The Warded Man

The Herb Gatherer’s path was easy to follow in the thick muck, and he found her not far off, kneeling on the ground picking herbs. Her skirts were hiked up far above her knees to keep them from the mud, and the sight of her smooth white thighs made him flush. She was beautiful in the predawn light.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he said. “The sun’s not yet risen. It’s not safe.”

Leesha looked at him, and smiled. “Are you in a position to lecture me on putting myself in danger?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Besides,” she went on when he made no reply, “what demon could harm me with you here?”

The Warded Man shrugged, squatting beside her. “Tampweed?” he asked.

Leesha nodded, holding up the rough-leafed plant with thick, clustered buds. “Smoked from a pipe, it relaxes the muscles, inducing a feeling of euphoria. Combined with skyflower, I can use it to brew a sleeping potion strong enough to put down an angry lion.”

“Would that work on a demon?” the Warded Man asked.

Leesha frowned. “Don’t you ever think of anything else?” she asked.

The Warded Man looked hurt. “Don’t presume to know me,” he said. “I kill corelings, yes, and because of that, I have seen places no living man remembers. Shall I recite poetry I’ve translated from ancient Rusk? Paint for you the murals of Anoch Sun? Tell you of machines from the old world that could do the work of twenty men?”

Leesha laid a hand on his arm, and he fell silent. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was wrong to judge. I know something of the weight of guarding the knowledge of the old world.”

“It’s no hurt,” the Warded Man said.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Leesha said. “To answer your question, I honestly don’t know. Corelings eat and shit, so it reasons they can be drugged. My mentor said the Herb Gatherers of old took great tolls in the Demon War. I have some skyflower. I can brew the potion when we get to Cutter’s Hollow, if you like.”

The Warded Man nodded eagerly. “Can you brew me something else, as well?” he asked.

Leesha sighed. “I wondered when you would ask that,” she said. “I won’t make you liquid demonfire.”

“Why not?” the Warded Man asked.

“Because men cannot be trusted with the secrets of fire,” Leesha said, turning to face him. “If I give it to you, you will use it, even if it means setting half the world on fire.”

The Warded Man looked at her, and made no reply.

“And what do you need it for, anyway?” she asked. “You already have powers beyond anything a few herbs and chemics can create.”

“I’m just a man …” he began, but Leesha cut him off.

“Demonshit,” she said. “Your wounds heal in minutes, and you can run as fast as a horse all day without breathing hard. You throw wood demons around as if they were children, and you see in the dark as if it were broad day. You’re not ‘just’ anything.”

The Warded Man smiled. “There’s no hiding from your eyes,” he said.

Something about the way he said it sent a thrill through Leesha. “Were you always this way?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It’s the wards,” he said. “Wards work by feedback. Do you know this word?”

Leesha nodded. “It’s in the books of old-world science,” she said.

The Warded Man grunted. “Corelings are creatures of magic,” he said. “Defensive wards siphon off some of that magic, using it to form their barrier. The stronger the demon, the stronger the force that repels it. Offensive wards work the same way, weakening the corelings’ armor even as it strengthens the blow. Inanimate objects cannot hold the charge long, and it dissipates. But somehow, every time I strike a demon, or one strikes me, I absorb a little of its strength.”

“I felt the tingle that first night, when I touched your skin,” Leesha said.

The Warded Man nodded. “When I warded my flesh, it wasn’t only my appearance that became … inhuman.”

Leesha shook her head, taking his face in her hands. “our bodies are not what make us human,” she whispered. “You can take your humanity back, if only you wish it.” She leaned closer, and kissed him softly.

He stiffened at first, but the shock wore off, and suddenly he was kissing her back. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth to him, her hands caressing the smoothness of his shaved head. She could not feel the wards, only his warmth, and his scars.

We both have scars, she thought. His are just laid bare to the world.

She leaned backward, pulling him with her. “We’ll get muddy,” he warned.

“We’re already muddy,” she said, falling onto her back with him atop her.

Blood pounded in Leesha’s ears as the Warded Man kissed her. She ran her hands over his hard muscles and opened her legs, grinding her hips into his.

Let this be my first time, she thought. Those men are dead and gone, and he can erase their mark from me, as well. I do this because I choose it.

But she was afraid. Jizell was right, she thought. I never should have waited this long. I don’t know what to do. Everyone thinks I know what to do and I don’t and he’s going to expect me to know because I’m an Herb Gatherer …

Oh, Creator, what if I can’t please him? she worried. What if he tells someone?

She forced the thought from her head. He’ll never tell. That’s why it has to be him. It’s meant to be him. He’s just like me. An outsider. He’s walked the same road.

She fumbled with his robes, untying the loincloth he wore beneath and releasing him. He groaned as she took him in her hand and pulled.

He knows I was a virgin, she reminded herself, hiking her skirts. He is hard and I am wet and what else is there to know?

“What if I get you with child?” he whispered.

“I hope you do,” she whispered back, taking him and pulling him inside her.

What else is there to know? she thought again, and her back arched in pleasure.

Shock hit the Warded Man as Leesha kissed him. It had been only moments since he admired her thighs, but he had never dreamed she might share the attraction. That any woman would.

He stiffened momentarily, paralyzed, but as always when he was in need, his body took over for him, wrapping her in a crushing embrace and returning the kiss hungrily.

How long since he had last been kissed? How long since that night he had walked Mery home and been told she could never be a Messenger’s wife?

Leesha fumbled with his robes, and he knew that she meant to take things further than he had ever gone before. Fear gripped him, an unfamiliar feeling. He had no idea what to do; how to please a woman. Was she expecting him to have the experience she lacked? Was she counting that his skill in battle would translate here as well?

But perhaps it would, for even as his thoughts raced, his body continued of its own accord, acting on instincts ingrained into every living thing since the dawn of time. The same instincts that called him to fight.

But this wasn’t some battle. This was something else.

Is she the one? the thought echoed in his head.

Why her, and not Renna? If he had been anyone other than who he was, he would have been married almost fifteen years now, raising a host of children. Not for the first time, an image flashed in his mind of what Renna might look like now, in the full flower of her womanhood, his and his only.