Crusader

  She stepped close to the horse and put a shaking hand on Axis’ thigh. “Tell me!”

  “WolfStar wanted to control DragonStar, and he wanted to use Zenith to manipulate him.” Axis gave a harsh bark of laughter. “He chose poorly. He should have picked Faraday. Stars above! Hasn’t every other ambitious bastard in this land tried to use her at one time or the other?”

  StarLaughter frowned, trying to work it out. “But—”

  “He loved you. He would have used Zenith, then thrown her aside. You were always foremost in his thoughts.”

  And always with a curse attached to your name, Axis thought, but this he did not say.

  “No! No! I cannot believe you! Didn’t he curse me foully when I appeared before him in your convoy? Didn’t he repudiate me completely? Didn’t he—”

  “What else did you expect him to do, StarLaughter? He was hardly going to throw Zenith aside when all his plans were coming to fruition. I expect he thought you would have understood that.”

  StarLaughter tried very, very hard to deny what Axis was saying, but in her twisted mind it all made sense. WolfStar would certainly have wanted to control DragonStar…and, if he’d known that DragonStar had slept with his beloved wife, would have wanted to hurt him as much as possible. No wonder he’d picked Zenith to toy with! And now StarLaughter could understand why WolfStar had said what he had…and why he’d behaved as he had when confronted with StarLaughter with a rope wrapped about Zenith’s neck.

  StarLaughter, had she been in WolfStar’s place, would have acted exactly the same way.

  Somewhere deep within StarLaughter a small voice said that if WolfStar had truly loved her, and had desired Zenith only for her usefulness, then he would have told StarLaughter then and there that he loved only her truly, and that Zenith was a mere pawn for his ambitions.

  But he couldn’t, could he, because StarDrifter had been there also, and WolfStar could not have admitted his true motives in front of him.

  Yes!

  No! her mind screamed back. I have killed him! I have killed him!

  Axis smiled in grim, determined satisfaction. “You have made an awful mistake, haven’t you?”

  StarLaughter dropped her hand from Axis’ thigh and clasped both hands against her breast, her fingers opening and closing amid the folds of her gown. Her mouth went slack in horror.

  “I have lost him!” she eventually whispered. “Lost him forever!”

  “Not necessarily,” Axis said, and StarLaughter missed entirely the hatred and revenge filling his voice.

  “No?” Again StarLaughter grabbed at Axis—in sudden, bright hope now, rather than anxiety. “No?”

  “No. Your and WolfStar’s love is a destined thing—”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “—and destiny can never be denied.”

  “Oh! How right you are!” StarLaughter’s face was now suffused with joyous hope.

  “I am sure,” Axis said, very quietly, and emphasising every word, “that WolfStar waits for you just the other side of the Gate of Death.”

  “He does?”

  “Oh, aye. Waits for you to join him so that you can enjoy a wonderful eternity in the Field of Flowers together.”

  “The Field of Flowers?”

  “A new eternity for all to enjoy,” Axis said. “Peace forever more with your loved ones. Imagine, lying in WolfStar’s arms amid the lilies, the stars whirling overhead, nothing but you and he, he and you, for all eternity…”

  “Oh,” StarLaughter breathed rapturously.

  “And all you must do,” Axis whispered, “is to join WolfStar beyond the Gate of Death.”

  StarLaughter stared at him, her eyes wide.

  “A small, trivial thing,” Axis continued, still very quietly, very persuasively.

  His eyes blazed into StarLaughter’s, with hope, she thought.

  “A small, trivial thing,” she said. “He waits just beyond…”

  “Just beyond the Gate of Death. Waiting, just for you. Loving you, but weeping that you made such an awful mistake that threatened your eternal happiness together.”

  StarLaughter thrust her hands against her face. “How could I have been so stupid!”

  “Everyone makes mistakes. Fortunately, yours is easily rectified.”

  StarLaughter nodded, her eyes filled with determination, and Axis slowly lifted his sword and presented it to her in ceremonial fashion, blade in his left hand, hilt extended over his right forearm crossed under the sword.

  StarLaughter dropped her eyes from Axis’ face and stared at the sword.

  “Such a small thing,” Axis said, “to be able to join him.”

  She said nothing.

  “Think of your love, and the joy that will be yours forever more, ever more. It is destined.”

  “Destined,” StarLaughter murmured, and tentatively grasped the hilt.

  “Destined,” Axis said.

  Still StarLaughter hesitated. “But…but our son. I have to get my son! WolfStar and I can’t exist without—”

  “Oh, rest easy, StarLaughter. I am sure that your son will join you shortly. Don’t worry about it. But there is one other thing…”

  Axis reworked his expression into one of deep sorrow. “Of course, if you don’t join him soon, WolfStar shall have to make do with whoever he can find. Zenith, I should imagine. After all, you sent her with him. Another awful mistake.”

  StarLaughter hissed in fury, and she seized the sword and drew it from Axis’ care. “She shall not have him!”

  “Not if you hurry,” Axis agreed.

  Utterly determined, and driven by her love and jealousy, StarLaughter changed her grip on the sword, pointing its blade towards her. Hurry, she had to hurry!

  Without further thought she drove the blade deep into her belly.

  She froze, then looked at Axis, her face a mask of bewilderment, her hands still wrapped about the hilt of the sword. “It hurts.”

  He shrugged a little. “Death always does, it is part of the rite of passage, I think. Pull the blade free then plunge it in again, twisting this time. Remember WolfStar waits for you.”

  “Yes…yes.” StarLaughter tightened her grip, and pulled the blade free.

  She screamed, and began to shake violently. “There’s…there’s so much blood.”

  She took a gasping, sobbing breath. “The pain…”

  Axis made no comment, but his eyes were bright with hate as they stared at StarLaughter.

  “Why is there so much blood, and so much pain?”

  “It shows that it’s working. Death is opening its Gate for you. Surely you will soon see WolfStar, waiting for you. Go on, plunge the blade in again. Deeper, until you can feel it scraping against your spine.”

  StarLaughter frowned, then, biting her lip in determination, she took as firm a grip around the hilt as she could, and plunged the blade in again, deep, deeper yet, her face contorted with agony and determination and insane, misplaced love, and gave the blade a massive twist.

  Her mouth dropped open with a low, wailing cry, and her eyes stared violently.

  She stilled, shuddered, then dropped to the ground.

  Axis stared down.

  StarLaughter was still alive, but only just.

  “Can you see him yet?” Axis asked.

  “He’s just beyond the Gate,” StarLaughter murmured happily, and died.

  WolfStar was not pleased to see her at all. He fought, furious, but StarLaughter had her claws in him now, and he could not wrest himself free.

  Fate had bound them for eternity.

  “The Field,” she whispered, and her fingers tightened around his arm.

  And so they approached the Field, the husband and wife, their voices raised in acrimonious marital dispute.

  They approached the Field, but they did not enter.

  They could not.

  A thin, pockmarked man, incongruously dressed as a butler, stood before a latched garden gate.

  He crossed his arms over his ches
t, and in a stern voice he said: “Go away. The Field rejects you.”

  “But—” the husband began.

  “Go away.”

  “We demand entrance!” the wife cried in shrill tones.

  “Begone!” the Butler roared, and the husband and wife flinched, and left, each blaming the other for their rejection.

  They were left with only one place to drift—the frigid spaces between the stars.

  But even there they were not left in peace, for the stars spat at them, and the comets flung blazing embers from their tails at them, and finally that husband and wife drifted to the very edge of the universe where, in loneliness and hate and recrimination, they prepared to spend their eternity.

  Axis stared down at StarLaughter’s corpse for a very long time, then raised his head towards the Hawkchilds.

  They had finished feeding now, and one of them, StarGrace, hobbled towards him.

  “If you think you can persuade us to kill ourselves,” she said, her beak rippling into pouting, red-lipped form then back to horned abomination, “then you are very, very wrong. We have no need to chase WolfStar into the mists of death.”

  “Then I must perforce use a bit of persuasion,” Axis said, and, raising his head so that he looked beyond the Hawkchilds, smiled.

  StarGrace considered him carefully, then she slowly turned and looked herself.

  And gave a scream of rage.

  Advancing down the back slopes of the gully were hundreds of ghostly trees, their branches weaving and waving into the dawn sky.

  “Fool!” StarGrace said, as she whipped back to Axis. “They cannot catch us!”

  And she spread her wings and rose into the air, her companions behind her.

  Axis lifted his head to watch them…and smiled yet again, cold and hard.

  Every Hawkchild had been trapped in the net of branches that had extended into impossible heights into the sky. As he watched, the trees pulled their branches back down to earth, dashing each Hawkchild into bloody fragments on rocks and into their own clutching roots.

  Again and again the trees raised the corpses of the Hawkchilds into the air, and again and again thundered them earthwards.

  When it was all finished the trees retreated, and Axis was left to stare at the now deserted, bloody field of death.

  It was only then that he again saw the white wing, splotched with blood and, finally, new horror hit him.

  “StarDrifter!” he screamed, and fell to the earth. He scrabbled over to the wing, and grabbed at it, burying his fingers amid the feathers as if by that action alone he could bring his father back. “No! No! No!”

  Far away Qeteb leaned over the snowy tablecloth and squeezed DragonStar’s arm. “You mustn’t let your sister’s and grandfather’s deaths distract you. Life must go on after all.”

  He received no reply, save for a look of implacable hatred.

  Qeteb laughed. “Fernbrake next. Fancy a wager on the outcome?”

  Again, no reply.

  Qeteb was not discouraged. “I must tell you, DragonStar my Enemy, that I have been thinking about this little girl you seem so determined to protect. What was her name? Ah, yes, Katie.”

  He dragged out Katie’s name so wetly it slobbered on the table between them.

  “I was thinking, my dear boy, that should one of my companions triumph over of one yours, I might send them after her. To fetch her for me.”

  Qeteb sat back and rested a forefinger against a cheek, rolling his eyes in a parody of indecision. “Ah, dear me. Which one to go for? Katie…or Faraday? You do understand that we are caught in the same fight your father engaged in against Gorgrael, don’t you? I am caught in Gorgrael’s dilemma. Of two females, I know that one of them will destroy you. But which? Which?”

  And Qeteb grinned, for he knew which one it was.

  Chapter 57

  South, Ever South

  Axis buried his grief in action. He was unable to go near Zenith’s torn body, and so Urbeth and Ur took what remained of Zenith and StarDrifter (they could only find a few remnants of his wings), and interred them in a gully to the east of Sigholt’s ruins.

  In death, perhaps, the lovers could be together.

  Then both women, backed by the trees, sang a dirge of such beauty that Axis finally bowed his head and sobbed as he leaned against Zared.

  “South,” Axis said, when it was finally over. “South, for I cannot bear to stand here an instant longer and look at the destruction of my life.”

  “You still have Azhure,” Zared said. “You still have DragonStar.”

  Axis nodded. “But I have also lost, and that loss will never be regained.”

  “Until the Field—” Zared began, but Axis had already turned and walked away.

  South. South to Fernbrake Lake.

  There lay Leagh, about to give birth, and about to do her own battle with the Demon Roxiah. Zared was desperate to get to her, to be there for her, but he was not the only one. Ur also niggled at Axis whenever she got the chance, slipping up behind him when he dismounted after a day ranging ahead with his war band, whispering into his ear as he lay down to sleep at night.

  Eventually, she annoyed Axis so much he sent her to the very rear of the column, and set a guard of some twenty-seven Lake Guardsmen over her with strict instructions not to let her near him.

  It was not so much Ur’s persistence that annoyed Axis, although desperate to be left alone in his grief, but the fact was, he was moving south as fast as he could anyway, and didn’t need Ur muttering uselessly every moment she got the chance.

  Every day Sal slid faster and faster, and the landscape strode impossibly past, an unnoticed blur. Axis spent his waking hours fighting—swiping the heads from demented cows, slicing the hearts out of sly boars—and his nights tossing in half-sleep, dreaming of Zenith as a child, and dreaming of that day long, long ago, when he had first met StarDrifter in the snow at the foot of the Icescarp Alps.

  His daughter and his father, both, impossibly, gone, and he, uselessly, still remaining.

  They drew close to the Minaret Peaks.

  Leagh had prepared her circular lying-in chamber with the greatest care. It was pristine and white: the gently drifting curtains, the bed, the tables covered with linens, the porcelain bowls and buckets.

  The knives and hooks, of course, were of gleaming steel.

  Leagh turned slowly about, inspecting her trap.

  But who would it trap? Roxiah…or her?

  Her hand tightened momentarily over her belly. She was huge now, the child squirming, desperate to make its own way in the world.

  Not long. Not long.

  Beyond the door of the round chamber stood the ranks of the Lake Guard in double file, forming an avenue of ivory and determination.

  Beyond them squealed and roared ten thousand crazed creatures from millipedes to humped bulls. They made no attempt to storm either the Lake Guard or the round chamber hung with diaphanous curtains.

  Another would storm the chamber for them.

  It lingered on the ridge of the crater, staring down, its hand on its own horribly distended belly.

  Roxiah: body of Niah, soul of Rox, and receptacle for…for whatever waited to squirm its way out.

  Soon. Soon. The birth was imminent.

  Roxiah turned its head and looked to where Qeteb and DragonStar sat at the luncheon table.

  Qeteb nodded, and Roxiah grinned. It turned, and took a step downwards.

  In her chamber, Leagh suddenly screamed and doubled over in agony as the first of her birth pangs stabbed home.

  Chapter 58

  Sweetly, Innocently, Happily…

  All Qeteb’s genteel bonhomie was gone. He leaned forward over the table, a glass gripped tight in his hand, his eyes intent on the billowing curtains of the circular chamber in the hollow beneath him. On the other side of the table, DragonStar was no less tense. Although he sat back, apparently comfortable on his chair, the muscles of his face were tight, and his eyes narrowed. r />
  A very slight movement in the far distance caught DragonStar’s attention, and he shifted his eyes slightly so he could see.

  Startlement—almost gladness—momentarily transformed his face. The massive column of trees, peoples and animals had reached the lower Minaret Peaks and was slowly wending its way into the passes that would bring them to Fernbrake.

  Axis rode ahead on his sweet brown mare, and not far behind him came Zared on his draughthorse—even at this distance DragonStar’s eyes could pick out the desperation in Zared’s face. Behind Zared, Gwendylyr riding close at his side, and behind them…behind them loped the great ice bear, Urbeth.

  DragonStar’s face went slack in amazement. For once the proud Urbeth had allowed someone to ride her back. Ur, still clutching her precious terracotta pot.

  Well, at that DragonStar was not surprised. If Leagh won out against Roxiah, then Ur would be desperate to get to Leagh before she gave birth.

  DragonStar almost smiled. No doubt Ur had been niggling and irritating Axis for days upon days to get here as fast as he could.

  And then DragonStar’s face emptied of all emotion, for he remembered what it was that Axis had ridden from. Zenith. Dead. Lost, finally, for WolfStar’s sins.

  DragonStar turned his eyes back to the birthing chamber far below.

  Roxiah had gained the flat of the crater, and was now waddling its bulky figure through the ranks of the impassive Lake Guard towards the birthing chamber.

  Leagh walked slowly, painfully, about the chamber, pausing every time a new pain gripped her.

  Her face appeared impassive, but Leagh’s mind was running wild with what might, or might not, occur in this chamber.

  She was comforted by the sweet voice of her child, reaching up through blood and bone and sinew to her heart to reassure her mother.

  Do you not realise how close we are to the Infinite Field of Flowers? the child asked, using her words more as a consolation than as a question that needed to be answered.