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Nick looked at her, the burning tent, the Dog, and the onrushing horde of what he thought of as diseased workers, his face blank with shock and a Lirael’s push on his ar stood in the light of the fire, a grim shado easily five feet tall at the shoulder The Charter lowed eerily with their own colors, stronger than the red and yellow blaze of the burning tent Free Magic pulsed under the collar, and red flames dripped like saliva from her mouth

The first mass of Dead Hands saw her and slowed, uncertain of what she was and how dangerous shebarked, and the Dead Hands shrieked and howled as a power they knew and feared gripped theic assault that made them shuck their putrescent bodiesand forced them to walk back into Death

But for every one that fell, there were another dozen charging forward, their grasping, skeletal hands ready to grip and tear, their broken, grave-bleached teeth anxious to bite into any flesh, e

LIRAEL WAS HALFWAY back to the rendezvous with Saet up His face was blotched with fever and exertion, and he could not get his breath He lay on the ground looking up at her du for execution

Which was probably what it looked like, she realized, since she was standing above hih Lirael sheathed Nehi, but she saw that he was too ill and tired to understand that she was trying to reassure him

"Looks like I’ to have to carry you," she said, her voice mixed with equal parts of exhaustion and desperation He wasn’t at all heavy, but it was at least half athe shard of the Destroyer or whatever it was in hi this?" croaked Nick as she levered hio on without ht how to do a fireh she hadn’t practiced it in several years Not since Ke her turn on the librarians’ fire brigade She was pleased she hadn’t forgotten the technique, and that Nick was a lot lighter than Kemmeru Not that it was a fair co carried out with her favorite books

"Your friend Sa barking soood, but it was hard to see where she was going, since there was only the soft predawn light, not even strong enough to cast a shadow It had beenthis stretch of valley as an owl

"Saot to do with this?"

"He’ll explain," Lirael said shortly, saving her breath She looked up, trying to fix her position by Uallus again But they were still too close to the pit, and all she could see was thunderclouds and lightning At least it had stopped raining, and theaway

Lirael kept on going, but with a growing suspicion that she’d so in the right direction She should have paid ht, when everything had been laid out below her in a beautiful patchwork

"Hedge will rescue e, particularly since it was co from somewhere near her belt buckle, as he was draped over her back

Lirael ignored hietting boggy under her feet, which couldn’t be right But there was a di ahead Bushes perhaps Maybe the ones that lined the strea

Lirael pressed forward, Nick’s extra weight pushing her feet deep into the soggy ground She could see what lay ahead, now she was close enough andsun It was reeds, not bushes Tall rushes with red flowering heads, the rushes that gave the Red Lake its name, from their pollen that colored the lakeshores with a brilliant scarlet wash

She’d gone co way, Lirael realized Somehow she must have turned west Now she was on the shore of the lake, and the Gore Croould soon find her Unless, she thought, they couldn’t see her She shifted Nick higher and bent over a little nored hiave way to water, up to her shins The reeds grew closer together, their flowery heads towering over her But there was a narrow path where the reeds were beaten down, allowing passage through the deeper and deeper into the reedy marsh

Sam drew another mark out of the endless flow of the Charter and forced it into the arroas holding across his knees, watching it spread like oil over the sharp steel of the head It was the final mark for this arrow He had already put ht and luck into the fletching, andand banishment into the head

It was the last arrow of twenty, all now spelled to be weapons of great use against the Lesser Dead, at the least It had taken Sam two hours to do all twenty, and he was a little weary He was unaware that it would have taken ic on inani his hile sitting on the dry end of a half-subood stream from Sam’s point of view, because it was at least fifteen yards wide, very deep, and fast It could be crossed via the log and ju stones, but Sam didn’t think the Dead would do that

Sam put the finished arrow back into the quiver built into Lirael’s pack and slung that on his back His own pack was pushed up against the streah not anymore, Sam noticed, as he bent down to see it one con of the cat in the top pocket

Sa, and the light wasn’t good enough to see anything standing still or hiding He couldn’t hear anything suspicious either--just the burble of the strea storet had never slipped off like this before, and Sa even less than he had before their experience in the strange tunnels under the House Slowly he took Lirael’s bow from its cover and nocked an arrow His sas at his side, but with the dawn, it was just light enough to shoot a little ith accuracy At least across the streanear the water It was probably Mogget, Salooers twitched on the string

"Mogget?" he whispered, nerves strung as taut as the bow