sure, and I follow him, aware that my own movement is not as muted as his. Where he glides I crunch, but he doesn’t hush me, staying close as we slide around the House of Justice. The light inside is extinguished now, the moonlight our only guide. At some point the hood slips from his head, my cloak too small for him.
“Hair,” I whisper, and he stops. I help him tug the hood up and over, obscuring the telltale glow.
“Better?”
I nod. Then that smell, coating the inside of my nostrils with decay, with sulphur. Our eyes lock as we realize what it means.
“Run!” Silas hisses, suddenly pelting away from me, the cloak flaring behind him as he grips the hood to his head. I freeze, shrinking back against the wall of Unwin’s home, watching as one of the large lumbering shapes looms seemingly from nowhere and pursues Silas. Everything about it, from the way it smells to the jerking, lolling way it moves, is unnatural, and I have to fight down wave after wave of nausea, because this thing should not be possible.
Where is the other one?
My eyes stare wildly into the night. I am struggling to draw a full breath. I make a break for it, trying to stay quiet, trying to keep to the darker places.
Only to almost barrel into it.
Up close the stench of wet rot makes me gag. It swings soundlessly towards me, reaching out with huge hands, and I stagger backwards, twisting and bolting towards the forest, this time hearing the footsteps heavy behind me. I have to bite back my screams. I don’t want the other one to know where I am and cut me off. Where are the soldiers? Where is Silas?
In the woods I run, zigzagging, panic ringing in my ears. I remember the mercenaries, the arrows, the swoop and thunk, the way the arrow snapped like bone when I wrenched the tip from it, and I swing myself into the low boughs of the nearest tree, hauling myself up. The closely set trees and bushes at the forest edge make it difficult for the golem to follow, and that buys me the seconds I need to climb ten, fifteen feet above the ground. I perch on a branch, my limbs locked, as it passes beneath me. As the smell reaches me I shudder.
It doesn’t have eyes. It doesn’t know where I am. If I stay still, and quiet, I’ll be all right. I’ll be all right.
It pauses, lifting its head and stilling like a statue, and terror almost makes me lose my grip. Then with surprising speed it lumbers away, moving deeper into the trees. I can hear the crushing of shrubbery as it passes. As soon as it’s out of sight I scramble down, falling the last few feet, scraping my hands, my knees shaking horribly, but I don’t allow myself time to stop, instead half running, half staggering back out of the forest and towards Silas’s hut.
I throw myself through the door and into the empty room.
I burrow into a pile of blankets until only the top of my head is exposed. I have to keep my eyes open and staring, because every time they’re closed, even for the split second that blinking takes, I see the golem standing beneath me, the space where its face should be featureless.
It feels like hours have passed before Silas appears in the doorway, panting hard. Then he’s next to me, cupping my face with one hand, the other pushing his hood back, and I have never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life.
“Are you all right? Were you followed?” His voice is low, and urgent.
“I lost it, in the woods.”
“I did the same…” He stops suddenly and turns towards the door and we both listen, my heart punching against my ribcage.
“I think we’re safe,” he says after a few moments. “No candles. No fire. And no sound. We don’t want them to come back.” Then he turns to me, startlingly close. “Why were you out? Is Ely—” He stops. “Oh.” All the fear, the urgency, flees him. He slumps back, and nods. “Right. I see.”
Ely. The dead man’s name was Ely. “I’m so sorry. I tried…”
“I know. I know you did.” He sighs deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose with long fingers, his neck bent.