The two men only paused in their discussion when a gong sounded and the victory dinner itself was served. It proved to be a lavish affair, consisting of seven courses of the finest quality accompanied by an equally impressive array of wines from the Morceaux Valley in Bretonnia and the hills around Luccini - a subject Kaspar saw was close to Albertalli's heart as he expounded on how the Tilean wines were clearly the superior.
As the evening progressed, Kaspar was quick to discover that there were unwritten rules to a Kislevite dinner, as his plate of roast veal was whisked away virtually untouched.
Before he could protest, Sofia explained that should a diner set down their knife and fork, it was the signal to the attending servants to remove his plate. It appeared that each course was rigidly timed, and an hour later, as the last plates were being cleared away, Kaspar found himself amazed at the sheer logistics of serving, feeding and clearing a seven course meal for four hundred people in under an hour.
With the dinner over, the speeches began and, despite himself, Kaspar felt himself getting caught up in the spirit of the evening. First the Empire generals spoke and Kaspar recalled similar speeches he himself had given. The boyarins spoke next and the difference was incredible. Where the men of the Empire spoke of duty and honour, the Kislevites filled the hall with hot-blooded passion, shouting and gesticulating wildly as they spoke.
Sofia translated parts, but Kaspar understood enough from the fierce zeal of the boyarins to know that they filled the assembled soldiers' souls with piss and vinegar. Rousing cheers and toasts were made and glasses smashed on the floor amid much yelling and punching of the air.
The soldiers filled the hall with their glorious cheering and Kaspar laughed as Sofia took his hand, utterly convinced that they would win this war.
IV
The crescent moon slid behind a low cloud, wreathing the walls of the palace in momentary darkness. But it was long enough for the dark robed figure to nimbly slip over the spike topped wall and drop lightly into the palace grounds.
Hugging the shadows, the figure stealthily made its way through the Winter Gardens towards the palace.
Moonlight spilled around glittering, diamond-like flowers and trees of this winter forest of frosted grass. A gravel pathway wound its way between a host of exquisite sculptures of ice - carved trees, exotic birds and legendary beasts. The moonlight bathed everything in a monochrome brilliance, the silence and sense of isolation a physical thing within this icy wilderness of dragons, eagles and bone chilling cold.
The black robed figure halted suddenly, blending so completely with a pool of shadow that even the most dedicated of observers would have had trouble spotting its existence.
A pair of patrolling knights in bronze armour crunched along the pathway, their hands on their sword pommels. The silver bears on their helmets caught the moonlight and, without knowing it, the knights passed within yards of the intruder.
But lives can often hang on the slightest turn of fate and it was at that moment that the moon chose to emerge from behind another cloud, dispelling the shadows along this section of the pathway and bathing the robed figure in light.
One knight managed to shape words of warning before a silver steel slash opened his throat, the killer's blade expertly finding the gap between his helmet and gorget. The other guard had his sword partially drawn when the intruder's sword flashed again and the knight's head fell to the path and rolled into the glittering undergrowth.
Pausing only to clean his blade, the figure moved off again into the shadows.
The lights of the palace were just ahead.
V
Kaspar exchanged pleasantries with Albertalli as they filed into the timber-panelled West Hall, where great oak beams ran the width of the hall and a vast fire set below a great stone mantle filled the room with warmth and the aroma of fresh-cut wood. Hundreds of candles lined the walls between the tall windows, together with innumerable shields and suits of bronze armour. Faded battle flags hung from the beams and the hardwood floors echoed to the jangle of sabres and spurs as the senior officers retired to plan their strategy against Aelfric Cyenwulf's horde with the Ice Queen.
The womenfolk and junior officers remained within the Banqueting Hall, finishing off the wine from dinner and speculating upon what was going on in the other hall. Under normal circumstances, Kaspar should have remained in the Banqueting Hall as well, but the Tzarina herself had sent a functionary to instruct him to attend upon her with the other commanders.
Sofia had remained behind, chatting with some dashingly attired lancers and Kaspar had been surprised to feel a pang of jealousy. There was no doubt he liked Sofia immensely, and he wondered whether their relationship had become something more than mere friendship after her abduction by Sasha Kajetan. He didn't know, but looked forward to the prospect of finding out.
The assembled officers and boyarin gradually fell to silence as the Ice Queen entered the hall together with her fierce, shaven headed guards and Pjotr Losov, who closed the doors to the Banqueting Hall behind him before vanishing into the background.
The Ice Queen marched to the centre of the hall as the boyarin formed a circle around her, kept at a respectful distance from their queen by her guards.
Without preamble, the Ice Queen said, 'The horde of Aelfric Cyenwulf draws near and it is time to take the war to him.'
The boyarins cheered loudly and the Empire officers clapped courteously. Now that he was closer, Kaspar could see the commander of the Stirland army more clearly, curious as to what kind of man he was. General Pavia was a slighter figure than Kaspar had first expected, not tall, but with a commanding presence to him that he immediately liked.
'He is cunning, this Cyenwulf.' continued the Tzarina when the cheering had died down. 'He comes with greater ambition than simple pillage.'
'Is of no matter, my Queen!' shouted a red uniformed boyarin of lancers. 'For we shall still send him back north without his balls, won't we, comrades?' Roars of affirmation and laughter followed the man's boast and Kaspar saw the Ice Queen fight to hold back a scowl. He remembered the Tzarina once talking of her father's boyarin, calling them an insufferable band of brutes, but men who had been the most loyal, steadfast warriors anyone could wish for. In that respect, the boyarin surrounding her seemed no different from those of her father, but he could see their raucousness did not sit well with her icy demeanour.
'I am sure we will, Boyarin Wrodzik,' said the Tzarina over the laughter, 'but this barbarian strikes for a place at the very heart of Kislev, he makes for Urszebya.'
The laughter faded quickly, replaced with a deadly earnestness and Kaspar was suddenly confused. What was Urszebya? After a moment's thought he hazarded a guess that it translated as Ursun's Teeth, but what was that but an earthy soldier's curse?
Satisfied that her words had had the desired effect, the Tzarina continued. 'This Cyenwulf knows what makes us who we are. Kislev is land and land is Kislev.'
'Kislev is land and land is Kislev,' repeated the boyarin in unison.
'The valley of Urszebya, the wound where Great Ursun took a bite from our land and left us his stone fangs is under threat and our enemies plan its desecration. Their cursed shamans would use dark magicks to pervert the spirit of the land, to corrupt the primal, elemental power of Kislev with Chaos and blight our great land forever.'
The boyarin roared a denial and Kaspar could see they were horrified by the notion of this valley's desecration.
'There is power there, my boyarin, power that must not be taken by the forces of the Dark Gods. It falls to us to stop him.'
The Ice Queen's eyes swept the assembled boyarin with a fierce pride and Kaspar shivered as her gaze fell upon him. She nodded slowly and said, 'The land has called every one of you to this place, to this time, and cries out for all those with the soul of Kislevite to rally to her defence. Will you answer her call?'
The hall rang to the sound of a hundred throats shouting that they would.
It
did not take long for the corpses of the two knights to be discovered. The security of the Tzarina was a duty taken very seriously by her protectors and within minutes of the killings, a second pair of knights found them lying in wide pools of rapidly cooling blood and raised the alarm.
But by then it was already too late.
Standing near the windows of the West Hall, Kaspar heard the sound of hand bells over the cheering and wondered briefly what they signified. But as the urgent ringing continued, a growing sense of unease crept over him. Few of the boyarins had heard the bells and, surrounded by roaring warriors, none of the Tzarina's guards had heard it either.
His suspicion that something was amiss grew to a certainty as he looked through the window into the darkness and saw knights bearing lit torches and drawn swords running through the grounds of the Winter Gardens.
Kaspar turned from the window and began pushing his way through the cheering boyarin, many of whom were already three sheets to the wind and mistook his efforts to be drunken enthusiasm for the coming war. Ruddy-faced Kislevites gripped him by the shoulders and kissed both his cheeks with shouted northern oaths as he struggled to get through them to the Tzarina.
'Get off me, you oaf!' he yelled as a heavyset man gripped him in a tight embrace and shouted something at a nearby boyarin. The man released him and Kaspar pushed his way forwards once more. The Ice Queen's guards saw him coming and the frantic look in his eyes, the ringing of the alarm finally penetrating the slowly diminishing cheering.
'Your majesty-' shouted Kaspar as a window smashed inwards, glass shards falling to the floor as a spinning brass sphere bounced on the wooden floor and rolled across the rugs towards the assembled soldiers. Smaller than a cannonball, it wobbled slightly as it came to a halt before Arnulf Pavia.
'What the hell?' said the Stirland general.
'No!' shouted Kaspar, trying to force his way towards Pavia. He didn't know exactly what the sphere was, but knew enough to recognise trouble when he saw it. The general looked up in puzzlement and that was the last Kaspar ever saw of him as a shrieking darkness exploded outwards from the sphere.
Fell winds howled around the West Hall, extinguishing every candle in a single bellow, and the wails of the accursed filled the room with cacophonous screaming. Gibbering voices, plucked straight from the abode of the damned, rang within every skull and a terrifying, aching dread filled the soul as the lingering echoes of some vile otherworld seeped from the evil corona of energy that burned darkly in the centre of the hall.
Kaspar felt the innards of his soul ravaged by unseen claws of ice and cried out in pain as an aching cold of the spirit, far deeper than anything natural could ever be, stabbed through him. The fire below the stone mantelpiece dimmed as swirling shadows writhed around him, exposing him to the sheer vastness of the universe and his own insignificance within it. He tried to crawl away, but his limbs were leaden, powerless and he knew that this was his death, a meaningless speck in an uncaring universe.
Hands gripped him and he felt himself being dragged away from the nightmare vortex. He opened his eyes, the aching dark sliding from his soul, and he gasped at the dreadfulness of what he had felt. He rolled onto his side, heaving for breath as the swirling blackness in the centre of the room began shrinking away to nothing, closing the window to the horrifying realm beyond. The fire roared back to life as he pushed himself to his knees with a grimace and turned to thank his rescuer.
He recognised the flushed, firelit features of Pavel Korovic and gripped his old friend's shoulder tightly. 'Thank you,' he said.
'Is of no matter,' said Pavel, his face ashen and Kaspar could tell he too had felt the awful madness that lay within the darkness. He turned back to the centre of the room, seeing nothing but a shallow crater of splintered floorboards and fragmented foundations where the brass sphere had exploded. Of General Pavia and his senior officers, there was no sign.
Screams filled the room where men lay in pieces, entire limbs shorn from their bodies where the deadly energy of Chaos had touched them: boyarin with half their heads gone or missing the front of their ribcages lay around the circumference of the crater, blood spattered around their hewn corpses.
Kaspar looked for the Tzarina and saw her and her guards backing towards the main doors to the hall. Blood streamed from a deep cut on her temple and she was supported by one of her boyarin. An Empire captain of arquebusiers lay screaming before Kaspar, his legs severed from his body just below the pelvis by the lethal explosion.
Shouts of outrage and confusion began, but before anyone could do more than pick themselves up off the floor, Kaspar saw a dark shape ghost through the window, a solid darkness against the moonlit sky beyond.
'Watch out!' he yelled to the Tzarina's guards, pointing at the window.
Two of the bare chested warriors leapt towards the figure, the third remaining with their queen. Their swords were golden blurs as they attacked, sparks flying from the blindingly swift impacts. The figure in black swayed aside from a blow Kaspar felt sure would cleave him in two, rolling beneath his opponent's guard and with his sword flicking out. The first guard collapsed, his guts looping around his knees as he was expertly disembowelled and the second desperately parried, edging backwards from the terrifying speed of his opponent and employing every shred of his skill just to survive.
Kaspar desperately wished to help the man, but knew he would be dead in a heartbeat were he to face this black-robed killer. He had no weapons of his own, his lack of a military rank preventing him from bearing arms in the presence of the Tzarina. He crawled as fast as he could to the fireplace, realising that his only hope of helping lay with giving the Tzarina's guards a fighting chance in this unequal struggle.
The second guard was down, the assassin's blade deep in his chest and Kaspar watched as the Tzarina's last guard yelled a fierce oath and leapt to the attack. The boyarin were finally overcoming their confusion and panic, cries of alarm sounding as they saw the danger to their queen. They were arming themselves, but Kaspar knew that by then it would be too late and the Tzarina would be dead.
He reached into the fire and dragged out a blazing brand, feeling the flames burn his skin, but gritting his teeth against the pain. He surged to his feet as the assassin spun beneath a beheading stroke and opened the Tzarina's warrior from groin to sternum with his sword.
Kaspar had seconds at best. As the killer fought to free his blade from his victim, Kaspar hurled the fiery missile at his back.
Fat orange sparks flared where it hit and the black robed figure shrieked as its robes caught light.
'Kaspar, down!' shouted a voice he recognised as Pavel's.
He ducked as something flashed over his head and saw a glass bottle shatter upon the murderer. Flames engulfed the killer, spreading wildly over his body and transforming him into a blazing torch. He lurched around the room like a drunk, ablaze from head to toe, and his shrieking squeals rose to new heights, sounding for all the world like a wounded animal.
The doors to the hall burst open and more warriors burst in, men with spears and long muskets. The black powder weapons boomed and the blazing figure was blasted from its feet, landing in a thrashing heap in the centre of the crater its mysterious sphere had blown.
The warriors with spears ran to the blazing body and stabbed it repeatedly with the iron tips of their weapons until at last it was still.
Kaspar rolled onto his back and said, 'Kvas?'
Pavel nodded as the flames consumed the killer's flesh and filled the room with its sickening stench.
'I not have any need for it any more.' said Pavel, offering his hand to Kaspar.
'Good.' said Kaspar, accepting Pavel's hand and climbing to his feet.
He saw that the Tzarina was no longer in danger, her warriors gathered about her as the boyarin took stock of their losses and shouted great oaths of vengeance to Ursun, Dazh and Tor.
Kaspar limped over to where the shaken boyarin gathered around the smouldering corpse, spitting
on its charred remains. Much of the flesh had been seared from its body and the charred remains were twisted and deformed, but the skull was strangely elongated and possessed more than a passing resemblance to...
Kaspar turned away from the corpse, unwilling to believe that what he had seen could be real. It was a man, deformed and obviously disfigured, but a man. It surely could not have been anything else, surely...
The boyarin parted as the Tzarina walked stiffly to the edge of the crater in the floor. Her face was a mask of controlled rage, glittering blood coating one side of her face and a mist of sparkling ice crystals forming in the air around her. As the crystals fell to the floor around her and shattered musically on the floor, Kaspar and her boyarin backed away from a fury that burned the air with its frozen heat. 'Get me Losov,' she said.
CHAPTER NINE
I
Finding Pjotr Losov took longer than expected, but eventually he was brought before the Tzarina, his face lined with concern and worry. The West Hall was no longer the bloodbath it had been half an hour ago, the bodies of the dead having been removed and the wounded taken to the Banqueting Hall, where Sofia and other hastily gathered physicians were caring for them as best they could.
The Ice Queen stood with the mighty sword Fearfrost drawn, holding it by the pommel so that the tip of its shimmering blue blade rested on the floor. The dead assassin's sword lay on the floor in front of her.
Kaspar sat on a wooden bench near the fire and sipped a mug of kvas, his nerves still unsettled after the horror of the killer's attack. He could not rid his memory of the sight of the charred, deformed corpse and, most of all, the hideous, crawling sense of insignificance and misery he had experienced while lying next to whatever damned realm the killer's brass sphere had opened a gateway to.