The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)(107)

“So go home,” was all he said.

That wasn’t right either. But it was too late, because somebody was running toward them.

The weird thing was that the entrance to the tomb was still a hundred yards off, and Quentin could see the creatures coming the whole way, two of them, running flat out across the wet grass for at least a minute, like they were out doing early-morning wind sprints. It was almost funny. They weren’t human, and they didn’t seem to belong to the same species as each other either, but they were both cute. One was something like a giant hare, squat and covered in gray-brown fur, maybe four feet tall and about that wide. It hopped toward them determinedly, its long ears flattened back. The other one was more like a ferret—or maybe a meerkat? A weasel? Quentin tried to think what the closest equivalent furry animal would be. Whatever it was it ran upright and it was tall, seven feet at least, most of it long silky torso. Its face was chinless, with prominent front teeth. nostrils.

This odd couple came charging at them across the green grass silently, no battle cry, no sound track, in the still early-morning air. At first it looked like they might be running to greet them, but Bunny had short, stubby swords in both of its front paws, held out steady in front of him as he ran, and Ferret was hefting a quarterstaff.

They closed to within fifty yards. The Brakebills crowd shrank back involuntarily, as if the newcomers exerted an invisible force field. This was it: they had come to the end of what was conceivable. Something was about to give. It had to. Dint and Fen didn’t move. Quentin realized there wasn’t going to be any parley or rock-paper-scissors. This was going to be about stabbing. He had thought he was ready, but he wasn’t. Somebody had to stop it. The girls were hanging on to each other as if in a howling wind, even Alice and Janet.

Oh my God, Quentin thought, this is really happening. This is really happening.

Ferret arrived first. It stutter-stepped to a jittery stop, breathing hard. Its huge eyes blinked as it smoothly spun its staff two-handed in a figure-eight pattern. It whickered in the still air.

“Hup!” yelled Fen.

“Ha!” Dint answered.

They set themselves side by side, as if they were getting ready to lift something heavy. Then Dint stepped back, ceding first blood.

“Jesus,” Quentin heard himself say. “Jesus Jesus Jesus.” He wasn’t ready for this. This wasn’t magic. This was the opposite of magic. The world was ripping open.

Ferret feinted once and snapped a nasty jab at Fen’s face. The two ends of the quarterstaff were now glowing an ominous enchanted orange, like the tip of a cigarette. Somebody shrieked in the silence.

Even as one end of the staff whipped forward Fen turned away from it, bowing forward at the waist, ducking the jab and turning seamlessly, almost lazily, into a graceful spinning roundhouse kick. She seemed to be moving slowly, but her foot clocked Ferret’s weak chin hard enough to spin its head round a quarter turn.

Ferret grinned, with blood in its big teeth, but it had more bad news coming. Fen was still spinning, and her next kick connected low and hard with the side of its knee. The knee bent in, sideways, wrongly. Ferret staggered and aimed the same jab at Fen’s face, whereupon Fen caught the flashing quarterstaff barehanded—the smack of it hitting her open palm was like a rifle shot. She dropped her slick martial arts elegance and tussled savagely, messily for control.

For a second they froze, vibrating with isometric strain while Ferret, with agonizing, comical slowness, stretched its neck forward to try to bite Fen’s bare throat with its big rodent incisors. But she had it outmuscled. Fen slowly forced the staff up under its chin, right into where its Adam’s apple would be, while her right foot stamped pneumatically on the outside of its hurt knee, over and over again. It gagged and twisted away.

Just as Quentin thought he couldn’t watch anymore, Ferret made its last mistake. It took its paw off the quarterstaff for an instant—it looked like it was going for a knife strapped to its thigh. With the extra leverage Fen flung it down hard on the turf, and the wind huffed out of it.

“Ha!” she barked, and stamped twice on its thickly furred throat, hard. A long, gargling rattle followed, the first sound Quentin had heard it make. glance passed between and theem;  margin-right:g

Fen popped up, visibly amped, her face red under her blond buzz cut. She picked up the quarterstaff, braced herself, and broke it over her knee in one try. Throwing the broken pieces aside, she leaned down and screamed in Ferret’s face.

“Haaaaaaaaaa!”

The broken ends of the staff spat out a few feeble burnt-orange sparks on the grass. Sixty seconds had passed, maybe not even that.

“Jesus Jesus Jesus,” Quentin said, hugging himself. Someone was throwing up on the grass. It had never once even occurred to him to try to help. He wasn’t ready for this. This wasn’t what he’d come here for.

Meanwhile the other assassin, the squat, muscular Bunny, had never arrived on the scene. Dint had done something to the ground beneath its long rabbit feet, or maybe to its sense of balance, so that it couldn’t seem to stand up. It was scrabbling around helplessly on the grass like it was wet ice. Fen, on a roll, stepped over Ferret’s body toward him, but Dint stopped her.

He turned back to the Brakebills crowd.

“Can any of you take him from here? Bow and arrow maybe?” Quentin couldn’t tell if he was pissed that they weren’t helping or if he was just being polite, offering them a taste of the action. “Anybody?”