Page 68 of The Book that Broke the World

“Looks that way,” Arpix said unenthusiastically. His arms hurt from carrying the iron ball. The thing weighed about the same as a plump baby, no challenge at first, but after fifteen miles his arms felt as if they were twice their normal length. He eyed the blue-veined walls of the nest, not at all keen to put the orb to the test against the near infinity of skeer the thing must house.

“You think they have Yute in there?” Evar called the question from back down the road.

“He’s in the library, more likely. This is the way Wentworth wants to take us in.” Arpix waited for the canith to catch up.

“We could try the way we came out,” Evar said. “No need to make a fight of it if we don’t have to.”

“I think we should.” Jella added her opinion into the mix. “My mother didn’t teach me much that stuck, but she did tell me not to kick a nest of... well, anything. And the first time I did, I really wished I’d listened to her.”

“Another vote for Jella’s mother.” Salamonda came huffing and puffing up behind the canith.

Arpix nodded, still staring at the vast nest. “There’s got to be a brain in there somewhere, and we really don’t want to attract its attention. If it starts thinking about how to deal with us... well, I could think of several ways to make this orb useless.” He called to the cat. “Wentworth, we’re going this way!”

—

Despite all he knew about the canith, Arpix found himself face to face with his prejudices when, with Clovis between them, Evar and his brother led the way through the ruins of the city before the canith entrance to the library. Time had taken the elements in both hands and used them to scrub the crumbled remains to almost nothing. Even so, Arpix could see the remnants of an architecture to match any of the works of man he was aware of.

In what Arpix still thought of as “now” but was really “his time” lost centuries in the past, there had been an army outpost in this valley. If any trace of canith ruins had been visible at that time, nobody remarked upon them. The intent of the outpost had clearly been to deny the canith access to the library, even if the system of doors within meant that there would always be chambers that only men could enter, containing more books than all the king’s subjects could ever read even if they did nothing else.

Not only had the wild “dog-soldiers” that King Oanold had so derided stormed over his royal walls, but they’d built palaces to beggar his own. And yet that narrative, which the king’s lies had written on Arpix’s soul, still stained his thinking despite the facts washing over it countless times. He shook his head and promised himself he would do better.

“Let me.” Arpix went to support Clovis as Evar started up the slope, hunting for the crack through which he’d escaped the library less than a week before.

The first rock landed two yards in front of Arpix, and he stared at it stupidly, unable to explain it to himself. Three more smashed down. Then thirty. Then it was raining.

The skeer fliers could have come in closer to drop their missiles but they sacrificed accuracy for deadliness, releasing the rocks they carried from a much greater height. Little aiming was possible, but the extra distance ensured that, when they did hit, the rocks would do more than sting.

Amid a deafening thunder of rock hammering into rock, Arpix struggled up the slope, supporting Clovis on one side as her brother did most of the work. Evar’s shouts were lost in the din, but his waving needed no explanation. He’d found the fissure and was beckoning them forward.

A terrible scream pierced the cacophony. It came from behind Arpix and if he’d turned to identify the source, the slope would have tripped him. He lurched on, ignoring Clovis’s curses as he dragged her onwards. Visions of injured friends threatened to swamp his sight, but he needed to get Clovis into cover.

Sharp fragments peppered Arpix’s face as a chunk of stone exploded against a boulder to his left. Rock dust filled the air, adding to the confusion. Clovis’s burden left him suddenly and a moment later, as he turned to go back for Jella and the others, he was grabbed from behind and dragged down.

The rain of falling stones stopped just moments after Evar pulled Arpix into the cover of the fissure. It cut off almost completely from one beat of his heart to the next, just a scatter of late impacts and then nothing. Meelan and Salamonda stumbled up to him, grey with dust. Blood coated Meelan’s forehead, running into his eyes. Arpix shook off the hand on his robe and scrambled back out to his friend’s side.

“Where are you hit?” He grabbed Meelan’s shoulders. “Meelan?”

“I’m hit?” Meelan wiped his face and stared at his crimson fingers in astonishment.

Arpix held Meelan’s head still. “It’s a cut.” Sharp fragments must have sliced his scalp. He handed Meelan into Salamonda’s care. The eldest and youngest of the bookbinders staggered into view, Nortbu and Sheetra, the girl clutching her shoulder, one arm hanging limp.

“Jella?” Arpix scanned the slope as the dust settled. “JELLA!”

A grey figure approached.

“Jella?” His eyes said no but he refused their evidence.

Jost walked past, expressionless, her mouth half-open.

“Arpix!” Evar calling from back inside the fissure. “They’ll come back!”

It was true. The skeer wouldn’t have to hunt for ammunition: suitable rocks were within arm’s reach practically anywhere they might choose to land. The hive’s brain had at last given Arpix and his friends serious consideration—they had elevated themselves from “distant annoyance” to “approaching threat,” and this was the result.

“Jella!” Arpix refused to leave her. He could see four bodies on the slope, all clothed in dust and broken stone. Logic dictated that they were Jella and her bookbinder colleagues, Atle, Henral, and Brigha, but he recognised none of them.

“Jella!” Two of the bodies stirred and a low groaning reached him.

“Arpix!” A heavy hand closed on his shoulder. Evar had emerged from the crack. Kerrol had shuffled the others below ground. “Arpix!” Evar’s hand pointed to a cloud of fliers rising from the rocky slope to the west. A literal cloud, perhaps a thousand of the insectoids. “We have to go.”

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