He leaned there, against the warm stone, dribbling sour blood and spit onto the ground, pain licking at his side, at his face, at his torn knuckles. But if he’d been hoping for pity, he’d chosen the wrong companion.

“Let’s go,” snapped Ferro. “Come on, pink, up.”

He couldn’t have said how long he shambled through the darkness, gasping after Ferro’s heels, the sound of his own breath echoing in his skull. They crept through the guts of the earth. Through ancient halls filled with dust and shadows, stone walls riddled with cracks. Through archways into winding tunnels, ceilings of mud propped with rickety beams.

Once they came to a junction and Ferro pressed him back into the darkness by the wall, both of them holding their breath as ragged shapes scraped and shuffled down a hallway that crossed theirs. On and on—corridor, cavern, burrow. He could only follow, dragging after her until he knew he would fall on his face at any moment from simple tiredness. Until he was sure that he would never see daylight again…

“Wait,” hissed Ferro, putting her hand against his chest to stop him and nearly pushing him over his legs were so weak. A sluggish stream joined the hallway, slow-moving water flapping and rippling in the shadows. Ferro knelt down beside it, peering into the dark tunnel it flowed out of.

“If it joins the river downstream, it must come from outside the city.”

Logen was not so sure. “What if it… comes up from… underground?”

“Then we find another way. Or we drown.” Ferro shouldered her bow and slid in, up to her chest, her thin lips pressed tight together. Logen watched her wade out, arms held up above the dark water. Did she never tire? He was so sore and weary he wanted only to lie down and never get up. For a moment he considered doing it. Then Ferro turned and saw him squatting on the bank. “Come on, pink!” she hissed at him.

Logen sighed. There was never any changing her mind. He heaved one reluctant, trembling leg into the cold water. “Right behind you,” he muttered. “Right behind.”

No Good for Each Other

Ferro waded on against the current, up to her waist in fast-flowing water, teeth gritted against the gripping cold, Ninefingers sloshing and gasping behind her. She could just see an archway up ahead, faint light from beyond glinting on the water. It was blocked with iron bars, but as she forced her way close she could see they were rusted through, thin and flaking. She pressed herself up against them. Beyond she could see the stream flowing down towards her between banks of rock and bare mud. Above was the evening sky, stars just starting to show themselves.

Freedom.

Ferro fumbled at the old iron, air hissing between her teeth, fingers slow and weak from the cold. Ninefingers came up beside her and planted his hands next to hers—four hands in a row, two dark and two pale, clamped tight and straining. They were pressed against each other in the narrow space and she heard him grunting with effort, heard the rushing of her own breath, felt the ancient metal beginning to bend, squealing softly.

Far enough for her to slither between.

She pushed her bow, and quiver, and sword through first, holding them up in one hand. She hooked her head between the bars, turning sideways, sucking in her stomach and holding her breath, wriggling her shoulders, then her chest, then her hips through the narrow gap, feeling the rough metal scraping at her skin through her wet clothes.

She dragged herself onto the other side, tossing her weapons onto the bank. She braced her shoulders in the archway and planted her boots against the next bar, every muscle straining while Ninefingers dragged on it from the other side. It gave all of a sudden, snapping in half and showering flakes of rust into the stream, dumping her on her back, over her head in the freezing water.

Ninefingers started to haul himself through, face twisted with effort. Ferro floundered up, gasping with the cold, grabbed him under the arms and started pulling, felt his hands grip round her back. She grunted and wrestled and finally dragged him out. They flopped together onto the muddy bank and lay there, side by side. Ferro stared up at the crumbling walls of the ruined city rising sheer above her in the grey dusk, breathing hard and listening to Ninefingers do the same. She had not expected to get out of that place alive.

But they were not away quite yet.

She rolled and clambered up, dripping wet and trying to stop herself shivering. She wondered if she had ever been so cold in her whole life.

“That’s it,” she heard Ninefingers muttering. “By the fucking dead, that’s it. I’m done. I’m not moving another stride.”

Ferro shook her head. “We need to make some distance while we still have light.” She snatched up her weapons from the dirt.

“You call this light? Are you fucking crazy, woman?”

“You know I am. Let’s go, pink.” And she poked him in the ribs with her wet boot.

“Alright, damn it! Alright!” He stumbled reluctantly up, swaying, and she turned, started to walk up the bank through the twilight, away from the walls.

“What did I do?” She turned and looked at him, standing there, wet hair dripping round his face. “What did I do, back there?”

“You got us through.”

“I meant—”

“You got us through. That’s all.” And she slogged off up the bank. After a moment she heard Ninefingers following.

It was so dark, and Logen was so tired, that he barely even saw the ruin until they were almost inside it. It must have been a mill, he reckoned. It was built out right next to the stream, though he guessed the wheel had been missing for a few hundred years or more.

“We’ll stop here,” hissed Ferro, ducking through the crumbling doorway. Logen was too tired to do anything but nod and shamble after her. Thin moonlight washed down into the empty shell, picking out the edges of stones, the shapes of old windows, the hard-packed dirt of the ground. He stumbled to the nearest wall and sagged against it, sliding slowly down until his arse hit the mud.

“Still alive,” he mouthed silently, and grinned to himself. A hundred cuts and scrapes and bruises clamoured for attention, but he was still alive. He sat motionless—damp and aching and utterly spent, let his eyes close, and enjoyed the feeling of not having to move.

He frowned. There was a strange sound in the darkness, over the trickling of the stream. A tapping, clicking sound. It took him a moment to realise what it was. Ferro’s teeth. He dragged his coat off, wincing as he pulled it over his torn elbow, and held it out to her in the dark.

“What’s this?”

“A coat.”

“I see it’s a coat. What for?”

Damn it but she was stubborn. Logen almost laughed out loud. “I may not have your eyes, but I can still hear your teeth rattling.” He held the coat out again. “Wish I had more to offer you, but this is all I’ve got. You need it more ’n me, and there it is. No shame in that. Take it.”

There was a pause, then he felt it pulled out of his hand, heard her wrapping it round herself. “Thanks,” she grunted.

He raised his eyebrows, wondering if he could have heard that right. Seemed there was a first time for everything. “Alright. And to you.”

“Uh?”

“For the help. Under the city, and on the hill with the stones, and up on the roofs, and all the rest.” He thought about it for a moment. “That’s a lot of help. More than I deserve, most likely, but, well, I’m still good and grateful for it.” He waited for her to say something, but nothing came. Only the sound of the stream gurgling under the walls of the building, the sound of the wind hissing through the empty windows, the sound of his own rough breathing. “You’re alright,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying. Whatever you try to make out, you’re alright.”