Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

Azhure smiled also, and leaned forward and kissed Ho’Demi gently on the cheek. “And I shall come back, Ho’Demi, and talk some more with Urbeth. She must have great mysteries to explain.”

Sa’Kuya stepped forward and gave Axis a package of Tekawai tea; now they had reached the Icebear Coast the Ravensbund people could replenish their stocks. “You will be

travelling still further north, I think, StarMan. Take this tea with our blessing, and when you drink it think of the Ravensbund people whose thoughts will always be with you.”

“I thank you, Sa’Kuya.” Axis stowed the package in the packs that hung behind Belaguez’s saddle. “Ho’Demi, I leave you my three thousand men. Use them if you want, or send them home.”

“I shall not keep them overlong, StarMan,” Ho’Demi said, bowing slightly in recognition of the gift. “The Skraelings have all gone from the Ravensbund and we live in tents, so there is no rebuilding to do. Perhaps for a few weeks they can help us build up our stocks of seal and fish, but I think they will be longing for their own lands and families. I shall send them back to Carlon.”

Axis nodded. “Well, Azhure? Are you ready for Talon Spike?”

She smiled at him. Both were looking forward to the week it would take them to travel to Talon Spike; they had rarely had much time alone in past months. “I’m -” she was interrupted by an anxious voice behind them.

“StarMan! You’re not leaving me?” Arne stood there, his face stubborn.

“Arne,” Axis said, “I have no further use for an army where I go. After Talon Spike I must travel alone, for what I must do can only be done by me.”

Azhure hoped Arne would not make a fuss.

But Arne had every intention of making a fuss. For three years he had been driven by the Veremund-inspired impulse to protect Axis. He had ridden at Axis’ back through battlefield and market-place and snow-field. He had constantly watched for hands reaching to daggers or eyes sliding towards assassins. Every stranger had been a potential traitor, every smile a potential dupe, every mouthful potential poison. The only time that Arne had been away from Axis had been during the months Axis spent in Talon Spike and the UnderWorld, and those months had left him feeling empty and directionless. He had no intent of suffering through such again, not when Axis walked to face his worst threat yet. “I am coming with you,” he said stonily.

“Arne. I must go alone.”

But Azhure saw advantages in Arne’s presence. “Axis,” she said, her voice gentle, persuasive. “What does it hurt if Arne travels with us to Talon Spike and then perhaps even to the Earth Tree Grove with you. And then . . . why, he may not help you in your battle with Gorgrael, but he will ,prove true company on the way.”

Arne shot her a grateful glance.

Axis shot her a glance too, but his was speculative. “Stars above, Azhure, next you’ll be saying that you want to come along as well.”

There was truly nothing that Azhure would have liked more to do, but she knew her presence would mean his death. So she shrugged, and spoke with a light voice. “I would not risk taking Caelum with me, my love, and I will not risk him alone again. Not until Gorgrael lies dead at your feet. Besides, I promised Rivkah I would be there for the birth of her son.”

“So while I face the threat of Gorgrael alone, Azhure, you would midwive the birth of yet another brother?”

She flinched at his tone, but she kept her voice steady. “Axis, I cannot come. You know this.”

Axis sighed. Yes, he knew it.

Sometime during this conversation Arne realised that his presence with Axis had been tacitly agreed to. “Thank you, Lord,” he said, and a smile lit his normally dark and impassive face.

“Well, get to your horse then, dammit,” Axis snapped, and Azhure turned away as well, and mounted silently.

Ho’Demi and Sa’Kuya, flanked by several dozen of the Ravensbund people, stood and watched them ride off. “He will come back one day,” she said.

“Yes,” her husband said, “I think that he will.

“Now,” he turned and kissed Sa’Kuya. “I have a vow to fulfil. Keep watch for me, wife, and brew the Tekawai when you see me return.”

And with that he turned and stomped off to the beach. There were four twin-hulled canoes pulled up on the pebbles, the rest were out with hunters chasing seal. Ho’Demi selected one and dragged it out to the incoming tide, and set off for the ice pack.

But he did not paddle directly for the pack. Instead he sent the canoe sliding through the choppy waters to the south, the bleak landscape on his right, the yellowed ice rearing to his left. Ho’Demi wanted solitude for what he was about to do. The ice, he thought, would never be quite the same again, and he hoped that Urbeth would not mind.

After several hours paddling he finally manoeuvred his craft into a stable rift in the ice and moored it solidly. From there he clambered up the steep sides of the ice pack until he reached the top, then he stood, and stared.

“Home,” he breathed.

The ice pack stretched before him for leagues, grunting and rolling and whispering as the ice constantly shifted and lifted, only to sink again. In some areas birds hopped across, seeking fish that had been trapped in small inlets as the pack shifted, in other areas icebears – Urbeth’s smaller cousins – gambolled, chasing birds or re-telling stories of their greatest seal hunts. It was across this ice that the Ravensbund people spent many months hunting seal themselves, and occasionally taking an icebear for its fur. When the seasons and ice were auspicious, they also hunted whale, but that was dangerous, and each tribe generally caught only one per year, using its meat and blubber to keep warm with food and fire, its curved rib bones as frames for their canoes, and its hide for clothes and the hulls of the canoes.

It was a beautiful, magical world, but it was also a cruel one.

Ho’Demi walked twenty or thirty paces into the ice, then he knelt and reached around behind him, freeing the box he had kept at his belt for many months.

Chitter, chatter.

My friends, I have brought you to your new world.

Chitter, chatter. Is it as cruel as you promised? Is it worth the help we provided?

Ho’Demi smiled and undid the thongs that tied the lid firmly in place. Crueller, my friends. Can you not feel the bite of the wind?

Yes…yes, we can, chitter chatter.

Then revel, my friends, and may you give this place more soul than it currently has.

He tore the lid off the box and leaned back. There was a burst of…energy — he did not know how else to describe it -and then the box was empty.

Well, my friends. Do you like it?

We love it! Thank you, Ho ‘Demi!

Listen to me, my friends. As this pack ice moves and shifts, so you will spread out among the pack and the ice floes that surround it. Others share this ice. My people, as well as the birds and the fish and the seal and whale and all those who hunt them. None will disturb you, and you must not disturb them.

He paused. Do not pick at their minds.

Never, never, chitter, chatter.

But if you see those Skraelings again, if they ever touch the ice, then you may nibble at their minds, for they are not wanted here.

Ho’Demi smiled. Few, if any, would realise the presence of these souls, for they only touched the minds of those with the gift. He turned and retraced his steps to his canoe, slipping as the ice moved underfoot, and anticipated the Tekawai Sa’Kuya would have waiting for him.

Finger of the Gods Arne was as unobtrusive as possible, content just to be there, and he rode forty or so paces behind the StarMan and the Enchantress, allowing them some privacy. Axis and Azhure appreciated this, and after the first hour or so each day they forgot his presence. At night, they always blinked in mild surprise when they turned to see Arne setting up his solitary campsite some distance from their own.

Caelum slept. He woke in the evenings and played with his father and listened to the enchantments Axis taught him, and he spent the first hour of each day’s ride gazing wide-eyed at the world from Azhure’s back, but then he would gently drift into sleep, although his parents’ conversations filtered into his dreams, and he learned even while he slept. And the tides spoke to him too, the waves crashing rhythmically into his sleepy mind, as did the wind and the scent of salt and ice along the hundred-league beach of the Icebear Coast. It was an extraordinary landscape, stark but majestic and beautiful. To the south, the alps rose sheer and black, while to the north the grey-blue sea crashed on the pebbled beach, the ice-pack grinding behind it, the sea birds wheeling and crying with eerie voices above.