StarLaughter smiled. "Waiting, of course," she said. "DareWing said you'd be back."
Another form emerged out of the gloom behind her. It was the Strike Leader.
DragonStar switched sharp eyes to the birdman's face. DareWing? In league with StarLaughter?
StarLaughter's smile stretched, but she remained silent. Privately she was wallowing in self-satisfaction, knowing her plan to convince DragonStar of her trustworthiness was bound to succeed.
He was so guileless, so malleable.
"We have found a haven in the bowels of this destruction," DareWing said. "And, I believe we have found a friend. Many of them."
DragonStar looked back to StarLaughter, completely unable to believe that she'd so easily (and conveniently) swapped allegiances.
"Oh, but you should trust me," she said softly. "I have grown tired of the Demons, and I admit a modicum of sorrow for what I've aided them to do. I wish to —"
x
"I find this somewhat hard to believe," DragonStar said.
"You did it," she said, and her face was entirely serious now. What better way to gain his trust than to pretend she'd travelled the same pathway to redemption he had? Fool! The weak were always prepared to believe others shared their weaknesses.
DragonStar stared at her.
"Come below, and talk," DareWing said, and disappeared into the gloom.
Faraday caught at DragonStar's arm. "It's a trap," she whispered.
StarLaughter's eyes slid momentarily to Faraday, hardening as they did so, then back to DragonStar's face.
"I can help you against the Demons," she said.
DragonStar stared at her, trying to discern the truth — or otherwise — in her words and her face.
He didn't find it hard to believe that the Demons had abandoned StarLaughter, but on the other hand he found it difficult to believe they'd just let her go.
It wasn't in their nature to just "let someone go".
It was very, very easy to believe this was a trap. The Demons were using StarLaughter as an ambush. No doubt once they'd finished consuming the Sacred Groves they'd drop by here to finish him off.
She was bait ... but such unbelievable bait that DragonStar started to think that this couldn't possibly
be a trap. Surely the Demons wouldn't expect him to fall for this?
There was a movement at his side. Sicarius, sidling forward to sniff at StarLaughter's skirts.
He nosed about, then lost interest, sitting down to scratch at a spot just behind his right ear.
And then DareWing re-emerged from the gloom at StarLaughter's back. With him he had several members of the Strike Force.
One of them stepped forward. "She is a cold-hearted bitch," the birdwoman said, "but she has given us the one thing we needed to make us believe in her."
"Yes?" DragonStar said after a moment, and then froze in horror as another form emerged from the gloom.
It was one of the Hawkchilds. Star Grace.
"She has brought us the Hawkchilds," DareWing said, "and a highway to the Demons' den."
Qeteb's form flowed back — horribly, for his flesh assumed many loathsome lumps and bumps in doing so — into his handsome, human form.
For the moment he had grown tired of the encasing black armour.
He advanced a step towards the Mother.
"You're a sorry looking cow for all the power and glory you are supposed to represent," he remarked.
Her expression — exhausted, resigned — did not alter, although one hand spasmed briefly within the folds of Her skirts. "I am what you have done to Me," She said. "I am the living representation of the land, and I —"
"Do not have much longer to live," said one of the other Demons, sidling closer. Its pig snout snuffled along the ground, as if it wanted to suck up the Mother's skirts, and perhaps Her with it.
The Mother's mouth trembled in a smile, or perhaps an expression of fear. "No. I do not think that I do."
"With you gone," Qeteb said, and he took a pace forward, "the entire land will be mine."
Both his hands dangled at his side, but his right one shifted and changed, reshaping itself into a gigantic fist some five or six times normal size.
It had hammerheads for fingertips.
"There is the small matter of some remaining resistance," Ur muttered from her bench. Her arms were now so tightly gripped about her pot they were completely white.
