Last Battle of the Icemark

by Stuart Hill

  “Yes, we’re hoping to go for a trek through the Great Forest for a few days, to blow away the last of the cobwebs and get the horses back up to strength. Kiri’s coming too.”

  “Oh, is she?” said Krisafitsa, looking up. “That’s news to me.”

  Kirimin removed her muzzle from the bowl of apple pudding and custard she’d been eating, and gazed at her mother entreatingly as custard dripped from her long whiskers. She loved human food, particularly the puddings, but in the sudden crisis she forgot all about eating as she desperately tried to think what to say. She knew she should have spoken earlier about going with the boys to the Great Forest, but she’d just kept putting it off. Sometimes talking to her own mother was more daunting than meeting a room full of strangers.

  “Oh, please let me go, Mama! I meant to ask you earlier, but the time never seemed quite right. It’s perfectly safe in the forest, ask the boys, and there’ll be three of us anyway, and they’ll have their scimitars and armour and I can fight well, ask Eodred and Howler, I helped break their shield wall only this lunchtime, and there’re no enemies in the forest anyway, but if there was we’d be able to beat them easily, wouldn’t we boys, yes, see, no problem, and we’ll be sensible, especially me, and we won’t take any risks and we’re only going for three days, if you let me go, that is, so we won’t be able to go that far, and even if we did we still wouldn’t be in any danger, would we, boys? No, see . . .” Her voice trailed away as she remembered that she had to breathe, and she looked imploringly at her mother, who was licking her paw.

  “I’m not sure that the Great Forest is the right sort of environment for a young princess, even if there aren’t any dangers,” said Krisafitsa doubtfully.

  “Why not?” asked Kirimin, trying to ignore the sense of despair that was growing inside her. “There’s . . . there’s nothing vulgar or improper about the forest. It just is! It’s nature, and . . . and natural things, and you said yourself that a proper interest in the natural world was a good thing for a young lady.”

  “Indeed I did,” Krisafitsa agreed quietly. “But I meant that the subject could be studied in a classroom, with a tutor and with a proper sense of decorum.”

  Kirimin lowered her head sadly as she sensed defeat. For her mother, decorum and correct behaviour were the most important things in the life of a young princess, and anything that threatened these things must be avoided at all costs. Sometimes she hated being a member of the Snow Leopard Royal Family; everything she wanted to do had to be analysed and studied before she dared even move.

  “I wonder . . . I wonder if I might make a contribution to this discussion?” said a voice. All eyes turned to look at Maggiore Totus, who’d been watching the small but desperate battle of wills between Krisafitsa and her daughter.

  “Please do, Maggie,” said the Tharina graciously. “I’m sure your undoubted wisdom will make my daughter see sense.”

  “Well, first I’d like to volunteer my services as a tutor to the Princess. I’ve found retirement to be endlessly boring and I feel Kirimin would add a much-needed sense of energy to my life.”

  “Hah, accepted, Maggie!” boomed Tharaman, who’d been watching the struggle between his mate and daughter with the usual sense of despair. “She’d benefit massively from your input, wouldn’t she, dear?”

  “Indeed she would,” Krisafitsa agreed.

  “Oh, I’m so pleased,” said Maggie, beaming through his thick spectoculums. “Then may I assume that I can begin my duties immediately and set the Princess an assignment to be prepared before our first lesson . . . say, in four days’ time?”

  “Indeed, I’d like nothing better, Maggiore,” said Krisafitsa, purring deeply.

  “In that case, Ma’am, I’d like your permission to send Kirimin on a field trip to the Great Forest.”

  “Oh! Well, I’m not sure . . .”

  “I would, of course, insist that the study had a proper scientific basis, Ma’am,” said the old scholar, and turning to Kirimin, he continued: “I want you to observe the preparations for winter on the part of the wildlife of the forest, my dear. I will expect a detailed report on such activity categorised as either flora or fauna, and sub-categorised by species, do you understand?” he asked in a stern teacherly voice, but when no one else was looking he winked and smiled.

  Kirimin purred happily. “Of course, Maggie!”

  “That’s Senor Totus, to you,” said Krisafitsa. “I think it’s important to establish discipline from the very beginning.”

  “Yes, Mama,” said Kirimin diffidently, but discreetly looking at Sharley and Mekhmet she raised her lips over her enormous teeth in her best imitation of a human grin.

  “That’s settled, then!” said Tharaman with a sense of relief. “Grishmak! Did you say beef and gravy for the duel?”

  The noise and bustle of the celebrations enveloped the top table and Kirimin sighed happily. She was going on the trip to the Great Forest, thanks to Maggie, and there was still a whole evening of partying ahead. The Samhein celebrations would go on until well past midnight and would only really finish when the last guest had sunk drunkenly to sleep.

  A slow, soulful moaning reached Kirimin’s sensitive ears as a rising wind blew around the walls of the citadel, and she shivered with delicious dread. The atmosphere almost crackled with excitement, and also that slight undercurrent of fear enjoyed in safety that made Halloween so special. Happily she looked out over the hall and picked out the housecarles who’d dressed up as ghosts and zombies. There was even a Snow Leopard in a white sheet and a huge skull mask, but he only managed to look silly rather than frightening.

  Kirimin purred and turned to the boys, who were chatting quietly together. “Come on, it’s Halloween! Tell us a ghost story from the Desert Kingdom, Mekhmet.”

  “Ghosts are rare in my country,” he answered. “Apart from the Blessed Women, of course, but they’re not quite the same thing, and djins have never really had a physical life.”

  “Look, if you’re going to get technical and quibble about everything I’ll go and talk to the housecarles on the lower tables. They seem to be having a great time, and I bet they’ve got lots of stories to tell.”

  “All right, all right, don’t go all moody on us,” he finally said. “I do know one, about a young boy who lived alone in an old house in an isolated desert town.” He then told a story that was so hideous Kirimin found herself looking over her shoulder, half expecting a cold and clammy hand to settle on her back at any moment.

  As Mekhmet finished the tale, the noise and activity of the Great Hall began to percolate back into the listeners’ minds, and Kirimin shook her head. “That was horrible,” she said. “Sad and nasty at the same time.”

  Mekhmet shrugged. “It’s a traditional tale of the desert; fearsome places make fearsome stories. Would you have preferred it if I’d changed the ending to make it happier?”

  “Well, no,” she answered. “But don’t you know any nicer ones?”

  “The dead who stay on the earth to make ghosts of their souls are often not happy to be here. Remember that if you see something tonight.”

  Kirimin shuddered, but didn’t comment.

  “Cheer up, Kiri,” said Sharley. “Here’s some more puddings. That’ll keep you occupied for a while.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Anyone would think I ate like a pig or something!”

  “Not at all,” said Sharley. “You just eat like a Tharaman.”

  As the evening wore on the celebrations, unlike all other parties and gatherings in the Great Hall, became quieter. The tables were drawn aside, and revellers gathered together in small knots to tell each other stories or read fortunes on the night when the veil between the natural and supernatural worlds was at its thinnest. The musicians in their gallery seemed to be affected by the atmosphere too, and they began to play tunes in the minor keys that had a strangely brittle and disjointed quality.

  “They sound just like I imagine skeletons walking in moonlight would
look,” said Sharley, confusing nobody with his odd sentence.

  “Yes, exactly,” said Kirimin, raising her muzzle from another bowl of suet pudding. “Especially if it was frosty.”

  Most of the torches around the hall had been allowed to burn out, and the huge space was lit by the central fire and by a few candles that burned in holders on some of the tables. Shadows leaped and danced up the walls, or were deformed by perspective into hideously twisted shapes, so that the hall seemed to be populated by a convocation of monsters.

  Even the guests on the top table were touched by the creepy atmosphere, and the conversation had dropped to a low buzz on the edge of hearing. Thirrin and Oskan sat quietly, holding each other’s hands under the table, while Cressida glared about as if daring anything even vaguely supernatural to show itself, but eventually even the Crown Princess’s vigilance began to wane and her eyes slowly closed. Krisafitsa shuddered gently as the wind moaned around the citadel and Maggiore snored, his hand still firmly grasping his half-full goblet of wine as he dreamed of spirits that stood over his bed, their mouths wide and silently screaming while the cold air of the grave billowed out of their jaws and pooled over his face.

  Only Tharaman-Thar and Grishmak seemed active, and they were reaching that stage of their eating duel when the very smell of food was nauseating.

  “Would you be prepared to negotiate a draw?” asked the werewolf King, as the mouthful of meat he’d been chewing slipped greasily down his throat.

  “Not at all!” Tharaman replied, resolutely seizing a rack of ribs in his jaws. But then the gravy oozed over his tongue and he dropped the meat with a gentle shudder. “Oh, very well. I declare honours even.”

  “Agreed,” said Grishmak, and both contestants leaned forward slowly until their heads rested on the table and they slipped into a deep, ghost-haunted sleep.

  The night was at last coming to a close; even Sharley and Mekhmet were blinking owlishly at each other, and after a few moments they too had closed their eyes. In the main body of the hall the whisper and mutter of ghost stories still flowed over the shadows, but eventually these too ebbed away into near silence.

  Kirimin looked out over the dark space, unwilling to let the celebrations end. She watched with her excellent night vision as the shades and thick textured blacks of the dimly lit hall seemed to weave themselves into distinct shapes, then slowly dance around the walls like dirty cloth undulating and billowing in underwater currents. The ghosts of the citadel had at last come out to celebrate Halloween, but only those who cared to look closely would see them. Kirimin blinked and shook her mighty head; she must be getting tired, she thought. But she wasn’t ready to surrender to sleep yet; she still wanted to savour the delicious fear of the haunted darkness. And where better to find it than in the Great Forest? If she crept out now, she could be walking under the dark trees within a few minutes.

  On her silent Snow Leopard paws she padded down from the dais, across the hall and out into the night. Only two figures in the dark cavernous space saw her go, and nudging each other they climbed to their feet and hurried to the stables. They knew exactly where she was going, and if they were going to keep up they’d need horses.

  Down in the city, in the small houses made cosy against the dark with candles and lamps and warm log fires, people were telling each other tales of hauntings and spectral visitors who knock on doors late at night, but few were prepared to seek out the real ghosts of Frostmarris, who watched the living from cellars and attics and lost secret rooms. Their tales were too true, and often too terrible, to be comfortable on Samhein night.

  Kirimin’s whispered tread passed their doors unnoticed as she made her way down to the gates, and soon she was flowing like a silent bank of mist through the entrance tunnel, and out into the night of stars and the breathless beauty of a new moon.

  CHAPTER 7

  The horses clipped and clopped through the silent streets, the sound echoing and clattering from the densely packed houses, seeming to make a cavalry of the two animals. Both riders wore black hooded cloaks, skeleton masks and a full panoply of strangely exotic armour, making them look like long-dead warriors who’d returned to earth in search of revenge. Anyone who dared to peep out of their windows on this Samhein night and saw them riding by would have hurriedly closed their shutters and called on the Goddess for protection.

  They reached the long entrance tunnel of the main gate and trotted briskly to the outside world. A freezing wind, with the clean scent of winter on its breath, eddied about them as they looked out over the Plain of Frostmarris.

  “There she goes!” said Mekhmet as he caught a slight movement in the darkness.

  “Where?” asked Sharley, scanning the dense tumble of shadows and blackness, but as he spoke, Kirimin’s huge form crossed a cart track that glowed dimly in the starlight, and she stood out in solid black relief. “Ah, yes. I see her.”

  They urged their mounts forward and were soon trotting across the plain, relying mainly on instinct to take them in the same direction as the Snow Leopard Princess.

  As far as possible they avoided riding along the road, not only because it reflected what little light there was and would make them stand out to any watching eye, but also because Suleiman’s and Jaspat’s hoofbeats rattled over the hard surface like hammer strokes in a busy forge. If they were going to get their revenge for the fright Kirimin gave them earlier, they needed to catch her unawares.

  After half an hour the eaves of the Great Forest loomed before them, and Sharley raised the pace slightly. Several jack-o’-lanterns still hung in the branches, their glowing eyes gazing eerily over the night as the two boys approached.

  “Surely any candles would have burned out hours ago?” said Mekhmet, voicing the worry that Sharley had been trying to ignore. “It’s been ages since anyone came from Frostmarris.”

  “Perhaps someone came along later,” said Sharley nervously. “Or perhaps people who live nearby lit them.”

  Mekhmet scanned the land around in search of any cottages or farmhouses, but the wind moaned over nothing but empty farmland and heath. He shivered, and nestled down inside his cloak. He wasn’t so sure that trying to scare Kirimin was a good idea any more.

  After a few more minutes of steady riding, the boys dismounted and inspected the ground to look for paw prints, but it was a futile search. Although huge, Snow Leopards were amazingly light on their feet, and the already frozen land revealed nothing.

  “She must have come this way,” said Sharley, with more conviction than he felt. “Come on, we’re bound to catch up with her soon.”

  Mekhmet drew breath, and his friend braced himself for what he knew was coming. “Have you noticed that the jack-o’-lanterns have moved?”

  “I think it just looks that way,” Sharley answered quickly. “Remember, we’re closer to the forest now. I’m sure Maggie would explain it as perspective or something like that.”

  Mekhmet, looking at the weirdly glowing eyes and teeth that seemed to laugh at him from the nearby trees, was unconvinced by the explanation. “Well, if we’re going to catch up with Kirimin we’d better go now.” He didn’t like to add that unless they moved soon he might not dare go on.

  Both boys climbed back into their saddles and headed off again. Suleiman shook his head and snorted nervously, the chink and rattle of his harness echoing on the cold night air like tiny discordant bells. After a few minutes Mekhmet pointed to the trees. “There! There’s something big moving in the shadows.”

  Sharley peered ahead. “Well, I commend your eyesight – all I can see is darkness. But I’ll take your word for it. Come on.”

  They urged their horses forward and headed for the forest at a brisk trot.

  Kirimin had been moving through the trees for almost half an hour, her superb night vision revealing nothing but a tangle of shadows and blackness that constantly shifted as the night breeze blew through the branches. Her other senses were as sharp as a boxful of knives, her ears flicking and turni
ng to hear every creak, every whisper, every tiny smothered snigger. Her nerves too sent constant ripples of movement cascading over her pelt like waves on the surface of a restless sea, every individual hair of her gloriously thick coat vibrating with the air currents as she moved through the night, and her nostrils twitched and snuffled at each new scent and drew it in to be almost unconsciously analysed. Even her sense of taste examined the world around her as she drew the night air over the roof of her mouth and onto that special feline organ that made each smell a flavour.

  Kirimin knew exactly what lay around and about her, but it was her cat’s intuition rather than any of her super-refined physical senses that told her she wasn’t alone. She shuddered with a mixture of fear and delight. This was precisely what she wanted of Samhein: mystery and laughter, darkness and that shivery feeling that something was secretly watching you from the shadows.

  She didn’t actually know what to do next. Should she just continue walking through the shadows, or should she sit down and simply watch in the hope of . . . well, what, exactly? She had no answers to give herself, so she continued on her way, sliding through the trees like a gentle movement of air that had somehow acquired a physical body.

  Above her in the branches, a jack-o’-lantern glowed weirdly, appearing as though from nowhere, and seeming to follow her route as she passed beneath it. A sound like whispering laughter echoed in her head. She decided she’d imagined it; after all, the grinning mouths of the lanterns suggested that they were cackling wickedly, and she supposed her mind had just provided the sound. There were more of the faces appearing now; obviously the people of Frostmarris had come this way earlier. They seemed to have taken the trouble to place their pumpkin lamps on some quite high branches. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the fiery, grinning faces were left behind and she walked on through the shadows.

  After a few minutes a soft greeny-blue glow started to bloom in the blackness. It was faint at first, but then it began to etch the outlines of twigs and branches, and eventually the trunks of entire trees. It wasn’t very bright, but in the deeply shadowed forest it seemed to fill her eyes, and paint the dips and hollows of the woodland with even deeper shadows as the contrast between light and dark became gradually stronger. What could it be?