The black horse had gone. Peter leaned into Cooper’s shoulder, furiously scanning the blizzard for a black spot. He craned round just in case the stranger had doubled back somehow and was now in pursuit of them. But there were no signs of him, and nothing he could hide behind. No hill. No trees. Nothing. One moment the horse was right there in front of them, the next it was gone.

“Coop, where did it go?”

Snowball ran on, now chasing nothing but the horizon.

“Cooper?”

Cooper turned his head into profile, his eyes startled and unsure. But he didn’t have time to answer.

The ground gave way beneath them. Snowball reared up on his hind legs, whinnying wildly, and Peter lost his grip. His fingers slipped from Cooper’s waist. His body left the saddle. And in the moment before the back of his skull struck the frozen ground, he saw Snowball’s neck twisted round. His body contorted so monstrously, there was no semblance of a horse any more, just neck and hoof and mane and eyes. And as he toppled backwards, taking Cooper down with him, Peter saw it. A cornice of snow snapped just ahead of them, dropping away sharply into the valley below.

5

Snowball landed on his back, legs flailing, head thrashing, left and right and left again, carving out a trench in the snow with every twist of his neck. The brown of his eye reeled back in terror that something as stable as the ground should fail him. He rolled over on to his side, staggering to his feet and bolted from the ledge as fast as his legs could carry him.

Cooper was lying just a short distance away from Peter, face down with ribbons of wet hair splayed across the snow. He pushed himself up, spitting a lump of snow from his mouth, but his hands started to sink, seemingly deeper than the surface of the ground. Peter got to his knees, feeling the reassuring hardness of the frozen earth beneath him. But Cooper hadn’t been so lucky.

The plains ended abruptly to form a rugged plateau that towered some two hundred feet high, forging a natural barrier to the wilderness below. And the rim was so white against the snow-strewn sky, it wasn’t even visible until you were right on top of it. Cooper was several inches away from the edge, but it was only now Peter realized he didn’t have any ground beneath him. He was balancing on an overhanging cornice completely clear of the cliff.

Peter drew the snout of the wolfskin back over his shoulders to release the sweat pouring across his scalp and whimpered Cooper’s name. It barely broke across his lips to even register. But it didn’t matter; Cooper already knew he was in trouble. He peeled his chest from the snow, spitting matted hair from his face, and looked up.