The Dog barked again as the smoke rose from Nick’s nose, but it seemed to have little effect. Lirael could only watch the white smoke coil, as she was momentarily caught within a shining tornado of light while the Charter-skin spun back into its component marks.
Then she was there in her own form, hands reaching for Saraneth and Nehima. But something else was there too, some presence that burnt inside Nick, filling him with an internal glow that set the raindrops sizzling as they touched his skin. The hot-metal stench of Free Magic rolled off him in a wave as a voice that was not Nicholas’s came out of his mouth, accompanied by puffs of white smoke.
“How dare— Ah... I should have expected you, meddler, and one of your sister’s get—”
“Quick, Lirael,” shouted the Dog. “Ranna and Saraneth together, with my bark!”
“To me, my servants!” shouted the voice from Nick, a voice far louder and more horrible than could come from any human throat. It carried even over the thunder, rolling out across the valley. All the Dead heard, even those who still laboured stupidly on the ropes, and they all hurried, a tide of rotten flesh that flowed around both sides of the pit, rushing towards the beacon of the burning tent, where their ultimate Master called.
Others heard it too, though they were further away than any sound could carry. Hedge cursed and turned aside to slay an unlucky horse, so that he could make a mount that would not shy to carry him. Many leagues to the east, Chlorr turned away from the river bank near Abhorsen’s House and began to run, a great shape of fire and darkness that moved faster than any human legs could take her.
Lirael dropped her sword and drew Ranna, so hastily the bell tinkled briefly and a wave of tiredness washed across her. Her wrist still hurt from her encounter in Death, but neither pain nor Ranna’s protest were enough to stop her. The relevant pages from The Book of the Dead shone in her mind, showing her what to do. So she did it, joining Ranna’s gentle sound with Saraneth’s deep strength, and with them the imperative sharp bark of the Dog.
The sound wrapped around Nick and the voice that spoke from him was dampened. But a raging will fought against the spell, a will that Lirael could feel pushing against her, fighting against the combined powers of bell and bark. Then suddenly that resistance snapped and Nick fell to the ground, the white smoke retreating rapidly back into his nose and throat.
“Hurry! Hurry! Get him up!” urged the Dog. “Cut south and head for the rendezvous. I’ll hold them off here!”
“But – Ranna and Saraneth – he’ll be asleep,” protested Lirael as she put the bells away and hauled Nick upright. He was much lighter than she expected, even lighter than he looked. Obviously he was worn to the bone.
“No, only the shard within him sleeps,” said the Dog rapidly. She had absorbed her wings and was growing to her combat size. “Slap him – and run!”
Lirael obeyed, though she felt cruel. The slap stung her palm, but it certainly woke Nick up. He yelped, looked around wildly and struggled against Lirael’s grip on his arm.
“Run!” she commanded, dragging him along, with a momentary pause to pick up Nehima. “Run – or I’ll stick you with this.”
Nick looked at her, the burning tent, the Dog and the onrushing horde of what he thought of as diseased workers, his face blank with shock and amazement. Then he started running, obeying Lirael’s push on his arm to make him head south.
Behind them, the Dog stood in the light of the fire, a grim shadow now easily five feet tall at the shoulder. The Charter marks that ran in her collar glowed eerily with their own colours, stronger than the red and yellow blaze of the burning tent. Free Magic pulsed under the collar and red flames dripped like saliva from her mouth.
The first mass of Dead Hands saw her and slowed, uncertain of what she was and how dangerous she might be.
Then the Disreputable Dog barked, and the Dead Hands shrieked and howled as a power they knew and feared gripped them, a Free Magic assault that made them shuck their putrescent bodies... and forced them to walk back into Death.
But for every one that fell, there were another dozen charging forward, their grasping, skeletal hands ready to grip and tear, their broken, grave-bleached teeth anxious to bite into any flesh, magical or not.
chapter ten
prince sameth and hedge
Lirael was halfway back to the rendezvous with Sam when Nick fell and could not get up. His face was blotched with fever and exertion, and he could not get his breath. He lay on the ground looking up at her dumbly, as if waiting for execution.
Which was probably what it looked like, she realised, since she was standing above him with a naked sword held high. Lirael sheathed Nehima and stopped frowning, but she saw that he was too ill and tired to understand that she was trying to reassure him.
“Looks like I’m going to have to carry you,” she said, her voice mixed with equal parts of exhaustion and desperation. He wasn’t at all heavy, but it was at least half a mile to the stream. And she didn’t know how long the shard of the Destroyer or whatever it was in him would stay subdued.
“Why... why are you doing this?” croaked Nick as she levered him across her shoulders. “The experiment will go on without me, you know.”
Lirael had been taught how to do a fireman’s carry back in the Great Library of the Clayr, though she hadn’t practised it in several years. Not since Kemmeru’s illicit still had caught fire when Lirael was doing her turn on the librarians’ fire brigade. She was pleased she hadn’t forgotten the technique, and that Nick was a lot lighter than Kemmeru. Not that it was a fair comparison, as Kemmeru had insisted on being carried out with her favourite books.
“Your friend Sam can explain,” puffed Lirael. She could still hear the Dog barking somewhere behind her, which was good, but it was hard to see where she was going, since there was only the soft predawn light, not even strong enough to cast a shadow. It had been much easier crossing this stretch of valley as an owl.
“Sam?” asked Nick. “What’s Sam got to do with this?”
“He’ll explain,” Lirael said shortly, saving her breath. She looked up, trying to fix her position by Uallus again. But they were still too close to the pit and all she could see was thunderclouds and lightning. At least it had stopped raining and the more natural clouds were slowly blowing away.
Lirael kept on going, but with a growing suspicion that she’d somehow veered off the track and was no longer heading in the right direction. She should have paid more attention when she was flying, Lirael thought, when everything had been laid out below her in a beautiful patchwork.
“Hedge will rescue me,” Nick whispered weakly, his voice hoarse and strange, particularly since it was coming from somewhere near her belt buckle, as he was draped over her back.
Lirael ignored him. She couldn’t hear the Dog any more, and the ground was getting boggy under her feet, which couldn’t be right. But there was a dim mass of something ahead. Bushes perhaps. Maybe the ones that lined the stream where Sam was waiting.
Lirael pressed forward, Nick’s extra weight pushing her feet deep into the soggy ground. She could see what lay ahead, now she was close enough and more light trickled in from the rising sun. It was reeds, not bushes. Tall rushes with red flowering heads, the rushes that gave the Red Lake its name, from their pollen that coloured the lakeshores with a brilliant scarlet wash.
She’d gone completely the wrong way, Lirael realised. Somehow she must have turned west. Now she was on the shore of the lake and the Gore Crows would soon find her. Unless, she thought, they couldn’t see her. She shifted Nick higher and bent over a little more to balance the load. He groaned in pain, but Lirael ignored him and pressed on into the reeds.