‘What are you doing here?’ he snapped, fumbling desperately in the snow.
‘Look, I’m not prying or anything,’ said Conina meekly, ‘but what exactly do you have in mind?’
She could see a rolling heap of bulldozed snow and soil bearing down on them through the forest, the mind-numbing sound of the leading glaciers now overlaid with the rhythmic snapping of tree trunks. And, advancing implacably above the treeline, so high that the eye mistook them at first for sky, the blue-green prows.
‘Nothing,’ said Nijel, ‘nothing at all. We’ve just got to resist them, that’s all there is to it. That’s what we’re here for.’
‘But it won’t make any difference,’ she said.
‘It will to me. If we’re going to die anyway, Iii rather die like this. Heroically.’
‘Is it heroic to die like this?’ said Conina.
‘I think it is,’ he said, ‘and when it comes to dying, there’s only one opinion that matters.’
‘Oh.’
A couple of deer blundered into the clearing, ignored the humans in their blind panic, and rocketed away.
‘You don’t have to stay,’ said Nijel. ‘I’ve got this geas, you see.’
Conina looked at the backs of her hands.
‘I think I should,’ she said, and added, ‘You know, I thought maybe, you know, if we could just get to know one another better-’
‘Mr and Mrs Harebut, was that what you had in mind?’ he said bluntly.
Her eyes widened. ‘Well-’ she began.
‘Which one did you intend to be?’ he said.
The leading glacier smashed into the clearing just behind its bow wave, its top lost in a cloud of its own creation.
At exactly the same time the trees opposite it bent low as a hot wind blew from the Rim. It was loaded with voices - petulant, bickering voices - and tore into the clouds like a hot iron into water.
Conina and Nijel threw themselves down into snow which turned to warm slush under them. Something like a thunderstorm crashed overhead, filled with shouting and what they at first thought were screams although, thinking about them later, they seemed more like angry arguments. It went on for a long time, and then began to fade in the direction of the Hub.
Warm water flooded down the front of Nijel’s vest. He lifted himself cautiously, and then nudged Conina.
Together they scrambled through the slush and mud to the top of the slope, climbed through a logjam of smashed timber and boulders, and stared at the scene.
The glaciers were retreating, under a cloud stuffed with lightning. Behind them the landscape was a network of lakes and pools.
‘Did we do that?’ said Conina.
‘It would be nice to think so, wouldn’t it?’ said Nijel.
‘Yes, but did-’ she began.
‘Probably not. Who knows? Let’s just find a horse,’ he said.
‘The Apogee,’ said War, ‘or something. I’m pretty sure.’
They had staggered out of the inn and were sitting on a bench in the afternoon sunshine. Even War had been persuaded to take off some of his armour.
‘Dunno,’ said Famine, ‘Don’t think so.’
Pestilence shut his crusted eyes and leaned back against the warm stones.