The Icemark Chronicles: The Cry of the Icemark Read Online Free

watchers on the border have reported anything wrong.”
    He absentmindedly twirled one of his special feast-day braids around his finger as he considered the situation. “I’ll strengthen the border garrisons and send out more spies,” he said after a moment. “That should be enough for the time being.”
    “As long as you don’t weaken the southern defenses to do it,” the old Baroness said. “I trust the Polypontus and its Empire about as much as I do the Vampire King and Queen. I suspect General Scipio Bellorum has an ambition to add the Icemark to his conquests.”
    Redrought laughed. “You worry too much, Aethelflaeda! Bellorum has an ambition to add everybody to his conquests, and at the moment he’s busy in the south. So stop fretting and have a drink.”
    “I think the Baroness is right,” Thirrin said quietly, her mind occupied with a problem she’d been mulling over for sometime. “If we watch one border too closely, we put the others at risk. We need more allies.”
    The King nodded. “Very true. But we’re isolated up here in our northern lands. To the south is the Empire of the Polypontus and to the north of us we have The-Land-of-the-Ghosts. We’re not exactly spoiled for choice, are we?”
    “No, but sometimes friends can be found in the unlikeliest of places,” said Thirrin, her mind inexplicably drawn back to the wolfman and how it had looked at her before it finally let her go.
    The King winked at his daughter and smiled. “You’re right. Perhaps we should start looking as soon as we can.” Then he sat back in his seat, stretched luxuriously, and rested his feet on the table. Thirrin watched in amusement as he maneuvered his large fluffy slippers among the plates and cups of the banquet until he found enough space to cross them comfortably. Earlier, when the King’s chamberlain had objected to his footwear, he’d argued that his fluffy yellow slippers were far more comfortable on his corns than the polished boots of the state regalia. And the set of his jaw had warned the chamberlain to say no more.
    After the King had settled himself, he reached inside the stiffly embroidered collar of his robes and gently drew out Primplepuss, the royal kitten, and placed her on his heroically curving stomach.
    “Grimswald!” he bellowed. “Grimswald, where are you?!”
    The Chamberlain-of-the-Royal-Paraphernalia appeared at the King’s elbow, and Thirrin found herself wondering if he’d been hiding under the table. “Yes, Sire?” said the wrinkly little man.
    “Fetch some milk for Primplepuss. She’s thirsty, aren’t you, my sweeting?” he said, gently rubbing her cheek and tellingeveryone around him that she was purring even though a saber-toothed tiger couldn’t have been heard over the noise of the banquet.
    When the kitten started to play with Redrought’s braided beard, Thirrin knew there’d be no chance of getting any sense out of her father for the rest of the evening, so she decided to join the housecarls down in the lower hall.
    She leaped off the royal dais and made her way toward the sound of throwing axes being hurled at a target, arriving just as one of them split the apple that had been placed in the center of the bull’s-eye. The massive blast of cheering almost knocked her off her feet, but she waded through the press of huge sweating men and women and demanded a turn. Shy she may have been in polite company and when facing the demands of well-mannered conversation, but Thirrin had no such fears among fellow warriors. Here she didn’t have to be polite or careful of her language; in fact, the housecarls usually spent the first few minutes apologizing for their own lack of manners. But once they got into the swing of things, all of that was forgotten and she was treated almost like the other young warriors, although her status was always carefully acknowledged.
    A great shout went up: “The Princess is going to throw!” One of the warriors respectfully placed one of