Last Battle of the Icemark (11 page)

Sharley drew his scimitar and joined Mekhmet, who was watching the creature warily. “You seem to have signed your own Death Warrant, Mr Imp. I must admit that normally I prefer the idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But here in the Plain of Desolation I don't think we can afford such a luxury.”

“Now just a moment!” said Kirimin. “Let's not be too hasty. Impervious here could be a useful guide and adviser.”

“That's Imp-Pious!”

“Yes, all right,” the Snow Leopard said dismissively. “But the fact remains that he knows the Plain of Desolation, and as we don't, he could be valuable.”

“But we can't trust him,” said Mekhmet.

“I think I've adequately explained my position,” said Imp-Pious, suddenly becoming aware of his mistake in admitting to a knowledge of the Devil. “I was simply curious and wanted to see mortals at first hand, as it were. And as for the claim that Imps are ‘Children of the Devil', well, that's a wild exaggeration.” He paused as he realised he was beginning to gabble, and then went on. “The Snow Leopard's right, I
do
know the area very well, and could be very useful to you as an adviser and guide.”

“Why, so that you can lead us into trouble?” asked Mekhmet darkly.

“And why should I do that? What would I gain from it?”

“We've no idea,” Sharley said. “That's the problem. We know nothing about you; why you're here or who you're working for . . . if anyone. But maybe Kirimin's right; you could be our best hope of getting back home.”

“Indeed I am. If you'd just let me go, I could show you the way out,” said the Imp eagerly. “Now, do you have any ideas about how to return to the Physical Realms?”

“Some, I suppose. We know we need to look for a doorway between the worlds, and that these usually take the form of a tunnel of some sort. But where they're likely to be, we've no idea. You wouldn't know, would you?”

“Yes, absolutely. Though they may take a while to find.”

Sharley paused as he thought things through; then, taking a deep breath, he looked up. “I know I could be making a terrible mistake here, but I don't think we really have any choice . . . Kirimin, let him go, and Mekhmet, tie his wings together so that he can't fly off. Important, you are now our official guide.”

“Imp-Pious!” the creature corrected him, but he was too relieved to sound really indignant.

Howler was annoyed. He was sitting in the armoury of the Regiment of the Red Eye, with Eodred, his friend and fellow commander of the fighting unit that was made up of equal parts human and werewolf soldiers. As Princes of the human and werewolf worlds, Howler felt it was deeply insulting that they hadn't been invited to the meeting that was discussing the collapse of the Polypontian Empire. For his part, Eodred had long ago accepted that he wasn't bright enough to make much difference to any discussion or debate. He was quite
content to wait until the decisions had been made and then be told where to go, and whom to fight.

But Howler was different; he understood the subtleties of diplomacy and the complicated tangle of government and its workings. But being nearly seven foot tall and as solid as a fortress wall, nobody expected him to understand even the simplest of intellectual tasks. King Grishmak, his father, attended all such debates, but Howler suspected that much of what was said went over his head. His philosophy of governance could generally be summed up in the phrase ‘agree with me or I'll rip your sodding head off'.

“Sharley and Mekhmet were expected to go,” said Howler grumpily. “I bet even Kirimin was. Why're they different to us?”

“Yeah, but they
didn't
go, did they?” Eodred replied, placidly polishing the blade of his battle-axe. “Nobody knows where they are. Everybody thinks they're in the Great Forest, but I bet they're not there now. It was Samhein when they disappeared, so I think they're probably lost in the Magical Realms. But nobody listens to me; they'll come to their own conclusions soon, and then there'll be panic.”

“But they
were
invited, weren't they?” said Howler, ignoring most of what Eodred said. “Why them and not us?”

“Because Mekhmet represents the Desert Kingdom, as does Sharley, and Kirimin needs the experience of how these things work.”

“And we don't?”

“Well,
I
don't. Nobody listens to me anyway, so it'd be a waste of time inviting me along to any discussion. Though I suppose I could keep Maggie awake.”

“And that's another thing! Maggie was invited! Why him?”

Eodred looked at his friend witheringly. “Look, I'm the stupid one and even I know Maggie's the cleverest politician this side of Doge Machiavelli. You're just letting the fact you're in a bad mood get in the way of your brains. Pass me that sword, it's getting a bit dull.”

The werewolf Prince handed the weapon to his friend automatically while he continued to mull over his resentments. “I mean, I only found out that it'd been agreed we'd invade the Polypontus from one of the housecarles!”

“No, you didn't!” said Eodred, beginning to get annoyed with his friend's unconscious distortion of events. “You might have found out that it'd been agreed we'd look into the
possibility
of an invasion, but that's all. Nothing's been finalised.”

“Just a matter of time, I'm sure,” Howler muttered sullenly.

“Yeah, well, when that happens you can relax, because they won't be going anywhere without us. Our regiment's too good to leave at home, and if everything I hear about the southern Hypolitan and their Basilea is true, anyone who tries to stop her is going to need everyone they can get.”

“She certainly sounds formidable, it has to be said,” Howler agreed quietly. “It's ironic really: you get rid of one homicidal maniac and his sons, only to find that once Bellorum's dead his place is happily taken by another nutter who might actually be worse than him. I mean, did you hear the relay report on the fall of that city in the southernmost province of the Polypontus heartland?”

“I
do
understand werewolf speech, you know,” said Eodred, defending his scant intellectual abilities with a nicely judged sense of outrage.

“Yes, I know. But you sleep a lot, and when you're not
doing that you're fighting, or eating, or drinking . . . I thought you might have missed it, what with being busy in so many other areas.”

Eodred finished polishing the sword and put it back in the rack. “Well, there's just a chance I might have been doing something else, I suppose . . . just remind me again, what was the town called?”

“Right, so you didn't hear the report then, I thought not,” said Howler. “The place was called Tri-polis, which literally means three cities, and it had three complete sets of defensive walls, each one protecting a huge sweep of the city that was built as a set of rings, one inside the other; like a big onion. Anyway, Basilea Erinor took the place in three days, one for each set of walls. Not only that, but she killed
all
the inhabitants, not just the soldiers, but
everyone
. And then she burned the place to the ground and demolished whatever was left standing.”

“Thorough,” said Eodred, climbing to his feet and stretching hugely.

“Mad, you mean.”

“That too. But what's happened to the Imperial army? One of its generals is killed and it falls to pieces. Why?”

Howler sat in thought for a few moments, his sensitive nostrils unconsciously twitching as the distinctive scent of cleaning oil rose up from the old rag Eodred had been using. Eventually he said: “I suppose . . . I suppose there must have been a combination of factors at work. Not only the death of Bellorum
and
his tactically brilliant sons, but also the war with the Desert Kingdom in the south, and the Venettians and Hellenes on the high seas. It probably would have survived one or even two of these pressures, but all three was
just too much for it.”

“Perhaps,” Eodred conceded. “But just because your army's stretched to the limit doesn't make it less brilliant than it was before. The Imperial Legions were feared and respected throughout the known world, and now they lose every battle.”

“Pressure may not make your army less ‘brilliant' as you put it, but it will make it less efficient,” said Howler. “And couple that with the fact that the loss of the coastal ports have interrupted vital lines of supply,
and
with the breakdown of the empire's manufacturing industry because of that disruption of supply, and you have a perfect recipe for military failure.”

Eodred gazed at his friend admiringly. “They just didn't know what they were missing when they forgot to invite you to the emergency meeting, did they? Come on, I'm hungry; let's see what the mess has cooking.”

“How can you even consider eating at a time like this?” asked Howler incredulously.

“Why not? We've got to keep up our strength for the trials ahead. It's no use meeting Erinor and her Hordes all thin and wasted, is it? I see it as one of my duties to eat like a Tharaman.”

“Not possible,” said Howler. “But perhaps you're right, I could do with a sandwich myself.”

“A sandwich! That won't even touch the sides! You'll have a side of beef or I'll want to know why not!”

C
HAPTER
10

T
hey'd been travelling through an area of boiling mud-pots and erupting geysers for over two hours, and it was getting hotter by the minute. The daytime probably wouldn't last for more than another hour or so, but in that time the clammy, swirling mists would absorb more and more of the geysers' heat, making it feel like they were travelling through a sauna. Everywhere insects flew and darted through the dappled shadows. Most of them were recognisable, but truly enormous, from dragonflies that had wingspans wider than Sharley could stretch his arms, to maggots that were as big as slimy loaves of bread. Once a bluebottle rumbled across their path with wings as big as the sheets of glass Maggie claimed could be found in the cathedrals of the Southern Continent.

At one point they'd had to ride by a hornet's nest and the creatures had attacked, forcing Sharley and Mekhmet to draw their scimitars and, along with Kiri, fight their way clear of an angry swarm. The insects were the size of large dogs, and their stings dripped venom as they swooped into the attack. Fortunately no one was stung, and they managed to kill over
a dozen before the monster hornets gave up and flew back to their nest.

Food was becoming an acute problem. Kirimin in particular was beginning to feel the effects of the lack of sustenance; her huge muscular body demanded a massive daily input of energy in the form of fresh meat. But the boys were small and wiry, with the sort of hard stamina that could keep them going all day, and that, added to the fact that they were battle-trained and war-hardened, meant that they were coping with the privations of life on the Plain of Desolation far more easily than the giant Snow Leopard.

“The large cat needs sustenance,” said Imp-Pious to Mekhmet, as though Kirimin was some sort of pet.

“Yes, I know,” he agreed. “But there doesn't seem to be anything big enough for us to hunt that would satisfy her appetite.”

“An interesting problem,” the Imp replied. “In fact, I might hazard a prediction and say that all three of you are soon likely to meet a creature that would feed an entire regiment of Snow Leopards.”

“What do you mean?” Mekhmet asked suspiciously.

“I feel something getting close. In fact, it's almost upon us! UNTIE ME, UNTIE ME! I'LL BE LOOK OUT!” Imp-Pious suddenly screeched. “THERE'S AN ELEPHANTA COMING THIS WAY!”

“A what?” asked Mekhmet in mild surprise, loosening the rope.

“AN ELEPHANTA! RUN! FOR GOD'S SAKE RUN!”

The Imp then flew off, rising high into the air, where he hovered, calmly watching events as they unfolded.

“All right, anyone want to make a guess about exactly what
an elephanta looks like?” asked Sharley, unsheathing his scimitar and settling his shield on his arm.

Kirimin raised her head, taking an interest in her surroundings for the first time in several hours, and narrowed her eyes as she gazed across a wide clearing in the mists. “Well, that's easy . . . we've all heard of the mythical elephant, haven't we? You know, big as a house and a tail at both ends. In fact, I should imagine it looks something amazingly like that,” she said quietly. “Except this one's as big as two houses.”

The boys followed her gaze, and watched as the biggest creature any of them had ever seen crashed into the clear space before them. Sharley knew full well that elephants did exist; he and Mekhmet had seen them in Arifica, but they hadn't been bright green like this one, and neither had they stood as high as four warhorses at the shoulder, nor been as long as half a squadron of cavalry.

“Lances, I think,” said Mekhmet calmly, and sheathing his sword, he drew one of the three long spears he carried in a scabbard on his saddle. Sharley did the same, and they quietly urged their horses forward into the clearing that was still continuing to widen. Kirimin stood her ground, raising her head and scenting the strange beast. The smell was so odd that she sneezed, the enormous eruption of sound echoing through what was beginning to look suspiciously like an arena. The creature swung its hideous tailed head ponderously towards her, the pupils of its red eyes suddenly dilating as it focused on her. It raised its thick face-tail, opened its mouth and let out a huge trumpeting sound. Kirimin gave a huge roar in return, but she kept her eyes on the long sharp teeth that grew out of the creature's head on either side of its tail.

Then, with the speed of a loosed arrow, the creature charged, crashing over the rocky ground with a clumsy, lumbering power that took all three friends by surprise. Both boys screamed in alarm and leaped into the attack. But Kirimin was its target, and it ignored them even when they drove their lances deep into its flanks.

Kirimin rose up on her hind legs, roaring, and was smashed backwards into an outcrop of rocks as the creature's momentum drove it forward. She hit the ground with a jarring force, curled into a tight ball and rolled into a boulder. Immediately she uncurled, and leaped through the air in a ferocious explosion of tooth and claw. She landed on the creature's enormous head and seemed to freeze in position, sinking her fangs deep into its flesh.

The elephanta staggered in a half circle, roaring and trying to dislodge her by shaking its head and smashing it on the ground. Mekhmet and Sharley had now drawn their second lances, and, crying out the war cries of the Desert Kingdom and the Icemark, they charged. Suleiman dodged the thrashing tusks and Sharley drove his lance deep into the thing's chest, while Mekhmet rammed his into its neck just behind the wide sails of its ear.

The elephanta trumpeted and reared up on its thick hind legs, still shaking its head as Kirimin continued to maul its face. Then at last, with a mighty convulsion, she was dislodged and flew through the air, to land with a crash on a wide area of broken scree.

The horses now moved in shoulder to shoulder, and, drawing their last remaining lances, the boys charged. The creature crashed forward from its mighty height, and the boys stood in their saddles as the wide belly rushed down on them. The
lances were driven deep by the elephanta's own massive weight, and it roared in agony, its headlong earthward crash stalling for a moment and allowing the horses to gallop clear.

They circled and drew their scimitars. “Mekhmet, check on Kiri, and get her away to safety. I'll try and hold the thing off for as long as possible!”

“Don't be stupid! You can't hold it
and
get away. You'll be killed!”

As the boys spoke urgently, the huge creature suddenly let out another roar of agony and began to stagger almost blindly around the clearing. “I don't think it's as dangerous as it was. We've weakened it,” said Sharley.

But before they could say anything else, a spitting, raging lightning bolt of fury slammed into the creature. Kirimin's huge paws boxed the monster's head with mighty swinging blows that sent it staggering backwards, huge bloody gouges opening up in its thick hide as her razor claws bit deep.

The horses now charged, driving close as the boys whirled and struck at the creature with their swords. Then once again Kirimin jumped at the thing's head, swarming around to cling beneath its face-tail while her powerful hind legs drove again and again into its throat, her long deadly claws slicing deep into the flesh. With a roar of rage and agony the thing reared up again. Sharley and Mekhmet drove their scimitars to the hilt into its exposed belly. But then a cascading deluge of steaming blood drenched them, and they looked up to see its throat gaping wide.

Kirimin moved nimbly away, and the boys turned their horses and withdrew to watch as the giant monster swayed, probing at the cavernous wound in its throat with its strange face-tail. Its eyes rolled, and huge gouts of blood erupted
skywards until at last it pitched forward slowly, like a falling column, and crashed to the ground. A deep silence settled over the clearing, broken only by the gasps of the three friends.

“Dinner, I think, is served,” said Sharley, his voice shaking with exhaustion.

“Do you really think it's edible?” asked Kirimin.

“Yes, I should think so. Hack off some of that rump, or a steak from the ribs, and I bet it'll roast up nicely.”

But before any of them could move, the creature began to shimmer like a mirage conjured by the heat of the desert, and as they all watched, its huge, solid bulk slowly faded away to nothing.

“Well, that more than suggests it was magically conjured. It's as if you can meet your worst nightmares here,” said Sharley quietly.

“Yes, but who conjured it?” Mekhmet replied.

A rustle of wings announced the return of Pious. “You killed it! You killed an elephanta!” said the Imp in agitated amazement. “No one's ever done that before!”

“Well, no
one
did this time, either,” said Kirimin. “There were three of us.”

“Five, counting the horses,” said Sharley.

“True,” the Snow Leopard agreed.

“Yes, but you killed
an elephanta
!” Pious squeaked again in awe.

“Did you expect us to die?” Sharley asked interestedly.

“Quite frankly, yes, I did,” Pious replied.

“You seem almost disappointed.”

“No, no, I can assure you not,” the Imp said, nervously eyeing Sharley's drawn scimitar. “My tone is affected only by awe at your fighting prowess.”

“It's strange that the monster appeared almost immediately after you gave the warning,” said Sharley conversationally. “Nothing to do with you luring it to where you knew we were resting, I suppose?”

“Nothing whatsoever. Indeed, it could even be argued that I saved your lives by giving you warning. On the Plain of Desolation the difference between life and death can be a matter of the merest seconds.”

“Really?” Sharley asked with interest, and swung his scimitar in a glittering arc in the vicinity of the Imp's head.

“If you'll excuse me, I think I'll take a nap,” said Pious nervously. “The atmosphere has become a little
charged
around here.” He flew off to hide in the dense swirl of mist that was once again rapidly closing over the scene of the battle.

Orla stood back in the shadows and watched as her mistress quietly seethed. Fear of being found by Medea and punished had driven her back to the Bone Fortress before she'd even been missed. And now she watched in quiet trepidation as the Adept ranted.

“If I didn't know better, I could believe my little brother had the Goddess on his side. But the very fact that I've managed to trap them on the Plain of Desolation proves that the forces of so-called good have no interest in what happens to their creation, as usual.” She paused and drummed her fingers on the arm of her great chair. “Even so, something must be helping them. How else could they have done it? How else could they kill a giant elephant, of all things? I mean, it should've been able to wipe out an entire squadron of cavalry and at least ten Snow Leopards!”

The Witch of the Dark Power waited quietly, and then
when Medea sat wearily back into the chair-that-was-almost-a-throne she shuffled forward and coughed politely. “Perhaps I can suggest an answer, mistress.”

Medea looked up moodily. “You? What do you know? I'm the second greatest Adept in all Creation and even I don't know how they did it!”

“Friendship, mistress . . . and love,” the witch said simply.

“
Friendship?
What do you mean?”

“Willing self-sacrifice. It's a powerful weapon against evil magic such as yours, mistress,” Orla explained patiently. “Anyone who risks their own life to save others weakens Dark Power.”

Medea thought about this for a moment, a deep frown on her face, then her features cleared. “Of course, you're right! So that's how they did it! My revolting little brother told his pathetic friends to save themselves while he fended the creature off. Hah! And what should have been embarrassing bravado saved their skins!”

“Exactly, mistress,” said Orla.

As far as Medea was concerned, this act of bravery was just one skinny runt on a horse the size of an underfed deer holding off an
elephanta
! Stupid! Ridiculous!

She seethed quietly for a few more minutes, but eventually she began to calm down and think rationally. There was still hope of death and mayhem; after all, for altruism to save them from magic, the kids would have to know about it and use it as a weapon. But they obviously had no idea that they'd killed the huge monster because Sharley had decided to play the hero and let his friends escape. In fact they probably thought their victory had everything to do with their prowess as warriors and nothing else.

Medea laughed happily. All she had to do was conjure some sort of trap that wouldn't allow the stupid idiots to even consider sacrificing themselves. She could hit them with a huge bolt of plasma that would incinerate them where they stood – but on second thoughts, that might warn the ever-alert Cronus as to what she was planning, and she didn't dare do that. No, all she had to do was keep them in so much danger they wouldn't have time to do anything stupidly noble.