by Garth Nix
A large crowd was watching in the stands of the Bain Cricket Ground—a much larger crowd than normal for a schoolboy match, even with one of the teams coming from the nearby Dormalan School. Most of the onlookers had come to see the tall young batsman, not because he was any more talented than others on the team, but because he was a Prince. More to the point, he was a Prince of the Old Kingdom. Bain was not only the closest town to the Wall that separated Ancelstierre from that land of magic and mystery, it had also suffered nineteen years before from an incursion of Dead creatures that had been defeated only with the aid of the batsman’s parents, particularly his mother.
Prince Sameth was not unaware of the curiosity the townsfolk of Bain felt towards him, but he didn’t let it distract him. All his attention was on the bowler at the other end of the pitch, a fierce, redheaded boy whose ferociously quick bowling had taken three wickets already. But he seemed to be tiring, and his last over had been quite erratic, letting Sam and his batting partner, Ted Hopkiss, slog the ball all over the field in the effort to get those vital last runs. If the bowler didn’t recover his strength and former precision, Sameth thought, he had a chance. Mind you, the bowler was taking his time, slowly flexing his bowling arm and looking at the clouds that were rolling in.
The weather was a bit distracting, though only to Sameth. A wind had sprung up a few minutes before. Blowing in directly from the North, it carried magic with it, picked up from the Old Kingdom and the Wall. It made the Charter mark on Sameth’s forehead tingle and heightened his awareness of Death. Not that this cold presence was very strong where he was. Few people had died on the cricket pitch, at least in recent times.
At last the bowler went into his run-up, and the bright red ball came howling down the pitch, bouncing up as Sameth stepped forward to meet it. Willow met leather with a mighty crack, and the ball soared off over Sameth’s left shoulder. Higher and higher, it arced over the running fielders to the stands, where it was caught by a middle-aged man, leaping out of his seat to display some long-disused cricketing form.
A six! Sameth felt the smile spread across his face as applause erupted in the stands. Ted ran down to shake his hand, babbling something, and then he was shaking hands with the opposing team and then all sorts of people as he made his way back to the changing rooms in the pavilion. In between handshakes, he looked up to where the telegraph board was clicking over. He had made sixty-six not out, a personal best, and a fitting end to his school cricket career. Probably his entire cricket career, he thought, thinking of his return to the Old Kingdom, only two months away. Cricket was not played north of the Wall.
His friend Nicholas was the first to congratulate him in the changing rooms. Nick was a superb spin bowler, but a poor batsman and an even worse fielder. He often seemed to go off in a dream, studying an insect on the ground or some strange weather pattern in the sky.
“Well done, Sam!” declared Nick, vigorously shaking his hand. “Another trophy for good old Somersby.”
“It will be good old Somersby soon,” replied Sam, easing himself onto a bench and unstrapping his pads. “Odd, isn’t it? Ten years of moaning about the place, but when it’s time to leave . . .”
“I know, I know,” said Nick. “That’s why you should come up to Corvere with me, Sam. Pretty much more of the same, university. Put off that fear of the future—”
Whatever else he was going to say was lost as the rest of the team pushed through to shake Sameth’s hand. Even Mr. Cochrane, the coach and Somersby’s famously irascible Games Master, deigned to clap him on the shoulder and declare, “Excellent show, Sameth.”
An hour later, they were all in the school’s omnibus, all damp from the sudden shower that had come with the northern wind. Patches of sun and patches of rain were alternating, sometimes only for minutes. Unfortunately, the last rainy one had come when they crossed the road to the bus.
It was a three-hour drive, almost due south to Somersby, along the Bain High Road. So the passengers on the bus were surprised when the driver turned off the High Road just outside Bain, into a narrow, single-lane country road.
“Hold on, driver!” exclaimed Mr. Cochrane. “Where on earth are you going?”
“Detour,” said the man succinctly, hardly moving his mouth. He was a replacement for Fred, the school’s regular driver, who had broken his arm the day before in a fight over a disputed darts contest. “High Road’s flooded at Beardsley. Heard it from a postman, back at the Cricketer’s Arms.”
“Very well,” said Cochrane, his frown indicating the reluctance of his approval. “It is most odd. I wouldn’t have thought there’s been enough rain. Are you sure you know a way around, driver?”
“Yes, guv’nor,” the man affirmed, something that was possibly meant to be a smile crossing his rather weasely face. “Beckton Bridge.”
“Never heard of it,” said Cochrane dismissively. “Still, I suppose you know best.”
The boys paid little attention to this discussion, or to the road. They’d been up since four o’clock in order to get to Bain on time, and had played cricket all day. Most of them, including Nick, fell asleep. Sameth stayed awake, still buoyed up by the excitement of his winning six. He watched the rain on the windows and the countryside. They passed settled farms, the warm glow of electric light in their windows. The telegraph poles flashed by the side of the road, as did a red telephone booth as they whisked through a village.
He would be leaving all that behind soon. Modern technology like telephones and electricity simply didn’t work on the other side of the Wall.
Ten minutes later, they passed another sight Sameth wouldn’t see beyond the Wall. A large field full of hundreds of tents, with dripping laundry hung on every available guy rope, and a general air of disorder. The bus slowed as it passed, and Sameth saw that most of the tents had women and children clustered in their doorways, looking out mournfully into the rain. Nearly all of them had blue headscarves or hats, identifying them as Southerling refugees. More than ten thousand of them were being given temporary refuge in what the Corvere Times described as “the remote northern regions of the nation,” which clearly meant close to the Wall.
This must be one of the refugee settlements that had sprung up in the last three years, Sameth realized, noting that the field was surrounded by a triple fence of concertina wire and that there were several policemen near the gate, the rain sluicing off their helmets and dark-blue slickers.
The Southerlings were fleeing a war among four states in the far South, across the Sunder Sea from Ancelstierre. The war had started three years previously, with a seemingly small rebellion in the Autarchy of Iskeria proving an unlikely success. That rebellion had grown to be a civil war that drew in the neighboring countries of Kalarime, Iznenia, and Korrovia, on different sides. There were at least six warring factions that Sameth knew about, ranging from the Iskerian Autarch’s forces and the original Anarchist rebels to the Kalarime-backed Traditionalists and the Korrovian Imperialists.
Traditionally, Ancelstierre did not interfere with wars on the Southern Continent, trusting to its Navy and the Flying Corps to keep such trouble on the other side of the Sunder Sea. But with the war now spread across most of the continent, the only safe place for noncombatants was in Ancelstierre.
So Ancelstierre was the refugees’ chosen destination. Many were turned back on the sea or at the major ports, but for every large ship returned, a smaller vessel would make landfall somewhere on the Ancelstierran coast and disgorge the two or three hundred refugees who had been packed aboard like sardines.
Many more drowned, or starved, but this did not discourage the others.
Eventually, they would be rounded up and put in temporary camps. Theoretically, they would then be eligible to become proper immigrants to the Commonwealth of Ancelstierre, but in practice, only those with money, connections, or useful skills ever gained citizenship. The others stayed in the refugee camps while the Ancelstierran government tried to work out how to send them back
to their own countries. But with the war growing worse and getting more confused by the day, no one who had escaped it would willingly go back. Every time mass deportment had been attempted, it had ended in hunger strikes, riots, and every form of possible protest.
“Uncle Edward says that Corolini chap wants to send the Southerlings into your neck of the woods,” said Nicholas sleepily, wakened by the bus’s decrease in speed. “Across the Wall. No room for them here, he says, and lots of room in the Old Kingdom.”
“Corolini is a populist rabble-rouser,” replied Sameth, quoting an editorial from the Times. His mother—who conducted most of the Old Kingdom’s diplomacy with Ancelstierre—had an even harsher opinion of this politician, who had risen to prominence since the beginning of the Southern War. She thought he was a dangerous egotist who would do anything to gain power. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They would all die in the Borderlands. It’s not safe.”
“What’s the problem with it?” asked Nick. He knew his friend didn’t like talking about the Old Kingdom. Sam always said that it was not at all like Ancelstierre and that Nick wouldn’t understand. No one else knew anything much about it, and there was little information of consequence in any library Nick had seen. The Army kept the border closed, and that was it.
“There are dangerous . . . dangerous animals and . . . um . . . things,” replied Sameth. “It’s like I’ve told you before. Guns and electricity and so on don’t work. It’s not like—”
“Ancelstierre,” interrupted Nicholas, smiling. “You know, I’ve a good mind to come and visit you during the vac and see for myself.”
“I wish you would,” Sameth said. “I’ll need to see a friendly face after six months of Ellimere’s company.”
“How do you know it’s not your sister I want to visit?” asked Nick, with an exaggerated leer. Sam never had a good word to say about his older sister. He was about to say more, but his words were cut short as he looked out the window. Sam looked, too.
The refugee camp was long past and had given way to a fairly dense forest. The distant, rain-blurred orb of the sun hung just above the trees. Only they were both looking out the left-hand side of the bus, and the sun should have been on the right. They were going north, and must have been for some time. North, towards the Wall.
“I’d better tell Cockers,” said Sameth, who was in the aisle seat. He’d just got up, and started to make his way to the front of the bus, when the engine suddenly spluttered and the bus jerked, nearly throwing Sam to the floor. The driver cursed and crashed down several gears, but the engine kept spluttering. The driver cursed again, revving the engine so hard its whine woke up anyone left asleep. Then it suddenly stopped. Both the interior light and the headlights went out, and the bus rolled to a silent stop.
“Sir!” Sam called out to Mr. Cochrane, above the sudden hubbub of waking boys. “We’ve been going north! I think we’re near the Wall.”
Cochrane, who was peering through his own window, turned back as Sam spoke and stood in the aisle, his commanding bulk enough to silence the closer boys.
“Settle down!” he said. “Thank you, Sameth. Now everyone stay in your seats, and I’ll soon sort—”
Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the sound of the driver’s door, as he slammed it shut it behind him. All the boys rushed to the windows, despite Cochrane’s roar, and saw the driver leap the roadside wall and run off through the trees as if pursued by some mortal enemy.
“What on earth?” exclaimed Cochrane, as he turned to look out the windscreen. Whatever had scared the driver clearly didn’t seem so terrible to him, since he merely opened the passenger door and stepped out into the rain, unfurling his umbrella as he did so.
As soon as he left the bus, everyone rushed to the front. Sam, from his position in the aisle, was the first to get there. Looking out, he first saw a barrier across the road, and a large red sign next to it. He couldn’t quite read it, because of the rain, but he knew what it said anyway. He’d seen identical signs every holiday, when he went home to the Old Kingdom. The red signs marked the beginning of the Perimeter, the military zone that the Ancelstierran Army had established to face the Wall. Beyond that sign, the woods on either side of the road would vanish, replaced by a half-mile-wide expanse of strong points, trenches, and the coils and coils of barbed wire that stretched from the east coast to the west.
Sam remembered exactly what the sign said. Pretending he had an amazing ability to see through fogged-up windscreens, he recited the familiar warning to the others. It was important for them to know.
PERIMETER COMMAND
NORTHERN ARMY GROUP
Unauthorized egress from the Perimeter Zone is strictly forbidden.
Anyone attempting to cross the Perimeter Zone will be shot without warning.
Authorized travelers must report to the Perimeter Command H.Q.
REMEMBER—
NO WARNING WILL BE MADE
A moment of silence met this recitation, as the seriousness of it sank in. Then a babble of questions broke out, but Sam didn’t answer. He had thought the driver had run away because he was afraid of being so close to the Wall. But what if he had brought them there on purpose? And why had he run away from the two red-capped military policemen who were walking up from their sentry box?
Sameth’s family had many enemies in the Old Kingdom. Some were human, and might be able to pass as harmless in Ancelstierre. Some were not, but they might be powerful enough to cross the Wall and get this little distance south. Especially on a day when the wind blew from the north.
Not bothering to get his raincoat, Sam jumped down from the bus and hurried over to where the two military policemen had just met Mr. Cochrane. Or rather, to where the MP sergeant had started to shout at Cochrane.
“Get everyone off that bus and get them moving back as quick as you can,” the sergeant shouted. “Run as far as you can, then walk. Got it?”
“Why?” asked Mr. Cochrane, bristling. Like most of the teachers and staff at Somersby, he wasn’t from the North, and he had no idea about the Wall, the Perimeter, or the Old Kingdom. He had always treated Sameth as he treated the school’s other Prince, who was an albino from far-off Karshmel—like an adopted child who wasn’t quite a member of the family.
“Just do it!” ordered the sergeant. He seemed nervous, Sameth noted. His revolver holster was open, and he kept looking around at the trees. Like most soldiers on the Perimeter—but totally unlike any other units of the Ancelstierran Army—he also wore a long sword-bayonet on his left hip, and a mail coat over his khaki battledress, though he’d kept his MP’s red cap, rather than wearing the usual neck- and nasal-barred helmet of the Perimeter garrison. Sam noted that neither of the two men had a Charter mark on his forehead.
“That’s not good enough,” Cochrane protested. “I insist on speaking to an officer. I can’t have my boys running about in the rain!”
“We’d better do as the sergeant says,” said Sam, coming up behind him. “There is something in the wood—and it’s getting closer.”
“Who are you?” demanded the sergeant, drawing his sword. The lance-corporal with him instantly followed suit, and started to sidle around behind. Both of them were looking at Sam’s forehead, and the Charter mark that was just visible under his Cricket XI cap.
“Prince Sameth of the Old Kingdom,” said Sam. “I suggest you call Major Dwyer of the Scouts, or General Tindall’s headquarters, and tell them I’m here—and that there are at least three Dead Hands in the woods over there.”
“That’s torn it!” swore the sergeant. “We knew something was up with this wind. How did they get— Well, it doesn’t matter. Harris, double back to the post and alert HQ. Tell them we’ve got Prince Sameth, a bunch of schoolkids, and at least three category-A intruders. Use a pigeon and the rocket. The phone’ll be out for sure. Move!”
The lance-corporal was gone before the sergeant’s mouth shut, and just as Cochrane began.
“Sa
meth! What are you going on about?”
“There’s no time to explain,” replied Sam urgently. He could sense Dead Hands—bodies infused with spirits called from Death—moving through the forest, parallel to the road. They didn’t seem to have sensed the living yet, but once they did, they would be there within minutes. “We have to get everyone out of here—we have to get as far away from the Wall as we can.”
“But . . . But . . .” blustered Cochrane, red-faced and astounded at the impertinence of one of his own boys ordering him around. He would have said more, if the sergeant hadn’t drawn his revolver and calmly said, “Get them going now, sir, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Dead Are Many
Five minutes later, the entire team was out in the rain, on the road, jogging south. At Sameth’s suggestion, they had armed themselves with cricket bats, metal-tipped cricket stumps, and cricket balls. The MP sergeant ran with them, his revolver continuing to silence Cochrane’s protests.
The boys took it all as a bit of a joke at first, with much bravado and carrying-on. But as it got darker and the rain got heavier, they grew quieter. The jokes stopped altogether when four quick shots were heard behind them, and then a distant, anguished scream.
Sameth and the sergeant exchanged a look that combined fear and a dreadful knowledge. The shots and the scream must have come from Lance-Corporal Harris, who had gone back to the post.
“Is there a stream or other running water near here?” panted Sameth, mindful of the warning rhyme he’d known since childhood about the Dead. The sergeant shook his head but didn’t answer. He kept glancing back over his shoulder, almost losing his balance as they ran. A little while after they heard the scream, he saw what he was looking for and pointed it out to Sameth: three red parachute flares drifting down from a few miles north.
“Harris must have got the pigeon off, at least,” he puffed. “Or maybe the telephone worked, since his pistol did. They’ll have the reserve company and a platoon of Scouts out here soon, sir.”