Pilgrim by Sara Douglas

Theod stroked the crown of her head, smiling gently, then looked over to where their two

sons lay entwined in each others‘ arms. Theod knew he would gladly give his own life if it meant

that Gwendylyr and the two boys lived.

―DareWing,‖ he said softly, turning back to his friend. ―Where do you think we

should—‖

He never got any further.

Someone among the bodies crowded into this particular cave suddenly screeched, and

instantly there was panic.

People lurched to their feet—including Gwendylyr and the two boys—still half-asleep,

but still fully within their nightmares.

Someone else screamed, and then another, and Theod shouted for calm.

But way back in the cave people were shoving and grunting, trying to push forward, and

a mass of people were now surging towards the cave‘s entrance.

― No! ‖ Theod screamed. ―Stay where you are! What’s gone wrong? ‖

He was answered instantly, but not by word. One of his sons screamed, and beat at

something crawling up his body.

It was a bat, and behind it a snake, and then crawling up his other leg were four or five

wolf spiders.

Theod ignored the tiny claws sinking into his own flesh, and instead tried to help his

sons. Gwendylyr was beside him, alternately beating at something that clung to her back and the

creatures that threatened to overwhelm her sons.

―Get a scout out!‖ Theod yelled to DareWing.

―I can‘t, damn you! It‘s dawn outside.‖

And then both of them were pushed to ground, as was Gwendylyr, by a wave of panicked

people—some of them so thick with crawling creatures their human forms were

blurred—surging towards the entrance.

―No!‖ Theod screamed yet again, but his voice was muffled, and his body buffeted by

feet and sliding rocks, and by far, far worse…

One of his sons screamed in pure terror, and to his terror, Theod realised the sound came

from very, very close to the mouth of the cave.

No! he wanted to scream yet again, but he couldn‘t rise, he couldn‘t, the weight of people

above him was so great, the panic so all-consuming, he could hardly breathe, he—

Gwendylyr somehow managed to find her feet, and she saw both of her sons carried

forward by the crowd. She fought forwards, desperate beyond words to reach them and drag

them back, but instead was caught in a surge of humanity crawling with horror, and could only

watch helpless as her two beloved boys were carried out into the dawn—

— where horror worse, far, far, worse than a sea of biting bats and insects awaited

them—

—and then was carried forward herself to experience with horrible intimacy the feel of

the Demons‘ hunger carving into her mind, her sanity, her soul.

Gwendylyr, Duchess of Aldeni, beloved wife of Theod and mother of their equally

beloved sons, was crawling around like a beast of the forest, tearing the clothes from her body.

She writhed naked in the dirt, grovelling, grovelling, grovelling before the black boar that now

stood over her; weeping, screeching, offering him her breasts to suck, her body to take. Her life

gone…And Theod, now left standing just inside the mouth of the cave, two Icarii with him,

could only stand and watch and scream, and scream, and scream.

Everyone, save those two left with him, had been carried out into the dawn. DareWing,

Goldman, the Strike Force…and his wife and sons.

As the dawn brightened into day, Theod turned, and sank down to the ground, for he

could bear no more.

One of the Icarii squatted down beside him, lifted a hand as if to put it on his shoulder,

and then dropped it helplessly.

―We will fly to Carlon,‖ he said. ―Get help.‖

Theod nodded listlessly, not bothering to answer, and the Icarii stood, beckoned to his

companion, and lifted into the morning.

A league south, just as they were about to fly out over the northern Aldeni plains, they

were attacked and utterly overwhelmed by a massive flock of birds that blocked out what little

sun there was.

Neither of the Icarii lived.

Theod sat through the day.

Outside, one of his former companions would sometimes appear, gibbering, maniacal,

filthy.

Once, one of Theod‘s sons appeared and that he could not bear, so he moved back to the

rear of the cave. A scratching caught his attention— anything would have caught his attention, so desperate was Theod not to hear the horror babbling outside the cave‘s entrance—and he looked

down.

There was a crack within the tumble of rocks that formed the back wall of the cave. No,

more than twenty cracks, and from each of them shone beady eyes and glistening fangs.

―Gods!‖ Theod whispered. ―This entire cave is a trap.‖

And behind him were moving nine more groups of Aldeni, each of them following signs

that marked this cave as a safe-haven!

He stood up and spun about.

What could he do? Where…who…

There was another movement outside the cave entrance, and all the gibbering and

babbling abruptly ceased. Theod narrowed his eyes and stared into the brightness of sudden sun.

A great white horse pranced there, rolling his eyes. Stars flared about his head and

streamed from his tail, and he seemed a thing of dream, not reality. Without thinking, without

having any idea of why he did such a stupid, foolhardy thing, Theod walked forward, walked

into the sun, and scrambled onto the stallion‘s bare back.

And so began the wild ride.

46

The Secret in the Basement

From the cave where they had all fought off the Hawkchilds‘ attack, Adamon and his

companions led Axis, Azhure and Caelum into Star Finger. It was a day and a half‘s walk away,

and too painful a journey for Caelum to manage on his own two feet. Eventually, Pors and Silton

carried him on a rough stretcher made of a cloak and two spears.

The cloud of Hawkchilds did not return. No-one knew whether it was because of the

escort the three now had, or the injuries the Hawkchilds had sustained.

―What has been found?‖ Axis had demanded of Adamon before they left the cave, but

Adamon had shaken his head.

―Wait,‖ he said. ―Yes, I have found something and I understand your impatience, but wait

until we are in Star Finger.‖

And with that, Axis and Azhure, as their son, had to be content until Adamon could lead

them to Star Finger‘s secret.

On that journey to Star Finger Caelum slept, swayed by the movement of the

stretcher…and dreamed.

He dreamed he wandered, not through the entrapment of a maze, but through the freedom

of a magnificent field of flowers, redolent with the colours and scents of poppies and lilies and

cornflowers.

Always the dream would be disturbed with the thunder of a horse‘s hooves, and the cry

from somewhere of ―StarSon!‖ Caelum would turn about, thinking the call was for him, but,

invariably, all he would see was a woman dressed in a simple white robe wandering knee-deep in

colour and fragrance through the field. Thick chestnut hair flowed down her back, and she held

the hand of a small girl who skipped at her side.

In her free hand she carried a single white lily.

A man rode towards her on a white stallion, its crest and mane shrouded with a glorious

mist of stars. He halted the stallion before the woman and the child, and accepted the lily that the

woman held up towards him.

―StarSon,‖ she said, and the man smiled and leaned down to kiss her. And Caelum,

seeing the man‘s face, wept in understanding—and a great deal of relief.

Sometimes the dream differed and he wandered the field of flowers, seeing no woman,

nor man, nor stallion. But he did see the child. She would appear before him, holding a posy of

flowers in her hand.

They would stare at each other, then the girl would hold out the posy of flowers, except

every time she did that the flowers would turn to blood that stained her hand and dripped over

Caelum‘s feet.

―Do you understand the need of sacrifice, Caelum?‖ she would ask, and whenever she

said that, Caelum wept anew, and then listened as the girl pulled him down among the bloody

flowers and spoke of love and of sacrifice.

Star Finger, once Talon Spike, had thousands of years of history in Icarii culture. Before

the Wars of the Axe, when the Acharites had driven both Icarii and Avar from the southern

lands, the great mountain had been the Icarii‘s summer playground, a place to laugh and sing and

plan the pursuit of love.

After those desperate wars that had exiled the Icarii from so much of Tencendor, the

mountain had become a thousandyear prison until Axis StarMan had led the Icarii southwards to

wrest Tencendor from the Seneschal‘s control. Then most of the Icarii had flown southward to

reclaim the spires and citadels of the Minaret Peaks, but many thousands had remained in Talon