“As you will, General Halvor.” Tollak nodded to Halvor and peeled off from the group.
“Frodi, smoke them out,” General Halvor said.
“Yes, sir!” Frodi saluted, and the fires under his control flared, roaring like angry beasts as they grew in size. Frodi nudged them forward and wolfed down his jerky, desperate to restore the energy he burned while nurturing the flames.
The raiding mercenaries fled Begna, running for the hills. As Knut predicted, they ran down the path that cut between the sloping mountainsides. There they regained a semblance of organization and stopped fleeing, making a stand in the pass.
“Get ready; they’re regrouping!” Phile shouted. She was back on her horse and had three daggers clenched between the fingers of her free hand as she pulled her mount’s reins with the other.
“Charge!” General Halvor barked.
Verglas troops leaped from their sleighs to attack the mercenaries with swords and pikes. When the two forces met, the air sang with the clamor of blade meeting blade.
Rakel kept most of her focus on the resistance fighters. They were well armed, but they lacked armor, so she did whatever she could to shield them. Oddly, the resistance fighters reminded Rakel of Phile and the way she workedwithRakel’s magic instead of around it.
If Rakel raised a protective wall, they chipped arrow slits in it and shot the Chosen soldiers down from behind the safety of the ice. Several of them had swapped out their spears, trading them for one of Rakel’s ice swords, and some of them lobbed snowballs when they ran out of weapons.
More than once their reindeer and snowflake banner caught Rakel’s eyes.Phile said the common people considered me a hero, but I thought she meant they held me in high esteem—like Pordis and Tryggvi. I didn’t know she meantthis.
In spite of being cut down on two sides, the mercenary forces started to stabilize. Verglas Troops had succeeded in driving them back, but only a few horse lengths—just past the foothills of the mountains.
Frodi’s fire shrank as he lost energy, but Eydìs pushed forward with rope snakes, dragging Chosen soldiers down, tying them together, and immobilizing them.
“Make them budge,” Oskar shouted. “They have to go deeper. The pass is too wide here!”
“Eydìs is almost out of rope,” Frodi said.
“That is far from being so.” Eydìs sniffed. “But Frodi is about to pass out.”
“No I ain’t!” Frodi protested.
Rakel slipped from her sleigh. “I’ll get them out.”
“Princess?” Oskar leaped out after her. “Are you certain?”
Rakel offered him a smile. “It’s fine. I trust you, Phile, and General Halvor to guard me as I rest,” she said.
“What about me?” Frodi piped in.
“As she didn’t list your name, I believe that implies that she doesn’t think your presence is necessary during her convalescence,” Eydìs said.
“She didn’t list your name either,” Frodi snarled.
Eydìs cut a short length of rope and flung it at a Chosen mercenary. It wrapped around his head, blocking his eyes. “You are correct. But I had the good sense not to draw attention to that.”
Rakel smiled at the pair’s bickering. “I entrust Oskar into your care,” she said.
Eydìs waved her hand. “Of course—though I suspect Phile will be disappointed to hear you did not offer him to her.”
“I’m coming with you, Princess,” Oskar said.
“No.”
Oskar frowned.
“I’m not going into battle,” Rakel promised.
“As you wish,” Oskar said. “Be careful.”
