The Cry of the Icemark

30



Thirrin ran into the infirmary ahead of Tharaman-Thar, roughly thrusting aside anyone who got in her way and shouting for Wenlock Witchmother. But the leader of the witches was already waiting for her, leaning quietly on her stick, and with two healers in attendance.

“He’s dead, Mother! He’s dead!” Thirrin shrieked as she caught sight of her.

The old lady stepped forward and motioned to Tharaman-Thar to lay Oskan down before her. She nodded slowly as she looked at his burned and disfigured body. “He has paid a high price to save you, Thirrin Lindenshield.”

“I know that! He’s paid with his life!”

“Shut up, foolish girl! If you really thought that, why did you bring him to me? Do you really think I can raise the dead? Those who are called into the peace of the Goddess stay there until she decides otherwise.”

The Witchmother turned to one of the healers. “Mirror,” she demanded, and waited with her hand open until a small circular piece of polished metal had been placed in her palm. Then, stooping, she held it before the blackened hole that was Oskan’s mouth. A faint mist gathered on its bright surface. “He lives, of course. He has other duties to perform in this life. Take him to the place prepared.”

“He’s alive?” said Thirrin, caught between amazement and a knowledge that she’d always believed it from the moment Tharaman-Thar had lifted him from the battlefield. “But even if he survives, he’ll be horribly scarred. Would he want to live that way?”

“However he survives is the will of the Mother. Do you think she’s so blind that she can’t see the unblemished soul of her son beneath the scarring of his body?” Wenlock said sharply. “Be grateful that his life is destined to continue at the same time as your own.”

Thirrin looked down on the blackened and oozing body of the boy who’d been through so much with her. His face was unrecognizable, his hands had been completely burned away, his wrists mere stumps that smoked gently, and the rest of his body was charred and twisted beyond any recognition. He looked and smelled like a mutton carcass that had been left far too long on a spit roast.

She wept silently, the tears trickling down her tightly drawn face. “Where are you going to take him?”

“To the deepest cellar. A place has been prepared for him,” the Witchmother answered, clapping her hands and watching as two orderlies hurried in with a stretcher and bundled Oskan onto it.

“‘A place has been prepared’ …? Did you know this was going to happen?” Thirrin asked in quiet awe.

“Yes, and so did he, at heart. Oh, he didn’t know the precise details, but he knew that he would fall defending you. Not all brave people are soldiers or warriors, Thirrin Strong-in-the-Arm.”

“I know that, old woman!” Thirrin snapped back with a return of her fighting spirit. “I may be young, but I’m not stupid. Don’t patronize me. I’ve faced death more times in the last few months than you probably have in your entire wizened life, and I’m still here. And if I survive this war, I’ll still be here when the Goddess is unfortunate enough to have your company in the Summer Lands!”

“That’s for the Mother to decide, not you! Don’t presume that you know her will!”

“Oh, I assure you I don’t. How could I possibly compete with a woman who seems to have just had a conversation with her? Perhaps you should call her in and we can ask her ourselves. Oh, but I’m forgetting, you’re obviously her private secretary; perhaps you should just have a quick look at her diary and see if it’s convenient.”

“That’s a terrible blasphemy!” Wenlock Witchmother hissed angrily.

“Oh no, it most certainly is not! I meant it only as an insult for you alone and your arrogance. Do you think you’re the only one created by the Mother? Or perhaps even you couldn’t be that big-headed. Perhaps you just think you’re the most important of her creations!”

The two terrible women faced each other for a blazing moment or two while Tharaman-Thar and the others looked on. Then the giant leopard coughed gently.

“Perhaps now isn’t the best time for this … discussion. The boy is dying before us.”

Then, amazingly, with much creaking and groaning of stiffened joints, the Witchmother fell to her knees before the young Queen. “The Goddess has chosen with her usual wisdom. This small land is blessed with a very powerful monarch indeed.”

The two orderlies now seized their opportunity to lift Oskan and head toward the doorway, where a broad flight of steps led down to the cellars. The others followed into the darkness, the healers holding torches to light the way.

The smell of wet earth enfolded them as they descended into the undercroft. When they reached the bottom of the steps, the orderlies didn’t stop but hurried over to a small doorway almost hidden behind a pillar. Here, another narrower flight of steps plunged deeply into pitch-black where the rich scent of earth billowed around them. The steps were wet, and the hollow sound of dripping water echoed around them; they trod warily as they wound down the spiraling stairway to the very bottom. Here, a natural cave opened up around them and beneath their feet a rich red mud glistened in the light of their torches. Against one of the irregular walls, a small bed had been placed with no mattress or coverings of any sort, and on this the orderlies placed the burned and broken body of Oskan the Warlock.

He was suspended above the wet earth on a rough trellis of ropes, and as Thirrin looked on, small droplets of water dripped onto his blackened skin. This was a place she’d never been to, hadn’t even known existed, and yet she knew she’d remember it for as long as she was allowed to live.

The Witchmother walked forward and, after mumbling to herself for a moment, she spoke up clearly. “Remember what you have been told, Oskan, Beloved of the Mother. Death would fall from the sky and healing would rise from the earth. Call now on the Goddess and be made whole.”

Turning to the others, she said, “We must leave him now. Let the will of the Goddess be done.”

“How long do we leave him like this?” Thirrin asked, her voice a mere whisper as she fought for control of herself.

“Until he walks from here alone and unaided.”

“I see,” said Thirrin simply and, taking a torch from one of the healers, she stood looking down at the disfigured body of her friend. Then she stooped and kissed his forehead.

“We must return to the war, Tharaman,” she said and, wiping her eyes, Thirrin turned and led the way back up the steps.

The Polypontian losses had been minimal in real terms — two thousand or so soldiers from the one hundred thousand who had attacked — but the effect on the army had been devastating. They were openly saying that the war against the Icemark couldn’t be won, that the boy warlock would return with hundreds more like him to turn the very power of the heavens against them. Even though their numbers now stood at more than five hundred thousand, with two more full armies on the way, the Imperial soldiers now genuinely believed that they couldn’t crush the tiny defense force that stood between them and victory. Scipio Bellorum had hanged more than three hundred of the loudest mutineers before any semblance of order was regained, and he’d flogged more than a thousand more. Eventually the soldiers were more afraid of him than they were of an enemy who could use lightning against them. This was the way Bellorum controlled his armies. They had to believe the consequences of failure were far worse than anything the enemy could do to them. Only then would they march into the worst kind of horror and fight their way clear, rather than anger their general.

Once Bellorum had reestablished his control, he called a parade and rode his horse to a low hill where he sat looking down on the massive congregation of fighting men. Pikes bristled like a wintertime forest, pennants and banners snapped and rattled in the breeze, and armor glittered like sparks in the forge of the gods. No army in all of history had ever been assembled that matched its size and discipline, and it wasn’t even at full strength yet!

Bellorum knew he had reached the peak of his powers, and yet still this tiny barbarian army was holding him at bay. Every move he’d made against them had been countered with a skill and ferocity he reluctantly found admirable. And now his army was wavering on the very brink of mutiny. He looked out at them, knowing that if they chose, they could ride him down and crush him before he’d even have time to express mild surprise. But equally, he knew they would never dare to move against him. He was the general, and they knew their place.

“The warlock is dead!” he suddenly shouted without any preamble or introduction. “Killed by his own weapon. I watched them carry his blackened body from the field.”

The army remained deathly quiet.

“There are no others who have the ability to call down lightning. If there were, don’t you think they’d have used them already? Don’t you think they’d have used them to save the mounted bow-women? No! He was the only one, and he died protecting his Queen. A brave man. He met his death well.”

Still the silence seethed, and Bellorum knew that the time had come for the grand gesture to restore the morale of his soldiers. “But I intend to make his sacrifice an empty act. I will lead the combined cavalry against the queenling and her ragged troopers and tame leopards. We are one hundred thousand of the world’s best horsemen against six thousand members of a circus act!”

Overhead a skylark soared into the sky, its triumphant song erupting into the air and falling on the ears of the silent army. This was something new to Bellorum: His soldiers actually felt sympathy for the enemy, even admiration. The sudden realization made him almost choke with fury.

“The army will remain on parade to witness the destruction of the barbarian Queen!” His voice cut through the silence with a deadly assurance. Then he turned his horse and rode away to the assembly point to await the cavalry. Once the victory was won, they’d cheer and their good morale would once again be another tool to be used to further his plans. This hard-fought war would be won, and the Empire extended to the north, where the natural resources of timber, iron, and brilliant soldiers would help in the future campaigns he was already planning.

Pain! Deep, tearing, throbbing, needle-sharp, hammer-blunt pain — ripping through his body and through his mind, twisting deep in his guts and slicing at his skin with razors and broken glass. Oskan wanted to scream, but his vocal cords had burned away. He was desperate for water and he could hear it dripping all around him, but his charred tongue found nothing in his mouth but blisters and scorched flesh. For hours he lay on the ropes of the low bed, unable to move, the pressure of the hemp on his destroyed skin sending new agonies deep into his body.

At last he found the strength to tear his mind from the searing pain, and he prayed to the Goddess for release. And slowly, slowly, his mind faded into the dark, away from the torture of his burns, and he fell into the blessed release of the coma his overloaded nervous system had so far denied him.

The smell of him filled the cavern, like the ashes of a bonfire that have cooled in the morning dew. His skin oozed pus and clear serum that dripped through the ropes of his bed and onto the mud of the wet floor. Long, sticky tendrils gradually dangled and lengthened down to the glutinous, saturated earth. Eventually, after many long hours, the pendulous stalactites of bodily juices made contact with the thick, rich mud, and at the same time a small spark of consciousness returned to the warlock’s mind.

He shrank from the agony, but before he could flee, a voice echoed faintly in his head: “Remember what you have been told, Oskan, Beloved of the Mother. Death would fall from the sky and healing would rise from the earth. Call now on the Goddess and be made whole.”

His mind rose through the torture of his body, and he tried to look around him. But his eyelids were sealed shut over the jelly-filled orbs that had been boiled to blindness. He screamed silently, then, as he gathered what strength remained to him, his muscles convulsed and he sat upright, the crisped flesh cracking and snapping as his mind screamed into the blackness of the cave:

“GODDESS!”

Oskan crashed back onto the ropes of his bed, and his mind fled into unconsciousness.

But rising through the dangling tendrils of serum and mucus, power flowed from the earth. Nutrients and minerals were being drawn into his body, like the flow of oxygen and the other essentials of life between mother and unborn child through an umbilical cord.

Slowly his body began the process of repair, and as the hours passed, the rate increased, as new skin cells were forged and the layers damaged beyond healing sloughed away to mix with the mud of the cave floor.

Up above him in the infirmary, Maggiore Totus stood at the head of the first flight of steps that led down to the cave.

Wenlock Witchmother had already refused to let him go down to see Oskan, so he stood as close as he could get to the boy he’d grown to love like a nephew, if not quite a son. The old scholar fully expected Oskan to die; his injuries were so severe that recovery was surely impossible. He was also convinced that leaving him alone in a cold and wet cave would probably accelerate the process. Maggie shook his head sadly; Oskan was so young and with such fabulous potential that would now never be realized. And, he thought to himself, what would Thirrin do without her friend, without the boy who would probably have become her consort one day?

Maggiore sighed loudly, and was startled to hear the sound echo around the empty cellar. Only then did he realize that he was completely alone. The witches and other healers were busy attending to their patients on the upper levels, so, seizing his opportunity, he scurried down the steps. He didn’t really know what he intended to do, other than say good-bye to the boy with the strange powers and beautiful winning smile.

The way was steep and the torch he carried burned badly, throwing an uncertain light on the steps before him. But at last he reached the bottom safely and stepped out into the mud of the cave. He was struck instantly by the cold and the earthy scent. It was so strong he coughed once or twice. It wasn’t a bad smell, exactly, just very strong, like a forest after a rainstorm, but richer and with a sharp underscoring of minerals.

Maggiore raised the torch and could just make out the low bed over by the cave wall. He walked tentatively toward it, and then with a sudden rush of disgust and pity he saw the tendrils of mucus that had dripped from Oskan’s ravaged skin. He stopped and peered through his spectoculums, unable to believe what he saw. Hastily he rubbed the small lenses of glass on his sleeve and looked again.

Oskan’s hands lay folded on his chest, the bones gleaming through a thin covering of flesh, and his lips shone moistly in the light of the torch. Maggiore dropped to his knees and started to weep. He was now certain. He knew he was witnessing a miracle. When the boy had been brought into the cave, his hands had been burned completely away and his face had been a mask of black skin without lips, nose, or any other feature.

The old scholar placed his hands on the mud and tried to find the words he wanted. It had been many years since he had prayed, but at last he found them.

“Thank you, Goddess,” he said simply, and bowed his forehead to the floor until he felt the cold, wet mud cooling his flesh.