"They were exhausted," said Eleanon, so softly that his words did not intrude upon the scene before them. "They could no longer fly. They'd been traveling north, north, north for weeks."
"What kept driving them? They must have known they were traveling into hell."
"Arrogance. Pride. A disinclination to return home to say they were wrong. Who knows? But look, see now, help came."
The group struggled forward, but now they glanced over shoulders and to each side with anxious eyes.
There was a light snow falling about them, and in it Axis could see...
"Skraelings!" he hissed.
"Aye, Skraelings," said Eleanon. "But the Icarii were in luck, for this year there was a glut of snow rabbits, and the Skraelings were well fed. And see, the Skraelings left them food, that they might survive."
The Icarii had come upon a small pile of headless snow rabbits. There was hesitation, and discussion, but soon they fell to their meal, tearing the rabbits apart and eating them raw.
Axis winced. The Icarii must have been desperate indeed to resort to such barbarity.
"The Skraelings do have some kindness in them, Axis," said a new voice, and Axis turned to look at Inardle, who had appeared at Eleanon's shoulder.
He thought again how striking she looked. He noted also that whereas Eleanon's expression radiated distance and haughtiness, Inardle's was softened by the faintest hint of vulnerability.
She was...hypnotic, and while Axis realized he was staring, he could not move his eyes from her.
Inardle gave Axis a half-shy smile, and he wondered at it: genuine or ingenuous?
He inclined his head in greeting, then returned to the conversation. "Kindness is not a quality I have ever associated with Skraelings."
"Nonetheless," Inardle said, and she nodded back to the vision, "they left them food, day in and out, and even helped the Icarii build shelters."
Axis could hardly believe what he saw. Skraelings emerged from the freezing mists, some bearing rocks, some bearing blocks of ice. With these, and the snow about them, they helped the Icarii build low rounded shelters. The Icarii were obviously wary in the extreme, but they accepted the help, and were glad of it.
Without Skraeling assistance they would have died.
Time passed. Axis could see it in the way the snow moved about the collection of low shelters, built up against one aspect then drifted away again.
"There was talk among the Icarii about returning to the Icescarp Alps," Eleanon said, "but the general consensus was that the Acharites, with their axes, would have murdered their fellows left behind. They felt it was too dangerous to return."
"Besides," Inardle said, "they were getting used to the frozen wastes. And..."
Axis looked at her. She was gazing at the tableau before them with an expression that was part grief, part yearning.
"Besides?" he said.
"Besides," Inardle said, "one of the Icarii, a young enchantress called SummerStar--"
She looked at Axis now, and she smiled, the expression so warm and glorious that Axis' breath caught in his throat.
"Imagine a name like that," she said, "amid an existence like this!" She waved a hand back at the group of icy shelters. "Imagine...well, SummerStar formed an attachment to the Skraelings. She pitied them, and believed that good could come of them. She befriended those that she might."
Axis was now looking back at the tableau before him. He knew where this story would go, and he felt sick to his stomach. He didn't want to hear it--see it--but knew that he must.
A young Icarii woman had emerged from one of the shelters. She was very lovely, and Axis could see a sweet expression on her face.
"She was very naive," said Eleanon, "but good-hearted and well-meaning."
"And have not half the disasters of our worlds, Axis," Inardle said, her tone now bitter, "been caused by the naive and well-meaning and good-hearted?"
Again he glanced at her, and saw embittered grief clearly in her eyes.
"Look, Axis," Eleanon said. "Look."
SummerStar was now sitting with a group of Skraelings. Just seeing her sitting so calmly there, with the terrible ice wraiths with their over-sized heads and slavering jaws and great silvery orbs for eyes, deepened Axis' nausea.
Gradually the Skraelings rose and drifted away, until there was only one remaining with SummerStar.
She reached out and laid a hand to its cheek.
Axis literally gagged. For a moment he stood, half bent over, hands on thighs, trying hard not to retch.
He felt a soft hand on his shoulder.
Inardle.
"She only meant well," Inardle said, very softly. "SummerStar only ever meant well."
Axis took a deep breath, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and straightened. Inardle kept her hand on his shoulder, standing close to him, for which Axis was grateful. He did not think he'd be able to get through what he knew he was about to witness without her support.
The Skraeling leapt onto SummerStar. She tried to scream, but one of its massive clawed hands covered her mouth, and she was helpless.
"Oh gods..." Axis whispered.
"A Skraeling mating is never pleasant," Eleanon said, somewhat conversationally. "It is also very painful.
Sometimes at night, when we were in the north, we would hear them--"
"Enough!" Axis hissed. He could not tear his eyes away from what was happening before him, although he wished he had the courage and will to do so.
SummerStar was desperate. She tried everything she could, but the Skraeling had her pinned, and was far too strong for her. It tore the clothes from her body, pried her legs apart--causing deep wounds in her flesh with its claws--and then mounted her with a great curved and barbed phallus.
SummerStar could not scream, not audibly, but Axis heard it through every fiber of his body. She was using the Star Dance, using it to call and plead for help, using it to articulate her horror, her agony, and her inarticulate shrieks for aid reverberated through Axis' being.
Inardle's hand tightened on Axis' shoulder.
Icarii tumbled out of the shelters. They tore the Skraeling from SummerStar's body, but it was too late.
"At least the Skraeling mating is brief," said Eleanon. "Once they're in, they're done."
"Have you no compassion at all?" hissed Axis.
"We have lived with this for eons," Inardle said. "We have learned to come to terms with it."
The Icarii were now carrying SummerStar's battered body into one of the shelters.
"Time passed," said Eleanon.
Again the snow shifted about the ice shelters.
SummerStar emerged once more, and this time her belly was large and rounded. She squatted down in the snow, and Axis saw her body shudder and contract.
Within moments, she had given birth--a tiny, squalling infant that looked like any Icarii infant, save for its strange transparent nature and the rime of frost about its skull.
"What do you know of the Skraeling breeding habits?" Eleanon asked Axis.
"Not a great deal," Axis said, still feeling ill, but thinking that at least the worst had now passed. So this was how the first of the Lealfast had been born--but why were others born? How was it there was now a great nation of them?
"I know they make nests and lay eggs," Axis said, remembering coming upon an underground chamber once, filled with Skraeling eggs and hatchlings.
At least SummerStar had not laid an egg.
"The Skraeling mating may be short and brutal," said Eleanon, "but at least they only do it once. A pair meet, mate, and then mate no more."
"But," Inardle said, "the female continues to lay eggs through her life."
"No..." Axis whispered.
"The male's seed remains within its mate's body all her life, continually fertilizing her," Eleanon said.
"Once she had given birth, SummerStar fell pregnant again."
Before them, SummerStar rose from her childbirth, only to lay a hand to he
r belly once again and wail.
Her belly grew and swelled before Axis' eyes, and once again SummerStar squatted down in the snow to give birth.
"Icarii live such long lives," Eleanon said, "and SummerStar was only in her thirties when she was mated by the Skraeling."
"She had two hundred and eighty-six children," said Inardle, "before she died of exhaustion during her two hundred and eighty-seventh pregnancy."
"And so you see why we are," said Eleanon. "We all come from the one mother and the one father."
"The other Icarii," Axis said, not surprised to discover his voice hoarse with horror. "What became of them?"
"The Skraelings ate them, the year after SummerStar gave birth to her first child," said Inardle. "It was a bad year for snow rabbits, that year."
"But SummerStar..." Axis said.
"Oh, her they kept alive," said Eleanon. "They adored her children, and nurtured them. SummerStar herself...well, for many years she distanced herself from the children, existing in a fugue of self-loathing and pain, but she was a creature of love and compassion, and eventually she called her children to her and taught them the way of the Star Dance."
"They were all Enchanters," said Inardle. "All the Lealfast are. We are all magic."
Eleanon waved a hand and to Axis's great relief the vision before them vanished, replaced once again by the view of the Isembaardian army struggling east.
"Once SummerStar was gone," Eleanon said, "the Lealfast continued to breed among themselves."
Inardle saw the expression on Axis' face and she gave a sad smile. "Oh, in all manner of things we are Icarii, Axis, save in some aspects of our mysterious and magical selves. We do not breed like the Skraelings. We make love as any other."
There was a little bit of a challenge in her eyes now, but Axis ignored it. "You remained close to the Skraelings?" he said.
Eleanon shook his head. "Part of us despises them, Axis. They, too, came to partly despise us. We were all they could not be; they were all we never wanted to be. We tolerate each other."
They stood silently a moment, Axis still caught by the horror of the vision that Eleanon and Inardle had shown him.
"You use the Star Dance differently," Axis said.
"Yes," Eleanon said. "One day, if I decide I like you, I may explain it to you."
"Perhaps Inardle can explain it to me," Axis said, returning in his own glance a little of the challenge he had seen in her eyes earlier.
Inardle dropped her hand from his shoulder. "You have discovered the Star Dance again, Axis StarMan."
Her voice had lost its earlier warmth, and Axis was surprised--and a little perturbed--to find himself disappointed at that lack.
"I have been blind," he said, "and am now a little less so."
"It is late, Axis, and you are exhausted," Eleanon said. "My brothers and sisters will spend the night abroad, gleaning what they can about the generals. I will speak to you in the morning."
With that, he and Inardle simply faded from view--their strange gray frosted eyes being the last thing to vanish into the gloom of dusk.
"That was well done, Inardle," Eleanon said as they drifted away unseen through the air.
"I do not like it," she said.
"You do not like Axis?" Eleanon said. "I thought few women could resist him."
"That is not what I meant."
"You did this with Lister," Eleanon said, his tone hardening slightly. "Do it, also, with Axis. The future of the entire Lealfast Nation rests on our shoulders, Inardle. Now is not the time to develop coyness."
"It is not coyness," she muttered, "but perhaps a little conscience."
CHAPTER TEN
On the Road to Serpent's Nest
Axis was exhausted by the time camp was made and wanted nothing but a meal, his sleeping roll, and time to think before he could finally drift into a gratifying sleep.
But first he needed to speak to Maximilian.
He finally got to Maximilian's tent, where Serge and Doyle crouched outside over a game of dice by their fire, late at night.
"Anyone else inside?" Axis asked the two men.
"No one yet," said Serge, "but StarDrifter and Georgdi are expected."
Axis nodded his thanks, and stepped inside the tent.
Maximilian was seated at his table eating a meal of bread and cheese, and gestured Axis to join him. Axis sat, poured himself a glass of warm ale, then bit hungrily into a piece of bread and cheese himself.
"Eleanon brought news," Axis said once he'd swallowed his first mouthful.
"Yes," Maximilian said, "he told me, as well. The generals' escape and persons are hidden by some gloomy enchantment."
Axis sent him a significant look as he took another bite of his meal.
Maximilian sighed. "Ravenna?"
"My father told me how she and you hid your party with such a gloomy enchantment when traversing northern Isembaard," Axis said. "Maxel...do you think it is her?"
Maximilian sighed and rubbed at his eyes wearily with one hand. "I don't know. I'd like to think not...but..."
"She is going to prove a dangerous enemy, Maxel."
Maximilian grunted.
"What will you do?" Axis said.
"I will speak to her."
"And will she reply truthfully?"
Maximilian hesitated, and in that silent moment there was a noise at the tent door and StarDrifter and Georgdi entered. StarDrifter was looking cheerful, Georgdi looked almost as tired as Axis.
Both pulled out stools and sat down at the table, and Axis poured them some ale.
"Fifteen more Icarii arrived with the convoy today," StarDrifter said. "Five Enchanters among them. They have told me that hundreds, thousands, are flying to join me."
Axis exchanged an amused glance with Maximilian. StarDrifter's joy was infectious and lightened both their moods.
"You may well have a goodly portion of your Strike Force back, Axis," StarDrifter said.
"Not my Strike Force any longer," Axis said. "They are yours, but..."
"But...?" StarDrifter said.
"BroadWing is a good man to place as Strike Leader, StarDrifter. If you were looking."
StarDrifter smiled, and gave his son a nod. BroadWing had a new job.
"Georgdi," Maximilian said, "I know you have been chafing at the bit to take your soldiers and do what you can for the Outlands."
"A million Isembaardians have invaded my homelands, Maxel," Georgdi said, "and refugees must be continuing to pour through the Salamaan Pass. Yes, I am chafing."
"I think that every sword shall be needed over the coming months," Maximilian said. "I know you want to leave..." He paused. "Georgdi, do you have trusted and capable lieutenants among your men?"
"All my men are trusted and capable," Georgdi said. "It is our strength."
"Good," said Maximilian. "Leaving aside for the moment the problem of the half a million or so Isembaardian soldiers, there is something we can do about the settlers and refugees. Georgdi, can you spare men enough to start to organize the Isembaardian civilians into convoys west?"
Georgdi nodded, but raised his eyebrows. "West?"
"I do not think the Outlands is going to be the safest place for them," Maximilian said. "The Central Kingdoms can absorb them--if you will excuse my bluntness--far better now that the Skraelings have emptied half of their populations."
"You might also like to think about evacuating the Outlanders," Axis said quietly. "Whatever comes up from the south is almost certain to come through the Salamaan Pass, and--"
"The Outlanders will stay to protect their land," Georgdi said. "We are all born with swords in our hands." He drained the last of his ale, then poured himself some more. "I'll send men out in the morning to do what they can with the Isembaardian settlers and refugees, Maximilian. They will do what you need."
Maximilian bowed his head in thanks.
"And me?" Georgdi said. "My family are in Margalit, and--"
"You will prove more useful
to me here," Maximilian said, very quietly. "I beg you to stay, Georgdi."
"Doing what?" Georgdi said. "Shepherding ever more resentful Isembaardian soldiers along the road to Elcho Falling? Frankly, Maxel, you could have done more yesterday to rally them to your cause."
Axis sent Maximilian another significant glance.
"I decided not to try and force them to my cause," Maximilian said, then told Georgdi and StarDrifter about his policy of allowing the gigantic force to fracture along its fault lines.
"I can never hold it together," Maximilian said, "and it would be foolish of me to try. What I wanted them to see yesterday was who I am, and where I go. Maybe one day they will remember it, when they are cold and dark and hopeless."
"That's a risky policy," StarDrifter said. "If this force does fracture, then it may turn to bite you."
"But not as hard as it might had I tried to force it to stay with me," Maximilian said.
Georgdi was looking at Maximilian and grinning.
"What?" said Maximilian.
"I smell Outlander cunning about this," said Georgdi.
Maximilian laughed. "And you are right. It was Ishbel who suggested the strategy to me."
Georgdi was still smiling, but it had faded somewhat, and he regarded Maximilian with a keen eye. "I
hadn't been very impressed with you, Maximilian Persimius, until this very moment. That is a courageous course you plan...and a subtly brilliant one. What can I do for you?"
"Join Axis in running a small errand for me," Maximilian said.
"And that is?" Axis asked.
"The Lealfast are all over me," said Maximilian, "professing loyalty and a long-held desire to reside at Elcho Falling. But I don't trust them, and I don't yet believe in them. Axis, Georgdi, I want you to test them a little. Take Eleanon and the twenty or so thousand he has with him, and roam the plains of the Central Outlands. Look for the generals. I don't think you'll find them, but I want you to test out the Lealfast. Give them some rope, and see what they do with it."
Axis nodded. "Good. They are full of themselves and their fighting experience, but what experience?
Who have they fought before?"
"The Skraelings--" StarDrifter began.
"No. Not the Skraelings," Axis said. "Eleanon told me this afternoon they have never, and will never, raise sword nor fire arrow against the Skraelings."