Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

“You saved SpikeFeather’s life, EvenSong, at the risk of your own. And you brought him home.” Axis’ voice was firm. “It fell off SpikeFeather, but I nearly crashed to the ground with it. I had to fight to free myself. But I did, eventually. Both of us pulled out of our dives with heartbeats to spare.” “And they didn’t attack again?”

EvenSong shook her head. “No. Ten of the Wing were dead. SpikeFeather was crippled. I was no use. No. They did not stop to attack us again. They flew south. South to Jervois Landing.” Her whole body trembled. “They must have believed that SpikeFeather and I were close to death.”

Axis finally let her hand go, and bent down to kiss her forehead. “Thank you, EvenSong. That is a terrible memory to live with, but I am afraid we all will face as terrible, if not more, in the months and years to come.”

He sat back and looked at StarDrifter and MorningStar. Both were noticeably ashen and gaunt.

“StarDrifter,” he said. “What are these Gryphon?” It was not StarDrifter who answered, but Veremund, standing tall and spare at the very back of the room.

“No-one has seen a Gryphon for over six thousand years,” he said. “But the Icarii remember them still. EvenSong, describe for us the creatures that attacked you.”

“Winged, and the size of one of Azhure’s hounds,” she said. “But not shaped like one at all. An eagle’s head, viscious-ly beaked, bronzed feathered wings, and the tawny body of a great cat, clawed for death. Its eyes were red-bright, glowing,” “Dragon-clawed,” Ogden put in hollowly. “Blight-eyed,” Jack said. “It cried -” EvenSong began.

“With the voice of despair,” her father finished, and Even-Song nodded and burst into tears.

“Ogre-bellied,” Veremund said, “and grave-jawed. A Gryphon. MorningStar, tell Axis what became of the Gryphon, and why.”

“The Gryphon,” said MorningStar, “once haunted the high places, as the Icarii now do. They were hunters – agile, intelligent, able. They fed off the living. But they also hated.” She took a deep breath. “They particularly hated the Icarii. We loved to fly, but feared to as well. Anywhere we went, we were vulnerable to Gryphon attack. Finally, we fought back.”

Now FarSight CutSpur spoke. “It was the moment, some six and a half thousand years ago, Axis, when the Strike Force was first formed. The Icarii were braver, more warlike than now, and eventually they cleared the skies and high places in Tencendor of Gryphon. We destroyed them. We destroyed their dens, their young, their breeding grounds. We left nothing. We thought we had swept them from the skies and the minds and hearts of the Icarii — of all Tencendorans — for ever. We were wrong.”

“Gorgrael has recreated them,” Axis said, then stopped. Did Gorgrael recreate in the same way — or in a twisted way — as Axis recreated?

“Gorgrael must be powerful, very powerful,” Ogden said, his plump face ashen and concerned, “to have recreated such as these Gryphon.”

“Then tell me how you can evade them, FarSight,” Axis asked. “I do not want to lose my Strike Force to these creatures as SpikeFeather and EvenSong lost their comrades.”

FarSight shrugged. “It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On how many of these Gryphon have reappeared.”

“How many can a Wing protect itself against?”

“Obviously not eight or nine, although SpikeFeather’s Wing were not expecting attack from Gryphon. Now that we are aware of the danger, then perhaps more would survive. But from what I can remember of legend, the Gryphon would never attack when they were outnumbered. They will only attack when they feel they have an advantage – a single Wing, obviously. But any stray Icarii will be a target.”

“Then no member of the Strike Force goes out in anything less than a Crest,” Axis said, “until we know more certainly how many of these creatures Gorgrael has to loose on us. I must speak to the bridge, find out whether or not she can protect Sigholt from attack by such as these, but until then, Magariz, Belial,” they both stepped forward, “post guards with eyes turned skywards. I do not want to wake to find one of these clutching at my back one morning.”

Azhure shuddered. “How will Jervois Landing fare? Will we help them?”

Axis, grey-faced, took a long time to answer. “I fear we will have no choice,” he answered, finally. “If we wish to stop Gorgrael from taking Achar as well as Ichtar. We cannot stand by and watch Jervois Landing fall.”

That night, as Axis and Azhure sat before the fire in their chambers, Caelum wriggling naked and cheerful on a rug between them, Azhure asked Axis how he felt about aidingBorneheld.

“How do I feel? If any other man led the defences at Jervois Landing I would not hesitate, I would not doubt. But it is Borneheld who fights there. Azhure,” he leaned down and picked Caelum up, “I sometimes forget that Borneheld and I fight for the same thing — to save this beautiful land and its people from Gorgrael.”

Caelum wriggled in Axis’ arms, and Azhure smiled as she watched them. Caelum loved his father deeply, and was miserable when Axis could not spare time each day to be with him. Although he had Azhure’s colouring — raven-black curly locks, pale skin and smoky blue eyes – Caelum nevertheless had Icarii features, even in his chubby early baby months. Azhure hoped she had planted something of herself besides her colouring in her son.

“Here,” Axis handed Caelum over to Azhure. “He wants to be fed.”

Constantly amazed by the depth of communication between father and son, Azhure hugged Caelum to her, murmuring softly. She unbuttoned her tunic and nesded her son against her breast. Well, this was something that Axis could not do for their son.

Axis sat and watched Azhure nurse Caelum, listening to the magical melody of the Star Dance as it danced about and between them, then he spoke as if nothing had interrupted their conversation. “Perhaps Borneheld and I do not fight for quite the same thing. He fights for the Acharites and Achar, and the continuation of a world that is safe and known. I fight for three peoples, Acharite, Icarii and Avar, and the recreation of an old world. But… both of us fight against Gorgrael.”

Azhure looked up. “Do you want to recreate an old world, Axis, or create a new one?”

“A new one,” Axis admitted finally. “A new one. Tencendor was not the land of myth and glory that the Icarii would have us believe. Tencendor will live again, but I mean to make it a fairer place for all races.”

As Axis watched his son suckle at Azhure’s breast, the Gryphon attacked Jervois Landing. Nothing that the men lining the trenches and defences of Jervois Landing could have expected matched the fury of their assault.

Borneheld was riding the lines when, the Gryphon swooped. It was sheer luck that they carried off Nevelon, riding directly beside him.

Borneheld hauled his terrified horse to a standstill, watching as Nevelon’s screaming form disappeared into the night sky. Great drops of blood splattered across his upturned face and the neck of his horse.

“Artor’s blow-hole!” he cursed. “It’s the Forbidden!”

“No.” Ho’Demi said close behind him, his shaggy yellow-haired horse unperturbed even by the attack from above. “Worse than that. Far, far worse.”

In the Bleak Mid-Winter…

Ho’Demi kicked his shaggy yellow horse into a trot — the best it could manage in the muddied slush of the battle lines — and worked his way slowly back towards the Ravensbund camp. It was an hour past dawn and the worst of the night attacks were over. Now he needed sleep badly. It had been three days since he had last found the leisure to lie down in his furs.

He glanced up to the clouds. Heavy and grey with snow and ice, they bore down from the north. Even before the end of Frost-month, Gorgrael had swept southern Ichtar and the defences of Jervois Landing with sleet. Now the sleet had turned to ice and Borneheld’s forces had to fight the battle of Jervois Landing in conditions which had travelled beyond the miserable into the appalling. Snow and ice turned to knee-deep mud in those areas heavily travelled by the feet of men and horses, and both feet and hooves had to be carefully cleaned and dried each night in case the mud froze to flesh. Yet in battle conditions, especially when Gorgrael’s forces struck at night, it was difficult to find the time or the opportunity to dry and tend the extremities, and they were losing almost as many men to frostbite and gangrene as to theSkraelings.

The snow and ice had a more sinister function than simply creating appalling fighting conditions for the humans. The Skraelings had found the system of canals a sufficient deterrent for Gorgrael to attempt to freeze them with the frost and ice that rained down at night. Gangs of men who Borneheld could ill-afford to lose from the battle lines had to be kept at work throughout the night, breaking up the thick sheets of ice that formed across the canals before the Skraelings could rush across. Three times over the past weeks they had not been fast enough, and then men died in their hundreds before the ice could be broken and the Skraeling rush halted.