The Jungle Tomb of the Ice Queen (The Flying Tooth Garden Book 1) Read online

  The Flying Tooth Garden Vol. 1

  The Jungle Tomb of the Ice Queen

  M Harold Page

  Copyright © M Harold Page 2021

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No affiliation is implied or intended to any organisation or recognisable body mentioned within.

  Published by Level Up in the United Kingdom in 2021

  Cover illustration by Sippakorn Upama

  Cover by Claire Wood

  ISBN: 978-1-83919-145-9

  www.levelup.pub

  Dedicated to Hugh Hancock (1977 – 2018), who once threw me through a pile of chairs.

  Chapter 1: Forward the Banner!

  Men fought and died at the breach. The Marshal tensed his fingers against his gilded gauntlets.

  Form 3. Performing Warlord at Level 13.

  “My lord?” prompted the page, proffering Peacebringer.

  “He’ll say when, boy,” hissed Cordinus the Bannerman.

  The midday heat had crushed the sound out of the battle. Blades thudded on shields, clanged on helms. Arrows crunched underfoot. The only human noises were the grunts of sudden effort and the wet whimpers of the dying. Beyond the ragged walls, Gronchard the Flayer’s advancing Myrmidons kicked up a dust cloud.

  Again, the Marshal’s Demon spoke:

  307 Medium Infantry. Standing Ground. Firm. Uncounted Gronchardian Medium Infantry. Assaulting.

  It was Gronchard’s conjurers that had sent a Hell Troll to smash the ramparts of Yinkesia, ancient seat of the Yinksi Empire. There’d been no time to build barricades, so now a mere shieldwall of soldiers and militia struggled to postpone the moment when the enemy would clamber in over the debris and rampage through their city.

  For three generations, the Myrmidons had smashed all resistance, leaving only smouldering cities and skull stacks in their wake.

  Defeat was inevitable. Almost.

  Once again his Demon made the puppets dance across the Marshal’s vision; ghostly figures flickering in triple time, playing out the counter-attack. It might even work. However, for now, the Marshal—he had a name, but only one person had used it in thirty years—could only watch from the portico of the Temple of Yin. He shifted his weight, surreptitiously loosened his leg muscles while the sweat trickled down his forehead. Beside him, the Queen looked on, golden mask impassive. They were both warlocks, but he knew he had seen her face for the last time in this or any life.

  295 Medium Infantry. Standing Ground. Firm.

  A dozen of Gronchard’s archers bobbed up onto the rubble itself, black figures in the glare and dust. Bow staves flickered.

  “Arrows!” barked the Marshal.

  The Royal Shieldman moved to protect Queen Zenobia. The Marshal ducked so that the peak of his helmet covered his eyes.

  An arrow slammed into his cuirass. The impact bruised his ribs. Another glanced off his helmet. More arrows thudded into the Queen’s tower shield.

  Now a return volley whirred down from the temple roof, swept the enemy archers away.

  17 archers. 3 arrows left each. Standing Ground. Shaken.

  “You should put on your armour, my Queen,” said the Marshal.

  The skin of her neck tautened, and he could imagine her smiling behind the mask: lips quirked, crowsfeet furling around twinkling eyes. “I have perhaps one spell left in me,” she said. “Let it not be said it was unspent when my civilisation fell.”

  The Marshal nodded. His queen, with her uncanny grasp of the future, did not believe in his plan.

  The Marshal shrugged against the rattling weight of his armour. He could not be other than who he was. He glanced down the reserve line formed up before the ancient temple’s porch. The men of the Queen’s Guard fidgeted and shifted at their posts. They were all in heavy cataphract wargear—lamellar armour of overlapping plates, small shields strapped to their arms, and double-handed lances hacked down for infantry combat.

  42 Heavy Infantry. Standing Ground. Eager.

  The ideal moment would come when the attackers committed their reserve. There would confusion as unblooded troops breasted the breach. The three remaining Yinksi goeticists would expend their last spells while the archers on the temple roof emptied their quivers. Then and only then could he lead the decisive counter-attack.

  He looked back to the defenders in the melee.

  240 Medium Infantry. Wavering.

  Sure enough, the Yinksi shieldwall bowed, split. Yelling in triumph, Gronchard’s men burst through. The melee became a whirl of duels and brawls, with the greater numbers of the attackers starting to tell.

  235 Medium Infantry. Disordered. Fighting Desperately.

  “Queen’s Guard!” barked the Marshal. “Advance! For the Queen!”

  They took up the cry. Armour rattling, they trotted down the steps, leaving the Queen with just the Marshal, his page, and her Shieldman.

  The Guard formed a wedge as they descended, slammed into the melee, imposed a lethal order on the chaos. Yinksi defenders let themselves be swept past and joined the rear. Attackers died where they stood or retreated to the hard-won breach.

  39 Heavy Infantry. Fighting well. Confident. 213 Medium Infantry. Rallying.

  Even so, Gronchard’s light troops were scrambling up the sides of the breach while—from the other side of the rubble—unseen magicians and archers kept down the heads of those defenders who perched on the remnants of the battlements.

  47 Gronchardian Light Infantry. Eager.

  Unlock Mason or Sculptor?

  “Ha!” Sculpting, he answered. The knowledge of working stone into recognisable shapes flowed through his mind.

  “What is it?” asked Queen Zenobia.

  “Remember I’ve yet to pick an additional Vocation? I’ve spent so much time looking at fallen masonry, my demon now recalls a past life as a statue maker.”

  “I can’t imagine you as that,” said the Queen.

  “But I can now imagine capturing your grace in stone.”

  “Don’t use the word capture,” she said.

  A dozen enemy Conclave spearmen broke free of the melee and charged up the steps toward them.

  13 Gronchardian Medium Infantry. Eager.

  “Excuse me, My Queen,” said the Marshal. “Boy, my sword!” He took up Peacebringer and jogged down the five steps to the first landing where there was room for footwork. He dropped into an easy fighting stance—knees bent, sword cocked back over his right shoulder—and the aches and pains of two score years of warfare dropped away.

  The Spearmen are level 5 challenges.

  The Marshal grinned. Of course. Gronchard’s elite troops.

  The spearmen could have simply evaded him, flowed around to get to the Queen. Her death curse might have accounted for most of them. However, the shieldman and bannerman were both too heavily armoured to deal with a swarm of lighter troops, and the page was just a boy. The Queen would have been killed or captured, or chased into the temple with the same eventual response.

  But an old man in golden armour…how could they resist?

  Form 3. Performing Warrior
at level 25.

  The Demon chattered away as the Marshal did his duty.

  He stepped over the bodies on his way back to the Queen.

  Zenobia did not speak. She caught his questioning look. “All these years,” she said, “and this is the first time I have seen you use a sword in anger.”

  Not in anger, he thought guiltily. “It is not how I would have you remember me,” he said.

  “There will not be a remembering, I think,” she said, and gestured at the breach.

  The Marshal turned back to the fight. All order had been lost except where Yinksi soldiers formed knots of resistance.

  21 Heavy Infantry. Disordered. Fighting desperately. 164 Medium Infantry. Disordered. Fighting desperately. Uncounted enemy Medium Infantry. Assaulting.

  “Page, see that my pyre is lit,” said the Queen.

  “It will not be necessary,” said the Marshal, but he did not call back the boy.

  “Gronchard shall not take me to the Flying Tooth Garden for flaying,” said the Queen.

  “Nor shall he,” said the Marshal.

  Trumpets sounded beyond the wall. Sandals tramped.

  “At last.” He clapped his Bannerman on the armoured shoulder. “Cordinus, my friend, I find I cannot order you to do this.”

  “I’ve followed you in life, Marshal,” said Cordinus, “it is fit I should follow you in death.”

  A great sadness settled in the pit of the Marshal’s stomach. His friend was no warlock. There would be no reunion of avatars. But since he had but one death to die, it would be wrong to try to take away his choosing of it.

  “Stay a good few paces behind me,” said the Marshal, “so—”

  Cordinus laughed. “So you can use your sword. It will be like old times.”

  The Queen tore off her mask to reveal tear-bright eyes. She opened her mouth but no words came.

  The Marshal flexed his shoulders against his armour. “It is how it is.”

  Zenobia stood on tiptoe and kissed him with dry lips. “Perhaps in the next life we shall love as equals. Perhaps I shall bear you a child.”

  The Marshal shook his head. “I am done with hurting and being hurt. The Grey Cortège will come for my body and you will give it to them.” He caught a whiff of burning pitch from the pyre. He turned away so as not to see her look of hurt.

  Black pike shafts appeared above the breach.

  Uncounted Multitudes of Gronchardian Medium Infantry. Assaulting. Eager.

  “Forward the banner!” roared the Marshal. “For the Queen and for Yinkesia.”

  Chapter 2: Duelling Warlocks!

  Gronchard’s pikemen breasted the breach. Three fireballs whooshed down from the temple roof. Orange flared as human fat combusted. More soldiers pushed through the mayhem and the fear and rage braided into a noose that seemed to constrict Zenobia’s skull.

  Zenobia pointed her fingers and started to chant.

  Current form 5. Performing Wizard at level 30. 1 of 27 Potestas remaining.

  Her gaze flicked to the Marshal’s armoured back as he waded through the mayhem. Their…private exercise regime had kept her fitter and tougher than the average queen.

  The world sharpened even as her body ached and her shoulders sagged.

  She barely heard her Demon’s commentary as she went through the familiar spell.

  Before her eyes, nearly two dozen men in front rank of Gronchard’s legionaries dropped their weapons, clutched burst hearts or simply collapsed with blood trickling from their nostrils.

  Her empathy left her naked to the splash of pain and terror.

  You are Empathic.

  Will 13. You have avoided acquiring the issue Guilt.

  “Let me be cold hearted in my next life!”

  The last of the arrows buzzed overhead and added to the disorder.

  You have 0 of 27 Potestas remaining.

  Vitality 5.

  The stench from her pyre was overwhelming now. She must give herself to the flames while they were hot enough to truly consume her, otherwise her remains would end up in Gronchard’s Mausoleum, and her next incarnation would see her soul flayed back to the woman Gronchard had once loved.

  But she could not turn away from the Marshal.

  The big man cut down any of Gronchard’s soldiers in his way. There was no drama; they simply fell before him. He did not seem to defend himself, only shrug his way into attacks so that blades drew sparks from his armour and spears slipped past. Then, with an economical pivot, he would whip his sword around and dispatch the threat. It was like watching a servant prepare the table for a feast, laying out plates with brusque efficiency, tidying displaced napkins in passing.

  Her Demon settled back into its usual role.

  Influential Courtier. Master Diplomat. Master General. Queen’s favourite. Loyal.

  Behind him followed the heavily armoured Bannerman, one armoured hand on the Yinksi sunburst banner, the other brandishing a mace as he clambered over the corpses.

  A champion reared up out of the press like some hellish beetle shod in gilded steel and Zenobia felt the presence of another warlock; not just the presence, the tug on her soul.

  Gronchard!

  God Emperor. General. Diplomat. Flayer.

  Zenobia put a hand over her mouth, steeled herself to watch.

  “GIVE US SPACE,” ordered Gronchard, in words that rang in the mind.

  The men of both sides left of fighting and formed a loose arena around the Marshal and Gronchard.

  Gronchard made a sweep with his golden sword. With its spikes and flanges it looked far more imposing than the Marshal’s simple blade. Then he raised his visor. He was middle aged, younger than Zenobia, but his eyes burned with passion and the hellish thing was that even in the midst of this death and horror, she felt her heart leap.

  Charismatic Presence. He is a level 11 magical challenge.

  Zenobia relaxed a little. The Marshal’s amulets would at least protect him from that.

  “Angelica my love,” said Gronchard. “I have come for you.”

  “Go home, Gronchard,” said Zenobia. “Angelica died long ago.”

  Gronchard shook his head. “You were stolen by a shell self before I could flay it away. Come with me now and I will keep you always.”

  “I am that ‘shell self’,” said Zenobia. “Marshal, my love, kill this man for me.”

  The Marshal raised his sword.

  Gronchard took up the same stance. He laughed. “You should not be here. I have killed you before.”

  The Marshal came forward with all the speed of a young man.

  The blades clashed, whirled, sparked.

  The two armoured men switched grip to hold their swords like paddles. They hooked and wrestled, thumped with the pommel, curled legs and evaded trips.

  Then Gronchard’s helmet came off. Blood sprayed from his throat.

  The Marshal merely flowed past, left the other warlock dying on his feet. Cordinus followed stepped into the arena, banner aloft and bellowed, “For the Queen!”

  The corpse of the god crashed into the dust. Zenobia blinked, trying to make sense of what she’d seen.

  The other combatants unfroze. The Yinksi men yelled and surged against the attackers.

  Cordinus’s banner reached the breach, and there was the Marshal in his golden armour, legs bracing and unbracing, driving the hips that in in turn drove his great sword. Zenobia had always considered her courtier lover handsome but ungainly. Now, in this fatal hour, she saw that he had been like a storm-wreathed mountain seen from the stork pond of a formal garden. Here, in his natural element, he had a terrible, elemental grace.

  At first the enemy swirled past the Marshal and his bannerman, and he merely took a tithe as they passed. Then a couple of Yinksi soldiers fought their way to his banner, then a dozen, then dozens.

  The flow of Gronchardian soldiers cut off. The surviving Yinksi men gathered to the Marshal’s side. The priests chose this moment to come out of the temple and start ministe
ring to the wounded of both sides.

  Crowd of 154. Loyal. Angry.

  For the first time since the siege began, Zenobia’s heart truly lifted. A future opened up, one in which she ruled with the Marshal at her side. In a reborn empire, she could do away with masks and conventions. In the autumn of her life, she would make a consort of her lover.

  The Marshal’s voice rang out over the carnage. “Charge by all the Gods! Charge! Charge! For the Queen! Kill them all. Charge!”

  The Yinksi men let out a roar made terrible by its very humanity. Gronchard’s Myrmidons had devastated their homes, winnowed them as they fled, enslaved their sons and daughters. Now those same Myrmidons routed, presenting their backs to the wrath of her subjects…and thanks to her empathy, Zenobia could feel that wrath like poison in her veins.

  The banner went forward, down off the breach and out of sight into the trampled pastures beyond.

  Zenobia left the temple and climbed one of the bastions. She looked on as her men slaughtered the enemy in droves, overreached, fell back, job done. The worst of it was that they were laughing and brandishing heads on pikes.

  They left behind their casualties, except for the Marshal, whose limp body returned over the shoulders of two strong men.

  She did not go to him, for she knew it would be her unmaking and the city needed a Queen, not a woman. Instead, she managed the aftermath from her bastion, her Potestas trickling back to her.

  Gronchard’s army sent a priest offering a twenty-four-hour truce in return for their master’s body. She knew that they would take it to his mausoleum as a bate for his next avatar, that they would capture the poor child and flay his soul back to expose the personality of their God Emperor. Even so, her duty to her people forced her to agree.