Battleaxe (46 page)

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.

It 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!”

Belial nodded tersely, and ran along the battlements, shouting for the archers to come forward.

Axis looked back at the disintegrating body of the IceWorm, and then checked on the progress of the other four. His eyes slipped towards the two SkraeBolds and for one frightening moment he could not see them. Then his eyes caught a movement down at the gates.

Azhure collided with body after body, some Icarii, some Avar, some Skraeling. Sometimes blood-reddened hands reached out to her in appeal, sometimes blood-reddened claws reached out to her in a mad lust of hunger. Azhure stumbled ahead, her hands pressed against her face, her legs somehow carrying her through the throng, Pease’s agonised, dying face before her always. A Skraeling reached for her and caught her by the shoulder, spinning her around. As Azhure felt the claw bite deeply into her shoulder rage suddenly flared and exploded through her numb terror. Her hand brushed the back of an Icarii warrior, slowly collapsing to the ground beside her. Her fingers tangled among the feathered arrows in the quiver on his back and, without thinking what she was doing, she grabbed one of the arrows and pulled it out of the quiver, plunging it towards the Skraeling’s eye.

The arrow burst the silver orb as satisfactorily as a plague boil that begs to be lanced and bright blood spurted forth over Azhure’s face and neck.

“The eyes!” she screamed, the triumph of her voice commanding more attention than the scream itself. “Strike them in the eyes! The eyes! They die!”

She tugged the arrow out of the disintegrating wraith’s eye socket and turned to the wraith mauling an Avar man next to her. Grabbing the wraith’s head until it bent back, she plunged the arrow into its eye. Then she turned again and again, screaming all the time, seizing wraith after wraith, plunging the arrow down again and again. Those who heard her took up the cry. Soon, in an ever-widening circle, the Avar and the Icarii began to fight back. Knives and arrows were loosed and used. Wraiths started to die. The Crest-Leaders could finally launch their Strike Force into action with orders to close on the Skraelings from above and behind, seizing their heads and plunging arrows directly into their eyes. Panic spread among the wraiths.

The SkraeBolds leaned into the two iron barred wooden gates of Gorkentown, legs straddled, hands placed as far apart on the wood
as they could. They sang a broken tune, horrible to listen to, dark and destructive music that split the air about them.

Axis moaned. Their song tore deep inside of him, and only by running the tune of the Icarii ward of protection through his mind could he stop the dreadful effects of their singing. For a distance of some twenty paces along the wall either side of the gates men dropped their weapons to tear at their ears, some screaming in pain, others writhing silently on the stone pavement of the battlements, blood trickling from their ears and eyes. More and more Skraelings clambered over the top of the wall, feasting well on the defenceless men.