Abhorsen (9 page)

The Dog sniffed scornfully at the ground.

“We will not need to fight. That was a Ferenk, a scavenger. Ferenks are all show and bluster. This one lies under several ells of earth and stone now. It will not come out till dark, perhaps not even till dark tomorrow.”

Sam scanned the ground, not trusting the Dog’s opinion, while Lirael bent down to talk to the hound.

“I’ve never read anything about Free Magic creatures called Ferenks,” said Lirael. “Not in any of the books I went through to find out about the Stilken.”

“There should be no Ferenk here,” said the Dog. “They are elemental creatures, spirits of stone and mud. They became nothing more than stone and mud when the Charter was made. A few would have been missed, but not here . . . not in a place so traveled. . . .”

“If it was just a scavenger, what killed these poor people?” asked Lirael. She’d been wondering about the wounds she’d seen and not liking the direction her thoughts were going in. Most of the corpses had, like the guardsman, two holes bored right through them, holes where clothing and skin were scorched around the edges.

“Certainly a Free Magic creature, or creatures,” said the Dog. “But not a Ferenk. Something akin to a Stilken, I think. Perhaps a Jerreq or a Hish. There were many thousands of Free Magic creatures who evaded the making of the Charter, though most were later imprisoned or made to serve after a fashion. There were entire breeds, and others of a singular nature, so I cannot speak with absolute certainty. It is complicated by the fact that there was a forge here long ago, inside the ring of thorns. There was a creature bound inside the stone anvil of that forge, yet I can find neither anvil nor any other remnants. Possibly whatever was bound here killed these people, but I think not. . . .”

The Dog paused to sniff the ground again, wandered in a circle, absently snapped at her own tail, and then sat down to offer her conclusion.

“It might have been a twinned Jerreq, but I am inclined to think the killing here was done by two Hish. Whatever did the deed, it was done in the service of a necromancer.”

“How do you know that?” asked Sam. He’d stopped circling when the Dog started, though he still kept on looking at the ground. Now he was looking for signs of a stone anvil as well as an erupting Ferenk. Not that he’d ever seen an anvil here.

“Tracks and signs,” replied the Dog. “The wounds, the smells that remain, a three-toed impression in soft soil, the body hung in the tree, the thorns stripped from seven branches in celebration . . . all this tells me what walked here, up to a point. As to the necromancer, no Jerreq or Hish or any of the other truly dangerous creatures of Free Magic has woken in a thousand years save to the sound of Mosrael and Saraneth, or by a direct summons using their secret names.”

“Hedge was here,” whispered Lirael. Sam flinched at the name, and the burn scars on his wrists darkened. But he did not look at the scars or turn away.

“Perhaps,” said the Dog. “Not Chlorr, anyway. One of the Greater Dead would leave different signs.”

“They died eight days ago,” continued Lirael. She did not question how she knew this. Now that she had seen the corpses more closely, she just knew. It was part of her being an Abhorsen. “Their spirits were not taken. According to
The Book of the Dead
, they should not be past the Fourth Gate. I could go into Death and find one. . . .”

She stopped as both the Dog and Sam shook their heads.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Sam. “What could you learn? We know that there are bands of the Dead and necromancers and who knows what else roaming around.”

“Sam is right,” said the Dog. “There is nothing useful to learn from their deaths. And since Sam has already announced our presence with Charter Magic, let us give these poor people the cleansing fire, so that their bodies may not be used. But we should be quick.”

Lirael looked across the field, blinking as the sun cut across her eyes, over to where the young man who had once been Barra lay. The name came to her as she looked. She had thought of finding Barra in Death, and telling his spirit that the girl he had probably forgotten years ago had always wished she had talked to him, kissed him even, done anything other than hide behind her hair and weep. But even if she could find Barra in Death, she knew he would be long past any concerns of the living world. It would not be for him that she sought his spirit, but for herself, and she could not afford the luxury.

All three of them stood together over the closest body. Sam drew the Charter mark for fire, the Disreputable Dog barked one for cleansing, and Lirael drew those for peace and sleep and pulled all the marks together. The marks met and sparked on the man’s chest, became leaping golden flames, and a second later exploded to immolate the entire body. Then the fire died as quickly as it had come, leaving only ash and lumps of melted metal that had once been belt buckle and knife blade.

“Farewell,” said Sam.

“Go safely,” said Lirael.

“Do not come back,” said the Dog.

After that, they did the ritual individually, moving as quickly as they could among the bodies. Lirael noticed that Sam was at first surprised, then obviously relieved, that the Disreputable Dog could cast the Charter marks and perform a rite that no necromancer or pure Free Magic creature could do, because of the rite’s inherent opposition to the forces they wielded.

Even with the three of them performing the rite, the sun was high and the morning almost gone by the time they finished. Not counting the unknown number of people taken by the Ferenk to its muddy lair, thirty-eight men and women had died in the field of thorn trees. Now they were only piles of ash in a field of rotting mules and ravens, who had come back, croaking their dissatisfaction at the diminution of their feast.

It was Lirael who first noticed that one of the ravens was not actually alive. It sat on the head of a mule, pretending to pick at it, but its black eyes were firmly fixed on Lirael. She had sensed its presence before seeing it, but hadn’t been sure whether it was the deaths of eight days ago she felt, or the presence of the Dead. As soon as she met its gaze, she knew. The bird’s spirit was long gone, and something festering and evil lived inside the feathered body. Something once human, transformed by ages spent in Death, years misspent in an endless struggle to return to Life.

It was not a Gore Crow. Though it wore a raven’s body, this was a much stronger spirit than was ever used to animate a flock of just-killed crows. It was out in the glare of the full sun, and so must be a Fourth or Fifth Gate Rester at least. The raven body it used had to be fresh, for such a spirit would corrode the flesh of whatever it inhabited within a day.

Lirael’s hand flew to Saraneth, but even as she drew the bell, the Dead creature shot into the air and flew swiftly west, hugging the ground and twisting among the thorn trees. Feathers and bits of dead flesh dropped as it flew. It would be a skeleton before it went much farther, Lirael realized, but then it did not need feathers to fly. Free Magic propelled it, not living sinew.

“You should have got it,” criticized the Dog. “It could still hear the bell, even past those thorn trees. Let’s hope it was an independent spirit; otherwise we’ll have Gore Crows—at the least—all over us.”

Lirael returned Saraneth to its pouch, carefully holding the clapper till the leather tongue slipped into place to keep the bell still.

“I was surprised,” she said quietly. “I’ll be quicker next time.”

“We’d better move on,” said Sam. He looked at the sky and sighed. “Though I had hoped to have a bit of a rest. It’s too hot to walk.”

“Where are we going?” asked Lirael. “Is there a wood or anything nearby that will hide us from the Gore Crows?”

“I’m not sure,” said Sam. He pointed north, where the ground rose up to a low hill, the thorn trees giving way to a field that once must have been cultivated, though it was now home to weeds and saplings. “We can take a look from that rise. We have to head roughly northwest anyway.”

They did not look back as they left what had become a funerary ground. Lirael tried to look everywhere else, her sight and sense of Death alert for any slight indication of the Dead. The Dog loped along next to her, and Sam walked to her left, a few steps behind.

They followed the remnants of a low stone wall up the hill. Once it would have separated two fields, and there might have been sheep on the higher pasture and crops below. But that was long ago, and the wall had not been mended for decades. Somewhere, less than a league or so away, there would be a ruined farmhouse, ruined yards, a choked well. The telltale signs that people had once lived there and had not fared well.

From their high point they could see the Long Cliffs stretching out to the east and west, and the undulating hills of the plateau. They could see the Ratterlin stretching from north to south, and the plume of the waterfall. Abhorsen’s House was hidden by the hills, but the tops of the fog banks that still surrounded it were eerily visible.

Several hundred years ago, before Kerrigor’s rise, they would also have seen farms and villages and cultivated fields. Now, even twenty years after King Touchstone’s Restoration, this part of the Kingdom was still largely deserted. Small forests had joined to become larger ones, single trees had become small forests, and drained marshes had returned happily to swamps. There were villages out there somewhere, Lirael knew, but none she could see. They were few and far between, because just a handful of Charter Stones had been replaced or restored. Only Charter Mages of the royal line could make or mend a Charter Stone—though the blood of any Charter Mage could break a normal stone. Too many Charter Stones had been broken in the two hundred years of the Interregnum for even twenty years of hard work to fix.

“It’s at least two, maybe three days’ solid march to Edge,” said Sam, pointing nor-norwest. “The Red Lake is behind those mountains. Which we pass to the south, I’m glad to say.”

Lirael shielded her eyes against the sun with her hand and squinted. She could just make out the peaks of a distant mountain range.

“We may as well get started then,” she said. Still shading her eyes, she gradually turned a full circle, looking up into the sky. It was a beautiful, clear blue, but Lirael knew that all too soon she would see telltale black blots—distant flocks of Gore Crows.

“We could head for Roble’s Town first,” suggested Sam, who was also looking up at the sky. “I mean, Hedge is going to know where we are anyway soon, and we might be able to get some help in Roble’s Town. There’ll be a Guard post there.”

“No,” said Lirael thoughtfully. She could see a line of puffy, black-streaked clouds far to the north, and it had given her an idea. “We’d just be getting other people into trouble. Besides, I think I know how to get rid of the Gore Crows, or hide from them at least—though it won’t be pleasant. We’ll try it a bit later on. Closer to nightfall.”

“What do you plan, Mistress?” asked the Dog. She had collapsed near Lirael’s feet, her tongue lolling out as she panted to cool down after the climb. This was a difficult task, since the sky was clear and the day was getting hotter and hotter as the sun climbed.

“We’ll whistle down those rain clouds,” replied Lirael, pointing at the distant cushion of dark cloud. “Good heavy rain and wind will blow away the Gore Crows, make us hard to find, and cover our tracks as well. What do you think?”

“An excellent plan!” exclaimed the Dog with approval.

“Do you think we can bring that rain down here?” asked Sam dubiously. “I reckon that cloud is about as far away as High Bridge.”

“We can try,” said Lirael. “Though there is more cloud to the west. . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she really focused on the blacker cloud beyond the hills, close to the western mountains. Even from this far away she could sense a wrongness in it, and as she stared, she saw the sheen of lightning within the cloud.

“I guess not that cloud.”

“No,” growled the Dog, her voice very deep, rumbling in her chest. “That is where Hedge and Nicholas are digging. I fear that they may have already uncovered what they seek.”

“I’m sure Nick doesn’t know he’s doing anything bad,” said Sam quickly. “He’s a good man. He wouldn’t do anything that would hurt anyone intentionally.”

“I hope so,” said Lirael. She was wondering once again what they would do when they got there. Why did Hedge need Nicholas? What was being dug up? What was their Enemy’s ultimate plan?

“We’d better keep moving, anyway,” she said, tearing her gaze away from the distant dark cloud and its flickering lightnings to look at the rolling land to the west. “What if we follow that valley? It goes in the right direction, and there’s quite a lot of tree cover and a stream.”

“That should be practically a small river,” said Sam. “I don’t know what’s happened to the spring rains down here.”

“Weather can be worked two ways,” said the Dog absently. She was still looking towards the mountains. “It may be no accident that the rain clouds hug the north. It would be good to bring them south for several reasons. I would like it even more if we could stop that lightning storm.”

“I guess we could try,” said Sam doubtfully, but the Dog shook her head.

“That storm would not answer to any weather magic,” she said. “There is too much lightning, and that confirms a fear I had hoped to lay to rest. I had not thought they would find it so quickly, or that it could be so easily untombed. I should have known. Astarael does not lightly tread the earth, and a Ferenk released already . . .”

“What is
it
?” asked Lirael nervously.

“The thing that Hedge is digging up,” said the Dog. “I will tell you more when needs must. I do not wish to fill your bones with fear, or tell ancient tales for no purpose. There are still several possible explanations and ancient safeguards that might yet hold even if the worst is true. But we must hurry!”

With that, the Dog leapt up and shot off down the hill, grinning as she zigzagged around white-barked saplings with silver-green leaves and shot over yet another ruined stone wall.