her shoulder and focused on the great dark mass rushing at her out of the tunnel’s gloom she could finally hear the rush of its footsteps. The cannibal gave a bloodcurdling roar. This time, rather than freezing Yaz to the spot the roar galvanised her and she ran, sprinting along the edge of the cavern where the faint illumination might at least warn her of rocks large enough to trip her or to turn an ankle on.
Wounded foot or not the huge woman came after Yaz with terrifying speed, fuelled by rage and pain, devouring the yards in great strides. The monstrosity pounded ever closer, narrowing the gap between them, roaring giving over to a determined silence punctuated by laboured breaths. Soon Yaz could hear nothing but her own gasping for breath and the thunder of her heart.
The ground before her began to rise in a slope of ice-worn shingle, channelled and heaped by some ancient flow. Yaz started to scramble up. The shifting stones sucked away the last of her strength and she slowed to a crawl. Behind her the giant followed, sounding like an avalanche.
“Hey!” A voice from somewhere in the gloom. “Hey! Up here!”
Yaz glanced around wildly but saw nothing.
“Here! Catch the line!”
Yaz swung her head and saw something dangling to her left. A rope! And high up on it a clot of darkness hung. A person! She veered toward them but in that moment the cannibal made a last desperate lunge and fastened a hand about Yaz’s leg, encompassing it from the ankle almost to the knee.
For a second both of them lay there, sprawled on the slope of shifting stones, too winded to do anything but pant. Yaz found the energy to struggle only once she felt herself being hauled back toward her enemy. She rolled onto her side and looked down. Close up the giant was still more fearsome; the charnel stink of her filled Yaz’s lungs. The ink-black stain across her face seemed to have moved, forming a band across her eyes now, stark against pale but grimy skin. The woman’s gaping mouth began to descend toward Yaz’s thigh, the points of her teeth gleaming wetly. Feeding on Yaz rather than finishing her off seemed to be the priority. Whether it was hunger or cruelty that drove the cannibal Yaz didn’t know but she clearly intended to eat her alive.
Yaz grabbed a rock and hammered it down, not on the fingers but on the nerve cluster in the wrist. Quell had shown her the trick years before. Yaz struck home with all her strength and with a wordless prayer to the Gods in the Sea. She yanked her leg free just as those jaws snapped shut inches from it, and rolled away.
The rope hung less than ten yards off, vanishing up into the gloom. The figure on it had gone. Yaz ran, knowing even as she did that she wouldn’t have time to climb high enough before the giant hauled her down.
She grabbed the rope, a crude thing of twisted hide strips studded with knots, and turned to check her opponent. To Yaz’s surprise the giant hadn’t advanced. A much smaller figure danced around her, throwing fist-sized stones. The missiles seemed only to annoy the giant but when she lurched toward her assailant the boy just danced away. His speed and timing were breathtaking.
“Climb!” A girl’s voice, high above. “Bring the rope with you!”
Yaz reached up, taking hold just above a large knot, and began to climb. It was not something she had done before. The ice tends to be flat. But fortunately the Ictha are strong and what she lacked in technique she replaced with muscle power. A short way off the ground Yaz reached down, groaning as her bruised body complained, and grabbed a lower section of the rope to tuck into her belt. Then, bringing it with her, she continued upwards. She had to assume the boy had another means of escape. If he could run as swiftly as his dodging implied then the giant would have no chance of keeping pace.
* * *
YAZ REACHED THE top of the rope in darkness. For some yards she had been climbing alongside an ice wall, presumably a vertical shaft in the roof of