Feeling a little cornered herself, Kendall turned to look out the window, down at the Reading Garden, the grassy patch between the Arkathan and the dining hall which had little tables and seats scattered about it for the students to use. When this was over, the tittle-seekers wouldn’t accept any more excuses of having only met Sebastian looking for the dining hall. Once she was out of this box she’d either have to do some fast talking, or make herself scarce.
Outside it was warm and sunny. Except for the glowing sigils, she couldn’t see the shield at all, though it did make the grass seem all wavery – in a weird, moving patch. Concerned, Kendall nudged Sukata and pointed at the tree that looked like it was under water.
"Guise shield haze!"
Sukata was abruptly on her feet and holding a long knife she’d pulled from somewhere. The huge Sentene mage cursed and moved to look outside while his partner slid one of those overlong Kellian swords from the sheathe on her back. Everyone else moved forward or away depending on how brave or stupid they were, but Kendall was still by far the closest when the room’s four tall windows smashed apart.
There was – it was – only a few inches away from her face was a wet white tube. It was thicker than her leg, pulsing and twisting as it jabbed at her again and again. Over all the noise, all the breaking glass, scraping furniture and screaming, the noise it made as it pounded at the shield trying to get at her was the loudest thing Kendall could hear.
Then Sukata was there, a hand on Kendall’s arm as she drew her away, got between her and That. Moving back only gave Kendall a chance to see it properly, to understand the pale background blocking out the sky, surrounding that horrid, fleshy…mouth? As tall as the room, it looked like an upturned crab, but between hard-shelled and spindly legs there were thick tentacles, the blue-tinted suckers ranging from coin to saucer-size.
More pieces of wall and window broke away as the tentacles searched for a better grip on the side of the building. Little stalks with eyes poked from ridges at the front of the shell, then withdrew as it climbed upward. A leg, tipped like a spear, jabbed downward. Sukata’s long knife looked pitiful before it – even the Sentene’s four-foot sword was nothing to this thing as it began to rip the roof off trying to get in with them. One of the royal guards fired his pistol, filling the air with stinging smoke, but the shot stopped dead and dropped to the ground.
"For pity’s sake man, no need to tax the shield any further," growled the Sentene mage, pulling down the arm of another guardsman. "And be quiet, the rest of you!" he shouted. "Calm down. It’s not getting in here with us and squealing like stuck pigs isn’t helping."
His voice was loud, and certain enough to get the attention of the scrabble of people trying to claw their way through the shielded door. The shrieking dropped to a panicky babble, and the lone teacher who had been herded in with them made shushing noises, but Kendall wasn’t alone in looking worriedly at Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere, who was still sitting at the next desk down, her chin propped on one hand and her eyes half-closed. Almost as if she was bored, but Kendall was near enough to see the set of her jaw, and knew that keeping the shield up couldn’t be nearly so easy as she made it seem.
As the Thing outside sent bits of wall and ceiling flying, Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere turned her head and said: "Prince Justin, will you perform an experiment for me?"
The prince hadn’t moved, was holding his sobbing sister tightly. His voice was unsteady as he said: "What is it?"
"Go stand at the other end of the room."
The prince stared blankly, then went even whiter than he’d already managed. But, still holding Princess Sera, he struggled to his feet and walked swiftly along the centre aisle between the desks to the far wall, close to the clutch of people pressed against the doorway. Immediately the monster stopped pounding at the shield by Kendall and, with a writhe of tree-trunk tentacles and a skittering of long legs, went after Tyrland’s heir.
"I don’t recognise the type," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said over the renewed shrieking, not pursuing the subject of the monster’s target.
"Not one that’s been classified," said the Sentene mage. He and his partner gathered the two Montjustes back from the far end of the room, their attention never straying from the Thing which was now making a show of destroying the roof.
"What happens if it pulls the whole building down around us?" Kendall whispered to Sebastian, but he didn’t reply, busy writing in chalk on one of the tables.
"The shield is anchored to the point where the sigils were," Sukata answered instead. "It doesn’t matter if the surface they were written on is gone."
It would matter when the shield went away, Kendall thought, and grimaced as the Thing crawled down the wall behind them. When it pulled apart the stone, the chalkboard and a fine shaving of wall fell on the inside of the shield as well. Shifting most of its bulk into the room next to them, the monster began pounding on the shield with its tentacles and legs. It was an eerily unreal attack despite the noise and the light which bloomed around each blow. Kendall could barely feel the impacts. The shield seemed immovable. The inside of all the walls fell off, as well as the part of the door projecting into the room, but it was because the building had shuddered and shifted around the box which was keeping them safe.
How long would the shield last? Everyone said Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere was an incredibly powerful mage, but this Thing was so strong. It was demolishing the Arkathan as easily as kicking over a bucket of milk. A single blow would squash a man like a roach.
With a screaming sizzle bolts of white arched up from outside and slammed into the nearest tentacle. The monster flinched and bucked, destroying most of the floor in both rooms. It fell into the room below as another series of bolts punched into it.
"Thank the Dawnbringer," breathed one of the royal guardsmen, as the monster reoriented in the wreckage to face a row of black-clad figures standing on the far side of the Reading Garden, the Montjuste Phoenix shining.
"It’s not damaged," pointed out another, dismayed. This was true. The bolts had obviously hurt, but the thick tentacle wasn’t a bit crisped.
"Some Eferum-Get are resistant to magic," the Sentene mage explained, and Kendall noticed that he stood just a little straighter. He’d been worried too, though he hadn’t been showing it.
Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere bent her head back and looked directly up. Kendall followed her gaze and saw golden men and women. Kellian, blazing in the sunlight, standing on the exposed shield. One glanced down at them, and she recognised Captain Faille as he gave the signal to attack.
For people who always seemed so still, Kellian could move beyond fast. Almost, it was as if they had gone from roof to grass with no part in between. But, like a lantern swung at night, they left a little trail of light to show the path taken. They’d jumped down onto the monster, and made a bunch of cuts on its tentacles before leaping out of its reach.
The Thing let out a gurgling roar and writhed after them, but though it was faster than you’d expect for something so large, its blows only succeeded in creating deep dints in the ground and earned it a few more slashes. Its blood was treacle-brown. In another moment it was surrounded, and was being cut at from every side. Kellian wasps, stinging, always moving.