The Warded Man

He fell again, and struggled to find a reason to get back up.

Arlen awoke with a start, his face wet. It was nighttime, and that should have filled him with terror, but he lacked the strength to fear.

He looked down, and saw that his face had been resting on the edge of the pool in the Oasis of Dawn, his hand in the water.

He wondered how he had gotten to be there. His last memory … he had no idea what his last memory was. The trip through the desert was a blur, but he didn’t care. He had made it. That was all that mattered. Within the warded obelisks of the oasis, he was safe.

Arlen drank greedily from the pool. A moment later, he vomited it up, and forced himself to sip slowly after that. When his thirst was quenched, he closed his eyes again, and slept soundly for the first time in over a week.

When he woke, Arlen raided the oasis’ stores. There were supplies as well as food: blankets, herbs, a spare warding kit. Too weak to forage, he spent several days simply eating the dried stores, drinking cool water, and cleansing his wounds. By then, he was able to gather fresh fruit. After a week, he found the strength to fish. Two, he could stand and stretch without pain.

The oasis had stores enough to get him out of the desert. He might be half dead when he crawled from the scorched clay flats, but he would be half alive, as well.

There were a handful of spears in the oasis’ stores, but compared to the magnificent metal weapon he had lost, sharpened wood seemed woefully inadequate. Without lacquer to harden the symbols, carved wards would mar with the first thrust through hard coreling scales.

What, then? He had wards that could burn the life from demons, but what good were they without a weapon to affix them to?

He considered painting stones with the attack wards. He could throw them, or even press them against the corelings by hand …

Arlen laughed. If he was going to get that close to a demon, he might as well paint the wards right onto his hands.

His laughter died as the thought germinated. Could it work? If so, he would have a weapon no one could steal, one no coreling could knock from his grasp or catch him without.

Arlen took out his notebook, studying the wards on the spear’s tip, and those at its butt. Those were the offensive wards; the wards on the shaft were defensive. He noted that the wards on the butt did not form a line by linking with others, as did the wards along the edge of the tip. They stood alone, the same symbol repeated around the circumference of the spear, and on the flat of its end. Perhaps the difference was one of cutting versus bludgeoning.

As the sun dipped lower, Arlen copied the bludgeoning ward in the dirt, over and over, until he felt confident. He took a brush and a paint bowl from his warding kit, carefully painting the ward onto the palm of his left hand. He blew on it softly until it was dry.

Painting his right hand was trickier, but Arlen knew from experience that with concentration, he could ward equally well with his left hand, though it took longer.

As darkness descended, Arlen gently flexed his hands, making sure the movement would not crack or peel the paint. Satisfied, he went to the stone obelisks that warded the oasis, watching the demons circle the barrier, smelling prey just beyond their reach.

The first coreling to catch sight of him was a specimen of no particular note: a sand demon about four feet in length, with long arms and bunched, muscular legs. Its barbed tail slithered back and forth as it met Arlen’s eyes.

A moment later, it launched itself at the wardnet. As it leapt, Arlen stepped aside and reached out, partially covering two wards. The net broke and the coreling tumbled past him, confused at the lack of resistance. He quickly drew his hand back, reestablishing the net. Whatever happened, the demon would not survive. Either it would perish fighting Arlen, or it would kill him and die when the sun rose and it could not escape the heavily warded oasis.

The demon righted itself and turned back, hissing as it bared rows of teeth. It circled, its corded muscles tensing as its tail flicked sharply. Then, with a catlike roar, it pounced again.

Arlen met it head-on, holding his hands with palms out, his arms longer than the demon’s. The creature’s scaled chest struck the wards, and with a flash and a howl of agony, the coreling was thrown back. It struck the ground hard, and Arlen could see thin wisps of smoke rising from the point of contact. He smiled.

The demon got back to its feet and began circling again, this time more cautiously. It was unaccustomed to prey fighting back, but it soon regained its courage, leaping to the attack again.

Arlen caught the coreling’s wrists and fell back, kicking it in the stomach and flipping it over him. As he made contact, the wards flared, and he could feel the magic working. It did not burn him, though the coreling’s flesh sizzled at the touch, but there was a tingle of energy in his hands, as if they had lost circulation and gone prickly. The feeling shot up his arms like a shiver.

They both rose quickly, and Arlen returned the coreling’s growl with one of his own. The demon licked at its scorched wrists, trying to soothe them, and Arlen could see grudging respect in its eyes. Respect and fear. This time, he was the predator.

His confidence was almost the death of him. The demon shrieked and lunged, and this time, Arlen was too slow. Black talons raked across his chest as he tried to twist out of the way.

He punched out in desperation, forgetting that the wards were on his palms. His knuckles scraped against the coreling’s gritty scales, tearing skin, but the blow had little effect. With a backhanded swat, the sand demon sent him sprawling to the ground.

The next moments were desperate, as Arlen scrambled and rolled to avoid its slashing claws, razor teeth, and whipping spiked tail. He started to rise, but the demon coiled and pounced on him, bearing him back to the ground. Arlen managed to get his knee between them, holding the creature back, but its hot, fetid breath washed across his face as its fangs closed not an inch from his face.

Arlen bared his own teeth in as he boxed the demon’s ears. The coreling shrieked in pain as the wards flared, but Arlen held on tightly. Smoke began to drift from the grip as the light brightened. The demon thrashed madly, claws tearing at him in a desperate attempt to escape.

But Arlen had it now, and he would not let go. Every moment he held on, the tingling in his palms grew in intensity, as if gaining momentum. He squeezed his hands together, and was amazed when they grew closer, as if the creature’s skull was softening, liquefying.

The coreling’s assault slowed, and Arlen rolled to the side, reversing the pin. The demon’s claws closed weakly about his arms, trying to pull them away, but it was no use.

With a final flex of his muscles, Arlen brought his hands together, crushing the coreling’s head in an explosion of gore.

CHAPTER 24

NEEDLES AND INK

328 AR

ARLEN COULDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT, though it was not from the throbbing of his wounds. All his life he had dreamt of the heroes in Jongleurs’ tales, donning armor and fighting corelings with warded weapons. When he found the spear, he thought that dream was within his grasp, but when he reached for it, it slipped through his fingers and he stumbled into something new.

Nothing, not even that night in the Maze when he had felt invincible, could compare with the sensation of facing a coreling on its own terms and feeling the tingle in his flesh as his magic burned its life away. He hungered for that feeling again, and that hunger put all his former desires in a new light.