Battleaxe by Sara Douglass Page A

surrounded Axis like choking smoke.
    He was crying now, crying because of the pain he had caused his mother, crying because she had cursed him, crying because he had never known her.
    “I never wanted you, my son. If I had known she was pregnant I would have torn you from her body myself.”
    “ You are not my father! ” Axis cried, desperate not to believe it, but scared to the depths of his soul that this unspeakable voice was indeed his father. The muscles of his arms and legs bulged as they fought to escape the pressure of the invisible, magical bonds that bound him, but he remained trapped…trapped in this dark unknowable space with his father. A father who hated him.
    “You destroyed your mother, as you will destroy everyone about you. No-one wants you, Axis, no-one loves you. You should be dead instead of your beautiful mother.”
    Scores of dreadful red-hot teeth nibbled at his flesh, tearing strips of skin and muscle away from his body. Not enough to kill quickly, but enough to torture slowly to death. Axis battled with his sanity.
    “See here,” the voice soothed, suddenly solicitous, “my friends will help you. Tasty, tasty.” The voice hardened with hate. “You are an abomination, Axis, you deserve to die. I have come to do what should have been done while you swam in your mother’s womb. Tear you apart…piece by piece.”
    Axis lost control at that point, as he always did, and screamed. It was the only way he knew to escape.
    The scream reverberated about the small chamber and brought Embeth out of her slumber with her heart in her mouth. She sat up and twisted around to Axis, who was rolling about on the bed, covered in sweat, his hands gripping the mattress.
    “No,” he whispered, his eyes wide open and staring at something that Embeth could not see, “you are not my father!”
    Embeth’s heart almost broke. She seized his shoulders, although his violent motions almost threw her off, and shook as hard as she could.
    “Axis! Axis! Wake up. Wake up…it’s all right, my love, it’s all right…wake up!”
    She remembered these dreams from the time he had first come to stay with her and Ganelon as an eleven-year-old. Once or twice a month they had punctuated his sleep, waking both her and Ganelon even though he was bedded down in the attic of their manor house.
    But they had never been this bad…and she thought he had grown out of them. “Axis,” she cried desperately one more time, taking a hand from his shoulders and striking his face. “ Wake up! ”
    Finally he was awake and out of whatever horror had gripped him. He grabbed Embeth’s arms, startled, still desperately afraid, not knowing for a time who she was or where he was.
    “Axis,” she murmured, cradling his head against her breasts, “it’s all right, it’s all right, my love. I am here now, I am here.”
    Axis wrapped his arms about her as tightly as he dared, clinging to the love she represented. For a few moments they rocked back and forth on the bed, the one gently comforting, the other trying to reestablish some grip on sanity.
    Tears streamed down Embeth’s face as she gently stroked Axis’ hair. “Shush,” she crooned, feeling the fear wrack his shoulders, “shush.” After a few minutes Axis pulled away and lay back against the disarranged bedclothes. Embeth said nothing, thinking it better that he speak first.
    Eventually Axis took her hand. “Thank you for being here,” he said softly, and Embeth wondered how many nights he had woken up to face this horror himself.
    “It is the same dream you had as a child,” she prodded.
    He breathed deeply. “Yes. The same, but it has grown worse over the past few months. Infinitely worse.”
    He paused and Embeth stroked his face, feeling the sweat of fear starting to dry on his forehead and in his beard.
    “Why does he hate me so much?” he asked no-one in particular. “Why? I never asked to be born. How can it be my fault? Embeth?”
    “Yes?” Fleetingly, Embeth