Frost & Fire

Chapter 21 (Loki)

I looked down at the ring on my finger, the one we both received when we fought the black rings and my sister. The white had dulled since then, more so when I began forgetting things and yet having some source of information about the rebellion.

Working on a strategy for the war I practically lived in the war room surrounded by the best minds of my warriors. For the past few months we had been fighting a war of words in a way. But for the past couple of weeks it had turned into skirmishes between the rebels and our people.

"How much do we know about their forces?" I asked Hredr. Over the past while he'd proven he is not just valuable as the head of the guards, but also as a military genius which meant he was the head of my warriors.

"We know a great deal my King. We know that there are only a couple hundred of them. We know they have two most likely places for their main base. We know that they are zealots and will die for their belief that their leader is being held unjustly and that they are in the right for usurping the crown from you for him."

"Do we know anything of their plans?"

"No. Unfortunately the only spy I have that's been able to infiltrate their ranks has not become important enough to know sensitive information like that."

"Well fuck." I thought about how we could go about defeating their forces. If they were in one of two places then we had to strike soon. But that would mean splitting our forces so that we could send a group to either place and hopefully find who we are looking for. "Do we know anything about their leaders? Who they are, or even what they look like?"

"That we do know. I've got images of their leaders, they have three that act as a tribunal so there are never any ties for voting on what they'll do." he pulled out a set of images of the three Jotuns who were behind everything that was keeping me and mine from being safe on my home world. "If these three are captured it might make enough of an impact in their morale that they stop this war."

"I should have killed their leader instead of imprisoning him. Damnit I should have fought her on that and actually ended him so they had no one to rally behind."

"With respect sire I don't think even that would have worked. These ones are all fanatics, they'll stop at nothing to have their way and even the death of their first leader will just make them fight that much harder and with that much more vigor on the battlefield. There is nothing you could have done differently."

I stared at the images and thought about it. "I have an idea. Listen closely and you'll need to find a way to get the word out."

I told Hredr my plan for the next twenty minutes as we tweaked it and worked out every possible outcome that wouldn't be exactly as I hoped it would go. Finally when we were satisfied he left the castle to go deliver the news of the new king to the neighboring peoples. The coronation was set to take place in just two days which gave not just them time to move their units close to the city to attack us during the coronation if they so chose. It also gave us time to set traps.

I wasn't going to let anything come between having my wife and son with me at all times. I closed my eyes and thought of the door again and how more things were going to have to go behind it soon.

*****

Two days later I stood just inside of one of our guest rooms, the balcony showing out to where the people would gather for the coronation of the new king. Everything was in place and I was ready to do what needed done. But first I had to do something that I knew had a chance of backfiring on me. Something I had no choice in.

"Kitten, are you still there?"

It took a few minutes, I was about to give up hope of talking to her before everything went down, then I heard her voice.