Crusader

by Sara Douglass

  “No!” the others chorused, holding up their hands in protest.

  “I do not trust your witches skills,” Herme said, with a grin to take away any implied criticism in his words.

  “Well, perhaps we can play again this evening,” Leagh said. “I think we need time to plan our strategies against you, Gwendylyr.”

  “As you wish.” Gwendylyr was still smiling as she packed the sticks and board away. “It will but delay the humiliation.”

  “Gods!” Zared said. “Did she always get her way like this in your home, Theod?”

  “Aye. It got so bad I used to actually enjoy going over the county accounts in the evening rather than spend time with Gwendylyr.”

  But Theod’s tone was light, and his eyes dancing, and none of the others doubted his love for his wife.

  Leagh sighed, and rose. “I must lie down for a while—I must admit this futile tussle against Gwendylyr has exhausted me. Will you excuse me?”

  Zared stood as well. “Let me come with you, Leagh.”

  She smiled, and put a hand on his chest. “No. Let me rest a while in peace, and then perhaps you and I can go for a walk in the orchards. I can amaze you with my ability to climb the highest fruit trees in search of the juiciest fruits.”

  Zared opened his mouth to protest, then realised she was making fun of him. He smiled, very gently and with utter love, and kissed her hand. “Rest well, my sweet.”

  Herme rose as well, his face drawn and tired, and offered to escort Leagh to her chamber.

  She smiled, and took his arm.

  After they’d left the room, Zared turned to the other two and finally let the worry shine unhindered from his eyes. “How will she manage in the wasteland against a Demon,” he said, his voice desperate. “How?”

  Leagh slept, and dreamed.

  She wandered through the Field of Flowers, so content and relaxed she was half dreaming even amid her dream.

  Her hand was on her belly, and she and her unborn child talked—not with words, but with thoughts and emotions and laughter. She loved her child, and her child her, and while neither could wait for the time when the child would be born, they were not impatient for it.

  The child curled up, protected and loved, deep within Leagh’s body, and that contented both of them.

  Leagh walked, and let the scent of the lilies seep into her innermost being.

  The unborn child screamed.

  Leagh jerked out of her reverie, although not out of the dream; wild-eyed she stared about, almost tripping in her hasty attempts to circle and spot the danger.

  Her hands clutched protectively over her belly, no protection at all against knife or spear or iron-studded and hard-wielded club.

  The child screamed again, and Leagh panicked.

  What was wrong?

  She twisted about still more…and saw it.

  Perhaps thirty paces distant stood a great black bull. Its eyes were red flames, its breath sulphurous smoke, its face a mask of hate.

  Give it to me, it bellowed in her mind, or I will gore that child out of your belly.

  One foreleg pawed the ground, and his haunches bunched.

  Leagh screamed, and, turning, ran.

  She felt the thunder of the bull’s hooves through her own feet, and she could hear the horrendous wet panting of his breath.

  Something hard and vicious dug into the small of her back and sent her sprawling.

  Leagh hands scrabbled in the bare earth—the flowers had fled!—and tried to get up, tried to get away—

  A horn caught under her ribcage and flipped her over, and the bull thrust his sweaty, ghastly face into hers.

  Saliva dribbled from his mouth, and drenched the neckline of her robe.

  Give it to me, give it to me!

  “What?” Leagh screamed. “What?”

  The bull lifted one of its massive, splayed fore-hooves—it was the size of a plate!—and thudded it down on her belly.

  Give it to me!

  “What? What? Take it, anything, oh gods no don’t do that don’t don’t don’t stop it stop it stop it…”

  The bull leant its entire weight on its hoof, and Leagh could feel her child screaming, trying to get away…its flesh tearing, its skull bursting, she could feel her belly bursting apart, she could feel the bull squirming his hoof right down through her ruined belly to her spine, oh gods the pain the pain the pain…

  Leagh jerked out of her sleep, still screaming—

  —and found she could not move. A man—she could smell him—had one heavy hand on her throat, and the other one dug into her belly, its fingers probing, probing, oh god, don’t don’t don’t…

  “Give it to me,” a voice rasped, and Leagh finally opened her eyes and stared into the face of Isfrael.

  So panicked she could hardly breathe, let alone think, Leagh tried to fight him off, but he was so strong, so strong, and the instant she started to squirm his fingers dug agonisingly into her belly, and she could feel her child squirm, and Leagh slid completely into panic. She screamed, then screamed again, then—

  He lifted his hand from her belly and struck her face so hard she blacked out for a heartbeat or two.

  “Give it to me,” he roared. “Give it to me!”

  “What?” she finally managed. The hand was back on her belly again, and he was leaning virtually his entire weight on it.

  “The door!”

  “The door?” And then she screamed again as his fingers dug even deeper (how was that possible?) into her flesh.

  “The door of light! Where is it?”

  The door of light? For a moment Leagh could not comprehend what he meant, and then she remembered.

  The doorway of light that DragonStar had given each of his witches, save for DareWing who was too sick. She’d compressed it down into a cube, and put it where? Where? All Leagh wanted to do was give it to him, get him away from her, get him away from her baby.

  “In the pocket of my robe, you vile bastard,” she hissed, and instantly the pressure was gone from her throat and belly, and she rolled away from him and slid onto the floor.

  She could hear Isfrael scrabbling about on the other side of the bed…then nothing.

  “Is this it?” Leagh heard him say, and she hauled herself onto her knees.

  He held the cube of light in his hand.

  “Yes. It unfolds.”

  Isfrael fiddled with it, then found one of the lines of light and unfolded the door to the size of a small box.

  He grinned, feral, malevolent. Then, in an abrupt movement, unfolded the doorway to its full size and stepped through.

  Using every bit of strength left in her, Leagh struggled to her feet, threw herself across the bed, and grabbed hold of the door. Her breath wheezing in panic, desperate to do this before Isfrael did. Gods! Leagh could see him on the other side of the door, turning back and roaring as he saw her, moving back towards her, reaching, reaching!—she pulled the doorway down, and refolded it back into its cube with hands trembling so badly they were barely useable.

  Then, rather than placing the folded door back in a pocket, or even in a drawer of the nearby chest, Leagh thrust it under the mattress, and then sat down hard, both hands clutching the edge of the bed with white-knuckled fear.

  She opened her mouth, heaved in as much air as her lungs could take, and screamed: “Zared! Zared! Zared!”

  The bitch had closed the door!

  Isfrael fought to contain his fury. The doorway could have been an inestimable object of barter. Then, finally containing his rage, he turned around to survey the interior of Spiredore.

  And a wondrous thought occurred to him. Spiredore would take him to the Sacred Groves! He wouldn’t have to deal with the Demons at all!

  Isfrael stood thinking. If Spiredore took him there, then that would mean that he couldn’t return to get the Avar. They’d die in Sanctuary when the Demons finally managed to break through its defences (as they surely would once they realised the treasure they had in Nia
h).

  But maybe, once he was in the Sacred Groves, either the Horned Ones, or the Mother, could help him evacuate the Avar.

  And maybe the Avar deserved to burn amid the Demons’ fury for the fact that they’d deserted him for Faraday.

  “I will do what I can,” Isfrael announced to Spiredore, “but I will not do enough to endanger either myself or the Sacred Groves.”

  Having settled the matter in his own mind, Isfrael prepared to enter the Sacred Groves. He had been brought up with the rest of the SunSoar brood, and well knew Spiredore’s secret.

  “Take me to the Sacred Groves,” he said, and set off up the nearest stairwell.

  What Spiredore led Isfrael to was not quite what he’d expected. A blue-misted tunnel, surely, but it ended only in a drift of cold stars, not in the Sacred Groves.

  “The Bitch!” he spat, and sent a string of cold, vile curses into an uncaring universe.

  The Mother had closed off the approaches to the Sacred Groves—nothing else could have stopped Spiredore!

  “The stupid, thoughtless Bitch!”

  And Isfrael stormed back down the blue mist tunnel until he was back in Spiredore. He would have to trade with the Demons, after all.

  No matter. He could best them any day.

  “Take me to Qeteb,” he said, and stepped upwards.

  Chapter 18

  The Joy of the Hunt

  “Dare Wing,” DragonStar said when he returned to the foot of the Icescarp Alps, “I must get back to Sanctuary…”

  He told Dare Wing about Spiredore’s eventual death.

  “When that happens then I do not know of an effective way to move so quickly between Sanctuary and this wasteland.”

  “And what will you do once you get to Sanctuary?”

  DragonStar looked about the landscape for a few moments, avoiding the question. What would he do?

  “I am torn, DareWing,” he eventually said, “between simply bringing you and the Strike Force back into Sanctuary with me, or leaving you here.”

  DareWing shook his head. “The Strike Force cannot easily go into Sanctuary. They…they…”

  “They are too far beyond death to be able to tolerate its—” DragonStar hesitated, “—to tolerate its confines.”

  “You must bring the other witches out,” DareWing said. “Out into the wasteland.”

  “Yes,” DragonStar sighed. “I know that. We will do no good huddled in Sanctuary, but the thought of exposing them prematurely to the Demons…DareWing, I must go back and get them, but there is something you should know.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Enchanted Song Book was not a book of solutions, my friend, but a sad list of errors. The Song Book told us what not to do.”

  “And so what is left?”

  “Everything the Demons cannot stand,” DragonStar said softly.

  Dare Wing made to say something, shifting impatiently, but DragonStar laid a hand on his shoulder and quieted him.

  “Listen to me. I am going back to Sanctuary, and I will come back with the girls and Goldman. Dare Wing, will you start to clear Tencendor while I am gone? The north must be crawling with corruption, and all of Tencendor must be cleansed before it can be reborn.”

  “And if I meet up with one of the Demons?”

  DragonStar took his time in replying, his fingers gently tapping the book, his eyes unfocused.

  He remembered what WolfStar had told him about Caelum’s death, and he remembered what Fischer had said. Reflecting the Demons’ malevolence back at them had not truly defeated them: it had only driven the evil underground for it to fester.

  Evil cannot be destroyed—and certainly not by using evil against evil.

  A word of love had driven Qeteb to distraction.

  DragonStar’s face softened, and he smiled.

  “DareWing,” he said, and put a hand on the other’s shoulder, “let me tell you what I have learned this day…”

  DareWing wheeled the Strike Force over the Alps. DragonStar had returned to Sanctuary with his assorted animals. Having heard what the StarSon had theorised, DareWing almost wished he did meet up with one of the Demons. Either DragonStar’s theory was correct, in which case DareWing could deliver to the Demons an almighty shock, or he was incorrect, in which case it was better for DareWing to fail than DragonStar. DareWing could feel the probing of Sheol in his mind—it was mid-afternoon now, and Despair reigned over the wasteland—and he smiled…

  He understood very well that although Sheol could not touch him, she could nevertheless feel him, as she could feel every one of the almost two thousand members of the Strike Force.

  Dare Wing’s smile widened, and he soared in the air, and he spoke to his command.

  She hissed and crouched down on all fours about the fire she shared with the other Demons.

  Qeteb stared curiously at her, one hand paused in the act of raising a half-burned, half-raw joint of flesh and bone (it was possibly cow, but it had transformed so much during its demented life that it was now impossible to determine its original species). “What is it?”

  “They are back!”

  “Who?” Qeteb threw away the half-eaten joint and stood up.

  Sheol’s form flowed into that of a misshapen cat, then a pig, then finally back into a vaguely humanoid form again. She got to her feet, brushing down her gown with something resembling disdain.

  “Those who can resist us.”

  Qeteb grunted. “How many?”

  “Many.”

  “Where?”

  “To the north.”

  Qeteb thought, and then smiled behind his iron mask. “Go,” he said to her, and Sheol gurgled with happiness, and her form shifted yet again into that of a winged serpent, and she lifted (wriggled) into the air and disappeared into the raging winds of dust.

  DareWing soared his command into the sky above the eastern Icescarp Alps. His sharp eyes scoured the landscape below him, but there was nothing but the plunge of icy black cliff and the drift of frost.

  Nothing lived here, apparently.

  South? No, best to check the eastern regions before he sallied south, thus Dare Wing led his command—deadly jewel-bright silence—over the flat plains between the Icescarp Alps and the coast of the Widowmaker Sea, an area that had once been, before the wasteland encroached, the approaches to the unmapped northern tundra of the Avarinheim.

  “The Demonic hordes have not travelled this far north,” DareWing eventually said to the Icarii-wraith flying beside him. “We may have to—”

  And he stopped, stunned. Behind him a low buzz of unworded comment rose from the Strike Force. There was a pack of something moving south towards the wasteland, but it was not what DareWing and his Strike Force had thought to encounter.

  “Stars in heaven,” DareWing whispered. “Skraelings!”

  “Skraelings!” DareWing said again, hardly able to believe what his eyes told him were there.

  Skraelings?

  Hadn’t Azhure destroyed all Skraelings?

  But no, she hadn’t. Only the ones in Tencendor itself. The unmapped tundras in the extreme north had always had a breeding population of the creatures, and DareWing supposed that now the forests had gone, they would almost naturally drift south.

  Evilly curious and perpetually hungry creatures that they were…

  The grey wraiths were moving slowly through the snow, perhaps about a dozen of them, and concentrating so hard on their journey they had not yet noticed the Strike Force.

  DareWing motioned one Wing after him, then very gradually began a downward spiral that would eventually bring him to the Skraelings’ backs.

  As he drifted lower, Dare Wing stifled another exclamation. A small rabbit was bounding through the snow before the Skraelings; one of its ears was missing, and its fur looked as though it was streaked with pus.

  One of Qeteb’s creatures, then.

  The Skraelings are in league with Qeteb! And that thought did not surprise DareWing overmuch, either, for t
he Skraelings had ever sought someone to lead them in their perpetual quest for misery.

  Well, this was one group that would never make it as far as the Maze.

  Again DareWing motioned with his hand, and the Wing behind him lifted silvery bows from their back, and filled them with arrows fletched in feathers the same colour as their individual wings.

  Dare Wing’s hand dropped, and the arrows flew.

  Most found their mark, although they did the wraiths little damage. The arrows flew straight through their grey insubstantiality, and the only wraith that dropped was one who’d turned at the sound of arrow flight and had been skewered through the eye.

  “Aim for their eyes!” DareWing shouted, cursing himself that he’d not remembered this fundamental rule of the Skraeling hunt. “Aim for their eyes!”

  But the hunt was harder now, for the Skraelings had dispersed, scattering over the snow and ice, blending in so perfectly with their surroundings that the Icarii found it difficult to distinguish them.

  The rabbit, however, had turned to snarl and snap at the Strike Force members now wheeling overhead, and one of the Icarii sent an arrow thudding into its side.

  It toppled over, screaming thinly.

  The Wing had now dispersed to deal with the Skraelings individually, and DareWing hovered above the action, shouting advice and encouragement, but mostly staying out of the way. The Icarii needed no aid to do what they’d come back to do: exact revenge and clean the wasteland of the corruption that tainted it.

  Much higher, so high they were but specks in the sky, the remainder of the Strike Force hovered, waiting, and hungering for the time when they, too, could loose their arrows.

  Another Skraeling fell, then another, then three more in quick succession.

  Dare Wing permitted himself a smile of quiet satisfaction. These might only be Skraelings rather than the Demonic hordes, but they were a start, they were a start…

  Something frightful suddenly, stunningly, appeared in the sky to Dare Wing’s south.