Page 11

Evar ran, chased by his brother and sister. There hadn’t been time to explain to Clovis or Kerrol what it was exactly that was ploughing towards them. The sound of ancient shelves exploding into splintered wood and of books falling by the ton was sufficient motivation for both of them to follow him.

They had crept into the chamber hoping to avoid any encounter with the deadly skeer who held sway over this part of the library, never imagining they would leave it pursued by a mechanical beast that could squash a skeer warrior flat beneath a single foot. The thing had clearly not moved in an age—the very shelves themselves had been built around it as if it were an immobile fixture.

“What is it?” Clovis caught up with Evar as he skidded around a corner into an aisle heading roughly in the direction of the nearest chamber exit. Apparently, she still had enough breath for questions.

The broken body of a skeer hit the top of the shelves just ahead of them, making the whole structure shudder, and ricocheted down to the floor a few dozen yards away.

“It does that,” Evar managed, sprinting on. He vaulted the skeer’s twitching carcass ahead of Clovis.

For now, it seemed sufficient answer for Clovis. They ran with purpose. The thunderous destruction behind them seemed to be gaining, but slowly. They might make it to the tunnel that joined the chamber to the next one. Evar’s main hope—apart from getting there first—was that the construct either couldn’t open the door or would be too large to fit through it.

The chamber wall loomed ever closer but there seemed no end to the shelving lined up in their way at increasingly unhelpful angles. Behind them the thunder of destruction swelled, and Evar could imagine the construct just one fragile wall of books and wood away.

“Up!” Clovis elbowed past him and scrambled up a ladder.

By the time Evar reached the top his sister was already away, leaping from shelf top to shelf top. A backward glance as he reached down the ladder for Kerrol’s hand showed the metal beast barrelling through shelves that reached to its shoulders, destroying one after another with swings of its arms, leaving clouds of loose pages swirling in its wake.

At least a dozen skeer were clinging to the thing, anchoring themselves on the armour plates that made its body, and pounding away at it, their efforts lost in the general din. Evar didn’t fancy their chances, but he had to admire their bravery.

“Come on.” He hauled Kerrol up and started after Clovis.

Evar crossed the next twenty aisles in twenty leaping strides, all of them on the edge of control, with a potentially fatal plunge waiting for him if he missed his footing. Ahead, just shy of the wall, Clovis had stopped and turned. Evar barely kept himself from falling in his effort to halt beside her.

He looked back and his heart went cold. “Where’s Kerrol?” The mechanical giant was barely fifty yards away, ignoring the skeer still clinging to it, hammering its way through the shelves in an orgy of destruction.

Kerrol’s absence explained itself. He’d missed his footing and fallen. Evar gathered himself to start leaping back. Clovis grabbed his arm. “It already passed him by. It’s not after Kerrol.”

“The skeer will be!” Evar shouted above the crashing, but Clovis had already gone, aimed towards the exit.

Evar reached the last set of shelves and scrambled down before dropping the remaining twenty feet. He could see Clovis running down the corridor that stretched two hundred yards to the next chamber. The white door that sealed it halfway along was sixty feet high and as wide as the corridor. If it didn’t open for them, they’d be stuck in the corridor, and if the beast chasing them could follow on in then it would pound them both to mush. The thing was big, but so was the corridor. Evar’s best guess was that it would be able to squeeze through.

“Shit...” He sprinted after Clovis.

Evar got about halfway to the door before Clovis bounced off it. “Shit.”

He turned in time to see the last wall of shelving explode. “Shit!”

Another swing of the construct’s arm cleared the remnants, and without warning a large object came flying out of the swirling cloud of pages. Evar barely threw himself aside in time as the bleached white body of a skeer sailed past him. It tumbled in a rough ball shape, wedge of a head over six sets of heels, still travelling at speed as it reached Clovis. It rolled on without interruption, the great expanse of the door not even managing to dissolve completely before the creature was through.

“Come on!” Clovis stepped smartly into the newly emptied space and beckoned Evar urgently, holding back the door that the skeer had opened.

“Kerrol?” Evar looked towards the chamber. The metal beast filled the corridor’s entrance, hunching to follow them, its armour scraping the ceiling, another skeer falling from its back.

“He’ll find us!” Clovis shouted. “Run!”

Evar ran. He sprinted after Clovis with the clatter and clang of their pursuer echoing all around them. The skeer that had rolled past Clovis found its feet and began to race away with a speed that, had it been turned in their direction, would have been frightening.

Evar was glad to see the skeer ahead of them running, glad that these insectoids could feel fear. The manner in which they had sacrificed themselves en masse to take down the Soldier had been unnerving. Somehow an enemy that knew terror in the face of overwhelming odds felt—

“What’s it doing?” He managed to gasp the words as the skeer warrior came to a halt immediately upon entering the next chamber.

Clovis didn’t manage a reply before the skeer answered for her. The insectoid released an extraordinary wail that emanated from its whole body, a shrill whistle riding over a deep penetrating throb. The skeer had run but only far enough to summon more reserves. Evar had to wonder if there was a limit to the number of lives skeer would throw at an enemy or if a sufficiently powerful foe could slaughter their whole nation simply by standing where it was and taking them on as they arrived.

Evar and Clovis sprinted past the howling skeer and on into a new chamber not dissimilar to the previous one. They climbed the first set of shelves, swarming up across the book-face, careless of damage, and started to bound across the tops, inches from a fall at every step.

They’d gone about a hundred yards when the skeer’s howl stopped suddenly mid-flow. The creature had probably been squashed by the emerging construct.

“This thing—” Evar spoke each time he and Clovis made contact with a shelf top.