StarMan (58 page)

"Blood to strengthen Artor!"the assembly screamed, their eyes blazing as red as the blood they craved, hands plucking at the clothes covering their breasts and abdomens in their ecstasy.

"B/ooJ
for Artorr
Faraday closed her eyes, knowing all was lost, feeling the cold steel against her throat.

"Why, Hordley, is that Hagen's knife you wield so expertly?" Faraday's eyes flew open and she felt rather than saw Hordley draw back in surprise. But his wife's hand remained twisted in Faraday's hair, and the blood of the hapless Icarii sacrifices soaked through her gown.

In the doorway, outlined by the light beyond, stood Azhure.

Her stance was relaxed, nonchalant, and Faraday could feel if not see the half-smile on her face.

Azhure tossed her head, shaking her hair down her back,

and stepped fully into the Worship Hall. The Wolven hung from one hand, unwanted for the moment.

Behind her the Alaunt slunk deep in the shadows, unseen by the villagers whose eyes were riveted on the woman. The hounds' hackles stood stiffly, and silent growls thickened their throats.

Azhure laughed, enjoying the feeling of power that pervaded her body and revelling in the shocked faces before her. "I've come home," she said, sauntering through the hall, the villagers parting like a grey sea before her. She stopped a pace or two from the altar, her eyes meeting Faraday's for an instant, then she reached down and grasped Hordley's wrist where he still held the knife against Faraday's throat. The blade had pierced Faraday's skin, and blood trickled lightly down into the hollow of her neck.

"Why," Azhure said, staring at Hordley, "it
is
Hagen's knife...and how well I know it." Her fingers tightened about Hordley's flesh and the man gasped with pain, but he could not look away from Azhure's eyes.

Strange, strange eyes. Blue like the sky one moment, the next rolling grey like the sea that Hordley had once seen beating against Achar's eastern shores.

Azhure's lips parted in a slight smile and she let her true nature blaze forth from her eyes.

Hordley opened his mouth to scream but he never had the chance, for Azhure lifted and twisted the man's arm and plunged the knife, still gripped in his fingers, into his own belly.

"It likes the feel of belly flesh, Hordley," she whispered, "feel how smooth and gentle it glides in?"

At the gentle sigh from Hordley's lips as he did, indeed, feel how smooth the knife slipped in, the Worship Hall erupted.

"Murderess," hissed Goodwife Hordley as she crouched by Faraday, "how practised you have become!"

Faraday tried to roll away, but was held back by her roped wrists, then she felt gentle teeth about her flesh and the ropes loosened.

Every one of the villagers stepped forward, their grey hands extended, faces slack with hate, red eyes fervent with Artor's power.

Goodman Hordley slipped to the floor, his eyes surprised,

his hand still gripping the knife sunk to its hilt in his belly, but he did not die.

His Goodwife pounced at Azhure but grabbed at thin air as Azhure leaned down and kissed Faraday on the mouth.

As Faraday felt Azhure's lips touch hers, the teeth at her wrists finally broke through rope and Faraday was free. The Goodwife rolled clear at the same moment.

"Good doggie," Goodwife Renkin whispered to the hound who had crawled into the spaces of the altar with several of his companions to free the women. She rested her hand briefly on Faraday's shoulder - and whatever bounds had shackled Faraday's contact with the Mother broke asunder and she was flooded with power. Her eyes blazed emerald.

Above her, Azhure leaned over and seized Goodwife Hordley's chin, twisting the woman's face to one side so that she toppled over in the blood and muck where Faraday had rested an instant earlier.

Sicarius,Azhure ordered,
herd.

And the hounds circled and nipped and snapped, driving the villagers back from Azhure and Faraday and the women, back to the rear of the hall where the door to the cellar stood invitingly open.

Azhure smiled as the villagers, their lips curled in snarls but impotent against the power and anger of the Alaunt, retreated down the steps, and she looked down to Hordley ...

... and recoiled in horror.

The Hunt "Mi'erciful heavens," she gasped and, seizing Faraday by the wrist, hauled her away. About

.them the Avar and Goodwife Renkin backed away hurriedly. Goodwife Hordley grovelled whimpering -

in joy, Azhure thought - at the side of what had once been her husband.

Once, but no more.

Most of Hordley's clothes had fallen away until only a brief loin-cloth and a short cape about his shoulders remained. His flesh, that had had been soft and white, was now darkening as if it had spent years burning beneath the sun, and muscles roped and writhed across his body. His face retained its broadness, but his skin was pitted and scarred. His entire body twisted and then lengthened; twisted again, broadened and yet lengthened some more.

Azhure could hear the screech and grind of his bones as they were reshaped by the power that gripped them.

It groaned, then grunted and convulsed, sweat running in rivulets down the contours of its flesh and then, slowly, jerkily, it raised one arm and tore the knife out of its belly.

The gaping wound rippled, then closed over.

It blinked, clenched its fingers more firmly about the knife, and looked about, looked for the ...

"Bitch!"Artor screamed, lifting off the floor in one sinuous movement and lunging for Azhure.

One of His great, sandal-clad feet stepped on Goodwife Hordley as she writhed before Him and Azhure heard a crackle and pop as her spine snapped.

Artor took no notice; one hand was splayed towards Azhure's throat, the other slashed with the knife towards her belly, seeking vengeance for Hagen's death.

Faraday took a step forward, but felt Barsarbe grab her arm. "Leave her!" the Bane hissed, trying to haul Faraday away, "she is all he wants.
Leave
her!"

Azhure swayed back, the knife missing her by a finger's breadth, and almost fell as she stumbled to regain her balance. Artor lunged forward, certain He had her now, then felt small hands grasp His ankle, trying to twist.

Shra, desperately fighting for Azhure's life as Azhure had once fought for hers.

"Argli!" He roared and kicked the frail body away, sending Shra skidding across the floor and slamming into a far wall. At the same moment Faraday leaned around and hit Barsarbe so hard the Bane let go and fell to her hands and knees.

Shra's brief but courageous intervention had bought Azhure time. Now she stepped forward, her face tight and determined, and seized the hand that grasped the knife.

Artor roared again and clenched His other fist, raising it high to smite Azhure in the face...then found that grasped too, by fragile hands which wielded the power of the Mother.

And all about Artor and Azhure and Faraday the hounds snapped and howled, unwilling to intervene while the three grappled so close.

"Feel the power of the Mother," Faraday hissed in Artor's ear, and felt the foul sting of His breath as He turned towards her.

"And feel the power of the Nine," Azhure said, her face flushed but calm, and her grey-blue eyes met Faraday's.

"Feel the power of the Earth," Faraday said.

"And the power of the Stars," Azhure whispered, so low her words were almost lost amid the howling of the hounds. On

her finger the Circle of the Stars flared into life and it brought with it the strength of the Nine.

As Azhure let the power of the Nine flood into Artor, so Faraday loosed what bonds still restrained the emerald fire and let it surge through the god's body; it had watched for countless generations as the forests died under the Plough, and now it turned the full force of its vengeance upon Artor. He writhed and screamed; Azhure and Faraday struggled to maintain their footing, but both clung grimly to His wrists, knowing they would be defeated if they lost their grip.

Enraged by the sting of both earth and firmament, almost blinded by the Circle that burned in his face, Artor let loose His own power to rope between and about the women. The Avar and Goodwife Renkin screamed and sank to the floor, twisting and beating at their ears. The Alaunt's howls rose, but they kept their feet and snaked their heads, trying to find an opening in which, to seize the god they loathed.

Azhure felt His power assail her own flesh and it took all her strength to hang on; Stars knew how Faraday managed. She risked a quick look at the other woman's face. Faraday was as white as snow, and her lip was bloody where she'd bitten it in her frantic struggle to hang on. But her eyes were wide as they blazed with the power of the Mother, and she opened her mouth to speak.

"Get you gone, Artor." Her words were barely audible, but they trembled and hesitated and then, gaining strength, reverberated about the stone hall.

"We do not want you, Artor," Azhure said, and the voices of both women mixed and fed off each other and soon they roared through the hall with a life of their own.

Artor tipped back His head and bellowed with such an intensity that the very walls of the Worship Hall cracked. Every muscle in His body bulged, and the women had to shift their grip to make sure their hands did not slip in His sweat.

"Go!" Faraday whispered.

"Leave!" Azhure murmured, and their words twisted and writhed among the echoes of Artor's shrieks and roars.

The Worship Hall was filled with a gale of sound, and yet not a breath of air moved.

The Goodwife crawled across to Shra, and she dragged the unconscious girl from the hall. As she passed the Avar women, still writhing on the ground, she caught at Criah's arm. "Get out now," she cried,

"before it's too late!"

Criah nodded dumbly, tears of agony streaming down her face, and seized the women next to her, nodding at the door. Soon all the Avar were crawling towards safety.

The three locked in combat did not notice their departure. Against the power of the Star Gods and the Earth Mother Artor brought to bear all the power that He could. It shrieked through the interstellar wastes to His aid - and met the .combined power of earth and stars. The power was fearsome and it tore and bit at the women, but they were courageous and determined and drew strength from each other.

And Artor was weak, weaker than He had been a thousand years previously. Then He had the power and the belief of the Seneschal at His back; now the Seneschal was broken and belief in Artor had shattered throughout Tencendor.

Where once was ploughed plain, now wove forests. Where once had flourished prejudice and hatred, now laughed Icarii and human as they shared the pain and pleasure of experience and love.

Now earth and stars stood together as they had not a thousand years ago.

Now the Circle flared complete.

Artor shrieked and writhed and roared and twisted, but the women clung and their words battered at him. "Go!"

"Get you gone!" "Leave us!" "We do not want you!"

Azhure finally managed to twist Artor's arm behind His back and she leaned in against His body as a lover might. "Let's hunt," she whispered, her lips brushing His ear.

Artor fled, as the Huntress hoped He might. He slipped from the hands that grasped Him and fled into the darkness that surrounded Smyrton.

Faraday dropped back, exhausted, but the Huntress whistled her hounds and her horse to her side and, mounting, set the hounds coursing and the horse chasing, and she lifted an arrow from the quiver on her back and fitted it to the Wolven.

"Let's hunt!" she cried.

And so they did.

They hunted through darkness so complete that it hung in thick curtains about them, but the sound of the Alaunt clamour rose and danced through the spaces and the sound of the Huntress' laughter crashed about the ears of the quarry.

He drove His bulls hard and fast, leaning over the Plough with strength trebled by terror, and His terror communicated itself to the red and maddened beasts before Him so that their breath steamed hot and bloodied from their nostrils and their horns glinted in great arcs as they tossed and rolled their heads.

Behind them, closer and closer, the Huntress urged on her ghostly pack and her red horse until both horse and hounds could smell the fear before them, and they redoubled their efforts in glee.

The thud of the ploughshare and the thunder of hooves echoed about the darkness.

"Hunt!" whispered the Huntress.

"Plough!" screamed the Ploughman, and He turned His beasts and His implement to face the threat behind Him.

"Steady," the Huntress counselled as the Alaunt leapt for the throats of the monstrous bulls, and she sat back in the saddle and brought her horse to a dancing halt, sighting along the shaft of the arrow.

She sighed as she loosed it, feeling its loss as keenly as she might feel the loss of a lover's intimate warmth.

It sped through the darkness, fed by vengeance, and in the name of vengeance for all those slaughtered in Artor's name, it lodged itself in the eye of one of the roaring bulls.

The animal dropped, and instantly its kicking body was covered with hounds who tore into the soft flesh of throat and belly until the bull kicked its life out twisted among the ropes of its own bowel.

The Huntress smiled, and fitted another arrow to the Wolven.

The other bull screamed now, and its scream drowned out even Artor's shrieks, as the arrow twisted through its eye to its brain and the hounds ripped and tore into its belly.

For one heartbeat Artor stood behind the useless Plough and stared into the eyes of the Huntress.

Her smile broadened and she reached for yet another arrow.

As one, the hounds lifted their blood-stained muzzles from the ruined carcasses of the bulls and stared at Artot, bunching their hindquarters and curling their lips in silent snarls.

"Hunt!" cried their mistress, and they leapt.

But Artor was already gone, fleeing into the darkness.

The hounds streamed after Him, baying their excitement, His sweat-terror scent strong in their nostrils, their mistress laughing behind.