Noon raised an eyebrow. ‘We are?’
Suddenly there was a tension in the air that hadn’t been there before. Tor found that he couldn’t read the expression on Noon’s face. He remembered being on his knees inside the Behemoth, overcome with despair, and how she had held him to her, waiting for his pain to pass. He remembered the taste of her blood.
‘After all we have been through together, witch, I should think so.’ His tone felt too light, but he was powerless to change it.
Noon raised her cup, as if to toast him. ‘I think you might be right, bloodsucker. So, friend, shall we eat this hare while it’s still pink and juicy?’
The next few days were hard. A storm came down off the mountains, filling the skies with a thick powdery snow that turned the world into a blanket of white. Noon, awkwardly waving her arms and shouting at them, drove the bats off to find shelter until it had passed, and she and Tor had made their way as best they could on foot, dragging their bags along with them on a makeshift sledge. It was very slow work, and now that they were truly at the foot of the mountains shelter was scarce; it was all flinty rock and dead trees, the mountains rising to either side. They made camp in the shadow of a giant boulder, at least partly out of the winds, and Noon re-lit the fire every time it went out – it was, she joked to Tor, the one thing she was good at.
Despite the fire, the wolves came to them that night. They were dark, shifting shadows at a distance, eyes glinting yellow-green – not worm-touched, but very hungry. Noon could sense them circling, drawing slowly nearer, and neither of them got any sleep that night. The next day brought another blizzard and their progress was slower than ever, and as the sun set – a milky disc that looked painted on the grey patches between clouds – the wolves came for them again.
‘Watch out!’ She saw the first one slipping towards them out of the snow, as swift and as lethal as a thrown dagger, and Tor dropped the ropes of the sledge and turned, the Ninth Rain singing as he drew it from its scabbard. She saw him dance forward and there was a spray of crimson on the white, the brightest thing she had seen in days, but there were more coming, perhaps five or six narrow shapes closing in. Turning round she saw another three advancing directly behind her.
‘Get these ones,’ she shouted to Tor over the wind, gesturing behind her. Flakes of snow landed cold and biting on her tongue. ‘I’ll take those!’
He did not question her, only moved to take her place, and Noon reached for the presence inside her without hesitation. It had been quiet recently, assuaged, she suspected, by their fight with Agent Lin, but as she reached out it filled her again as it had before.
You fight with animals now?
The voice was cold, unimpressed.
‘These animals want to eat us.’
It didn’t matter. She felt strong, and the winnowfire was building within her. She pulled off her gloves and dropped them on the ground.
A wall of fire might startle them enough to leave, said the voice. It sounded reluctant, and Noon knew why; startling something was not the same as fighting something. No, I can see how hungry they are in the lines of their faces. Horizontal discs of your witch-fire. Swiftly now.
Summoning the green flames, Noon held her arms out in front of her. The wolves were edging closer, and time was short. From behind her, she could hear Tor’s grunts of effort as he held off the animals on his side. Holding her hands close but not touching, Noon swept downwards and to her right, feeling a surge of satisfaction as the ball of fire flattened and became a vertical disc, humming with its own energy. She let it build, even as the wolves crept nearer. They had been put off by the scent of wolf blood, but they were thin, and desperate.
What are you doing? Horizontal discs are what you need, several of them, and swiftly, to cover the widest area, snapped the voice in her head. You are wasting time and energy.
‘It’s snowing,’ said Noon. Next to her, multiple discs had formed in the space between her hands, hovering and boiling with light. ‘Winnowfire is weaker when it’s wet. This shape will catch less of the snow.’
And then she swept her arms forward again, releasing the fiery discs. They shot outwards in a spray of green light, and four of the wolves were immediately aflame, their screams of pain sounding too human. Noon staggered, suddenly frightened again, guilty, but she felt the presence inside her step forward somehow, and her arms were moving again, dealing out sheaths of fire that skidded off into the shadows. The rest of the wolves fled, while the bodies of the others burned intermittently, the fire already being extinguished by the ever-present snow.
Noon sagged, exhausted, before turning to see where Tor was. The tall Eboran was leaning on the pile of bags. Three dead wolves lay in front of him, one of them perilously close. Seeing her look, he shouted across the wind.
‘Bastard nearly got me. It seems I am not as fast as I once was.’ He was breathing heavily, and when she joined him at the sledge, she could see that his skin looked grey.
‘Come on,’ she said, retrieving her gloves. ‘Let’s get out of this fucking snow if we can.’
For once, they were lucky. Not far from where they were an old avalanche had created a deep cave, so deep that the floor was dry and the winds couldn’t reach them. So tired now that spots of darkness were dancing at the edge of her vision, Noon helped Tor drag the sledge far enough inside so that the weather couldn’t reach it, and then set about building a fire with the debris that had gathered in the corners. She built it as big as she could, glad to see that the smoke was filtering up and away from them through some unseen passage in the ceiling. Soon enough they both sat before it, for a time too tired to say anything.
‘You were talking to yourself,’ Tor said eventually. He had thrown back his hood and in the firelight his face looked gaunt. There were dark circles around his eyes, but the look he gave her was keen. ‘When you were fighting the wolves.’
‘Was I?’ Noon busied herself with retrieving things from her pack, although she couldn’t now think what it was she was looking for.
‘Yes, you were. Like you were carrying on a conversation with someone who wasn’t there.’
Noon shrugged. ‘I spent ten years in a tiny cell by myself. It’s not that weird for me to talk to myself sometimes, is it?’
‘I’ve never known you to do it before.’
Giving up on her pack, Noon peeled off her scarlet coat and laid it by the fire. It was wet and cold.
‘It must be the strain of putting up with you.’
Tor snorted at that, and then grimaced with pain.
‘What’s up with you?’