The creature lunged again and missed. She saw her chance. She sprang, seizing the opportunity the overconfident monster had given her.
Given me!
Too late, Zamia realized that it was she who was overconfident. Mouw Awa was not off balance. The thing had feigned and drawn her in. Her claws raked out, and dug deep into shadow-flesh. But the creature shifted position, and its black jaws snapped, digging into her ribs. Zamia screamed and hissed and clawed at the thing again. Mouw Awa stumbled away from her, grievously wounded.
But its fangs had done their damage. Now she was aware of nothing but her pain. The pain, and a burning red heat that made her whimper. Then there was only darkness.
Merciful God help me! Only half believing what he saw, Adoulla watched two sand ghuls come to false life in his library. Zamia was locked in battle with a creature like the shadow of a jackal come to life—the likes of which he’d never seen. Raseed was struggling to his feet.
Adoulla noticed these things, but the sand ghuls were what held his attention. The power involved in raising such creatures from a distance, in commanding them from some unseen place, in subverting the ward spells Adoulla had worked here, was incalculable. The number of men that would have had to be murdered and maimed to work these magics… They faced a dire threat indeed.
One of the ghuls charged Adoulla, a snarl etched on its grotesque almost-human features. Adoulla’s hands were already in the pockets of his kaftan. He drew forth a small vial and uncorked it with his thumb. The sand ghul’s raking claws were now only inches from Adoulla’s eyes, but he stood his ground calmly, sprinkling crushed ruby in the air before him and reciting.
“God is the Oasis in the Desert of the Soul!” The ruby dust turned to ash in midair. The ghul collapsed into a pile of loose sand and dead beetles. Adoulla felt grains of sand and less pleasant things blow across his face as the creature was drained of its animating magic. In a sort of reflection, he felt the drain of the invocation hit him hard—his chest tightened, and a stitch stung his side. After their battle the night before, he didn’t have much left in him.
Too old, he thought. But even as he thought it he saw the lion-girl fighting desperately against that shadow-thing and watched Raseed trying hopelessly to slay a sand ghul with his sword.
No, not too old he told himself. These children will die if I am. He summoned strength from God-alone-knew-where and fumbled in his satchel for some remedy against these creatures.
He thanked Beneficent God aloud when his fingers closed around three smooth stones the size of grapes. He gathered the lightning beads—each a swirl of mother-of-pearl—and looked up to see that Raseed had been knocked to the ground again. He was already getting to his feet, but the ghul he’d been battling now darted toward Adoulla.
Adoulla twisted as the thing hissed and swung at him. He somehow managed not to be torn open by those rocklike claws. But the flat of the ghul’s great forearm caught him across the chest like an iron bar. He fell backward, landing on his ass with a grunt, the wind knocked out of him.
He started to throw the beads, then hesitated. They’d cause a fire, no doubt. His home…
But he had no choice. Adoulla threw.
The sand ghul hissed loudly as the tiny stones struck it. They were sucked immediately into the thing’s abdomen, sand shifting away from sand to briefly reveal a writhing mass of scorpions and shiny black beetles. Adoulla spoke the invocation.
“God is the Lightning That Strikes Thrice!” It was slurred with pain and regret, but it was enough. There was a loud but muffled noise, like a peal of thunder wrapped in a wool blanket, and the sand ghul froze in its tracks. Then another muffled peal and another as the beads exploded inside the creature. Sheets of lightning-fire shot out from the sand ghul’s midsection, scalding the arm Adoulla threw up to protect his face. Small fires caught in the room and spread with magical speed. Adoulla could smell paper burning and wondered in agony what books and scrolls he was losing. He saw his furniture catch fire, the very walls of his home aflame. Then the invocation’s drain hit him and he collapsed, pain and smoke filling his mind.
Raseed watched one of the sand ghuls crumble from the Doctor’s invocation and thanked God as he faced off against the second one. He had never fought sand ghuls before, though the Doctor had spoken of them. It was not like fighting bone ghuls or water ghuls. No matter how many times Raseed swung his sword, the blade found no flesh to bite. Every thrust slid into loose sand, and it took every bit of Raseed’s skill just to dodge the ghul’s blows as he freed his sword.
Almighty God, what can I do against such a monster? But his thoughts were dashed out of him as the creature slammed him to the ground with a great, grainy fist. He came to his feet quickly and saw the Doctor toss something at the ghul and speak an invocation before passing out. There was a thundercrack sound, and Raseed threw up an arm to shield himself from a sheet of fire. He turned his face from the blast and saw Zamia fighting that shadow-creature.
Raseed’s skin and silks were singed, but he ignored the pain. When he turned back to the sand ghul, he saw that the Doctor’s invocation had had a remarkable effect. At the sounds of the small explosions, the creature had stopped moving, incapacitated by whatever passed for pain in such a monster. The magical heat of the explosions had caused the palm-tree-thick midsection of the sand ghul to melt into glass! The melted remains of scorpions and centipedes clouded the glass with black. The sand ghul was stopped in its tracks.
Small fires burned about the room, catching and spreading with astonishing speed. But Raseed focused on his enemy. He knew an opportunity when he saw one. Glass could be broken.
He sheathed his sword, extended his right arm and pointed his fist at the sand ghul. With a loud shout that focused his soul, he flew forward, thrusting his fist into the thing’s stomach. If it has a stomach!
There was an earsplitting crack. Then a thick tinkling sound like a thousand tiny bells. Raseed felt countless splinters of hot glass digging into his skin, from his knuckles all the way up his arm to his elbow. But he was focused, and not a glimmer of pain made it through his training. Praise God.
In a blur of movement he withdrew his arm from the monster’s midsection. The sand ghul collapsed in a rain of sand, broken glass, and dead centipedes. Raseed turned from the waist high pile before him, scanning the room.
The whole house was filling with smoke and fast-spreading fire. The townhouse walls were blackening with flame. The Doctor lay moaning in pain but did not seem to be badly wounded. A golden lion—Zamia!—squatted in the corner, growling and whimpering as she bled. Raseed’s breath caught in his throat.
The jackal-creature, clearly wounded, struggled to stand and make its way to the window. It whined as shadow-stuff whirled about it in tattery flags. Raseed heard it speak somehow in his mind even as he moved toward it.
No! Mouw Awa hath been cut and bitten! Might this mean his death? No! His blessed friend shall heal him. His blessed friend shall sit on the Cobra Throne while Mouw Awa’s howls doth hound the air!
The thing clawed at the lattice window, splintering the dark wood and howling in pain. Before Raseed could reach it, it leapt from the second story window to the hard-packed dirt road below. The fall will kill it, Raseed half-hoped. But as the thing hit the ground it seemed to simply… melt away. He himself had a remarkable skill in stealth, but this was different. Mouw Awa did not hide… it joined with the lamp-shadows. The thing had fled but it was not dead—Raseed could sense that much.