by Nix, Garth
Tizanael pointed into the forest.
“Kerrigor is there, with many other Dead things,” she said. “Less than a half a league away.”
“And little affected by the sun above, it seems to me,” added Terciel. “Or is what I sense Kerrigor alone? Is it the strength of many lesser revenants I feel, or just the one?”
“Something of both,” said Tizanael.
Terciel craned his neck to look up at the blue sky, his face brightly lit. He lowered his head and looked at the fog-wreathed forest ahead, then back at Elinor for a long moment before he fully faced Tizanael again.
“We are fortunate to have this moment of sunshine, before we go on.”
Tizanael nodded slowly. She drew a deep breath and spoke with a sudden new energy, casting off the weariness that Elinor had noted and Terciel feared.
“We will get as close as we can, then both of us wielding Ranna will put as many of the Dead into slumber as possible,” she said. “Though Ranna will not be strong enough to make Kerrigor sleep. Then I will use Saraneth and Terciel Kibeth. I will concentrate on Kerrigor. Terciel, you will force any Dead who have not slept to walk away. Into sunlight, if possible. Mirelle, slay any mortal opponents. They are likely sorcerers, and will need to be shot several times with Charter-spelled arrows, preferably in the head. There are so many Dead here, I think Kerrigor will not sense any new deaths, unless they are very close to him. Elinor, as soon as we use the bells you close with me, stay by my side. You will need to dominate the chain and keep it ready for immediate use.”
“A bowshot will not be any great distance in that fog,” said Mirelle. “I do need to be able to see my targets, to some degree.”
“There is a spell that will clear the fog somewhat, immediately about us,” said Tizanael. “But it will not last long, not if Kerrigor maintains his effort.”
“Even a minute or two of better visibility would make a difference,” said Mirelle.
“Very well,” said Tizanael. “I will cast it upon our assault. Is everyone ready?”
She did not wait for a reply, but strode off toward the closest avenue between the vast blackwood trees, the fog billowing about her. The others followed, Terciel and Mirelle close, Elinor still hanging back a little. She could feel the chain shivering in the bag, as if it already knew what was to come.
Elinor loosened all three of her knives as she followed the others. It was like stepping into another world as they left the sunshine behind. The fog was all-enveloping, obscuring even the vast trunks on either side. Elinor could see only twenty or thirty feet and twice she almost panicked as the trio ahead of her disappeared from sight for a moment, and she had to quicken her pace to catch up.
The fog seemed natural enough at first, until Elinor realized she could hear none of the natural sounds one might expect in a forest. There were no birdcalls, no rustles in the undergrowth. Nothing. Only the quiet tread of her companions on the carpet of fallen needles from the trees, and alarmingly, her own breath, which seemed to have become ridiculously loud.
Then, all too soon, there was the smell. Not the reek of Free Magic, that corrosive hot-metal tang. This was the stench of corruption, of something rotting. For a few moments Elinor though it was simply the forest, the smell of decomposing leaves or vegetation, till it grew stronger and stronger and she knew the stink came from the Dead. Rotting meat, a miasma woven into the fog, so foul she started to breathe only through her mouth, hoping this would help. It didn’t.
There had been no such smell from the Dead at Coldhallow House, but they had been ancient bodies, long preserved in a bog. The ones who lurked ahead inhabited newer corpses, slain only days or weeks before, the bodies not desiccated and leathery but bloated and ripe, in the early stages of decomposition.
Mirelle suddenly moved, leaping ahead, and Elinor heard the twang of her bowstring, quickly repeated, then a low cry and the thud of something hitting the thick detritus of the forest floor. She started to run forward, but Tizanael turned and held up her hand, signaling her to stop, while Terciel moved ahead, his hand on his sword hilt, but the weapon not drawn.
Elinor stopped, but not before she got too close to Tizanael and her bells, and the chain began to thrash and jiggle, only quieting when Elinor quickly stepped back, lifted the bag near her face and hissed at it, “Be quiet!”
When she lowered the bag and looked ahead, the Abhorsen was gone. Elinor couldn’t see anyone, only fog and the dim outline of the great trees to either side. She almost cried out, suppressing it as Tizanael came back out of the fog and made a half gesture for her to come along, a signal Elinor interpreted meant for her to follow but maintain the safe distance. Elinor started after Tizanael, slowly, one hand on a knife hilt, the other resting on the flap of the bag that held the chain.
A little farther on, she saw a body lying in blackwood needle litter by the side of the path, fresh blood pooling under her head, indicating she had been mortal, not a Dead Hand. Mirelle had already removed her arrows, but it was clear from the wounds that the dead woman had been shot in the left eye and through the throat. Elinor wanted to look away and hurry on, but she found herself staring. The dead woman was perhaps thirty, and looked quite ordinary. She had short hair, very roughly cut, and was wearing similar leather armor to Elinor, though hers was more roughly worked and dyed or painted a dark red. She had a curved sword at her belt, still in its scabbard.
Feeling a strange fascination, Elinor stopped to look, intending to only take a second. But as she stepped closer, the woman’s empty eye socket suddenly filled with fire, the terrible dark fire Elinor had seen in the Greater Dead creature at Coldhallow. Worse, the skin on her forehead erupted into an ugly, wormlike scar, the same as she’d seen on Hedge, and suddenly Lerantiel’s chain thrashed wildly, sending the bag swinging. Elinor clamped it to her side and through gritted teeth whispered, “I’ve told you already! Be still!”
The chain stopped moving, and to Elinor’s surprise, the fire in the dead woman’s eye socket blinked out like a snuffed candle, and the mark of Kerrigor faded on the corpse’s skin.
Elinor jumped, but this was because Mirelle had suddenly appeared at her side.
“Do not linger!” hissed the ranger. “Do not pay attention to dead sorcerers! Come on!”
Mirelle didn’t wait, but ran ahead. Elinor followed, not quite running, fog swirling about her. She saw Tizanael, her face unreadable as ever, and Terciel, who looked at her with deep concern, but only for a fraction of a second as they both spun about and continued on. They walked faster now, little short of a jog, with Mirelle even swifter in front. Elinor matched their pace, closing in as much as she dared, six paces, maybe seven, slowing a little as the bag shivered, or maybe it was her hand gripping it that shivered, she could not tell.
They moved on along the avenue, the ground continually sloping down, but the way easy between the great trees. But they had not gone much farther when Mirelle’s bow sang out again, this time three times, and then there was the unmistakable clash of metal upon metal and a moment later Charter Magic flared, a great golden explosion that separated the fog and sent it spinning away to reveal a clearing ahead, where the giant blackwoods had been felled, leaving only jagged stumps as high as a person and thirty or forty feet in diameter, save one of the true ancients, which had been easily sixty feet across.
That huge stump had been transformed into a platform, decorated to be a vicious parody of a throne room. The carpets and curtains of the half dozen villages destroyed along the Upp had been strewn across the half-sawn, half-broken surface of the stump, and hung from the tall, six-inch-thick jagged stalagmites of broken bark that remained.
In the middle of this platform, there was a pile of broken stone. Shaped stone, once menhirs or obelisks, snapped into pieces like carrots broken by children. The surfaces of these stones were pitted with trails like those made by woodworm, dark, meaningless scribbles that Elinor instinctively understood had once been Charter marks, now somehow immobile and broken,
mere shadows of what they had once meant.
Atop the stone, there was a gilded chair with one broken armrest, and several torn and bloodied banners draped over it. Something that had the general shape of a man sat upon it, dressed only in a leather apron stained white from flour and red from blood. The body had been a miller, huge in life, easily seven feet tall, with shoulders and muscle built to scale and hardened by years of lifting great sacks of wheat and flour. But the Dead spirit inside had eroded the flesh, so bones protruded from his fingers and thumbs, the flesh had receded around his mouth and eye sockets and only sad, scattered tendrils of hair hung from his exposed skull. His feet were bare, and had hard usage, so were now almost completely skeletal. Tiny tendrils of dark fire licked away at every border between skin and exposed bone, and roared up and out when he opened his mouth to speak.
“Guests,” said Kerrigor, rising up, the body of the miller mirrored by a dark shadow that moved within it, but was not entirely confined by the rotten flesh. His voice seemed to come from all around, not from his mouth, which continued to roar with fire, and his voice was painful to the ears and mind. “Make them welcome.”
He gestured, and all around the broken stump the Dead rose from the ground where they had lain. Hundreds and hundreds of Dead Hands, the slain villagers and farmers of the valley, their innocent spirits gone, replaced by dread things who had lingered long in Death, who had given their allegiance to Kerrigor for their chance to walk in Life again. Even if it should be in broken, torn, limbless, and damaged bodies, who could not stand under the sun.
Kerrigor gestured again, and the fog swirled back in, even as Mirelle’s bow sang in swift time; and Tizanael’s and Terciel’s arms moved as one, swinging up and down, and the sweet sound of Ranna rang out everywhere, calling all the Dead who heard it into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dead Hands tumbled down in their scores like windswept grass, Ranna sending them into slumber. But not all of them, and the tide of revenants flowed forward even as the attackers ran toward the great stump where Kerrigor held court, the Abhorsens ringing their bells, Mirelle shooting her bow, Elinor wrestling with the chain, which had burst forth from the bag and writhed in her hands like an enraged snake, the loop at the end trying to flip itself over her head, and she was shouting at it to be still and using every part of her juggling expertise to keep it away.
Kerrigor himself was entirely unaffected by the Sleeper. He stepped down from his makeshift throne and strode to meet them, fire flaring and smoke billowing under his skeletal feet. A kind of honor guard shuffled and squelched and scraped along behind him, Dead Hands in the bodies from the Trained Bands who had tried to defend the villages, or the Regent’s Guards sent to investigate. Rotten, damaged corpses in tattered, broken armor, their bony or bloated hands clutching the weapons they had wielded when they were living soldiers.
Tizanael and Terciel rang their bells again, a sweet, restful peal of notes that sang a lullaby and sent more Dead to their sleep, the Hands dropping as they marched.
But it was not enough. The tide of Dead came on, rank upon rank through the billowing fog. Diminished, but not stopped. Mirelle tried an arrow at Kerrigor’s eye, her best arrow, spelled in point and shaft to fly true and deal destruction. It fled her bow like a golden spark, but the spark died as it hit the shadowy outline around the miller’s body, and the arrow turned instantly to ash, yew and steel and magic vanquished in an instant.
Kerrigor ripped a vertical splinter from the blackwood stump as he jumped down, a long spear of tough timber. Dark flames spread from his hand to the wood, enveloping it entirely, but it did not burn.
Tizanael stopped and replaced Ranna and drew Saraneth, all in one quick motion, as next to her Terciel did the same, though he took out the bell Kibeth. Binder for the Abhorsen, Walker for the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.
They rang the bells together, the two distinct voices somehow sounding at once but remaining separate: the deep, demanding voice of Saraneth underlying the sharper leaping and bounding notes of Kibeth. Elinor could feel the power of the bells, almost see their voices shimmer in the air, along with the still-lingering sigh of Ranna, and was relieved it was all directed forward, else she would have already been asleep, or walking away, or bound to Tizanael’s will.
The chain she held desperately with both hands heard the bells, too, and thrashed and turned, resisting Elinor’s efforts to keep it under control. Its black links burned now, with the same sort of dark fire as limned Kerrigor’s form, but the flames were contained by the glow of Charter Magic, and the golden daisies that joined the links were bright as the sun, too bright for Elinor to look upon. Even now Ham’s teaching helped her, and she instinctively took the chain’s erratic energy and shaped it, sending the loop spinning over her head, just like the rope trick the old juggler had taught her. Spinning, the chain could not strike of its own accord.
The advancing Dead turned in answer to Kibeth’s call, stumbling and falling over those asleep, gobbling and screeching in protest as best they could with dried-out mouths and desiccated tongues and lungs that were now little more than leather bellows. Desperately they tried to evade the bell’s command to walk away, but none could resist.
Only Kerrigor. He laughed, a great gout of flame bursting from his mouth, his jaw unhinging to drop almost to his breastbone, and he strode forward, straight at Tizanael, who stood before him wielding the bell that was supposed to have already stripped the Greater Dead’s will and made him obey.
“Stand!” called Tizanael, and she rang Saraneth again, in a complicated peal that Elinor, even behind her, felt deep inside the marrow of her bones.
“Stand still!”
Kerrigor did not stand still. He rushed forward, astonishingly and terrifyingly fast, and thrust his burning splinter-spear at Tizanael’s heart with inhuman force. Though the wooden weapon could not pierce her armored coat, she was hurled at least ten feet backward with terrible force, striking the ground with the sickening crack of broken bone. Though she kept her grip on the sword in her left hand, the bell in her right slipped from her grasp. Tizanael made one last despairing snatch as it tumbled and gripped the clapper, but not before it had struck once against the side.
Saraneth’s single discordant note struck everyone like a savage, physical blow to the head. Elinor staggered away, screaming, but somehow managed to keep spinning the chain; Mirelle dropped her bow, clapped her hands to her ears, and fell to her knees; only Terciel withstood the shriek of the errant bell. With the speed and ease of years of practice he replaced Kibeth, drew his own Saraneth and rang it with perfect technique and grim deliberation, investing it with all his will.
“Stand!” he roared. “Stand still!”
For a second, two seconds, Kerrigor was held by the power of the bell.
It was enough for Elinor to send the loop of the chain sailing over his head and upthrust arm, so it settled diagonally across the barrel chest of the miller’s body. Elinor pulled on the end she held, stepped back, and the loop drew tight. A storm of silver sparks flashed where the golden daisies touched the shadow-stuff that lurked beneath the decaying skin, and flames roared out around the black iron links.
“What is this!” roared Kerrigor. He raised his splinter-spear but it was smashed from his hand with a blow from Terciel’s sword, the stroke shearing off the finger bones, so that only shadowy tendrils remained, with little fires where fingernails had once been.
Elinor yanked on the chain again, and it tightened further, cutting through flesh and bone into the shadow-stuff beneath. Kerrigor lunged toward her, to grip and rend, but she skipped away, keeping tight hold of the chain.
Terciel rang Saraneth again, close and purposeful, while Kerrigor was distracted chasing Elinor.
“Go!” he commanded. “Go! Into Death!”
Kerrigor stumbled, the huge miller’s body twisting, more bones protruding from the flesh. Sparks blew out from the chain. Fire roared skyward. The shadow within writhed and twisted
and turned back toward Terciel, even as the physical body faced the other way.
“Go!” spat Terciel through clenched teeth. “Into. Death.”
The shadow vanished, the fires went out, the sparks faded. The chain was only black iron links and golden daisies now, and all it held was the corpse of a huge man, which fell forward on its face.
“Do not let go of the chain!” shouted Terciel. “Do not let go until it vanishes of its own accord!”
He rushed to Tizanael’s side, a few paces away, but did not check to see if she still lived. He already knew she was dead, her skull fractured, her back broken. He had felt her spirit go, a scant moment after she stilled the bell with the last of her strength. He pried her fingers from her sword, the Abhorsen’s sword, and took it in place of his own.
Then he replaced the bell Saraneth in his bandolier and with sword held ready in his right hand, the fifty-second Abhorsen stepped over to Elinor and put his hand over hers and tightened his fingers, so he, too, held the chain, via her grasp.
“What happens now?” asked Elinor.
Terciel did not answer. He had become completely still. Frost rimed his skin, and then actual ice formed, so he became a frozen statue. Elinor stared down at the frozen hand that held hers in place on the chain, at Terciel’s face, now blurred behind the coat of ice, his eyelashes a fence of icicles.
“What, what is he . . .”
“He has gone into Death,” said Mirelle, staggering to her feet. She reclaimed her bow and started to help herself to arrows from Elinor’s quiver. “May the Charter grant he is strong enough alone to fix Kerrigor in place.”