Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

Two dozen men and one King to defend them? the Carlonese wondered. Carlon, as Achar, is lost.

Courtiers abandoned the palace for discrete townhouses hidden deep within Carlon’s twisting streets. Borneheld’s court was no place to stay a-visiting now. What would Axis’ court be like? Would he find a place for them? Undoubtedly, most consoled themselves. Every King, new, usurped or borrowed, needed a court to keep him wrapped in happy flatteries.

In the streets eyes turned once again to the battlefield, where torches burned as soldiers carried on with the grim task of digging and filling the burial trenches. Of those watching from the city walls, many had lost sons, fathers or husbands — on both sides of the battle, for as many men from Carlon had fought for Axis as had fought for Borneheld.

All in all, the mood along the streets of Carlon was one of sadness and acceptance rather than anger or fright. Like Axis, most regretted that the battle had been fought at all – surely the brothers could have come to some compromise? Now it looked as if Borneheld had lost it all – for Carlon was not designed to withstand siege. It had walls, but virtually no militia to repel an attack or stores to withstand a siege. Carlon was normally a city of fun and laughter, money-making enterprises and sins, not a city destined for the grim realities of battle that now surrounded it.

If the good people of Carlon were resigned to Borneheld’s defeat, then Jayme was close to hysteria.

“You have lost the kingdom and you have lost the Seneschal!” he screamed at Borneheld, his habit stained and dirty.

Borneheld sat on his throne in the Chamber of the Moons, drunk. All his dreams? Ambitions? Come to this end? What had gone wrong? A flagon of red hung empty and useless from one hand as it dangled over the armrest of the throne – the next moment it was flying through the air towards Jayme’s head.

The Brother-Leader managed to duck the flagon and it smashed on the floor behind him.

“All gone,” he whispered, appalled at the consequences of the day. “The work of a thousand years gone in one day!”

“I hear you lost, Borneheld,” a light voice said from the doorway, and Faraday walked into the Chamber. Borneheld looked away from Jayme and towards his wife. She was resplendent in a deep-emerald velvet gown, her hair piled elegantly on top of her head, diamonds and pearls at her ears and throat. “You look unwell, Borneheld. Should I call the physician? Perhaps you are suffering from whatever ailed Priam.”

Borneheld curled his lip; it was the best he could do. “Axis has won through treachery. It is his way. If my kingdom falls apart before me it is simply because I have been betrayed once too often. Nothing remains.”

“If your kingdom falls apart around you, husband,” Faraday retorted, feeling nothing but scorn for this man who sat before her, “it is because you were never meant to hold it. How long before Axis sits that throne, Borneheld? How long?”

Borneheld lurched forward on the throne, almost falling, he was so drunk. “Whore! How much of this treachery do I owe to you? How many men have you taken to your bed and turned against me? How many times have you betrayed me with Axis?”

Faraday’s face twisted in contempt. “/ have remained true to our vows, husband. Unlike you.”

Without giving him the time to reply Faraday swung around and stared at Jayme. “You are a pitiful old man, Jayme. You have lost as much as Borneheld has out there on the battlefield today, you and your god. Do you know, Jayme, that once I believed in Artor fervently? Then I fell under the thrall of the Prophecy and I was introduced to new gods, new powers. Artor means as much to me’ as does my husband, Jayme. And that is not very much at all.”

She turned on her heel and strode from the room.

Jayme trembled. He looked about uselessly for Moryson. But both Moryson and Gilbert had disappeared the moment they realised Borneheld had lost the day.

“Moryson?” Jayme muttered weakly, peering into the shadows. “Moryson?” Oh Artor, why wasn’t his friend here now? “What are we going to do,” he whispered. We? Me. Me, alone. I am alone, save for this drunken mule sitting on the throne of Achar.

Borneheld smiled at him. “What are we going to do, Jayme? Why, have another drink, Brother-Leader. I think you will find a flagon in the cabinet in the far wall.”

Out in the corridor Faraday’s show of bravado faltered and died.

Faraday knew well what would happen. Somehow, and Faraday did not care about the details for they were unimportant, Axis would appear to challenge Borneheld in the Chamber of the Moons. And when he appeared Faraday knew that the dreadful, apocalyptic vision that the trees of the Silent Woman Woods had given her two years previously would be played out in real life.

Even though Faraday believed, desperately wished to believe, that Axis would win — that the trees had shown her only shattered and jumbled images — she clutched at the front of her gown, feeling again Axis’ warm blood running down between her breasts.

“Win, Axis, win}” she whispered.

As the night passed Rivkah anxiously sat guard over Axis, Azhure and Caelum. Several hours before dawn her fears were finally allayed when Magariz walked into the circle of firelight. Rivkah stood and held him close, tears streaming silently from her eyes.

As tired and as sick at heart as Axis had been, Magariz sank down by the fire, Rivkah gendy unbuckling his armour, and, his words stumbling through his exhaustion, he told Rivkah the story of the battle until he fell asleep mid-sentence. Rivkah lowered him gendy to the ground and covered him with a blanket.

As she rose from Magariz’s side Rivkah noticed a tall, dark Nors girl standing at the edge of the firelight, her bright red dress covered with a tightly clutched cloak. “Belial?” she whispered, her voice hoarse with fear, her blue eyes dark and enormous in the shadows.

Rivkah shook her head. “I have not heard,” she said gendy.

“Ah,” the girl murmured, and turned away. Rivkah stared after her a long time, sorrowing.

As she sat by the fire to watch over the sleepers, heavy with weariness, Rivkah pondered the way of battle and the way of the world. Men fight, and women wait and weep. Rivkah was very, very tired of not having what she wanted. She quietly vowed not to let life or love escape from her again. She would spend the last half of her life in happier circumstances than the first half. This time no-one, not even her son, would keep her from die man she loved.

Finally Rivkah shook Axis awake as instructed, but he was so exhausted he fell straight back into a deep slumber again and she decided to let him sleep through to the dawn. There was nodiing that could be done in the middle of die night.

In die cold hour after dawn Axis, Azhure and Magariz sat in silence about the fire, all still with great circles pf weariness under their eyes, but all looking infinitely better than they had. Rivkah watched Azhure feed her son. The new baby was still safe, but Rivkah did not know what would have happened if Azhure had been forced to fight any longer.

Axis shared his mother’s concern for Azhure. “You will stay in camp today, Azhure,” he said quiedy. “Tired as you are you will be no use to anyone, least of all your son, if you don’t get more sleep.”

It was a measure of Azhure’s weariness, and her own concerns for her growing baby, diat she nodded and cuddled Caelum a litde closer. She had wondered, at critical moments during yesterday’s battle, if she would ever see Caelum again and she was not yet ready to leave him now.

Magariz raised his head from his hand. “Axis? Where do we start?”

Axis grimaced. “Where do we start, Magariz? We simply stand up from this camp fire and we start walking…and dien we start where we can. Come.”

Axis stood and pulled Magariz to his feet. “Rivkah was worried for you last night,” Axis said quiedy. “I am glad, not only for her sake, but for mine also, that you are still alive.”

It was a simple statement, but deep with meaning. Magariz managed a wan grin. “I am glad for my sake that I am still alive,” he said, and Axis laughed.

“Come on,” he said, pulling Magariz away from the women. “Let us see what sort of a victory we have won.”

Somewhat of a hollow one, Axis thought two hours later as he finished receiving reports from his commanders. They had won, but at enormous cost. The Icarii Strike Force had fared best of all, with only minor casualties to stray arrows and three dead to sheer misfortune. Ho’Demi, his face white behind its blue lines, reported that almost fifteen hundred of his Ravensbundmen had lost their lives.