Starman

by Sara Douglass

  Gorgrael twisted his claws in deeper, then pulled Timozel next to him, their faces close in a frightful parody of a lover’s embrace.

  Timozel’s eyes, open wide, were sightless with agony. His arms curled at his side, his hands crimped uselessly.

  The Dark Man watched impassively. This had to be done, but he hoped that Gorgrael would be able to wield the enchantments so that Timozel would remember nothing of it afterwards. Damn it, Gorgrael is enjoying this. Pity poor Faraday when Gorgrael finally has the chance to get his talons into her.

  His claws scraping through bone and flesh, whimpering with pleasure, Gorgrael finally let a bolt of power flood through Timozel’s body. If Timozel was to lead Gorgrael’s army against Axis, then the man needed a well of power like those Gorgrael had given the SkraeBolds. It would contain only the minutest fraction of the power that Gorgrael himself commanded, but it would be more, far more than the SkraeBolds enjoyed. Timozel needed to be able to control the SkraeBolds as well.

  “Feel it!” Gorgrael hissed ecstatically, wriggling and pulling Timozel more firmly against his own body. “Feel it!”

  Somewhere in a dark corner of his mind that wasn’t totally consumed by pain Timozel faintly heard Gorgrael’s words, and, even more faintly, could feel something warm and dark writhing in his belly. Feel it.

  This darkness suddenly, unbelievably, flared into such fire-barbed agony that Timozel finally found the breath to cry out. He arched his body, flung back his head and shrieked, and shrieked, and then shrieked once more.

  “Yes!” Gorgrael groaned, then retracted his claws and let Timozel fall to the floor, dark blood streaming from the dreadful wounds in his chest.

  Timozel drifted out of the blackness that had claimed him. He felt incredibly relaxed, and a feeling of such well-being flooded him that he tried to hold on to the blackness. He smiled, savouring the sensations. Not even Yr at her best had caused him to feel this satisfied, this replete.

  The Dark Man caught Gorgrael’s eye and nodded. You have done better than I expected, my friend. You have excelled yourself. The man will do anything for you now. Anything.

  Gorgrael reflectively rubbed one of his tusks with a claw. Good.

  Timozel stretched his body, turned his head, smiled, and opened his eyes.

  Friend and Gorgrael were seated in grotesquely malcarved chairs before a roaring fire. Both held crystal glasses of wine. Both were gazing benignly at him.

  Timozel smiled at them. “What happened?”

  “I have accepted you into my service,” Gorgrael said. “See?” He tapped his chest.

  Timozel frowned, then realised that Gorgrael wanted him to look at his own chest. He raised himself onto his elbows, noting in some surprise that he only wore his breeches and boots.

  On his chest was branded the outline of a clawed hand.

  “My mark,” Gorgrael said.

  “Then I am proud to wear it, Great Lord,” Timozel said boldly, and he rose to his feet. He had no memory of the assault that had put the mark there.

  He felt incredibly well and powerful, and both Gorgrael and the Dark Man smiled at the expression of wonderment on Timozel’s face.

  “Already you feel the benefit of my power, Timozel,” Gorgrael said, rising from his chair and moving to what Timozel, even in his sublime state, considered the ugliest sideboard he had ever seen. “Wine?”

  Gorgrael held the decanter and shook it slightly in Timozel’s direction.

  “Yes,” Timozel said. “Wine would be welcome.” He wondered why he had ever feared this noble creature now standing before him. This was where he was meant to be. This was vision. This was destiny.

  Gorgrael handed Timozel a glass of wine and waved him over to a table. “We must plan, Timozel, to bring Axis’ evil house crashing about him and to restore Faraday to the light.”

  “With pleasure, Lord,” Timozel said, taking a sip of the wine.

  The Dark Man stood and the three toasted their future success.

  Gorgrael was prepared to admit that the Dark Man had been right. He had over-reached himself by launching his attack on Gorkenfort two years ago. It had been precipitate and foolish. His SkraeBolds had badly mismanaged the attack on the Earth Tree Grove, as well as the battle above Gorkenfort where so many Skraelings had been destroyed by the emerald fire. But now Gorgrael felt that all the elements he needed to defeat Axis were firmly in his grasp. The last piece had been Timozel, and now Timozel stood here, so tightly bonded to Gorgrael’s service that he would sell his soul…no! Gorgrael almost laughed out loud, Timozel would now gladly sell Faraday’s soul to ensure his master’s victory!

  “Enough,” he said, startling the other two. “We must plan. Timozel, let me tell you about the army you will command.”

  For the next hour Gorgrael spoke, and Timozel’s excitement rose. What a force the Great Lord was handing him! Over the past year Gorgrael had been transforming his hordes. The Skraelings were no longer the misty wraiths Timozel had originally seen at Gorkenfort, vulnerable through their eyes. Now they were fully fleshed creatures, so totally encased in bony armour they would be near-impossible to kill.

  The IceWorms had been bred larger, more numerous and more mobile.

  “The weather is mine,” Gorgrael said finally. “I now wield virtually total control over the ice and the wind.”

  The Dark Man nodded to himself. That was Gorgrael’s Avar blood coming out in him; with that and his ability to wield the Dark Music, Gorgrael would be able to unleash a frozen hell over most of the northern half of Achar…Tencendor now. The Dark Man was pleased with Gorgrael’s work in this area. Two years ago Gorgrael’s control over the winter had been a haphazard and fragile affair. Now it was almost total.

  “Then you would do well to send some of your ice south as soon as you can,” Timozel said.

  Gorgrael frowned. “Now?” He had thought Timozel would need at least a week or two to establish his control over the Skraeling force.

  “Axis will be sending many of his army north soon, Great Lord. We are lucky that he has not already done so. If you send your ice south now—as far as the Western and Bracken Ranges if you can—then you will freeze those rivers that have caused you such trouble. And if the Nordra freezes, Axis will not be able to move his troops north faster than a crawl.”

  “Yes. Yes,” Gorgrael said. “You make a good point.”

  Timozel watched his master. He vaguely remembered that once he had thought Gorgrael a creature so frightfully malformed, so disgusting, that his very appearance seemed the personification of evil. Now Gorgrael seemed noble, and his strange appearance only made him appear powerful, not ugly or frightful.

  “And your ice spears, Master, why have you not used them again? You tried to murder Axis with them once outside the Barrows of the Enchanter-Talons, and you could perhaps have employed them to your advantage at Gorkenfort. If you use them again, I am confident they will create mayhem among Axis’ force—and think how they could impale the Icarii Strike Force!”

  Gorgrael looked embarrassed. “Ahem. Yes, well, I must admit, Timozel, that I badly over-extended myself at the Ancient Barrows. I was not as powerful then as I am now. But I am afraid that I will not be able to use the ice spears again in any case, although they were such a pretty creation.”

  “But why, Great Lord, if your power is so much greater now?”

  Gorgrael grinned to himself, and the Dark Man smiled too, knowing what Gorgrael was thinking of.

  “Because I have one more secret to show you, Timozel. The weapon that will surely destroy Axis and his army.”

  He clicked his claws, and Timozel heard a movement in one of the darker corners of the room.

  “I will give you an air-borne force, Timozel, that will make the Icarii Strike Force seem pitiful indeed.”

  “The Gryphon!” Timozel suddenly remembered the dreadful winged creatures that had flown over Jervois Landing.

  “Yes,” Gorgrael said. “The Gryphon. Behold, my pet.”

>   The Gryphon that now crawled on its belly towards them was much larger, her lion’s body more powerfully built, than the original Gryphon Gorgrael and the Dark Man had created between them. As she approached Timozel she dipped her eagle’s head in subservience.

  The Dark Man managed to stop himself swearing in surprise. This was not the Gryphon that he and Gorgrael had made!

  Gorgrael peered at the Dark Man slyly. “I lost another of the SkraeBolds in the WildDog Plains, Dear Man. With its decomposing flesh I made another Gryphon. Only larger, more powerfully built. More intelligent.”

  “And it breeds?” the Dark Man asked, his voice harsh.

  “As do its pups,” Gorgrael said, more than pleased at the Dark Man’s surprise. “As do its pups.”

  He turned back to Timozel. “I will give you one of this creature’s pups as your own. Go on, pat her head, scratch the back of her neck, she likes that. With one of these creatures as your mount you will be able to sail the thermals as easily as do the Icarii.”

  As Timozel bent down to the Gryphon fawning at his feet, Gorgrael took the Dark Man by the elbow and led him away a few steps, talking quietly.

  “Perhaps there is something I should tell you, Dark Man.”

  Hearing the perverse pleasure in Gorgrael’s voice, the Dark Man knew the news was going to be bad.

  “Dear Man, I know you planned that the Gryphon should stop breeding after the second pack was whelped. I know you planned that the numbers of Gryphon would be limited.”

  Months ago Gorgrael and the Dark Man had created a Gryphon, a creature with the head of an eagle, the wings of a bird, and the body of a great cat. The Dark Man had infused deep enchantments into the making of the Gryphon; the single female had been created pregnant, and soon after she had been created she had whelped nine pups. And these nine pups had been born female and pregnant. After four months they too whelped, each bearing nine pups. But the Dark Man had thought he had manipulated the enchantments so that the breeding would stop there. He wanted Gorgrael to have a powerful air-borne force—and the eighty-two Gryphon created in this fashion would surely be that—but he did not intend that the breeding should continue.

  “But the breeding has continued,” Gorgrael hissed, and he felt the Dark Man twitch under his hand. “Already I have seven hundred and twenty-nine. And soon they will whelp. Each will whelp nine pregnant pups. Do you know how many that will be, Dear, Dear Man?”

  The Dark Man was silent, almost overcome with horror.

  “Over six and a half thousand. And in another four months those six and a half thousand will whelp—almost sixty thousand pups. And in four months those sixty thousand will—”

  “Stop!” the Dark Man cried, and jerked his arm from Gorgrael’s grasp.

  “And not to forget, of course, the second Gryphon I created. She and hers have generated eighty-one Gryphon. In just over a month those eighty-one will become seven hundred and—”

  “Yes, yes!” the Dark Man spat. “I understand!”

  “No,” Gorgrael said very, very softly. “I do not think you do. I am the Destroyer, Dear Man, and I plan to destroy. Whatever pretty enchantments Axis can throw my way, I will still destroy Tencendor. With the Gryphon breeding as they do, in less than a year there will be five-hundred thousand of them in the skies of Tencendor, Dear Man. Think of it. Five-hundred thousand. So what if my comely brother can stab one or two here or there? Or his army forty or fifty thousand? Even if one escapes, one, that one will breed nine, and those nine will whelp nine each, and…I need not continue. Even if one escapes, within two years at least sixty thousand will repopulate the skies of Tencendor.”

  Behind his hood the Dark Man stared at Gorgrael, appalled.

  “So you see,” Gorgrael said, “even if Axis destroyed me in battle, I have planned that he shall have nothing left to enjoy. Not even Axis can counter the virulence of the Gryphon. Eventually there will be nothing left of this green and pleasant land except the shadows of Gryphon wheeling and shrieking through the sky. They will blot out the sun and they will destroy and destroy and destroy until there is nothing—nothing—left!”

  Oh Stars, thought the Dark Man, and felt the plans of three thousand years crumble to dust about him.

  Gorgrael grinned triumphantly. At last he had bested the Dark Man. And if he could do that, then Gorgrael knew that he would best Axis.

  5

  A HOLY CRUSADE

  Gilbert had known from the moment the Corolean transports disgorged their traitorous pirates into the seething mass that was the Battle of Bedwyr Fort that Borneheld was all but dead. Borneheld and his armies had failed to protect the Seneschal, and had failed in their supreme duty to Artor.

  Not only would the beautiful Tower of the Seneschal now be overrun by Axis and the Forbidden, but Gilbert had realised that Carlon itself was lost. Sooner or later, Axis would seize the capital of Achar as well.

  Gilbert had understood very clearly that his future lay as far away from Jayme, Borneheld and Carlon as he could get. He also knew that the future of the Seneschal and the Way of the Plough probably rested with him. Jayme had proved useless in massing the not inconsiderable resources of the Seneschal against Axis’ forces; now the Brotherhood lay scattered among the ruins of Achar.

  So Gilbert had backed silently away from Jayme and Moryson as they stood atop the parapets of Carlon, and sped down back stairs and corridors until he reached the home of one of his many cousins within the city. There he had begged a horse, clothes, supplies and a purse of gold coins and had ridden out of Carlon not five minutes before Borneheld and Gautier, fleeing from the battlefield, had ordered the gates sealed.

  He rode hard and fast south, turning east after two days (fording the Nordra late one night and almost drowning in the process) to begin his long trek across the southern plains of Tare. He was not completely sure where he was going; he had a vague compulsion to travel east, perhaps to Arcness, maybe then north to Skarabost.

  Each night Gilbert would pray to Artor for guidance. Surely Artor would not desert him or the Seneschal in this, its hour of greatest need?

  It was now the third week of DeadLeaf-month, almost a month after the Battle of Bedwyr Fort, and Gilbert sat morosely by his tiny campfire, considering his future. It did not look very promising. From what he had heard from the occasional passing trader, many of whom had been returning to Nor from Carlon, Axis had destroyed the throne of Achar and had proclaimed himself StarMan of Tencendor. Gilbert snorted. StarMan of Tencendor? A gaudy title for the rebirth of an evil world.

  He shivered in the cool night air and pulled his cloak tightly about him. Since he had escaped from Carlon he had not been able to travel very far; currently he was, at his best estimation, somewhere in the northern regions of Nor, or perhaps western Tarantaise.

  He fingered his purse. He had carefully hoarded his coins, bargaining fiercely in the markets of the small towns he had passed through for food and supplies. He travelled as a minor nobleman—an easy disguise to assume since Gilbert had originally come from one of the nobler families of Carlon—because in these eastern territories, where Axis’ armies and the Forbidden who travelled with him had already passed, it would not be very wise to be seen to be a Brother. Gilbert had also heard from the few merchants he had encountered that the names of old gods were now mouthed with increasing confidence across eastern Achar.

  He leaned forward and prodded the bread he had baking in the coals. He had no life but that he had built for himself in the Seneschal. A young man, not yet thirty, Gilbert had risen quickly through the ranks of the Brotherhood. Six years ago Jayme had appointed him as his junior adviser, and Gilbert was not ashamed to admit to himself that his eye rested on the throne of the Brother-Leader itself. Jayme was old, as was Moryson, and who better to succeed Jayme than the talented younger adviser?

  Of course, this possibility had been blown awry when this Destroyer had invaded from the north, and the BattleAxe had revealed his true colours and set about destroying
both Achar and the Seneschal. Now Gilbert was left with little more than his broken ambitions to comfort him.

  So Gilbert sat, desolately prodding the bread that seemed determined not to rise, until he gradually became aware that he was being watched.

  For some time he continued to sit, absolutely still, his eyes on the now blackening bread, his ears straining. After long minutes of silence, Gilbert could stand it no longer.

  “Who’s there?” he called, injecting as much bravado into his voice as he could.

  Silence still then a small scratching noise as someone shifted a foot.

  “Gilbert?” a thin, reedy voice quavered. “Gilbert?”

  “Artor’s arse!” Gilbert swore, so completely forgetting himself that he used an obscenity which until now he’d only heard soldiers mouth. “Moryson?”

  “Aye, ‘tis I,” Moryson said, then shuffled into the light of the fire.

  Gilbert’s mouth dropped as he stared at the man who had been Jayme’s senior adviser. Moryson looked even thinner and more fragile than usual, his clothes hanging tattered and dirty from his spare frame. A week-old stubble covered his cheeks, and his right hand trembled spasmodically as if he had damaged a nerve in his arm or neck.

  “May I join you?” Moryson asked, looking as if he was about to fall, and Gilbert gestured to a spot by the fire.

  Moryson sank down gratefully. “You are a hard man to catch, Gilbert.”

  Gilbert continued to stare. Moryson was the last person he would have expected to appear in this lonely night. “Why aren’t you with—?”

  “With Jayme?” Moryson’s voice was stronger now that he’d taken the weight off his legs. “Why not? Because Jayme was ultimately a fool, Gilbert, and a loser. I may be old but I am not yet prepared to die.”

  Slowly Gilbert closed his mouth. Moryson was the last one he would have thought to desert Jayme. For perhaps forty years the pair had been inseparable, the friendship between them so deep and so strong—and so exclusive, Gilbert thought resentfully—that he would have wagered his own immortal soul on the fact that Moryson would elect to stay and share Jayme’s fate.