Free Abhorsen by Garth Nix Page A

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 running farther back.
    “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 scanned the ground, not trusting the Dog’s opinion, while Lirael bent down to talk to the hound.
    “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 traveled. . . .”
    “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