Last Battle of the Icemark (21 page)

Cronus and Medea watched as, far off in the distance, a large area of shadow slowly encroached on the pristine brilliance of the tundra. It was almost like watching dirty water soak into a beautifully crisp and ironed linen sheet, but both knew it
was a gathering of thousands and thousands of Ice Demons which they'd summoned by the power of their minds.

These hideous creatures would become the invading army that would crush the Icemark, but before they were ready, they'd need to be trained in the fine art of killing human beings and werewolves.

“I think now would be a good time,” Cronus said quietly, and together he and Medea applied their minds and began to create bodies and forms from the ice and rock of the Darkness. Such was their power that soon rank upon rank of housecarles and Wolf-folk warriors stood waiting silently in the freezing gloom of the Darkness. Their rigid lines receded into the distance where they stood like the trees of an oddly disciplined forest.

“Shall we install the souls now?” Medea asked eagerly, and when her grandfather nodded in silent assent, she sent out her mind to thaw some of the spirits that made up the individual ice crystals of the tundra. Gradually the atmosphere became murky, with a dense rolling fog, as more and more souls that had been cursed and exiled were freed from their icy prisons.

Cronus applied his power, and each of the newly created bodies gave a start and then shook itself as a soul entered it and began to move its limbs and head. A great murmur of excitement rose up as the spirits realised what had happened. They were alive again!

“Silence!” Medea roared into the gloom. “Cronus the Great has decided to have mercy upon you and give you a new life. All he asks is that you prove yourselves worthy of his generosity and defend yourselves against the army of Ice Demons that even now advances upon you. Take up your weapons and fight for your right to live!”

For a moment all was confusion as the liberated souls stared about themselves, and then they saw the Ice Demons bearing down upon them. Some screamed and tried to run, others collapsed to the ground in pure terror, while others simply wept. But here and there could be seen housecarles and werewolves who'd been warriors in their previous lives, and they drew their weapons or flexed their claws and waited grimly for the enemy to reach them. Gradually even those who'd wailed in despair took heart from their examples and, drawing their own swords and axes, prepared to defend themselves.

The Ice Demons were drawing ever closer, and now the dark sky was filled with their bellowing and roaring as they swayed and rolled over the tundra towards the newly-created soldiers who waited for them.

“Smell their sweet scent!” Cronus shouted over the din, as great billowing waves of stench enveloped them. “It's the aroma of martial fervour; it's the smell of victory!”

Medea rather thought it was just the sickening stink of blood and dung, but she smiled anyway and nodded in agreement.

A huge roar rose up into the frozen sky as the two armies met. Immediately, the white brilliance of the ice was drenched in a wide splatter of gore and blood as the huge demons ripped into the opposition. Limbs and heads flew through the air as the newly-made soldiers were torn apart, and their smoking entrails were greedily sucked into the tusked jaws of their enemies.

Medea smiled. She was really rather proud of the attention to detail that both she and Cronus had shown when they had created the bodies for the revived souls. They really were
anatomically perfect and accurate, and she spent a happy few minutes trying to identify body parts as they flew through the air.

The battle had become a rout, and even those spirits who'd been soldiers in their former lives fell back before the dreadful ferocity of the Ice Demons. It seemed that nothing could stop them. As each body was torn apart, its soul fled with a wail of despair and loss for the new life that had been so short.

Soon much of the fighting was hidden from view by a blizzard of falling ice, as each spirit was then frozen by the malevolent Magic of the Darkness and fell as a small crystal shard to join the countless millions of the tundra.

In less than an hour, the Ice Demons had destroyed all opposition and now stood steaming in the gloom as their stupid, hating eyes cast about for more victims.

“I think you could call that a complete success,” Cronus said happily. “Our army has proved its abilities, and each and every one of them is now imprinted with an image of the enemy.”

Medea nodded and smiled. “May I invite you to the Bone Fortress for a victory feast?”

“You may, indeed,” her grandfather replied. And they stepped elegantly over the blood-soaked ground while the ferocity of the Ice Demons was quashed by the power of the two Adepts and they marched away to wait in designated holding areas in readiness for the coming war.

Two days later Oskan and Cressida, along with a unit of more than forty werewolves and housecarles, prepared to enter the Darkness. All of the warriors had received special training from the Witchfather on how to survive in the Magical
Realms, and all had been hand-picked for their bravery and toughness. But the fact remained that Oskan didn't actually know if he could transport such a large body of living people through the interstice that divided the physical and magical plains. He could only hope and trust to his Abilities.

For several days now he'd been preparing for a battle he knew would be crucial to the survival of his son and his friends, and perhaps even to the Icemark itself. But he was also very aware that his battle would be against his own daughter; the child he'd raised and nurtured. The child whom, in the very depths of his soul, he knew he still loved.

But the times and circumstances demanded that he put aside all such emotions. He'd already been on a number of reconnaissance flights into the Magical Realms and knew exactly where his enemy was. And he also knew that there were several contingents of Ice Demons nearby who acted as a sort of unofficial bodyguard to Medea. It was these that Cressida and her soldiers would be keeping busy while he dealt with his other, far less pleasant daughter.

Medea may have been able to mask the whereabouts of Sharley and the others with consummate skill, but she'd been surprisingly lax in covering her own tracks. Perhaps she thought no one would dare attack her in the Darkness and so had built her Bone Fortress in the nothingness of the magical plain without bothering to disguise it in any way at all.

Oskan smiled coldly; how shocked she'd be when he attacked her in her own lair. He took a deep breath, crossed into the Darkness and immediately assumed the form of a speck of cosmic dust. He didn't want the hideous Ice Demons seeing him and giving away his presence; surprise was crucial. But before he began his assault, he paused as he allowed the
barriers in his mind to slowly fall and gazed into the abyss of evil that he kept hidden securely away.

Once again he felt the almost irresistible call of the power that dwelt in the unexplored recesses of his mind, and allowed himself to answer it. Immediately he was filled with a sense of indomitable strength and unstoppable purpose, and his mind expanded to fill the universe of evil he'd entered.

He turned in the emptiness of the Darkness, focused on the Bone Fortress and arrived in the ether above the pinnacles and turrets of its roof. Then, assuming his human form, he wove an intricate pattern of magic symbols and signs in the air, and successfully brought Cressida and her command through the interstices between the worlds. Striding across the tundra, the Crown Princess immediately drew her sword and, drawing breath, gave the war cry of the House of Lindenshield: “The enemy are among us, they kill our children, they burn our houses. Blood! Blast! And Fire! Blood! Blast! And Fire!”

Her living voice raged like a flame over the frozen wastes of dead. Ice Demon guards at the gates of the Bone Fortress turned their blazing eyes on the mortal intruders, and battle began.

Oskan watched the onset of the fighting from his vantage point high above the roof of Medea's stronghold, and, once satisfied all was going well, crashed through the tiles and slates of the fortress as he descended from floor to floor. Finally, with an explosion of ornate plasterwork and gilded chandeliers, he landed before Medea's great chair, and looked on the startled face of his daughter.

“Medea,” he said simply. “I am here.”

For a split second she gazed at him in amazement, but then, with a scream of terrified rage, she lifted her hand and
struck at him with a bolt of plasma. Immediately he was engulfed in the crackling power of the white-hot light, but with a wave he threw it back, and her great chair exploded into ash.

Medea paused; this was the first time she'd been in the same room as her father since he'd exiled her so long ago. For a moment she felt a rush of longing, but quickly crushed it. Her mind began to race. How had he found her? Before she could think further she was suddenly seized in a field of energy that crushed her breath from her lungs. For a second she panicked, her mind and body writhing in her father's grip. But then she steadied herself and slowly, with a massive effort, she resisted the pressure, pushing against its deadly grip, until Oskan was forced to release her.

She drew on the Power of the Darkness and her confidence grew. She knew she was stronger than Oskan; all she had to do was fight with precision and skill. “It's so nice to see you again, Father,” she spat, trying to ignore the truth of the statement. “Did you hope I'd died when you exiled me?”

Oskan looked at his daughter and carefully masked all emotion. “I don't really know what I hoped, Medea. Your actions forced me to make a decision; you were a threat to the Icemark and everyone in it. I tried to end that threat, and now I must try to end it again.”

Angry and hurt, Medea's reply was a lightning bolt of searing energy that lanced into Oskan's face. For a moment he staggered and she thought she had him, but then, drawing breath, he absorbed the energy and spat back a bolt of such power that it threw his daughter across the width of the Great Hall. She landed heavily on the skull-cobbled floor, but leaped to her feet and renewed her attack, sending blast after bolt of energy against her father, forcing him back across the floor
until he fell to his knees, exhausted and injured.

Medea walked slowly towards him, smiling brightly to mask the knot of fear and shame in the pit of her stomach. “Oh dear, is the most powerful Warlock in the Physical Realms wounded? My, my, what a shame. No point in leaving him to suffer.”

A crackling sheet of searing light suddenly appeared above his head, and gently, almost tenderly, it draped itself across Oskan's kneeling form. Swiftly it moulded itself to his shape, and pulsating waves of broiling heat began to melt the wall of the Bone Fortress behind him.

Medea watched, her face a rigid mask, as the sheet crackled with heat. But then the kneeling form of her father climbed to its feet, and turned to face her as though unaffected by her powers. Desperately fighting down an instinctive need to run to him, she began to turn away, but some unseen force held her in place.

“Come, Medea, we both need to end this quickly.”

She screamed as she watched the white-draped figure advancing towards her. Oskan slowly opened his arms and gathered her in a hug.

Her hair and clothing burst into flames as his arms enveloped her in a crushing embrace so that she was unable to break free. The stench of her roasting flesh and choking smoke billowed into the atmosphere until her screams were cut short by her convulsive coughs.

Then, with a supreme concentration of willpower, she broke free and sent a flying dagger of lightning to bury itself in Oskan's chest. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony, as she staggered away, her skin charred almost to the bone. But as she watched, Oskan's hands slowly drew aside the white-hot sheet
of plasma and wrenched the dagger from his chest.

“Your Gift has grown enormously, Medea. Why couldn't you have used it to help those that needed it?”

Medea was exhausted; his power appalled her, and nothing she'd so far sent against him had had any effect. His skin was unblemished, and not even a hair seemed to be out of place as he walked calmly towards her.

“Keep away,” she screeched. “You should be dead! I've done enough to kill you three times over already.”

Oskan now took the knife of lightning that had been buried in his chest and weighed it contemplatively in his hand as he desperately tried to remind himself of why he had to destroy his daughter's powers. Sharley, Mekhmet and Kirimin were all in terrible danger, and if she was left with her Gifts intact, who could possibly tell how many others would suffer?

With a sudden cry of rage and desperation he threw the knife so that it buried itself deep in Medea's eye, throwing her to the cold white floor. He fell to his knees, his face twisted in agony, as though he'd inflicted the wound on himself.

The point of the dagger was lodged deep in Medea's brain, but incredibly she was still conscious. The pain was hideous; bright, brittle and scintillatingly sharp as the energy of the lightning blade pulsated slowly.

Lifting her arms, she tried to draw the dagger from her eye, but she no longer had the strength. Outrage and betrayal burned deep within her. “How are you going to kill me?”

Oskan climbed to his feet. “I'm not going to kill you,” he answered quietly. “I don't want to kill you. But I must destroy your powers.”

He stooped over her, and gathering energy from the evil that surrounded him, he began to feed it into the blade lodged
so deep in Medea's brain. Soon cells and synapses began to boil and burn away, and she felt her Gift beginning to fade. She screamed in horror and fought back madly, but Oskan diverted all energy into his attack, even draining it away from his defences and psychic shields as he struggled to destroy the powers of the daughter he knew he still loved.

Without warning a black and ragged shape hurled itself out of the shadows. Carrying a dagger of ice, it crashed into the Witchfather and buried it deep in his now undefended neck. With a roar of pain the Warlock staggered to his feet and wrenched the dagger free.