The Strike Force, and yet not.
That these warriors were Icarii was easy enough to see, for together with their human bodies they
had the wings and the chiselled facial features of the Icarii.
And yet they had been changed. Every one of them had wings of a different colour — purple wings,
another bronze, yet another gold, until all the shades of the rainbow had been represented — and each
warrior had jewel-coloured eyes that matched the particular shade of his or her wings.
But it was their bodies that were the most amazing. Every one of them was diaphanous, almost
completely translucent. They glowed with a silvery hue, and as they floated down by the score the
outlines of individual bodies were lost in the collective rainbow-coloured shimmer of wings and flashing
eyes.
DareWing had never seen anything so beautiful, nor so deadly. Each warrior’s eyes shone
brilliant with determination, with anger, with the need for the fight.
“Your Strike Force,” said DragonStar, awed himself. “My vanguard.”
“What do you want us to do?” DareWing said. His eyes had not left the milling hue before him.
“I want you to fight for me,” said DragonStar softly, and a great cry went up from the massed
warriors.
Qeteb leaned over the saddle of his beast and laughed. “It was
that easy?”
StarGrace inclined her head.
“That tower will lead us straight to the huddled masses?” StarGrace waved a hand about languidly.
“Almost instantly.” “There must be a trap somewhere,” Sheol muttered. “It can’t
be this straightforward!”
“The tower is a simple thing,” StarGrace said. “It does as it is bid.”
Qeteb sat and thought. It was too easy, but he wasn’t sure where the difficulty would be: in their use
of Spiredore, or in their attempts to reach the crowd of souls awaiting their appetites across the chasm.
“There is something else,” StarGrace said, and Qeteb jerked out of his reverie.
“Yes?”
StarGrace told them of the two men she’d seen pass briefly through the tower.
Qeteb stared at her, then grinned. “We have them,” he whispered, and the whisper reached into
every corner of the land. “Not this hour, or even this day, but we will eventually have them.”
He laughed, and then waved his fellow Demons through the door into Spiredore. As they entered,
Qeteb turned and thrust his fist towards StarLaughter.
“Stay here, bitch,” he said, “because if you are not here when I return, I will hunt you down and
stake your naked body out on the wasteland for the dogs and boars to couple with.”
“Stay here,” DragonStar said, “until I need you.”
Dare Wing raised one black eyebrow.
“Something is not right with Spiredore,” DragonStar continued, “and I would rather not risk you.
You will be safe enough — more than safe! — within the Field of Flowers.”
“When will you call me?”
DragonStar shrugged. “When the time is right, my friend. What else can I say?”
“Be careful,” Dare Wing said, and DragonStar nodded, letting his eyes drift over the shifting throng
of silvery bodies before him, before giving Dare Wing a perfunctory smile.
Then he turned to one side, drew the glowing doorway, and stepped through into Spiredore.
DareWing stared at the spot where he’d vanished, then furrowed his brow thoughtfully. Surely he
would be able to move back into the wasteland in the same manner he’d moved into the Field? To
imagine the environment, the sensations, the smells? Then, of course, he’d be able to transfer back here
whenever the need arose.
In the meantime, his band of glinting warriors could be what they’d trained for in their previous
lifetimes: a Strike Force.
“Let me prepare the way for you, StarSon,” Dare Wing whispered.
DragonStar knew the instant he stepped into Spiredore that he’d transferred into crisis.
When he and DareWing had come through previously, DragonStar had felt a wrongness within the
tower, but it had been nothing compared to this.
And he knew precisely what it was, for he had felt this before.
Qeteb.
DragonStar felt both terror and perfect stillness at the same time. Terror, because that was what
Qeteb dealt in and what his entire fabric of being was, and again terror because DragonStar knew that
currently he was no match for Qeteb — not for a one on one confrontation. He needed further thought, a
knowledge of Katie’s Enchanted Song Book, and far more experience before he could possibly confront
Qeteb.
Qeteb was too malevolent for him right now.
And DragonStar felt a perfect stillness because he was almost relieved to at least know that the
Demons could use Spiredore. He could not be trapped now that he knew.
Unless they trapped him right now.
DragonStar knew he should transfer immediately into Sanctuary, but he edged closer to the
balustrade of his balcony and peered over.
Far below him a mass of black wound its way upward. As he watched, the leading figure stopped,
and raised up his black metalled head.
StarSon!
DragonStar felt the power of a frightful malevolence (bate, envy, despair, pestilence) surge
towards him.
“Spiredore,” he snapped, without any thought, “take that power and vent it elsewhere!”
And far to the north a group of icebergs exploded as Spiredore redirected the power.
Clever, StarSon, Qeteb whispered towards him. But bow pitiful that you needed Spiredore to
deal with that for you. Are you so weak?
DragonStar backed away from the balcony.
Are you so weak, StarSon?
He backed against a wall, and listened to the taunts flow upwards.
Are you weak that you need others to protect you, StarSon?
DragonStar drew his sword —
Pitiful little StarSon. A chorus of laughter and howls echoed up the stairwell.
Pitiful little StarSon.
— and drew the doorway of light, hating the relief that flowed through his body as he
stepped through.
DragonStar stopped by the blue-feathered arrow that he’d earlier stuck in the edge of the chasm,
letting his shoulders slump in relief — and a feeling that he thought might be self-disgust. Had he been
afraid?
He sheathed his sword, then flexed his hand, trying to work out some of his tension.
He needed to get back into Sanctuary, think about —
“StarSon! How nice to see you again so soon!” A mocking laugh followed the words.
DragonStar whipped about and stared across the chasm. Six black beasts, gruesome in their
constantly shifting, fluid forms, stood on the other side. Behind them stretched one of Spiredore’s
blue-misted tunnels.
On the backs of the beasts were the Demons, as well the woman that DragonStar supposed was
Niah reborn.
Qeteb — it could be no-one else — had edged his beast slightly forward. He was a vile
creature, black metal armour encasing his entire form, and even plating his wings.
He was massive, at least half as tall again as the tallest man, and with a thickness of figure to match.
“Why not step across, Qeteb?” DragonStar called. “I am here. Reach me if you can,”
Qeteb’s laughter floated across the chasm. “You know as well as I that I cannot broach the
enchantments that protect this — what do you call it? — ah yes, this Sanctuary.”
DragonStar allowed a wave of relief to wash over him.
“But do not rejoice too soon,” Qeteb continued, “for I surely see that all I need is a
key, and I have all the time in creation in which to find it. Wait for me, DragonStar, and I will join
you.”
Again he laughed, a sound of genuine amusement rather than forced maliciousness, and DragonStar
tore his gaze away from the hypnotic figure of Qeteb and looked at Niah.
Again he had the strongest feeling that there was something so infinitely dangerous about her that, of
all those in the group across the chasm, including Qeteb, she would prove the most formidable foe.
But then one of the black beasts shifted and snorted, and the spell was broken. DragonStar gave
Qeteb one last stare, then turned his back and walked as slowly and as nonchalantly as he could into
Sanctuary.
“Well?” said Sheol.
“He is still weak,” Qeteb said, “and we must not give him the time to grow more powerful.”
“How?” said Barzula.
Qeteb let his eyes roam over the enchantments that protected Sanctuary.
“They have been made, and they can be unmade,” he said. “And all I need do is find the key.”
Neither the Demons nor DragonStar realised that there was another observer.
Isfrael, hidden within a small stand of trees just before the entrance to Sanctuary. His eyesight and
hearing were as keen as those of all Avar, and he’d witnessed and heard the entire exchange.
He stood and watched thoughtfully as the Demons swung their black mounts about and returned into
Spiredore.
They were evil, Isfrael knew, and he loathed them before anything else in his life, but Isfrael had a
burning ambition and that was to regain his rightful place at the head of the Avar.