As dark fell the rites began. Azhure, watching from the very fringe of the assembly gathered in the Earth Tree Grove with GoldFeather, her daughter EvenSong and Pease by her side, felt and saw the Avar and Icarii relax a little as the familiar and ancient words of the ritual began. The Icarii Enchanters, StarDrifter prominent among them, gathered with the Avar Banes in a circle about the stones surrounding the Earth Tree. Enchanters and Banes were both dressed in crimson, the Icarii with half-length robes that fell from their waists, even the women leaving their breasts bared, the Banes with full-length robes draped gracefully from their shoulders. Bearing the image of a blazing sun suspended across his chest, StarDrifter stepped forward from the circle and lifted an unlit brand from one of the stone pillars. For a moment he stood, head bowed in thought or prayer, then he passed one of his hands over the brand and it burst into flames. He held it forward to the assembly, walking slowly about the circle of stone so that all could see. He stopped in front of a young female Bane who held a harp in her lap, smiled a little, then as she struck the first chord on the instrument he opened his mouth and began to sing.
He sang in an ancient language that Azhure had never heard before, but after a moment’s puzzlement she found she could understand what he was singing. StarDrifter sang of the glory of the sun, of the life it gave to those who lived in its light, of its yearly death and resurrection on the night of the winter solstice. He paused briefly, then sang of the dependence of the Earth Tree, as the earth itself and all life it contained, on the continued health and well-being of the sun. He sang of the mysteries of the sun and of the song it hummed to itself as it danced through the heavens, of the stars themselves, of the myriad suns that all swayed and dipped to the notes of the Star Dance which itself remained one of the Seven Great Mysteries. The voices of his fellow Enchanters and Banes rose beneath his voice in supporting harmony, leaving StarDrifter’s voice clear to soar strong through the hearts of all those listening and surge above their heads to drift with the stars themselves.
Azhure wept. His voice touched the very sinews of her soul and she could feel her blood vibrate to the music that he made.
Finally StarDrifter’s voice faded and he turned to his fellow Enchanters and Banes. “What can we give the sun to encourage it to live again in the morning?” he asked.
The Enchanters and Banes replied as one. “We can give to the sun the strength to rise in the morning.”
“We can,” StarDrifter whispered, although his whisper reached all ears. “We can give the sun the strength to rise in the morning. We can give it blood.” Azhure’s eyes were caught by a sudden movement at the edge of the grove, the spot where the Avarinheim met the Icescarp Alps. Slowly, but with incredible dignity and grace, a huge Stag appeared. He was in the prime of his life, his pelt glowing dark reddish brown on his back, fading to creamy yellow on his underbelly. Massive twelve-point antlers swayed from his head. He paused slightly at the edge of the assembly, his huge dark eyes knowing, then he began to pick his way through the assembled Avar and Icarii towards the stone circle.
As the Stag neared the Enchanters and Banes they sang a song of love and support, of compassion and gratitude, their voices humble before the sacrifice of the Stag.
The Stag walked into the clearing below the stone circle, then through the Banes and Enchanters, stopping only when he reached StarDrifter. StarDrifter reached out a hand and touched the Stag briefly on the forehead in blessing. Then he turned to one side and Raum hobbled forward, a long knife in his hands. The Stag dropped to his knees and offered his throat, closing his magnificent eyes so that he would not have to witness the arc of the knife as it swung.
StarDrifter began to sing again, this time a song of wonder that the Stag should choose to offer its life in order to give the sun strength. As his voice died Raum placed one hand on the Stag’s forehead and with the other placed the knife against its quivering throat. “Thank you for this sacrifice you are willing to make for us tonight. Tonight you will join with the Mother,” Raum said quietly, then lifted his head and cried to the assembly. “Witness this sacrifice freely given by friend Stag to the sun, to enable the sun to waken at the end of this long night, to give it the strength it will need to strengthen towards spring. Friend Sun, accept this gift!”
And he dug the knife into the Stag’s throat as hard as he could. A dark spurt of blood arched through the air and the Stag groaned, collapsing onto the ground. As the blood spurted free StarDrifter began to sing again, a high exultant note in his voice, and he threw the burning brand he had been holding spinning into the sky.
Instantly the great circle of stone about the Earth Tree burst into flame.
Axis paced along the wall, his face tight with apprehension. As the wind had died, so too had the snow stopped. Now the frightful mist that heralded the arrival of Skraelings was thickening about the walls. Dark had fallen, and the night increased the mist’s impenetrability. Belial watched Axis as he paced back and forth along the wall, pausing now and again to peer uselessly into the night. Sentries in both town and fort had lit torches along the walls, but even the thin tracery of light could do nothing to allay the growing fear. All were tense and ready, some soldiers climbing the ladders to the parapets of the walls, others hefting weapons in their hands. Others stood scattered about in defensive positions throughout the town in case the walls should fail and the survivors be forced to retreat through the town’s twisted streets towards the fort.
Axis slapped the wall with a gloved fist in frustration. What was out there? What? He recalled the night Gorgrael had rolled his cloud of fear over the Axe-Wielders and imagined he could hear the beat of great wings deep within the mist. He quickly scanned the sky. What if Gorgrael gave more of his creatures wings? The idea of Skraelings dropping from the sky made Axis’ skin crawl.
What was Gorgrael doing? Why was he waiting?
Frustrated by his inability to see what was going on, and seized by a sudden impulse, Axis snatched one of the burning torches from its bracket and heaved it spinning high into the mist. Thousands of wraiths suddenly became visible as they fled the flaming brand spinning down towards the earth, their silver eyes throbbing in panic, their whispery voices wailing and weeping.
Then, as the light sputtered and died in the soft snow, Gorgrael’s forces launched their attack.
Azhure’s attention was caught by the spinning torch and the sudden conflagration of the stone circle and for critical instants she did not realise the Earth Tree Grove was under attack. Screams and shouts reached her ears, but it wasn’t until Pease grabbed her arm and screamed with a strange guttural sound that Azhure abruptly realised something was dreadfully wrong. Two creatures, Skraeling wraiths, had hooked their clawed hands into Pease’s upper body—their frightful jaws working at her neck and shoulders. Pease gripped Azhure’s arm convulsively even as her body jerked. Her eyes pleaded for help; blood dribbled from her nose and mouth.
Azhure tore her arm from Pease’s death grip, too terrified to scream herself. She slowly backed away, step by step, her eyes riveted by Pease’s death agony, horrified by the nightmare creatures that tore convulsively at Pease’s flesh. Pease’s eyes rolled up into her eye sockets and her body began to collapse backwards, her hand still extended in appeal. One of the creatures lifted its head and hiccupped, its eyes on Azhure.
Finally, her terrified trance broken, Azhure turned and ran.
She ran into a landscape of chaos and terror, blood and frenzied feeding. As the stone circle had burst into fire the three SkraeBolds in charge of the assault on the Yuletide rites launched thousands of Skraelings into the Earth Tree Grove. The first the Avar and Icarii knew of the attack was the shocking sight of the sentries’ bodies hurtling down from the cliff face above them, their dead bodies breaking the bones and wings of the living in a sudden, frightful crackling of pain. As Avar and Icarii screamed and milled in confusion the Skraelings massed out of the tree line and down the cliff face into the assembly.
I
t took vital minutes for the Crest-Leaders to rally the Strike Force to their calls, vital minutes when the countless Skraelings literally ate their way through the crowd towards the stone circle, intent on reaching the Enchanters and Banes in the centre of the grove, and then the Earth Tree itself.
FarSight CutSpur screamed in anger and frustration as his Strike Force lifted into the sky in pitiful dribs and drabs. He fitted an arrow into his bow, but then screamed again in frustration—how could he fire into the crowd and not kill his own? The scene below him was one of complete chaos, everywhere the Avar and Icarii were snarled with the Skraelings. Some of the Icarii were lifting out of the death below him, many with grievous wounds and torn wings, but the Avar were being massacred.
The SkraeBolds howled in delight. Every now and again they turned to strike down one of the Icarii who had managed to lift out of the tangled mess, their clawed hands and feet ripping wings to shreds in instants. They had a mission here this night, and it was not simply to disrupt the Yuletide rite. They flapped lazily towards the burning circle, keeping a prudent distance from the flames. They were angry now as their silver eyes searched the crowd below them. They had thought to disrupt the rite before it got this far, before the circle burned, but StarDrifter had hurled the flaming brand before they had a chance to act.
The Banes and Enchanters were as helpless as the Crest-Leaders and the tattered remnants of the Strike Force hovering impotently above. Even their wards of protection would do little against this savage attack. For long minutes StarDrifter stood with his fellows, encircled by dying Icarii and Avar, watching the grey mist-like wave of wraiths creep closer and closer to them. Then, before they had time to act, in whatever way they could imagine, the SkraeBolds struck.
The Skraelings rushed the walls in a massed attack, hooking their talons into the minute cracks in the masonry and gradually clawing their way towards the battlements, their silver eyes gleaming obscenely in the dim light that the torches threw down. Axis leaned over the battlements, his eyes and mouth grim, watching the creatures as they howled and whispered their way to the top of the walls. If anything they had become even more solid since he had last encountered them on patrol, flesh extended down to their shoulders and through most of their thin, stick-like arms and legs. Only their torsos were still misty, insubstantial. But their teeth, hanging sharp in their oversized loose jaws, looked real enough. Too real.
Axis strode along the battlements. “Stand fast!” he called. “They will be easy prey, my friends. They cannot clamber over in large numbers and we will stick their eyes before they manage to gain a hold on the battlements. Stand fast!”
Men responded and rallied as Axis strode among them.
“Are you ready?” Axis shouted above the increasing whisperings of the Skraelings.
“We hear your voice and we are ready, BattleAxe!” the men nearest him responded, and gradually the cry spread along the walls of Gorkentown. “BattleAxe! We hear your voice and we are ready!”
Then the killing began. The Skraelings clambered over the top of the battlements in wave after wave, almost overwhelming the thousands of men who lined the walls ready to meet them. But they were prepared, they had their BattleAxe among them, and they had been drilled repeatedly about what they must do. Hands grasped Skraeling hair before the creatures could grasp them, and swords, knives and lances were thrust time and time again into their plump silver eyes. Wraiths screamed and lost their grip as their eyes burst, their disintegrating bodies plummeting down to the snow below as their lives bled away.
But men screamed also. Scores fell, Skraelings clinging to their faces and necks, their teeth sunk deep into the sweet flesh of the manlings, almost delirious with joy as they tasted their flesh. Axis and Belial seemed everywhere at once. When one section of the wall looked set to fall to the Skraelings, then one or the other, and sometimes both, were there to plunge into the fray, rallying the spirit of their men, driving the attack back over the walls once more.
“Use the fire!” Axis screamed above the noise of the battle. “Use the fire!”
Men standing in wait lifted containers of oil to the battlements, tipping it over the edge, soaking the Skraelings as they climbed. Then they tossed torches, igniting whole sections of climbing Skraelings. Their flesh burst into gouts of fire and the creatures fell screaming to the snow, their bodies dissolving into grey sludge almost as soon as they hit the snow.
But fuel was in critically short supply and most of the defenders along the wall had to rely on their weapons to fight the wretches as they reached the top of the walls. More and more Skraelings emerged from the mists, but as Axis strode the length of the walls it seemed that Gorkentown might hold. The Skraelings had yet to make a significant breach in his defences. Axis permitted himself to hope a little.
Then he saw two SkraeBolds walk out of the mist, a mass of Skraelings parting like a sea about them. The SkraeBolds stopped not twenty paces from the gates, their posture relaxed, an amused expression on their dreadfully mutated faces. One idly scratched its belly as the pair studied the gate.
Axis fought his way back along the battlements until he stood looking down on them.
“Greetings, Axis Rivkahson,” one of the SkraeBolds called, its voice distorted as it hissed past its beak. “We have come for you. Behold!” It waved its taloned hand to something as yet hidden in the mist.
The SkraeBolds moved fast. Gorgrael knew well the relationship between Enchanter and Enchanter’s son, and had carefully instructed his SkraeBolds regarding StarDrifter’s fate.
The elder of the SkraeBolds, SkraeFear, directed his two companions to continue the slaughter among the Banes and Enchanters. He could deal with StarDrifter himself, he hissed, his pride not letting him allow the three to attack together as instructed. SkraeFear wanted to be the one to present StarDrifter to Gorgrael. He wanted Gorgrael to recognise SkraeFear as the leader of the SkraeBolds. It was he, after all, who had rescued Gorgrael from the ruin of his mother’s belly.
StarDrifter’s training as an Enchanter had never prepared him for this. He had never contemplated being alive during the time of the Prophecy of the Destroyer and did not have the powers to repel such an attack. Yet despite his fear and his sense of impotence and failure he never once thought that he could simply lift out of the battlefield. He could not desert his dying brethren, even if it meant his own death.
StarDrifter heard a soft sound behind him and turned.
Five paces away stood something that should never have existed.
“StarDrifter,” it hissed. “I have come for you.” It flexed its clawed hands at its side.
StarDrifter lifted his head, his eyes calm.
SkraeFear took a step closer, tilting its dreadful head to one side as it contemplated the Enchanter. So, this was the Father. It was ugly, ugly, all white and gold.
“Do you love your son, Enchanter?” it asked, its silver eyes cold and calculating, its tongue lolling completely out of its beak.
StarDrifter hesitated only an instant. “Yes,” he said, his voice strong. “Yes, I’ve loved Axis through all those years when I thought he was dead. Now that I find he is alive, I find my love confirmed and renewed.”
SkraeFear hissed in anger, his clawed hands half raised. “No! No! I mean your elder son. Your heir. The one who will win such fame, such power, that he will be the one through whom you are remembered. Gorgrael. Do you love Gorgrael?”
StarDrifter’s eyes became hard and cold. “I pity him. I do not love him. I do not honour him. I turn my back on him. He is not my heir.”
The SkraeBold screamed and, ignoring all instructions to the contrary, attacked the Enchanter.
Axis heard Belial gasp in shock and turned and met his second-in-command’s eye for a moment. Then he turned back to the horror working its way towards one of the western sections of the town walls. It had a head like a distorted horse’s, with the silver eyes common to all of Gorgrael’s creatures and an open mouth containing as many teeth as a
Skraeling—except, on this huge head, they were almost as long as a man was tall. Ridged flesh like raised scales ran down its neck and back, and its body was ridged and sectioned like that of a worm. It was fat, its sides bulging and convulsing obscenely, as if it were in the throes of birth pangs. It had no limbs, and hunched and slithered its way towards the walls, running down those Skraelings that did not move out of its way fast enough. IceWorm.
“Axis, look!” Belial screamed at the BattleAxe’s side, and Axis turned to where he pointed. Four more of the IceWorms slithered out of the mist.
“The gods help us if they’re attacking along the length of the walls,” Axis snapped. “Come!”
They ran to the spot the nearest IceWorm was aiming for. Axis snatched an archer’s bow and a handful of arrows. “Here, my friend,” he said, thrusting the bow towards Belial. “You’re the archer, not I. Aim for its eyes.”
Belial flexed his fingers and notched an arrow into the bow. “Luck guide me,” he whispered, his face a mask of concentration, holding his aim until the IceWorm reared its body some ten paces above the battlements. Then he loosed his breath and the arrow at the same time. The arrow hit the IceWorm just below the level of its eyes and bounced harmlessly off the scaly armoured skin of its cheekbone. Axis slapped another arrow into Belial’s outstretched hand. Belial let fly again; this time the arrow flew true and struck deep into the IceWorm’s eye, blood spattering down over the walls. The creature toppled over backward, screaming its anger and agony. Belial and Axis rushed over and looked down as the IceWorm crashed into the snow. It split apart in a dozen places as it hit the ground, and out of its sides writhed Skraeling wraiths.
Fear crawled down Axis’ back and he turned and grabbed Belial’s arm. “Quick, get the archers to work. We’ve got to stop these creatures before their heads top the walls and they disgorge their loads!”