Page 123 of The Prince and the Ice King

And Caitlin, with her own elemental power, throwing icicles from her palms that hit soldiers’ ankles or shoulders, or she would cover the ground in ice that caused their horses to slip.

Everyone was doing what they could to keep from killing these men, but no one would mourn Lombard, who or whatever he truly was.

Jumping down from his horse, Lombard dropped his helmet into the snow, a cruel echo of when he’d last been there and embraced Reardon in front of those same gates. “You wish to challenge me directly, Ice King?” he said, squaring his stance with his long sword pointed outward.

“Gladly,” Jack growled and barreled forward with a mighty leap.

The sword struck his icy palm, holding him at bay, but no normal weapon could harm Jack, and he gripped it firm as he swiped with his other hand at Lombard’s head.

The ricochet stung more than Jack could have expected, his arm bouncing to the side, deflected like Liam’s lightning. While Jack stared in furious shock, Lombard heaved him away as though fighting with the strength of ten men.

Jack leapt at him again with a roar, but while the sword could strike Jack, whenever Jack tried to reach any part of Lombard, he was repelled. He swung and swung and swung at Lombard anyway, battering at him with palms and fists, each successive blow making him grit his teeth at how much ithurt.

Try as he might, Jack couldn’t touch him.

“You see! These demons cannot touch the righteous!” Lombard called—and then grinned, adding quietly for Jack’s ears only, “Did you think this would be easy?”

Attacking Jack with similarly vicious, battering strikes, Lombard hacked and hacked at him to drive Jack back. It didn’t hurt the waystriking that magical barrier did. It barely chipped away even the tiniest flecks of Jack’s ice, but seeing their leader holding his own against the starring villain in their darkest tales, Lombard’s men rallied and began fighting back harder too.

Jack couldn’t allow it. He and Lombard weren’t even able to hurt each other, but he was being backed up to the gate. If the courtyard was breached, there was no telling what Lombard was capable of.

With a mighty stomp at the ground, a burst of ice poured forth from Jack, enough that Lombard’s footing faltered, and Jack was once again able to catch his sword on the following blow. Jack grabbed it in both hands and held firm, allowing his naturally frosty presence to creep upon its blade.

Lombard’s grin widened as they stared each other down, blue on blue, with barely a hand’s width between their faces. “You only make the tales they’ll sing to honor me more epic. Just like Reardon.”

Jack’s stomach plummeted.

“It’s you, isn’t it, the love he spoke of? Such soft skin and lips, that prince,” Lombard continued in a whisper, no strain on his face or in his arms as he continued to hold Jack at bay. “So easily shaped to my will. I would have been kinder to him if he’d only bent willingly, but he chose to stay loyal to you.”

“What have you done to him?” Jack demanded, with everything but Lombard giving way to his power, as even the snow turned to mounds of ice.

“He is far, far away, and when I claim your castle, he will be dead.”

Lombard hurled Jack to the side with such force, Jack toppled, collapsing to the ground and leaving the way clear to the gate. Once Lombard reached it, he used his sword like a battering ram and split the doors apart as though a cannonball had struck them.

Jack’s subjects along the wall scattered, holding their golden shields up to protect them from splintered wood and twisted metal fastenings. Farther above, Jack saw Branwen and Liam both hurling their fire and lightning again at Lombard to no avail. Even Zephyr appeared, trying to blow Lombard over with the force of his wind. Jack feared even Josie would dive down and foolishly try to turn him to gold, but she merely stared in horror.

Lurching back to his feet, Jack felt an awful sense of dread watching the slow pace of Lombard moving across the broken threshold into thecourtyard, but before he could race after him and pound upon that shield until his arms broke apart in chunks if need be, Jack heard his name cried out like a scream of agony by a voice he had deeply missed.

“Jack!”

Reardon

Reardon’s cloak was wrapped around him as he rode full pelt, ahead of David and the others, toward the ensuing battle. Once they had neared the castle, he couldn’t lie in his wagon anymore.

Every gallop made more tears spring to his eyes, and calling to Jack with such force had come out more like a howl of pain—because it was one. He couldn’t let his own anguish stop him, however, not when he could see wounded soldiers and friends littering the expanse around him that he knew could so easily become casualties.

“Stop!” Reardon cried, riding past familiar faces on both sides, and in their surprise to see their prince, the soldiers who’d followed Lombard gave way and let him through. “Stop this! Lombard betrays us! These people are not our enemies!”

Many of them dropped their swords and stared, but enough kept fighting that Reardon knew he had to reach the gates to end this for good.

Jack was there, and Lombard was already moving into the courtyard.

As Reardon pushed on, he could see Shayla amid the soldiers, whirling like a graceful dervish with her daggers, Caitlin tripping up horses and men alike as though she too were a born fighter, and the tall, angular elf, Raphael, atop one of the horses, fighting bravely to drive the invaders back.

Subject after subject of the Frozen Kingdom was defending their home, including the female couple Reardon remembered best from his first night in the castle, one blond and one dark, working in elegant tandem as lovers should.

Reardon wanted that too, to at least reach Jack, even if he could barely raise his swords to fight beside him. He was so close but still felt leagues away.

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