Starman

  Had the world turned completely upside down? Did Axis now insist that his command worship him as a god?

  Unknown to Jorge, Axis was not behind the actions of these men. He would have been confused and horrified had he known that many men within his command, and their wives and children, had begun, slowly and unconsciously, to perceive him as a god. The process had started a long time ago, among the three thousand who had followed Axis out of Gorkenfort to lead the Skraeling mass away from the fort so that Borneheld and the remaining soldiers could escape to Jervois Landing. They had seen him wield the emerald fire, and they had watched five magical winged creatures greet him at the foot of the Icescarp Alps. Once Axis’ command had been ensconced in Sigholt the trend to understand Axis as something other than human or even mortal had continued apace. Surely no mere mortal could wield the power that he did? Surely no mortal power could command the winged creatures as Axis did? Surely no mortal could live in such a magical castle as Sigholt now showed itself to be? Then Axis had led his command south through Achar, defeating the murderer and usurper Borneheld, and had created for them the mighty realm of Tencendor. No mortal, many muttered, could have done all of this.

  Slowly but surely, men and women everywhere were starting to worship Axis as their god of choice—the StarMan. Others preferred the calm beauty and the sure deadliness of the Enchantress.

  Especially those who still recalled the ancient prayers to Lady Moon.

  It was this trend, more than anything else, that had terrified Artor out of His heavenly kingdom and into flesh to try to stop the rot.

  Jorge shivered and pulled his blanket closer and listened to the muttered prayers echo about him. Had he ever thought he’d live to see the day when the names of so many gods could be evoked by a force he led? Damn the impulse that had seen him volunteer to lead the command in Jervois Landing! Jorge had not wanted to linger in Carlon after the death of Borneheld and Axis had granted his request to come further north. Now the price of his impetuousness was apparently going to be death, and Jorge suddenly realised that he did not want to die. He might be close to seventy and he may have led a full life, but Jorge still had a lot that he wanted to do.

  Jorge considered praying himself, but he did not know who to pray to. His life-long devotion to Artor seemed inconsequential; of what use was a Plough-God here among the ice? Had Artor protected those who had called His name but had still died over the past two years? No, Artor was ineffectual, but Jorge was not yet ready to pray to any of the Star Gods, nor was he prepared to invoke the names of Axis or Azhure to his aid.

  So he just sat.

  And waited for death.

  In the space of a heartbeat, the storm stopped. The sudden silence almost hurt the ears, but it did not cause any gladness. All knew what it meant.

  Gorgrael was ready to attack.

  High above circled the Gryphon. As soon as the winds had ceased the clouds too had faded away, as if they had needed the howling wind to exist themselves. Timozel had asked Gorgrael for a clear blue sky under which to conduct his massacre—as yet, he still preferred the sunshine to the gloom.

  Now he sat on the Gryphon, his years of training as a horseman adapting easily to the creature’s movements. The Gryphon dipped and soared, and screamed with the voice of despair. Timozel turned and to the west saw a mighty army that undulated for leagues in every direction. He fought for a Great Lord, and in the name of that Lord he would…

  “Reap remarkable victories,” Timozel whispered, caught in the recurring thrall of his vision. At last, he had found his appointed place. All would be well.

  Timozel turned his head slightly. Circle lower, he commanded the creature, and the Gryphon gave a cry as she wheeled through the sky.

  There. Timozel smiled in satisfaction. Below him lay the crippled town of Jervois Landing. Many of the buildings were slicked so deep with ice they were almost buried; when he peered closer Timozel could see at least three houses so completely iced over that they were closed to the outside world. His smile deepened. If any people had been inside those houses they would by now have frozen to death. He was well pleased.

  Battalions of Skraelings were moving quickly south, outflanking the town. Timozel had spared only a quarter of his army for this attack; the rest of the Skraeling mass he was already pushing south to their destination. Timozel was on a tight schedule; he needed to dispose of what pitiful force Axis had here in less than half a day, then move his army south and then…well, then move them to their hiding place. But he needed to get them there within ten days to be sure of avoiding the force that Axis was sure to send north once he heard of Jervois Landing’s collapse.

  Although Gorgrael could recloak the entire northern regions of this land in storms so devastating that no man could survive more than a few minutes, Timozel did not want Axis to face weather that severe. Bitter cold, surely, but nothing that would prevent him finally leading his army north. Timozel very, very much wanted Axis to get through.

  We are ready. Timozel shared his thoughts not only with his subcommand—the SkraeBolds and the Skraelings of higher than average intelligence—but also with Gorgrael, eagerly following the course of the excitement with his mind’s eye, deep within his Ice Fortress.

  Privately, very privately, Timozel harboured resentment that Gorgrael should remain safely shrouded within his Fortress. Did he not want to face Axis himself? Or…was he afraid of him?

  Timozel kept these thoughts very dark and very, very deep.

  But he had better things to think of now, namely the killing that awaited him below.

  Begin, he ordered.

  Ninety IceWorms moved in first. Men in buildings closest to the northern outskirts of the town heard the sound first, a frightful slithering and screeching as the Worms hunched and scraped their way through the frozen streets.

  No-one assayed forth to attack them. Even if they had, archers would have lowered their bows in horror.

  Like his Skraelings, Gorgrael had been working on the IceWorms over the past few months. In unrestrained narcissism, he had created all of his creatures with the huge silver eyes that he himself enjoyed.

  The only problem, and it had been the problem that had largely frustrated Gorgrael’s attempts to push south to this point, had been that all of his creatures, whether Skraeling or IceWorm or even SkraeBold, had been terribly vulnerable through their eyes.

  Not so now. Now both Skraelings and IceWorms had their heads wrapped in bony armour that left only narrow slits over their eyes. Their vision was somewhat restricted, but it would take a skilled and extremely calm swordsman or archer to deliver a killing thrust.

  Behind the IceWorms crept thousands of Skraelings, fully fleshed, equipped with bony protective armour, their mouths hanging open in delicious anticipation of the killing that awaited them.

  Calmly, and with the most supreme confidence, the IceWorms crawled to the main buildings where most of the troops were likely to be located. Crouched behind one of the lower windows of the market hall where he was camped, Jorge was dry-mouthed with fear. He knew he was powerless to stop their attack; all he could do for his men was order them away from the windows and to the lower floors.

  But what did it matter when it would delay their deaths but a few minutes?

  He glanced behind him to the remainder of the Icarii wing. “Get out!” he rasped, “get back to Carlon. You alone will have a chance of escape. Tell your StarMan what you have seen here today. Go!” he shouted. “Do not linger!”

  The Wing commander, RuffleCrest JoyFlight, signalled to the other seven Icarii. He did not share Jorge’s belief that they would get back to Carlon. Surely Gorgrael would have Gryphon circling above—and RuffleCrest had seen what a Gryphon could do. But he nodded anyway. Perhaps one or two of them could get back.

  They swiftly moved to a rear door and lifted on silent wings into the air. They blinked in the unexpected sunshine, circled for as long as they dared, noting the awesome forces that were crawling through the
town and, further west, through the northern Aldeni plains, then they bunched close together for protection and sped south.

  To the north Timozel’s eyes narrowed. So. He had expected such a foolish display of courage. Did they really expect to escape unscathed?

  SkraeFear, who waited with one of the Skraeling units still outside Jervois Landing, screeched in his mind. Let us destroy them, Lord Timozel! Or send the Gryphon! They can rip them to shreds in seconds!

  Fool! Timozel replied and drew on the well of power that Gorgrael had given him to wrap SkraeFear’s mind and body with bands of cold steel. He could feel, if not hear, SkraeFear scream far below him. How had Gorgrael managed with such incompetents previously?

  He touched the minds of a pack of thirty Gryphon circling to the west and directed them after the Icarii. But I want one or two of them to escape, he ordered, and he felt the Gryphon minds accept and agree. At least the Gryphon understood the principle of unquestioning obedience.

  The Icarii birdwoman at RuffleCrest’s wing felt rather than heard the Gryphon behind them. She wheeled to her left and dived with a wordless cry, and as the Gryphon pack struck the Icarii Wing, the birdmen and women broke formation, desperately trying to evade the Gryphon and, increasingly, engaged in useless battles for their own lives.

  One after another they felt the Gryphon on their backs, felt the great legs wrap about their bodies, felt talons and razor-sharp beaks rip into flesh.

  RuffleCrest felt the sudden rush of air and hot breath as a Gryphon fell through the air towards him, and he desperately twisted and dived, hoping that he would prove more agile than the creature behind him. He groped for an arrow from the quiver on his back, but just as his hand closed about the shaft of an arrow he was seized in the death grip of the Gryphon.

  He screamed, but he could do nothing more. One arm was twisted and trapped beneath the body of the Gryphon as it clutched to his back—agony flared as the unnatural forces twisting his arm finally snapped both bone and tendon. His other hand grasped uselessly at one of the great paws that were wrapped about his chest and belly. His wings fluttered uselessly; the only thing that kept him in the air now were the powerful wings of the Gryphon.

  To one side RuffleCrest could see another Gryphon clutching a birdwoman in a death grip. Even in the split second that his eyes remained on the woman the Gryphon’s talons sheared through flesh and bone, and before his eyes the woman literally burst apart in a shower of blood and body parts.

  The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes in horror was the carcass of his comrade falling through the sky.

  The Gryphon tightened its grip, and RuffleCrest realised that at any heartbeat its talons would begin to tear him apart.

  And indeed they did begin to tear, but they did not inflict fatal wounds. A whimper of pain escaped RuffleCrest as he felt the Gryphon’s talons slice into the muscles of his chest and belly, but they did not penetrate to a killing depth. After raking him with its talons for several minutes, slowly, extending its enjoyment, the Gryphon unbelievably released him, and RuffleCrest fell almost a hundred paces through the air before he recovered enough to spread his wings and push himself as hard as he could for the south.

  Five of the hellish creatures chased him and toyed with him for several leagues, RuffleCrest sobbing with fear, certain that at any moment one would strike and finish him.

  But they didn’t. Eventually they left him alone, and when RuffleCrest finally looked back it was to see that the sky behind him was empty of both Gryphon and Icarii.

  He was the only one of his Wing who had survived.

  Hugging his crippled arm to his chest, RuffleCrest slowly limped south. The flight would take him several days, and he would be almost dead from exhaustion and the spreading poison from his infected wounds when he finally reached safety.

  In his more lucid moments, he wondered why he had been left alive.

  Almost immediately after the Icarii had fled, the IceWorms staged an attack. Rearing their monstrous heads, they crashed through the upper windows of the buildings that they ringed, heaving obscenely to disgorge their cargoes of Skraelings directly into the buildings’ upper levels.

  At the same time the Skraeling units outside attacked the ground floors through doors and windows. And, as the IceWorms, empty, their task done, withdrew from the streets and joined their companions to the west, hundreds of Gryphon exploded through windows.

  The attacks by the IceWorms, Skraelings and Gryphon occurred so close together that to Jorge it sounded like one continuous roar. He heard the windows in the upper levels of the market hall explode first, then, an instant later, the screams of both wraiths and men as the ground-floor windows shattered. Gripping his sword in hands so cold they were virtually numb, feeling the icy air sear his lungs as he took a deep breath, Jorge stepped forward to meet the first Skraeling who leapt his way.

  May his Star Gods help him, Jorge thought as he kept the bony-armoured Skraelings at bay with well-placed strokes of his sword, desperately seeking an opening for a killing thrust. Even Axis will be hard pressed to defeat such as these.

  And, even more worrying than their new appearance, where had they learned their new-found discipline? Today’s attack on Jervois Landing had been well planned and well coordinated as no Skraeling attack had been previously. What had they learned? Jorge wondered as his breath came in short gasps and his arms began to tremble with weariness. And who have they learned it from?

  Out of the corners of his eyes Jorge could see his men dying about him. Gryphon were creeping down the stairs, launching themselves on terrified victims and tearing them apart in heartbeats.

  I do not want to die! Jorge’s mind cried, but he knew that his death was inevitable. Would the Skraeling eat him after it had killed him? Strangely, Jorge found that thought even more horribly repellent than the idea of death itself. An honourable warrior deserved an honourable burial.

  “You are right, Jorge,” said a voice, and a hand appeared on the Skraeling’s shoulder.

  Jorge stared in disbelief at the man who stood before him. How…how did he stand so safe and relaxed among this cursed horde?

  Timozel smiled at Jorge, then casually glanced about the room to watch the Skraelings and Gryphon butcher those few men remaining alive. Finally he turned his eyes back to the man before him.

  “Honourable men deserve honourable deaths,” Timozel said, slightly stressing the first “honourable”. “But you and yours hardly fight for an honourable cause. Do you not fight with the Forbidden, cursed and evil creatures that they are? And do you not fight for Axis, spawn of the Forbidden?”

  “And who do you fight for, Timozel?”

  Again Timozel smiled, and Jorge could see the cold cruelty in the man’s eyes. “I serve the saviour, Jorge. Gorgrael. I will see that he triumphs. I will free Achar from the horror that grips it.”

  Jorge’s hands, nerveless with terror at Timozel’s words, let his sword clatter to the floor. “Have you gone mad, Timozel?” he whispered.

  “Not at all, Earl Jorge,” Timozel said, leaning down and retrieving the man’s sword. “I have come entirely to my senses.”

  Then, teeth gleaming, he ran Jorge through the belly with his own sword, gave it a vicious twist, and left him to collapse and die on the floor.

  As Timozel turned away, Jorge rolled onto his side, knowing from the breath-taking pain knifing through his body that he was dying. He wrapped his hands about the blade and made a half-hearted attempt to pull it out.

  But the pain was too great, and Jorge lay still, watching with greying vision as Timozel communed with his nightmare commander.

  “Axis,” Jorge whispered with his last breath, and this time it was a prayer. Avenge me!

  At the last, Jorge had found his god.

  It is done, Master.

  Good, Timozel. Was it fun?

  Did you not watch, Master?

  Ah, yes, I watched and I revelled. But, did you find it fun?

  Timozel smiled.
Yes, yes and yes again. I think I will bathe in blood tonight.

  And now you will move south?

  Yes. Now I will lay the trap for Axis.

  Good, good boy. Pretty boy. You serve me well.

  10

  RUFFLECREST SPEAKS

  Two days later a Flight of three Wing scouting high over the Western Ranges almost forty leagues above Carlon, saw a black spot drifting slowly over the mountain peaks far below them. The Wing-Leaders, wary that attack from Gorgrael was considered likely any day now, ordered their commands to approach slowly and carefully. They did not want to be lured into a trap.

  But as they spiralled down and their far-seeing eyes focused on the spot, their commander, the recently promoted Crest-Leader SpikeFeather TrueSong, gave a wordless cry and beat his wings powerfully to reach his stricken comrade so far below.

  SpikeFeather, having survived a Gryphon attack previously, recognised the sight and smell of Gryphon wounds well before the others in his Flight.

  They caught RuffleCrest only minutes before he would have fallen, exhausted, from the sky, and they carried him in turns back to Carlon. There they took him directly to their StarMan, startling him as he sat at supper with the Enchantress in the Jade Chamber. Then they stood back, unspeaking, waiting for the StarMan to weave his enchantments on their dying comrade.

  Only because RuffleCrest was dying was Axis able to aid him. He gathered the birdman, his torso streaked with crimson and green lines of infection, as he had once gathered SpikeFeather, and he sang for him the Song of Recreation.

  Then, as RuffleCrest blinked, surprised, back to life, Axis directed that he be carried to a chamber where he could rest the night. He would speak with him in the morning.

  Axis, as Azhure, did not need to speak with RuffleCrest to know what news he carried.

  Axis had personally appointed RuffleCrest JoyFlight to lead the single Wing at Jervois Landing.