“A barking owl,” replied Lirael, with a sense of foreboding. She didn’t need the Sight to know that Sameth would like to ask an awful lot of questions. “And it’ll take about four hours. Without,” she added firmly, “any interruptions.”
Chapter Forty-Two. Southerlings and a Necromancer
The sun was setting, sending a red light across the broad river. Despite Sam and Lirael’s earlier weather spell, the wind had turned and was blowing strongly from the south. Even against the wind, Finder continued to make good time, tacking in long diagonals between the eastern and western shores. As Lirael had expected, Sam hadn’t been able to stop himself asking questions. But even with the interruptions she had managed to create the Charter-skin of a barking owl and fold it up properly for later use.
“That was fascinating,” said Sam. “I’d like to learn how to make one myself.”
“I’ve left In the Skin of a Lyon back at the Glacier,” replied Lirael. “But you can have it if you ever go there. It belongs to the Library, but I expect you’d be allowed to borrow it.” Sam nodded. The prospect of him visiting the Clayr’s Glacier seemed exceedingly remote. It was just another piece of a future that he couldn’t imagine. All he could think of was reaching the safe haven of the House.
“Can we sail through the night?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Lirael. “If the Dog is prepared to stay up as lookout, to help Finder.”
“I will,” barked the Disreputable Dog. She had not shifted from her position at the bow. “The sooner we’re there, the better. There is a foul scent on this wind, and the river is too deserted to be normal.”
Sam and Lirael both looked around. They had been so intent on the Charter-skin that they hadn’t noticed the complete absence of any other boats, though there were a number anchored close to the eastern shore.
“No one’s followed us down from High Bridge, and we have passed only four craft coming from the south,” said the Dog. “This cannot be normal for the Ratterlin.”
“No,” Sam agreed. “Whenever I’ve been on the river, there’ve always been lots of boats. Even in winter. We should have seen some of the wood barges at least, heading north.”
“I haven’t seen a single craft all day,” said the Dog. “Which means that they have stopped somewhere, to take shelter. And the boats I’ve seen tied up have all been out on the jetties or moored to buoys. As far as they can get from the land. “
“There must be more of the Dead, or those Free Magic constructs, all along the river,” said Lirael.
“I knew Mother and Dad shouldn’t have gone,” said Sam.
“If they’d known—”
“They would still have gone,” interrupted Mogget with a yawn. He stretched, and tasted the air with his delicate pink tongue. “As per usual, trouble comes in several directions at once. I think some is coming our way, for I am afraid to say that the hound is correct. There is a reek on this breeze. Wake me if something unpleasant seems likely to occur.”
With that, he settled back down again, curling into a tight white ball.
“I wonder what Mogget would call ‘something unpleasant,’” muttered Sam nervously. He picked up his sword and drew it
partially out of the scabbard, checking that the Charter marks he’d put there still flourished.
The Dog sniffed the air again as the boat came about, onto a port tack. Her nose quivered, and she raised her snout higher as the scent grew stronger.
“Free Magic,” she said finally. “On the western shore.”
“Where, exactly?” asked Lirael, shading her eyes with her hand. It was hard to see anything to the west, against the setting sun. All she could make out was tangled groves of willows between empty fields, a few makeshift jetties, and the semisubmerged stone walls of a large fish trap.
“I can’t see,” replied the Dog. “I can only smell. Somewhere downstream.”
“I can’t see anything, either,” added Sam. “But if the Free Magic isn’t on the river, we can just sail past.”
“I can smell people, too,” reported the Dog. “Frightened people.”
Sam didn’t say anything. Lirael glanced at him and saw that he was biting his lip.
“Could it be the necromancer?” Lirael asked. “Hedge?”
The Dog shrugged. “I cannot tell from here. The scent of Free Magic is strong, so it could be a necromancer. Or perhaps a Stilken or Hish.”
Lirael swallowed nervously. She could bind a Stilken, since she had Nehima to help. And Sam, the Dog, and Mogget. But she didn’t want to have to.
“I knew I should have read that book,” muttered Sam. He didn’t say which book.
They sat in silence for a minute, as Finder continued on her way towards the western shore. The sun was sinking fast now, more than half of its ruddy disc below the horizon. The stars were starting to become brighter as darkness fell.
“I suppose we’d better . . . we’d better take a look,” Sam said at last, with obvious effort. He buckled on his sword, but made no move to pick up the bandolier of bells. Lirael looked at them and wished she could take them up, but they were not hers. It was up to Sam to decide what to do with them.
“If we tie up at that next jetty, will we be close?” Lirael asked the Dog. The hound nodded her head. Without needing orders, Finder turned towards the jetty.
“Wake up, Mogget!” said Sam, but he spoke softly. It had grown quiet on the river with the fall of night. He did not want his voice to carry over the soft burble of the current.
Mogget did not stir. Sam spoke again and scratched the cat’s head, but Mogget continued to sleep.
“He’ll wake when he needs to,” said the Dog. She also spoke softly. “Prepare yourselves!”
Finder expertly slid up to the jetty as Lirael lowered the sail. Sam jumped ashore, his sword drawn, closely followed by the Dog.
Lirael joined them a moment later, Nehima bare, the Charter marks on the blade glowing in the twilight.
The Dog sniffed the air again and cocked one ear. All three stood still. Listening. Waiting.
Even the hungry gulls had stopped calling. There was no sound, save their own breathing and the rush of the river under the jetty.
Off in the distance, the silence was suddenly broken by a long-drawn-out scream. Then, as if that were a signal for noise to begin, it was followed by muffled shouts and more screams. At the same time, Lirael and Sam both felt several people die. Though it was far away, they flinched at the shock of the deaths and then again as it was quickly repeated. There was
something else there, too, that they could sense. Some power over Death.
“A necromancer!” blurted Sam. He took a step back.
“The bells,” said Lirael, and she looked down at the boat. Mogget was awake now, his green eyes gleaming in the dark. He was perched upon the bell-bandolier.
“They’re coming this way,” announced the Dog calmly.
The shouts and screams grew closer. But Lirael and Sam still couldn’t see anything beyond the line of willows. Then, fifty yards downstream, a man burst out of the trees and fell into the water. He went under at once but bobbed to the surface some distance out. He swam for a few strokes, then turned on his back to float, too weary or too hurt to keep swimming. Behind him, a burnt and blackened corpse shambled to the water’s edge and let out a horrible, gobbling cry as it saw its prey escape. Repelled by the swift flow of the river, the Dead Hand staggered back into the trees.
“Come on,” said Lirael, though she could barely get out the words. She drew her panpipes and marched off. The Dog followed her. Sam hesitated, staring out into the darkness. More people screamed and shouted beyond the trees. No words were clear, but Sam knew they were desperately afraid, and the shouts were for help.
He looked back at the bells. Mogget met his gaze, unblinking. “What are you waiting for?” asked the cat. “My permission?” Sam shook his head. He felt paralyzed, unable to reach for the bells or to follow Lirael. She and the Dog were almost at the end of the jetty. He could sense the Dead nearby, less than a hundred yards away, and the necromancer with them.
He had to do something. He had to act. He had to prove to himself he wasn’t a coward.
“I don’t need the bells!” he shouted, and he ran down the jetty, his boots echoing on the wooden planks. He burst past the surprised Lirael and the Dog, and sprinted through the gap where the willows had been pruned back.
He was past the trees in an instant and out in a twilit paddock. A Dead Hand rushed at him. He cut its legs away and kicked it over, all in one fluid motion. Before it could rise, he jumped over it and ran on.
The necromancer. He had to kill the necromancer, before he could drag him into Death. He had to kill him as quickly as he could.
A hot rage rose in him, banishing the fear. Sam growled and ran on.
Lirael and the Dog emerged from the willows to see Sam charge. The Dead Hand he’d cut down scrabbled towards them, but Lirael had the panpipes ready at her lips. She chose Saraneth and blew a strong, pure note, its commanding tones stopping the Hand in its tracks. Without a pause, Lirael changed to Kibeth, and a trill of dancing notes sent the corpse somersaulting backwards even as the Spirit inhabiting it was forced to walk back into Death.
“It’s gone,” said the Dog, loping forward. Lirael ran, too, but not with Sam’s reckless abandon.
It was still light enough to see that thirty or forty Dead Hands had surrounded a group of men, women, and children. Obviously, they’d tried to reach the safety of the river, only to fail at the very last. Now they had formed a ring with the children at the center, a last desperate defense.
Lirael could sense the Dead Hands . . . and something else, something strange and much more powerful. It was only when
she saw Sam charge past the Hands and scream a challenge that she realized that it had to be the necromancer.
The people were screaming, too, and shouting, and crying. The Dead roared and screeched back, as they pulled their victims down and ripped their throats out or rent them limb from limb. Makeshift clubs and sharpened branches struck at the Dead, but their wielders did not know how to use them to best effect, and they were heavily outnumbered.
Lirael looked across and saw the necromancer turn to face Sam. He raised his hands, and the hot metal smell of Free Magic suddenly filled the air. A moment later, a blinding, blue white spark exploded out, leaping across to strike the charging boy. At the same time, the Dead Hands howled in triumph as they burst through the ranks of struggling men and women and into the inner circle of children.
Lirael turned her easy run into an all-out sprint. Whoever she tried to help, it looked like she would be too late.
Sam saw the necromancer raise his hands and saw the bronze of his face. Even as he threw himself to the side, his mind raced. A bronze face! Then this wasn’t Hedge, but Chlorr of the Mask, the creature his mother had fought years ago!
The bolt sizzled past him, missing him by a few inches.
Heat from its passage struck him, and the grass behind him burst into flame.
Sam slowed down as he reached into the Charter and pulled out four marks. He drew them with his free hand, fingers flashing too quickly to follow. A triangular silver blade suddenly materialized in his grip. Before it was even fully formed, Sam threw it.
The blade spun as it shot through the air. Chlorr easily ducked it, but the spinning blade turned a few paces beyond her and came shooting back.
Sam rushed forward as the blade struck the necromancer in the arm. He expected it to almost sever that limb, but there were only a burst of golden flame, a gout of white sparks, and a smoldering sleeve.
“Fool,” said Chlorr, raising her sword. Her voice crawled across his skin like a thousand tiny insects. Her breath stank of death and Free Magic. “You have no bells.”
In that instant, Sam realized that Chlorr didn’t have any bells, either. Nor were there any human eyes behind the mask. Pools of fire burnt there, and white smoke puffed from the mouth-hole.
Chlorr was no longer a necromancer. She was one of the Greater Dead. Sabriel had finished her as a living being. But someone had brought her back.
“Run!” shouted Lirael. “Run!”
She stood between the last four survivors and those Dead Hands who had resisted the panpipes. Lirael had blown on Saraneth till her face was blue, but there had just been too many of them for her to deal with, the power of the pipes too slight. The Dead who were left didn’t seem affected at all. Worse still, the children wouldn’t run. They were too shocked, incapable of doing anything, let alone understand what Lirael was shouting at them.
A Dead Hand lunged, and Lirael thrust at it. The Dog leapt at another, knocking it down. But a third, a low, loping thing with elongated jaws, got past them. It rushed at a small boy who could not stop screaming. The jaws closed, and the scream was instantly cut off.
Sobbing with fury and revulsion, Lirael spun around and hewed off the thing’s head, Nehima showering silver sparks as it cut through. But even then the Dead Hand functioned, the spirit inside indifferent to any physical harm. She cut at it again and again, but Dead fingers still clutched its victim, and the head still gnashed its teeth.
Sam parried another blow from the thing that had once been Chlorr. Her strength was incredible, and once again he nearly lost his sword. His hand and wrist were numb, and the Charter marks he’d spelled so laboriously into the blade were slowly being destroyed by Chlorr’s power. When they were gone, the blade would shatter—
He staggered back and glanced quickly around the field.
He could just make out Lirael and the Dog, fighting with at least a half dozen Dead Hands. He’d heard the pipes before, the voices of Saraneth and Kibeth, though strangely different from the bells he knew. They had sent most of the spirits animating the Hands back into Death, but had had no effect upon Chlorr.