“I really must insist that I, at least, come with—” Anlow started to say.
“Stay here,” interrupted Lirael. For a moment, she wondered at herself, ordering a captain of the Royal Guard around. Many things had happened in the last half a year. She was no longer a shy Second Assistant Librarian. She was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Sometimes that was hard for her to believe, but not when it mattered. Like now, when something awaited that was her responsibility.
Lirael drew her sword and the bell Saraneth. Commonly called the Binder, the sixth bell was a comforting, powerful presence in her hand. She paused for a second then, taking a moment to feel the Free Magic presence that lay somewhere in the night ahead, to feel Death so close, but not yet with any open breach to Life. Then she slowly walked out from the gateway, narrowing her eyes against the darkness ahead as she left the brilliant, constantly moving Charter marks in the stones of the Wall behind.
It got very dark very quickly as Lirael moved away. It was quiet now, too, a sharp contrast to when they’d first arrived at the Wall, hurrying because of the cracking sounds of gunshots and the deeper thud of artillery coming from the south, accompanied by the blossoming of star-shells, tiny suns in the sky. All things Lirael had experienced before in the desperate rush to Forwin Mill the previous summer.
Lirael trod carefully, sword and bell in hand, every sense attuned to the hunt. Many Free Magic creatures were expert ambushers. Some could lurk under the earth, or take the shape of a tree or boulder, or perhaps here in this wasteland a coil of rusted wire.
But this creature did not seem to be even trying to hide. The taint of Free Magic was like a visible trail to Lirael. She could feel where it came from, and though she did not speed up or spare her caution, she followed it to its expected source.
A Free Magic creature.
Lirael’s every muscle tensed. Saraneth moved slightly in her hand, wanting to speak, to bind the monster, and she had to grip it more tightly and will the bell to wait. The Charter marks on sword and bell shone with sudden light, and moved restlessly, reacting to what lay before them.
But Lirael didn’t ring Saraneth or swing her sword, because the creature was lying motionless on the ground. It wasn’t crouched to spring. It wasn’t lurking in ambush. It just lay there on the bare earth, with its long, long arms stretched out beside it and its barbed, clublike hands perfectly still.
Lirael studied it for several long seconds, taking in its wasplike waist; the violet, crosshatched crocodilian hide; the long neck on which balanced a vaguely human head, though it had hearing slits in place of ears; the pear-shaped eyes, now shut; and a mouth as wide as Lirael’s two extended hands, crammed with teeth as black as polished jet.
There was blood around that wide mouth, on the black teeth, trailing down its pointed chin.
“A Hrule,” whispered Lirael, remembering a book she had read long ago in the Great Library of the Clayr. Creatures by Nagy, a bestiary which described several hundred Free Magic entities. It was one of the better books of its type, though it was by no means comprehensive. There were a multitude of Free Magic creatures, ranging from mere nuisances to the very dangerous indeed.
The thing in front of her was in the very dangerous category.
She stepped closer very cautiously, wondering why it lay there so still, while trying to recall everything she had read in the bestiary. Hrule were very rare. Drinkers of blood, she remembered that, or was reminded of it by the stain about its mouth.
There was an oddity about this one, beyond its dormant state. It had a chain of daisies around its neck, signifying that someone else had already tried some magic against it. Certain flowers, herbs, spices, metals, and scents used in particular shapes or patterns could briefly compel Free Magic creatures into action or inaction. A chain of day’s eye flowers would make some creatures pause, if nothing more, and the more powerful and intelligent, like the Hrule, could sometimes be negotiated with in that state.
But a chain of daisies could not have rendered the creature unconscious, as this one seemed to be. Lirael frowned, thinking about possible ways the Hrule could have been stilled. There was something on the very edge of her memory, half-remembered from Creatures by Nagy, concerning how to imprison such a thing, also involving some flower or herb lore . . .
Lirael took another step, and over the sharp, almost painful ache of Free Magic, she felt the presence of life.
A life ebbing away.
Somewhere close, a man was dying.
She walked around the creature, quickening her steps, following that sensation of Life, even as it trickled away into Death.
There was the body of a young man a dozen paces from the creature. A young man in a khaki tunic, once-white shirt, and black trousers, sprawled upon the ground. A torn bandage on his hand was sodden with blood, and more had pooled under his wrist, spreading out across the broken ground.
Lirael knelt by his side and looked at his face under the light from the glowing marks on her sword and bell.
It was Nicholas Sayre.
She gasped, the sound loud in the silence. Lirael hadn’t expected to see Nick so soon, and not here. A wave of emotion struck her, feelings she found difficult to understand or even acknowledge. She had been eager to see him, because she had felt some sort of kinship or something, she wasn’t sure what, when she had met him before. Even when he was under the sway of Orannis. Though she had felt sorry for him then, and kind of maternal. Or sisterly. Or something. And after the breaking and binding of the Destroyer, they had lain side by side on stretchers, both deathly hurt, talking of her friend the Dog . . .
Now all those feelings came back, but were overlaid with a much stronger emotion.
Fear. Fear that he was about to die, before she even had a chance to . . . a chance to what?
Lirael took a deep breath and forced herself to attend to the situation rather than her emotions. Nick was wounded and close to death. She had to see exactly how, and take action. And also make sure the Hrule didn’t suddenly leap up and drink her blood, as well as . . .
Lirael looked from the creature to Nick’s wrist, suddenly realizing what must have happened. The Hrule had been drinking Nick’s blood. Blood tainted, or perhaps empowered in this context, with the power of Orannis. The Ninth Bright Shiner, one of the most powerful Free Magic creatures to have ever existed. It must have been too much for the Hrule. Though perhaps it was only a matter of digestion, and time. Like when a cave python got into the rabbit hutches back in the Clayr’s Glacier and ate so well it lay down in a torpor.
The only serious wound she could find on Nick was the deep cut on his wrist, though his feet were also bloody and scabbed. She was about to rip off the sleeves of his tunic to make bandages when she thought to look in the pockets, and found a tin marked with a red cross that held several very tightly wound dressings of some very thin cloth, and two glass vials she didn’t know were surettes of morphine.
With Nick’s wrist and feet swiftly bandaged, Lirael felt for his pulse. Nick had lost a lot of blood already, and his heartbeat felt weak and irregular when
she pushed her fingers against the big artery under his chin, against the neck. She used her right, magical hand without thinking, and was surprised that she could somehow feel his cool skin and the beat of his heart through her metal fingers, even though they were Charter-spelled. Sam had made her hand even better than she had thought, though she did check again with her left hand, repeating the process. Just in case.
The pulse confirmed what Lirael already sensed. Nick’s hold on life was anything but secure. It would be very easy for his spirit to slip away into Death. He had been brought back once by the Disreputable Dog, but that could not be done again, not to keep him as a living person. Indeed, Lirael didn’t know how the Dog had managed to do it the first time without making Nick some sort of Dead creature, rather than to be simply alive again.
Bandaging his wounds was not enough. She needed to use a healing spell, and quickly. Even as she thought this, she reached into the Charter, finding comfort as she let her mind move through the great flood of magical marks, focusing on the ones she needed, bringing them together by force of will, her fingers sketching the air to help her visualize each mark and how it would fit in the spell she was building.
But the first spell she tried didn’t work. It was a fairly simple one, often used. All it took was six marks, none of them very difficult. She had drawn them from the Charter with the ease of long practice, linked them together to form the spell, and tipped the glowing network of marks into Nick’s chest.
But the marks ran off into the earth on either side, like spilled water, and immediately dispersed.
Lirael frowned, and thought for a moment. Then she cautiously touched the baptismal Charter mark on Nick’s forehead, half-expecting to find it had become corrupted in some way. But she felt a true connection to the Charter. He was still very much a part of the constant, ever-changing flow, deeply joined to the Charter that defined and described everything upon, under, and above the earth.