Mogget’s words were followed by an enormous splash as the Dog suddenly appeared on the opposite bank and dived into the stream, sending a cascade of water in all directions, but mostly over Mogget.

Then the Dog was next to them, shaking herself so vigorously that Sam had to hold his bow out of the way.

“Quick,” she panted. “We need to get out of here! Stay on this side and head downstream!”

As soon as she’d spoken, the Dog was off again, loping easily along beside the stream. Sam leapt off the log, swooped upon his pack, picked it up and stumbled after the Dog, questions falling out of his mouth as he ran. With Lirael’s pack on his back, the bow and an arrow in one hand, and his own pack in the other hand, it took most of his concentration not to fall over and into the stream.

“Lirael ... and Nick? What ... can’t we stop ... got to rearrange all this...”

“Lirael went into the reeds, but the necromancer suddenly showed up so I couldn’t follow without leading him to her,” said the Dog, turning her head back as she ran. “That’s why we can’t wait!”

Sam looked back too, and immediately fell over his pack and dropped both bow and arrow. As he stumbled to his feet, he saw a wall of Dead Hands lurch to a stop on the other side of the stream, back up near the sunken log. There were hundreds of them, a great dark mass of writhing figures that immediately started to parallel the dog’s course on the opposite bank.

In the midst of the Dead Hands, one figure stood out. A man cloaked in red flame, riding a horse that was mostly skeleton, though some flesh still hung on its neck and withers.

Hedge. Sam felt his presence like a shock of cold water, and a sharp pain in his wrists. Hedge was shouting something – perhaps a spell – but Sam didn’t hear it because he was scrabbling to pick up the bow and get another arrow. It was still quite dark and a fair distance, he thought, but not too far for a lucky shot in the stillness before the dawn.

As quick as that thought, he nocked an arrow and drew. For an instant, his whole concentration was on a line between himself and that shape of fire and darkness.

Then he loosed and the spelled arrow flew like a blue spark from him. Sam watched it, filled with hope as it sped as true as he could wish, and arrow met necromancer with a blaze of white fire against the red. Hedge fell from his skeleton horse, which reared and then dived forward, smashing through several ranks of Dead Hands to plunge into the water in an explosion of white sparks and high-pitched screaming. Instinctively, it had known how to free itself and die the final death.

“That’ll annoy him,” said Mogget from somewhere near Sam’s feet.

Sam’s sudden hope died as he saw Hedge stand up, pluck the arrow from his throat and throw it on the ground.

“Don’t waste another on him,” said the Dog. “He cannot be slain by any arrow, no matter the spells laid upon it.”

Sam nodded grimly, threw the bow aside and drew his sword. Though the stream might hold the Dead Hands back, he knew that it would not stop Hedge.

Hedge drew his own sword and walked forward, his Dead Hands parting to make a corridor. At the edge of the stream the necromancer smiled an open smile and red fire licked about his teeth. He put one boot in the stream – and smiled again as the water burst into steam.

“Go and help Lirael,” Sam ordered the Dog. “I’ll hold off Hedge as long as I can. Mogget – will you help me?”

Mogget didn’t answer, and he was nowhere to be seen.

“Good luck,” said the Dog. Then she was gone, racing along the bank to the west.

Sam took a deep breath and crouched into a defensive stance. This was his worst fear, come into terrible reality. Alone again, and facing Hedge.

Sam reached into the Charter, as much for comfort as to be ready to cast a spell. His breathing steadied as he felt its familiar flow all around him, and almost without thinking he began to draw out Charter marks, whispering their names quietly as they fell into his open hand.

Hedge took another step. He was wreathed in steam now and almost completely obscured, the stream bubbling and roiling both upstream and down. With a shrinking feeling, Sam saw that the necromancer was actually boiling the stream dry. There was already signifcantly less water below him, the stream bed was becoming visible and the Dead Hands were starting to move.

Hedge wouldn’t even have to fight him, Sam thought. All he had to do was stand in the stream, and his Dead Hands would cross and finish Sam off. Though he had the panpipes, Sam didn’t know how to use them properly and there were simply too many Hands.

There was only one thing he could do. Sam would have to attack Hedge in the stream and kill him before the Hands could cross. If he could kill Hedge, a little nagging voice said from deep inside his mind. Wouldn’t it be better to run away? Run away before you are burnt again, and your spirit ripped out of your flesh and taken by the necromancer...

Sam buried that thought away, sending the nagging voice so far into the recesses of his mind that it was just a meaningless squeak. Then he let the Charter marks he already held in his hand fall into nothingness, reached into the Charter again and drew out a whole new string of marks. As he summoned them, Sam hurriedly traced the marks on his legs with a finger. Marks of protection, of reflection, of diversion. They joined and shimmered there, wrapping his legs in Charter Magic armour that would resist the steam and boiling water.

He looked down for only ten, or perhaps fifteen seconds. But when he looked back up, Hedge was gone. The steam was dissipating and the water was flowing again. The Dead Hands were turning their backs to him and lumbering away, leaving the ground churned up and littered with pieces of rotting flesh and splintered bone.

“Either you were born to a different death, Prince,” remarked Mogget, who had appeared at Sam’s feet like a newly sprung plant, “or Hedge just found something more important to do.”

“Where were you?” asked Sam. He felt strangely deflated. He’d been all ready to plunge into the stream, to fight it out, and now all of a sudden it was just a quiet morning again. The sun was even up and the birds had resumed their singing. Though only on his side of the stream, Sam noticed.

“Hiding, like any sensible person would when confronted by a necromancer as powerful as Hedge,” replied Mogget.

“Is he that powerful?” asked Sam. “You must have encountered many necromancers, serving my mother and the other Abhorsens.”

“They didn’t have help from the Destroyer,” said Mogget. “I must say I’m impressed with what it can do, even bound as it is. A lesson for us all, that even trapped inside a lump of silver metal—”

“Where do you think Hedge went?” interrupted Sam, who wasn’t really listening.

“Back to those lumps of metal, of course,” yawned Mogget. “Or after Lirael. Time for me to have a nap, I think.”

Mogget yawned again, then yelped in surprise as Sam grabbed him and shook him, setting Ranna jangling on his collar.

“You have to track the Dog! We have to go and help Lirael!”

“That’s no way to ask me.” Mogget yawned again, as waves of sleep from Ranna washed over both of them. Sam suddenly found that he was sitting down, and the ground felt so comfortable. All he had to do was lie back and put his hands behind his head...

“No! No!” he protested. Staggering to his feet, he plunged into the stream and pushed his face into the water.

When he climbed out, Mogget was back in his pack. Fast asleep, a wicked grin on his little face.

Sam stared down at him and ran his hands through his dripping hair. The Dog had run off downstream. What had she said? “Lirael went into the reeds.”

So if Sam followed the stream to the Red Lake, there was a good chance he’d find Lirael. Or some sign of her, or the Dog. Or Mogget might wake up.