The Icemark Chronicles: The Cry of the Icemark (47 page)

At last the muskets fired, but the women had dived for cover and now stood ready again to shoot their deadly rain. With a desperate scream a young soldier tried to smother a burning barrel with his body, but then a vicious screaming crack erupted into the air and the wagon was blown apart. Almost simultaneously the remaining five wagons burst skyward on a blooming forest of flame. Broken cannon and shot burst outward in a deadly driving hail, killing and wounding hundreds of the soldiers who stood nearby. The survivors of Elemnestra’s mounted archers were also blown aside by a killing hand of fire that finally ended the elite regiment of the Hypolitan.

Thirrin cried out in grief and rage when she realized what had happened and, rising out of her saddle, she drew her saber and shouted out the battle paean of the Icemark. The six thousand warriors of her cavalry, human and leopard, answered, their voices ferocious and deadly. They swept down on the disrupted ranks of the Empire’s soldiers, killing and killing in an attempt to avenge the loss of Elemnestra and her archers, and when at last the iron discipline of the Polypontian army was broken, they rode after them, cutting them down as they ran.

When the few hundred who’d survived her attack scrambled to the safety of their lines, Thirrin led her cavalry in a charge across the plain to smash into the Empire’s units, who’d drawn out the fyrd with their sham retreat. By now the soldiers of the Icemark had remembered their training and
had formed a shield-wall as they fought an ordered withdrawal back toward the ditches and ramparts of the defenses.

The cavalry sliced through the Polypontian soldiers like a razor through stubble and, bursting through their ranks, they turned to slice back through them again. Soon their resistance had collapsed, too, and this time their retreat was real. After the cavalry had chased the last of the Polypontians from the field, Thirrin returned to the fyrd, now standing at a loss watching the fleeing enemy.

“Go back to your positions and hold them!” Thirrin blazed, her eyes brilliant with fury. “If you’d followed your orders and heeded your training, none of this would have happened. You will stand to until I return! You will
not
stand down, no matter how long you have to wait. Anyone who disobeys this order will be hanged!”

Turning her stallion, she led a charge across to where Olememnon and his Hypolitan infantry were fighting against the left arm of the enemy’s failed pincer movement. They’d been making good progress, first halting the advance of the Empire’s soldiers and then slowly forcing them back toward their own lines. Now Thirrin and Tharaman-Thar fell upon the flanks of the Empire’s army, driving through their lines as the coughing bark of the Snow Leopards and the paean of the human troopers sounded over the field. The pike regiments tried to make a stand against the fury unleashed upon them, driving the butts of their pikes deep into the ground and holding them at graded angles that should have made them impregnable to cavalry. But Tharaman-Thar and Taradan led their leopards against the long spears, beating them down with their paws, then diving between them to savage the soldiers they were supposed to protect.

Eventually the discipline and courage of the Polypontian soldiers was broken and they fled, many of them dying beneath the sabers and claws of the pursuing cavalry. But Thirrin’s fury was not yet spent, and she galloped to just beyond cannon range at the enemy’s lines and waited, openly challenging the rest of their army to come out and fight.

From behind the lines, Scipio Bellorum had viewed it all, and his original elation at the destruction of Elemnestra and her mounted archers gave way to frustration as he watched Thirrin and her “trained leopards” destroying his Yellow and Orange armies. Only his elite Black Army was totally intact, and with the support of the remnants of the Reds, he hurriedly sent them to hold the front line, come what may, against the barbarian Queen.

He scanned Thirrin and her cavalry, as close to panic as he’d ever come in his long military career, but then breathed a sigh of relief. The young Queen seemed to have slumped in her saddle, and one of the leopards had his face close to hers, for all the world as though he were talking to her — an illusion made all the more believable since she seemed to be holding a conversation with it, listening, then apparently replying as it looked at her.

Bellorum squinted through his monoculum, watching her mouth moving silently, and wishing desperately that there was some way of hearing what was being said. Then she hugged the huge beast and, slipping across from her saddle, she climbed onto its back and they trotted back to Frostmarris. The rest of the cavalry followed, and Bellorum sat back in relief.

The crisis was over, and luckily two of the four reinforcing armies were less than half a day’s march away. Turning to his staff officers, who sat on their horses with carefully
expressionless faces, he beckoned to the youngest. “How long do you estimate it would take you to ride back to the pass through the Dancing Maidens?”

“Two days, sir!” the young officer answered stoutly.

“Which means three, at least. I want you to take orders to the reserve armies you’ll find camped just inside the border, and tell them to come here at all speed. The time has come to crush this queenling and her little country. Their arrogance is beginning to annoy me.”

O
ne hundred soldiers stood tied to stakes in the courtyard of the citadel. One in every hundred from the ten thousand members of the fyrd regiments who’d broken ranks and left their positions. They’d been chosen by drawing lots, and now were to be flogged.

One hundred housecarls had also been chosen to carry out the sentences of twenty lashes for each soldier, and stood waiting for Thirrin to give the order to begin. It was the first really warm day of the spring, and the sound of birdsong tumbled into the otherwise silent courtyard where almost two thousand of the fyrd regiment had been crammed to witness the punishment.

Thirrin was mounted on her warhorse and, urging him forward, she pitched her voice at a level everyone could hear. “Soldiers of the fyrd, you are here to witness the punishment of your comrades for disobeying orders.” She glared at the ranks before her, the rage she had felt during the battle rekindling as he spoke. “The guilt belongs to all of you! By breaking ranks, you not only endangered your comrades but also put in
jeopardy the entire defense of Frostmarris and therefore the country and people of the Icemark!”

Her stallion began to sidestep and snort, ready for battle as he heard the anger in Thirrin’s voice. “But above even this, you are all guilty of bringing about the death of Basilea Elemnestra of the Hypolitan and her mounted archers! It was their brave sacrifice that saved you from certain destruction. A sacrifice that wouldn’t have been necessary if you had obeyed orders and the most basic rules of engagement! You do
not
break ranks! You do
not
pursue the enemy unless ordered to do so! Anyone, of whatever rank, who commits such crimes again will be hanged, and his body left to the crows.” She turned to nod at a lone drummer, who began to beat out a slow rhythm that would set the pace of the strokes. “May you all feel the pain of your comrades. May you all feel the disgrace of your crime.” She nodded again, and the housecarls drew back their whips and began the punishment.

The crack of the lashes cutting into flesh echoed across the courtyard, mingling with the screams of the soldiers. But the watching regiments remained deathly quiet. After less than two minutes the punishment was complete, and the soldiers were cut down and carried to the hospital block where the healers were ready to receive them. Then, with a silent nod from Thirrin, the fyrd was dismissed and they were marched back down to the defenses to resume their duties.

When the last rank had filed through the gates, Thirrin dismounted and, giving her horse to a waiting groom, she walked through the huge doors that led into the Great Hall. The cavernous space was empty, and for a moment she leaned against the cool stone of the walls and closed her eyes. But then a soft step approaching across the flagstones made her open them
again and straighten up. Somehow she wasn’t surprised to see Oskan walking slowly toward her.

“And what do you imagine was achieved by that horrendous display of cruelty?” he asked quietly.

“Discipline and a good lesson learned!” she snapped in reply.

“Don’t you think these soldiers are carrying enough of a burden without the added threat of a flogging if they make mistakes?” His tone remained even and level, but Thirrin could see him shaking with a suppressed rage that seemed to shimmer in the very air around him.

“Oskan, do you really believe that I don’t understand exactly what my soldiers are going through? Do you really think I’m a stranger to burdens?” She almost laughed at the bitter absurdity of it all, but she controlled herself, knowing that if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“They’re lucky, they only have to worry about a flogging if they break ranks and endanger their own lives again. But if I make a mistake, thousands could die, a country could be lost, and who knows what else could be inflicted on those unlucky enough to survive!” Her voice had slowly risen in strength as she spoke, and suddenly she let everything go in a glorious outpouring of emotion.

“Don’t talk to me about burdens, I drew up the plans for them! How many fourteen-year-olds do you know who rule a kingdom at war, who command an army, who keep together an alliance of more species than she can remember, who’s killed more people than she can count, who waits desperately day in, day out, every living blessed second, for the arrival of allies she’s terrified are going to let her down? Please tell me, Oskan, tell me her name. I’d like to have a cozy chat with her and compare notes! I’d like that, it might make me feel just a little less
isolated, and just a little less afraid that at any minute the whole sorry, ludicrous, deadly, hellish mess is going to collapse around me, and everyone will finally find out that I don’t know what I’m doing and that I’m making it up as I go along!”

She drew a deep, shuddering breath and fell silent, but her voice reverberated in the vast empty space of the Great Hall as though they were standing inside a huge bell that had just finished ringing.

Oskan blinked in amazement at the passionate outburst, almost smiled, thought better of it, and then finally gave her a hug that made her gasp. After a moment’s hesitation she returned his embrace, gently at first, then more and more fiercely as she reached out for his help and comfort. They stood there rocking from side to side while the war raged on and the world and all its woes continued without them. But after a while she disentangled herself. Oskan grinned when he saw her red cheeks, then he said, “I’m sorry, but I must go. I’ve got some soldiers to patch up.”

She nodded. “And I have to find a lost commander of infantry.” He frowned in puzzlement, but she shook her head. “I’ll explain later.”

They stood in silence for a few uncertain seconds, then finally walked away in opposite directions.

Her boots echoed in the silence as she strode across the flagstone floor and into the tangle of corridors that wound and writhed around the interior of the royal palace like veins and arteries. She took a few steadying breaths as she walked along and slowly regained her composure. By the time she reached the first junction of corridor and walkway, she’d become Queen Thirrin once again, and she concentrated her mind on the task at hand.

She knew exactly where she was going and who she’d find
there. Earlier that morning she’d sent some of the quieter chamberlains to discreetly find out where he’d gone, and after they’d reported back she’d made up her mind to talk to him.

She came to a small, low door, and when she opened it, sunlight and the scent of flowers flowed around her in a warm rising wave. Before her lay the citadel garden. She walked out into the small space that was enclosed by the battlemented walls, and closed her eyes. The short Icemark spring was already evolving into summer, and the hum of bees filled the air as they shuttled like living sparks between the blooms that blazed their confusion of color into the air.

Thirrin breathed the heady mix of perfumes deep into her tired frame, and for the briefest of moments was almost able to forget the war. But then a warm gust of wind brought with it the sound of shouted orders and the tramp of marching feet, and she opened her eyes to reality and her task.

In the center of the garden tall rosebushes were already coming into flower, their deep reds, icy whites, and delicate pinks making a tangled tapestry of pigments and velvety textures on the warm air. Instinctively she walked toward them, and found Olememnon sitting on a bench surrounded by blooms and bees. He hadn’t heard her arrive and he sat, eyes closed, with petals in his hair and a butterfly sitting on his shoulder. He looked like one of the many minor Gods of Nature, tired out by the effort of spring and resting in his own creation before the tasks of summer began.