an exemplary life in their little home.
Exemplary … and boring.
It was strange, for the Goodwife had never thought of her life as boring until the Lady Faraday had come to stay so briefly. She had hardly even remembered her grandmother or her grandmother’s tales and teachings until then.
But once the Lady had gone, once the Goodwife tried to settle back into her old life, she discovered it to be stupefyingly boring and yearned for excitement and adventure. She had found herself muttering old verses over the stew pot and plucking wild herbs as she drove the sheep along the worn paths of northern Arcness. She had begun to look over her shoulder, remembering the day they had come for her grandmother. The pounding of their horses’ hooves. The wicked gleam of their axes.
Now she took a deep breath. What was she going to do?
Go home. What else could she do? She stood up and nodded to the proprietor as she wandered back into the street. She had the money for the sheep – and a goodly sum it was too – and she had her pack, and there was nothing else to do.
But would she use her talents if she went home? Goodman Renkin would not tolerate any of that, not when she could be working out in the fields, and none of her children would want to learn the old ways.
But she did not want to live out the rest of her life applying herbed bandages to corn-crippled feet.
The Goodwife stopped in the street just before she reached the market square, uncertainties creasing her homely face. Suddenly she spotted StarShine EvenHeart standing some paces away, her wings folded behind her, staring at the Goodwife.
“Please,” the Goodwife breathed as she hurried over. “Tell me what to do.”
“You must do as you see best,” StarShine said.
The Goodwife stood and thought, shuffling from foot to foot, her eyes on the ground. “Goodman Renkin does not need me as he once did,” she said eventually, speaking slowly as she thought it through. “The boys are old enough to take on many of the responsibilities about the farm now, and he has coin enough to hire labour to help with the harvest and shearing. My eldest girl can take care of the tot and the twins.”
She smiled as a thought occurred to her and looked up. “Gracious Lady, do you perchance know of the Lady Faraday?”
Truly surprised, StarShine stared at the Goodwife. “Faraday? Yes. Yes, I know her.” And how do you know her, she wondered. Did PaleStar and I discover you by chance or by design?
“Do you know where she is?”
StarShine nodded slowly. “She travels east, Goodwife. I passed her on my way to Tare, somewhere just south of the Silent Woman Woods. She travels alone with two white donkeys, and she goes east. That is all I know.”
The Goodwife’s face fell. “East? Alone? Oh, the poor Lady! Oh, goodness! That won’t do at all!”
StarShine’s face relaxed. Whether by chance or by design, it looked as though Faraday would have some company in whatever quest she was engaged in.
And that would be no bad thing at all. Not at all.
The Three Brothers Lakes had frozen into a crisp corrugated beauty, but none of the thirty-thousand men camped along the edge of the most southern lake spared much time to admire the view. Axis had taken almost four weeks to march his army across northern Avonsdale and then through the gentle passes of the Western Ranges. When they got through, he had expected to be met by Gorgrael’s frozen winds hurling sheets of ice.
But all that had greeted them had been an icy calm.
Why? Why? Surely Gorgrael should have struck with all his power, with all his ice, once Axis and his army emerged from the Western passes?
Conditions were so clear that Icarii scouts reported that they could see as far as the mist-encased Murkle Mountains and the still-frozen Nordra and Fluriat rivers.
“And not a Skraeling in sight,” Axis whispered as he stood at the northern edge of the camp, gazing into the frozen wastes before him. “Not a Skraeling in sight. FarSight?”
The most senior of the Strike Force Crest-Leaders stepped to his side, his black uniform and wings incongruous in this pristine environment. He’d only just returned from speaking to the last of the farflight scouts he had sent north three days ago.
“How far have the Strike Force scouts penetrated into Aldeni?”
“Not far, StarMan.”
Axis frowned, and FarSight hurried on. “There are Gryphon out there, and I will not expose small numbers of scouts to their fury.”
“How many? Where? Have they attacked?”
“There are packs of some fifteen to twenty, ranging over most of north-western Aldeni. None of the scouts have risked attack by flying too close and the Gryphon appear not to have seen them. Our eyesight is better than theirs, I think. All scouts have returned.”
“And what have they seen?” said Belial, who joined them.
“Frozen fields and shattered buildings …”
Axis shifted uncomfortably, remembering the Skraeling nests that the broken streets of Hsingard had hidden.
“Wagons coated with ice and the stripped corpses of men and cattle, their bones cracked and drained of nourishment.”
“The Skraeling force that we saw marching past Jervois Landing in RuffleCrest’s vision would have to strip the province bare to feed itself,” Axis said, “and yet having fed, they have disappeared. Belial? Gather Ho’Demi and Magariz. We will share our evening meal … and our thoughts.”
The mood was sombre that night and the meal eaten in silence in most of the camp sites. Axis sat hunched with his senior commanders about an inadequate fire of brush. His mood had bleakened with each day that they rode north until, as now, he was mostly surrounded by silence.
Somewhere out there in the frozen wastes was a massive army – at least ten times the size of his own – and Axis did not know how he would defeat it even if he could find it.
He sighed. Gorgrael had the initiative, and if Axis could not seize it back, if he could not find the power to defeat this writhing mass of Skraelings to his north (or were they east? Or west? Or, Stars forbid, south?) then they were all dead.
At least Azhure would be safe. She must be on her way south to the Island of Mist and Memory by now, Axis thought. Azhure and Caelum. If anything must be saved, they must be. Even if he died, then they could, eventually, fight back.
But for what? For what?
He started, realising that Ho’Demi had spoken.
“I am sorry, Ho’Demi, my thoughts were elsewhere,” Axis said. “You were saying?”
The Ravensbund Chief put down his tin mug. “I can send bands
