The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,187

wasn’t growing very fast but for someone of such heavy build a drop of even a few feet could hurt.

Before Yaz could answer, Pome snarled and raised his crimson star above his head again. “This is not open for debate,” he roared.

The star flared and with a clanking and a grating of metal on stone, hunters began to emerge from cracks and pits all across the ruins. Three, four . . . half a dozen iron behemoths. Some within the great halo formed by the drift of stars and stardust, some outside it.

Pome shouted, all traces of persuasion gone from his voice. “You will obey the priesthood. All of you. As far as you lot are concerned I am a priest. I rule here now and my word is law.” The wrist that had emerged from his skins as he had raised his arm lay mottled with the stains of demons, not from the black ice, not pieces that the Missing had cut away, but devils of his own making, split from him by the too fierce light of the star that he lacked the skill to properly handle. These were parts of Pome’s madness now given their own voice, their influence all the stronger for it.

The hunters had all emerged now, standing motionless, the red glare of their eyeholes sweeping the crowd for dissent.

Pome focused back on Yaz. “I’ll count to ten. If the others aren’t out of the cage by then and your hands are not presented for Rakka to tie then Bexen will kill the boy.”

He drew a breath. “One. Two.”

Erris reached the bottom of the cage on the outside. Yaz dropped painfully beside Quell on the inside. The gerant, Rakka, more than a foot taller than the dangling Kao, stood below, raising the looped hide strips he would use to bind her hands.

“Three. Four.”

Yaz thrust her hands out through the square gaps in the cage. Rakka had to reach up at arms’ length. He set the loop about her wrists and drew the knot tight, trapping her hands outside.

Erris hung from the bottom of the cage and dropped lightly to the ground.

“Five. Six.”

Thurin hung below the cage. He looked up, despair in his dark eyes even though he had never known the surface. “Yaz . . .” He dropped away, landing less well than Erris and falling to hands and knees at the older man’s feet. The cage jerked, starting to rise faster.

“Seven. Eight.”

Kao hung beneath the cage. His toes nearly a yard above the ground.

“Let go.” Rakka punched him in the stomach.

“Nine.”

“Yaz?” Kao wheezed.

Bexen tightened his grip on Zeen’s neck, a grin cracking his brutal face. Yaz opened her mouth to tell Kao to drop, but a spray of crimson across Bexen’s shoulder stopped her. Something long and thin emerged from just above his collarbone, clearing the top of his breastplate and grazing his chin, coming level with his left eye. That eye and the other one widened. The cruel mouth beneath them went slack. And with a clatter of metal he collapsed, dragging Zeen down with him.

Maya stood revealed behind him, shedding shadows. She climbed over Bexen’s transfixed body before Pome could react and tugged the gerant’s fingers clear of Zeen’s neck.

“Catch him!” Pome roared, but Zeen was away and weaving through the Broken with a hunska’s swiftness.

The six hunters lurched into action as one, their metal feet gouging the stone to accelerate them forward.

Yaz gritted her teeth against the pain that made her head feel like brittle ice waiting to shatter, and with the last effort remaining to her she reached out. The star in Pome’s hand jerked forward. He got both hands on it, braced against the pull . . . and held. Yaz cried out in despair, having no more to give, but a moment later a dark shape rolled from among the nearest onlookers to knock Pome’s feet out from beneath him. Kaylal! The legless smith tried to grapple Pome but Pome managed to keep one hand on the star and it dragged him clear. Devil-darkened fingers refused to release the star even as