Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

SpikeFeather bowed. He’d insisted on leading the scouting parry, and Axis had acquiesced without demur. Over the past weeks and months, SpikeFeather had grown into his command and, although, like all Icarii, his face remained youthfully un-lined, experience and confidence hardened his eyes and mouth. “StarMan.”

“Crest-Leader. What news?”

SpikeFeather drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. “They wait, StarMan, about a league up the pass. They are massed in formation, and they wait patiently…well away from the river, which is free of ice.”

Axis frowned in thought. Could he use that? “Close to the cliffs of the Alps, SpikeFeather?”

“Not really. They are, oh, at least five or six hundred paces from the cliffs.”

Axis exchanged glances with Belial, then turned back to SpikeFeather. “Did you see Timozel?”

“No. He could be anywhere among that mass.”

“IceWorms?”

“Yes, but at the back of the force. I cannot think how Timozel would use them.”

Axis nodded slowly. IceWorms were useful for breaching defences and little else. “And Gryphon?” he asked softly.

“None,” SpikeFeather replied. “We,” he nodded at the two scouts behind him, “flew the entire length of the Pass, only a hundred paces over the heads of the Skraelings and close to the canyons and traverses of the Alps, but we saw no sign of them. We…” he faltered a moment, recalling, “we constantly expected attack, but none came.”

“You were foolish to risk your lives, SpikeFeather,” Axis snapped.

“You had to know, StarMan.” SpikeFeather’s voice was equally terse. “If we had drawn them out then you would have known where they were.”

“Then where are they?” Axis said. Timozel undoubtedly had them so well hidden that Axis’ force would not discover them until the moment the abominations landed on their backs.

“StarMan!”

Axis, with Belial and the other commanders, wheeled their horses about as they heard the shout.

A horseman galloped towards them from the rear of the encampment. “StarMan,” he panted as he reined his horse to a halt, “the Enchantress!” And he turned and pointed behind him.

Axis dug his heels into Belaguez’s flanks and the stallion leaped forward; within a heartbeat he was gone, galloping across the plain towards the as-yet tiny figure in the distance.

They met in a flurry of snow and wind and joy several hundred paces south of the encampment, their horses colliding, the hounds baying about them. Axis leaned forward

and swept Azhure from her horse, his eyes laughing in relief and love.

Then his eyes widened as he felt the bundle on her back.

“He is asleep,” she whispered, “leave him be for the moment.”

Axis smiled, tightened his arms and pulled her close.

“How?” he asked eventually, leaning back from her slightly.

She kissed his cheek, and then his mouth again. “Do you remember your dream nine nights ago?” she whispered, and smiled at the shudder that swept his body. “I walked with the Moon that night, and I walked into Gorgrael’s dreams and eventually into his chambers. Listen,” and she put her mouth to his ear and whispered.

Axis burst out laughing. “Vixen! I almost feel empathy for my brother, for you have tortured me ceaselessly since you first walked into my life. But,” his arms reached about her, “Caelum is safe, and you are here, and Xanon tells me that you battled with Artor and bested him.”

“And Faraday has finished the planting and the trees sing -but you must know that.”

She felt him withdraw from her slightly. “And Faraday is well?”

“Well enough, husband. She rests now in the Sacred Grove, with the Horned Ones and the Mother, for she has been through great travail for your sake. She will join you for Fire-Night in the Earth Tree Grove.”

Axis ignored that. “And the trees will assist in our battle with the Skraeling host?”

Azhure grinned and snuggled back into his body. “We shall see soon enough, methinks, when we ride into battle.”

Axis said nothing for a few minutes as he revelled in Azhure’s warmth and presence. He had worried constantly about her and about his son, and he had not realised how much it had affected him until this moment, when both rested safely within the circle of his arms.

His thoughts turned back to Caelum’s kidnap. How did Gorgrael seize him?

He felt Azhure shiver, and, as she spoke slowly and softly in his mind, his own body tensed and shook, so great was his fury.

“I will kill him!” he hissed.

Azhure’s arms tightened. “No. Axis, I was so angry myself…I have stripped him of his Icarii powers.” She outlined the processes she’d used to make DragonStar’s human blood dominant. “And now he is just the cuddly, beautiful baby that Cazna thought him all the while. He is back in the nursery with River-Star, for there is no damage he can do now. Poor baby, I could feel her puzzlement as she tried to penetrate the fog of his mind.”

Axis was still not appeased by the measures Azhure had taken, but he was willing to admit she was right. If he had been there . . . Axis knew full well that DragonStar might easily be dead by now. “We shall have to watch him as he grows, my love. I still do not trust him.”

“Nor I. But at least his power has been blunted.”

Axis nodded and rested his chin in her hair for some time, his eyes on the army spread out before him.

“We cannot find the Gryphon for you to hunt,” he said.

She leaned back at that. “Axis . . . when I left Gorgrael writhing out his frustration upon the floor I felt his anger leap after me. He could not catch me, but hours later I felt his rage find new direction. Talon Spike.”

“Oh Stars,” Axis groaned, “I had hoped that RavenCrest and BrightStar and all those who stayed with them might yet be safe. Are they still there?”

Azhure knew he meant the Gryphon. “I don’t know. I have not been able to feel them for many days now. Perhaps I shall have to content myself with sticking Skraelings on the morrow.”

Timozel sat in the cave high in the rocky walls of Gorken Pass where he had secreted himself from the far-seeing eyes of the Icarii scouts, and chewed his thumbnail.

Where are they? he questioned Gorgrael.

I do not know, Timozel, and Timozel could feel the fury and frustration and fear in Gorgrael’s mind. How could anyone lose seven thousand Gryphon?

No doubt Axis will attack in the morning, Master. I would prefer to have those Gryphon overhead when he does.

Do you think me a fool, Timozel? and the man reeled from the flaming rage that Gorgrael sent his way. I want those Gryphon to shred his army as greatly as you do. Yet I can do nothing until…

Abruptly his words broke off.

Master? Master?

Timozel! I have them!

It had taken more than eight days for the befuddled yet rabidly angry Gryphon to find their way through the maze of shafts and corridors to the upper reaches of Talon Spike. They had hunted ceaselessly in that time, searching for the Icarii. They could smell them, yes they could, so surely they were just around the next turn, behind the next door. The shadows teased and tantalised them, and the Gryphon crawled through every space they could find.

And they found nothing. Now biting hunger fed their fury, and as they climbed higher and higher in a seething mass, their anger intensified until it glowed from their eyes and steamed with their breath and their shrieks tore through the mountain. Then, as the first of them crawled out onto the flight balcony of Talon Spike, Gorgrael finally managed to touch their minds again.

West! West! Haste! Haste! Where have you been?

Chasing shadows, Master, they whispered back. Talon Spike is clear . . . we think.

Then fly! Fly! Fly! Great feeding awaits you in Gorken Pass. Manlings a-plenty mass for the feast – but you shall have to fight back the Skraelings.

We shall eat them, too.

Save your thunder and your anger for the battle, my beauties. Now, FLY!

And the Gryphon, waiting for their fellows to emerge from the mountain, massed about its peak. As the mountain groaned under their weight they launched themselves into the air, spinning about Talon Spike in a maddened black cloud until, as the final few of their brethren emerged from the mountain, they wheeled as one and flew west into the night sky.

Nothing would stop them feasting now.

o Dreamers in the Snow Magariz stood fidgeting in the pre-dawn light as Belial’s man fumbled with the buckles on his master’s armour.

“Peace, Magariz,” Belial said. “I am almost fastened up.”

“I admit I cannot wait until this day is over,” Magariz said.

“And I, my friend, and I.”

All about them men readied for war, and when Belial glanced at Axis and Azhure’s tent he could see the shadows of movement within.