Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

“No,” Axis said. “On this I override your orders. I come down with you. I need to see what is down there – and my powers will be more useful to you below ground than above.”

“As you decide,” she said shortly. “But make yourself useful. Light the way.”

Axis stepped down onto the first of the stairs. He held out his hand, and a soft ball of light began to glow in its palm. As it grew stronger, he let it slide from his hand and roll down the stairs. It stopped about a third of the way down a straight and wide corridor, well built from solid stone. There was nothing to be seen.

“Good,” Azhure said, and pushed past Axis. She motioned to Sicarius. “Sicarius. Scout.”

The hound leapt down the stairs and trotted cautiously, nose to floor, down the corridor. He disappeared from sight into the blackness. Azhure waved her men forward.

They walked slowly down the corridor, Azhure in the lead, Axis directly behind her shoulder. All had weapons drawn or carried burning brands ready in their hands. As they walked forward, so the ball of light rolled forward slowly, always keeping the same distance in front of them.

After perhaps fifty paces the corridor bent to their left and as Azhure peered cautiously about she saw another flight of steps leading down. She could dimly see Sicarius sitting at the bottom of them, tense and alert.

“Come,” she said again, and trotted down the stairs to the hound. She bent to touch Sicarius’ head for an instant, then straightened and looked before her.

The steps had led them into a large, low-vaulted chamber, the stone pillars that supported the ceiling casting long shadows across the floor of the chamber. There were some broken and empty wooden boxes and kegs to one side, but otherwise the chamber was empty. In the far wall a heavy, arched wooden door stood ajar a fingerspace.

“What do you think?” Azhure asked as Axis joined her.

“We’re reasonably close to the heart of Hsingard. I would think that we are in the underground chambers of one of the main civic buildings.”

“It’s cold,” Azhure observed, and pulled the collar of her tunic a little higher about her throat.

Indeed it was cold, much colder than the air above, and that had been icy enough. Their breath frosted about them, and Azhure could see that thin tendrils of ice ran around the stone pillars. She glanced at the far door, then bent down and murmured quietly to the hound. Her fingers ran through the thick, creamy hairs of Sicarius’ head, and the hound’s golden eyes gazed steadily into hers, his mouth open, panting a little.

Azhure rose. “He has not been through that door,” she said quiedy. “He wanted to wait for us. He does not like it.”

Axis stared at her, and then at the Alaunt. He hesitated, then extended his hand and motioned with his fingers. The ball of light floated placidly back to nesde in the palm of his hand. “Azhure. Be careful.”

Azhure hefted the burning brand in her hand and motioned the others to follow her. She walked unhesitatingly over to the door, waving her men to either side, then, seizing the door, hauled it open.

Nothing issued forth from the door save a gust of air far colder than that of the vaulted chamber.

Azhure met Axis’ eyes, then she looked at the ball of light he held in his hand and motioned into the blackness beyond the door with her head. He stepped forward and threw the ball through the door, humming a phrase of music. As the ball of light lobbed into the chamber it flared into brilliance, and a dismayed whispering and muttering arose from within. Axis paled and took an involuntary step backwards at what he saw. Azhure took one look, turned away in horror, then forced herself to look again.

There was a vast chamber beyond the door, perhaps once the grain store of the city. But now it had been converted by the Skraelings into a hatchery. Azhure felt Axis slide his arm about her waist and pull her back from the door.

Across the floor of the chamber before them undulated a seething mass of Skraeling young among the broken shells of thousands upon thousands of eggs. They were almost white, with slimy, transparent bodies that had not yet hardened into the flesh which their parents had attained. Their silver eyes were huge, and their mouths, already complete with sharp and hungry fangs, yawned wide as they mewed and cried. They did not like the light.

“Stars,” Axis whispered, “they’ve probably got these hatcheries in every cavern underneath this rubble.”

“They are next winter’s troubles,” Azhure said. “At least, they were.” She tossed her burning brand into the chamber and where it fell among the writhing Skraeling young it burst into flame, and the mews and whispers rose to a clamour.

“Quick,” she said urgently, “before their parents come back. Toss in your brands, and then let’s get out of here.”

The broken husks of the shells caught fire first, then the extremities of the nearest hatchlings. Those that caught fire scampered screaming about the chamber, climbing over their fellows, and setting fire to further shells and hatchlings. As the flames spread, Azhure slammed the door shut and Axis grabbed her hand.

“Let’s go,” he said, pulling Azhure after him. “Fast!”

Where they had crept slowly down the stairs and the corridor, now they fled at a run. No-one wanted to be trapped underground when the cries of the hatchlings caught their parents’ ears.

They reached the surface safely, but by that time the screams of the now rapidly burning hatchlings had roused what seemed like every Skraeling in Hsingard. They seethed out of cracks and fissures from both sides of the roadway, and Azhure and her command had to fight their way free of the city in a bloody battle that left many of them wounded to some degree; Azhure herself gained a nasty cut over her left ribs. That they escaped at all — and with few fatalities – was due to the Crest of the Icarii Strike Force above them, for now that the Skraelings had emerged from their rubble they were vulnerable to arrows from above.

When they reached their horses, Axis pushed her onto Venator. “Can you ride?” he asked anxiously, his eyes-drifting to her blood-stained tunic.

“Yes,” she gasped. “I’m fine. Get to Belaguez.”

About her men scrambled atop their horses, protected from the Skraelings by the arrows of the Strike Force, and Azhure kept Vena tor on a tight rein until all were mounted.

“Ride!” she screamed, turningVenator’s head and urging him forwards with her heels, “Ride!”

As they galloped for the Urqhart Hills, leaving the Skraelings well behind them, Azhure began to laugh.

They halted as soon as they were deep within the Urqhart Hills and protected by the arrival of the Icarii above.

Axis leapt from Belaguez and hauled Azhure from her horse.

“I’m all right,” she gasped, still smiling with the excitement of the battle and the mad ride from Hsingard to the hills, but Axis tore her tunic open and pulled her shirt out of the waistband of her breeches. It was soaked with blood, and Axis’ heart clenched as he felt how warm and wet the shirt was.

A Skraeling claw had scraped a deep gash along one of Azhure’s lower ribs. It had bled profusely, but the bone of the rib had stopped any major damage.

“It needs to be stitched,” Axis muttered, accepting the bandage that one of the archers thrust forward. He bound her ribs tightly, then pulled her shirt down.

“It’s nothing,” Azhure said softly. “Others are hurt far worse. Let me go. I should see to them. They are my responsibility.”

She stood up, pulling her tunic on, and went to see to her command, bending to talk briefly with those wounded, proud that she too had blood staining her tunic. At her heels trotted Sicarius, scratched and bleeding from a dozen small wounds like most of his pack.

Behind Azhure Axis stood straight and tall, watching her, his eyes veiled.

The next morning at dawn they rode into Sigholt. Warned by the Icarii, who had arrived the previous evening, comrades and servants stood ready to tend the wounded and feed the rest.

“The Icarii told us what happened,” Belial said, stepping forward, his eyes riveted to Azhure’s blood-stained tunic. “Are you all right?”

Azhure smiled. “A mere scratch, Belial. Isn’t that what all good warriors say when they ride home to fretting families?”

Axis stepped up and slipped his arm around her waist. Now they were home he could act more like the concerned lover than her second-in-command. “She is not wounded badly, Belial.” He glanced about the courtyard of the Keep. “Ravensbundmen?”

“Yes. They arrived yesterday morning. Most are quartered in camps about the Lake, but I have put the senior command in Sigholt itself.”