60.

  “Little pigeon,” Somnix growled, his voice seeming to emanate from everywhere like a thousand different guttural voices all snarling at the same time.

  I felt my mouth run dry, and my legs began to quiver just from the sheer malevolent force of Somnix. I'd never felt anything like this before.

  "Hold fast mageling," the Pigeon King said to me quietly.

  I looked at him, and suddenly he wasn't the cute little fluffy pigeon anymore. He had grown, and now he stood almost as tall as my midriff. He looked much more like the cruel falcon I'd seen that night in the church. His wings were dark, the plume on his head had grown longer, his beak wicked and curved, and his talons looked like they could eviscerate a man.

  "What have you come to my kingdom for, little pigeon?” Somnix asked. He hadn't moved, and it didn't even look like his mouth was moving either. His voice seemed to be echoing from every recess of the cavernous room.

  "I have come to regain what is rightfully mine, wraith!” the Pigeon King spat back at him. "That which you wrongfully stole!”

  “You come looking for your feather?” And then Somnix began to laugh, his colossal shoulders rising and falling. "And you come to the heart of my world to do so? Bravery is often confused with foolishness, pigeon. And what is this you've brought with you, a mortal?" I felt those blank evil eyes fall upon me, and it took every ounce of courage and will I had not to turn and run. It felt like liquid ice had been poured through my body, freezing the blood in my veins. I swallowed, but my throat was painfully dry. "Why, he's just a boy!" Somnix laughed again. "This? This is the power of the Pigeon King? A little birdie and a mortal boy!”

  "Enough words, wraith," the Pigeon King said. Then he pushed off with his wings and flew into the air, levelling himself with Somnix. "I do not mince words with your kind, foul creature.”

  "The last words of a fool," Somnix said, and then he rose and kept rising.

  His body slowly unfurled. He was the tallest thing I'd ever seen up close, perhaps 12 feet or maybe more. It was hard to gauge what he looked like under the cloak, but I saw his long arms hanging below his knees, and there were wicked claws on the end of those long arms. He threw back his cloak, revealing the twisted goat body to match his face. He looked like the nightmare version of Mister Tumnus from The Chronicles of Narnia, and he smelt like a barnyard of rotting flesh. The odour was overpowering; it made me nauseous the second it hit me.

  "It is not too late to run, little mortal," I heard Somnix's voice, but it didn't sound like before. It didn’t echo anymore, it sounded like it was coming from inside my head. "Abandon this foolish pigeon and run for your life. Run and run and run, and perhaps I may not catch you.”

  I staggered backwards as if physically struck. The power of the creature was overwhelming; it felt like it surrounded me and was constricting me like a serpent. A guttural scream erupted from my throat when I realised there was a snake around me, as if my thoughts had become reality in a split second. It was a giant constrictor. It hissed in my face with its dead, cold eyes and opened its maw wide enough to swallow me whole.

  "Fight it, mageling," I heard the Pigeon King's rough voice. "It is but an illusion.” He turned his cold, imperious, gold eyes on Somnix. “Enough of this foolishness!"

  The Pigeon King’s raucous war cry echoed around the chamber and the snake was gone. I looked up and saw the Pigeon King had engaged Somnix. He'd flown at him like a thunderbolt, striking down with his glowing talons at Somnix's face, only to be battered aside by one of those long arms. Somnix then waved his other hand and brewed a cloud of shadow that transformed into razor-sharp spikes. With a flick of his claws he threw them at the Pigeon King. Twisting and darting in midair, the Pigeon King managed to avoid the spikes, then beat his powerful wings, and sent a shower of golden sparks at Somnix.

  The wraith threw up his arms to protect his face and shrugged off the Pigeon King's attack, hurling bolts of shadow at the fleeing bird. Somnix leapt after him. I would never have been able to believe that a creature that big could move so fast. The long, red cape flowed behind him as his goat hooves smashed off the concrete, and the wraith flew into the air, towards the Pigeon King. They clashed in midair, scratching, clawing, and head-butting.

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  I saw fur and feathers fly as the two supernatural heavyweights duked it out in front of my eyes while I stood there slack-jawed and transfixed, barely able to stay upright as I felt the resounding waves of power press down upon me. Why the hell had the Pigeon King brought me here? What could I possibly do against such a monstrous force? The Chain had gone slack in my hand, and I just stood there, feeling boneless and stripped of any energy and will to fight.

  Something happened. It moved too quickly for me to track, but the Pigeon King suddenly plummeted down to the cold stone, slamming hard enough to bounce. He rolled over in a mess of wings and feathers, rising groggily back to his feet. Somnix plummeted towards him, a glistening black sword in his hand, aimed directly at the Pigeon King's heart.

  "Look out!" I shouted.

  The Pigeon King turned, but he was too slow. Before I knew what I was doing, I lashed out with the Chain of Awareness and caught Somnix's wrist. The second the cold steel touched him, Somnix cried out, like a wild animal braying in pain. The sword dissipated and turned to nothing, and the fell beast crashed down to the floor, my Chain still wrapped around his wrist. Then the Pigeon King attacked. He leaped at the fallen Somnix, clawing and stabbing at his eyes and face while the monster could do nothing but cover up and cringe.

  I gritted my teeth and set my feet, trying to hold him down. But, it was useless. I would have had more chance of corralling a wild bull with a string of yarn. Somnix bucked and twisted, yanking me off my feet and dragging me across the rough-hewn floor. I clung to the Chain with all my might and was whipped across the room, the Chain coming loose, and I skittered far from the battle, rolling over and over. Somehow, though, the momentum threw me back to my feet, and I stumbled backward as I watched the Pigeon King being attacked by another shadow beast. This one seemed to be some sort of humanoid form with the head of an elephant. It charged at the Pigeon King, head-butting him hard enough to send him flying off Somnix.

  Then the shadows melted, and Somnix rose again on a pillar of smoke and shadow. He threw his cloak off and snarled, froth dripping from his snout.

  "You dare!" he roared. "You dare lay your lowly Craft upon me, mortal?"

  He raised his hand, and a horde of those shadow monsters grew from the shadows. I saw snakes, wolves, and lions, all disjointed and broken creatures, howling and snarling as they rampaged towards me.

  I had two choices in that moment: fight or die. Since my favourite third option, run, was out of the question, I whipped the Chain around in a wide arc above my head as they closed in on me. The beasts were almost upon me when I unleashed it. The second the Chain touched the shadow beasts, they turned to smoke. I whipped it around me in wide circles, concentrating on sending as much power through it as I could, the same way I did with the Zap Knucks. The air had become so filled with greasy black smoke that I could barely see. As I staggered under the weight of the speeding Chain, something slammed into me from the side. I hit the flagstones hard and rolled, jumping back to my feet just in time to smash my Chain wrapped fist into the face of the elephant man. As soon as the Chain touched it, the beast turned to smoke too. I didn’t wait to be blindsighted by the next malformed horror, I turned and ran.

  It felt good to be running. I charged away from the horde of shadow beasts and saw that Somnix was bleeding, though not badly. His chest had been cut open, and it was oozing black blood. But the Pigeon King looked worse. He was panting deeply; one of his wings looked like it might be broken and hung at an awkward angle. He was still trying to fly and attack, but his flight looked more like short, aggressive hops. His feathers were all turned at wrong angles, and his beak looked slightly bent.

  Somnix kept coming. He pounded down with those great hammer-like fists, sending sparks of shadow, arrows, swords, spears, and animals flying at the Pigeon King, who could only desperately dodge and claw at them. The golden light of his talons and his beak was fading in and out intermittently as he tired.

  I didn't know how much longer he could last like this. I came to a skidding halt as close as I dared to Somnix, and then threw out my Chain again. It caught him across one of his thick, muscular thighs. The Chain didn't wrap this time; it more sliced across, and Somnix howled as black smoke went up from the wound. He spun and caught a face full of the Rune Chain. It hit him straight in the snout, and he staggered backwards. I steadied myself, winding the Chain up again for another strike, hoping that I had knocked him off balance, thinking that I might even be able to get hold of one of his legs and pull him off his feet.

  And that's when the goat thing began to chuckle.

  "You brought such a weak, pathetic mortal with you, pigeon," Somnix growled. "This boy doesn't even know the first thing of the Craft, and you've given him a pretty little Rune, and he thinks he is something." Somnix barked out laughter, straightening up and looking at me, and I realised my attacks had done little other than annoy him. "Tell me, mortal, have you lived a good, full life? Because you are going to die here by my hand.”