Carefully, Attia took the food-bag back off the horse and threw it onto the ice. It slithered over the ground. A long arm reached down and gathered it up. It disappeared into the creature's misshapen darkness.
"Not enough."
"There's no more" she said.
"We smell the beast. Its hot blood. Its sweet meat."
She glanced at Keiro in alarm. Without the horse they were trapped here. She stood beside him, the knife in her hand. "No. Not the horse."
Faint crackles of static lit the sky. She prayed the lights would come on. But this was the Ice Wing, eternally dark.
"Leave" Keiro said savagely. "Or I blow you away. I mean it."
"Which of us? The Prison has joined us. You cannot divide us."
It was moving in. Out of the corner of her eye Attia saw movement; she gasped. "It's all round." She backed off, terrified, suddenly sure that if one of its hands touched her, the fingers would grow into hers.
Clinking with steel, the Chain-gang had almost surrounded them. Only the frozen falls behind offered some protection; Keiro backed up against the seamed ice and snapped "Get on the horse, Attia."
"What about you?"
"Get on the horse!"
She hauled herself up. The linked men lurched forward. Instantly the horse reared.
Keiro fired.
A blue bolt of flame drilled the central torso; the man vaporized instantly, and the Chain-gang screamed in unison; eleven voices in a howl of rage.
Attia forced the horse round; leaning down to grab Keiro she saw the thing reunite, its hands joining, the skin-chains slithering, re-growing tight.
Keiro turned to leap up behind her but it was on him.
He yelled and kicked out, but the hands were greedy; they had him round the neck and the waist; they tugged him from the horse. He struggled, swearing viciously, but there were too many of them, they were all over him, and their knives flashed in the blue ice-light. Attia fought the panicking horse, leant down, snatched the firelock from him and aimed it.
If she fired she'd kill him.
Skin-chains were wrapping him like tentacles. It was absorbing him; he would take the place of the dead man.
"Attia!" His yell was muffled. The horse reared; she struggled to keep it from bolting.
"Attia!" For a moment his face was clear; he saw her. "Fire!" he screamed.
She couldn't.
"Fire! Shoot me!"
For a moment she was frozen in terror.
Then she brought the weapon up and fired.
