Battleaxe by Sara Douglass

bristling with indignation. “Every one of you seems to have missed the point thatthe greater tragedy would have been if Magariz had been killed or taken. Magariz is the man who currently holds the fate of Achar in his hands. He is the one who, until he can be relieved, must hold these creatures back.”
    Jorge leaned still further across the table and stabbed his finger at each of the men sitting there. Now his voice was low and intense. “I am aware that Rivkah was either sister or mother to three of you and I am aware that the loss of the brothers upsets the Seneschal deeply. But Achar faces an unimaginable threat from an unknown foe. We cannot weep and wail over a body that is thirty-years’ cold. Pull yourselves together! Act like men and the leaders of Achar that you are supposed to be!”
    Jorge leaned back in his chair, his weather-lined face defiant. He was disgusted with the way Priam had acted. Priam was supposed to be the man to provide the leadership for the whole nation, but had instead sat in his chair and gone into a fugue over the loss of his sister’s body. And as for Borneheld…he had always harboured doubts about Priam’s wisdom in appointing the untested Borneheld as WarLord, and Borneheld’s behaviour today had only deepened them. Jorge shifted his gaze to Axis, who was relaxed back in his chair, his eyes half-lidded.
    Jorge spoke again into the silence. “BattleAxe. What is the danger?” Let me see just how good he is, he thought to himself.
    “You have said yourself,” Axis replied calmly. “The danger is that Achar is about to be overrun by creatures whom we do not understand and who threaten to break through Gorkenfort’s defences. In a manner of speaking they have already done so.”
    “Yes,” Jorge said, “and I think that—”
    “And furthermore,” Axis continued, over him, “ I think that perhaps Gorkenfort is not the only flashpoint. One of the indications we had that these creatures would renew their attacks was the number of Ravensbundmen migrating down from the north during past weeks. Is it possible that the sightings of strangers about Smyrton, emerging from the Forbidden Valley, is another indication of the same thing? That the creatures who are pushing theRavensbundmen from the north are also pushing the creatures of the forest south from the Shadowsward?”
    Jorge nodded slowly. But Jayme looked anxious and concerned. “But Axis, are not the Forbidden in the Icescarp Alps and the Forbidden in the Shadowsward the same? Are they fighting among themselves?”
    “Or is there something stranger still than the Forbidden, stronger than the Forbidden? More frightening than the Forbidden?” Roland asked.
    “Damn it, we just don’t know!” Jorge was angry with himself as much as anyone else. “We just have no idea what it is that we face. Now, what are we going to do about it?”
    Borneheld slapped the table with his open hand, attracting everyone’s attention. If he had lost his temper earlier, then he appeared cool and decisive now. “We move, and we move fast. Whether or not we face a threat from the Shadowsward or not I have yet to be convinced,” he shot Axis a brief look of simmering ill-will, “but we do know that we face a threat from above Gorkenfort. If these creatures are wanting to move south through Ichtar then they will have to come through Gorken Pass, it is the only way past the River Andakilsa and the Icescarp Alps. There they will run straight into Gorkenfort. Earl Jorge speaks well. This young virgin is not going to run squealing, nor is she going to lift her skirts. We fight, and it is obvious that this winter the battle will be over Gorkenfort. I have moved many units, both of infantry and of cavalry, to Gorkenfort over the past few weeks. That will not be enough. I propose that as it can be organised, and I think it will only take a few days, I will move another seven thousand men to Gorkenfort. And I will move as many of them as I can the fast