Winterstrike by Liz Williams Page A

Glancing up, I saw the ire-palm burning out on the bridge, and a second after that the
centre of the bridge gave way. Outlined against the night-glow of the city, a section of the bridge collapsed, to hang for a moment in the void, and then to fall in seeming slow motion into the
crater. There were shouts. An excissiere orthocopter, lights blazing, swung low overhead, veered up, came back around. I flattened myself against the wall of the fortress and watched as the burning
section of the bridge came to rest in a blinding flare. The reek of ire-palm filled my mouth and nose; I choked. The floor of the crater was an expanse of ice and snow, melting out from the burning
bridge. Dodging out of sight of the craft and hoping that any heat-sensitive equipment would be baffled by the ire-palm, I started to make my way to the crater wall.
    I looked back once, saw the vitrified wall of the fortress rising straight up out of the crater. Above, a swarm of figures, tiny as insects, were milling around the shattered bridge. The light
from the torches along the lip of the crater flickered, sending my shadow skittering along the snow ahead of me in an uneasy dance. I reached the crater wall and breathed again. But there was life
in the hollows and crags of the wall. Eyes glittered out at me as I sidled towards the steep steps that led up the side of the crater. The orthocopter came in lower yet and someone dropped down
onto the remains of the bridge; I saw the glint of a wire as she landed. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I still hoped not to be noticed: being in the wrong place at the wrong time in
Winter-strike never turned out well, in my experience. So I hitched up my skirts and started to climb, my calves twingeing in protest after the long descent from the fortress. I’d get fitter,
at least. If I survived.

 
    SIX
Hestia Mar — Caud
    Once the childhood visions had faded, I concentrated on trying to get out of the Mote. I knew this would not be easy: I’d already failed once and it seemed I was a
valuable prisoner. The next guard who came to the door of the cell was soulless: I could see the slack lack of it in her face. They’d taken her speech as well. I asked her name and she stared
at me vacantly, clearly not comprehending. A slave? But as she raised her arm to shove the meagre bowl of food through the interlock, her sleeve fell back and I saw the tracery of old and intricate
scarring upon her skin: a former excissiere, then, subject to the most extreme punishment short of death. It was pointless to try anything more. I ate the food shed given me in silence and returned
the bowl to the lock. Then I sat down to consider my options, which were few.
    When I looked up again, the Library was back.
    ‘Hello,’ I said.
    The flayed face of the warrior tightened into a grimace. ‘I can’t help you,’ I said, aloud. ‘I can’t help myself.’
    The warrior’s lips moved but no sound came out. After a moment, as if there was a time-lag in a recording, I heard her say, ‘Something is coming.’
    ‘Something? What kind of something?’
    The warrior did not reply. Instead, she looked up, as if staring at what lay beyond the ceiling of the cell and the Mote above it.
    ‘Can you hear it?’ the warrior whispered.
    ‘Hear what?’ But she was right, there was something – a thin, whistling noise like a child’s flute.
    ‘What—?’ I started to say, and the moment I spoke the world exploded. There was a soundless, incandescent flash that had me throwing my arms across my face. Reflections
cascaded behind my retinas, a kaleidoscope of fractured colour. I felt something sinewy gripping my wrist, but only for a second, as if the Library had become real and reached out and touched me. I
still don’t know what it really was, only that it was oddly reassuring. I opened my eyes again and saw that although the afterimages were still blasting through my sight, my vision had
cleared enough to allow me to see the rest