The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(50)
Eliza and the wizard of Lil had spent no more than an hour searching unsuccessfully for books not yet drained by the Sorceress. Eliza had twice had to remind Uri Mon Lil of who she was, who he was, and what they were doing. Once this was clear to him, he would set about the task with renewed zeal until he forgot again. Eliza smelled the harrowghasters before she saw them, the unmistakable waft of rotting flesh pouring from the hallway. She dropped the book she’d been examining and drew her dagger.
“Something is coming,” she said to Uri Mon Lil. “Get behind me and find a spell in your book.”
Uri Mon Lil was more than happy to dart behind Eliza.
“Spells are at the back of the book,” Eliza reminded him.
“What am I looking for?” he asked, flipping pages frantically.
“Something useful,” said Eliza as the harrowghasters swarmed into the Library, their clouded eyes lighting on the girl and the wizard. The stench was overpowering. Eliza spoke a simple barrier spell and the harrowghasters pressed themselves around it. Their lips had rotted away, leaving black-toothed hideous grins exposed, and they clacked their teeth now with eagerness. She could feel the barrier buckling under their strength and knew her skill was not enough to hold it long.
“You need to do the spell of flight,” she said urgently to the wizard. “Flight with your staff. Quick.”
Uri Mon Lil read the spell. As he finished, Eliza let her barrier crumble and Uri Mon Lil shot up into the air with his staff. Eliza darted between two of the harrowghasters, racing towards Foss’s stone figure as if he could offer protection.
“Do something!” she shouted at the wizard, who was hovering way up near the ceiling, hanging over his staff and reading anxiously. The harrowghasters gave up on him and made for Eliza. For a minute or two she was able to fend them off with her dagger. She sliced off hands that reached for her, causing the harrowghasters to be a little more cautious, but there were too many of them to keep in her line of sight at all times. She stepped back and felt something like ice on her back, right between her shoulder blades, an awful cold grip that seemed to suck the air right out of her. The blood in her veins stopped flowing and a deathly heaviness sealed over her. Her eyes darted towards the dangling wizard but she could not make a sound, her lungs constricting violently.
Uri Mon Lil’s book flew from his hands and hurtled across the room, striking the harrowghaster that had touched Eliza in the head. It was only a second but the blow knocked him slightly and his fingers left her back. Her blood began to flow again and air rushed into her lungs. She dove sideways, away from that deathly touch. The others descended on her, but before they could lay their hands on her all the books on the floor rose up and began to whirl about the room, battering the harrowghasters. A path through the storm of books cleared before Eliza, straight to the window. She could hear a voice chanting, and for a terrible moment she thought it was Nia. But then the voice cried, “Run, my girl!” and she saw her grandmother, Selva, by the hole Nia had blasted through the wall. The empty books rained down on the harrowghasters. Eliza grabbed Uri Mon Lil’s book and ran to the window.
“Dragon of fire!” she shouted. Ka’s dragon, waiting in the grounds far below, lunged into the air towards the window.
“Get down here!” Eliza called to the wizard.
“How?” he whimpered. The staff dove down towards her but remained several feet off the ground.
“Just stop flying,” she shouted at him.
“I don’t know how to stop!” he returned, but then a book struck him hard and he tumbled off his staff to the floor with a great wail. The staff darted back up to the ceiling. The harrowghasters were fighting through the books, some of them making for Eliza and Uri, some of them for Selva. Eliza grabbed hold of Uri Mon Lil and pulled him out the broken window with her. The two of them were caught almost immediately by Ka’s dragon, who carried them out over the grounds under the darkening winter sky, nearly crushed in his talons, and set them down. Five of the harrowghasters hunched at the broken window, staring out after their vanished prey with dead eyes.
The Cra had been lying in wait. Since Eliza had returned to the Citadel, hundreds of them had been massing around the walls, bearing vast oily nets. When they saw that their nemesis had evaded the harrowghasters they surged up over the walls, shrieking. Ka’s dragon was instantly caught in a vast net. Another net was dropped over Anargul’s wounded dragon. Eliza knew that the weak enchantments of the Cra would not hold a dragon for more than a few moments but that was all the time such a horde of the Cra needed.
“Come on,” she said, catching the wizard by the hand and running towards the Inner Sanctum for shelter.
“Oh, what is happening?” cried Uri Mon Lil, who had forgotten everything again and was very distressed to find himself fleeing an army of winged monsters without knowing why.
Looking up as she ran, Eliza saw above the shrieking Cra a great dark cloud descending. For one sickening moment she thought it was further armies of the Cra, numbers beyond what even the dragons would be able to repel, but as the cloud fell towards them and separated into individual shapes she understood. Something struck the back of her neck and she stumbled forwards. The Cra were all over her in an instant, knocking her to the ground on top of the cowering wizard. She felt sharp teeth and claws driving into her, strong arms trying to pull her over, but she clung to the wizard, shielding her chest and face and holding the book tight against her with one arm.