The Infinity Gate: Darkglass Mountain: Book Three - By Sara Douglass Page 0,15

Falling itself? Why had Axis been able to use the Star Dance against the Lealfast inside Elcho Falling, but not outside?

Whatever it was, Axis did not have the luxury of solving the mystery during this day. There was nothing but fighting and pushing and shoving and shouting, and desperation to get everyone possible inside Elcho Falling.

Every so often, when he was on the south side of the causeway, Axis would pause to glance over his shoulder, looking further south.

Looking for the Skraelings.

Gods, to have those creatures coming back . . .

By mid-afternoon Axis was stumbling in weariness, as was Ishbel, but both worked relentlessly on the causeway, guiding, shouting, cajoling, pushing men on, on, on, and trying not to fall away from the protection of the covering shields of the Emerald Guardsmen, wincing whenever an arrow penetrated the shield layer and struck a nearby soldier.

“How many more?” Ishbel said to Axis when they met halfway along the causeway. Her voice was toneless with exhaustion, and dark shadows ringed her eyes.

Axis pulled her close to him, and closer under the shields their guardsmen escort held over them. “Go inside, Ishbel. You have done enough.”

She shook her head. “I cannot, you know that. Elcho Falling knows it is under attack. It wants to close the entrance . . . only I or Maxel can at this moment persuade it to remain open and to accept the Isembaardians.”

“Have you heard anything from Maxel?”

Another tired shake of her head. “Nothing, he has been in the Twisted Tower all day, I think.” She gave a tiny smile. “I envy him.”

“Is he in any danger?”

“I have no idea.”

“Ishbel, I think we ought to —”

Axis broke off. There had come a cry above him — not of horror or despair or even anger, but of sheer exultation.

It hadn’t come from any member of the Strike Force.

Axis risked a glance upward through a break in the shield canopy. It was getting dark now, darker than he would have expected for this time of afternoon.

“Stars .” he muttered.

“What is it?” Ishbel said.

Death came a whisper, and then laughter.

“The rest of the Lealfast have arrived,” Axis said, grabbing Ishbel by the upper arm and pushing her forward as fast as he could. “Bingaleal and his fighters. Twenty thousand at least, unless he lost a few thousand somewhere. Shit, Ishbel. Shit. We can’t withstand the kind of barrage they can direct down on us. We have to get inside. Now”

“But there are still many thousands of Isembaardians waiting to cross into Elcho Falling, Axis! We can’t abandon them!”

“We must,” Axis said. “We can’t save them, Ishbel.” He was pushing her forward now, despite her protests, and shouting orders at the Emerald Guardsmen to cover them.

“I’ll get you inside, Ishbel,” Axis said, “then I’ll do what I can for those remaining. You can’t be lost.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Axis. We can’t lose you, either!”

“For all the gods’ sakes, woman,” Axis muttered, “get moving!”

He pushed her bodily through the men in front of them, not caring who he shouldered aside.

The next moment they were cringing close to the ground, pushed there by their Emerald Guard escort as a torrent of arrows stormed down. Axis tried to move, to say something, but then two of the guardsmen collapsed on top of him, dead, and Axis had to struggle to try to dislodge their weight.

Stars! They were still eighty or ninety paces from the entrance to Elcho Falling!

Men were screaming, shouting, dying all about them.

Then, suddenly, stunningly, silence.

Axis dared to push the dead guardsman on top of him to one side and look around, staring in wonder.

All the shields of the soldiers on the causeway, and of those waiting on the shores of the lake, had wondrously lifted into the air and were welded together, with what looked like bands of glowing turquoise, to form an impenetrable canopy above the Isembaardians.

Axis struggled up on one elbow, as did most of the men around him who were left alive.

“Maxel,” Ishbel said, sitting up.

“What?” Axis said. “How?”

“This is Maxel’s doing,” said Ishbel. “He is back from the Twisted Tower.”

“ This,” said an Emerald Guardsman close by, now rising to his feet, “is a memory from the Veins. Lord Maximilian once did something similar there.”

“ This,” said Maximilian, stepping through the scores of men now rising to their feet, “is an adaptation of a trick that Drava, Lord of Dreams, taught me a long, long time ago. Quick now, Axis, look lively. I cannot hold this forever and it