The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,153

gerant before him, arm twisted behind his back, Zeen behind him, more or less dragged along, both of them struggling and howling.

Kao and Zeen’s protests were echoed by screams and roars from further back in the black ice. The wild cacophony seemed to be getting louder and closer very swiftly, as if the din were racing ahead of a Tainted mob. The black throats of the nearest cave mouths redoubled the sounds before throwing them out into the ravine, drowning out the complaints of the hidden waters. Yaz worried that it wouldn’t be long before they vomited forth the demon-possessed horde responsible for the noise.

Thurin stumbled and slipped. Yaz caught his arm, holding him from the fall. He flinched her off and staggered forward, reaching the ice bridge in ten more steps, each of them looking to be the last before he pitched into the chasm. He stood now at the start of the bridge fighting halfheartedly for balance like a lone tent pole victimised by the wind.

Another scream tore the air behind Yaz. Something in the swiftly diminishing wail dragged her attention away from Thurin. She turned to see with horror that where Erris had been holding Kao and her brother he now held only the gerant and a handful of torn skins. As the shock held Yaz paralysed, the first of the pursuing Tainted began to leap, whooping, from the nearest cave mouths.

“No!” Yaz stood locked in place. It was as though the regulator had pushed Zeen into the pit all over again. “No!”

“Yaz! Move!” Erris shoved Kao ahead of him. The gerant came forward, grinning hugely as if her anguish were the sweetest feast, laid out for him to savour. “Hurry!”

Behind Erris the first of the Tainted were running along the ledge, careless of their safety.

“Yaz!” Erris shouted again, more desperately. He got close enough for Kao to lunge at her and try to knock her into the ravine.

With a scream wholly unequal to the task of expressing what she felt Yaz turned and hurried to the bridge. Thurin was still standing on the ice just at the start of the arc that spanned the ravine. He stood with his feet inches from the edge, still hunched and leaning forward, staring into the nothingness beneath him. Yaz reached him and tried to bundle him forward without knocking him over or unbalancing him into the fall. She found his body as stiff as if it had been frozen, every muscle rigid.

Zeen was gone. Zeen! Vanished like Petrick into the dark fall. She tried to force it from her mind but the image of Erris’s hand clutching only torn skins refused to go.

Over the whooping of the Tainted rapidly closing on the bridge Yaz imagined she could hear Theus’s mocking laughter. She’d lost her brother despite all her efforts. Thurin was a broken-minded ruin that probably couldn’t feed or clean himself, and all she had was Kao, who she felt bound to only by a grudging sense of duty.

“Yaz!” Erris had caught her up again, forcing Kao ahead of him onto a bridge that they had once worried might not hold them singularly and now held four of them.

A spear sliced the air between them, shockingly fast, swallowed by the chasm. Yaz hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t even seen it carried among the Tainted. She shouted again, a mix of rage, fear, and frustration, then grabbed Thurin to bodily manhandle him along the bridge. At the same time she willed her orbiting star to blaze, hoping to drive back any Tainted who might join them on the bridge. Behind her, panicked or hurt by the starlight, Kao redoubled his efforts to break free, even if it meant leaping from the bridge.

Thurin remained as if frozen, just a deep moan escaping him as she tried to carry him forward. He seemed unreasonably heavy and her efforts to move him slackened the light that she could drive from the star. With a grunt she managed to shift him a few inches across the slick ice. She saw something at the corner of her eye, a pale something where nothing should be. Expecting a spear to impale her at any moment she allowed herself a glance.

“Zeen!”

There, yards