Crusader Read online

  Hadn’t she done enough for this cursed land already?

  All Urbeth wanted was to spend the rest of whatever and whichever eternity her residual powers allowed in jumping from icefloe to icefloe in the southern Iskruel Ocean, sinking her teeth into the spines of shrieking seals, and enjoying the odd, amusing discussion with whatever sentient being came within conversational range.

  Instead, she’d been forced to hide the Ravensbundmen during Gorgrael’s stupid grab for power, and ever since then she’d been obliged to step in and guide the footsteps of her irritatingly dense children.

  And now DragonStar wanted her to save the Mother. What? Couldn’t the Mother save herself?

  “We’d better go,” one of her daughters remarked. “The sky is falling apart.”

  Urbeth glanced upwards, but her daughter’s comment was metaphorical only. If the Mother died, if the Demons consumed Her power, then the sky would indeed fall apart.

  “And the icepack will melt,” observed the other daughter, and at that Urbeth’s temper cracked completely.

  “Why can’t the Mother mind Her own back?” she roared. “Why am I supposed to do everything?”

  Her daughters slowly got to their feet, stretching backs and paws as they did so.

  The Mother sat and watched the forest to the west. There were only a few score trees left, and even as She watched, many among them trembled and fell.

  There was a darkness moving through them.

  Worse was the darkness winging overhead. The Midday Demon, in the shape of a raven, its feathered and shadowed wingspan seemingly reaching from horizon to horizon.

  There was no sun left, no beauty, no hope. Nothing but approaching despair, bleakness and destruction.

  “I am the only thing left alive in the Groves,” the Mother whispered.

  And shortly even She would be gone.

  The Mother fought an overwhelming urge to run. Run where? At Her back were nothing but shifting shadows and pools of darkness. The Sacred Groves had all but been consumed, and the only patch left was this island of cottage and garden, and the tumbling patch of forest before her.

  The winged nightmare in the sky flapped slowly closer.

  The Mother stood up, and smoothed out her gown.

  “I’m sorry,” She whispered, thinking of Faraday and the now-hopeless sapling secreted within her rainbow belt. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re the last person I thought to see submit to despondency,” an aged but sharp voice said behind Her, and the Mother jumped.

  Ur had emerged from the doorway of the cottage, holding a large terracotta pot and saucer in her arms. The saucer sat over the opening of the pot, hiding its contents.

  “I…I thought you’d…” the Mother said.

  “Been eaten?” Ur said. “Everyone always forgets me,” she added, grumbling, and plonked herself down on the bench the Mother had just risen from.

  The Mother looked between her and the approaching storm of Demons.

  “I don’t think we have much longer,” She said.

  Ur’s mouth twisted in a ghastly parody of a smile, and she clutched the pot even tighter.

  Her hands had tightened like claws.

  The Demons screamed closer.

  Urbeth, her two daughters a few paces behind her, leapt from icefloe to icefloe. Even in this stark portion of the world, far, far north from the Demons’ central influence, disease and blight had left their mark.

  Many of the icefloes had turned a sad grey from their previously sharp blue-white, and were rent with cracks and soggy, sad saucer-shaped depressions that threatened to give way whenever one of the icebears put an inadvertent paw on one.

  Urbeth’s head swung from left to right as she leaped and ran. How much longer would the Icebear Coast be safe? Not long, not long at all if the Mother was consumed.

  Urbeth abruptly stopped, sinking back onto her haunches and swiping a furious paw at the sky and at all of creation.

  “I’ve had enough!” she bellowed. “Enough!”

  Her daughters grinned, and their jaws dripped in anticipation of the hunt.

  Urbeth recommenced her run north across the ice. But even as she moved into her stride, a shadowy movement in the distance, over to the east caught her far-seeing eye.

  A pack of Skraelings, shimmering south to join in the general slaughter and mayhem.

  And for a second time Urbeth halted and sank back to her haunches. But this time she remained silent, her eyes fixed on the Skraelings, and then her eyes drifted north-east, and yet further north-east, until she had concentrated her entire being on the unmapped tundra that stretched into the infinite unknown.

  The sorry breeding grounds of the Skraelings, to be sure, but what else did it harbour?

  An escape?

  DragonStar shivered, and wished he’d thought to cloak himself in something other than a simple linen shirt and breeches of only slightly heavier weave. He’d brought his witches, his Star Stallion, the lizard and his pack of nosing, roaming Alaunt to the one place he thought they could use as a base. Far enough north to escape the worst of the Demons’ influence, and yet close enough to slowly begin to win back some of the wasteland, and rid it of its corruption.

  Star Finger.

  Here also waited DareWing and the ethereal Strike Force.

  Somewhere.

  “Where is he?” Faraday said.

  She, as did Gwendylyr and Leagh, looked warm enough wrapped in scarlet cloaks, while Goldman was suffering as badly as DragonStar. Why do women always remember to be sensible, wondered DragonStar, and us men always forget?

  “DareWing?” DragonStar said. “He must be hereabouts somewhere. I told him to stay…”

  “Is it possible to get out of this wind?” Goldman asked, pleasantly enough, even though his face was turning blue and his arms were shaking as he attempted to wrap them about his chest.

  DragonStar nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  They were standing on the remains of the glacier, just to the north of the shattered mountain, and DragonStar pointed to a shadowed opening amid a tumble of boulders about the skirts of the mountain. “That must be the entrance to the underground chambers of the mountain. DareWing must be there.”

  And that is where we found Katie, Faraday thought, unable to keep the girl out of her mind, but she said nothing, and contented herself with aiding Leagh as they stumbled over the rocks towards the entrance.

  A figure waited for them just inside.

  Qeteb circled down from the sky above the ruins of the Sacred Groves, his feathers and eyes positively glowing with anticipation.

  Nothing would ever stop him now.

  Below, two women sat on a wooden bench before a simple cottage. Around them spread a smoking wasteland. Every tree had been destroyed, every flower crushed, every hope decimated. The women were the only things left alive in the Groves—such as they were—and Qeteb had every expectation that they would not long stand between him and a total devastation and death for the Groves.

  He lifted his wings back, slowing his descent, and stretched his raven claws out, preparing for a landing. Just behind him on the ground his four companion Demons were likewise slowing down, digging talons into the drifting dust and ashes, sliding haunches beneath them.

  All four had taken the forms of dog-people: canine lower bodies, human torsos and heads…save for the wriggling pig snouts on two of the Demons.

  In their excitement they had misjudged their appearance.

  One of the women rose from the bench, wiping nervous hands down Her gown. She was patently ill, Her skin as grey and as ashen as the landscape about her, Her eyes dull, Her muscles trembling with fatigue as much as fear.

  The other woman, ancient and gap-gummed, continued to sit, hunching her brittle-boned form over a terracotta pot.

  What was she going to do with that? Qeteb wondered. Throw it at him?

  He broke into derisive laughter, and Ur raised her head and regarded him with the bright eyes of hate. />
  One of her wrinkled, age-spotted hands patted the side of the pot, as if in reassurance.

  Urbeth and her daughters had resumed their run. They continued to leap from icefloe to icefloe, but the grey of the ice (just occasionally blue-white, this far north) sometimes appeared to have streaks of ash in it, as if the bears strode over burned and ravaged ground.

  Above them swirled wisps of emerald light.

  DragonStar halted, stunned, as he recognised the person waiting just inside the entrance.

  “My, my,” StarLaughter said, leaning back against a rock and making full use of the situation to display her body. “Haven’t you grown handsome since I last saw you?”

  “What are you doing here?” DragonStar asked.

  StarLaughter smiled. “Waiting, of course,” she said. “DareWing said you’d be back.”

  Another form emerged out of the gloom behind her. It was the Strike Leader.

  DragonStar switched sharp eyes to the birdman’s face. DareWing? In league with StarLaughter?

  StarLaughter’s smile stretched, but she remained silent. Privately she was wallowing in self-satisfaction, knowing her plan to convince DragonStar of her trustworthiness was bound to succeed. He was so guileless, so malleable.

  “We have found a haven in the bowels of this destruction,” DareWing said. “And, I believe we have found a friend. Many of them.”

  DragonStar looked back to StarLaughter, completely unable to believe that she’d so easily (and conveniently) swapped allegiances.

  “Oh, but you should trust me,” she said softly. “I have grown tired of the Demons, and I admit a modicum of sorrow for what I’ve aided them to do. I wish to—”

  “I find this somewhat hard to believe,” DragonStar said.

  “You did it,” she said, and her face was entirely serious now. What better way to gain his trust than to pretend she’d travelled the same pathway to redemption he had? Fool! The weak were always prepared to believe others shared their weaknesses.

  DragonStar stared at her.

  “Come below, and talk,” DareWing said, and disappeared into the gloom.

  Faraday caught at DragonStar’s arm. “It’s a trap,” she whispered.

  StarLaughter’s eyes slid momentarily to Faraday, hardening as they did so, then back to DragonStar’s face.

  “I can help you against the Demons,” she said.

  DragonStar stared at her, trying to discern the truth—or otherwise—in her words and her face. He didn’t find it hard to believe that the Demons had abandoned StarLaughter, but on the other hand he found it difficult to believe they’d just let her go.

  It wasn’t in their nature to just “let someone go”.

  It was very, very easy to believe this was a trap. The Demons were using StarLaughter as an ambush. No doubt once they’d finished consuming the Sacred Groves they’d drop by here to finish him off.

  She was bait…but such unbelievable bait that DragonStar started to think that this couldn’t possibly be a trap. Surely the Demons wouldn’t expect him to fall for this?

  There was a movement at his side. Sicarius, sidling forward to sniff at StarLaughter’s skirts.

  He nosed about, then lost interest, sitting down to scratch at a spot just behind his right ear.

  And then DareWing re-emerged from the gloom at StarLaughter’s back. With him he had several members of the Strike Force.

  One of them stepped forward. “She is a cold-hearted bitch,” the birdwoman said, “but she has given us the one thing we needed to make us believe in her.”

  “Yes?” DragonStar said after a moment, and then froze in horror as another form emerged from the gloom.

  It was one of the Hawkchilds. StarGrace.

  “She has brought us the Hawkchilds,” DareWing said, “and a highway to the Demons’ den.”

  Qeteb’s form flowed back—horribly, for his flesh assumed many loathsome lumps and bumps in doing so—into his handsome, human form.

  For the moment he had grown tired of the encasing black armour.

  He advanced a step towards the Mother.

  “You’re a sorry looking cow for all the power and glory you are supposed to represent,” he remarked.

  Her expression—exhausted, resigned—did not alter, although one hand spasmed briefly within the folds of Her skirts. “I am what you have done to Me,” She said. “I am the living representation of the land, and I—”

  “Do not have much longer to live,” said one of the other Demons, sidling closer. Its pig snout snuffled along the ground, as if it wanted to suck up the Mother’s skirts, and perhaps Her with it.

  The Mother’s mouth trembled in a smile, or perhaps an expression of fear. “No. I do not think that I do.”

  “With you gone,” Qeteb said, and he took a pace forward, “the entire land will be mine.”

  Both his hands dangled at his side, but his right one shifted and changed, reshaping itself into a gigantic fist some five or six times normal size.

  It had hammerheads for fingertips.

  “There is the small matter of some remaining resistance,” Ur muttered from her bench. Her arms were now so tightly gripped about her pot they were completely white.

  Qeteb leaned back his head and roared with laughter. “DragonStar? His useless lieutenants? A Sanctuary full of terrified incompetents? There is no magic left I do not control; or will not, within days. There is no place anyone can hide. And there is no soul that will not eventually be mine!”

  He was screaming by the end, spitting out words and saliva in a torrent of hatred.

  Ur turned her head aside, hiding her expression from the Demons.

  Qeteb’s massive right hand suddenly shot out and seized the Mother’s neck. “Stupid, stunted bitch,” he seethed, and the muscles of his arm rippled up and down. “Your time is done.”

  And his fist tightened.

  DragonStar was leading his band down into the bowels of Star Finger when Faraday halted, put a hand on one of the corridor walls for support, and groaned.

  She sagged, her moans becoming frightful, and DragonStar wrapped his arms about her.

  “Faraday? Faraday? What’s wrong?”

  StarLaughter looked on, mildly curious. Was it the gloom this far down? Was she a girl who needed light to feed her good temper and optimism?

  Faraday screamed.

  The Mother began to writhe, although She was obviously making some effort to keep still and accept death.

  Her hands half lifted, then dropped as She forced them down.

  Her eyes She kept still on Qeteb’s straining, reddened face, although panic and fear swam about in them.

  Ur leaned forward, and grabbed the Mother’s skirt.

  Qeteb’s fist tightened, and the Mother’s eyes bulged in agony.

  Faraday was convulsing, and DragonStar did not know what to do. Leagh and Gwendylyr hovered about, their hands patting helplessly, their faces frantic.

  Everyone else stood about in a powerless circle.

  DragonStar raised his head and stared at StarLaughter, his expression hard.

  “It’s not me,” StarLaughter said, and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what ails her.”

  More than anything else it was her utter disinterest that convinced DragonStar. He glanced at StarGrace—she also shrugged—and then he looked back to Faraday.

  Red weals had appeared about her throat, and her eyes were bulging and agonised.

  “In my fist,” Qeteb said, turning his face slightly to talk to the other Demons, “I hold the life of the land. Pitiful, isn’t it?”

  Blood now stained the neckline of the Mother’s robe, running down in rivulets to blotch and dampen its bodice.

  “Nothing can stop us now,” Sheol said. She had rearranged her snout into a more elegant form.

  “Except blindness,” Ur said, and Qeteb growled.

  “Will blindness save Her, now?” he said, and his fist abruptly tightened.

  The Mother’s neck broke with a
snap.

  Ur’s face contorted, her hand clenched even tighter within the Mother’s robe, and then she sagged, almost lifeless, and let go.

  A scream tore through the air of the corridor, and DragonStar stared at Faraday, not understanding how she could have screamed so loudly and not opened her mouth.

  He’d thought she’d been calming somewhat.

  “Leagh!” Gwendylyr yelled, and DragonStar blinked and realised that it was not Faraday who had screamed at all.

  Leagh had turned away, and was now rolling about on the floor of the corridor, as agonised as Faraday was, her arms wrapped about her belly, screaming and shrieking as if she was gripped by the final extremities of death.

  StarLaughter turned away and rolled her eyes. Couldn’t they manage a simple walk down a corridor without enduring some drama of epic proportions? Who had DragonStar gathered about him?

  “Tch, tch,” she muttered.

  Qeteb’s fist opened, and the corpse of the Mother dropped to the ground.

  His fist shrank back to a more normal size.

  Ur blinked, blinked again, and looked up, as if she had just woken from an afternoon slumber and was mildly disorientated by the encroaching scenes of death and destruction.

  Qeteb stood, not two paces from her, a charming grin on his face.

  The Mother’s corpse lay huddled between them.

  “Silly little woman,” Qeteb said, pleasantly enough to Ur, “time to die.”

  He reached forward, both his fists now expanding.

  Ur lifted her head, scented the air, and then roared.

  Urbeth and her daughters bounded and leapt through the devastated landscape.

  They grinned, for hunting lay ahead. The Mother was dead, and that was annoying, but the Hunt still went on, even if the earth screamed and died.