The Warded Man

by Peter V. Brett

  Thus, this latest ruin. Half buried in sand, almost forgotten save for a crumbling Krasian map Arlen had discovered, the city of Anoch Sun had stood untouched for hundreds of years. Much of the surface was collapsed or worn down by wind and sand, but the lower levels, cut deep into the ground, were intact.

  Arlen turned a corner, and his breath caught. Up ahead, in the dim flickering light, he saw pitted symbols cut into the stone pillars to either side of the corridor. Wards.

  Holding the torch close, Arlen inspected them. They were old. Ancient. The very air about them was stale with the weight of centuries. He took paper and charcoal from his satchel to make rubbings, then, swallowing hard, continued on, lightly stirring the dust of ages.

  He came to a stone door at the end of the hall. It was painted with faded and chipped wards, few of which Arlen recognized. He pulled out his notebook and copied those intact enough to be made out, then moved to inspect the door.

  It was more a slab than a door, and Arlen soon realized that nothing held it in place save its own weight. Taking up his spear to use as a lever, he wedged the metal tip into the seam between the slab and the wall, and heaved. The point of the spear snapped off.

  “Night!” Arlen cursed. This far from Miln, metal was rare and expensive. Refusing to be balked, he took a hammer and chisel from his pack and hacked at the wall itself. The sandstone cut easily, and soon he had carved a nook wide enough to work the shaft of his spear into the room beyond. The spear was thick and sturdy, and this time when Arlen threw his weight against the lever, he felt the great slab shift slightly. Still, the wood would break before it moved.

  Using the chisel, Arlen pried up the floor stones at the door’s base, digging a deep groove for it to tip into. If he could shift the stone that far, its own inertia would keep it in motion.

  Moving back to the spear, he heaved once more. The stone resisted, but Arlen persevered, grinding his teeth with the effort. Finally, with a thunderous impact, the slab toppled to the ground, leaving a narrow gap in the wall, choked with dust.

  Arlen moved into what appeared to be a burial chamber. The air reeked of age, but already fresher air was flooding the chamber from the corridor. Holding up his torch, he saw that the walls were brightly painted with tiny, stylized figures, depicting countless battles of humans against demons.

  Battles that the humans seemed to be winning.

  In the center of the room stood an obsidian coffin, cut roughly in the shape of a man holding a spear. Arlen approached the coffin, noting the wards along its length. He reached out to touch them, and realized his hands were shaking.

  He knew there was little time remaining before sunset, but Arlen could not have turned away now if all the demons in the Core rose up against him. Breathing deeply, he moved to the head of the sarcophagus and pushed hard, forcing the lid down so that it would tilt to the floor without breaking. Arlen knew he should have copied the wards before trying this, but taking the time to copy them would have meant coming back in the morning, and he simply could not wait.

  The heavy stone moved slowly, and Arlen’s face reddened with the strain as he pushed, his muscles knotted and bunched. The wall was close behind him, and he braced a foot against it for leverage. With a scream that echoed down the corridor, he shoved with all his might, and the cover slid off, crashing to the ground.

  Arlen paid the lid no mind, staring at the contents of the great coffin. The wrapped body inside was remarkably intact, but it could not hold his attention. All Arlen could see was the object clutched in its bandaged hands. A metal spear.

  Sliding the weapon reverently from the corpse’s stubborn grasp, Arlen marveled at its lightness. It was seven feet long from tip to tip, and the shaft was more than an inch in diameter. The point was still sharp enough to draw blood after so many years. The metal was unknown to Arlen, but that fact flew from his thoughts as he noted something else.

  The spear was warded. All along its silvery surface the etchings ran, a level of craftsmanship unknown in modern times. The wards were unlike anything he had ever seen.

  As Arlen became aware of the enormity of his find, he realized, too, the danger he was in. The sun was setting above. Nothing he had found here would matter if he died before bringing it back to civilization.

  Snatching up his torch, Arlen bolted out of the burial chamber and sprinted down the hall, taking the steps three at a time. He darted through the maze of passages on instinct, praying that his twists and turns were true.

  Finally, he saw the exit to the dusty, half-buried streets, but not a sliver of light could be seen through the doorway. As he reached the exit, he saw that the sky was still tinged with color. The sun had only just set. His camp was in sight, and the corelings were just beginning to rise.

  Without pausing to consider his actions, Arlen dropped his torch and charged out of the building, scattering the sand as he zigzagged around the rising sand demons.

  Cousins to rock demons, sand demons were smaller and more nimble, but still among the strongest and most armored of the coreling breeds. They had small, sharp scales, a dirty yellow almost indistinguishable from the grit, instead of the large charcoal gray plates of their rock-demon cousins, and they ran on all fours where rock demons stood hunched on two legs.

  But their faces were the same; rows of segmented teeth jutted out on their jaws like a snout, while their nostril slits rested far back, just below their large, lidless eyes. Thick bones from their brows curved upward and back, cutting through the scales as sharp horns. Their brows twitched continually as they squeezed down, displacing the ever-blowing sand.

  And even more frightening than their larger cousins, sand demons hunted in packs. They would work together to see him cored.

  His heart pounding and his discovery forgotten, Arlen moved through the ruins with incredible speed and alacrity, vaulting fallen pillars and crumbled rock while dodging right and left around the solidifying corelings.

  Demons needed a moment to get their bearings on the surface, and Arlen took full advantage of that as he sprinted toward his circle. He kicked one demon in the back of the knees, knocking it down just long enough for him to get past. Another he charged directly, only to spin out of the way at the last moment, the coreling’s claws slashing through empty air.

  He picked up speed as the circle neared, but one demon stood in his way, and there was no way around it. The creature was nearly four feet tall, and its initial confusion was past. It crouched at the ready, directly in his path, hissing hatred.

  Arlen was so close—his precious circle just a few feet away. He could only hope to barrel through the smaller creature and roll into his circle before it could kill him.

  He charged right in, instinctively stabbing with his new spear as he bowled the creature over. There was a flash upon impact, and Arlen struck the ground hard, coming up in a spray of sand and continuing on, not daring to look back. He leapt for his circle, and was safe.

  Panting with exertion, Arlen looked up at the sand demons surrounding him, outlined in desert twilight. They hissed and clawed at his wards, talons bringing bright flashes of magic.

  In the flickering light, Arlen caught sight of the demon he had crashed into. It was slowly dragging itself away from Arlen and its fellows, leaving an inky black trail in the sand.

  Arlen’s eyes widened. Slowly, he glanced down at the spear he still clutched in his hands.

  The tip was coated in demon ichor.

  Suppressing the urge to laugh aloud, Arlen looked back at the injured coreling. One by one, its fellows paused in their assault on Arlen’s wards, sniffing the air. They turned, glancing down at the trail of ichor, and then at the injured demon.

  With a shriek, the pack fell upon the creature, tearing it apart.

  The cold of the desert night eventually forced Arlen to take his eyes off the metal spear. He had laid a fire when he made camp earlier, so he struck spark to it and coaxed the flames to life, warming himself and a bit of dinner. Dawn Runner had b
een hobbled and blanketed in his circle, brushed and fed before Arlen left to explore the ruins that afternoon.

  As it had every night for the last three years, One Arm showed up soon after moonrise, bounding over the dunes and scattering the smaller corelings to stand before Arlen’s circle. Arlen greeted it as always with a clap of his two hands. One Arm roared its hatred in return.

  When he first left Miln, Arlen had wondered if he would ever find a way to sleep through the sound of One Arm hammering at his wards, but it was second nature to him now. His warding circle had been proven time and again, and Arlen maintained it religiously, keeping the plates freshly lacquered and the rope mended.

  He hated the demon, though. The years had brought none of the kinship the guards on the wall of Fort Miln had felt. As One Arm remembered who had crippled it, so too did Arlen recall who had given him the puckered scars across his back and almost cost him his life. He remembered, too, nine Warders, thirty-seven guardsmen, two Messengers, three Herb Gatherers, and eighteen citizens of Miln who had lost their lives because of it. He gazed at the demon now, absently stroking his new spear. What would happen if he struck? The weapon had wounded a sand demon. Would the wards affect a rock demon as well?

  It took all his willpower to resist the urge to leap from his circle and find out.

  Arlen had hardly slept when the sun drove the demons back into the Core, but he rose with high spirits. After breakfast, he took out his notebook and examined the spear, painstakingly copying every ward and studying the patterns they formed along the shaft and head.

  When he finished, the sun was high in the sky. Taking another torch, he went back down into the catacombs, making rubbings of the wards cut into the stone. There were other tombs, and he was tempted to ignore all sense and explore every one. But if he stayed even another day, his food would run out before he reached the Oasis of Dawn. He had gambled on finding a well in the ruins of Anoch Sun, and indeed he had, but vegetation was scant and inedible.

  Arlen sighed. The ruins had stood for centuries. They would be there when he returned, hopefully with a team of Krasian Warders at his back.

  By the time he came back outside, the day was wearing on. Arlen took time to exercise and feed Dawn Runner, then prepared a meal for himself, his mind turned inward.

  The Krasians would demand proof, of course. Proof the spear could kill. They were warriors, not ruin hunters, and would not give up a single able-bodied man for an expedition without good reason.

  Proof, he thought. And it was only right that it come from him.

  With barely an hour before sunset, Arlen began to ready his camp. He hobbled his horse again, checking the portable circle around it. He prepared his ten-foot circle as usual, then took a series of wardstones from his bags and began to lay them around it in a wide outer ring some forty feet in diameter. He placed the stones slightly farther apart than usual, carefully lining them up with their fellows. There was a third portable circle in the saddlebags—Arlen always kept a spare—and he set that one in the camp as well, off to the side in the larger circle, by its edge.

  When he was finished, Arlen knelt in his center circle, the spear at his side, and breathed deeply, clearing his mind of distractions. He didn’t watch as the sun dipped and the sand glowed on the horizon before going dark.

  The nimble sand demons rose first, and Arlen heard the wards of his outer circle spark and crackle, keeping them back. Moments later, he heard the roar of One Arm, scattering lesser demons from its path as it approached Arlen’s outer ring. Arlen ignored it, continuing to breathe, his eyes closed, his mind calm. The lack of reaction served only to anger the demon further, and it struck hard against the warding.

  Magic flared, visible even through his closed eyelids, but the demon did not immediately continue its assault. He opened his eyes, watching One Arm cock its head curiously. Arlen allowed himself a humorless smile.

  One Arm struck the wards again, and again it paused. This time, the demon let out a piercing cry and set its feet, thrusting its good arm at the warding, talons spread. As if it were pressing against a wall of glass, the demon leaned forward, shrieking against the pain as it doubled and tripled the pressure against the wards. Angry magic spiderwebbed out from where its claws met the barrier, and as the demon pressed, the magic bowed visibly in the air.

  With a sound that chilled even Arlen’s calm mind, the rock demon flexed its armored legs and smashed through the wardnet, tumbling into the inner ring. Dawn Runner whinnied and pulled at his hobble.

  Arlen rose as One Arm did, their eyes meeting. The weaker sand demons tried desperately to replicate One Arm’s feat, but the wardstones were precisely spaced, and none of them could muster the strength to cross. They shrieked their frustration at the barrier as they bore witness to the confrontation within the circle.

  Though he had grown since they first met, Arlen felt no less dwarfed by One Arm now than he had that first, terrifying night. The rock demon stood over fifteen feet tall from its clawed feet to the tips of its horns, more than twice a man’s height. Arlen was forced to crane his head upward to meet the coreling’s eyes, locked unwaveringly on his own.

  One Arm’s snout split wide to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth, running with drool, and it flexed its daggerlike talons teasingly. Its armored chest was thrown out, the black carapace impenetrable to known weapons, and its spiked tail whipped back and forth, heavy enough to smash a horse with a single blow. Its body was smoking and scorched from crossing the net, but the obvious hurt only made the coreling seem more dangerous, a titan mad with pain.

  Arlen’s fingers tightened on the metal spear as he stepped from the circle.

  CHAPTER 18

  RITE OF PASSAGE

  328 AR

  ONE ARM SHRIEKED into the night, its vengeance finally at hand. Arlen forced himself to breathe deeply, fighting to keep his heart from pounding right out of his chest. Even if the magic of the spear could harm the demon—and he had nothing more than his hopes that it could—it would not be enough to win this battle. He needed all his wits about him, all his training.

  His feet slowly slid apart into a battle stance. The sand would slow him, but it would slow One Arm as well. He kept eye contact, and made no sudden moves as the coreling savored the moment. Its reach far exceeded his own, even with the spear. Let it come to him.

  Arlen felt as if his entire life had been rushing toward this moment without his ever realizing it. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for this test, but after being hounded by this demon for more than ten years, he found the thought of putting it off any longer intolerable. Even now, he could step back into the protective circle, safe from the rock demon’s attacks. Deliberately, he moved away from it, committing himself to the contest.

  One Arm watched him circle, its muzzle curling in a snarl. A low rumbling echoed in the coreling’s throat. Its tail flicked faster, and Arlen knew it was getting ready to strike.

  With a roar, the demon lunged, its talons splayed as they cut the air. Arlen darted straight forward, ducking the blow and moving inside the coreling’s reach. He kept on, going right between its legs, stabbing his spear into its tail as he rolled aside. There was a satisfying flash of magic as he struck, and the demon howled as the weapon broke through its armor and pierced flesh.

  Arlen was expecting the return slash of the demon’s tail, but it came quicker than he anticipated. He threw himself flat to the ground as the appendage whooshed by, the spikes inches from his head. He was up again in a flash, but One Arm was already turning, using its tail’s momentum to speed its pivot. For all its size, the coreling was agile and quick.

  One Arm struck again, and Arlen could not dodge in time. He whipped the shaft of his spear perpendicular to the blow in parry, but he knew the demon was far too powerful to block. He had let his emotions get the better of him; had entered this contest too soon. He cursed himself for a fool.

  But as the demon’s talons struck the metal of the spear, the wards etched along its lengt
h flared. Arlen hardly felt the blow, but One Arm was deflected as if it had struck a warded circle. The demon was thrown back as its own power rebounded, but it recovered fast, unharmed.

  Arlen forced himself to overcome his shock and move, understanding the blessing for what it was and determined to make the most of it. One Arm charged him madly, determined to power through this new obstacle.

  Scattering sand as he ran, Arlen vaulted the fallen remains of a thick stone pillar, taking shelter behind it and preparing to dodge left or right, depending on how the demon approached.

  One Arm struck hard at the pillar, almost four feet in diameter, and broke it in half, throwing one side out of its way with a flex of its sinewy arm. The raw display of power was terrifying, and Arlen bolted for his circle, needing a moment to recover.

  The demon anticipated his reaction, though, and its legs twitched, launching it into the air. It landed in between Arlen and his succor.

  Arlen stopped short, and One Arm again shrieked in triumph. It had tested Arlen’s mettle, and found him wanting. It respected the spear’s bite, but there was no fear in the coreling’s eyes as it advanced. Arlen gave ground slowly, deliberately, not wanting to provoke the creature with a sudden move. He backed up as far as he could before crossing his outer wardstones and coming into the reach of the sand demons clustered to watch the battle.

  One Arm saw his predicament, and roared, its thunderous charge terrible to behold. Arlen set himself firmly, his legs coiled. He did not bother to raise the spear to block. Instead, he cocked it back, ready to stab.

  The rock demon’s blow was powerful enough to crush a lion’s skull, but it never struck home. Arlen had allowed the demon to back him into his spare portable circle, unnoticed in the sand. The wards flared to life, reflecting the demon’s attack back on it, and Arlen was ready, leaping forward and skewering the demon in the belly with his warded spear.

  One Arm’s shriek pierced the night, a deafening, horrifying sound. To Arlen, it was like music. He pulled back on the spear, but it held fast, caught in the rock demon’s thick black carapace. He yanked again, and this time it nearly cost him his life as One Arm lashed out and struck him a glancing blow, its claws digging deep into his shoulder and chest.