"And?" StarGrace had completed her transformation back into Hawkchild, and now she hopped a pace closer to StarLaughter, her head tilted suspiciously.
"And the enchantments are too thick for us to break through. Dangerous. I," and now StarLaughter had grown enough in confidence to square her shoulders, and shake her hair out, "am endeavouring to tempt WolfStar out from his bolthole. Once he is out from under his protective enchantments, then we can do what we will."
StarGrace looked StarLaughter over once again. "And you are going to tempt WolfStar out dressed like that?"
"I shall need to recomb my hair and wing feathers," StarLaughter said, and then she smiled indulgently, "but he will not be able to resist me."
StarGrace thought that WolfStar would manage a resistance very easily, but she said nothing. In truth, StarGrace did not quite know what to make of the situation. Once, she and her companion Hawkchilds had felt such a oneness of purpose with StarLaughter that StarGrace could have trusted her through death and beyond. Indeed, she had done so.
Now?
Now StarGrace suspected StarLaughter's mind had gone completely insane, and StarGrace did not know what twists and
conundrums it had decided to present to StarLaughter as utter reality.
StarGrace shifted uncertainly.
"When I get within a day's march of WolfStar, I shall let you know," StarLaughter said.
Still StarGrace said nothing.
"Truly," StarLaughter said, and StarGrace finally nodded.
"Make sure that you do," she said, and lifted into the air. StarGrace had trusted StarLaughter through four thousand years, and the woman had not let her down once during this time. StarGrace could surely trust her for a few more days.
StarLaughter smiled and waved as the Hawkchild soared high into the sky, circled twice, then flew south again.
She did not realise that StarGrace did not believe a word of what she'd said.
Chapter 44
The Heart Incarnate
At dawn, Urbeth and her daughters reappeared. They were patently exhausted, and Axis and Azhure wondered at the exertions, both physical and magical, they must have undergone in order to draw the Demons away from the fleeing convoy, and then to escape the Demons' wrath themselves. Urbeth and her daughters looked at the avenue of trees, looked at Ur, dozing underneath a cart, the pot still wrapped in her arms, and nodded to themselves.
The three reappeared in their womanly forms, not as icebears. All three had dark circles of exhaustion under their eyes, and their skin was pallid, not with the reflection of the ice and snow, but with the strain they'd undergone.
"You need food and rest," Axis said, sharing a concerned glance with Azhure, and then offering Urbeth his arm.
For a moment it appeared Urbeth might actually accept his support, then she shook her head tiredly.
"Rest," she said. "Food can wait."
"What happened?" Azhure asked, knowing they were probably too tired to tell, but needing to know anyway.
Urbeth was too exhausted even to snap. "We drew the Demons off," she said, "and handed them into the care of the Chitter Chatters."
Axis smiled. He remembered how the box Ho'Demi had brought out of the Murkle mines had whispered disconcertingly to itself for months until the Ravensbund Chief had turned the Chitter Chatters loose in the northern icepack.
"Where are the Demons now?" said Azhure.
"I don't know," Urbeth said, and Axis and Azhure realised she was so strained she was close to tears. "I just don't know."
"Rest," Azhure said, "please."
Urbeth nodded, then turned slightly to address her two daughters. "Take the rear of the avenue."
Without a reply the two ice women turned, and melted away into the snow.
"Why send them back there?" Axis said.
"To protect it," Urbeth said. "The trees will protect the length of the avenue, but for the moment its two entrances are vulnerable. I will stand here."
Without further ado Urbeth took several steps back until she was at the border where snow turned to shaded walk, and began very slowly to turn about.
Within heartbeats she sped up until her form was spinning so fast Axis and Azhure could not discern her features, and then, in the next breath, Urbeth turned into a pillar of opaque green and grey ice that stood immobile and solid, guarding the entrance to the avenue.
Qeteb and his companions had escaped the Murkle mines only through the most extreme of efforts. The dark and damp mines had contained enchantment — did the very cursed soil still reek with enchantment?
— and the Demons had found it very difficult to negate its holding effects.
Eventually, after hours of temper, they had burst through the boarded-up entrances of several of the ancient shafts, sending showers of sharp-edged rock cascading through the air, and causing a massive avalanche down three sides of the mountain from which they'd emerged.
Qeteb was furious, but calm. He had finally understood that the forces ranged against him consisted not only of DragonStar and his five companions, but of the land itself.
The total and catastrophic destruction of Tencendor must wait until every creature, rock and speck of soil ranged against him and his had been destroyed.
And for this, Qeteb knew he needed a cool and calculating head, not a fount of fury erupting at every setback.
