"Why not?" said StarDrifter as everyone else gaped at Axis.
"Because," Axis said, "the Lealfast are half Skraeling, as we surmised. They loathe the Skraelings and their connection to them, but they pity them, too. Eleanon said that the Lealfast cannot touch the Skraelings."
"Oh, for mercy's sake," StarDrifter murmured. "Of what use are they?"
"Did you believe that explanation, Axis?" Maximilian said.
Axis gave a small shrug.
"That's what we need to discover," said Maximilian. "Axis, Georgdi, will you ride out in the morning?"
Axis and Georgdi exchanged a glance, and then both grinned and nodded. "It will be good to ride out a-hunting again," said Axis. "Georgdi, how many of your men can you bring?"
"A few hundred," Georgdi said.
"With Axis gone," said Maximilian, "I will need someone to act in his stead."
"Ezekiel?" StarDrifter said, but Maximilian shook his head.
"No. Ezekiel is of little use to me. I think he is largely finished as someone who has any influence within the Isembaardian army. Axis, who can I raise up from among the Isembaardians to act as one of my senior lieutenants and as my conduit back into the Isembaardian army?"
"Insharah," Axis said without hesitation. "He is relatively young, but he is respected. He is also experienced, and, perhaps more importantly, he has a clear head atop his shoulders. Insharah also had family who were left at Aqhat. The Isembaardians will know that, and will trust him for it. Maxel, I do not know quite what you want from Insharah, but I think you will find him a good advisor, and an honest one."
"Thank you, Axis," Maximilian said. "Insharah it shall be, then. Arrange for him to attend me at dawn."
When Axis finally left, he caught up with StarDrifter, who was almost back at his and Salome's tent.
"StarDrifter," Axis said, "can I have a few minutes?"
StarDrifter nodded. "What is it?"
"This afternoon Eleanon showed me the origins of the Lealfast. I think you need to know."
StarDrifter looked into his son's eyes and saw the pain there.
He nodded. "Come inside, then."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On the Road to Serpent's Nest
Ravenna?"
Maximilian walked a bit further into the night, away from the column. She was here. He could feel it.
Ravenna?
He turned slightly to his left, sensing her in the night.
"Ravenna, talk to me."
"Why? I had thought you tired of me. Embarrassed, perhaps. Have you taken Ishbel back to your bed?
Have you been that foolish?"
Maximilian walked very carefully toward her. She stood a little distance away, all wrapped in blackness and reserve, only her pale face and gray eyes clearly visible in the night.
"Ishbel has nothing to do with this, Ravenna."
"She has everything to do with it! Maxel, she will destroy you, and--"
"And Elcho Falling and this land. Yes, I have heard it all before, Ravenna."
"And yet you ignore it. Dear gods, Maxel, what else can I say? What can I do to make you understand?"
"Are you aiding the generals, Ravenna?"
Everything about her closed off from him. Maximilian could almost feel her shrink back into the night.
"It is not me, Maximilian."
"It stinks of your power, Ravenna."
She didn't say anything.
"How did we come to this, Ravenna?"
Again she did not reply.
"Ravenna," Maximilian said, "don't turn me into your enemy. Please, you saved my life once. You were my friend. Don't now turn against me."
"I am carrying your child, Maximilian."
"Don't use that to manipulate me!" Maximilian said. He took a deep breath, quelling his anger. "Damn it, Ravenna, that child is the only thing keeping you safe in this column right now!"
"This child," Ravenna said, "is the only thing keeping Elcho Falling safe right now."
"That child," Maximilian ground out, "was a mistake. Everything about us and between us was a mistake, Ravenna."
As soon as the words were out Maximilian wished he had not said them. It was, he thought, too stark a truth for either of them to bear right now.
But he had no chance to take the words back, or to moderate them. Ravenna sent him a hard, brilliant-eyed look and then she was gone.
"Do you remember, Maximilian Persimius, what happened in the mine that day you battled Cavor?"
Maximilian whipped about. He'd stood a few minutes after Ravenna had left, wondering what she might do after those words he'd said to her.
A tall, well-built man stood a few paces away. Thick cobalt hair fell down over his brow and his eyes sparked with blue fire. His fine, beautiful features were almost ethereal.
Maximilian gave a small bow. "My Lord of Dreams. Drava."
The Lord of Dreams gave a small smile. "No need to bow to me, Maximilian. Tell me, do you remember that day?"
How could Maximilian forget it? He'd fought with Cavor in the dark mine of the Veins, battling for the right to regain the Escatorian throne. At first they'd fought with swords, but then the Lord of Dreams had set them a test of compassion and laughter, in which Cavor failed and Maximilian triumphed.
"Yes," Maximilian said, "I remember it."
"And do you remember what happened once I appeared?"
Maximilian gave a short bark of grim laughter. "Ravenna turned from me in a moment, and revered you."
"Aye, that she did. And when I asked her to step into the realm of dreams with me, she did so without hesitation. Maximilian, do not allow guilt over Ravenna to allow her to manipulate you. One day you will need to act."
"Are you warning me against her?"
"In a manner, yes. Ravenna is one of the very few marsh witches who has been able to tread the Land of Nightmares beyond the Land of Dreams. Even I dare not tread into the realm of Nightmare. She is very, very powerful."
"She carries my child."
Drava shrugged.
Maximilian sighed. "Have you seen the vision that she showed me in the Land of Dreams?"
"Yes. It is likely something that Ravenna found in the Land of Nightmares. I cannot find any other way to explain it, for this vision is foreign to me, and to the Land of Dreams."
"Is it truth?"
"Who knows, Maximilian. All I can say is that dreams are too often misinterpreted or misunderstood."
"That is what Axis SunSoar told me."
"Then he is a wise man. Maximilian, perhaps the vision shows a possibility, even a probability, but not a reality that cannot be changed. That is why Ravenna acts as she does. She wants to change that future for you."
"But there could be other ways to alter the future."
"There always are."
Maximilian stood quiet awhile, comfortable in the silence between himself and the Lord of Dreams.
"Everyone, so it seems, has warned me at one time or another against Ishbel."
"But you always believed in her."
"Until I began to listen to her detractors."
"Elcho Falling is a great prize, Maximilian."
"What is that supposed to mean, Drava?"
"That there are many who will confuse your path toward it."
Maximilian took a deep breath. "Thank you, Drava."
Drava gave a very small smile, and then he disappeared, and Maximilian was left alone, the snow swirling about him.
That night, a terrible dream gripped many of the Isembaardian soldiers. They dreamed that the Skraelings had seethed over the River Lhyl and were eating their way through the people Isaiah had left behind.
Each sleeper saw members of his own family being slaughtered.
They saw also Isaiah and the Lealfast--standing to one side, too terrified of the Skraelings to intervene.
In the morning, just after dawn, Insharah stood in Maximilian's command tent, trying very hard to hide his incredulity.
"You mean me to ta
ke Axis' command position, my lord?"
"Of the Isembaardian portion of my force, yes," Maximilian said.
Insharah looked to Axis, standing to one side. "You suggested this?"
Axis gave a nod, watching Insharah carefully.
"I don't have the seniority," Insharah said.
"You do now," Maximilian replied.
"Of course, I do expect you to give it back," said Axis with a small smile, "when I return from my foray into the wilds of the Outlands."
"Can you do this?" Maximilian said.
Insharah gave a nod. "To my best ability, my lord."
"Good," Maximilian said, then turned away, signifying an end to the conversation.
"My lord?"
Maximilian half turned around, an eyebrow raised.
"Have you any news from Isaiah?" Insharah said. "The soldiers ask."
"He has only just left, Insharah."
"We are anxious, my lord." Insharah hesitated. "The Lealfast can save our families from the Skraelings?"
Maximilian and Axis exchanged a look.
"My lord?" Insharah asked, his voice tight.
"They will do their best to aid your people," Maximilian said, "but unfortunately the Lealfast will not do anything to harm the Skraelings. They are close kin and..."
Maximilian drifted to a close, seeing the horror on Insharah's face.
"I am sorry, Insharah."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Salamaan Pass
Isaiah was a being many millennia old, and he had witnessed more things than most who had lived, but he'd never before experienced anything like being carried a-wind with the Lealfast.
He decided later, once he'd had some time to think about it, that it was very much like flowing in a river, save that the river the Lealfast used was air rather than water. He could feel all about him the strange, mysterious souls of the Lealfast riding the air currents beside him, and feel deep within him the tug of their strange magic. Isaiah knew the Lealfast used the Star Dance as the source of their power, but this...
This, he thought, is going to cause Axis some troubles.
They arrived at the southern end of the Salamaan Pass by late afternoon of the day they'd set out. The speed of their travel was extraordinary. Nonetheless, Isaiah could see from the gray lines on Bingaleal's face that it had also been exhausting--the Lealfast had been traveling here and there for many weeks, and had covered an astonishing amount of territory within only the past few days.
There was a moment when Isaiah could feel the transition from whatever state the Lealfast had put him into back into his fleshed form, and then he was standing on pebbly, sandy ground, and he could feel the soft breeze wrap about him, and smell his land, stretching away south before him.
There was a soft sound at his side and Bingaleal appeared.
"Thank you," Isaiah said simply. He and Bingaleal were standing just inside the entrance to the Salamaan Pass, against the western wall, and Isaiah turned to look south.
"Oh my gods..." he whispered.
Before them the pass was filled with a jumble of disordered people, children, animals, carts--the panicked flotsam and jetsam of a population fleeing rumor and terror. Even though the gloom of dusk had enveloped the Pass, Isaiah could see that hundreds of thousands were abandoning Isembaard.
On the one hand he was glad that so many had escaped; on the other the thought of what might be happening further into the land appalled him.
"Where are the other Lealfast fighters, Bingaleal?"
"On the ridges of the pass where the gloom shall, for the moment, disguise them. I thought it best that they not land within the pass itself and panic the refugees. Isaiah, what do you want of us?"
"To rescue as many of the Isembaardians as you can. There are two escape routes--north, through the Salamaan Pass, and south, through the Lagamaal Plains, to something called the Lost Chasm."
Bingaleal raised his eyebrows. "The Lost Chasm?"
"It lies on the borders of the Eastern Independencies, and is where the mortal Isaiah met his fate," said Isaiah. He grinned. "It is an abyss, Bingaleal, and likely to be a mystery that even you have yet to know about."
"And a chasm can somehow shelter," Bingaleal waved a hand at the mass of people moving north, "a crowd this size?"
"Even more," said Isaiah, "although I think there will be few left alive in the south of Isembaard." He paused, staring at the mass of people trudging north. "Gods, where do we start?"
Bingaleal sighed. "In the morning, Isaiah. If we start now we will just create panic."
In the end, the fleeing refugees accepted the Lealfast more easily than Isaiah had imagined. It was likely, he thought, that the Lealfast were a great deal less terrifying than what was at the refugees' backs.
They started early the next morning. Isaiah commandeered a horse from someone, then rode up and down the lines of refugees as they approached the pass, waving overhead at the Lealfast in the skies and saying simply that they were here to help the Isembaardians escape the Skraelings.
At midmorning Isaiah waved Bingaleal down.
"Any signs of Skraelings?" he asked.
Bingaleal shook his head. "I believe they are still very far to the west, although I have no doubts they will be moving this way swiftly. Currently, it is rumor and fear more than anything else driving these people."
Isaiah thought a moment. "Your fighters are all still here? In the Salamaan Pass area?"
Bingaleal nodded.
"Then divide them up. Send ten thousand to the southeast. I am certain there will be refugees moving to the south, as these here move to the north. The ten thousand sent south need to help them reach the Lost Chasm."
Isaiah spent a few minutes giving Bingaleal some idea of the route the refugees would be taking, and the path they'd need to take to reach the Lost Chasm.
"I wish your Lealfast great luck down south," Isaiah finished. "The Skraelings will be thick on the ground there, and your comrades shall need to be careful not to be outnumbered if they get into battle."
"That won't happen," Bingaleal said.
Isaiah frowned, not understanding. "They won't be outnumbered?"
"The Lealfast will never attack the Skraelings," said Bingaleal. "Not under any circumstances."
"What? For all the gods' sakes, Bingaleal, why can't you--"
"They are our kin. We will not harm them."
"Then what good are you? My people need the aid of swords!"
Bingaleal gave Isaiah an inscrutable look at that, but did not otherwise answer.
"Shetzah!" Isaiah muttered, turning aside in order to quell his frustration.
"We will do what we can," said Bingaleal, "but we will not attack our kin."
"Then if you can perhaps ask them nicely to stand aside," Isaiah ground out, "and allow my people passage to safety, then I would be most profoundly grateful."
"We will do what we can," Bingaleal repeated.
"Does Maximilian know this piece of information?"
Bingaleal shrugged.
Isaiah barely restrained himself from hitting the birdman. He gave Bingaleal a long stare, then walked away, fuming.
The next day, Isaiah took a small bag of supplies and a sword and set off by himself for the west. There was little he could do for the refugees, and he was still so angry with the Lealfast he wanted to spend as little time with them as possible. Once he reached the River Lhyl (or whatever was left of it) he would follow it south to DarkGlass Mountain.
Perhaps he could do something, if not the cursed Lealfast.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the Road to Serpent's Nest
Several days passed. The great convoy continued to inch its way toward Elcho Falling. Maximilian called to him five senior Isembaardian officers and made them commanders within the force, answerable only to Insharah and himself.
The men seemed pleased and gratified at Maximilian's trust, but he could still sense their disquiet beneath their smiles, and he wondered what they
found to talk about at night, around their fires.
At night, the dreams continued for the Isembaardians.
Ishbel had kept mainly to herself since the convoy had begun its journey east. Some hours each day she rode with Salome, who insisted on keeping to horseback despite her advanced pregnancy. Ishbel enjoyed Salome's company, but she also spent much of the day riding alone, slightly apart from everyone else. She used the time to think: about going home to Serpent's Nest, or, as it soon would be called, Elcho Falling, and what might await her there; about Isaiah, and what was happening to him in Isembaard; and about Maximilian, and the Twisted Tower.
She had not seen Maximilian privately since that night he'd taken her into the Twisted Tower. They sometimes passed on horseback during the day, and exchanged a nod or a few words. Ishbel had on two occasions shared an evening meal with Maximilian and his commanders in his tent, but had left for her own tent without speaking to him alone. Although either brief, or in the company of others, the time they had spent together had been marked by a new easiness in the other's presence.
It was indeed, Ishbel mused, as if that terrible scene in the snow where Maximilian had turned his back on her had been so cathartic that it had been a cleansing--if terribly painful--experience for them both.
Twice in the evening, once more alone in her tent, she had sat in a chair close by the brazier and had traveled back to the Twisted Tower. The first time, Ishbel had been nervous that she either would not be able to reach the Twisted Tower, or that she would not find her way home. But she found recalling how to twist her consciousness into the Twisted Tower's reality easy, almost as if, like the memories contained within each of the objects within the tower, it was already a part of her blood.
Ishbel had not spent long either time within the Twisted Tower. She'd felt a little as if she were intruding, and she kept turning about, half expecting to see Maximilian.
But he was never there.
Ishbel spent a fair bit of her time thinking about Maximilian. It still angered her that he had set Ravenna to one side not an hour after he'd told her that he had to cleave to Ravenna, now. All that pain, all those tears, and he'd walked into the night with Ravenna and said, I am not so sure I really want you, either.
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