Battleaxe: Book One of the Axis Trilogy. Sara Douglass
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they fed off flesh, and they were growing as her terror grew. She could feel the strength draining out of her. They would chase her, taunt her, drain her, until even fear was gone. Then they would feed off her body.
The child churned in her belly as she lurched through the snow, as if intent on escaping the prison of her poor, doomed body. It flailed with its fists and heels and elbows, and every time one of the dreadful whispers of the wraiths reached it through the amniotic fluid of its mother’s womb, it twisted and struck harder.
Even though she knew she was all but doomed, the primeval urge to keep making the effort to escape kept her moving through the snow, grunting with each step, jerking every time her child beat at the confines of her womb. But now the urge to escape consumed the child as much as its mother.
The five wraiths hung back a few paces in the snow, enjoying the woman’s fear. The chase was going well. Then, strangely, the woman twisted and jerked mid-step and crashed to the ground, writhing and clutching at the heaving mound of her belly. The wraiths, surprised by this sudden development in the chase, had to sidestep quickly out of the way, and slowed to circle the woman at a safe distance just out of arm’s reach.
She screamed. It was a sound of such terror, wrenched from the very depths of her body, that the wraiths moaned in ecstasy.
She turned to the nearest wraith, extending a hand for mercy. “Help me,” she whispered. “Please, help me!”
The wraiths had never been asked for help before. They began to mill in confusion. Was she no longer afraid of them? Why was that? Wasn’t every flesh and blood creature afraid of them? Their minds communed and they wondered if perhaps they should be afraid too.
The woman convulsed, and the snow stained bright red about her hips.
The smell and sight of warm blood reached the wraiths, reassuring them. This one was going to die more quickly than they had originally expected. Spontaneously. Without any help from their sharp pointed fangs. Sad, but she would still taste sweet. They drifted about in the freezing wind, watching, waiting, wanting.
After a few more minutes the woman moaned once, quietly, and then lay still, her face alabaster, her eyes opened and glazed, her hands slowly unclenching.
The wraiths bobbed as the wind gusted through them and considered. The chase had started so well. She had feared well. But she had died strangely.
The most courageous of the five drifted up to the woman and considered her silently for a moment longer. Finally, the coppery smell of warm blood decided it and it reached down an insubstantial claw to worry at the leather thongs of her tunic. After a moment’s resistance the leather fell open—and the one adventuresome wraith was so surprised it leapt back to the safe circling distance of its comrades.
In the bloody mess that had once been the woman’s belly lay a child, glaring defiantly at them, hate steeping from every one of its bloodied pores.
It had eaten its way out.
“Ooooh!” the wraiths cooed in delight, and the more courageous of them drifted forward again and picked up the bloody child.
“It hates,” it whispered to the others. “Feel it?”
The other wraiths bobbed closer, emotion close to affection misting their orbs.
The child turned its tusked head and glared at the wraiths. It hiccupped, and a small bubble of blood frothed at the corner of its mouth.
“Aaah!” the wraiths cooed again, and huddled over the baby. Without a word they made their momentous decision. They would take it home. They would feed it. In time they would learn to love it. And then, years into a future the wraiths could not yet discern, they would learn to worship it.
But now they were hungry and good food was cooling to one side. Appealing as it was, the baby was dumped unceremoniously in the snow, howling its rage, as the wraiths fed on its dead mother.
Six weeks later …
Separated by the length of the Alps and still more by race and circumstance, another woman struggled through the snowdrifts of the lower reaches of the western Icescarp Alps.
She fell badly over a rock hidden by the snow and tore the last fingernail from her once soft, white hands as she scrabbled for purchase. She huddled against a frozen rock and sucked her finger, moaning in frustration and almost crying through cold and sad-heartedness. For a day and a night she had battled to keep alive, ever since they had dumped her here in this barren landscape. These mountains could kill even the fittest man, and she was seriously weakened by the terrible birth of her son two days before.
And despite all her travail and prayers and tears and curses he had died during that birth, born so still and blue that the midwives had huddled him away, not letting her hold him or weep over him.
And as the midwives fled the birthing chamber, the two men had come in, their eyes cold and derisive, their mouths twisting with scorn. They had dragged her weeping and bleeding from the room, dragged her from her life of comfort and deference, dumped her into a splintered old cart and drove her throughout the day to this spot at the base of the Icescarp Alps. They had said not a word the entire way.
Finally they had unceremoniously ripped her out. No doubt they wished her dead, but neither had dared stain their hands with her blood. Better this way, where she could endure a slow death on the dreaded mountains, prey to the Forbidden Ones which crouched among the rocks, prey to the cold and the ice, and with time to contemplate the shame of her illegitimate child … her dead illegitimate child.
But she was determined not to die. There was one chance and one chance only. She would have to climb high into the Alps; Barely out of girlhood and clad only in tatters, she willed herself to succeed.
Her feet had gone to ice the first few hours and she now could no longer feel them. Her toes were black. Her fingernails, torn from her hands, had left gaping holes at the ends of her fingers that had iced over. Now they were turning black too. Her lips were so dry and frozen they had drawn back from her teeth and solidified into a ghastly rictus.
She huddled against the rock. Although she had started the climb in hope and determination, even she, her natural stubbornness notwithstanding, realised her situation was precarious. She had stopped shivering hours ago. A bad sign.
The creature had been watching the woman curiously for some hours now. It was far up the slopes of the mountain, peering down from its heights through eyes that could see a mouse burp at five leagues. Only the fact that she was below his favourite day roost made the creature stir, fluff out its feathers in the icy air, then spread its wings and launch itself abruptly into the swirling wind, angered by the intrusion. It would rather have spent the day preening itself in what weak sun there was. It was a vain creature.
She saw it circling far above her. She squinted into the sun, grey specks of exhaustion almost obscuring her sight.
“StarDrifter?” she whispered, hope strengthening her heart and her voice. Slowly, hesitatingly, she lifted a blackened hand towards the sky. “Is that you?”
Twenty-nine years later …
The speckled blue eagle floated high in the sky above the hopes and works of mankind. With a wingspan as wide as a man was tall, it drifted lazily through the air thermals rising off the vast inland plains of the kingdom of Achar. Almost directly below lay the silver – blue expanse of Grail Lake, flowing into the great River Nordra as it coiled through Achar towards the Sea of Tyrre. The lake was enormous and rich in fish, and the eagle fed well there. But more than fish, the eagle fed on the refuse of the lake-side city of Carlon. Pristine as the ancient city might be with its pink and cream stone walls and gold and silver plated roofs; pretty as it might be with its tens of thousands of pennants and banners and flags fluttering in the wind, the Carlonites ate and shat like every other creature in creation,