A sweet tune slipped through Drago’s mind, and there was something so soothing about it that he relaxed completely against the pillar he leaned on. No, he thought, I do not know this tune.
Then learn it, Drago, for it will keep you well.
Drago, running the melody through his mind, had no idea that this was the lullaby that Goodwife Renkin had sung to the seedlings to make them spring into life as the trees of Minstrelsea. All he thought, as he let the melody sweep through him, was that it was something he wished his mother could have sung to him had she ever rocked him to sleep at night.
StarLaughter glanced at Drago, and frowned. He looked unexpectedly at peace with himself, his eyes half closed, his body relaxed. Then she shrugged and turned away. No matter if he went to his death with a smile on his lips rather than a scream. Just so long as he proved useful to the end.
“But what time of day would be best?” Sheol said at her side, and StarLaughter turned her thoughts to the Questors’ conversation.
“Afternoon?” Sheol continued. “An afternoon filled with despair?”
“Dawn?” suggested Mot, hungrily. “They will be fogged by sleep. Easy eating.”
“Night!” cried Rox. “When nocturnal terrors strike easily!”
“Let me quench them with tempest,” said Barzula. “Let me tear their limbs from them and tumble them over the plains like a scattering of dust. Morning.”
StarLaughter smiled, and cuddled her child close. This was the music she craved, not the Star Dance.
“Nay,” Raspu said. “Let it be dusk. I shall cover their bodies with boils. They shall be too busy scratching at the scabs to halt us.”
Sheol looked at StarLaughter. “Your choice, Queen of Heaven,” she said softly, reverently. “When?”
“Mid-afternoon,” StarLaughter whispered, staring into Sheol’s sapphire eyes. “Despair will destroy them more than anything else I know. Strike during mid-afternoon.”
Again, as one, they turned their eyes heavenward.
The nearest Enchanters to the Star Gate gazed into its depths and shuddered. WolfStar stood at the rim, as did Flulia and Pors. Azhure stayed under the shadow of one of the arches, not wanting to look, but drawn by the dreadfulness emanating from the Gate. Axis stood atop the very wall surrounding the Gate itself, staring down.
There was no lure now, only horror.
Darkness swirled beyond the Star Gate, almost obliterating the Star Dance entirely. Even the Dance of Death was fatally reduced. Azhure and WolfStar, the only beings alive who could make use of the Dark Music, could barely hear it.
Every creature within that chamber, Enchanter or God, could feel their powers ebbing.
“Look how they swarm,” Axis said quietly to no-one in particular. “What can we do?”
He looked up, and those within the chamber saw that his eyes reflected the darkness swirling at his feet.
Despair beckoned and tugged at their souls.
No hope.
In (Mum’s Camp The birdman wrenched out the dagger, and Zared collapsed back against him, almost fainting with the agony of it.
Leagh!
The Icarü slid back over the horse’s rump, catching Zared as he half fell, half slid after him. He lowered the man none too gently to the ground.
The birdman, Strike Leader DareWing FullHeart, looked about. All around, men were laying down weapons as members of the Strike Force spiralled down from the darkened sky.
All the Strike Force were dressed in black. None save Enchanters could have known they were there.
DareWing looked down. Zared had half raised himself, a hand to the wound in his side, black blood seeping through his fingers.
“Leagh?” he asked.
“She told Caelum you were coming,” DareWing said. “She must have ridden out within hours of your own departure. Almost killed herself and her mount in her effort to warn StarSon.”
Zared slipped back to the ground, his vision momentarily swimming. He had trusted her. But she had betrayed him.
“Ah,” DareWing said above him. “Here are the first of the wagons now. Here, you! Take this man to StarSon’s camp. Caelum himself will want to question him.”
Rough hands reached down, and Zared almost screamed with agony as they threw him into the back of a dusty wagon.
Water sloshed in his face, and Zared jerked into wakefulness. Where was he? There were sounds about of horses, and feet, and the clink of metal.
A camp.
“Get up.”
Zared slowly raised himself on one hand, wincing as the pain stabbed through his side again. He blinked, clearing his vision. A camp, night, men moving purposefully about.
Another standing in front him, beside the open-trayed wagon.
Askam.
A guard stepped forward from behind Askam and hauled Zared roughly off the tray and onto his feet. He stumbled, catching at the rim of the wagon wheel to steady himself; loss of blood had made him dizzy. The other hand he kept clutched to his side.
Askam reached out with his remaining hand and struck Zared a heavy blow to his head.
It was enough to topple Zared to the ground, and Askam buried a steel-tipped boot in his injured side as he curled up.
This time Zared could not prevent the cry, and Askam grinned. “That was for my arm, traitor,” he said, and swung his leg for another blow. “And this is for the four thousand who died at Kastaleon!”
Zared screamed, unable to believe he was still alive. He dimly saw Askam prepare for another blow – surely the one which would kill him – when another man stepped up behind Askam and laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Have him carried inside my tent,” the man’s voice said.
Caelum.
Zared fainted.
When he came to again he was inside a warmly lit tent. A command tent, for it had desks and chairs and scattered maps about its interior. Of everything in the tent, Zared had the most opportunity to study its rich blue and cream carpet, for his face was almost buried in it.
He wondered if his blood had stained it beyond repair.
A hand, rough but not unkind, rolled him over. “He’s awake.”
Zared blinked, trying to focus his vision, trying to remember the voice. Marrat. Baron Marrat. He must have finally managed to join Caelum after all. Zared vaguely found himself wondering about the logistics of that. Marrat would have had a long journey from Romsdale.
“Well, King of Achar,” a quiet voice said. “Look to what kingdom you have come.”
Zared managed to pull himself into a sitting position, leaning back against a wooden chair. Caelum stood about a third of the way across the tent, dressed all in black, arms folded, his hair neatly combed back, staring at him with an undeniably hostile face.
Slightly behind and to one side of him stood Askam, the sleeve of his jacket trembling slightly in the air.
Behind Askam were several guards and one or two commanders, DareWing FullHeart (come to peruse his handiwork, Zared thought numbly), and behind this group, sitting wan and shocked on a chair, her hand to her mouth, eyes round and horrified, was his wife. Leagh.
He held her eyes for a moment, and wondered that she was not smirking. Surely this was the fate she had worked to bring him to?
“How many?” he asked.
“Eight hundred and seventy-nine of yours,” replied DareWing. “Dead. Another thousand injured. Of the Norsmen, about the same.”
“Eight hundred and seventy-nine,” Zared repeated softly, and looked Leagh direct in the eye. “Dead.”
She blanched, but said nothing.
“And more would have died,” Caelum said, moving across to a chair and sitting down, “had your wife not moved to warn us of your arrival.”
Zared did not shift his stare from Leagh’s. “I was moving to protect my people,” he said, and finally looked at Caelum, “from your invasion.”
“They are not your people!” Caelum said. “They are Tencendorians all!”
“They are Acharites first and foremost,” Zared retorted. “I was protecting their hopes and wishes.”
“You simply sought to mask your own ambitions in the colour of peasant dreams,” Caelum said more moderately. “Well, now both your ambitions and simple peasant dreams lie buried in the dust of western Arcness. Your ‘army’ awaits my command, the traitors Herme and Theod, as the other commanders in your force, await my judgment, as do you. I will decide your fate in the morning.”
“The Acharites will not answer to your command, Caelum,” Zared said, fighting back the urge to gag with the pain that had now grasped his entire torso in hot pincers. He swallowed, his voice hoarse with the effort. “They will only ever respond to my voice.”
“,’ am the StarSon,” Caelum said, leaning forward. “They have no choice!”
“Strip them of choice, Caelum, and you strip them of the willingness to obey. You should know that. Or wasn’t it in the text books on the art of wise governance that my brother showered you with?”