"Qeteb!" said Roxiah, and it jabbed a finger — that every heartbeat or so metamorphosed into a piece of intestine — to their left.
Qeteb jerked his head about, reluctant to take his eyes off the escaping columns — such feeding that lay ahead!
But, ah! There was some feeding to the left, too. Not much, but something to vent his frustration and fury on.
Three white rabbits, bounding terror-struck across the blackened landscape of Sanctuary.
All six Demons swung as one towards the rabbits.
"Night is only a few hours away," Axis said, and wrapped his cloak even tighter about himself. Azhure now sat in the cart, huddled under some blankets, and Zared and Axis had turned their horses so they stood with their tails to the freezing wind.
The men looked back over the column.
It stretched as far as they could see, which, truth to tell, was not that far, because a snowstorm was rapidly moving in from the extreme north, and Axis and Zared could only see some ten paces before them.
And within minutes even that ten paces would be denied them.
"Is everyone out of Sanctuary?" Azhure said.
Axis shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I don't know if Urbeth moved us all out at once, or if we had to traverse some doorway that half the column is still moving through."
"We're all out," a voice put in from behind the cart Azhure rested in. Ur, still dressed in her scarlet cloak and clutching her terracotta pot, emerged from out of the drifting snow.
Azhure attempted to smile, although it was hard in this extreme cold. She had met Ur many years previously, when Faraday had been planting out Minstrelsea forest. In fact, Azhure had spent one long night helping Faraday transfer her daily batch of seedlings from Ur's nursery, nestled around her cottage, back to Tencendor.
Did Ur still have any power left? If Urbeth did ... what of Ur?
And why did she carry that pot? Nostalgia, or did she have something in it?
Ur glanced at Azhure from beneath the folds of her hood, and spared her a brief toothless grin.
What I have in here, girl, is no-one's business but my own.
And then Azhure gave a horrified gasp as she saw Katie, awkwardly wrapped in an overly-large blanket, standing behind Ur and gripping the old woman's cloak.
Stars! She'd forgotten all about Katie in the debacle of Sanctuary's collapse. What would Faraday think if she knew!
Her face flaming with guilt — is this how she had treated her children as well? Forgetting them at every second heartbeat? — Azhure half-jumped, half-fell from the cart into the snow and gathered Katie into her arms.
Katie accepted Azhure's embrace happily, and let the woman envelop her underneath her cloak.
Azhure looked up at Axis, hunched miserably on his equally miserable Sal. "We can't stay like this.
It's not just us, or Katie, or even all the varieties of people we have. But the animals! Axis, some of these creatures are fragile! We must —"
"Survive this coming night," Ur broke in, "a long and horrible night, and then we will rest comfortably enough without fear of cold or Skraelings."
"Damn! The Skraelings!" Axis said, and pulled Sal about in a tight circle as he tried, unsuccessfully, to peer through the dense curtain of snow. "I forgot about them!"
And then, on cue, almost as if they'd been waiting in (creeping gleefully through) the thickening snow, a whisper flickered in the spaces between them.
The rabbits bounded, their tiny bodies heaving painfully with the strength of their terrified breathing, blood-flecked saliva flying from their open, panting mouths, thin, horrible wails emerging from their throats.
The Demons felt very good. They chased the rabbits, delaying the kill, wanting to drive them insane with fear, wanting them to die from their fear; swooping and whooping a few paces above the terrified rabbits, catching at their tender bodies with their claws and then letting them go, driving them on and on and on, delighting in their fright, wanting to hear them scream, beg, plead for mercy, needing to see them
—
The rabbits, as one, dived down a hole in the ground.
The Demons were too overcome with anger to even shriek. As smoothly as the rabbits had made their escape, all six Demons transformed themselves into wriggling, writhing razor-toothed ferrets, and scrambled down the same hole, biting at each other in their need to be the first one down and at the furry prizes below.
Once the Demons had managed to get below, they found themselves in a rabbit warren as twisting and as confusing as a Maze.
Apart from their lingering (terrified) scent, there was no trace of the rabbits.
"Where the fuck have the bunnies gone?" said Qeteb.
Chapter 39
Night: I
As night fell, DragonStar once again climbed to the top of the pile of rubble that had once been the mighty Star Finger complex. It was cold — Stars! It was freezing! — but DragonStar had cloaked himself well, and had donned scarves and gloves against the night air.
Something was happening, and he needed to know what. And so he climbed to the very topmost rock, and there he sat, huddled against the night, sending his far-senses scrying out into the night, and wondering: What?
Behind DragonStar, Sicarius huddled underneath the overhang of his cloak. He, too, could smell the night air. There would be a hunt tonight.
Leagh had not moved from the tree stump. She'd lain there, physically sickened by the horror of being almost caught by Qeteb in Spiredore and then by seeing him descend with his companion Demons into Sanctuary.
