Battleaxe: Book One of the Axis Trilogy

Will seek and plot to harm you;

Let not your Lover’s pain distract

For this will mean your death;

Destroyer’s might lies in his hate

Yet you must never follow;

Forgiveness is the thing assured

To save Tencendor’s soul.

For a long moment there was silence. Then Axis reluctantly tore his eyes away from the beautiful page. His vision blurred, then cleared again as he blinked at Ogden. The melody had disappeared as strangely as it had come.

“I don’t understand,” Timozel said, his face confused. He looked apologetically at Ogden and Veremund. “I was never good at my book learning, Brothers. I preferred to spend time with my weapon instructor.”

“Axis seems to have been very good at his book learning,” Gilbert muttered very quietly to himself. Gilbert was sitting next to Axis as he read and yet as carefully as he had studied the page he could not decipher the writing – and he had far more training than Axis had ever had. How had Axis managed to read what he could not?

“Tencendor,” said Veremund, “was the ancient name of Achar when all three races lived together in harmony. The followers of the Plough, the Wing and the Horn. The Prophecy of the Destroyer, as these verses were known, refers to a time when Gorgrael, the Destroyer, will drive his forces of ice and cloud down from the north in an attempt to conquer Tencendor, ah, Achar.”

“Destroyer rises in the north and drives his Ghostmen south,” Axis mused. “Brothers, are these Ghostmen the wraith-like creatures that have been attacking the patrols? And the creatures made of ice that attacked Gorkenfort and Gorkentown … ice creatures of this Gorgrael?”

Ogden nodded.

“It’s completely ridiculous!” Gilbert exclaimed, amazed that Axis could be taking these lines seriously. “This is a heretical book, BattleAxe! You cannot listen to these words!”

Axis turned his pale blue eyes on Gilbert. “I don’t care if we listen to the words of a pox-ridden whore whose brain is riddled with the diseases of her trade, Gilbert, just as long as they make some kind of sense.” He turned back to Ogden and Veremund. “Brothers, I can understand the reference to the Destroyer, and the troubles in the north, but the rest of it? It’s a riddle.”

“I’m afraid that prophecies tend to be a little like riddles, Axis. Easy enough to interpret when you know the answer, almost impossible when you don’t.” And dangerous, he thought, dangerous when you misinterpret them.

“But,” Timozel frowned and leaned forward. “Doesn’t the Prophecy refer to a man who can stop this Destroyer? The ‘StarMan’?”

Veremund frowned. “And tied by blood to the Destroyer. A brother, perhaps.”

Gilbert laughed incredulously, his pimply face scornful as he looked at the two elderly Brothers. “Oh? So you now tell us that we not only face some mythical Destroyer, a legend of the Forbidden, but that we have to put our trust in his brother? If the Destroyer is born of Wing and Horn then he is one of the Forbidden himself. His brother can only be of the Forbidden too. My friends, I think you have been too long closeted with your books. The Seneschal will not allow the Forbidden back into Achar. Never.”

Veremund stood and started to clear away the dishes. He shuffled around the table, and placed his hands briefly on Arne and Timozel’s shoulders. They had heard enough for one night. “My friends. You are tired after your long ride. It is late, and we need to sleep on this. All will seem clearer in the light of the morning.”

Timozel yawned hugely and Arne followed suit an instant later. Both stretched. “Come,” Veremund touched Axis lightly on the arm and brushed Gilbert’s back with his fingers as he walked past. “I will prepare you a sleeping chamber on one of the upper levels. All will be well in the morning.”

Axis finally felt his weariness come crashing about him. He realised he could no longer think clearly. Veremund spoke sense.

“I really think we should …” Gilbert began, but then his body was wracked with a gigantic yawn. “Perhaps you are right, Brother Veremund,” he finished lamely. “I do feel somewhat tired.”

“Then come,” Veremund smiled. “Let me lead you to your beds.”

Fifteen minutes later all four men were sound asleep in the small chamber Veremund had prepared for them. They had paused only long enough to remove their outer clothes and boots and had then crawled into their blankets. Veremund waited at the door until he could hear the men taking the deep, slow breaths of sleep, then walked thoughtfully back down the stairs.

Ogden was still sitting at the table by the slowly dying fire, his hand resting lovingly on the text of the Prophecy of the Destroyer. “Well, Brother,” he said as Veremund sat slowly down at the table, careful of his arthritic limbs, “have we waited our time out?”

Veremund took a deep breath, his eyes on the embers in the grate. “No Acharite has been able to read those words for almost a thousand years.” He raised his eyes to Ogden. “No one can read them, lest he or she be of Icarii blood.” Veremund had told Gilbert only half the truth earlier when the Brother had asked him about the language of the Forbidden. Although all three races, Acharite, Icarii and Avar, spoke a common language, the Icarii also spoke a sacred language reserved only for the most holy or important occasions. The Prophecy had been composed in that sacred tongue.

“And, what is more, of the Icarii line of Enchanters. The final verse of the Prophecy was heavily warded. Not even we have heard it before now.”

Both were silent for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes.

“It is our task to be heedful,” Ogden finally whispered.

“Watchful,” Veremund whispered back.

Neither spoke out loud the thought that had gripped them the moment Axis had started to recite the words of the last verse – that final verse had been meant for the eyes of one person only. It had stood unread since the ink and the spells of warding were still wet on the page. Now the Prophecy of the Destroyer was awake and walking the ancient land of Tencendor. And, by the look of the BattleAxe, it had been doing so for some thirty years.

15 Silent Woman Night (#ulink_4928b21e-377e-5e94-9a71-639fb698e262)

Faraday lay sleepless in her bedroll, listening to her mother’s gentle snores. The night lay heavily upon her, and Faraday felt oppressed, trapped in this tiny tent. She twisted over to her other side and closed her eyes, trying to find sleep, but ten minutes later she was twisting back the other way, eyes wide open again.

She sighed and sat up. What she needed was some fresh air. Quietly, so as not to wake her mother, she turned the blanket of the bedroll back and fumbled in the dark for her shoes. The air was cold, and once she stood up Faraday reached for her heavy cloak to wrap around her nightgown as she slipped through the flap in the tent. Outside she pulled the hood of the cloak over her face. No use attracting attention to herself.

Her tent was right in the middle of the encampment. About her lay the huddled forms of several thousand warriors. Faraday smiled to herself. Under what other circumstances would her mother consent to her bedding down amid so many men? She picked her way carefully through the camp. Clouds scudded across the night sky but enough moonlight broke through for Faraday to see her way.

At the edge of the camp Faraday paused. She had expected one of the sentries to stop her before now. But all was quiet. Not sure whether to go back to her tent, or to go on further, suddenly a glimpse of white in the grass a few paces in front of her caught Faraday’s attention.

“Puss?” she whispered. “Puss?”

She hadn’t seen the cat for a day or so. Perhaps if she took the warm cuddly animal back to bed it would help her to sleep. She stepped past the boundaries of the camp and reached down for the cat. But just as her fingers brushed its back the cat sprang forward a few more steps.

“Puss!” Faraday muttered irritably and walked after it, but the cat jumped away from her again. Faraday was now engrossed in catching the cat. Some time later she looked up and fear gripped her heart for an instant, until she spun around and spotted the low campfires in the distance. She wasn’t so far away, after all. The cat purred about her legs and she bent down and picked it up.

But as Faraday turned back to the camp several dark figures loomed out of the night. She squealed in terror and convulsively gripped the cat to her breast. It squawked with indignation and squirmed out of her arms. She turned to run, but tripped over her long cloak and tumbled down into the grass, skinning the heels of her hands as she fell.

A tall, dark figure bent down over her.

“Get away from me!” Faraday hissed, trying to scrabble out of his reach on her hands and buttocks.

The figure leaned back. “’Tis only me, lady,” a soft burred country voice said. “Jack the pig boy. Won’t do no-one no harm. Jack Simple’s the name.”

Faraday held her breath ready to scream. The clouds thinned over the moon and she caught a look at his face. He was in early middle-age, sparse blond hair tumbling down over his forehead, his skin weather-lined and tanned, friendly eyes over a wide grin. Faraday stared at him, trying to work out what was wrong with his face, then she realised Jack the pig boy had the face of a friendly and completely harmless simpleton. In one hand he held a heavy wooden staff that topped him by a full handspan; it had a heavy carved knob of some kind of dark metal on its top. The other dark shapes behind him resolved themselves into large but equally harmless pigs, staring at her curiously.

The white cat, purring loudly enough to attract the attention of every sentry about the camp, was weaving itself ecstatically around Jack’s legs. He bent down and picked the cat up.

“Pretty puss,” he murmured, “pretty, pretty.” Jack held her in the crook of his arm and stroked her back in long sensual strokes. He had nice hands, long fingers, square fingernails.

Faraday recovered her composure and scrambled to her feet. She pulled her cloak about her again and carefully tried to brush the dirt out of her grazed hands.

“What are you doing here?” she asked harshly, still not completely recovered from the shock he had given her.

Jack looked downcast and shuffled his feet a little. “Didn’t mean you no harm, lady. Taking my friends for a walk, I was. Nice night, yes, for a walk.”