Chapter 63

Hunting Through the Landscape

From Fernbrake, Axis swung east, driving his war band, the trees and the column of Tencendor's survivors as fast as he could.

Every day he rose from his bedroll before sunrise — easily, as he rarely slept more than an hour or two at a time — and badgered his war band into action. Grabbing what food they could, they were mounted and riding into the corrupted landscape as the sun topped the desolate ridges of the Rhaetian Hills and the Minaret Peaks. Both lines of ridges were now well behind them.

Fanning out from the war band were some thirty thousand trees. The column was relatively safe from both rear and flanks now, and Axis could afford to send the majority of trees out hunting through the landscape for every piece of breathing corruption they could find. Although Axis and the war band tended to stay in one group, searching out herds of demented livestock, the trees ranged far and wide, sometimes in groups of half a dozen, occasionally in groups of about fifty, but mostly individually, each intent on assuaging her need for revenge against the Demonic hordes creeping across, or under, what was left of Tencendor.

While Axis and his war band attacked the herds, the trees attacked and destroyed the individual creatures, or those who wandered in twos and threes.

Their branches waved impossible heights into the sky, and snatched anything from gnats to birds. On one occasion, Zared swore he had seen one disembodied branch literally detach itself from its tree, lunge into the sky, grab a screeching raven, then drop down to reattach itself to the trunk of the tree.

Twisting, seeking branches had other uses as well. Many was the time Axis and his companions saw a tree stop, study what appeared to be a bare patch of ground, then burrow its branches deep into the earth, hauling wailing weasels, foxes, rabbits and whatever other prey sought to hide itself within the soil.

Everything the trees found, they killed. Quickly, mercilessly and completely. Bodies were torn apart so that nothing was left to reconstitute itself under whatever demonic power inhabited it. Flesh was trodden into the earth, blood was cast into the wind.

The wasteland was splattered with the remains of the possessed.

Each day they moved east, sliding faster and faster as Axis urged Pretty Brown Sal forward, sliding closer and closer to the Maze.

Leagh travelled comfortably in a well-rugged and cushioned cart in the convoy, Gwendylyr by her side.

She nursed her Child, marvelling at the Girl's beauty and, even at this extremely young age, Her extraordinary self-possession and awareness. The Girl suckled at Leagh's breast, regarding Her mother with deep blue eyes that Leagh swore reflected stars deep within their depths.

And flowers. Sometimes when her Child breathed softly in sleep, Leagh could smell the scent of lilies on Her breath.

Her Child was extraordinary, beautiful, gracious, loving beyond compare ... and vulnerable.

Ur and Urbeth spent a great deal of the time with Leagh as well. Ur clucked and chuckled in her old-womanish way over the Child, but when the babe slept, Ur's face creased with worry and the cares of every nursery-keeper, and she would look at Leagh and say:

"Keep Her safe. She is still so vulnerable. If Faraday ... if Faraday falls then the Girl will fall also."

Whenever Ur said this, Leagh came close to panic. "Why? Why is Her fate so tied to Faraday?

What is it about Faraday? What can we do to help? What —"

And then either Ur, or Urbeth, or both, would lay a soft hand against Leagh's cheek and stop her flow of words.

"We can do nothing, sweet mother," one of the ancient women would say. "Nothing. We have now done our task, both of us, as you have. Faraday holds the key, and we must wait to see which way she wields it."

And thus Leagh was left with her worry, and her love, and nothing to do but nurture the infant she had birthed, and marvel at Her wonder and power, and let the dark wing of her hair fall against her cheek as she leaned down and whispered words of comfort and love to the Child.

It took them only a few days to draw close to the Maze, and when Axis rode within sight of it, he had to halt Sal and stare wordlessly, horrified at the abomination that had claimed the Grail Lake and Carlon.

A great, black heart beat in the wasteland. It was Maze and flesh both, its corridors and passages twisting and winding about its own core, the Dark Tower. Within its veins pulsed billions of malformed and psychotic creatures, humanoid, animal, and half-bred horrors that had sprung from the bodies of both: man-bulls, child-foxes, woman-cows.

Every so often creatures spilled out of the Maze Gate, expelled like gouts of blood from a bleeding heart. Sometimes the hundreds of creatures set loose with each expulsion scrambled mindlessly about the immediate wasteland, falling victim to the cravings and appetites of other creatures about them, and sometimes they set off in groups of several score, as if purposed by Qeteb for his own dark design. Most of these hordes swarmed up and down the dusty-dry bed of the Nordra — now a great artery of corruption — but several of these dark-minded crowds set off for Axis and his column. Most were destroyed by the ethereal trees before they could cause any harm, and the few that did reach Axis and his war band were quickly dispatched.

As Axis sat Sal on the eastern bank of the Nordra on a small hillock overlooking the black Maze, surveying the frightful scene before him, Axis wondered what he should do now, but before he could make up his mind, Ur rode up on the bear-back of Urbeth.

"Wait," Ur said. "There is not much else to do."

"Look," said Zared, who had ridden to join Axis, and he pointed to the north-west.

There a series of small hills rolled towards the distant Western Ranges. On one of the hills was a tumble of stones, surrounded by a massive crowd of beasts.

A chestnut-haired woman in a white robe stood before the stones, facing the beasts.

"Faraday!" Axis whispered.

"And more," Zared said softly, wondering how any of them could possibly survive this day. Again he pointed.

On a hill some eighty paces away from the one on which Faraday awaited her fate stood DragonStar and Qeteb, their respective mounts four or five paces apart, waiting on them.

Qeteb was all-consuming darkness: his armour, his wings, the lance he held in his right hand. Even the dawn light seemed drawn into him, as if he were that source in the universe which ate all light, and sent it to its death.

Beside him, DragonStar stood clean and bright, dressed in nothing save his white loincloth, and jewelled belt and purse.

The lily sword was sheathed.

As Qeteb appeared to eat light, so DragonStar appeared to radiate it ... but the light he put out could not compete with the amount Qeteb absorbed, and even as Axis stared, DragonStar seemed to fade slightly, as if whatever energy source he relied upon was being consumed particle by particle by the Midday Demon.

"He is weak," Urbeth said softly.

"Maybe," said Ur. "Maybe."

There was a stir amongst the creatures milling before Faraday, and all eyes turned in her direction.