Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

Calmed by his contemplation of the growing town, Axis rested his hands on the parapets and turned his mind to the snow eagle, far away, soaring above Jervois Landing. What did Ho’Demi have to report this day?

When Borneheld finally found out how far knowledge of the Icarii had spread through Jervois Landing, he lost control of himself so badly that Gautier and Roland thought he would strangle the soldier he’d overheard talking about the Icarii.

“Who told you of these foul creatures!” he roared, shaking the man so badly his helmet fell off. “The Coroleans, Sire,” the man stammered. Borneheld eventually let him go, and the man scrambled out of reach.

“How would the Corolean soldiers know of the cursed Forbidden?” Borneheld growled to Gautier and Roland.

Roland, tired, ill and dispirited, simply shrugged. He hardly cared any more. All he wanted was to die honourably, somewhere far away from Jervois Landing. He did not like it here. And he no longer respected Borneheld. He was not a King who Roland wanted to lay down his life for. He often wondered if he should have left with Magariz, back at Gorkenfort. Surely Magariz had made the right choice.

“Ho’Demi seemed to know of these, ah, Forbidden,” Gautier said. His own ambitions kept Gautier completely loyal to Borneheld. “Sire, the Ravensbundmen come from a land that borders with the Icescarp Alps. I would lay ten to one they are the source of these rumours and lies which sweep Jervois Landing.”

Borneheld stared at Gautier. By Artor, the man was right! “Then I rest responsibility for the suppression of these lies in your hands, Gautier. Flush out the traitors within our midst who spread these lies. Then we can deal with them appropriately. Report back to me this afternoon — with results.”

“Yes, Sire.” Gautier bowed deeply, saluted, and, turning on his heel, stalked off. Both Roland and Borneheld watched him go, but both were thinking very different thoughts.

Gautier had not reached his present position without a good deal of cunning. Disguising himself in the thick cloak and scarf of a peasant, and moving from camp fire to camp fire on the pretence of looking for a loose horse, it did not take Gautier very long to discover a traitor or two. At the fifth camp fire he visited, Gautier discovered three Ravensbundmen talking animatedly about the Prophecy of the Destroyer and the StarMan to a group of wide-eyed Acharite and Corolean soldiers.

They were arrested, disarmed and bound before being marched back to the town of Jervois Landing to face the King.

The three Ravensbundmen stared silently at Borneheld. None of them showed any emotion, nor, for that matter, any discomfort at their tight bonds. They simply stared, hostile black eyes in blue-lined faces, each with the naked circle in the centre of his forehead.

“Do you speak of my bastard brother as the StarMan?” Borneheld finally asked.

Arhat, the oldest of the Ravensbund warriors present, nodded curtly. “We do, King Borneheld.”

Borneheld took a deep breath. These men would die for their insolence and their treachery. “And you spread lies about the flying filth that drives the Skraelings down to slaughter the good people of Achar?”

“The Icarii have turned the tide of the Skraelings,” Arhat replied. “Jervois Landing would have fallen and the Skraelings flooded through Achar now but for the Icarii Strike Force.”

“They are filth!” Borneheld shouted, stamping about the room. “How dare you refer to the cursed lizards as though they deserved honour!”

“They do deserve honour, Borneheld,” said Funado, the youngest Ravensbund warrior present, “for they have saved your kingdom. Once more the Icarii fly to aid the Acharites. Whether they deserve it or not.”

All three knew they were dead. But they would die serving the Prophecy, and with that knowledge all the pride of their ancient race shone from their faces.

It was that as much as Funado’s words which pushed Borneheld over the edge of anger into outright fury.

“Gautier!” he screamed. “Erect three crosses on the edge of town and crucify them! Then fetch me their traitorous leader. We shall see where his loyalty to the Forbidden gets him now!”

“It will be my pleasure,” Gautier said, “to make an example of these three.”

Ho’Demi sat his horse before the three crosses, his face masked as if with stone.

He had been summoned from the forward lines where he was supervising the defence against a particularly nasty Skrae-ling attack. He had cursed as the soldier gave him Borne-held’s message, “Meet me on the western edge of Jervois Landing. Now.” Did the King think Ho’Demi was simply enjoying a late afternoon stroll out here among the canals?

But he had gone, and now he saw the fruits of Borne-held’s suspicion. Three of his men hung dead from crosses, and it was evident that they had not died easily or fast.

“They spread treacheries,” Borneheld seethed atop his horse at Ho’Demi’s side. “Lies! About the Forbidden! I will not have it.”

“No,” Ho’Demi whispered, not shifting his eyes from the sight in front of him.

“Their infections spread about Jervois Landing. Soon all will believe the lie that the Forbidden fly to our aid instead of flying to seek our destruction.”

“No,” Ho’Demi said again, but Borneheld did not hear him. At the foot of the crosses Gautier strolled, a pike in his hands, prodding the naked bodies to see if any spark of life remained within them. Frustrated, Gautier used the iron tip of the pike to slice open the last warrior’s gut. “No,” Ho’Demi said yet again, very, very softly. “Dead,” Gautier announced, “and not before time.” He tossed the pike to one side and remounted his horse.

By the great Icebear herself, Ho’Demi swore silendy, I will have your life for this treachery against the Prophecy and against the lives of three true men.

“I suspect treachery in this, Ho’Demi!” Borneheld suddenly hissed by his side. “I suspect you of treason, Ho’Demi.”

Ho’Demi dragged his stare away from the three dead and looked at Borneheld. “I have committed no treachery, Borneheld.”

Borneheld’s lips thinned and the heavy features of his face reddened. “You promised me, Ravensbund savage, that you would be true. You swore that you would not prove traitorous!”

“And I have remained true, Borneheld. I have not proved a traitor to my oath.” And my oath and my loyalty was always to the Prophecy, Borneheld, and only to you so long as you acted to serve the Prophecy. With this action, you have shown yourself the traitor.

Borneheld could not believe what he was hearing. Would this barbarian continue to lie? “Order your men back from the lines of defence, Ho’Demi. Order them back to your camp. I no longer need your ‘help’ in defending Achar!”

And that at least is true, thought Ho’Demi cynically, now that the Icarii have stemmed the flood of the wraiths for you.

You can hold this line with your own men and your mercenaries. You no longer need us.

But he inclined his head politely. “As you wish, Borne-held. The Ravensbundmen will return to our camp.”

He glanced once more at the bodies hanging from their crosses, then turned his horse and nudged it into a canter.

Roland, sitting his horse behind Borneheld and Gautier, swung after Ho’Demi. “I will make sure he does it, Sire,” he called as he spurred his horse after the Ravensbund chief.

Gautier looked at Borneheld anxiously. “Sire, what can we do about the Ravensbundmen? Even though many have died fighting the Skraelings, they are still too many for us to either guard or otherwise dispose of.”

“This evening, late, eight river transports of Corolean soldiers land, Gautier. Their first duty? To surround and attack the Ravensbund camp at dawn tomorrow. The Ravensbundmen will not move against us before then, for they be hampered by the number of women and children in their camp. Soon we will be rid once and for all of these savages.”

Borneheld woke before dawn the next morning, intending to lead the raid and slaughter of the Ravensbund people himself. As he rolled out of his bed and struggled into his armour in the dark, cursing when he caught his thick fingers in the buckles, Borneheld suddenly realised that there was something strange about the morning. Something missing.

He paused, half dressed, and angrily shushed the young girl in his bed as she muttered sleepily. He stood for a long moment, then, suddenly, horrifyingly, realised what waswrong.

The morning was completely silent. There were no bells, no chimes.

When he reached the Ravensbund camp site a half-hour later it was to discover that the newly arrived Corolean mercenaries had the site completely ringed. Completely, uselessly ringed, for the site was utterly bare. Everything had gone. The tents and their chimes. The horses and their chimes. Every last one of the Ravensbund people and their Artor-forsaken chimesl Even, as Borneheld would shortly discover, the three bodies from the crosses had gone.