Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

“Do you think so, Yr?” Faraday turned to the Sentinel, hope illuminating her green eyes. “Do you really think so?” What Yr said made sense. Both Axis and she had undergone their own transformations — but they could soon learn to re-love each other.

Another watched the distant camp fires that night as he paced the rooftops of the palace of Carlon. Timozel seethed with fury and resentment. Battle loomed on the morrow and Borneheld insisted he remain behind – remain behind! – to guard Faraday lest some feathered evil try to carry her off.

/ am the man of vision, Timozel thought furiously, pacing back and forth across the rooftops, / am the one Artor has indicated should lead the battle on the morrow!

A great and glorious battle and the enemy’s positions were overrun — to the man (and others stranger who fought shoulder to shoulder with them) the enemy died. Timozel lost not one soldier.

“Me!” Timozel muttered and stopped abruptly, his dark cloak swirling about him. “Me/”

Remarkable victories were his for the taking.

And yet thin-faced Gautier would ride at Borneheld’s side, but not Timozel.

“You will lose if you do not let me fight for you,” Timozel said, more calmly now. “Lose. Stay behind yourself, Borne-held, and let me command Gautier and your army. / am the man of vision, /am the man of victory!”

But were his visions wrong? Misleading? Had he misinterpreted them? Was Borneheld, the fool, not the Great Lord for whom he would win so many victories?

His name would live in legend forever.

“Yes!” Timozel muttered ecstatically.

Axis sat, smiling, before the dancing fire, bouncing Caelum on his knee. Every day his son grew more fascinating than the day before. He was talking in short sentences now, and crawling about whenever he got the chance. Only this morning Axis had been forced to rescue him from beneath Belaguez’s agitated hooves.

“Caelum,” Axis whispered into his son’s ear, and brushed back the child’s mop of unruly black curls.

“Papa!” Caelum cried, and then shrieked with laughter as Axis began to tickle his stomach and back.

Azhure, sitting to one side, looked on and couldn’t help but smile. Axis, glancing up, reached across and took her hand. “Azhure, let us not go into battle distanced as we have been. Do you want to reconsider your decision to stay with me?”

“No,” she said softly. “I do not want to reconsider my decision, Axis. But I fear it. I fear the future very much.”

“Mama!” Caelum reached out both arms for Azhure. “Azhure!”

Caelum had never called Azhure by her given name previously, and Azhure laughed in sheer delight, dropping Axis’ hand to lift their son into her arms. “Azhure!” Caelum cried again, and spoke to his mother with his mind as well. / will never forget your name.

Azhure’s eyes filled with tears as she hugged Caelum.

“Why should he say that?” Axis asked. Gael urn’s words had sounded in a faint echo through his mind as well.

Caelum turned and regarded his father solemnly with his great blue eyes. Because Azhure has forgotten her mother’s name, she fears that one day I snail forget hers. She fears that as we both live on far past her own lifespan we will forget her name as her bones crumble into distant memory.

Axis’ mouth dropped open, astounded both by the length of his son’s thought and by his perception, and he lifted his eyes to Azhure. Was that what was wrong?

“Faraday will live with you, Axis,” Azhure said. “You will both live into legend, as will Caelum. Eventually you will forget me. Am I mentioned by the Prophecy? No. Yet Faraday is die wife who will hold her husband’s slayer in joy at night.”

“By all the gods that walk the distant paths of the stars, Azhure, / will never forget you! I swear it?’

Nor will I forget, Caelum whispered into her mind. Nor I.

“It is why I fear the future with you, Axis,” Azhure said. “Because, in the end, I will not share the future of either you or my son. Faraday will, but I will not.”

Caelum turned an accusing eye on his father. Who is this Faraday?

“You may say now diat you love me, Axis, and that Faraday must share you with me. But in short years she will have you all to herself. Will she accept me? Why not? She knows she will probably outlive me by hundreds of years. She controls almost as much power as you do. And if I have learned one thing over these past two years, it is that use of such power extends life far beyond what is considered usual in Achar.”

A step behind Axis made them all start. Belial squatted by Axis, knowing as he did so that he was intruding. “Axis, Ho’Demi wants to speak with you, as does FarSight. Can you join us? Azhure? We need to speak about tomorrow.”

“You go ahead, Axis,” Azhure said flatly. “I’ll give Caelum to Rivkah and then join you.”

Axis caught her hand as she rose. “We’ll talk later, Azhure.”

“Yes,” Azhure said, knowing that there would be no time later. Not this battle eve. “Yes, we’ll talk later.”

Far to the south, eight massive Corolean transport ships, carrying almost five thousand men, approached the mouth of the Nordra River at Nordmuth.

“From Nordmuth we’ll be able to row to Bedwyr Fort by dawn,” the first mate of the lead ship remarked to his captain.

“Good,” the captain grunted. “Borneheld has promised me a fat bonus if we reach him two hours before dawn. I suggest if you want your slice of it you go down to the oarsmen and make sure that they understand it’s certain death for them if they do not put their backs into it.”

The first mate chuckled with his master and patted the pilot on the back as he prepared to go below deck. “Make sure you do not run us atop any sandbars, my friend. I have gambling debts that need resolving.”

The pilot grimaced. “My eyes shall not leave the waters before us. I have no wish to be stuck atop a sandbar with yourself and your captain for company.”

Of course, it might have been helpful if the Corolean transports had posted guards at the stern of the ships as well, for there was more in the dark of the night at their backs than they had bargained for.

The Battle of Bedwyr FortThey stood around the camp fire in the dark hours before dawn, sipping hot tea sweetened to calm nervous stomachs.

“How do you feel, about to go into battle against your own countrymen?” FarSight CutSpur asked Belial and Magariz.

“None of us like it, FarSight, but what can we do? Besides,” Magariz’s dark face relaxed a little, “most of my countrymen stand with Axis, not Borneheld. Of Borneheld’s forces, some half, perhaps even more, are Coroleans.”

Belial nodded and sipped his tea. “At least. It’s some consolation that Borneheld must bolster his forces with foreign troops. Axis, do you know if the remaining cohort of Axe-Wielders fight with Borneheld?”

That was what Belial most feared, coming face to face with a friend on the battle-field.

“They are still at the tower,” Axis said. He was dressed, as were all about the camp fire, in light armour over tunic and breeches. The blood-red sun blazed from his chest plate. “The eagle flew over the tower late yesterday evening and the Axe-Wielders were still there then. I doubt Borneheld will use them. No doubt die Brother-Leader will want to hold on to what remains of his Axe-Wielders for his own defence.”

He looked about the camp fire. All the major commanders had joined him, and they represented the variety of races and beliefs who had, over the past twenty months, swung behind his standard. Belial and Magariz, his most senior commanders – the men who’d brought him the core of his army. FarSight CutSpur, senior commander of the Icarii Strike Force, with two of his Crest-Leaders, HoverEye BlackWing and Spread-Wing RavenCry. Ho’Demi, looking alien and exotic with his tattooed face, a collection of knives and swords bristling from his leather armour. He had tied his long black braids back today so that an enemy could not use them as a handhold, but they were as full of blue and green glass and chimes as ever. Ho’Demi stood close to Baron Ysgryff, who had abandoned his silks and damasks for the full armour of his force of mounted knights. His helmet was still lying on the ground to one side, but otherwise Ysgryff was fully caparisoned in metal armour, burnished and bright, and bearing the baronial crest of his family. The Baron looked both comfortable and dangerous in his armour.

Azhure stood with a light coat of chain mail over her tunic. Her hair, too, was tightly bound back, and covered with a close leather cap. The Wolven and a quiver of arrows were slung over her back, and at her feet lay Sicarius, the rest of the Alaunt lying a few paces beyond the light of the fire. Even the dogs wore light chain mail. Axis hoped they would be one of his most potent weapons this day. A surprise for Borneheld.