Uprooted(100)

“But the Falcon put a spell of seeing on her,” I said, arguing with myself as much as him. “They tried her with Jadwiga’s shawl. There wasn’t anything in her. There wasn’t a trace, none of them could see any shadow—”

“Corruption isn’t the only tool the Wood has,” Sarkan said. “Ordinary torment can break a person just as well. It might have let her go deliberately, broken to its service but untainted to any magical sight. Or it might have planted something on her instead, or nearby. A fruit, a seed—”

He stopped and turned his head, seeing something I couldn’t. He said sharply, “Let go!” and jerked his magic loose; I fell backwards off the hearth and struck against the floor, jarred painfully. The rosebush crumbled to ash on the hearth and vanished, and he was gone with it.

Kasia sprang to catch me, but I was already scrambling to my feet. A fruit, a seed. His words had sparked fear in me. “The bestiary,” I said. “Ballo was going to try to purify it—” I was still dizzy, but I turned and ran from the room, urgency rising in me. Ballo had been going to tell the king about the book. Kasia ran beside me, steadying my first wobbly steps.

The screaming reached us as we plunged down the first narrow servants’ staircase. Too late, too late, my feet told me as they slapped against the stone. I couldn’t tell where the screams came from: they were far away and echoing strangely through the castle hallways. I ran in the direction of the Charovnikov, past two staring maids who’d shrunk back against the walls, crumpling the folded linens in their arms. Kasia and I wheeled to go down the second staircase to the ground level just as a white burst of fire crackled below, throwing sharp-edged shadows against the walls.

The blinding light faded, and then I saw Solya go flying across the mouth of the stairwell, smashing into a wall with a wet-sack noise. We scrambled down and saw him sprawled up against the opposite wall, not moving, his eyes open and dazed, blood running from his nose and mouth, and bloody shallow slashes dragged across his chest.

The thing that crawled out of the corridor to the Charovnikov nearly filled the space from floor to ceiling. It was less a beast than a horrible conglomeration of parts: a head like a monstrous dog, one enormous eye in the middle of its forehead and the snout full of jagged sharp edges that looked like knives instead of teeth. Six heavy-muscled legs with clawed lion’s feet sprouted from its swollen body, all of it armored in scales like a serpent. It roared and came rushing towards us so quickly I almost couldn’t think to move. Kasia seized me and dragged me back up the stairs, and the thing doubled on itself and thrust its head up through the opening of the stairwell, snapping and biting and howling, a green froth boiling out of its mouth. I shouted, “Polzhyt!” stamping its head away, and it shrieked and jerked back into the hallway as a spurt of fire burst up from the stairs and scorched across its muzzle.

Two heavy bolts flew into its side with solid, meaty thumps: it twisted, snarling. Behind it, Marek threw aside a crossbow; a terrified gawky young equerry at his side had pulled a spear down off the wall for him and was clutching it, gaping at the monster; he barely remembered to let go as Marek snatched it out of his hands. “Go raise the guard!” he shouted at the boy, who flinched and ran. Marek jabbed the spear at the monster’s head.

The doors to a chamber hung crazily open behind him, white and black flagstones splattered with blood and three men sprawled dead, nobles in slashed clothes. The white, frightened face of an old man stared out from beneath the table in the room: the palace secretary. Two palace guards lay dead farther back along the hallway, as if the monster had come bounding from deeper inside the castle and had smashed open the doors to get at the men inside.

Or perhaps to get at one man, in particular: it snarled at the poking spear, but then it turned away from Marek; it swung its heavy head around, teeth baring, deliberate, towards Solya. He was staring at the ceiling still, his eyes dazed, his fingers slowly scrabbling over the stone floor as though trying to find a grip on the world.

Before the thing could pounce, Kasia flung herself past me in one enormous leap down the stairs, stumbling and thudding into the wall and righting herself. She grabbed another spear off the wall and pushed it into the beast’s face. The dog-thing snapped at the spear’s haft, then bellowed: Marek had sunk his spear into its flanks. There were boots, shouts coming, more guards running and the cathedral bells ringing suddenly in warning; the page had raised the alarm.

I saw all of those things, and could say afterwards that they happened, but I didn’t feel them happening in the moment. There was only the hot stinking breath of the monster coming up the staircase, and blood, and my heart jumping; and knowing I had to do something. The beast howled and turned back to Kasia and Solya, and I stood up on the stairs. The bells were ringing and ringing. I heard them above my head, where a high window looked out from the stairwell onto a narrow slice of sky, the bright pearl-grey haze of a cloudy summer day.

I stretched up my hand and called, “Kalmoz!” Outside the clouds squeezed together into a dark knot like a sponge, a cloudburst that blew water in spattering on me, and a bolt of lightning cracked in through the window and jumped into my hands like a bright hissing snake. I clutched it, blinded, white light and a high singing whine all around me; I couldn’t breathe. I flung it down the stairs towards the beast. Thunder roared around me and I went flying back, sprawling painfully across the landing, smoke and a bitter sharp smell crackling.