Thus, he held back his Demons for an hour or two of planning. They crouched on the desolate side of the mountain they'd escaped from, clinging to rocks like bunch-backed toads, letting the snow settle about their shoulders and lumpy spines.
They crouched, and they whispered. They let their rage feed their whispers, but not control them. They spent some time in utter quiet, sending their senses scrying about the land; not only to verify the whereabouts of DragonStar and his five, but also to truly sense the land itself, feel its purpose, know its motives.
Qeteb, his senses soaring and penetrating deeper than those of his companions, felt something else.
A thing or a purpose as intimately connected to DragonStar as his five witches. No! Even more intimately connected! Who or what was this thing? And where? Where?
Qeteb knew where the five witches were — indeed, their positions was as preordained as their forthcoming battles with the Demons — but where, where the sixth mysterious and powerful presence?
Ah! A smile crawled through Qeteb's mind as his senses showed him the icy northern tundra.
And the long, snaking convoy within which was the sixth ... and perhaps the most vital.
"There is a heart yet beating within this land," Qeteb eventually said.
He had thought he'd completely ravaged Tencendor when he'd been resurrected, but now he understood the untruth of that belief. He'd devastated its skin, but no more. Somewhere lay a great heart thumping, still pounding power through the land, frustrating the Demons at every turn.
"We must find that heart," said Qeteb, "and destroy it."
"Do you mean the four hearts of the four lakes?" said Mot.
"No."
"Then the heart of the Maze —" Barzula began.
"No! Another heart. An unknown heart. A powerful heart. A despicable heart!"
"Where?" asked Sheol.
Qeteb sat silent a moment, his black armoured form hunched against the weight of snow on his wings and back. The metal of his visor rippled, as if the thoughts contained within were too virulent to be contained much longer.
"The long line of hopelessness," Qeteb finally said, "that escaped from Sanctuary and currently wallows in icy misery to the north.
"In there lies the heart incarnate."
Sometime after StarLaughter had resumed her trek east, six loathsome shadows swept over the landscape.
StarLaughter reflexively crouched close to some rocks, but the Demons, flying high overhead, did not notice her — or perhaps were too preoccupied to notice her.
"There's trouble ahead," StarLaughter said, and then silently mouthed a prayer for WolfStar's safe-keeping.
DragonStar also saw the Demons soar overhead, so single-minded in their quest for destruction they did not even heed him.
He, too, crouched, then stared, and then leaped lightly down from his rocks atop the rubble of Star Finger to where his Star Stallion waited in a ravine below.
The Alaunt milled about the stallion's legs, whining with their eagerness for the hunt.
As DragonStar walked up to the horse and hounds, his garb slipped away, and he strode once more in the linen loincloth with the lily sword swinging from the jewelled belt.
"There's trouble ahead," he said, and vaulted on the Star Stallion's back.
Within the instant both horse and Alaunt were running north-east.
Chapter 45
Trouble
Beyond the trees and the still ice forms of Urbeth and her daughters in their respective positions at either end of the avenue, the northern tundra was wrapped in an ice-gale so vicious that even the odd Skraeling, escaped from Ur's trap preferred to huddle in their burrows than drift out to search for prey.
Axis spent most of the morning making sure that people and animals were settled comfortably —
perhaps on the morrow they might begin their move south — and trying to avoid StarDrifter, who sat like a brooding storm on one of the carts near the head of the convoy.
Neither StarDrifter, nor Axis or Azhure, could quite come to terms with, let alone believe, the choice Zenith had made.
Axis blamed Fate, Azhure blamed herself and StarDrifter blamed WolfStar.
Axis had sent word to WingRidge to move WolfStar to the very rear of the convoy, far enough that he and StarDrifter might not meet accidentally.
Axis was also truthful enough with himself to understand that he did not want to see WolfStar either, nor Zenith with WolfStar.
Perhaps he could speak to her later ... but for the meantime there was far too much to do.
Urbeth's twin daughters dreamed the morning away in their pillars of ice, recovering strength after their efforts at leading the Demons into the souls of the Chitter Chatters. As had Urbeth at the front of the convoy, they'd placed themselves at its very rear, standing in the open space between the last trees on either side of the avenue, at the border between the rage of the snowstorm and the peaceful warmth of the avenue.
They seemed completely inviolate, twin pillars of unapproachable ice, but they were not quite alone.
Protected by the warmth of the trees, SpikeFeather TrueSong sat some paces away from them, cross-legged and winged, his head resting in one hand, red hair and feathers flaming incongruously before the ice, his eyes resting curiously on Urbeth's daughters.
