Pilgrim. Sara Douglass

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СКАЧАТЬ Azhure laid her fingers across his mouth. “Shra’s life was not needlessly wasted. She lived to a full age, and even if the manner of her death was …”

      “Vile.” Axis’ voice now had a hard and dangerous edge to it.

      “Even if the manner of her death was dreadful, then do not deny her life because of it.”

      Axis was silent again for a few minutes, thinking.

      Azhure thought she knew the trail of his mind, for his body had tensed. “Axis, nothing we did was useless.”

      “Wasn’t it?” Axis’ voice was very bitter. “Wasn’t it? Was all the death, all the pain, all the suffering that I dragged so many men, that I dragged Tencendor, through, ‘worth it’?”

      “Yes!” Azhure said. “Yes!”

      “Damn you!” Axis said, angry not with her, but with the pain that had now been visited on Tencendor. “Damn you, Azhure! Between us we bred the son that is solely responsible for—”

      “And between us we have bred the son who will be solely responsible for Tencendor’s salvation!” Azhure said.

      “If we can find a way to give him the power to do so.” And the confidence, Axis thought, but did not voice it.

      His despair and anger was deepened by the knowledge that, once, Azhure would have caught that thought with her own power.

      No more.

      “We will!” Azhure said. “Axis, with something so deep inside me that I cannot tell what it be, I know that Star Finger holds the key to Qeteb’s defeat! I know it!”

      “And if it doesn’t?”

      Azhure raised herself on one elbow and looked her husband full in the face. “If it doesn’t, then our task will be to witness Tencendor through its dying. And if that is fated to be our task, then let us do it gracefully.”

      “Stars, Azhure …” Axis said brokenly, and she leaned down and stopped his words with a kiss. He resisted an instant, then his arms tightened and he pulled her close to him.

      Even after forty years, even in the midst of this disaster, his desire for her had not slackened.

      Five paces away, hidden under the gloom of a purple-berry bush, Sicarius lay with his head on his forepaws, watching them. The hound’s loyalty and love had been with Azhure for so very long that he now found it difficult to contemplate leaving her.

      But he knew he would have to.

      He had other loyalties, and other loves, far older than those he gave Azhure.

      There was a movement behind him. His mate, a bitch called FortHeart. She nuzzled at his shoulder, and Sicarius shifted a little to give her room.

      She too studied Axis and Azhure, then as one the pair shifted their heads to look south.

      Caelum lay for a long time, listening to the sounds of the night forest, listening to the faint whispers of his parents, thinking.

      He was glad that they were finally moving, finally doing something. He hoped his parents’ faith that Star Finger held the key was justified … for if it wasn’t, then there was no hope at all.

      No, no, he couldn’t think that way. He had to keep hope alive … somehow. Star Finger did hold the key, and it would give him what he needed to free the land from the horror that enveloped it.

      And then no-one, not even the ever-cursed Drago, could whisper behind his back that he didn’t have the strength or courage or resourcefulness of his father. No-one could ever say that he didn’t deserve to sit the Throne of Stars in his own right.

      Drago. Caelum felt a coldness seep over him as he thought of his younger brother.

      When I came back through the Star Gate all enchantments fell from my eyes.

      Curse him! Curse him! Curse him! If Drago’s eyes were clear, then Caelum had no doubt that his brother was currently planning to scatter Caelum’s blood over all of Tencendor.

      How could it be otherwise?

      All this pretence of contrition was a foil for Drago’s deadly revenge and never-ending ambition.

      “Stars help me,” Caelum whispered, “if Star Finger holds nothing but useless hope.”

      He dreamed.

      He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brother, Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power, and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.

      But then the dream shifted. They still hunted, but Caelum could no longer see his parents or his brother and sisters. The hounds ran, but he could no longer see them either. The forest gathered about him, threatening now.

      And now even his horse had disappeared. He was running through the forest on foot, his breath tight in his chest, fear pounding through his veins.

      Behind him something coursed. Hounds, but not hounds. They whispered his name. Oh, Stars! There were hundreds of them! And they hunted him.

      They whispered his name. StarSon! StarSon!

      Caelum sobbed in fear. What was this forest? It was nothing that he had ever seen in Tencendor. He cut himself on twigs and shrubs, fell, and scrambled panicked to his feet.

      Something behind him … something … something deadly.

      Running.

      He heard feet pounding closer, he heard horns, and glad cries. They had cornered him.

      Caelum fell to the forest floor and cowered as deeply into the dirt and leaf litter as he could.

      But he couldn’t resist one glimpse — even knowing what he would see.

      DragonStar was there, wielding his sword, riding his great black horse. But now he was different.

      He still wore his enveloping armour — but it was black no longer. Now it ran with blood, great clots that slithered down from helmet, over shoulders, hanging dripping from arms and legs.

      Heat radiated out from him.

      DragonStar’s voice whispered through his head. And so shall you run with blood, Caelum.

      Caelum opened his mouth to scream, then halted, transfixed. Behind DragonStar’s horse stood a woman.

      Dark-haired. Beautiful.

      And on her face a predatory smile of unbelievable malignancy.

      “Zenith?” Caelum whispered, and then said no more, for DragonStar’s sword sliced down through his chest, twisting and slicing, and, as promised, thick, clotted blood swamped Caelum’s throat and mouth, and flowed out over his chin and chest СКАЧАТЬ