Arrows began to rain down on Polypontian soldiers as the archers in the howdahs came into range. But the pike regiments continued their advance. Soon the overpowering smell of the huge animals washed over them, and their enormous bodies filled the horizon as they rolled forward. The Tri-Horns now raised their heads and roared, and, with a heave, drove forward into the enemy.
The pike lines immediately buckled as the long spears snapped and shattered against the tough hide of the animals, but more and more of the weapons swung down into the engage position from the ranks of soldiers marching behind. Still the Tri-Horns advanced through the densely packed lines of the enemy, and Erinor laughed aloud. What hope had such puny efforts against her mighty war beasts?
But more of the pikes were now engaged, and the soldiers closed ranks into a solid wedge of bristling razor-sharp steel, each individual fighter becoming a part of a single killing machine that stood against the power of the Tri-Horns. The shafts of the immensely long spears were buried in the ground, and held at a deadly glittering angle that drove their blades deep into the armoured hide of the animals, and though many splintered and fell, more and more were engaged to take their place. Through blood and terror, sweat and hatred, the Imperial fighters held their line – then, slowly, slowly, the seemingly unstoppable advance of the huge animals faltered, and finally, incredibly, stopped.
Erinor raged and howled out orders, and arrows and spears rained down on the Polypontian ranks.
All around her the Tri-Horns bellowed as the impenetrable hedge of steel bristled before them, and then suddenly, with a scream of rage and frustration, several of the beasts turned and lumbered away, trampling the ranks of elite female regiments that were following in support. More and more of the animals now turned and crushed all in their path, the soldiers in the howdahs tumbling like straw as the beasts stampeded away.
All through the ranks of the Hordes a murmur arose. The Basilea heard the rumbling dissent and knew she had minutes to save her position. But before she could act, the roaring warcry of the Shock Troops sounded on the air. The soldiers erupted through the dust and haze of the battle and charged the pike regiments.
Erinor’s consort, Alexandros, had regrouped his forces after they’d been broken in the opening moves of the battle, and now returned with a fury to smash into the unguarded flanks of the enemy. In a seething wedge the soldiers of the Hordes drove deep into the Polypontian ranks, splitting them apart and breaking up their cohesion and order.
For several long minutes the field commanders struggled to counter the attack, ordering sections to lay down their unwieldy pikes and fight back with sword and dagger against the ferocity of the Shock Troops. But the initiative was lost, the invincible Hordes were fighting back, all was lost, all was lost! With a roar of despair the Imperial soldiers folded and then broke, casting down their long spears and turning to run. Erinor seized the moment, and, gathering the remains of her Tri-Horns, she charged.
On a nearby ridge General Andronicus watched it all. He snapped shut his monoculum and shrugged almost humorously. Such was the fickle nature of battle. Turning his horse, he gathered as many of his cavalry as he could and galloped away. His goals were now simplicity itself: first to escape, and then to seek out Queen Thirrin of the Icemark. She was the only one now who could stop Erinor and her Hordes, and he had learned several lessons in his battle that would prove useful to the northern Queen. With luck his valuable experience and knowledge would earn him a position at her side.
CHAPTER 13
“That was Dad, Mekhmet! That was Dad!” Sharley shouted as they ran across the bridge.
“Yes, but what was the other thing?”
“I don’t know! Something evil, who cares? The important thing is, it was Dad, he’s found us!”
“And lost us again. I don’t think there’s . . .” Mekhmet’s reply was cut short as he came to the end of the bridge and fell back onto the Plain of Desolation. Sharley fell on top of him, which was no hardship, but then Kirimin’s massive frame landed on them too, and everything was knocked out of them, from air to consciousness.
They came round several minutes later to find Pious fanning them with his wings, and Kirimin staring anxiously into their faces. “Well, thank the One for that!” she said with a sigh of relief. “I thought I’d squished you for good.”
“I think you very nearly did,” said Sharley, sitting up and wincing as all of his bruises complained.
“Nothing’s broken, I checked.”
“Oh, good, I’m so glad,” said Mekhmet sarcastically as he rubbed his head. “That makes being knocked unconscious completely unimportant.”
Kirimin decided to ignore him. “Anyway, hurry up and get your wind back, we’ve got to explore.”
“Yeah, where exactly are we?” asked Sharley, looking around at a dark and gloomy landscape.
“On the Plain of Desolation,” said Pious. “Where else?”
“Well, it certainly doesn’t look like it—”
“Just a minute, where are the horses?” Mekhmet interrupted in a panic.
“Calm down, we’ve tethered them over there,” Kirimin answered, nodding to the animals that stood a few yards off. “They’re fine – you weren’t riding if you remember and they just jumped over you when you fell.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Sharley in relief. “Now, what were we saying?”
“I was telling you that you’re still on the Plain of Desolation,” said Pious. “And the sooner we start searching for the way out, the better.”
“Well, we can’t move on from here,” said Sharley. “Dad’ll come soon to take us home.”
“No, he won’t, I’m afraid,” said Pious. “Magic bridges never end in the same place twice. It’ll have disappeared as soon as we crossed, you see, and when your dad calls it back, it’ll take him to a completely different part of the Plain.”
“Oh, great!” said Sharley. “So we’re back to square one.”
“Precisely,” Pious agreed. “You’re lost; your dad doesn’t know where you are; you don’t know where the exit from the plain is, and you all have about as much chance of surviving as a snowball in a furnace.”
“Thanks,” said Sharley, understanding that they were well and truly back in trouble. “But if this really is the Plain of Desolation, why does it look so different?”
They looked about them apprehensively, and saw a land of villages and towns under a full moon. They stood on top of a steep rise of pasture that swept down to a river and an intricate pattern of hedgerows and fields. Small woods and copses punctuated the open farmland with dark shadows under the subtle light of the moon, and in the distance stood a neat town with a castle at its centre.
“It looks . . . pretty and ordinary,” said Sharley at last. “Like parts of the South Riding. I would imagine it’s almost inviting when the sun comes up.”
“That’s just it,” said Pious quietly. “The sun never comes up. This is a magically conjured landscape; obviously some very powerful Adept has really got it in for you, and whoever it is, they’ve decided to set a little trap personally tailored for your good selves.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” said Kirimin with masterly understatement.
“Nor me,” said Mekhmet.
“You’re not meant to,” said Pious in tired irritation. “I suspect that ghosts ‘live’ here and it’s obviously going to be their job to kill you.”
“Look, just a minute!” said Sharley in agitation. “What did you mean about an Adept setting a trap for us? What Adept, and why?”
“I don’t know,” Pious replied. “But to create a landscape like this, they’ve got to be hugely powerful.”
“Yes, but why would they want to trap us?”
“Well, who knows? But obviously you’ve annoyed them at some point in the past.”
“But we don’t know any Adepts, apart from my dad and his Witches!”
“Well, at least one knows you, and they seem to have a
very low opinion of you,” the Imp answered forcefully.
“Is this really helping us?” asked Kirimin. “Adept or no Adept, let’s just get going and try to find the tunnel, or whatever it is that’ll get us out of here.”
An icy-cold wind sprang up, and moaned around them like tormented souls in the lowest pit in hell. “Kiri’s right,” said Mekhmet. “There’s no point in trying to analyse anything in this place. Let’s just get going.”
This was greeted with a general murmur of agreement, and after the boys had untethered the horses, they all trotted on under the gibbous moon, while Sharley continued to worry about malevolent Adepts.
Within a few minutes they reached a small river that meandered across a valley floor. Nearby was a stone bridge that seemed to be decorated with carved skulls, but as they drew nearer they realised they were real.
“Very nice!” said Kirimin shakily. “I don’t think much of their taste in décor around here.”
“No,” Sharley agreed. “This Adept who’s got it in for us certainly has a vivid and nasty imagination.”
“The troll puts them there,” said Pious conversationally. “Every time he kills whoever’s stupid enough to try and cross his bridge.”
“What troll?” asked Mekhmet. “I thought you said this place has only just been magically conjured.”
“And so it has,” the Imp answered. “But bridges always have trolls when an Adept creates them. It’s a sort of tradition.”
“Like in The Three Billy Goats Gruff, you mean,” said Sharley.
“Well, yes, I do believe the mortal world has acknowledged this ancient fundamental truth of the Cosmos by encapsulating it within a fairy story,” Pious agreed disdainfully. “I suppose we can expect no better. However, none of this alters the fact that the troll will contest your passage over the bridge.”
“Fine, we’ll swim across,” said Mekhmet. “It doesn’t look very deep.”
“You can’t do that!” said Pious, squeaking in horror. “The water spirits’ll get you, not to mention the flesh-eating frogs, slime fish and drowned corpses!”
“Another tradition, I suppose?” asked Mekhmet.
“Absolutely.”
“So how do we get across?” asked Sharley in a tone that suggested he didn’t expect an easy answer.
“Well, I’ll fly,” said Pious. “Don’t know what you’re going to do.”
“Oh, come on!” said Kirimin. “I’m getting annoyed now. If any troll thinks it can stop me, it’s welcome to try!”
Seeing no option, the boys shrugged and drawing their horses close in to their bristling companion they set off across the bridge.
They’d just reached the halfway point when a flurry of churning water and a slithering thump announced the appearance of the troll. It was dripping wet and slimy, smelt of rotting fish and filled the entire width of the bridge with its bulk. Kirimin stared at it with blazing amber eyes.
“Move!” she snapped angrily.
The troll roared, engulfing them in a smell like rancid farts, and all three retched and coughed. Even the horses blew in disgust. But then Kirimin stepped forward. Raising her paw, she brought it down with crushing force on the troll’s head. The monster was driven to its knees, but sprang up almost immediately, only to be met by two flashing scimitars that quickly removed its arms and buried themselves in its chest. Kirimin then tore off its head and lodged it on a spike that had obviously been prepared for the skull of the troll’s next victim.
“That’s that problem solved,” she said lightly. Trotting forward, she heaved the creature’s body over the bridge and into the river. “Shall we proceed?”
“You can’t do that!” Pious exploded. “There are rules and procedures!”
“Meaning the troll’s supposed to kill us and put our heads on a spike, I suppose,” said Mekhmet.
“Well, something like that, yes,” said Pious. “I mean, it’s nothing personal, it’s just that trolls have a role to fulfil! It’s the unnatural order of things; it’s what happens!”
“Not any more it isn’t,” said Kirimin briskly, and all three friends trotted over the bridge and on towards the distant town.
The Imp watched them go in an agony of indecision. What should he do? He seemed to have become embroiled in a cell of revolutionaries! Then, quickly deciding that the mortals’ actions were both refreshing and exciting, he hurried to follow them.
Thirrin was racked by excruciating fear and exquisite relief at one and the same time. Oskan had found the boys and Kirimin; he’d seen them, alive and well, but then he’d lost them after he’d fought off some evil . . . thing that seemed intent on killing them!
“You’re sure they’re safe now?” she asked for the umpteenth time as she paced their private quarters.
“Yes,” Oskan answered patiently. “No magic, or magical being, can harm anyone once they’re on a bridge. So at least we know they’re safe.”
“But now you can’t find them because someone or something is masking them again?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s Medea, isn’t it?” she suddenly said, giving voice to a fear that had been with her since Sharley had first gone missing.
Oskan almost smiled as Thirrin’s warrior-spirit refused to shy away from even that most terrible of situations. “Yes. I said she still hated us, and she hates Sharley more than anyone.”
“But why?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. But if it wasn’t so laughable I might suggest jealousy.”
“Jealousy! Of whom, or what?”
“Of Sharley.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
Oskan shrugged again and said nothing, knowing that Thirrin was adding the possibility of Medea’s jealousy to the long list of guilts she already felt about her lost daughter. If Medea was jealous of Sharley, then there must be good reason for it. Perhaps she and Oskan had neglected her in favour of Sharley in some way. Perhaps they’d lavished too much time and affection on him after his illness when he’d almost died of polio. Well, maybe that was true, but it was a perfectly natural reaction on the part of any parent.
Then, in the deep recesses of her brain, an awful, unforgiveable thought stirred. It just may be that Sharley was a much more loveable person than Medea had ever been, and even if he’d never been ill, perhaps she still would have loved him more than his dark, moody sister. For a moment she was shocked to silence by her own wicked thoughts, but then was forced to accept the undeniable, and asked again the tired question that had just resurfaced.
“You’re absolutely certain that Sharley and the others aren’t in the Darkness?”
“Completely,” Oskan answered with the air of one who’d answered the same question dozens of times.
Thirrin sighed in frustration, and tried to ignore the panic that boiled just below the surface. Sharley may be a proven warrior who’d helped to save the Icemark, and who’d also fought on the southern borders of the disintegrating Polypontian Empire, but he was still her youngest child and, in her subconscious mind, would be forever the little boy who’d almost died of polio.
“Rescue them for me, Oskan,” she whispered, suddenly unable to trust her voice.
“Thirrin, it’s my most pressing priority,” he answered, his anger threatening to spark again. “Don’t you think they’d be here now, in this very room, if I could bring it about? Fathers fear for their children too, you know!”
She nodded, acknowledging the obvious fact, but she remained unaware of another fear, which he had kept hidden deep under the cares and worries of the coming war and his missing child. Medea was much more powerful than she’d been in their last encounter. Obviously she’d passed the final test that had allowed her to stay in the Darkness, and now she was thriving and growing stronger by the day. He couldn’t help feeling a sudden and unexpected pride for his hugely talented daughter. Her Gifts may have been dedicated to evil, but their power and potency was undeniable.
He decided not to tell Thirrin abou
t Medea’s growing strength. It was a situation she couldn’t help with, and she had enough to do in the physical world without worrying about the Magical Realms. This psychic war was his alone, and he had no idea how it would end. Would the defeat of Medea and, ultimately, Cronus see a new Power sitting on the throne of the Darkness: a Power that the people of the Icemark would recognise and know all too well?
He suddenly felt a need for simple human contact. Walking over to where Thirrin stood in the window, he gathered her into a hug. Grishmak found them still locked in the embrace when he burst into the room several minutes later.
“Put him down, woman, you don’t know where he’s been!” he said, grinning hugely and revealing his enormous teeth.
“What is it, Grishy; anything important?” she asked, still in Oskan’s arms.
“Could be. The southern border guard have just sent a message by the werewolf relay saying that they have a Polypontian officer asking permission to enter the country.”
“Oh, yes? Who, exactly?”
Grishmak grinned again. “General Andronicus.”
“What?” Thirrin barked, leaping out of Oskan’s arms.
“I thought that might get your attention,” laughed the werewolf King. “He’s got over two thousand cavalry with him, and he says he’s just come from fighting Erinor herself.”
Thirrin paced excitedly about the room. “He lost, then, as predicted.”
“Yes, but he seems to have bloodied her nose, even though he only had a scratch force of garrison troops and veterans. Didn’t have any artillery either, by all accounts.”
“He’s giving information freely?”
“To whoever will listen. But he says he wants to see you as soon as.”
“When can he get here?” Thirrin asked eagerly.
Grishmak frowned as he thought things through. “His horses are pretty well foundered apparently. Seems to have ridden directly from the battlefield with hardly any rest. Even bypassed Romula itself saying in the circumstances the capital’s indefensible.”
“Could be a week before he reaches Frostmarris, then.”