The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,110

question.” Petrick twirled his sword on its point. “I just followed you. All I know is that Yaz wants her brother back and is scarily determined to do it. And since I just saw her turn Pome’s own personal priest-given hunter against him, she’s someone I want to stay close to. But marching straight in there is crazy. Unless Zeen happens to be the first of the Tainted to rush us we’ve got no chance.”

“So how did Thurin get rescued if this is all so impossible?” Quina asked.

“His mother, Arka, and some of the warriors spent a long time stalking Tainted through the margins, the edge of their territory where there are areas with just about enough light to see in. Eventually they got lucky and found him on his own. And they still didn’t manage to get clear without a fight.”

“We don’t have time for that . . .” Yaz felt the beginnings of despair. She was risking all their lives and the chances of success seemed slim to none.

“I know a way.” Thurin started off along the tunnel into the darkness. Yaz could hear strain in his voice as though he were fighting some internal battle. “I can get us to the melting pools. There are places to hide, and the Tainted come there on their own mostly, dragging ice.”

“But the light,” Petrick said. “They’ll see us before—”

“I don’t need to see to get us there.” Thurin stared down at his hands as if the admission shamed him. “I was one of them for more than a year. And most of the Tainted can hardly see in the dark. They feel their way. Only the ones with really strong demons are able to see far without light, and then only if the demon moves into their eyes.”

Yaz set off after Thurin dogged by guilt at expecting the others to follow, and knowing that if she paused too long to think things through she would retreat into indecision. Quell followed, and one by one so did the rest, drawn into the darkness by the bonds between them, the desire not to be alone, and the lack of options.

“Hide the star.” Thurin’s voice came to Yaz from the gloom ahead, harsh with strain.

She quieted the star until it gave nothing but a glimmer of the sea at evening, then concealed it in her skins. “Everyone take hold of the person ahead of you,” she hissed, and reached out to find Thurin even as Quell took a firm grip on her belt.

“Stay calm,” Petrick hissed as he followed the others. “The demons find their way in most easily when you’re angry. Any flaw can be exploited: cruelty, jealousy, hate. But anger’s the hardest to avoid.”

Without talking now they walked blind into the Tainted’s caverns. Of all of them, Thurin at the front and Petrick at the rear must have known the most fear, Thurin in particular returning to a nightmare already experienced. And Petrick having lived for years with this threat and tales of the waiting horrors. But all of them were scared. No one walks blind into a night haunted by creatures like Hetta without fear.

* * *

IMAGINATION TURNED EVERY drip of meltwater and every groan of the ice into the approach of a monster. Yaz tried to dispel the feeling that Zeen was watching her, a twisted thing now, infested by demons that had wrung his flesh into new forms. The noise of the others behind her, their muffled footsteps, the breath drawn into their lungs, all of it combined to give the impression that the Tainted were gathering around them, corralling them, an awful hunger on their grinning faces.

The Tainted’s territory seemed quite extensive. They stumbled on for what might have been a mile. Yaz tried not to brush against the ice. She could feel the hate emanating from it. Sometimes there were bands of anger, lust, or greed, but an ancient malice ran beneath all of these, the only constant. The menace of it wore at her and stray thoughts that were not her own crept across her mind. Given time she knew that this place would wear her down, get inside her.

* * *

“WE’RE HERE.” THURIN’S voice sounded different when he whispered. His breath