Last Battle of the Icemark (27 page)

“I wonder exactly when we'll meet Leonidas and his cavalry,” Cressida suddenly said, drawing Thirrin back to the moment.

“Who can say? Perhaps he won't be able to get through the enemy lines until later; or perhaps he won't even get through at all.”

“Oh, don't say that!” said Cressida with surprising passion. “He
must
get through!”

Thirrin frowned. “Well, certainly his cavalry would be a useful addition to our numbers, and his experience of fighting
Erinor can only be a bonus, but I wouldn't say it's imperative that he joins us.”

“Surely you can't be serious? Leonidas's presence would be invaluable, not only as mere weight of numbers, but also as a morale booster to the army generally.”

“Perhaps, Cressida. But not everyone seems as eager as you to see him. Not even the Free Polypontians display the same levels of enthusiasm as you do. Hardly an hour goes by when you're not asking Andronicus for some titbit of information about his son.”

The Crown Princess blushed and snapped, “I don't know what you mean! Anyone would think that I . . . that I had a crush on him or something!”

“Yes, they would,” Thirrin agreed. “Have you?”

“Oh, don't be ridiculous! I've never even laid eyes on him!”

“It's possible to fall in love with an ideal, you know,” Thirrin answered gently. “What young woman hasn't created an image of a hero in her heart, fed it with fantasies of perfection and become infatuated with the picture she's created?”

Cressida snorted. “Well,
I
haven't, for one!” But her fiercely burning complexion belied her scorn.

Thirrin sat back in her chair and sighed. A country at war was a terrible place to grow up emotionally; everything was so heightened, so pressured. There was no room or time to make the mistakes that everyone made. Cressida may almost be a fully grown adult, and have a huge experience of fighting and killing and even running a country, but when it came to matters of the heart, she was still an immature little girl. “Cressida, don't expect too much of Leonidas. It's not fair, either to yourself or to him! Heroes tend to be all too human
when scrutinised.”

Her daughter stood up, her face blazing and an angry retort waiting in her throat. But then she paused, drew a deep breath and slowly sat down again. “Did you expect too much of Dad?” she finally asked shyly.

Thirrin snorted. “Your dad was different. I just hoped for the best and settled for what I could get.”

“And what was that, in the end?”

Her mother grinned, realising she was about to undermine her own argument. “A hero,” she said.

Cressida nodded. “Yes, he is, isn't he? I think that might be part of the problem; when we're growing up every little girl's daddy is a hero, and then when they get older, they find that he has problems and faults like everyone else. But little girls still love their daddies even when they realise they're just human; perhaps those faults even make little girls love them even more. But you see, I don't have that advantage, my daddy really is a hero, and as for him being human, well . . . that really doesn't apply, does it? What man could possibly live up to the standard of Oskan Witchfather? Of course I create ideals in my head; it's the only hope I have of ever meeting a man worthy of him.”

Thirrin reached across and took her hand. “Perhaps you should lower your sights a little.”

“Perhaps. But until I'm forced to do so, I'll keep on waiting for my hero.”

“Cressida, you're too hard on yourself, and the world.”

“No, sometimes I think it's too hard on me.”

Thirrin hugged her daughter and rocked her gently as though she was still a child. “Oh, my fierce warrior princess; my vulnerable little girl. You might have to wait too long.”

“Better that than be hasty, and be disappointed later,” she replied. Disentangling herself from her mother's arms, she wiped her eyes and smiled. “I have to go to bed; we've an early start tomorrow.”

Thirrin nodded and watched her go, imploring the Goddess to send her daughter a man who could live with, if not up to, her ideals.

The snow had frozen overnight, making the route treacherous underfoot. Oskan and the witches had been kept quite busy setting broken wrists and binding up strains and sprains, but in the main, the army marched on without undue incident. By midday they'd left the foothills behind and begun to march over a wide undulating plain of good farmland.

Thirrin sent werewolf scouts ahead, even though the few reports they'd had clearly indicated that Erinor and her Hordes were still well to the south. Try as she might, she couldn't help feeling deeply uneasy. She knew perfectly well why she felt like this; after all, she was invading the Polypontian Empire, a regime that was, at one time, the most powerful domain the world had ever seen.

General Andronicus rode at the head of the column beside Thirrin and Oskan, and the Polypontian Imperial eagle was the only banner that was on display. Thirrin wanted no misunderstandings with any Imperial Legions there might be in the region. The general's own forces also headed the column of marching troops, and the entire army maintained a stony silence. At the present time the plan was to march on Romula and secure the safety of the Emperor, but circumstances could change at any moment, and they must be ready to react to whatever happened.

Tharaman and Krisafitsa also marched at the head of the column, as did Grishmak, Basilea Olympia and her consort Olememnon. Thirrin stole a glance at the Hypolitan leaders, but their faces revealed nothing. In a way, they had more to lose than anyone else in the coming war; Erinor had already declared the Northern Hypolitan traitors and said that she intended to wipe them out without mercy. The threat sounded horrendous, but in reality it was little different to what Erinor and her Hordes did in every country they conquered. Their entire campaign so far had been an exercise in genocide and scorched earth. Whether you died because Erinor called you a traitor, or because you just happened to be in the way of her ambitions, made little difference when the knife cut your throat, or the sword pierced your heart.

The rest of the day passed in a gradual but inexorable accumulation of distance from the mountains and the border, so that by the time they halted to make camp for the second night, they were already thirty miles inside Polypontian territory, having travelled at a speed that even Cressida accepted as exceptionally fast for a marching army. Thirrin watched as the usual controlled chaos ensued as tents were unloaded from wagons, and everyone got in everyone else's way as they were put up. Cressida, as usual, spent the next hour or so almost purple with rage as she tried to instil a sense of discipline into the assorted warriors and soldiers of the Alliance. But despite her rantings, the camp was habitable by the time the moon came up and the frost came down.

Thirrin was just settling into her and Oskan's campaign tent and wondering how to discuss the fact that Leonidas still hadn't appeared with Andronicus – and more importantly, with Cressida – when a huge clattering and screeching sent her
running back out into the freezing night air. All over the camp human soldiers were scrambling for weapons, and werewolves and Snow Leopards were snarling and craning their heads skywards. She glared into the sky and then quickly beckoned a nearby bugler.

“Sound ‘stand down',” she ordered brusquely. “Now!”

The brittle, brassy notes echoed over the camp and were quickly taken up by other buglers, and gradually alarm and panic was replaced by a tense, wary curiosity as the entire army accepted the bugles' assurance that all was well, and they gazed into the skies.

“What do you think, Thirrin?” asked Tharaman as he strode over to stand at her side.

“Vampires. More than a thousand, I'd say, judging by the noise.”

“Hah! Wonderful. Just what we need: an airborne division.”

“Yes,” agreed Thirrin and smiled.

Soon the huge forms of vampire bats became visible as they descended into the dome of light created by the thousands of torches and fires that illuminated the camp. A great howling and roaring rose up from the Snow Leopards and Wolf-folk, as they greeted the arrival of their allies with relief, and the human soldiers beat swords and axes on shields.

A space opened up around Thirrin as housecarles forced back their comrades and cleared away wagons and stands of weaponry, creating a landing space for the Vampires. Then, at last, the squadrons swept in low and, transforming into their human forms, they stepped out of flight and into neat formations of black-armoured, pale-skinned soldiers.

With perfect timing and faultless elegance, they saluted
and then bowed as one body to the Queen. An officer stepped forward and bowed again. “Commander Bramorius Stokecescu reporting for duty, Your Majesty.”

Thirrin smiled. “Welcome, Commander, and welcome to your squadrons. We're all very happy to see you.”

“Her Vampiric Majesty extends her greetings to her sister Monarch and ally, and wishes a swift victory to your campaign,” Stokecescu continued smoothly. “She also assures you that your home territories and borders will remain secure under her personal unending vigilance, and the guard of her remaining squadrons.”

Thirrin's secret thoughts about it being easy to defend borders and territories that were not under threat were interrupted by the arrival of Oskan, who'd been supervising the witches and medical supplies in a distant part of the camp.

“The Vampire squadrons have arrived,” the Queen explained to her Consort, as though their presence had never been doubted.

“So I see,” Oskan observed. “But without the official sanction of Her Vampiric Majesty's presence.”

“Our Queen has taken personal responsibility for the defence of the Icemark in your absence,” Stokecescu explained warily.

“I see,” the Witchfather said expressionlessly. Then, catching Thirrin's eye, he raised his shoulders in an almost imperceptible shrug, and turned back to the Vampire commander. “We must indeed be grateful for the Vampire Queen's vigilance, but even more are we happy to welcome your squadrons to our war.”

The atmosphere suddenly relaxed and the commander bowed low. “We're happy to fulfil our obligations to the
Alliance. May our victory be swift.”

“You can say that again!” Oskan replied, suddenly abandoning the formal language of diplomacy. “But somehow I think it ain't going to be easy.”

C
HAPTER
21

M
edea sat quietly in the private chamber she had conjured. She was about to become an integral part of one of the greatest events ever beheld by the Darkness and the Physical and Spiritual Realms. Cronus was about to conquer the world, and after that . . . well, after that she now had no doubt that he intended to make war on the Goddess Herself!

And so it was that Medea judged that the time had finally come to cast aside her physical body. Like all of the greatest Adepts, she would negate the deterioration of old age, and the finality of death, by simply ridding herself of her body. Then, in the same way that her grandfather created a physical form from his surroundings, she too would conjure a temporary body that would house her spirit whenever she needed it. As one of the most powerful Adepts the worlds had ever seen, she felt it incumbent upon her to assume the proper atmosphere and mystique of evil. And if this meant the death of her physical form, then so be it.

Besides, she'd subconsciously begun to accept that there was no way back into the past. She could never again be
Medea, Princess of the Icemark; she could never again be the young girl who'd loved her father. A brief spasm of grief gripped her, but she thrust it aside and forced herself to concentrate on her plan.

For Medea, such a momentous occasion needed to be marked with a ceremony of ‘divestment'. Layer by layer she would rid herself of her physical being until nothing remained. With this in mind, she sat quietly and willed her skin to split. With leisurely smoothness, the outer layers of flesh peeled open like the pod of a pea, revealing the muscles and tendons beneath, then with a damp slumping noise the flayed skin fell to the ground.

The muscles began to tear themselves from the bones beneath, swiftly followed by the intricate tracery of veins and arteries. Only her skeleton, central nervous system, eyes and organs now remained. And these oozed from chest and abdominal cavities like strangely bloody fish, to pulsate on the white cobbles at her feet. Finally, her eyes rolled away from their sockets, and her brain emerged from the bony triangle of her nasal cavity to drain away onto the floor, where it lay like a sticky grey puddle.

Medea's skeleton stood and surveyed the gatherings of offal that had been her physical life, and then one by one, the individual bones disarticulated and formed a neat pile next to the mounds of meat and slime.

Suddenly a raging fire burst into being and incinerated the remains until all that was left was a pile of grey ash, at which point a wind sprang up and blew the ash away. Medea's physical form was no more, and immediately the livid, evil essence of the sorceress began to create a new body, forming limbs and shape from the raw material that permeated the Darkness. Her
hair was formed from cosmic dust, her eyes from photons, her flesh from radiation and electricity made tangible, and her brain from the Dark Matter that shaped and held together universes.

Soon she was complete, terrible and awful in her beauty, awesome in her perfection and terrifying in her evil. She looked almost the same as she had before she began her transformation, but all of her natural defects had been polished to an unnatural perfection. Her hair was lustrous, her skin flawless, her bone structure perfectly symmetrical and balanced. She could even sigh in satisfaction without her lungs as she did now, and then she laughed. She laughed in the knowledge and certainty of her power, and she laughed to think of the Icemark, just waiting to be destroyed.

The army waited in silence. The scouts had just reported seeing a large contingent of Polypontian cavalry on the road ahead, and a halt had been called. No order to ready weapons had been given, but the atmosphere was heavy with a nervous expectation that seemed to tingle through the air.

Cressida could hear the tiny creaks and groans of saddle leather as her horse breathed. In the nervous silence, the rustle and snap of the cold wind in the empire's banner sounded as loud as the mainsail of a galleon in a storm.

Then, far off in the distance, an indistinct gathering of shadow and colour slowly resolved itself into a large contingent of horses that cantered towards them. Andronicus snapped open his monoculum, and peered without comment for a few seconds, before giving a bark of relieved laughter.

“Yes. It's Leonidas. And by the look of it, he has upwards of two thousand cavalry with him.”

Thirrin held out her hand wordlessly and, after receiving the monoculum, looked long and hard at the troopers heading towards them. “I see, yes. I presume the good-looking young man at their head is Commander Leonidas?”

“Yes, indeed. Luckily for him, he has his mother's Hellenic beauty.”

Thirrin looked meaningfully at Oskan, who sat next to her on a droop-eared mule, before she silently handed the monoculum to Cressida. The Crown Princess showed masterly control and barely snatched at all, then she quickly trained the lens on the advancing cavalry, and just as quickly snapped the instrument shut and handed it back to Andronicus.

“I have an inspection to carry out,” she said and started to turn her horse about.

“The Crown Princess will stay exactly where she is,” Thirrin said, recognising this sudden call of other duties as an acute case of nerves.

Cressida's horse sidled close to her mother's, and she leaned from the saddle to whisper, “I can't stay! He's . . . he's . . . and I'm . . . well, I'm a veteran of too much fighting and not enough taking care of my appearance.”

Thirrin felt an almost unbearable upwelling of love for her daughter. She really had no idea how beautiful she was; not only beautiful but striking, with a pale flawless complexion and profile, coupled with the family colouring of flame-red hair and green eyes.

“You will carry out your duties as the Crown Princess of the Icemark,” she whispered, knowing that it would be useless to tell her daughter that any young man would fall over himself to spend even a minute in her company – unless, of course, he was a soldier under her command who'd done
something wrong. “To gallop away now would be an insult to the Commander!”

Cressida's eyes blazed with anger for a moment, but then she nodded curtly and guided her horse back to its position next to General Andronicus. By now the thunder of the approaching horses' hooves could clearly be heard, and a murmur ran through the gathered ranks of the army.

“They ride well,” said Tharaman-Thar.

“And their horses are beautiful,” Krisafitsa added.

“From the Imperial riding stables in Romula itself. The finest blood stock in the empire,” said Andronicus proudly.

“It shows, General. And may I add, that your son too is a fine-looking young man.”

“Thank you, Ma'am,” he replied, bowing in his saddle. “His mother was as beautiful as moonlit snow.”

“But do they fight as well as they look?” asked Grishmak brusquely.

“The fact that Romula still stands at all is almost entirely due to the Imperial cavalry and its tactics of harassment and containment.”

“Hit and run, you mean?”

“Precisely.”

“And what about a toe-to-toe slug-out?”

“The cavalry performed as well as poor supply and equipment allowed in the later battles with Erinor,” Andronicus replied openly. “But Leonidas and his cavalry have now perfected the art of meeting their own needs.”

“So they forage and plunder.”

“I prefer the term ‘living off the land'.”

“Leave the General alone, Grishmak,” said Oskan, who'd been deep in silent thought as he watched the cavalry
approach. “We'll be ‘living off the land' ourselves as soon as our supplies have run out.”

“True enough,” the werewolf King agreed. “I'm just trying to gauge the young man, that's all. And if I were you, Oskan Witchfather, I'd do exactly the same, especially if I had a daughter who suddenly seems to have gone off her feed.”

“Oh, I've been gauging for quite some time now,” said Oskan quietly.

Luckily for all concerned, Cressida had been too preoccupied with the approaching cavalry to hear the exchange, and her eyes narrowed as the horses reined to a halt and stood sidling and snorting only a few metres away. All of the troopers, and the horses themselves, looked hard-bitten and tough, with none of the usual glitter and finesse of the Imperial cavalry. They had the air of soldiers who'd been fighting for months, and who still had the energy and will to fight on for many more.

Leonidas, their commander, scanned the people before him, and his face broke into a radiant grin as he spotted his father. Quickly he dismounted, threw his reins to a companion, and strode forward. It looked like he was going to greet his father first, but then, seeming to collect himself, he slowed, stopped and bowed low to all in general.

Andronicus dismounted and the two embraced with much back-slapping and a rapid tumble of words in Polypontian. But then the general reverted to the language of the Icemark and, leading his son towards Thirrin's horse, he introduced him.

“Your Majesty, may I present my son Leonidas Augustus Andronicus. Commander of cavalry, loyal son of the empire, and, I'm proud to say, of myself.”

Thirrin observed the young man through unconsciously narrowed eyes that assessed him coldly. “Commander Leonidas, I see you have a sizeable force of cavalry with you. Have they recently seen action?” Even now, when the young man who'd reduced her daughter to an emotional wreck without even being seen stood before her, the needs of the war and of tactics came first.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Erinor and her Hordes have begun their advance into the Polypontian heartland, and we've been doing everything possible to disrupt their march.”

“They've begun the attack?” asked Tharaman eagerly. “What're their numbers; how long before they reach Romula?”

Leonidas gazed in wonder for a few moments at the power and majesty of the Thar, the almost legendary talking Snow Leopard who'd figured so largely in the defeat of the Bellorum clan. Then, collecting himself, the young man bowed low and answered; “Great Thar, their numbers are impossible to count accurately; will it be sufficient for me to say that they outnumber this army of Allies by many countless thousands?”

Tharaman nodded. “It would, young man, and I suppose strict accuracy isn't really necessary; ever since I first began to fight in the wars of human beings, I've always been outnumbered. It seems to be the natural order of things. But what of Romula; how long before it's besieged?”

“I'd estimate a week. There are still several units of cavalry resisting their advance, but they're unstoppable.”

“Wouldn't they be better dismounted and defending the walls of the city?” asked Grishmak, stepping forward from amongst the horses.

Leonidas paused again as he was confronted by yet another walking legend. Who else could this huge and monstrous creature be, other than King Grishmak Blood-Drinker of the Wolf-folk? “Your Majesty, the walls of the capital city are indefensible – they're crumbling and breached in many places, and the defensive ditches have become mere hollows in the ground, choked as they are by centuries of debris. Not only that, but there are huge distances of walls and too few soldiers to man them. The Military Governor of the city has decided it will be easier to defend Romula by fighting for control of the streets.”

“And the Emperor?” asked Thirrin succinctly.

“He is in the Imperial Palace, along with all senior members of the Senate. Barricades have been thrown up around it, and the greatest concentration of troops are stationed to defend the precinct.”

“I presume the squadrons of cavalry now harassing Erinor's advance will fall back to the city and join the defence?” Thirrin asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Then the race for Romula is on! How far to the city from here?”

“Ma'am, an army of this size will take at least eight days to reach its walls.”

“Too long, the Hordes will have it by then. We'll do it in six!” She barked a tumble of orders to all around her, and immediately heralds scrambled to take the news of Leonidas's arrival and the development of the war to all sections and units. Within minutes the army rolled forward. All now knew the need for speed, and the massive host advanced over the land like an unstoppable flood.

Leonidas and his cavalry were assimilated into the whole with almost frightening ease, and he found himself trotting along between his father and Queen Thirrin.

“Have you and your men eaten, Commander?” a voice suddenly asked, and Leonidas turned in his saddle to see a tall, slightly-built man riding on a mule. A strong sense of power and authority seemed to beat on the air around the figure, and he suddenly realised with a pang of fear that he was being addressed by Oskan Witchfather.

“We have, thank you, My Lord,” he answered, confused and puzzled that such a powerful Warlock should be bothered about whether he'd had breakfast that morning.