Goldenhand by Garth Nix Page B

returned with Ferin’s bow and arrow case, and her fur cloak, which the captain laid over the girl’s legs.
    â€œSky Horse is a small clan; they could not have so many sorcerers. A dozen such: that is the full strength of two clans, at least,” said Ferin. She felt a leaden weight forming in her stomach, which she refused to accept as the beginnings of despair. “The tribes never normally ride together. And all sent to sea, which they hate and fear, as they do all deep water? This must be the doing of the Witch With No Face.”
    â€œThe Witch With No Face?” asked Karrilke.
    â€œIf we live, I will tell you of her,” said Ferin. She nocked an arrow, but did not draw, peering into the night while trying to ignore the pain that began in her ankle and coursed its way along her leg, stabbing at her in time with her heartbeat.
    No targets presented themselves on the raider. It was directly in line behind them, some eighty paces back, but drawing a little closer with every dip and sweep of its oars, pushing ahead as the fishing boat wallowed with flapping sails.
    The wind altered. A few points. Sails filled, Karrilke’s children hauled on sheets, Karrilke herself took the tiller and heaved it, hoping to catch as much of the wind as possible.
    A silhouette, something a shade darker than the night sky, appeared atop the long curved prow of the raider, someone standing for a better look.
    The wind-eater.
    Ferin caught the acrid stench of Free Magic, carried in on that blessed wind, the wind that was already fading, pulled back from their sails by sorcery.
    She was sitting, on a swaying platform, a drumbeat of pain echoing from ankle to leg to head, her eyes blurred. It was night.
    Ferin drew and shot, and her arrow sped across the starlit waters.

Chapter Ten
THE THREAT OF FREE MAGIC
    Northern Side of the Wall, the Old Kingdom
    T he bells fell silent as Lirael ran from the Wall. They quieted almost as soon as she left the northern gate, back into a warm spring evening and the last soft light of day, with the stars just beginning to be visible in the darkening sky. Despite the bells’ stillness, she ran on another fifty paces before she stopped and took her hands away from the bandolier. Her golden hand was glowing more brightly than usual, she noted, a corona of unknown Charter marks floating around her fingers, none that were anything to do with the spells Sam had cast there. But these marks faded as she glanced at them, and were gone even as she tried to memorize them for later research.
    The guards came running out, six of them carrying Nick, or rather what she presumed must be Nick, because right now what they bore was a cocoon of golden fire, almost too bright to look upon. Marks from the northern face of the Wall were still rushing across to join this brilliant shroud of Charter Magic, but as the guards continued on, the rivers of light fell back. Then, a dozen or more paces away, the marks that enclosed Nick either faded or sank into him, and Lirael could see him again. Still unconscious and unaware of what had occurred in crossing the Wall.
    Lirael cautiously walked toward the guards, as they moved toward her. She kept her hands across the bells, in case they should begin to stir again, but they did not. This confirmed her suspicion that it was an interaction that required the power inherent in the Wall, not justthe Free Magic that lurked within Nicholas Sayre.
    Captain Anlow came hurrying out of the gate, followed by the remainder of her detachment. She came straight to Lirael, looking more anxious than she wished to show, Lirael was sure. Up until a few minutes ago, the captain had been the very model of a tough officer of the Guard, willing to take on anything and, in the process, show the young Abhorsen-in-Waiting that she knew best.
    â€œIs that going to happen again?” asked Anlow. “And . . . what was it?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Lirael. She gestured to