by Stuart Hill
At last they reached the main gate and were quickly allowed through by the guard. They clattered through the long tunnel of the barbican, then drew rein as they looked out at the land beyond the city walls. Before them lay the plain of Frostmarris, silent and brooding under the cold silver of the moonlit night. Far off in the distance a wolf howled, giving a voice to the quiet, and Thirrin shivered. The packs were hungry and had come down from the mountains to raid the outlying farms. No human being had ever been taken, but people feared for their cattle, and the old legends of wolf attack always came to mind when the packs howled in the cold of winter. Thirrin urged her mount forward down the steep track that led to the flat plain, then, as she reached level ground, she shook the reins and her horse leaped forward. The bitter cold of the night was increased to biting steel by the wind of her speed, and she crouched down behind the stallion’s neck as they thundered across the plain. Behind her the cavalry troopers kept pace, spreading out in a wide fan, like a living cloak that flowed behind the head of the Princess. They could have followed the broad road that swept northward to the cities of Pendris and Wearford, which nestled on the farthest northern border of the Icemark. But instead Thirrin led them across the winter fields, leaping hedgerows and ditches in a wild gallop through the night.
In the distance lay the forest, like a dark bank of clouds threatening a storm. It slowly loomed larger as the horses galloped across the fields, and after twenty minutes or so Thirrin reined back to a canter and finally to a brisk trot as they reached the first outlying trees. As they entered the true eaves of the forest, she stopped and waited while each of the troopers took out his tinderbox and prepared to light a pitch-soaked torch. She sat and stared ahead into the ancient gloom of the trees. The forest at night was very different from the woodland of the day. Not all of the supernatural creatures of the darkness had been banished to The-Land-of-the-Ghosts after the Battle of the Wolfrocks, quite simply because not all of them could be found. And of those that had stayed behind, many had set up home here in the deep shadows of the crowding trees.
After a few minutes Thirrin’s eyes grew accustomed to the deeper levels of dark, and the beautiful black-and-white mosaic of moonlight filtering through the trees became visible in all its subtle brilliance. But then the sudden flare of the torches bursting into flame drove back the sight, and darkness crowded around the circle of light they carried with them.
They found the path that would eventually meander to Oskan’s cave, and pushed on briskly. The troopers began to sing a cavalry song, but their voices echoed and reechoed eerily through the trees as though a squadron of ghosts were riding with them somewhere just out of sight, and they quickly fell silent. But the forest continued to make its own mysterious comments as they trotted by. Far off, a branch fell; nearby twigs snapped; and every now and then the lonely, mournful wail of a hunting wolf would sound, thin on distance and fat with fear.
Thirrin slung her shield on her arm and held her flaming torch higher, and the troopers did likewise. The familiar weight restored their confidence and they trotted on, guiding the horses with their knees, battle fashion. After a while Thirrin thought she saw the gleam of red eyes away off in the trees. But when she looked directly at them, there was nothing to be seen. This continued for some time, and she’d just decided not to say anything to her escort when the sergeant at arms said, “I think there’s something following us, My Lady. I suggest we ride with sabers drawn.”
She nodded her agreement and, transferring the torch to her shield hand, she drew the long cavalry sword. “What do you think it is? Wolves don’t attack people.”
“No idea, Ma’am,” he answered briskly. “There are some dangerous things in the forest, but whatever they are, they won’t like cavalry steel.”
She smiled, cheered by his confidence. “We’ll soon be at Oskan Witch’s Son’s cave. Perhaps he’ll have some answers for us.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Perhaps.”
They rode on, their pace unconsciously increasing as the red eyes slowly drew closer. By the time they reached the clearing where Thirrin had first met Oskan in the autumn, they were cantering as fast as they dared on the treacherous path. But then they surged forward to the far side of the dell and, at a signal from Thirrin, they turned and faced whatever was following them.
Bright moonlight illuminated the clearing, and they clearly saw twenty or so figures emerge from the trees. They were almost human, but their bodies seemed to be covered by shiny holly leaves, almost like armor, and they all carried round shields and long spears made of a gray wood that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Thirrin was close enough to see that their skin was the same strange gray color, and their eyes were the brilliant red of berries.
More fascinated than afraid, she urged her horse forward a few paces and, standing in the stirrups, she called out to them:
“I am Princess Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield, heir to the throne of the Icemark. Identify yourselves so that I may know if you are friend or foe.” Her voice sounded high and fierce in the silence, like the challenging call of a bird of prey, and her escort felt their confidence in their young leader grow even stronger.
Without warning, a dark figure emerged from the edge of the clearing, and a familiar voice said, “These are soldiers of the Holly King, who rules all wild places in the wintertime.”
“Oskan!” Thirrin shouted in surprise. “You know them. Soldiers, you say? What are they doing in the Icemark?”
“They’ve been here since before the land was named by your people, and the Holly King is as old as all tree life, as is his brother the Oak King, who rules in the summer.”
“Kings? Who are these rulers that I’ve never …” Her voice trailed away as memories of nursery rhymes and stories came back to her. “You mean the Kings of the Wild Wood are real?!”
“As real as the forest around you, and their twin royal lineage is far older than the House of Lindenshield.”
She sat in amazed silence, considering the legends that stood before her, until her acute sense of ceremony and occasion suddenly took over and, standing in her stirrups again, she raised her sword above her head. “I salute you and your royal master, soldiers of the Holly King. Go now and take to him the friendly greetings of Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield.”
From among the ranks of the strange holly soldiers a tall figure stepped forward and raised its spear in salute. Then, stepping back into the trees behind them, they all simply melted away.
“That was well done,” said Oskan, walking over to stand at her stirrup. “The Holly King and Oak King are powerful friends to have, and even worse enemies.”
“I’m afraid we’ll soon need all the friends we can get,” Thirrin answered quietly, still amazed by the creatures of legend she’d just seen. Then, suddenly brisk, she said, “And where did you spring from, Oskan? I’d already had enough shocks without you leaping out of the shadows like a skinny ghost!”
Oskan drew his tall, slender frame to even greater heights and said with dignity, “I was waiting for you to arrive. I thought it best to … intervene before things got out of hand.”
Thirrin almost answered that she’d had the situation very well in hand, thank you very much, when she stopped herself. Oskan was right, who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t turned up when he did? “You arrived at just the right moment,” she finally said. But somehow the tone was all wrong. She sounded just like one of the elderly lady chamberlains of the palace graciously rewarding a lowly scullion by condescending to talk to him.
She filled the awkward silence that followed by slinging her shield on her back. “Well, have you got your gear with you or do we have to go up to your cave?”
“It won’t take me long to get it. Wait here.”
He’d gone before she had time to tell him that no one told the heir to the throne of the Icemark to wait anywhere, and he was back by the time she’d realized she was glad she hadn’t said it.
She wa
ited while he scrambled clumsily onto the quiet horse they’d brought for him, and then she said, “So, why haven’t I seen these holly soldiers before? I’ve ridden in the forest at night lots of times.”
Oskan looked at her and awkwardly urged his horse forward. “You’re asking the wrong question. It should be, ‘Why did the holly soldiers allow themselves to be seen?’ I only usually see them a couple of times each winter, and the same can be said for the oak soldiers in the summer. But I’ve never known them to show themselves to city people before. Something must be bothering them.”
“Like what?”
“Who knows? Perhaps they’re worried by the late snows.”
Thirrin slapped her leg in exasperation. “Not you as well! You’ll be telling me next that there’s going to be a plague or a bad harvest.”
“No. It’ll probably be war this time.”
She reined to a halt so abruptly that her horse snorted in surprise. “War! What do you mean?”
Oskan shrugged. “These omens go in cycles. My mother told me the last time the snows were late there was famine, and before that, disease. This time it must mean war.”
Thirrin turned in her saddle and hastily waved her escort of troopers back to a greater distance. She didn’t need any rumors springing from this. “But you don’t believe that, surely?”
“Yes,” he answered with such open simplicity that Thirrin was both shocked and convinced. It tallied with her own fears exactly, but hearing someone else talk of coming war with such certainty was deeply disturbing.
“When?”
“I don’t know … precisely.”
“Within a year?”
“Yes. And probably before the season changes.”
They rode on in silence while Thirrin thought things over. Maggiore Totus would scoff at such superstition, but then again he’d scoff at the idea of the Holly King and Oak King, and she now knew without a doubt that they existed.
She and Oskan were riding well ahead of the escort by this time and, as neither of them had torches, they could see the simple black-and-white beauty of moonlight percolating through the trees glowing mysteriously all around them.
“What should we do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’m no politician or soldier. Just be ready, I suppose.”
She nodded. They were as ready as they could be. The only thing they couldn’t prepare for was the direction of an invasion.
“I don’t suppose you have any idea who will attack us?” she asked, half prepared to rely on any mystical powers or intuition he might have inherited from his mother.
“Oh yes, that’s easy. The Polypontian Empire, of course.”
“Of course,” she answered with quiet irony. “But why are you so certain?”
“Logical, really. Who else?”
“The Corsairs and Zephyrs. They’ve been quiet for too long.”
Oskan sat in thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. The Polypontus for sure.”
Exactly why she believed him was unclear even to herself, but believe him she did. The only problem was to convince the King and get him to call out the fyrd in the southern provinces and send the Royal Army to help, even if it was only a precaution. She’d have to take it up with him at the Yule Feast the next day: After a few festive ales he was always more open to discussion.
As they rode, the mournful wail of a distant wolf echoed through the forest, making the horses whicker nervously. “There may be no snow, but it’s still cold enough to drive the packs down from the mountains,” she said.
“True,” Oskan answered. “But that wasn’t a wolf, or not completely so, anyway.”
“Another wolfman, here in the Icemark?”
“Wolfwoman, actually.”
“You can tell that? Then can you understand their language? What’s she saying?”
The howling broke out again, descending slowly through the octaves to a deep and strange moan.
“I can understand a little, not everything. She’s warning of something and calling a …” He stopped and in the subtle brilliance of the moonlight his face looked deadly pale. “She’s calling a muster of the Wolffolk! That hasn’t happened in generations! Something big must be going on. Perhaps we should look to the north for war after all!”
Thirrin stood in her stirrups and waved up the escort ready to gallop for Frostmarris. But Oskan grabbed her arm.
“Wait. There’s more.” He listened as the distant howling continued, weaving a melancholy web of sound over the night sky. “No, I was right. The trouble is coming from the south, and she thinks they’ll be too late to fulfill their … Well, she uses the word oath and then says ‘to the Princess.’”
Thirrin gasped, then barked orders at the troopers. “Ditch the torches. We ride for the city!”
“She’s probably right, of course,” Oskan continued as though chatting comfortably by a fire about the price of bread. “The wolfwoman’s obviously just part of a relay sending this message back to The-Land-of-the-Ghosts, and by the time it gets there, whatever’s about to happen will already have done so, if you see what I mean. I wonder what oath she’s talking about. And who’s this Princess?”
Thirrin cuffed him impatiently around the head. “Shut up and ride!”
With that her horse leaped off through the forest. Oskan urged his mount on and then immediately wished he hadn’t as the animal charged after Thirrin and her escort. He clung to the horse’s neck, desperately trying to avoid the branches and twigs that whipped overhead as they sped along the narrow forest track. The rich scents of leaf litter kicked up by the galloping hooves of twelve horses reminded him of the Yuletide cakes he hoped to be eating. But he soon forgot all about food as he concentrated on staying mounted on the wildly galloping animal.
In what seemed an incredibly short time they burst out of the trees and fanned out over the farmland that flowed up to the walls of the city like a windswept fertile sea. If anything, it was even colder here without the shelter of the forest, and Oskan tried to draw his cloak around him to keep out the bitter iciness. But it was no good; he’d no sooner risked life and limb to grab an edge when the wind ripped it out of his hand again. He clamped his jaw shut on his chattering teeth and stared ahead to Thirrin and the cavalry escort. He wondered if he looked as wild as they did, all flailing hooves and billowing cloaks, and concluded that he must.
Frostmarris was drawing nearer, looming over the plain like a disciplined mountain range, all right angles and straight edges instead of jagged peaks. But in the moonlight its granite walls glowed slightly, as though it were made of nothing more solid than moonlit cloud, just waiting for a gust of wind to blow it away across the plain. In the clarity of the night air Oskan could see the glint of spears as the guards made their slow circuit of the walls, and he was struck with a sense of the city’s vulnerability. A besieging army could starve it, break its walls, kill its people. Was that what the wolfwoman’s message was about? But why should the Wolffolk be bothered about Frostmarris? Before he could give any more thought to these questions, he lost his grip and almost slid sideways from the saddle. With a wildly thumping heart he managed to struggle back upright, and he decided to give all his attention to riding and ask questions later.
7
Oskan had been dreading having to sleep in the Great Hall along with all the other less important guests who would fill the castle for Yule. He was used to the privacy of his cave, and the thought of sharing his space with any number of total strangers was daunting. But he needn’t have worried; he had been given his own room. Admittedly it was small, with just enough space for the narrow bed, a chest for the few things he’d brought with him, and a stool to lay his clothes on, but it was a private room and a huge privilege. He knew for certain that there were some quite wealthy merchants curled up around the central hearth of the Great Hall, vying for space with the wolfhounds and trying to guard their property from their fellow guests. He almost felt guilty that an orphaned peasant boy like himself s
hould be given his own room — almost, but not quite.
He stretched comfortably under the warm covers and savored the peace and quiet. Only an hour before, he’d been in the King’s private chamber with Thirrin, and Redrought’s huge voice had filled everything to capacity, including Oskan’s head.
As soon as they’d arrived in the castle courtyard, the Princess had leaped from her horse and waited impatiently while Oskan had climbed carefully down from the saddle. Then she’d led him through the massive double doors that stood before them into the Great Hall. Neither Thirrin nor her escort of soldiers seemed to care in the least that they walked over several guests who’d settled down for Yuletide Eve around the central fire. Oskan had whispered hurried apologies to several outraged figures who had sat up spluttering into the red glow of the fire-lit hall. Things hadn’t been helped, either, when most of the wolfhounds, seeing Thirrin and the soldiers, had decided it was morning and time for their run, so they had started to bark excitedly and jump around over the rest of the sleeping guests. By the time they’d reached the massive oak throne on the dais and dodged behind it to enter the King’s chambers, the Great Hall was in an uproar with dogs baying, sentries shouting challenges, and woken guests demanding to know what was going on.
Thirrin had thumped once on the low door to her father’s private apartments and burst in. A sentry just inside the room had leveled his spear and shouted a startled demand to know their business, and a small collection of white hair and wrinkles in a red nightshirt had hopped out of a low cot with a squeak. “Who is it, Bergeld? See them off! Call out the guard!”
“It’s the Princess, sir,” the sentry had replied, lowering shield and spear.
“The Princess? At this hour?” Grimswald the chamberlain had then rubbed his eyes and gazed at the party of Thirrin, Oskan, and the soldiers. “Not only the Princess, it seems. You can dismiss your men, Ma’am.”