Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

Faraday shivered as she felt the villagers crowd about them.

The Goodwife’s words were brave, but Faraday could sense that she commanded no more power than Faraday did herself. There was no escape. “I must -” she began, but Goodman Hordley stepped forward and his hand snaked out, grabbing her wrist in a malicious vice.

“Artor waits, bitch,” he spat, and behind them and about them the villagers stepped forward and seized Faraday’s companions. She heard Shra cry out and one of the donkeys bray in terror, and she tried to twist away herself, but Hordley’s fingers sank deeper into her flesh. “Are you ready to confess your sins?”

The villagers took them to the Worship Hall, built over the very site where Artor had first appeared to the wandering families of the plains. They tied the donkeys up outside and pushed and dragged and shoved as they took their prizes inside the hall.

It was similar to many Worship Halls that Faraday had visited in her youth, and yet there was something profoundly different about it.

It was a great stone hall, beamed far above with metal rafters specially forged in the ironworks of southern Achar. The walls were thick, with tiny windows set far above, and little light managed to penetrate.

Furniture was virtually absent. When the villagers came to Service they stood in orderly ranks, their hands folded and their eyes downcast in humbleness. All that relieved the starkness was the Altar of the Plough at the eastern end of the hall, a massively oversized metal casting of the Plough itself where young couples gathered to be married, children stood to be admitted into the circle of its safety, and the old were laid out to be farewelled with prayers to their graves. On the wall behind.the altar hung an icon of the great god Artor, not gold and silver as those that had once graced the walls of the Tower of the Seneschal and the richer Worship Halls, but bare iron like the altar.

What made this Worship Hall so different to others Faraday had seen was not only the cold power that permeated it, but the mess of blood, torn flesh and feathers surrounding the altar and occupying the floor space beneath the icon of Artor. The sickly-sweet smell of decay wafted through, and Faraday doubled over and gagged.

Wainwald Powle, son of the village miller, regarded her coldly. Women, always weak, always ready to succumb to temptation. Well, they would learn that such weakness would be the death of them.

“Behold,” he said, “the fate of those who refuse to admit the light of Artor into their lives.” “Icarii!” Faraday gasped.

“Flying filth!” one of the village women said, “who” made the mistake of landing here six days ago and asking for shelter from a rainstorm.”

“We have dedicated them to Artor,” Goodman Hordley said pleasantly, and he withdrew a long knife from the back of his belt. “Just as we will dedicate you. Now!” he suddenly barked, and those who held the women dragged them towards the altar, tying them to its cold iron structure with cruel ropes. Faraday found that Shra had been tied beside her. The girl’s eyes were wide with terror, but she bravely kept silent despite her trembling.

Poor Shra, Faraday thought, to be captured twice by such as these. To her other side the Goodwife lay as quietly as the girl, but with anger simmering from her eyes.

Faraday tried to turn so as to lie more comfortably, but slipped in the blood and feathers beneath her and cried out in agony as the ropes cut deep into her wrists. Where is the power of the Mother? Why cannot I touch it? Mother}

“In Artor the witch-goddess recognises a power greater than her own,” Goodwife Hordley said, squatting down by Faraday’s side and wrenching her head back by her hair, exposing her throat. “Husband? The sacrifice is ready.”

“Blood to strengthen Artor in his battle with the evil that pervades this land,” Goodman Hordley intoned, and Wainwald Powle took up the cry.

“Blood to strengthen Artor!”

“Blood to strengthen Artor!” the assembly screamed, their eyes blazing as red as the blood they craved, hands plucking at the clothes covering their breasts and abdomens in their ecstasy.

“B/ooJ for Artorr Faraday closed her eyes, knowing all was lost, feeling the cold steel against her throat.

“Why, Hordley, is that Hagen’s knife you wield so expertly?” Faraday’s eyes flew open and she felt rather than saw Hordley draw back in surprise. But his wife’s hand remained twisted in Faraday’s hair, and the blood of the hapless Icarii sacrifices soaked through her gown.

In the doorway, outlined by the light beyond, stood Azhure.

Her stance was relaxed, nonchalant, and Faraday could feel if not see the half-smile on her face.

Azhure tossed her head, shaking her hair down her back,

and stepped fully into the Worship Hall. The Wolven hung from one hand, unwanted for the moment.

Behind her the Alaunt slunk deep in the shadows, unseen by the villagers whose eyes were riveted on the woman. The hounds’ hackles stood stiffly, and silent growls thickened their throats.

Azhure laughed, enjoying the feeling of power that pervaded her body and revelling in the shocked faces before her. “I’ve come home,” she said, sauntering through the hall, the villagers parting like a grey sea before her. She stopped a pace or two from the altar, her eyes meeting Faraday’s for an instant, then she reached down and grasped Hordley’s wrist where he still held the knife against Faraday’s throat. The blade had pierced Faraday’s skin, and blood trickled lightly down into the hollow of her neck.

“Why,” Azhure said, staring at Hordley, “it is Hagen’s knife…and how well I know it.” Her fingers tightened about Hordley’s flesh and the man gasped with pain, but he could not look away from Azhure’s eyes.

Strange, strange eyes. Blue like the sky one moment, the next rolling grey like the sea that Hordley had once seen beating against Achar’s eastern shores.

Azhure’s lips parted in a slight smile and she let her true nature blaze forth from her eyes.

Hordley opened his mouth to scream but he never had the chance, for Azhure lifted and twisted the man’s arm and plunged the knife, still gripped in his fingers, into his own belly.

“It likes the feel of belly flesh, Hordley,” she whispered, “feel how smooth and gentle it glides in?”

At the gentle sigh from Hordley’s lips as he did, indeed, feel how smooth the knife slipped in, the Worship Hall erupted.

“Murderess,” hissed Goodwife Hordley as she crouched by Faraday, “how practised you have become!”

Faraday tried to roll away, but was held back by her roped wrists, then she felt gentle teeth about her flesh and the ropes loosened.

Every one of the villagers stepped forward, their grey hands extended, faces slack with hate, red eyes fervent with Artor’s power.

Goodman Hordley slipped to the floor, his eyes surprised,

his hand still gripping the knife sunk to its hilt in his belly, but he did not die.

His Goodwife pounced at Azhure but grabbed at thin air as Azhure leaned down and kissed Faraday on the mouth.

As Faraday felt Azhure’s lips touch hers, the teeth at her wrists finally broke through rope and Faraday was free. The Goodwife rolled clear at the same moment.

“Good doggie,” Goodwife Renkin whispered to the hound who had crawled into the spaces of the altar with several of his companions to free the women. She rested her hand briefly on Faraday’s shoulder – and whatever bounds had shackled Faraday’s contact with the Mother broke asunder and she was flooded with power. Her eyes blazed emerald.

Above her, Azhure leaned over and seized Goodwife Hordley’s chin, twisting the woman’s face to one side so that she toppled over in the blood and muck where Faraday had rested an instant earlier.

Sicarius, Azhure ordered, herd.

And the hounds circled and nipped and snapped, driving the villagers back from Azhure and Faraday and the women, back to the rear of the hall where the door to the cellar stood invitingly open.

Azhure smiled as the villagers, their lips curled in snarls but impotent against the power and anger of the Alaunt, retreated down the steps, and she looked down to Hordley …

… and recoiled in horror.

The Hunt “Mi ‘erciful heavens,” she gasped and, seizing Faraday by the wrist, hauled her away. About .them the Avar and Goodwife Renkin backed away hurriedly. Goodwife Hordley grovelled whimpering – in joy, Azhure thought – at the side of what had once been her husband.

Once, but no more.

Most of Hordley’s clothes had fallen away until only a brief loin-cloth and a short cape about his shoulders remained. His flesh, that had had been soft and white, was now darkening as if it had spent years burning beneath the sun, and muscles roped and writhed across his body. His face retained its broadness, but his skin was pitted and scarred. His entire body twisted and then lengthened; twisted again, broadened and yet lengthened some more.