Last Battle of the Icemark (39 page)

Erinor mounted her waiting Tri-Horn. As she stood in the howdah that rose like a small fortress from its back, the Hordes fell silent waiting for the speech that would raise them to a frenzy of killing power. But their Basilea was silent. What need for words of passion and violence? What need for orations of frenzy and hate? Victory was already granted; they simply had to advance and take it.

With a huge bellow of power the Tri-Horn stepped forward, and the entire army fell in behind: regiment after endless regiment of Shock Troops, elite fighters, chariots, cavalry and the mountainous squadrons of Tri-Horns. No power on earth could stop them, no alliance of human, beast or monster could hold them back from their destiny. The Goddess herself was their patron, and all would fall before them, all would die beneath their trampling feet.

C
HAPTER
27

M
edea and Cronus sat in the comfortable chamber that had once been Thirrin and Oskan's private quarters in the citadel of Frostmarris. The city had been magically restored after the Vampires had destroyed much of it with fire, but in fact the citadel and Royal quarters had been largely untouched. It was almost as though the Vampires had deliberately avoided attacking it. Medea privately thought that a little ‘fiery cleansing' might have improved the old fortress, but at least it'd meant that she and Cronus had still had a base to use as their centre of operations.

The weak winter sun was just beginning to set, filling the room with russet light and giving an illusion of warmth. But even though the huge fireplace was piled high with blazing logs, a deep rime of frost coated the stonework that was carved with the fighting bear of the House of Lindenshield.

Medea remembered the room well from her childhood, and she took a perverse pleasure in thinking that she'd taken possession of the place by force of arms.

“The Vampires are almost exhausted. Their resistance can't continue for much longer. And even if it does, we control all
of the major settlements of the Icemark, along with the entire road network and all fortresses and strongholds.” Cronus settled back into Oskan's chair. “All of which basically means Her Vampiric Majesty and her valiant squadrons have been reduced to a mere inconvenience. They cannot stop us completing our plans.”

Medea couldn't help remembering in graphic detail how the Vampire squadrons had so easily sidestepped Cronus's attack on their forest stronghold only a few days earlier. And the subsequent destruction of Frostmarris was hardly the act of a force that could be considered “a mere inconvenience”. Not only that, but what difference would control of the roads, and even the fortresses, make to an enemy that flew everywhere, and was as mobile and flexible as the Vampires? Feeling suddenly disloyal to the Arc-Adept, she smiled optimistically and said, “So, now we can begin the next phase of the war?”

“Absolutely. We conquer what remains of the Polypontus, then we march south to the Venezzian and Hellenic territories, the Desert Kingdom and Arifica,” Cronus continued confidently. “The campaign shouldn't take much more than a year at most, after which we must look to the east and west. In fact, I expect to be ruler of the entirety of the Physical Realms within three years.”

“
We
expect to be rulers of the Physical Realms within three years, surely,” Medea corrected sharply.

“But of course,” Cronus replied placatingly. “A trifling slip of the tongue, no more.”

“But of course,” she echoed, after a few moments' silence, and then continued. “We'll be ready then for the most important phase of our campaign.”

“Indeed, yes!” Cronus hissed, and tiny particles of ice gathered in a dense mist around him. “The assault on the Goddess Herself!”

Medea watched him with interest and marvelled that he seemed completely unaware of the very emotions he supposedly didn't feel. Jealousy of the Goddess, rage at Her rejection of him, and a deep-seated need for revenge were all displayed for anyone who dared to look as his guard slipped in the excitement of his plans.

And once, much further down, in the shadows and murk of his deepest subconscious, Medea had detected something else; something she'd found so shocking and so frightening she'd never dared look again. Cronus the great, Cronus the defiant, Cronus the seat and fount of all evil, felt a need to be forgiven; to be accepted back into the realm of the Gods!

“What need have we of Oskan Witchfather?” he suddenly shouted, waking Medea from her thoughts and fears. “Together we can defy all opposition. Not even the Goddess Herself can stop us now!”

“Indeed not,” she agreed, and felt the familiar upwelling of emotions that she experienced whenever her father's name was mentioned.

The sudden shattering of the windows was somehow almost expected. Whenever Medea began to feel confident in their campaign, the Vampires always contrived to spoil it.

“I'm beginning to make something of a habit of this, aren't I?” said Her Vampiric Majesty as she stepped over the demolished window and wall. “I really must learn to announce my arrival with a little more subtlety.”

Both Adepts began to send out calls for the Ice Demon guards, but the Queen raised her hand so imperiously they
stopped. “Oh, please! Can't we simply have a little talk, without those awful lumbering creatures cluttering up the place? I promise a temporary truce, if we can just have a ‘frank exchange of views', as the diplomats put it.”

“What do you want to say?” Cronus asked simply.

“Well, I thought I'd explain why you can't win this silly war, and then I'll listen while you state quite categorically why you can. It makes such a pleasant change from all the death and mayhem, don't you think?”

“I have no time to take part in your pathetic charades, woman,” Cronus snapped.

“But you have all the time in the world to fight my squadrons, or at least I assume you do, because you certainly seem to expend most of your effort doing just that.” Her Vampiric Majesty crossed to a large chair that stood next to the fireplace, and sat with every appearance of comfort and ease.

“Soon the skies will be cleared of your menace,” Cronus growled, the nimbus of ice crystals that hung in the air around him eddying and swirling in the complex air currents that perfectly reflected his anger.

“When?”

“Today! I'll lead the demons against you just as soon as they're summoned.”

The Queen searched for a way of inflicting as much psychological damage as possible. Finding it, she smiled coldly. “You can no more destroy my army than you can control the emotions you supposedly do not have!”

“I feel nothing but contempt for you and your squadrons.”

“Granted,” she replied. “And alongside that contempt you also feel rage, hatred . . . and
fear.”

An ear-splitting crack exploded through the room as lightning struck the stonework behind Her Vampiric Majesty's head. “I have long forgotten the experience of fear. It's the weakest of the emotions, and I've expunged it from my psyche!”

“Do you really think so?” the Queen asked conversationally, suddenly staring at Cronus intently as though she could see his very soul. “Hmm, perhaps you're right. Then amend fear to ‘terror', and add to it uncertainty, lack of ability, and
in-com-pe-tence.”
She sounded every syllable of the last word with mocking relish.

Medea found herself marvelling at Her Vampiric Majesty's barefaced cheek, not to mention her incredible bravery. Here she was, sitting at her ease in the presence of the most powerful Adepts in all Creation, and throwing out insults as though they were nothing more than a pair of novice witches!

Cronus stood with slow menace, and his form seemed to fill the entire room as his shadow flowed across the floor like a black flood. “And exactly what do you believe is causing me to feel this supposed terror?”

The Queen inspected her blood-red nails and smiled gently. “Well, where shall I begin? Let me see, now . . . first yourself, and your own actions. You're terrified that you've gone too far, taken on too much. Can you really get away with it? Haven't you tried once before and been punished? There really are
so
many uncertainties to plague you, aren't there? And then, of course, there's the Witchfather. You're
very
afraid of him, aren't you? What will happen when he finds out what you've done?” She suddenly looked up from her nails, and her piercing eyes glinted. “Because he will find out; you can't keep an invasion of this scale secret for long. And then
 . . . oh, and then you'll die. Both of you will die a truly
horrible
death.”

Cronus began to laugh, gently at first, so that neither Medea nor the Queen could hear it, but then the sound grew to slowly fill the entire room, with huge guffaws of mirth that echoed back from the high ceiling. “Oh, you stupid woman! Do you really think that I've spent aeons and millennia planning this war without being absolutely certain that I could win it? Do you imagine that I could have spent the long endless ages locked in the desolation of the Darkness and not have calculated and computed every possible setback and danger? Can you really believe that I haven't applied my towering intellect to ensuring that nothing could possibly prevent my victory?”

Her Vampiric Majesty politely stifled a yawn behind an elegantly armoured hand, then she smiled, revealing her fangs. “Yes.”

Cronus roared, sending out a blast of deadly cold that cracked the stonework of the surrounding walls and froze the fire on the hearth to glinting fragments like carved crystal. “Then tell me, oh wise corpse, where is the flaw in my invasion? Where is the danger?”

The Queen stood and crossed to the window. “Here, looking at you. My undefeated squadrons still control the skies; my warriors continue to kill your Ice Demons and disrupt your preparations; my army still fights to defend the land of Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield. And until every one of my Vampires is destroyed, until you've obliterated me and all of my people, you will never be able to claim that you've conquered the Icemark!”

Cronus sent a blast of energy that demolished the window
and the wall, but once the dust had settled, Her Vampiric Majesty had disappeared. Medea rushed to the gaping hole that had been torn into the wall and gazed up into the skies. The dying reds and bronzes of the sunset dimly illuminated the dense formations of Vampire squadrons that filled the skies.

“They're here again, Grandfather,” she said quietly.

Alarms! Alarms! The streets of Romula rang with bells and brayed with bugles as the army was roused. Erinor was advancing! Erinor was striking back!

Thirrin and Cressida strode through the corridors of the palace as they hurried to the mustering point. They emerged into the once tranquil Imperial park, which now seethed with the cavalry of the Icesheets, then descended the huge sweep of steps that led from the palace's imposing entrance.

“How far off is she?” Tharaman asked urgently as Thirrin swept across the lawns and mounted her warhorse, acknowledging as she did so the howls of Grinelda Bloodtooth and the rest of her Ukpik werewolf bodyguard.

“We've been lucky, she's still a day's march away. But if the Vampires hadn't sent out a routine patrol she could have been on us while we were polishing our swords! It's only good fortune that the army's almost ready to march!”

“Erinor's certainly an unpredictable woman, it must be said,” Krisafitsa commented as the cavalry began preparing to move off. “How many other commanders would mount an attack mere days after a crushing defeat?”

“Not many,” Thirrin agreed. “But you can be certain she didn't expect us to be ready for her either.”

Receiving a nod from her mother, Cressida now stood in
her stirrups and gave the order to march, and the line of cavalry trotted briskly from the park. Once out in the streets they were joined by the rest of the army, human, Vampire, Snow Leopard and werewolf welded into a single fighting unit by comradeship and the shared horror of battle.

The wide Eppian Way was lined with people, but this time the cheers were more muted than they'd been after the Hordes' attempt to take the city had been defeated. Now the nightmare of Erinor had been resurrected, and her name alone was enough to strike terror and despair into the stoutest heart. Even so, the sight of the Barbarian Queen and her army of monsters restored their morale slightly, as did the Polypontian contingents with their disciplined step, polished armour and dense thickets of pikes.

Erinor advanced in silence. She was now almost eager to see the woman who'd defeated her Hordes, an army that had never been beaten, no matter who commanded them, since the day they were first created from the combined warrior tribes of Artemesion. The intensity of her curiosity about Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield almost made her tremble, and in the pit of her stomach was an odd sensation that any lesser warrior would have recognised as the first stirrings of nervousness.

Behind her, the great sweeping sea of her army glittered and shimmered under a brilliant blue sky. But the weather had changed again: the day was icy cold, and the rumbling and bellowing of the Tri-Horns was accompanied by great clouds of steam as their breath condensed on the freezing air. There was also a sharp scent of snow on the wind, even though there wasn't a cloud in sight. But those with any knowledge of
weather lore knew that there'd be a fall within a day or so.

Erinor nodded to herself as she thought of the coming clash. It was almost certain the numbers of casualties on both sides would be enormous, and there was something pleasing about the thought that the bodies would be preserved for weeks in the freezing temperatures. What better monument could there be to the Goddess than an ice sculpture of the dead, sacrificed in the battle to establish a new empire that would reflect the Mother's glory on earth?