The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,81

move toward it, weaving her way between trees, warding off their scratching fingers, stumbling as the ground itself tried to snare her with gnarled roots that looped and twisted before plunging into black soil.

The wind at Yaz’s back slackened and turned colder, the air becoming brittle with frost as the temperature fell. Swaying branches stilled. Traceries of ice began to wrap the trunks and still the lamp’s light seemed to get no closer.

It grew colder still, not a breath of wind now. The ground’s softness turned to iron. Branches shattered as Yaz knocked them aside, running now and not knowing why. Slanting shadows painted the forest. Behind her a sun rose, its light whiter than the sun she knew, and where it should give heat it took it instead. The white light saturated the forest, wrapping dead trees in ice. This was a cold even an Ictha could respect. Far behind her came a loud retort, then closer at hand, much louder, a thick tree cracked open with shocking violence, spitting fragments of frozen bark, surrendering to the pressures of the ice expanding within it.

Suddenly the hut was there before her, the single lamp hanging before a wooden door that opened as she drew near.

“Hurry.” A thin, dark-haired man waved her in. He glanced about at the trees, a nervous quickness to him.

The interior of the hut seemed smaller than the building in all dimensions, as if the plank walls of the rough shack were a yard thick. The man heaved the door closed as though it weighed many times what he did, and joined her at a tiny table before a small but fierce fire.

“You made it then.” He seemed surprised, watching her from dark, intelligent eyes set in a face pinched up into a prominent nose. His age was hard to determine. Not young. Maybe not old. Well-preserved. His eyes were old though.

“Who are you?” Yaz dispensed with manners. She was having too strange a day for politeness.

“A drink?” He glanced around, disappointed. “Well, maybe. I’m sure I had some absinthe here a moment ago . . .”

“Who are you?”

The man leaned in over the table, both elbows on the boards. “My name is Elias. At least, that’s part of my name, but then I am only part of myself, which seems to be a common problem these days.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Yaz looked toward the door. “Where’s Erris? He said I had to hurry and now instead of running away I’m . . . here.”

“Ah yes, young Erris. A good-hearted boy, to be sure. I apologise for hijacking your escape, but there’ll still be time enough for all that running and screaming. It’s just that we don’t get many visitors down here and . . .”

A screech reached in through the shuttered windows, at once huge and yet far away. A scream like nothing Yaz had heard before or even imagined. Nothing human. A roar so laden with threats of violence and pain that Yaz immediately wanted nothing more than to cower beneath the table and hope for it to end. Instead she fought to keep the quiver from her voice as she asked, “What was that?”

“That?” Elias flashed her a dark look. “That’s what the end of the world sounds like.”

“It’s after me?” Panic clawed at Yaz’s heart. She shoved it down, ashamed at her weakness. The scream seemed to echo in her skull.

“It’s after us all, dear. By definition.” Elias allowed himself a small smile. “But yes, today it’s after you. But only because I showed an interest.” He went to the window. “Care to take a look?”

“Is this a test?” Yaz stood, warily. Her head brushing the ceiling.

“Everything is a test.” Elias set a thin, long-fingered hand to the shutter. “Quickly though. Look at him too long and he’ll look at you.”

Yaz crouched to peer out as Elias eased the shutter back, opening it a crack.

The cold cut at her with the fierceness of the polar night. The forest lay thick with snow beneath a blazing white sky, all the trees had burst asunder, an army of bare, broken trunks,