Out on the Plain of Frostmarris, Cronus smiled gently to himself. It was so sad how misguided mortals could be. After an initial setback, everything had gone wonderfully well. It really was so refreshing when plans and preparations bore the required fruit. Reaching out to his granddaughter, he placed a thought in her mind.
“Medea, I do believe the battle for Frostmarris is over.”
“Yes, Grandfather,” she answered simply. “I do believe you’re right.”
The Ice Demon army now swarmed over the Plain of Frostmarris and into the city, securing their victory and establishing control. The victory from start to finish had taken much less than an hour, and their casualty rate was negligible and unimportant.
Medea smiled happily. The hated land of her birth was already subdued, and the home from which she’d been banished was now hers to rule. After negotiating the mound of dead housecarles and werewolves that littered the base of the walls, she met Cronus at the gates of the city. He took her hand and escorted her to the citadel.
“So begins the New Order,” he said confidently. “Take a look around you, Granddaughter. History starts again with us.”
Beyond Romula’s walls Thirrin sighed with relief. Riding her horse through the streets of the city had been one of the most stressful experiences she’d had in a very long time. The thought that Bellorum himself had been spawned somewhere within its precincts had been enough to make her flesh creep.
But now she was free, and trotting with her army over the fields that surrounded the city to confront the army of Erinor. She took off her helmet and shook her head empty of the thought of Bellorum and his hideous sons, the wind stroking her long red hair. The day was bright and sunny, with just the right nip of winter in the air to make the exercise of riding a pleasure. She smiled, and then had to sternly remind herself that she had a battle to fight.
Surprise was essential, and still theirs. If the Hordes remained unaware of them until they had begun their charge, they had a small chance of breaking them – and at the moment, all of their attention would be concentrating on the Allied army which, under Cressida, would be slowing their advance towards the palace and the Emperor.
“When do we raise the pace, my dear?” asked Tharaman, eager to reach the target.
“Not yet; the horses must be as fresh as possible when we hit them. We could be fighting all day.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” said Grishmak as he loped along beside them. “If we hit them hard enough, they’ll soon bugger off.”
“It won’t be as simple as that, I’m afraid,” Thirrin replied. “Erinor’s never lost a battle, and with that sort of record she must be as steady as a rock. We can’t allow ourselves to hope that they’ll break after the first charge.”
“All right. But that doesn’t mean we have to trot along as though we’re on some sort of pleasurable day out!” said Tharaman. “The longer we take to engage them, the longer Kirimin, Cressida and the others have to fight against the entire weight of their army.”
Thirrin nodded decisively, and raised the pace to a canter that ate up the ground.
The Eppian Way ran with blood as the Shock Troops of the Hordes powered into Cressida’s defensive line again and again. The Allied army showed no sign of giving way, but each time the enemy was repelled, their numbers had dwindled a little more.
“Why don’t the Tri-Horns come in?” Cressida demanded as she watched the mountainous creatures to the rear of the enemy’s line.
Andronicus laughed. “I do believe our earlier successes have worried them. Perhaps Erinor won’t commit them until she’s certain of victory, and then they can be used to clear aside the barricades.”
Cressida shook her head “No, she knows the Tri-Horns were only vulnerable to our axes without protection. But they’re armoured now, unstoppable. Something’s not right. I can feel it.”
Leonidas expertly skewered an enemy soldier, then said, “You’re right. The entire attack feels wrong. It’s almost as though there’s a different . . . tone of command.”
Andronicus frowned as he considered this, standing with head bowed and hands resting on the hilt of his sword as the chaos of battle raged around him. “That’s it,” he said quietly, and looking up he scanned the enemy lines before him. “That’s it!” he shouted. “Leonidas! Your eyes are younger than mine, can you see Erinor anywhere? The Tri-Horns are the most likely position for the Basilea.”
The young Polypontian commander scanned the Hordes with avid concentration, while his father sent an orderly scurrying to fetch his monoculum from his horse, which was tethered behind the lines.
“No, I can’t see her!” Leonidas eventually announced.
“Well, what does that prove?” snapped Cressida as she beheaded a Shock Trooper scaling the barricade before her. “Perhaps she’s organizing reinforcements, or guarding the rear.”
“Never! Erinor always commands from the front,” said Andronicus. “There’s something afoot, and I think . . .” At that point the orderly returned and placed the monoculum in his general’s hand. “Hah, now we’ll see,” he said. Raising the viewing instrument, he scanned the ranks before him again. “I think the impossible . . . I think Erinor’s not here!”
Leonidas snatched the monoculum from his father and glared at the Hordes. “You’re right,” he said incredulously. “She’s not here!” Drawing breath, he suddenly bellowed: “She’s not here! Erinor’s not here! The Basilea’s not commanding the Hordes!”
For a brief moment an unearthly silence settled on the Polypontian troops, who’d spent the long months of their defeat running before the power of the invincible Basilea. Then a disbelieving mutter and murmur ran through their ranks, until finally a great shout of joy and relief rose up. “Erinor’s not here! Erinor’s not here!”
A lull descended on the Hordes, and the assault on the barricades seemed to falter. But then a great bellow rose up as the Tri-Horns began to advance. Erinor may not be directing the battle, but Commander Ariadne was deeply experienced and could easily recognise a crisis. Now was the time to commit her greatest asset, the unstoppable armoured Tri-Horns. Countless times she’d witnessed the Basilea snatch victory from a seemingly hopeless situation, and now she, Ariadne, would prove her abilities as a tactician, and do exactly the same.
Standing in the howdah on the back of the leading Tri-Horn, she bellowed the order to attack. The heaving sea of bodies before her parted as the ranks of Shock Troops drew aside, and a corridor opened up that led directly to the flimsy barricade.
Ariadne screamed an order, and a flight of arrows rained down on the defending humans and Snow Leopards. But then a cheer rose up from the ragged collection of Allies, and Ariadne watched as the long spears of pike men came into view. Quickly the soldiers of the Polypontian phalanx took up positions all along the top of the barricade and lowered the massively long pikes, so that a bristling hedge of steel spearheads defended the line.
With a roar, the Shock Troops and elite women soldiers of the Hordes surged back into battle as they attempted to break down the barrier of steel, but the pike men were defended by the swords and axes, teeth and claws of their human, werewolf and leopard comrades, and the line held.
No matter, no matter, thought Ariadne. The armoured Tri-Horns are unstoppable. And she snapped out orders, urging on the mountainous creatures. Forward they surged, trampling through the rear lines of Shock Troops as they waited to engage the enemy, their bellows echoing from the buildings that lined the Eppian Way. Then, with a great rising crescendo of screaming and roaring, they crashed into the barricade.
Hundreds of the pikes splintered and snapped like dry twigs as the creatures smashed into the hedge of razor-sharp steel, but for every one that was rendered useless, two more of the long, deadly spears swung down into the engage position.
“Hold them! Hold them, soldiers of the empire!” Andronicus roared above the din of battle. “Drive them back, warriors of the Alliance!” His sword flashed and glitter
ed as it rained death down on the ranks of the Shock Troops that still swarmed up the barricade.
The Tri-Horns continued to move against the barricade like a horizontal landslide, but the pikes bristled before them, finding every gap and chink in their armour and driving deep into the creatures’ hugely thick hides, their own strength and momentum adding power and effectiveness to the Polypontians’ weaponry.
In the centre of the defensive line Sharley, Mekhmet and Kirimin fought side by side as they defended the pike men from the soldiers of the Hordes, who were desperately trying to fell the hedge of steel. The lightning scimitars became a shining blur as the boys held the line and Kirimin let out the coughing bark of the Snow Leopard challenge while striking at the enemy with her huge claws.
But then suddenly the Snow Leopard Princess reared up onto her hind legs, and with a roar she leaped onto the head and neck of the huge beast before her, and swarmed up onto its back, where she attacked the enemy soldiers in the howdah. Giving the battle cry of the Icemark, Sharley followed, as did Mekhmet, proclaiming that there was no god but The One, and mighty was His Messenger.
Along the line Cressida saw what was happening, and after issuing orders for the rest of the Allied soldiers to hold their position in defence of the pike phalanx, she and Leonidas joined with Eodred and Howler’s Regiment of the Red Eye and charged over the heads of the Tri-Horns, where battle was joined with the mahouts and the Hordes who fought in the howdahs. Overhead the Vampire squadrons folded their wings and dived into the attack, screeching as they swept down on the Hordes to rend them with fang and claw.
Ariadne screamed out orders that sent the Tri-Horns surging against the barricade, again and again, but incredibly the phalanx of pikes held, more and more of the huge spears swinging down to engage the beasts, which roared and bellowed as they tried to breach the line. Andronicus redressed the ranks continually as men fell, and replacements stepped forward over their dead and injured comrades to maintain the position. For a time arrows and spears rained down from the howdahs, killing hundreds of the Imperial soldiers, but with blood-freezing howls Eodred and Howler led their regiment against the archers and spear throwers, leaping from Tri-Horn to Tri-Horn like sailors fighting from ship to ship.
Out beyond the city walls, Thirrin led her force in a rising gallop. The massed ranks of the enemy were now in view, seething and writhing like smoke about the smashed southern gate of Romula. Surprise was complete; even those members of the Hordes who’d seen the army bearing down on them probably thought they were just another contingent of their own massive host. They weren’t close enough yet for details to become clear; but they soon would be.
Olympia gazed ahead to the enemy host that was composed of her own race of people, and for a moment she bowed her head.
“They hate us, my love,” said Ollie, who rode beside her. “They hate us and have sworn to destroy us. Let that knowledge give you strength to fight.”
“I know it,” the Basilea replied. “But that doesn’t end my regrets.”
“Nor mine. But the death of one Allied soldier certainly would.”
“Yes,” Olympia whispered. Then, squaring her shoulders, she said in a louder, firmer voice, “Yes, it would.”
“I think now would be an appropriate time to announce our presence,” Tharaman said calmly to Thirrin who galloped beside him.
“Yeah, let’s put the fear of whatsit right up ’em!” Grishmak agreed.
Nodding, Thirrin drew her sword, stood in her stirrups and gave the battle cry of the Icemark:
“The enemy are among us! They burn our cities! They kill our children! BLOOD! BLAST! AND FIRE! BLOOD! BLAST! AND FIRE!”
Back crashed the reply from thousands of throats, and with a roar they leaped forward in a charge that raised a cloud of dust like smoke from a raging fire.
At last the enemy realised their danger, and almost half of the Hordes waiting to enter the city had turned to face the new threat. Once again Thirrin gave the war cry of the Icemark, and again the entire army replied. Amazingly, the enemy surged forward to meet them, and the roar of onset rose over the city in a banner of sound that reached the ears of all who fought within its walls. Thirrin struck out at the warriors before her, fighting with an economy that conserved her energy. She knew the struggle would be long, and any victory hard-won.
Tharaman and Krisafitsa led their Snow Leopards in a considered advance through the ranks that seethed before them. The Hordes showed no surprise that they were fighting beasts and monsters; they were unbeaten and invincible. The land itself could rise up against them and still they’d be convinced they’d win, blessed as they believed they were by the Goddess’s favour.
Soon the momentum of the Allies’ charge was absorbed by the densely-packed ranks of the enemy, and their advance ground to a halt. Now the strength and stamina of the fighters would be tested to the full as the toe-to-toe struggle began. The Hordes closed ranks and surged forward, trying to swamp the enemy, but the Snow Leopards stood like a ferocious dam that held their spate in check.
Thirrin scanned the lines before her; now they needed the immoveable strength of the housecarles, who could stand all day while the enemy beat themselves to pieces on their shield wall, but such infantry as they’d had stood now in the streets of the city holding the line against the Tri-Horns.
Grishmak immediately saw the problem, and once again led his warriors to break the strength of the enemy. Snarling out his commands, he suddenly leaped at the densely packed ranks of the Hordes and ran over their heads and shoulders, leading his werewolves to drop between their lines, prising apart the force’s cohesion as they tore open their bodies like putrid leather and drank their blood.
The werewolf King was joined by the Vampires as he led his people over the heads of the Hordes, levering apart the solid density of their army and leaving them to be hacked to pieces by the Snow Leopard and human cavalry that steadily advanced through the seemingly endless throng. The Undead Vampiric warriors flew above the struggling masses in their bat forms, and then transformed to black-armoured soldiers who dived into the ranks of the enemy, wielding their viciously serrated swords, and biting out throats with their glittering fangs.
Slowly, painfully, bit by agonising bit, the Hordes were being broken apart and annihilated. But Thirrin realised that the rate of advance was so slow, it would take more time than they had to wipe them out. The Allies were losing soldiers too, and such was the size of the enemy host, Thirrin knew that every human, werewolf, Snow Leopard and Vampire of her army could be killed before they’d even confronted a quarter of their number.
She gasped for breath, exhausted by the effort to kill and kill again. Her charger’s legs were red to the shoulder as he struck out with his hooves at the enemy before him and every one of her warriors of all species was barely recognisable beneath a brilliant crimson coating. This was the Hordes’ greatest strength: they absorbed their enemies’ power and then drained them of strength until they were ready to be overwhelmed.
But then, over the clamour of battle, a strange sound came from the city; a great bellowing and roaring, as though all the beasts that had ever lived had been packed within its walls, and were now fighting to break free.
Quickly Thirrin looked towards the shattered southern gates, and watched in amazement as a huge stampede of Tri-Horns suddenly burst into view. The massive beasts trampled all before them, cutting a huge bloody swathe through the unfought ranks of the enemy, and a shudder passed through the Hordes, as though through the pelt of a giant animal.
The Tri-Horns raged on, unchecked, unstoppable. And as they came closer, Thirrin could see that some carried the remains of smashed howdahs that were populated by corpses, all rolling and lolling with the rocking gait of the animals.
Then slowly the cohesion of the Hordes began to falter. At first the units in the path of the stampeding Tri-Horns started to move away, rolling apart like a bank of fog before a blowing wind as the soldiers tried to escape the mass
ive feet of the panicking and enraged creatures. Others then caught the movement, as section collided with section, and soon there was a general movement away from the gates of the city. At first there was no panic and no sense that a rout was beginning, but then a ragged tangle of fleeing soldiers burst from the city, Shock Troops and elite female regiments following the Tri-Horns as close as they dared. The Hordes were in retreat! Such a thing was unknown! Such a thing hadn’t happened since the coming of Basilea Erinor! And so shocking was the sight that the regiments still waiting to enter Romula fell back before their running comrades.
Field marshals tried to regain control of the massive beast that was the Hordes, but still they rolled away from the gates, and then when the strange army of giant leopards and hairy monsters that was attacking their flank suddenly drew back and charged them again, a great howl rose up and the plain surrounding the city was suddenly filled with fleeing soldiers as the Hordes laid down their invincibility and ran in defeat.
In the streets of Romula the Tri-Horns pushed forward, bellowing and roaring as they came in to attack the barricade, but the feel of the battle was changing. Cressida could sense the change; it tingled along her limbs and filled her belly with a fire that drove her on over the heaving backs of the giant beasts. And always beside her strode Leonidas, his whip-thin, elegant figure fighting with the speed and finesse of a dancer, his sword flashing and flickering as they attacked the soldiers in the howdahs, his face calm and peaceful as if he was strolling in a pleasant garden. To her right, Cressida could see Sharley and Mekhmet fighting beside Kirimin as they drove forward over the sea of backs, and to her left, Eodred and Howler led the Regiment of the Red Eye in a murderous advance.
But then she and Leonidas leaped onto the back of one of the largest of the Tri-Horns, and suddenly they were both aware that something was different. The howdah was the biggest they’d encountered, and around it stood a unit of enemy soldiers dressed in uniforms that were edged with purple. Immediately they realised they’d reached the Tri-Horn of the commander. Erinor herself may be absent from the battle, but whoever rode this beast must, by definition, be high-ranking and vitally important to the war of the Hordes.