The man stuttered.

"Calm yourself, lieutenant," Frederick said sternly. "What is your assessment?"

"We suspect they're a new unit we haven't dealt with yet. They bear the colours of the Imperial Horde, but yet…they move like a mob."

As her blood ran cold, Anna clenched her jaw. She knew exactly what they were. The Soulless. Hans' Eternal Horde.

Frederick pulled a spyglass from his coat pocket and extended the barrel to give the piece of equipment a longer range before levelling it to his eye. "Hmmn. That is strange. I see at least three battalions worth of them moving quickly round the far left flank of the Imperial Horde, far quicker than regular infantry or the Blitzguard."

"That's because they're not human," Anna turned to him urgently and gripped his arm. "It's them."

Frederick lowered his spyglass. "The emperor's undead soldiers."

"They'll tear through our defences if we don't act now."

Field Marshal Frederick signalled for three of his messengers standing by to relay commands. "I want the centre of the field doubly fortified. Pull some of the sorcerers off the walls and have them reinforce our lines below. Focus three quarters of our artillery on the new battalions swinging round to join the field. I want them blown to kingdom come."

"Sir!" The three messengers saluted in unison and dispersed to relay the new orders.

Anna watched in bleak terror as a large blob of human figures swarmed round the sides of the Exonian infantry and began to charge straight for the field. Hans had revealed his hand, and it was terrifying. Whatever remained of the ground defenders wasn't ready to handle whatever those…things were.

Her jaw tight, she glanced left and right along the walls to assess the situation in hopes of a solution. Surely there had to be something she could do. Even with the Warriors aiding the soldiers in repelling the enemy, the sheer number of Soulless would threaten to overwhelm or even rout the defenders. And then a spark in her mind took hold. Perhaps there was something she could do.