Goldenhand (35 page)

But the first word of opening fell silent in her mouth as she saw a familiar figure by the wall of darkness. A tan shape with sticking-up ears clearly outlined against the Gate, patiently waiting for her mistress, as she had waited by doors and gates and passages so many, many times before.

“Dog! Oh Dog!” wept Lirael, running forward to hug the Dog around the neck, lifting her partly off the ground, so she had to rise on her haunches and balance her forepaws on Lirael's shoulders.

“Now, now,” said the Dog, gently licking Lirael's ear. “I have come to run with you back to Life. We must hurry. Your young man sustains the globe of air, but he really
doesn't
know what he's doing.”

Beyond the Great Rift

I
ce cracked. Nick's eyes flashed open, but he managed to turn his gasp into a choke, so he did not draw in a breath. He struggled to his feet, now more careful than ever to keep his hands out and touching the globe. It had grown very warm inside, and the air was stale, but there
was
still air, and Nick somehow knew the spell was not yet close to failure; he could instinctively feel the strength of the marks.

More ice cracked, and Lirael came laughing to wrap her arms around him, though he could only respond by burying his face in her neck.

“Very nice,” croaked Nick. “But we have to hurry back.”

“Yes,” said Lirael. She bent and picked up his sword, quickly sliding it home in the scabbard at his side, and then bent again to take up the little dog statuette. That she kept tight in her hand as she grabbed Nick's arm and they began to walk back toward the next flag. At first slowly, and then a little more swiftly, as Lirael sniffed at the air and found it more stagnant and far less refreshing than she'd hoped.

They did not speak until they staggered past the second flag and on a dozen paces to be sure. Before Lirael could dismiss the spell, or Nick let go, the globe fell apart around them, Charter marks dropping like dead moths to disappear into the stony ground.

Nick took a deep, shuddering breath, and filled his lungs. He whooped and grabbed Lirael and they went to kiss and banged their heads together and tried again, and then turned together to walk side
by side toward the edge of the Rift. Nick held Lirael's golden hand, and Charter marks drifted slowly out of his skin and across her own. More and more marks flowed across, and slowly the gold began to glow again, and Lirael flexed her fingers and smiled.

“It's a long way back,” she said softly.

Nick shrugged and held her hand tighter.

“Not so far as we have come already,” he said.

“Yes,” said Lirael.

“Why were you laughing?” asked Nick. “When you returned from Death?”

“Something the Dog said, something funny, but also it just made me happy,” replied Lirael.

“What did she say?” asked Nick. “I mean, if you don't mind me asking?”

“I don't mind,” said Lirael. “I thought I would never see her again, you know. She said my time with her had passed. But then, she came to me in Death . . .”

“And to me,” said Nick. “She told me what to do.”

“And coming back, we talked, and she said . . . she said . . .”

Lirael started laughing again, the laughter that comes after a great fear is gone, a terrible enemy vanquished, and there is hope once more.

“She said she would come to our wedding,” said Lirael, half choked with laughter. “She would dance at our wedding! Can you imagine, the Dog dancing! But it means I will see her again!”

“I like the sound of
our wedding
,” said Nick, straight-faced. “Where would we have it? Your aunt Kirrith's place? That'd be
very
nice.”

Lirael laughed again, and they hugged as they walked, almost making themselves fall over. Nick started to laugh too, and giggling like small children, they began to run hand in hand toward the Great Rift and the start of the journey home.

I
f the appearance of their tribal fetish and Mogget's expression of displeasure to the Athask was the first turning point in the Battle of the Greenwash Bridge, the absence of Chlorr was the second. She had gathered all the war leaders of the clans together on the riverbank, to keep them close and under her direction. Her sudden vanishing, and of many of the Dead she had with her, combined with the lack of any kind of second in command, caused the war leaders to immediately disagree on what everyone should be doing.

The disagreements quickly became arguments, and then the arguments duels, and the fighting of the leaders swiftly spread to the sorcerers and their keepers, and then to the lesser commanders, and from there to ordinary clan-folk. Within a short time, almost all the nomads not actively fighting the Old Kingdom forces were fighting one another, and very soon after that, most of them realized that with everyone gathered at the bridge, there was nobody defending their homelands.

Or their neighbors' homelands. Whoever got back first would have the opportunity to settle every old feud with ease, and create the circumstances for dozens of new ones.

But though Chlorr was absent, she was not yet dead, and the chain-spell continued to hold back the river, and there were still many thousands of horse nomads fighting on the southern bank, even if the rear ranks were turning about to fight their former allies of five minutes before.

Sam and Ferin were among the first to see the change, and it was Ferin who pointed out where the Moon Horse warriors were trying
to turn their horses back; and that the Ghost Horse clan were starting to ride away westward along the northern bank; and the Yrus were no longer pushing new lines of warriors into the melee on the southern bank, where the Old Kingdom forces still held on, though they had been forced back several hundred paces from the river, and were surrounded on three sides.

Charter Magic spells flashed and sparked in that fierce combat, but so also did long whips of Free Magic fire, and the Old Kingdom army was still greatly outnumbered. Sam's heart was very heavy as he watched from the outer wall of the North Castle. Not through his telescope, because he did not want to see too well, did not want to see the end that must be coming, did not want to know if Sabriel and Touchstone had already fallen.

“I guess Lirael and Nick have failed,” he said heavily to Ferin. “It will be an outright slaughter soon.”

Ferin watched by his side, and she was using the telescope. She was quiet now that they were largely out of the battle, at least for now. Much of her bravado was an act, Sam realized, to raise both her own spirits and those of the people around her. It worked very well.

“The chain on the riverbed,” said Ferin quite conversationally. “The red fire on it . . .”

“What?” asked Sam. He tried to snatch the telescope back, but Ferin held it tight.

“It's going out.”

As the Free Magic fires in the chain died, so the spell holding back the river ebbed. Water began to trickle down from on high, hundreds of rivulets sliding through the air as if slopping over the side of a vast glass bathtub. Half a minute later the rivulets joined to become a solid sheet of water, a waterfall suddenly smashing down from eighty paces above the dry riverbed.

Sam stopped trying to grab the telescope and grabbed Ferin's crutches instead, slapping them under her arms.

“Get to the keep!” he shouted, waving at the others on the wall. “Get to the keep! The river's coming back!”

A few seconds later, the invisible wall that had been slowly crumbling gave way entirely, and the vast mass of water that had been held back all came crashing down at once.

The wave was three times as high as the bridge, which disappeared under it with a titanic crack that was heard fifty leagues away. Water spurted even higher as the wave parted around the mid-river bastion, and spread sideways. These only slightly lesser side waves smashed against the outer walls of both North and South castles, overtopping them to flood the outer baileys. The temporary camp on the southern side was swept away in an instant.

So too were most of the nomads still fighting, and a great many Old Kingdom soldiers. There would be mourning in Navis, and Sindle, and most of all in Belisaere, for almost the entire Trained Band of the guild of vintners was closest to the river, and they were all drowned or swept away.

Sabriel and Touchstone survived, though both were wounded. They rested on their swords for a moment, and looked at each other. They had survived many battles, some even more dire than this. Both knew there would be more battles, and one day, perhaps one or the other would not survive.

“The bastion tower stands,” said Sabriel, with relief. “Sam should be all right. And the Athask girl, Ferin.”

They exchanged a private look, one of parental amusement at the trouble Sam might be finding himself in the near future.

“And Lirael?” asked Touchstone. “She had succeeded, but . . .”

“I would have felt her die,” said Sabriel. An Abhorsen always knew when another died. “There was a moment . . . but no, I am sure she lives. I do so hope Nick survived, for she needs . . . she
deserves
some happiness, if anyone ever did.”

They had to stop talking then, as officers clamored for attention,
and the work of dealing with the wounded from both sides and clearing away damage began. The few nomads who had survived the great wave tried to fight on, but they did not fight hard, and soon succumbed to Charter spells of sleep and restraint, for they would not surrender if they could still hold a weapon.

Halfway up the keep of the northern river fort, in a room knee-deep in river water, Sam was retrieving Ferin's floating crutches. She sat up next to an archer's window slit that was still dripping water, on a kind of mound made up of empty arrow crates and the thick mats that could be put out to protect the wall from the stones cast by siege engines. She was holding up her leg and looking at her stump.

“I don't want a golden foot,” said Ferin. “No good for night work. Black is good.”

“You'll be wearing a boot or a shoe on it, I presume,” said Sam, catching a crutch that was about to disappear with the rapidly receding water through one of the drain holes in the wall. “So what does it matter?”

“Why would I wear a boot?” asked Ferin. “If I have a magic foot I want everyone to see it!”

“I thought you wanted everyone
not
to see it,” said Sam in some exasperation. The crutch was stuck in the drain. He was very tired, and still somewhat in shock from the battle, though greatly relieved to have seen Sabriel and Touchstone through his telescope, directing the mopping up on the other side of the river. With the bridge gone, he would not be joining them soon. Perhaps in the morning, when the paperwings would fly again . . .

“Leave that. Come and sit by me,” said Ferin, letting her leg drop back down. “Rest a moment. I will tell you of some Athask customs.”

Sam sat down heavily next to her, and slumped, only to suddenly straighten into complete rigidity as she slid across next to him so their legs touched and, with great reserve and gravitas, she slowly put her tongue in his ear.

“What . . . what did you do that for?” he asked nervously.

“It is our custom, after battle,” said Ferin, her dark eyes bright with mischief. “The beginning of a custom, anyway. There is more; I will show you. We have lived, and now we must be joyful.”

Sam looked sideways at her, his expression dubious at first, but then slowly his face brightened.

“Sometimes I'm a bit slow,” he said. “I mean, apart from making things.”

“Yes, you are,” said Ferin. “But it is of no matter. I am not.”

I have many people to thank, as always. My agents: Jill Grinberg in New York, Fiona Inglis in Sydney, Antony Harwood in London. My publishers: Katherine Tegen and her team at Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins, Eva Mills and her people at Allen & Unwin, Emma Matthewson and crew at Hot Key. All the booksellers who have helped get the Old Kingdom books and my other works into the hands of readers, and of course to all the readers. If not for you buying books, I would almost certainly still write, but it would be a much slower matter, having to fit in with earning a living in some other way. I am very fortunate to be able to work at doing something I love. I hope I can continue!

No writing would have been done at all without the support and encouragement of my family: my wife, Anna; my sons, Thomas and Edward; my parents, Henry and Katharine; my brothers, Simon and Jonathan, and their families.

Thank you all.