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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 16: The Saboteur

Olaf bounded into the courtyard and was delighted to see his new young friend sitting on a stone bench at the far end.

“Prince Hypatia!” the snowman cried. “How are you?”

“Hey, Olaf,” the boy said glumly as he raised his head. His eyes were red, and his cheeks were wet.

“Oh no!” the snowman cried. “Are you melting? Here!”

Olaf grabbed hold of the boy and pulled him close, sharing the little flurry of snow that followed the snowman everywhere he went.

“There you go, Hyacinth! You’ll be solid again in no time!”

“Thanks, but…” the boy said, backing out of Olaf’s wooden arms, “…I’m not melting.” He cast his gaze down at the courtyard floor and said, “I’m a coward.”

“You take care of cows? I didn’t know princes did that.”

“N- No, I, I take care of goats. And I’m not a pri-”

“Then where does the cow part come in?”

“What I mean is…when Lord Otos attacked Queen Elsa, I…I didn’t do anything. I just sat there, watching. I didn’t try to stop him—I didn’t even yell until…until he came after me.”

The boy looked up at Olaf again, and now water was running out of his eyes as he said, “She was so nice to me, and I didn’t even try to help her. I just…froze. That’s why I’m a coward.”

“Didn’t you stop her from eating those poison chocolates?” Olaf asked. “I’d call that helping.”

“I guess.”

“Besides, Prince Hyperion, if a lady with magical ice powers couldn’t stop that O-Toad guy, what could you have done? Maybe freezing was the right thing to do. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a snowman.”

The boy looked back up at Olaf. His eyes seemed to be leaking less now.

“M- My name isn’t Prince Hypatios, or…whatever it was you said,” the boy explained. “It’s Tomas.”

Olaf put his hands to his mouth, staring at the prince with big eyes. Then he threw his arms in the air.

“Oh, thank goodness! That is SO much easier to say!”

Even though the boy was clearly not in the best of spirits, Olaf’s exclamation made him chuckle weakly.

“So where are all your prince pals?” Olaf asked.

“They all decided to stay here and fight,” Tomas replied. “Except Prince Rajiv. Nobody knows where he is. I hope he’s okay.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s got fire powers now, you know.” Nudging Tomas in the ribs with his wooden elbow, Olaf added, “Guess he’s a little hot under the collar.”

Tomas gave another feeble chuckle. “That’s awful.”

“He and Elsa must have had a heated argument.”

“That’s a little better.”

“I’ll bet the guy has a hot temper.”

“Now you’re back to awful.”

“Some people are just hotheads.”

“Please stop,” Tomas said, giggling nonetheless.

***

Anna was watching the enemy ships approach when the sound of an authoritative voice caused her to turn around.

“Highness,” the Captain of the Guard said, “these two men wanted to speak with you. They say it’s urgent—vital to the defense of the kingdom.”

Behind the Captain were two other guards, both keeping an eagle eye on the pair of men between them—Henrik and Grimmjaw, the rival ice-men with whom Kristoff had fought the previous evening.

“What brings you here?” Anna said, eying them skeptically.

“Well…” said the blonde-bearded Henrik, “there’s this fellow we know…”

“Not personally, you understand,” the dark-haired Grimmjaw said. “He’s a fellow we know of.”

“Yes, we know of him,” Henrik agreed.

“Guys,” Anna said, “I’m in the middle of an invasion, here. Is there a point you’re trying to get to?”

“Um, yeah,” Grimmjaw said. “We saw the armory fire, and that fellow we know of…well, he’s got a caravel anchored off of Tan Sands.”

Anna knew the place—a sandy beach not far from the port. It was a popular launch and landing spot used by fishermen in the daytime and, it was rumored, by smugglers at night.

“If you was to send some men aboard,” Henrik added, “they’d find a load of weapons and armor about to be smuggled out of Arendelle. Chainmail, swords, crossbows, all that.”

Anna turned to the pages standing ready nearby. “Go tell the Duke about the caravel. And tell him he’s authorized to board it and seize any armor and weapons he finds.”

“Yes, your Highness,” the boy said, running off.

Despite Anna’s having a hundred more pressing things to deal with, the princess’ curiosity got the better of her.

“Why are you two helping me like this?”

“Well,” said Henrik, “it’s not like we want to hand Arendelle over to a bunch of olive-munching foreigners. And, well…”

“We always thought,” Grimmjaw interjected, “that you made Bjorgman the Ice Master because...you know…”

“Because we’re lovers?” Anna said, having no time to mince words.

“Y- Yeah,” Grimmjaw replied.

“So last night,” Henrik said, “when we had that little...disagreement…with Bjorgman at the One-Eyed Wharf Rat, we figured you’d take his side and have us thrown out of the place. Maybe even into the dungeon.”

“But instead, you took our side,” Grimmjaw added. “You were fair. Maybe fairer than we deserved. So...I s’pose we misjudged you…” The man inclined his head as he finished, “...Highness.”

“So…” Henrik said, “if there’s anything else a couple of civilians could do to help…”

Nodding thoughtfully , Anna said, “Actually, I think there is.”

***

“Highness!” Doctor Montalvo shouted to his charge, who was still cowering in the closet. “We must flee the castle and seek refuge elsewhere.”

“What!?” Prince Javier cried. “We cannot leave the castle; there is about to be fighting in the streets! What if the Dianisians pursue and kill us? Even worse, what if they merely wound us, and we die slowly of some horrible infection?”

“Those things are more likely to happen if we remain here, Highness,” the doctor replied.

“I- I cannot move,” the prince replied shakily. “My legs will not obey me! No doubt it is peripheral nerve damage caused by my leprosy.”

Dr. Montalvo reached into his bag and, after a moment’s rummaging, produced two red pills. He held them out to the prince through the door.

“I have been saving these for an emergency,” the doctor said. “They will give you the strength of a lion, and the courage of two.”

The prince hesitated for a moment, then snatched the pills from Montalvo’s hand and swallowed them, not even bothering with a sip of water.

Five seconds passed silently. Then Prince Javier spoke, almost to himself.

“Oh, yes, that’s…that’s better.”

“Good,” Dr. Montalvo replied. “Now, I’ve packed most of your belongings. If we hurry, the carriages Baron Herringholtz hired to evacuate us will-”

“Evacuate?” the prince interrupted. “Nonsense!”

“What?”

Throwing on his arming coat—a long coat with protective layers, like the castle guards’ overcoats—Javier said, “We will join the others in the fight. Those Dianisian dogs will not spoil my suit for Queen Elsa’s hand!”

“But my Prince,” Montalvo pleaded as the prince belted a long rapier to his waist, “it would be unwise to-”

“To the battle!” Javier cried, and he dashed out the door.

Montalvo, jogging after him, sighed, “Perhaps two pills was too many.”

***

“Olaf?” Tomas said. “Do you know any other kids my age?”

“Sure I do!” Olaf cried cheerfully. “Lots of them! Kids seem to like me. Their parents, ehhhh….”

“Then...can I ask you a favor?”

“Of course! What is it?”

The boy looked around for a moment, then began whispering in Olaf’s ear.

***

The moment Henrik and Grimmjaw left the rooftop, Anna returned to the window where her two military liaisons had stationed themselves.

“Highness,” the young Navy officer said, “the enemy ships are coming within range of the castle-based ballistas. The shore-based ones will soon be able to fire on them, as well.”

“Good,” Anna said. “But make sure the ballista crews know that they should flee if one of the fire ships gets close enough to spray them.”

“Their commanding officer will have briefed them, Highness. In any case-”

Just then, Anna heard someone—presumably the officer in charge of the various ballista teams on the castle battlements—shout, “Ready…Fire!”

Anna turned to look as she heard the deep twang of half a dozen giant crossbow strings firing their big, arrow-like projectiles. And then she was nearly blinded as all six ballistas suddenly burst into brilliant flame before her eyes.

Instantly realizing what had happened, Anna ran down the tower stairs onto the battlements. Men who had caught fire were rolling on the stone rooftop, trying to extinguish their burning clothing.

“Keep away from the ballistas!” Anna shouted at the crews. “You can’t put the fires out!”

Then Anna turned to a page, who had followed her down the stairs along with her two military liaisons.

“Run down and warn the shore crews that we’ve been sabotaged. Tell them not to fire unless they’ve inspected their weapons thoroughly for something sticky, like pine pitch. Got it?”

“Got it!” the page replied, then ran off downstairs into the castle.

“Highness,” said the approaching sergeant—presumably in charge of the ballista crews on the battlements. “How did this happen?”

“I’m guessing,” Anna replied, “that Otos put Greek fire in the grooves of the ballistas. When they were fired, the friction of the bolts against the grooves made the stuff light up, like striking a match.”

“This Otos has been very busy,” the Army liaison said with a hint of anger.

“He’s had days,” Anna replied, similarly irate. “All the time he needed to sabotage us half to death.”

But even as she said the words, she wondered whether they were really true. Surely, the interceptors were sailed or at least checked daily; the ballistas must have some regular schedule of inspections and maintenance; and there would be guard patrols in the armory that would notice any sticky liquid spread around the place if given enough time to discover it.

No, Anna concluded, all of the sabotage would have to have been done in a very short time frame to keep it from being noticed before the Dianisian forces arrived. Which raised a troubling question: Could Otos really have done all of it by himself?

***

Ajay was sitting back, watching raptly as the lovely Persian belly dancer gave him a private performance. Her movements were graceful and sinuous, as mesmerizing as her gorgeously curvaceous body.

“Parisa, my dear,” Ajay said with a smile. “Rarely have the gods seen fit to bestow such large measures of both talent and beauty upon one woman.”

She moved toward him, her long limbs seemingly moving independently of one another and yet in perfect synchrony, like four separate dancers performing in concert. As she drew near, Ajay could see her eyes above the veil that covered the rest of her face. They were strange…yellow, with pupils like vertical black slits.

Her arms went around him and transformed into the coils of a Burmese python. Suddenly his entire body was trapped, immobilized by the snake’s ropes of powerful muscle.

“But,” he cried, “we’re nowhere near Burma!”

His eyes flew open, and he realized he was bound, not by the coils of a snake, but by ropes and a gag. He was lying on a cold stone floor, the motionless Prince Rajiv next to him.

Ajay tried to speak, but his gag had been tied as expertly as his ropes. There was no bit of escape-artist trickery he could think of that would free him.

As best he could, he rolled over and nudged Prince Rajiv. The young man did not move.

Silently, Ajay prayed that the prince was merely unconscious.

***

The naval battle was effectively over. All of the galleons were either disabled or in flames. A couple of the interceptors were still out there, but because they dared not get too close to the fire ships, the small Arendellan vessels could do little more than harass the enemy.

Now, the Dianisan armada sailed unimpeded toward Arendelle’s shores. The larger ships anchored themselves where the Arendellan galleons had been; the smaller ones tied up at the naval and civilian docs, their crews’ efforts only barely slowed by the small number of Arendellan troops that had managed to obtain crossbows before the armory went up in flames.

One small ship, protected by covering fire from two Dianisian interceptors, pulled right up to the waterfront in the heart of the port. A dozen cavalrymen, clad in plate armor and bearing lances, quickly rode down the ship’s ramp and onto the cobblestone street. As soon as the last horse’s hooves were on the pavement, the ship’s crew rapidly pulled up the short gangplank and unmoored the ship.

“Oh, jeez,” Anna said nervously. “This is it. We’re being invaded.”

“I wouldn’t worry just yet,” her Army liaison said, pointing. “Look.”

Perhaps two city blocks inland, the cavalry unit that General Stark had summoned from outside the city was now riding into the market square. They moved with great order and precision, their lances pointing skyward for safety.

“Our most elite troops,” the Army woman said proudly. “And mounted combat has never been the Dianisians’ strong suit. Those boys are going to wish they’d stayed home.”

At the unit captain’s barked order, twelve of the cavalrymen—the maximum number that could ride side-by-side down the wide street that led to the waterfront—lined up to face the newly arrived enemy.

“That’s odd,” Anna’s Navy liaison said distractedly. He was looking the opposite way, toward the Dianisians.

“What’s odd?” Anna asked the young man.

The cavalry captain barked another order, audible but incoherent at this distance, and the line of Arendellan horsemen lowered their lances until they pointed dead ahead. At the same time, a second line of riders formed behind the first.

“That ship,” the young naval officer said. “It’s not a troop transport; it’s one of the fire ships. It can only carry as many cavalry as you see there, so why would the Dianisians use it to deploy them?”

Anna looked at the ship, which, under oar power, seemed to be rotating in place, the bow swinging around to face the shore.

The cavalry captain barked again, and the first line of Arendellan riders charged toward the enemy. The Dianisian horsemen lowered their lances toward the Arendellans, seemingly ready to receive the charge.

“Oh, no,” Anna whispered. Then she grabbed the Army officer’s shoulder.

“This is a trick!” the princess shouted. “You have to stop them! NOW!”

The uniformed woman looked confused, but she clearly wasn’t about to question a direct order from her acting commander-in-chief. She took a tin whistle out of her breast pocket and, leaning over the parapet, blew three loud blasts.

The Arendellan cavalrymen did not slow. The reason was clear: The clatter of their horses’ iron shoes on the cobblestone street was drowning out any other sound.

As the Arendellans rapidly closed in, the Dianisian cavalry suddenly split, half of them breaking to the right and the other half to the left. Then Anna’s hands flew to her mouth as liquid fire sprayed from the brass tube on the fire ship’s bow, setting several of the Arendellan riders and their horses on fire. The animals wheeled about, throwing their flaming riders and, in some cases, trampling them as they thrashed or ran blindly away.

Anna could do nothing but close her eyes against the horrible sight. But that didn’t make the screams any easier to bear.

***

Olaf was seated awkwardly on the courtyard bench, facing toward the door, when Kai entered.

“Olaf!” he shouted. “Where is the boy? I must get him to his carriage immediately!” Muttering, the servant added, “Curse me, I’ve been so busy preparing the castle, I nearly forgot about him. The poor child must be terrified.”

“Um, I think he went to the little princes’ room,” Olaf said.

Kai squinted at Olaf. The snowman tried to act natural.

“Very well, I will seek him there,” said Kai, and he disappeared back through the door.

After a moment, a muffled voice said, “Is he gone?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah,” Olaf replied.

Tomas leaned back rapidly, pulling his face from where it had been embedded in the back of Olaf’s head. The front half of his body was covered from head to toe in snow.

“Oh my gosh,” the boy said, rubbing his pale, numb cheeks. “I’ve never been that cold.”

“That was pretty weird for me, too,” Olaf said. “And I don’t know what I looked like to Kai. He probably thought I’d gained forty pounds.”

“Fifty,” the boy corrected. “Now you’d better get going.”

“Right,” Olaf said, standing up. “Have you got someplace to hide?”

“The closet in my room upstairs,” Tomas said. “Come find me after, okay?”

“Okay,” the snowman said, giving the boy a hug.

***

Various princes and attendants had assembled just outside the main gates of the castle, walking out with the last of the evacuation carriages just before the gates were closed against the coming siege.

Prince Gormal, his attendant Hamish, Prince Hjalmar, and Prince Varek’s attendant Popov were clad in chainmail, while Prince Varek himself wore a steel cuirass. Prince Javier was wearing his arming coat. Prince Sefu and Mofa wore no armor, but both were wielding long spears, and Prince Sefu carried the shield the length of his body—not including the height added by his stilts. Dr. Montalvo had no armor or weapons but carried his leather bag, apparently ready to serve as the group’s medic if the need arose.

Looking down at Sefu’s stilts and then up at his face, Gormal asked skeptically, “How exactly are you meant to move around on the battlefield in those things?”

A bit defensively, the African prince replied, “You would be surprised at the swiftness they afford.”

Before Gormal could reply, Prince Hjalmar cut in.

“We need a plan,” he said gruffly.

“Quite right!” Prince Javier agreed, brandishing his rapier with dangerous enthusiasm. “We must use clever tactics if we are to win the day.”

“What we need,” Gormal said, “is a blind—a place from which we can observe the enemy’s approach, and then strike without warning.”

Popov nodded as Prince Varek whispered something into his ear.

“We know just right place,” the gray-bearded attendant said. “Follow, please.”

***

“Excuse me, sir!” Olaf shouted out the carriage window. “This is my stop!”

The driver pulled over. Olaf looked at the boy across from him, who was dressed in the finery of a Dianisian prince. His face was half hidden by a royal-blue scarf.

Loudly, Olaf said, “Farewell, Prince Hippodrome!”

“Thanks for helping my family get out of town before the invasion, Olaf,” the boy whispered.

“Thanks for getting all dressed up for the occasion, Simon,” Olaf whispered back as he exited the carriage.

Several people—an adult couple, an old man, and two small girls—got into the carriage as Olaf got out. Olaf was relieved to see them, given that thick black smoke was starting to rise from somewhere down by the docks and was visibly creeping inland.

“Wait a minute,” the driver protested. “Who are those people?”

“Oh, you know,” Olaf replied. “The prince’s servants, attendants, hairstylist…These royalty types don’t go anywhere without an entor- antouri- a bunch of other people.” Then, before the driver could speak again, the snowman cried “Have a nice trip!” and bounded away.

***

Lord Otos tried not to let his success go to his head. In the space of four days, he had infiltrated Arendelle’s royal court, provided the Dianisian invasion force with substantial intelligence on the kingdom’s defenses, sabotaged many of those defenses, and, most importantly, removed this land’s witch-queen from play. Evading capture and managing to meet up with a platoon of Dianisian crossbowmen was just extra tzatziki sauce on his lamb.

“The best route is to the south and around the exterior castle wall,” Otos was explaining. “Be sure to watch for crossbows and counter-siege weapons as you approach. Hydra Company will be laying siege from the other side, but that won’t distract all of the defenders.” He smiled and added, “Remember the words of our king: Plan for success, but-”

“Otos!”

The Dianisian nobleman jerked his head around toward the source of the sound. There on the cobblestone road, about forty feet inland and eight feet uphill from where Otos was standing, stood a massive reindeer. Mounted on its back were the ice-man Kristoff and, in front of him, the Queen.

Even at this distance, Otos could see the cold fury in the woman’s ice-blue eyes as she fixed him in her gaze and spoke to him with a voice like iron.

“Be prepared for failure.”

END CHAPTER 16
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In the Light of Day: A Frozen Epic