Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

Timozel had wanted to catch Axis in full retreat. Catch the lightly defended rear of his column as he moved back to Carlon. He had hoped that Axis would think, when he could not find the Skraeling host in northern Aldeni, that they had outflanked him and were heading straight for Carlon. Then Axis would turn south and Timozel could spring the trap from the Murkle Mountains.

But Axis had not fled south, and those cursed . . . Chatterlings…had worried at his Skraeling host so badly in the mines that Timozel had finally been forced to lead them back into the open air. Now here they were, encamped by the Azle River (frozen over, as were the northern parts of Murkle Bay itself), and Axis’ army lay a league and a half to the east.

Today they would meet. Today Timozel would finally show Axis who was the better commander. Axis would not live to defile Faraday again.

His eyes slipped to the slopes of the closest of the Murkle Mountains. Not all those hunched shapes were rocks.

Timozel turned back to the ice-field before him. In the distance he could see his foe’s first row of formations darken the snow.

Thank the Stars for Ho’Demi and his strange pact with the lost souls of the Murkle mines, Axis thought, keeping Belaguez

reined back as his army slowly moved past him. Without those souls, I would surely have been defeated before I raised my sword to fight.

If the Skraeling host had kept to the mines, there would have been no way to flush them out, and they could have attacked at leisure; perhaps after several weeks of allowing Axis and his men to slowly freeze in this Gorgrael-blasted land.

For the past twelve days, ever since Ho’Demi had contacted him, Axis had moved his thirty thousand towards the mouth of the Azle River. It was not country he knew well, and even had he known it from days when the grass actually grew over this land, he could not have recognised it now. The mountains, plains and river were completely encased in ice. While storms no longer blew, the air remained frigid and the north wind bitter. At night men cried with the cold, and the Icarii suffered most of all. Fires were few and pitiful even when they did flare into life. Supplies had to be packed to the army by mule, and the beasts’ backs were already so bent with food that they could not carry fuel as well.

Everyone suffered, and Axis knew his army’s effectiveness would be severely compromised by the cold it had already endured and would endure yet. A movement in the sky distracted him, and he shifted his eyes to watch FarSight descend to the ice beside him.

“StarMan.” FarSight clenched his fist above his heart, and Axis noticed the birdman’s hand was blue with cold.

“Well?”

FarSight shivered, and Axis did not think it was entirely with the cold. “They wait three hours’ march from here, StarMan. Hundreds of thousands of them. Skraelings and Ice Worms.”

“Gryphon?”

FarSight shook his head. “I have not seen them.”

“But they must be here. Somewhere.”

FarSight inclined his head towards the towering Murkle Mountains. “My guess is that they lurk among the rocks and chasms of those slopes, StarMan.”

Axis regarded the mountains. His eyes were sharp, their Icarii far-sightedness enhanced by his powers as an Enchanter, but even so he could discern nothing but bare rock, blasted and scraped by ice sliding down from the peaks. But they must be there. On that he agreed with FarSight.

“I do not want to risk the Strike Force unnecessarily, FarSight. Your thoughts?”

“You cannot afford not to risk us, StarMan. That Skraeling force is massive, and it sits well-ordered and disciplined. You, we, have faced nothing like this before. On their own, our ground forces will be obliterated within hours.”

An overestimate, Axis thought morosely. It should take only an hour for a Skraeling force that size to eat through us. He shuddered, and thanked the Star Gods that Azhure, Caelum and StarDrifter were safe so far south. If the worst occurred . . . then all hope would not be left lying dead in this wasteland.

Belial and Magariz joined them; both men, like Axis, wrapped in felt and blankets under and over their armour. It severely hampered their fighting ability, but a frozen limb would be disastrous in battle.

“Belial,” Axis asked, “have you and Magariz had a chance to look at the terrain?”

“Yes. It favours neither them nor us. Flat ice-land in this wide river valley, bordered in the south by the upper Murkle Mountains, and in the north by the low ranges of Western Ichtar.”

“The river is iced?”

“Completely, Axis. As is the northern Murkle Bay,” Magariz replied. “We shall have no help there.”

Skraelings hated open water and Borneheld had kept them out of Aldeni for long months by the series of canals he had constructed between the Nordra and the upper reaches of the

Azle. But now Gorgrael had so completely iced in northern Tencendor that all rivers north of the western Ranges were frozen. The Skraelings were no longer hindered by the hateful waters.

Axis chewed his lip thoughtfully, his eyes on the distant mountains. The other three stared at him, waiting for his lead. Save us, Axis, Belial thought, for I have too much life to live yet.

As if he had caught Belial’s thought, Axis shifted his gaze to his friend’s face sharply, then abruptly drew the glove off his right hand. He stared at his Enchanter’s ring, fingering it gently.

Finally he lifted his eyes. “I have a plan,” he said softly. “It is only a fragile plan, but it may work. It had better work, because it is all I can think of.”

The two armies met as the noon-day sun, shining incongruously over this ice-bound wasteland, began its descent towards the western horizon. There was little finesse to the action, for both armies just advanced until they met on the southern banks of the frozen Azle. Axis had pushed his army hard in the final half-league, for he did not want the Skraeling force to advance too far across the Azle. Their lives depended on being able to keep the Skraelings to the frozen river-banks.

And how do we stop a juggernaut? Axis thought despairingly as he urged his men forward. How will we manage to push back a force so large it only needs to stand firm to resist us?

He threw everything he had against the Skraelings. What brands and fuel they had were flourished in the front ranks; but the Skraelings were not the cowardly wretches they had once been, and fire no longer terrified them.

Pikes, lances, spears, arrows – all tried to penetrate the bony ridges surrounding the Skraelings’ silvery eyes, but the armour was so extensive that men had to keep a cool head to aim precisely, and cool heads were difficult amid the terror that surged towards them. And the Skraelings fought well. They

were disciplined and they were ordered, and Axis quickly realised that he could not rely on spooking them into a retreat as he had done occasionally on previous occasions.

Arne did not stray from Axis’ back. Wherever Axis drove the plunging Belaguez, there also Arne drove his horse. His eyes were slitted but watchful, for Arne could feel to the very core of his being that treachery rode the northerly wind this day, and Axis would not die if he could help it.

Within minutes of the attack, Axis could see that his men were already in danger of being overwhelmed, the numbers against them were soiearsome.

FarSight, attack if you dare. Axis did not like using the Strike Force, but he had no choice. Only the winged archers would be able to strike beyond the first ranks of the Skraelings, and Axis needed to keep fresh ranks of Skraelings from his men.

Ho’Demi? Your archers, if you please. Six days ago Ho’Demi had rejoined Axis, and now he led the massed squads of archers, including Azhure’s. Their arrows, Axis hoped, would also prevent too many Skraelings from rushing to support their front line. But thirty thousand against three hundred thousand were pitiful, laughable, odds, and Axis, as every man in his force, knew it.

Still they fought, bravely and well. Yet many died, overwhelmed, and in some places along the front line more men than Skraelings died.

For a long time Arne and Belial between them managed to keep Axis out of the front rank of the fighting, but eventually it grew so intense, so confused, that Axis found himself engaged with Skraeling soldiers, no thought but to plunge his sword time and time again into a Skraeling eye.

Above them the Strike Force wheeled, and over Axis’ head shot flights of arrows so thick that sometimes they blotted out the sun, and Axis thought he could feel the line of Skraelings give way slightly.