Star Axe Read online

  Table of Contents

  STAR AXE

  LICENSE NOTES

  Meet the Author

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

  STAR AXE

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  Other books

  STAR AXE

  By Duncan McGeary

  A Mystique Press Production

  Mystique Press is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2018 Duncan McGeary

  Original publication by Tower Publications, Inc.—1980

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Duncan grew up and spent most of his life in Central Oregon, the dry side of the Cascades, and whose terrain is featured in many of his books. He wrote several books out of college, including the heroic fantasy novels Star Axe, Snowcastles, and Icetowers. In 1984, he and his wife Linda bought Pegasus Books in downtown Bend, Oregon, which they still own and operate. They also ran a used bookstore, the Bookmark, for 15 years.

  In the last five years, he’s been able to get back to writing again, and found that he has a lot of pent-up creative energy. He’s written numerous books for several different publishers, mostly in the horror or dark fantasy genres, though recently has been branching out into fantasy again, as well as thrillers.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The Tuskers Series

  Tuskers I: Wild Pig Apocalypse

  Tuskers II: Day of the Long Pig

  Tuskers III: Omnivore Wars

  Tuskers IV: Rise of the Cloven

  The Vampire Evolution Trilogy

  Book I: Death of an Immortal

  Book II: Rule of Vampire

  Book III: Blood of Gold

  The Virginia Reed Adventures

  Led to the Slaughter

  The Dead Spend No Gold

  The Darkness You Fear

  Other books

  Star Axe

  Snowcastles & Icetowers

  Snaked

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

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  STAR AXE

  CHAPTER I

  Kenlahar sat in the corner of the Archives fidgeting, while his master browsed the pages of an old and dusty manuscript. The idleness, the unending wait, irked the young apprentice healer. He felt doomed to watch the dust swirl endlessly under the eaves of the stuffy room. Someday the dust might be swept away, he reflected. Someday it might escape out the narrow doorway. Someday an industrious sister might, by chance, venture into the ancient library and sweep the place. More likely, he thought, most of the dust would fly from under her broom and still be hovering long after she left.

  Soon darkness would fall over the island. Kenlahar would be forced to leave the stifling but comfortable tomb of the Archives and walk down the long and drafty corridors to the Courtyard of Moons. There he would be called forward by the solemn Elders to face the Star Axe. And yet, he still did not know what his answer to the inescapable summons of the Axedelve would be. It was not proving easy for someone who was already a pariah to choose between joining the strong and glorious Axe-Kith—or remaining forever alone and outcast.

  Already the smaller, more reassuring sounds of everyday life had abandoned the House of Lahar. A portentous hush filled its many rooms and hallways instead. Downstairs, Kenlahar knew, the other young men were even now preparing for the fateful ceremony. The walls were shaking with the bustle of armed and excited warriors. The floors groaned under the weight of their march.

  But within the Archives the only sounds were the soft rustle of paper on paper as the Healer Coron turned the pages of his book, and the low drumming of rain on the roof. Kenlahar imagined he could even hear the still and continuous settling of the dust. He thought of the Archives as crowded with his friends, for its floors were cluttered with loose piles of familiar parchment, and it was crammed to the roof with shelves of mankind’s histories and fables.

  He watched the old man slowly droop his head in an attempt to read the archaic script in the dying light. He wanted to talk with the Healer Coron, but he had learned to never interrupt the old man while he was reading.

  Instead, Kenlahar stared gloomily out the narrow library window. Ancient and majestic in the dusk, the House of Lahar towered over a forested island set in the middle of the vast, muddy River Danjar. The rambling mass of stone of wood served as the home of an entire people—the descendants of the Starborn God, Lahar; multiplied by a hundred generations. Standing alone in a wilderness of swamps, it glistened and sparkled in the rain-filled sunset. Kenlahar could see almost all of the huge building sprawled over the island.

  The gold on the dome of the Great Hall shone brightly, though the day was dark and overcast. Behind it lay the Courtyard of Moons—usually empty, but now crowded with people waiting for the Axedelve to begin. Around the Great Hall and the Courtyard of Moons, the rest of the structure had been added, decade by decade and room by room. Now, almost the entire island was under one roof.

  The roofs stretched haphazardly downward, and Kenlahar’s eyes followed their twisting contours. Water streamed down a tortuous route of drains. Some of the ramshackle lower roofs, extending, in places, all the way to the river, were hidden entirely by the heavy mists. The river was rising, Kenlahar saw—soon it would be flooding the lower levels of the House of Lahar.

  Suddenly, the Healer Coron stirred himself and lit a dim lamp. As the light slowly changed, Kenlahar caught an image of himself in the dust-coated, rain-splattered window. His dark features and hollowed cheeks were intensified by the troubled frown of his black eyebrows. He winced at this reminder of his swarthy appearance, for it was a constant mark of his difference. He sometimes felt as if he were a small dark shadow among the hulking blond brothers and sisters of the House of Lahar.

  “Healer
Coron?” he ventured.

  The Healer Coron cleared his throat and frowned, but continued to read. The old man acted deeply hurt by Kenlahar’s rejection of his teachings. He seemed to be resolutely ignoring his apprentice.

  Exasperated by his master’s refusal to answer him, Kenlahar sidestepped the strewn books and marched to the window. He forced it open, waving his arms at the cloud of dust and coughing. “Coron!” he shouted.

  Moist air wafted in, lifting scrolls from the Healer Coron’s desk. The old man grabbed ineffectually at the flying paper and stared at his apprentice. “Well?” he demanded. “What is it? This treatise must be examined thoroughly, for it describes a potion I have never before encountered. If I am allowed to discover its contents, I may save someone from great pain. So, out with your question, so I may be done with it!”

  Kenlahar blushed, feeling uncomfortable under the glaring eyes of his master. The Healer Coron’s eyes were dark behind a pair of thick glasses. Magnified and piercing, they stood out in a face the color of faded parchment and laced with wrinkles. Their strangeness had always made it difficult for Kenlahar to judge what the old man was really thinking.

  “I am sorry, Healer Coron,” he said. “It is just that I cannot stand to watch the dust gather any longer. I think you have been here so long you no longer even notice it.”

  The Healer Coron slammed his book shut with a dull thud. “What is really bothering you, Kenlahar?” Despite his forbidding tone, the old man had finally given Kenlahar a chance to say goodbye. He turned confused eyes to his teacher. “Healer Coron, why is it that a healer may not also join the Axe-Kith?”

  “You know the laws of Lahar, Kenlahar,” the old man growled. “A healer of the House of Lahar must have a past free of all bloodshed. Otherwise he weakens—or even loses—his Atima, his Starborn power to heal. You must make a choice, Kenlahar. Only Lahar was both warrior and healer. And remember this, Kenlahar, Lahar valued his Starborn attribute of Atima, far more than his ability to take life. A healer can be worth many, many warriors.”

  “But, Healer Coron, it is the duty of every brother to defend the House of Lahar!” Kenlahar knew that he was only echoing the views of the Elders, and what he heard from the other boys everyday in the Great Hall, every night in the dormitories. But he could not stop himself now. “To feel a good weapon in your handcar is living!”

  “Living—and dying!” the Healer Coron retorted, not bothering to hide his disgust. “Young men tend to forget that the other happens in war, as well. We have fought the Warlord and his minions, the Qreq, for a hundred years, Kenlahar. In all that time we have never been defeated. One more young man in the Axe-Kith will not make much of a difference, but one less healer will.”

  The old man came haltingly from around his desk to place a gnarled hand on the slumped shoulders of his apprentice. “Here is where you belong, Kenlahar. You are not a warrior. You are a healer and a scholar. It is what you have been trained for and what you know best. You would never survive a battle, you know.”

  A blaring of horns, announcing the commencement of the Axedelve, startled them both into silence. Kenlahar was relieved to be saved from further argument, sorry now that he had started the conversation at all. He rose to leave, avoiding the hurt eyes of his master.

  At the door of the Archives the Healer Coron grabbed his apprentice’s arm, pleading one last time. “It is not too late to change your mind, Kenlahar. Please—do not abandon my teachings.”

  Kenlahar did not answer, though he had not yet made up his mind to go through with the Axedelve. In this gloomy silence, the apprentice and his master proceeded into the hollow, deserted corridors. Their shadows loomed between each of the flickering torches ensconced in stonewalls, only to melt again as they passed. Everyone else appeared to be already below in the Courtyard of Moons, in anticipation of the ceremony.

  As they neared the more populated and familiar lower hallways, Kenlahar wondered, as he often had before, just how many people lived in the huge building. Perhaps the Elders knew, but the Elders never told. If someone should be fool enough to try and count the family of Lahar, room by room, he would soon become hopelessly lost in the labyrinth. The tangled maze of halls and rooms had been built with no perceivable order, when and where they were needed. At times of the Axedelve the family might gather in the Courtyard of Moons, but on such occasions no one thought of counting. Kenlahar only knew that, while many of the faces he encountered were familiar, he had never met all the family. Yet—somehow—they had all seemed to know who he was.

  They heard the crowd long before they emerged into the moonlit square. But what Kenlahar saw, appeared at first glance to be frozen tableau of statues. His eyes were drawn to the columns of the Axe-Kith, who blocked the light of the twin white moons called the Sistern. They cast long, even rows of silhouettes upon the walls. Where the blades of their tall spears crested the walls, the harsh glare of Bantling, the red moon, sent jagged shadows stretching across the cobblestones.

  Kenlahar joined the hushed throng of women, children, and old men. But when he looked around for the Healer Coron, the old man appeared to have vanished, swallowed by the crowd. He had apparently decided to let Kenlahar ponder his choice alone. The skies above the island looked as though they would keep the Courtyard of Moons well lit, even after the fall of night. A rainstorm had threatened to draw a curtain of dark clouds over the island, but as the Axedelve began, the skies remained filled with the soft glow of partially eclipsed moons. Only on the northern horizon was there a void—pierced by a single, bright star.

  At the ritual command of the High Elder, the name of the first youth to be initiated into the Axe-Kith was announced. Kenlahar held his breath—but someone else’s name rang through the yard instead. With a mixture of fear and pride, he watched the other youth kneel and bow his head before the Star Axe of Lahar, courting the virgin force of the war charm. The young man stayed unmoving in this cramped posture for long minutes without response. In mounting anxiety, Kenlahar watched him straighten and march back across the Courtyard of Moons. The warrior passed before Kenlahar, looking neither right nor left, and took a position among the phalanxed warriors.

  “Kenlahar!” The grave intonation of his name by the High Elder startled him. Reluctantly, Kenlahar stepped from the security of the crowd and advanced to the dais. His salute to the triumvirate of Elders was quickly affirmed by short nods. He dutifully started to pray to the single star in the northern sky, his dark eyes cast carefully skyward, as if transfixed by the flickering specter of his god’s home. He stood apart and alone, his arms rose high over his head in supplication.

  He cried out as he had seen the others do, as if from deep within a trance. “Hear me! Hear me, Lahar!” His low voice echoed through the giant courtyard and it seemed that at that evocation the Sistern reached their zeniths, creating briefly in the night skies the richness of a noon’s light. Kenlahar knelt as though in reverence before the ancient talisman of the Star Axe where it was embedded at the hilt into the dais.

  Though he kept his face averted, according to custom, he could not prevent his eyes from flashing toward the seeming apparition of the eldritch-hued Alcress. The blade of the ancient battleaxe appeared to be gathering and heightening the radiance in the alcove, and its pocked meteoritic ore glowed with the eerie blue of starlight.

  Kenlahar felt strongly attracted and drawn to Alcress.

  Soon, he was conscious of only the Star Axe’s silver glow, which seemed to be bursting out from the dark red background of the Elder’s robes. Kenlahar experienced a sudden, strange conviction of his right, his privilege—even, his legacy—to possess and wield Alcress. He needed only to kiss the Star Axe of Lahar where it was bound by a crude leather thong to the hardwood haft—and he would be Commander of the Axe- Kith; Master of the House of Lahar!

  Then he shook his head, feeling very foolish for believing that he could succeed where so many generations of warriors had failed. The training of the Healer Coron once again
asserted its power over his thoughts. From somewhere deep inside of himself, the young apprentice summoned the courage to reject the Star Axe.

  As the Elders leaned forward in their thrones expectantly, Kenlahar stepped back from the dais, and turned from the Star Axe. “I have made a mistake,” he said quietly, though words of refusal had never been heard before. “I must decline the Axedelve.”

  He looked around for the Healer Coron’s approval, but the old man was still nowhere to be seen. When Kenlahar tried to rejoin the anonymity of the crowd, they started to draw away from him in contempt, and as the meaning of his words began to be fully understood, there was a hostile grumbling. It was at that moment that the dark rainclouds over the island chose to finally envelop the twin Sistern. In their stead, the red light of Bantling, their detested brother moon, seemed to spread its hex through the square. The apprentice healer thought he could hear the words, “Wraith-taint!”

  The accusation was not new to Kenlahar, nor was the ostracism. But never before had the hostility that had always underlain the tolerance of the family, threatened to burst into violence. As the first cold gusts of rain blew into his face, he felt a dull thud in his side where someone had thrown something or had awkwardly struck him. The quarantine of space around him began to close dangerously. Soon others would join in the buffeting of the heretic, he thought numbly.

  “You dare to deny the Axedelve!” Above the noise of this sudden fury came a shrill, querulous voice. Lightning revealed the tall crooked figure of the Lashitu, shaman of the House of Lahar, pointing an oaken staff from the steps of the Great Hall.

  Kenlahar was unable to summon an answer, and appeared to be standing alone and defiant. The anger in the Lashitu’s craggy visage grew as the seconds passed without an explanation, and he began to open his mouth to stir the still waiting and wrathful crowd.

  “High Elder!” The Healer Coron’s frail shout barely managed to pierce the outcry. “May I address the Council of Elders?”