They were within five paces of Urbeth.

"Go back," she said, and drew herself up straight and imperious. On her finger the Circle of Stars flared ... and then died.

One of the woodsmen laughed, and Urbeth knew it was Qeteb.

"You are a sorry bitch," he said in an amiable tone, "to stand guard at the head of this pitiful column. Why don't you run, pretty rabbit? Why don't you run?"

And he laughed again, low and nasty. He and Barzula took three small, rapid steps forward, and they now swung their axes back and forth in sweeping, whistling arcs.

There was a slight movement behind Urbeth.

"I am with you," Axis said, and Urbeth heard the hoof-fall of his brown mare.

"Go back," she said, without turning to look at him, "for you can do nothing."

"I can support you," Axis said. "I can do my best."

Qeteb laughed again, and, in concert with Barzula, swung his axe faster and faster.

The metal blades screamed through the air, and the two Demons strode into the attack behind the murderous blades of their axes.

"Watch out!" SpikeFeather screamed at the rear of the avenue, and the two women whipped back to face the four Demon-woodsmen who now strode towards them from out of the storm.

As one, the four wore incongruously cheerful, smiling faces, even while their hands wove their axes through the air.

Both the ice women crouched, their hands extended as if claws, but as their mother was weak, so were they, and they could not transform into their deadly bear forms.

The four Demons advanced in a semicircle, now laughing openly, the tempo of their axes increasing with the strength of their merriment.

The rabbits were trapped.

Urbeth raised her hand, and the Circle of Stars finally flared into life, transforming itself into a rod of thin, shimmery metal.

She flung it before her just as an axe sliced through the air. The blade screeched along the surface of the rod, finally sliding off in a shower of sparks.

Axis unsheathed his sword, wishing he had his axe of old, and wishing he had a trusted warhorse under him when ...

... when suddenly he was clothed again in the familiar black, and the sword had transformed itself into his battleaxe, and the horse beneath him, while not Belaguez, showed the same heart and courage in leaping forth into the fray ...

Pretty Brown Sal was angry. She was bred as a dancer and a slider, not a fighter, but her light-footedness and litheness served her as well in battle as it did on the dance field, and her anger turned her dainty pirouettes into battle manoeuvres.

The two Demons had forced Urbeth to one knee, their axes striking ever harder against the metal rod, notching and bending it, when suddenly both were hit from behind — one by a mighty axe blow to his head, the other by two-steel-edged hooves crashing down about his shoulders.

Axis laughed, and swung again, delighting in the feel both of Pretty Brown Sal and the axe in his own hand.

Qeteb and Barzula swung about, irritated more than angry, and not hurt — this man and horse had no weapons or magic which could harm them — and simultaneously swung their axes, one aiming to cut the mare's dainty legs out from under her, the other aiming to bury his axe in the rider's side.

Both missed.

Sal had skittered (slid) lightly to one side while Axis had merely laughed — gods, how good it felt to be in the heat of battle again! — and twisted away from the blade.

Qeteb and Barzula stumbled and almost fell with the momentum of their missed swings, then regained their balance. They growled, their beards bristling out to three times their previous length and thickness, and swung their axes once more.

Pretty Brown Sal and Axis slid lightly out of the way.

Barzula screamed and lunged, using his axe as a pike now, rather than as a weapon to swing through the air.

Sal and Axis evaded effortlessly, moving through the snow as its lover, rather than its foe.

Qeteb and Barzula turned to horse and rider; enough was enough, and while axes were pretty, the sheer destructiveness of their power would be enough to dispose of this —

Both screamed as fingers of ice wormed their way into the napes of their necks, and then into their very spines.

Urbeth: her arms were ice from the elbows down. Her fingers had turned into razor-sharp needles, prying and worrying themselves into the Demons' flesh, slicing through bone and arteries —

Both Demons tore themselves off her claws, and swung about to face her.

Instead, their eyes were riveted on the man sitting the Star Stallion three paces behind the ice woman.

"Aaargh!" SpikeFeather screamed, waving his arms and leaping and twisting about like a maniac.

"Aaargh!"

All four Demons hesitated, their eyes slipping from the prey before them to the birdman capering and screaming just to one side of the two women.

"Aaargh!" SpikeFeather screamed again, and dashed madly, foolishly, and utterly desperately at the Demons.

All four raised axes that had momentarily drooped in surprise, and simultaneously swung them at SpikeFeather, who was dashing straight towards the centre of their line.

In that instant before the blades sank home, SpikeFeather dropped flat to the ground, and there was a soft "Ugh!" of surprise as the middle two Demons buried their axes in each other rather than in the birdman.

The other two Demons stumbled and fell, as Qeteb and Barzula had, pulled to the ground by the targetless momentum of their axe swings.

The two wounded Demons wrenched their axes out of each other, cursing softly even as their flesh smoothly mended itself, and raised their axes to do SpikeFeather to death when suddenly they found their forms bristling with spears and pikes.

Behind Urbeth's daughters stood a line of some three score Ravensbund warriors, already aiming their next phalanx of spears at the Demons.

SpikeFeather reached up, hardly able to breathe through the force of his terror, yet still committed to action, and grabbed one of the spears, twisting and wrenching it until the Demon toppled onto him.

SpikeFeather found himself in an inferno of hatred and vengeance. Fires and teeth lapped and gnashed at his arms wrapped protectively about his head, and he could feel talons slicing down deep into his belly and upper thighs. He screamed, knowing death was only a breath away, when —

— when suddenly the Demon rolled off him and he saw instead

the hand of one of Urbeth's daughters reaching down, her face

hovering behind it: beautiful, distant, and utterly, utterly lovely.

SpikeFeather could hear the Demons screaming somewhere in the distance, but for him his entire world consisted of that hand, now touching his, and the almost disembodied face floating behind it.