Page 39 of Ensii
Chapter Eleven
“Bring oil from the lamps,” Talitha ordered. “From the storerooms. I want every drop we can spare brought here now. Bring fat from the kitchens.”
“Has Naram roasted any pigs lately?” Shaza asked, strikingly conversational under the circumstances.
“I believe so,” answered the steward, wringing a leather cap in his gnarled hands. “For the feast they held two nights past.”
“Bring the lard,” Shaza ordered. “All of it.”
“Excellent, yes.” Talitha shooed the steward out of the way. “Quickly! Jadiana, where are we on getting the archers here?”
“Twenty have come from the outer boundaries, my lady. But there’s been some rioting in the streets, many of the guards were called to put down the insurrection.”
Talitha shook her head. “We all die if we don’t put down this!” She jabbed her fist in the direction of the barricaded doors. Still, the thing that had once been Nehemian showed no signs of coming through.
Whatever it waited for, it must have been important enough that it would let them prepare. Not that Talitha blamed it. They’d already seen that almost anything they did would be pointless. They didn’t have any hope really, just a fool’s hope.
It was all they had, but it would have to do. If Talitha was to die here, she would not die quietly in the darkness. She would go out in a blaze of fire with a sword in her hand and a war cry on her lips.
Ashek handed Debrei off to one of his lieutenants. He spoke with the man for a moment and the prophetess clutched his hand with both of hers, kissing the backs of his knuckles.
The Dunedrifter—former Dunedrifter—bowed his head in acceptance. He saw the old woman and her guardian leaving for the relative safety deeper in the palace and then he was at Talitha’s side. He kept a good half pace of distance between them all the same.
He wasted no time. “What do we have?”
“Not much, but we will make it count.” Talitha looked grimly over her people and his—their people—scrambling from all directions.
Servants rushed in with jars of oil, then rushed out as fast as their legs would carry them. Soldiers clustered behind shields and makeshift barricades made of furniture, empty barrels, wheelbarrows, and whatever else they could find.
“Does Debrei have any idea how long we have?”
Ashek shook his head. “She said we’ll have enough time to do what we need to do, but she could tell me nothing beyond that.”
“The woman is infuriatingly vague.”
“She has yet to lead us wrongly,” Ashek answered, no argument or defensiveness in his tone, just pure, cold statement of fact. “The Lonely God sees her worthy to hear His voice. I trust her to speak truth.”
Talitha took a deep breath. “I hope—”
The massive double doors—solid bronze plated in gold and weighing more than a dozen oxen each—tore open like spiderwebs. Out pounced the monster, now at least ten times the size of the last three. It was fully solid, muscled, and dripping shadows like poison.
Talitha didn’t remember drawing her sword, but it was in her hand. “Take it down!” she cried.
Ashek shouted something to his Hudspethites. His command was lost in the creature’s roar as it descended on the improvised barricade.
They weren’t done preparing for the monster, but Talitha realized in a wash of horror that it wouldn’t have done any good. The beast sent soldiers, stone, and metal flying in all directions like so much chaff. It let off a gargantuan roar, shaking the ground and shattering glass.
The ground shook and Talitha caught herself against a pillar, just barely keeping herself upright. The floor cracked beneath their feet. For one awful moment, Talitha was sure the floor would give way and send them tumbling to the level below.
The monster that had been Nehemian didn’t bother feasting as the others had. It tore straight into the soldiers, sweeping left and right with paws as large as its head. Hunched back on its shortened hind legs like some grotesque ape, the monster bit and tore and clawed at every living thing in sight.
“Loose!” Talitha yelled, stumbling to the nearest archers. “I said, loose!” She knocked over one of the barrels of pitch and hurled a clay lamp after it. The pitch lit on fire, spreading in a blazing stain across the stones. “Shoot it, I said!”
Not waiting for the soldiers to obey, Talitha snatched up a spare bow and quiver from the ground. Jabbing the head of a pitch arrow into the flames she drew back the bowstring, gritting her teeth as the heat singed her fingertips. She let it fly, but missed as the monster dove to attack a circle of Hudspethites and Ilians, barricaded behind their shields.
It tore through their defenses as if they had been grass. Blood splattered, screams started and were silenced.
“Kill it!” Talitha cried, tears of anger blurring her vision as she reached for another arrow. “Bring it down!”
