Abhorsen

She took the bottle Sam offered her, poured some water into her hands and rinsed out her mouth.

“His name was... I can’t quite remember. Larrow, or Harrow. Something like that. He asked me my name and I never answered—”

She hesitated, about to say more, but stopped as Sam suddenly whipped around.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“A noise, somewhere over there,” replied Sam, pointing to a dead mule that was lying on the lip of a shallow erosion gully that led down to the cliffs. Its head hung over the gully and was out of sight.

As they watched, the mule shifted slightly; then with a jerk, it slid over the edge and into the gully. They could still see its hindquarters, but most of it was hidden. Then the mule’s rump and back legs began to shake and shiver.

“Something’s eating it!” exclaimed Lirael in disgust. She could see drag marks on the ground now, all leading to the gully. There had been more bodies of mules and men. Someone... or something had dragged them to the narrow ditch.

“I can’t sense anything Dead,” said Sam anxiously. “Can you?”

Lirael shook her head. She slipped off her pack and took up her bow, strung it and nocked an arrow. Sam drew his sword again.

They advanced slowly on the gully while more and more of the mule disappeared from sight. Closer, they could hear a dry gulping noise, rather like the sound of someone shovelling sand. Every now and then it would be accompanied by a more liquid gurgle.

But they still couldn’t see anything. The gully was deep and only three or four feet wide, and whatever was in it lay directly under the mule. Lirael still couldn’t sense anything Dead, but there was a faint tang of something in the air.

Both of them recognised what it was at the same time. The acrid, metallic odour characteristic of Free Magic. But it was very faint and it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. Perhaps the gully, or possibly blowing in on the faint breeze.

When they were only a few paces from the edge of the gully, the rear legs of the mule disappeared with a final shake, its hooves flying in a grim parody of life. The same liquid gurgle accompanied the disappearance.

Lirael stopped at the edge and looked down, her bow drawn, a Charter-spelled arrow ready to fly. But there was nothing to shoot. Just a long streak of dark mud at the bottom of the gully, with a single hoof sinking under the surface. The smell of Free Magic was stronger, but it was not the corrosive stench she had encountered from the Stilken or other lesser Free Magic elementals.

“What is it?” whispered Sam. His left hand was crooked in a spell-casting gesture and a slim golden flame burnt at the end of each finger, ready to be thrown.

“I don’t know,” said Lirael. “A Free Magic thing of some kind. Not anything I’ve ever read about. I wonder how—”

As she spoke, the mud bubbled and peeled back to reveal a deep maw that was neither earth nor flesh but pure darkness, lit by a long, forked tongue of silver fire. With the open maw came a rolling stench of Free Magic and rotten meat, an almost physical assault that sent Lirael and Sam staggering back even as the tongue of silver fire rose into the air and struck down where Lirael had stood a moment before. Then a great snake head of mud followed the tongue, rearing out of the gully, looming high above them.

Lirael loosed her arrow as she stumbled back and Sam thrust out his hand, shouting the activating marks that sent a roaring, crackling fountain of fire towards the thing of mud and blood and darkness that was rising up. Fire met silver tongue and sparks exploded in all directions, setting the grass alight. Neither arrow nor Charter fire seemed to affect the creature, but it did recoil, and Lirael and Sam had no hesitation in ru

“Who dares disturb my feasting!” roared a voice that was many voices and one, mixed with the braying of mules and the cries of dying men. “My feast so long since due!”

In answer Lirael dropped her bow and and drew Nehima. Sam muttered marks and drew them into the air with his sword and hand, knitting together many complex symbols. Lirael took a half step forward to guard Sam while he completed the spell.

Sam finished with a master mark that wreathed his hand in golden flames as he drew it in the air. It was a mark that Lirael knew could easily immolate an unready caster and she flinched slightly as it appeared. But it left Sam’s hand easily and the spell hung in the air, a glowing tracery of linked marks, rather like a belt of shining stars. He took one end gingerly, swung the whole thing round his head and let it fly at the creature, simultaneously shouting out, “Look away!”

There was a blinding flash, a sound like a choir screaming, and silence. When they looked back, there was no sign of the creature. Just small fires burning in the grass, coils of smoke twining together to cast a pall across the field.

“What was that?” asked Lirael.

“A spell for binding something,” replied Sam. “I was never quite sure what, though. Do you think it worked?”

“No,” said the Dog, her sudden appearance making Lirael and Sam jump. “Though it was quite bright enough to let every Dead thing between here and the Red Lake know where we are.”

“If it didn’t work, then where is that thing?” asked Sam. He looked around nervously as he spoke. Lirael looked too. She could still smell the Free Magic, though once more only faintly, and it was impossible to tell where it was coming from amidst the eddying smoke.

“It’s probably under our feet,” said the Dog. She suddenly thrust her nose into a small hole and snorted. The snort sent a gout of dirt flying into the air. Lirael and Sam jumped away, hesitated on the brink of flight, then slowly stood back-to-back, their weapons ready.

chapter five

blow wind, come rain!

Exactly where under our feet!?” exclaimed Sam. He looked down anxiously, his sword and spell-casting hand ready.

“What can we do?” asked Lirael quickly. “Do you know what that was? How do we fight it?”

The Dog sniffed scornfully at the ground.

“We will not need to fight. That was a Ferenk, a scavenger. Ferenks are all show and bluster. This one lies under several ells of earth and stone now. It will not come out till dark, perhaps not even till dark tomorrow.”

Sam sca

“I’ve never read anything about Free Magic creatures called Ferenks,” said Lirael. “Not in any of the books I went through to find out about the Stilken.”

“There should be no Ferenk here,” said the Dog. “They are elemental creatures, spirits of stone and mud. They became nothing more than stone and mud when the Charter was made. A few would have been missed, but not here... not in a place so travelled...”

“If it was just a scavenger, what killed these poor people?” asked Lirael. She’d been wondering about the wounds she’d seen and not liking the direction her thoughts were going in. Most of the corpses had, like the guardsman, two holes bored right through them, holes where clothing and skin were scorched around the edges.

“Certainly a Free Magic creature, or creatures,” said the Dog. “But not a Ferenk. Something akin to a Stilken, I think. Perhaps a Jerreq or a Hish. There were many thousands of Free Magic creatures who evaded the making of the Charter, though most were later imprisoned or made to serve after a fashion. There were entire breeds, and others of a singular nature, so I ca