He grinned at that and held out his good arm for me to help him up. But the grin had lion’s teeth in it, and it wasn’t only a lion that walked with us. A big, gleaming tiger followed in our trail, invisible, silent, watchful, waiting for his chance. Namrat, all teeth and hungry eyes, patient as time, cold as mountains. Namrat the stalker, who would have us all in the end. Death.
I tried telling him to piss off, there’s a good little kitty, but it didn’t work.
We didn’t get far. Maybe we would have done, maybe we’d have found Jake, Pasha could have rescued her like the dashing hero he seemed to want to be, whether she needed it or not. Maybe everything would have turned out differently if we hadn’t been so screwed, and if the first of the Storad reinforcements hadn’t decided to turn up.
Maybe if Pasha had been concentrating on them, rather than on listening in and trying to figure out where Jake was, they wouldn’t have surprised us like a pair of children caught stealing sweets. Or if I’d tried a find-spell – but that hadn’t seemed the best plan, all things considered. I could have borrowed Pasha’s juice, but he was determined to be the hero, the one to find her, so I didn’t even suggest it.
As it was, we were huddled out of the wind behind a short row of tents. Pasha was sure he’d found Dench at least, in the end tent, when the tramp of a thousand, two thousand, more feet crunched through the thickening snow towards us and, crucially, between us and the gate. It seemed I only had time for one hurried breath – which I regretted when I realised the frozen puff of it was a giveaway – before there were men everywhere. They looked tired, cold and pissed off, but that would probably only make them meaner if they found us. Which they would, because there wasn’t much room in that little valley and those men wanted to find a billet somewhere, preferably out of the wind and snow if they were sensible.
Pasha dismissed them with a wave of his burned hand, but I was thinking a bit more clearly. Didn’t matter if we found Jake if we couldn’t get her out, that’s what I was thinking. Or if we died trying. I mean, yeah, it’d look good in the history books, men dying heroically to try to save their lady-love and all that, very tragically romantic. But I couldn’t help thinking it would be a stupid way to go. Romance I’m all for, but I’ve never been a fan of tragedy, which, when I think on it right now, is seriously ironic.
Pasha. Pasha! I knew the little bastard could hear me in his head, but he took no notice until I grabbed his arm and shook it until I thought it might fall off.
Shh! I think I —
Most of the reinforcements went straight to the gate, as Malaki had said they would, though at least they didn’t launch straight into an attack – they seemed content to dig in and wait awhile, and I doubted Malaki would go on the offensive with the few men he had. But a group broke away from the main force and headed our way. They spoke among themselves and I didn’t need to understand their gruff language to know what they were saying, the mantras of soldiers and guards everywhere, I don’t doubt: “Over here, it’s out of the wind,” “My boots are killing me,” “That sergeant’s a slave driver,” “This is out of the way; we won’t get volunteered if he can’t see us,” “I’d kill for a cup of tea – get the fire on.”
Three more steps then they’d see us and we were dead meat. My hand clenched on instinct and I had to bite back a groan and the sudden, driving need to use my magic, pull all the juice through me and say hello to my madness.
I tried again to get Pasha’s attention but he was as lost as I was, only he was lost in trying to find Jake. He hissed a victorious “Yes!” under his breath, but it was almost too late. The soldiers were on top of us.
My hand was itching now, the juice restless inside me – such a change from the days when I was afraid to use it – but it was scaring me more and more too. The black was looming always larger inside me, growing like a cancer, but one I craved and feared at the same time. I was like a junkie after Rapture, knowing what it would do to me but wanting it all the same. I couldn’t give in, not now or we were lost, and so was Jake. We were lost if we stayed there long enough to be found too, so I did the only sensible thing I could think of.
I grabbed Pasha’s burned hand and smacked it on to the ground between us. His eyes flew open and I could see his tonsils as he was about to scream but he didn’t get time. I had hold of his hand and sucked the pain from him, stole it, used his juice not mine, became that bastard I always told myself I wouldn’t be. I picked up some of his magic too, I think, because I’d swear I heard one of the soldiers think, Hey, what was that?