The Warded Man

Their clothes were still burning. Wrapping Silvy in his arms, Arlen threw them both to the ground, taking the brunt of the impact himself, and then rolled them into the mud, extinguishing the flames.

There was no chance to close the gate. The demons ringed the pen now, pounding at the wardnet, sending flares of magic skittering along the web of wards. But the gate didn’t really matter. Nor did the fence. So long as the wardposts were intact, they were safe from the corelings.

But not from the weather. The rain became a cold pour, whipping at them in cutting sheets. Silvy could not rise again after the fall. Blood and mud caked her, and Arlen didn’t know if she could survive her wounds and the rain together.

He stumbled over to the slop trough and kicked it over, sloshing the unfinished remnants of the pigs’ dinner to rot in the mud. Arlen could see the rock demon pounding at the wardnet, but the magic held, and the demon could not pass. Between the flashes of lightning and the spurts of demon flame, he caught sight of Marea, buried under a swarm of flame demons, each tearing off a piece and dancing away to feast.

The rock demon gave up a moment later, stomping over and grabbing Marea by the leg in a massive talon the way a cruel man might a grab a cat. Flame demons scattered as the rock demon swung the woman into the air. She let out a hoarse gasp, and Arlen was horrified to discover she was still alive. He screamed, and considered trying to dart from the wardnet and get to her. But then the demon brought her crashing down to the ground with a sickening crunch.

Arlen turned away before the creature could begin to eat, his tears washed away by the pouring rain. Dragging the trough to Silvy, he tore the lining from her skirt and let it soak in the rain. He brushed the mud from her cuts as best he could, and wadded more lining into them. It was hardly clean, but cleaner than pig mud.

She was shivering, so he lay against her for warmth, and pulled the stinking trough over them as a shield from the downpour, and the sight of the leering demons.

There was one more flash of lightning as he lowered the wood. The last thing he saw was his father, still standing frozen on the porch.

If it was you out there … or your mam … Arlen remembered him saying. But for all his promises, it seemed that nothing could make Jeph Bales fight.

The night passed with interminable slowness; there was no hope of sleep. Raindrops drummed a steady beat on the trough, spattering them with the remains of the slop that clung to the inside. The mud they lay in was cold, and stank of pig droppings. Silvy shivered in her delirium, and Arlen clutched her tightly, willing what little heat he had into her. His own hands and feet were numb.

Despair crept over him, and he wept into his mother’s shoulder. But she groaned and patted his hand, and that simple, instinctive gesture pulled him free of the terror and disillusionment and pain.

He had fought a demon, and lived. He stood in a yard full of them, and survived. Corelings might be immortal, but they could be outmaneuvered. They could be outsped.

And as the rock demon had shown when it swept the other coreling out of the way, they could be hurt.

But what difference did it make in a world where men like Jeph wouldn’t stand up to the corelings, not even for their own families? What hope did any of them have?

He stared at the blackness around him for hours, but in his mind’s eye all he saw was his father’s face, staring at them from the safety of the wards.

The rain tapered off before dawn. Arlen used the break in the weather as a chance to lift the trough, but he immediately regretted it as the collected heat the wood had stored was lost. He pulled it down again, but stole peeks until the sky began to brighten.

Most of the corelings had faded away by the time it was light enough to see, but a few stragglers remained as the sky went from indigo to lavender. He lifted the trough and clambered to his feet, trying vainly to brush off the slime and muck that clung to him.

His arm was stiff, and stung when he flexed it. He looked down and saw that the skin was bright red where the firespit had struck. The night in the mud did one good thing, he thought, knowing his and his mother’s burns would have been far worse had they not been packed in the cold muck all night.

As the last flame demons in the yard began to turn insubstantial, Arlen strode from the pen, heading for the barn.

“Arlen, no!” a cry came from the porch. Arlen looked up, and saw Jeph there, wrapped in a blanket, keeping watch from the safety of the porch wards. “It’s not full dawn yet! Wait!”

Arlen ignored him, walking to the barn and opening the doors. Missy looked thoroughly unhappy, still hitched to the cart, but she would make it to Town Square.

A hand grabbed his arm as he led the horse out. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Jeph demanded. “You mind me, boy!”

Arlen tore his arm away, refusing to look his father in the eye. “Mam needs to see Coline Trigg,” he said.

“She’s alive?” Jeph asked incredulously, his head snapping over to where the woman lay in the mud.

“No thanks to you,” Arlen said. “I’m taking her to Town Square.”

“We’re taking her,” Jeph corrected, rushing over to lift his wife and carry her to the cart. Leaving Norine to tend the animals and seek out poor Marea’s remains, they headed off down the road to town.

Silvy was bathed in sweat, and while her burns seemed no worse than Arlen’s, the deep lines the flame demons’ talons had dug still oozed blood, the flesh an ugly swollen red.

“Arlen, I …” Jeph began as they rode, reaching a shaking hand toward his son. Arlen drew back, looking away, and Jeph recoiled as if burned.

Arlen knew his father was ashamed. It was just as Ragen had said. Maybe Jeph even hated himself, as Cholie had. Still, Arlen could find no sympathy. His mother had paid the price for Jeph’s cowardice.

They rode the rest of the way in silence.

Coline Trigg’s two-story house, in Town Square, was one of the largest in the Brook, and filled with beds. In addition to her family upstairs, Coline always had at least one person in the sickbeds on the ground floor.

Coline was a short woman with a large nose and no chin. She was not yet thirty, but six children had made her thick around the middle. Her clothes always smelled of burnt weeds, and her cures usually involved some type of foul-tasting tea. The people of Tibbet’s Brook made fun of that tea, but every one of them drank it gratefully when they took a chill.

The Herb Gatherer took one look at Silvy and had Arlen and his father bring her right inside. She asked no questions, which was just as well, as neither Arlen nor Jeph knew what they would say if she did. As she cut at each wound, squeezing out a sickly brown pus, the air filled with a rotten stench. She cleaned the drained wounds with water and ground herbs, then sewed them shut. Jeph turned green, and brought his hand to his mouth suddenly.

“Out of here with that!” Coline barked, sending Jeph from the room with a pointed finger. As Jeph scurried out of the house, she looked to Arlen.

“You, too?” she demanded. Arlen shook his head. Coline stared at him a moment, then nodded in approval. “You’re braver than your father,” she said. “Fetch the mortar and pestle. I’m going to teach you to make a balm for burns.”

Never taking her eyes from her work, Coline talked Arlen through the countless jars and pouches in her pharmacy, directing him to each ingredient and explaining how to mix them. She kept to her grisly work as Arlen applied the balm to his mother’s burns.