All Sam’s attention was on the Dead. In turn, all their attention was focused back on him, and on the struggle between them.
So neither noticed the fog suddenly swirl around them, as if disturbed by some mighty gust of air, nor the shouts and cries of the soldiers behind them.
That is, till they heard the bell. A strong, ferocious chime that fell from the air above them. It gripped the four Shadow Hands like a puppet master picking up marionettes to put back in the box. Unable to resist, they bent down, their shadowy heads raised to beg wordlessly for mercy.
No mercy was forthcoming. Another bell rang, building an angry, violent dance over the broad shout of the first. The Shadow Hands jerked upright at its sharp song, their shadow stuff stretching into thin lines, as if they were being sucked through a narrow hole.
Then they were gone, summarily executed, this time for good.
Sam fell to his knees as the Dead disappeared and drew a long, shuddering breath into his desperate lungs. Above him, a bright blue and silver Paperwing hovered for a moment, like a giant hawk over its prey. Then it fell quickly and circled down to the valley floor, where the ground was level and clear enough to land. Sam stared at it and at the two other Paperwings that were gliding down in front of the Southerlings.
Three Paperwings. The craft that had passed overhead was blue and silver, and that was the Abhorsen’s color. The second was of green and silver, for the Clayr. The third was the red and gold of the royal line. Two of the three paperwings had a passenger as well as a pilot.
“I don’t understand,” whispered Sam. “Who wields the bells?”
Mogget was just short of the top of the ridge, zigzagging between Dead Hands and lightning rods, when he heard the bells. He smiled and paused to shout at the single Dead Hand who stood in his way.
“Hear the full voice of Saraneth! Flee while you still can!”
As a ploy, it didn’t work. The Dead Hand was too newly returned to Life, too stupid to understand Mogget’s words, and it didn’t have Mogget’s unnaturally keen hearing. It hadn’t heard the bells through the thunder, and it had no sense of the power unleashed beyond the ridge. As far as it was concerned, living prey had just stopped in front of it. Close enough to grab.
Rotting fingers leapt out, clutching the little albino’s leg. Mogget yowled and kicked back, the dry bones of his captor snapping with the force of the blow. But still it hung on, and other Dead were lumbering towards Mogget now, drawn by the prospect of Life to feast on.
Mogget yowled again and put Nick down. Then he whipped around, his long-nailed fingers scratching and his sharp-toothed mouth fastening on the Dead Hand’s wrist.
If it still had human intelligence, the Hand would have been surprised, because no man ever fought like this one, with an arched back and a wild combination of hissing, biting, and scratching.
Mogget bit through the Dead creature’s wrist, severing it completely. Instantly, he sprang back, picked up Nick, dodged around the Hand, and sprinted off with a triumphant yowl.
The creature ignored its missing hand and tried to follow them. Only then did it discover that its strange opponent had clawed through its hamstrings as well. It took two uncertain steps and fell, the Dead spirit that inhabited it already looking desperately around for some other body to inhabit.
By then, Mogget was on the other side of the ridge. He held Nick’s arm out to one side as he ran, keeping it well away from his own body. That arm shook and shivered, muscles twitched under the skin, and dark bruises blossomed all around the elbow and forearm.
Behind Mogget, the lightning storm began to abate and the thunder to lessen. The fog was still lit with electric blue around the edges—but at the center, both the fog and the storm clouds above it had become a bright, bright red.
Chapter Twenty-seven
When the Lightning Stops
SAM PICKED HIMSELF up. He felt very weak, washed out, and confused. Slowly he turned to look down at the three Paperwings in the valley, several hundred yards away. They looked very small in front of the crowd of Southerlings. Magical flying craft made from laminated paper and Charter Magic, they were rather like large, brilliantly feathered birds.
The pilots and passengers from the three Paperwings were already climbing out of their craft. Sam stared at them, unable to believe who he was seeing.
“That’s the King and the Abhorsen, isn’t it, Prince Sameth?” asked Lieutenant Tindall. “I thought they were dead!”
Sam nodded and smiled and shook his head at the same time. He felt an irresistible spring of relief flow up through every part of his body. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or sing, and was unsurprised to find that tears were running down his cheeks and laughter had come unbidden and was leaping out of his mouth. Because the people climbing out of the blue and silver Paperwing were indisputably Touchstone and Sabriel. Alive and well, all tales of their demise proven false in that single joyous sight.
But the surprises did not end there. Sam wiped the tears away, calmed his laughter before it became hysterical, and caught his breath as he saw a young, raven-haired woman vault out of the red and gold craft and run to catch up with his parents, her sword already out and flashing. Behind her, two very blond, brown-skinned, and willowy women were leaving the green and silver Paperwing, a little more sedately but also in a hurry.
“Who’s that girl?” asked Lieutenant Tindall, with more than professional interest in their saviors. “I mean, who are those ladies?”
“That’s my sister, Ellimere!” exclaimed Sam. “And two of the Clayr, by the look of them!”
He started to run down to them but stopped after on
ly two paces. They were all hurrying up, and his place was here, by Lirael. She was still frozen in place, still somewhere in Death, facing who knew what dangers. That realization brought Sam back to the current situation. The Dead had fled from Saraneth as wielded by the Abhorsen. But they were only lesser minions of the real Enemy.
“The lightning has stopped,” said Tim Wallach. “Listen—there’s no thunder now.”
Everyone turned back to the ridge. Sam’s feelings of relief vanished in an instant. The thunder and lightning had faded away to nothing, sure enough, but the fog was as thick as ever. It was no longer lit with blue flashes but by a steady, pulsing red that grew brighter as they watched—as if an enormous heart of fire grew in the valley beyond.
Something was coming down from the ridge, a shape that seemed to have too many arms, an awful silhouette backlit by the blood-red glow from behind the ridge.
Sam raised his sword and felt for the panpipes. Whatever this was didn’t seem to be Dead—or at least he couldn’t sense it. But it carried the hot stench of Free Magic with it—and it was coming straight towards him.
Then the thing shouted, with the voice of Mogget.
“It’s me—Mogget! I’ve got Nicholas!”
The fog eddied, and Sam saw that the voice came from the strange little man with the pale hair and skin who he had last seen on the hill above the Red Lake. He was carrying an emaciated body that just might be Nick. Whoever it was, Mogget held the man’s right arm out to the side, where it writhed and twitched with a life of its own, all too like a tentacle.
“What is that?” asked Major Greene quietly as he signaled his men to close up again around Lirael.
“It’s Mogget,” replied Sam with a frown. “He had that shape in my grandfather’s time. And that . . . that is my friend Nick.”
“Of course it is!” shouted Mogget, who hadn’t stopped walking down. “Where is the Abhorsen? And Lirael? We must hurry—the hemispheres have almost joined. If we can get Nicholas farther away, the fragment will not be able to join and the hemispheres will be incomplete—”