“I can support you,” Axis said. “I can do my best.”
Qeteb laughed again, and, in concert with Barzula, swung his axe faster and faster.
The metal blades screamed through the air, and the two Demons strode into the attack
behind the murderous blades of their axes.
“Watch out!” SpikeFeather screamed at the rear of the avenue, and the two women whipped back to
face the four Demon-woodsmen who now strode towards them from out of the storm.
As one, the four wore incongruously cheerful, smiling faces, even while their hands wove their axes
through the air.
Both the ice women crouched, their hands extended as if claws, but as their mother was
weak, so were they, and they could not transform into their deadly bear forms.
The four Demons advanced in a semicircle, now laughing openly, the tempo of their axes increasing
with the strength of their merriment.
The rabbits were trapped.
Urbeth raised her hand, and the Circle of Stars finally flared into life, transforming itself into a rod of thin,
shimmery metal.
She flung it before her just as an axe sliced through the air. The blade screeched along the surface of
the rod, finally sliding off in a shower of sparks.
Axis unsheathed his sword, wishing he had his axe of old, and wishing he had a trusted warhorse
under him when …
… when suddenly he was clothed again in the familiar black, and the sword had transformed
itself into his battleaxe, and the horse beneath him, while not Belaguez, showed the same heart
and courage in leaping forth into the fray …
Pretty Brown Sal was angry. She was bred as a dancer and a slider, not a fighter, but her
light-footedness and litheness served her as well in battle as it did on the dance field, and her anger
turned her dainty pirouettes into battle manoeuvres.
The two Demons had forced Urbeth to one knee, their axes striking ever harder against the metal
rod, notching and bending it, when suddenly both were hit from behind — one by a mighty axe blow to
his head, the other by two-steel-edged hooves crashing down about his shoulders.
Axis laughed, and swung again, delighting in the feel both of Pretty Brown Sal and the axe in his own
hand.
Qeteb and Barzula swung about, irritated more than angry, and not hurt — this man and horse had
no weapons or magic which could harm them — and simultaneously swung their axes, one aiming to cut
the mare’s dainty legs out from under her, the other aiming to bury his axe in the rider’s side.
Both missed.
Sal had skittered (slid) lightly to one side while Axis had merely laughed — gods, how good it felt
to be in the heat of battle again! — and twisted away from the blade.
Qeteb and Barzula stumbled and almost fell with the momentum of their missed swings, then
regained their balance. They growled, their beards bristling out to three times their previous length and
thickness, and swung their axes once more.
Pretty Brown Sal and Axis slid lightly out of the way.
Barzula screamed and lunged, using his axe as a pike now, rather than as a weapon to swing
through the air.
Sal and Axis evaded effortlessly, moving through the snow as its lover, rather than its foe.
Qeteb and Barzula turned to horse and rider; enough was enough, and while axes were pretty, the
sheer destructiveness of their power would be enough to dispose of this —
Both screamed as fingers of ice wormed their way into the napes of their necks, and then into their
very spines.
Urbeth: her arms were ice from the elbows down. Her fingers had turned into razor-sharp needles,
prying and worrying themselves into the Demons’ flesh, slicing through bone and arteries —
Both Demons tore themselves off her claws, and swung about to face her.
Instead, their eyes were riveted on the man sitting the Star Stallion three paces behind the ice
woman.
“Aaargh!” SpikeFeather screamed, waving his arms and leaping and twisting about like a maniac.
“Aaargh!”
All four Demons hesitated, their eyes slipping from the prey before them to the birdman capering
and screaming just to one side of the two women.
“Aaargh!” SpikeFeather screamed again, and dashed madly, foolishly, and utterly desperately at the
Demons.
All four raised axes that had momentarily drooped in surprise, and simultaneously swung
them at SpikeFeather, who was dashing straight towards the centre of their line.
In that instant before the blades sank home, SpikeFeather dropped flat to the ground, and
there was a soft “Ugh!” of surprise as the middle two Demons buried their axes in each other rather
than in the birdman.
The other two Demons stumbled and fell, as Qeteb and Barzula had, pulled to the ground
by the targetless momentum of their axe swings.
The two wounded Demons wrenched their axes out of each other, cursing softly even as their flesh
smoothly mended itself, and raised their axes to do SpikeFeather to death when suddenly they found
their forms bristling with spears and pikes.
Behind Urbeth’s daughters stood a line of some three score Ravensbund warriors, already aiming
their next phalanx of spears at the Demons.
SpikeFeather reached up, hardly able to breathe through the force of his terror, yet still committed
to action, and grabbed one of the spears, twisting and wrenching it until the Demon toppled onto him.
SpikeFeather found himself in an inferno of hatred and vengeance. Fires and teeth lapped and
gnashed at his arms wrapped protectively about his head, and he could feel talons slicing down deep
into his belly and upper thighs. He screamed, knowing death was only a breath away, when —
— when suddenly the Demon rolled off him and he saw instead
the hand of one of Urbeth’s daughters reaching down, her face
hovering behind it: beautiful, distant, and utterly, utterly lovely.
SpikeFeather could hear the Demons screaming somewhere in the distance, but for him his entire
world consisted of that hand, now touching his, and the almost disembodied face floating
behind it.
He blinked, took her hand —
— and found himself standing to one side of what he could
only describe as a desperate scrum in the snow. Arms and legs
and heads appeared and then disappeared, axes flew, blood
spattered about, and howls of rage and frustration wrapped the
entire fracas.
SpikeFeather looked about, desperate to find someone to help him in aiding Urbeth’s daughters.
And saw them, standing slightly to one side, their arms folded, their faces smug.
SpikeFeather, one said in his mind, we have thrown our shadows in for the Demons to chase.
What will happen, he said, astounded to find himself able to reply in the same manner, when they
realise the trick?
Both ice women shrugged, and their smiles deepened, but they did not reply.
SpikeFeather turned back to the fray, and then stumbled several steps towards the safety
of the avenue.
The Ravensbund were still there, lined up with spears at the ready.
“Hello, Qeteb, Barzula,” DragonStar said, and he nodded behind them. “I believe you have met my
father?”
Qeteb hefted his axe.
“No,” DragonStar said, and his voice darkened and became heavier. “No. You cannot hurt what is
protected by these trees.”
“Not until you are dead,” Qeteb said.
“Quite,” DragonStar agreed, ” If you can kill me.”
Qeteb’s eyes slid towards Urbeth. She had somehow grown stronger in the last few minutes, and
now she stood straight and tall, her eyes hard, her figure implacable.
Her hands, so recently ice, now turned into the furred claws of the ice bear.
Suddenly Urbeth’s mouth opened in a vicious snarl, and she completed the transformation and
crouched to spring.
“The war is between you and me,” DragonStar said, “and between yours and mine.”
“Ah, DragonStar,” Qeteb said, his voice even now. He, as Urbeth had, raised himself to his full
height and assumed his true form of black, invulnerable armour. “You cannot begrudge me a pre-dinner
nibble or two, can you?”
DragonStar shrugged. “Your nibble has done you no good. What matters is the Hunt through
the Maze. That is what you and I both know.”
The Dream grabbed both of them. They were hunting through a Maze of stars,
dipping and swaying with the interstellar Star Dance.
All existence held its breath, awaiting the outcome.
DragonStar urged his Star Stallion forward, the Alaunt streaming out to his flanks like the
twin tails of a comet, but, despite their speed and power, the great dark beast behind him was
gaining, and DragonStar could sense the weapon Qeteb lifted above his shoulder.
Qeteb took a step forward, and half raised the axe he still held.
The Dream shifted slightly, and DragonStar knew that Qeteb was as much in control of the
Dream as he was in control of the Hunt.
“The weapon I wield,” Qeteb screamed through the universe, “is not of metal or even of