“They’re escaping,” Georgdi said, pointing to the north, and Isaiah nodded.
Five, six minutes, and virtually every arrow fired by Axis’ bowmen had found a mark. There were a few thousand Lealfast not dead and they were escaping.
Let them go, Axis, Isaiah said and, finally, the barrage of arrows from the squads of bowmen positioned about the lake ceased.
For long minutes the only sound that broke the silence was of the River Angels, heaving out onto the lake’s shore the bodies of Lealfast who had fallen into the water.
The siege of Elcho Falling was over.
Maximilian and Garth stood watching as Ravenna turned and ran directly toward them. They both gasped, taking a step back, but in the moment before Ravenna reached them her form wavered, then vanished.
Directly behind her came a bolt of pure black power that Maximilian recognised from the time the One had thrown it at him down the path from the Twisted Tower. Maximilian grabbed Garth and pushed him to the floor, tumbling after him, but the instant before that black power consumed them it vanished. Maximilian and Garth were left gasping for breath on the floor.
Garth moved immediately to rise, but Maximilian lay still, remembering Ravenna running toward them and the moment their eyes had met.
And the instant after, when that long terrible journey which had brought the three of them together, and which had precipitated so much adventure and pain, was suddenly, horribly, over.
Chapter 21
Elcho Falling
Eleanon slammed into the reed beds, swallowing his cry of pain instinctively so that any enemy nearby (the creatures in the water!) might not hear his voice. For a moment he was so winded, and in so much pain from the arrows, that he could not move. Then, achingly slowly, he rolled over, hiding himself deeper within the reeds, and trying to evaluate his position.
He was terribly vulnerable. He could not fly, although perhaps if he wrenched those arrows out of his wing . . .
Worse, though, was his total lack of the power of Infinity. It had ceased abruptly the moment the Dark Spire had died.
And even worse than that . . . even his powers as an Enchanter seemed warped, as if the constant contact with Infinity had damaged them. The Star Dance was dulled, fractured, he couldn’t quite grasp it .
Eleanon could not think. He simply could not think. He had been so in control, and Elcho Falling so close to collapse . . . and now everything was ruined and his powers all but gone. He divided the reeds slightly, carefully, peering at Elcho Falling across the lake, hoping against hope that somehow it was still about to tumble into the water and that some good might come of this total disaster.
But what Eleanon saw pushed him even deeper into hopelessness — while the bloodied cracks still encircled the lower water walls of the citadel, they were very slowly closing over, almost coagulating.
Elcho Falling was healing itself now that the Dark Spire was gone.
I have to escape, Eleanon thought. I have to get as far away from here as possible.
Then, just as he was about to move, Eleanon heard the sound of someone moving through the reeds.
Axis did not bother to dampen the noise he made. He wanted Eleanon to know he was coming, and wanted him to despair hearing the strength and purpose of Axis’ footsteps.
Through the eyes of the eagle Axis had known Eleanon was not dead, and that he was lying injured within the reed beds. He had set his men to mopping up among the Lealfast lying injured on the ground, then he’d headed straight for the reed beds at a jog, sword in hand.
This was something he’d promised himself in the ice hex.
Eleanon — wounded, in pain, helpless — panicked yet once more. He scurried through the reeds, desperately seeking a hiding place, not thinking that both the noise and the frantically waving reeds were a beacon to Axis. He moved as fast as he could, pushing through stand after stand of reeds, cutting his hands and shoulders on their sharp edges as he forced his way through.
Not thinking to look behind him.
Axis paused, watching Eleanon just eight or nine paces ahead, blundering his way through the reeds. He thought of all the enemies he’d faced over his lifetimes — Borneheld, Gorgrael, the Timekeeper Demons — and then he looked at Eleanon and felt contempt.
He could not even be bothered making a last defence.
Feeling sick to the stomach, Axis hefted his sword in his hand, and ran lightly over the reeds, catching Eleanon in just seven long strides.
Ravenna coursed through the Land of Nightmares, consumed with pure joy.
Behind her, very far behind, she could hear what remained of the One, screaming — or what passed for screams from a formless, helpless bundle of pure energy.
He was not doing well amid the Nightmares.
He could not touch Infinity here.
Ravenna slowed her plunge. The Nightmares reached out for her, too, but they did not harm her, only caressed her as she passed.
She was safe, and her son — the Lord of Elcho Falling — was safe, and close to birth.
This was not where she’d hoped to bring him into life, but it would do, and it would serve to teach him a few extra tricks with which to tackle life.
She smiled, and the Nightmares about her laughed at her joy.
Chapter 22
Elcho Falling
Axis walked around the lake to the causeway.
His sword, freshly cleaned, rested in its scabbard against his hip.
The gates of Elcho Falling stood open, men moving in and out on their business, and such was the air of normalcy that Axis thought that the citadel looked much like any castle or fort on a sunny day.
He stopped halfway across the causeway, peering into the water.
Deep below he could see ribbons of light flashing here and there and, just occasionally, the larger figure of a River Angel as it came closer to the surface, peering curiously at the man who looked down upon them.
It was a strange fate for the Skraelings. Axis stood there a long time, watching them, remembering all the hatred he’d harboured for the creatures, all the battles, all the friends lost to their ravenous jaws.
And here they were, flashing about in some mysterious, beauteous form, as if none of the horror and terror they’d caused had ever existed.
As if none of Axis’ friends and countrymen had died.
As if Insharah’s family had not died.
As if most of Isembaard had not died.
Axis straightened eventually, stepping back from the edge. All he could feel for them now was sorrow, both for them and for all the grief they’d left behind them.
He resumed his walk along the causeway, slowing as a column of horsemen emerged from the arched gates.
Georgdi.
The Outlander General halted the column as he reached Axis. “You did well, Axis,” Georgdi said, grinning. “Isaiah is sitting inside fair seething with resentment that you won the glory all by yourself.”
“You’re leaving? Already?”
“I need to see what has happened to the Outlands, Axis . . . and someone has to clean up the mess of wounded and dying Lealfast scattered across it.”
“Did Ishbel make it back inside safely? What has happened with the One? Is Maximilian —”
“All is well Axis. Ishbel is inside, with Maximilian. Ravenna did what was needed. The One has gone.”
“I .” Axis drifted into silence, not knowing what to say. He was glad that Ishbel and Maximilian were safe, that Ravenna had trapped the One, but was saddened to see Georgdi go, at the same time understanding why the man and his men wished to leave.
How many Isembaardians and Escatorians would be streaming out off Elcho Falling within the next day or two?
Axis’ sadness deepened. How many other goodbyes would he need to say over the next few days?
And where, oh stars, would he go?
Georgdi looked down at Axis’ face. He rested a hand on Axis’ shoulder, caught his eyes, gave a nod, then kicked his horse forward.
There was no need to say more.
Georgdi had a deep sense that this was not the last he would see of Axis SunSoar.
Axis stood back and watched in silence as the Outlanders rode past. They took a full hour to ride out of Elcho Falling, and when they were done Axis trudged inside the citadel.
He’d expected there to be someone inside to meet him, but there was not, and so Axis climbed the ladder to the first usable landing on the great staircase, then climbed ever upward.
He went first to his father and Salome’s chamber.
StarDrifter was half sitting up and looking cheerful, if not much better physically.
Axis sat on the bed, taking his father’s hand.