Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

few.”

And, as one, both sisters switched their eyes from Azhure to SpikeFeather.

The birdman blushed to the roots of his hair, but managed a small and utterly exquisite bow to the

two women.

They stared at him, and then their faces relaxed from their usual austerity into such utter beauty that

Azhure gasped.

“The bell,” one of the women finally and very gently prompted, and SpikeFeather grinned at

his own distracted air.

“The bell,” he agreed, and walking over to the tripod, struck it once.

It pealed three times, and within heartbeats a punt had floated out of the far tunnel where

the waterway ran into the ice cave and glided to a halt by the group.

“I welcome you to my world,” SpikeFeather said, and helped the three women into the barge.

Azhure sat down in the prow, settling Katie comfortably on her lap, and smiled as the two ice

women sat — close! — on either side of SpikeFeather in the bow.

“Take us,” SpikeFeather asked the waterways, “to a safe place close to the Maze, for that

is the StarSon’s purpose.”

As the punt glided forward, each sister lifted a graceful hand and placed it on one of SpikeFeather’s

knees.

Azhure looked the birdman in the eye, arched an eyebrow, and grinned.

The barge glided through caverns that were empty, and caverns that were filled with the skeletons of

cities and forests. In one cavern, Azhure stared about her in amazement at the city that crammed the

spaces to either side of the waterway. Tenement buildings fourteen or fifteen levels high, halls that soared

even higher, streets crammed with workshops and market stalls: all deserted, all covered with dust and

neglect, all empty and haunting.

“What are they?” Azhure finally said. “Who lived here? What happened to them?”

To that SpikeFeather had no answer, but Katie stirred on Azhure’s lap and sat up, rubbing her eyes

as she looked about her.

“They are dead,” she said, “and have always been. No-one has ever lived here.”

“But —” Azhure began.

“They are nothing but memories,” Katie said. “Memories of the world the Enemy once lived on.

Carried here by the ships, and built as memorials to the world that has been lost. Memories.”

And the punt glided on.

Chapter 51

Sliding South

The brown horse and her black-clad rider flowed over the landscape like wind let loose from an

age-long prison. The horse’s legs stretched forth and ate up the landscape, yet so smooth was her motion

that she scarcely seemed to move.

Axis leaned forward over Pretty Brown Sal’s neck, urging her forward. He had not been this happy

in decades.

Behind him — somewhere — came his war band of some three thousand riders and trees, and

somewhere behind them followed the column, but for this moment in time Axis did not care if they ever

caught him.

He was free, riding across this bleakened landscape, running south, riding this magical, magical

mount.

Pretty Brown Sal leaned her head forth even more eagerly, and surged forward. She, too, loved to

run (fly), and her slim legs ate up the landscape.

Even more than usual.

From the first day that Axis had led the column south he’d discovered something unusual about the

way Sal moved. It had at first disorientated him, almost frightened him, but then he’d learned to

accept it and to enjoy the freedoms it gave him. Pretty Brown Sal was, as the sparrow had said, a gift of

flight.

Pretty Brown Sal’s legs literally flew. For every stride she took, almost half a league of landscape slid

by. That was the unnerving sensation, for the passing landscape became an inchoate blur as it

slid past with no recognisable features. On the first day, once Axis had got over his initial surprise, he’d

found himself halting Sal every six or seven strides just so that he could orientate himself again.

Then, as the day had worn on, he’d learned to trust the mare, and learned to flow with her as she

coursed over the land.

She was wondrous and magical, and Axis leaned forward even more, whooping and laughing as he

urged her forward, forward, forward …

But Pretty Brown Sal and her abilities were not the only reason for his high humour.

Axis had a purpose again, he had a usefulness, and he felt he could make a difference. He didn’t care

that he was not the hero of this particular battle, only that he had a purpose. Moreover, he had a purpose

that encompassed what he adored beyond anything else: leading a war band over countryside against a

vile enemy that was ravaging the land. He had a purpose, and it involved speed and battle and blood.

It felt like old times again.

From the column, Axis had selected some three thousand seasoned campaigners — including Zared,

Herme and Theod, who refused to remain behind — to ride in his war band. With the three thousand

men came a similar number of the trees who, as Axis led out his band for the first time, had simply lifted

roots and moved out with them. Another four or five thousand trees roamed through the landscape for

leagues to either side of Axis’ war band, catching and destroying every creature they came

across. As the Demonic hours came and went (without Raspu’s hour of Pestilence at dusk, for Urbeth

said that Gwendylyr had triumphed against him, and, at that, Theod had broken down and wept), the

trees provided shelter, although this far north the Demonic influence was negligible.

Axis found he had no need for the trees’ shelter, for Sal conveyed her own protection against the

Demons’ maddening probings. Axis was truly free at last to ride as far and as fast as he wished.

Each day they travelled further south. Although Axis tended to ride out alone, the war band was

never far behind. Somehow Sal’s abilities extended to the war band, for Axis only ever had to rein her in,

and turn about, and there was the war band thundering towards him, whooping and screaming with an

excitement — we’re making a difference! we’re taking action! — that matched Axis’. To either side of

the band of horsemen ran the trees: gigantic beings waving branches far into the sky and singing their own

war song. Every time Axis saw them his breath would catch in his throat.

Several times a day they’d meet groups, often many thousands’ strong, of crazed creatures and

humans.

And every time they met them, they would decimate them.

Horsemen and trees would wade in side by side, swords and pikes sweeping and plunging, branches

and roots snapping and snarling, men screaming, trees shrieking, death dealing.

None of the Demon-controlled creatures survived.

Of them all, the men found it hardest to do death to the women and children among the

hordes of crazed creatures, but death they did, for it was the only release possible for those whose minds

and souls had been eaten and corrupted by the Demons.

And every time Axis drew breath, and called his war band to a halt, he looked about at the

blood-soaked snow that surrounded them, and he smelled lilies.

Thousands upon thousands of lilies, and Axis hoped that somehow the dead had managed to find

their way into the Infinite Field of Flowers.

At the end of each day Axis led his war band back to the column that trailed behind them, Urbeth

patiently plodding at its head.

But, as Axis did not have far to look back for his war band when he rode ahead, so he and his band

did not have to ride far to meet up with the column. Sal’s magic, perhaps combined with Urbeth’s,

extended to them as well.

And so they moved south.

Fast.

Until the eastern peaks of the Icescarp Alps rose to meet them.

Axis reined Sal to a halt, the mare snorting nervously.

A birdwoman stood in the snow before them.

Crazed? Probably so, considering her appearance, but crazed in a manner Axis had not yet seen.

She was … hideous. Before this moment Axis had not believed that any Icarii woman could make

herself look hideous, but this birdwoman had gone to extraordinary lengths to make herself so.

Axis was not to know that she thought herself extraordinarily beautiful and alluring rather than

repulsive.

Her hair had been teased by wind and ice into ragged spikes.

Her robe, possibly once gold, but Axis was not sure, was tattered and stained by whatever the wind

had thrown at her.

Her wings were a frightful confusion of orange and red dye that had run in the wet conditions.

Masses of ill-placed jewellery hung from ears and neck and waist and streamers of what possibly

had once been scarves fluttered from neck and arms.

Her face … her face was painted in several shades of purple and blue and red, as streaked by the