more magic really change us that much?” Ozll said. “Wouldn’t we be just as foul as River Angels, if more beautifully so? Wouldn’t we really prefer to be something other than foul, and murderous?”
Now thoroughly discomforted, many of the Skraelings wondered if they might murder Ozll, just to shut him up.
“Can’t we just make a decision one way or the other?” one of them muttered.
“We need to make the right one,” Ozll said, and everyone sighed, a great gust of regret and self-loathing that whispered over the plains of the central Outlands.
Chapter 15
Elcho Falling
For a long, long moment Axis did not know what to think or how to react. Then it struck him through his fugue of shock that Inardle’s face did not exhibit terror so much as resigned desperation.
“Inardle?” Axis said. He still could not think correctly. What was she doing curled up so tight in this ball of ice? His hands slipped a little on the ice and, as they did so, the ball turned over in the water. Axis continued to roll it over.
Inardle was wound so tight Axis wondered if she could move at all. She was curled almost into a foetal position, her wings wrapped about the front of her body. He turned the ball a little further, his breath hissing out softly between his teeth as he saw that Inardle’s spine was streaked with blood. The blood had melted a little into the ice, imparting a rosy hue to most of Inardle’s back.
Axis wondered if this was yet another of Inardle’s tricks.
He was so sick of her tricks.
Surely she wouldn’t try this one again. Poor Inardle. Trapped and in pain, needing Axis to rescue her.
“Inardle?” he said again. Then, Inardle?
Nothing. He’d rolled the ball of ice completely around and again he looked into Inardle’s ice-warped face. Axis ran his fingers over the ice, sensing it not only with his physical senses, but with his Enchanter powers as well.
This was a powerful hex.
Well, Axis hadn’t expected much else. It wasn’t as if Inardle had somehow got herself melted accidentally into a giant hailstone during the mayhem, was it?
It was a Lealfast hex. Axis could feel that much. And more . . . there was more than the power of the Star Dance here. Magi power perhaps, or threads woven from Infinity.
Axis still didn’t know what to do. Inardle was alive, he could see her blink occasionally. He supposed he couldn’t leave her here.
He also didn’t know how he felt. Anger, mostly, he decided after some reflection. What was she up to now? Why was she always such a bother?
Buried very, very deeply was a little fright on her behalf and that made Axis even angrier. He didn’t want to feel frightened for her.
Axis sat back on his haunches on the unsteady reed bed, thinking. He couldn’t leave her here, but he was certain he couldn’t do much about the ice hex, either. Could Isaiah break it? Isaiah had healed Inardle from the poison, using the water element so strong in her body . . . he might be able to fix this, too.
Isaiah? Axis called.
Eleanon had moved a little closer to Elcho Falling from the mountain retreat where waited the rest of the Lealfast Nation, but not so close he would be noticed by Axis’ eagle which circled high over the citadel.
He’d have to do something about that eagle, sooner or later.
But the eagle was not Eleanon’s immediate concern. The juit birds were.
They were a terrible, crucifying nuisance.
Eleanon suspected them of some magical power, but they didn’t even have to use that against the Lealfast. All they ever need do was to repeat their manoeuvre during the battle the day past — rise up in their millions into the air — and they’d batter any Lealfast out of the sky who happened to be above them.
The juit birds would have to go. And, in the going, Eleanon was going to teach Isaiah and everyone else within Elcho Falling a terrible lesson.
They were not in control.
Eleanon was.
He was already invisible. Now he settled himself on the ground an hour’s flight from Elcho Falling, staring with his bright, power-enhanced eyes toward the citadel.
Ice crept up his spine and frost encased his entire being outlining him to any curious eyes nearby.
Eleanon was talking to the Dark Spire.
Axis pushed the ice ball through the water with one hand while trying to paddle with the other.
He was in a foul temper. The ice ball kept bobbing back at him and