Star Axe

by Duncan McGeary

  Balor was grim as he said, “We will say no more until we know who you are, and what role you play in this land.” The captives looked at Balor apprehensively, but did not add anything to his story. For the first time, the pleasant young man’s face showed irritation, and a hint of ugly anger. Balor knew then that his caution had been proper. “Who are you?”

  The man tossed off his impatience. “I am the planner, the designer of the Warlord’s Haven. It is my creation. But I am as much a prisoner of it as you are.” “You still do not tell who you are, or why you would help us,” Balor insisted.

  “I tell you what I wish to tell you!” the dark man said heatedly, and his audience was taken aback by the change in the man’s manner. The host seemed to have a dangerous anger, and a deadly impatience. Their host sensed this and relaxed again. The room was restored to its amiable atmosphere. “You do not trust me?” he asked innocently.

  “No, I do not.” Balor rose to his feet. “Tell the Warlord that his little trick will not work. Send us back to your prison, for we will not tell you what he wants.” “I see that Jakkem was right,” the dark man said thoughtfully. “You are hiding something. Perhaps the Axe-bearer would not wish to see you suffer.” He must have sent a signal, for the room was suddenly filled with Qreq warriors. “I told you the truth when I said I would not tell the Warlord what you told me. You see—I am Toraq!” He waved for them to be taken away, and his laughter followed them all the way to their prison.

  Down below the graceful towers, the Warlord concealed his true intentions, just as underneath his beautiful facade, he concealed his evil nature. Rooms of torture, of engines that burned, of instruments of degradation, filled the lower corridors of the Havens. Qreq young scrambled by them by the thousands, destined not to see the outside world until fully grown, and never to see the beauty of the gardens. In the breeding dens of the dungeon were the homes of the horrid women of the Qreq, who were never seen.

  Balor was not unused to small rooms and narrow passages, but Toraq’s warrens gave him an entirely different, uncomfortable feeling. The walls dripped with rancid moisture, the floors were maddeningly uneven. As the Qreq children swarmed by them, under their legs, and over their heads, Balor shuddered at their leathery touch. He felt suddenly queasy from the amount of food he had devoured.

  The Companions were thrown into a room more foul, more dismal than any they had yet suffered. They found the two other soldiers already there. After a few hours the two men were taken away and the survivors never saw them again.

  CHAPTER XV

  Balor explored the crevices of the dungeon with his hands, for there was no light to investigate by. He had already experienced some of what the other captives must have endured up to now. They had been eager for his news, and had shaken their heads in amazement at his audacity. On their part, they told him the story of their capture, and it filled in the gaps in the Lashitu’s tale. But they said little about what had happened since. They would only say that they had learned to sleep as much as they could. Balor could understand why—he had lost all sense of time in the lightless cell, thought the others assured him that not much more than a few days could have passed. Every morning the prisoners were given gruel and stale bread.

  Balor continued exploring, looking for an escape. But he stopped suddenly when his hands encountered the furry body of a huge rat. He jumped back with a shout, but Jonla excitedly asked where he had felt the animal. In distaste Balor listened to the scurrying of the rat, its squeals of death when Jonla caught it. In surprise he saw Sanra eat the carrion as well. He declined the offering. The Warlord seemed to know exactly how much food and water he had to give the captives to keep them barely alive.

  They had just been fed the noisome food, which Balor gave distastefully to the others. So it was that Balor was healthier than the others at first, but the sudden deprivation also seemed to hit him harder than the other two. It wasn’t long before he too was eating food he would have scorned and left untouched a scant few days before. He could easily have allowed himself to starve to death, and he thought perhaps that that would be best for the Axe-bearer. Perhaps then he could not ever be used against his will as a weapon against Kenlahar.

  But the Warlord did not leave them in their deep prison long. The doors opened and they were tied and wrenched from the room. They were dragged from a dark, musty cubicle to the deck of a Qreq ship. Toraq apparently intended to take the captives with him wherever he journeyed. They were placed in a giant open cage, which was hung dangling from the mast of the Warlord’s flagship. The sea was filled with ships. The entire massive fleet of the Qreq had been assembled before the Havens.

  Balor saw Jakkem standing beside the Warlord as they sailed east of the Havens, answering his master’s every need. For a full day and night they sailed along the barren coast, until at the dawn of the second day they entered the mouth of one of the many small rivers filling the Sea of Dead. The little river could barely hold two of the massive warships abreast, even at its mouth, so the fleet was forced to sail up the river one by one, in file. Looking down the bars of his cage, Balor could see the bottom of the river. Soon he overheard the name of the river. It was Shallowspill, and it flowed, it was said, from the very walls of Kernback. The invasion of the kingdom had begun.

  The Shallowspill was narrow and shallow, but it was also an ancient river and flowed sluggishly. The galleys had shallow drafts, to accommodate the oars, and were just narrow enough to fill the width of Shallowspill. Balor realized with somewhat of a shock, and reluctant admiration, that the ships had been designed with this trip in mind. The black sails stretched back down the river like a line of the watch, an invincible armada.

  Balor looked back on a confused jumble of warships at the bottleneck of the river. Majestic, but ponderously slow, the line of ships still looked invincible in the full morning’s light. Balor knew that the ships were filled with swarming masses of Qreq warriors.

  For three days they sailed up the never changing river, and the land around that marked the boundary of the rain forest. On either side of the river stretched, for hundreds of yards, rounded, washed pebbles. Where this gray boundary to the river’s floods ended was a featureless brown, cracked mud. A few dried, once hardy stocks of bushes pointed raggedly out of the dessert, brown petals and leaves piled high around them. It was especially desolate against the backdrop of the green forest.

  As they neared this clear line between two very different lands, the flagship slowed and from beside the Warlord, Jakkem ordered the fleet to slow. Toraq wished to land briefly before they entered the forest, he announced, for his spies had warned him that they could not stop once within. The warships behind the flagship suddenly began to move forward around them.

  The Qreq could not believe what they were seeing, and neither could Balor. One craft passed the flagship, ignoring the bellowed commands to stop. By now Balor had recognized his ship, and was astounded to see Kalese standing clearly in sight on its bridge. She was looking at the cage with a mixture of sorrow and triumph. Balor guessed her mind, and roared out his approval.

  With a finesse that the men of Lahar would have found impossible a few weeks earlier, the crew sent the ship sideways into the current, and into the path of the still moving flagship. The lead ship rammed the rogue ship, grinding ponderously into the side. The Qreq had not suspected the move, and were unable to stop. The captured warship slowly settled to the bottom—and the flagship joined it, bow first. The crew of the rammed ship had already abandoned it and was running for the forest.

  Finally, the Warlord reacted and sent men to shore to pursue the saboteurs, but Balor saw most of them reach the forest boundary. None of the Qreq who followed them into the forest returned. The ships finally settled with their decks only a few feet below the surface of the river. The bottom of the cage was awash with water, and the captives were thankful now that they had not been left below decks. Balor laughed as he saw the Warlord wading about the deck, up to his waist in the wat
er.

  “Cut that cage down and throw it into the river,” Toraq shouted, livid with anger.

  Ironically, it was Jakkem who saved them. “Remember who they are, my lord!” He pleaded desperately, sure that his fate was tied up with the prisoners. “Remember the Axe-bearer!”

  “Yes, yes,” Toraq said. “You are right.” Balor saw that Toraq had’ succeeded in controlling his rage, but that he had not liked being mocked, or corrected. Balor knew that Jakkem would not save them again.

  The traitor ordered the party transferred to another ship. And so it stood, hour after hour, while the Qreq warriors dived into the river, to chip and hack at the hard wood of the sunken ships. The captives could see that they were making no progress in clearing a path.

  Finally one of the Qreq timidly approached the Warlord and informed him that the way was impenetrable, and would be for many days. The fleet could sail no further.

  Toraq exploded and for several minutes most of the Qreq around him visibly shook in fear. Finally, he calmed down. “I will not be denied my triumph now. I have planned and waited too long for this. They must not know we are coming! The longer we wait the more chance there is of their finding out. Have the warriors disembark—we will march to Kernback.”

  “But my lord,” the Qreq who had informed him of the impasse now protested. “We have no wagons to carry our provisions. Nothing to carry the siege machines!”

  “Nevertheless, we march,” the Warlord said impatiently. “We can march to Kernback before the ships are raised. Have each man carry what he can. We’ll relay the provisions by foot if we must. Send the ships back for wagons, with as few men to manage the ships as can be spared.” The Qreq turned to do as he was ordered, for no one dared contradict the Warlord more than once. “Wait!” Toraq called him back and looked at Balor with a gleam in his eyes. “Have fifty ships with full crews set sail for the House of Lahar. I want it destroyed once and for all.”

  The prisoners from the House of Lahar stared at the Warlord in horror. The Island Laharhann would never be able to turn back such an assault! If Kenlahar did not soon return with help, he would be too late. Toraq laughed, satisfied by their discomfort at last.

  The unloading of the ships was taking much too long for Toraq, and he sent the first companies of warriors off into the forest, loaded down with the first of the unloaded supplies. They were told to set up depots and return for more of the provisions. When the first sortie did not return, he halted his forays and waited. They did not come back that first day, nor the next, and the supplies continued to pile up on the banks. By the time the wagons finally did arrive from the Havens, Toraq had decided to lead the huge army into the forest himself.

  The Qreq surrounding the cage, and out of the hearing of the Warlord, were whispering nervously among themselves about the malevolent spirits that resided in the evil forest. Once within the green ocean of growth, it seemed to close in around them. The Qreq were forced to cut a path through it. As though they had entered an older, more fundamental world, the army fell silent and wary. Even the Warlord seemed a little uneasy as they carved a road through the forest and pulled their engines behind them. Balor knew the Little People thought of the forest as cool, shady, and restful. But now it seemed menacing. The whole forest seemed to shudder under the tramp of the Qreq invaders. Balor welcomed the hostility, hoping that it would overwhelm them, and bury them under its strange plant life.

  A tree came crashing down behind the leading wagons onto a cart full of weapons, crushing it in two. A new path had to be hacked around its mammoth length. Other trees were felled by the Qreq, but would not fall as they were meant to. Instead of falling away from the road, they would fall unpredictably into their path. Balor suspected that these were not accidents, and that the “malevolent spirits” were flesh and blood. He saw nothing, though he scanned the forest intently.

  But Sanra’s eyes were sharper. She grabbed his arm tightly, as frightened as the Qreq. She had no idea what was causing the accidents. “Do you see that?” she hissed. Balor looked in the direction she was pointing, but he could distinguish nothing among the trees.

  “There…look!” she insisted. As Balor stared, he slowly discriminated the form of a small man from the surrounding jungle. He had apparently had a mistaken notion of what the color and size the Little People would be, and had passed by the figure. Then, as he still watched, it seemed to disappear into the background.

  As thought the disappearance of the figure was meant to be seen only by the Companions, and was the signal for an attack, a guard near their cage fell back with an arrow piercing his neck. Invisible attackers wounded those in the area of the cage. The survivor jumped from the target of the wagon to the ground for shelter.

  The Warlord, at the lead of the column, was meanwhile was surrounded by his own attackers, and only Jakkem noticed that the brunt of the attack was centered around the cage. He started running back, but as the arrows landed in clusters about him, Jakkem finally dived under a different wagon, as had most of the Qreq already. The prisoners were the center of the storm, but none of the arrows seemed to land too close to them. Toraq was sending squads of Qreq into the forest after the unseen assailants, but the strategy did not seem to lessen the barrage of missiles.

  Sanra grabbed Balor’s arm again, and he turned to see the crew of his ship, or those few that had survived, rushing toward them with Kalese in the lead. Arrows cut down most of the Qreq who rushed to confront them, and the wedge of attackers overwhelmed the last of them. Kalese leaped onto the wagon and sliced at the bars of the cage again and again. The bars splintered, and Balor pushed the weakened Sanra out into the arms of one of his men. Jonla went after a moment’s argument, and then Balor was out and free.

  The freed Companions started for the forest, but the concentration of arrows in the area of the cage, had freed other Qreq to converge on them. Balor felt the fever of battle and revenge fill him as he saw Jakkem leading a troop towards them. He stopped to pull a spear from the dead hands of a Qreq warrior, and turned to meet the traitor.

  But they were already very near the forest, and they would not escape if he hesitated, or stopped to fight. Kalese pulled at him and shouted angrily. He became aware that he would be jeopardizing them all by holding back. He threw his spear with a shout at Jakkem, and turned to run, without seeing if it had landed. But he knew without looking that he had missed.

  They did not need to go far into the interior of the forest to escape pursuit. The Qreq who followed were cut down at the ragged border between the dense growth, and the rough trail hewn by the Warlord. No enemy penetrated very far. Sanra and Jonla were very weak from the time they had spent in the small cages of Toraq. They reached a tiny clearing; just a gap where a huge tree had once grown. The Lashitu was waiting excitedly under the boughs of a dripping, bowed tree. Sanra and Jonla collapsed, as the knowledge and relief of their escape hit them. Soon she was asleep in safety of the grove, and Jonla was soon dozing beside her. They did not need to fear the Warlord any longer, Kalese told them. The Qreq could not reach them now. Kalese insisted on letting them rest, though Balor was insistent in helping the Little People harass the column. Still, Balor remained with the swampgirl. And they sat talking in undertones.

  “The Companions are together again at last!” Kalese said smiling.

  “We are Companions in name only,” Balor said. “The one we were meant to accompany, the one we vowed to protect, is alone.”

  “No!” Kalese said. “We are still very much Companions—to each other. There are roles for all of us to play. Shall we be satisfied with just escape from the Warlord?”

  “What else can we do?”

  Kalese’s words were fervent. “We can slay the Sorcerer King! Let us pursue him, and harry him, and harass his Qreq, until we are killed or he is destroyed!”

  Balor stared at her in shock. Up until now he had not even considered it possible to slay the Warlord himself. Surely that required the Star Axe!

  “
I agree,” he said at last. “Let there be no peace for us until either he—or we—are in the grave.” The battle had not ended, but had lessened in intensity. The Warlord was once again making headway. Every few hours one of the small men would pop into the little hole and report the progress of the battle. For every Qreq that would fall, there seemed to be many more to take his place. In the muffled forest, its rustling life shocked by the violence of the battle, Balor looked down on the sleeping shapes.

  “How did you manage to escape the attention of the Qreq at Cralock Bere?” he asked Kalese, still amazed by what she had done.

  “When you did not return by noon,” she said, “I knew that you had been captured. The crew would have forced me to leave, but for the fact that there was no way of sailing away with arousing interest.” During all the time the warship had sat docked on the piers of Cralock Bere, she told him, a Qreq warrior had never approached them. The sheer numbers, the hundreds of ships, had protected them from any curiosity. Most of the other surrounding ships had remained bare and deserted as well. When the docks of Cralock Bare had suddenly filled with thousands upon thousands of Qreq warriors, she said, they had not moved. But each Qreq had seemed to know which was his own ship, and theirs had never been approached.

  “Then I heard and saw you on the flagship. I didn’t have to harangue or kick the crew onto the deck this time. In the confusion, and concealed in our cloaks, we set sail with the other ships.” Like a mote of dust swept up in a wind, they had sailed with the giant fleet, powerless to turn back or aside. “When the men saw you, and the other two, in that cage, they insisted on ramming the flagship. We waited until the forest to make our move, which was fortunate. Apparently, the Little People saw us, for they were waiting for us just within the first trees.

  “It is strange,” Kalese said. “I have never seen more than a few of the Little People together at one time, but there must be many of them. They are angry at the desecration of their world. The Warlord will not find it easy to make it through.”