snorted, recovering some of his composure. ‘Of course you were, you lying sack of—’
‘I was born here.’
‘How long do we have to stay here?’ Kao had been pacing for what seemed like hours. One pace, two pace, turn. One pace, two pace, turn.
‘I don’t know.’ Thurin had given the same reply the last several times and it didn’t seem to stick.
‘Try sitting,’ Yaz suggested from where she sat.
Kao made no reply. He seemed more scared of the narrowness of the space confining him than of the hunter outside. And he had been pretty scared of that. Yaz didn’t blame him there. No amount of muscle is going to make a difference against a creature of iron with knives for claws. But fear of enclosed spaces was not something the Ictha knew. Anyone who couldn’t spend three months inside a tent would not last long among her people.
Outside, the grinding continued as it had continued the whole time.
‘Will it dig its way to us?’ Maya asked, eyes wide in the darkness.
Yaz would have said no, nothing could, but the sounds did seem to have grown louder, as if the beast were actually making progress. Certainly when it reached in every so often its claws seemed to scrape the rock much closer to their hiding place each time. Either it was burrowing through ice at a remarkable rate or its limbs were growing longer!
‘The others will come,’ Yaz said. ‘Quina will have told them.’
‘Unless that thing got her,’ Kao said.
Yaz shook her head. ‘Then Arka would have sent someone to check on us already. Arka said we should hurry.’
‘They’ll all know by now,’ Thurin agreed. ‘One way or the other.’
‘So they come and find us and …’ Yaz still marvelled that they were being attacked by a mass of iron that would outweigh all the metal owned by even the largest of clans. Her life could soon be ended by a sharp-edged heap of treasure of incalculable value. ‘How do you beat these things?’
‘We don’t. We hide and eventually they go away.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘Then someone draws them off. But they always go away in the end, and if you can make it to the long slope they hardly ever follow you past the gateposts.’
‘So … why hasn’t someone drawn it off?’ Maya asked. Now that they were in real trouble she sounded perfectly calm, no sign of the wide-eyed nervous girl from before.
Thurin didn’t speak for a moment, and then, as if deciding on honesty, ‘I guess they’ve tried to draw it off but it just wants us more than it wants them. Sometimes that happens. It’s one of the reasons you won’t see many grey hairs among the Broken.’
Kao stopped pacing. ‘I’ve got to get out,’ he muttered to himself as if it were a sudden realization. ‘Got to get out.’ He fell to his hands and knees and began to crawl to the gap.
‘Don’t be stupid.’ Thurin grabbed the boy’s shoulder and tried to haul him back. He made almost no difference against Kao’s strength but the boy lashed out anyway, sending Thurin flying back into the wall of the chamber.
Yaz stepped between Kao and the gap just before he could enter it. ‘That thing out there will tear you apart!’
Kao showed no signs of having heard her. Somehow his fear of being trapped in such close confines had overwhelmed his fear of the hunter. He jumped to his feet with a strangled cry and reached to grab Yaz as though intending to toss her aside too. Bracing herself against the wall she caught both his wrists. The boy growled and tried to fasten his hands on her shoulders. He stood well over six feet, his arms heaped with muscle, and his strength was frightening.
‘What?’ Kao grunted with effort and pressed down even more forcefully.
Yaz ground her teeth, breathing heavily and held him where he was, hands just inches from closing on her. In the main chamber a great crash rang out.
‘How … are … you … doing … this?’ He eased the pressure, amazed.
A pained laugh rang out behind them, Thurin back on his feet, clutching his side. ‘She’s of the Ictha. The northmen are a different breed.’
‘Listen!’ Yaz let go of Kao’s wrists. A second great crash sounded outside along with an unearthly howl more chilling than any the wind ever made. The light dimmed, nothing but the faint glow of the surrounding ice reaching them.
‘It’s not normally like this.’ Thurin’s voice sounded beside her, closer than she had thought he was. ‘Even when hunters do leave the city they stick to the fringes. I’ve never heard of one this far in. We’re practically at the settlement.’
Yaz shrugged, trying to offset his worry. ‘This sort of thing has been pretty normal for me lately.’ The hunter scared her less than Hetta had, though it looked even harder to overcome. Somehow it was Hetta’s hunger that terrified her more than iron claws and spikes.
‘Ha.’ Thurin snorted. They faced each other, just two handwidths between them but still not close enough to make out each other’s expression.
‘It’s stopped.’ Maya crouched low and peered through the gap. ‘It’s gone!’
Kao bent to join the girl but Yaz turned from Thurin and shoved him back with a grunt. ‘It could be a trick. We wait!’
Kao straightened but thought better of testing his strength against hers again. Yaz was glad of that. Her arms hurt. She had always been told the Ictha were stronger than the southern tribes but had thought it meant only that they could endure the cold better. However strong the Ictha might be, though, Yaz knew that a couple years more growing would see Kao able to brush her aside without effort.
‘What’s going on out there?’ She directed the question at Maya, still on her belly looking out.
‘I can only see ice. The way out’s blocked. But I hear digging.’
‘The monster?’
‘I don’t think so …’
The four of them waited, crouched and ready, listening to the crunch of ice, quieter and less violent than it had been before.
‘Halooo?’ A woman’s voice from outside.
This time nobody stood in Kao’s way as he threw himself at the gap and began to wriggle out beneath the ice.
The rest of them followed, Thurin bringing up the rear. Many hands reached to help them from the mass of crushed ice mounded around the base of the wall. Yaz rose to find herself surrounded by the Broken, scores of them, hulking gerants making their neighbours look like children. Arka led her from the debris as others helped Thurin out. Quina was among them and had taken charge of Maya, brushing fragments from her long brown hair. Pome was there with his star-on-a-stick, others also bearing lights, some holding smaller stars in glass bowls on the end of long poles. Their leader, Tarko, stood among them in hurried conference with a series of his people who took off running once they had their orders.
‘This!’ Pome stepped forward as Thurin stood dusting sparkling fragments from his skins. ‘This is what comes of toying with the Taints! Theus will come for us all. His numbers are growing and we sit back and let him plan our destruction! We leave him to choose when to lead the Tainted against us.’ Pome singled Thurin out, pointing in accusation. ‘Instead of a war to eradicate their kind and take back the drop pools, we capture one of their number and try to cleanse him. Wasting months’ worth of stones and losing a good warrior in the process.’
‘That good warrior was my mother!’ Thurin roared, and about him the crushed ice writhed as though some great serpent