Axis’ heart lifted at the thought.
He pushed his horse a little harder, his eyes scanning the horizon as carefully as he could. His Icarii blood gave him excellent vision, far better than any pure human, but even so .
Damn Inardle for not being here and sharing with him her elevated view.
Axis glanced upward, vaguely hoping that she might materialise above him and tell him that Isaiah was, indeed, only just over the horizon.
But there were only a few scattered birds, high in the sky. No Lealfast to be seen.
Of course, Inardle could be invisible and just above him anyway.
“Inardle?” Axis called.
There was nothing but the gentle breeze and the sound of the horse’s hooves.
Axis silently cursed her. Inardle was likely hovering directly overhead, knowing precisely where Isaiah was, but refusing to communicate with him out of spite because he had not shared her tears at Bingaleal’s death.
Axis rode for a few more minutes. Now he was beginning to obsess about Inardle’s lack of response and the fact she likely knew just how much further he had to ride.
Curse her!
For perhaps the first time in his life Axis began to wish he had not refused StarDrifter’s offer to coax out his wing buds. It was all very well to refuse when you thought you would always have winged companions who would be true to you and who would always provide you with as much information as they knew, but when you had to depend on someone like Inardle .
Winged companions who were always true, and who always provided information . . .
Axis suddenly smiled, looking up into the sky again.
There! An eagle, soaring high above him.
When Axis had been the StarMan of Tencendor, he’d had a venerable eagle often serve as his eyes in the sky. Would this one be as amenable?
My friend eagle? Axis used his power to call out to it, even though he knew such use of the Star Dance would light him up like a candle in a dark cave for any Lealfast about. My friend eagle?
The bird said nothing, but it tipped it wings and spiralled down closer to Axis.
My friend eagle, I crave your aid.
You are the StarMan. I know you.
I am indeed, but how can you possibly know me?
My venerable father’s aunt had a mate who came from Tencendor. That eagle knew of you and spread word among the eagles of this land of your name and accomplishments.
Then I thank him. Friend eagle, I have need to see through your eyes. May I do so?
It is of no matter or risk to me. You may do so.
The next moment Axis found himself looking, not at the rolling plains before him, but at the world from several hundred paces in the air.
It took him a moment or two to orientate himself, then he began to scan the way ahead.
There was the green smudge he’d been wondering about for an hour or so. It was a small, low-lying wood, mostly thick shrubs with a few trees, and all probably grouped about a spring. Beyond the trees was a vast herd of sheep, perhaps several thousand strong, and their shepherds, who were grouped about four or five horsemen. Axis thought he would instruct the eagle to look closer at that group, but for the moment he wanted to try and spot Isaiah’s army.
He focussed beyond the sheep and the trees, the eagle’s eyesight now running further and further over that vast expanse of plain beyond the trees . . . and there . . . the smudge that Axis had been looking for. It was many hours away, perhaps not reachable until well after nightfall, but reach it tonight he would.
Axis grinned. Isaiah!
StarMan, the eagle said.
Yes, my friend eagle?
Look with me now behind you, there . . . there . . . not five hundred paces behind you . . .
Axis saw Inardle first. She was invisible, but the eagle’s vision picked her up as a distortion in the air that was so detailed Axis could actually see the features of her face.
Damn, he had never realised eagles could see so finely!
Look, StarMan.
Axis could now see behind Inardle, another forty or fifty paces, and saw a group of about fifteen Lealfast. They were approaching very fast, and they had their bows set with arrows.
Inardle had no idea they were there.
For an instant Axis thought the arrows were meant for him, then he realised the Lealfast were focussed on Inardle, not on him.
Axis reacted instantly. Inardle! Axis called, and she looked at him.
Inardle! Behind you!
She looked over her shoulder, and Axis, through the eagle’s vision, saw her expression turn from one of mild annoyance to outright fear.
“Shit!” Axis murmured, withdrawing his eyesight from the eagle and reining his horse in before turning it about and booting it back toward Inardle’s position.
She became suddenly visible — probably, Axis thought, in order to assist him in aiding her rather than in any attempt to evade the Lealfast behind her — and tilted her wings so that she angled down toward the ground.
Damn it! Axis had no weapons save for a knife. There was nothing he could do to —
An arrow, then five, arced out of the air behind Inardle. She cried out, twisting away so that they all fell useless to the earth, but then came another volley, fifteen arrows this time; and then yet another volley, and then another, all aimed at different points to either side of her.
Axis saw Inardle panic. She didn’t know which way to turn and, in her hesitation, left herself open to the arrows.
Two of them thudded into her left wing, and Axis was now close enough to hear her cry of shock.
Inardle tumbled downward, then managed to regain some control of her flight.
Inardle! Get down to me! Axis cried. To me!
She heard and angled herself toward him. She was very close now, a moment away . . . more arrows flew around her.
One more hit her left wing, then one to her right.
Just before she hit him, Axis wrenched the horse about so that Inardle thudded into his back.
“Hang on as tight as you can,” Axis cried, then booted the by now terrified horse — stars alone knew how fast it could go with the double load — into a gallop.
If only he could get to that stand of low trees.
At the same time, he used the Song of Mirrors to cloak himself and Inardle and the horse in reflections.
With any luck these would be Bingaleal’s fighters coming along behind them, and would not realise the deception until Axis and Inardle had managed to reach the stand of trees.
There they might have a chance.
Several arrows thudded into the ground directly in front of the horse, making it swerve in fright. Axis felt himself being dragged to one side by an unbalanced Inardle, and for one terrible moment thought they would both fall to the ground, but at the last possible heartbeat, he managed to pull both of them upright.
The horse was now running wild with fear for the trees.
Stars, give them enough time to make it!
Axis heard the beat of wings directly behind them, even above the pounding of the horse’s hooves, and knew they were doomed. The Lealfast were not being deceived by the reflections.
He heard the twanging of bowstrings, then an instant later both he and Inardle cried out as they fell forward over the horse’s neck with the impact of an arrow.
Inardle had been clasping Axis about the shoulders, and the arrow had gone through her right hand and into Axis’ shoulder, pinning them together.
The pain and shock of impact was momentarily blinding. Axis had dropped the reins in shock, and now attempted to fumble for them again.
His right arm was almost useless.
The beating of Lealfast wings was directly overhead, he could hear them clearly, and Axis was sure they were dead with the next volley of arrows.
Then, stunningly, the scream of an eagle.
Axis couldn’t see, he was concentrating too hard on the ever-nearing line of trees, but he heard the thump, th
ump, thump of impact, and knew the eagle had careened through the group of Lealfast fighters.
Suddenly there was an almighty thud five or six paces to the right of the horse and Axis saw that two Lealfast fighters had hit the ground.
They were not moving.
I thank you, my friend! Axis said to the eagle, hoping it had survived its attack. The sound of Lealfast wings overhead had faded . . . the surviving fighters had likely scattered with the eagle’s attack and were now reforming.
The line of trees was finally very close, five or six heartbeats away, and Axis knew what he had to do.
It might kill them both — at best it had the potential to seriously injure them — but he had no choice. It was their only chance.
“Inardle,” he gasped. “When we reach the trees, we need to tumble off this horse and burrow as deep as we can under the shrubbery.”
“We can’t . . . the arrow —”
“I know about the damn arrow!” Axis said. “Listen, we have to do this any moment. Just do it! Understand?”
There was no more time for her to complain. The horse had plunged into the line of trees and shrubs and low branches were whipping and catching their legs and bodies.
“Axis!” Inardle wailed, and he felt her tilt to the right, he with her.
“Damn!” Axis had time to mutter before letting himself slide, giving the horse as hard a boot as he could as they crashed to the ground.
The impact was so painful Axis almost blacked out. He felt the arrow tear through the flesh of his shoulder as they tumbled over and over, and then suddenly Inardle’s hand was freed and they were separate.
Axis grabbed at one of her arms, pulling her deeper under a dense shrub.
At the same time he reformed the Song of Mirrors wrapped about the horse that was now almost at the other side of the stand of trees and ready, so far as Axis knew, to plunge into the undoubtedly startled sheep and shepherds.
There were cries and the continuing, if fading, sound of the horse’s hooves.
Then Axis heard the sound of arrows impacting flesh and he assumed the Lealfast had killed his horse in their belief that the riders still clung to it under the cloaking enchantment.
Then a thump as the horse hit the ground.
Then another thump.
Then several more.
Axis frowned, trying to make sense of it. Was the horse’s corpse jittering all over the ground?
Inardle was curled in a ball, moaning in pain to one side, but Axis ignored her.
He was fighting to retain consciousness, fighting to cut through the pain and shock of tumbling off the horse as well as the agony in his shoulder, and couldn’t make sense of what he had just heard.
Why had the horse fallen to the ground many times over?
It made no sense, and Axis realised they were still in grave danger. He grabbed at Inardle, trying to get her to her feet so they could run — Stars, there were footsteps running toward them! — but she could not even rise to her knees. Axis found himself sinking to the ground again as blackness threatened to overwhelm him.
There was the sound of men, many men, surrounding the shrub under which Axis and Inardle crouched.
Then, impossibly, the sound of soft laughter as someone pushed aside the shrubbery.
“By the gods, Axis,” Isaiah said, “I never thought to find the great StarMan himself loitering under a bush!”
Chapter 18
The Outlands
The shepherds had built a fire and Axis sank down before it, shaking both from the pain in his shoulder and from the aftermath of the fight. Isaiah had extracted Inardle from the shrubbery, and now helped her to sit beside Axis.
“Isaiah,” Axis said. “How . . . what are you doing here?”
“Let me see to your wounds first, Axis, then we can talk,” Isaiah said.
“Don’t bother with her,” Axis said as Isaiah bent closer over Inardle. “She can heal herself.”
Isaiah gave him an odd look at that. “Inardle is —”
“She can heal herself,” Axis said again, his tone harder. “Waste no pity on her.” He looked at Inardle, huddled into herself, her wings and one arm covered in blood, and despised her. Was she going to use this trick on Isaiah, now?
“Normally I could,” Inardle said, “but those arrows were poisoned, Axis. They wanted to make sure they killed me. The arrows were tipped with senzial, a poison made from a fungus grown on rocks in the high mountains. It negates any ability a Lealfast has to heal themselves.”
Axis grunted, not believing her. He wanted to get Isaiah alone, that he might fully convey the depth of treachery of which Inardle was capable.
“The poison won’t affect you in any significant way,” Inardle said, and Axis grunted again.
“But it will kill me within the day,” Inardle finished, softly.
Axis did not respond.
“Perhaps —” Isaiah said, looking between the two of them at this exchange, then said nothing more as one of the shepherds came up with bowls of herbs steeped in warm water and clean rags so that he could clean the pair’s wounds.
“The Lealfast will come back,” Axis said. “You’ll need to keep an eye out —”
“The Lealfast are dead,” Isaiah said, gently lifting out one of Inardle’s wings, despite her moans, so that the shepherd might attend to its wounds.
“Dead?” Axis said.
Isaiah nodded to the west, and Axis rose so he could see.
There, some distance from the camp and to one side of the flock of sheep, lay a pile of several Lealfast bodies. Four of Isaiah’s men were dragging further corpses over to the pile and gathering faggots so they could burn them.
“They were invisible!” Axis said. “How did you . . . ”
Isaiah’s twinkling eyes caught Axis’ at that moment, and Axis stared. “You have your power back?”
“Every last wonderful piece of it,” Isaiah said. “You know that Ishbel and Maxel succeeded at DarkGlass Mountain?”
Axis nodded as he sat down once more.
“Well, the River Lhyl runs again,” said Isaiah, “and so also does my power. The One’s defeat freed both of us. You shall need to be polite to me again.”
Axis laughed softly. “You could see the Lealfast.”
“Yes. I used your friend eagle . . . he has been anxious about you, Axis. Anyway, I saw them, and took my bow and my arrow, and directed my men to do likewise, and I allowed them to see with my eyes the vision I received from the eagle, and so the Lealfast died.”
“And you are here because .”
“I could feel you approach. I left the army early this morning to intercept you. And thank the gods I did, eh?”
“At least this god I shall thank indeed,” Axis said. “You saved my life, Isaiah. Thank you.”
“As you did your best to save Inardle’s,” Isaiah said, finally letting her wing go as the shepherd finished. He sank down before the fire, crossing his legs and looking between the two of them. “There is a story to be told, I think.”
“And much news to tell you,” Axis said, then winced as the shepherd began to clean his shoulder.
“Then we shall eat and rest, and in the doing you may tell me,” Isaiah said, and as he spoke one of his men set a burning faggot to the funeral pyre of the Lealfast and it burst into flame.
Chapter 19
The Outlands
Isaiah sat thinking as he watched Axis and Inardle sitting distanced about the fire. They had talked while they ate (well, while Isaiah and Axis ate, Inardle took nothing), all three sharing news, and now Isaiah was not quite sure what to say. He felt sorry for both of them, but at the same time was angry . . . more at Axis than at Inardle.
Still, their personal relationship was not his problem.
“You actually think,” he said to Axis, “to ally with the Skraelings as their lord?”
“What we actually thought,” Axis said, “was to ride to your rescue. The alliance with the Skraelings was an added attr
action.”
Isaiah chuckled. “I simply cannot imagine you allying with the Skraelings, Axis. How could it possibly work?”
“Inardle says she can manage it,” Axis said.
Isaiah glanced at Inardle. He did not think she would be managing very much at any time in the near future.
It will kill me within the day, she had said, and Isaiah supposed he should see if he could do anything for her . . . but what? He was no god of healing, not of deadly wounds.
Hereward had been simple, but poison? Isaiah decided that Inardle was a beautiful creature who had made some hard and perhaps foolish decisions in the past weeks, and if she was going to die . . . well . . . better her than Axis.
Isaiah decided that the one thing the Lealfast were good at was causing problems.
“You think that the One did not die at DarkGlass Mountain?” Axis said. “That he exists elsewhere?”
Isaiah nodded. “The Skraeling implied that he still lived, that he transferred elsewhere, and I suspect Hereward if only for the simple reason that her neck wound reopened at the same time I felt the One vanish. I imagine he has taken residence within someone else . . . whether they know it or not. But who? I don’t know.”
“But you still suspect Hereward,” Axis said, and Isaiah nodded again.
They were silent for some minutes, before Isaiah spoke. “We may as well spend the night here, then ride for the army in the morning. There is no point in arriving late at night and Lamiah surely is enjoying the chance to resume complete command.”
“We are going to need to think about what happens when we near Elcho Falling,” Axis said, for the moment putting to one side the problem of the Skraelings. “Kezial and his army are undoubtedly there by now. They may or may not have allied with the Lealfast, and they may or may not be dead, but whichever way their fate has fallen we are going to face a formidable force. A deadly force.”
“Eleanon must control, what, thirty or thirty-five thousand fighters, Inardle?” Isaiah said.
She nodded, clearly in pain, her face drawn and a sickly yellow.