she knew this would end here. One way or the other.
Nona hung soaked and freezing, enveloped in the wrongness of devil-laden water, strange urges and alien thoughts trying to ease beneath her skin. The voices competed with those from within her skull as the shipheart gripped her mind, trying to squeeze out devils of her own. She shivered uncontrollably, though whether more from terror or the cold she couldn’t tell.
Above all these multiple sources of distress she felt stupid. She didn’t dare stand up or see how they could possibly make progress other than on hands and knees. Would they have to crawl to Yisht?
‘It would be a sorry place for you to die, child.’ Yisht watched Zole with blood-filled eyes. ‘Give me the shipheart and I will let you pass. The other,’ she turned her gaze on Nona, ‘I mean to hurt. The best that she can hope for is that she can throw herself into the depths before I get to her.’
Under Yisht’s stare Nona found her old anger rising. She’d almost forgotten it in the freezing night of the under-ice but now, with the ice-triber’s attention upon her, the old images that had haunted so many dreams rose again, filling her mind with Hessa’s death. She sheathed her sword and fumbled a throwing star numb-fingered from the bandolier around her chest. ‘The Ancestor cautions us against becoming a slave to revenge, Yisht. And although I want to hurt you I will be satisfied just to see you die.’ She lifted her arm to throw. ‘How well can you dodge down here?’
Yisht opened her mouth wide, her expression savage, the snarl of a fever-sick beast. The teeth she bared at Nona were as black as the ice.
‘She’s been drinking the water!’ Nona shuddered at the thought then drew back her arm.
‘Wait.’ Zole held out a hand to forestall her then curled the fingers into a fist. ‘Hang on.’ All around them the ice began to fracture, black plates carving away and sliding towards the gullet. Ice began to explode upwards and outwards as if some creature were burrowing beneath it. The air filled with fragments.
When the frost cleared from the air a different topology lay revealed in the shipheart’s glow.
‘How?’ Nona gasped.
‘Water-work is not so different from rock-work,’ Zole said. ‘Especially when it is ice.’
Zole had carved them a stepped path to Yisht two yards wide with a broader ledge immediately in front of her. She reached out and sank the shipheart into the ice before them, so deep that only the top half remained in view.
‘Why didn’t you just tip her down the hole?’ Nona asked.
Zole glanced her way. ‘She is a warrior of the ice.’ She stood and drew her sword. ‘Besides, the klaulathu would not let her fall. Violence is sweet to them.’
Nona got to her feet, still wary of her balance, her borrowed coat hanging wet around her, dripping. She returned the throwing star to its place among the others and drew her sword.
‘Together?’ Nona gritted her teeth against their chattering.
‘She would use us against each other,’ Zole said. ‘There is too little room.’
Nona sighed and stepped forward.
‘No.’ Zole put a hand out to stop her. ‘I will go.’
‘I’m your Shield.’ Nona’s anger faltered under a sudden wave of relief. She wanted to end Yisht but no part of her truly believed herself capable of the feat. She saw Hessa’s face again, felt her last moments, and the anger surged back. ‘She’s mine.’
‘No.’ Zole spoke the word with that buzzing resonance that had stopped a Scithrowl rider seeing what lay right before him. And while Nona struggled with the compulsion the ice-triber advanced on Yisht along the ledge she had fashioned.
Yisht stepped forward, tular in hand, ready to meet her former pupil. The first clash of steel broke Nona free of Zole’s command and immediately she started to follow her friend.
The two ice-tribers fought within the level circle that Zole had formed, their footwork precise, hardly slipping despite the black slickness beneath them. Zole attacked with all of the swiftness and precision that Nona found so hard to counter, a relentless assault, free of flamboyance, efficient and focused on the kill. Yisht defended with unnerving skill, countering hunska speed with the ability to anticipate every attack.
The ringing of blades echoed around the vast, hidden chamber, returning in fractured peals. Once Yisht slipped and fell, but immediately Nona saw that she had allowed it to happen, dropping beneath Zole’s thrust to kick her shin, taking