Time passed, and its passage was marked only by the ringing of steel through the Chamber of the Moons. Axis and Borneheld fought as they had fifty years earlier, evenly matched with skill and strength. Occasionally one would misstep and slip, and the other would lunge for the kill, only to have the one who had misstepped rebalance at the last moment and counter the assault. They moved about the central floor space of the Chamber of the Moons in a slow, measured dance of steel and hatred, boots sliding across the green marble, swords arcing and flashing in the light of the ice lamps, the shadowy watchers swaying to and fro as the combatants swayed to and fro, the murmur of their voices rising and falling as a distant surf in the background.
Every so often Borneheld’s jerkin would gape open, and his empty chest cavity yawned mockingly before Axis.
Hours passed, and the lamps burned low. Both men fought with weariness now. They dripped with sweat, their movements, once so lithe, now leaden and fatigued. Both had been nicked numerous times, and blood glistened jewel-like among their clothes and the droplets of sweat glistening on their faces and arms.
At no point did either man drop his eyes from the other. They had waited through death for this chance to yet again work out their resentments and hatreds. The woman and the hex were mere excuses. In reality, each hated the other so much they would willingly have fought this duel over the rights to a blade of grass.
After hours of fighting Axis could barely stand, and knew he’d have to finish this soon. He’d managed to drive Borneheld back toward the dais, where Inardle sat on its lower step, dispirited and uninterested in the battle waged before her.
Then, just before they reached the dais, the eagle, far above and still intent in its preening, discovered a particularly disarranged bundle of feathers on its chest and it attacked them in a bout of irritated housekeeping. It tore out a small, downy feather, spitting it from its beak, then bent back to the task at hand.
The feather fell softly through the air. It floated this way and that, now rising, now falling, now wafting this way, now that. But always it drifted lower and lower until it began to jerk and sway as it was caught by the laboured breathing of the combatants just below it.
It almost lodged in Axis’ hair and Axis flicked his head, irritated by the feathery touch along his forehead, distracted enough that he only just managed to parry a blow close to his chest.
The feather, dislodged from Axis’ hair, spiralled upward a hand’s-breadth or two, then, caught in a downward movement of air, sank toward the floor. Borneheld had not noticed it and Axis had forgotten it as the brothers began a particularly bitter exchange, fighting so close that they traded blows virtually on the hilts of their swords, taking the strain on their wrists, both their faces reddened and damp from effort and weariness and determination and hate.
The feather settled on the marble floor.
Axis suddenly lunged forward. Momentarily surprised, and caught slightly off-guard, Borneheld took a single step backward and . . . lost his balance as his boot heel slipped on the feather.
It was all Axis needed. As Borneheld swayed, a look of almost comical surprise on his face, Axis hooked his own foot about the inside of Borneheld’s knee and pulled his leg out from under him.
Borneheld crashed to the floor, the sword slipping from his grasp and Axis kicked it across the Chamber. Fear twisting his face, Borneheld scrabbled backward, seeking space in which to rise. He risked a glance behind him —
There Faraday had once struggled, held firm in the grip of Jorge.
Now Inardle sat, not two paces away, staring at Axis as if with a horrid fascination.
They always looked at Axis before they looked at him.
Borneheld tried to shuffle away as Axis placed his booted foot squarely in the centre of Borneheld’s empty chest, raising his sword. But, instead of bringing the blade down to sever the arteries of Borneheld’s neck, Axis twisted the sword in his hand and struck Borneheld a stunning blow to his skull with its haft, leaving the man writhing weakly, semi-conscious. Then Axis threw the sword away.
Inardle looked at Axis, bewildered. Why did he not finish Borneheld off with a quick, clean blow?
Axis raised his face and stared at her, and it was the most devastating look Inardle could ever remember seeing in anyone’s face.
“I’m so sorry, Inardle,” Axis whispered, then he stepped forward, taking the knife from where it had rested all this time in his boot, and dealt her a sharp blow to the side of her head.
Inardle slumped to the floor, semi-conscious and writhing very slightly as Borneheld did a few paces away.
Axis felt sick, but he knew he had to do this, as quickly as possible, before his courage failed him. He sank to his knees, straddling Inardle, and hauling her roughly so she lay on her back under him.
She raised one hand weakly in protest but, still struggling for consciousness, let it drop back to the marble floor.
I’m sorry, Axis said to her, over and over. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry ,,,
He ripped open her robe, exposing her breasts, then, crying out in horror, he plunged the knife into the skin and flesh atop Inardle’s sternum and hauled it downward, opening up her chest.
Blood spurted everywhere.
Oh stars, oh stars ,..
Then Axis took the haft of the knife in both hands and, before he could even think about what he was doing, slammed the blade into Inardle’s sternum, twisting it so the bone cracked in two.
Axis tossed away the knife and then, before going any further, made the mistake of looking into Inardle’s face.
It would haunt him the rest of his life. She stared at him in pain and horror, which was what he had expected, but also with the dismay of someone who has been betrayed so deeply that their minds simply cannot encompass the depth of that betrayal. She looked at him in question and pain and love and supplication, as if hoping that somehow he could explain away with a smile and a joke what he was doing.
Axis? Her lips formed the word, but could not speak it, and Axis sobbed, dragging his eyes away from hers. He looked back to the nightmarish mess of her chest, at the blood pumping forth so that his lower body, and almost her entire torso and much of her wings, were soaked in it, then he dug his fingers between the cracked sternum and with one huge effort tore her ribcage apart.
The sound of the splintering bones in the chamber was shocking, and Axis gagged, so sickened and horrified at what he was doing that he thought he could not bear to continue.
But he had to . . . he had to . . . he could not stop now.
His arms bloodied to the elbow, his shirt soaked in Inardle’s blood, Axis dug both hands into her chest and wrapped them about her frantically beating heart .
Then he tore it out, spraying blood over an area five paces in diameter.
“ Take it!“ he screamed to the eagle. ” Take the damned thing now!“
And with all his strength, Axis tossed Inardle’s beating heart high into the air.
The eagle launched itself from its perch, its scream merging with Axis’ now wordless shrieking, and plummeted downward, seizing the heart in its talons.
Axis screamed again. Go! Go!
There was a blinding flash of light and suddenly both eagle and heart had vanished.
Axis forced himself to look downward.
Inardle, unbelievably, still had a single breath of life left in her. She stared at Axis, managed to half raise a hand.
I wish . . . she mouthed, and then she was gone.
Axis stared, his breath heaving in and out of his chest, his mind barely working.
Oh gods ,.. what had he done? What had he done?
There was a slight scuffle of noise behind him, and Borneheld grabbed at one of Axis’ ankles.
“Gotcha!” he crowed.
Axis reacted instinctively and with all the hatred for his brother and his grief for Inardle combined. He whipped about and struck Borneheld a massive blow across his face. Borneheld’s grip on his ankle loosened and Axis rose to his feet and kicked his brother in the face, maddened with grief and despair, and loosing all of that grief and despair on Borneheld.
He paused, his breath heaving in and out of his chest, then Axis kicked Borneheld again, and then again, and then yet again, until all sound in that death chamber was only the sound of a boot thudding into splintered bone and flesh, over and over, and the sound of a man’s heartbroken sobbing.