Crusader. Novel by Sara Douglass

his other companions.

There was a long way to go, and more death yet, before the final act could be played out.

WolfStar circled StarLaughter and Zenith once, then landed softly on the ground before Zenith.

StarLaughter stood just behind the pole, a length of rope in her hand. Her hair had matted into thick,

oily twists that wriggled like snakes, and her face was twisted into ugly lines curving about bared,

yellowed teeth.

StarLaughter looked frightful.

As WolfStar landed, she wrapped the rope about Zenith’s neck, and tugged it tight.

Zenith made no sound, but her entire body stiffened, and her eyes widened in anguish.

“Let her go!” WolfStar said, and took an aggressive step forward. Damn StarLaughter. If she

harmed Zenith …! “She has done nothing to you.”

StarLaughter snarled, and jerked the rope tighter.

Zenith’s face contorted in agony, and WolfStar stopped. A dead Zenith would not be a

useful Zenith at all.

StarLaughter loosened the rope, and Zenith relaxed in relief, although her eyes were desperate —

frantic — as they stared at WolfStar.

Help me!

“What has she done to me?” StarLaughter whispered. “What? She seduced you, and bore

you a child that should have been my right —”

“You fool!” WolfStar cried, but made no move forward. “That was not her! It was —”

“She is all the women you cheated me with!” StarLaughter screamed. “When she dies, I shall be

avenged on you and all your whores!”

WolfStar tried to think. How could he handle StarLaughter? She was completely demented, and yet

so coldly calm within that dementia, that he didn’t know how to reason with her … or how to defeat her,

if it came to violence.

And what else, after all this time and all this hatred, could it come to?

“Let her go,” WolfStar said, keeping his voice calm and reasonable. “This is between you and I, not

Zenith.”

“Ah! Zenith!” StarLaughter said. “So now I have a name for the harlot!”

She bent a little closer to Zenith’s head, and laughed, low and mocking in the birdwoman’s ear.

“Zenith-harlot. How that suits you!”

“StarLaughter —” WolfStar began.

StarLaughter whipped her eyes up, although she remained bent over Zenith. “You lied to me when

you said you loved me. You plotted against me when you said that I would share your power and glory

—”

“StarLaughter —”

“— you murdered me and our son when you’d said that we were all you cared about. Liar! You

cared about nothing but your own power and glory!”

Now StarLaughter was crying, but she still continued shouting through her sobs. “You

condemned me, our son, and hundreds of the most beautiful Icarii children who had ever lived to a

frightful eternity in order to sate your own lust for fame and control. You have never regretted that for

one —”

“For the Stars’ sakes woman!” WolfStar shouted. “Neither of us have ever pretended to each other

to have a conscience in our ambitions. Don’t start throwing trivialities at me now!”

“My love was no triviality,” StarLaughter whispered, “and our son was no triviality.” Once

more she tightened the rope about Zenith’s neck.

“I should have killed her,” Axis muttered, striding towards Pretty Brown Sal.

“How?” Zared said, “when she has power and you not?”

Axis halted and whipped around to stare at Zared, but he said nothing, and after a moment

continued on his way.

“I should have killed her,” he repeated.

“WolfStar will stop her,” Zared said, almost running in order to keep up with Axis.

“WolfStar has so many secret intrigues that he is more likely to kill Zenith than StarLaughter. No

doubt StarLaughter will be more useful to him in the long run. What is Zenith? Merely a woman who is

loved! She has no power! Nothing to offer him!”

They had reached the horse lines, and Axis took Sal’s bridle, quickly slipping it over the mare’s head.

“Axis —”

Whatever Zared had been about to say was interrupted by the arrival of Urbeth.

“I will come with you,” Urbeth said, and growled.

For the first time Axis felt the faintest glimmer of hope.

“And I have a thousand trees at my back,” Urbeth said further, and Axis’ hope soared.

“Zenith will be saved if you offer yourself!” a new voice said behind WolfStar. “You are all she needs!”

WolfStar turned about and snarled at StarDrifter. Fool! What use did he think to be?

StarDrifter walked slowly forward until he was within a pace or two of WolfStar. His hand was held

out in entreaty to the Enchanter-Talon, but his eyes were fixed on Zenith beyond WolfStar.

“If you love her,” StarDrifter said, finally looking back at WolfStar, “then give yourself to

StarLaughter, and free Zenith.”

WolfStar hissed. “Give yourself, you useless fool! I have no use for love.”

StarLaughter screamed, hoarse and frightful, and both men whipped about to face her.

“No use for love, WolfStar?” she yelled. “Then you have no use for life!”

“StarLaughter!” WolfStar cried, starting a step towards her.

“Too late!” StarLaughter hissed, and the sky fell in about them.

“Where are they?” Axis asked Urbeth as he mounted Sal.

The bear lifted her nose and scented the air. “There,” she indicated, pointing north with her snout.

“Somewhere in a gorge in the hills.”

Axis grunted, and would have urged Sal forward save that Urbeth stepped in front of the horse.

“I can smell a darkness in the air,” she said, “all warm and bloody, and I do not like it.”

Axis dug his heels into Sal’s flanks with such a thud the mare jerked from halt to gallop in two

strides.

Darkness descended about them, and both WolfStar and StarDrifter instinctively crouched on

the ground, their arms and wings protectively wrapped about themselves.

“See,” StarLaughter whispered. “See what I have brought you!” So intent was she on WolfStar the

rope had loosened about Zenith’s neck.

Zenith glanced at StarLaughter leaning over her shoulder, then began very slowly and carefully to

work at the knots binding her hands behind her. Thank the Stars StarLaughter was not sailor-taught

when it came to knots!

The Hawkchilds encircled WolfStar and StarDrifter in a fence four or five bodies thick.

This is to what they’d been questing for thousands of years.

This is the one who had murdered them, and stolen their heritage.

They whispered and shifted, a mass of feathers and bright eyes and white, grasping hands at the tips

of leathery wings.

WolfStar!

WolfStar!

We’re coming for you WolfStar!

We’re here, WolfStar!

One of them stepped forward. StarGrace, half woman-child, half Hawkchild. Her form shifted from

one to the other; now, the limb she extended was a graceful white hand and arm, now twisting

leather and talons.

“Uncle,” she said, and WolfStar slowly turned to face her.

“I could have had so much,” StarGrace said sadly, “but you took it all away from —”

“If you have been drifting four thousand years with nothing but revenge feeding your heart,” WolfStar

said, “then I pity you. You have become a nothing. An inconsequential.”

“For the heavens’ sakes,” StarDrifter cried, “take him! Kill him once and for all, and then let Zenith

—”

“We care for nothing but our revenge,” StarGrace said, her voice cold, and she shifted her eyes to

StarDrifter. “Nothing, beyond WolfStar’s blood. And everything —”

She shifted forward, and her form became all Hawkchild, leaving nothing of the beautiful girl.

“— that stands between us and our revenge must needs be swept away.”

She lunged forward, and StarDrifter screamed as her beak tore into the fleshy part of the arm he’d

raised in self-defence.

WolfStar, now certain of his own death, still managed a laugh. “You pretty-feathered,

useless fool,” he said. “Why are you here? You should have known you would not be able to

help —”

And StarGrace’s head flashed, and WolfStar screamed and fell to the ground, rolling into a

protective huddle around his torn bely.

Desperate, thinking only that if she could get free then she’d somehow be able to save StarDrifter,

Zenith finally managed to tear her hands clear of their rope bindings.

In a movement so fast that StarLaughter had no hope of escape, Zenith’s hands whipped up

and buried themselves in StarLaughter’s matted hair.

“Ugh!” Zenith grunted, and thudded StarLaughter’s forehead down on the small rocks that littered

the ground.

And again and again, until blood splattered over both of them.

And then Zenith found her head seized from behind in a grip so cruel she screamed.

“See?” a small child’s voice whispered in her ear. “See what revenge we shall exact from you

for your impertinence? StarLaughter is our friend, our mother, our only friend …”

Zenith stared at where the Hawkchild jerked her face, and then she screamed so hard she

convulsed.

StarGrace had taken hold of StarDrifter’s golden curls with one hand, and with the other tore off one

of his wings, throwing it high into the air, provoking a feeding frenzy among the Hawkchilds