Page 101 of The Book that Broke the World

“His eye,” Algar said. “It won’t kill him. Indulge me. The pain might help keep him alive until we get him back to the circle.”

The woman shrugged and drew a short, broad-bladed knife of a sort used for tasks rather than combat. An arm snaked under Evar’s chin from behind, controlling his head. Evar tried to bite the woman as she moved the steel point towards his right eye. She jerked her hand back.

“Kemmit, hold his head.”

A hefty, black-bearded man approached, pulling on thick leather gloves. Evar understood in that instant both the weight of fear that Livira must have felt at the mercy of these creatures, and the limitless bravery she had shown in her insistence that she go back.

Evar had said that he wasn’t strong enough to see her die. He was glad now that she would not see his death.

Strong hands knotted in his mane and the knife point glimmered back into his vision. He roared and twisted but the bullet had taken more out of him than the blood filling his lung; and neither terror nor rage would put it back.

When the hot gore splattered across his face it took Evar a while to understand that it wasn’t from him. Not until the bodies started to fall around him did he understand that Clovis had arrived.

—

“What are you doing?”

Clovis had taken hold of Evar’s jerkin, grabbing it at the back by the collar, and was dragging him away.

“I’m dragging you away.”

It made sense, but this was Clovis and these were the sabbers she’d ached to revenge herself upon since she was a small girl. “You’re letting them go.”

“I’m not letting you go.”

Evar’s heels traced two bloody tracks across the library floor as Clovis pulled him back the way they’d come.

“Clo, I’m dying anyway.” He coughed up a red splutter to prove it. “Go save Arpix.”

Clovis’s snarl came so loud and loaded with anguish that it sounded as if it should have burst from her in a shower of blood. A larger one than had accompanied Evar’s cough. The snarl wavered, gained strength, strayed towards a howl, then stumbled into words. “I can’t leave you.”

“Clo—”

“There are healing circles. Arpix and the others aren’t going to die in the next hour. You will. I can go back...”

“You can’t open the door.”

“There will be a way.”

The anguish in her voice hurt Evar more than the hole in his chest did. He knew Clovis bitterly wanted to exact revenge on the soldiers who had—just weeks ago in the humans’ experience—slaughtered her people. Canith blood still stained their uniforms. But more than this, he knew that particular desire was not the heaviest thing weighing against him in the scale upon which this decision had balanced. Clovis wanted to save Arpix. Even more than she wanted her vengeance. And despite those desires, both so strong that they might better be named requirements—here she was dragging him away from the battle she had dreamed of for half a lifetime.

Evar let his head loll to the left. “And that thing’s coming. It’s me it wants.” The automaton’s crashing advance was louder and closer. Evar caught glimpses of the destruction down every diagonal.

“It’ll have to come through me,” Clovis replied past gritted teeth, picking up speed as she aimed for the reading room. They had no chance of making it to the centre circle in the current chamber. Not if the automaton had them in its sights. They’d be intercepted before they got there.

“Leave me.” Evar coughed. “You can come back with the others.”

“We still have time.” With a grunt Clovis reached a half jog.

The automaton paused from tearing at the forest of bars still blocking its progress. It began to back away, the clang of metal feet on library stone managing to get an echo even from a chamber two miles across.

“It’s backing up,” Evar muttered.

“That’s not good.” The reading room entrance loomed ahead of them and Clovis broke free of the shelf-towers.

Livira, Kerrol—who no longer held her—Meelan, Jella, and many of the others were standing at the start of the corridor and rushed forward as soon as they spotted Clovis.

A crowd bore Evar towards the reading chamber, speeding Clovis’s effort. Behind them, back in the main chamber, the automaton’s steady retreat turned into a rapidly accelerating advance, the tempo of its many-ton footfalls rising towards a roll of thunder.

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