The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,104

flanked by gerants bearing iron swords. Dozens of his followers came behind him, knocking aside the longer icicles to make room. Despite their numbers they looked nervous. A curious mix of nervous and excited.

In one hand Pome carried an iron rod shorter and thicker than the one he used to carry, and in it a star larger than the one he had ceded to Yaz. The new star burned a deep crimson, not unlike the hunters’ stars, and filled the chamber with bloody light, making red and dripping spears of the icicles about him.

A fault in the rock split the cavern floor, a gap of a yard or more yawning between the two factions, ice-clad on either side. It could be spanned easily enough but it stood as a barrier to keep them apart, a physical representation of the solemn oaths of truce sworn by Pome and Arka.

Pome came forward. To either side of him a gerant with a great square shield stood ready to deflect possible spears, and crouched before him a hunska with shaved head and ugly scar, as if he thought he might knock aside any missile from the air. Yaz paid more attention to the star Pome held. Its heartbeat was much louder and deeper than she had expected it to be.

“Does my word mean so little, Pome?” Arka approached the opposite edge of the chasm without any guards to hand.

“We’ll see what it’s worth.” The crimson light of his star pinked Pome’s teeth as though he might have bitten his tongue.

“You requested this meeting . . .” Arka spread her hands as if granting the man permission to speak.

“I demanded it.” Pome’s smile was a savage thing. “This farce is coming to an end, Arka. I have all the forge, the settlement, most of the groves. And you have . . . a huddle of caves. Tarko is gone. The Tainted are coming—they must know of our weakness. Who will lead us against them? You, Arka? If you were fit for such duty then you would be winning. You wouldn’t be hiding in the drying cave with a handful of children and dreamers.”

Yaz felt his voice pull at her even as the words themselves grated across her. If Pome had ever mastered wisdom or kindness, or even some semblance of the two, then he would have been unstoppable. Fortunately his unpleasant nature shone through sufficiently to weaken the glamour of his voice.

“What do you want, Pome?” Arka sounded weary. “If all it took to make you king were talking then you would have been on your throne long ago.”

“The Tainted will attack. You know this. Theus has waited years for this moment. Decades.”

“And you have given it to him, Pome. Should we praise you for that? Are you proud?

“Are you so proud, Arka, that rather than standing with me, united with the Broken, you would keep up this resistance against a thing that has already happened and let the Tainted claim us all?”

Arka shook her head, striding along her side of the divide. “How then would King Pome defend us? He has killed our best ice-worker, left some of our finest warriors dead or injured. All for what? So we can engage in open warfare with the Tainted when we stand at our weakest.”

Pome looked past Arka to those who stood behind her. “I’m told that the girl you thought you’d lost in the city has returned . . .” His eyes hunted Yaz in the gloom.

“Yaz?” Arka’s voice betrayed surprise. Pome had a spy in her camp. “What does this—”

“Give her to me. Give her to me and return to the fold. Those above have demanded her!”

Arka barked a laugh. “You don’t talk to the priests, Pome! And what would they want with Yaz?”

“The regulator demands her. And in exchange he has worked a miracle that will see the Tainted laid in ruin!” Pome’s grin was a huge and bloody thing now.

Somewhere behind him came a rumbling, a grinding of metal and stone. Icicles began to fall in droves, tinkling as they broke against each other, crashing on the floor below. A shape larger than any gerant