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In the Light of Day: A Frozen Epic	By : GeorgeGlass Category: +1 through F > Frozen Views: 21531 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Frozen or its characters. I made no money from writing this story. I am completely divided about whether Elsa or Anna is hotter.

Chapter List
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Chapter 15: The Duke

Admiral Ostergard turned to the sailor on duty, whose face was now sheet-white.

“Sound the alert.”

The sailor snatched up a mallet and turned to a bell that hung behind him. He struck, clang-clang-clang-clang, then waited a moment and did it again, and again.

Turning back to Anna, the admiral said, “Your Highness, I must ask you to return to the castle. There is no need to put yourself at risk by remaining here.”

Anna almost took offense, then realized what the admiral really meant: that Anna was indispensable, because with Elsa incapacitated (that was how Anna chose to think of it), the princess was the only remaining leader whom the people of Arendelle would readily follow. The next person in line for the throne would be her Uncle Matteus, who had served as regent for the three years between her parents’ deaths and Elsa’s coming of age. But Matteus had always been much more interested in the animal kingdom than the kingdom of Arendelle; on the morning of Elsa’s coronation, he had left for Borneo to make a comprehensive study of the wildlife there, and he hadn’t been back since. And those in line after him were various cousins, mostly young and without leadership experience.

“Very well,” Anna said, in the most regal tone she could manage. “I will watch from the castle towers. Good luck, Admiral.”

“Thank you, your Highness,” the man replied as Anna descended the ladder.

***

Hildy was at the tea shop, having a cup of chamomile to calm her nerves after hearing about Elsa. The buxom viscountess had tried to find Anna, but the princess seemed to be constantly on the move, and Hildy had concluded that she couldn’t have done much for her friend, anyway, given how busy Anna was at the moment. Besides, there was work to be done here.

“So… you don’t think Kjersti wants to go out with me?” said the blonde teenager who had come to take Hildy’s empty cup and saucer but whom the viscountess had drawn into conversation.

“Johan,” Hildy replied, “you need to learn to tell the difference between when a girl is just being friendly and when she’s genuinely interested in you. You think Kjersti likes you because she smiles at you and touches you now and then, but she does that with a lot of boys; that’s just her style. If she were actually attracted to you, she’d take it up a notch and find some excuse to sit in your lap or something.”

“Oh,” the boy said, clearly disappointed.

“Now, certain other girls,” Hildy continued, “aren’t nearly as outgoing as Kjersti. And when they smile at you that way, it really means something, because they don’t do that for just anyone.”

Seeing the boy’s look of puzzlement, Hildy patted his shoulder and added, “Kiddo, I’m going to tell you something that a lot of young men need to hear: You need to grow a pair—of eyes.”

She conspicuously turned her head toward a red-haired girl who was measuring out dried tea leaves behind the shop counter. Johan followed Hildy’s gaze, and just then, the girl glanced up, her eyes meeting his for a moment. Her freckled face went slightly pink as she quickly looked back down at her work.

“Oh. I…wow,” the boy replied, still looking in the redheaded girl’s direction.

“That’s why they call me the Love Goddess, sweetie,” Hildy said with a smile.

“They do?” the boy said, his mind clearly no longer on the conversation.

“It’ll catch on,” Hildy replied. Then she took a few coins out of her purse as she said, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to-”

Suddenly, the big bell in the town square began to ring, sounding out four loud bongs at a time, over and over.

“Oh, crap,” Johan gasped. “The last time they rang the bell that way was-”

“-when Weselton invaded,” Hildy finished. “I’d better go.”

She dropped the coins on the table and hurried out the door.

***

Anna had almost reached the castle when she saw black smoke beginning to rise from somewhere several blocks away. She could hear shouts issuing from that direction, as well.

She turned to her guards and Gerda, who was still carrying the big umbrella and was panting from the brisk pace of their walk back from the Navy dock. The woman wasn’t as young as she used to be.

“Gerda,” Anna said, “go help Kai and the staff get the castle ready. I’ll be back soon.”

“Yes, Highness,” the older woman said, and headed for the gates.

“Ma’am,” one of her guards said, “you should return to the castle, too.”

The other guard added, “You don’t want to be out here when-”

“Look, guys,” Anna interrupted, “I know you’re just doing your job. But if what’s going on over there”—she pointed in the direction of the smoke—”can give me any clue about what we’re up against, then I need to check it out. After that, we’ll haul ass back to the castle.”

“Y- Yes, ma’am,” the first guard said.

“All right,” she said, breaking into a jog. “Let’s go! Double time!”

***

They had run about halfway there when Anna saw Hildy up ahead. She, too, was hurrying toward the source of the smoke, which now rose dense and black into the gray sky. Anna accelerated her pace and caught up to her friend.

“Hildy! What’s going on?”

Pointing in the direction of the smoke as she ran, the curly-tressed young woman cried, “It’s the armory!”

“Oh no,” Anna half-whispered.

They rounded a corner, and the Royal Armory came into view. The two-story building’s exterior walls were made of stone and thus could not catch fire, but the roaring flames leaping from every window made Anna believe that every last plank of wood inside must be burning.

A crowd was gathering, but the fire brigade—which was already on the scene, as its headquarters was only a block away—was keeping everyone well away from the burning structure. The people in the crowd didn’t seem to need much convincing to keep their distance; the intense heat radiating from the flaming building seemed to provide plenty of motivation to stay away.

Hildy looked here and there, searching the crowd as she shouted, “Duke! Tilde!”

A stab of fear went through Anna’s heart. What if the Duke and his daughter had been inside the armory when the fire started?

“Hildy!” a man’s voice shouted. “Over here!”

Anna was relieved to see the Duke and Tilde emerge from the crowd. Hildy ran and embraced both of them at once.

“We’re all right, sweetheart,” the Duke reassured his stepdaughter. “We were on our way here when the fire broke out.”

The man turned to Anna. “It happened very fast. The two guards at the door barely avoided being burned. And the two patrolling the interior...I just pray that they died quickly.”

“Dear God,” Anna breathed.

She looked around and saw a white-haired man—the fire marshal, judging from his overcoat—shouting orders at the fire bridgadesmen up on the water tower, who were connecting a hose to its base and lowering the other end to their teammates on the ground.

“You see smoke on any of those walls,” the marshal said to his men, pointing to the buildings adjacent to the armory, “you spray them down, fast. But remember, we’ve only got so much water in that tower.”

“Excuse me, Marshal?” Anna said, approaching the man from behind.

“Get lost,” he said, beginning to turn around. “I’m in the middle of- oh, your Highness,” he corrected as he saw who had spoken.

Anna didn’t care; if the situation were reversed, she probably would have had a similar reaction to being interrupted. So she got right to the point.

“Was this fire set on purpose?”

“Definitely,” the fire marshal replied. “Fire spreads fast, but it doesn’t spread this fast without help.”

“Otos,” Anna muttered darkly. Then she asked, “How soon until you can put it out?”

The Marshal inhaled. “Your Highness…we can’t put this fire out.”

“What?”

“Ma’am, I’ve been a brigadesman for more than thirty years. I’ve seen dozens of arson fires, set with every kind of accelerant from turpentine to whale oil. But whatever was used here isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. It burns so hot, my men can’t even get close enough to throw water on it; hell, if it hadn’t been raining all day, the buildings next door would probably already be on fire. We’ve got the hose, of course, but we’d use up all the water in the tower before we put out half the first floor. All we can do is keep the fire from spreading until it burns itself out.”

“Which means,” the Duke cut in as he and his daughters approached, “that everything in the armory is lost.”

Anna looked at the increasingly large crowd in the street and noticed that a lot of the onlookers were young or middle-aged men. Many were probably off-duty soldiers who had come to the armory in response to the alarm bells.

Letting the Marshal return to his work, Anna turned to the Duke.

“How bad is that?” she asked.

“Very,” the gray-haired nobleman replied. “Only those soldiers who were already on patrol or guard duty have their gear. Which means that three-quarters of the soldiers garrisoned here in the capitol will be unarmed and unarmored when the enemy arrives.”

Anna took a deep breath, then coughed from the smoke, which she realized smelled just like the smoke that had hung in the air in the parlor where Elsa was attacked—solid evidence, she thought, that Otos was behind the armory fire. But Anna had a bigger problem right now.

“Okay,” she said. “The castle guards have their own armory; they must have some spare weapons. And probably some extra overcoats,” she added, remembering that although castle guards did not wear metal armor, their coats were woolen and lined with several layers of linen, providing good protection against blades and arrows, as well as the winter cold.

“A lot of people in town,” Tilde said, “have heirloom weapons hanging on their walls and such.”

“Right,” Hildy added. “A few of the nobles have pretty big collections. The Duke and I toured them all when we were working on his Annotated History.”

“And there are quite a few around the castle, too,” Anna said.

“Then, Highness, if I may,” the Duke said, “I would like to send some of the soldiers gathered here with you to collect whatever you can spare from the castle. Tilde, take a group to our house and equip them as best you can with what we have. Hildy, take another group to the homes where those collections you mentioned are.”

“Sure,” Hildy said. “But I’m not sure how easily our local nobles will give up their precious conversation pieces.”

“My dear,” the Duke replied, “it has been my observation that your very presence is often enough to weaken a man’s resolve. I do not doubt that you shall persuade them.”

***

Halfdan yanked open the door of the suite he shared with Prince Hjalmar. Not seeing the prince in their sitting room, he strode into the doorway of Halmar’s bedchamber and found the large, bearded young man there, standing in front of his open travel chest.

“There’s no time to pack everything,” Halfdan said. “War is going to break out here any minute, so just take the essentials. If we ride a few hours north, we can avoid the coast entirely and cross into Nordland via the- What are you doing?”

Hjalmar pulled his chainmail down over his head, then reached for the heavy leather belt he always wore with it to take some of the weight off of his shoulders.

“Like you said,” the Prince replied, “war is going to break out any minute.”

“It isn’t our war,” Halfdan said. “Look, if you’re trying to prove your courage-”

“I’m trying to help a friend.”

“A friend? You have no friends here. This is madness.”

“Then go back to Nordland without me.”

“I’m in enough trouble with the King and Queen as it is,” Halfdan said bitterly, “for getting caught banging the Hermosan prime minister’s wife.” Then, pointing a finger at Hjalmar, Halfdan spat, “And I am not returning without their son, no matter how thick-headed and defective he is! So you take off that damned armor and-”

Hjalmar struck Halfdan in the side of the head with the back of his mailled fist. The man fell sideways onto the bed, unconscious.

“Perhaps they’ll forgive you if they know I gave you no choice,” Hjalmar said. “Goodbye, Halfdan.”

The big man took his wooden shield from his trunk, thrust his axe through his belt, and walked out the door.

***

Olaf burst through the service entrance to the castle, shouting “Anna! Anna, where are you?”

Kai, who was serially dispatching servants to various parts of the castle to make certain that the structure’s many doors and windows were secure, paused in mid-instruction and turned to the snowman with an expression of substantial irritation.

“The Princess is not here!” he barked. “She is dealing with a national crisis and needs no distractions.”

“Oh,” Olaf said. “That’s good. Because that means she’s okay. She’s okay, right? Not like…like Elsa?”

Kai’s face softened. “Yes, the Princess is all right.”

“Good,” Olaf said. “That’s…That’s good.”

Approaching the snowman, Kai said, “You know, there is a young man in the courtyard who could do with some company. He’s going to be evacuated with the other princes soon, but perhaps you would like to pay him a visit before he goes.”

“Young man?” Olaf said. “Oh! Prince High Pattycake!”

“Um, yes, something like that,” Kai said awkwardly.

“Great!” the snowman said, already jogging away with his odd gait. “I’ll go see him right now!”

***

When Hjalmar stepped out into the corridor, the doors of most of the nearby guest suites were open, revealing flurries of activity within. In addition, Baron Herringholtz was standing at the end of the hallway.

“I have made arrangements,” the baron said, “to transport you all to a safer location inland. A set of carriages is waiting by the gates.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Hjalmar growled.

Prince Sefu, artfully balanced on his stilts, looked at Hjalmar and said thoughtfully, “None of us will be marrying the Queen of Arendelle if she is deposed by the Dianisians.” Then, more firmly, he declared, “I will stay and fight, as well.”

“But Prince,” protested his attendant, Mofa, “we do not even know if the Queen is still alive.”

Dr. Montalvo stuck his head out the door of his and Prince Javier’s suite and said, “The rock trolls of this land are rumored to have healing magic unknown to mortal men. If anyone can save the Queen, it is they.”

Then the doctor looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Prince, please, come out of the closet!” Ignoring Prince Gormal’s snickering, Dr. Montalvo went on, “I am certain that the Dianisians have not deployed any sort of biological weapon!”

“Yes, I imagine King Heracasthenes said the same thing in 216 BC,” the prince replied, “before the Dianisians began catapulting dead horses over his city walls!”

“If you will excuse me,” Dr. Montalvo said to the others with a sigh before closing the door.

“We must make haste, your Highness,” Hamish said to Prince Gormal. “Those carriages won’t wait forever.”

“Mmm,” Gormal replied, glancing at Prince Sefu. “But methinks the Mianyokan has a point.” Then, taking up his bow, he added, “Besides, how often does a hunter get a chance to stalk the most dangerous game?”

Mofa frowned. “I do not think the Dianisians will be bringing lions with them.”

“What about snakes?” Prince Sefu asked nervously. Mofa shook his head.

Gormal, rolling his eyes, said, “I’m not talking about snakes, or lions, or bloody dead horses. The most dangerous game is man!”

Prince Varek, for whom Popov had been interpreting the conversation to this point, looked confused and then spoke to Popov, who nodded and then translated the prince’s words.

“Not correct. Most dangerous game crossbow roulette. Many die just deciding who go first.”

***

Anna was glad to finally reach the castle’s south tower. Even her normally abundant energy was starting to run low after all the walking, running, and stair-climbing she’d done in the last half-hour.

Upon arriving, Anna was greeted by two people who appeared to be little older than herself and who introduced themselves as her Army and Navy liaisons. The Navy man, his red hair neatly cut beneath his hat, was an ensign, if Anna was reading correctly the insignia on his blue uniform. And Anna was slightly surprised to see that the green-uniformed Army officer—a lieutenant, maybe?—was a woman, her dirty-blonde hair tied back in a braid, like Tilde’s.

Before either of them could say more, Anna glanced out the window and noticed something unexpected.

“Why haven’t any of the ships at the Navy dock been launched?” she asked the ensign, pointing at the four slender sailing vessels tied up there.

“I was about to tell you, ma’am,” the young man said. “The rudder chains on all four have been sabotaged. Repairs are underway now; I’ll give you a time estimate as soon as I have it.

“The good news,” he continued, “is that the galleons”—he pointed to a half-dozen ships anchored in the harbor, each considerably larger than the four docked interceptors—”seem to be fully functional. The saboteur probably decided he couldn’t get to them without being spotted. The Harbor Patrol is helping us get the crews out to them as quickly as possible; our flagship, the King Agnarr, should raise anchor in a few minutes.”

Anna looked out to sea. She could now clearly see with her naked eye the Dianisian-flagged ship that she had barely been able to make out with the spyglass earlier. And there were other ships behind that one—at least ten, and who knew how many more in their wake.

She turned to the Army woman. “How are the troops? Are the Duke and his daughters having any luck arming them?”

“Some, ma’am,” the lieutenant replied. “But not nearly enough. At this point, it looks like more than half of our troops will be facing the enemy with makeshift weapons and no armor.”

“That’s not going to cut it,” Anna said. “King Aegeus is desperate. He’s going to throw everything he’s got at us.”

“Yes, ma’am. We do have a cavalry unit stationed just outside of town that will be here soon. And we are summoning reinforcements from the interior.”

“Hmm,” said Anna. “How many-”

“Your Highness!” a familiar male voice called. Anna turned and saw Baron Herringholtz approaching, flanked by a pair of guards who stopped him before he got close to Anna.

“I came to inform you,” the Baron said, “that the princes have refused to evacuate—save for Prince Rajiv, whom I have been unable to locate, and the boy, Tomas, to whom I have given no choice in the matter. The rest, for reasons of their own, have elected to stay and fight.”

“Well, I won’t refuse the help,” Anna replied. “But…Rajiv is missing? What about Ajay? Captain Anand, I mean.”

“Neither has been seen since midmorning,” Herringholtz replied. “It seems unlikely that they have fled; all of their belongings are still here, as is the crew of their ship. Also, Prince Sefu’s attendant, Mofa, recalled their saying something about a meeting.”

“A meeting with who? And where?”

“He didn’t know with whom, but he believed the meeting was to take place somewhere in the castle.”

The wheels in Anna’s head began to turn. The Dianisians had tried to take out Elsa, almost certainly because of her powers. And now it was public knowledge that Rajiv had powers of his own. What if they had wanted him out of the way, as well?

Grasping her owl pendant, Anna thought, I’ll bet my new necklace that that’s what those phony guards were up to. And since they were trying to leave on foot, Rajiv and Ajay—or, oh God, their bodies—must still be here.

Anna turned to the trio of pages—including Max, the new boy—who were standing by in case the princess needed to send a message. She pointed to Max.

“The maid staff know the castle better than anyone. Find Gerda and tell her to have them search every guest room, meeting room, pantry, and broom closet in the place until Prince Rajiv and Captain Anand are found.”

“Yes, your Highness!” the boy said, and ran off.

“Highness,” Herringholtz said, the guards still eyeing him. “There is something else. The boy talked about a flask of something highly flammable that Lord Otos used to escape the Queen’s ice.”

“Yes,” Anna replied. “And it looks like he used the same thing to burn down the armory.”

Herringholtz nodded gravely. “Then I fear that the stories may be true.”

“What stories?” the princess replied.

“Centuries ago,” the matchmaker began, “there was a war among all the kingdoms of the Greek peninsula.”

“The Pan-Hellenic War,” Anna said, remembering the history lessons of her youth. “It started out as a border dispute between two kingdoms, but eventually they all got pulled into it. There was so much destruction that they finally stopped fighting and signed a peace agreement.”

Nodding, Herringholtz said, “That much is well documented. But some historians assert, on the basis of rather slim evidence, that the signing of the armistice was precipitated by the introduction of a new weapon—a liquid so flammable that a few gallons of it, properly applied, could burn an entire village to the ground within minutes. Those who believe that this substance existed call it ‘Greek fire.’”

Anna’s eyes widened, but the wheels in her head kept turning.

“But...if this weapon was so powerful, why hasn’t it been used since then?”

“Allegedly, after the Dianisians invented Greek fire, two of the enemy kingdoms obtained the formula by spycraft or reverse engineering. As a result, large parts of every kingdom on the peninsula were soon reduced to ash. And so the peace agreement they signed included an unspoken clause: that the kingdoms that possessed the formula would never again use it on Greek soil—nor anywhere else, except in dire emergency. The royal families have kept the formula a secret ever since.”

“I guess King Aegeus decided that Dianisia’s economic meltdown qualifies as a dire emergency.”

“Quite. One wonders how the formula has been kept so well hidden for so long a time. Even today, historians who believe in Greek fire can only speculate about its ingredients.”

Anna thought back to the strange smell of the smoke in the parlor and in the streets around the armory, and something clicked.

“Is it possible,” she said slowly, “that those ingredients include sulfur and pine pitch?”

Now it was Herringholtz’s eyes that widened.

“Yes, your Highness, that is very possible.”

“Damn it,” Anna muttered, not caring who heard. “They’ve been setting this up for months! Right under our noses!” she cried as she smacked her fist into her palm. “God, how did I not see it?”

“Highness,” Herringholtz said, “as I understand it, before this week your responsibilities chiefly involved bottles of inexpensive champagne and oversized pairs of scissors. I hardly think you can blame yourself. And it is clear that these events are the result of very careful planning.”

“You’re not kidding,” Anna replied. “Not only did they have a plan and a backup plan for killing my sister, but they even brought a fire weapon to use in case both of those plans failed.”

“As King Aegeus is known to say, ‘Plan for success, but be prepared for failure.’”

Before Anna could respond, the young ensign approached.

“Excuse me, your Highness? The King Agnarr has weighed anchor and is heading toward the enemy fleet. The other galleons are nearly ready to do the same.”

Anna rushed back to the window to watch, focusing on the Dianisian fleet.

“What’s that smaller ship behind the Dianisians' lead galleon?”

Squinting into his spyglass, the young Navy officer said, “It’s definitely not a standard Dianisian naval vessel. It looks like a modified carrack.”

A page had brought Anna a spyglass of her own, which she now looked through.

“There’s something sticking out of the front. Like a brass pole, or a tube.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

The Agnarr and the Dianisian galleon drew closer, and the crews of each vessel began firing their ballistas at each other. The accuracy of these giant crossbows was not spectacular, and the first several shots missed, but as the distance closed, the Arendellan ship managed to score a hit on the enemy galleon’s foresail and rigging, causing the Dianisian crew to scramble to repair or replace the cut lines.

Now the smaller ship that had been sailing in the enemy galleon’s wake came around its larger partner, keeping the Dianisian galleon between itself and the Agnarr until it was less than a hundred yards away. Then it pulled out in front of the galleon.

Apparently sensing a threat, the Agnarr’s crew fired a ballista shot at the smaller vessel. The bolt struck, but too high, sticking harmlessly into an unoccupied portion of the Dianisian ship’s deck.

The small ship was about fifty yards from the Agnarr when, from the brass tube in the smaller ship’s bow, a stream of fire shot forth. It flew in an arc and struck the galleon’s deck, then the sails, instantly setting both ablaze. Through the spyglass, Anna could see sailors on fire, running and flailing, flinging themselves over the ship’s rail into the sea. The remaining crew did their best to fight the fire, but it was clear that they were already losing the fight.

As she numbly watched her kingdom’s flagship burn, Anna knew one thing: that although the other vessels of Arendelle’s navy would be more cautious of the fire-ships, whatever success they might have against the Dianisian fleet would only delay the inevitable. The enemy was coming to her kingdom’s shores, and this war would have to be won on land…if it was to be won at all.

END CHAPTER 15
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In the Light of Day: A Frozen Epic