had not, there was no sanctuary to be found in that room. She heard the shrieks and wails from inside.
The ilk-beast regained its footing.
It slunk toward her again, shoving through the chairs. It would not make the same mistake twice. Despite its ravening appearance, its eyes glowed with keen intelligence. Somewhere inside its twisted form was the man who had consumed Chrism’s blood. Both beast and man burned with fury.
A howling wail escaped its throat.
Dart felt her knees weaken. She trembled from crown to heel.
With one last growl, it ran at her, low this time, but bulked at the shoulder. Claws scraped stone.
Dart stumbled backward, tripped on a broken chair, and fell hard to her backside.
The beast lunged up, claws raised, fangs bared. It crashed down upon its cowering prey.
Dart dropped to her back. Her fingers scrabbled for any weapon. Her palm found a shattered chair leg and raised it, braced with both arms now.
The beast landed on her, impaling itself on her sharpened stave of wood. Through the throat. Blood splashed over Dart. It burned like acid, blinded her eyes.
But the beast was far from dead. The mortal wound would take time to kill, and the beast intended to take Dart with it.
It shoved up enough to bring a claw to Dart’s shoulder. Skin tore, muscle, down to bone, pinning her. Dart screamed. Her mouth filled with the blood. She spat and choked, fearing to consume it, fearing she’d become what attacked her.
Panic fired her arms. The weight, the blood, the hot breath… all brought back a deeper terror. She struggled against the violation.
No!
The scream ripped up through her, yelled against all that tormented her, past and present. She shoved her stave deeper. The beast wailed and bucked backward. Its claws tore from her shoulder and she lost her stave.
The beast snarled and fell upon her again. It raised its muzzle to rip into Dart’s throat.
Then its left eye exploded with blood and gore.
The point of an arrow protruded out of the socket.
Shot from behind.
The body crashed atop Dart, knocking the last of the wind from her. She kicked and clawed her way from under it, gaining her freedom.
With her left shoulder on fire, Dart shoved to her feet. Down the hall, she spotted a whirl of shadow turning away.
With crossbow in hand, Yaellin returned to his defense of the stairs, vanishing down a few steps.
Laurelle appeared out of the cloak of his shadows. “Hurry, Dart!”
Dart stumbled past the ilk-beast, then gained her footing. She fled the length of the hall and reached Laurelle.
“Up!” Yaellin yelled from down a bend in the spiral stairs. Bodies draped the closest steps. “Get to hiding!”
Laurelle grabbed Dart’s uninjured arm and urged her upward.
They fled together. Each step jarred Dart’s clawed shoulder and drew hot tears.
They ran with no plan but to escape, to put as much distance as possible between them and the horrors below.
A door appeared, blocking the way.
It wasn’t until then that Dart realized where they had reached.
The top of the tower.
The rookery.
Her feet slowed. Her head shook. “No…”
“We must hide,” Laurelle said. She grabbed the handle and yanked the door open.
A flutter of wings sounded inside the dark chamber. The air stung of guano. A few beams of light illuminated the dusty space, but succeeded only in highlighting the darker shadows.
“Come. We can hide here.”
Laurelle drew Dart inside. She closed the door behind them.
Dart could not breathe as they stumbled deeper into the rookery. Eyes shone down from above. Dart searched the floor for blood. She knew the spot. By the back window, on the floor… bare planks, speckled with droppings. How could such horror leave no lasting mark?
“We’ll be safe here.”
Dart slowly shook her head. There was no safety to be found here.
The snick of a thrown latch sounded behind them.
Dart didn’t need to turn. It was happening all over again. “So we come full circle,” the voice said at the door.
Laurelle stiffened. “Healer Paltry…”
Dart slowly turned. The man stalked from the shadows. He bore a long sword in one hand. He carried it deftly. He must have escaped when the fighting first occurred, sneaking out the door and slipping past Yaellin as he defended the stairs, choosing the same place to hide.
Paltry came forward, fully into the light.
“Now to put an end to the abomination.”
Kathryn defended Tylar. She kept her eyes from his broken form. She could not balance the knight from a moment ago with the crippled wreck at her feet. Her heart ached, as if she’d lost Tylar all over again.
In fury, she stabbed and hacked to keep him safe. The naether daemon had no effect on the ilk-beasts. If anything, it made the fighting more difficult. Their party had to be careful of its shadowy form. While its touch might not harm the corrupted creatures, they had no such protection.
A slip of her cloak had accidentally brushed through the smoky umbilicus that connected Tylar to his leashed beast. The brief contact sucked all Grace from her, dropping shadows and cloak to her shoulders. All the speed borne of Grace died. It would take time to draw shadows back into her cloak. In the meantime, she felt as if she were fighting in mud.
Tylar understood the danger. He bloodied his palms and readied to call back the beast. “To the door,” he urged.
If nothing else, at least the appearance of the daemon had cleared the beasts blocking the room’s only exit. Gerrod and the Wyr-mistress had already reached the door and held it for them.
Kathryn hacked the last few steps to join them.
Gerrod manned the door, his armor stained from head to toe with blood and gore. “Rein in your daemon,” he called to Tylar.
With a nod, Tylar brought his bloody palms to the black umbilicus. His touch ignited a burst of fire. It raced out from him, consuming the naethryn before it. Wings burned away. Details blurred to smoke. The flash of fire startled the ilk-beasts, buying them all time to slip from the room.
Tylar waved them through as the fires reached the tip of his daemon’s nose and whipped back again. “Stand clear!”
The flames raged back toward Tylar.
He was the last, standing in the doorway. When the fiery wave struck him, he was knocked backward through the door. Eylan caught him and kept him from falling. Gerrod slammed the door.
Ilk-beasts struck and dug at the planking.
Gerrod shouldered the door, but the fight rattled the frame.
Tylar returned. Hale again. He wiped his sweated brow, then jabbed a fingertip on his dagger. “Back,” he warned Gerrod.
Tylar reached a bloody finger to one of the door’s hinges. A crackle of frost snapped from his touch. The iron took on a bluish cast. He did the same to the other two hinges.
“Frozen,” Tylar said. He stepped back and waved Gerrod off.
The ilk-beasts still fought the door, but the hinges refused to bend.
“I don’t know how long it will hold, but we’d best not wait and see.”
