Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

He wanted to use his power, but it was not time. Not yet…not yet. He needed to husband what he had, because what he intended to do would take all of his ability – and even then he would risk damaging himself with the amount of the Star Dance he would have to manipulate.

Axis leaned down from Belaguez’s back and seized a Skraeling by the throat. It had already been mauled by another sword and was easy prey, but its silvery eyes gleamed defiantly even as Axis’ sword plunged down.

“Timozel,” it whispered as it died.

Axis reeled back in shock, and only Arne’s quick action disposed of another Skraeling as it leapt for the golden man’s throat.

“Timozel?” he rasped. “TYwoze/?”

Arne seized Belaguez’s reins and pulled the horse out of the direct line of fighting. Axis still stared incredulously at the spot where the Skraeling’s body had dissolved, now hidden by struggling Skraelings and men. His sword hung limp in his hand.

Arne reached across and slapped his face. “So the traitor strikes, StarMan! You knew he would! Now, fight on\ Win for us!”

Axis’ eyes cleared and his hand firmed about the hilt of his sword. “Timozel!” he said again. “Oh, gods!”

He looked into the sky. FarSight? Where are we positioned?

At the banks of the Azle, StarMan. If you are going to do it, then do it now. None of your ground forces will hold out much longer. Already the back ranks of the Skraelings mass forward with renewed purpose. You have ten minutes, perhaps, before they swarm all over you. Do it now!

Yes. Pull back, FarSight. I have risked you enough.

Far along the line to the north Axis saw Belial. He signalled frantically, and saw Belial nod tersely. He turned his head towards Magariz in the south, and Magariz also acknowledged his signal. It would be hard, and some of his own men might well die, but more would die if he didn’t attempt this.

Axis backed Belaguez even further away from the front line, Arne pushing men out of the way behind the horse. He slid the glove off his hand, glancing one more time at what the ring told him, and then emptied his mind of all but the Song he needed to sing.

He hummed, his voice strengthening into music and words, and as the music drifted over the battlefield, his own men cheered, then made sure their footing was as firm as it could get.

Hello, Axis. What pretty music. Shall it be your dirge?

Axis was so shocked at Timozel’s interruption – his ability -that for an instant the Song faltered. But he forced Timozel’s words from his mind, and strengthened his grip on the Song.

/ fight for a Great Lord now, Axis, and in his name I shall win great victories. You are pitiful compared to Gorgrael.

Axis’ face worked. Damn him! Questions and emotions battled in Axis’ mind. More than anything else he wanted to hunt Timozel down, ask him why? Why Gorgrael? But he could not afford to do that. The Song. There could be nothing but the Song. He thought of Azhure’s calm smile, and that banished thoughts of Timozel from his mind.

The power,of the Star Dance roped through him, and Axis fought, battled, to keep it under control. He had never attempted to manipulate so much power before, and he feared its effect on him.

Underneath the feet of the front line, hairline cracks splintered their way across the ice covering the Azle. Men slowly edged backwards, even though it meant the Skraelings gained some ground.

Further beneath the ice, the waters of the great river seethed in response to the Song.

Timozel cursed, watching from halfway atop one of the low hills to the north of the river. He could see what Axis was going to do.

The enemy used foul magic this day, and Timozel’s forces were grievously hurt…

But what could he do?

“Gryphon,” he grated. “I should have used them sooner. Now!”

And so the Gryphon attacked.

They lifted out of the rocks of the Murkle Mountains where they had been secreted. They stretched their wings on the stiff northerly wind, and screeched with the voice of despair.

There were over nine hundred of them.

They went for the withdrawing Strike Force first, as Timozel had told them, and those units not yet withdrawn to a safe distance were decimated.

Then some five hundred wheeled back and attacked Axis’ army, leaving four hundred to murder as they willed among the Icarii, and they wheeled and dived, and every time they dived they carried off a man.

Some were felled by arrows. But not many, for Gorgrael had built his flying pets well, and most arrows glanced uselessly off the creatures’ thick fur before dropping in a sad rain to the ground.

Axis did not at first notice the Gryphon attack, nor did he notice how the sky blackened with their bodies. The power of the Song seared through him and he let it rage as much as he dared.

The ice finally splintered apart, shattering in great sheets over the raging waters of the Azle. Tens of thousands of Skraelings, and a few score men, sank instantly, and hundreds of thousands of the wraiths were left seething impotently on the northern bank of the Azle. Over a hundred were trapped on the southern bank, and these were instantly overwhelmed by Axis’ force.

Axis came out of his induced reverie amazed that he had actually survived the power of the Song. He looked at the now free and surging waters of the Azle with relief. We will live through this day, he thought, slumping in the saddle, and we will deal with the rest as we may after we have rested and thought some more.

But Axis was denied both rest and thought. Almost as soon as he blinked his eyes back into awareness, Arne seized his shoulder. “StarMan!” he screamed. “Save us!”

Hadn’t he just done that? Hadn’t he just. . . ?

Then he heard the scream above his head, saw Arne lunge, and felt himself being pushed out of the saddle. Belaguez reared and added his scream to whatever it was that reeled out of the sky, and Axis was dimly aware of a great shape that swooped over his head and seized the rider beyond Arne’s horse.

“Gryphon,” Arne grunted as he hauled Axis to his feet. “Hundreds of them.”

Axis finally looked about with cleared vision, and what he saw appalled him. Around him men were dying in their hundreds as the Gryphon swooped, beaks open in screams, eyes blazing with death, talons extended. They were covered in blood, but it was not theirs.

“Get the men to …” shelter, Axis was about to order, but there was no shelter. The Azle valley was wide and flat, and it would take his men an hour or more to scramble to the nearest rocks in the Murkle Mountains.

And no-one had an hour.

Across the Azle the Skraeling mass began to laugh. They stood in their hundreds of thousands, and the sound of their mirth drifted across the surging waters to intermingle with the screams of dying men.

Timozel stood on his hill and roared with laughter.

He shared his thoughts with Gorgrael, experiencing his master’s joy, then he summoned his personal Gryphon. He would fly in and dispose of Axis himself. He grinned. Axis’ foul magic would not win the day now. Their commander lay crippled, and waited only for Timozel to end his misery.

Axis circled in horror. Everywhere his men were being slaughtered. Gods! What could he do? What Songs of War were there that could destroy these wing-borne horrors?

None. All Songs of War were lost.

He thought frantically, twisting his ring, watching the patterns unfold. Give me a Song that will destroy Gryphon, he begged, and for a long, terrible moment he thought the stars would remain obstinately still. But slowly, grudgingly, they formed a pattern, and what they formed horrified Axis almost more than the slaughter about him.

If he sang that it would kill him. There was so much power involved…no-one could wield that much and live. But what choice did he have? He would die anyway, and better that he die saving the remnants of his army, saving them for Azhure, or even StarDrifter, than die uselessly bemoaning his lack of ability.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to no-one in particular, then he began to sing.

It was the bravest thing he would ever do.

With the first note he felt the uncontrollable power flood his body. He fought to direct it while he still could, fought to give it meaning, but nevertheless he felt it rope and twist through his body, felt it burn and ruin. Felt himself begin to die.

He had not thought that death could be so impossibly painful.

Arne, standing guard beside the StarMan, turned at the scream that issued from Axis’ mouth, and at the same time had to dodge the plummeting body of a twisted and burned Gryphon. All about him Gryphon fell from the sky, but Arne had no eyes for them.