Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [91]
On either side of Spit Fyre’s head, the other two Things were closing in. A sudden glint of steel—purple in the glow of the Safety Curtain—flashed a warning. The Things had knives. Long, sharp, dragon-stabbing blades.
Jenna had seen the knives too. She made a sign that Septimus took to mean you get one and I’ll get the other one. It was only after Jenna took off like a rocket and launched herself and her cloak onto the nearest Thing that Septimus realized Jenna had no weapon—except surprise. But he thought no further. While Jenna landed on the Thing, knocked it to the ground and smothered it in the swathes of her cloak, Septimus leaped over Spit Fyre’s neck and hurled himself at the other Thing. The Thing knew nothing until it was felled by a burning hot wire around his neck and the rapid incantation of a Freeze.
Bemused, the third Thing—which still had hold of Spit Fyre’s nose spine—stopped and stared. It was the very last Thing to have been Engendered by Merrin and was the runt of the litter, with few of the nastier Thing attributes. It survived by mimicking other Things and generally playing follow-the-leader, but it had a tendency to dither when left on its own—which is what it did now.
The next few seconds were a blur. Spit Fyre felt the Thing’s grip loosen. With a fierce, fast movement he threw his head high. The nose spine Thing went flying. Like a ragged bundle of wash hurled by an angry washerwoman, it traveled into the air, crashed through the branches of an overhanging fir tree and disappeared over the high hedge that divided the Dragon Field from the Palace grounds. As it flew through the air it hit the purple force field of the Safety Curtain—which still worked fine everywhere but at the fusion point—bounced off and was sent on an opposite trajectory toward the river. Some seconds later a faint but extremely satisfying splash was heard as it hit the river.
Jenna and Septimus grinned at each other cautiously. Three down—but how many to go?
The Thing felled by Septimus lay inert in the straw with a long strand of Darke Thread almost lost in the scraggly folds of its neck. Jenna still had her cloak wrapped around the other Thing’s head, but it wasn’t something she wanted to do for long.
“Sep, I’m stuck,” she whispered. “If I get up then this Thing will too.”
“Just leave your cloak over it, Jen. It’s a Darke cloak and you shouldn’t be messing with it. Leave it there and it will carry on smothering the Thing all on its own.”
Jenna was not impressed. “I’m not leaving my cloak. No way.”
Septimus glanced around nervously, wondering if there were any more Things. He didn’t want a discussion with Jenna right then, but some things just had to be said.
“Jen,” he whispered urgently. “You don’t seem to realize. Your cloak is a Darke witch cloak. It’s not good. You shouldn’t be playing around with it.”
“I am not playing around with anything.”
“You are. Leave the cloak.”
“No.”
“Jen,” Septimus protested. “This is the cloak talking, not you. Leave it.”
Jenna fixed Septimus with her Princess look. “Listen, Sep, this is me talking—not some lump of wool, okay? This cloak is my responsibility. When I want to get rid of it I will do it properly so that no one else can get hold of it. But right now I want to keep it. You forget that you’ve got all this weird Magyk stuff to protect you. You know what to do against the Darke. I don’t. This cloak is all I have. It was given to me and I am not leaving it on this disgusting Thing.”
Septimus knew when to give up. “Okay, Jen. You take your cloak. I’ll Freeze that one as well.”
Expertly Septimus muttered a quick Freeze. “You can get your cloak back now, Jen,” he said. “If you really want.”
“Yes, Sep. I do really want.” Jenna snatched her cloak off the Thing and to Septimus’s amazement she put it on.
Septimus decided to leave his Darke thread buried deep into the raggedy skin folds of the other Thing’s neck. There were some things he never wanted to do and diving into the folds of a Thing’s neck was one of them. Close up, Things have a foul, dead-rat kind of smell and there