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 travelled...”
“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 further, Lirael realised, 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?”