study door standing open. Everything seemed quiet. Hawk yelled Mortice's name, but he didn't answer. Adamant came out of the study, his face grim.
'You heard him too?'
'Yeah,' said Hawk. 'I think we'd better get out of here, Adamant. I've got a bad feeling about this.'
Adamant nodded quickly, and gestured for Dannielle to come and join him. She did so, and Medley and Roxanne followed her out into the hall. Roxanne had her sword in her hand. She was smiling. Hawk looked away.
<em>It's here.</em>
Hawk moved quickly over to the front door, pulled it open, and looked out. In the last of the evening light, he could see a man in sorcerer's black walking through the grounds, heading for the house. As he passed, the things that lived in the ground writhed to the surface and died, the grass withered away, and the earth turned to sand and blew away. The sorcerer's power hung heavily on the evening air, like the tension before an approaching storm. Hawk eased the door shut, and turned to face the others.
'We're in trouble. Wulfs here, and he doesn't look friendly. Mortice, can you handle him? Mortice? Mortice!' There was no reply. Hawk cursed briefly. 'That's it. We're getting out of here now. Isobel, take them out the back way. I'll follow as soon as I can.'
'Why aren't you coming?' said Fisher.
'Someone's got to slow him down. Now, get moving. We haven't much time.'
'I can't leave you,' said Fisher.
'You have to. Our job is to keep Adamant alive, no matter what. We lost the last man we guarded. I won't let that happen again.'
Fisher nodded, and led the others back down the hall. Hawk turned to the front door and slammed home the heavy bolts. He considered pushing furniture up against it as a barricade, but he had a strong feeling it wouldn't make any difference.
'Mortice? If you're listening, sorcerer, I can use all the help I can get.'
There was a sharp cracking sound, and Hawk looked back at the door. It had split from top to bottom. As Hawk watched, the wood decayed and fell apart. The rotting fragments fell away from the rusting hinges, and there, in the open doorway, stood what remained of the sorcerer Wulf. Its face was little more than bone now, its grinning teeth yellowed with age. But still it moved and breathed and lived, and something else lived within it. Something hungry. Hawk gripped his axe tightly and backed away from the motionless figure. And then he heard raised voices and sounds of struggle behind him, and realized the others hadn't got very far. He risked a quick glance back over his shoulder, and his heart missed a beat as he saw the dead men filing out of the library.
Fisher had only just reached the end of the hall when the library door flew open and the first of the dead men lurched into the hall. It was one of Adamant's men-at-arms. No blood ran from the gaping wounds in the corpse, and its face was dull and empty. But its eyes saw, and it carried a sword in its hand. Another lich came out of the door after it, and another. Fisher and Roxanne stood between the dead men and the others, swords at the ready, backing slowly away to give themselves room to fight. And still the dead men came filing out of the library with weapons in their hands.
Roxanne stepped forward and brought her long sword across in a sharp vicious arc that cut clean through the first lich's neck. The head fell to the floor and rolled away, the mouth working soundlessly. The headless corpse moved relentlessly forward, sweeping its sword back and forth. Roxanne sidestepped and cut at the body, and it swayed under the force of the blow, but would not fall. Its sword arced out deceptively quickly, and Roxanne had to retreat a step. Fisher moved in beside her and cut at the lich's leg. It staggered and fell to one knee, but didn't release its hold on its sword. And then the rest of the liches were upon them, and there was nothing but flying steel and the growing army of the walking dead.
Hawk raised his axe to strike at the sorcerer, and an invisible force tore the axe from his hand. It spun clattering down the hall, and Hawk ran after it. He knew when he was out-classed. He snatched up his axe and waded into one of the liches from behind, severing its spine. It fell to the floor, and tried to crawl forward. Hawk jumped across it and moved among the dead with his axe, and they fell back from the sheer force of his attack. Medley seized the moment to move in beside Roxanne, his sword at the ready.
'You've got to get Adamant out of here,' he said quickly. 'He's the important one. The Guards and I can hold these things off long enough to give you a good start.'
'But what about you?' said Roxanne.
'I don't matter.'
'You matter to me,' said Roxanne, and kept on fighting.
Adamant had drawn his sword and Dannielle had her dagger, but even with their help, the little group was still driven back down the hall toward the waiting sorcerer. The dead men wouldn't stop, no matter how badly they were injured. They just kept pressing forward, swinging their swords, even if they had to crawl and drag themselves along the floor to do it. Adamant swung his sword in short, efficient arcs, even though he knew the faces that clustered before him. They had been his men, sworn to his service. Some of them had even been friends. They died because they sided with him, and now he had to kill them again.
<em>Get ready</em>, said Mortice suddenly in Hawk's mind. <em>I'm going to use my magic to cancel out Wulfs. When I give you the word, kill him. You'll have to be quick. He's become very powerful; I can't hold him more than a moment or two. If I wasn't already dead, I think I might be frightened. I never thought to see the Abomination rise again. Now, Hawk; do it now</em>!
Hawk drew back his arm and threw the axe with all his strength. It flew down the hall and buried itself in Wulfs skull. The sorcerer staggered back a pace under the impact, and then fell to one knee. His head slowly bowed, as though the weight of the axe was dragging it down. The liches froze in their tracks, and then slumped to the floor and didn't move again. Wulf fell forward and lay still.
Hawk hesitated a moment, unable to believe it was all over, and then walked forward to stand over the fallen sorcerer. He put his boot on the skull, reached down, and pulled the axe free. One look at the jagged wound was enough to convince him that the sorcerer was dead. No one could have survived a wound like that.
And then the body began to twitch. Hawk backed quickly away. Wulfs body shook and trembled and convulsed, the limp arms and legs flapping wildly. The black robe stretched and tore and the dead sorcerer's body split apart like some monstrous chrysalis. And out of the broken body blossomed the Abomination, drawing substance from the dead sorcerer to form a new body that was closer to its own nature. It filled the hall, its bony head brushing the ceiling. Its face was all mouth and teeth, and its muscles glistened wetly around its misshapen bones. Its twisted arms ended in foot-long claws. It stood like a man, but there was nothing human in it.
It was Hungry.
<em>Free</em>, said an awful voice. <em>Free</em> . . .
'I think we're in trouble,' said Hawk.
'You might just be right,' said Fisher. 'Everyone start backing away. Maybe we can outrun the bastard.'
'Stuff that,' said Roxanne. 'I'm going to kill it.' The Abomination surged forward, covering the space between them with impossible speed. The small group stood together and braced themselves to meet it. It burst among them with horrid strength, shrugging off their blows and scattering the group like so many skittles. The Abomination had got out, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
In the laundry room, the trapdoor suddenly blew open, shattering its hinges and flinging the pieces aside. Down in the darkness of the cellar something stirred, and then slowly, one step at a time, the dead man came up the stairs and out into the light. Mortice was little more than a shrivelled husk by now, but his power was upon him, rippling the air around him like a heat haze. He moved purposefully toward the door, his cold body steaming in the warmth of the laundry room.
Hawk and Fisher fought side by side, keeping the Abomination at bay with the sheer energy of their attack. Their blades struck the Being again and again, but did it no harm, the steel ringing harmlessly from its hide as though it were armoured. Roxanne threw herself at the Abomination again and again, howling with fury and frustration. Adamant and Medley protected Dannielle as best they could, but all of them knew the Being was only toying with them. Soon it would grow tired of its game and let its hunger run free, and then all the steel in the world wouldn't be enough to save them. They fought on anyway. There was nothing else to do.
The Abomination spun round suddenly, ignoring its attackers to stare down the hall. Mortice grinned back at
