Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

“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