Crusader. Sara Douglass
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balcony gave way to any room.
There was, apparently, nowhere to go.
Except that Qeteb had given her a destination, hadn’t he?
“Spiredore,” StarGrace said in chirp-like tones that she thought might please the tower, “take me to Tencendor’s lost peoples.”
And she folded her black wings neatly at her back, and set her clawed feet to the first steps of the stairway that led upwards from the floor of the tower.
“You said that you and I must return first, DragonStar?” DareWing asked.
“Yes,” DragonStar said. “For two reasons. One, I need to know if Spiredore is still useful.”
“Is it our only link with the Field of Flowers?” Leagh said. She was still trying to come to terms with her spurt of fear at the idea that she’d be needed to battle one of the Demons. Her? What of her child? In what danger would she place it?
“We can only approach the Field through the wasteland that was Tencendor,” DragonStar affirmed. “And unless I can find another route, or unless we want to climb the stairs through the Keep, Spiredore is our best way to reach the wasteland. But I don’t want to risk everyone in the finding out whether the Demons have penetrated Spiredore yet —”
“Would they manage to enter Sanctuary?” Faraday asked. Gods, if they managed that…!
“No. They might find out where Sanctuary is, but they will not be able to break through its protective enchantments.”
And yet … DragonStar’s mind was consumed with the impression he’d had when he’d originally seen Sanctuary; it had looked just like one of the worlds the Demons had dragged him through in their leaps through space towards Tencendor.
What if there was a flaw? What if the Demons could find their way in?
Stars! Where would the peoples go then?
DragonStar gave himself a mental shake to get rid of the negative thoughts. The Enemy had built this place, and they’d damn well meant it as a Sanctuary against the Demons. They knew what they were doing, didn’t they?
“Are you sure?” Faraday asked, and DragonStar sent her a reassuring smile.
“Of course. Now, I want to take DareWing with me,” DragonStar turned to the birdman and managed a considerably more genuine smile, “not only for the company, but because there is something I need to show him. Something he, as we, will need in our battle to reclaim the wasteland.”
“And that is…” DareWing said.
“Your army,” DragonStar said, and then laughed at the hungry expression that filled DareWing’s face.
Chapter 10 A Busy Day in Spiredore
T ake me to the lost peoples of Tencendor, StarGrace had asked, and Spiredore did. StarGrace walked up a series of stairways, across a myriad of balconies, and eventually Spiredore grew merciful on her aching legs and simmering temper, and led her to a short tunnel of blue mist.
At the end of the tunnel StarGrace could see the milling forms of a score of people, and she laughed.
“Maybe Qeteb will allow me my revenge on WolfStar for this service,” she cried, and stepped into the blue-misted tunnel to see just where this new StarSon had hidden the millions of souls the Demons so hungered for.
When she’d almost reached the end of the tunnel, StarGrace halted and stared, her eyes draining of all their triumph.
Then she snarled. This damned tower had thought to amuse itself at her expense!
Spiredore had indeed led her to the lost peoples of Tencendor … but not the hidden peoples. Beyond the end of the tunnel StarGrace could discern a cave, and in that cave huddled and whispered and scampered a score of crazed humans. They had torn off (or eaten) their clothes, and now were naked, clothed only in sores and abrasions. Their maddened eyes shifted constantly, and they scratched at themselves and at the others who shifted past them.
“Ssssss!” StarGrace almost fell over in her haste to get back inside Spiredore. Stars alone knew where that cave was, and she didn’t want to waste time flying back to Spiredore (and a waiting and impatient Qeteb) to start all over again.
She relaxed slightly as her feet clicked onto the boards of a stairway again, and she halted, and spoke with some aspersion.
“Spiredore, take me to the place where StarSon has hidden the peoples of Tencendor.”
And she set her feet to the stairs before her.
“My army?” DareWing said as he and DragonStar walked along the road towards the place where the silvery bridge had once spanned the chasm. DragonStar had left the Star Stallion, the Alaunt and the lizard in Sanctuary, saying he wanted only to risk what was necessary, but he carried the Wolven and its quiver of arrows over his back.
“Who do you think?” DragonStar said.
DareWing frowned, and then a thought so extraordinary occurred to him that he halted, and grabbed DragonStar’s shoulder. “But they’re dead!”
“So were you,” DragonStar said, his eyes crinkling with humour.
“The Strike Force,” DareWing breathed, his eyes unfocused, his mind remembering the thrill of the hunt through the thermals.
DragonStar nodded.
DareWing refocused his gaze on DragonStar’s face. “No wonder you wanted to bring me back as one of your five.”
“The Strike Leader. Yes.”
DareWing breathed in deeply, filled with such joy he could hardly believe it. The Strike Force!
“But first we must negotiate Spiredore,” DragonStar said, “and find out if its stairways are still safe.”
They walked the remaining distance to the chasm in silence, and it was only once they were there that DareWing came out of his reverie enough to ask how they were going to get across. “Didn’t you use the bridge to cross into Spiredore?”
“Not exactly,” DragonStar said. “I used it as a focus for my own enchantment. I don’t actually need the bridge to cross, but I do need something to focus on in order to return us —” he hesitated slightly over that word, and DareWing glanced sharply at him, “— to this point. But a bridge we do not actually need.”
DragonStar reached behind him and drew an arrow out of his quiver. In one powerful movement, he thrust it into the ground before them.
Its blue feathers and its shaft quivered slightly with the residual force of DragonStar’s action, then it stood still.
“And so,” DragonStar said, unsheathing his sword and drawing the doorway of light, “now Spiredore.”
StarGrace climbed higher and higher through the crazy world of Spiredore, her temper increasing with every step.
Where was this tower leading her? She’d climb to the sun before she ever reached a destination!
Suddenly she halted, and her entire body stilled.
There was something else in the tower. StarGrace didn’t know in what other manner to describe the feeling, only that in the space betwixt one heartbeat and another something else had stepped into Spiredore.
Qeteb? One of the other Demons?
No. This presence had a different feel about it.
There! Above her! StarGrace crouched under an overhang of a balcony and peered upwards.
DragonStar paused in their passage through Spiredore. “It is not as safe as it once was,” he said. “We must