The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,19

the eldest would hold sway with the wisdom of years. But the man who paced back and forth before the crowd seemed unremarkable save for the darkness of his skin, which gleamed blacker than the rock itself, something Yaz had never seen even among the many tribes of the gathering. Even his head gleamed, lacking any hair. “We are your family now and we have all fallen here. We are the unwanted, the things of such little use that they are thrown away. We are what is beyond repair. We are the Broken.”

“The Broken!” The name rang in dozens of mouths.

“I am Tarko. I command here by the will of the Broken. You have questions. We have answers. You are wet, and the cold will kill you long before you starve. We have heat and food. You were given no choice at the mouth of the pit. I give you a choice. A hard choice.” He shrugged and pressed his lips together in apology. “A hard choice, but still a choice. You may join us or . . .” He raised a hand toward the tunnel they had entered by. “Or make your own way.”

Tarko watched them, the handful of shivering southerners, and Yaz. She glared back at him, boiling with her fury at . . . everything . . . and as angry at having nothing and no one to blame as she was at the rest of it. A short silence reigned. Yaz felt the pressure of many eyes upon her, and still Tarko held his arm toward the dark tunnel.

“No?” His arm fell. “Then welcome, brothers and sisters.” Tarko turned his gaze on the rest of Yaz’s new tribe. “Five . . . it is not what we hoped for. A single drop-leader will be sufficient—”

Pome stepped forward, raising his light-stick. “I was first to be selected! Arka and—”

“Arka will be drop-leader for this group.” Tarko singled out the woman who had brought Yaz in.

“This is nonsense.” Pome wasn’t done. A gerant moved to stand at his shoulder, glowering at Tarko, one eye filled with malice, the other milky white. This one looked as if he could crush ice in his fist, the muscles of his arm mounding beneath his furs. “We should have taken the centre pool back. We can’t survive on . . .” He gave Yaz and the others a withering look. “Five.”

“The Tainted are too many—”

“And how many of us will there be in ten years if we gain five each gathering?”

Tarko sighed. “More than if we fight the Tainted for the centre pool each time.” He looked away. “Drop-Leader Arka, dry these wets off and let’s see if they were worth the price we paid.”

* * *

“COME ON, I know where it’s warm.” Arka strode past them and the children hurried after her. Yaz paused, gazing back at the dark entrance that had been the other choice Tarko offered. She watched the Broken, crowding around their leader and around Pome, who had spoken against him, most of them trying to make themselves heard. Some were angry, some stern, but most just looked worried. It seemed that the ripples spreading from the arrival of Yaz and the others had not stopped at the edges of the pools into which they had fallen.

“You, Ictha girl!” Arka called from the rear of the cavern. “Come on!”

Yaz frowned then hurried after the group.

She caught up with the last of them. The girl glanced back and offered a nervous grin. “I’m M-M-Maya.” She stuttered the name past her shivering. Maya, who had said that thing about the stars shining brighter. Beyond the girl a boy more than a head taller than Yaz and broad with it, owning a man’s size but a child’s face, then another also tall but slender.

The cavern narrowed, then widened, then spread to join a maze of other wide, low-roofed caverns. It appeared that the warmth, which eventually found its way out through the Pit of the Missing, created an air gap above the bedrock of between one and five yards, leaving an ice sky above them supported here and there by still-frozen areas. Seams of the dust-like stars mottled the glacial ice above them, providing a faint