The Book Man, Chapter 78 (Revised)

78 THE BATTLE

Afterward, Christian remembered little of the battle itself. He recalled riding toward the center of the clearing, where, according to Morrow’s map, Goblin was. In his absence, it had become marshy and muddy, and it horrified him, how slow the ponies’ running seemed as they slogged over the uneven ground. He was certain Goblin’s allies would careen toward them and wipe them out before they made it halfway across the field.

Narodnaya, on the other hand, was in her glory. She soared high and swooped ahead of the army to meet the oncoming crows. She screeched and chased after them as they flapped backwards, grasped at them with her clawing fingers and bit their heads off until her grey-green face was stained with blood. Christian shivered and ducked behind the spider’s head. The ride jarred his hip, but he gritted his teeth against the pain and clung tighter to the slingshot in his right hand and the cane in his left. The cane would help if he were attacked by a hellhound or anything similar, Mr. Catcher had told him: beat them with the iron head and down they’d go.

Despite the marsh-witch’s efforts, the crows whirled endlessly about them, beating the ponies about the heads with their wings until half of them stood rearing and screaming in the middle of the marsh with their riders trying to urge them forward. The lions and tigers chased after the crows and took savage joy in smashing the birds down with their paws. Their handlers could only cover their heads with their arms and keep running. Some tried to swing their makeshift weapons at the birds, but the crows dove past them, tore at the circus-folks’ faces with their talons and tried to peck their eyes out. Only Aurelia and her sisters passed through safely, blurs of bright color in stark contrast to the black bodies flying around them.

Tirion sent arrows whizzing through the air, stopping only to collect the spent arrows from fallen crows. They died pathetically, squawking once like chickens when hit and then spiraling to the ground, where they landed in a pile of ruffled feathers.

Minerva’s hair loosed and whipped about her face as she swung her frying pan at the birds from the back of her pony. There was a sickening crunch of iron on bone as the pan made contact with a crow’s skull, but she did not notice; she had spotted a pair of harpies.

“Oh, it’s them,” she said with a growl, and she hurled the frying pan at them as if it was a boomerang. It slammed into one of them with a clang and a screech. The harpy flopped to the ground, her skin and feathers smoking where the iron pan touched her and one wing stuck out at an odd angle. Her partner gave a scream that seemed half-human, half-eagle, and turned to Minerva with her eyes burning red. Christian’s stomach flipped in fear at the sight. Minerva was weaponless now, glaring back at the harpy as if she had not realized it, and the beast bared its talons with a shriek and flapped toward her—

Then Narodnaya darted between them with her own horrible screech, but the spider skittered onward and Christian lost sight of all three of them—

He flattened himself atop the spider, nearly lying on his stomach. So far the crows had left his mount alone, just as Morrow had hoped.

He peeked over the spider’s head. Before him rose what appeared to be a writhing mass of black smoke. As the distance to it shortened, he saw it was a collection of frightening creatures: hellhounds and spiders even bigger than his, long-toothed men with matted fur, mournful women with ragged clothes and ashen skin, winged and empty-eyed black horses, cackling hags and more harpies. They ran tight circles together around the center of the clearing.

The last hundred yards to the center went by like the eye of a storm. The surviving crows circled the field at a distance. The two ringmasters and their posse galloped across the line of sight, still pursued by the angry hellhound. Everything went bizarrely, eerily silent, and Christian wasn’t sure if it was actually silent or if he had temporarily lost his hearing. The swirling mass of black fur and wings and ashen bodies seemed to slow in front of him as his spider skittered closer and closer to it.

Then they crashed into it like a wave.

All the sounds returned at once. A pony whinnied shrilly as a spider grabbed it and wrapped it in silk. The black, winged horses with the frightening eyes shrieked as they launched themselves into the sky to dive-bomb the fighters and their ponies, and terror rippled through the army at every shriek. The snarling as lions and tigers got into scuffles with hellhounds was ferocious. The tiger Christian had heard grunting on his way through the crowd in the rose garden leapt upon one of the massive dogs, its injury forgotten, squalling like a cat in heat as the two beasts tumbled through the battle.

The Smithsons rode past him on their broad-backed horse. Liza had the horse’s head and steered it madly as her husband beat back hellhounds with a stick as thick as his arm. He swiped it at one of the ashen-faced women, but it passed through her body as though she was not there. He blinked, wide-eyed. The women opened her mouth, looking as if she might cry; instead, after a moment, she let out a long wail.

“Saints preserve us, they’re banshees,” Christian heard his friend moan, and then they rode away.

Already he had lost track of Morrow and Tirion as his spider scuttled through the fight. He was unarmed except for the cane and the slingshot, and as he was supposed to stay out of sight as long as possible, he had simply hidden his face in the spider’s back and hoped for the best. He had to make his way toward the center of the ruckus, where Morrow said the entrance to Goblin’s prison should be. But he had no idea how to steer the spider and he could not see anyway and besides there were too many bodies to steer around, and how had he ever gotten himself mixed up in this awful business, he wondered as the body of Waylan Ryder went flying past him, limp and bloodied—

Then, from somewhere just ahead of him, he heard Morrow shout, “Christian! Now!”

“Oh, dear,” he said to himself, “oh, dear,” but he leapt sideways from the spider’s back. The slingshot slipped away from him and landed somewhere in the grass, though he managed to keep ahold of his cane. He saw his spider launch itself at another, larger spider, and for a split second he hoped his spider would be alright. Then he hit the ground with a grunt and rolled along the muddy grass until he was out of everyone’s way.

He sat up and rubbed his hip. Before him was a stone-framed tunnel leading underground, almost hidden in the sod. Morrow and Tirion crouched in its entrance. The elf’s bow was drawn and he glanced about the battlefield, sending an arrow wherever he saw one of their number losing a fight. His green eyes were alert, calculating, but Morrow’s face was drawn as he watched the fighting.

“You don’t have to come,” Christian said. “If you’d rather stay here and fight—”

“Out of the question,” said Tirion, neatly sending another arrow into the fray. It landed with a satisfying thud in the hind leg of one of the winged horses, which let out a shriek. “You’re not a fighter, and if one man alone is not enough to guard you and guide your way then the fight is lost no matter who does battle up here. Get in.”

Christian looked at Morrow, who nodded without taking his eyes from the battle.

“Go on,” he said. His voice had lost all its earlier vigor. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Christian ducked down and slid into the tunnel.