now, I desperately wished I had a way to get a message to Barthol. I breathed out, and mist clouded around me. If I really had to, I could toss the vergr stone over the brick wall to my left, the gate that led into the oldest part of Harvard Yard. But then I’d risk being surrounded by more draugr as soon as I landed.
They were under me now, clawing at the walls. The only thing that kept them from tearing me to pieces was that their gnarled hands couldn’t grip the smooth brick. Directly beneath me, a draugr in a tattered miniskirt opened her mouth. She smacked her lips with a pasty tongue.
With a swell of nausea, I realized she was trying to catch the droplets of blood that dripped from the nub of my severed finger. I gaped with morbid fascination as the draugr standing next to her—a blonde—noticed what was happening. She, too, snatched at the blood spatter as it dripped, trying to get a taste.
The first one grabbed the blonde by the head, then twisted it. With a crack that echoed through the courtyard, the blonde’s head was gone.
So much for that dye job.
The sound reverberated through the cold air, and the draugr began murmuring to each other again. Then they surged forward, crushing each other in their desperation to get at me. Bony hands reached from below. The headless draugr disappeared under the crowd of undead.
Fear crept up my spine as I realized they were now standing on the bodies of their fallen companions, using the trampled as footstools.
Desperately, I looked at the brick wall to my right. When I saw draugr streaming through the gate, I knew that path was no good either.
I told myself that I’d make it out of this fine, that this would all add to the amazing story I’d tell Barthol over beers later. But my breath was coming in short, sharp bursts, and panic was raking its icy claws up my back.
As I took a step back on the platform, leathery fingers grabbed the metal bars at my feet.
Frantic, I stamped on the fingers hard, using the heel of my frozen foot. Only a thin layer of icy sock was between me and the undead, but I gritted my teeth and slammed down on them as hard as possible.
At last, I severed the fingers, but it was too late. Two more draugr were already pulling themselves onto the iron platform. I turned to climb the fire escape, my frozen feet slamming on the metal stairs.
It occurred to me that if I climbed up to the roof, I might be able to find somewhere I could throw the vergr stone. The groan of bending metal rent the air as I raced up the steps, toward the top of the staircase. At the top, I grasped for the handle of a fire door. But when I pulled on it, it didn’t open.
Panic snapped through my nerves. Below me, draugr were clambering over the fire escape like deranged kids on a jungle gym.
Freaking out, I gripped the door handle, jamming it up and down. “Let me in!”
This was pointless. No one would answer.
Then, with a tremendous crack, the entire staircase ripped from the wall of the building.
My stomach lurched, and I clung on tight to the door handle, dangling three stories above the ground. “Help!”
My breath froze in my lungs, and I looked out at the sea of draugr. Nowhere to throw my stone…
I closed my eyes, hands slipping on the steel handle. “This will make a great story for Barthol,” I whispered to reassure myself, but it was starting to feel like I might not be around to tell it.
The undead churned beneath me in a maelstrom. My frozen feet were blocks of ice against the brick wall. I turned my head the other way, desperately searching for draugr-free snow where I could toss the vergr crystal.
But I saw something perhaps even better—a light shining in the darkness, and a figure sprinting toward me. A tall, broad-shouldered silhouette, dark hair caught in the wind.
Above his head, Marroc held a torch, and he used it to sweep a clear path through the dead.
Chapter 14
Marroc
The elf was hanging on to a door handle on the third floor of Sanders Theatre when I reached her. As I looked up at her, a strange feeling pierced my heart, like someone was driving a nail through it. It was an overwhelming urge to get her to