Crusader (49 page)

How long had they been walking? It had been late afternoon when they’d left the column, and night had come and gone. Now grey light filtered through the driving snow,
and Azhure, together with SpikeFeather and Katie, stumbled every third or fourth step.

“How much longer?” Azhure muttered. “How much longer?”

“Soon,” said a voice, and Azhure looked up.

The two ice women stood before her, but Azhure did not look at them. Instead she stared at the towering icebergs some forty or fifty paces behind them.

“Where are we?” SpikeFeather said.

“The Icebear Coast,” one of the women said. “And the icepack.”

“But that’s impossible!” Azhure said. “We were many, many leagues from the coast, and—”

“Nothing is impossible,” said the other ice woman. “Nothing.”

“Where?” SpikeFeather said. His teeth were chattering too much to say more, and his arms were wrapped tight about himself.

His entire body was shaking.

One of the ice women put out a hand and laid it on his shoulder.

Instantly SpikeFeather’s shaking stopped, and he straightened, his eyes wide.

The woman’s sister did the same for Azhure and Katie—gods! but Azhure could feel herself unfreezing as the woman briefly touched her—then turned and pointed towards a crack between two grinding icebergs. “There.”

“There?” Azhure said. “But that’s too dangerous! The icebergs will crush us!”

“Nothing is ever too dangerous,” one ice woman said.

“Not until it’s killed you,” Azhure muttered.

“Ah,” the woman said, “but we do not know the caress of death!”

“Well,” Azhure said, and grinned despite herself, “keep in mind that
we
do.”

By Azhure’s reckoning, it took them over three hours to pick their way over the jumbled edge of the icepack towards the icebergs.

The towers of ice reared almost a hundred paces above them, turning the light in their shadows a grey-blue and the air so frigid that the ice women had to walk close to either side of the other three, wrapping them in enchantments so they could continue to move.

The ice towers ground against each other, the sound a constant deep wailing and roaring that made both Azhure and Katie plug their ears with their fingers and clench their teeth.

“Do not fear too much,” one of the sisters whispered in Azhure’s ear, and she tried to relax, if only for Katie’s sake.

But the trembling and shaking beneath her feet! They were going to have to climb down into this nightmare?

“There,” said one of Urbeth’s daughters. “Between the walls.”

They picked their way over the uncertain ice, and then stood, staring.

Whenever Azhure had climbed down into the Underworld previously, she’d descended down a gently sloping spiral staircase.

Not down anything even faintly resembling this terrifying plunge.

This ice staircase descended straight down between the two grinding icebergs, their walls sliding up and down as they fought for space in the crowded sea.

Straight down—so far Azhure could not see its end.

Stars help them if they slipped on the ice steps! They’d tumble to their deaths.

“I do not know that we should—” she began, but one of the ice women laid a hand on her arm.

“You will manage,” she said.

“Katie—”

“The girl will manage.”

Azhure briefly closed her eyes, then nodded. She took Katie’s hand, and tried to smile for her.

Katie looked at Azhure, looked at the descent before her, then looked back at Azhure. Normally so placid, so calm, so strong, Katie’s eyes were terrified.

Azhure’s hand tightened about that of the girl’s, and she opened her mouth, trying to find something reassuring to say, when SpikeFeather leaned down and swept the girl into his arms.

“Put your face into my shoulder,” he said, “and doze for this trip down to the waterways. I am Icarii, remember? My balance is like no other, and I fear no heights. You’ll be safe with me.”

Whether it was his words, his reassuring tone or his touch, Katie relaxed and, putting her arms about his neck, lay her head trustingly in the hollow of his shoulder.

The two ice women shared a glance, and a brief nod, then one turned and stepped into the stairwell.

“Come, SpikeFeather, Azhure,” she said. “My sister will bring up the rear to protect us against whatever vile attack the seals have planned.”

SpikeFeather laughed, and even Azhure managed a smile.

The birdman stepped onto the first step, the ice woman two or three below him and moving ever downward, then glanced over his shoulder at Azhure. “Take my wing,” he said, extending one of them towards her, “and hang onto it. I can balance for all three of us.”

“Thank you,” Azhure said softly and, taking hold of SpikeFeather’s wing—it was so warm!—she summoned her courage and stepped down.

The climb down was worse than any nightmare Azhure had ever endured. Stars, but she thought she’d prefer to go through DragonStar and RiverStar’s appalling birth all over again if it meant she could get to the bottom of these stairs the faster! To either side of the stairs the icebergs grated and
ground, as if cursing and throwing insults at the other berg just an arm’s span distant. Azhure wondered if it were possible that at any moment one or the other iceberg would lose its temper completely and lunge across the frigid distance between them to tear the throat out of the other.

No,
she thought,
that is just my fancy, and foolish at that.

And at that precise instant the iceberg on her right moved so suddenly and so precipitously that a frightful grating scream filled the stairwell, and Azhure cried out and halted, letting go of Spikefeather’s wing, her hands flying to her ears.

“You are safe,” said the ice woman behind her, laying both her hands on Azhure’s shoulders. “Safe.”

SpikeFeather had stopped, and was looking over his shoulder at Azhure; Katie, apparently, was asleep and unconcerned, her face tranquil as it lay on his shoulder.

The birdman’s eyes were full of concern for Azhure, but Azhure thought that she could see just the slightest tinge of panic in their depths.

She took a very deep breath, held it as she fought for self-control, then let it out once she thought she had it.

Slowly Azhure lowered her hands away from her ears, and the ice woman’s hands on her shoulders tightened briefly in encouragement.

“Soon,” said the ice woman’s sister from below SpikeFeather. “Very soon.”

Pray to all the stars that it is the truth,
Azhure thought,
for I cannot stand much more of this.

They continued to descend for an hour, perhaps two—time had no meaning in this narrow ice tunnel—and then Azhure heard SpikeFeather exclaim as he jumped down three or four steps.

“We’re here!” he cried, and Azhure had to blink the tears out of her eyes.

She stepped onto an ice floor that was, unbelievably, smooth but not slippery. Above her the roof of the ice tunnel had soared into a beautiful opaque dome of pink ice, while
before her the floor extended towards a waterway that wound through the ice cave from one wall to the other.

A brass tripod with a bell stood to one side.

SpikeFeather had a huge grin stretching from one ear to the other, and Azhure couldn’t help the feeling that he felt as if he’d come home after too long away. She leaned forward and took Katie from him—the girl murmured sleepily as SpikeFeather transferred her into Azhure’s arms, but otherwise did not stir—and the birdman turned to the two ice women standing before him.

“Thank you,” he said, simply enough, but with such emotion that Azhure was stunned to see tears well in both the sisters’ eyes.

“We long to see this Underworld of yours,” said one of the sisters, “for we are weary of the hills and dales and turmoils of the Overworld.”

“Don’t you miss Faraday?” Azhure said, curious about what these women felt for the woman. After all, they’d spent a long time travelling as Faraday’s devoted companions.

“Faraday was kind to us,” said one of the sisters, “and she had a purpose which we were happy to aid her with.

But…” “But there are very few people we would wish to spend a forever with,” the other finished. “Very few.”

And, as one, both sisters switched their eyes from Azhure to SpikeFeather.

The birdman blushed to the roots of his hair, but managed a small and utterly exquisite bow to the two women.

They stared at him, and then their faces relaxed from their usual austerity into such utter beauty that Azhure gasped.

“The bell,” one of the women finally and very gently prompted, and SpikeFeather grinned at his own distracted air.

“The bell,” he agreed, and walking over to the tripod, struck it once.

It pealed three times, and within heartbeats a punt had floated out of the far tunnel where the waterway ran into the ice cave and glided to a halt by the group.

“I welcome you to my world,” SpikeFeather said, and helped the three women into the barge.

Azhure sat down in the prow, settling Katie comfortably on her lap, and smiled as the two ice women sat—close!—on either side of SpikeFeather in the bow.

“Take us,” SpikeFeather asked the waterways, “to a safe place close to the Maze, for that is the StarSon’s purpose.”

As the punt glided forward, each sister lifted a graceful hand and placed it on one of SpikeFeather’s knees.

Azhure looked the birdman in the eye, arched an eyebrow, and grinned.

The barge glided through caverns that were empty, and caverns that were filled with the skeletons of cities and forests. In one cavern, Azhure stared about her in amazement at the city that crammed the spaces to either side of the waterway. Tenement buildings fourteen or fifteen levels high, halls that soared even higher, streets crammed with workshops and market stalls: all deserted, all covered with dust and neglect, all empty and haunting.

“What are they?” Azhure finally said. “Who lived here? What happened to them?”

To that SpikeFeather had no answer, but Katie stirred on Azhure’s lap and sat up, rubbing her eyes as she looked about her.

“They are dead,” she said, “and have always been. No-one has ever lived here.”

“But—” Azhure began.

“They are nothing but memories,” Katie said. “Memories of the world the Enemy once lived on. Carried here by the ships, and built as memorials to the world that has been lost. Memories.”

And the punt glided on.

T
he brown horse and her black-clad rider flowed over the landscape like wind let loose from an age-long prison. The horse’s legs stretched forth and ate up the landscape, yet so smooth was her motion that she scarcely seemed to move.

Axis leaned forward over Pretty Brown Sal’s neck, urging her forward. He had not been this happy in decades.

Behind him—somewhere—came his war band of some three thousand riders and trees, and somewhere behind them followed the column, but for this moment in time Axis did not care if they ever caught him.

He was free, riding across this bleakened landscape, running south, riding this magical, magical mount.

Pretty Brown Sal leaned her head forth even more eagerly, and surged forward. She, too, loved to run
(fly),
and her slim legs ate up the landscape.

Even more than usual.

From the first day that Axis had led the column south he’d discovered something unusual about the way Sal moved. It had at first disorientated him, almost frightened him, but then he’d learned to accept it and to enjoy the freedoms it gave him.

Pretty Brown Sal was, as the sparrow had said, a gift of flight. Pretty Brown Sal’s legs literally flew. For every stride she took, almost half a league of landscape slid by. That was the unnerving sensation, for the passing landscape became an
inchoate blur as it slid past with no recognisable features. On the first day, once Axis had got over his initial surprise, he’d found himself halting Sal every six or seven strides just so that he could orientate himself again.

Then, as the day had worn on, he’d learned to trust the mare, and learned to flow with her as she coursed over the land.

She was wondrous and magical, and Axis leaned forward even more, whooping and laughing as he urged her forward, forward, forward…

But Pretty Brown Sal and her abilities were not the only reason for his high humour.

Axis had a purpose again, he had a usefulness, and he felt he could make a difference. He didn’t care that he was not the hero of this particular battle, only that he had a
purpose.
Moreover, he had a purpose that encompassed what he adored beyond anything else: leading a war band over countryside against a vile enemy that was ravaging the land. He had a purpose, and it involved speed and battle and blood.

It felt like old times again.

From the column, Axis had selected some three thousand seasoned campaigners—including Zared, Herme and Theod, who refused to remain behind—to ride in his war band. With the three thousand men came a similar number of the trees who, as Axis led out his band for the first time, had simply lifted roots and moved out with them. Another four or five thousand trees roamed through the landscape for leagues to either side of Axis’ war band, catching and destroying every creature they came across. As the Demonic hours came and went (without Raspu’s hour of Pestilence at dusk, for Urbeth said that Gwendylyr had triumphed against him, and, at that, Theod had broken down and wept), the trees provided shelter, although this far north the Demonic influence was negligible.

Axis found he had no need for the trees’ shelter, for Sal conveyed her own protection against the Demons’ maddening probings. Axis was truly free at last to ride as far and as fast as he wished.

Each day they travelled further south. Although Axis tended to ride out alone, the war band was never far behind. Somehow Sal’s abilities extended to the war band, for Axis only ever had to rein her in, and turn about, and there was the war band thundering towards him, whooping and screaming with an excitement—
we’re making a difference! we’re taking action!—
that matched Axis’. To either side of the band of horsemen ran the trees: gigantic beings waving branches far into the sky and singing their own war song. Every time Axis saw them his breath would catch in his throat.