The Warded Man

by Peter V. Brett

  “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.

  Benn produced a small glass flask. “It’s thin, like you asked,” he said. “Fragile.”

  The Warded Man nodded. “How many did you and your apprentices have time to make?” he asked.

  “Three dozen,” Benn said. “May I ask what they’re for?”

  The Warded Man shook his head. “You’ll see soon enough,” he said. “Bring them, and find me some rags.”

  Rojer approached him next. “I’ve seen Leesha’s spear,” he said. “I’ve come for mine.”

  The Warded Man shook his head. “You’re not fighting,” he said. “You’re staying inside with the sick.”

  Rojer stared at him. “But you told Leesha …”

  “To give you a spear is to rob you of your strength,” the Warded Man cut him off. “Your music would be lost out in the din outside, but inside, it’ll prove more potent than a dozen spears. If the corelings break through, I’m counting on you to hold them back until I arrive.”

  Rojer scowled, but he nodded, and headed into the Holy House.

  Others were already waiting for his attention. The Warded Man listened to reports on their progress, assigning further tasks that were leapt to immediately. The villagers moved with hunched quickness, like hares ready to flee at any moment.

  No sooner than he had sent them off, Stefny came storming up to him, a group of angry women at her back. “What’s this about sending us up to Bruna’s hut?” the woman demanded.

  “The wards there are strong,” the Warded Man said. “There is no room for you in the Holy House or Leesha’s family home.”

  “We don’t care about that,” Stefny said. “We’re going to fight.”

  The Warded Man looked at her. Stefny was a tiny woman, barely five feet, and thin as a reed. She was well into her fifties; her skin was thin and rough, like worn leather. Even the smallest wood demon would tower over her.

  But the look in her eyes told him it didn’t matter. She was going to fight no matter what he said. The Krasians might not allow women to fight, but that was their failing. He would not deny any who were willing to stand in the night. He took a spear off his cart and handed it to her. “We’ll find you a place,” he promised.

  Expecting an argument, Stefny was taken aback, but she took the weapon, nodding once and moving away. The other women came in turn, and he handed a spear to each.

  The men came at once, seeing the Warded Man handing out weapons. The cutters took their own axes back, looking at the freshly painted wards dubiously. No axe blow had ever penetrated a wood demon’s armor.

  “Won’t need this,” Gared said, handing back the Warded Man’s spear. “I ent one for spinning a stick around, but I know how to swing my axe.”

  One of the cutters brought a girl to him, perhaps thirteen summers old. “My name’s Flinn, sir,” the cutter said. “My daughter Wonda hunts with me sometimes. I won’t have her out in the naked night, but if ya let her have a bow behind the wards, you’ll find her aim is true.”

  The Warded Man looked at the girl. Tall and homely, she had taken after her father in size and strength. He went to Twilight Dancer and pulled down his own yew bow and heavy arrows. “I won’t need these tonight,” he said to her, and pointed to a high window at the apex of the Holy House’s roof. “See if you can pry loose enough boards to shoot from there,” he advised.

  Wonda took the bow and ran off. Her father bowed and backed away.

  Tender Jona limped out to meet him next.

  “You should be inside, and off that leg,” the Warded Man said, never comfortable around Holy Men. “If you can’t carry a load or dig a trench, you’re only in the way out here.”

  Tender Jona nodded. “I only wanted to have a look at the defenses,” he said.

  “They should hold,” the Warded Man said with more confidence than he felt.

  “They will,” Jona said. “The Creator would not leave those in His house without succor. That’s why He sent you.”

  “I’m not the Deliverer, Tender,” the Warded Man said, scowling. “No one sent me, and nothing about tonight is assured.”

  Jona smiled indulgently, the way an adult might at the ignorance of a child. “It’s coincidence, then, that you showed up in our moment of need?” he asked. “It’s not for me to say if you are the Deliverer or not, but you are here, just like every one of us, because the Creator put you here, and He has reason for everything He does.”

  “He had a reason for fluxing half your village?” the Warded Man asked.

  “I don’t pretend to see the path,” Jona said calmly, “but I know it’s there all the same. One day, we’ll look back and wonder how we ever missed it.”

  Darsy was squatting wearily by Vika’s side, trying to cool her feverish brow with a damp cloth, when Leesha entered the Holy House.

  Leesha went straight to them, taking the cloth from Darsy. “Get some sleep,” she said, seeing the deep weariness in the woman’s eyes. “The sun will set soon, and we’ll all need our strength then. Go. Rest while you still can.”

  Darsy shook her head. “I’ll rest when I’m cored,” she said. “Till then I’ll work.”

  Leesha considered her a moment, then nodded. She reached into her apron and pulled out a dark, gummy substance wrapped in waxed paper. “Chew this,” she said. “You’ll feel cored tomorrow, but it will keep you alert through the night.”

  Darsy nodded, taking the gum and popping it into her mouth while Leesha bent to examine Vika. She took a skin from around her shoulder, pulling the stopper. “Help her sit up a bit,” she said, and Darsy complied, lifting Vika so that Leesha could give her the potion. She coughed a bit out, but Darsy massaged her throat, helping her swallow until Leesha was satisfied.

  Leesha rose to her feet and scanned the seemingly endless mass of prone bodies. She had triaged and dealt with the worst of the injured before heading out to Bruna’s hut, but there were plenty of hurts still in need
of mending, bones to set and wounds to sew, not to mention forcing her potions down dozens of unconscious throats.

  Given time, she was confident she could drive the flux off. Perhaps a few had progressed too far, and would remain sickly or pass, but most of her children would recover.

  If they made it through the night.

  She called the volunteers together, distributing medicine and instructing them on what to expect and do when the wounded from outside began to come.

  Rojer watched Leesha and the others work, feeling cowardly as he tuned his fiddle. Inside, he knew the Warded Man was right: that he should work to his strengths, as Arrick had always said. But that did not make hiding behind stone walls while others stood fast feel any braver.

  Not long ago, the thought of putting down his fiddle to pick up a tool had been abhorrent, but he had grown tired of hiding while others died for him.

  If he lived to tell it, he imagined “The Battle of Cutter’s Hollow” would be a tale that outlived his children’s children. But what of his own part? Playing the fiddle from hiding was a deed hardly worth a line, let alone a verse.

  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.