“You remember your early years at Carlon’s court too well, Rivkah.”
Rivkah relaxed in relief. “Azhure?” She strained her eyes in the dark. “What are you doing here?”
Azhure stepped forward into the dim glow of the fireplace embers and Rivkah gasped and jerked into a half-sitting position. “Azhure! What…what is that you wear?”
Azhure was clad in a suit so well-fitting it scarcely crinkled as she moved; indeed, Rivkah could not see a seam or a join anywhere. At first she thought it was of solid deep-blue colouring, but as Azhure walked forward another step Rivkah saw the dark shadows of moons, some quarter, some half, some full, chase each other across her body. “It’s beautiful!” she whispered.
“Xanon gave it to me,” Azhure said matter-of-factly, and Rivkah’s eyes flew to her face. There was a wildness there she’d never seen before.
Azhure sat on the edge of the bed, taking Rivkah’s hand. “Do not worry, Rivkah. I am still Azhure. Still the girl you befriended so long ago outside Smyrton.”
Rivkah nodded. “I have never regretted your friendship, Azhure. I sometimes think that you have been more my daughter than EvenSong.”
Azhure squeezed Rivkah’s hand. “I am starting my journey to Axis tonight. And towards…” Her voice trailed off.
“Azhure? What’s wrong?”
Azhure shook herself. “Nothing. Will you watch over Caelum for me? He will fret while I am away, and worry about his father.”
“We will all fret and worry over both you and Axis,” Rivkah said. “Be careful, whatever you do…wherever you go.”
Azhure nodded, then leaned forward and kissed Rivkah on the mouth.
Outside the mist the wind howled, and at the edges of the continent the tides tangled with the drifting seaweed.
Azhure! Azhure! Azhure!
The circle of bracken had burned now, and clouds had moved in to obscure the stars, but Faraday could feel that the night had been a success.
“This is the year we will break Gorgrael’s ice,” she said. “It will be the final year of subjection and invasion.”
“Faraday.” Barsarbe moved to Tree Friend’s side. “I am sorry that I spoke so harshly about your friend Azhure.”
You are sorry only that she is my friend, not that you spoke of her harshly, she thought, but nodded anyway. By her side the Goodwife watched Barsarbe carefully; again the Goodwife had Shra’s hand bonded tight in hers.
“Barsarbe.” Faraday caught the Bane’s eyes and held them. “You are the senior Bane among your people, and thus you have a fearsome duty. Do not let your personal feelings interfere in your responsibility to your people. Do not let your personal hatreds colour any advice you may give them.” And by the Mother, she thought, I wish Raum were in your place.
Barsarbe opened her mouth to speak, but Faraday continued, her voice harder. “I have responsibilities, Barsarbe, and they are not only to your people. I do not belong to you. Bane Barsarbe, listen well. I will plant the trees to the Avarinheim, and do it with gladness. But all that I do after I will do for love of Axis and for love of Azhure, and not through any obligation to your people.”
Barsarbe stared at Faraday, unsure what to say or how to say it; how could she have mishandled her first meeting with Tree Friend so badly? But then, who would have thought that Azhure could have worried her way so deep into Tree Friend’s heart? “You will not lead us into our new home?”
“Let us wait for the outcome of the Prophecy, Barsarbe. If I am free, then I will be glad to do so. But whatever happens, you will have your leader.”
Faraday wanted to explain further, though she felt sure that Barsarbe—as all the other Avar present—knew of what she spoke, but just then she felt a small hand clutch her own and she glanced down. Shra now stood beside her, her young eyes fixed firmly on Barsarbe.
“Accepted,” she said clearly. “I accepted Azhure, Bane Barsarbe, on behalf on the Avar. The Horned Ones have accepted her, too. Faraday?” She lifted her eyes and Faraday smiled at her. “Faraday, do not grieve or fear. The Avar will help Axis. I give you my word.”
To one side Barsarbe’s mouth jerked angrily.
Faraday stared at the little girl, and she suddenly wondered who led the Avar. Barsarbe? Or Shra? A powerful and experienced Bane, or a five-year-old girl? Faraday found herself hoping it was the latter.
The Goodwife looked at the little girl and smiled proudly, lovingly. As she caught Shra’s eye, the Goodwife gave a little nod of approval.
After Azhure had gone Rivkah leaned back against her pillow, her eyes reflective. She lifted her hand to brush a stray hair from her eyes and instead brushed her fingers against something soft and delicate on the pillow.
Ever wary, Rivkah started, then relaxed, a mystified expression on her face.
Resting on the pillow by her face was a Moonwildflower.
39
THE HUNTRESS
Azhure paused only long enough to saddle Venator and swing onto his back, then, the Alaunt following like silent shadows, she kicked the stallion through the Keep’s gates and across the bridge.
From Sigholt, Azhure angled south-west through the mist, aiming for the western passes of the Urqhart. And from there to Hsingard.
One of the Alaunt bayed, but Sicarius silenced him with a short, sharp gruff.
The enchanted soft blue mist clung for almost a league about Sigholt. Any whom the bridge did not recognise would wander lost and confused for hours until they found themselves back at their original entry point. But Azhure did not get lost, and she rode Venator at a sharp canter through the mist until, close to dawn, they emerged into the western Urqhart Hills.
Beyond the mist, Gorgrael’s hold on the winter had not loosened. The winds roared across the hills, whistling through the passes, carrying snow and ice in their wake. As she rode the winds seized Azhure’s hair and tugged at her body, but she laughed and tossed her head, and neither horse nor hounds were bothered by the cold or the wind.
“Hsingard,” she whispered, and pushed Venator into a gallop.
Sicarius at their head, the Alaunt began to run.
Nine months earlier, Azhure had led a force of several hundred men into Hsingard to discover what it was the Skraelings did there. Gorgrael’s force had turned the once proud city into sad rubble and, as Azhure and Axis discovered, had worked the heaps of stone into nests. Massive underground chambers served as breeding grounds for the wraiths.
Now Gorgrael had vast numbers of Skraelings—Azhure could sense them undulating like a great tidal mass to the north—and no doubt they still bred in their remaining comfortable stony chambers below Hsingard.
The last time Azhure had come here she had only barely managed to flee with her life and those of the men she had led. Although she and her men had struck the Skraelings hard, her greatest accomplishment had been in escaping the city with her force largely intact. Now, Azhure was riding back to finish what she had started so many months previously.
She rode through the day, neither rider nor horse nor even the hounds tiring, until, at dusk, she rode out of the final pass towards Hsingard, half a league across the plains.
The hounds streamed out before the horse and rider, the scent in their nostrils, their lips drawn back from their teeth, and both the hunting party and the path before it was lit by a broad moonbeam, shining as brightly as if there were a full moon. But the moon was still waxing, and nothing could explain the occasional violet Moonwildflower that drifted gently undisturbed through the screaming winds to lie in Azhure’s wake.
As she passed the moonlight faded and, as it faded, so the wind tore the flowers to tatters.
But Azhure, as horse and hounds, had eyes only for the great piles of rubble that rose twenty paces into the air before them and spread for almost half a league from north to south. Hsingard.
She leaned back in the saddle, unslinging the Wolven from her shoulder and fitting an arrow.
“Hunt!” she screamed, and the Alaunt raised voic
e.
Their pale shapes wove between the shadows of the rubble and slipped into the darkened crevices. Eventually, the entire pack disappeared from sight, but Azhure could still hear the echoes of their hunting clamour reverberate through the underground chambers and around and about the city’s dead streets.
Before them the Alaunt drove screaming Skraelings, both parents and hatchlings. The Skraelings tried to turn and nip and bite at the hounds, but they couldn’t touch the beasts because they seemed only pale shadows, golden eyes and hot, sharp teeth, and the Skraeling teeth, constantly snapping, constantly missed. And so they ran.
Above, Azhure could hear the Skraelings screech. “To the surface,” she cried, “to the surface!” Far below her the Alaunt heard, their lips drew back in savage smiles, and they drove the Skraelings before them.
This is what they had been bred to do. To hunt, and to hunt with the Huntress.
Her stallion dancing beneath her, Azhure raised the Wolven to her face and sighted down the shaft of the arrow…and, in their scores and their hundreds and their thousands, the Skraelings surged to the surface, arms flailing, eyes shining in terror, teeth exposed in fulsome voice…
And Azhure let fly, seizing another arrow in almost the same movement, and let fly, and seized another…and let fly…
And the Skraelings died.
They thought there must have been ten thousand archers waiting to greet them as they fled the ten thousand hounds at their back, for arrows appeared out of the nasty, bright moonlight in such thick rain that none could escape their sting. Without fail each arrow flew through the narrow gap between bony protuberances into silver eyes, and soon the sound of bursting eyeballs drowned out the noise of the screaming of those left alive and the rising excitement of the hounds.
And, drifting gently through the night, came a Moonwildflower for each Skraeling killed, and soon the ground was covered with the delicate violet flowers sliding through rivulets of bright red blood.
Azhure did not pause to wonder where the arrows came from, nor where she found the speed and the strength to litter the ground with so many corpses. But while the Alaunt drove the Skraelings forward, she continued to rain her arrows upon them, and the red stallion rolled his eyes and skittered and wondered, in his foggy equine way, if the flowers might be good to eat.
Then, abruptly, it was over. Azhure blinked, and lowered the Wolven, an arrow still notched. She looked about her. She sat her horse in the main square of Hsingard, bathed in intense moonlight, and it was littered with the corpses of Skraelings and the rivers of their blood…and Moonwildflowers, some of which still drifted from the night above.
“Stars,” she whispered, “what have I done?”
Her shoulders slumping in exhaustion, Azhure slid the arrow back into the quiver, noting dully that it was still full of its blue-feathered arrows, then whistled for the Alaunt.
They emerged from crevices and dark holes, their faces grinning happily, tongues lolling past bloodstained muzzles. Azhure swung down from Venator and touched the head of every hound that crowded about her, silently thanking them for the service they had done her. Then she patted the horse, and gazed about the square again.
A flicker of light caught her eye, and she saw that in a sheltered alleyway to one side of the square a man sat at a fire, slowly turning a spit.
He looked up, and even from this distance Azhure recognised the gleam of Adamon’s eyes.
You must rest, Azhure, and eat. Come join me.
About them the hounds and the horse lay curled in sleep.
I enjoyed the hunt.
Adamon nodded, handing Azhure another piece of roast partridge. She would need to replenish her energy. Azhure took it and tore into it hungrily, vaguely aware that this must be her ninth or tenth piece.
Why am I so ravenous?
Hunting consumes energy. You will need to rest for a day and a night before you resume your journey west to Axis.
Azhure licked her fingers and eyed the spit. Another three birds were roasting over the flames, and she wondered if that was all.
You will have all you need, Azhure. Adamon’s eyes twinkled. Even such as us can become tired if we expend too much energy…too much magic.
Can I destroy the Gorgrael’s host the way I destroyed these Skraelings?
Adamon’s eyes lost their amused gleam. No, Azhure. Do not even try it. Gorgrael’s host is three hundred times the size of the number you destroyed tonight. Could you face three hundred times the exhaustion you feel now? Can you face what Axis did?
Azhure plucked a Moonwildflower from her hair and turned it over in her fingers. Then even gods have their limits.
Yes. Even we.
She lifted her eyes. I enjoyed the hunt so much. Surely I can use that to Axis’ advantage?
You will hunt other creatures, Azhure.
Gryphon?
Yes, Gryphon. And others.
Azhure thought about it. The Gryphon will be harder to kill. And what others will I need to hunt?
You will know when the time comes. Now, eat some more, and then rest.
From Hsingard, Azhure rode south-west for several days, skirting the southern Urqhart Hills. This far north the wind and snow still screamed, but Azhure thought she could feel a slight difference. The wind still hated, but it was almost as if there were less…vigour…behind its blasts. Plant, Faraday, she thought, plant.
And watch the shadows.
Azhure still worried about Faraday, but the more urgent problem was Axis. Could she help him when she arrived? Would she have the power for that now? How long had it been since he had crippled himself with the use of the Star Dance? Where was he? Azhure did not know if her message to Belial had got through, and as she rode she chewed her lip in thought. If she were leading a crippled army, where would she take it? Where was it now?
“Search,” she whispered to the hounds before her, and Sicarius turned his head, his eyes questioning. “Search for Axis, Sicarius, and bring me to him.”
And the hound lowered his great head to the snow and loped faster.
And so she rode.
Often, she had company.
Azhure, Xanon said to her one day as she ran effortlessly beside Azhure’s stallion, her hand tangled in his mane, let me tell you more about the Star Dance. This you must know, if you are to help Axis.
Yes. Tell me.
Do you remember the secret Adamon told you?
Azhure felt a shiver of excitement ripple down her spine. Yes.
Good. Azhure, all life exists within the Star Dance. All life must listen to it.
I don’t understand.
You will. Let us keep silent for a few minutes and, as we run, listen…listen for the Star Dance.
I can always hear it.
Yes, you can, but I wonder if you truly hear it. Let it suffuse you…and then listen to the sound of your horse’s hooves as they thud in the snow, and to the pitch of the hounds as they pant, and to the throb of your own heart.
Azhure closed her eyes, her body swaying to the rhythm of the horse as he cantered forward, and let the music of the Star Dance engulf her. Her lips parted, and by her side Xanon smiled.
Once she had relaxed completely within the music of the Star Dance, Azhure slowly let other sounds intrude. The thud of Venator’s hooves…the pitch of the hounds’ breath as they ran…the throb of her own heart…
…the surge of the tide as it beat against the shore…
…the rise and fall of the moon as she dipped through the sky…
XANON!
Xanon tipped her head back and laughed, the music and beat of her laughter adding to Azhure’s understanding.
Xanon, Azhure’s mind whispered, all life sways to the Beat of the Star Dance. We all keep time.
Yes. The Beat suffuses every aspect of life. Good. You understand. Now ride, and as you ride, listen to the Beat of the Star Dance…it is the throb of life.
Three days from Hsingard, Azhure rode through Jervois Landing.
It stood silent and empty of human or Icarii life, the snow drifting through deserted streets. But the ice and frost that Azhure remembered seeing when Axis recalled RuffleCrest JoyFlight’s memory had gone. Now Jervois Landing was still winter-swept, but it was not frozen, and in sheltered corners Azhure could see the occasional bird or squirrel crouched, waiting for the thaw.
Perhaps they could somehow feel the spread of the Minstrelsea forest so many leagues to the south.
She camped that night in a small house on the outskirts of the town, and Adamon joined her about the fire.
Adamon, Xanon has shown me how all life sways to the Beat of the Star Dance.
Yes.
Azhure thought for a while, her chin resting in her hands as she stared into the fire. Adamon, I can hear the Dark Music as well. Few Icarii—none, really, save WolfStar—can do that.
Yes, Azhure. And can you feel its crazy beat?
Azhure shuddered. Yes. Yes, I can.
Imagine, Azhure, if that crazed beat became stronger than the beat of the Star Dance. Imagine what would happen.
Life would tear itself apart if it tried to follow the lead of the Dark Music.
Indeed.
Azhure sat up straight, pushing her hair back from her face. Adamon, stars and sun and moon must be surrounded by both Star Dance and the Dance of Death.
Both Dances constantly court the heavenly bodies, Azhure. But which do you love?
Azhure smiled. You know that. I love the Star Dance.
Yes.
Axis.
Yes. Help him.
From Jervois Landing the Alaunt led Azhure west-south-west. Above them and behind them drifted Moonwildflowers, and over them shone moonshine, whether the moon was full or dark.
During those hours when Azhure rode, Xanon, and sometimes Pors or Silton, ran by her side, explaining to her the ways of the gods, deepening her instinct, satisfying her curiosity, letting her grow.