breeding pair could lay hundreds of eggs per year. No doubt the northern tundra was now riddled with
Skraelings.
And now they didn’t even have the Alaunt, or the Wolven, let alone their magic.
What Axis wouldn’t give for just one of Azhure’s Moonwildflowers drifting down from the
night skies!
He shook himself out of his memories and his regrets. There was far too much to do without
wasting time in fears, as warranted as they were.
Urbeth had told him that the populations of Sanctuary, in escaping to the frozen tundra, would not
need to survive very long before they would have a permanent shelter arranged.
“What kind of shelter?” Axis had asked, and Urbeth — back in her ursine form by this stage — had
grinned and slouched off.
And what was “not very long”?
Axis sighed again, and turned back to his task.
Himself, Zared, Theod, Herme, WingRidge and Gustus, Zared’s lieutenant, were deep within
Sanctuary’s main stores complex. Until an hour ago they had not known where this complex
existed, but when Axis voiced a wish to see what stores Sanctuary contained, a corridor
and a flight of stairs leading down into a series of massive stone-vaulted chambers appeared.
And these chambers were packed with stores. Food, clothing, blankets, medical supplies. All was
here … except…
“What would be more than useful,” Zared said to Axis as they began the tiring task of
inventory (which, if truth be told, Axis had delegated to the Lake Guard, but someone had to
supervise the procedure), “is a few hundred carts with which to transport them.”
And precisely at that moment, FeatherGrip, a Lake Guardsman, shouted from twenty-odd
paces away: “StarMan! There’s a series of chambers here filled with carts!”
Axis glanced at Zared and Theod, grinned, and added, “Equipped with sleigh runners for
their easier movement across the snow and ice would be nice.”
“And they’ve got sleigh runners fitted over their wheels as well!” came FeatherGrip’s voice.
“Anything else we need?” Axis said quietly. “I do not think that Sanctuary will deny us a single quilt,
if we ask it.”
“I’ll make a list,” Theod said, “once WingRidge can tell me the precise numbers we’ve got in
Sanctuary.”
“Don’t forget to put millipede food down,” Zared said, grinning. “As well as starling fodder,
seal snacks, and Bogle Marsh creature dinners.”
Theod rolled his eyes, and walked away.
Zared’s grin faded. “How long do we have? The logistics of the situation, the help of Sanctuary
notwithstanding, are beyond a nightmare.”
Axis stared into the distance of the underground vaults. “I have no idea, Zared. It could be
two hours, it could be two weeks.”
Pray gods that it’s the latter, Zared thought, for we would never save more than ten percent of the
peoples and creatures in Sanctuary if we only have two hours.
Roxiah, still naked, and delighting in that nakedness, stood before Sigholt — legs apart, arms wide, head
thrown back and eyes closed.
Inside its body, the Rox foetus was exploring the Enemy’s power contained within Niah’s flesh.
So many thousands of years — so many tens of thousands of years! — had the Enemy denied
them, and toyed with them, and made them scamper across half the universe, and now the
Enemy’s power was theirs\
Or mine alone, if I work this well, thought the infant Rox deep inside its developing brain cells,
but, like most foetuses, it was patient, and was content that it should, for the moment, work its
master’s will.
And so it was doing: Roxiah was employing the Enemy’s power to destroy Sigholt, stone by stone.
For thousands of years Sigholt had stood, a bastion of magic by its magical lake. It had laughed with
its companion bridge, frowned at the mistakes of the Icarii and human alike who had lived within it,
overseen the conception of Axis StarMan atop its roof (ah! the day that StarDrifter had spiralled down
from the skies to seduce Rivkah!), witnessed the birth of Caelum, and tended — as much as it was able
— the growing SunSoar brood.
Now, Sigholt was dying.
Noisily.
Sigholt did not so much scream in its dying, as it wailed. Its wails crept up and down the scale,
a dirge to mourn its own passing, as well a melancholy lullaby to croon Tencendor through its
prolonged dying.
Sigholt’s incessant wailing was annoying the Demons hugely.
Qeteb, as did Sheol, Raspu, Mot and Barzula, strode up and down behind Roxiah, screaming abuse
at Sigholt, shaking fists and exposing various bits of their anatomy as their anger took them. As each
stone tumbled down, and Sigholt’s wailing continued, the Demons grew more irked, their curses
more foul, their exposings more puerile.
Why couldn’t the cursed thing just collapse!
Finally, after hours of wailing, Sigholt obliged them. It had resisted Roxiah’s destruction to a point
where it just gave up: it was too tired, it had seen too much in its long life, and resisting Roxiah’s power
was, in the end, futile.
Besides, Sigholt knew that something better awaited. The Field of Flowers.
So it decided to just collapse. Implode. Create a mess.
The roar of collapsing masonry enveloped the Demons an instant after the dust and shrapnel of
Sigholt’s self-destruction struck them.
In a heartbeat the Demons’ curses turned to gut-wrenching coughing as they struggled as far away
from the rubble as they could.
Behind them, the rubble sighed, and passed on.
Qeteb finally managed to get his breath, and spit out all the black grime that had found its way
down into his throat and lungs, and pick out the shards of rock from his anatomy.
“Spiredore!” he said. “Spiredore is next! Destroy the means of movement for the StarSon and his
ineffectual helpers and for those cowering ants in Sanctuary, and we have them!”
“And after Spiredore?” Sheol said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
Qeteb glanced at her distastefully. “Then? Then Sanctuary. We will be there by the morning.”
Sheol smiled.
StarDrifter threw open the door to WolfStar’s chamber — the single Lake Guardsman on duty outside
had been no match for StarDrifter’s fury — and confronted the Enchanter.
WolfStar was alone in his sick chamber, sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his chest carefully
with one arm as he coughed into a snowy cloth.
He looked at the cloth carefully — good, no blood — before he looked up.
“Well, well,” he said softly. “If it isn’t StarDrifter come to offer me his good wishes for my recovery
—”
He got no further, for StarDrifter had crossed the room in five strides and hit WolfStar as hard as he
could.
WolfStar fell back across the bed, but made no move to either rise or strike StarDrifter himself.
“Did that make you feel better?” he said, his tone still soft, although more than sarcastic. “If you like,
I could recommend you for a place in the Strike Force … such aggression should not go unused.”
“You piece of filth!” StarDrifter said, standing several paces away. His fists were clenched, although
he held his arms rigid by his sides.
WolfStar raised an eyebrow. “What have I done now?”
Although StarDrifter had come to this chamber to accuse WolfStar of tampering with Zenith’s
already damaged soul, all he could think of were the past three thousand years in which WolfStar had
manipulated and controlled, sending tens of thousands to their death along the way, and all the time
justifying his every crime and sin as necessary for the achievement of the final end.
“What have you done?” StarDrifter whispered. “What have you done? Oh Stars! Don’t get me
started!”
“Zenith knows her own mind,” WolfStar said, not in the mood for indirect conversations.
“Zenith knows her own mind?” StarDrifter began.
“Oh for the gods’ sakes, man, stop repeating everything I say!”
StarDrifter stepped forward a pace. “Then let me say this! Were you the one who helped save her
when Niah — with your encouragement! — tried to destroy her? What of my efforts, and
Faraday’s, in pulling her through the shadow-lands until she could reclaim her own body?”
“You meddlesome idiot. Perhaps it had been better that Niah had succeeded, for then she wouldn’t
be in the Demons’ grasp!”
“Oh no, don’t think to justify your own failures by blaming either me or Zenith —”
“I wasn’t blaming Zenith,” WolfStar put in quietly. He rose slowly from his bed, one hand still
gripping his ribs.
“— when it was you who has done so much damage. You who put Niah into the Demons’
hands. You who —”
“Oh, shut up! What in Stars’ sake did you come down here to say? Just say it and leave me in
peace!”
“Keep your bloodstained hands off Zenith.”
WolfStar gave a nasty smile. “I have hardly laid a single ‘bloodstained’ finger on Zenith, let alone an
entire hand.”
“Leave Zenith alone.”
“Why? Do you think her yours?”