Free Pilgrim by Sara Douglass Page A

calmly, StarLaughter had been almost beside herself with impatience. Her child awaited his destiny—and all they could do was sit amid the ruined Barrows. This was all they had come through the Star Gate for? She lifted her head. Something did come, for she could hear the distant pounding of many feet.
    There was a movement beside her, and Sheol rested a hand on StarLaughter’s shoulder.
    “Watch,” she said, and as she spoke something burst from the forest before them.
    StarLaughter’s eyes widened as the creatures approached and slowed into a thumping walk. She laughed. “How beautiful!” she cried.
    “Indeed,” whispered Sheol.
    Waiting at the foot of the pile of rubble were seven massive horses—except they were not horses at all for, although they had the heads and bodies of horses, their great legs ended not in hooves, but in paws.
    StarLaughter thought she knew what they were. When she’d been alive—before her hated husband, WolfStar, had thought to murder her—she’d heard Corolean legends of a great emperor who had conquered much of the known world. This emperor had a prized stallion, as black as night, which had been born with paws instead of hooves.
    The stallion had been as fast as the wind, according to legend, because his paws lent him cat-like grace and swiftness, and he was as savage as any wild beast, strikingout with his claws in battle, and dealing death to any who dared attack his rider. No wonder the emperor had managed to conquer so much with such a mount beneath him.
    And here seven waited. Tencendor would quail before them.
    Seven, one for each of the Demons, one for her—and one, eventually, for her son.
    “DragonStar,” she whispered, cuddling her child close, and started down the slope.
    They rode north-west through the forest through the night, heading for Cauldron Lake. The Demons leading, StarLaughter, her child safe in a sling at her bosom, behind them. They rode, but it was not a pleasant ride.
    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 withhorns 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