Stars! How she wished she could enjoy her power again, if only so she could revel in the intimacy of sharing Axis' every thought.

292.

Azhure dropped her gaze and clung as tightly to her husband as she could. Behind her Sicarius and his mate, FortHeart, pressed their warm backs against hers. Azhure briefly scratched Sicarius' head, then relaxed, and slipped into a dreamless sleep. A few minutes later Axis, too, slipped into sleep.

Caelum, already deep in sleep on Axis' other side, was not so fortunate. Again and again that night DragonStar hunted him through forest and plain. But in the fifth visitation, the dream hunt took on a different aspect.

Caelum found himself running through a maze, trapped by walls that rose three paces above his head and stopped his headlong flight again and again with their frightful blank dead-ends. Behind him echoed the sounds of the hunt. Again and again Caelum found himself having to retrace his steps, certain each time that he would retreat directly into the jaws of the hunt, trying to find an escape from the twisting, confusing paths.

Every time, just as he was sure he'd found a straight run, it would curve into yet another cul-de-sac. And every time he ran into the blank, mocking wall, he thought he heard the faint sounds of laughter behind him.

The sound of the hunt closed. Caelum could feel, if not yet see, DragonStar urging his great black horse forwards, could feel it as his brother raised his arm and steadied the sword.

Could hear his breath come quick with excitement and the l.u.s.t of the hunt, could feel its fevered warmth at his back.

Caelum's entire body tightened as he dreamed, and Axis murmured in his own sleep, as yet not disturbed enough to wake.

One of the hounds whimpered, and curled into a tighter ball.

Suddenly Caelum stopped, leaning heavily on a wall with one hand, his breath heaving in and out of his throat. What was he doing? Why was he running? DragonStar would eventually find him, whatever Caelum did to try and evade ,293 .

him, and it was surely better to turn and face him with what courage he had left than continue to waste his energy on flight.

For the first time, for the very first time since this horror had started months ago, all fear left Caelum.

Its sudden absence left him feeling exhilarated. Why hadn't he done this before? Embraced his fate, instead of running from it?

He straightened, and his breathing steadied. He dropped his hand from the wall, and turned to face the way he'd come.

The sound of the hunt pounded closer. Now that his own breathing was calmer, Caelum heard the laboured breath of the closing horses.

He felt the pavement tremble under his feet.

Caelum carried no weapon - either the dream or fate would not allow it - and so he just stood, the tension of months of uselessness draining from his muscles, and waited.

A quiet joy filled him.

There was a howl from the way he'd just come, and then the dark shadow of the Hawkchilds as they swept low overhead.

Trapped! He's trapped!

And just standing, resigned, the weak fool!

"Resigned?"

The voice filtered about the turn of the Maze before Caelum.

"Resigned?"

And for the first time Caelum heard a measure of uncertainty in the voice. It was a dream of many firsts, he decided, and smiled.

And then a third time - "Resigned?"

A long shadow moved on the pavement before him. Again it moved, and then again, and then DragonStar rode his horrid beast about the corner ... at an extremely careful and controlled walk.

Whatever the black beast had once started out as, it no longer resembled a horse. It had four stout legs, with four.294.

rippling talon-tipped paws to tread on. Its body was twice as long as a horse's, and had only a waggling stump where its tail had once been. The head of the horse was gone, replaced with a gigantic eel's head at the end of a lithe, snaking neck.

Caelum stared at it, wondering that it engendered no fear in him.

Then he raised his eyes - and sorrow enveloped him.

DragonStar sat the beast, his black armour absorbing all light. His visor was raised, and Caelum saw that his brother's thin, lined face was remarkably sensuous when it was enlivened with power.

DragonStar was smiling.

He raised his right arm, and in his hand Caelum saw that he held a great sword of light, its hilt guard a ma.s.s of writhing serpents that twisted about hilt and DragonStar's wrist alike.

"Fool," DragonStar hissed. "Why don't you run?"

And Caelum said to him what he needed most to hear himself. "I forgive you."

DragonStar screamed, and dug his heels into his beast's flanks. It cried with the warbling voice of a bird, and lunged forward.

The sword arced through the air.

Caelum did not move, nor even flinch. "I forgive you," he repeated.

"/ do not need forgiveness!" DragonStar screamed, and the sword whistled down through the air and sliced deep into Caelum's chest.

Yet even as he felt his lungs and then mouth fill with blood, even as the face of his tormentor filled his eyes, Caelum finally came to an understanding. That face beneath the helmet was like, but unlike, his brother.

This DragonStar was not his brother.

"Forgive me" he mouthed, and then his world disintegrated into clouds of pain and black feathers and sharp 295.

blades and claws and beaks that tore into his flesh and drove spikes of agony deep into his mind.

Despite his resolve, he felt himself begin to thrash about on the point of the sword.

Maybe he did want to live, after all.

He twisted, and opened his mouth to shout, but found it filled with feathers and a taste so foul he gagged.

Agony continued to slice through his body. If anything, it had got worse. Far worse.

Caelum opened his eyes, and found he had woken into a nightmare as bad as his dream. The entire world was a ma.s.s of black feathers, mad whispering, and claws that scratched and beaks that bit deep into flesh.

The Hawkchilds had attacked.

The cave was literally packed with them. So completely did they fill the s.p.a.ce between floor and rock ceiling that it seemed they'd driven out all the air.

Caelum gasped for breath, trying to beat the three Hawkchilds that clung to him back far enough to allow him to draw his sword.

To one side he could hear the sounds of his parents similarly fighting for their lives, and the howls and snapping jaws of the Alaunt.

But however Caelum struggled, the Hawkchilds only clung closer. One of them drove his beak deep into Caelum's shoulder, tearing away a strip of flesh, and Caelum screamed, only to have another thrust the clawed hand at the tip of its wing into his mouth, the claws tickling and scratching deep into his throat.

Caelum's scream was cut off, and he gagged, his entire body shuddering with the effort. Again he gagged, so badly one part of his mind wondered if he would vomit his entire gut up through his mouth, and then again, and again.

The claws tickled deeper, and then more struck at his face, his eyes, and something vile sank into his belly.

Caelum's * 296*

consciousness greyed, his mind unable to cope with the horror of the attack and the pain and weight of the Hawkchilds.

They began to sing.

It was a lullaby, something that Caelum - even in his extremity - remembered Azhure singing to him as a child, but a frightful parody of the lullaby.

Here were no sweet, comforting verses, but words that jested at the futility of life, words that spoke longingly of the embrace of pain and disease, words that wished upon the listener a life marked with the rewards of disappointment and the joys of despair.

And while the lullaby embraced him and drifted through his mind, the Hawkchilds sank their beaks and claws deeper and deeper into Caelum's body, tearing at belly and throat and neck. Far away Caelum thought he heard Azhure scream, and wondered what they could possibly be doing to her to cause such horror to suffuse her voice.

And then he drifted deeper towards unconsciousness, pushed himself towards it, because it would be the only escape from this - Suddenly, the pressure eased. He felt one Hawkchild lift away, and another fall away, tearing its claws out of his throat as it did so.

Caelum finally managed to retch, spitting filth and his own blood from his mouth.

The taste brought him back to full consciousness. He slammed one of his elbows into the remaining Hawkchild that clung to him, simultaneously grasping his sword and swinging it in an arc.

There was a screech, and the sound of a body scrabbling about on the floor.

For an instant black wings thrashed in his face, and then the Hawkchild had scrambled free.

"Father?"

"Caelum!" Axis' voice was breathless, and somewhat distant, but it was strong.

297 *.

Caelum blinked his eyes, adjusting them to the darkness, and finally began to discern shapes.

Pale hounds were leaping and snapping into the air, and both his parents were fighting to the rear of the cave, their backs to the wall.

He took a step towards them, when, stunningly, a hand fell on his shoulder.

"You are wounded," someone said behind him, and the hand thrust him against the side wall of the cave.

"Stand back. We will help your parents."

Several people leapt past him, seizing wings and legs and literally hurling Hawkchilds away from Azhure and Axis. Swords flashed, and Caelum thought he saw two of the new arrivals lunge forward with deadly pikes.

"Adamon," he said, abruptly realising who had spoken to him. Then he slid to his knees, his injuries finally draining him of strength. It was Adamon, and six or seven companions, some of them winged. Relieved he didn't have to fight either dream or reality any more, Caelum finally let the greyness claim him.

He awoke to the feel of something dabbing at the wounds on his belly.

It hurt.

"Be still," a soft voice said. "The Hawkchilds ha/e scored your flesh deeply."

Caelum blinked, and then focused on the face bending over him. Xanon, Adamon's wife.

She lifted her head slightly and smiled at him, then turned back to her cleansing of his belly wounds.

"What . . . how . . .?" He could hardly force the words past his damaged throat. Then his father appeared at his side, bending down to him.

"Adamon and Xanon came to our aid," Axis said, laying a hand on Caelum's shoulder. "With Pors and Silton and four Icarii from Star Finger."

298 .

"We were worried." Now Adamon's face appeared over Xanon's shoulder. "You were taking so long to join us at Star Finger that we thought to come down the trails in the hope of meeting you."

"Thank the Stars you did," Axis said softly.

"Mother?" Caelum asked.

"Scratched, but not as deeply as you," Axis answered. "She's with the hounds. One or two of them sustained some deep wounds."

Caelum relaxed a little. "And the Hawkchilds?"

"Gone," Xanon said. She sat back on her heels, and reached for a rough bandage she'd torn from a robe.

"Wounded, but not dead. They have flown into the distant night. For the moment."

"Well, at least we know they, too, can bleed," Axis said, and then looked at Adamon. "We have no time to waste."

Adamon nodded. "I know." Then his eyes brightened, and he leaned forward and rested his hand on Axis'

shoulder, his excitement flowing down through Axis' body and arm into Caelum.

"We have found something!" he said.

>299.

A Seal Hunt., of Sorts He strode down through the palace corridors, ignoring the glances of those he pa.s.sed, down to the courtyard, across to the stables and to the bracket of two loose boxes that held his stallion and the placidly munching donkeys.

All Zared could think of was how he'd lost Isabeau.