The Cursed looked at the Ice Queen. She looked at him.
"So, you are here. But midnight has not yet come."
"Yes, and before I turn into a mad, possessed Messenger of the Curse, allow me to explain some new circumstances of the matter to you."
She approached to within a dangerously close distance. Within range of her most powerful magic, with which she could kill.
But the Cursed did not stop her. He saw that she had changed. And her actions confirmed it.
"When you arrived here, I summoned a sorcerer who appears in many places in our world and has many names. One of them is the Wandering Sorcerer. He was the one who brought your squad from the castle with the portraits into this forest. The Princes of Cold are hunting you to kill you."
She took another step forward.
"Reach the Ancient Castle," she said, pointing with her hand toward the castle with blue light in its windows. "The Wandering Sorcerer will remove the Messenger's Curse from me because this is an ancient place of power, and only there can he do it. It is beneficial for both of us. I will stop pursuing you, and you will be free from the threat of being destroyed by me."
"What about the Princes of Cold?"
"They came to this continent to overthrow and kill me after I became the Messenger of the Curse. I cannot kill them because we are of the same people, but I will hold them back so that you can destroy them. There are four Princes of Cold left. But there is another unpleasant piece of news. You are doomed to lose one person from your squad. Each Prince has the ability to pronounce a curse upon whomever he wishes. Whoever is cursed by a Prince of Cold dies in mortal agony. You have already lost the Cloakroom Attendant. Do not look for him anymore. He died in the Ice Estate."
The Cursed, the Ice Queen, and the squad continued onward through the snowy forest toward the Ancient Castle.
The second attack by the next Prince of Cold soon followed.
The terrain changed from large hills to small ones. The Cursed felt that something was wrong and ordered everyone to be more cautious.
The Ice Queen smirked.
"What is it? Do you know something?" asked the Cursed, watching her behavior.
"It has already begun."
The Evil Eye tripped over something lying in the snow. His heavy boot came to rest against someone's motionless face. The Evil Eye bent down to look, and at that moment a dark, bony hand with inhuman strength grabbed him by the leg. Long, ancient claws sank into living flesh, mercilessly tearing through his clothing. The Evil Eye screamed in pain. A large figure covered in snow yanked him by the leg and knocked him to the ground. At once, the small hills around them came to life, shedding streams of snow from themselves and transforming into a mass of vicious, fanged creatures with bluish skin on their faces, clad in old, rusted armor. They gripped old swords and axes in their hands.
"Beware the deadly grip of the ancient dead," said the Ice Queen. "They can drag you into the dungeons of darkness, from which it is difficult to return."
Dead warriors in armor and with weapons in their hands surrounded them from all sides. Dark, cold faces, with blue lights burning in their eye sockets, blocking the way forward.
The Cursed looked around.
"Where is the Prince of Cold?" he asked. "I don't see him."
"He will not show himself so easily," replied the Ice Queen. "He is standing in an icy space and commands the dead army from there."
The dead charged at the squad with a wild howl.
The Cursed believed that he and the squad would not have held out without the Ice Queen's support. Because there were too many dead. But the Ice Queen's magic was truly majestic and terrifying. Several dozen were covered in ice and froze in place, while an icy storm crashed down upon several dozen others. She was also inflicting devastating damage with her sword. The wavy blade, appearing from nowhere, was lengthening by several feet and mowing down enemies by the dozen with each strike. Cascades of bones and pieces of iron were flying in all directions, left and right. When necessary, she was flowing from side to side so that none of the dead men's blows could reach her. In addition, two fields of protection were revolving around her, deflecting arrows and axes flying from a distance. A devastating hurricane of death was moving through the ranks of the enemies, leaving nothing behind but fragments of metal, old bones, and dust.
Seeing this, the ancient dead warriors changed their tactics. They began grabbing the squad's warriors with their long, bony limbs.
The Cursed saw several dead men surround and seize the Light-Haired, who was fighting them off with two swords.
After they grabbed her, the Light-Haired and the dead suddenly disappeared from sight.
The Cursed looked around wildly but could no longer see them on the battlefield. The others—the Evil Eye, the Reaper, the Spellcaster, and the Frost Wail—were all still fighting in their positions.
But where was the Light-Haired? What had the Ice Queen been talking about when she mentioned the deadly grip of the dead?
The Cursed, fighting without stopping, moved to where the Light-Haired had disappeared. And at that moment, he left the area of the Ice Queen's support. The ancient dead warriors grabbed him with their limbs. He tried to break free by force, and at that very moment the world around him went dark.
Black darkness. Stone walls all around, iron bars of a cell ahead. A prison of pain. Dungeons of death. The Ice Queen's words cut through his memory. The dead warriors were retreating in different directions, disappearing into the walls of the dungeon. He caught up with several of them and hacked them to pieces with his sword. Bones flew upward. The remaining enemies managed to hide. He rushed after them but crashed into a wall and was thrown backward. The barrier was insurmountable for him.
Then he approached the bars of the cell. They were made of ice. Several kicks did nothing. Somewhere to the side, the Light-Haired's screams rang out. Then he struck with the Frost Sword. The bars were cut into pieces. Several more blows finished the job.
He stepped through the opening into a dark corridor. At the end of the corridor was a doorway, like an entrance into the depths of a dwelling of horror.
On the right side were rows of prison cells. In the next cell, three dead men attacked the Light-Haired. She fought off two of them with her sword, then turned and grabbed the third by the throat. She pressed him against the wall. Lightning discharges ran through the dead man hanging in the vice. He convulsed from the blows running through his dead body.
But two more dead men were approaching from behind.
The Cursed cut through the bars and burst inside. He destroyed the two dead men. The third was destroyed by the Light-Haired's lightning.
Together, they made their way into the corridor.
A terrifying, tall figure stood in the doorway and drilled them with his gaze. Long white hair reaching to his shoulders. A dark uniform, tight-fitting trousers, tall black boots. A face frozen with cold. Green lights in his eye sockets. Wounds covered his face, with worms sticking out of them and writhing.
An ominous, predatory grimace twisted his lips and face.
Then he turned around and disappeared into the darkness.
"You must run to the highest tower of the Prince of Cold's castle before the castle dissolves into the abode of cold," they heard the Ice Queen's voice.
Behind them came the screams of many throats. The Cursed turned around and saw the walls of the corridor behind them breaking apart into individual stones. Behind them, in the darkness of space, small fanged creatures with membranous wings flew and devoured the stones. They were inexorably approaching.
The two prisoners of the icy castle were destined to be eaten alive by the terrible creatures.
The Cursed and the Light-Haired turned around and ran toward the doorway at the end of the corridor. Toward where the Prince of Cold had disappeared.
Beyond the doorway, dark steps led upward. They passed several flights and found themselves on the roof.
Nearby stood the Prince's ominous figure, which immediately dissolved into the darkness.
They saw a dark space all around them. Massive blocks of ice were frozen in its depths.
Then everything disappeared, and they found themselves once again in the nighttime winter forest, in the midst of a brutal battle with the dead warriors.
Pockets of radiance hung in the space.
"There!" shouted the Ice Queen. "This is the second phase of the Dead Prince. And the way to him."
The Ice Queen and the Cursed darted in that direction. As soon as they crossed the mysterious pockets of light, a snowy field surrounded by trees of the winter forest opened up before them. At the far end of the field stood the grim figure of the Dead Prince. The worms on his face writhed uneasily.
They were 300 feet apart.
The Cursed lunged toward the enemy at vampire speed. Suddenly, he stumbled and fell in the middle of the field. Dead men's hands, emerging from beneath the ground, grabbed his legs and held him tightly, preventing him from breaking free. He drew his sword and was hacking at them left and right.
The Ice Queen walked past, and the dead men's hands collapsed into motionless icy fragments.
Together, they simultaneously reached the Prince of Cold. His lifeless face flashed before their eyes for a second, within a single deadly strike's reach. Then it suddenly disappeared. Just like the white field itself.
They stood in the dark corridor. Gloomy dungeons on the left and right. The Prince of Cold turned around at the end of the corridor and disappeared through the doorway.
There were three of them here: the Ice Queen, the Cursed, and the Evil Eye.
"We need to kill him before he reaches the tower, otherwise the attack cycle will begin again," said the Ice Queen.
As they ran through the corridor, a wild howl sounded somewhere from the depths of the castle. Behind them, numerous winged, membranous creatures were already approaching and devouring the stones left behind by the crumbling building.
They began climbing the stairs. High above, the Prince of Cold was ascending.
"If only I could throw my dark gift at him," said the Evil Eye, raising his face and judging the distance with his one eye. In his right hand, he held another cursed doll and grinned nastily. It was completely covered in terrible blackness from head to toe. "But he is too far away."
"Give it to me. I can throw it," the Ice Queen held out her hand.
"Can he curse me?"
"I'll throw it into his mouth so he can't utter a single filthy word. And by the time he comes to, it will be over for him."
She took the cursed doll and hurled it upward with force. The doll flew toward its target, cutting through the air with a whoosh, then unnaturally changed its trajectory and plunged straight into the Prince of Cold's mouth. He staggered and grabbed his face with his hands. With his long blue fingernails, he tore cuts into his skin from his eyes to his chin. But no blood flowed from them. Instead, worms that had filled him from within began falling out. They flew downward.
The Ice Queen and the Cursed moved aside, dodging the falling worms. The Ice Queen snorted.
"Two hundred years have passed since we began serving the Great Cold, and you, brother, are still throwing your worms around."
They were moving up the steps, coming dangerously close to the figure of the Prince, writhing in terrible convulsions.
Suddenly, when they were about ten steps away from him, he shuddered, then straightened and turned toward them. The blue lights of his eyes fixed on them with inhuman hatred. His crooked mouth twisted in a terrible spasm as he cried out an ear-splitting spell in a horrible, hoarse voice.
"He swallowed the cursed doll to free his mouth and tongue and pronounce the Curse," said the Ice Queen.
The Dead Prince's bony hand pointed at the Evil Eye during the final phrase. Immediately, the Evil Eye clutched his throat, the veins in his body bulging and turning black.
"You were wrong and let me down," the Evil Eye rasped in a strangled voice.
"I am the Ice Queen," she said with a bloodthirsty smile. "I like doing terrible things."
The Evil Eye took several steps and fell down the stairs, straight into the darkness where the membranous creatures were flying and devouring the castle.
At that very moment, the Dead Prince exploded into a black fountain of liquid and body parts. It splashed all over the Ice Queen and the Cursed.
After that, the two of them found themselves in the winter forest. The Light-Haired, the Spellcaster, the Reaper, and the Frost Wail stood amid numerous ancient dead lying on the ground. They no longer showed any signs of movement.
"The Curse of the Prince of Cold will inevitably catch up with one of the members of the squad," said the Ice Queen coldly, staring directly at the Cursed. "And it must not be you, otherwise the entire journey loses its meaning."