Pilgrim (24 page)

S
till in shock, Azhure helped Caelum and Axis to rise. She was trembling badly, and as she gripped both men’s hands, she realised they were, too.

Azhure opened her mouth to ask if they were all right, but thought better of it. She contented herself with patting Caelum’s chest as if to reassure herself it was still whole, and took Axis’ hands and kissed his palms.

Then she looked around. Azhure’s first impression that all the blood had gone was wrong. They were surrounded by it. The bodies of their horses, and of the captain and the men of the escort, were strewn about the floor of the tunnel, splintered bones poking through ragged flesh.

Their swords lay to one side, blades gleaming spotlessly.

She raised her eyes and looked at Axis, and he stepped forward and took her hand.

“Come,” he said. “We will walk the remainder of the way.”

They picked up their swords and walked forward in silence. Azhure battled back tears. Never had she been as helpless in her entire life as she had been in the past hour. Her son and husband apparently torn to pieces before her eyes, their escort slaughtered, laughed at by beings that but a few months ago would have barely dared to threaten her shadow.

Even Azhure the Plough-keeper’s daughter would have done more against them than she had, she berated herself.
But no, Azhure the once-god could not even find the words to fling in their defence.

For his part, Axis was thinking much the same. Could he not have done more? Gods! Even a junior Axe-Wielder could have helped more than he’d managed!

They approached a gentle curve in the tunnel. Once around it, the three saw that the tunnel apparently stretched into infinity.

There was no sign of the Alaunt.

“I sincerely hope this
does
lead to Star Finger,” Axis muttered, then straightened his shoulders and looked at Caelum, marching silent and tight-faced by his side.

“Caelum, that black rider…is he the one who has hunted you through your dreams?”

“Yes. The dreams started soon after Drago fled from Sigholt with the Rainbow Sceptre. They have rarely left me since.”

“
Cursed
be the day I conceived my second son!”

Azhure frowned, remembering what StarLaughter had said. “Axis…are you sure that rider is Drago—”

“He has
always
hunted me!” Caelum cried, halting and swinging to face his mother. “Who else?”

Azhure glanced at Axis—his face was as stubbornly set as Caelum’s—and then took Caelum’s hands in hers.

“Caelum, might it not be StarLaughter’s son,
her
DragonStar, that hunts you through your dreams?”

All she received by way of reply was a hostile stare.

Azhure took a deep breath and tried again. “Caelum, Axis. StarLaughter was angry that Caelum is heir to the Throne of the Stars and all that it implies. She said that her son should be the heir.
She
had the legitimate son. That black rider, that DragonStar, rode out of the stars, as her son would—”

“No,” Caelum said, pulling his hands from Azhure’s. “Did you not see his face? That was the face of
Drago
, not some long-dead unborn child!”

Again Azhure glanced at Axis, but she could see she wouldn’t get any help from him.

“Caelum,” she said, “both would look very similar. Drago takes after WolfStar in colouring and features, and naturally StarLaughter’s son would, too. After all, they are virtually brothers—”

Caelum shifted impatiently, angrily. “
Drago
is my enemy, mother, perhaps more so than any of these Demons. It is the dagger from behind that always strikes home first. And did you not hear StarLaughter? Drago has passed across to her every secret of our family, as he has undoubtedly passed across the Sceptre. The Demons
must
have it, and I think they will use it to destroy us completely—”

“Caelum,” Axis said. “Enough. We need to talk about this in calmer surroundings than this grey tunnel. Star Finger is all we have left, and I would prefer that we expend our energies on walking there instead of arguing among ourselves.”

Star Finger is all we have left? Caelum wondered. But Star Finger stores only Icarii knowledge and magic, and Icarii knowledge and magic has as much hope of defeating these Demons as a feather does of surviving a tempest. Is it time to give up? Is it time to say, “enough”? Surely we have done what we can. What more can one do against the treachery of a brother?

They walked in silence, time out of mind, the overhead lights clicking softly on as they approached, then turning themselves out some minutes after they’d passed.

They walked in an isolated island of light and time and desperate bravado.

They eventually walked about a long sloping curve of the tunnel to come face to face with the pack of Alaunt sitting facing them.

Every one of the hounds, Sicarius included, had shamefaced expressions.

Azhure stared at them. Could she blame them for fleeing before the dark cloud of murdered children?

She sighed, rested her hand briefly on top of Sicarius’ head, then walked past. Axis and Caelum followed her, and the hounds fell into step behind the three.

They emerged, eventually, in the Avarinheim forest beneath the first of the Icescarp Alps.

“Stars!” Axis said, as they stood in the dawn air, looking at the trees and the rising cliffs. “How did we come so far, so fast?”

Azhure shrugged. “The tunnels still contain some enchantment, perhaps.”

Caelum paid no heed to his parents, instead inspecting the faint path that led through the last of the trees to the rising cliffs. On the several occasions he’d been to Star Finger, Caelum had always used the Song of Movement to transport himself, but now he and his parents would be forced to use the treacherous cliff paths that Rivkah had once traversed.

“We should get moving,” he said. “The paths will only be traversable during daylight hours.”

He stepped forward, but Azhure grabbed at his arm, looking anxiously between her son and Axis.

“And the Demons?” she said. “And the hours when they roam? How will we protect ourselves once we are past the safety of the trees?”

“There are caves along the trails, Azhure. You must remember those, surely.”

She stared at Axis, recalling their own journey so many years ago down the mountain trails in order to join the Avar for Beltide. At night they had sheltered within the many caves that ate into the mountainsides, singing and telling stories, and falling deeper and deeper in love.

She nodded slowly. “They will be all the protection we’ll have.”

Caelum scanned the skies. “We must watch for those children, too.”

Axis shifted irritably. They were frighteningly vulnerable. Their escort, equipment, horses and food had all gone. They had their swords, true, but swords would not be very useful against any attack that plummeted from the sky, nor would they feed them at night. The mountain trails were notoriously barren of food.

Axis looked about them, wondering if any of the Avar were close, but the forest was silent and still, and they could not waste the time to search a Clan out.

“Caelum’s right,” Axis said. “We should get moving, and deal with any threat as it arises. Azhure, send the hounds ranging ahead. If nothing else, they should spring any trap before it closes about us.”

She nodded, and ordered the Alaunt down the path before them. Azhure half-expected them to disobey, but they sprang to their feet and loped out of sight down the path the instant she’d finished speaking.

Caelum watched them go. “I do not trust them,” he said.

Azhure opened her mouth to defend them, then thought better of it. “It is hard to know who or what to trust now,” she eventually said.

Caelum hugged her. “I trust you, and father,” he said, and lifted his eyes and smiled at Axis.

For some reason, whether it was the open air or Caelum’s smile, Axis felt more optimistic and light-hearted than he had in days.

“Come,” he said. “The mountains await.”

The path wound through a final hundred paces of forest before it rose steeply into a curve about the skirts of the first mountain.

All three of them were puffing within minutes.

“How long did it take Rivkah to climb these paths?” Caelum asked after an hour or so of climbing.

Axis tried to remember what his mother had told him of her experiences. “Many, many days,” he said. “A week or more.”

“A week!” Caelum said, and looked at his mother ruefully. “Or more.”

“Perhaps the Alaunt can forage for rabbits, or small birds,” Azhure said. “Damn! I wish I had my bow with me.”

“We can set traps, Azhure,” Axis said, and then conversation lapsed as they fought for breath.

The climb was almost impossibly steep, and the footing treacherous. The trail wound up, up, up through black-rocked ravines and gorges, following the paths carved out by mountain streams and waterfalls. They remained almost entirely in the shade of the cliffs, for the mountains were high and steep and the gorges narrow. The sun also rarely penetrated the mist from streams and waterfalls.

Far above, black specks circled, sharing their vision with the Demons and StarLaughter who were approaching the Nordra as it ran below the Urqhart Hills.

May we attack?
the Hawkchilds asked.

The Demons considered.
You may have your fun
, they finally decided,
but do not tip them from the mountain trails, for we need them for the final hunt.

The Hawkchilds circled lower.

Caelum and his parents rested at mid-morning and then mid-afternoon under the shelter of overhangs and tumbled rocks. They felt the corruption of tempest and despair sweep up through the gorges to break against the mountain ridges, but were heartened by the relative weakness of the Demons’ influence within the Alps.

“Maybe it is the rarefied air,” Caelum said, fighting his urge to pant.

“Or perhaps merely the distance,” Azhure said.

“Or maybe,” Axis said slowly, turning to look at his wife and son, “they do not like the mountains. Who knows? But if their influence is weaker here, then what will it be like at Star Finger?”

As despair died after the mid-afternoon, they struggled
from under their sheltering overhang and prepared to climb for another few hours until they came to a suitable cave where they could shelter for the night.

They had been on the trail barely an hour when the Hawkchilds decided to play with them.

The Hawkchilds had descended deep into the gorge behind the three, so they could launch an attack from behind. The first Axis, Azhure and Caelum knew of it was when they’d swung about at a horrible whooshing noise from behind, only to realise that nine or ten Hawkchilds were rushing up the trail towards them, running on clawed feet, their wings outstretched for balance, hands grasping, beaks whispering.

The Alaunt, further up the trail than Axis, Azhure and Caelum, turned and snarled, then cringed, apparently unsure of what to do against the threat. Azhure shot them a look that was both sympathetic and damning, then joined her husband and son in drawing her sword, prepared to kill as many of the creatures as she could before she was killed in her turn.

But the Hawkchilds did not come close enough for the sword thrust. When they were five or six paces away from the group, they rose up on wings, and passed overhead barely a sword’s length above the three.

There was a rush of a foul wind, and a whisper on the air.
DragonStar comes, Caelum. Do you hear the thunder of horses’ hooves on the path behind you? Do you feel his heat?

Caelum cried out, swinging wildly around to look down the path, and Axis had to grab his arm to prevent him falling over the edge of the cliff.

“They only taunt you,” Axis hissed. “No-one comes!”

Wrong, StarMan
, the Hawkchilds whispered as another cloud of them spun over their heads.
He comes. Can you not hear him, Caelum?

“I will kill him,” Caelum shouted.

They howled with merriment, and a cloud some twenty strong blocked out the sun.

Relinquish the Throne of the Stars and he may allow you your life!

“Ignore them,” Azhure said softly, placing a hand on Caelum’s arm. “They seek only to distract you.”

Caelum hesitated, then nodded.

“They do not attack,” Axis said. “They fear you.”

Caelum’s back straightened. “Yes. I—”

The Hawkchilds howled with laughter.
Fear you? Nay, we merely keep you warm so that the true heir can baptise his accession in blood!

“Walk,” Azhure said, and turned back to the trail rising before them. “Walk, and ignore them.”

They did their best, but the Hawkchilds hovered close for the remainder of the afternoon, alternately creeping along the path behind them, or swooping low overhead, whispering, whispering, whispering.

The Alaunt crept just in front of their two-legged companions, their tails between their legs, their bellies close to the ground, as useless as sheep before a cavalry charge.

When finally Azhure spotted the gloomy entrance to a small cave off the main trail, all of them, two-legged and four, stumbled inside as quickly as they could, grateful for the shelter and quiet the cave provided.

“Damn it!” Caelum said as he sank down, resting his back against the rough rock wall of the cave. “Why
don’t
they attack? Why not try to kill me?”

“They fear you—” Azhure began, but Caelum shook his head.

“No,” he said quietly into the darkness. “They merely toy with me.”

He was being blooded for the hunt.

A
skam’s mind was a tangle of black feathers, razored talons and the bright, bright eyes of the brown and cream badger.

He had no thoughts of his own. He listened only to the rustle of feather and the commands of the badger, and was content in the febrile embrace of madness.

He sat his horse—its mind equally as feathered and mad—before his four hundred mounted men, all insane and under the control of the badger.

They waited.

Zared pulled his horse up as Herme waved the column to a halt. “Askam?” he said softly.

Herme reined in beside him. “No other. And his four hundred.”

Zared didn’t know what to think. In the days since Askam had disappeared they’d continued their push for Carlon, now only a day or two away. Zared had not wasted effort trying to track Askam down. He’d believed that Askam had finally succumbed to resentment and had fled to fulfil his own purpose, which no doubt included some plan to wrest control of the West back from Zared.

Well, let him try. Zared had no time to deal with Askam’s desertion and what it might mean for his own security on the
throne of Achar. Gods! Did Achar still exist? Or Tencendor? So, Zared had let Askam go with barely more than a shrug of his shoulders. Leagh had been upset by Askam’s disappearance, but had not insisted that Zared mount a search for him. Her brother was old enough to know his own mind.

Now Gustus and Theod joined Zared, Leagh not far behind them.

“Askam!” she said, and would have urged her horse forward, save that Zared snatched at her reins.

“No. Wait,” he said. “I do not like this. What if—”

“No!” Leagh cried. “He knew how to protect himself.”

“Askam may be a fool personified when it comes to running the West,” Herme said, “but he would not risk himself, or the men with him, to the ravages of the Demons.”

Zared stared before him. Some fifteen paces ahead, Askam sat his horse in front of the neatly ranked four hundred men and horses, the only movement the lifting of manes and tails in the frigid northerly wind.

“I will ride ahead,” Herme said, and Zared nodded.

“Be careful.”

Askam made no move, and his face remained set into its carefully neutral expression as Herme rode forward.

As the Earl reined to a stop before him, Askam inclined his head in greeting. “No doubt you wonder what I have been doing,” he said.

“No doubt,” Herme said, his tenseness communicating itself to his horse, which shifted and fidgeted nervously.

“The attack of the crazed beasts—and worse—came as a shock,” Askam said. “I understood how vulnerable our—Zared’s—force was to them. I decided that I might assist in some small way by breaking off with a smaller force and scouting the way ahead—springing any trap that might exist.”

“So you absconded in the middle of the
night
?” Herme asked, and in response to the touch of his legs his horse backed away several steps.

Askam grinned as if embarrassed. “Foolish, I know, but I also knew that so long as we kept the shade above our heads we would be safe. Herme,
have
you been attacked in the days since we’ve been gone?”

“No,” Herme said.

“Well, then,” Askam said. “I may be guilty of absconding, but mayhap I have done some good!”

Herme stared at him, trying to see beyond Askam’s bland eyes. “So you and your four hundred safely dealt with what almost brought Zared’s thirty thousand to their knees?”

“A smaller force is more manoeuvrable,” Askam said, “and I must add that we met only much smaller groups of the crazed creatures. But, as I said, mayhap even that did Zared some good. Look, Herme, are you going to sit there screwing your face into lines and studying me all day? Mid-afternoon approaches. I and the hundreds behind me are hungry—we forgot to make off with any of the supply mules—and, for the gods’ sakes, do we
look
as if the Demons have us under their sway?”

Herme gave in to the irritation in Askam’s voice. Whatever else Askam might be lying about—and frankly, Herme thought this tale of trying to spring any traps to make Zared’s life easier was a fabrication to hide Askam’s own ambitions—he surely did not look crazed.

“Then join up with the main force,” Herme said, “and answer for your foolishness to Zared himself.”

He wheeled his horse about, and cantered back to his King.

Zared sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. Gods, but he would appreciate being back under the shelter of his palace in Carlon and not have to stop three times a day to shelter under these shade cloths.

“Did you happen to come across any hamlets or farmhouses in your, ah, sweep ahead, Askam?” he said, raising his eyes again. He sat with Leagh and his sub-commanders
under the shade cloths, Askam sitting cross-legged before him, waiting out Sheol’s mid-afternoon despair.

Askam shrugged slightly. “A home or two, the peasants sheltered inside. They stared at us as we passed, their faces pressed to glass and their fingers locked into the catches of shutters.”

Zared shook his head. “I hope Carlon has managed to fare better than what we’ve seen so far. Ah! What kind of life is this, hiding from the hour of the day itself.”

“And what will happen when they have eaten their way through their winter stocks?” Leagh said softly. “Few will be able to forage for food, or hunt for meat—and what food does still linger about on four hooves must truly be contaminated beyond belief by the Demons.”

There was silence for a while as all contemplated Leagh’s words. Askam, apparently still chastened by Zared’s earlier sharp-tongued words on his desertion, dropped his eyes and studied his fingers.

“Dare we eat madness?” Theod eventually said.

“Enough of these thoughts,” Zared said, his voice stronger. “By noon tomorrow we will be in Carlon. Enough shelter to give us time to consolidate, and perhaps plan a means to strike back.”

“How?” Askam said. He raised his head, and all who looked at him put the peculiar blankness of his eyes down to hopelessness.

Zared hesitated before he found a reply. “There
must
be a way. And if we can’t find it, then we must trust Drago to find it for us.”

Askam’s entire body jerked, and the others looked at him curiously.
Drago!
The name thundered through his mind, rippling out first to the badger, and then to the minds of the Hawkchilds hovering far, far overhead.

Drago. Drago? He lives?

And from there…

The great black horses responded instantly to the command of their riders, and slowed to a halt, flexing their claws into the earth to anchor themselves against whatever might strike.

“Drago lives,” Rox said, gazing first at his fellow Demons, and then to StarLaughter, cradling her son. They had all shared the Hawkchilds’ thoughts.

“But I thought you killed him,” StarLaughter said. “What can this mean?”

Sheol furrowed her forehead, angered that Drago
had
managed to survive the final leap through the Star Gate. But how? They had used all of his enchantment and power and life to accomplish that final leap, she was certain of it. How?

“What enchantment was used to save him?” she asked softly. “What is it that we don’t know?”

“There was something we felt in the chamber of the Star Gate,” Barzula said, and they fell quiet remembering the slight, but odd power they’d felt floating about the chamber as they’d come through.

Directional power, Sheol had said of it then…but what if it was more than that?

“It was enough to recreate Drago,” Sheol said. Her voice was expressionless.

“The magicians you saw to the west?” Barzula asked Rox.

“The man was too…too vague for me to pick out his features. The woman I did not know.”

“I do not like this!” Raspu cried. “How did he survive!
How?
”

“For Stars’ sakes!” StarLaughter said. “Drago is worse than useless. He had no power left…
nothing.
His Icarii potential was burned completely away. If he
did
survive, then I imagine he is crawling about the landscape seeking some crevice in which to grovel.
Drago?
We have all seen how pathetic and useless he is. Why worry about him?”

“Perhaps you are right,” Sheol said. “He is a nothing. An inconsequent.”

She smiled at StarLaughter, and as she smiled she shared private thoughts with her Demon companions.

Nevertheless, we shall set the Hawkchilds to him. He knows us, and even that knowledge could be dangerous. I would feel better with him dead.

Aye. Kill him.

Yes. Kill him soon.

Moreover, why should StarLaughter speak on his behalf? Did they exchange more than fluids in that bed they shared? Allegiances, perhaps?

Shall we kill her?

Not yet. Not yet.

The Demons sat their horses and smiled at StarLaughter, and she smiled back, and hugged her child to her breast. All was well.

Leagh pressed closer to Zared, listening to the night roil outside their shelter. But it did not terrify her, for here she lay safe in her husband’s arms, and if Tencendor lay ravaged, then surely it would only be a matter of time before Zared, or Drago, or even Caelum and his parents, found the solution to the TimeKeepers.

“You must be happy that Askam is back,” Zared murmured into her hair.

“Relieved,” she whispered. “I had thought…”

Zared did not answer with words, but tightened his arms about her, wishing his love was enough to keep her safe. He knew what she’d thought, for he had thought the same. But whatever motives had driven Askam out into the night, he was safe back now, and if that made Leagh happy then Zared supposed he should be happy for her sake.

But he could not quite rid himself of his own self-serving wish that Askam had died out there in the terror-swept Plains of Tare.

“Tomorrow you will be home,” he murmured, then tilted her face to kiss her. He had his own reasons for wanting the privacy of their own bedchamber again.

In the shadows the two indistinct white shapes of the donkeys shifted. They were disturbed and uncertain, and they were not quite sure why. They did not trust the blandness of Askam’s eyes, nor the similar blandness in the eyes of the men and horses he’d led back to Zared’s camp.

“Carlon!” a joyful voice rang out from the ranks behind him, and Zared grinned, as relieved and as happy as his command.

“Carlon,” he said, and let his eyes roam over the rising pink walls before them.

Then he quickly checked the sun. Noon. They had two hours to ford the Nordra at the crossing north of Grail Lake and get inside. Not long enough. Perhaps a third of his force—and, of course, the Strike Force who could happily wing the distance—could get inside the city gates by mid-afternoon.

Zared sighed, and turned about to issue orders to Gustus and his other captains. Most would camp on the eastern banks of the Nordra, but perhaps ten or eleven thousand could safely make the dash for the city before despair closed in.

“Leagh,” Zared said as Gustus spurred his horse away, “do you mind?”

“No,” she smiled, and reached out for his hand. “We will wait for the afternoon. A few hours will do us no harm.”

Several ranks behind them, Askam smiled.

Zared sent the Strike Force ahead, then gave the order for seven thousand, including those still wounded, to make the push across the ford and then into Carlon. As the remainder of his force busied themselves erecting the shade cloths for what they hoped would be the last time, Zared stood on the banks of the river, Leagh beside him.

“It looks so beautiful,” she said, and leaned against her husband.

Zared nodded. “See? People wave from the walls.”

Perhaps several score of the Carlonese had lined the walls, waving banners and faint smudges of hands. They were too far away for their voices and cheers to reach Zared’s and Leagh’s ears, but they could hear them in their hearts.

As the first of the men from Zared’s force crossed the river and spurred towards the city, the gates swung open.

“Safe,” Zared said again. “I have brought you home safe.”

The mid-afternoon hour seemed to drag forever. All who yet waited on the eastern banks of the Nordra shifted impatiently; horses loaded with gear were ready to be urged across the river and into Carlon the moment despair had evaporated.

From a small gap in the pink walls a patchy-bald rat stared across the distance to the waiting army.

More two-legs. Well, all the more to sate his hunger. The patchy-bald rat couldn’t wait for the badger to get here. Couldn’t
wait
for the feast to begin.

A thin drool of saliva ran out from between its yellowed fangs and trickled down to its claws. In the blink of an eye, the rat scampered down a drain set into the walls.

Down to the sewers under the city.

Zared hoped the three hours between mid-afternoon and dusk would be enough to get everyone safe within the walls. He did not fancy spending another night in the open when shelter sat so close.

A few paces away from Zared and Leagh, the white donkeys dozed, their heads nodding with the weight of their thoughts.

The instant it was safe, men leapt to the poles and shade cloths, pulling them down haphazardly and parceling them up into rough bundles.

There would be no need to use them that night.

Zared mounted his horse. “Gustus, will you watch Leagh? I need to be—”

“I will watch her,” Askam broke in. “You need Gustus with you, and I will be sure to bring Leagh safely home.”

Zared hesitated, but Leagh smiled and took her brother’s arm. “I will be safe enough with Askam, Zared.”

Zared looked from one to the other, and then nodded. He
did
need Gustus at something other than nursemaid duty, and watching Leagh would keep Askam out of mischief.

“Then watch her as if your soul depended on it,” Zared said, and Askam inclined his head.

“As if my soul depended on it,” he agreed, then took Leagh’s hand and led her towards her horse.