The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,47

be bent on saving Zeen, not on childish worries.

The group walked on unspeaking for a while, just the splash of feet, the dripping of meltwater, and the groan of the ice echoing in the caverns. And then a distant roar that froze them in their tracks.

“What was that?” It had seemed to come from behind them.

“Another hunter? From the city?”

“I know what it was,” Petrick muttered.

“Black gods damn it!” Pome started off again, hurrying now.

“What? What was that?” Yaz hissed at Petrick’s back.

“Hetta.”

Yaz went cold, remembering those teeth. “She’s far away though, and we’re close to the settlement?”

“She’s cunning. If you know this place well enough you can use the tunnels to make it sound as—”

A huge shape burst from behind the cover of a rock ridge, diving into their midst. Quina and Petrick moved before Yaz even knew what was happening, both diving clear. Hetta bundled through the rest of them, shouldering Kao aside as though he were nothing, her great hand reaching for Yaz.

“No!”

Thick fingers grazed Yaz’s ribs, catching hold of her coat in a grip that with a better aim could have snagged flesh and bone, crumpling them up as easily as skins.

Yaz threw herself back, twisting. If she’d buttoned and fastened the coat there would have been no escape, but in the heat she wore it loose and open, and now writhed free of it even as Hetta lifted her to slam her against the ice overhead.

She ran then, gasping, outstretching the others around her, panic driving them all.

The sounds of Hetta’s raging fell away behind them and Yaz came to a halt, panting, leaning against the cavern wall. The darkness around them was almost unbroken.

“Why . . . why isn’t she following?” Yaz asked, looking round. “Where’s Pome?”

“Still running.” Petrick raised his arm toward a point of light bobbing away in the distance.

Thurin spat, wiped his mouth, then started to call names. Kao, Yaz, Petrick, and Quina answered when he spoke. “Maya?”

“Is she with Pome?” Yaz asked.

“She couldn’t have run that fast.” Quina shook her dark head. “She’s only little.”

“Hetta has her then,” Kao said.

“If Hetta has Maya, why is she still hunting around back there?” Yaz could see the tainted gerant, the shape of her black against the faint glow of the ice, striding back and forth, kicking through the drifts of stones.

“The girl must be hiding,” Thurin said.

“Well, that won’t work for long. Hetta will sniff her out. She can find you in the dark, that one.” Petrick shivered.

Only when Thurin caught her shoulder did Yaz realise she was starting to walk back toward the raging gerant. “Are you mad? She’ll tear you apart!”

“I was afraid to die once, and it killed someone.” Yaz shook Thurin’s hand from her arm. If she had owned up to her defect at the first gathering someone stronger would have been beside her youngest brother when he needed help and her parents would have Azad with them on the ice today.

“What can you do against Hetta?” Quina shouted after her.

“Finish what I started.” Yaz kept on walking, breaking into a jog now. Her certainty was fading as the black shape grew larger and memory painted detail onto darkness. She wished she had her knife, or better still one of the iron weapons she’d seen the warriors carrying.

“Slow down.” Thurin came up on her right. “We need a plan.”

“Keep stabbing her till she falls over?” Petrick caught up on her left, an iron dagger glimmering in his fist. Some might call Petrick ugly, his face too narrow, mouth too wide, nose long and crooked from some old break. But when he smiled, as he often did, the unbalanced collection of his features found its purpose and he became someone Yaz wanted as a friend.

“Good plan,” she said.

More footsteps behind Yaz: Kao’s heavy tread and Quina’s quick patter. Neither looked eager but perhaps something of her own determination had struck an echo inside