LITMIR.BIZ

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had called themselves. Her new clan, she supposed, bound together by the fact they had survived the drop and wished to keep on surviving.

      The darkness gave way to a dim and diffuse illumination as the ice began to be populated once more by the tiny stars. The others seemed to take the same comfort in this that Yaz did, even though they must have seen it every day for years. Little Jerra paused to gaze into the ice and dark-haired Petrick had to give her a tug to get her started again. ‘Slowcoach.’

      ‘Everyone’s slow next to you.’ The girl blinked, glanced at Yaz, and carried on.

      Shortly after that, Arka sent Petrick ahead to warn of their arrival. The boy scampered off at speed and was soon lost in the gloom.

      The further they went the more dirty the ice beneath their feet. Eventually they emerged into another rock-floored cavern, not so large as the one in which Yaz had escaped Hetta but still large and better lit.

      The air here was warmer than in the tunnels and the soft drip of meltwater filled any brief silence. A crowd of maybe four dozen of the Broken stood in an arc around the entrance, lean, grimy, their clothes cloaks of woven hair over old hides and crude patchworks of small skins. Here and there points of light winked among their number, tiny ice stars sewn onto clothing or dangling from an ear.

      More than half of those gathered were huge. Not as big as Hetta maybe, but larger than anyone Yaz had ever seen before. More gerants, given time to grow. For a moment she wondered what they found to eat, and what had originally worn the skins they dressed in.

      Between the Broken’s reception party and Yaz a group of four new arrivals huddled together, wet, shivering, some clutching injured limbs or sporting angry red marks that would be black bruises soon enough. Zeen was not among them.

      Yaz turned back towards the tunnel, meaning to leave. ‘Let me pass.’ She advanced on the boys blocking the passage.

      A hand clamped on her shoulder. ‘You can’t go!’ Arka tried to pull her around. ‘You have no idea where you are or what’s out there.’

      ‘Zeen’s out there.’ Yaz jerked free of Arka’s grip.

      Pome, the young man with the light-stick, slipped between her and the exit. He stood nearly a head taller than her, brown hair scraped back. His mouth held a brittle smile that put her in mind of the hook-eels that play dead right up until the moment they’re hauled into a boat then unsheathe a hundred claws and start to thrash. ‘Tarko is going to speak to all the wets. After that he will decide what to do about your brother.’

      Arka moved to stand beside Pome. ‘I don’t know if Zeen can be got back, but I do know you can’t do it by yourself.’ She set her hand to Yaz’s breastbone as she tried to advance. ‘I remember the Ictha being famed for making the best of bad situations … like everything north of the Three Seas.’ She allowed herself a smile. ‘So let’s see some of that alleged common sense.’

      Yaz ground her teeth but the sting of the rebuke managed to reach through both her anger and her resolve. She had let her clan down in a dozen ways since the sun rose. Every act she had taken unwrote the Ictha code. She bowed her head. Her recklessness and sacrifice had been as foolish as she had always been taught they were. She would do it right this time. Wait, plan, gather resources, and strike only when reason dictated. The Ictha way. Slowly she turned back and went to stand with the others who had fallen today.

      Yaz joined the new arrivals. The gerants she passed to reach them made her feel as though she were a child again despite it being the day she was given her adulthood. She went to stand at the back of the group. The girl just ahead of her turned to see, teeth chattering. She looked to be just a little older than Zeen, of slight build with long brown hair and curious brown eyes. It was the different eyes that would take the longest to get used to.

      ‘S-So you’re the special one.’ The girl’s voice shook with cold. Yaz hardly noticed her own damp clothing. The cavern was warmer than her mother’s tent in winter. ‘T-The one they’re excited about.’

      Yaz frowned. ‘Me?’

      ‘T-The boy said he saved you from a hetta. I don’t know what that is but he made it sound bad.’

      ‘It was pretty bad.’ An image of Jaysin’s dangling head flashed across Yaz’s vision again. She hadn’t considered why they would risk themselves to help her. They hadn’t helped little Jaysin. She shook the thought away. ‘Why would they care about me? I’m not special—’ She bit the word off. They were all special down here, she guessed. Just not in a good way. Broken. Unfit for the ice. ‘Why? I’m not worth saving.’

      ‘You don’t see it?’ The girl hugged herself, hands to her shoulders. ‘I guess maybe you wouldn’t … I saw it as soon as you came in.’

      ‘Saw what?’

      ‘The stars,’ the girl said. ‘They burn brighter when you’re near.’

       CHAPTER 5

      ‘You stand before us still wet from the drop. Your tribe and your clan have thrown you aside and not one of them raised their voice to save you. They called you flawed, wrong, unworthy, and you were cast into darkness to die.’ The man who addressed them was neither tall nor old. Yaz had thought one of the gerants would lead, for who could stand against them? Or failing that, the eldest would hold sway with the wisdom of years. But the man who paced back and forth before the crowd seemed unremarkable save for the darkness of his skin which gleamed blacker than the rock itself, something Yaz had never seen even among the many tribes of the gathering. Even his head gleamed, lacking any hair. ‘We are your family now and we have all fallen here. We are the unwanted, the things of such little use that they are thrown away. We are what is beyond repair. We are the Broken.’

      ‘The Broken!’ The name rang in dozens of mouths.

      ‘I am Tarko. I command here by the will of the Broken. You have questions. We have answers. You are wet, and the cold will kill you long before you starve. We have heat and food. You were given no choice at the mouth of the pit. I give you a choice. A hard choice.’ He shrugged and pressed his lips together in apology. ‘A hard choice, but still a choice. You may join us or …’ He raised a hand towards the tunnel they had entered by. ‘Or make your own way.’

      Tarko watched them, the handful of shivering southerners, and Yaz. She glared back at him, boiling with her fury at … everything … and as angry at having nothing and no one to blame as she was at the rest of it. A short silence reigned. Yaz felt the pressure of many eyes upon her, and still Tarko held his arm towards the dark tunnel.

      ‘No?’ His arm fell. ‘Then welcome, brothers and sisters.’ Tarko turned his gaze on the rest of Yaz’s new tribe. ‘Five … it is not what we hoped for. A single drop-leader will be sufficient—’

      Pome stepped forward, raising his light-stick. ‘I was first to be selected! Arka and—’

      ‘Arka will be drop-leader for this group.’ Tarko singled out the woman who had brought Yaz in.

      ‘This is nonsense.’ Pome wasn’t done. A gerant moved to stand at his shoulder, glowering at Tarko, one eye filled with malice, the other milky white. This one looked as if he could crush ice in his fist, the muscles of his arm mounding beneath his furs. ‘We should have taken the centre pool back. We can’t survive on …’ He gave Yaz and the others a withering look. ‘… five.’

      ‘The Tainted are too many—’

      ‘And how many of us will there be in ten years if we only gain only five each gathering?’

      Tarko sighed. ‘More than if we fight the Tainted for the centre pool each time.’ He looked away. ‘Drop-Leader Arka, dry these wets off and let’s see if they were worth the price we paid.’

      ‘Come on, I know where it’s warm.’ Arka strode past them and the children hurried after her. Yaz paused, gazing back at the dark entrance that had

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