Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

leader, a dark-visaged and winged man dressed in a ridiculous white tunic and considerably more

fleshy than his command.

“Greetings, fool,” said Sheol pleasantly, as she wriggled near. “You must be one of the StarSon’s

acquaintances.”

She’d moved very close now, and her form rippled and changed until she resembled a cross

between a dragonfly and a fairy.

She was exquisitely beautiful, and exquisitely threatening.

DareWing felt flames spread along his wings.

He reflexively panicked, then regained his equilibrium. He could deal with this. He imagined

himself plunging into the Iskruel Ocean until the frigid waters closed above his head …

The flames fizzled out, and DareWing soared a dozen paces further into the air.

“Very good,” said the dragon-fairy. “I am impressed. Perhaps I shall just capture you for Qeteb to

play with at his leisure.”

Dare Wing’s feathers fell out.

This time he found it harder to control his panic. He beat his de-feathered wings frantically, but

without the means to caress the air they could not hold him aloft. DareWing tried to imagine new feathers

sprouting along his wings, but he could not hold the image, and he fell through the air towards the ground.

DareWing closed his eyes, and prepared to embrace it. The ground would not harm him, for he did

not fear it. He could exist without flight, he had already proved it…

The sound of a choir filled the air, and, distracted, Sheol let her magic waver.

Suddenly DareWing found himself soaring again, his wings whole, and he grinned. “Sheol!” he cried.

“Do you like the music?”

And he started to sing himself. It was no enchantment, and had no inherent magic, and no real

meaning in its words. Its enchantment and power lay in the emotions it caused to well up in the breasts of

both singers and listeners.

It was a song all Icarii sang when they celebrated a particularly blessed event — a marriage of a

well-loved friend, or the birth of a child after a difficulty-fraught labour.

It was called Freedom Flight.

Feather drifting

Skyway beckoning

Freedom flight Never

ending.

Sun is burning Crest

is rising Wings are

arching Soul is

soaring.

Child seeded Hands

uniting Friendship

laughing Love

triumphant.

Feather drifting

Skyway beckoning

Freedom flight Never

ending.

Sheol’s eyes widened. “Think that will hurt me?”

DareWing grinned yet more, and waved at the choir behind him, floating in the thermals rising from

the black peaks below.

Their singing doubled, if not in volume, then in intensity.

Many among the Icarii were crying with the strength of their emotion — with the strength of their joy.

Sheol hissed, and wriggled back a little. “You cannot hurt me with that!”

“No?” whispered DareWing. “No? What would happen, Sheol, if I could make you sing a verse?

Hmm? Would you like to try? Now, come on. You have heard enough to know the words, surely.

Come, sing with me … Feather drifting, Skyway beckoning…”

DareWing flew towards her with a hand outstretched. “Come … Freedom flight, Never

ending.'”

She snarled, and wriggled further away. “Think that pitiful song will destroy me?”

No, maybe not, DareWing thought, but it is a step in the right direction. And then hope did consume

him, and he knew beyond any doubt that DragonStar would find the way to defeat these Demons.

“Get.you gone, Sheol,” DareWing snapped, “for you are not welcome here in these wastes.”

She stared, not knowing what to do, wondering if somehow this entire episode was meant to be a

preamble to one of the preordained challenges, and, if so, what she should do about it. Then, fortuitously,

Qeteb touched her mind.

Come back! Come back! We have a visitor.

“Fool!” Sheol shot at DareWing as a form of goodbye, then she flowed her form back into that of

the winged serpent, and retreated back south.

Chapter 19

The Apple

Spiredore deposited Isfrael in the Demons’ den. It surprised him. Somehow Isfrael had expected

something truly horrific: a seething atmosphere of flames and acidic smoke filled with the

screams of the tormented and the stink of the damned. A chamber furnished with rocks and

chasms, and with blood-rusted spikes to embrace welcome and unwelcome visitors alike.

Instead the Demons had constructed for themselves a boudoir of pleasantness. There was a circle of

apple trees, stunted, true, but sweetly fruited nevertheless, and an inner circle of stumps each topped with

a tasselled violet or scarlet cushion. Overhead spread a sky that was only mildly stained with

grey-streaked clouds.

The only aspect that was truly unpleasant was the torn and half-eaten body of a dog that lay to one

side (possibly the remains of a picnic) and, of course, the Demons themselves.

They each stood between and very slightly behind the apple trees. A silent, watchful semicircle. Four

were clad in pastel robes of varying hues, their faces bland, their eyes glowing like gems.

Qeteb had not varied his dull black armour, and trailed his metalled wings on the ground behind him

in a parody of the Icarii gesture of welcome.

When he stepped forward, as he did now, they gouged great wounds into the earth.

“And you are …?” he inquired. He stopped just under one of the apple trees. As Qeteb moved,

Isfrael could see that behind him lay the form of the Niah-woman. She was arranged neatly,

her legs straight, her arms at her side, her eyes gazing upwards without thought or warmth.

Isfrael walked forward until he stood just before the inner circle of stumps. Qeteb was directly

across the clearing from him.

“My name is Isfrael,” he said, “and I am Mage-King of the Avar, Lord of the Forests.”

One of the other Demons, the female, smirked, and Qeteb make a quick gesture to stop her

laughing.

“Lord of ashes only,” Qeteb said, and took another step forward, “and Mage-King of nothing but a

pack of huddled prisoners.” His voice harshened. “What do you here?”

“I have come to deliver you the Sanctuary and all its fodder,” Isfrael said. He relaxed slightly. This

was going to be easier than he thought.

“Ah,” Qeteb said, “a traitor.”

“And how,” said Sheol, “can we possibly trust a traitor?” She had sidled forward until she stood just

at Qeteb’s left shoulder.

“I can see that a new world beckons,” Isfrael said, “and I merely want to carve out my own niche

within it.”

Qeteb laughed, but it was Barzula, Demon of Tempest, who spoke. “And now we have hit the heart

of it, eh? You want something from us, and to obtain it you are prepared to sell us Sanctuary.”

“I am prepared to sell you victory,” Isfrael said softly.

“We do not need your help!” Qeteb said, but all the Demons shared the one thought.

Had DragonStar grown stronger than when they’d last spotted him? Sheol’s news of

what Dare Wing’s bravado had done had been more than unsettling, and his disinclination to use any of

the Enemy’s Songs was … almost frightening.

He had made no mistakes, and the Demons did not like that at all.

“You need all the help you can get,” Isfrael said. “Only fools refuse aid. I am prepared to sell you the

assurance of victory.”

“We do not need your —”

“You are a fool!” Isfrael shouted, and strode through the circle of stumps until he stood directly

before Qeteb. “You’ve been trapped before, why can’t it happen again? Why can’t it go one step

further?” He stabbed a finger into the centre of Qeteb’s chest plate. “What if this land is to prove

your grave, Qeteb, rather than your playground?”

Qeteb hissed. “I have learned and grown the stronger for my captivity!”

“And what if the Enemy has, too?” Isfrael countered, his voice quiet, his eyes steady.

“What if the Enemy has, too?”

The Demons were silent, although Barzula, Raspu and Mot had crept forward until they’d

joined Sheol just at or behind Qeteb’s shoulders. What if the Enemy had, too?

“What do you want,” said Qeteb.

“The Sacred Groves,” Isfrael said, “and peace within them.”

“The Sacred Groves?” Sheol said. “What are they?”

“The Sacred Groves are the most holy glades and forests of the Avar people —”

“We did not destroy them?” Qeteb said, his voice combining both anger and puzzlement.

Isfrael dared a slight sneer. “You know none of the secrets of this land, Qeteb, and there are many

spaces still hidden you have not even dreamed of yet.”

Behind his visor Qeteb smiled. He could play this idiot like a lute. So, there were other spaces still to

be explored and hunted for fodder, were there? And you, with your foolish bravado, he thought, are

going to lead us to them all, like it or not.

But he kept the angered puzzlement in his voice, and twitched his fists, to make it all the more

convincing.

“Spaces?” he roared.

You metalled oaf, Isfrael thought, the dullness of your armour has spread to your brain. “I want