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"Sorry," said Saht?"

"I knew hiuardsman Her voice trembled until she took a deep breath

"I knew hio, and he talked to me in the Lower Refectory His hauberk didn’t fit him then"

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

"His name wasI can’t quite re 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, so to a dead ully that led down to the cliffs Its head hung over the gully and was out of sight

As they watched, the e and into the gully They could still see its hindquarters, but an to shake and shiver

"Soust She could see drag ully There had beenhad dragged the 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 Saully while ht Closer, they could hear a dry gulping noise, rather like the sound of so sand Every now and then it would be accole

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 theDead, but there was a faint tang of sonized what it was at the saic But it was very faint, and it was iully, or possibly blowing in on the faint breeze

When they were only a few paces fros of the rile accoe and looked down, her bon, a Charter-spelled arrow ready to fly But there was nothing to shoot Just a long streak of darkunder the surface The ser, but it was not the corrosive stench she had encountered froic elementals

"What is it?" whispered Saesture, and a slier, ready to be thrown

"I don’t know," said Lirael "A Free Magic thing of so 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 ic and rotten gering back even as the tongue of silver fire rose into the air and struck dohere Lirael had stood a reat snake head of h above them

Lirael loosed her arrow as she stu the activatingfountain of fire towards the thing ofup Fire ue, 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 Sa farther back

"Who dares disturb !" roared a voice that wasofsince due!"

In answer Lirael dropped her bow and and drew Nehima Sam muttered marks and drew theether uard Sam while he completed the spell

Saolden flames as he drew it in the air It was a mark that Lirael knew could easily ihtly as it appeared But it left Sa tracery of linked ingerly, swung the whole thing round his head, and let it fly at the creature, si flash, a sound like a choir screan of the creature Just sether to cast a pall across the field

"What was that?" asked Lirael

"A spell for binding soh Do you think it worked?"

"No," said the Dog, her sudden appearance h to let every Dead thing between here and the Red Lake knohere 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 sh once more only faintly, and it was i s She suddenly thrust her nose into a s into the air Lirael and Saht, then slowly stood back-to-back, their weapons ready

Chapter Five

Blow Wind, Come Rain!