Then it was in front of me, talons clacking and head swinging from side to side. It paused, black scales quivering and so close I could pluck a golden feather from its wing.
For several endless moments the tunnel was sprayed in pale light, and I stared with trembling eyeballs at the wall opposite me. Vivid murals spanned from the floor to the ceiling: paintings of a farmland crowded with the usual, rigid Egyptian people. Yet between each person there was a black-and-white ibis, its beak curved and majestic.
My breath hitched in, my eyes widening. Oliver had mentioned a god with an ibis head: Thoth. This was Thoth’s temple . . . and this had to be the bird catacomb that Oliver could not find.
Then another thought hit, and my eyes bulged even wider—for what had Oliver told me about the ibis? They once protected Egypt from a great winged serpent. A great winged serpent like the Black Pullet.
And at that moment the winged serpent was resuming its stalking steps and carrying its yellow light away. But not before I glimpsed a shadowy alcove across from me . . . and a small, canvas-wrapped mound inside.
A mummy, and if I was right, there was one directly behind me too. And more throughout, if this catacomb was anything like the others.
The Pullet’s scaly tail flicked past, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Awake, awake, awake, I thought. Return to your bodies. Wake up and fight—awake!
A pulsing light appeared behind my eyelids, and my soul slid through my veins—climbing, reaching for my heart.
Wake up! Awake!
The light shone brighter, and my magic continued to trickle inward. I had never felt power like this, so warm and . . . yet almost dampened.
And still the light burned brighter until it scorched red behind my lids.
Then a soft huff sounded, and my heart turned to stone.
This light wasn’t magic.
I snapped my eyes wide—just in time to see the Pullet’s fangs lurch at me. A scream cycloned over me, raising my hair and coating me in static and moisture.
I fell back, stumbling over the ibis mummy . . . and hitting a wall. Another scream and another snap of teeth. It filled every space of my sight, of my hearing, of my heart.
But the Pullet’s head didn’t quite fit into the alcove.
I ducked down, my hand landing right on the bound mummy’s chest . . . and then my fingers poked through the canvas wrappings.
The ibis moved. It wriggled—it was awake—but it was bound too tightly to break free. These wrappings had not decomposed like the dogs’. My fingers curled into claws, and I shredded the fabric. . . .
The Pullet reared back for another attack, and my sword gleamed in its throat.
I dived forward, and in a single move I grasped the hilt and kicked off the monster’s chest. I tumbled back into the alcove, and hot blood sprayed over me. Then, with a slash, I cut the ibis free.
It burst from the bindings, bone wings and desiccated flesh spreading wide.
“Attack,” I roared, but I didn’t need to. The mummy knew what to do. Its long beak snapped right for the hole left by my sword, and stabbed.
The Pullet screamed, staggering backward.
I lurched across the tunnel, swinging beneath golden wings before I ducked into the other alcove. This bird wrestled its bindings too; I arced my sword out . . . and sliced away more cloth.
And just like the other ibis, it careened straight for the Black Pullet. Light swept every which way, blinking and swinging as the Pullet struggled to fight the birds. But they swooped and stabbed, effective and vicious.
As I gaped, trying to find the perfect moment to run, more ibises wriggled from their alcoves. They wrestled free from their bindings, and in moments there were ten ibis. Then fifty. Then hundreds.
So I moved. Raising my sword high, I bolted into the tunnel and aimed back toward the entrance. The darkness crowded in, shaking with the Pullet’s keening wails, but I didn’t slow. I trusted my feet to get me back to the broken temple.
And soon moonlight shimmered over bricks and fallen stone. The Pullet’s cries were far behind, almost drowned out by the flapping of bone wings.
I reached the rubble, shoved my sword behind my belt, and climbed. Using broken stones and crumbled roof, I leaped and grabbed and hauled myself ever higher. The moon was so bright and so brilliant.
Then I was back to what remained of the temple’s roof and jumping into the dunes. A distant Pop! Pop! Pop! hit my ears as I launched into a run.
The copper lines around the obelisk must still be working . . . but where was the thunder from Joseph’s electricity? Why was no blue light blazing in the distance?
Terror welled in my throat, and I hurtled over the sand. The shattered skeletons of my army crunched beneath me, and as I sprinted, I severed all my necromantic leashes to these dogs.
Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
The magic kept me going. A leash cut for each footfall and a burst of strength through my body.
The noises of battle grew louder. Clashing weapons and indistinguishable shouts.