“Well, yes indeed. ‘An army marches on its stomach’ as the old saying goes! Who did say that, anyway?”
“Some idiot,” Grishmak observed acerbically. “A snake, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” Tharaman replied absently as he watched a wagon struggling through one of the snowdrifts. “Come on, let’s give the driver a hand. There could be important supplies on board!”
“There are,” said Krisafitsa. “Toilet paper, I believe.”
“Bog roll?” asked Grishmak incredulously. “On campaign?”
“Do you mean the stuff humans wipe their . . . you know, after they’ve . . .?” Tharaman said.
“Yes, that’s right. Oskan insists on it. There are tools for digging proper latrines too, complete with instruction manuals for the correct dimensions and depths.”
“What on earth for?” the Thar asked.
“Hygiene, apparently. He says more soldiers have died of diseases caused by bad sanitation than were ever killed by the enemy.”
“I suppose he’s right,” observed Grishmak. “There’s nothing worse then bum trouble when you’re on the march.”
The army rumbled on under a cold and sparkling blue sky, and slowly, over the course of several hours, the landscape changed from the rocks, scree slopes and tough grasses of the mountains to the gentler slopes and vegetation of the lower altitudes. And then, as the sun started to slowly dip towards the horizon, a halt was called and the process of setting up camp began.
Even though they’d left the mountains behind, they were still quite high up in the foothills, and when night fell, so did the temperatures. Several degrees of frost coated every surface in a thick crystalline crust of ice, and the cloudless night sky glittered with stars. All through the camp, fires crackled and roared in the freezing winds, and Allied soldiers of all species gathered about their warmth, eating and drinking and sometimes singing or telling stories.
Thirrin’s campaign tent felt very empty. Oskan was away in a different part of the camp with the witches and healers, and even though Cressida and General Andronicus sat with her, both were silent as they gazed into the middle distance and thought their own thoughts.
“Of course, with the support of an Allied army behind them I’m sure the pike regiments will be more than a match for the Tri-Horns!” Andronicus suddenly said, as though they’d been discussing tactics.
“I’m sorry?” said Thirrin.
“Pike regiments, beat the Tri-Horns . . . you know, in battle.”
“Oh, yes. Perhaps . . . we’ll have to see.”
“I think the general’s right,” said Cressida, waking up from her own thoughts, and then making it clear to everyone exactly what she’d been thinking about by adding, “We should rendezvous with your son, Leonidas, tomorrow, shouldn’t we?”
“All being well, yes. I’ve received no news from him, but that’s not unexpected in a land at war. We don’t have the advantage of the werewolf relay.”
“You’ve no reason to think there’re any problems, have you?”
“Well, no more than the usual ones for a cavalry commander on active service. But I’m sure if anything . . . bad had happened, I’d have been told somehow.”
“Good,” said Cressida with feeling.
Thirrin waited for her to ask the usual questions about troop size and disposition, but after a few minutes of silence, she was surprised to find that she was the one who finally did the asking. “How many soldiers will he have with him, General?”
“That rather depends on depletion, I’m afraid. But hopefully at least three thousand cavalry, and perhaps a sizeable number of infantry.”
“A sizeable number?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t really be any more precise. If he’s had to move fast through enemy territory, the foot soldiers will have been left behind.”
“Yes, of course.”
The general stretched and yawned. “Please forgive me, ma’am. But it’s been a long day, and we’ve an early start tomorrow, so if you don’t mind I’ll say goodnight.”
“Of course,” said Thirrin and inclined her head as Andronicus saluted. She watched as he then saluted Cressida and left the tent. Thirrin marvelled at how quickly she’d accepted his presence in the Allied High Command. If anyone had told her six months ago that a Polypontian general would be one of her most trusted officers, privy to all the secrets of the Allied army, she’d have laughed. But here he was, an integral part of her planning, and an indispensable member of her inner circle, along with Tharaman, Grishmak and Krisafitsa. She still had problems with Polypontians in general, but the particular of Andronicus and his Free Polypontian Forces she’d accepted fully.
“I wonder exactly when we’ll meet Leonidas and his cavalry,” Cressida suddenly said, drawing Thirrin back to the moment.
“Who can say? Perhaps he won’t be able to get through the enemy lines until later; or perhaps he won’t even get through at all.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” said Cressida with surprising passion. “He must get through!”
Thirrin frowned. “Well, certainly his cavalry would be a useful addition to our numbers, and his experience of fighting Erinor can only be a bonus, but I wouldn’t say it’s imperative that he joins us.”
“Surely you can’t be serious? Leonidas’s presence would be invaluable, not only as mere weight of numbers, but also as a morale booster to the army generally.”
“Perhaps, Cressida. But not everyone seems as eager as you to see him. Not even the Free Polypontians display the same levels of enthusiasm as you do. Hardly an hour goes by when you’re not asking Andronicus for some titbit of information about his son.”
The Crown Princess blushed and snapped, “I don’t know what you mean! Anyone would think that I . . . that I had a crush on him or something!”
“Yes, they would,” Thirrin agreed. “Have you?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! I’ve never even laid eyes on him!”
“It’s possible to fall in love with an ideal, you know,” Thirrin answered gently. “What young woman hasn’t created an image of a hero in her heart, fed it with fantasies of perfection and become infatuated with the picture she’s created?”
Cressida snorted. “Well, I haven’t, for one!” But her fiercely burning complexion belied her scorn.
Thirrin sat back in her chair and sighed. A country at war was a terrible place to grow up emotionally; everything was so heightened, so pressured. There was no room or time to make the mistakes that everyone made. Cressida may almost be a fully grown adult, and have a huge experience of fighting and killing and even running a country, but when it came to matters of the heart, she was still an immature little girl. “Cressida, don’t expect too much of Leonidas. It’s not fair, either to yourself or to him! Heroes tend to be all too human when scrutinised.”
Her daughter stood up, her face blazing and an angry retort waiting in her throat. But then she paused, drew a deep breath and slowly sat down again. “Did you expect too much of Dad?” she finally asked shyly.
Thirrin snorted. “Your dad was different. I just hoped for the best and settled for what I could get.”
“And what was that, in the end?”
Her mother grinned, realising she was about to undermine her own argument. “A hero,” she said.
Cressida nodded. “Yes, he is, isn’t he? I think that might be part of the problem; when we’re growing up every little girl’s daddy is a hero, and then when they get older, they find that he has problems and faults like everyone else. But little girls still love their daddies even when they realise they’re just human; perhaps those faults even make little girls love them even more. But you see, I don’t have that advantage, my daddy really is a hero, and as for him being human, well . . . that really doesn’t apply, does it? What man could possibly live up to the standard of Oskan Witchfather? Of course I create ideals in my head; it’s the only hope I have of ever meeting a man worthy of him.”
Thirrin reached across and took her hand. “Perhaps y
ou should lower your sights a little.”
“Perhaps. But until I’m forced to do so, I’ll keep on waiting for my hero.”
“Cressida, you’re too hard on yourself, and the world.”
“No, sometimes I think it’s too hard on me.”
Thirrin hugged her daughter and rocked her gently as though she was still a child. “Oh, my fierce warrior princess; my vulnerable little girl. You might have to wait too long.”
“Better that than be hasty, and be disappointed later,” she replied. Disentangling herself from her mother’s arms, she wiped her eyes and smiled. “I have to go to bed; we’ve an early start tomorrow.”
Thirrin nodded and watched her go, imploring the Goddess to send her daughter a man who could live with, if not up to, her ideals.
The snow had frozen overnight, making the route treacherous underfoot. Oskan and the witches had been kept quite busy setting broken wrists and binding up strains and sprains, but in the main, the army marched on without undue incident. By midday they’d left the foothills behind and begun to march over a wide undulating plain of good farmland.
Thirrin sent werewolf scouts ahead, even though the few reports they’d had clearly indicated that Erinor and her Hordes were still well to the south. Try as she might, she couldn’t help feeling deeply uneasy. She knew perfectly well why she felt like this; after all, she was invading the Polypontian Empire, a regime that was, at one time, the most powerful domain the world had ever seen.
General Andronicus rode at the head of the column beside Thirrin and Oskan, and the Polypontian Imperial eagle was the only banner that was on display. Thirrin wanted no misunderstandings with any Imperial Legions there might be in the region. The general’s own forces also headed the column of marching troops, and the entire army maintained a stony silence. At the present time the plan was to march on Romula and secure the safety of the Emperor, but circumstances could change at any moment, and they must be ready to react to whatever happened.
Tharaman and Krisafitsa also marched at the head of the column, as did Grishmak, Basilea Olympia and her consort Olememnon. Thirrin stole a glance at the Hypolitan leaders, but their faces revealed nothing. In a way, they had more to lose than anyone else in the coming war; Erinor had already declared the Northern Hypolitan traitors and said that she intended to wipe them out without mercy. The threat sounded horrendous, but in reality it was little different to what Erinor and her Hordes did in every country they conquered. Their entire campaign so far had been an exercise in genocide and scorched earth. Whether you died because Erinor called you a traitor, or because you just happened to be in the way of her ambitions, made little difference when the knife cut your throat, or the sword pierced your heart.
The rest of the day passed in a gradual but inexorable accumulation of distance from the mountains and the border, so that by the time they halted to make camp for the second night, they were already thirty miles inside Polypontian territory, having travelled at a speed that even Cressida accepted as exceptionally fast for a marching army. Thirrin watched as the usual controlled chaos ensued as tents were unloaded from wagons, and everyone got in everyone else’s way as they were put up. Cressida, as usual, spent the next hour or so almost purple with rage as she tried to instil a sense of discipline into the assorted warriors and soldiers of the Alliance. But despite her rantings, the camp was habitable by the time the moon came up and the frost came down.
Thirrin was just settling into her and Oskan’s campaign tent and wondering how to discuss the fact that Leonidas still hadn’t appeared with Andronicus – and more importantly, with Cressida – when a huge clattering and screeching sent her running back out into the freezing night air. All over the camp human soldiers were scrambling for weapons, and werewolves and Snow Leopards were snarling and craning their heads skywards. She glared into the sky and then quickly beckoned a nearby bugler.
“Sound ‘stand down’,” she ordered brusquely. “Now!”
The brittle, brassy notes echoed over the camp and were quickly taken up by other buglers, and gradually alarm and panic was replaced by a tense, wary curiosity as the entire army accepted the bugles’ assurance that all was well, and they gazed into the skies.
“What do you think, Thirrin?” asked Tharaman as he strode over to stand at her side.
“Vampires. More than a thousand, I’d say, judging by the noise.”
“Hah! Wonderful. Just what we need: an airborne division.”
“Yes,” agreed Thirrin and smiled.
Soon the huge forms of vampire bats became visible as they descended into the dome of light created by the thousands of torches and fires that illuminated the camp. A great howling and roaring rose up from the Snow Leopards and Wolf-folk, as they greeted the arrival of their allies with relief, and the human soldiers beat swords and axes on shields.
A space opened up around Thirrin as housecarles forced back their comrades and cleared away wagons and stands of weaponry, creating a landing space for the Vampires. Then, at last, the squadrons swept in low and, transforming into their human forms, they stepped out of flight and into neat formations of black-armoured, pale-skinned soldiers.
With perfect timing and faultless elegance, they saluted and then bowed as one body to the Queen. An officer stepped forward and bowed again. “Commander Bramorius Stokecescu reporting for duty, Your Majesty.”
Thirrin smiled. “Welcome, Commander, and welcome to your squadrons. We’re all very happy to see you.”
“Her Vampiric Majesty extends her greetings to her sister Monarch and ally, and wishes a swift victory to your campaign,” Stokecescu continued smoothly. “She also assures you that your home territories and borders will remain secure under her personal unending vigilance, and the guard of her remaining squadrons.”
Thirrin’s secret thoughts about it being easy to defend borders and territories that were not under threat were interrupted by the arrival of Oskan, who’d been supervising the witches and medical supplies in a distant part of the camp.
“The Vampire squadrons have arrived,” the Queen explained to her Consort, as though their presence had never been doubted.
“So I see,” Oskan observed. “But without the official sanction of Her Vampiric Majesty’s presence.”
“Our Queen has taken personal responsibility for the defence of the Icemark in your absence,” Stokecescu explained warily.
“I see,” the Witchfather said expressionlessly. Then, catching Thirrin’s eye, he raised his shoulders in an almost imperceptible shrug, and turned back to the Vampire commander. “We must indeed be grateful for the Vampire Queen’s vigilance, but even more are we happy to welcome your squadrons to our war.”
The atmosphere suddenly relaxed and the commander bowed low. “We’re happy to fulfil our obligations to the Alliance. May our victory be swift.”
“You can say that again!” Oskan replied, suddenly abandoning the formal language of diplomacy. “But somehow I think it ain’t going to be easy.”
CHAPTER 21
Medea sat quietly in the private chamber she had conjured. She was about to become an integral part of one of the greatest events ever beheld by the Darkness and the Physical and Spiritual Realms. Cronus was about to conquer the world, and after that . . . well, after that she now had no doubt that he intended to make war on the Goddess Herself!
And so it was that Medea judged that the time had finally come to cast aside her physical body. Like all of the greatest Adepts, she would negate the deterioration of old age, and the finality of death, by simply ridding herself of her body. Then, in the same way that her grandfather created a physical form from his surroundings, she too would conjure a temporary body that would house her spirit whenever she needed it. As one of the most powerful Adepts the worlds had ever seen, she felt it incumbent upon her to assume the proper atmosphere and mystique of evil. And if this meant the death of her physical form, then so be it.
Besides, she’d subconsciously begun to accept that there
was no way back into the past. She could never again be Medea, Princess of the Icemark; she could never again be the young girl who’d loved her father. A brief spasm of grief gripped her, but she thrust it aside and forced herself to concentrate on her plan.
For Medea, such a momentous occasion needed to be marked with a ceremony of ‘divestment’. Layer by layer she would rid herself of her physical being until nothing remained. With this in mind, she sat quietly and willed her skin to split. With leisurely smoothness, the outer layers of flesh peeled open like the pod of a pea, revealing the muscles and tendons beneath, then with a damp slumping noise the flayed skin fell to the ground.
The muscles began to tear themselves from the bones beneath, swiftly followed by the intricate tracery of veins and arteries. Only her skeleton, central nervous system, eyes and organs now remained. And these oozed from chest and abdominal cavities like strangely bloody fish, to pulsate on the white cobbles at her feet. Finally, her eyes rolled away from their sockets, and her brain emerged from the bony triangle of her nasal cavity to drain away onto the floor, where it lay like a sticky grey puddle.
Medea’s skeleton stood and surveyed the gatherings of offal that had been her physical life, and then one by one, the individual bones disarticulated and formed a neat pile next to the mounds of meat and slime.
Suddenly a raging fire burst into being and incinerated the remains until all that was left was a pile of grey ash, at which point a wind sprang up and blew the ash away. Medea’s physical form was no more, and immediately the livid, evil essence of the sorceress began to create a new body, forming limbs and shape from the raw material that permeated the Darkness. Her hair was formed from cosmic dust, her eyes from photons, her flesh from radiation and electricity made tangible, and her brain from the Dark Matter that shaped and held together universes.
Soon she was complete, terrible and awful in her beauty, awesome in her perfection and terrifying in her evil. She looked almost the same as she had before she began her transformation, but all of her natural defects had been polished to an unnatural perfection. Her hair was lustrous, her skin flawless, her bone structure perfectly symmetrical and balanced. She could even sigh in satisfaction without her lungs as she did now, and then she laughed. She laughed in the knowledge and certainty of her power, and she laughed to think of the Icemark, just waiting to be destroyed.