The Icemark Chronicles: The Cry of the Icemark (2 page)

Thirrin spurred her horse on, already recovering from the shock of the battle and anxious to tell her father about the wolfman. They thundered across the plain, raising a cloud of dust on the summer-dry roads, and soon she and her soldier escort were riding through the gates of the city and up the main street. It was market day, and country people from the surrounding villages and farms lined the way with their stalls, selling everything from vegetables and cheeses to eggs and newly slaughtered meat. It was hot, and swarms of flies had been drawn to the blood and offal, making Thirrin’s horse skittish so that it snorted and sidled as they moved slowly through the crowds.

“Make way for the Princess!” her escort shouted, spurring ahead and using his horse to force people aside. Unused to seeing royalty, some of the country folk who rarely came to the city stared as Thirrin rode by. Some even pressed forward to touch the hem of her tunic or her riding boots, as if she were a holy relic of some sort. This embarrassed her deeply, and she immediately unslung her shield and rode along with it on her arm, hiding behind the mask of her status.

“It’s the Princess! It’s the Princess!” The whisper ran ahead of her through the crowd of country people. Thirrin found herself wishing she’d worn her helmet and not just the simple iron cap she usually wore for hunting. At least in her war gear
she had a noseguard that hid part of her face. She could only hope the crowd of bumpkins thought her blushes were simply the high color of a warrior.

At last she reached the outer gates of the upper city, and the guards on duty barred the way, as required. “Who seeks entry to the King’s presence?” the soldiers demanded formally. Thirrin stared at them in silent pride and waited for her escort to answer for her.

“His daughter and heir, Princess Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield.”

The guards snapped to attention, and Thirrin rode through into the castle. As soon as she’d crossed the wide courtyard, she dismounted and left the reins of her horse trailing on the ground, knowing that a groom would run to collect the animal. Then she strode into the Great Hall of her father’s fortress.

Just inside the yawning archway of the doors, she paused for a moment to let her eyes grow accustomed to the dim light. Slowly the battered shields of long-dead housecarls — the army’s professional soldiers — and the banners of old wars emerged from the gloom, and she once again strode forward.

Before her, the flagstone floor seemed to stretch away forever into the shadows, but here and there small islands of light pooled onto the age-scarred stones as sunshine lanced down from smoke vents high in the roof. At the far end of the hall she could make out the raised dais, where a throne of black oak stood. Its arms had been carved to represent the forelegs of a bear, and its feet into those of a dragon. And above it hung the battle standard of the Icemark: a standing polar bear, lips drawn back in a vicious snarl and claws outstretched. This very standard had been carried by Thirrin’s father when the army of the Vampire King and Queen had finally been defeated at the Battle of the Wolfrocks.

Nobody was sitting on the throne, and when Thirrin reached the dais, she quickly walked behind it and ducked her head to enter a low doorway. Beyond it lay a small, cozy room where King Redrought Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield, Bear of the North, mighty warrior and wise monarch, was soaking his feet in a wide basin of water. He was leaning back in a chair stuffed with plump cushions and his eyes were closed. But Thirrin knew he was awake because he wasn’t snoring and a small, wizened man had just finished his move in a game of chess.

“You’re cheating again, Grimswald!” the King’s voice snapped.

“Oh, was I? I’m sure I didn’t mean to. I must have made a mistake. I’ll put the bishop back, shall I?” the little old man answered in a reedy voice.

Redrought opened a bloodshot eye and glared at Grimswald.

“Yes, I’ll put the bishop back,” the little old man concluded.

At this point the King noticed his daughter. “Ah, Thirrin! Come in, come in! Just top up the basin, will you? My corns are really bad today.” He nodded to a kettle steaming gently on a woodstove, and Thirrin dutifully crossed the room, picked it up, and poured the hot water into the basin.

“Put some cold in first!” Redrought bellowed, snatching his feet from the water and sloshing much of it across the floor.

“Sorry,” Thirrin said meekly, and mixed hot and cold water in a large pitcher before pouring it into the foot basin.

“Ah, that’s better!” Redrought boomed again. In fact, the King only ever seemed to bellow, boom, or shout, no matter what his mood. But nobody seemed to mind too much; at least he never had to repeat himself.

As he settled back into his cushions, Thirrin noticed that his huge red beard — which spread across his chest like a fire in a
mountain forest — had started to swing and swirl, and she watched in fascination as a small tabby head appeared and blinked at her.

“Ah, Primplepuss, there you are!” the King cried, seizing the kitten in his huge war-callused hands. “I knew I’d seen you earlier. I must remember to comb out my beard before I go to bed. I don’t want to squash you, do I?”

Primplepuss gave a tiny mew in reply, and Redrought watched her fondly as she proceeded to wash a paw.

“Father, I have some important news,” Thirrin said when she thought she could drag his attention away from the kitten.

“Well, it must be important, Grimswald,” King Redrought said to the old man. “She only ever calls me ‘Father’ when she’s done something wrong or a disaster’s at hand.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong, Father.”

“Then what’s happened?”

“I fought a werewolf in the forest this morning.”

“A werewolf, eh? You’re not hurt, are you?” he asked, grabbing her arms and looking her over closely. She shook her head and, after a few more minutes of careful scrutiny, he nodded his head and went on. “Well, we can’t have the Wolffolk making themselves at home, now can we? Exactly where did you see it? And did you kill it?”

“Just beyond Peninsula Point, near the Black Peak, and no, I didn’t kill it. It was only wounded in its left shoulder and upper arm, and it was pretty kicked around by the horses.”

“Nothing to a werewolf. I’ll have to send out a patrol.”

“Yes!” Thirrin agreed, looking up, her eyes alight. “But first I want to ask you something, Dad.” She paused as she gathered her thoughts. “Can … can werewolves
feel
and
think?
I mean like people do. And can they … understand that we have … oh, I don’t know,
thoughts
and
feelings
and
lives
to live?”

Redrought fell silent as he thought this through. He’d spent most of his life fighting the Wolffolk and other creatures from beyond his northern borders. He’d had neither the time nor the inclination to wonder if they thought about anything. But he was a good king, and shrewd enough to know that something important lay behind his daughter’s questions. “Why do you ask? What’s happened?”

Thirrin took a deep breath. “The werewolf could have killed me today, but it didn’t. It disarmed me and could have ripped out my throat. But when I punched it in the nose and told it to make it quick, it stopped and let me go. It even stuck my sword in the ground and left it for me to collect. And I don’t understand why. If Wolffolk can’t feel and think, why did it let me live?”

Redrought didn’t know, and at that moment he didn’t care. He just felt an enormous sense of relief sweep over him. Suddenly he gathered his daughter in a bearlike hug that made her gasp for breath almost as much as the wolfman had when it sat on her. “You will not take such risks again! Do you hear me?” he roared, his anger fueled by the terrible realization that his daughter could so easily have been killed.

“But, Dad, I didn’t take any risks. Werewolves don’t usually come into the forest. How could I have known it was going to be there?”

Redrought knew this was true, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He released her from the hug and sat down again heavily. “I’ll send out a full patrol immediately.”

“And I want to lead it.”

“Oh no, young Madam. My daughter and heir will stay safely here in the castle. Let some other hotheads earn their spurs,” Redrought said decisively.

“But they’ll need me to guide them to the right spot. Nobody else knows the way.”

“Apart from your soldier escort,” the King said, a hint of triumph in his tone.

“Apart from my soldier escort,” Thirrin was forced to agree reluctantly.

“Good! Grimswald, call in the captain of the guard. You can give him details, Thirrin, and then run along to your tutor. Geography today, if I’m not mistaken.”

Grimswald piped at the door for the guard, who arrived in a clatter of armor.

“Captain Edwald. The Princess reports a werewolf close to the city. Take details and send out a patrol!” the King boomed, stroking Primplepuss gently. The kitten screwed her eyes shut against the huge blast of Redrought’s voice, then as Thirrin and the captain withdrew to confer, she rubbed her tabby face against the King’s enormous finger as it tickled her cheek.

Thirrin was furious. She should have led the patrol to find the werewolf, not that dolt of a soldier! And not only that, but the patrol would probably kill the werewolf as soon as they found it, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about this. She couldn’t help remembering that it could easily have killed her if it had wanted to, and neither could she forget the way it had bowed so ridiculously and had seemed to laugh before it ran off. She stormed angrily along the deeply shadowed corridor to her tutor’s room, striding like an avenging war goddess through the sudden bursts of sunlight beneath each window.

Arriving at her tutor’s door, she hit it once with her mailed fist, and burst through. Maggiore Totus was just drinking a cooling beaker of water, most of which he spilled down his
black gown as he spluttered his surprise. But one look at Thirrin’s blazing eyes stopped him from saying anything about good manners being necessary even for a princess. Instead he smiled in welcome and waved her to a seat next to the window. “Perhaps Her Majesty would be more comfortable in a dress rather than chain mail?” he asked, using the stiff formality of his speech as a shield against Thirrin’s bad temper.

“No!” she snapped. But relenting slightly, she removed her sword belt and hung it on the back of her chair. It was Maggiore Totus’s job to make sure she was as well educated as the heir to the Icemark throne should be. But only the lessons of the horse and weapons masters really held her attention. Everything else slowed time to a sluggish crawl for her, and she’d perfected the art of staring at her books while her mind galloped over the plains or sailed out on the gray Icemark seas.

Now, as Maggiore Totus sorted through his notes, she let her mind drift away once again, imagining herself riding on the back of one of the huge Snowy Owls that lived on the winter ice fields. From her vantage point on the owl’s broad white back she could see the Wolfrock Mountains rising steeply from the northern plain, setting their jagged peaks like teeth against the cold blue of the sky, while to the south, the peaks known as the Dancing Maidens rose and undulated gently across the horizon, then slowly descended as low green hills into the lands of the Polypontian Empire. Maggiore had told her that this strange name actually meant “many bridges” and reflected the huge number of rivers that flowed through the rich green country.

From the height on the back of her imagined Snowy Owl she could see the multitude of rivers flowing across the Imperial land like fine silver threads stitched into a fabulous green
cloth, embroidered with the regular field patterns of farmland and the dark splotches of forest, marsh, and pasture.

Then she flew over the cities of this wealthy southern realm, their streets sprawling and gray below her. The settlements had grown so large they’d burst beyond their walls and threatened the green land around them with dark factories that sent smoke thousands of feet up into the air as they filled the country’s treasury with gold. With this wealth the Polypontus had built a massive army, which over the years had conquered a huge Empire that stretched beyond Thirrin’s knowledge to all points of the compass. The army was led by the fearsome General Scipio Bellorum, who had never lost one of his wars of conquest and had won every battle he commanded personally.

Thirrin’s owl now flew lower over the streets of the Empire’s cities. There she saw the people. Some were richly dressed and walked with a confidence that cleared a path through the crowds thronging the pavements. Many were dressed as soldiers, ready to fight and die in the Empire’s wars. But most wore rags, and a large number of these were slaves assigned to the factories that made the weapons the army needed for its wars in distant lands.

This was the reality of the Empire. People were just one more thing to be used by those few who ruled the massive territories. And if Thirrin had wondered if anything was truly different for the peasants of her own society, she might have argued that in the Icemark no one was called a slave and no one was forced to work in factories that poisoned the air and corrupted the land. The fact that the life of a “serf” living on her father’s land was little different from that of a slave would not have troubled her. At least their people lived in their own homes and ate some of the food they labored to grow.

Then in the eye of her imagination her owl wheeled north until they flew over the Icemark once again, and below her the forests and pastures flowed like a green sea around the walled islands of its towns. It was only in the winter that the kingdom lived up to its name and truly became the Icemark, white and frozen from the Wolfrocks to the Dancing Maidens for seven months of the year.

Maggiore Totus watched Thirrin as her eyes gazed unseeingly into the middle distance, and he sighed. She was the most difficult pupil he’d ever had to teach, but she was also one of the cleverest. And it was this knowledge that kept him in the palace as royal tutor. Deep down in the recesses of his brilliant mind he harbored the hope that he’d awaken a love of learning in this warrior princess, so that one day the Icemark would be ruled by a scholar as well as a fighter.