Page 35 of Ensii
Chapter Ten
The beast spun for them, smashing through the nearest pillar. The great stone column shattered like glass, chunks of rock and dust flying in all directions.
Talitha was knocked onto her back, sprawled to the ground. The monster let off a shrieking roar that shook the ceiling and shattered the remaining windows. A rain of glass poured down.
Talitha and the others crouched, shielding their faces from the hail of shards. Her ears were still ringing when she grabbed the nearest soldier by the arm. She didn’t see who it was. Her eyes were glued to that great wispy colossus as it stalked through the pillars. “Get to the doors!” she screamed. “Get them open!”
The monster hung back, waiting for something.
“It’s getting stronger,” Talitha was surprised to hear her own voice cut through the madness. “It’s waiting for something, it—”
“Stronger!” Kasrei sputtered. “How much stronger does it need to be?”
Talitha snatched up a spear where one of the soldiers had dropped it.
“You cry usurper,” the monster purred. “But that’s you.” The monster had dragged back two of their soldiers. Whether they had been Hudspethite or Ilian was impossible to tell. Their faces and bodies were unrecognizable, beaten and mauled beyond all recognition.
The demon tore at their flesh, peeling back their armor like the shells of a tortoise.
Pinning down its victim with a claw, the monster studied its prey with fascination. “You were only ensaadi because Morzei let you.”
“I am rightful ruler after the death of Sargon! My grandfather gave me nothing!” She shouldn’t have cared what the monster said, yet something in the words pricked the back of her mind.
The monster made a hacking sound. It took Talitha a moment to realize it was laughing. “His favorite and you didn’t know it.”
Talitha clenched her spear tighter, heart pounding. She couldn’t see where its heart would be. Its chest cavity kept contracting and expanding, never staying one shape for long.
“I was there when the ensaak murdered Sargon,” the monster growled. “Or did you really think he died of a fever?”
The words slid over Talitha’s ears like ashes. People died of less serious ailments all the time, at least in the world without magians.
“He drowned your brother in the washbasin so you could be ensaak.”
Talitha’s skin prickled. “Nehemian?”
The monster roared, snapping its jaws.“Youare the usurper.” He dug his claws deeper into the bloody shape at his feet. There was a crack and the victim’s head exploded like a melon, spilling brains and blood on the marble stone.
The ensaak’s chest quavered, horror threatening to take her over. She hurled the spear with all her might, aiming for the wispy mass of the thing’s chest. The iron head sailed in a straight arc and struck the monster behind its foreleg.
The monster roared. White jaws dripping black slime twisted back while the slit eyes stayed focused on her, its entire head contorting and reshaping as it flexed and tore out the spear.
Talitha had less than an instant’s hesitation before she drew her sword. This one had said it was coming for her, hadn’t it? If it wanted a fight, that was what she would give it.
“We need to get out of here.” Ashek was at Talitha’s ear the next moment.
Talitha swore. “It wants me.”
“And you think you’ll be the end?” He grabbed her arm.
“If anyone can kill it, it would be me.”
Ashek physically dragged her back, but she twisted out of his grip.
“Ashek—”
“Debrei will know what to do!”
The doors to the throne room had been unbolted from this side and the soldiers screamed madly as the doors opened. Gilsazi’s soldiers tried to get in, but were shoved back. The survivors from the throne room rushed out as quickly as they could, the monster drifting languidly after them.
