“I notice that none of us have discussed StarDancer’s plan,” Axis said quietly.
“His plan is impossible,” Ishbel said. “None of us can trust Ravenna.”
Axis looked down to his hands, loosely folded in his lap.
“You think StarDancer has the right idea?” Ishbel said.
Axis looked up again. “I think it is a terrible idea,” he said, “but we need to consider it. Ishbel, we may need to consider it.”
“Not unless you and Isaiah intend to fail in stopping Eleanon and the Lealfast,” Ishbel snapped.
Axis was about to reply, but Inardle’s head jerked toward the window where the day had just dawned.
“Speaking of the devil,” she said, “the Lealfast have arrived.”
Chapter 6
Elcho Falling
They stood on the balcony, looking westward over the lake. Tens of thousands of Lealfast were landing, standing about in groups as they settled on the ground. They were chatting, relaxed and confident and seemingly oblivious to the regard they knew must be emanating from Elcho Falling.
There were footsteps from behind them — Georgdi.
“They’re settling all about the lake,” he said to Maximilian. “Surrounding us.”
Maximilian gave a weary smile. “It is Axis’ and Isaiah’s problem, now,” he said, then he turned to the two men. “Ishbel and I will be in our eyrie at the very top of Elcho Falling. If you need us, climb upward through stairwell after stairwell. Eventually you will come to a blank sandstone wall. Place your palm upon it, so, and the door will open for you. I have instructed Elcho Falling to allow the two of you to enter.”
Maximilian turned for one final look at the Lealfast, then back at Axis and Isaiah. “I wish you good hunting,” he said, then he took Ishbel’s hand and left the balcony.
Georgdi looked at Axis, raising an eyebrow.
“Maxel and Ishbel are otherwise occupied,” Axis said. He briefly outlined to Georgdi what Maximilian had told them earlier. Then he leaned on the balcony railing, looking over the view before them. “Eleanon has brought the Lealfast back to destroy Elcho Falling, thinking he can recreate it using the Dark Spire.”
“How will he do that?” Georgdi said. “How would anyone think to tear this citadel apart? It is a veritable mountain. The Dark Spire is growing up through the citadel, yes, but at such a relatively slow rate that months will pass before the structure of Elcho Falling can be seriously compromised.”
“The ‘eggs’,” Axis said quietly. “They are scattered throughout the walls. Somehow they will hasten the process. But how? For the moment they simply sit there. How will Eleanon activate them? A word? An enchantment? A clap of his hands? How can we stop him if we don’t know what he plans?” He watched as wave after wave of Lealfast landed on the shores of the lake, then straightened and looked to Inardle. “Any idea?”
“No,” she said. “I had no idea the Dark Spire could do what it does now, let alone what else it, or its eggs, might do or how Eleanon may use them. Axis, Isaiah, I need to leave Elcho Falling to go in search of the Skraelings. I will need to do this soon because, even though that Dark Spire grows only slowly, it currently threatens the chamber where the entrance to the back tunnel is. Another day or so and I might not be able to leave that way. I had thought to leave today, before the Lealfast returned, but now .”
“You can’t slip by them?” Axis said.
“Not in my Lealfast form,” Inardle said. “There are too many of them. They’d spot me instantly. I am sure now they saw us leave Elcho Falling previously, and let us pass, to toy with us.”
“And in your River Angel form?” Axis said.
“I would still be spotted,” Inardle said. “I can slide about as water, but . . . I fear they’d still spot me. If there was a rainstorm, however .”
Inardle stopped, looking significantly at Isaiah.
“Oh no .” Georgdi and Axis said together.
“Just a rainstorm,” Inardle said. “Not a mayhem. Isaiah, can you do this?”
“I have little finesse when summoning wind and rain,” Isaiah said. “The mayhem I summoned on the day we entered Elcho Falling was far more than I’d wanted. I can start the process. I cannot control it.”
“But all would be safe within Elcho Falling,” Inardle said. “Only the Lealfast would be exposed to its full force.”
“Now there’s a thought,” Axis said. “Inardle, even with a mayhem as strong as the one we endured on the day of battle . . . could you still escape without harm?”
“Yes,” she said.
Axis looked at Isaiah.
Isaiah sighed. “I can summon one overnight for you, if you wish. It will require the night air to form.”
“Then I will leave tomorrow morning,” Inardle said. “And even if the back tunnel is unusable by then, I could slip out the front gates.”
“And for this day,” Axis said, “we watch the Lealfast.”
The Lealfast arrived in wave after wave, finally congregating in full force by mid-morning. They did not set up one large camp as they had previously, instead making twelve smaller camps at equal distances about the lake.
Their older camp, Armat’s original camp, still stood in some tatters near the far end of the causeway. Once the full might of the Lealfast had arrived, a large group of them — perhaps twenty thousand — began to systematically clean away any trace of it.
Isaiah and Axis stood on the balcony of the command chamber, both leaning on the railing, watching in some puzzlement.
“They are being very tidy,” Isaiah said, as he watched two of the Lealfast rise into the air with a folded tent between them. They flew westward for perhaps three hundred paces, then they dropped back to the ground, placing their folded tent on a growing (but very orderly) pile of the remains of Armat’s camp.
“They are shifting it back from the shores of the lake,” Axis said.
“But why?” Isaiah said. “Why do they need that space? None of their new camps need that area .”
“And why twelve separate camps?” Axis said. “Does Eleanon fear attack? Is he separating his people for safety? It would be harder for us to attack twelve separate encampments than one large one.”
“It would be impossible for us to attack one large one in the first instance,” Isaiah said. “We’d be massacred trying to leave Elcho Falling. What is he doing?”
Axis gave a little shake of his head. “Isaiah, we really need to be thinking about what we can do to, first, defend Elcho Falling, and then, second, destroy what Eleanon is going to . . . stars, Isaiah! What is that?”
Isaiah was already shading his eyes from the bright sun, looking westward. There was a line of Lealfast flying in, but oh, so slowly. They were flying in pairs, holding between them slings that carried . . . that carried .
“Can you see, Axis?” Isaiah said. “Your Icarii eyes are better than mine.”
“I love it when gods confess a weakness,” Axis muttered, shading his eyes and peered intently into the distance.
“Rocks,” he muttered. “They’re carrying boulders in those slings. Stars, Isaiah, they must be strong!”
“Boulders? What for?” Isaiah strode back into the command chamber, shouting to Insharah and Georgdi who stood there inspecting plans of Elcho Falling with some of their captains.
As the men moved, Isaiah turned to step out onto the balcony, only to be stopped by Axis jogging into the chamber.
“They’re flying around the other side of Elcho Falling,” Axis said, and together the two men ran through the corridors of Elcho Falling, reaching a balcony on the eastern side of the citadel in ten minutes.
They were both slightly out of breath as they stared in bewilderment as the pairs of Lealfast flew the boulders in slings over the channel that connected Elcho Falling’s lake with the Infinity Sea. There the birdmen positioned themselves carefully, before letting go of one end of their slings.
Boulder after boulder crashed into the channel.
“What is he doing?” Axis said.
Isaiah did not immediately answer. They continued watching as scores of pairs of Lealfast flew in to dump boulders in the channel.
“He wants to block it off,” Isaiah said, eventually. “He’s closing the channel to the ocean beyond.”
Inardle had joined them, and she shook her head at their unspoken query. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why.”
“Does the channel have any significance to the lake or Elcho Falling?” Axis asked Isaiah.
“And I would know that because .?” Isaiah said.
“Because you and Lister worked your damndest to get Maxel to the point of raising Elcho Falling so I thought you might know something about the structure!” Axis snapped.
Axis took a deep breath, muttering an apology. “I’ll have to ask Maxel. He won’t like being disturbed this quickly.”