The Warded Man (58 page)

By the time dawn’s first light peeked over the horizon, the mud of the square had been churned into a foul stew of human blood and demon ichor, bodies and limbs scattered everywhere. Many jumped in fright as the sun struck the demon corpses, setting their flesh alight. Like bursts of liquid demonfire all over the square, the sun finished the battle, incinerating the few demons that still twitched.

The Warded Man looked out at the faces of the survivors, half his fighters at least, and was amazed at the strength and determination he saw. It seemed impossible that these were the same people who were so broken and terrified less than a day before. They might have lost many in the night, but the Hollowers were stronger than ever.

“Creator be praised,” Tender Jona said, staggering out into the square on his crutch, drawing wards in the air as the demons burned in the morning light. He made his way to the Warded Man, and stood before him.

“This is thanks to you,” he said.

The Warded Man shook his head. “No. You did this,” he said. “All of you.”

Jona nodded. “We did,” he agreed. “But only because you came and showed us the way. Can you still doubt this?”

The Warded Man scowled. “For me to claim this victory as my own cheapens the sacrifice of all that died during the night,” he said. “Keep your prophecies, Tender. These people do not need them.”

Jona bowed deeply. “As you wish,” he said, but the Warded Man sensed the matter was not closed.

LEESHA WAVED AS ROJER and the Warded Man rode up the path. She set her brush back in its bowl on the porch as they dismounted.

“You learn quickly,” the Warded Man said, coming up to study the wards she had painted on the rails. “These would hold a horde of corelings at bay.”

“Quickly?” Rojer asked. “Night, that’s undersaid. It’s not been a month since she couldn’t tell a wind ward from a flame.”

“He’s right,” the Warded Man said. “I’ve seen five-year journeyman Warders whose lines weren’t half so neat.”

Leesha smiled. “I’ve always been a quick study,” she said. “And you and my father are good teachers. I only wish I had bothered to learn sooner.”

The Warded Man shrugged. “Would that we all could go back and make decisions based on what was to come.”

“I think I’d have lived my whole life different,” Rojer agreed.

Leesha laughed, ushering them inside the hut. “Supper’s almost ready,” she said, heading for the fire. “How did the village council meeting go?” she asked, stirring the steaming pot.

“Idiots,” the Warded Man grumbled.

She laughed again. “That well?”

“The council voted to change the village name to Deliverer’s Hollow,” Rojer said.

“It’s only a name,” Leesha said, joining them at the table and pouring tea.

“It’s not the name that bothers, it’s the
notion,’”
the Warded Man said. “I’ve gotten the villagers to stop calling me Deliverer to my face, but I still hear it whispered behind my back.”

“It will go easier for you if you just embrace it,” Rojer said. “You can’t stop a story like that. By now, every Jongleur north of the Krasian desert is telling it.”

The Warded Man shook his head. “I won’t lie and pretend to be something I’m not to make life easier. If I’d wanted an easy life …” He trailed off.

“What of the repairs?” Leesha asked, pulling him back to them as his eyes went distant.

Rojer smiled. “With the Hollowers back on their feet thanks to your cures, it seems a new house goes up every day,” he said. “You’ll be able to move back into the village proper soon.”

Leesha shook her head. “This hut is all I have left of Bruna. This is my home now.”

“This far from the village, you’ll be outside the forbiddance,” the Warded Man warned.

Leesha shrugged. “I understand why you laid out the new streets in the form of a warding,” she said, “but there are benefits to being outside the forbiddance, as well.”

“Oh?” the Warded Man asked, raising a warded brow.

“What benefit could there be to living on land that demons can set foot on?” Rojer asked.

Leesha sipped her tea. “My mum refuses to move, too,” she said. “Says between your new wards and the cutters running about chopping every demon in sight, it’s a needless bother.”

The Warded Man frowned. “I know it seems like we have the demons cowed, but if the histories of the Demon Wars are anything to go by, they won’t stay that way. They’ll be back in force, and I want Cutter’s Hollow to be ready.”

“Deliverer’s Hollow,” Rojer corrected, smirking at the Warded Man’s scowl.

“With you here, it will be,” Leesha said, ignoring Rojer and sipping at her tea. She watched the Warded Man carefully over the rim of her cup.

When he hesitated, she set her cup down. “You’re leaving,” she said. “When?”

“When the Hollow is ready,” the Warded Man said, not bothering to deny her conclusion. “I’ve wasted years, hoarding wards that can make the Free Cities that in more than name. I owe it to every city and hamlet in Thesa to see to it they have what they need to stand tall in the night.”

Leesha nodded. “We want to help you,” she said.

“You are,” the Warded Man said. “With the Hollow in your hands, I know it will be safe while I’m away.”

“You’ll need more than that,” Leesha said. “Someone to teach other Gatherers to make flamework and poisons, and to treat coreling wounds.”

“You could write all that down,” the Warded Man said.

Leesha snorted. “And give a man the secrets of fire? Not likely.”

“I can’t write fiddling lessons, in any event,” Rojer said, “even if I had letters.”

The Warded Man hesitated, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “The two of you will only slow me down. I’ll be weeks in the wilds, and you don’t have the stomach for that.”

“Don’t have the stomach?” Leesha asked. “Rojer, close the shutters,” she ordered.

Both men looked at her curiously.

“Do it,” she ordered, and Rojer rose to comply, cutting off the sunlight and filling the hut with a dark gloom. Leesha was already shaking a vial of chemics, bathing herself in a phosphorescent glow.

“The trap,” she said, and the Warded Man lifted the trapdoor down to the cellar where the demonfire had been kept. The scent of chemics was thick in the air that escaped.

Leesha led the way down into the darkness, her vial held high. She moved to sconces on the wall, adding chemics to glass jars, but the Warded Man’s warded eyes, as comfortable in utter darkness as in clear day, had already widened before the light filled the room.

Heavy tables had been brought down into the cellar, and there, spread out before him, were half a dozen corelings in various states of dissection.

“Creator!” Rojer cried, gagging. He ran back up the stairs, and they could hear him gasping for air.

“Well, perhaps Rojer doesn’t have the stomach yet,” Leesha conceded with a grin. She looked at the Warded Man. “Did you know that wood demons have two? Stomachs, I mean. One stacked atop the other, like an hourglass.” She took an instrument, peeling back layers of the dead demon’s flesh to illustrate.

“Their hearts are off-center, down to the right,” she added, “but there’s a gap between their third and fourth ribs. Something a man looking to deliver a killing thrust should know.”

The Warded Man looked on in amazement. When he looked back at Leesha, it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. “Where did you get these …?”

“A word to the cutters you sent to patrol this end of the Hollow,” Leesha said. “They were happy to oblige me with specimens. And there’s more. These demons have no sex organs. They’re all neuter.”

The Warded Man looked at her in surprise. “How is that possible?” he asked.

“It’s not that uncommon among insects,” Leesha said. “There are drone castes for labor and defense, and sexed castes that control the hive.”

“Hive?” the Warded Man asked. “You mean the Core?”

Leesha shrugged.

The Warded Man frowned. “There were paintings in the tombs of Anoch Sun; paintings of the First Demon War that depicted strange breeds of corelings I have never seen.”

“Not surprising,” Leesha said. “We know so little about them.”

She reached out, taking his hands. “All my life, I’ve felt like I was waiting for something bigger than brewing chill cures and delivering children,” she said. “This is my chance to make a difference to more than just a handful of people. You believe there’s a war coming? Rojer and I can help you win it.”

The Warded Man nodded, squeezing her hands in return. “You’re right,” he said. “The Hollow survived that first night as much because of you and Rojer as me. I’d be a fool not to accept your help now.”

Leesha stepped forward, reaching into his hood. Her hand was cool on his face, and for a moment, he leaned into it. “This hut is big enough for two,” she whispered.

His eyes widened, and she felt him go tense.

“Why does that terrify you more than facing down demons?” she asked. “Am I so repulsive?”

The Warded Man shook his head. “Of course not,” he said.

“Then what?” she asked. “I won’t keep you from your war.”

The Warded Man was quiet for some time. “Two would soon become three,” he said at last, letting go of her hands.

“Is that so terrible?” Leesha asked.

The Warded Man took a deep breath, moving away to another table, avoiding her eyes. “That morning when I wrestled the demon …” he said.

“I remember,” Leesha prompted, when he did not go on.

“The demon tried to escape back to the Core,” he said.

“And tried to take you with it,” Leesha said. “I saw you both go misty, and slip beneath the ground. I was terrified.”

The Warded Man nodded. “No more than me,” he said. “The path to the Core opened up to me, calling me, pulling me down.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Leesha asked.

“Because it wasn’t the demon, it was me,” the Warded Man said. “I took control of the transition; dragged the demon back up to the sun. Even now, I can feel the pull of the Core. If I let myself, I could slip down into its infernal depths with the other corelings.”

“The wards …” Leesha began.

“It’s not the wards,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m telling you it’s
me
. I’ve absorbed too much of their magic over the years. I’m not even human anymore. Who knows what kind of monster would spring from my seed?”

Leesha went to him, taking his face in her hands as she had that morning they made love. “You’re a good man,” she said, her eyes welling with tears. “Whatever the magic has done to you, it hasn’t changed that. Nothing else matters.”

She leaned in to kiss him, but he had hardened his heart to her, and held her back.

“It matters to me,” he said. “Until I know what I am, I can’t be with you, or anyone.”

“Then I’ll discover what you are,” Leesha said. “I swear it.”

“Leesha,” he said, “you can’t …”

“Don’t you tell me what I can’t do!” she barked. “I’ve had enough of that from others to last a lifetime.”

He held up his hands in submission. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Leesha sniffed, and closed her hands over his. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “This is a condition to diagnose and cure, like any other.”

“I’m not sick,” the Warded Man said.

She looked at him sadly. “I know that,” she said, “but it seems you don’t.”

Out in the Krasian desert, there was a stirring on the horizon. Lines of men appeared, thousand upon thousand, swathed in loose black cloth drawn about their faces to ward off the stinging sand. The vanguard was composed of two mounted groups, the smaller riding light, quick horses, and the larger upon powerful humped beasts suited to desert crossings. They were followed by columns of footmen, and they, in turn, by a seemingly endless train of carts and supplies. Each warrior carried a spear etched with an intricate pattern of wards.

At their head rode a man dressed all in white, atop a sleek charger of the same color. He raised a hand, and the horde behind him halted and stood in silence to gaze upon the ruins of Anoch Sun.

Unlike the wood and iron spears of his warriors, this man carried an ancient weapon made of a bright, unknown metal. He was Ahmann asu Hoshkamin am’Jardir, but his people had not used that name in years.

They called him
Shar’Dama Ka
, the Deliverer.