Holy Sister. Mark Lawrence

old were you?’ Nona knew that when Zole described a thing as ‘hard’ it meant that anyone else would have been killed by it.

      ‘Nine. The ice-speaker banished me to the Corridor. He did not say why. My uncle took me to the empire margins. I was sold to Sherzal’s agent in a village called Shard.’

      ‘Do you … do you think that’s why you have no threads?

      Zole made no answer. She had reached the ridge from where she could look down into the next valley and away towards the fortress to the north, the closest in the chain. ‘It seems that the Battle-Queen has ears in Sherzal’s palace, and swift access to them.’

      Nona scrambled up to join Zole on the ridge. She straightened, wiping the grit from her palms. ‘Oh.’

      A column of riders was spilling down the far side of the valley, a skirmish band on the shaggy ponies that dwelt wild in the region and could run all day over such terrain.

      ‘Sixty.’ Zole turned and dropped back below the ridge.

      ‘We can’t outrun them.’ Nona wasn’t sure she could outrun a three-legged mule right then.

      Zole narrowed her eyes. A momentary frown and she was moving, back down into the valley again, angling towards their original path tracking the stream. On this side of the Grampains the rivers ran their course a while before vanishing beneath the ice sheets. On Sister Rule’s globe you could reverse the glaciers’ advance and set your fingers to ancient oceans picked out in blue enamel. Nona imagined they still lay there under miles of ice and that the sun-warmed waters of the Corridor must eventually reach those hidden seas.

      ‘If we’re going to fight we should do it here,’ Nona called after Zole.

      ‘Sixty is too many,’ Zole called back. ‘And more will come. I would rather rest.’

      Nona shrugged and followed. Sixty was too many, and rest sounded good.