Part 5 (1/2)

”Ishbel, I think we ought to --”

Axis broke off. There had come a cry above him -- not of horror or despair or even anger, but of sheer exultation.

It hadn't come from any member of the Strike Force.

Axis risked a glance upward through a break in the s.h.i.+eld canopy. It was getting dark now, darker than he would have expected for this time of afternoon.

”Stars .” he muttered.

”What is it?” Ishbel said.

Death came a whisper, and then laughter.

”The rest of the Lealfast have arrived,” Axis said, grabbing Ishbel by the upper arm and pus.h.i.+ng her forward as fast as he could. ”Bingaleal and his fighters. Twenty thousand at least, unless he lost a few thousand somewhere. s.h.i.+t, Ishbel. s.h.i.+t. We can't withstand the kind of barrage they can direct down on us. We have to get inside. Now”

”But there are still many thousands of Isembaardians waiting to cross into Elcho Falling, Axis! We can't abandon them!”

”We must,” Axis said. ”We can't save them, Ishbel.” He was pus.h.i.+ng her forward now, despite her protests, and shouting orders at the Emerald Guardsmen to cover them.

”I'll get you inside, Ishbel,” Axis said, ”then I'll do what I can for those remaining. You can't be lost.”

”Don't be ridiculous, Axis. We can't lose you, either!”

”For all the G.o.ds' sakes, woman,” Axis muttered, ”get moving!”

He pushed her bodily through the men in front of them, not caring who he shouldered aside.

The next moment they were cringing close to the ground, pushed there by their Emerald Guard escort as a torrent of arrows stormed down. Axis tried to move, to say something, but then two of the guardsmen collapsed on top of him, dead, and Axis had to struggle to try to dislodge their weight.

Stars! They were still eighty or ninety paces from the entrance to Elcho Falling!

Men were screaming, shouting, dying all about them.

Then, suddenly, stunningly, silence.

Axis dared to push the dead guardsman on top of him to one side and look around, staring in wonder.

All the s.h.i.+elds of the soldiers on the causeway, and of those waiting on the sh.o.r.es of the lake, had wondrously lifted into the air and were welded together, with what looked like bands of glowing turquoise, to form an impenetrable canopy above the Isembaardians.

Axis struggled up on one elbow, as did most of the men around him who were left alive.

”Maxel,” Ishbel said, sitting up.

”What?” Axis said. ”How?”

”This is Maxel's doing,” said Ishbel. ”He is back from the Twisted Tower.”

” This,” said an Emerald Guardsman close by, now rising to his feet, ”is a memory from the Veins. Lord Maximilian once did something similar there.”

” This,” said Maximilian, stepping through the scores of men now rising to their feet, ”is an adaptation of a trick that Drava, Lord of Dreams, taught me a long, long time ago. Quick now, Axis, look lively. I cannot hold this forever and it will take a good hour to get the rest of the Isembaardians inside.”

Axis looked at Maximilian, quelling the urge to ask a mult.i.tude of questions, then gave a nod and moved back down the causeway, urging men forward. They could move much faster now that they did not have to try and shelter from arrows at the same time, and within minutes, once the injured and dead had been carried inside Elcho Falling, Isembaardians were trotting six abreast along the causeway.

Insharah appeared by Axis' side, and together they helped the remaining Isembaardians to reach Elcho Falling, with no further losses.

The final few score men had brought horses with them, dragging the terrified animals by the reins along the causeway. They must have cut the horse lines before they'd left the encampment, because the ma.s.s of Isembaardian horses from the camp followed their companions into the tunnelled archway, forcing both Axis and Insharah to flatten themselves against the walls to avoid the stampede.

”Are you sure Elcho Falling can take all these?” Insharah said.

”Elcho Falling is an amazing place,” Axis replied.

Chapter 9.

Elcho Falling.

At the sound of Elcho Falling's ma.s.sive portal closing behind him, Axis sank down on his haunches, resting his back against one of the giant columns of the vast ground floor chamber. He was exhausted. He had not slept in almost two days, he had been driven to the edge both physically and emotionally, and he simply had no strength left with which to think, or plan, or solve.

And yet he had to do all three.

Somehow.

There were men and horses milling about, but they were gradually being sorted and redirected by Emerald Guardsmen, some of Georgdi's Outlander men and by the citadel's silent servants.

Axis closed his eyes, wondering if he could s.n.a.t.c.h just a few minutes sleep before he had to attend to that one thing that had been nibbling away at the back of his mind all day.

Inardle.

”Axis?”

He opened his eyes wearily. Maximilian and Ishbel stood before him, Ishbel leaning on her husband's arm for support.

”Come up to the command chamber,” Maximilian said. ”We need to talk.” He offered his free hand and Axis sighed, took it, and allowed Maximilian to pull him to his feet.

They filed into the command chamber where, so it felt to Axis, this current crisis had begun over a thousand years ago -- and he'd been awake for all of it. Was it only a day since Maximilian had been murdered; only a day since he'd thought Inardle trustworthy, since he'd thought he'd loved her?

She was sitting in here now, on a stool against a far wall, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes downcast.

The perfect pose for the repentant traitoress.

Axis couldn't look at her. He averted his face, choosing to move to a chair as far distant from her as possible.

The Outlander general Georgdi was here, too, as was Insharah, Egalion, StarDrifter, StarHeaven and a dark, handsome man Axis did not recognise but who he supposed must be somehow a.s.sociated with the Isembaardians, perhaps a commander under Insharah.

He didn't care, he was too fatigued. Axis exchanged a brief word with StarHeaven and then his father, then slumped down in the chair.

Maximilian and Ishbel sat down where they had a clear view of everyone else, and Maximilian gestured at those few still standing to take seats as well.