and sly in the movement.
“Down,” Margaret said, and before David could protest, she had pushed him aside.
CHAPTER 6
The Roilings spread swiftly, borne on the winds of war, and by a new species of moth. Why now? Why not after the Grand Defeat? It seemed some dynamic had changed. The Roil was no longer something on the horizon; it wormed its way into the north, borne on iron ships and in the blood of refugees.
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 970 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
Margaret moved towards the sound, David behind her. She held the rime blade in one hand. In these close quarters what was literally cold steel seemed the simplest weapon available to her, and the one least likely to lead to manslaughter should the noise prove no threat. Besides, the thought of wasting endothermic shells sickened her. She never knew when her supply would run out, a bullet fired here was one that she could not fire in the Deep North, if they ever made it that far.
David touched her arm, she jerked her head towards him, so savagely that he took a quick step back, and she realised that she had frightened him. Was it wrong that she took so much pleasure in his fear? “I said, get down.”
David nodded: an irritating smile grew on his face. “Because, yes, I really need you to protect me. We’re being followed,” he said. “Have been since we passed the market square.” She wanted the scared David back.
“And you didn’t tell me until now?” Margaret glanced casually down the street, her flinty eyes narrowed. “Cadell?”
“No, I don’t think so. And I could be wrong but-”
Margaret was already stalking back the way they had come.
A woman in her eighties, Margaret guessed, stumbled out from her hiding place; she almost looked as though she were going to crash to the ground. Margaret lowered her blade, but she did not sheathe it. The woman straightened and there was slyness in the movement, her lips turned slightly upwards at Margaret’s approach. There was something wrong with her eyes, they were unfocussed. She seemed to look at Margaret and not look at her. Margaret hesitated, then lifted the rime blade higher.
“Why are you following us?” Margaret hissed.
“I’m not sure. The question…” The woman's voice fell away, and she looked at her hands as though the answer might lie there. Then she pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders. Margaret felt a stab of sympathy, but she ignored it.
“You know what I mean, you’ve been following us since we passed through the square.”
Margaret towered over the woman, fighting the snarl that she could feel forming on her lips. Snarls came more often these days. She tried to smile. “There’s nothing to be frightened of,” Margaret said. “We do not kill old women.”
“Just Old Men,” David said from behind her, and Margaret did her best to ignore him, and the ever-increasing smugness in his tone. Where did that come from? Why did it choose to reveal itself now?
The woman didn’t look frightened, just confused. She straightened her clothes, took a deep breath, her gaze cleared and she looked at Margaret with eyes wide and suddenly knowing.
And Margaret realised that the woman wasn’t confused at all. She’d known exactly what she was doing.
“Not following him. Just you.” The woman grabbed her arm with fingers that seemed to burn with their own heat, and smiled. Darkness swarmed over her lips. Her eyes rolled in her head. “We’re coming for you, my darling,” she said.
Margaret yanked her arm free, eyes wide, that voice — it was her mother’s voice. “Hurry up, then,” Margaret said, and thrust the rime blade through the Roiling’s chest. Her thumb flicked the activation plate, and the Roiling jolted and screamed, or tried to. What came out was dark and fluttering, already dying: Witmoths. Ice streaked her clothes, where the blade touched her; Margaret could feel the old woman’s spine grinding against the steel. Margaret grabbed a pistol from her belt and shot the Roiling in the head. The Roiling hit the ground with a wooden thump. She fired again at its chest.
“I think it’s dead,” David said, touching her elbow.
“She… It shouldn’t be here in the first place.” Margaret yanked her elbow free. “I said, don’t touch me.”
“Do you have to kill everything you meet?” David said.
Margaret yanked her blade free. Tapped it against the cobblestones, ice dark with blood and Roil spores dropped to the ground.
“Now we’ll never know how it made its way here. Or if it left a trail of infected.”
“They always leave a trail,” Margaret said.
“Yes, I suppose they do. And it always seems to lead to us. Perhaps all we need do is wait.” David crouched down, he looked more curious than scared, and picked up a Witmoth. It crumbled beneath his fingers, he grimaced and wiped them clean on his pants. “The moths have become more robust,” he said. “They shouldn’t be able to hold any form here.”
“What, they’re resistant to the cold?”
David touched her arm (again!) with his frigid fingers. “Oh, this is hardly cold, but their presence here is disturbing.” He peered at Margaret. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Margaret hardly heard him. The Roiling's last few words had been spoken in her mother’s voice. Its face had shifted subtly, too.
“Normally you would have knocked my hand away by now.”
Margaret did just that. “Yes, I’m fine. What should we do with the body? We can’t leave it here.”
“You’re right,” David said. “This street may be deserted now, but people must use it sometimes.”
“I’ll grab the legs,” Margaret said.
David shook his head. “No need. Please, if you would make me some room.”
He touched the old woman’s face and closed his eyes. The air chilled, ice crackled over the woman’s cheeks, it rose crystalline and red from her lips. The corpse stiffened and crackled. David, sweating and breathing hard, took a step back. “Have to do this quick.”
He kicked the body with his boot. The corpse shattered as though it were made of glass.
“That was harder than I thought it would be.” He panted, and stamped down hard on the shards. “But you were right, we couldn’t have left the body here. Someone finds that, gets a moth inside them, and, well, you know what happens.”
Margaret still couldn’t quite believe what she had seen. There was blood where the corpse had been, not blood exactly, but a sort of black and red slurry.
“How did you do that?” she said. “Cadell couldn’t do that.”
David shrugged. “Maybe he could, or maybe he wasn’t far enough north. We’re much closer to Tearwin Meet, and its power is in part mine.”
She looked down at the mess. “But that… that is madness.”
“Oh, it’s nothing really.” David took a step forward, tripped, or stumbled, or just dropped. He grabbed at her arm, slipped and almost fell on his face. Margaret pulled him up. He was shivering, and his face had grown almost as white as hers.
“David?”
“I’m f-f-fine.”
“Perhaps we should get you home.”
“You’re too kind,” he said. “Far, far too kind. It's the Lodes, well, the absence of them. I was near a Lode the last time I used my powers: it did the hard work.”
Something moved in the street ahead, a shadow darting towards them; David pulled himself from Margaret’s
