Free Pilgrim by Sara Douglass

that you give me. I had a sack, and have lost it. Can you find me a small hessian sack? I swear I do feel lost without it at my belt.”
    And he grinned at Zared’s and Faraday’s bemused faces.
    Far, far away he stood on the blasted plain, wondering where his master was. Last night he’d dreamed he’d heard his voice, dreamed he felt him on his back. Was there a use for him, after all? No, no-one wanted him. He was too old and senile for any use. His battle-days were behind him. His legs trembled, and he shuddered, and the demonic dawn broke over his back.

7
The Emperor’s Horses
    T hey sat, arms about each other, under the relative privacy of a weeping horstelm tree. Outside the barrier of leaves moved Banes and Clan Leaders, whispering, consulting, fearing.
    Isfrael, Mage-King of the Avar, lifted a hand and caressed Shra’s cheek. She was still handsome in her late fifties, and even if the bloom of youth had left her cheeks, Isfrael continued to love her dearly. She was the senior Bane among the Avar—had been since she was a child—but she was beloved to him for so many other reasons: she was his closest friend, his only lover, his ally, his helper, and he valued her above anything else in this forest, even more than the Earth Mother or her Tree.
    When Isfrael’s father, Axis, had given his son into the Avar’s care when Isfrael was only fourteen, it had been Shra who had inducted him into the clannish Avar way of life, and into the deep mysteries of the Avarinheim and Minstrelsea forests and the awesome power of the Earth Tree and the Sacred Groves. She had made him what he was, and he owed her far more than love for that.
    “Can you feel them?” she whispered.
    “Yes.”
    He trembled, and she felt the shift of air against her face as he bared his teeth in a silent snarl. “ Demons now think to walk this forest!”
    She leaned in against him, pressing her face against the warmth of his bare chest. “Can we—”
    “Stop them?” Isfrael was silent, thinking. He pulled Shra even closer against him, stroking her back and shoulder.
    “Who else?” he whispered.
    “WingRidge said that—”
    “WingRidge said many things. But what has the StarSon done to help. Nothing… nothing. The Avar have ever had to fend for themselves.”
    “Can we stop them?”
    “We must try. Before they get too strong.”
    Shra laughed softly, humourlessly. “They are strong enough now ! Did they not break through the wards of the Star Gate? Isfrael—those wards were the strongest enchantment possible! Made of gods, as well as of the trees, earth and stars!”
    “The Demons used Drago’s power to break those wards.”
    They sat unspeaking a while, thinking of the implications of Isfrael’s words.
    Then Isfrael trembled again, and Shra leaned back. His face was twisted into a mask of rage—and something else.
    Nausea.
    “Their touch within the trees desecrates the entire land!” Isfrael said. “I cannot stand by and let them stride the paths unchallenged. And see, see. ”
    His hand waved in the air before them, and both saw what ran the forest paths.
    “See what abomination they have called forth,” Isfrael whispered. “I must act.”
    The seven beasts snorted and bellowed, hating the shade that dappled their backs underneath the trees. They ran as fast as they dared. Their escort had not entered the forest with them, and they were fearful without the comforting presence of the Hawkchilds. So they ran, and as they ran the trees hissed and spat, trying to drive these abominations from the paths of Minstrelsea.
    But something more powerful—and more fearsome—than the trees pulled the beasts forward.
    Mot lifted his head, and laughed. “They come!” he cried, and the Demons rose as one from the rubble where they had been waiting.
    StarLaughter scrambled to her feet, her lifeless child clutched tight in her arms.
    “What comes?” she said. They’d been waiting here for days, and although the Demons had waited