“Quickly, Joel,” Exton said, holding out his hand from a short distance away, an empty bucket in his other hand. Joel scrambled to his feet, snatching the gold coin and dashing through the hole Exton had made in the ring of chalklings.
Exton rushed back into the office building.
“Exton!” Joel said, following him through the doorway and into the office. “We have to run. We can’t stop them here!”
Exton slammed the door shut, ignoring Joel. Then he knelt to the floor and pulled out a piece of chalk. He drew a line in front of the doorway, then up the sides of the wall and around the doorway. He stepped back.
The chalklings stopped outside. Joel could just barely see them begin attacking the line. Exton proceeded to draw another one around Joel and himself, boxing them in.
“Exton,” Joel said. “You’re a Rithmatist!”
“A failed one,” Exton admitted, hands shaking. “Haven’t carried chalk in years. But, well, with all the problems here at the school…”
Across the room, chalklings moved across the windowpanes, looking for other ways in. A single lantern flickered, giving the office a shadowy illumination.
“What’s going on?” Exton asked. “Why were they chasing you?”
“I don’t know,” Joel said, testing the Line of Forbiddance around them. It wasn’t drawn particularly well, and wouldn’t hold for long against the chalklings.
“Do you have any more acid?” Joel asked.
Exton nodded toward a second bucket nearby, within their defensive square. Joel grabbed it.
“It’s the last one,” Exton said, wringing his hands. “Harding left the two here for us.”
Joel glanced at the chalklings, visible under the door, attacking at Exton’s line. He took out the coin.
It had stopped them. Why?
“Exton,” he said, trying to keep the terror from shaking his voice. “We’re going to have to make a run for the gates. The policemen will have more acid there.”
“Run?” Exton said. “I … I can’t run! I’m in no shape to keep ahead of chalklings!”
He was right. Portly as he was, Exton wouldn’t be able to keep up for long. Joel felt his hands shaking, so he clenched his fists. He knelt down, watching the chalklings beyond the Line of Forbiddance. They were chewing through it at an alarming rate.
Joel took the coin and snapped it to the ground behind the line. The chalklings shied away.
Then, tentatively, they came back and began to work on the Line of Forbiddance again.
Blast, Joel thought. So it won’t stop them, not for good. He and Exton were in trouble. Serious trouble. He turned to Exton, who was wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
“Draw another box around yourself,” Joel said.
“What?”
“Draw as many lines as you can,” Joel said. “Don’t let them touch each other except at corners. Wait here.” Joel turned toward the door. “I’m going for help.”
“Joel, those things are out there.” Exton jumped as the window cracked. He glanced toward the glass, where a couple of chalklings were attacking, scraping at the glass with a terrible sound. It cracked further. “They’ll be in here soon!”
Joel took a deep breath. “I’m not going to sit here like Herman and Charles did, waiting for my defenses to be breached. I can make it to the gates—it’s just a short distance.”
“Joel, I—”
“Draw the lines!” Joel yelled.
Exton fumbled, then went down on his knees, boxing himself inside a set of Lines of Forbiddance. Joel turned the coin over in his palm.
Then he picked up the bucket and splashed most of its contents beneath the door, washing away the Line of Forbiddance. The chalklings outside washed away like dirt sprayed off a white wall. Joel threw open the door and, without looking back, took off at a charge toward the gates to the academy.
He knew he’d never be able to run with a bucket of liquid, so he tossed it behind him.
He ran, holding the coin.
What would happen to him if the gates weren’t guarded? What if the Scribbler had managed to kill the policemen or make a distraction?
Joel would die. His skin ripped from his flesh, his eyes gouged out. Just like the people in Mary Rowlandson’s narrative.
No, he thought with determination. She survived to write her story.
I’ll survive to write mine!
He yelled, pushing himself in a dash over the dark landscape. Ahead, he saw lights.
People moved near them.
“Halt!” one of the officers said.
“Chalklings!” Joel screamed. “They’re following me!”
The officers scattered at his call, grabbing buckets. Joel was thankful for Harding’s sense of preparation, as the men didn’t even stop to think or question. They formed a defensive bucket line as Joel charged between them and collapsed to his knees, puffing and exhausted, his heart racing.
He twisted about, leaning one hand against the ground. There had been four chalklings following him—more than enough to kill him. They had stopped in the near darkness, barely visible from the gates.
“By the Master,” one of the police officers whispered. “What are they waiting for?”
“Steady,” said one of the others, holding his bucket.
“Should we charge?” asked another.
“Steady,” the first said.
The chalklings scrambled away, disappearing into the night.
Joel wheezed in exhaustion, falling backward to the ground and lying on his back. “Another man,” he said between breaths, “is trapped inside the office building. You’ve got to help him.”
One of the policemen pointed, motioning for a squad of four to go that direction. He took his gun and fired it upward. It made a crack of sound as the springs released and the bullet ripped through the air.
Joel lay, sweating, shaking. The officers held their buckets, nervous, until Harding raced into sight from the east, riding his springwork charger. He had his rifle out.
“Chalklings, sir!” one of the officers yelled. “At the office building!”
Harding cursed. “Send three men to alert the patrols around the Rithmatist barracks!” he yelled, turning his horse and galloping toward the office. He slung his rifle over his shoulder as he went, trading it for what looked to be a wineskin filled with acid.
Joel simply lay, trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened.
Someone tried to kill me.
Two hours later, Joel sat in Professor Fitch’s office, holding a cup of warmed cocoa, his mother in tears at his side. She alternated between hugging him and speaking sternly with Inspector Harding for not setting patrols to protect the non-Rithmatists.
Professor Fitch sat bleary-eyed, looking stunned after hearing what had happened. Exton was, apparently, all right—though the police were speaking with him back at the office building.
Harding stood with two policemen a short distance away. All of the people crowded the small, hallwaylike office.
Joel couldn’t stop himself from shaking. It felt shameful. He’d almost died. Every time he considered that, he felt unsteady.
“Joel,” Fitch said. “Lad, are you sure you’re all right?”
Joel nodded, then took a sip of his drink.
“I’m sorry, Son,” said his mother. “I’m a bad mother. I shouldn’t stay out all night!”
“You act like it’s your fault,” Joel said quietly.
“Well, it—”
“No, Mother,” Joel said. “If you’d been there, you might have been killed. It’s better that you were away.”
She sat back on her stool, still looking troubled.
Harding dismissed his officers, then approached Joel. “Soldier, we found the patterns you mentioned. There were five—one on the wall outside your room, then four spaced along the ground in the direction you ran. They ended in a box of Lines of Forbiddance. If you hadn’t thought as quickly as you did, you would have been trapped.”
Joel nodded. His mother began crying again.
“I have the entire campus on alert, soldier,” Harding said. “You did well tonight. Very well. Quick thinking, bravery, physical adeptness. I’m impressed.”
“I nearly wet myself,” Joel whispered.
Harding snorted. “I’ve seen men twice your age freeze in combat when they saw their first chalkling. You did an amazing job. Might well have just solved this case.”
Joel looked up with surprise. “What?”
“I can’t speak now,” Harding said, raising a hand. “But if my suspicions prove to be correct, I’ll have made an arrest by the morning. You should get some sleep, now.” He hesitated. “If this were the battlefield, son, I’d put you in for highest honors.”
“I…” Joel said. “I don’t know that I can go back to the workshop to sleep.…”
“The lad and his mother can stay here,” Fitch said, rising. “I’ll stay in one of the empty rooms.”
“Excellent,” Harding said. “Ms. Saxon, I will have ten men with acid guarding this doorway all night, two inside the room, if you wish.”
“Yes,” she said, “please.”
“Try not to be too worried,” Harding said. “I’m sure the worst of this is through. Plus, as I understand, you have an important day tomorrow, Joel.”
The inception ceremony. Joel had almost forgotten about it. He nodded, bidding the inspector farewell. Harding marched out and closed the door.
“Well,” Fitch said. “You can see that the bed is already made, and Joel, there are extra blankets underneath for you to sleep on the floor. I hope that’s all right?”
“It’s fine,” Joel said.
“Joel, lad,” Fitch said. “You really did do well.”
“I ran,” Joel said quietly. “It’s the only thing I could do. I should have had acid at the room, and—”
“And what, lad?” Fitch asked. “Thrown one bucket while the other chalklings swarmed you? A single man can’t hold the front against chalklings—you learn that quickly in Nebrask. It takes a bucket brigade, dozens of men, to keep a group of the things back.”
Joel looked down.
Fitch knelt. “Joel. If it’s any help, I can imagine what it feels like. I … well, you know I never did very well at Nebrask. The first time I saw a chalkling charge, I could barely keep my lines straight. I can’t even duel another person and keep my wits. Harding is right—you did very well tonight.”
I want to be able to do more, Joel thought. Fight.
“Exton is a Rithmatist,” he said out loud.
“Yes,” Fitch said. “He was expelled from the Rithmatic school his early years at Armedius for certain … complications. It happens very rarely.”
“I remember you talking about that,” Joel said. “To Melody. Professor, I want you to draw that new line we found, the one with swirls.”
“Now?” Fitch asked.
“Yes.”
“Honey,” his mother said, “you need rest.”