Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

To one side Barsarbe’s mouth jerked angrily.

Faraday stared at the little girl, and she suddenly wondered who led the Avar. Barsarbe? Or Shra? A powerful and experienced Bane, or a five-year-old girl? Faraday found herself hoping it was the latter.

The Goodwife looked at the little girl and smiled proudly, lovingly. As she caught Shra’s eye, the Goodwife gave a little nod of approval.

After Azhure had gone Rivkah leaned back against her pillow, her eyes reflective. She lifted her hand to brush a stray hair from her eyes and instead brushed her fingers against something soft and delicate on the pillow.

Ever wary, Rivkah started, then relaxed, a mystified expression on her face.

Resting on the pillow by her face was a Moonwildflower.

The Huntress Azhure paused only long enough to saddle Venator and swing onto his back, then, the Alaunt following like silent shadows, she kicked the stallion through the Keep’s gates and across the bridge.

From Sigholt, Azhure angled south-west through the mist, aiming for the western passes of the Urqhart. And from there to Hsingard.

One of the Alaunt bayed, but Sicarius silenced him with a short, sharp gruff.

The enchanted soft blue mist clung for almost a league about Sigholt. Any whom the bridge did not recognise would wander lost and confused for hours until they found themselves back at their original entry point. But Azhure did not get lost, and she rode Venator at a sharp canter through the mist until, close to dawn, they emerged into the western Urqhart Hills.

Beyond the mist, GorgraePs hold on the winter had not loosened. The winds roared across the hills, whistling through the passes, carrying snow and ice in their wake. As she rode the winds seized Azhure’s hair and tugged at her body, but she laughed and tossed her head, and neither horse nor hounds were bothered by the cold or the wind.

“Hsingard,” she whispered, and pushed Venator into a gallop.

Sicarius at their head, the Alaunt began to run.

Nine months earlier, Azhure had led a force of several hundred men into Hsingard to discover what it was the Skraelings did there. Gorgrael’s force had turned the once proud city into sad rubble and, as Azhure and Axis discovered, had worked the heaps of stone into nests. Massive underground chambers served as breeding grounds for the wraiths.

Now Gorgrael had vast numbers of Skraelings – Azhure could sense them undulating like a great tidal mass to the north – and no doubt they still bred in their remaining comfortable stony chambers below Hsingard.

The last time Azhure had come here she had only barely managed to flee with her life and those of the men she had led. Although she and her men had struck the Skraelings hard, her greatest accomplishment had been in escaping the city with her force largely intact. Now, Azhure was riding back to finish what she had started so many months previously.

She rode through the day, neither rider nor horse nor even the hounds tiring, until, at dusk, she rode out of the final pass towards Hsingard, half a league across the plains.

The hounds streamed out before the horse and rider, the scent in their nostrils, their lips drawn back from their teeth, and both the hunting party and the path before it was lit by a broad moonbeam, shining as brightly as if there were a full moon. But the moon was still waxing, and nothing could explain the occasional violet Moonwildflower that drifted gently undisturbed through the screaming winds to lie in Azhure’s wake.

As she passed the moonlight faded and, as it faded, so the wind tore the flowers to tatters.

But Azhure, as horse and hounds, had eyes only for the great piles of rubble that rose twenty paces into the air before them and spread for almost half a league from north to south. Hsingard.

She leaned back in the saddle, unslinging the Wolven from her shoulder and fitting an arrow.

“Hunt!” she screamed, and the Alaunt raised voice.

Their pale shapes wove between the shadows of the rubble and slipped into the darkened crevices. Eventually, the entire pack disappeared from sight, but Azhure could still hear the echoes of their hunting clamour reverberate through the underground chambers and around and about the city’s dead streets.

Before them the Alaunt drove screaming Skraelings, both parents and hatchlings. The Skraelings tried to turn and nip and bite at the hounds, but they couldn’t touch the beasts because they seemed only pale shadows, golden eyes and hot, sharp teeth, and the Skraeling teeth, constantly snapping, constantly missed. And so they ran.

Above, Azhure could hear the Skraelings screech. “To the surface,” she cried, “to the surface!” Far below her the Alaunt heard, their lips drew back in savage smiles, and they drove the Skraelings before them.

This is what they had been bred to do. To hunt, and to hunt with the Huntress.

Her stallion dancing beneath her, Azhure raised the Wolven to her face and sighted down the shaft of the arrow…and, in their scores and their hundreds and their thousands, the Skraelings surged to the surface, arms flailing, eyes shining in terror, teeth exposed in fulsome voice …

And Azhure let fly, seizing another arrow in almost the same movement, and let fly, and seized another . . . and let fly…

And the Skraelings died.

They thought there must have been ten thousand archers waiting to greet them as they fled the ten thousand hounds at their back, for arrows appeared out of the nasty, bright moonlight in such thick rain that none could escape their sting. Without fail each arrow flew through the narrow gap between bony protuberances into silver eyes, and soon the sound of bursting eyeballs drowned out the noise of the screaming of those left alive and the rising excitement of the hounds.

And, drifting gently through the night, came a Moonwild-flower for each Skraeling killed, and soon the ground was covered with the delicate violet flowers sliding through rivulets of bright red blood.

Azhure did not pause to wonder where the arrows came from, nor where she found the speed and the strength to litter the ground with so many corpses. But while the Alaunt drove the Skraelings forward, she continued to rain her arrows upon them, and the red stallion rolled his eyes and skittered and wondered, in his foggy equine way, if the flowers might be good to eat.

Then, abruptly, it was over. Azhure blinked, and lowered the Wolven, an arrow still notched. She looked about her. She sat her horse in the main square of Hsingard, bathed in intense moonlight, and it was littered with the corpses of Skraelings and the rivers of their blood . . . and Moonwildflowers, some of which still drifted from the night above.

“Stars,” she whispered, “what have I done?”

Her shoulders slumping in exhaustion, Azhure slid the arrow back into the quiver, noting dully that it was still full of its blue-feathered arrows, then whistled for the Alaunt.

They emerged from crevices and dark holes, their faces grinning happily, tongues lolling past blood-stained muzzles. Azhure swung down from Venator and touched the head of every hound that crowded about her, silently thanking them for the service they had done her. Then she patted the horse, and gazed about the square again.

A flicker of light caught her eye, and she saw that in a sheltered alleyway to one side of the square a man sat at a fire, slowly turning a spit.

He looked up, and even from this distance Azhure recognised the gleam of Adamon’s eyes.

You must rest, Azhure, and eat. Come join me.

About them the hounds and the horse lay curled in sleep. / enjoyed the hunt.

Adamon nodded, handing Azhure another piece of roast partridge. She would need to replenish her energy. Azhure took it and tore into it hungrily, vaguely aware that this must be her ninth or tenth piece.

Why am I so ravenous?

Hunting consumes energy. You will need to rest for a day and a night before you resume your journey west to Axis.

Azhure licked her fingers and eyed the spit. Another three birds were roasting over the flames, and she wondered if that was all.

You will have all you need, Azhure. Adamon’s eyes twinkled. Even such as us can become tired if we expend too much energy…too much magic.

Can I destroy the Gorgrael’s host the way I destroyed these Skraelings?

Adamon’s eyes lost their amused gleam. No, Azhure. Do not even try it. Gorgrael’s host is three hundred times the size of the number you destroyed tonight. Could you face three hundred times the exhaustion you feel now? Can you face what Axis did?

Azhure plucked a Moonwildflower from her hair and turned it over in her fingers. Then even gods have their limits. Yes. Even we.

She lifted her eyes. / enjoyed the hunt so much. Surely I can use that to Axis’ advantage?