There was a built-up path through the flooded fields, but it was submerged to ankle-depth, with occasional thigh-high slippages.
Only the raised al drains stood well above the brackish water, and they all ran towards the east, not towards the village, so Sabriel and Touchstone were forced to wade along the path. Mogget, of course, rode, his lean form draped around Sabriel』s neck like a white fox fur.
Water and mud, coupled with an uain path, made it slow going. It took an hour to cover less than a mile, so it was later iernoon than Sabriel would have wished when they finally climbed out of the water, up onto the beginnings of the village』s rocky mount. At least the sky is clear, Sabriel thought, glang up. The winter sun wasn』t particularly hot and couldn』t be described as glaring, but it would certainly deter most kindred of the Lesser Dead from venturing out.
heless, they walked carefully up to the village, swords loose, Sabriel with a hand to her bells. The path wound up in a series of steps carved from the rock, reinforced here and there with bricks and mortar. The village proper led on top of the bluff—about thirty cozy brick cottages, with wood-tile roofs, some painted bright colors, some dull, and some simply grey aherbeaten.
It was pletely silent, save for the odd gust of wind, or the mournful cry of a gull, slipping down through the air above. Sabriel and Touchstone drew clether, walking almost shoulder-to-shoulder up assed for a main street, swords out now, eyes flickering across closed doors and shuttered windows.
Both felt uneasy, nervous—a nasty, tingling, creepiion climbing up from spio nape of neck, to forehead Charter mark.
Sabriel also felt the presence of Dead things.
Lesser Dead, hiding from sunlight, lurking somewhere nearby, in house or cellar.
At the end of the main street, on the highest point of the bluff, a Charter Stoood on a patch of carefully tended lawn. Half of the stone had been sheared aieces broken and tumbled, dark stone ourf. A body lay in front of the stone, hands a bound, the gaping cut across the throat a clear sign of where the blood had e from—the blood for the sacrifice that broke the stone.
Sabriel k by the corpse, eyes averted from the broken sto was only retly ruined, she felt, but already the door to Death was creaking open. She could almost feel the cold of the currents beyond, leaking out around the stone, sug warmth and life from the air.
Things lurked there too, she knew, just beyond the border. She seheir hunger for life, their impatience fht to fall.
As she expected, the corpse was of a Charter Mage, dead but three or four days. But she hadn』t expected to find the dead person was a woman.
Wide shoulders and a muscular build had deceived her for a moment, but there was a middleaged woman before her, eyes shut, throat cut, short brown hair caked with sea salt and blood.
「The village healer,」 said Mogget, indig a bracelet on her wrist with his nose. Sabriel pushed the rope bindings aside for a better look. The bracelet was broh inlaid Charter marks of greenstone. Dead marks now, for blood dried upon the bronze, and no pulse beat in the skin uhe metal.
「She was killed three or four days ago,」
Sabriel announced. 「The stone was broken at the same time.」
Touchstone looked back at her and nodded grimly, then resumed watg the houses opposite. His swords hung loosely in his hands, but Sabriel notic