The Icemark Chronicles: The Cry of the Icemark (49 page)

“Is nowhere private?” she snapped. “Not even my head?”

“Oh, I don’t need a warlock’s powers to know what you’re thinking. But they’ll come, I feel it in my bones,” he said, deepening his voice and rolling his eyes like a fairground fortune-teller.

“Don’t joke about it, Oskan. Things are getting desperate.”

“Getting
desperate? When has it been anything else? I tell you what, though, we’ve bloodied Bellorum’s nose. I bet he thought he’d have this little war all done and dusted by now, and that he’d be sitting back in his villa on the coast of the Southern Sea. Ha! Serves the murderous old bastard right! Perhaps next time he’ll think twice before he decides he wants to add some other little land to the Empire.”

Thirrin grinned despite herself. There was something comforting about Oskan’s odd mixing of adult analysis and schoolroom language. “Yes, but will we be able to hold him off until the allies come?”

For some reason Oskan wouldn’t look at her, and instead gazed out over the plain. “Oh yes. I’m sure of it.”

“Warlock, do you know something I should hear about, something bad?” she barked, assuming her full queenly persona.

“No,” he replied after a moment’s silence. “I know nothing at all. That’s just it, I’ve tried and I can’t see a thing. We’re obviously not meant to know, yet.”

“Great,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “Well, the suspense is literally killing my soldiers.”

A sudden blast of bugles made her snap upright, and she peered over the battlements. Bellorum was sending his daily raid. She was well aware that he was trying to exhaust her troops by keeping them constantly on their toes, while he used a rotation system for his own soldiers that allowed the majority of them to rest. The trouble was, it was working. The defenders were all physically and mentally drained, and they had to keep fighting fresh, well-rested enemy soldiers with every attack.

“I’ve got to go. Have you seen Tharaman?”

“Down at the main gates,” Oskan answered, and hurried off to the infirmary to prepare for the casualties that would soon be flooding in.

Scipio Bellorum watched as his soldiers charged. It was all getting rather routine now. The designated regiments of the day would march off and keep the enemy busy, while the remainder of his army rested and prepared for the final assault in two days’ time.

He almost felt that he could leave this part of the war to his undergenerals — almost, but not quite, because the fighters of the Icemark were never predictable. With a sigh he snapped open his monoculum and stood at the raised wall of his tent, watching progress. As usual, the defenders were proving difficult to crack, and his shield-bearers and pikemen were being beaten back. And then he noticed movement farther along the system of ditch and rampart. Quickly he refocused his monoculum and watched as Thirrin and Tharaman-Thar led out their cavalry. He could clearly see the queenling standing in her stirrups, drawing her sword, and the unnatural giant leopard throwing back its head and sending out that bizarre
coughing bark. Then the Queen’s cavalry leaped forward and thundered down on his troops, smashing into their flank.

“General Fortune and Commander Chance are indeed my greatest allies!” Bellorum said, and laughed aloud. Sending for his orderly he gave precise commands, then feverishly watched the struggle on the defenses. Soon a great wave of Imperial troops was sweeping across the plain toward Thirrin and her cavalry.

“I have her! I have her!” Bellorum cried out excitedly as his soldiers took a wide sweeping arc toward the Queen of the Icemark, cutting off her retreat back to the gate in the defenses. “Not even this barbarian woman and her talking leopards can cut their way through one hundred thousand Polypontian men.” He quickly calculated the odds and crowed. “Outnumbered by more than sixteen to one is too much even for her!”

Up on the battlements of Frostmarris, Oskan looked out over the plain. The wounded hadn’t started to arrive in any numbers yet, and he’d taken the chance to go back to the high point and get some air. He watched as the Polypontian soldiers attacked the defenses in the segment close to the forest, then his eye was drawn to Thirrin and her cavalry riding down to the gate in the system of ditches and embankments. They rode through and headed directly for the Empire’s troops. After a few moments he heard the cavalry paean and the barking of the leopards, followed by the sound of onset.

The wounded would soon be arriving in the infirmary, and he was just about to turn from the walls and head back down into the citadel when he noticed movement in the Polypontian camp. In horror he watched as thousands upon thousands of enemy soldiers burst across the plain like a flood. Nobody
down on the defenses was high enough to see the danger, and he gripped the stone of the battlements in a rising panic. They were trying to cut off Thirrin and Tharaman! They’d be trapped before anything could be done.

“NO!” he shouted despairingly into the unheeding sky, his small voice lost in the clamor of battle. What could be done? By the time the defenders were given orders and had begun to react, it would be too late. Armies moved only as fast as their slowest parts. Then gradually a determination and a certainty grew within him.
He
must act, and he must act
now!
He pushed himself away from the wall and raced down the stone steps into the citadel, shouting as he went. He rushed to the stables and found Jenny munching a bag of carrots. She hiccupped in surprise as he leaped on her back without saddle or reins.

Grabbing her mane, he tugged her head around, and she trotted obediently toward the gate of the citadel. Then suddenly she caught the terrible sense of urgency that was beating in waves from Oskan, and she let out a great squealing bray that echoed around the walls. Laying back her long ears, she thrust her head forward and galloped down through the town, hee-hawing as she went. Soon they reached the gateway to the city, where the party of white werewolves was preparing to join the battle on the defenses.

“To me! To me! The Queen is in danger!” Oskan bellowed at them as he thundered by, desperately clinging to Jenny’s neck. The Wolffolk instantly fell in behind, easily keeping pace with the wildly galloping mule. Down on the level they hurtled toward the gate in the defenses, the werewolves pulling ahead and bursting through the guard that would have barred their way. Then they were through and out onto the plain. Ahead, Oskan could see the enemy bearing down on
the rear of Thirrin’s cavalry, and the alarm was being sounded at last all along the embankments. Olememnon was already leading his infantry out through the gateway, frantically trying to catch up with the mule and the small party of werewolves that were swiftly drawing ahead.

But the Polypontian army was winning the race. Thirrin and Tharaman would soon be cut off. Oskan shouted and screamed in an attempt to warn the cavalry, but even with Jenny and the werewolves joining in, their voices were lost.

On they galloped, heading for the rapidly closing area of open plain between the advancing Imperial troops and the defenses. Soon Oskan and the werewolves were fighting their way through enemy soldiers. Jenny lashed out like a trained warhorse and the Wolffolk struck and beat at the soldiers. Such was their ferocity that they hardly slowed, and still they howled and screamed.

At last, Tharaman seemed to realize the danger and, looking back, he let out a huge roar. The cavalry turned around and reformed. Thirrin circled her sword above her head and they charged back toward Oskan and his party, but it was too late. The enemy soldiers closed the escape route, and Jenny and the werewolves broke through only to join the cavalry in certain death.

“No!” screamed Oskan in total and utter despair, then all went black as he was knocked to the ground. He came to seconds later. Jenny stood over him, kicking out with her powerful back legs and sending enemy soldiers flying through the air. Grinelda, the huge captain of the white werewolves, stooped down, and carrying him in her arms she ran to clearer ground, her warriors around her. She set Oskan down, and he watched as the enemy bore down on them. In the background, the thunder of cavalry hooves drew closer as Thirrin and
Tharaman galloped toward them. But it was too late; the Imperial troops had surrounded them.

Oskan wept in despair, his frame racked with sobs as he realized they were finished. But then, oddly, two voices sounded in his head, a conversation from his and Thirrin’s past.

“Can you draw down lightning?”

“I’ve never tried. Seems a silly idea to me. You could be hit.”

Could he draw down lightning? Would it be enough? Wenlock Witchmother had said he was the most powerful warlock in generations. Now was the time to find out. He opened his arms wide and threw back his head, staring deep into the clear blue sky. He called on all his strength and forced his mind far and wide questing for power. He ranged over the realms of the four winds, and slowly ions began to gather and accumulate in the air high, high above him. The sky seemed to thicken and roll like muscled water, and then the power started to fall through the sky, crackling and snapping as it tumbled toward the small figure of the boy who stood on the plain, thousands of feet below. It hit him with shocking force, but his thin frame withstood it, shaking and vibrating as the power filled him to the uttermost brim. Opening his arms wide, he held his hands above his head and pointed them, palms open, at the enemy soldiers. With a terrible bursting crash, lightning erupted from his hands and struck the troops before him, blasting them aside, burning and scorching, blackening skin and igniting cloth, hair, and gunpowder.

Turning slowly, Oskan directed the terrible scything force to carve a swath through the Imperial troops, until an escape route stood open. Then he fell. Every piece of cloth and every hair had been burned from his body. Smoke trickled from his mouth and nose, and his skin was charred black. The cavalry reached him, Thirrin screaming in horror as she looked down
on Oskan’s body. Tharaman stooped and picked him up in his mouth as gently as if he were a kitten. Taradan roared, and the cavalry leaped forward, joined by the werewolves and Jenny. They burst through the gap Oskan had punched, and galloped toward the gate in the defenses. But still the enemy came on, snapping at their heels.

Advancing at a steady trot toward them, Olememnon and his infantry slung their shields, and as Thirrin and her cavalry rode by, the Hypolitan foot soldiers hit the Empire’s troops with a huge roar. The impact echoed over the plain, but the Hypolitans were borne backward by the massive weight of the enemy’s numbers and by their desperation to catch and kill the Queen of the Icemark.

Olememnon bellowed out the order to stand, and slowly the advance of the Imperial army lost its momentum as the soldiers of the Hypolitan drove their feet into the earth and pushed back against the impossible odds. By this time, Thirrin and the cavalry had reached the gateway and ridden through, but their pace didn’t slacken. Instead, they thundered on to the city, heading for the infirmary and its healers.

Up on the defenses the ballistas and archers loosed flight after flight of bolts and arrows into the enemy ranks, and slowly the intensity of their attack slackened, allowing Olememnon and his soldiers to fight a retreat back to the gate in the defenses.

Sensing their advantage was finally lost and that the queenling had escaped, the Empire’s commanders ordered their soldiers back to camp. They withdrew across the plain, arrogant and swaggering in the lack of concern they showed to the arrows and ballista bolts that continued to rain down on them.

T
hirrin ran into the infirmary ahead of Tharaman-Thar, roughly thrusting aside anyone who got in her way and shouting for Wenlock Witchmother. But the leader of the witches was already waiting for her, leaning quietly on her stick, and with two healers in attendance.

“He’s dead, Mother! He’s dead!” Thirrin shrieked as she caught sight of her.

The old lady stepped forward and motioned to Tharaman-Thar to lay Oskan down before her. She nodded slowly as she looked at his burned and disfigured body. “He has paid a high price to save you, Thirrin Lindenshield.”

“I know that! He’s paid with his life!”

“Shut up, foolish girl! If you really thought that, why did you bring him to me? Do you really think I can raise the dead? Those who are called into the peace of the Goddess stay there until
she
decides otherwise.”

The Witchmother turned to one of the healers. “Mirror,” she demanded, and waited with her hand open until a small circular piece of polished metal had been placed in her palm. Then, stooping, she held it before the blackened hole that was
Oskan’s mouth. A faint mist gathered on its bright surface. “He lives, of course. He has other duties to perform in this life. Take him to the place prepared.”

“He’s alive?” said Thirrin, caught between amazement and a knowledge that she’d always believed it from the moment Tharaman-Thar had lifted him from the battlefield. “But even if he survives, he’ll be horribly scarred. Would he want to live that way?”