Sara Douglass - Pilgrim

The horses were swift and comfortable to sit, but they were unnerved by the forest.

StarLaughter did not blame them, for she hated the forest herself — no wonder the Demons wanted to leave it as quickly as they did. To each side, trees hissed, their branches crackling ominously above, the ground shifting about the base of their trunks as if roots strove for the surface.

Barzula laughed, but there was a note of strain in his laughter. “See the trees,” he said. “They think they can stop us, but all they can do is rattle their twigs in fury.”

None of the others replied. Mot, Sheol and Raspu were tense, watchful, while beside Barzula, Rox rode as if in a waking dream. This was night, his time, and terror drove all before it. Rox had his head tilted slightly back, his eyes and mouth open. A faint wisp of grey sickness slithered from a nostril and into the night. He fed, growing more powerful with every soul he tainted.

If the trees unnerved the Demons and StarLaughter alike, then even worse than the trees were the beings that slunk in the shadows. Scores, perhaps hundreds, of strange creatures crept, parallel with the path, through the forest. StarLaughter caught only the barest glimpses of them — but they were creatures such as she had never seen before: badgers with horns and crests of feathers, birds with gems for eyes, great cats splotched with emerald and orange.

StarLaughter did not like them at all. She tightened her hold about her son, and called softly to Raspu who was immediately in front of her: “My friend, can these hurt us?”

Raspu hesitated, then twisted slightly on his mount so he could reply. “Once your son strides in all his glory, my dear, this forest will wither and die, and all that inhabit it will run screaming before him.”

StarLaughter smiled. “Good.” She started to say something more, but there was a movement a little further down the path before them, and then a great roar tore into the night.

“Get you gone from these paths! Your tread fouls the very soil!”

The horses abruptly halted. They hissed and milled about agitatedly. StarLaughter peered ahead — and laughed.

Before them stood the strangest man she had ever seen. He wore only a wrap — a wrap that seemed woven of twigs and leaves, for Stars’ sakes! — about his hips, and was otherwise bare-footed and chested. His hair was a wild tangle of faded blonde curls, and two horns arched up from his hairline.

True, he had the feel of power about him, but StarLaughter did not think it was any match for what her companions wielded.

To one side and slightly behind the man stood a slender woman, dark haired and serene-faced, wearing a robe with leaping deer about its hemline. Her hand rested on the man’s shoulder.

StarLaughter’s lip curled. A Bane. How pitiful.

“Leave this place!” the betwigged man cried, and took a belligerent step forward.

“And who are you to so demand?” Sheol said pleasantly, but StarLaughter could hear the power that underlay her voice, and she smiled. This man was dead. The only question was who would strike the match.

“I am Isfrael, Mage-King of the Avar,” the man replied.

“And the woman?” Sheol asked. It was polite, perhaps, to find out the names of those about to die, but StarLaughter had always thought such niceties well beyond Sheol. Mayhap she was but toying with her prey.

“I am Shra,” the slender woman said. “Senior Bane among the Avar.”

“The Avar were ever troublesome,” StarLaughter said. “Grim-faced and petulant-browed. Perhaps it is time they were finally put away.”

Surprisingly, Isfrael smiled. “You do not like this place, do you. Why is that?”

Sheol shifted on her horse, and shot a look at Raspu, but when she spoke, her voice was even and calm. “It is a place that has no meaning, Mage-King. I do not like it.”

“You do not like it, Demon, because you cannot touch it.”

Sheol literally hissed, then she swivelled about on her horse. “Rox!”

The Demon of Terror slowly focused his eyes on the two before him, then his face twisted, and he cried out. “I cannot! The trees protect them!”

Isfrael smiled, and took another step forward. He raised a hand, and in it StarLaughter saw that he clutched a twig.

“You ravage freely across the plains, Demons, but know that eventually the very land will rise up against you.”

“When we are whole, we will tear this land apart, rock by rock, tree by tree!” Sheol said.

Isfrael’s grin widened … and then he threw the twig at Sheol.

Sheol knew what that twig was. It was not simply a twig, but the entire shadowy power of the trees that hurtled towards her.

She screamed in stark terror, reflexively raising both arms before her face, and then her scream turned into a roar and the twig disintegrated the instant before it hit her.

“ Filth !” she screamed, and she grabbed the mane of her horse and dug her heels cruelly into its flanks.

The horse leaped forward, bellowing, its teeth bared, its neck arching as if to strike.

As if from nowhere, another twig appeared in Isfrael’s hand, and this he brandished before him. “Shra! Stand firm!” he cried. “I rely on you now as never before!”

The horse lunged, snapping at the twig, but it did not seize it.

“Filth ! ” Sheol screamed again, and now Barzula and Mot also drove their creatures forward.

Unnoticed, the seventh, and riderless, horse, slunk back a few steps until it merged with the night.

“Shra!” Isfrael murmured. As mighty as he was, he still needed her power to sustain him. The three black beasts roiled before him, snapping and snarling, swiping their claws through the air.

Yet still they held back, so that their teeth and claws came within a finger span of Isfrael, but did not actually touch him.

“The very land will rise up against you!” Isfrael shouted one more time, and at his shout the trees themselves screamed.

Shra staggered, almost unable to control the power that Isfrael was using. She could feel it rope through her, feel it burn up through the soles of her feet where they touched the forest floor, flood through her body, and then flow into Isfrael through her hand on his shoulder.

All the Demons were screaming now, unstinting in their efforts to drive their mounts forward over this man before he could bring the full power of the trees to bear upon them. The air before Isfrael was filled with the yellowed teeth of the horses and the fury of their talons — but he was holding, and with luck he might even manage to drive the Demons back.

The seventh horse abruptly materialised out of the darkness behind Shra. Utterly silent, it surged forward, reared up on its hind legs, and then brought all its weight and fury to bear in one horrific slashing movement of its forepaws.

Neither Shra nor Isfrael had realised it was there. All their concentration was on the Demons before them, on driving them out, on … Shra’s eyes widened in complete shock, and she staggered backwards, breaking the contact between her and Isfrael. Claws raked into her flesh from her neck to her buttocks, ripping the flesh apart to expose her spine.

“Isfrael!” she cried, and collapsed on the ground.

At the loss of contact Isfrael spun about — to see the massive beast tear her apart. Blood splattered across his face and chest.

“Shra!” he screamed.

Behind him the horses lunged, but as they did so Isfrael dropped to his knees by Shra’s side under the flailing paws of the black horse, and tried to scoop her into his arms.

The other horses, the screaming Demons on their backs, milled above the two, biting and slashing.

StarLaughter, who had kept her own steed back, sat and smiled. The scene reminded her of the kill at the end of the hunt. She could see nothing save the plunging bodies of the horses, the Demons — now laughing and screaming hysterically — on their backs. Or almost nothing, except for the scattering drops of blood that flew through the air.