Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

courtiers began talking calmingly to those still on their knees. There was nothing to be done. Man proposes and the Empress disposes, and that was just the way it was in the Empire these days. Silence said nothing, but his face was set and grim.
    The snow surged up suddenly at the crowd's edge as the snow creature's blunt head broke the surface. People scattered with shouts and shrieks. The great mouth opened and spat out the courtier it had taken. The head dropped back into the snow and disappeared. The courtier sailed through the air and hit the packed snow hard, but his plaintive groan showed that at least he was still alive. His friends clustered around him, checked that he was basically undamaged, and got him on his feet again. Lionstone laughed again, and everyone who liked their head where it was laughed along with her. Even the courtier who'd briefly seen the inside of something much larger than he was managed a shaky laugh. Though he was probably just glad to be alive. Frost looked at Silence.
    "Big snake."
    Stelmach nodded rapidly, his eyes very large.
    The courtiers trudged on again, driving their legs through the deep snow. It actually seemed to be getting colder, if that was possible. Hoarfrost was forming on hair and beards, and melting snow soaked into light clothing.

    Everyone was shivering, and some were shaking violently. Silence could feel the cold gnawing at his bones despite running the heating elements in his uniform on full. His nose and ears ached, and he could feel crystals of ice forming at the corners of his eyes. Stelmach was shaking as though he had a small juddering engine inside him. Frost, of course, didn't deign to shiver. The courtiers had packed close together for support and shared body warmth, but they still kept clear of Silence, Frost, and Stelmach. They knew pariahs when they saw them.
    They'd all stopped talking and settled for concentrating on surviving Lionstone's latest practical joke. Everyone agreed it had been a dark day for the Empire in general and the Court in particular when the Empress decided she had a sense of humor.
    Strange shapes loomed up out of the mists ahead, huge shards of solid ice thrusting up out of the snow like the only part of the iceberg you ever see. The falling snow swirled around them, as though attracted to the glistening planes of ice. There were statues scattered among the huge shards, curved into sharp-edged, disturbing shapes. Silence looked from the statues to the shards and wondered if they'd been carved and shaped, too, into ancient enigmatic shapes that only mankind's distant ancestors might have recognized and responded to. The ice structures formed a rough semicircle, inviting the courtiers in, and there at the far end stood the Iron Throne, set up high on a great block of ice.
    And on that ancient chair of black iron studded with jade sat the Empress Lionstone XIV, calmly watching their stumbling approach.
    She was wrapped in layers of thick furs, like some ancient tribal leader, her pale face as cold and clear as the legendary Ice Queen, who stole men's souls by sliding shards of ice into their eyes and hearts. She had a long, sharp-planed face, with a wide slash of a mouth and brilliant blue eyes, colder than any ice
    could ever be. She was beautiful, but that, too, was a cold kind of beauty, like the tall diamond crown on her head. The Empress, the worshiped and adored, whose whims were law and at whose merest word men died and worlds burned. Also known as the Iron Bitch.
    She sat at ease on the Iron Throne, watching with a sardonic smile as the courtiers drew up before her, bowed their heads, and then held themselves in that humble and uncomfortable position while they waited for the word from the Empress that would release them. On bad days, she'd been known to keep them there for ages, till sweat dropped off their faces and their backs screamed for release. Today, she gave them permission to straighten up after only a few seconds, suggesting either she was in a good mood after all or she was really looking forward to something yet to come. The courtiers practiced looking polite and respectful and extremely loyal as the Empress's smile wandered over them.
    They also kept a respectful distance, not just because of the twenty armed guards spread out behind the Throne, but also because of Lionstone's maids-in-waiting, who crouched snarling silently at her feet. There were ten of them, each more dangerous than any armed man. They