Skellen swore. Silifant and Mun, both with swords in hand, whirled around, staring goggle-eyed into the fog. Grating. Grating. Grating. Quick. Rhythmic. And more and more clearly. More and more clearly.

‘Where’s it coming from?’ roared Boreas Mun, spinning around, flourishing the blade of his sword two-handed. ‘Where’s it coming from?’

‘Quiet!’ screamed Tawny Owl with an orion in his raised hand. ‘I think it’s from the right! Yes! From the right! She’s coming up on the right! Look out!’

The Gemmerian walking on the right wing suddenly cursed, turned around and ran blindly into the fog, sloshing through the melting layer of ice. He didn’t get far, not even out of sight. They heard the sharp grating of skates gliding and made out a blurred, flickering shadow. And the flash of a sword. The Gemmerian howled. They saw him fall, saw a broad spray of blood on the ice. The wounded man thrashed about, curled up, screamed and moaned. Then he fell silent and stopped moving.

But while he was still moaning he drowned out the sound of the skates. They didn’t expect the girl to be able to turn back so swiftly.

She fell among them, right in their midst. She cleaved Ola Harsheim as she flashed past, low, beneath the knee, folding him up like a penknife. She spun in a pirouette, covering Boreas Mun in a stinging hail of icy shards. Skellen leaped aside, slipped and caught Rience by a sleeve. They both fell over. The skates grated just beside them and cold, sharp fragments stung their faces. One of the Gemmerians yelled and his cry broke off in a savage croak. Tawny Owl knew what had happened. He’d heard many people having their throats cut.

Ola Harsheim shouted, rolling around on the ice.

Grating. Grating. Grating.

Silence.

‘Mr Stefan,’ Dacre Silifant gibbered. ‘Mr Stefan… You’re my only hope… Save me… Don’t let me—’

‘She’s fucking crippled meeeee!’ Ola Harsheim bellowed. ‘Help me, for fuck’s sake! Help me get up!’

‘Bonhart!’ Skellen yelled into the fog. ‘Bonhaaaart! Heeeelp us! Where are you, you whoreson? Bonhaaaart!’

‘She’s got us surrounded,’ Boreas Mun gasped, spinning around and straining to hear. ‘She’s skating around us in the fog… She’ll strike at will… Death! That wench is death! We’ll breathe our last here! It’ll be a massacre, like it was on Samhain Eve in Dun Dare…’

‘Stick together,’ Skellen groaned. ‘Stick together, she’s picking us off one by one… When you see her looming up, don’t lose your heads… Trip her up with swords, saddlebags, belts… Use anything to stop her—’

He broke off. This time, they didn’t even hear the scraping of skates. Dacre Silifant and Rience saved their lives by dropping flat onto the ice. Boreas Mun managed to jump aside, slipped, fell over and upended Bert Brigden. As the girl flashed by, Skellen swung and threw an orion. It found a target. But not the right one. Ola Harsheim, who had managed to get up, tumbled over in convulsions onto the blood-spattered ice; his staring eyes seemed to cross on the steel star sticking out of the bridge of his nose.