“No, no, I can do this,” he croaked. “I don’t want to be a burden all the time.”
“You’re not a burden,” said Lirael, not without some exasperation. “It will take a while to recover from your blood loss, not to mention being stuck out in the cold.”
She was still quite cross about the delay in getting inside, and would be crosser still if Nick ended up getting a cold. Or this influenza that was going around the Clayr, as happened every few years. Many of the Clayr believed the steam pipes spread colds and influenza; certainly once some of them caught something, it was usually only a matter of time before they all did.
“I can do it,” repeated Nick. Leaning on the wall, he walked slowly to the bathhouse door, which was opened by a tall and very old Sending, judging by the pale Charter marks in its body and the threadbare robe it wore. It put one arm around Nick, which Lirael saw with some annoyance he did not resist. As it did so she noted that the old Sending glowed more brightly and the Charter marks that had been moving so slowly across its magical skin sped up and became more active.
“Interesting,” commented Vancelle, who had also noticed this effect. “I do not think he is in immediate danger, unless he should somehow reopen that wound on his wrist. I will leave you for an hour, so you may also bathe, Lirael. On my return, with or without the Infirmarian, we can take a look at Master Sayre’s wound and general state. Imshi, if you would stay with Lirael and help her with whatever she may need? Do try and remember she is the Abhorsen-in-Waiting now and must be treated with great respect, not as someone to go and fetch your spare waistcoat because you’ve spilled tea on yourself.”
“Yes, Librarian,” said Imshi, her eyes downcast. “It was only the once. Or maybe twice. And Lirael offered, didn’t you—”
Imshi stopped talking because Lirael was chuckling, and Vancelle was already gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
RED GLINTS MEAN GORE CROWS
Shale Ridge near Yellowsands, Old Kingdom
It grew brighter briefly as the last red light of evening sneaked in under the clouds, but when the sun finally dipped away it became very dark indeed upon the ridge of shale. Ferin and her companions had used the light well, climbing faster toward the peak called High Kemmy. But they were still several hundred paces short of the top, where they hoped to find the downward path that would take them to the valley floor, and then across to the estuary and swift water to protect them from the Dead.
But the necromancer did not plan to let them even reach the peak.
Ferin saw the attack first, a cloud of fiery sparks descending from above as she and her companions inched along the ridge. They were feeling the way forward, aided only by the very faint light of a single Charter mark that Young Laska had just cast upon the handle of Swinther’s axe, which he held reversed to probe the shale ahead and test their path.
The sparks were in fact Free Magic fires burning in skeletal eye sockets. The many eye sockets of creatures flying through the air.
“Gore Crows!” shouted Young Laska.
Ferin swung her makeshift cookpot-lid shield in front of her face; Swinther wove a defensive pattern with his axe, and Young Laska whipped her bow about to be a makeshift staff only a few seconds before they were charged by dead birds, an assault of animated lumps of decaying flesh, broken feathers, and shattered bones. Half-rotten beaks and skeletal claws gouged at every inch of exposed skin, most particularly at their eyes.
Gore Crows, prepared by the necromancer long ago and kept in the closed darkness of the tarred basket he carried on his back. Birds ritually killed and then infused with a Dead spirit, a single slain man or woman animating a flock of dozens, so they moved together with one fell purpose.
Ferin crouched and swung her shield blindly, covering her eyes with her right arm. She heard Swinther cry out, a bellow of pain, and then Young Laska shouted something inaudible. Her words were followed a moment later by a blinding light. Ferin peeked and saw the Borderer’s bow outlined with golden light, bright Charter marks falling from it like liquid fire. Where the bow hit, a Gore Crow fell and did not rise.
With the light, Swinther and Ferin were able to strike more accurately, smashing the remaining Gore Crows down. But even broken into something resembling porridge, the horrid lumps of feather and bone tried to move. All three companions were kept busy for several minutes, kicking the Gore Crows off the ridge and down the slope, once again precipitating an avalanche of shale.
“Nineteen of them, by my count,” said Young Laska. She was bleeding from her hands and on both cheeks, but not badly. She held her bow high, the light falling on the others. “I doubt he could have more crows prepared in that basket . . . at least I hope he hasn’t. Swinther! You are wounded?”
The woodcutter held one hand to his right eye, and there were rivulets of blood leaking out between his fingers and running down the back of his hand.
“Cursed things!” he swore. “Bind it up. We must get to High Kemmy and on the path down before worse comes.”
“Hold my bow away from your body so you stay at least a little in darkness, and keep watch,” said Young Laska, handing the still-brilliant bow to Ferin. “Sit down, Swinther.”
Swinther sat. Young Laska took a square of cloth and a rolled bandage from her belt pouch, folded the cloth four times to make a pad, and gave it to Swinther, telling him to press it against his eye as she unrolled the bandage around h
is head.
“You are well prepared,” said Ferin.
“My old kit from the Borderers,” said Young Laska, tying off the bandage so it held the pad in place. “If we had time and I the strength, I’d try a healing spell, but we do not. In truth, I am weary from bringing light to my bow, though I hate to admit it. My old mates would laugh at me now, to be so out of practice.”
“We should use the light to hurry,” said Swinther. “That necromancer seems to know where we are anyway, in darkness or in light.”
“Indeed I do!” called a voice from shockingly close back along the ridge. “As will my servants, when they come. Give me the Athask woman, and you others will go free.”
In answer Young Laska snatched the bow back from Ferin, nocked an arrow, and sent it speeding toward the unseen voice, all blindingly fast. But there was no sound of an impact, just a faint clatter of shale.
Laughter sounded, farther back and to the right, and then a moment later arrows lofted high came down from above, nomad arrows at the full extent of their range, the necromancer’s keeper aiming at the light from Young Laska’s bow. Ferin heard them and was quick to raise her shield, deflecting one shaft. Young Laska dropped to the path, and several spent arrows bounced harmlessly from her armored back.
Swinther was not so fast. An arrow struck his shoulder. It had no force either, simply falling from on high, all the power of its launching spent. But it upset his balance. He put one foot back. Shale cracked under the woodcutter’s heel and slid away. He lunged forward, arms flailing, but even as Ferin and Young Laska reached for him, more and more shale slid away beneath his feet.
“The second path—”