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.

What was happening down there? Crouched close to the earth all afternoon and evening, Leagh imagined at times that she could feel the destruction roiling up through the earth to her hand.

Was Zared safe? And Axis? What about Katie?

Leagh closed her eyes, forcing her mind away from the fate of her husband and friends, and wondered if she should find somewhere safer and warmer for the night.

And then something grabbed her from behind.

Leagh was too frightened and shocked to scream. She rolled away, but whatever had grabbed at her had too firm a grip for her to escape.

Leagh turned her head and managed to see what had seized her. An old and completely demented woman, naked and covered in sores. Leagh took a deep breath, then drove her free foot into the woman's face.

There was a horrible crackling sound, and the woman's grip loosened enough for Leagh to drag herself free.

She scrambled to her feet, catching at the blackened stump of a tree for support, and looked frantically about.

At the top of the ridge, outlined by the last of the light, another three or four maddened people appeared, crawling forward on their hands and knees, gnashing their teeth, drooling horrible liquids — perhaps their partly digested last meal — down their chins and chests.

And, behind them, more: maniacal livestock as well as people.

Leagh twisted about, looking for an escape. There was no shelter to be seen, apart from the fire-ravaged stumps of what had been the daughters of the Minstrelsea forests, who had grown down the slopes of the crater towards Fernbrake.

A few paces in front of the gathering crowd, the old woman crept closer to Leagh.

More and more of the creatures poured over the edges of the crater, and now black shapes spiralled down from the sky to hunch speculatively on a dozen or so of the tree stumps.

Hawkchilds.

"Help me, damn you!" Leagh whispered, but the Hawkchilds merely cocked their heads, and whispered to themselves.

They might not harm her, but neither would they help her. Among them was StarGrace, and the Hawkchild looked at Leagh curiously, wondering at both her obvious pregnancy and the power that emanated from her.

StarGrace felt no urge to destroy, but neither did she feel any urge to help.

Leagh backed up against a tree stump, thinking as fast as she could. The only thing that would keep her safe, and keep her child safe, was to use her Acharite power. But she'd had so little practise!

Opening and closing glowing doorways was all very well, but...

The maniacal creatures, drooling, spitting, howling and whimpering, covered with self-inflicted wounds and the crusty remains of their excreta, crept closer.