Battleaxe: Book One of the Axis Trilogy. Sara Douglass

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Battleaxe: Book One of the Axis Trilogy - Sara  Douglass


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href="#litres_trial_promo">37 Jervois Landing

       38 Sigholt

       39 Rivkah Awakes

       40 Gorkenfort

       41 The Duchess of Ichtar

       42 Re-Acquaintances

       43 The SkraeBold Speaks

       44 Vows and Memories

       45 The Groves

       46 In the Hand of Artor

       47 In the Hands of the Mother

       48 Yuletide Morning

       49 Yuletide

       50 The Streets of Gorkentown

       51 The Lake of Life

       52 The Earth Tree Grove

       53 Departures

       54 The Charonites

       55 The Assembly of the Icarii

       56 FreeFall SunSoar

       57 Escape from Gorkenfort

       58 BattleAxe

       Keep Reading

       Glossary

       About the Author

       By Sara Douglass

       About the Publisher

      When will the hundred summers die,

      And thought and time be born again,

      And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,

      Bring truth that sways the soul of men?

      Here all things in their place remain,

      As were all order’d, ages since.

      Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,

      And bring the fated fairy Prince.

      ALFRED LORD TENNYSON,

      “The Slewing Palace”

       Map

map

       The Prophecy of the Destroyer

      A day will come when born will be

      Two babes whose blood will tie them.

      That born to Wing and Horn will hate

      The one they call the StarMan.

      Destroyer! rises in the north

      And drives his Ghostmen south;

      Defenceless lie both flesh and field

      Before Gorgrael’s ice.

      To meet this threat you must release

      The StarMan from his lies,

      Revive Tencendor, fast and sure

      Forget the ancient war,

      For if Plough, Wing and Horn can’t find

      The bridge to understanding,

      Then will Gorgrael earn his name

      And bring Destruction hither.

      StarMan, listen, heed me well,

      Your power will destroy you

      If you should wield it in the fray

      ’Ere these prophecies are met:

      The Sentinels will walk abroad

      ’Til power corrupt their hearts;

      A child will turn her head and cry

      Revealing ancient arts;

      A wife will hold in joy at night

      The slayer of her husband;

      Age-old souls, long in cribs,

      Will sing o’er mortal land;

      The remade dead, fat with child

      Will birth abomination;

      A darker power will prove to be

      The father of salvation.

      Then waters will release bright eyes

      To form the Rainbow Sceptre.

      StarMan, listen, for I know

      That you can wield the sceptre

      To bring Gorgrael to his knees

      And break the ice asunder.

      But even with the power in hand

      Your pathway is not sure:

      A Traitor from within your camp

      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.

       Prologue

      The woman struggled through the knee-deep snow, the bundle of dead wood she had tied to her back almost as great a burden as the weight of the child she carried in her belly. Her breath rasped in her throat before frosting heavily in the bitterly cold southerly wind. She was short and strong, her legs and shoulders finely muscled by twenty-eight years of hard-won survival in her harsh homeland. But she had always had the help and company of her people to aid her. Now she was alone, and this, her third child, she would have to bear without assistance.

      This would be her last trip across the valley. The severe winter storms of the


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