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“Do what?” Bek spread her hands. “I don’t know what happened.”
Einsa had more to say, but for a moment Lucia’s screams were added to by higher-pitched cries of almost the same volume. Back among the table rows Lucia had snagged someone else. The new screams ended suddenly and Lucia’s howls fell silent almost at the same time. Bek could only see the dead thing’s back as it bent over its victim. A moment later she couldn’t see either of them and the hall fell silent save for weeping.
It didn’t stay quiet for long.
“She’s eating her!” The acolyte’s scream sent everyone still out in the hall towards the main door, driven by a horror so great it might even overcome their fear of the Kindness.
“She’s dead.” Bek swallowed against the urge to vomit as for a moment Lucia raised her bloody face. “But if we put her eyes out she can’t see, and if we tie her up she can’t move. We should all attack her together.”
“But she’s so strong!” An unknown girl behind her. It was true that Lucia’s strength seemed to exceed even that promised by her height and powerful frame.
“She’s not stronger than all of us put together.” Bek struggled not to pant. If they thought she was doing this to save her skin rather than out of bravery, they would never follow her.
With a roar Lucia rose again, her mouth crimson, blood sheeting down her chin and neck, soaking her shift. She overturned the closest table with contemptuous ease. Without the tables they were doomed.
“She’s drinking the blood!”
“She’s getting stronger!”
Bek had expected Mollandra to join in with the panic, but instead the small girl lifted a fist from which a four-inch metal spike jutted. A second later she opened her hand to reveal the business end of the spoon she had clearly purloined from their breakfast.
“Meh.” Einsa, unimpressed, pulled out a seven-inch hunting knife with a serrated back by way of reply.
“What…” Bek didn’t have time for more. Lucia was already barrelling towards them.
“Everyone together!” Einsa roared, brandishing her blade overhead. “Together or we’ll all die.”
Of the over eighty acolytes perhaps a dozen stayed. Bek couldn’t really fault them. If she could have got someone else to do the work, she would have.
“Grab stools!” She seized a nearby one and held it before her, legs aimed at the oncoming undead monstrosity.
A stool might not be much by way of armour, but somehow the illusion of safety considerably boosted Bek’s courage. Heartened by her example, most of the other dozen acolytes grabbed stools of their own, and there were even others running back now to add their contribution to the thicket of wooden legs opposing Lucia’s charge.
The bloodstained monster that had briefly been their fellow acolyte smashed headlong into the defensive wall. Several girls were thrown back, one of them falling, but the wall held. Grunting with effort, feet slipping on the flagstones, the girls refused to let Lucia through, and she hung on the forest of legs, howling, stretching for them. Gory hands clutched at the air just before Bek’s face, but Lucia’s reach proved not quite sufficient. Bek struggled for breath and struggled to hold her place.
“On my mark!” Einsa bellowed. “Three! Two! One! Push!”
Strong as she was, heavy as she was, Lucia couldn’t resist them. Yard by yard they forced her back. Halfway to the wall, frustration penetrated Lucia’s rage and she changed tactics. She yanked on a stool, and it came flying forward with Mollandra staggering behind it.
“Push!” The crazy redhead, Sharp, threw herself forward into the gap, angling the legs of her stool at Lucia’s face and, by dint of knocking Mollandra to the ground, helped the girl to evade Lucia’s grasping hand.
“Push!” Her cry wheezed out as more of a whisper, but Bek heaved her exhausted body after Sharp, and the rest of them followed.
Within a few more moments they had Lucia against the wall, a raging storm of strength but unable to break free or to properly lay hands upon her tormentors.
Bek had no idea what the next move should be. How long before the barely contained Lucia exhausted them all or reduced the stools to matchwood?
Before Bek had time to ponder further, Einsa matched Lucia’s roar, bellowing, “Let me at her!”
Bek could hardly see what was happening, but gradually the wall of acolytes started to part, opening a channel beside her.
“Keep her pinned!”
“Hold her!”
“Hold her!”
Einsa slipped through the gap, her knife to the fore, gleaming, the light catching on the wicked sharpness of the cutting edge. The blade should have given Lucia pause, but she hurled herself into the chair-wall’s breach without hesitation. Her reaching hands knocked Einsa’s knife arm aside and a heartbeat later Lucia’s bloody fingers locked around the girl’s throat.
