by Nancy Osa
Frida felt liquid hit her face. She tasted it, but it was just water. She opened her eyes and feigned difficulty wiping them with her hands, as though still under the potion’s influence.
Rafe stood across from her, hands on hips. He gave an ugly grin. “So, sister of mine. Now you know what it’s like to be separated from those you love.”
The word love hung in the air, and Frida knew it described her feelings for Rob first, and for her friends and the horses nearly as much.
“What do you want with me?” she asked fiercely.
“I? Want with you?” Rafe barked a laugh. “Nada. I’ve wanted nothing to do with the clan since I was dumped at the nearest village as a child. It’s what others want with you and your cohorts . . . and what they will pay for it.”
“What have we done?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. A ‘mercenary collective’ my eye! You’re a rogue battalion out to unseat the all-powerful griefer army. You might ask your judge friend. . . . That’s called treason. You’ll die a hundred deaths for it.”
“I’ll always respawn,” she shot back.
“Not if you take enough damage. And Legs will see to that. He’s pegged you for the petty griefer who intruded on his zombie slave ring. You must have thrown quite the monkey wrench into that scheme.”
“I almost took him down.”
“Almost doesn’t count in this game, sweetheart.” He sniggered. “It doesn’t count in your relationship with Rob, either. Does it? Or he’d be here for you now.”
This tore at Frida’s heart like thorns on silk.
“Never mind him. He’s nothing to me,” she lied. “What do you want with De Vries and Crash? They’re just a couple of innocent tourists.”
“Ha! I don’t care what they are, just what they can do. Those two are the most skilled of all the miners and builders in the Overworld.”
“So? This isn’t an awards ceremony.”
A greedy smile spread over Rafe’s face. “They will build me the finest cathedral in any biome!”
“What makes you think they’d work for you?”
“Powerful people owe me. When I hand you and your battalion over to Legs and Lady Craven, they will, shall we say . . . encourage your tourists to put their skills to my use.”
“And then what?”
“And then I will have no further need for them. They can respawn where they will.”
Frida regarded him darkly. “A man of the cloth, killing, extorting, kidnapping . . .”
“I am not bound by oaths,” he said.
“Then, what about blood? You wear the family mark!”
Again, he laughed. He pulled his ponytail aside and swiped at the tattoo with the heel of his hand, and it smeared.
“Dye!”
“Yes. A fake. We used it to lure you, and you fell for it.” He advanced on her, flicking her between the eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “I am your brother, but have no feeling for you. And you obviously have no love for me.”
This was the false sentiment that Frida had sensed but could not identify. Well, two can play that game.
“But . . . I trusted you!” Frida jumped to her feet.
He shook a finger at her, mocking her. “Now, now. Love will get you hurt, sister, but trust will get you killed.”
“Amen, brother.” Casually, Frida dropped a hand to the ground, reaching for something. In one motion, she grabbed the flattened patch of ice and hurled it at Rafe’s evil face, where it melted on contact.
Immediately, his body seized up, and his arms and legs lost all power.
Frida jumped for the furnace and removed the bucket of lava that was fueling it. She dumped it on the woolen bed, which burst into flames.
“You shouldn’t have trusted me, brother!”
Frida scrambled up and out of the basement, pulling up the ladder and dropping the trap door shut behind her. The packed-ice floor and walls wouldn’t melt or burn, and the flaming bed would soon extinguish. But Rafe would stay trapped long enough for her to make a getaway.
Frida felt a twinge of fear as she wondered what he and Bluedog had done with Ocelot. Yet, there the horse stood, tied to an ice column, eating some hay that had been dropped on the floor in front of her.
Now the survivalist checked her inventory. Rafe couldn’t access her items without killing her. She had only been prevented from using them by the splash potion’s effect, which had worn off. Just in case, she dug deep for the griefer pendant and slung it around her neck, tucking it inside her shirt.
Frida glanced around the ice-block room, with its vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows. There must be something useful here. . . . Rafe’s computer lay open on a side table. It could be chock full of important information. She snapped it shut and stuffed it in Ocelot’s saddlebag.
Her mind raced as she traded the horse’s lead rope for a bridle. Rafe and Bluedog had to be in league with Legs and Lady Craven. Rafe might have responded to a virtual wanted poster on the battalion and recognized Frida’s tattoo. He could have approached the griefer bosses with a way to bait her and her cavalry mates. Wearing the family tattoo would gain Frida’s trust. Then she and her friends could be offered an easy-money job—guarding a minecart that didn’t need any protection—to put them in range. Once their identity had been confirmed, Bluedog and Rafe would offer Battalion Zero up to Lady Craven and company. As a reward, the queen of the griefers would make Bluedog rich. She would enslave De Vries and Crash to build a fabulous, new cathedral for Rafe, so he could continue presiding over his church of the black market.
There was just one thing the criminals hadn’t counted on: Frida’s quick wits . . . and her long-ago training that had taught her never to fully trust anyone, if she wanted to survive.
CHAPTER 13
FRIDA MOUNTED OCELOT, AND THE TWO GALLOPED down the packed-ice main street of the city and out the north town gate. The survivalist reached into her saddlebag for some bread, which she crammed in her mouth as she rode. The mare had just enjoyed a full meal that would allow her to run and jump at top speed over the icy plains for hours on end.
Before they could reach the mesa plateau border, Frida steered the horse south, detouring through the cold taiga until they had bypassed the battalion’s camp. She might come back that way, but for now, it was not her destination.
Evening fell, and the moon rose. On and on the horse and rider ran, crossing the hilly plateau until they both slowed from hunger. Only then did Frida jump down and refill their food bars from her inventory. She paid little mind to the zombies that spawned, dispatching them with offhand slashes of her iron sword. Then, she and Ocelot regained the trail and ran on, into the night.
With the dawn, they left the far mesa and crossed the border to a stone beach. Frida reined the mare northward, following the beach past shadowy mountains that held familiar vegetation. They stopped only to sip from streams that rushed down from the foothills and to snack enough to ward off health damage.
On they ran. No mob was fleet enough to catch them.
Frida left her troubled thoughts behind and looked only ahead now, to the heart of the jungle that was her home. All that she knew was born there. All that she had become had flowered from those early years.
The drumming of Ocelot’s hooves on stone and the sharp huff of her breath filled Frida’s ears. A dark sheen of sweat covered them both in the coastal sun and damp. Still, they did not halt until late in the afternoon, when the survivalist recognized a notch in a tree that towered above all others. She brought the horse down to a trot and swung under the canopy of a distinctive jungle stand of oak trees.
Home, at last.
Suddenly, the breath was knocked out of her, and Ocelot ran right out from between her legs. Everything went dark.
*
There was no telling how much time had passed when Frida returned to consciousness. She heard little girls giggle and felt many hands carrying her limp body. Spots of sunlight fell on her face as they passed benea
th holes in the tree cover.
They stopped, and the bearers set Frida gently down in a bower of ferns. A woman approached whom Frida recognized.
“Xanto?”
“It is I.” The woman was an elderly reflection of Frida, with thick, dark hair that was wrapped around her waist. Her face held strength and tenderness, insight and wisdom. “Your mother is coming from a temple visit. Why are you here, child?”
“What happened? Someone attacked me.”
Xanto held out a gold chain. “Our lookout saw you wearing this.” It was the griefer medallion emblazoned with Lady Craven’s initials.
“I’m not—”
“I know.”
Frida commenced to tell her everything: meeting Rob, forming the cavalry, infiltrating Legs’s camp . . . being forced to retreat from Zombie Hill and to take work where they could find it. She told Xanto about Rafe—how he’d betrayed her and how she’d escaped his clutches. “I’m here because I don’t know what to do next,” she finally admitted.
A hand reached out from behind her and rested on her arm. “You’re home now, dear.”
“Mami! Then—you heard it all?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
Gisel had been summoned on her way back from the jungle temple and rushed to her daughter’s side. Two small, wiry girls brought a tray of apples and melons, and the older women shared a meal.
Frida told her mother and Xanto about her fear that she was losing her survival skills . . . or the will to use them.
Gisel looked at Xanto and then back at Frida. “This does not sound like the daughter I know,” she said. “We’ll have to do something about that.”
*
The clan was engaged in practice for Apple Corps. It was time Frida participated in training the younger girls, her mother said. But first, she would have to prove equal to the task. “You’ll run through three challenges, each one more difficult than the last.”
“And if I pass?”
“You’ll be that much stronger.”
“And . . . if I fail?”
“You’ll have to reconcile that with yourself.”
As soon as she was rested, they began with a routine Frida remembered from her youth. Attended by several olive-green-skinned girls, they walked to an oak thicket where the trees were heavy with fruit. Frida was given a long bow and a stack of arrows and instructed to lie on her back on the ground.
When Xanto gave the signal, the girls began running back and forth in front of Frida. Sighting from the ground, she was to shoot at the hanging fruit in between the live, moving targets—with the goal of hitting apples, not runners. As a girl of eight or nine, Frida had been terrified to act as a human obstacle. As a young woman now, she felt the immense burden of shooting well enough to avoid the little girls.
Gisel and a few older girls stood by with restoration potions, in case anyone did suffer damage. This first-aid necessity only increased the pressure on Frida to perform—not just well, but perfectly. Then Xanto lifted her hand, paused . . . and dropped it to her side.
Five little ones scampered across Frida’s field of vision. She fitted an arrow to her bow, lifted it, and sighted through them, not releasing the bowstring yet. She knew that when faced with a moving impediment, focusing on the real target was critical. She chose the apple she would fire at and locked her sights on it. She took one, two, three, four steady breaths in and out, studying her target, nearly becoming the apple. Then, she stopped breathing and let go the bow’s string, releasing the arrow: th-oop!
Thud! The fruit fell to the ground with a decisive bump, as though surrendering to Frida’s power.
Again and again, she sighted, paused, and shot, never winging a child. Finally, she ran out of arrows but remained so intent that Gisel had to pull her from the ground before she realized the session was over.
“You have done well. Almost as well as I did at your age,” Gisel said.
“Almost? But I hit every apple, and I missed every girl.”
Gisel smiled. “I got extra credit. When all was said and done, we found that I had also taken out a mob of skeletons that had spawned in the low light on the other side of the trees.”
“I’d like to see that,” Frida said with admiration. “Why don’t you give it a try now?”
Her mother declined. “My eyes are too old,” she murmured.
But she still possesses the aim in her heart, Frida thought. Maybe successful marksmanship was more than just hand–eye coordination. If you lost some of those functions, all you had to do was . . .
“Glasses!”
Gisel nodded sheepishly. “I know I need them, but—”
Frida touched her arm. “Not just you. A friend of mine. Now I know why he can’t hit a target. His eyes are even older than yours are.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m just saying . . . I’ll pick you both up a pair next time I’m in town to trade. So, Mother, now what?” Frida could hardly wait to move on to the next challenge.
“You can help me with a puzzle that I am having a hard time solving.”
“Let’s go!”
They set off through the jungle and walked a ways until they reached a moss-covered temple. The three-level structure rose in stair steps that echoed the surrounding junglescape. Gisel and Frida entered on the middle floor and set torches in the gloom.
“Downstairs or upstairs?” Frida asked.
“That is part of the puzzle, and for you to decide,” her mother replied, refusing to help with a solution.
If Frida chose the right location and cracked a code, she would open a vault that contained a chest of loot. If she made the wrong selections, she could trigger trip wires that would fire arrows at her from a hidden source. It would be very difficult to avoid taking hits when she did not recognize their trajectory. Frida didn’t ask her mother what kind of trouble she had encountered. Whether by magic or by the design of some long-gone inhabitants, the temple treasure was protected—to a point. The genius of the puzzle shield was that each player faced a personal trial and was either rewarded or punished instantly.
Frida set to work, with Gisel at her heels. Torches in hand, they explored downstairs first. The short cobblestone corridor led downward toward several doorways. It was easy to tell when a pressure plate had been engaged—Frida almost felt the click that pulled the trip wire. Instead of trying to duck through a random volley of arrows, she tucked her legs under herself and did a back flip, landing where Gisel was waiting in the stone hallway.
Upstairs, Frida opened a door to a chamber that held a likely-looking chest, which was locked up tight. Nothing inside the room appeared to operate the chest lid. Retreating, Frida found a set of three levers on a wall. She could have tried to guess the order in which to pull them. Instead, she thought she could unlock the chest by knowing which mechanism actually held it closed and which might trigger a trap.
From her inventory, she pulled an iron shovel. Excavating into the wall could destroy the levers, so she carefully chipped away at the cobblestone and into the dirt at the base of the walls. This revealed a jumble of circuitry and diodes. Frida studied them and the directions in which they sent the current. The lever that appeared to lead the electricity away from the treasure room was crossed off her list. The other two levers would be the ones that activated the lock.
Now, Frida could use a less haphazard trial and error to solve the puzzle. As her mother watched, Frida spent less than a minute flipping the two levers and ducking around the corner to check the lid of the chest. Soon, it sprang open.
“Aha!” exclaimed Gisel.
Frida beamed. “There you go, Mami.” She gestured at the treasure chest.
“No, no. The prize is yours to keep.”
Inside was a pile of valuables—gold ingots, emeralds, lapis, and more. Wait till Rob sees this! Frida thought. The riches would double the battalion’s war budget.
Gisel helped her stack the most precious items in her inventory, leaving the
rest for whoever solved the puzzle next. Frida shut the lid of the chest with satisfaction. Then an idea occurred to her. This same puzzle trap might come in handy in a battle against griefers who knew little about the jungle. She would return later on to mine the temple for its redstone and assorted gadgets. Whoever found the chest in the future would be glad if she deactivated the arrow-firing repeater.
The day had been long and full of mental and physical tests, and night was coming on. Perhaps the third challenge would wait until the next day.
But as mother and daughter returned to camp along the jungle path, Gisel squeezed Frida’s shoulder. “And now, your most demanding challenge yet.”
Frida’s stomach muscles tightened. She hadn’t slept for days and had taken only minimal rest after being battered, first by Bluedog and then by her own jungle relatives when mistaken for a griefer. She was not at her sharpest. But life went on . . . unless her strength gave out.
*
The final test proposed by Xanto was something that only the most advanced survivalists would even try. Frida was to surrender her inventory and move through the dark to some distant jungle coordinates known as a literal minefield of spawn eggs. All she had to do was spend the night and stay alive.
As these instructions were laid out, Frida felt fear rise inside to choke her. She had been low on resources before but never without a weapon of any kind. And she was so tired.
I can’t do this! I’ll never make it. . . . How she wished that Rob and the rest of her friends were there to protect each other.
She realized that this was the same situation that the cowboy had faced on his first night in the Overworld, before they had met. Rob had warded off a creeper and a zombie mob, with no knowledge of the terrain or the extent of the monsters’ powers. He had fashioned both shelter and weapon out of sand, his only resource. Again, Frida admired his bravery and cunning. If he could do it, so could she.
It wouldn’t do to enable cheats to get through this night. The griefer medallion and the rest of Frida’s supplies were placed safely in a chest in Xanto’s shelter. Then the old sage and Gisel hugged their long-lost family member and sent her, alone, out into the deadliest zone in the biome.