Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

Qeteb flung himself into the air, tumbling down from Sigholt’s tower like a deranged acrobat

determined upon his own destruction.

He landed next to Niah, a jerking, black thing all arms and legs and grinning face, and he grabbed at

her arm. “Wake up! Wake up!”

And Niah did.

She turned her exquisitely beautiful face to Qeteb and she smiled with a frightful malevolence.

Niah’s body, controlled from within her womb by Rox’s soul.

“This feels good,” the Rox-Niah said, and it spoke with the voice of Rox, harsh from disuse and the

fright and loneliness of his death. It raised itself up on an arm, and waggled its tongue experimentally.

“Two bodies to control.”

“The outer will be disposed of when you grow enough to wriggle your way free again,” Qeteb said.

His form flowed and reshaped itself into the handsome man clad in grey and ivory. “Now, how do you

feel?”

The Rox-Niah — Roxiah — sat up and furrowed its brow thoughtfully. “Strange. Odd … as if …”

“As if you have access, perhaps, to a new and strange power?” Qeteb asked eagerly.

“Yes … yes, that’s it. It feels,” Roxiah twisted its features into an expression of hate and loathing,

“familiar.”

“Indeed, my sweet,” Qeteb said, “for ’tis the power of the Enemy.”

And Roxiah opened its mouth and roared, and all beasts left in Tencendor quavered and wailed.

Except those surrounding DragonStar.

Lifting his hand from Leagh’s belly, calm and assured now, he stared into the ceiling of the basement

chamber, as if he could see right through it to the sky above.

“Why not come and get us, Qeteb,” he said, and grinned. “If you can find us!”

Qeteb screamed, and lurched to his feet. Roxiah rose as well, and the Demons, now a complete circle of

six, capered and reeled about.

Why not come and get us, Qeteb. If you can find us!

“Fool! Fool!” Qeteb screeched. “I have better things to do before I come to eat you!”

DragonStar smiled, and kissed Leagh gently on her forehead. “Good,” he said. “It will be the

sweeter for the waiting.”

Chapter 33

Urbeth’s Plan

“The Skraelings?” Axis said. “What do you mean, ‘the Skraelings’?”

Urbeth stood up, and suddenly she was an icebear no longer, but the tall woman of grey and silvered

hair.

A circle of stars blazed from her left hand.

“The Enchantress,” Azhure said, and dipped her head in reverence.

“Ah,” Urbeth said, “no time for such polite niceties now. We have work to do.” She walked over to

the balustrade and looked at the scene before her. “Pretty, but ultimately destroyable. I can’t think what

the Enemy were thinking of.”

“They were thinking,” Axis said, “of a means to give us a respite.”

“Mayhap so,” Urbeth said, and turned back to face him. “But what now?”

“Well…”

“Ha! Haven’t an idea, have you?”

Axis grinned, and folded his arms nonchalantly. “No. But I think that you do.”

Urbeth waved a hand. “I have grown used to the fact that I must, apparently, save the day whenever

everyone else gets themselves into a hopeless muddle. So, review the situation for me. You!”

She pointed at Zared. “What does this Sanctuary contain?”

Zared stared at Axis, and then looked back to Urbeth. “Ah …”

“Speak up, dammit! For all we know Qeteb might be chewing his way down through that

make-believe sky right now!”

“Sanctuary contains all the Tencendorian peoples that were left sane after the Demons’ initial push

through into the land, and before Qeteb’s final resurrection. All its peoples, and all its animals.”

One of Urbeth’s daughters — they had also assumed human form — moved forward to stand

before Zared. “And by all its animals you mean …?”

Zared lifted his hands, not quite knowing how to explain. “Everything that DragonStar’s witches —”

“DragonStar’s witches?” Urbeth asked sharply.

“His ‘helpers’, I suppose you could call them,” Axis said. “Those who share the same source of

power that he does. Acharite power — the power of the Enemy.”

Urbeth smiled. “Ah. Good.”

“Faraday and Leagh,” Azhure put in, moving to stand and link arms with Axis, “DareWing, the

Strike Leader, and Goldman the Master of the Guilds of Carlon. Lastly, there is Gwendylyr, Duchess of

Aldeni.”

“An eclectic bunch!” Urbeth said. “But I suppose DragonStar knew what he was doing. But you

were saying, Zared, everything that DragonStar’s witches …?”

“Could pull into Tencendor before Qeteb’s final resurrection,” Zared said. “Deer, sheep,

bloated creatures from Bogle Marsh —”

“Which Sanctuary has most genially recreated for them,” FreeFall put in under his breath. All this

discussion was making him impatient.

“Insects, birds … everything,” Zared finished.

Urbeth shared a glance with her two daughters. What a clutter! And they were going to

have to fix it!

She turned back to Axis. “And so you were … what was it… looking for a back door?”

“Yes.”

“And what, pray tell,” Urbeth said softly, walking up so close to Axis her face was only a handspan

from his, “were you going to do then?”

He held her grey gaze, although it was not the easiest thing he’d had to do in his life.

“I don’t know.”

Urbeth returned his stare, then gave a soft laugh. “You ‘don’t know’. You were going to lead

this entire zoo out this ‘back door’ … to what? Instant madness at the hands of the

Demons?

Were you going to lead them back into a wasted Tencendor, Axis? What in stars names were you

going to do?”

“I was going to judge that circumstance when I encountered it!” Axis shouted.

Urbeth did not flinch.

“I suppose you have a better idea?” said Axis, no less hostile.

“Of course,” she said, and smiled.

Axis was not to be placated by a smile. “Well?” he snapped.

“Behold,” Urbeth said, and, turning to one side, she waved a hand through the air.

Instantly, the garish turquoise tiling of the balcony floor rose up in ridges and dips.

Everyone, save Urbeth, her daughters, and Ur, who still sat quietly, her arms about her pot, gasped

in astonishment. Urbeth had created a relief map of Tencendor.

Urbeth moved so she could point out individual features. “Qeteb has wasted all this portion,” she

said, and with a sweep of her hand indicated the bulk of Tencendor. “Coroleas still lies safe, although it,

too, will be consumed if Qeteb manages to best DragonStar. The Demons’ influence extends some way

out over both the Andeis and the Widowmaker Seas, perhaps a league’s distance. The Corolean fishing

industry has been badly affected, and the Emperor is not pleased.”

Axis grunted. The diplomatic disasters of the situation did not concern him. “What else remains

clear?”

Urbeth hesitated, glancing at her daughters. “The icefloes of the Iskruel Ocean are still navigable,

although growing more unsound by the hour.”

“If Coroleas is still free,” Azhure said, “can we go there? Can you get us out of here, Urbeth? Into

Coroleas?”

Urbeth did not answer immediately. “Coroleas is a possible destination, although not entirely

desirable. The Emperor will be entirely displeased at the sudden influx of guests, two-, four- and

eight-legged.”

“He’ll just have to put up with —” Axis began.

“But there is a better place for us to go,” Urbeth said. “Here,” and her finger moved. “The

tundra to the extreme north-east of Tencendor.”

“What!” Axis exploded. “But that’s frozen! How can we survive there? And that territory is full of …”

he trailed off, remembering what Urbeth had earlier said about the Skraelings.

“Skraelings,” Urbeth said. “Yes. It is also very close to Tencendor, and the way south is relatively

unrestricted now the forests have gone.”

Behind her, Ur moaned, and hugged her pot tighter.

“But the biggest positive is the Skraelings,” Urbeth finished.

“Why?” Axis said.

“Because I think we can come to some arrangement with them,” Urbeth said, and Ur cackled with

laughter.

“One that might not be entirely to their liking,” she said, and then Urbeth and her daughters, and

Katie also, who still sat with Ur, were laughing as if the entire future were clear of Demons and shadows

alike.

Chapter 34

WolfStar Feels Beter

Urbeth said the tundra, and so the tundra, Axis supposed, it had to be. As for the Skraelings, Urbeth

(and Ur, whom Axis privately thought was more than slightly senile) remained silent on that point, and

said that it would be easier to show than explain.

Skraelings. Stars! Axis thought he had seen the last of them when Azhure and the eastern forests had

destroyed Gorgrael’s Skraeling army in Gorken Pass. But they’d all forgotten that the Skraelings came

from the far north-eastern frozen tundra, and Axis supposed that a breeding population would have

survived there even after the debacle of Gorken Pass.

Now they’d had forty-odd years to breed back to pre- Gorgrael numbers. Axis shuddered,

remembering the nests that he and Azhure had discovered under the ruins of Hsingard. A