It was the cold first, then Silkhands’ voice which led me to them. The Ghoul could not stop her chatter any more than I had ever been able to do, and her voice went on resolutely, almost as though she knew someone would be searching for her. I came into a tree top to watch them. The Ghoul dragged them along, one on either side of him, his host of dead following in a shamble of rotting flesh. Ghouls do not move clean bones; they have the Talent of Moving, of Power, of Raising the Dead. How much power did this one have? Plenty, it seemed, and was drawing more, for the place was icy as winter. I hung above them judging the distance.
Then as he passed below I stooped upon him, screaming as I flew, “Ghoul’s Ghast Nine, I call Game and Move!” as I snatched the two girls from him and launched myself upward toward another tree…
Only to know in one hideous moment that I had played the fool, the utter, absolute and unGamed fool. I had called a risk play, an Imperative, unwise and unready as I was, and the Ghoul would not ignore it. I hung there in the tree, the girls reaching out to cling to the branches as the strength left my arms. There was no power in the place to draw and I was weak … weak. I was in the Ghoul’s Demesne, and he had drawn it all. Such power as I had I had expended prodigiously in the flick, flick, flick of Elator’s hunt in finding them, in the reckless flight and swoop and call. Now there was no more strength in me than enough to move myself away a few yards, myself only, and no way to get more. I gasped, unable even to think what might be done.
I saw him reach for his power. He had more than I would have guessed, for two of the rotting liches staggered to the tree where we clung and began to climb, clotted eyes fixed upon us. They climbed awkwardly, leaving parts of themselves stuck to various small twigs and branches, but they came higher by the moment. Beneath them, others assembled, waiting, lipless mouths gaped in silent grins of amusement at the fruit about to fall into their hands and jaws. I heard Silkhands whimper, saw the girl, Jinian, glaring down at the Ghoul while rumbling curses in her throat. I wanted to close my own eyes, half dead as I was with cold and terror. I could fly myself away to another place, me, alone, with no burden. Or move Silkhands away without me. No more than that, and the place cold, cold.
Below me the Ghoul laughed and screamed into the quiet forest, “Armiger’s Flight Ten, fool flyer. Armiger’s Flight Ten.” He was calling my death and the death of those two with me, and I knew it as did they.
I wondered if I would have the strength to move Silkhands away. My hand clenched in my pocket, clenched, and then gripped again as I felt that other unfamiliar shape in my fingers. Buinel. Sentinel. Firemaker. He came into my mind like a bird onto an unfamiliar nest, fussing and turning. I felt the thousand questions he was about to ask, anticipated the lengthy speech he was about to make. Oh, something within me recognized him, knew him for that Buinel whom Windlow had called Buinel the flutterer.
The branch under my foot swayed. I looked down into the face of one of the liches as it fastened a partly fleshed hand upon my boot. I kicked wildly, and the thing fell away as Jinian shouted shrilly at my side.
“Buinel,” I cried silently. “Fire. Or we die, you die, we all die. Forever.”
“Who?” he fussed. “Who speaks? What authority? What place is this? Who is that Ghoul? What Game?”
“Buinel,” I shouted at the top of my voice, startling a flight of birds out of the trees around us, “if you do not set fire to the Ghoul and to all the liches in this tree, we are dead and you with us.”
Something happened. I think it was Tamor, the pattern of Tamor, though it may have been Hafnor. Some pattern in my head issued a command, said something harsh and peremptory to the pattern which was Buinel, and the tree behind the Ghoul burst into flame, all at once, like a torch. The Ghoul turned, startled, but not too startled to begin storing the power of flame. Shattnir was in my hand in the instant drawing from the same source. “More,” I demanded. “By the ice and the wind and the seven devils, Buinel, more fire. Burn these liches at my feet.” For another of the corpses had reached to lay hands upon me. The cerements on the creature began to smoke, the very bones began to glow and it dropped away silently as other trees went up in explosive conflagration. Meantime, Shattnir and the Ghoul fought it out for the available heat. There was more than was comfortable.