“Best I can do,” he said anxiously. “It might stop some of them. If they even understood what I was saying.”
“Nothing else we can do,” said Major Greene. “We can’t shoot the beggars, and they’d overwhelm us if we tried to stop them with just the bayonet. I’d like a word with the police who were supposed to be—”
“One of the hemispheres is already ashore, and the other is close behind,” interrupted Lirael, her news provoking instant attention. “Hedge is there, and he is raising a fog and creating many more Dead. The Lightning Farm is also beginning to work, and the Destroyer is calling down and directing the lightning.”
“We’d best attack at once,” said Major Greene. He started to take a breath to shout, but Lirael interrupted him again.
“No,” she said. “We can’t get through the Lightning Farm, and there are too many Dead. We cannot stop the hemispheres from joining now.”
“But that’s . . . that means we’ve lost,” said Sam. “Everything. The Destroyer—”
“No,” snapped Lirael. “I’m going into Death, to use the Dark Mirror. The Destroyer was bound and broken in the Beginning. Once I find out how it was done, we can do it again. But you will have to protect my body until I can come back, and Hedge is sure to attack.”
As she spoke, Lirael looked firmly into Sam’s eyes, then Major Greene’s and the two Lieutenants’, Tindall and Gotley. She hoped some sort of confidence was being transferred. She had to believe that there was an answer in Death, in the past. Some secret that would let them defeat Orannis.
“The Dog is coming with me,” she said. “Where’s Mogget?”
“Here!” said a voice near her feet. Lirael looked down and saw Mogget in the shadow of the boulder, licking the second of two empty sardine tins.
“I thought he might as well have them,” said Sam quietly, with a shrug.
“Mogget! Help in any way you can,” ordered Lirael.
“Any way I can,” confirmed Mogget with a sly smile. His confirmation sounded almost like a question.
Lirael looked around, then strode to the middle of a ring of lichen-covered stones, where the spur rose slightly again after coming down the ridge. She checked that the Dark Mirror was in her belt pouch. Then she drew Nehima and Saraneth. This time she held the bell by the handle, straight down. It could sound more easily by accident but also could be more quickly used.
“I’ll go into Death here,” she said. “I’m depending on you to protect me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” asked Sam. He took out the panpipes and gripped the hilt of his sword. Lirael could tell he meant what he said.
“No,” said Lirael. “I think you’ll have enough to do here. Hedge is not going to leave us alone on his doorstep. Can’t you feel the Dead on the move? We will be attacked here soon, and someone has to protect my living self while I am in Death. I charge you with that, Prince Sameth. If you have time, cast a diamond of protection.”
Sam nodded gravely and said, “Yes, Aunt Lirael.”
“Aunt?” asked Lieutenant Tindall, but Lirael hardly heard him. She carefully squatted down and hugged the Disreputable Dog, fighting back the terrible feeling that it might be the last time she would feel soft dog hair against her living cheek.
“Even if I do find out how the Seven bound the Destroyer, how can we do it?” she whispered in the Dog’s ear, so softly no one else could hear. “How can we?”
The Disreputable Dog looked at her with sad brown eyes but didn’t answer. Lirael matched her gaze and then smiled, a rueful, bittersweet smile.
“We’ve come a long way from the Glacier, haven’t we?” she said. “Now we’re going farther still.”
She stood up and reached out to Death. As the chill sank into her bones, she heard Sam say something, and a distant shout. But the sounds faded, as did the light of day. Lifting her sword, Lirael strode into Death, her faithful hound at her heels.
Sam’s death sense twitched. Lirael’s breath steamed out, and frost formed on her mouth and nose. The Disreputable Dog stepped forward at her side and disappeared, leaving a momentary outline of golden light that slowly faded into nothing.
“Nick! What about Nick!” Sam suddenly called. He hit himself in the head and swore. “I should have asked!”
“Movement on the ridge!” someone called out, and there was a general flurry of activity. Tindall and Gotley ran to their platoons, and Major Greene shouted orders. The Southerlings, who had sat down to listen to Sam, stood up. Individual Southerlings began to climb up the ridge; then there was a general surge forward by the whole huge crowd of people.
At the same time, there was a sudden increase of lightning beyond the ridge, and the thunder rolled in, louder and more constant.
“I’m going to close the company in,” shouted Greene. “We’ll form an all-around defense here.”
Sam nodded. He could sense Dead moving beyond the ridge. Fifty or sixty Dead Hands, headed their way.
“There are Dead coming,” he said. He looked up at the ridge, then back at Lirael and at the Southerlings beyond. They were all starting to trudge forward, towards the ridge, not farther back into the valley. The soldiers were already running back towards the spur, the line contracting. There was nothing between the Southerlings and their doom.
“Damn!” swore Greene. “I thought you’d
stopped them!”
“I’m going to talk to them!” declared Sam, making an instant decision. The Dead were at least five minutes away, and Lirael had charged him earlier to stop the Southerlings. She would not be in danger if he was quick. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Major Greene, do not leave Lirael! Mogget, protect her!”
With that, he ran down towards a particular group of Southerlings he’d seen before but hadn’t really registered as important till a moment before, when he was struck by a sudden thought. The group was led by an ancient matriarch, white haired and much better dressed than everyone around her. She was also supported by several younger men and women. It was the only group that was not obviously a family, without children and without baggage. The matriarch was the leader, Sam thought. He knew that much about the Southerlings. Someone who might be able to turn back the human tide.
If only he could convince her in the next few minutes. When the Dead attacked, anything could happen. The Southerlings might panic, and many would run the wrong way and be trampled. Or they might refuse the evidence of their own eyes and continue blindly on over the ridge, driven by optimism and hope that finally they would find somewhere to call home.
Chapter Twenty-one
Deeper into Death
LIRAEL DIDN’T PAUSE to look around as she entered Death and the current gripped her, trying to drag her under in that first shocking instant of total cold. She pushed forward at once as the Disreputable Dog bounded ahead, sniffing the river for any hint of lurking Dead.
As Lirael waded, she anxiously ran through the key lessons she had learned from The Book of the Dead and The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting. Their pages shone in her mind, telling her about each of the Nine Precincts and the secrets of the Nine Gates. But knowing these secrets—even from a magical book—was not the same as having experienced them. And Lirael had never been past the First Precinct, never even crossed the First Gate.