DeFrosted

Chapter 42

I close one eye and take aim, any second now the fuse would burn out. With a almost deafening set of booms the other cannons set off. Some missing the ship by just inches. One hitting the back of the stern.  I position the cannon and faster then the eye can see a ball launches out, landing just below the surface,  but still crippling the rudder.

"Great shot!" Hans slaps me on the back in congratulations.  "Men, get ready to take the boat, we have just minutes til the rest of the ships catch up with us."

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(Anna )

They locked me in Lord Dreggs private chambers at the start of the attack.

"Lock my new wife in the chamber with the others." The villain sets a metal circlet atop my head and roughly pushed me towards Groaa. The skinny gangly one picked me up and tossed me easily over his shoulder, like a baker would a sack of flour.
I pick this time to put up a fight, pounding my fists into his back, but it was useless. He was as immovable as a rock. He carries me down the stairs and pushed me into a dimly lit room.  The sound of a giant bolt being locked only added to me fear.

I was surprised at the touch of a soft hand, it reaches under my arm and helps me to my feet.  I turn and I am surprised at the sight of a strange girl.  She had long raven black hair,  oddly shaped eyes stared at me with a mixture of concern and pity. She was dressed in beautiful, embroidered  silks, which bulged tightly at her stomach. She was pregnant. 

In the low candle light of the chamber,  I make out 5 other girls behind her. Who all looked like nothing I'd ever seen before. A girl with beautifully colored skirts,  bronze skin and long curly dark hair stood with a babe in arms.  Beside her a braxen beauty with skin like milk chocolate and eyes like honey, a small baby girl with  carmel colored skin and wild honey colored hair she held tighty against herself. Next to her was Another woman with hair so red it made mine look brown. Dressed in green garments, a toddler supported himself by this woman's knee. A tall thin brunette women dressed in what looked like a bed sheet wrapped elegantly around her body, she as well was with child.  And finally another woman with bronze skin and dark hair,  but this one wore it braided like my own.  She wore what looked like tanned animal skins and a necklace made of....bone?  Again, with child.

All  remarkably beautiful In the most different of ways. Now I see why he wanted Elsa. He was a collecter. All these woman wore a gold circlet on their heads.... Viking symbols of royalty.  Like I suspected,  These woman were all monarchs.

"Are you ill?" She asks through an almost innigable accent.  Concerned filled those hauntingly pretty eyes. The one with the red hair steps forward.  "What Meili means is are you hurt?"  I recognized her voice, her dialect was that of an island far to the south, one called Ireland. Once in a blue moon we would receive a trade ship in the port that had wandered far from home.   It was also my understanding that the queen of the Southern Isles was from this land. Hence the famous red hair all the princes bore.

"You are from Ireland?" I ask.  "Yes, I am princess Aileen. A decade ago my father gave me to this viking as a peace offering."

"And these others,  are you all royalty as well?" I question, but I already know the answer.  Each of the woman nodded in turn except the one in the strange white dress.
"My country has no monarchy.  It is a democracy. Run by elected officials instead of a lineage. But my father is one of those officials  so...."