Abhorsen (Abhorsen 3)

Lirael was also unaware of the desertions during the night. Every time the trucks had slowed to negotiate a sharp bend, or had been forced to stop before crawling across a washed-out section of what was a very secondary road, soldiers who could not face the prospect of further encounters with the Dead leapt from the trucks and disappeared into the darkness. The company had more than a hundred men when it left the Perimeter. By the time they came to Forvale, there were only seventy-three left.

“Debus! On the double!”

The Company Sergeant-Major’s shouts woke Lirael. She jerked up, one hand already scrabbling at a bell, the other on Nehima. Sam reacted in a very similar way. Disoriented and scared, he stumbled towards the tailgate, right behind the Disreputable Dog, who jumped out a moment later.

“Five-minute rest! Five minutes! Do your business and be quick about it! No brew-ups!”

Lirael climbed out of the truck, yawned, and rubbed her eyes. It was still half dark, the eastern sky light beyond the ridge but without any sign of the actual sun. Most of the sky was beginning to turn blue, save for a patch not far away that was dark and threatening. Lirael saw it out if the corner of her eye, turned swiftly, and had her worst fears realized. Lightning flashed in the cloud. Lots of lightning, more than ever before, and it was striking down across a wider area. All beyond the ridge.

“Forwin Loch, and the mill,” said Major Greene. “They lie beyond that ridge. What the—”

They had all been looking across to the ridge. Now Greene pointed down into the valley that lay between them. It was lush green farmland, divided into regular five-acre fields by wire fences. Sheep occupied some of the fields. But on the southern end of the valley there was a moving mass of blue. Thousands of people, a great crowd of blue-scarved and blue-hatted Southerlings, a huge migration all across the valley.

Greene and Tindall had their binoculars to their eyes in a flash. But Lirael did not need binoculars to see which way the great crowd was heading. The leading groups were already turning to the west, to the ridge and Forwin Mill beyond. To the Lightning Farm, where from the look of the storm the hemispheres were already in place.

“We have to stop them!” said Sam. He was pointing at the Southerlings.

“It is more important to stop the hemispheres from being joined,” said Lirael. She hesitated for a second, unsure of what to do or say. Only one course seemed obvious. They had to get up on the western ridge to see what was happening beyond it, and that meant crossing the valley as quickly as possible. “We need to get up on that ridge! Come on!”

She started off down the road into the valley, jogging slowly at first but slowly increasing her speed. The Dog ran at her side, her tongue lolling out. Sam followed a half minute later, Mogget riding on his shoulders. Major Greene and Lieutenant Tindall were slower, but they were both soon bellowing orders, and the soldiers were running back from the ditch on the side of the road and forming up.

The road was more of a track, but once down the hill it cut straight through the fields, crossed the stream in the center of the valley at a concrete ford or sunken bridge, and then ran along the side of the ridge.

Lirael ran as she had never run before. A lone figure, she splashed across the ford and cut in front of the Southerlings. Closer to, she saw that they were in family groups, often of many generations. Hundreds of families. Grandparents, parents, children, babies. They all had the same scared look on their faces, and nearly everyone, no matter how old or small, was weighed down with suitcases, bags, and small bundles. Some had strange possessions, small machines and metal objects that Lirael did not know but Sam recognized as sewing machines, phonographs, and typewriters. Strangely, nearly all the adults also clutched small pieces of paper.

“They must not be allowed to cross the ridge,” said the Dog as Lirael slowed to look at them. “But we must not stop. I fear the lightning is increasing.”

Lirael halted for a second and turned back. Sam was about fifty yards behind, running with grim determination.

“Sam!” Lirael shouted. She indicated the Southerlings, who were starting to turn towards the ridge. Some younger men were already climbing the slope. “Stop them! I’m going on!”

Lirael began to run again, ignoring the pain from an incipient stitch in her side. With every forward step it seemed to her that the lightning beyond the ridge was spreading, and the thunder was growing louder and more frequent. Lirael left the road and began to zigzag up a long spur that ran up to the ridge. To help her along, she grabbed at stones and the branches of the white-barked trees that were dotted along the slope.

She could feel the Dead beyond the ridge as she climbed. No more than a score at first, but at least a dozen more appeared as she climbed. Obviously Hedge was bringing spirits in from Death. He must have found a source of corpses somewhere. Lirael did not think they would be Shadow Hands, for it took longer to prepare a spirit for Life if there was no flesh to house it in. At least it was supposed to take longer. Lirael was afraid that she had no idea what Hedge was capable of.

Then, without warning, she was on top of the ridge and there were no more white-barked trees, no great boulders. She could see clearly down the bare western slope to the blue waters of the loch. The hillside had been totally cleared, swept clean as if by fire and a giant broom, leaving only furrowed brown dirt. But the dirt had sprouted a strange crop. Slender metal poles, twice Lirael’s height. Hundreds of them, spaced six feet apart, and joined at the roots by fat black cables that snaked down the slope and into a ramshackle stone building that had lost its roof. Parallel metal lines laid on top of many short wooden beams formed a track of some sort. They ran on the ground through the building, ending abruptly twenty yards on either side of it. There were two flatbed metal-wheeled wagons on the line, one at each end. Lirael instinctively knew that these were for the hemispheres. They would be mounted on the wagons and somehow be brought together by using the power of the lightning storm.

Lightning flashed as if to punctuate her thoughts. It came forking down all around the quay, so bright that Lirael had to shield her eyes with her hand. She knew what she would see there, because she could smell the hot-metal scent, the corrosive smell of Free Magic. It turned her stomach, and she was thankful that she hadn’t eaten for hours.

One of the silver hemispheres was already on the quay. It flashed blue as the lightning struck it. The other hemisphere was on a boat out on the loch. Though most of the lightning was hitting the hemispheres, Lirael saw that it was also spreading out and up the slope, and most of the strikes hit the tall poles. They were lightning rods, the thousand lightning rods that together made up Nicholas’s Lightning Farm.

As if the dark clouds above were not enough, fog was beginning to swirl off the loch. Lirael could sense this was a magical fog, built with real water, so it would much harder to force back or dispel. She felt the Free Magic working in it, and the source of it. Hedge was somewhere down on the quay. There were Dead down there with him, moving the first hemisphere, and there were more Dead around the various small buildings that lined the quay. Lirael could sense them moving about, with Hedge at the center of everything. She felt like a fly on the edge of a cobweb, feeling the movement of the great mother spider at the center and its many offspring farther around the web.

Lirael drew Nehima, and then after a moment’s hesitation her hand fell on Astarael. The Weeper. All who heard her would be thrown into Death, including Lirael. If she could get close enough, she could send Hedge and all the Dead a long, long way. Hedge, at least, would probably be able to return to Life, but there was a slim chance Lirael could return as well, and it would gain her precious time.

But as she started to draw the bell out of the bandolier, the Dog jumped up against her and pushed Lirael’s hand away with her nose.

“No, Mistress,” she said. “Astarael alone cannot prevail here. We are too late to prevent the hemispheres from being joined.”

“Sam, the soldiers . . .” said Lirael. “If we attack a

t once—”

“I do not think we would easily pass through this Light-ning Farm,” said the Dog, shaking her head. “The Destroyer’s power is less constrained here, and the Destroyer is directing the lightning. Besides, the Dead here are led by Hedge, not Chlorr.”

“But if the hemispheres join . . .” Lirael whispered to herself. Then she swallowed and said, “It’s time, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the Dog. “But not here. Hedge will have noticed us, as we have noticed him. His mind is on the hemispheres for the moment, but I do not think it will be long before he orders an attack.”

Lirael turned to retreat back down the eastern side of the ridge, then stopped and looked back.

“Nicholas? What about him?”

“He is beyond our help now,” replied the Dog sadly. “When the hemispheres join, the shard within him will burst from his heart to become part of the whole. But he will know nothing of it. It will be a swift end, though I fear Hedge will enslave his spirit.”

“Poor Nick,” said Lirael. “I should never have let him go.”

“You had no choice,” said the Dog. She nudged Lirael behind the knee, anxious to make her move. “We must hurry!”

Lirael nodded and turned back to retrace her path down the slope. As she hurried down, sliding and almost falling in the steeper parts, she thought of Nicholas and then of everyone else, including herself. Perhaps Nick would have the easiest path. After all, it was likely he would be only the first to die, unknowing. Everyone else would be only too aware of their fate, and they would probably all end up serving Hedge.

Lirael was halfway down when an enormously loud, booming voice filled the valley. It shocked her for a second, till she recognized it was Sam, his speech greatly magnified by Charter Magic. He was standing on a large boulder only a hundred yards or so farther down the spur, his hands cupped around his mouth, his fingers glowing from the spell.

“Southerlings! Friends! Do not go beyond the western ridge! Only death awaits you there! Do not believe the papers you hold—they offer only lies! I am Prince Sameth of the Old Kingdom, and I promise to give land and farms to everyone who stays in the valley! If you stay in the valley, you will be given farms and land beyond the Wall!”

Sam repeated his message as Lirael panted to a stop next to his boulder. Below it, Major Greene’s men were strung out in a long line along the bottom of the ridge. The Southerlings were gathered beyond that line, overlapping it by several hundred yards at the southern end. Most of them had stopped to listen to Sam, but a few were still climbing up the ridge.

Sam stopped talking and jumped down.