Wayfarer Redemption - Pilgrim Part 8

She spun about, gasping. It was so fast that she did not get a good look at the creature - all she had was an impression of white. Of white, and of horns.

Something horned.

An owl fluttered down from the forest canopy and nipped at StarLaughter's hair.

She screamed, crouching over her baby.

Something else slithered out from between the trees - a snake, but a snake with small wings just behind its head. It sank its teeth into her horse's back paw, and the creature panicked and bolted, careening into the b.l.o.o.d.y melee before it.

StarLaughter, clinging desperately to the horse's mane, and trying to protect her baby, only had momentary impressions of the nightmare her horse had plunged her into.

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The Demons were now silent, fighting an enemy that she could not immediately see.

Horses' heads, rearing back, eyes rolling white with terror.

A bloodied mess on the ground, and the horses' paws and lower legs thick with ropy blood and flesh.

The Mage-King - still alive - slowly rising, his face terrible with vengeance.

All StarLaughter wanted to do now was escape, any way she could. She fought to free her hand from her horse's mane, but it was tangled tight. Her wings beat futilely, trying to lift her from the horse's back, but she couldn't free herself, she couldn't free herself, she couldn't - Suddenly a white form rose, almost as if from the very earth beneath her horse.

StarLaughter screamed in utter terror. A huge white stag reared before her, and then it plunged down, sinking its teeth into her horse's neck.

Both beasts writhed, both trying to gain the advantage. The stag's horns razored through the air, inches from StarLaughter's face, inches from her precious child - and still her hand was trapped in her horse's forever-d.a.m.ned mane! She screamed again, thinking herself finally dead, when Sheol, Barzula and Rox simultaneously drove their horses onto the stag. It let her horse go, and suddenly StarLaughter was free, her horse bolting down the forest paths, the Demons' horses pounding behind her.

In the forest to the west, Drago's eyes flew open, and he fought for control as panic and terror flooded through him. In some part of him he could feel the Demons, feel their fingers reaching into him, feel them draining him. He could barely control the impulse to rise and flee through the forest, flee from something horrid that nibbled at him, that sunk sharp teeth into his heels, that lunged for his soft belly with razored horns - He rose on his elbows, his eyes jerking from side to side.

* 70 .

Faraday slept serenely by his side, and the ranks of soldiers that rippled out from Zared's campfire likewise lay calmly, lost in sleep.

Finally Drago managed to control his sense of panic. He looked to the east, troubled, and after a long, long time drifted back to sleep.

They rode for an hour, and then, as their mounts finally slaked their terror, pulled to a halt in a glade.

"When Qeteb walks again we will raze this forest to the bedrock!" Sheol screamed, turning her horse so she could see back the way they'd come, as if she might still see Isfrael standing there.

"Every one of the creatures that hide here shall become our fodder," Rox said, with more calm but equal venom.

StarLaughter looked between them, shaken to the very core of her being. She'd thought the Demons completely invulnerable, she couldn't believe that . . .

Sheol turned to stare flatly at her. "It is this forest. It is too shady," she said. "But we will grow stronger the more we feed. And one day, one day ..."

StarLaughter nodded. "How far are we from Cauldron Lake?"

The Demons relaxed, and smiled. "Not far," Mot said. "We will be there in a day or so. And after Cauldron Lake, we will be stronger."

He looked at the flaccid child in StarLaughter's arms. "More whole."

There was a movement overhead, and all jerked their heads skywards, expecting further attack.

All relaxed almost instantly.

Black shapes drifted down through the forest canopy. The Hawkchilds.

"Sweet children," Sheol whispered as they landed, and dismounted from her horse so that she could scratch the nearest under the chin.

71*

As a whole they tilted their heads the more easily to feel her fingers, whispering softly.

"I think," Raspu said, "that it is time we put our friends to good use."

The other Demons nodded.

"I admit to a dislike at being so ambushed," Sheol said. She dropped her hand, and when she spoke again her tone had the ring of command about it, even though she spoke softly.

"Scout, my sweet children. Find for us those who think to stop us. Where are the magicians of this world?

Where is this StarSon who thinks to rule from the Throne of Stars? And where the armies who think to trample us underfoot?"

Behind her the other Demons laughed, but Sheol continued without paying them any heed.

"Find for us and, finding, set those who run to our song against them. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes, yes, yes," came back the whispered answer. "Yes, yes, yes, yes."

"Then fly."

And they flew.

Isfrael stood staring down the forest path for almost two hours. About him Minstrelsea's fey creatures milled, touching him briefly, gently, grieving with him.

Eventually, Isfrael sank to one knee beside what was left of Shra. He stared a long moment, then he dropped his face into one hand and sobbed. He had loved Shra as he'd never loved another. She'd been the warmth of his youth, and the strength of his manhood. She had shown him the paths to the Sacred Groves, and she had inducted him into the laughter of love.

She had been his lover, his only companion, his only friend.

Isfrael bent down and wiped the fingers of his right hand through her torn flesh. Then he raised it and ran three fingers down his face, leaving trails of glistening blood running down each cheek and down the centre of his nose. 72 "By the very Mother Earth herself," he said, looking again down the path where the Demons had disappeared, "this land will rise up against you."

And then he rose, and walked down the path.

Towards Cauldron Lake.

Towards the man WingRidge had told him would aid Tencendor.

But Isfrael had changed. The debacle of the Demons' pa.s.sage through the Star Gate into Tencendor had suddenly become very, very personal. Now Isfrael had his own agenda, and the StarSon could be d.a.m.ned to a b.l.o.o.d.y mess if he thought to get in its way.

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8.Towards Cauldron Lake T.

here was a disturbance last night," Drago said quietly to Faraday as he watched Zared rummaging through some gear for a sack. "In the forest."

She looked sharply at him. "Yes," she said. "To the southeast." She twisted her thick chestnut hair into a plait. "How did you know?"

Drago hesitated, trying to put emotion into words. "I could feel it, somewhere within me. Terror and savage pleasure both. It was the Demons . . . but what happened I do not know."

The feeling had disturbed Drago more than he revealed. It was almost as if ... almost as if he had a bond with the Demons.

"Death," Faraday said. "Death happened. But who or how I do not know. Only that the Demons were involved."

She grimaced. The Demons were involved in every terror that struck Tencendor now. She watched Drago carefully as he walked a few steps away, pretending an interest in a saddle thrown carelessly against a tree trunk. He'd lapsed into his introspectiveness again, but Faraday was not surprised or perturbed by it. He needed to accept, and to explore, and for that he needed time and quiet.

There was a step behind her. Zared. In his hand he held a small hessian sack.

74."Is this what you needed, Drago?" he asked. Zared was hesitant. There was something puzzling him about Drago, but he could not quite fix the puzzle yet in his mind, and that irritated him.

Drago took the sack from Zared, shaking it out. It was of rough weave, tattered about the edges, and with a small cloth tie threaded through its opening.

He smiled again. "It is perfect, Zared."

He turned to Faraday. "Faraday, may I ask a favour of you?"

She frowned, still bemused by the request for the sack. "What?"

For an answer, Drago leaned down swiftly and took a sharp knife that was resting by the loaf of bread Leagh had just put out for their breakfast.

"A lock of your hair," he said, and without waiting for an answer, reached out and cut a short length of Faraday's hair that curled about her forehead.

She jumped, surprised but not scared. "Drago, why -?"

He grinned impishly, and dropped it into the sack. "I like to cook," he said, and then laughed at all the surprised faces about him.

"Drago?" Zenith said. She and StarDrifter had just walked up. "What kind of answer is that? Look at us!"

She gestured about to the circle of bewildered people. "Explain!"

"No," he said, still grinning. "Sometimes an explanation would only confuse the matter. StarDrifter?"

StarDrifter shared a quizzical look with Faraday. "Yes?"

"Will you trust me enough to give me your ring?"

StarDrifter looked down at the diamond-encrusted ring on his finger. It was his Enchanter's ring, although not the original, for that he'd given to Rivkah many, many years ago. He twisted it slightly. It was useless without the Star Dance, but still...

He looked up. "Yes," he said, "yes, I will trust you enough. Here," and he slid the ring off his finger and, as Drago opened the mouth of the sack, threw it in.

75.

There was a brief glint as it fell into the darkness, and then the depths of the sack - and the lock of Faraday's hair - absorbed it.

"Would you like me to contribute anything?" Zared asked, half-expecting Drago to lunge at his person with the knife to snip off whatever took his fancy.

"No," Drago said. "I apologise for this mystery, but one day . . . one day I hope to explain what I do. There is one more thing I need, though. Leagh, will you take this knife," he handed it back to her, "cut me a slice of that bread, and place it in the sack?"

She half-frowned, half-smiled, and did as he asked.

"I thank you," Drago said quietly, and impulsively leaned forward to kiss her cheek. "And I am more glad than you know to see you and Zared together as husband and wife. Now, Faraday, perhaps we can eat before we go?"

They all sat, utterly intrigued by the scene, and accepted the bread, cheese and tea that Leagh and Zenith handed out.

Faraday chewed thoughtfully, watching Drago eat from under the lids of her eyes. He was growing into his heritage, and his destiny, by the hour.

It pleased her, and yet frightened her. Drago could save Tencendor - but not if the TimeKeepers came to understand who he was. No doubt the Demons were moving towards Cauldron Lake, and what would happen if they met her and Drago?

They had believed Drago dead - what would they think, what would they understand, if they saw him in the flesh? But what did it matter what they knew or understood? No doubt the Demons would do their best to kill them anyway.

"Be careful," Zared said, and Faraday jerked out of her thoughts, and nodded.

"Can we take some of this bread with us, Leagh? I do not know if we will find much on our way."

"Take what you like," Leagh said, and shared a glance 76.with Zared. "Faraday, what are you doing? None of us understand what -"

Drago leaned forward and touched his fingers briefly to her lips. "Wait," he said.

Zared, watching, suddenly realised what it was that had been fretting at his mind. Since Axis, Azhure and Caelum had left, command had pa.s.sed to Drago.

And everyone had accepted it.

None of us wait on what Caelum or Axis might do, Zared thought, but only on Drago. We have all turned to him, even though very few of us realise it yet. We wait for Drago's word.

"I wish you luck," Zared said, and stepped forward to grip Drago's hand and arm in both his hands.

"Are you sure we shouldn't have accepted Zared's offer of the horses?" Drago asked, squirming about on the donkey's ridged back. The forest had completely closed in about them, absorbing even the sounds of the donkeys' hooves, and it seemed that Zared's camp was more like a week behind them rather than two or three hours.

Faraday smiled a little to herself. "Uncomfortable, Drago?"

Drago sighed, and patted the donkey's neck. "I can understand why you like these beasts, Faraday, but for Stars' sakes! Surely they'd be better left to run free through the forest?"

"They are safe," Faraday said without thinking, and then wondered why she'd said it. "Safe," she repeated, half to herself.

Drago turned his head slightly so that he could watch her. A shaft of sunlight filtered through the forest canopy, and touched her hair so that deep red glints shimmered through the chestnut.

Drago's breath caught in his throat.

She lifted and turned her head to face him fully. "My beauty has never helped me, Drago. Never."