The Warded Man

CHAPTER 31

THE BATTLE OF CUTTER’S HOLLOW

332 AR





AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE SQUARE stood the cutters. Chopping trees and hauling lumber had left most of them thick of arm and broad of shoulder, but some, like Yon Gray, were well past their prime, and others, like Ren’s son Linder, had not yet grown into their full strength. They stood clustered in one of the portable circles, gripping the wet hafts of their axes as the sky darkened.

Behind the cutters, the Hollow’s three fattest cows had been staked in the center of the square. Having consumed Leesha’s drugged meal, they slumbered deeply on their feet.

Behind the cows was the largest circle. Those within could not match the raw muscle of the cutters, but they had greater numbers. Nearly half of them were women, some as young as fifteen. They stood grimly alongside their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Merrem, Dug the butcher’s burly wife, held a warded cleaver, and looked well ready to use it.

Behind them lay the covered pit, and then the third circle, directly before the great doors of the Holy House, where Stefny and the others too old or frail to run about the muddy square stood fast with long spears.

Each one was armed with a warded weapon. Some, those with the shortest reach, also carried round bucklers made from barrel lids, painted with wards of forbiddance. The Warded Man had made only one of those, but the others had copied it well enough.

At the edge of the day pen’s fence, behind the wardposts, stood the artillery, children barely in their teens, armed with bows and slings. A few adults had been given one of the precious thundersticks, or one of Benn’s thin flasks, stuffed with a soaked rag. Young children held lanterns, hooded against the rain, to light the weapons. Those who had refused to fight huddled with the animals under the shelter behind them, which shielded Bruna’s festival flamework from the rain.

More than a few, like Ande, had gone back on their promise to fight, accepting the scorn of their fellows as they hid behind the wards. As the Warded Man rode through the square astride Twilight Dancer, he saw others looking toward the pen longingly, fear etched on their faces.

There were screams as the corelings rose, and many took a step backward, their resolve faltering. Terror threatened to defeat the Hollowers before the battle even began. A few tips from the Warded Man on where and how to strike were meager against the weight of a lifetime of fear.

The Warded Man noticed Benn shaking. One of his pant legs was soaked and clinging to his twitching thigh, and not from the rain. He dismounted and stood before the glassblower.

“Why are you out here, Benn?” he asked, raising his voice so others could hear.

“M-my d-daughters,” Benn said, nodding back toward the Holy House. It looked as if the spear he held was going to vibrate right out of his hands.

The Warded Man nodded. Most of the Hollowers were there to protect their loved ones lying helpless in the Holy House. If not, they would all be in the pen. He gestured to the corelings materializing in the square. “You fear them?” he asked, louder still.

“Y-yes,” Benn managed, tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks. A glance showed others nodding as well.

The Warded Man stripped off his robes. None of the people had seen him unclad before, and their eyes widened as they took in the wards tattooed over every inch of his body. “Watch,” he told Benn, but the command was meant for all.

He stepped from the circle, striding up to a seven-foot-tall wood demon that was just beginning to solidify. He looked back, meeting the eyes of as many Hollowers as he could. Seeing them watching intently, he shouted, “This is what you fear!”

Turning sharply, the Warded Man struck hard, smashing the flat of his hand against the coreling’s jaw, knocking the demon down in a flash of magic just as it became fully solid. The coreling shrieked in pain, but it recovered quickly, coiling on its tail to spring. The villagers stood openmouthed, their eyes locked on the scene, sure the Warded Man would be killed.

The wood demon lunged, but the Warded Man kicked off a sandal and spun, kicking up inside the coreling’s reach. His warded heel struck its armored chest with a thunderclap, and the demon was sent reeling again, its chest scorched and blackened.

A smaller wood demon launched itself at him as he stalked his prey, but the Warded Man caught its arm and twisted himself behind its back, jabbing his warded thumbs into its eyes. There was a smoking sizzle, and the coreling screamed, staggering away and clawing at its face.

As the blind coreling stumbled about, the Warded Man resumed his pursuit of the first demon, meeting its next attack head-on. He pivoted and turned the coreling’s momentum against it, latching on as it stumbled past him and wrapping his warded arms around its head. He squeezed, ignoring the demon’s futile attempts to dislodge him, and waited as the feedback built in intensity. Finally, with a burst of magic, the creature’s skull collapsed, and they fell to the mud.

The other demons kept their distance as the Warded Man rose from the corpse, hissing and searching for a sign of weakness. The Warded Man roared at them, and those closest took a step back from him.

“It is not you that should fear them, Benn the glassblower!” the Warded Man called, his voice like a hurricane. “It is they that should fear you!”

None of the Hollowers made a sound, but many fell to their knees, drawing wards in the air before them. He walked back up to Benn, who was no longer shaking. “Remember that,” he said, using his robes to wipe the mud from his wards, “the next time they clutch at your heart.”

“Deliverer,” Benn whispered, and others began to mumble the same.

The Warded Man shook his head sharply, rainwater flying free. “You are the Deliverer!” he shouted, poking Benn hard in the chest. “And you!” he cried, spinning to roughly haul a kneeling man to his feet. “All of you are Deliverers!” he bellowed, sweeping his arms over all who stood in the night. “If the corelings fear a Deliverer, let them quail at a hundred of them!” He shook his fist, and the Hollowers roared.

The spectacle kept the newly formed demons at bay for a moment, issuing low growls as they stalked back and forth. But their pacing soon slowed, and one by one they crouched, muscles bunching up as they tamped down.

The Warded Man looked to the left flank, his warded eyes piercing the gloom. Flame demons avoided the water-filled trench, but wood demons approached that way, heedless of the wet.

“Light it,” he called, pointing to the trench with a thumb.

Benn struck a flamestick with his thumb, shielding the tiny blaze from the wind and rain as he touched it to the wick of a flamewhistle. As the wick sizzled and sparked, Benn uncoiled, flinging it toward the trench.

Halfway through its arc, the wick burned down and a jet of fire exploded from one end of the flamewhistle. The thick-wrapped paper tube spun rapidly in blazing pinwheel, emitting a high-pitched whine as it struck the oil sludge in the trench.

Wood demons shrieked as the water about their knees burst into flame. They fell back, beating the fire in terror, splashing oil and only spreading the flames.

Flame demons cried out in glee as they leapt into the fire, forgetting the water that lay beneath. The Warded Man smiled at their cries as the water boiled.

The flames filled the square with flickering light, and there were gasps from the cutters at the size of the host before them. Wind demons cut the sky, adroit even in the wind and rain. Lissome flame demons darted about, eyes and mouths glowing red, silhouetting the hulking rock demons that stalked the edges of the gathering. And wood demons. So many wood demons.

“S’like the trees of the forest have risen up ’gainst the axemen,” Yon Gray said in awe, and many of the cutters nodded in horror.

“Ent met a tree yet I can’t chop down,” Gared growled, holding his axe at the ready. The boast filtered through the rank, and the other cutters stood taller.

The corelings soon found their will, leaping at the cutters, talons leading. The wards of their circle stopped them short, and the cutters drew back to swing.

“Hold!” the Warded Man cried. “Remember the plan!”

The men checked themselves, letting the demons hammer the wards in vain. The corelings flowed around the circle, looking for a weakness, and the cutters were soon lost from view in a sea of barklike skin.

It was a flame demon no larger than a cat that first spotted the cows. It shrieked, leaping onto the back of one of the animals, talons digging deep. The cow woke and bleated in pain as the tiny coreling tore out a piece of hide in its jaws.

The sound made the other corelings forget the cutters. They fell on the cows in an explosion of gore, tearing the animals to pieces. Blood sprayed high into the air, mixing with the rain before splashing down in the mud. Even a wind demon swooped down to snatch a chunk of meat before leaping back into the air.

In a twinkling, the animals were devoured, though none of the corelings seemed satisfied. They moved toward the next circle, slashing at the wards and drawing sparks of magic in the air.

“Hold!” the Warded Man called again, as the people around him tensed. He held his spear back, watching the demons intently. Waiting.

But then he saw it. A demon stumbled, losing its balance.

“Now!” he roared, and leapt from the circle, stabbing right through a demon’s head.

The Hollowers screamed a primal cry and charged, falling upon the drugged corelings with abandon, hacking and stabbing. The demons shrieked, but thanks to Leesha’s potion, their response was sluggish. As instructed, the Hollowers worked in small teams, stabbing demons from behind when they turned their attention toward another. Warded weapons flared, and this time it was demon ichor that arced into the air.

Merrem chopped a wood demon’s arm clean off with her cleaver, and her husband Dug stabbed his butcher’s knife deep into its armpit. The wind demon that had eaten the drugged meat came crashing down into the square, and Benn drove his spear into it, twisting hard as the warded head flared hot to pierce the coreling’s hide.

Demon claws could not penetrate the ward on the wooden shields, and when the shieldbearers saw this, they gained confidence, striking harder still against the dazed corelings.

But not all the demons had been drugged. Those in the back increased their press to get forward. The Warded Man waited until their advantage of surprise waned, then cried, “Artillery!”

The children in the pen gave a great cry, placing flasks in their slings and launching them at the horde of demons in front of the cutters’ circle. The thin glass shattered easily against the barklike armor of the wood demons, coating them in liquid that clung despite the rain. The demons roared, but could not penetrate the wardposts of the small pen.

While the corelings raged, the lanternbearers ran to and fro, touching the flames to rag-wrapped arrowheads dipped in pitch and the wicks of Bruna’s flamework. They did not fire as one as they had been instructed, but it made little difference. With the first arrow, the liquid demonfire exploded across the back of a wood demon, and the creature screamed, thrashing into another and burning it as well. Festival crackers, toss bangs, and flamewhistles joined the volley of arrows, frightening some demons with light and sound, and igniting others. The night lit up as the demons burned.

One flamewhistle hit the shallow rut in front of the cutters’ circle, which stretched the full width of the square. The spark lit the liquid demonfire within, and the fell brew burst into an intense fire, setting several more wood demons alight and cutting the rest off from their fellows.

But between the circles and away from the flamework, the battle raged fiercely. The drugged demons fell quickly, but their fellows were uncowed by the armed villagers. Teams were breaking up, and some of the Hollowers were taken by fear and stumbled back, giving the corelings an opening to pounce.

“Cutters!” the Warded Man cried as he spit a flame demon on his spear.

With their backs secure, Gared and the other cutters roared and leapt from their circle, pressing the demons attacking the Warded Man’s group from behind. Even without magic, wood demon hide was as thick and gnarled as old bark, but cutters hacked through bark all day, and the wards on their axes drained away the magic that strengthened it further.

Gared was the first to feel the jolt as the wards tapped into the demons’ magic, using the corelings’ own power against them. The shock ran up the haft of his axe and made his arms tingle as a split second of ecstasy ran through him. He struck the demon’s head clean off and howled, charging the next one in line.

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.