Ice-Bound Promise [Wattys 2023 Shortlister]

7

7

She awoke with a groan. It felt as though every part of her body had become bruised and battered and, as she attempted to sit up, she found something restrained her. With blurred eyes, she looked down towards her body and saw thick manacles attached to her wrists. Lifting her hands, the attached chains clanked and rattled.

Looking around, she saw Hatyara wearing similar manacles, her furs removed, showing the revealing clothing that Únik had first seen her wearing. She, however, did not seem at all worried, unlike Únik. Gripping one manacle, she attempted to pull her hand from it, the cold metal biting into her wrist. After several attempts to release herself, she gave up. For now. It seemed their pursuers had managed to catch them, after all. Únik cursed herself for climbing the pyramid. If she had only continued walking, past the Tombs of Hagragng, they may have made it to Uriok after all.

Instead, she now found herself captive and knew that death would come, sooner rather than later. Accepting defeat, she took a longer, more studied look at her surroundings. She appeared to have become imprisoned within a featureless, stone room. In the centre, a blazing fire crackled and sparked, allowing her a half-decent light to see her prison. Hatyara watched in silence as Únik turned her head to look behind her.

Outside the room, through a stone doorway, she heard howling and barking. She knew that sound well. If nothing else, Barsa still lived, though for how long, she couldn't guess. To the side, she saw her furs, the thick, white snow bear pelts that had protected her from the ravages of the cold nights of the wastes, dumped in a pile.

With the continued clanking of chains, she reached up to her head, where the tumbling stone had struck her, sending her flying from the steps of the pyramid. She remembered falling, the avalanche of rocks striking her as she fell and then nothing. Under her fingers, she felt some kind of poultice attached where the rock had hit her. The surrounding flesh felt tender and bruised.

"Ah, our other guest awakes!" The voice of a young man reached her ears from behind and Únik twisted to see who spoke.

She groaned. Every part of her body ached, through exertion and through the battering of falling rocks and stones. Gritting her teeth, she turned in a slow movement, trying her best to ignore the pain. The owner of the voice sat upon a stone altar, or sarcophagus, a bow in his hand, an arrow nocked and pointing towards her. Around him gathered several people. Young people wearing rags and with dirty faces.

"You're not Ice-Kin." The words croaked from her throat and she realised she needed a drink. A quick glance showed her supply sacks sat beside her furs. "Are you Hagragng?"

"Ha! No!" The young man hopped up on top of the altar, spreading his arms and making a dramatic bow. "I am Swift Arrow and these are my hardy band of companions. We captured you for your coin, but you don't seem to have any."

"Thieves?" Raising her head in frustration, Únik looked towards Hatyara, but the girl said nothing still. "You have to let us go. We have bad people chasing us. They'll kill you as easy me and her."

"No-one will find us here. This is our secret hideout." The young man jumped down from the altar, coming closer to Únik and she saw that he was little more than a boy. Eighteen summers, at the most. Around the same age Thesik would have reached by now.

"It's one of the mausoleums at the top of one of the pyramids. Not so secret." She didn't know for certain, but she could see the stones were similar to those of the pyramids and she could only assume, if they were atop one of those many pyramids, it was not the one that had collapsed upon her.

Swift Arrow, and Únik wished she had another name to call him, scowled at that, returning to his companions and listening to their hushed whispers. Every so often, Swift Arrow or one of his companions would glance across to her, shaking a head or sneering in her direction. The conversation lasted longer than she expected.