Thoughts of them all, and her responsibility, filled her head as she approached the Eighth Gate, the words of the opening spell on her lips. But even as she opened her mouth to speak the words, there was a gout of flame from the darkness of the Gate, directly opposite Lirael and the Dog.
Wreathed in that flame, Hedge lunged through. His sword cut at Lirael’s left arm and he struck so hard that she dropped Saraneth, its brief jangle quickly swallowed by the river. The clang of ensorcelled steel on gethre plates echoed across the water. The armour held, but even so Lirael’s arm beneath was badly bruised – for the second time in only a few days.
Lirael barely managed to parry the next cut for her head. She leapt back and got in the way of the Dog, who was about to leap forward. Pain coursed through Lirael’s left arm, shooting up through her shoulder and neck. Nevertheless, she reached for a bell.
Hedge was quicker. He had a bell in his hand already and he rang it. Saraneth, Lirael recognised, and she steeled herself to resist its power. But nothing came with the peal of the bell. No compulsion, no test of wills.
“Sit!” commanded Hedge, and Lirael suddenly realised that Hedge had focused Saraneth’s power upon the Disreputable Dog.
Growling, the Dog froze halfway back on her haunches, ready to spring. But Saraneth had her in its grip and she was unable to move.
Lirael circled around the Dog, moving to try to cut at Hedge’s bell arm, as he had cut hers. But he moved too, circling back the other way. There was something odd about his fighting stance, Lirael noted. She couldn’t think what it was for a moment. Then she realised that he kept his head angled down and he never looked up. Clearly, Hedge was afraid to see the stars of the Ninth Gate.
He started to move towards her, but she circled back again, keeping the motionless Dog between them. As she passed in front, Lirael saw the hound wink.
“You have led me a long chase,” said Hedge. His voice was flavoured with Free Magic and he sounded much more like something Dead than a living man. He looked like it too. He towered over Lirael and there were fires everywhere within him, glowing red in his eyes and mouth, dripping from his fingers and shining through his skin. Lirael wasn’t even sure he was a living man. He was more like a Free Magic spirit himself, only clad in human flesh. “But it is finished now, here and in Life. My master is whole again and the destruction has begun. Only the Dead walk in the living world, to praise Orannis for Its work. Only the Dead – and I, the faithful vizier.”
His voice had a hypnotic quality about it. Lirael realised he was trying to distract her while he went for a killing blow. He hadn’t tried the bell upon her, which was curious – but then, she’d broken free of Hedge and Saraneth before.
“Look up, Hedge,” she answered, as they circled again. “The Ninth Gate calls. Can’t you feel the summons of the stars?”
She lunged at him on “stars”, but Hedge was ready, and more practised with a sword. He parried, and his swift riposte cut the fabric of her surcoat directly above her heart.
Quickly, she backed off again, this time circling away from the Dog. Hedge followed, his head still bent, watching her through hooded eyes.
Behind him, the Dog stirred. Slowly, she raised one paw from the shallow river, careful not to make a splash. Then she began to sneak after the necromancer as he stalked towards Lirael.
“I don’t believe you about the Destroyer, either,” said Lirael as she backed away, hoping her voice would cover the sound of the Dog’s advance. “I would know if anything had happened to my body in Life. Besides, you wouldn’t bother with me if It were already free.”
“You are an annoyance, nothing more,” said Hedge. He was smiling now, and the flames on his sword grew brighter, feeding off his expectation of a kill. “It pleases me to finish you. There is no more to it than that. As my Master destroys that which displeases, so do I!”
He slashed viciously down at her. Lirael barely managed to parry and push his sword aside. Then they were locked together, body to body, his head bent over hers and his metallic, flame-ridden breath hot upon her cheek as she turned away.
“But perhaps I will play a little with you first.” Hedge smiled, disengaged and stepped back.
Lirael struck at him with all her strength and anger. Hedge laughed, parried, stepped back once more – and tumbled over the Disreputable Dog.
He dropped his sword and bell at once, and clapped his hands to his eyes as he struck the water with the hiss and roar of steam. But he was an instant too late. He saw the stars as he fell and they called to him, overcoming the weight of spells and power that had kept him in the living world for more than a hundred years. Always postponing Death, always searching for something that could let him stay for ever under the sun. He thought he had found it, serving Orannis, for he cared nothing about anyone else or any other living thing. The Destroyer had promised him the reward of eternal life and even greater dominion over the Dead. Hedge had done everything he could to earn it.
Now, with a single glimpse of those beckoning stars, it was all stripped away. Hedge’s hands fell back. Starlight filled his eyes with glowing tears, tears that slowly quenched his internal fires. The coils of steam wafted away and the river grew quiet. Hedge raised his arms and began his own fall towards the sky, the stars and the Ninth Gate.
The Disreputable Dog picked up Lirael’s bell from the river and took it to her, careful not to let it sound. Lirael accepted it in silence and put it away. There was no time to savour their triumph over the necromancer. Lirael knew that he was only ever a lesser enemy.
Together they crossed the Eighth Gate, both filled with a terrible fear. The fear that though Hedge’s words were lies, they would become the truth before they could get back to Life.
Lirael was further burdened by the weight of knowledge. Now she knew how to bind the Destroyer anew, but she also knew it couldn’t be done just by her. Sam would need to be the heir of the Wallmakers in truth and not just be entitled to wear their silver trowel on his surcoat.
Others of the Blood would be needed too, and they just weren’t there.
Even worse, the binding was only half of what must be done. Even if Lirael and Sam could somehow manage that, there was the breaking, and that would require more courage than Lirael thought she had.
chapter twenty - six
sam and the shadow hands
As the Dead broke free of Saraneth’s hold, Sam blew on the Ranna pipe. But the soft lullaby was too late and Sam’s breath too hasty. Only half a dozen of the Dead lay down to sleep under Ranna’s spell, and the bell caught several soldiers too. The other ninety or more Dead Hands charged down out of the fog, to be met by swords, bayonets, silver blades and the white lightning of the Charter Mages.
For a furious, frenzied minute of hacking and dodging, Sam couldn’t see what was happening. Then the Hand in front of him collapsed, its legs cut away. Sam was surprised to see that he’d done that himself, the Charter marks on his sword blazing with blue-white fury.
“Try the pipes again!” shouted the Major. He stepped in front of Sam to engage the next broken-jawed apparition. “We’ll cover you!”
Sam nodded and brought the pipes to his lips again with new determination. The Dead had driven the defenders back with their charge, and now Lirael was only a few feet behind him, a frozen statue who would be totally vulnerable to attack.
Most of the Dead Hands were fresh corpses, still clad in their workers’ overalls. But many were inhabited by spirits that had lain long in Death, who quickly transformed the dead flesh they now occupied, making it less human and more like the dreadful shapes they’d assumed in Death. One came at Sam now, wriggling like a snake between Major Greene and Lieutenant Tindall, its lower jaw unhinged for a larger bite. Reflexively, Sam stabbed it through the throat. Sparks flew as the Charter marks on the blade destroyed dead flesh. It wriggled and threshed but couldn’t free itself from the sword, so the thing’s spirit began to crawl out of its fleshy husk, like a worm of darkness leaving a totally rotten apple.