Abhorsen by Garth Nix

from home. They are quite trustworthy. I have made certain of that.”
    “And the second barge?” Nick asked.
    Hedge suddenly looked up, nostrils flaring to sniff the air, and he didn’t answer. Nick looked up too, and a heavy drop of rain splashed upon his mouth. He licked his lips, then quickly spat as a strange, numbing sensation spread down his throat.
    “This should not be,” Hedge whispered to himself, as the rain came heavier and a wind sprang up around them. “Summoned rain, coming from the northeast. I had best investigate, Master.”
    Nick shrugged, uncertain what Hedge was talking about. The rain made him feel peculiar, recalling him to some other sense of himself. Everything around him had assumed a dreamlike quality, and for the first time he wondered what on earth he was doing.
    Then a strange pain struck him in the chest and he doubled over. Hedge caught him and laid him down onto earth that was rapidly turning into mud.
    “What is it, Master?” asked Hedge, but his tone was inquisitive rather than sympathetic.
    Nick groaned and clutched at his chest, his legs writhing. He tried to speak, but only spittle came from his lips. His eyes flickered wildly from side to side, then rolled back.
    Hedge knelt by him, waiting. Rain continued to fall on Nick’s face, but now it sizzled as it hit, steam wafting off his skin. A few moments later, thick white smoke began to coil out of the young man’s nose and mouth, hissing as it met the rain.
    “What is it, Master?” repeated Hedge, his voice suddenly nervous.
    Nick’s mouth opened, and more smoke puffed out. Then his hand moved, quicker than Hedge could see, fingers clutching at the necromancer’s leg with terrible force. Hedge clenched his teeth, fighting back the pain, and asked again, “Master?”
    “Fool!” said the thing that used Nick as its voice. “Now is not the time to seek our enemies. They will find this pit soon enough, but by then we will be gone. You must procure an additional barge at once, and load the hemispheres. And get this body out of the rain, for it is already too fragile, and much remains to be done. Too much for my servants to laze and chatter!”
    The last words were said with venom, and Hedge screamed as the fingers on his leg dug in like a steel-toothed mantrap. Then he was released, to fall back into the mud.
    “Hurry,” whispered the voice. “Be swift, Hedge. Be swift.”
    Hedge bowed where he was, not trusting himself to speak. He wanted to edge out of reach of the grasping, inhuman power of those hands, but he feared to move.
    The rain grew heavier, and the white smoke began to sink back into Nick’s nose and mouth. After a few seconds it disappeared completely, and he went totally limp.
    Hedge caught his head just before it splashed back into a puddle. Then he lifted him up and carefully arranged him over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. A normal man’s leg would have been broken by the force exerted through Nick’s hand, but Hedge was no normal man. He lifted Nick easily, merely grimacing at the pain in his leg.
    He’d carried Nick halfway back to his tent before the inert body on his shoulders twitched and the young man began to cough.
    “Easy, Master,” said Hedge, increasing his pace. “I’ll soon have you out of the rain.”
    “What happened?” asked Nick, his voice rasping. His throat felt as if he’d just smoked half a dozen cigars and drunk a bottle of brandy.
    “You fainted,” replied Hedge, pushing through the flaps of the tent door. “Are you able to dry yourself and get to bed?”
    “Yes, yes, of course,” snapped Nick, but his legs trembled as Hedge put him down, and he had to balance himself against a traveling chest. Overhead, the rain beat out a steady rhythm on the canvas, accentuated every few minutes by the dull bass boom of thunder.
    “Good,” replied Hedge, handing him a towel. “I must go and give the Night Crew their instructions; then I have to go and . . . acquire