Pilgrim (25 page)

For the next two hours Zared’s full attention was given to the mechanics and logistics of getting tens of thousands of men and horses and mules across the ford and then into Carlon without clogging river, road or streets.

Rank after rank of men urged horses and supply mules into the muddied waters, and then up the far bank and onto the road for Carlon. The muscles of man and beast alike, still frozen from the icy waters of the river, shuddered with the effort of pulling body weight and supply bundles up the western bank and then through the increasingly trampled road surface. Dust rose in a cloud along the road to Carlon, men and beasts obscured by the murkiness thrown up by the host of hastening hooves and feet.

“Leagh?” Zared shouted as he saw Askam leading a column of men and horses down into the Nordra.

She waved as Askam nodded. A faint cry reached Zared’s ears, but he could not distinguish words, and within the instant both Leagh’s and Askam’s horses had plunged into the Nordra. Zared felt sick, remembering the near tragedy of the Azle crossing, but the Nordra was shallower and less angry than that river had been, and Leagh’s mare retained her footing easily.

“She will be safe,” Herme murmured at Zared’s side, and Zared nodded unhappily.

“I will not relax until she, as all my command, rests safely under Carlon’s eaves,” he said, and checked the horizon. Already the sun was sinking low into the clouds of dust—now even Carlon was obscured—and they had perhaps an hour left before they must all be safely sheltered.

Herme noticed the direction of Zared’s eyes, and he checked the remaining units on their side of the Nordra.

“Perhaps eight hundred men left,” he said. “Sire, you must think about leaving yourself.”

“Not until the last of the men is on his way,” Zared replied, then he grinned. “Look! The donkeys guard our rear.”

Indeed, it seemed as if that was what the donkeys did. They had positioned themselves at the very rear of the final column, but facing eastwards, as if they feared an attack from the rear.

Zared’s grin faded. “What are they
?
” he whispered.

“Our friends,” Herme responded quietly, “and that is all we need to know.”

Within twenty minutes the last column had braved the ford, and Zared, Herme and Gustus—Theod having gone on earlier—pushed their horses into the water.

Behind them, the two donkeys plunged in as well.

Within a heartbeat Zared felt the icy water creep up to his thighs, and felt his horse falter as the current caught. But it found its footing surely enough, and pushed forwards, and within minutes Zared felt the water cascade away from their bodies as the horse leaned into the slope of the western bank.

“Home!” Zared shouted joyfully, and dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. It needed no encouragement.

The final few hundred men, Zared, Herme, Gustus and the two donkeys at their rear, galloped for the city, racing to reach its gates before the sun sank below the horizon.

“Home!” Zared screamed, and the cry was taken up about and before him.

“
Home! Home! Home!
” men screamed, and then the shadow of the walls embraced them, and Zared heard the gates groan and then thunder closed behind the donkeys.

“Home safe,” he cried, and waved at the cheering crowd overjoyed to have him home. “Home safe.”

“Theod!” Zared clapped the man on the shoulder, still suffused with the joy of bringing virtually his entire command safe into Carlon’s shelter and not noticing the man’s frown. “Theod. Did Leagh go straight to the palace?”

“Zared,” Theod stumbled. “I thought she and Askam were riding with you.”

A coldness such as he’d never known before crept through Zared’s entire existence. “
Where is Leagh
?”

“I thought she was with you!” Theod repeated in a whisper, his face white.

Zared stared at him a moment longer, then spun for the gates. “Leagh!”

“No!” Theod screamed, and grabbed at Zared’s arm. “Night falls. See?”

Zared paid him no heed.

“
Leagh
,” he screamed, and it took five men to drag him away from the exposed air of the street and into a nearby shop as twilight fell over the city.

“
Leagh!
”

“Why, why, why?” she cried, twisting in the grip of a brother she no longer knew.

As they had ridden for the city, and under cover of the dust haze, Askam had seized the reins of her horse and, surrounded by the men he’d led back from the wilderness, had kicked their horses into the shelterless fields north of Carlon.

Now they milled about as dusk swept in from the east, the safety of the city a useless half-league to the south.

“Why?” she cried, too confused to be scared. Yet.

Askam let his madness reveal itself in his smile, and though it was his voice that answered, he spoke with the words of the brown and cream badger.

“Welcome to the new Tencendor, my dear. I am sure you will be a useful addition to our company.”

Leagh opened her mouth to say something, but just then the corruption of dusk swept over them, and a thin whimper was all that issued from her mouth.

Pestilence raged, bubbling through the minds and souls of all those exposed.

For one horrible brief moment of sanity, Leagh understood her fate, and understood that she had been betrayed by her brother.

One hand clutched uselessly at the air, and she opened her mouth for one final, despairing shriek.

But no sound came forth. Madness ravaged her mind and tore her soul to pieces, and Leagh stared blindly into insanity.

Then, quietly, she began to babble, her fingers itching madly at her belly.

F
or several days Caelum and his parents climbed ever higher into the Icescarp Alps. The climb was hard, the cold wretched, and the lack of food debilitating—what game may have once existed on the sides of the mountains had apparently disappeared—yet all these discomforts paled into insignificance when compared to the constant sweeping shadow of the Hawkchilds far above them.

The three tried to ignore them as they climbed, but it was hard to drive the shadow and the intermittent whispering and hissing laughter from their minds.

They spent each night huddled in frigid caves or under draughty overhangs, clinging close to each other and the hounds for warmth.

On the fourth night, they had found a slightly more substantial cave. It had been formed from a fault in the rock, and stretched some twelve paces back into the cliff face, and was at least five paces wide and five high. There was room enough for all to curl up at the rear of the cave, a mass of arms and legs and furred bodies, out of the draught that eddied in from the narrow mouth.

No-one had spent much time on conversation after they’d stumbled in and checked the cave for any dangers that might be lurking there. Axis had just nodded tiredly once he was certain the cave was as safe a shelter as they’d find that night,
and had then sunk down to the dirt, pushing aside some of the cave rubble to make himself a reasonably flat space in which to sleep. Azhure and Caelum lay down on either side of him, and then the hounds snuffled and scratched and turned about in ever-tighter circles, finally dropping down as close to the three as they could.

It was as much comfort and warmth as any could expect.

Once settled, no-one spoke. All were too hungry and cold and tired to be able to conjure anything vaguely cheerful in the way of words, and there was no use speaking the pessimism that gripped all their minds.

Outside the darkness deepened, and the cave lost all form in the gathering night.

Axis wondered where the Hawkchilds spent the nights. Did they cling to the rock face outside the cave entrance, like gigantic bats protecting their nest? Or did they spend the entire night spiralling ever higher in the joy of their masters’ expanding destruction? Waiting for the morning, and for the pale faces and forms of their prey to peek out from the cave, and emerge to creep ever higher into the mountains?

When would they attack? Axis did not think it would be very long, for he, Azhure and Caelum were growing weaker, and soon would not be able to defend themselves from an irate millipede, let alone the Hawkchilds’ spiteful wrath. He sighed, irritated with himself. None of them could afford to even contemplate defeat. And yet, did he have the strength to go on fighting? How much
would
Tencendor demand of him?

Azhure leaned in tight under Axis’ arm, wishing she could give him more comfort. She remembered how he’d once provided them with magical fires to warm them the last time they’d traversed these mountain paths. She lifted her head slightly, and glanced into Axis’ eyes, and wondered if he, too, remembered.

Stars! How she wished she could enjoy her power again, if only so she could revel in the intimacy of sharing Axis’ every thought.

Azhure dropped her gaze and clung as tightly to her husband as she could. Behind her Sicarius and his mate, FortHeart, pressed their warm backs against hers. Azhure briefly scratched Sicarius’ head, then relaxed, and slipped into a dreamless sleep. A few minutes later Axis, too, slipped into sleep.

Caelum, already deep in sleep on Axis’ other side, was not so fortunate. Again and again that night DragonStar hunted him through forest and plain. But in the fifth visitation, the dream hunt took on a different aspect.

Caelum found himself running through a maze, trapped by walls that rose three paces above his head and stopped his headlong flight again and again with their frightful blank dead-ends. Behind him echoed the sounds of the hunt. Again and again Caelum found himself having to retrace his steps, certain each time that he would retreat directly into the jaws of the hunt, trying to find an escape from the twisting, confusing paths.

Every time, just as he was sure he’d found a straight run, it would curve into yet another cul-de-sac. And every time he ran into the blank, mocking wall, he thought he heard the faint sounds of laughter behind him.

The sound of the hunt closed. Caelum could feel, if not yet see, DragonStar urging his great black horse forwards, could feel it as his brother raised his arm and steadied the sword.

Could hear his breath come quick with excitement and the lust of the hunt, could
feel
its fevered warmth at his back.

Caelum’s entire body tightened as he dreamed, and Axis murmured in his own sleep, as yet not disturbed enough to wake.

One of the hounds whimpered, and curled into a tighter ball.

Suddenly Caelum stopped, leaning heavily on a wall with one hand, his breath heaving in and out of his throat. What was he doing? Why was he running? DragonStar would eventually find him, whatever Caelum did to try and evade
him, and it was surely better to turn and face him with what courage he had left than continue to waste his energy on flight.

For the first time, for the very first time since this horror had started months ago, all fear left Caelum.

Its sudden absence left him feeling exhilarated. Why hadn’t he done this before? Embraced his fate, instead of running from it?

He straightened, and his breathing steadied. He dropped his hand from the wall, and turned to face the way he’d come.

The sound of the hunt pounded closer. Now that his own breathing was calmer, Caelum heard the laboured breath of the closing horses.

He felt the pavement tremble under his feet.

Caelum carried no weapon—either the dream or fate would not allow it—and so he just stood, the tension of months of uselessness draining from his muscles, and waited.

A quiet joy filled him.

There was a howl from the way he’d just come, and then the dark shadow of the Hawkchilds as they swept low overhead.

Trapped! He’s trapped!

And just standing, resigned, the weak fool!

“Resigned?”

The voice filtered about the turn of the Maze before Caelum.

“Resigned?”

And for the first time Caelum heard a measure of uncertainty in the voice. It was a dream of many firsts, he decided, and smiled.

And then a third time—

“Resigned?”

A long shadow moved on the pavement before him. Again it moved, and then again, and then DragonStar rode his horrid beast about the corner…at an extremely careful and controlled walk.

Whatever the black beast had once started out as, it no longer resembled a horse. It had four stout legs, with four
rippling talon-tipped paws to tread on. Its body was twice as long as a horse’s, and had only a waggling stump where its tail had once been. The head of the horse was gone, replaced with a gigantic eel’s head at the end of a lithe, snaking neck.

Caelum stared at it, wondering that it engendered no fear in him.

Then he raised his eyes—and sorrow enveloped him.

DragonStar sat the beast, his black armour absorbing all light. His visor was raised, and Caelum saw that his brother’s thin, lined face was remarkably sensuous when it was enlivened with power.

DragonStar was smiling.

He raised his right arm, and in his hand Caelum saw that he held a great sword of light, its hilt guard a mass of writhing serpents that twisted about hilt and DragonStar’s wrist alike.

“Fool,” DragonStar hissed. “Why don’t you run?”

And Caelum said to him what he needed most to hear himself. “I forgive you.”

DragonStar screamed, and dug his heels into his beast’s flanks. It cried with the warbling voice of a bird, and lunged forward.

The sword arced through the air.

Caelum did not move, nor even flinch. “I forgive you,” he repeated.

“
I do not need forgiveness!
” DragonStar screamed, and the sword whistled down through the air and sliced deep into Caelum’s chest.

Yet even as he felt his lungs and then mouth fill with blood, even as the face of his tormentor filled his eyes, Caelum finally came to an understanding. That face beneath the helmet was like, but unlike, his brother.

This DragonStar was not his brother.

“Forgive
me
,” he mouthed, and then his world disintegrated into clouds of pain and black feathers and sharp
blades and claws and beaks that tore into his flesh and drove spikes of agony deep into his mind.

Despite his resolve, he felt himself begin to thrash about on the point of the sword.

Maybe he
did
want to live, after all.

He twisted, and opened his mouth to shout, but found it filled with feathers and a taste so foul he gagged.

Agony continued to slice through his body. If anything, it had got worse. Far worse.

Caelum opened his eyes, and found he had woken into a nightmare as bad as his dream. The entire world was a mass of black feathers, mad whispering, and claws that scratched and beaks that bit deep into flesh.

The Hawkchilds had attacked.

The cave was literally packed with them. So completely did they fill the space between floor and rock ceiling that it seemed they’d driven out all the air.

Caelum gasped for breath, trying to beat the three Hawkchilds that clung to him back far enough to allow him to draw his sword.

To one side he could hear the sounds of his parents similarly fighting for their lives, and the howls and snapping jaws of the Alaunt.

But however Caelum struggled, the Hawkchilds only clung closer. One of them drove his beak deep into Caelum’s shoulder, tearing away a strip of flesh, and Caelum screamed, only to have another thrust the clawed hand at the tip of its wing into his mouth, the claws tickling and scratching deep into his throat.

Caelum’s scream was cut off, and he gagged, his entire body shuddering with the effort. Again he gagged, so badly one part of his mind wondered if he would vomit his entire gut up through his mouth, and then again, and again.

The claws tickled deeper, and then more struck at his face, his eyes, and something vile sank into his belly. Caelum’s
consciousness greyed, his mind unable to cope with the horror of the attack and the pain and weight of the Hawkchilds.

They began to sing.

It was a lullaby, something that Caelum—even in his extremity—remembered Azhure singing to him as a child, but a frightful parody of the lullaby.

Here were no sweet, comforting verses, but words that jested at the futility of life, words that spoke longingly of the embrace of pain and disease, words that wished upon the listener a life marked with the rewards of disappointment and the joys of despair.

And while the lullaby embraced him and drifted through his mind, the Hawkchilds sank their beaks and claws deeper and deeper into Caelum’s body, tearing at belly and throat and neck. Far away Caelum thought he heard Azhure scream, and wondered what they could possibly be doing to her to cause such horror to suffuse her voice.

And then he drifted deeper towards unconsciousness,
pushed
himself towards it, because it would be the only escape from this—

Suddenly, the pressure eased. He felt one Hawkchild lift away, and another fall away, tearing its claws out of his throat as it did so.

Caelum finally managed to retch, spitting filth and his own blood from his mouth.

The taste brought him back to full consciousness. He slammed one of his elbows into the remaining Hawkchild that clung to him, simultaneously grasping his sword and swinging it in an arc.

There was a screech, and the sound of a body scrabbling about on the floor.

For an instant black wings thrashed in his face, and then the Hawkchild had scrambled free.

“Father?”

“Caelum!” Axis’ voice was breathless, and somewhat distant, but it was strong.

Caelum blinked his eyes, adjusting them to the darkness, and finally began to discern shapes.

Pale hounds were leaping and snapping into the air, and both his parents were fighting to the rear of the cave, their backs to the wall.

He took a step towards them, when, stunningly, a hand fell on his shoulder.

“You are wounded,” someone said behind him, and the hand thrust him against the side wall of the cave. “Stand back. We will help your parents.”

Several people leapt past him, seizing wings and legs and literally hurling Hawkchilds away from Azhure and Axis. Swords flashed, and Caelum thought he saw two of the new arrivals lunge forward with deadly pikes.

“Adamon,” he said, abruptly realising who had spoken to him. Then he slid to his knees, his injuries finally draining him of strength. It was Adamon, and six or seven companions, some of them winged. Relieved he didn’t have to fight either dream or reality any more, Caelum finally let the greyness claim him.

He awoke to the feel of something dabbing at the wounds on his belly.

It hurt.

“Be still,” a soft voice said. “The Hawkchilds have scored your flesh deeply.”

Caelum blinked, and then focused on the face bending over him. Xanon, Adamon’s wife.

She lifted her head slightly and smiled at him, then turned back to her cleansing of his belly wounds.

“What…how…?” He could hardly force the words past his damaged throat.

Then his father appeared at his side, bending down to him.

“Adamon and Xanon came to our aid,” Axis said, laying a hand on Caelum’s shoulder. “With Pors and Silton and four Icarii from Star Finger.”

“We were worried.” Now Adamon’s face appeared over Xanon’s shoulder. “You were taking so long to join us at Star Finger that we thought to come down the trails in the hope of meeting you.”

“Thank the Stars you did,” Axis said softly.

“Mother?” Caelum asked.

“Scratched, but not as deeply as you,” Axis answered. “She’s with the hounds. One or two of them sustained some deep wounds.”

Caelum relaxed a little. “And the Hawkchilds?”