Crusader

by Sara Douglass

  “You are StarSon,” Axis said flatly. “You have demanded that title since infancy. It is your job to know what is to be done!”

  “And you went through your entire battle with Borneheld and Gorgrael with nary a single doubt, Axis?” DragonStar said. “You walked through the entire adventure gloriously confident and without putting a single foot wrong, without losing a single bloody life to your mistakes?”

  Axis looked away.

  “The icepack cracks and reforms,” Sa’Domai said. “Noone ever knows where the cracks will appear next, but the icepack always reforms.”

  DragonStar took a deep breath, both grateful for Sa-Domai’s philosophical interjection, and resentful at his calmness.

  “I do not doubt that Sanctuary will fall,” DragonStar said. “At the least, we have to plan for it.”

  “And what,” FreeFall said, “do you plan to do about it?”

  “If myself,” DragonStar said, “or Faraday, Goldman, Leagh and Gwendylyr are trapped here, then we can do no good at all. We must return to the wasteland—”

  “No!” Zared said, stepping forward and brushing past Axis. “Take Leagh back into the wasteland? Have you seen her, DragonStar? Have you seen how sick and exhausted she is? Have you—”

  “We have no damn choice, Zared!” DragonStar said. “None. It will be up to myself and my five companions to battle the Demons, and we cannot do it here. I doubt that Spiredore will remain viable much longer. We must leave now.”

  And I must get my witches to the places where they will confront their respective Demons, DragonStar thought, and where they will prepare the “weapons” that Qeteb has so kindly allowed them to choose. We must leave now if they are to have enough time to prepare.

  “And the rest of us?” Axis said as Zared turned away in disgust. “What happens to the rest of us? You and yours might be able survive the wasteland and the Demons’ influence, but none of us can. What happens if—when—Sanctuary falls? Where do we go?”

  And the rest of the people and animals of Sanctuary. Where do they go now? Where, if nowhere is safe?

  DragonStar spread his hands helplessly. “I do not know, Axis. I simply do not know—”

  Axis stepped forward and stabbed his finger into DragonStar’s chest. “If you walk out of here now and take your four damn witches as you call them, with you, then I am assuming command of Sanctuary! I will work to keep safe what remains of Tencendor! Run about the wasteland all you like, DragonStar, play whatever game you want to, but I will assume responsibility for the saving of Tencendor’s life!”

  There was a silence as DragonStar stared into his father’s eyes. Then…

  “Thank you,” he said. “That would be a great weight off my mind.”

  Axis stared at DragonStar, then he burst into laughter: genuine, heartfelt laughter.

  “Thank you,” he said, “for allowing me some purpose back into my life.”

  DragonStar nodded, smiling a little himself, then looked at Faraday. “When we leave,” he said, “we will leave Katie behind.”

  “No!” Faraday said in a low, harsh voice. “You’ve said yourself that Sanctuary will fall. She will die if we leave her here!”

  “I thank you for your vote of confidence,” Axis said to one side, but Faraday ignored him.

  “We take her with us! I can protect her! I will—”

  “No,” DragonStar said. His voice was very flat, very hard. “She must stay here.”

  Faraday stared at DragonStar, almost loathing him. Ever since she’d seen Qeteb speak out of his mouth, seen the Demon’s malice shine from his eyes, she’d not been able to forget that voice asking her if she would ever know whose hands caressed her body, whose voice spoke to her of love, whose love reached out to her in the night…It had been enough to undermine the hard-found trust she had in DragonStar, and in herself. Would she ever know who it was? DragonStar, or Qeteb? Who was it now saying, “We must go forth into the wasteland?” DragonStar, or Qeteb?

  Katie, and her desire to protect the girl at all costs, was all that was left for her. Illogically, even though she was not sure who was going to lead her back into the wasteland, and what might be waiting for them there, Faraday wanted to keep Katie with her. If only Katie was with her, then she would find some way to protect her, some way to keep her from harm. The vision she’d had many, many weeks ago of the armoured man—Qeteb—slicing open Katie’s throat with a kitchen knife returned night after night to haunt her.

  Faraday would let nothing harm Katie. Nothing.

  “Faraday,” Azhure said gently, putting her hands on Faraday’s arm, “I will look after Katie as if she were my own.”

  “As if she were your own?” Faraday hissed. “You were never good at playing the caring mother, Azhure!”

  “Faraday,” DragonStar snapped, “that is enough!” He stepped forward and took Faraday’s other arm, pulling her away from Azhure and the rest of the group.

  “Faraday,” DragonStar said in a low voice as he pulled her, stiff and resisting, over to a far corner of the chamber, “if you cannot trust me then we might as well lie down and offer our throats to Qeteb here and now.”

  She was silent.

  “You have let me lay by you at nights,” DragonStar said, his voice softer now, “and let me love you. You trusted me then. Trust me now.”

  She stared at him with hard eyes, and then tried to pull away from him.

  He grabbed her before she could walk away, hanging on to her arm and speaking hard and low into her ear; she would not look at him.

  “You will know in here,” he tapped her breast with his other hand, “when it is DragonStar who speaks to you, and when—if—it is Qeteb. You will know that!”

  Faraday finally turned her eyes to him. They were wide, stricken, and so frightened that DragonStar felt his chest constrict.

  “I want more than anything in this world, or in the thousand worlds that surround and touch ours, to be able to trust you, DragonStar. Yet to think that by trusting you I will be laying down and offering my throat to yet another demonic lover terrifies me.”

  DragonStar felt his heart break. “Gods, I love you, Faraday,” he whispered, his mouth almost touching her ear. “I will never harm you, I will never offer you to Qeteb to save Tencendor. Please, gods curse it, please believe me.”

  “I will try,” she said, a tear finally escaping from an eye. “I will try, DragonStar.”

  She pulled away again, and this time DragonStar let her go.

  He wondered if he would ever have her back.

  Was there nothing that could be saved from this chaos?

  “I wish you luck,” DragonStar said, gripping Axis’ hand and arm, “with your self-appointed task.”

  “As I wish you well with yours,” Axis said.

  They fell silent, each staring into the others’ eyes, each wondering if this was the last they’d see each other, and if this was one of the last moments of hope that Tencendor would have.

  Azhure stepped forward and briefly, but fiercely, hugged DragonStar, then she turned and embraced the other four who would leave with him.

  Katie clung to Azhure’s skirts, and Faraday embraced the girl so tightly she squeaked in protest. Azhure had to prise her loose from Faraday’s grip.

  “Let nothing happen to her!” Faraday said to Azhure, and Azhure touched Faraday’s cheek with her fingers.

  “I promise to do my best for her, Faraday. Will you accept that?”

  Faraday hesitated, then nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. Azhure’s best was better than virtually anyone else’s. But even though Faraday knew she left Katie in the best of hands, she still hungered to be able to watch her herself.

  “I love you,” she whispered to the tiny girl.

  “Love DragonStar instead,” Katie said. “He needs it as much as I do.”

  Faraday’s face closed over slightly, and she straightened and stood back, turning her face to look about her.

  They were standing at the entrance
to the valley of Sanctuary: Axis and Azhure, Zared and Theod, and DragonStar and his group. Behind DragonStar sidled Belaguez, anxious for war; the Alaunt, sitting, but very evidently impatient for action as well; and the blue-feathered lizard, irritably combing out some of the feathers on his offhindleg. His emerald and scarlet crest was rising up and down so rapidly his plumage appeared blurred.

  Zared was holding Leagh, as Theod held Gwendylyr; hard and angrily (why did their wives have to go?), desperately, knowing they would, in all likelihood, never see them again.

  “We will meet again,” Gwendylyr tried to reassure Theod, “in the Field of Flowers, if nowhere else.”

  “And if the Demons get into that, as well?” Theod said. “If they destroy the Field? If they destroy everything else, Gwendylyr, and if they control the power of the Enemy, then they will inevitably get into the Field.”

  Gwendylyr clung to Theod, burying her face in his chest, fearing the truth of his words, and totally unable to speak.

  Theod met Zared’s eyes over her head. They were as hard, as angry, as implacable as his own.

  Of the entire group, only Goldman seemed at ease, bending down and ruffling the thick hair on FortHeart’s head, and clucking to her as if she was a child.

  The hound relaxed into his hand, seemingly grateful for the reassurance.

  “What will you do?” Axis asked DragonStar.

  DragonStar shrugged a little. “What I must. And you?”

  Axis smiled slightly. “This place must have some other way out. I cannot believe the Enemy built Sanctuary without a back door.”

  A back door to where? To what? DragonStar wondered, but said nothing. He gripped Axis’ hand and arm again, then let go.

  “Goldman, girls…it is time we left.” And he adjusted the Wolven where it hung over his shoulder, raised his sword, and drew the door of light.

  “Come,” DragonStar said, “let us dare Spiredore one last time.”

  Chapter 28

  Destruction

  The Mother sat on the bench outside Ur’s cottage and contemplated death. Even the mere contemplation of Her utter annihilation seemed out of place, let alone the imminent reality of it.

  The Mother knew She was about to die, but She simply couldn’t quite come to grips with the concept. She represented the life and well-being of the land of Tencendor, and in the past, even though wars and destruction had rained above and through the land, nothing had come close to harming the land itself.

  But now Tencendor lay wasted and barren. The Earth Tree and the forests were gone, the Lakes were dried up, all hope and love had been consumed and translated into the despicable.

  All that was left was here, and the Mother knew that this, too, would shortly be gone.

  She could hear the Demons hunting through the glades and forests of the Sacred Groves.

  The noise was appalling. Trees screamed and tore themselves up by the roots in an attempt to get away from the Demons. The Horned Ones bellowed and roared…

  …and fell, one by one, as the Demons ate them alive and absorbed their power.

  The Mother winced every time another was consumed, for She could feel the teeth slice into Her own flesh as Demon fangs tore into the Horned One.

  There was a whistling and a screaming in the air: the sound of Death approaching. The sky was being torn apart, the earth destroyed, and the Mother put Her hands over Her face and wept.

  Isfrael crouched, one arm flung over his head.

  He wept and bellowed at the same time as both fury and fright coursed through him.

  Everything he had ever loved was being destroyed about him.

  The corpse of a Horned One lay torn apart not five paces from him, and a Demon—Barzula, Isfrael thought—was tearing into it with the fangs and talons of a bear.

  The Demon had, somewhat incongruously, chosen the body of a stag to go with the bear’s teeth and claws…then again, Isfrael thought in some detached part of his mind, maybe the Demon had chosen deliberately.

  Now the Sacred Groves were being sacrificed, but for what, Isfrael wasn’t so sure. His own stupidity? No! He had done only what he’d thought best, and there was still a possible way out.

  “Filth,” Isfrael said, lowering the arm from his face, “I need to talk with you.”

  Barzula stopped and raised his blood-soaked head. “I revel in filth, fool. You flatter me by your ill-intentioned curse.”

  Isfrael half-rose, meaning to further speak, but something seized him about the neck from behind, and the Mage-King screamed in agony.

  Claws sliced down to his spine, narrowly missing the throbbing arteries in either side of his neck.

  “Then speak,” a voice whispered behind him, and Isfrael whimpered through his pain, for he recognised the voice of Qeteb.

  “There is much still I can tell you,” Isfrael stammered. “Much information I can give you—”

  “When I consume you,” Qeteb said, not only tightening his grip about Isfrael’s neck, but sinking the claws of his other hand—Mother! What form had he assumed to inflict such agony?—into the base of Isfrael’s spine, holding him so high in the air that Isfrael’s legs writhed a full pace above the ground, “when I consume you then I consume all your knowledge and memories. Think that I need to bargain with you?”

  And he wriggled his claws in even deeper, and Isfrael felt such agony course through his body that he gibbered, begging for death.

  “I hold here the trees in my hands,” Qeteb said, “I hold here the Mage-King of the forests—”

  His claws sunk deeper, deeper, and Isfrael screamed.

  “—the life of the trees—”

  Far away, tucked into the cellar of her cottage, Ur cackled with laughter. “Not yet, not yet,” she whispered.

  “—and the hope of the Avar,” Qeteb finished. “All…all…” his claws started to tighten and clench within Isfrael’s body, “at the tips of my fingers!”

  And he clenched his claws as hard as he could, tearing Isfrael’s neck and lower spine apart.

  Beyond sound, Isfrael writhed about Qeteb’s hands, his face twisting, his eyes bulging, and…

  …and Qeteb’s own eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open, for as Isfrael died, so indeed did the Mage-King’s memories and knowledge pass into the Demon’s own understanding. Most of them were trifling, concerned only with power and ambition (and these qualities Qeteb already had enough of to last him through the next few hundred worlds he chose to ravage), but there was one thing, one thing that made the Midday Demon caper about, howling and screaming with mirth, for this one memory would be enough to completely destroy the StarSon, even if the man’s witches did manage to do well against the other five Demons. A memory that would aid Qeteb into a final victory.

  A memory of Faraday and her role in the previous battle for supremacy within Tencendor.

  The bait, the sacrifice, that which Gorgrael used in order to distract Axis away from his purpose to annihilate the Destroyer.

  It hadn’t worked, Axis was too single-minded, too selfish (not a flaw at all, under the circumstances) to be distracted. Besides, he had truly loved Azhure, and was thus prepared to watch Faraday die.

  But DragonStar was another matter. Here was a man much too warm, and far too caring, to let Faraday sacrifice herself again. He loved Faraday before any other, and he would sacrifice Tencendor, and himself, rather than let her die again so alone and terrified.

  DragonStar was not the man his father was.

  “I have you!” Qeteb roared through the entire universe. “I have you, you weak-hearted bastard!”

  I have you, you weak-hearted bastard!

  The words echoed through Spiredore, where DragonStar had just led his group.

  I have you…

  DragonStar’s head jerked up, and he halted halfway down a stair.

  I have you…

  “Pay no attention,” he muttered, but his voice was weak, and it trembled, and the other four with him shuddered.

  I hav
e you…

  DragonStar pointed down the blue-misted tunnel that appeared at the end of the stairwell. “Here…we are here…”

  He almost ran as he started down the tunnel, desperate to get away from Qeteb’s mocking laughter.

  I have you…

  Qeteb shook Isfrael’s corpse until it fell apart, and then the Demon’s form metamorphosed, fluid and beautiful, changing into that of a gigantic black raven.

  He cocked his head as if curious, his bright, beady eyes flitting about the clearing, then he carefully placed one of his claws on Isfrael’s body, holding it firm, and dipped his beaked head and tore into the flesh.

  With each morsel of flesh and sliver of bone that slipped down his throat, Qeteb consumed yet more of the power of the trees and the earth.

  By the time the Demon had devoured the entire bloody mess his feathers were iridescent with power, and the raven tipped back its head and cackled with happiness.

  Nothing would stand in its way now.

  Nothing.

  Not even the Mother.

  The raven snapped shut its beak and cocked its head, thinking. Its eyes blinked rapidly.

  The Mother. Another meal sat waiting ahead! The raven burped, then flapped its wings and rose into the air. As it did so it crowed, calling to the other four Demons.

  They lifted their snouts from the dead flesh they’d been consuming and looked to the black shadow circling in the air. Then, as one, they loped to the east, where waited the final meal.

  Urbeth snarled, and paced restlessly in a circle through the snow. Behind her, shore-bound icebergs groaned and cracked. Her two daughters, as impatient but not as restless as their mother, sat to one side, their claws red from the dead (and sour, for it had been crazed) seal they’d eaten earlier.

  All that was left was the abandoned rib cage lying at the very edge of the sea, red shards of flesh flapping in the wind.

  Urbeth ignored both her daughters and her surroundings. Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong! It was not her task to save the Mother! Her role was only to wait in the snow, dispensing advice and tart wisdom, and keeping her eye on her children and their descendants.