Crusader. Sara Douglass

able to think of StarDrifter’s embrace with longing instead of revulsion.

      DareWing, dying, yet still driven by such a need for revenge that he hauled himself from tree to tree and from glade to glade, seeking that which might ease his frustration.

      Azhure, weeping for the children she had lost.

      Isfrael, seething with resentment at the loss of his inheritance.

      Faraday, her eyes dry but her heart burning, wondering if she would have the courage to accept a love she feared might once more end in her destruction.

      Katie, clinging to Faraday’s skirts, grinning silently and secretly, and wondering if Faraday would ever be able to accept the sacrifice.

      Again.

      Sanctuary was a brooding, sad place for something so apparently beauteous and peaceful.

      Sanctuary was proving unbearable for yet one more man.

      Axis had spent his life controlling the world that battered at his doorstep. As BattleAxe he had theoretically been subordinate to the Brother-Leader of the Seneschal, but in reality had largely controlled his own destiny as he had the destinies of his command. As a newly-discovered Enchanter he had found he had much to learn, but had gloried in that learning and the added power it gave him (as in the woman it brought him). As StarMan, Axis had held the fate of an entire land and all its peoples in his hand, and he had held it well, plunging the Rainbow Sceptre into Gorgrael’s chest and reclaiming the land for the Icarii and Avar.

      Yet in the past year Axis had learned that he’d only been a pawn in some Grand Plan of this ancient race known as the Enemy, and an even tinier pawn of the Star Dance itself which had manipulated not only the Enemy, but every creature on Tencendor.

      And for what? To breed the battleground and the champion to best the most ancient of enemies; festering evil in the shape of the TimeKeeper Demons.

      “We have all been for nothing,” Axis whispered to himself, “save to provide the Star Dance with the implements for whatever final act it has planned.”

      And what part would he play in that plan?

      “And damn you to every pit of every damned AfterLife,” Axis murmured, “for making of me a mere pawn where once I had been a god!”

      Then he laughed, for it was impossible not to so laugh at his own frustrated sense of importance. Axis consciously relaxed his shoulders, and looked about him.

      It was a fine, warm day in Sanctuary — as were all days — and he was walking down the road from Sanctuary towards the bridge (at last! to have escaped the confinement of unlimited safety!). To either side of him waved pastel flowers, wafting gentle scent in the soft breeze. The plain between the mountains that cradled Sanctuary and the bridge that led from the sunken Keep apparently stretched into infinity on either side of the road, and Axis wondered what would happen if he set off to his left or right. Would the magic of Sanctuary eventually return him to the spot from which he had commenced, even though he walked in a deliberately straight line? Would he be allowed to escape the glorious inaction of Sanctuary?

      “I wonder if I might ever manage to —” Axis began in a musing tone, then halted, stunned.

      A moment previously he had been a hundred paces from the bridge, he could have sworn it! Yet now here he was, one booted foot resting on the silvery surface of the bridge’s roadway.

      “Welcome, Axis SunSoar, StarMan,” the bridge said. “May I assist you?”

      Axis grinned. The bridge sounded as enthusiastic as an exhausted whore on her way home after a laborious night’s work entertaining her clientele. His grin broadened at the thought. The bridge had borne a heavy load of bodies recently, after all.

      And every one of them to be questioned as to the trueness of their intentions.

      “Well,” he said, and leaned his crossed arms on the handrail so he could peer into the clouded depths of the chasm below the bridge. “I admit I grow lonesome for some witty conversation, bridge, and I remembered the pleasant nights I spent whiling away the sleepless hours with your sister.”

      And was she still alive, Axis suddenly wondered, in the maelstrom that had consumed Tencendor?

      “She has ever had a more companionable time than I,” grumbled the bridge. “Here I sat, spanning the depths between your world and Sanctuary, desperate for company yet hoping I would never find it.”

      Axis nodded in understanding. Company would have meant — did mean — that complete disaster threatened the world above.

      “And, yes,” the bridge added softly, “my sister still lives. The disaster is not yet complete, Axis SunSoar.”

      Axis shifted uncomfortably. This bridge was far more adept at reading unspoken thoughts than her sister. “And when the disaster is complete? What then?”

      “What then? Victory, my friend. Utter victory.”

      Axis straightened, biting down his anger. “Disaster is utter victory? How can that be?”

      An aura of absolute disinterest emanated from the bridge. “I am not the one who can show you that answer, Axis.”

      “Then who? Who?”

      There was no answer, save for a flash of blinding light and a sudden rattle of hooves.

      Axis swore softly and raised a hand to shield his eyes against the rectangle of burning light that had appeared at the other end of the bridge. A large shape shifted within the light, blurred, then shifted again, resolving itself into a horse and rider.

      The light flared, then faded.

      The bridge screamed …

      … and then convulsed.

      Axis fell to his feet, sliding towards the centre of the bridge as he did so. He lay for an instant, badly winded by the impact.

      He was given no time for recovery. The bridge lurched and then buckled, heaving under him, and Axis repeatedly fell over in his scrambling attempts to get to his feet.

      The bridge screamed again, and Axis was raked with the emotions of death.

      The bridge was dying.

      Axis grabbed at one of the handrail supports, but it melted under his fingers leaving them coated with a sticky residue.

      One of his legs fell through a large hole that abruptly appeared in the bridge … she was dissolving!

      With a desperate heave Axis lunged towards the safety of the roadway, but the bridge was literally falling apart, still screaming, and her death throes tilted Axis further towards her centre, further away from the safety of the ground.

      Another section of bridge fell away, and Axis stared down into the chasm, and certain death.

      The bridge whimpered, and vanished.

      Axis fell… and was jerked to a halt by a hand in the collar of his tunic.

      The odour of a horse hot with sweat enveloped him, and Axis felt himself bump against the shoulder of the plunging animal. He grabbed automatically, finding the Sanctuary of a horse’s mane with his left hand, and the wiry strength of a man’s forearm with his right.

      “Keep still!” a man’s voice barked. Axis turned his eyes up, and looked into the face of his hated son, Drago.

      Except this man was not Drago. Axis instinctively felt it the instant he lay eyes on his face, and he knew it for sure once the man had deposited him on the road to Sanctuary.

      This was a man who had once been Drago.

      Axis bent over, resting his hands on his knees, and drew in great breaths, trying to recover his equilibrium at the twin shock of the bridge’s death and the appearance of… of…

      Axis looked up, although he did not straighten. “What happened?” he said, not asking