The Warded Man (43 page)

When the act was over, chants of “Sweetsong and Halfgrip!” were deafening. They were inundated with offers of lodging, and the wine and food overflowed. Rojer was swept behind a haystack by a pair of raven-eyed Runner girls, sharing kisses until his head spun.

Arrick was less pleased.

“How could I have forgotten what it was like?” he lamented.

He was referring, of course, to the collection hat. There was no coin in the hamlets, or little enough. What there was went for necessities, seed and tools and wardposts. A pair of wooden klats settled to the bottom of the hat, but that wasn’t even enough to pay for the wine Arrick had drunk on the journey from Angiers. For the most part, the Runners paid in grain, with the occasional bag of salt or spice thrown in.

“Barter!” Arrick spat the word like a curse. “No vintner in Angiersh will take payment in bagsh of barley!”

The Runners had paid in more than just grain. They gave gifts of salted meat and fresh bread, a horn of clotted cream and a basket of fruit. Warm quilts. Fresh patches for their boots. Whatever good or service they could spare was offered with gratitude. Rojer hadn’t eaten so well since the duke’s palace, and for the life of him he could not understand his master’s distress. What was coin for, if not to buy the very things that the Runners gave in abundance?

“Leasht they had wine,” Arrick grumbled. Rojer eyed the skin nervously as his master took a pull, knowing it would only amplify Arrick’s distress, but he said nothing. No amount of wine could distress Arrick so much as the suggestion that he should not drink so much wine.

“I liked it there,” Rojer dared. “I wish we could have stayed longer.”

“What d’you know?” Arrick snapped. “You’re jussa stupid boy.” He groaned as if in pain. “Woodsend’ll be no better,” he lamented, looking down the road, “and Sheepshagger’s Dale’ll be worsht of all! What wash I thinking, keeping this stupid circle?”

He kicked at the precious plates of the portable circle, knocking the wards askew, but he did not seem to notice or care, stumbling drunkenly about the fire.

Rojer gasped. Sunset was mere moments away, but he said nothing, darting over to the spot and frantically correcting the damage, glancing fearfully at the horizon.

He finished not a moment too soon. The corelings rose as he was still smoothing the rope. He fell back as the first coreling leapt at him, crying out as the wards flared to life.

“Damn you!” Arrick screamed at a demon as it charged him. The drunken Jongleur stuck his chin out in defiance and cackled as the coreling smashed against the wardnet.

“Master, please,” Rojer begged, taking Arrick’s arm and pulling him toward the center of the ring.

“Oh, Halfgrip knowsh besht, now?” he sneered, yanking his arm away and almost falling down in the process. “Poor drunk Shweetsong dun’t know t’keep away from coreling clawsh?”

“It’s not like that,” Rojer protested.

“Then wha’s it like?” Arrick demanded. “Y’think tha’ ’cos the crowds cheer yur name that y’d be anything without me?”

“No,” Rojer said.

“Damn right,” Arrick muttered, pulling again on his skin and stumbling away.

Rojer’s throat tightened, and he reached into his secret pocket for his talisman. He rubbed the smooth wood and silky hair with his thumb, trying to call upon its power.

“Tha’s right, call yer mum!” Arrick shouted, turning back and pointing at the little doll. “F’get who raised you, who taught you everything y’know! I gave up my life for you!”

Rojer gripped his talisman tighter, feeling his mother’s presence, hearing her last words. He thought again of how Arrick had shoved her to the ground, and an angry lump formed in his throat. “No,” he said. “You were the only one who didn’t.”

Arrick scowled and advanced on the boy. Rojer shrank back, but the circle was small, and there was nowhere to go. Outside the circle, demons paced hungrily.

“Gimme that!” Arrick shouted angrily, grabbing at Rojer’s hands.

“It’s mine!” Rojer cried. They struggled for a moment, but Arrick was larger and stronger, and had two full hands. He snatched the talisman away at last and threw it into the fire.

“No!” Rojer shouted, diving toward the flames, but it was too late. The red hair ignited immediately, and before he could find a twig to fish the talisman out, the wood caught. Rojer knelt in the dirt and watched it burn, dumbfounded. His hands began to shake.

Arrick ignored him, stumbling up to a wood demon that was hunched at the circle’s edge, clawing at the wards. “It’s your fault thish happened t’me!” he screamed. “Your fault I wash shaddled with an ungrateful boy and lost my commishon! Yoursh!”

The coreling shrieked at him, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. Arrick roared right back, smashing his wineskin over the creature’s head. The skin burst, spraying them both with blood-red wine and tanned leather.

“My wine!” Arrick cried, realizing suddenly what he had done. He moved to cross the wards as if he could in some way undo the damage.

“Master, no!” Rojer cried. He dove into a tumble, reaching up with his good hand to grab Arrick’s ratty ponytail as he kicked at the backs of his master’s knees. Arrick was yanked back away from the wards and landed heavily atop his apprentice.

“Get’cher handsh offa me!” Arrick cried, not realizing that Rojer had just saved his life. He gripped the boy’s shirt as he lurched to his feet, shoving him right out of the circle.

Coreling and human alike froze in that moment. Awareness dawned on Arrick’s face even as a wood demon shrieked in triumph and tamped down, launching itself at the boy.

Rojer screamed and fell back, having no hope of getting back across the wards in time. He brought up his hands in a feeble attempt to fend the creature off, but before the coreling struck, there was a cry, and Arrick tackled the demon, knocking it away.

“Get back to the circle!” Arrick cried. The demon roared and struck back hard, launching the Jongleur through the air. He bounced as he hit the ground, a flailing limb snagging the rope of the portable circle and pulling the plates out of alignment.

All around the clearing, other corelings began to race to the breach. They were both going to die, Rojer realized. The first demon made to charge at him again, but again Arrick grabbed at it, turning it aside.

“Your fiddle!” he cried. “You can drive them back!” As the words left his lips, though, the coreling’s talons dug deep into his chest, and he spit a thick bubble of blood.

“Master!” Rojer screamed. He glanced at his fiddle doubtfully.

“Save yourself!” Arrick gasped just before the demon tore out his throat.

By the time dawn banished the demons back to the Core, the fingers of Rojer’s good hand were cut and bleeding. It was only with great effort that he straightened them and released the fiddle.

He had played through the long night, cowering in the darkness as the fire died, sending discordant notes into the air to keep at bay the corelings he knew were waiting in the black.

There had been no beauty, no melody to fall into as he played, just screeches and dissonance; nothing to turn his thoughts from the horror around him. But now, looking at the scattered bits of flesh and bloody cloth that were all that remained of his master, a new horror struck, and he fell to his knees, retching.

After a time, his heaving eased, and he stared at his cramped and bloody hands, willing them to stop shaking. He felt flushed and hot, but his face was cold in the morning air, drained of blood. His stomach continued to roil, but there was nothing left in it to expel. He wiped his mouth with a motley sleeve and forced himself to rise.

He tried to collect enough of Arrick to bury, but there was little to be found. A clump of hair. A boot, torn open to get at the meat within. Blood. Corelings disdained neither bone nor offal, and they had fed in a frenzy.

The Tenders taught that corelings ate their victims body and soul, but Arrick had always said Holy Men were bigger liars than Jongleurs, and his master could spin a whopper. Rojer thought of his talisman, and the feeling of his mother’s spirit it brought. How could he feel her if her soul had been consumed?

He looked to the cold ashes of the fire. The little doll was there, blackened and split, but it crumbled away in his hands. Not far away, lying in the dirt, were the remains of Arrick’s ponytail. Rojer took the hair, more gray than gold now, and put it in his pocket.

He would make a new talisman.

Woodsend came into sight well before dusk, much to Rojer’s relief. He didn’t think he had the strength to last another night outside.

He had thought of turning back to Cricket Run and begging passage with a Messenger back to Angiers, but it would have meant explaining what happened, and Rojer wasn’t ready for that. Besides, what was there for him in Angiers? Without a license, he couldn’t perform, and Arrick had made enemies of any that might have completed his apprenticeship. Better to keep on to the ends of the world, where no one would know him and the guild could not reach.

Like Cricket Run, Woodsend was filled with good, solid folk who welcomed a Jongleur with open arms, too pleased to question the fortune that had brought an entertainer to their town.

Rojer accepted their hospitality with gratitude. He felt a fraud, claiming to be a Jongleur when he was only an unlicensed apprentice, but he doubted the Enders would care much if they knew. Would they refuse to dance to his fiddle, or laugh less at his mummery?

But Rojer didn’t dare touch the colored balls in the bag of marvels, and begged off from song. He flipped instead, tumbling and hand walking, using everything in his repertoire to hide his inadequacies.

The Enders didn’t press him, and that was enough for now.

THE BRIGHT SUN BROUGHT Arlen back to consciousness. Sand stuck to his face as he lifted his head and spit grit from his mouth. Struggling to his knees, he looked around, but all he saw was sand.

They had carried him out onto the dunes and left him to die.

“Cowards!” he cried. “Letting the desert do your work does not absolve you!”

He quivered on his knees, trying to find the strength to stand while his body screamed at him to lie back down and die. His head was spinning.

He had come to help the Krasians. How could they betray him like this?

Don’t lie to yourself
, a voice in his head said.
You’ve done your share of betrayal. You ran from your father when he needed you most. Abandoned Cob before your apprenticeship was up. Left Ragen and Elissa without so much as an embrace. And Mery …

“Who will miss you, Par’chin?” Jardir had asked. “You will not fill so much as a single tear bottle.” And he was right.

If he were to die here, Arlen knew, the only ones who were likely to notice would be merchants more concerned with a loss of profit than his life. Perhaps this was what he deserved for abandoning everyone who had ever loved him. Perhaps he
should
just lie down and die.

His knees buckled. The sand seemed to pull at him, calling him to its embrace. He was about to give in when something caught his eye.

A few feet away, a skin of water rested in the sand. Had Jardir’s conscience gotten the better of him, or had one of his men looked back and taken pity on the betrayed Messenger?

Arlen crawled to the skin, clutching it like a lifeline. Someone might mourn him after all.

But it made little difference. Even if he returned to Krasia, no one would believe a
chin
over the Sharum Ka. On Jardir’s word, the
dal’Sharum
would kill Arlen without a thought.

So you should let them keep the spear you risked your life for?
he asked himself.
Let them keep Dawn Runner, your portable circles, and everything else you own?

The thought had Arlen clutching at his waist, and he realized with relief that he had not lost everything. There, still safe, was the simple leather bag he carried when fighting in the Maze. In it he kept a small warding kit, his herb pouch … and his notebook.

The notebook changed everything. Arlen had lost his other books, but all of them together were not worth this one. Since the day he left Miln, Arlen had copied every new ward he had learned into his notebook.

Including those on the spear.

Let them keep the ripping thing, they want it so much
, Arlen thought.
I can make another
.

With a heave, he brought himself to his feet. He took the warm skin of water and allowed himself a short pull, then put it over his shoulder and climbed to the top of the nearest dune.

Shielding his eyes, he could see Krasia like a mirage in the distance, giving him bearings to head for the Oasis of Dawn. Without his horse, the trip would mean a week of sleeping unwarded in the desert. His water would be gone long before then, but he doubted it would matter. The sand demons would get him before he died of thirst.

Arlen chewed hogroot as he walked. It was bitter and made his stomach churn, but he was covered in demon scratches, and it helped keep them from infecting. Besides, without food, even nausea was preferable to pangs of hunger.

He drank sparingly, though his throat was dry and swollen. His shirt was tied around his head to ward off the sun, leaving his back vulnerable. His skin was blotched yellow and blue from the beating he had taken, and burned red atop that. Every step was agony.

Arlen kept moving until the sun was nearly set. He felt as if he had made no progress at all, but the long line of tracks blowing away behind him showed a surprising distance covered.

Night came, bringing corelings and bitter cold. Either was enough to kill him, so Arlen hid from both, burying himself in the sand to preserve body heat and hide from the demons. He tore a sheet from his notebook, rolling the paper into a slender breathing tube, but still he felt as if he were suffocating as he lay, terrified that the corelings might find him. When the sun rose and warmed the sand, he dug free of his sandy grave and stumbled on, feeling as if he had not rested at all.

So it went, day after day, night after night. He grew weaker as the days went by without food, rest, or more than a splash of water. His skin cracked and bled, but he ignored the damage and walked on. The sun beat down with increasing weight, and the flat horizon grew no closer.

At some point, he lost his boots. He wasn’t sure how or when. His feet were scraped raw from the hot sand, bleeding and blistered. He tore the sleeves from his shirt to bind them.

He fell with increasing frequency, sometimes getting right back to his feet, other times passing out and rising minutes or hours later. Sometimes, he would fall and continue tumbling all the way down a dune. Exhausted, he took it as a blessing, saving himself painful steps.

By the time the water ran out, he had lost count of the days. He was still on the desert path, but had no idea how far there was yet to go. His lips were split and dry, and even his cuts and blisters had ceased to ooze, as if all the liquid in his body had evaporated.

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.