One review, and that was pointing out a supposed flaw in the plot of this story. But I suppose I should be grateful that people are reading this story at all... My other story in the Lord of the Rings section is getting much more approval. Maybe I just don't suit re-writing the Garth Nix stories... hmmm...

Ancel POV

The Message bird had arrived four days ago, and already my ten Soldiers and I had reached Barhedrin Post. We had met up with Sergeant Dalert and his ten men at High Bridge three days ago, and had ridden hard all the way here. We had listened to General Halrey at the post, and were now across the wall, heading for Wyverley College. All of the men were tired and saddle-sore, having been riding for the full four days almost none stop. The only thing that kept them going was the fact that their Princesses were in danger…

I know it sounds strange, but I've never even seen the Princess Silver before; she had never been back in Belisaere for long, and I had always been away on campaigns at those times she was. As I rode I wondered what she was like. I hoped she wasn't a spoilt little brat… Well, Prince Sameth and Princess Renile would never bring a child up to be a brat… And she wouldn't be little. How old was she now?... 18… I think… A boy would be allowed to join the Royal Guard at 18. I stopped daydreaming and looked at our surroundings. So… This was the hill known as Docky Point; I shuddered at the thought of what had happened all those years ago, but pushed it from my mind.

"Lieutenant Ancel! Over there!" one of my men called, pointing quite a few metres in front of us, at Docky Point. I looked to where he pointed. Dead. Lots of them… 30 at least, about to climb the face of the hill. We couldn't smell them yet, as they were upwind from us, but they could smell us. They began heading our way. The horses, seeing this, began to get restless.

"Dismount, men, we make a stand!" I ordered and jumped off my horse. At once, it made to bolt, but another man grabbed it for me; I thanked him with a nod. "Stop them all! Let none escape. The lives of your Princesses are at stake!"

Sergeant Dalert's men were in a bad state. They weren't used to seeing this many Dead stumbling towards them, thirsty for blood and fresh meat. I turned slightly and gave them a reassuring smile, even though I hadn't seen this may Dead either, let alone fought them… I sent some men to hobble the horses further away, so they wouldn't see what happened and wouldn't be able to run away. Drawing my sword, the rest of the men quickly followed suit. The Dead could see us properly now, their rotten mouths trying to call and jeer at us, trying to provoke us into an attack on their terms. I turned to look at the men again, discovering some of them casting hasty Charter Spells upon their swords so they would cut into the Dead flesh and actually do damage. I glanced down at my own sword and saw Charter Marks already flowing up and down it, put there by Prince Sameth himself. Just watching them glide along the blade gave me the strength to look back up at the Dead. They were now almost 10 metres away, some holding jagged pieces of metal, others carrying large sticks or rocks in their malformed hands. Quickly, I scrambled to form a plan; the Dead outnumbered us by 10, but…

"Split in half!" I called out quietly, turning to the men again, "You lot go to the left, you others to the right! Meet at the back to surround them!" The soldiers nodded and did as ordered, being as quiet as shadows as they rapidly spread out. Sergeant Dalert and his men went to the right; I went to the left, leading my men around.

The Dead didn't notice until it was too late. With a cry of 'For the Kingdom!' the soldiers leapt into battle with renewed energy. Sparks flew as the Charter spelled blades hacked and slashed into Dead flesh, there were eerie cries from the Dead mouths which were cut off by a quick swipe of a sword. But the extra 10 Dead Hands in the company had made a difference. Nearly half of the men had been cut down, whilst only a quarter of the Dead were almost dead once more. The Dead had managed to outflank us and were now driving us back towards the hillside…

Suddenly, a small ball of light seemed to fly out from above us and hover over the battle, rapidly growing until it became a round globe-like light. It was Charter Magic; I could feel it from where I stood slashing at a Dead Hand that was trying to grab my throat. And a light that big could only have been produced by at least two Charter mages; experienced ones at that. The Dead Hands were startled by the light, shrinking from it and giving out their cries again. But they could still fight, and fighting they were. But then a sound cut through the cries, both of the Dead and of the soldiers still unhurt enough to fight. It was a deep sound, like a huge bell ringing harshly from a church tower. It began like the growl of a waking bear, then turned into the roaring of hundreds of bears. I didn't really care about the sound, I was only interested in killing the Dead; but then I realised they weren't fighting anymore. The other soldiers had also noticed, and were looking at each other, confused. The sound kept going; on and on… Then another came in. This one was many sounds, happy, almost like those used in a dance or march of some sort. It made me want to perform a jig or something like that; it almost had my feet moving… Some of the other soldiers were also having a hard time keeping still, but they knew they had to. We all knew what these sounds were, and what would happen if we let them get to us. We had spent time training to try and protect us, but the Dead had had nothing of the sort…

The new sound wasn't working on all of them, as the first was, but rather one at a time. The sound would start; a Dead Hand would give a shriek, struggle against invisible bonds then seem to disappear into the ground; the sound would stop and then start again, working on another Hand. Eventually, only a couple of the Dead were left, stuck to where they stood. Another one vanished, and then another, until there was one left. The second sound had stopped but the first carried on. There was a flash and a different coloured ball of light flew down to float over the Hand. It pulsed slightly then turned into a ring of light, lowering itself around the creature. The light that was hovering over the entire scene dimmed slightly, whilst the first sound stopped. As soon as the echoes disappeared, the Dead contained inside the ring began fighting to free itself, but to no avail.

The soldiers were too stunned to do anything except stare, which was exactly what I wanted to do. But I snapped out of it, shaking my head and ordering the men to go and check the bodies that littered the ground; they hesitated and turned to look at me. Sergeant Dalert stepped forward, bearing scratches on the side of his face and an injured left arm.

"What was that?" he asked; I shrugged my shoulders and rubbed my forehead, trying to figure it out myself. The soldiers began talking quietly amongst themselves, glancing around awkwardly. A different soldier came forward.

"We don't understand," he exclaimed, looking at his companions for consolation, "Who wields the bells?" I opened my mouth to answer, but someone got there before me.

"We do…" a voice replied to the soldier's question, "But there was only one bell; the second one was a pipe," Every soldier turned to where the voice had come from, lifting their swords to the guard position before them. I shuddered as I realised that it could have been a Necromancer using the bells, not necessarily someone friendly towards the Royal Guard. Sergeant Dalert stepped back, meaning that he wanted me to deal with this. I nodded to him, cleared my throat and moved to the front of the company.

"Come out Necromancer, so we can see who you are!" I called; whoever it was chuckled darkly.

"Who said we wanted to be seen?" it asked. That word; 'We'… I realised that we were possibly dealing with two Necromancers, but one used Panpipes, so obviously not into their full power… "But seeing as you asked so nicely…" The sarcasm was obviously aimed at the swords; I could almost feel the soldiers' tension at they waited for the Necromancers to step into the light, but they definitely weren't what we were expecting…

A woman came forward slowly. She was just over 5ft 7"; white skinned with waist length black hair tied back in a horse tail and dark blue/grey eyes that studied the scene before her intently. She wore thick black eyeliner around her eyes and her full lips were covered with a dark purple lipstick. Her ears were pierced four times and decorated with various ornaments, her wrists were hung with bracelets and a black choker with a silver and onyx cross surrounded her white neck. She was wearing an almost blood red 3-quarter sleeved shirt, with black trousers and black boots. She held a long, lethal sword in her pale, fragile-looking hand, where the long nails were painted a dark purple to match her lips, and nearly every one of her long, pale fingers bore at least one ring. She looked almost familiar… But what interested me the most was the bandoleer across her chest. Made of black leather and hung with seven pouches containing bells, from one as big as a jam jar to one as small as a pillbox, it was the universal symbol for a Necromancer. Sergeant Dalert gasped in shock when he saw them, but I motioned for him to keep quiet. The woman was looking me over as carefully as I was her, then another woman stepped forward into the light…

This one was the same height as the other, wearing the same trousers and boots, but in place of the red shirt, she wore a similar looking cream one. She had just longer than shoulder length, loose auburn hair, with light green/hazel eyes; rare colours where I came from. She also had pale skin, but hers was a creamy colour, with full, pink lips. She wore a light lavender eye-shadow, a clear gloss over her lips, a thin gold chain with a cross around her neck and a gold bracelet on her wrist. She too held a long sword in one hand, and had a small, brown leather pouch hung over her shoulder; she was obviously the one with the panpipes. She stood slightly behind the first woman and was looking directly at me, but her eyes were hazy, almost as if she was concentrating on something else. Neither of them could have been more than 18 years old…

The first woman was smiling grimly at my company, looking at the bodies of the Dead that lay around. She finished her inspection and glanced over to where the last Hand was fighting inside the ring of light. Ignoring the 10 or so swords that were pointed at her, the dark haired woman walked over to the ring. The second woman followed her, glancing back at me once.

"Wait!" I cried. The women stopped at the ring and turned back to us, "Who are you? How do we know you're not some kind of Free Magic denizens?" The dark haired woman grinned, showing teeth as white as her skin; she looked even more familiar now, and I felt as if I had seen her before…

"Doesn't the Charter light above us prove that?" she asked, "Doesn't the fact that we vanquished over 20 Dead Hands to save you prove that?" I looked into her eyes, trying to discern the truth.

"Maybe," I answered, "But why have you kept one?" the second woman answered this time.

"We want to find out who sent them," she replied, "And why they were sent," The woman now seemed to have forgotten to keep her mind on whatever it was she was concentrating on so hard before. Unfortunately, it turned out that she was the one that had cast the ring of light spell, and now her lack of concentration caused the spell to fail. The Dead Hand screamed defiance, lurching forward to shove the dark haired woman over and loping away on badly working legs.

"Silver!" the woman on the ground yelled angrily; the auburn haired woman turned to where the Hand was running away,

"Anet! Cerlew! Ferhan!" she shouted, and three silver Charter-made knives flew from her outstretched hand, faster than any thrown knives could have possibly flown. They struck the Dead Hand on the back and it fell to the ground with a strange cry. The other woman had gotten up by this time and dusted herself off; she watched as the Hand crumpled to the floor and lay still.

"Iana… I'm so sorry," Silver told the dark haired woman.

"Don't worry," Iana brushed the apology away, "It's easily sorted…" But she stopped as she saw the Dead Hand get up and start lumbering away again.

"NO!" She screamed and sprinted after the Hand, Silver trying hard to catch up. There was silence, and then something was shouted. There was a horrid scream and a flash of light accompanied by a trail of white smoke from over the hill that they had disappeared behind. I gasped, along with Sergeant Dalert and most of the small company behind me. Leading the way, we ran over the hill and found Silver and Iana standing next to a large patch of flaming grass. Slowing down, I moved to Silver's side.

"What… what was that?" I asked, amazed.

"It was me…" Iana whispered, staring at the flaming grass; I raised my eyebrows as I caught the stench of Free Magic. The rest of the soldiers had also noticed the Free Magic smell. Iana, catching them sniffing warily explained.

"That was me as well…" She muttered; I was about to recoil in horror when I remembered who she was. Now I realised why she had looked so familiar; she had the same hair as her Mother, Princess Lirael, but her father, Lord Nicolas' eyes. Now I could see the Charter marks on the girls' foreheads; I bowed deeply, the soldiers following suit.

If any of you are confused as to the relationships between the characters in this story, either review and ask, or send me a private message by hitting my profile page. I have (almost) infinite patience for my readers, and I'm happy to help anyone!

Iana XxX