He brought the sword round in a series of elegant swipes, dancing the daylight along its length like sunlight on water, and the monster, dazzled for a moment, swept its great blocky head around to face him. With its attention solely on him, Tor stalked towards the creature, tall and steady, unafraid. Behind him, most of the passengers had fled, and the fell-witches were gathering their fallen colleague up and dragging her away, but a few people were left, watching with wide eyes. The monster roared and, still walking on its back legs, took a series of shuddering steps towards Tormalin, but, abruptly, the Eboran wasn’t there. Noon blinked, and then he was back in sight, circling round the monster so that he was at its back. He ran, slashing his long sword low, across the back of the creature’s legs. Bright blood spurted across the gravel and the animal shrieked. It tried to turn, but its legs were no longer obeying its commands, so instead it twisted the great bulk of its torso around, long jaws snapping at the thin form of Tormalin. For the strangest moment it looked to Noon as though Tormalin had chosen to leap to his own death – he reached up, putting himself within easy reach of the thing’s teeth, and Noon was sure that he must now die, torn to shreds by the fangs of an abomination. But although the jaws seemed to close a hair’s breadth away from his smooth neck, it was the monster’s blood that was shed; its throat burst open in a shower of red, a sudden second mouth where one hadn’t been before. Belatedly Noon saw the silver line that was the Ninth Rain sliding through flesh like it was water – and then the monster was falling. Right on top of Tormalin.
Noon gasped and heard the watching crowd gasp behind her. The thing was enormous; it must surely have crushed the Eboran under its weight. But then the huge bulk of the thing rolled to one side, Tormalin the Oathless lifting it off as easily as a man discarding a horse-blanket, with the Ninth Rain still held firmly in his right hand. He stalked over towards them while a wide puddle of steaming blood grew from the body of the worm-touched creature. He looked aggrieved.
‘Tormalin . . .’ Vintage shook her head. ‘Tor, my darling, are you all right?’
He pursed his lips at her, apparently oblivious to the watching crowd. ‘Would you look at this?’ He held up the cuff of his jacket, which was smudged with blood. ‘Do you know how difficult it is to get blood out of Reidn silk? And now this.’ He turned in a circle, revealing a huge patch of crimson on the back of his jacket. It was soaked in the monster’s blood, as was much of his hair.
‘Your clothes,’ said Noon. She wasn’t sure what else to say. ‘Your . . . clothes?’
‘I’ve had this jacket since I left Ebora, Vintage. There isn’t another like it in Sarn. And, of course, this wouldn’t be quite as much of an issue, if you hadn’t started giving away my clothes to random women we meet in the woods.’
‘Yes, dear,’ Vintage patted his arm, smiling faintly, ‘it is, indeed, a tragedy.’ She turned away from him, looking back to the engine. ‘Pamoz! You’ve another obstruction to burn, I’m afraid. Better get started.’
22
Evening had fallen over the hill, a deep purple dusk that chased the daylight to the west and left them with a clear sky and chilly winds, while at the front of the engine a great fire blazed on and on. The wind was taking most of the smoke away from them, although a low stink was still pervading the area, coating the back of Noon’s throat so that she found herself swallowing repeatedly, as if she’d eaten something rotten. Many of the passengers had retreated back inside their carriages, while a few had made small campfires on the rocky strip of ground alongside the line, sitting and sharing food and stories. It was still dangerous to be this close to the Wild – even locked away for a decade, Noon knew that – but the defeat of the monster had emboldened them. Noon imagined they thought it something of an adventure; or, at least, those with fine clothes and the best food did. The men and women in the poorer carriage wore different expressions; the expressions of people for whom this was yet another crippling setback. They would be late for their promised jobs; the homes they were heading for might not be there any more; the food and drink they had packed might not be enough.
Noon kept herself apart from them all, staying near Vintage’s rented carriage, while the scholar herself was gregariously moving from fire to fire, sharing her bottle of wine and chatting with everyone. Tormalin had attracted a small group of young women, who were cradling cups of wine in their hands and watching him with glittering eyes. None of them were sitting too close, but Noon thought that a sudden invasion by a pack of hungry worm-touched wolves wouldn’t have been able to drag their eyes from his remarkable face.
She wandered towards the rear of the carriage. Vintage had insisted they light all the lamps inside and open the curtains, so that the winnowline became a series of beacons against the night. Above them, the clouds had mostly cleared and the stars were a layer of gaudy gauze while the hills merged into a single great beast in the growing dark. Far behind them was a soft blush of light against the horizon: Mushenska. So much space, so much air. It had been like this out on the plains, where the world had seemed limitless – when she had believed that the grasslands, and her way of life, would go on forever.
There was a dark shape on the ground just behind the end of the carriage. Noon paused. It looked like a bundle of clothes. Had something fallen from the winnowline when it had been struck by the creature? Noon walked over. The voices of the people by the fires grew quieter, the crunch of her boots on the gravelly ground louder than she would have liked. Her breath caught in her throat and she realised that the bundle on the ground was a person, their blank face turned up to the sky. There was another fallen shape just beyond it. Neither were moving. Noon knelt down next to the first one, holding her hand above the face, not quite daring to touch the bare skin. It was a boy, a small brown birthmark in the middle of his right cheek. His eyes were open. She pressed her fingers lightly to his chest, and was relieved to feel a heartbeat; faint, but very fast. Swallowing hard, Noon stepped over him to find a girl of around the same age, curled over onto her side as though she had chosen to drop down and sleep on the steel rails. There had been a small group of children running around earlier, she remembered, chasing each other and entertaining themselves in the way that children did.
‘What . . . hey, kid.’ She gently shook the girl, but her head flopped back and forth, unresponsive. Noon stood up and walked back, trying to ignore the cold feeling of guilt that was uncurling in her stomach. She couldn’t be blamed for this, it had nothing to do with her . . .
A figure stepped out of the shadows, moving silently. A tall white woman, wiry and contained. Her forearms were bare, and Noon could see the muscles standing out like cords. The woman’s hair was grey and pushed back from her face in soft waves, but her face was unlined. There was a bat-wing tattoo on her forehead. As she looked at Noon she smiled, a thin tensing of her lips, and her eyes glittered.
‘It seems I have found you, Fell-Noon. You did a pretty good job of running, I’ll give you that. Will you come without a fuss?’
Noon stumbled backwards. Her heart was beating so fast her fingers were tingling.
‘You would hurt children?’
‘Don’t be so dramatic. Just took enough to take you down, which I don’t think will require very much at all. I am Agent Lin. It’s time for you to come back to the Winnowry. Or die. I don’t mind which.’
Out in front of the carriages, the other passengers were still sitting around their fires, laughing and talking. Noon opened her mouth to shout to them, and then felt fear close her throat. Agent Lin wasn’t here for them, after all.
‘Are you resisting me, Fell-Noon?’ Agent Lin held up her hands, palms to the sky. ‘Are you going to try to fight me?’
‘I’m not going back,’ said Noon. The words felt like tiny stones in her throat. They weren’t strong enough. ‘I’m not going back to that fucking hole.’
Two points of green light blossomed into being over Agent Lin’s hands. As Noon watched they grew into two whirling pools of flame, painting the woman’s face into a ghoulish mask. Frantically, she felt within herself for a scrap of winnow-fuel, but there was nothing. The terror and the frustration boiled up into her chest.