Axis took a deep breath, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and straightened.
Inardle kept her hand on his shoulder, standing close to him, for which Axis was grateful. He did
not think he”d be able to get through what he knew he was about to witness without her support.
The Skraeling leapt onto SummerStar. She tried to scream, but one of its massive clawed
hands covered her mouth, and she was helpless.
“Oh gods…” Axis whispered.
“A Skraeling mating is never pleasant,” Eleanon said, somewhat conversationally. “It is
also very painful. Sometimes at night, when we were in the north, we would hear them—”
“Enough! ” Axis hissed. He could not tear his eyes away from what was happening before
him, although he wished he had the courage and will to do so.
SummerStar was desperate. She tried everything she could, but the Skraeling had her
pinned, and was far too strong for her. It tore the clothes from her body, pried her legs
apart—causing deep wounds in her flesh with its claws—and then mounted her with a great
curved and barbed phallus.
SummerStar could not scream, not audibly, but Axis heard it through every fiber of his
body. She was using the Star Dance, using it to call and plead for help, using it to articulate her
horror, her agony, and her inarticulate shrieks for aid reverberated through Axis” being.
Inardle”s hand tightened on Axis” shoulder.
Icarii tumbled out of the shelters. They tore the Skraeling from SummerStar”s body, but it
was too late.
“At least the Skraeling mating is brief,” said Eleanon. “Once they”re in, they”re done.”
“Have you no compassion at all?” hissed Axis.
“We have lived with this for eons,” Inardle said. “We have learned to come to terms with
it.”
The Icarii were now carrying SummerStar”s battered body into one of the shelters.
“Time passed,” said Eleanon.
Again the snow shifted about the ice shelters.
SummerStar emerged once more, and this time her belly was large and rounded. She
squatted down in the snow, and Axis saw her body shudder and contract.
Within moments, she had given birth—a tiny, squalling infant that looked like any Icarii
infant, save for its strange transparent nature and the rime of frost about its skull.
“What do you know of the Skraeling breeding habits?” Eleanon asked Axis.
“Not a great deal,” Axis said, still feeling ill, but thinking that at least the worst had now
passed. So this was how the first of the Lealfast had been born—but why were others born? How
was it there was now a great nation of them?
“I know they make nests and lay eggs,” Axis said, remembering coming upon an
underground chamber once, filled with Skraeling eggs and hatchlings.
At least SummerStar had not laid an egg.
“The Skraeling mating may be short and brutal,” said Eleanon, “but at least they only do
it once. A pair meet, mate, and then mate no more.”
“But,” Inardle said, “the female continues to lay eggs through her life.”
“No…” Axis whispered.
“The male”s seed remains within its mate”s body all her life, continually fertilizing her,”
Eleanon said. “Once she had given birth, SummerStar fell pregnant again.”
Before them, SummerStar rose from her childbirth, only to lay a hand to her belly once
again and wail. Her belly grew and swelled before Axis” eyes, and once again SummerStar
squatted down in the snow to give birth.
“Icarii live such long lives,” Eleanon said, “and SummerStar was only in her thirties
when she was mated by the Skraeling.”
“She had two hundred and eighty-six children,” said Inardle, “before she died of
exhaustion during her two hundred and eighty-seventh pregnancy.”
“And so you see why we are,” said Eleanon. “We all come from the one mother and the
one father.”
“The other Icarii,” Axis said, not surprised to discover his voice hoarse with horror.
“What became of them?”
“The Skraelings ate them, the year after SummerStar gave birth to her first child,” said
Inardle. “It was a bad year for snow rabbits, that year.”
“But SummerStar…” Axis said.
“Oh, her they kept alive,” said Eleanon. “They adored her children, and nurtured them.
SummerStar herself…well, for many years she distanced herself from the children, existing in a
fugue of self-loathing and pain, but she was a creature of love and compassion, and eventually
she called her children to her and taught them the way of the Star Dance.”
“They were all Enchanters,” said Inardle. “All the Lealfast are. We are all magic.”
Eleanon waved a hand and to Axis”s great relief the vision before them vanished,
replaced once again by the view of the Isembaardian army struggling east.
“Once SummerStar was gone,” Eleanon said, “the Lealfast continued to breed among
themselves.”
Inardle saw the expression on Axis” face and she gave a sad smile. “Oh, in all manner of
things we are Icarii, Axis, save in some aspects of our mysterious and magical selves. We do not
breed like the Skraelings. We make love as any other.”
There was a little bit of a challenge in her eyes now, but Axis ignored it. “You remained
close to the Skraelings?” he said.
Eleanon shook his head. “Part of us despises them, Axis. They, too, came to partly
despise us. We were all they could not be; they were all we never wanted to be. We tolerate each
other.”
They stood silently a moment, Axis still caught by the horror of the vision that Eleanon
and Inardle had shown him.
“You use the Star Dance differently,” Axis said.
“Yes,” Eleanon said. “One day, if I decide I like you, I may explain it to you.”
“Perhaps Inardle can explain it to me,” Axis said, returning in his own glance a little of
the challenge he had seen in her eyes earlier.
Inardle dropped her hand from his shoulder. “You have discovered the Star Dance again,
Axis StarMan.”
Her voice had lost its earlier warmth, and Axis was surprised—and a little perturbed—to
find himself disappointed at that lack.
“I have been blind,” he said, “and am now a little less so.”
“It is late, Axis, and you are exhausted,” Eleanon said. “My brothers and sisters will
spend the night abroad, gleaning what they can about the generals. I will speak to you in the
morning.”
With that, he and Inardle simply faded from view—their strange gray frosted eyes being
the last thing to vanish into the gloom of dusk.
“That was well done, Inardle,” Eleanon said as they drifted away unseen through the air.
“I do not like it,” she said.
“You do not like Axis?” Eleanon said. “I thought few women could resist him.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“You did this with Lister,” Eleanon said, his tone hardening slightly. “Do it, also, with
Axis. The future of the entire Lealfast Nation rests on our shoulders, Inardle. Now is not the time
to develop coyness.”
“It is not coyness,” she muttered, “but perhaps a little conscience.”
CHAPTER TEN
On the Road to Serpent’s Nest
Axis was exhausted by the time camp was made and wanted nothing but a meal, his
sleeping roll, and time to think before he could finally drift into a gratifying sleep.
But first he needed to speak to Maximilian.
He finally got to Maximilian”s tent, where Serge and Doyle crouched outside over a
game of dice by their fire, late at night.
“Anyone else inside?” Axis asked the two men.
“No one yet,” said Serge, “but StarDrifter and Georgdi are expected.”
Axis nodded his thanks, and stepped inside the tent.
Maximilian was seated at his table eating a meal of bread and cheese, and gestured Axis
to join him. Axis sat, poured himself a glass of warm ale, then bit hungrily into a piece of bread
and cheese himself.
“Eleanon brought news,” Axis said once he”d swallowed his first mouthful.
“Yes,” Maximilian said, “he told me, as well. The generals” escape and persons are
hidden by some gloomy enchantment.”
Axis sent him a significant look as he took another bite of his meal.
Maximilian sighed. “Ravenna?”
“My father told me how she and you hid your party with such a gloomy enchantment
when traversing northern Isembaard,” Axis said. “Maxel…do you think it is her?”
Maximilian sighed and rubbed at his eyes wearily with one hand. “I don”t know. I”d like
to think not…but…”
“She is going to prove a dangerous enemy, Maxel.”
Maximilian grunted.
“What will you do?” Axis said.
“I will speak to her.”
“And will she reply truthfully?”
Maximilian hesitated, and in that silent moment there was a noise at the tent door and
StarDrifter and Georgdi entered. StarDrifter was looking cheerful, Georgdi looked almost as
tired as Axis.
Both pulled out stools and sat down at the table, and Axis poured them some ale.
“Fifteen more Icarii arrived with the convoy today,” StarDrifter said. “Five Enchanters
among them. They have told me that hundreds, thousands, are flying to join me.”