The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,167

in the Sky!” She raised her hands in the “why me?” gesture the Ictha used.

A lithe figure was racing across the city ruins at speed, leaping pits and swerving around the few girders in his way.

“It’s Zeen!” Yaz clambered up onto more exposed rock. “Let him through!” She could see now that Quell and two of the Broken were also running back, though they had yet to reach the halfway point on the long slope.

Zeen came in faster than Yaz had ever seen anyone run, his feet flickering against the stone. He tamed his speed but still crashed into her and hung in her arms for a moment, panting. “Pome’s coming.” He hauled in a breath. “With everyone.” Another breath. “And his hunter.”

Yaz stepped away from her brother to watch the other three approaching, Quell in the lead. She shook her head. Half a day would probably have seen them all gone. A few more hours maybe. But no, it all had to come crashing in right now. Maybe it was better this way. The shame of leaving the others to face Pome alone would have been hard to carry across the ice.

“Take your positions,” Arka shouted. “Stay hidden until my mark.” She lowered herself to her chest behind an outcrop of the more stubborn rock that the Missing had poured their foundations from. In her left hand an iron spear, no different from the one that had seen Petrick fall from the bridge or the one that had slain Jerrig, the huge and gentle harvester.

Kaylal hunkered down beside Arka, clutching a short sword from his own forge. Without legs, though, he was unlikely to last long in the coming fight. His fierce determination lent a new aspect to the beauty the gods had given him. He met Yaz’s eyes for a moment. Memories of Exxar haunted his stare, though whether it was revenge driving him or the desire to join his lover Yaz couldn’t say.

Quell found cover thirty yards ahead of them. The two with him vanished into the city through a jagged crack. The first of Pome’s force were just coming into view at the top of the long slope. Four slim, dark-haired hunskas, fast enough to stand a chance against ambush and perhaps to dodge spears thrown from cover. They advanced in scurries, one moment a blur of motion, the next motionless save for their heads scanning for threats.

Gerants came behind them, bundled in skins and armour plates. Too many of them but not nearly as many as she had feared. She remembered lots more. Surely Arka’s followers hadn’t killed them?

Bexen led from the centre of the front line. The distance was too great for Yaz to see his milky eye but his size marked him. He bore a round shield on his arm and in the other hand a sword as long as Yaz was tall. It might still have Exxar’s blood on it. They came on swiftly, not running but with a rapid stride, as if eager to get on with what would surely be the last battle of this insurrection.

The hunter loomed behind the first rank, dwarfing even Bexen. Yaz wondered that it didn’t lead the way in. Perhaps Pome valued it above his human servants. The thing looked ill-fashioned, a brutal and graceless collection of iron. On one side three arms ended in serrated blades, on the other side two slightly heavier and longer arms, one sporting a six-foot spike and the other ending in a blunt-fingered hand of banded metal that looked capable of crushing rocks.

Pome sheltered behind the hunter, betrayed by glimpses of the glowing star in his hand. Others of his band followed on, many of them the younger and the older members of the Broken who had been swept into Pome’s orbit and had found themselves unable to leave it without help.

Yaz’s heart was beating as fast as if she’d been sprinting alongside Zeen. They could fight them here or run into the city and be hunted there, but either way it would be bloody. She found herself as scared as at any point since her fall. There had been no time to think when she faced Hetta or the hunters, but now, watching the approach of people who were ready to kill