The Warded Man

Pressed from both sides, the demons were hit hard. Centuries of dominance had taught them that humans, when they fought at all, were not to be feared, and they were unprepared for the resistance. High in the window of the Holy House’s choir loft, Wonda fired her bow with frightening accuracy, every warded arrowhead striking demon flesh like a bolt of lightning.

But the smell of blood was thick in the air, and the cries of pain could be heard for miles around. In the distance, corelings howled in answer to the sound. Reinforcements would soon come, and the humans had none.

It wasn’t long before the demons recovered. Even without their impenetrable armor, few humans could ever hope to stand toe to toe with a wood demon. The smallest of the demons were closer to Gared in strength than to a normal man.

Merrem charged a flame demon the size of a large dog, her cleaver already blackened with demon ichor. She held her shield out defensively, her cleaver arm cocked back and ready.

The coreling shrieked and spat fire at her. She brought up her shield to block, but the ward painted there had no power over fire, and the wood exploded into flames. Merrem screamed as her arm ignited, dropping and rolling in the mud. The demon leapt at her, but her husband Dug was there to meet it. The heavy butcher gutted the flame demon like a hog, but screamed himself as its molten blood struck his leather apron, setting it alight.

A wood demon ducked down to all fours under Evin’s wild axe swing, springing up when he was off guard and bearing him to the ground. He screamed as the jaws came for him, but there was a bark, and his wolfhounds crashed into the demon from the side, knocking it away. Evin recovered quickly, chopping down on the prone coreling, though not before it disemboweled one of the giant dogs. Evin cried in rage and hacked again before whirling to find another foe, his eyes wild.

Just then, the trench of demonfire burned out, and the wood demons trapped on the far side began to advance again.

“Thundersticks!” the Warded Man cried, as he trampled a rock demon under Twilight Dancer’s hooves.

At the call, the eldest of his artillery took out some of the precious and volatile weapons. There were less than a dozen, for Bruna had been niggardly in their making, lest the powerful tools be abused.

Wicks flared, and the sticks were launched at the approaching demons. One villager dropped his rain-slick stick in the mud and bent quickly to snatch it up, but not quickly enough. The thunderstick went off in his hands, blowing him and his lamp-bearer to pieces in a blast of fire as the concussive force knocked several others in the pen to the ground, screaming in pain.

One of the thundersticks exploded between a pair of wood demons. Both were thrown down, twisted wrecks. One, its barklike skin aflame, did not rise. The other, extinguished by the mud, twitched and put a talon under itself as it struggled to rise. Already, its fell magic was healing its wounds.

Another thunderstick sailed at a nine-foot-tall rock demon, which caught it in a talon and leaned in close, peering at the curious object as it went off.

But when the smoke had cleared, the demon stood unfazed, and continued on toward the villagers in the square. Wonda planted three arrows in it, but it shrieked and came on, its anger only doubled.

Gared met it before it reached the others, returning its shriek with a roar of his own. The burly cutter ducked under its first blow and planted his axe in its sternum, glorying in the rush of magic that ran up his arms. The demon collapsed at last, and Gared had to stand atop it to pull his weapon free of its thick armor.

A wind demon swooped in, its hooked talons nearly cutting Flinn in half. From the choir loft window, Wonda gave a cry and killed the coreling with an arrow to the back, but the damage was done, and her father collapsed.

A swipe from a wood demon took Ren’s head clean off, launching it far from his body. His axe fell into the muck, even as his son Linder hacked the arm from the offending demon.

Near the pen on the right flank, Yon Gray was struck a glancing blow, but it was enough to drop the old man to the ground. The coreling stalked him as he clutched the mud, trying to rise, but Ande gave a choked cry and leapt from the warded pen, grabbing Ren’s axe and burying it in the creature’s back.

Others followed his lead, their fear forgotten, leaving the safety of the pen to take up the weapons of the fallen or to drag the wounded to safety. Keet stuffed a rag into the last of the demonfire flasks, lighting it and hurling it into the face of a wood demon to cover his sisters as they pulled a man into the pen. The demon burst into flames, and Keet cheered until a flame demon leapt atop the immolated coreling, shrieking in glee as it basked in the fire. Keet turned and ran, but it leapt onto his back and bore him down.

The Warded Man was everywhere in the battle, killing some demons with his spear, and others with only bare hands and feet. Twilight Dancer kept close to him, striking with hoof and horn. They burst in wherever the fighting was thickest, scattering the corelings and leaving them as prey for the others. He lost count of how many times he kept demons from landing a killing blow, letting their victims regain their feet and return to the fight.

In the chaos, a group of corelings stumbled through the center line and past the second circle, stepping onto the tarp and falling onto the warded spikes laid at the bottom of the pit. Most of them twitched wildly, impaled on the killing magic, but one of the demons avoided the spikes and clawed its way back out of the pit. A warded axe took its head before it could return to the fight or flee.

But the corelings kept coming, and once the pit was revealed, they flowed smoothly around it. There was a cry, and the Warded Man turned to see a harsh fight for the great doors of the Holy House. The corelings could smell the sick and weak within, and were in a frenzy to break through and begin the slaughter. Even the chalked wards were gone now, washed away by the ever-present rain.

The thick grease spread on the cobbles outside the doors slowed the corelings somewhat. More than one fell on its tail, or skidded into the wards of the third circle. But they flexed their claws, digging in to secure their footing, and continued on.

The women at the doors stabbed out from the safety of their circle with their long spears, and held their own for a moment, but Stefny’s spearhead caught fast in the gnarled skin of one demon, and she was yanked outward, her trailing foot catching the rope of the portable circle. In an instant, the wards fell out of alignment, and the net collapsed.

The Warded Man moved with all the speed he could muster, taking the twelve-foot-wide pit in a single leap, but even he could not move fast enough to prevent the slaughter. Bodies were being flung about in bloody abandon when he came crashing in, attacking wildly.

When the melee was over, he stood panting with the few surviving women, Stefny, amazingly, among them. She was splattered with ichor, but seemed none the worse for wear, her eyes full of hard determination.

A great wood demon charged them, and they turned as one to stand firm, but the coreling crouched just out of reach and sprang, clearing them fully to reach the stone wall of the Holy House. Its claws found easy purchase between the piled stones, and it climbed out of reach before the Warded Man could catch its swinging tail.

“Look out!” the Warded Man called to Wonda, but the girl was too intent on aiming her bow, and did not hear until it was too late. The demon caught her in its claws and threw her back over its head as if she were nothing but a nuisance. The Warded Man ran hard and skidded across the grease and mud on his knees, catching her bloody and broken body before it struck the ground, but as he did, the demon pulled itself through the open window and into the Holy House.