The Icemark Chronicles: The Cry of the Icemark

by Stuart Hill

  “And this they duly did, taking the enemy by surprise and bursting through their lines. So began a great trek, taking us through many nations, until at last we came to lands we felt were home. This country had mountains and winters as fierce as those we had known in our citadels built in the clouds.

  “The land was, of course, the Icemark. But here the people were the strongest we’d met since the war with the eastern invaders. We fought long and hard, never winning, never losing, neither side able to gain the final victory. Until at last the King of that time, who was called Theobad, called for a truce, and after long talks agreement was reached. Queen Athenestra would acknowledge the King of the Icemark as her overlord, and we, in return, would be allowed to stay in the lands we now hold. And ever since that day, the Hypolitan have been loyal subjects of the Icemark and her greatest ally in times of war.”

  Olememnon fell silent and sipped his drink while Maggiore faithfully wrote down his words in the special shorthand he had devised for his study notes. At last he laid down his pen and smiled. “Well, that’s quite a tale. Some of it I’d guessed already, of course, but the details are quite fascinating. I’ll need to verify and corroborate some of the finer points, but overall you’ve given me a wonderfully concise framework from which to expand my studies.”

  “One thing, Maggie,” Olememnon said as he stretched his long, thickly muscled legs toward the fire. Primplepuss jumped lightly down and began to wash. “Thinking about these old tales has brought something to mind…. There’s a similarity between the descriptions of the invading people who drove the Hypolitan out of their homeland and the Polypontian Empire.”

  “Really?” the little man asked. “In what way?”

  “Well, mainly their method of fighting. The way they just overwhelmed the opposition with the size of their army. The way one defeated force would simply be replaced with another and then another until all opposition was ground down.”

  “Yes, I see what you mean. But it’s probably just coincidence. After all, we’re not talking subtle tactics here, are we? Really, it’s just the method of a bully who’s bigger and stronger than everyone else and uses his brute force to get what he wants. In the past, it was your invaders and today it’s the Polypontians.”

  “Perhaps. But as far as I can make out, the Empire started in the south and over the years has expanded northward — particularly in the last twenty years or so while Scipio Bellorum has been the commander in chief of their army. But from where in the south did they come? How far south? Do you know?”

  Maggiore had to admit that he didn’t. It was an interesting point, and one he’d follow up.

  “And as for the Polypontians being bullies,” Olememnon went on, “well, you’re right. And that was more than enough to get them an empire. But with General Scipio Bellorum their bullying strength is allied with a clever tactical brain, and that’s a difficult combination to fight.”

  “Yes, I know,” the little scholar said, abruptly and painfully reminded of the war that waited for them beyond the spring thaw.

  “If we’d just been fighting their army without the general, we might, just might have had a chance. But with him …?” The big man shrugged, then stood to leave. “But that’s defeatist talk. And I’ve got a fyrd to help train. I’ll see you tonight at dinner, Maggie.”

  And with the suddenness of the changing wind, Olememnon was gone. Maggiore had gotten used to this rapid change of pace and mood in his big friend, but any room he’d been in seemed unbearably empty for a moment, as though he’d left a vacuum behind him. Primplepuss felt it, too, and meowed plaintively, but then with the poise and balance typical of any cat, she quickly adjusted to it and meowed again to remind Maggie it was her dinnertime.

  He put aside his notes and stood to fetch her bowl, noticing as he did so that the little animal was no longer a kitten. Her legs had grown and her head was losing its baby roundness as it developed the sleek lines of an adult cat. Thirrin would notice a difference when she got back from her travels.

  His thoughts turned again to the young Queen and her mission. So much depended on her success, and so much could easily go wrong. It wasn’t that he lacked confidence in her. In the last few weeks she’d matured at a terrifying speed; circumstances hadn’t allowed anything else. But she was trying to make an alliance with the Icemark’s oldest enemy. There were centuries of bitterness and hatred to overcome. And if she failed, they’d all die. He shrugged. There was nothing he could do to help her; he’d just have to hope and wait like everyone else.

  16

  Thirrin, and her escort of soldiers and werewolves, had been traveling through the forest of dark pines for more than an hour. It had taken them all morning to ride down from the pass and reach the tree line, thousands of feet below, and when they’d finally ridden under the eaves of the forest, it had been with a sigh of relief. At least here they had some shelter from the bitterly cold wind that had begun to blow, but now the soldiers were getting nervous. All around them the forest echoed with strange noises. Sudden screeches and distant howling would burst out, then fall silent. Now and then a glittering grayness would form far off in the shadows and keep pace with them briefly before fading away like mist before the sun.

  But there was no sun here in the forest. Thirrin caught only an occasional glimpse of the sky through the tightly packed branches, and what light there was seemed to emerge in an unhealthy glow from the snow that had somehow managed to find its way through the trees to the ground all around them. This place was nothing like the forest at home. There, the trees were alive with creatures that scampered along the branches and trunks in search of food. Even in the winter when most of the trees had shed their leaves, there was a sense of life at rest, and the many animals that hadn’t hibernated searched for nuts or hunted one another with an intensity made sharper by hunger. But here in this great pine forest where no tree slept through the cold months, there was only a sense of watchfulness. Even the howling and screeching that burst out here and there in the gloom seemed to have nothing to do with animal life. It was too cold, too removed from any need to communicate with other living things. Thirrin thought it sounded like sharp glittering knives being scratched over polished ice. She shivered, drew her cloak tighter about her, and stared as far ahead as the tightly packed trees would allow. The whole world seemed to have been smothered by the trunks and writhing roots and stiff needle-covered branches of these dark green-black trees.

  At last they reached a clearing, and the soldiers almost ran forward to greet the space, but then checked their pace and stared. In the very center of the clearing, sitting on the broken trunk of a dead tree, was an enormous Snowy Owl. It stood at least three times taller than the white owls that lived on the northern snowfields of the Icemark, and its vivid blue eyes seemed alive with a sharp intelligence. The captain of the werewolves walked forward and saluted the creature, which stared at him, blinking slowly. A strange conversation followed as owl and wolfman snarled and hooted at each other, after which the captain saluted again and walked back across the clearing. He stood before Thirrin, but before he could speak, the owl spread its huge white wings and soared silently away, its brilliant form glowing in the gloom as it dwindled skyward over the trees.

  “Their Vampiric Majesties sent their herald to greet you, Queen Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield, Wildcat of the North. They bid you as welcome as you deserve, and advise you to hurry, as the weather is closing in again and there will be snow before nightfall,” the captain said, slipping into the formal language of the court as he reported the owl’s message.

  Thirrin turned to Oskan. “Is that right? Will there be snow?”

  Oskan nodded. “In two hours or so.” He was the only one in the entire party of humans who seemed as relaxed as the werewolves in the dark forest.

  “Then we must make haste. Captain, is there a more direct route to the Blood Palace?”

  “No, Your Majesty. But if we hurry, we should be there before the sno
ws, if the Witch’s Son is correct about the time.”

  “The Witch’s Son is correct,” she answered, spurring her horse across the clearing.

  After another hour of hard marching, the trees began to thin and eventually their ominous presence gave way to a wide sweeping hill that descended to a valley floor. By this time the clouds had gathered, rolling and iron gray, and the light had diminished to a strange dim glow that seemed to pulse from the unbroken sweep of snow. But at least the freezing wind had dropped, and the escort crunched over the frozen land without having to unpack extra layers of clothing.

  The last fitful light of the day soon faded to a deeply dark night. Thirrin ordered every second soldier to light their torch, and they continued on their way. But the werewolves didn’t seem to need any such aid in the darkness; their night vision was so acute that they led the way, finding a path in what seemed a trackless waste to the humans. After a while an excited growling and snarling broke out among the Wolffolk, and the captain appeared at Thirrin’s stirrup.

  “Your Majesty, the Blood Palace.”

  Thirrin stared ahead, following the line of his pointing finger, and there between a cleft in the distant hills she could just make out a looming shape, faintly outlined by twinkling lights.

  “I see it,” she answered quietly as she fought down a sudden surge of fear that threatened to engulf her. “Oskan. Do you … feel anything?”

  The Witch’s Son gazed ahead in silence for a few moments, then said, “Nothing unexpected: evil, great age, a hatred of mortal things.” He shrugged. “A typical nest of Vampires.”

  Thirrin nodded. “No disaster, then? No sudden death?”

  “Your dying lies elsewhere, Thirrin Lindenshield,” he answered simply.

  She glanced at him sharply to see if any insult was intended with her pared-down name, then asked, “In glory?”

  “Hidden,” he answered, and smiled.

  “‘Hidden, Your Majesty,‘ “ she corrected with her usual fire, and Oskan’s smile turned to a wolfish grin.

  They rode on with greater speed until the palace loomed before them. Even in the dark of the cloudy night, details were easy to make out, as every one of the hundreds of windows glowed with an eerie green light and torches were set in the walls and at regular intervals along the roofline. It soared from the land around it like a miniature mountain, its dozens of spires and towers silhouetted a deeper dark against the cloudy sky. The pointed arches of its windows and doors gathered in a tangle of architecture that seemed to have grown from the land like a stony and ill-disciplined fungus. But as Thirrin and her party drew closer, they realized that what they had thought was ordinary dark stone was, in fact, polished and of the deepest red in color — almost black, in fact, like dried blood.

  The huge double doors stood open, and the greenish light spilled out onto the snow like a puddle of sticky liquid. Thirrin almost expected it to bubble and hiss like some fetid swamp water, but the illusion was destroyed when the leading werewolves stepped into it, and their huge shaggy shadows were thrown back toward her. Thirrin reined to a halt and signaled for her trumpeters to sound a fanfare. Up into the black night the brittle brassy notes soared, and after they had died away there was only silence.

  For a few moments they sat and waited, then the predicted snows began to fall. In effect, their decision had been made for them. After scouting around they found a huge empty stable block where they left the horses, then they strode back to the front of the palace.

  Everyone was waiting for Thirrin to make the first move, and knowing this, she immediately squared her shoulders and started to climb the flight of polished steps to the open doors. At the top a wide terrace swept up to the threshold of the high arched doorway. Above it, the walls towered like a cliff and the green glowing windows stared down at them like hating eyes. Thirrin took all of this in for a moment before walking confidently forward, all the time taking deep steadying breaths as she tried to control the fear and loathing that crawled screaming through her frame.

  At the doorway she stopped and turned to Oskan, who was directly behind her. “I don’t suppose we can expect a welcoming committee after so many centuries of war.”

  “No,” he agreed. “We’d better just go in and get out of the snow.”

  She nodded and, after a pause, stepped through into an enormously high and wide hall. The black-and-white-tiled floor stretched away for a seemingly impossible distance, and everywhere was lit by the same green glow, even though there were no torches or lanterns or any other means of lighting as far as she could see.

  The rest of the party followed, and soon the rattle of their boots and armor echoed across the empty space. In the dim distance at the far end of the hall, Thirrin could just make out a raised dais, and as they approached she realized that two thrones stood on it, each carved out of the same dark red stone. But still there was no sign of any other occupants in the entire palace, either living or dead.

  Thirrin was just about to order her trumpeters to sound another fanfare when the green light flared to a dazzling brilliance, and the hall was filled with tall, pale, hissing figures that stared with large unblinking eyes. Immediately Thirrin’s soldiers threw up a shield-wall around her, their spears leveled.

  Into the tense silence that settled over the hall a light and deadly cold voice said, “I’ve seen such battle formations before and know just how effective they are. I see you keep your troops as well drilled as your father ever did.”

  Thirrin snapped an order, and the soldiers lowered their shields. She stepped through the hedge of spears that still bristled in their protective ring, and gazed in wonder at the dais, where two figures now sat on the red thrones. They, too, were pale and thin, and Thirrin could see that, even sitting down, they were tall. Once they had been a man and a woman, but now they had an unnatural and terrible beauty that made them completely un-human. Both had snowy white skin and their lips were deep red and moist, like raw liver.

  “My father always impressed upon me the need for discipline and drill among the housecarls of the army. In that way, even mortals can face and fight the undead.”

  The Vampire King and Queen gazed at her in silence and she continued. “But the need for allies when facing danger is equally great, and the chances of victory are increased many-fold when your friends stand with you.”

  She stepped aside slightly, allowing Their Vampiric Majesties to appreciate fully what she knew they must have clearly seen. The werewolves had instinctively formed a circle of their own, enclosing the shield-wall of her soldiers and facing out in readiness to fight off any attack by the Vampires.

  “You have no need to display your fighting prowess here,” the Vampire Queen said. “This is a palace, not a fortress. There are no soldiers here apart from your own.”

  Thirrin nodded and gave another order. The spears were grounded, and the escort snapped to attention.

  “I believe mortals feel the cold,” the Vampire King said, and casually cast a glance at the huge fireplace that stood halfway down the hall. Immediately flames belched out into the cold air, then settled down to burn steadily, quickly warming the atmosphere. Thirrin had never seen such a fireplace before. In Frostmarris, the Great Hall was warmed by a huge central hearth and the smoke found its own way out, eventually, through vents in the roof. But she had no intention of appearing a bumpkin to these cold and sophisticated creatures, so she merely nodded her thanks.

  “Now, I believe this is a diplomatic visit. So shall we get down to business?” the King said, reminding Thirrin for a moment of Maggiore Totus. But this illusion was soon dispelled when she looked up and saw his sharply pointed teeth.

  “Yes, by all means. I’ve come to warn you that the Icemark has been invaded by the Polypontian Empire, and my father has died in the act of destroying their army.”

  “Oh, well done,” said the Queen. “You obviously don’t need our help, then, if you’ve already defeated them.”

  “Unfortunately they still
occupy the southern half of the Icemark, so come spring they’ll be able to send another army to attack us.”

  “Which you will also destroy, I suppose.”

  “Of course!” Thirrin answered with fire.

  “Then I ask again, why do you seek our help if you so obviously can deal with anything the Polypontian Empire sends against you?”

  Thirrin tried to hold the cold gaze of the Vampire Queen, but she suddenly became aware of the enormous weight of time and experience that lay in the horrendous depths of the Vampire’s icy blue eyes. This pale woman had existed for probably hundreds of years, murdering her way down the centuries and maintaining her inhuman nonlife with the blood of countless numbers of people. She was loathsome, hideous, and deeply evil, and Thirrin felt an overwhelming need to be away from the Blood Palace. To be anywhere but here in the sick green light, surrounded by these pale, undead courtiers.

  “Well,” the Queen continued, “do you or do you not still say that you need our help?”

  “Well, yes, we do,” Thirrin blurted out, afraid that her diplomatic mission had failed before it had properly begun. “We’ve destroyed one army, but they’ll send another…. That’s how they fight, they just keep coming…. They won’t stop. Not until we’re destroyed. Then they’ll come for you! They’ll kill you all, burn your palace, exorcise your ghosts….” She stopped, feeling every one of her inadequate fourteen years, and tried not to blush.

  “So you haven’t defeated them. Just slowed them down a bit,” said the Vampire Queen’s sweetly vicious voice. “And now you want to forget nearly a thousand years of hostilities and become our friends. How convenient … for you.”

  “And also for you, Your Majesty,” said Oskan, coming to Thirrin’s rescue. “The Queen of the Icemark is perfectly correct when she says that if we fall you will be next. The Empire prides itself on being modern, on being scientific and rational. Monst — people like yourselves and your subjects are the exact opposite of their ideals. To them you’re abominations of nature, and they’ll destroy you if only to make their idea of the world tidier.”