Battleaxe (39 page)

Axis sat Belaguez quietly, looking unconcerned by the dreadful creature that confronted them. Inside, however, he remembered the face of Gorgrael in the clouds at the Ancient Barrows. This creature shared many of its features.

Gorgrael’s creature regarded them for a moment, its head tilted inquisitively like that of a bird although its silver eyes glinted with the deadly madness of a cornered boar. The wind ruffled the fur and feathers atop its elongated head. It focused on the head of the Skraeling that Axis held in his gloved hand.

“Sssss!” it hissed, then raised its beady eyes to Axis. “You are Rivkahson?”

Its voice was half-bird’s chirp, half-hiss, and hard to understand. It had to speak slowly, as if it were an effort to get the words past its over-large tongue.

Axis nodded and edged Belaguez forward a step. “Who are you? What do you want of us?” he asked.

The creature laughed, a horrible gurgling hiss. “I? I am one of the favoured five—we are the SkraeBold. We serve Gorgrael. What do we want? We want Tencendor, Rivkahson. We want to see your fields and forests stained dark with the blood of your peoples. We are sick of inhabiting only misty frozen wastes. We grow solid with our need, our hate.”

“We will stand before you,” Magariz said flatly behind Axis. “We will keep you to your frozen wastes.”

The SkraeBold tilted its head, opened its beak, and howled its amusement to the sky. All the men shifted nervously as the sound crashed about them. The SkraeBold abruptly shut its beak with an audible snap and looked back at them.

“You will not be able to stop us,” it hissed angrily. “Gorgrael gives us strength. Gorgrael recreates us from the flesh and blood that we kill for him. Once we were mist, now we can walk.”

Again a maddening thought hovered at the back of Axis’ mind.

The SkraeBold continued. “The day will come, soon, when your blood will feed my brothers, when your daughters and sisters will offer us the use of their bodies in exchange for their lives, when
you,
Rivkahson, will beg for mercy before Gorgrael!”

Axis smiled coldly and leaned forward over the pommel of his saddle. “I have a message for your Gorgrael, SkraeBold. Tell him that my father loved me. Ask him, did his father love him?”

The creature took a step forward in fury and both Magariz and Belial lifted their swords, but Axis did not move, keeping his smile on his face. “I and my four brothers love Gorgrael!” it screeched in fury. “He needs no father but us! We were the ones who midwived his birth!”

Then it simply faded. One moment it was there and the next it was not. With it went the final vestiges of the mist.

Axis wheeled Belaguez about and smiled at his patrol. “I think we have done enough this day, my friends. Shall we ride for Gorkenfort?”

Borneheld was at weapon practice in the fort’s courtyard when the patrol returned, his bare chest glistening with sweat even in the frigid air, his skin steaming, the heavy sword hanging from both hands. To one side of the quadrangle Faraday watched, wrapped in her dark-green cloak.

Nineteen men had ridden out early in the morning, including Axis, and nineteen returned. They must have evaded all the wraiths, Borneheld thought as he swung round to receive them. Cowards. Women. He failed to notice that all nineteen rode with straight and
proud backs and that whatever demons Axis had carried out with him earlier in the morning, he seemed to have lost them somewhere in the snowfields. Borneheld also failed to notice that the neck of Axis’ grey stallion was spattered with blood, or that a goodly crowd of men had followed the patrol up to Gorkenfort’s gates. He most certainly did not notice the object that Axis carried half-hidden in his cloak. Perhaps if he had noticed all these things he would have been a little more circumspect in what he said in front of the many witnesses who crowded the large courtyard of Gorkenfort. Jorge and Roland looked on from the parapets, while, unseen to most eyes, the three Sentinels watched from behind a half-unloaded cart of supplies. They had feared deeply for the StarMan’s life out there this day.

Borneheld leaned on his sword, proud of his physique, as Axis stopped his horse some ten paces away. “Did your horse run too fast for the wraiths to catch you, BattleAxe?” he sneered. “Did you discover for yourself that only
men
can deal with these creatures? If you yet have the bravery to admit your nerve has completely abandoned you I will summon enough sympathy to find you a job cleaning the pots in the kitchens. You should be safe enough there.” He allowed himself a small laugh at his wit.

With his words Borneheld instantly lost the respect and loyalty of the nine of his own men who had ridden in the patrol. Later he would lose the trust and respect of most of those the nine spoke to. Axis simply smiled benignly and glanced across to Faraday, sketching a courtly bow to her from Belaguez’s saddle. “Greetings, Duchess. I trust you slept easy last night?”

Faraday stiffened, stung by his words. Her guilt at her betrayal of the man had kept her sleepless long after Borneheld had rolled his heavy body away from hers.

Axis held her eyes for a moment, then glanced back towards Borneheld. He pushed the hood of his cloak down about his shoulders so that now the weak noon sun caught the gold of his hair and beard. His proud bearing and innate grace commanded the attention of all in the courtyard. If a stranger had walked into the courtyard at that moment he would instantly have assumed the
golden-haired man on the grey stallion was a king and the more heavily muscled man who faced him his subordinate.

Just as Borneheld opened his mouth, Axis raised his left hand and held the ghastly object high for all to see. There was a collective gasp of repugnance. Axis’ eyes had not left Borneheld’s. “Gorgrael sends greetings, brother, and I present you with this wedding gift. Enjoy.”

He hurled the head at Borneheld’s feet and Borneheld jumped out of the way, his face recoiling with horror as the Skraeling head slid by him on the slippery cobbles to stop just short of Faraday’s feet. She took a huge breath and closed her eyes for a moment, but she held her ground and finally looked away from the head and back at Axis. Her face was tightly impassive but her eyes were dark with emotion. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her cloak.

“I thank you, Axis Rivkahson,” she said, her voice calm and dignified, “that you thought I should have deserved such a gift.”

Axis’ face hardened and he held her stare for a moment longer before he turned Belaguez back towards the crowd gathered at the fortified gateway.

Borneheld’s face darkened in fury as he stared at the repulsive head lying at his wife’s feet and heard the cheers of the crowd as they saluted Axis.

F
ive days later Axis wrapped himself in a thick cloak against the cold, pulled the hood down far over his face and stepped out through the gates of Gorkenfort, walking quickly down through the streets of Gorkentown. Even though it was only mid-morning the streets were almost bare of soldiers, the weather now so frigid that most only ventured outside for essentials. Death lurked in the wind.

Axis did not see the two hooded and cloaked shadows following him from Gorkenfort, one trailing the other by twenty or twenty-five paces.

He walked for fifteen minutes until he reached the all-but-deserted Retreat of the Brotherhood of the Seneschal close to the outer wall of the town. The two surviving Brothers had long since moved into the fort itself, but Axis had specifically asked the older Brother to meet him here this morning. He had questions to ask. Here was another link with his mother.

The heavy wooden door was standing open, half off its hinges, and Axis quickly stepped inside, grateful for the protection from the wind even though it was almost as cold inside as it was out. He looked about him. The Retreat still bore the scars of the attack by Gorgrael’s creatures, the SkraeBolds and the Skraelings, several
months previously. Once a comfortable residence for brothers who desired to spend their lives in quiet meditation in northern Ichtar, now torn hangings of drapes and tapestries flapped in the stiff breeze that wafted in through the open doors, while the furniture was broken and strewn about the floors. Axis shrugged deeper inside his cloak and wandered through the main apartments of the lower floor, occasionally coming across fragments of torn books and pottery, and a spare habit or two left to hang behind a door or on a nail in the wall, its owner long since dead.

Brother Francis was waiting for him in the kitchens. Stooped over an overturned cauldron when Axis entered, he slowly straightened his arthritic spine and faced the BattleAxe.

“Greetings, BattleAxe.” He looked about the room for a moment, his transparent blue-veined skin stretched tightly over the frail bones of his face. “This was where so many of the brothers died the night the creatures attacked. It was the only place they thought to find weapons.” He picked up a poker and held it for a moment, his face sad. “But pokers and pan ladles are no match for the powers of such beasts as we faced that night.”

“Yet you escaped,” Axis said softly, moving around to the old man.

Brother Francis’ eyes dimmed a little, as though he felt guilty. He nodded. “Brother Martin, young and of quick presence of mind, pulled me into a linen closet where we huddled, listening to our family being torn to pieces outside. Pray you never have to listen to such as that.”

For long moments there was silence, Axis standing deep in thought as Brother Francis pottered about the kitchen, picking up the various pots and pans lying about the floor and placing them neatly in ranks upon the bench spaces.

“Brother Francis, do you know who I am?” Axis finally asked, lifting his head to look at the man. Brother Francis stopped his useless efforts at tidying and stared a moment at him.

Finally he nodded. “Yes. I know who you are. The soldiers in the streets speak of no-one else, of your patrols, of your courage, of
your leadership. Your name is Axis Rivkahson and you have come to ask me about your mother.”

“She died here.”

Francis looked surprised for a moment, but he quickly recovered. “She gave birth to you here, Axis. Yes. But she died elsewhere, not here.” He smiled a little sadly at the shock on Axis’ face. “I am an old man now, Axis Rivkahson, and I am not frightened of the things that I once was. For many years I have held my silence, each year burying another of my fellows who knew the secret. Now only I am left with the memory.” He paused before continuing. “All of us were so scared of the king, old King Karel it was then, and of the fury of Duke Searlas, that none of us ever spoke again of the events that surrounded your birth. But now I have seen such horrors that the fury of earthly creatures no longer frightens me. And now stands before me the young babe who lost his mother. I will speak, if you wish it.”

Axis considered. “No, Brother Francis. Perhaps the danger for you is not yet past. The Duke of Ichtar still walks the streets of Gorkentown. I will not knowingly put you in danger. All I ask is that you show me the room where I was born.”

“That is all? Very well. Follow me.”

Francis led Axis back through the ground floor apartments until they reached the entrance hall, then he started to climb the great curved stone stairway that led into the upper reaches of the Retreat. His breath wheezed a little in his throat as he climbed and Axis stepped forward, supporting his arm. “Thank you,” the Brother gasped, pausing to catch his breath. “They carried your mother in through the main doors,” he said, ignoring Axis’ injunction not to risk saying anything. After so long holding his silence, Francis felt that he had to mention something about those few days at the end of Wolf-month of that winter thirty years ago; it was almost a confession for him. “I was young and strong then, and I was one of the ones who helped to carry Rivkah. Searlas had brought her to Gorkentown in an old wagon, and the journey was hard. She had gone into labour fifteen hours out from the town, and those last few leagues across the pot-holed road must have been agony for her.”

They reached a landing and Francis turned into a long corridor which stretched the length of the building. “One of the brothers hurried for midwives, while another and myself carried her to a room we always left prepared for guests.”

Brother Francis stopped at a room at the very end of the corridor. His hand, papery skin stretched tight over the swollen joints of his fingers, closed about the doorhandle, but Axis’ own hand closed gently over his and stopped him from opening the door. “Thank you, Brother Francis. Thank you. I will be alone now, if you please.”

Francis turned and looked at the face of the man who leaned over him. BattleAxe he might be, mighty warrior he perhaps was, but all Francis could see was the face of a man who was searching for his past. He nodded.

“Go with Artor, young man. Furrow wide, furrow deep.”

Axis bent his head and smiled gently at the old man. Reinald had shown him the rooftop where he had been conceived, and now this old man had brought him to the place where he had been born. “Go with Artor, father.”

Brother Francis nodded and walked back down the corridor and stairs. Halfway down the stairs he blinked in surprise at the person he met coming up them, but after a moment he simply nodded and continued on his way. He was an old man, and the only real surprise left in his life was that death had not already claimed him.

Axis left his hand on the door knob for long heartbeats before he could summon the courage to turn it to one side. It clicked softly in his hand, and for a moment he could hear laboured breathing. The door swung open slowly and Axis stepped inside. It was a relatively large chamber, probably the one the brothers kept for their most important guests. Nevertheless, it was bare and dismal now. Two high and small windows let in a minimum of light. Even had she been capable of it, there would have been no escape for Rivkah once the door was bolted behind her. To one side a bed, its lumpy mattress hanging half off broken springs, was pushed against the wall, a stool standing at its foot. A fireplace arched into the room
from the opposite wall, the side furthest from the windows throwing deep shadows into the extreme corner of the room. A chest stood underneath the windows, a chipped and dusty china pitcher and wash basin sitting on its flat lid. Axis walked a few steps into the room, lost in his thoughts. It was a barren place to start a life.

Axis turned back to the door and saw Faraday standing there, wearing her green cloak thrown over a high-necked black dress. So stunned he could not speak for several moments, Axis stood there and stared at her.

More composed, Faraday folded her hands before her and drank him in with her eyes. Alone, finally.

“I almost tore that Barrow apart with my bare hands to reach you,” Axis said eventually, so quietly that Faraday had to step forward to hear him. He paused and took a half step towards her. “And then I mourned you for weeks, only to find that you had survived and fled to Borneheld’s bed. Can you tell me why?”

“Axis, I have to explain to you.”

“Then explain!” Axis shouted, turning on his heel and marching over to the far wall underneath the high windows. “Explain,” he said in a quieter but no less intense voice, “why you told me one night that you wanted me more than life itself and yet within days had left me mourning you dead while you fled to Borneheld.”

“Axis,” Faraday said in a broken voice, taking a step towards him until his furious gaze stopped her in the middle of the room. “I live only for you. I love you with every breath I take, with every beat of my heart. But I could not marry you. Not once I had been betrothed to Borneheld. He would have killed you, and I would rather have you alive than dead.”

Axis’ face did not soften. “I am not afraid of my brother!”

“Axis! I know!” Faraday said desperately, wondering if she should have risked coming here. “But it is so important that you live. I could not be the one responsible for making it Borneheld’s life ambition to track you down and kill you!”

Axis’ eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘it is so important that you live’?”

“Because I believe that you are the StarMan spoken of in the Prophecy of the Destroyer,” she said finally. There. Let him make of that what he would.

Axis stared at her for a moment, then his face slowly relaxed and he laughed gently. “I have been told that by others. Belial would have me crowned this evening if he thought I would accept the diadem. This damned Prophecy spreads like wildfire, and I think I have been too firmly caught up in it to shake myself loose just yet.”

“And do you believe it?”

Axis’ smile died. “I must, if we are to survive. But, oh Faraday, it is so difficult to understand. It is so damned difficult to understand the changes in
me
!”

Faraday was horrified by the frustration evident in his voice. “Axis, I…” but he did not give her the chance to finish.

“You have heard the Prophecy, Faraday.
You
tell me what it means. Ah,” he turned his face away and finished on a whisper. “It frightens me.”

Faraday did not know what to say, and for a minute there was silence between them.

Axis eventually looked back at her. “I have discussed the Prophecy with Ogden and Veremund, but they profess ignorance. Belial…well, Belial is as bewildered as I. The first verse is so straightforward, but the second and third frighten me. I am the StarMan, Faraday. I try to accept that. But the second verse tells me that I must wait until all its riddles are fulfilled before I can wield my power against Gorgrael, otherwise it will kill me. Faraday,” he laughed dryly, “the prophecies of the second verse are so enigmatic I would not recognise most of them if they solved themselves before my very eyes. And the third verse…the third verse tells me I have a traitor in my camp who will betray me. Who? Who?”

“I have not heard the third verse.” A traitor, she thought. Mother, protect him!

“No. No-one knows it except I.” And what else does that cursed third verse tell me, he wondered. My Lover’s pain could destroy me. Are you my Lover, Faraday? Will your pain so distract me that
Gorgrael can strike the killer blow? For an instant a picture of Faraday lying broken and bleeding sprang to his mind.

He forced his mind away from the terrible image and regarded Faraday. He remembered how she had treated his parentage with respect and dignity when so many sneered at his birth. “But if the Prophecy confuses me, Faraday, then some of the mystery surrounding my father has been solved. Look,” he said, pulling the glove from his right hand, the ring gleaming from his middle finger. “This was my father’s. He gave it to Rivkah as a token of his love.”

Faraday stepped over and took his hand to examine the ring more closely. Its workmanship was marvellous. Axis’ eyes darkened as she ran her gentle fingers over his hand. “What kind of man was he to own such a ring as this?” she asked finally, looking up.

“My father is an Icarii Enchanter, my love. His name is StarDrifter. One day I will find him.” He lifted his hand from hers and caressed her cheek. For a moment Faraday rested her cheek in the palm of his hand, feeling the Enchanter’s ring cool against her skin. He had called her love, he
did
love her! Ah, Mother, to have the love of such a man to support her.

“The son of an Icarii Enchanter,” she whispered. “No wonder you bound my soul with enchantments the moment I first saw you.”

Axis stepped closer and cupped her chin in his hand, bending his head down to hers, but the instant before their lips met Faraday turned her head to one side. “I cannot, Axis, I cannot,” she said tightly. “I have vowed to be true to Borneheld. I cannot break those vows.”

And curse the Prophecy, she thought, that forced those vows upon me. She turned her eyes away, unable to bear his expression.

Axis’ fingers tightened about her chin. “Is your damned sense of obligation and duty going to keep us apart for a lifetime, Faraday? Does what we feel for each other mean nothing to you?”

“I vowed to him, Axis. If I leave him now, then he will track you down and kill you. If I break my vows then my punishment will be your death! Whatever gods now walk this land will see to that. A vow is a vow, whichever god it is made before, Axis.”

Axis suppressed a curse. Here she stood, almost touching him, yet determined to remain true to Borneheld. Axis had thought her loss at the Ancient Barrows was a torment, but this was even worse.

He released her chin and let his hands rest lightly around her waist, unsure if he could resist the temptation to pull her against him despite her determination. He had never wanted a woman like he now wanted Faraday. He should have never let her go at the Barrows. Now Borneheld had her.

Axis’ hands tightened slightly. The nights were the worst. At night he lay sleepless, imagining, wondering, wanting.