on.
‘Joke?’
Nona trudged back. ‘Why would we wait here?’
‘I am meeting someone.’
Nona scanned the white expanse around them. ‘A snowman?’
Zole frowned. ‘I do not—’
‘It was a joke, Zole!’
Zole’s frown deepened. ‘Are jokes not supposed to make people—’
‘Just tell me who we’re meeting!’
Zole pursed her lips and squinted into the middle distance. ‘Tarkax Ice-Spear.’
‘Tarkax?’ Nona blinked.
‘Yes.’
‘Tarkax as in Tarkax who worked at the Caltess? Tarkax who was supposed to be protecting us when Raymel Tacsis came to kill me on the ranging?’ Nona supposed that the man was an ice-triber at least, but the idea of meeting anyone in this wilderness was hard to believe in, let alone someone she knew.
‘Yes.’
‘It doesn’t look as if he’s coming.’ Nona made a slow circle, calling on her clarity. ‘How would he find us in all this anyway?’
‘We have a shadow-link. He can locate us more easily if we remain in one place.’
‘Ah.’ Nona hadn’t seen Tarkax since the day she killed Raymel Tacsis. Clera had stuck Tarkax with a pin coated in lock-up venom. Nona guessed that the incident had been somewhat of a blot on the warrior’s reputation.
For a while only the wind spoke.
‘How long are we going to wait?’ Nona had grown steadily colder and she had been cold to start with. At least walking generated some heat.
‘Not long now.’
‘You can sense him?’
‘I can see them.’
‘Them?’ Nona followed the direction of Zole’s gaze. She saw nothing but white. Her clarity had introduced a few more shades into the icescape but it was still just a palette of ice and snow.
‘Wait.’
Nona waited, staring until her eyes began to swim. She still saw nothing. ‘I don’t—’
‘Hello, novices!’ A man’s voice calling from somewhere to her left.
Nona spun around. Tarkax was about fifty yards from her, approaching at the head of a group of five other tribesmen, all in white furs, near invisible even if Nona had been looking in the right direction. ‘You tricked me into looking the wrong way!’ Nona shot a scowl at Zole.
The girl shrugged. ‘I thought you should know what a joke was.’
‘Nona! The Caltess ring-fighter!’ Tarkax’s cry forestalled any reply to Zole.
Nona nodded a greeting. The tribesmen gathered around as Tarkax drew Zole into a hug which the girl tolerated with a long-suffering look. He released her and slapped her on the back before turning to Nona. ‘How are you enjoying the ice?’
‘I’m not dead yet.’
‘Ha!’ Tarkax punched her shoulder then returned his attention to Zole, unleashing a torrent of tribe-tongue. It sounded like a dozen questions all asked at once.
While Zole replied in the same guttural language Nona glanced around at the others. They stood impassive under her scrutiny, all with the same reddish skin tone and flat features that Tarkax and Zole displayed. In the Corridor a hundred shades mixed, remnants pressed together from all the lands and kingdoms that had once covered a whole world. On the ice, though, it seemed that the tribes had sprung from more singular sources, or that the harsh conditions whittled away at any not perfectly suited to survival. Nona noted that each carried a heavy pack and an array of tools hanging from their belts, fashioned from the black iron that the ice-tribes favoured for its reluctance to shatter when chilled. They returned her scrutiny with dark eyes, and Nona wondered how in the immensity of all this wilderness someone she and Zole both knew happened to be so very close …
Eventually Tarkax’s string of long questions and Zole’s series of short replies came to an end. Tarkax stamped his feet and frowned at Nona. ‘Well. We had better go then.’
‘Where?’ Nona asked. ‘Can you guide us across the mountains?’
Tarkax snorted. ‘I wouldn’t wish that on a Pelarthi!’ He stamped again. ‘My brother’s daughter has convinced me to show you a quicker way home.’
‘Quicker than crossing the mountains? We have to cross them … they’re in the way!’ Nona pointed west in case the miles of raw bedrock had somehow escaped the Ice-Spear’s attention. ‘Wait … Zole is your niece?’
‘Am I not blessed?’ Tarkax didn’t sound as if he felt blessed. Several of his companions snorted, their breath plumes streaming on the wind.
‘But … why didn’t you look after her when she was orphaned?’ New confusion mounted on the old.
‘I could think of a thousand good reasons!’ Tarkax said, to more snorts. ‘But the best answer is to note that my brother is still alive. Though with a wife like that I have no idea why he didn’t make his