Touchstone’s face set in grim lines at that thought. He would welcome that battle. He and Sabriel had struggled too long against opponents manipulated from afar. Now whatever it was had come out in the open, and it would face the combined forces of the King, the Abhorsen, and the Clayr.
Provided, of course, that the King and the Abhorsen managed to survive this flight.
PART THREE
Chapter Seventeen
Coming Home to Ancelstierre
“WIND’S VEERING NOR-NOREAST, sir,” reported Yeoman Prindel as he watched the arrow on the wind gauge, which was mechanically linked to the weathervane several floors above them. As the arrow swung, the electric lights overhead flickered and went out, leaving the room lit by only two rather smoky hurricane lamps. Prindel looked at his watch, which had stopped, and then at the striped time candle between the hurricane lamps. “Electric failure at approximately 1649.”
“Very good, Prindel,” replied Lieutenant Drewe. “Order the switch to oil and sound general quarters. I’m going up to the light.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Prindel. He uncovered a speaking tube and bawled down it, “Switch to oil! General quarters! I say again, general quarters!”
“Aye, aye!” came echoing out the speaking tube, followed by the scream of a hand-cranked siren and the clang of a cracked handbell, both of which could be heard throughout the lighthouse.
Drewe shrugged on his blue duffel coat and strapped on a broad leather belt that supported both a revolver and a cutlass. His blue steel helmet, adorned with the crossed golden keys emblem that proclaimed his current post as the Keeper of the Western Light, completed his equipment. The helmet had belonged to his predecessor and was slightly too large, so Drewe always felt a bit like a fool when he put it on, but regulations were regulations.
The control room was five floors below the light. As Drewe climbed steadily up the steps, he met Able Seaman Kerrick rushing down.
“Sir! You’d better hurry!”
“I am hurrying, Kerrick,” Drewe replied calmly, hoping his voice was steadier than his suddenly accelerating heart. “What is it?”
“Fog—”
“There’s always fog. That’s why we’re here. To warn any ship not to sail into it.”
“No, no, sir! Not on the sea! On the land. A creeping fog that’s coming down from the north. There’s lightning behind it, and it’s heading for the Wall. And there’s people coming up from the south, too!”
Drewe abandoned his calm, drilled into him with so much care at the Naval College he’d left only eighteen months before. He pushed past Kerrick and took the rest of the steps three at a time. He was panting as he pushed open the heavy steel trapdoor and climbed into the light chamber, but he took a deep breath and managed to present some semblance of the cool, collected naval officer he was supposed to be.
The light was off and wouldn’t be lit for another hour or so. There was a dual system, one oil and clockwork, the other fully electric, to cater to the strange way that electricity and technology failed when the wind blew from the north. From the Old Kingdom.
Drewe was relieved to see his most experienced petty officer was already there. Coxswain Berl was outside on the walkway, big observer’s binoculars pressed to his eyes. Drewe went out to join him, bracing himself for the cold breeze. But when he went out, the wind was warm, another sign that it came from the north. Berl had told him the seasons were different across the Wall, and Drewe had been at the Western Light long enough to believe him now, though he had dismissed the notion at first.
“What’s going on?” Drewe demanded. The regular sea fog was sitting off the coast, as it always did, night and day. But there was another, darker fog rolling down from the north, towards the Wall. It was strangely lit by flashes of lightning and stretched to the east as far as Drewe could see.
“Where are these people?”
Berl handed him the binoculars and pointed.
“Hundreds of them, Mister Drewe, maybe thousands. Southerlings, I reckon, from the new camp at Lington Hill. Heading north, trying to get across the Wall. But they aren’t the problem.”
Drewe twiddled with the focus knob, clanged the binoculars against the rim of his helmet, and wished he could be more impressive in front of Berl.
He couldn’t see anything at all at first, but as he got the focus right, all the fuzzy blobs sharpened and became running figures. There were thousands of them, men in blue hats and women in blue scarves, and many children dressed completely in blue. They were throwing planks onto the concertina wire, forcing their way through and cutting where they had to. Some had already made it through the No Man’s Land of wire and were almost at the Wall. Drewe shook his head at the sight. Why on earth were they trying to get into the Old Kingdom? To make matters even more confusing, some of the Southerlings who had made it to the Wall were starting to run back. . . .
“Has Perimeter HQ been informed about these people?” he asked. There was an Army post down there, at least a company in the rear trenches with pickets and listening posts spread out forward and back. What were the pongoes doing?
“The phones will be out,” said Berl grimly. “Besides, those people aren’t the problem. Take a look at the leading edge of that fog, sir.”
Drewe swung the binoculars around. The fog was moving faster than he’d thought, and it was surprisingly regular. Almost like a wall itself, moving down to meet the one of stone. Strange fog, with lightning illuminating it from the inside . . .
Drewe swallowed, blinked, and fiddled with the focus knob on the binoculars again, unable to believe what he was seeing. There were things in the forefront of the fog. Things that might have once been people but now were not. He’d heard stories of such creatures when he was first posted to shore duty in the north, but hadn’t really believed them. Walking corpses, inexplicable monsters, magic both cruel and kind . . .
“Those Southerlings won’t stand a chance,” whispered Berl. “I grew up in the north. I seen what happened twenty years ago at Bain—”
“Quiet, Berl,” ordered Drewe. “Kerrick!”
Kerrick poked his head out the door.
“Kerrick, get a dozen red rockets and start firing them. One every three minutes.”
“R-red rockets, sir?” quavered Kerrick. Red rockets were the ultimate distress signal for the lighthouse.
“Red rockets! Move!” roared Drewe. “Berl! I want every man but Kerrick assembled outside in five minutes, number-three rig and rifles!”
“Rifles won’t work, sir,” said Berl sadly. “And those Southerlings wouldn’t have got across the Perimeter unless the garrison was already dead. There was a whole Army company down there—”
“I’ve given you an order! Now get to it!”
“Sir, we can’t help them,” Berl pleaded. “You don’t know what those things can do! Our standing orders are to defend the lighthouse, not to—”
“Coxswain Berl,” Drewe said stiffly. “Whatever the Army’s failings, the Royal Ancelstierran Navy has never stood by while innocents die. It will not start doing so under my command!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Berl slowly. He raised one brawny hand in salute, then suddenly brought it crashing down on Drewe’s neck, under the rim of the officer’s helmet. The Lieutenant crumpled into Berl’s arms, and the coxswain laid him gently down on the floor and took his revolver and cutlass.
“What are you looking at, Kerrick! Get those bloody rockets firing!”
“But—but—what about—”
“If he comes to, give him a cup of water and tell him I’ve taken command,” ordered Berl. “I’m going down to prepare the defenses.”
“Defenses?”
“Those Southerlings came from the south, straight through the Army lines. So there’s something already on this side, something that fixed the soldiers good and proper. Something Dead, unless I miss my guess. We’ll be next, if they aren’t here already. So get going with the bloody rockets!”
The big petty officer shouted the last words as he climbed through the hatch and slammed it behind him.
The clang of the hatch was still echoing as Kerrick heard the first shouts, somewhere down in the courtyard. Then there was more shouting, and a terrible scream and a confusing hubbub of noise: yelling and screaming and the clash of steel.
Trembling, Kerrick opened the rocket store and wrestled one out. The launcher was set up on the balcony rail, but though he’d done it a hundred times in training, he couldn’t get the rocket to sit in it. When it was finally home, he pulled too quickly on the cord to ignite it, and his hands were burned as the rocket blasted into the sky.
Sobbing from pain and fear, Kerrick went back to get another rocket. Above his head, red blossoms fell from the sky, bright against the cloud.
Kerrick didn’t wait three minutes to fire the next one, or the next.
He was still firing rockets when the Dead Hands came up through the hatch. The fog was all around the lighthouse by then, only Kerrick, his rockets, and the light room above the wet, flowing mass of mist. The fog looked almost like solid ground, so convincing that Kerrick hardly thought twice when the Dead creature came smashing through the glass door and reached out to rend him with hands that had too many fingers and ended in curved and bloody bone.
Kerrick jumped, and for a few steps the fog did seem to support him, and he laughed hysterically as he ran. But he was falling, falling, all the same. The Dead Hands watched him go, a tiny spark of Life that all too soon went out.
But Kerrick had not died in vain. The red rockets had been observed to the south and east. And in the light room, Lieutenant Drewe came to and staggered to his feet as Kerrick fell. He saw the Dead and, in a flash of inspiration, pulled the lever that released the striker and the pressurized oil.
Light flared atop the lighthouse, light magnified a thousandfold by the best lenses ever ground by the glass masters of Corvere. The beam shone out on two sides, bracketing the Dead on the balcony. They screeched and shielded their decaying eyes. Desperately, the young naval officer slammed the clockwork gear into neutral and leaned on the capstan, to turn the light around. It had been designed for this, in case of total mechanical failure, but not to be pushed by one man.
Desperation and fear provided the necessary strength. The light turned to catch the Dead full in its hot white beam. It didn’t hurt them, but they hated it, so they retreated, taking Kerrick’s way, out into the fog. Unlike Kerrick, the Dead Hands survived the fall, though their bodies were smashed. Slowly they pulled themselves upright and, on jellied, broken limbs, began the long climb back up the stairs. There was Life there, and they wanted the taste of it, the annoyance of the light already forgotten.
Nick woke to thunder and lightning. As always in recent times, he was disoriented and dizzy. He could feel the ground moving unsteadily beneath him, and it took him a moment to realize that he was being carried on a stretcher. There were two men at each end, marching along with their burden. Normal men, or normal enough. Not the leprous pit workers Hedge called the Night Crew.
“Where are we?” he asked. His voice was hoarse, and he tasted blood. Hesitantly he touched his lips, and he felt the dried blood caked there. “I’d like a drink of water.”
“Master!” shouted one of the men. “He’s awake!”
Nick tried to sit up, but he didn’t have the strength. All he could see above was thunderclouds and lightning, which was striking down somewhere ahead. The hemispheres! It all came back to him now. He had to make sure the hemispheres were safe!
“The hemispheres!” he shouted, pain spiking in his throat.
“They’re safe,” said a familiar voice. Hedge suddenly towered above him. He’s got taller, Nick thought irrationally. Thinner, too. Sort of stretched out, like a toffee being fought over by two children. And he had seemed to be balding before, and now he had hair. Or was it shadow, curling across his forehead?
Nick shut his eyes. He couldn’t think where he was or how he had got here. Obviously he was still sick, more seriously ill than before, or they wouldn’t have to carry him.
“Where are we?” Nick asked weakly. He opened his eyes again, but he couldn’t see Hedge, though the man answered from somewhere close by.
“We are about to cross the Wall,” replied Hedge, and he laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh. But Nick couldn’t help laughing too. He didn’t know why, and he couldn’t make himself stop till he choked and had to.
Beyond Hedge’s laugh and the constant boom of thunder, there was another noise. Nick couldn’t identify it at first. He kept listening as his stretcher bearers stolidly carried him forward, till at last he thought he knew what it was. The audience at a football game or a cricket match. Shouting and yelling at a win. Though the Wall would be an odd place to have a game. Perhaps the soldiers at the Perimeter played, he thought.
Five minutes later Nick could hear screaming in the crowd noise, and he knew it was no football game. He tried to sit up again, only to be pressed back down by a hand that he knew was Hedge’s, though it was black and burnt-looking, and there were red flames where the fingernails should be.
Hallucinations, Nick thought desperately. Hallucinations.
“We must cross quickly,” said Hedge, instructing the stretcher bearers. “The Dead can keep the passage for only a few more minutes. As soon as the hemispheres are through, we will run.”
“Yes, sir,” chorused the stretcher bearers.
Nick wondered what Hedge was talking about. They were passing between two lines of his strange, afflicted laborers now. Nick tried not to look at them, at the decaying flesh held together by torn blue rags. Fortunately, he couldn’t see their ravaged faces. They were all facing away, like some sort of back-to-front honor guard, and they had linked their arms.