All the survivors of owe were gathered in the largest of the fish-smoking sheds, save for the current shift of archers who watched the breakwater. There had been one hundred and twenty-six villagers the week before—now there were thirty-one.
「There were thirty-two until this m,」
the Elder said to Sabriel, as he passed her a cup of passable wine and a piece of dried fish atop a piece of very hard, very stale bread. 「We thought we were safe whe to the island, but Moowart』s boy was found just after dawn today, sucked dry like a husk. Wheouched him, it was like . . . burnt paper, that still holds its shape . . . we touched him, and he crumbled into flakes of . . . something like ash.」
Sabriel looked around as the old man spoke, noting the many lanterns, dles and rush tapers that added both to the light and the smoky, fishy atmosphere of the shed. The survivors were a very mixed group—men, women and children, from very young to the Elder himself. Their only on characteristic was the fear ping their faces, the fear showing in their nervous, staovement.
「We think one of them』s here,」 said a woman, her voice long gone beyoo fatalism. She stood alone, apanied by the clear space edy. Sabriel guessed she had lost her family.
Husband, children—perhaps parents and siblings, too, for she wasn』t over forty.
「It』ll take us, one by ohe woman tinued, matter-of-fact, her voice filling the shed with dire certainty. Around her, people shuffled, twitchily, not looking at her, as if to meet her gaze would be to accept her words.
Most looked at Sabriel and she saw hope in their eyes. Not blind faith, or plete fidence, but a gambler』s hope that a new horse might ge a run of losses.
「The Abhorsen who came when I was young,」
the Elder tinued—and Sabriel saw that at his age, this would be his memory alone, of all the villagers—「this Abhorsen told me that it was his purpose to slay the Dead. He saved us from the haunts that came in the mert』s caravan. Is it still the same, lady? Will Abhorsen save us from the Dead?」
Sabriel thought for a moment, her mially flig through the pages of The Book of the Dead, feeling it stir in the backpack that sat by her feet. Her thoughts strayed to her father; the forthing jouro Belisaere; the way in which Dead enemies seemed to be arrayed against her by some trolling mind.
「I will ehis island is free of the Dead,」
she said at last, speaking clearly so all could hear her. 「But I ot free the mainland village.
There is a greater evil at work in the Kingdom—that same evil that has broken your Charter Stone—and I must find a it as soon as I . When that is done, I will return— I hope with other help—and both village and Charter Stone will be restored.」
「We uand,」 replied the Elder. He seemed saddened, but philosophic. He tinued, speaking more to his people than to Sabriel. 「We survive here. There is the spring, and the fish. We have boats. If Callibe has not fallen to the Dead, we trade, fetables and other stuffs.」
「You will have to keep watg the breakwater,」
Touchstone said. He stood behind Sabriel』s chair, the very image of a stern bodyguard.
「The Dead—or their living slaves— may try to fill it in with stones, or push across a bridge. They cross running water by building bridges of boxed grave dirt.」
「So, we are besieged,」 said a man to the front of the mass of villagers. 「But what of this Dead thing already here on the i