The Warded Man

The children and the elderly had begun to arrive, gathering in the yard. Brianne and Mairy had already put them to work collecting tools. Mairy’s eyes were hollow as she watched the children. It had not been easy to convince her to leave her two children at the Holy House, but at last reason prevailed. Their father was staying, and if things went badly, the other children would need their mother.

Elona stormed out of the house as they arrived.

“Is this your idea?” she demanded. “Turning my house into a barn?”

Leesha pushed right past, the Warded Man at her side. Elona had no choice but to fall in behind them as they entered the house. “Yes, Mother,” she said. “It was my idea. We may not have space for everyone, but the children and elderly who have avoided the flux thus far should be safe here, whatever else happens.”

“I won’t have it!” Elona barked.

Leesha whirled on her. “You have no choice!” she shouted. “You were right that we have the only strong wards left in town, so you can either suffer here in a crowded house, or stand and fight with the others. But Creator help me, the young and the old are staying behind Father’s wards tonight.”

Elona glared at her. “You wouldn’t speak to me so, if your father were well.”

“If he were well, he would have invited them himself,” Leesha said, not backing down an inch.

She turned her attention to the Warded Man. “The paper shop is through those doors,” she told him, pointing. “You should have space to work, and my father’s warding tools. The children are collecting every weapon in town, and will bring them to you.”

The Warded Man nodded, and vanished into the shop without a word.

“Where in the world did you find that one?” Elona asked.

“He saved us from demons on the road,” Leesha said, going to her father’s room.

“I don’t know if it will do any good,” Elona warned, putting a hand on the door. “Midwife Darsy says it’s in the Creator’s hands now.”

“Nonsense,” Leesha said, entering the room and immediately going to her father’s side. He was pale and damp with sweat, but she did not recoil. She placed a hand to his forehead, and then ran her sensitive fingers over his throat, wrists, and chest. While she worked, she asked her mother questions about his symptoms, how long they had been manifest, and what she and Midwife Darsy had tried so far.

Elona wrung her hands, but answered as best she could.

“Many of the others are worse,” Leesha said. “Da is stronger than you give him credit for.”

For once, Elona had no belittling retort.

“I’ll brew a potion for him,” Leesha said. “He’ll need to be dosed regularly, at least every three hours.” She took a parchment and began writing instructions in a swift hand.

“You’re not staying with him?” Elona asked.

Leesha shook her head. “There’s near to two hundred people in the Holy House that need me, Mum,” she said, “many of them worse off than Da.”

“They have Darsy to look after them,” Elona argued.

“Darsy looks as if she hasn’t slept since the flux started,” Leesha said. “She’s dead on her feet, and even at her best, I wouldn’t trust her cures against this sickness. If you stay with Da and follow my instructions, he’ll be more likely to see the dawn than most in Cutter’s Hollow.”

“Leesha?” her father moaned. “S’that you?”

Leesha rushed to his side, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking his hand. “Yes, Da,” she said, her eyes watering, “it’s me.”

“You came,” Erny whispered, his lips curling into a slow smile. His fingers squeezed Leesha’s hand weakly. “I knew you would.”

“Of course I came,” Leesha said.

“But you have to go,” Erny sighed. When Leesha gave no reply, he patted her hand. “Heard what you said. Go do what needs be done. Just seeing you has given me new strength.”

Leesha half sobbed, but tried to mask it as a laugh. She kissed his forehead.

“Is it bad as all that?” Erny whispered.

“A lot of folk are going to die tonight,” Leesha said.

Erny’s hand tightened on hers, and he sat up a bit. “Then you see to it that it’s no more than need be,” he said. “I’m proud of you and I love you.”

“I love you, Da,” Leesha said, hugging him tightly. She wiped her eyes and left the room.

Rojer tumbled about the tiny aisle of the makeshift hospit as he pantomimed the daring rescue the Warded Man had performed a few nights earlier.

“But then,” he went on, “standing between us and the camp, was the biggest rock demon I’ve ever seen.” He leapt atop a table and reached his arms into the air, waving them to show they were still not high enough to do the creature justice.

“Fifteen feet tall, it was,” Rojer said, “with teeth like spears and a horned tail that could smash a horse. Leesha and I stopped up short, but did the Warded Man hesitate? No! He walked on, calm as Seventhday morning, and looked the monster right in the eyes.”

Rojer enjoyed the wide eyes surrounding him, and hesitated, letting the tense silence build before shouting “Bam!” and clapping his hands together. Everyone jumped. “Just like that,” Rojer said, “the Warded Man’s horse, black as night and seeming like a demon itself, slammed its horns through the demon’s back.”

“The horse had horns?” an old man asked, raising a gray eyebrow as thick and bushy as a squirrel tail. Propped up in his pallet, the stump of his right leg soaked his bandages in blood.

“Oh, yes,” Rojer confirmed, sticking fingers up behind his ears and getting coughing laughs. “Great ones of shining bright metal, strapped on by its bridle and sharply pointed, etched with wards of power! The most magnificent beast you have ever seen, it is! Its hooves struck the beast like thunderbolts, and as it smote the demon to the ground, we ran for the circle, and were safe.”

“What about the horse?” one child asked.

“The Warded Man gave a whistle”—Rojer put his fingers to his lips and emitted a shrill sound—“and his horse came galloping through the corelings, leaping over the wards and into the circle.” He clapped his hands against his thighs in a galloping sound and leapt to illustrate the point.

The patients were riveted by his tale, taking their minds off their sickness and the impending night. More, Rojer knew he was giving them hope. Hope that Leesha could cure them. Hope that the Warded Man could protect them.

He wished he could give himself hope, as well.

Leesha had the children scrub out the big vats her father used to make paper slurry, using them to brew potions on a larger scale than she had ever attempted. Even Bruna’s stores quickly ran out, and she passed word to Brianne, who had the children ranging far and wide for hogroot and other herbs.

Frequently, her eyes flicked to the sunlight filtering through the window, watching it crawl across the shop’s floor. The day was waning.

Not far off, the Warded Man worked with similar speed, his hand moving with delicate precision as he painted wards onto axes, picks, hammers, spears, arrows, and slingstones. The children brought him anything that might possibly be used as a weapon, and collected the results as soon as the paint dried, piling them in carts outside.

Every so often, someone came running in to relay a message to Leesha or the Warded Man. They gave instructions quickly, sending the runner off and turning back to their work.

With only a pair of hours before sunset, they drove the carts back through the steady rain to the Holy House. The villagers stopped work at the sight of them, coming quickly to help Leesha unload her cures. A few approached the Warded Man to assist unloading his cart, but a look from him turned them away.

Leesha went to him, carrying a heavy stone jug. “Tampweed and skyflower,” she said, handing it to him. “Mix it with the feed of three cows, and see that they eat it all.” The Warded Man took the jug and nodded.

As she turned to go into the Holy House, he caught her arm. “Take this,” he said, handing her one of his personal spears. It was five feet long, made from light ash wood. Wards of power were etched into the metal tip, sharpened to a wicked edge. The shaft, too, was carved with defensive wards, lacquered hard and smooth, the butt capped in warded steel.

Leesha looked at it dubiously, making no move to take it. “Just what do you expect me to do with that?” she asked. “I’m an Herb …”

“This is no time to recite the Gatherer’s oath,” the Warded Man said, shoving the weapon at her. “Your makeshift hospit is barely warded. If our line fails, that spear may be all that stands between the corelings and your charges. What will your oath demand then?”

Leesha scowled, but she took the weapon. She searched his eyes for something more, but his wards were back in place, and she could no longer see his heart. She wanted to throw down the spear and wrap him in her arms, but she could not bear to be rebuffed again.

“Well … good luck,” she managed to say.

The Warded Man nodded. “And to you.” He turned to attend his cart, and Leesha stared after him, wanting to scream.

The Warded Man’s muscles unclenched as he moved away. It had taken all his will to turn his back on her, but they couldn’t afford to confuse one another tonight.

Forcing Leesha from his mind, he turned his thoughts to the coming battle. The Krasian holy book, the Evejah, contained accounts of the conquests of Kaji, the first Deliverer. He had studied it closely when learning the Krasian tongue.

The war philosophy of Kaji was sacred in Krasia, and had seen its warriors through centuries of nightly battle with the corelings. There were four divine laws that governed battle: Be unified in purpose and leadership. Do battle at a time and place of your choosing. Adapt to what you cannot control, and prepare the rest. Attack in ways the enemy will not expect, finding and exploiting their weaknesses.

A Krasian warrior was taught from birth that the path to salvation lay in killing alagai. When Jardir called for them to leap from the safety of their wards, they did so without hesitation, fighting and dying secure in the knowledge that they were serving Everam and would be rewarded in the afterlife.

The Warded Man feared the Hollowers would lack the same unity of purpose, failing to commit themselves to the fight, but watching as they scurried to and fro, readying themselves, he thought he might perhaps be underestimating them. Even in Tibbet’s Brook, everyone came and stood by their neighbors in hard times. It was what kept the hamlets alive and thriving, despite their lack of warded walls. If he could keep them occupied, keep them from despairing when the demons rose, perhaps they would fight as one.

If not, everyone in the Holy House would die this night.

The strength of Krasia’s resistance was due as much to Kaji’s second law, choosing terrain, as it was the warriors themselves. The Krasian Maze was carefully designed to give the dal’Sharum layers of protection, and to funnel the demons to places of advantage.

One side of the Holy House faced the woods, where wood demons held sway, and two more faced the wrecked streets and rubble of the town. Too many places for corelings to take cover or hide. But past the cobbles of the main entrance lay the town square. If they could funnel the demons there, they might have a chance.

They were unable to clean the greasy ash off the rough stone walls of the Holy House and ward it in the rain, so the windows and great doors had been boarded and nailed shut, hasty wards chalked onto the wood. Ingress was limited to a small side entrance, with wardstones laid about the doorway. The demons would have an easier time getting through the wall.

The very presence of humans out in the naked night would act as a magnet to demons, but nevertheless, the Warded Man had taken pains to funnel the corelings away from the building and flanks, so that the path of least resistance would drive them to attack from the far end of the square. At his direction, the villagers had placed obstacles around the other sides of the Holy House, and interspersed hastily made wardposts, signs he had painted with wards of confusion. Any demon charging past them to attack the walls of the building would forget its intent, and inevitably be drawn toward the commotion in the town square.

Beside the square on one side was a day pen for the Tender’s livestock. It was small, but its new wardposts were strong. A few animals milled around the men erecting a rough shelter within.

The other side of the square had been dug with trenches quickly filling with mucky rainwater, to urge flame demons to take an easier path. Leesha’s oil was a thick sludge atop the water.

The villagers had done well in enacting Kaji’s third law, preparation. Steady rain had made the square slick, a thin film of mud forming on the hard packed dirt. The Warded Man’s messenger circles were set about the battlefield as he had directed, points of ambush and retreat, and a deep pit had been dug and covered with a muddy tarp. Thick, viscous grease was being spread on the cobbles with brooms.

And the fourth law, attacking the enemy in a way they would not expect, would take care of itself.

The corelings would not expect them to attack at all.

“I did as you asked,” a man said, approaching him as he pondered the terrain.

“Eh?” the Warded Man said.

“I’m Benn, sir,” the man said. “Mairy’s husband.” The Warded Man just stared. “The glassblower,” he clarified, and the Warded Man’s eyes finally lit with recognition.

“Let’s see, then,” he said.