Heart of Ice (The Snow Queen #1)(50)
“Elf-friend Ragnar. It is my joy to answer your call. How can I assist you?” the warrior asked. Her luxurious blonde hair was twisted in an artful braid, and she had long, tapered ears, and eyes a curious shade of jade green. Several black tattoos framed her eyes and flowed down her arms. She wore beautiful, intricate armor and wielded a shortsword, and the weapon seemed to give off an aura of its own.
Rakel stared. What is an elf-friend? In all her reading, she had never heard the term. Of course, she had never read of anything like Ragnar’s transportation magic, either.
Ragnar bowed. “Thank you for answering my summons, Genovefa. My request is that you would fight this man on my behalf,” he said, indicating Farrin.
Farrin’s scowl grew sharp as he changed his stance. He released Rakel and maneuvered her behind him.
“I understand,” the warrior said. She snapped down the visor of her helm and sprang at Farrin.
Farrin, his grasp awkward due to the manacles, brought up his greatsword just in time. When the blades clashed, they showered the air with sparks, and the ground beneath them shook.
The female warrior leaped back. “He has magic,” she stated.
“S-speed and magic reflection,” Frodi stammered, staring open-mouthed.
“I see. Thank you for this information.” She dove at Farrin again.
“Princess,” Captain Halvor said, appearing at her side as Farrin and the warrior met again, this time with a thunderclash. “It’s time.”
“I apologize, it’s just…” Rakel shook her head and turned her back on the battle. She heard Frodi throw another fireball and glanced over her shoulder.
“They’ll handle it.”
“Yes,” Rakel agreed as she picked up her pace and started running. “Are we on schedule?”
“Mostly. The three other magic users under Colonel Graydim’s command are by the municipal building.”
Rakel flinched as lightning cracked in the sky. “I see. I apologize for the delay,” she said, when they skid to a stop at a corner.
Captain Halvor checked around the corner and then nodded to her. They ran again—though this time they ran into four Chosen soldiers.
“Keep moving. The municipal building is straight ahead,” he said, as he slipped his sword from its scabbard.
Rakel ran as Captain Halvor spun around and engaged the soldiers, his sword ringing when it hit their armor.
Rakel skidded into the courtyard just in time to see the weather magic-user—standing on the top floor of the municipal building—raise his hand. Thunder growled, and Rakel sprinted towards the center—where a small unit of thirty or so Verglas soldiers stood—penned in by Chosen troops. She threw a block of ice at two of the Chosen soldiers, creating a gap that she slipped through. She had just enough time to throw her hands up, creating a huge shield of ice as lightning fell from the sky. The ice shield bloomed like a four-leaf clover, shaking when lightning struck it.
Rakel gritted her teeth and increased the thickness of the shield as the lightning danced across its surface. When the attack was finally spent, Rakel shattered her shield, forming a cloud of razor sharp daggers, which she rained down on the surrounding Chosen soldiers.
The Verglas troops, free from magical assault, sprang against the Chosen, engaging them in combat.
She turned her gaze to the municipal building and saw the weather-boy gaping down at her. “Shoot!” he shouted—his voice barely more than an anxious peep over the shouts of the soldiers. He ran towards an observation platform, but a wall of ice pushed him straight over the edge of the roof. He shouted as he fell and landed in a large, cushy pile of snow Rakel had summoned for the occasion. He fell again when she whisked the snow away, and before he could stand, bands of thick ice spread across his ankles, knees, wrists, elbows, and hips, freezing him to the ground.
The young man shouted in frustration. Rakel ignored him and raised an ice shield behind her. The wolf that was leaping for her open back hit it—nose first—and was flipped head over tail.
Rakel put a loving hand on the ice shield as she smiled benevolently at the wolf. Her ice shield was not a crude, plain wall of ice, but a beautifully sculpted shield that possessed the same flourishes as the royal crest, except for the reindeer standing in front of a snowflake emblazoned on its center.
When the wolf lunged at her again, Rakel sent the shield forward, and it rammed into the wolf with the force of a stampeding bull reindeer.
The wolf yipped, hit the ground, and howled when an ice collar snapped shut around its neck. The collar was connected to a short chain that held it anchored to a block of ice. The wolf barked and tried to transform—its fur going from a fluffy wolf pelt to the white of a snow bear. When its throat wouldn’t grow due to the constriction of the ice collar, the wolf choked and coughed. Rakel snapped a cage around it—one that had three interlocking layers of bars, and a ceiling cut like a gemstone.
The wolf changed into a fox and managed to slip from the collar, but in neither its fox, wolf, nor snow bear form could it break through the cage bars.
Ahh yes…so the shifter is their scout. We will have to keep an eye out for foxes in the future. Rakel smiled in satisfaction as the brutish magic-user gnawed on one of the bars of the cage, yelping when it chipped a tooth.
“Princess!” a soldier shouted.
The Verglas soldiers had subdued the Chosen troops whom previously surrounded them and reorganized their ranks so they were spread around Rakel in a protective formation. The soldiers on one end of the formation were tossed aside when the young girl with the strength magic pushed through them, wildly swinging her fists to clear her path.