Chapter 4: The Ice Hole

The quartermaster waited four nights.

On the fifth, a soldier woke Ruyun with a boot.

"Water detail. The washhouse tubs are dry."

"It is the middle of the night," Auntie said from the next mat.

"Quartermaster's order. One convict, one axe, the river."

Ruyun's back was still open under the bandages.

She stood anyway.

The Black River lay a quarter mile beyond the north wall, a white road under a sky with no moon.

The soldier cut a square in the ice with a chisel, put an axe in her hands, and walked back toward the gate.

"Break it clear to the water," he said. "Fill every bucket on the bank. Come back when they're full."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

She understood then that no bucket on the bank was meant to be full.

Ruyun swung with her left hand, because the right shoulder pulled at the wounds.

The axe bit and bounced.

She swung again.

The cold got into her wet sleeves and climbed.

After an hour her fingers would not close.

After two the first crack ran from the square toward her boots.

She stepped back.

The ice gave a long cracking sound, and the whole shelf under her sagged and went.

The water took her to the chest.

It was so cold it did not feel like water.

She got her elbows on the edge, and the edge broke.

She got them on again, and it broke again.

The axe was gone.

Somewhere above her a voice said her name, plain and level.

"Qiao Ruyun."

A hand closed on the collar of her coat and hauled.

She came out onto the ice on her stomach, coughing.

Shen Zhuo went down on one knee beside her in his gray cloak, breathing hard.

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