Crossing the rock wastes took longer than anticipated. Fissures ran across the stone, miles long, yards wide in places. In other areas the stone lay pockmarked with sink-holes, some filled with dark water, some empty with sharp edges, some wide enough to drown in, some small enough to trap a foot and break an unwary ankle.
By late afternoon they had spotted the Cut. By early evening they had reached the approach. The three novices wound their way through a maze of rocky gullies that snaked in confusion across the fractured rock up towards the Cut still almost half a mile off. The wind, that had plagued them since leaving the Rock of Faith, slackened as if daunted by the Devil’s Spine, growing fitful.
‘It’s changing,’ Ara said.
‘We might find we have a Corridor wind tomorrow to blow us the rest of the way to the Kring,’ Clera said.
Nona hoped so. Her father had hunted up on the ice most of his life whereas she had spent most of hers hiding behind whatever walls she could find when the ice-winds blew. Three days bearing up under its breath had only deepened the respect she felt for him. It added a new dimension to her concerns over Yisht. Would a woman raised in such a place truly let her ambitions be thwarted by children or forget the indignity they’d heaped upon her?
A break in the clouds scattered sunlight across the ridged rock. Nona stopped in her tracks. Just as there’s a power in many clear voices, ringing in harmonies, it lives too in the shadows of clouds, and in the light moving across landscapes, watched in still moments.
‘It is changing,’ Clera started up again. ‘We’ll be home and safe in the warm before we know it. I’m going to buy everything in the Pillared Market.’ Her chatter had a nervousness to it. She seemed distracted, glancing around.
‘We should—’ Nona bit off the words, eyes upon the pebble that had just bounced past her. She made a slow turn, poised to spring. Ahead of her Ara and Clera came to a halt. Tarkax stood in the mouth of a small cave some way back along the gully. They had passed just ten yards beneath without seeing him. He beckoned to them, an urgent gesture, one finger to his lips. Behind him in the shadows they could see a smaller figure in a range-coat.
‘Come on!’ Nona started off towards the warrior.
‘No!’ Clera called after her. ‘We need to push on – you can’t trust him.’
Nona looked back. Clera hadn’t moved. Ara stumbled to a halt halfway between them.
‘That’s why we’re here!’ Nona said. ‘We came to find Tarkax. Sister Kettle told me to. So Ara has a guard over her now Sister Apple’s gone. Trusting him is the whole point.’
‘Well I don’t.’ Clera raised her arm towards Aemon’s Cut. ‘That’s where we need to go. That’s the path to our target. Sister Tallow is waiting there. She’ll have half the convent’s Red Sisters with her now they know how serious it is with the Durnish.’
‘I told Kettle we’d find Tarkax,’ Nona said, frowning.
‘Well we’ve found him. Now let’s go,’ Clera said. ‘Remember who he is. I saw him at the Caltess, talking to Yisht. If we hadn’t put her in a barrel it would be her standing in that cave. It would be her that Sister Kettle told you to find to look after Ara. Did you trust Yisht?’
Nona didn’t answer that, just glanced back towards Tarkax, now crouched further back in the shadow of the cave’s entrance.
‘Let’s go!’ Clera started back along the gully towards the Cut.
‘No! Clera!’ Nona had promised Kettle. She had sworn to a dying woman. To her friend. ‘Come on.’ She waved Ara after her and hurried up across the steep slope towards the warrior of the ice-tribes.
‘Nona …’ Ara followed, but slower, faltering. ‘What about Clera?’
‘She’ll follow us,’ Nona said, unsure of whether she wanted it to be true.
Nona reached the cave first. Tarkax remained crouched, his eyes not straying to her but keeping to the ridges and gullies. Nona moved past him, seeing in surprise that the gloom held four novices. Her eyes had yet to adjust but one of them was so large she could only be Darla. Ignoring them for the moment, Nona turned to see Ara coming past Tarkax, and running up behind her, a wrathful Clera looking ready to punch someone.
‘Nona!’ Jula and Ruli closed on her from both sides.
‘Glad the Durnish didn’t chop you up, squirt.’ Darla pulled her hood back. She had a black eye and a bloody nose. Nona wondered how the other person looked.
Zole glanced her way but said nothing, remaining close to Tarkax.
‘Why are you here?’ Nona asked it of the cave in general.
‘There are soldiers waiting by the Cut.’ Tarkax didn’t turn his head. ‘Perhaps a dozen. They’re in ambush positions so it’s hard to tell.’
‘Raiders!’ Ara said. ‘This far inland?’
‘Soldiers,’ Tarkax corrected. ‘Not Durn men.’
‘What’s the problem with soldiers?’ Clera remained at the mouth of the cave, out past Tarkax. ‘The emperor’s general probably dispatched them to hold the pass in case the Durnish came this way in force.’
‘Get in out of sight, girl.’ Tarkax waved Clera behind him. ‘And they’re not the emperor’s men. No uniforms. I killed two in the gullies. One died slower than the other. Said he was a Tacsis man.’
‘Thuran Tacsis …’ Ruli held Nona’s arm. ‘But he said he’d leave Nona alone. He swore it to the emperor!’
‘He didn’t swear he wouldn’t come after Ara though,’ Clera said.
Tarkax edged back from the entrance. ‘Some men will swear anything to anyone to get what they want. I wouldn’t place much faith in Tacsis words.’ He drew his tular, the flat blade hissing from its scabbard sounding just like Yisht’s had back in the tunnels. ‘They’re coming. They must have sent more scouts out and spotted you.’
‘We can’t stay here!’ Ara started towards the entrance. ‘We need to run.’
Tarkax lowered his blade into her path. ‘We’d be caught and killed in the open. Here they can only come at us from one direction.’
‘There’s twelve of them!’ Darla from the rear of the cave.
Tarkax rolled his head and shrugged. ‘On the right ground twelve I can take.’
‘You, in the cave!’
It had taken the best part of an hour before the shout came. Perhaps the Tacsis men had spread out to encircle and catch the prey they expected to run. Nona had seen few hours pass more slowly – as if she clung to every heartbeat of it with hunska battle-speed. Tarkax had returned his sword to its scabbard and told them Sister Tallow would bring the Red Sisters out looking for them in two days. He also said that they would all be dead or on their way again before sunset, so whatever Sister Tallow might do was of no relevance.
‘Nona?’ Ara leaned forward, her face in shadow. ‘Are you all right? There’s … something odd about your eyes.’
‘We’ve more to worry about than my eyes.’ Nona looked away towards the brightness beyond the rocky entrance.
The shout came again. ‘You, in the cave!’
‘Only my voice.’ Tarkax held a finger to his lips and backed towards the bunched novices, coming to stand between Zole and Ara. ‘They mustn’t know who or how many stand with me.’ He cupped his hands and called out. ‘You, outside!’
‘We want the girl! Send her out and we’ll go.’
‘I met two of your number in the gully to the east,’ Tarkax shouted back. ‘They have joined the Ancestor. I am Tarkax, the Ice-Spear. If you want the girl you must come and take her.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘They’ll waste an hour finding their dead if we’re lucky.’
‘Why would they do that?’ Ara asked.
‘There’s a lot to learn from dead men,’ Tarkax said. ‘Were they shot with an arrow, taken from behind, garrotted, killed in the same place or apart, by one person or more, were the attackers bleeding when they left?’ He shrugged. ‘A cautious man would want to know. These soldiers – they know my name. Now they wish to learn if the man calling it to them is really Tarkax. Perhaps they will wait until they can bring more troops. The longer they spend out in the open growing cold, the better it is for us.’
‘You couldn’t really kill twelve, could you?’ Ara asked.
The warrior puffed out his chest. ‘I am Tarkax …’ He winced and started to turn.