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The next day was much the same as the first. Not surprisingly, considering his thin bed of leftover straw, Sam found it easy to rise before dawn, and once again he pushed Sprout to a pace beyond her liking.
He met few people on the road—which was not much more than a track—and spoke little but pleasantries to them, for fear of discovery. Just enough to seem normal, when he bought some food, or asked about the best way through Sindlewood to the Ratterlin.
He had a fright in one village, when he stopped to buy some grain for Sprout and a bag of onions and parsnips for himself. Two constables rode straight towards him, but they didn’t slow, merely nodding as they passed, riding back eastwards. Apparently, the word had not spread either about a dangerous necromancer-at-large or a missing Prince, or else he didn’t look as if he could be either one. Whatever the cause, Sam was grateful.
In the main, it was an uneventful if tiring journey. Sam spent much of the time thinking about Nick, his parents, and his own shortcomings. These thoughts always led back to the Enemy. The more he thought about it, the more Sam was convinced that the necromancer who had burnt him must be the architect of all the current troubles. That necromancer had the power, and he had shown his hand by trying to capture and dominate Sam.
Mostly Sam agonized over what he should do and what might happen. He constructed many quite horrifying scenarios in his head, and he generally failed to work out what the best course of action would be if they turned out to be true. Each passing day made him envision more horrible possibilities. Every day Sam was more acutely aware that Nicholas might have already found something inimical in the Lightning Trap. Perhaps his doom.
Four days after his encounter with the constables, Sam found himself looking down from a pastured hill into the shadowy green borders of the ancient forest known as Sindlewood. It looked much larger, darker, and more overgrown than the small wood where he’d met Mogget. The trees were taller, too, at least the ones he could see on the fringe, and there was no obvious path.
Even as Sam looked at the forest, his thoughts were far away. Nick’s situation weighed heavily on him, as did the presence of The Book of the Dead and the bells. All these things were closely entwined now, for it seemed that Sam’s best hope of rescuing Nick—if he was in trouble—lay in mastering the skills of an Abhorsen. If Nick was held by the Enemy, he would probably be used to blackmail the Chief Minister in Ancelstierre and stop Sabriel and Touchstone’s plan to prevent the Southerlings’ being massacred, which in turn would mean an invasion by the Dead and the end of the Old Kingdom, and . . .
Sam sighed and looked back at the saddlebags. His imagination was getting out of control. But whatever was really happening, he would have to make a supreme effort to read the book, in order to become a rescuer and not just an idiot riding into disaster, getting himself killed or enslaved for nothing.
Of course, there was always the possibility that Mogget was lying. Sam was somewhat suspicious of Mogget, having the dim recollection that the cat never left Abhorsen’s House without the Abhorsen. True, Sabriel couldn’t have taken him into Ancelstierre on a diplomatic mission, and it was possible that she had granted him freedom to leave the House. But Sabriel also had the ring that could control the Free Magic being that would result if Mogget were unbound. If the creature within Mogget should be freed, it would kill any Abhorsen it could. Which, in this case, meant Sam. Surely Sabriel wouldn’t have let the cat out without making sure it also brought Sam the ring.
Maybe it was her very absence in Ancelstierre, on the other side of the Wall, that had allowed Mogget to do what he liked.
Or perhaps Mogget had even been suborned by the Enemy and was actually guiding Sameth to his doom. . . .
Busy thinking unpleasant thoughts and trying to direct Sprout the best way down the hill, Sam was totally unprepared for the cold shiver that suddenly touched his spine. In that same instant, he realized he was being watched. Watched by something Dead.
The old rhyme, drilled into him since childhood, leapt into his head:
When the Dead do walk, seek water’s run,
For this the Dead will always shun.
Swift river’s best or broadest lake
To ward the Dead and haven make.
If water fails thee, fire’s thy friend;
If neither guards, it will be thy end.
Even as the words were running through his head, Sam looked at the sun. There was little more than an hour of daylight left. Simultaneously he looked for running water—a stream or river—and saw a reflection, silver in the shadows, near the edge of the forest. Farther away than he would have liked.
He directed Sprout towards it, feeling the fear rise in him, coursing through his muscles. He couldn’t see the Dead creature, but it was close. He felt its spirit like a clammy touch upon his skin. It must be strong, too, or it would not risk even the waning sun.
Sam’s knees twitched, the reflex of an overwhelming urge to kick Sprout into a gallop. But they were still going down the hill, on broken ground. If Sprout fell on him, he would be trapped, easy prey for the Dead. . . .
No. Best not to think of that. He looked around again, squinting against the yellow-red sun, low in the sky. The creature was somewhere behind him . . . and no . . . to the right.
His fear grew as Sam realized there were two creatures, perhaps more. They must be Shadow Hands, slinking from the shade of rock to rock, almost impossible to see till they reared up to attack.
Fumbling, he reached back and opened the saddlebag. If he couldn’t reach running water in time, the bells would be his only defense against Shadow Hands. A fairly pathetic defense, since he didn’t know how to use them properly and they might easily work against him.
He felt one of the Dead move again, and his heart stammered at the awful swiftness of the thing. It was right next to him and he still couldn’t see it, even in bright sunlight!
Then he looked up. A black speck hovered above him, just beyond arrow-shot. And another, behind the first and farther up.
Not Shadow Hands at all. Gore Crows. And where there were two, there would be many more. Gore Crows were always created in flocks, made from ordinary crows killed with ritual and ceremony, then infused with the splintered fragments of just one Dead spirit. Guided by this shattered but single intelligence, these decaying lumps of rotten flesh and feathers flew by force of Free Magic—and killed by force of numbers.
But as Sam scanned the horizon, he could see no more than two. Surely no necromancer would waste his power on just a pair of Gore Crows. They were too easy to kill in anything less than a flock. A sword-stroke could smash a single crow, but even a mighty warrior could be defeated by a hundred Gore Crows attacking at once, sharp beaks striking at the eyes and neck.
It was also unusual for them to be out under the sun. The spell that drove them was quickly eroded by heat and light, even as their physical forms were shredded by the wind.
Unless, Sam suddenly thought, there really were only two Gore Crows, sharing the Dead vitality that would normally be spent on hundreds of crow bodies. If this was the case, they would last much longer and would be stronger under the sun. They could also be used in other ways than to merely attack.
Like watching, he thought grimly, as neither Dead bird sought to come any closer. They were keeping station above him, circling slowly, probably marking him for the assault of other Dead come nightfall.
As if to confirm his thoughts, one of the Gore Crows—the one farther away—let out a mocking, scratchy caw and turned away to the south, dropping rotten feathers as it flew, propelled more by magic than by the occasional beats of its wings.
It looked all too much like a messenger, with its partner the shadower, staying high to follow wherever Sam might go.
For a moment he contemplated casting a spell of destruction upon it, but it was too far away and obviously well instructed in caution. Besides, he was still weak from his wounded leg. He knew he must save his powers for the night.
Keeping a wary eye on the black speck above him, Sam urged Sprout on. The stream didn’t look like much from here, but it would offer some protection. After a moment’s hesitation, he also drew out the bell-bandolier and put it on. The weight of the bells and their power lay heavily upon his chest, and shortened and shallowed his breath. But if worst came to worst, he would try to use the lesser bells, drawing on the lessons he’d had from his mother. They were supposed to be merely a prelude for the study he’d abandoned. Ranna, at least, he could probably wield without fear of being forced unwillingly into Death.
A nagging voice at the back of his mind said that even now it was not too late to pick up The Book of the Dead, to learn more of the birthright that could save him. But even his fear of an attack by the Dead was not enough to conquer Sam’s fear of the book. Reading it, he might find himself taken into Death. Better to fight the Dead in Life, with what little knowledge he had, than to confront them in Death itself.
Behind him, Sam thought he heard a chuckle, a muffled laugh that didn’t sound like Mogget. He turned, hand instinctively going to his sword, but there was nothing and no one there. Just the sleeping cat in one saddlebag, and The Book of the Dead in the other. Sam let go of the hilt, already sweaty from his trembling fingers, and looked down at the stream again. If the bed was smooth, he would ride along it as far as he could. If he was lucky, it might even take him as far west as the Ratterlin, a mighty river even one of the Greater Dead couldn’t cross.
