‘A pair of demons testing the wards doesn’t prove the demons have some hidden agenda. We’ve seen no sign of a change in their behaviour here. Perhaps this is what comes of the Hollow provoking them.’
‘Do you wish to take that chance?’ Elissa asked.
‘The Krasians are the real enemy,’ Araine said. ‘They killed three of my sons. Pether’s brothers. Lorain’s husband. And thousands of husbands, wives, and children throughout the Free Cities – more by far than the demons over the same time. Now deserters from the Battle of Angiers have formed into roving war bands, committing horrible atrocities. They castrate the men and boys, taking them as levies, and leave nothing but blood and ash in their wake. None of the eastern hamlets is safe.’
‘And they keep Euchor from declaring himself king,’ Elissa said.
‘I don’t know anything that can stop that, now,’ Araine said. ‘Euchor has played his hand too well. He’ll keep feeding Mountain Spears south along the way stations until he has enough men to go south and join the men Pether levies from the Hollow to crush the Krasians once and for all.’
Elissa sipped her tea, keeping her eyes down. ‘Countess Paper is unlikely to commit her warriors to attacking their neighbours while she believes the demon threat is growing.’
‘She’s learning the dance,’ Araine agreed, ‘but she may not have much choice. You have your own problems. Step carefully, when you return home.’
‘Aaaand thaaaat’s why it’s called coooorling’s knooooooooob!’ Keerin finished with a final, flourishing strum of his lute, and Elissa let out a breath. The Jongleur was so happy to be out of Angiers, he hadn’t put his lute back in its case in days.
Thank the Creator. Their audience with Pether and Lorain had not gone well, and Araine’s warning kept nagging at her. Step carefully, when you return home.
No sooner had Elissa given praise for the silence than Keerin struck up another song.
Elissa resisted the urge to cover her ears. ‘I’d pay a thousand suns to shut that man up.’
‘I warned you,’ Ragen said.
‘Ent so bad.’ Yon and the other Hollowers were enjoying the singing, joining the choruses as they rode. ‘He’s no Halfgrip, but we’re fond o’ red-haired Jongleurs in the Hollow. Had a pint or seven in that tavern in Riverbridge. Feller told me Keerin cut the arm off a rippin’ rock demon. Din’t even use his music. Imagine that little feller standin’ toe-to-toe with a rock.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Ragen agreed.
Yon gave a wistful grin. ‘Wish I coulda been there to see it.’
Ragen gaped. ‘You actually believe that story?’
‘Ay, why not?’ Yon said. ‘Seen things these past couple years that put every ale story and tampweed tale I ever heard to shame. Don’t expect he got to be royal herald by lyin’.’
Stunned, Ragen took a moment to formulate a response. Before he could speak, Elissa laid a hand on his arm, and he calmed.
‘We couldn’t have just left him,’ Elissa said. ‘That city is readying for a war, and you and I know Keerin’s no fighter, whatever his reputation in the taverns.’
‘Lucky for him, Euchor built way stations to supply his Mountain Spears in Angiers,’ Ragen said. ‘The Hollowers need not see his mettle at night.’
Indeed, their last few nights were spent safely behind the way stations’ powerfully warded walls, each well supplied and garrisoned with Mountain Spears armed with flamework weapons.
Elissa longed for the sight each dusk. There hadn’t been a hamlet or town in days, and it was reassuring to see warded walls each night, and be surrounded by Milnese accents again after so long in the south.
Already they could see the next one ahead, high on a hill for vantage. Its thick walls and smoking chimneys promised a warm night away from the demons.
But then they drew closer, and Elissa saw the break in the walls. A scent wafted to her on the wind, and she realized the smoke coming from the station wasn’t nearly so inviting.
18
Homestead
334 AR
Jeph Bales sucked his pipe in his favourite rocking chair as he watched the yard. His children lined the porch rails, eyes scanning every direction as the sun dipped in the sky. Inside, he could hear Norine and Ilain bustling in the kitchen, readying supper.
Shadows lengthened across the yard, and Jeph resisted the urge to check the wards again. He leaned back, drawing the embers in his pipe bowl to brightness.
His control surprised even him. Sunset had a way of exposing all the fears folk kept bottled during the day, and Jeph had always been a coward. Not a year ago he’d have been pacing the house, checking locks and wards over and over.
Fifteen years ago, he watched from this very spot as his wife Silvy was cored, unable to do more than clench his thighs and hope not to piss himself.
But last summer Renna Tanner appeared in his yard screaming, and years of shame and tension inside him snapped. He picked up his axe, stepped off the porch, and did what he should have done for Silvy all those years ago.
Then came the tattooed Messenger with his warded weapons. Jeph had killed or helped kill thirty-seven demons since then. His favourite method – the safest – was a heavy blow before they could solidify, holding the warded weapon in the wound as its magic drained the demon’s power.
Demons came in two types. The first, Regulars, always rose in the same spot, hammering at the same wards with the patience of an immortal, waiting for that one inevitable night when maintenance failed and the forbidding could be breached.
The other type, Wanderers, moved from place to place in search of prey. They shied from places claimed by Regulars unless drawn in by a commotion.
Not long ago, the yard would have been full of misting forms at sunset. But the Messenger scoured it with warded arrows, killing most of the Regulars. Jeph had done for the other Regulars on his land slow and steady, like weeding a field.
His land had been clear for weeks now, but places like Jeph’s farm, isolated and stinking of humans and livestock, drew Wanderers that could become Regulars if left unchecked.
‘There!’ Silvy squealed, pointing to the pigs’ day pen. A telltale blurring, like smoke or a summer haze, signalled the rise of a demon not ten feet from where her namesake was cored.
Jeph spat, knocking the burning dottle from his pipe into it, crushing them underfoot.
‘Corespawned things’re worse’n voles,’ he said. ‘Every time I start to relax …’
Jeph Young lifted his bow, fitting a warded arrow. ‘I got it, Da.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Jeph reached for the handle of his heavy axe mattock. ‘You stay on the porch and keep an eye for others. Got this.’
Jeph admired the boy’s spirit, but at fourteen Jeph Young wasn’t as good a shot as he liked to think. Demons healed quick. If he failed to kill it, the coreling might flee and return with a will.
He strode into the yard, still marvelling how things changed. Striding beyond the wards with a demon materializing in the yard used to mean certain death. Now it was another chore. Dangerous, but so were many tasks on the farm, if you weren’t careful.
Jeph was always careful. He kept watch over the forming demon, but scanned the rest of the yard as well, making sure the coreling had not brought friends.
The mist coalesced into the shape of a field demon by the time Jeph reached it. It opened its mouth to hiss at him, but no sound came; the materialization was not yet complete. For a few seconds more, it could not harm him.
But he could harm it. With practised ease, Jeph swung the mattock up over his shoulders in a smooth arc, letting the heavy blade at the end do most of the work as he brought it down on the demon’s head with force enough to split a log.
A normal blade would have bounced off the demon’s armoured skull, angering it without doing real harm, but Jeph had warded the mattock himself. The symbols flared to life as it struck, sending a jolt of magic up his arms as the blade bit deep and stuck.
He sh
ivered with something akin to pleasure, something akin to lust. Power rushed through him, making him feel strong, invincible. He was nearing fifty, but felt stronger than he had at thirty. His senses came alive, hearing clearly the voices of the children on the porch, the women inside, even the animals locked behind the heavy barn doors across the yard.
He listened for sounds of other demons. For a moment, he even hoped there were more, just so he could feel the rush of power again. So he could take something back, for all they had taken from him. He bared his teeth.
Get hold o’ yerself, Jeph Bales you fool. The voice in his head belonged to his father, always speaking common sense. What kind of idiot hopes for demons in his yard?
He shook himself, coming back to his senses. He killed demons, but unlike many in the Brook, he hadn’t grown to like it. The jolt of power was pleasure like nothing he had ever known, but it was not worth the loss of control. Control was what kept folk alive when others went to the pyre.
‘Da! Look out!’ Jeph Young called.
Jeph turned to see another form materializing barely a few feet away. Usually the rising occurred right at sunset. This’n must’ve slept in, he thought as it coalesced. Upright and bipedal, it was probably a small wood demon.
He moved quickly to pull this weed as well, but as he raised his mattock, a second demon began to form next to the first. He hesitated.
Ent a match for two, his father said in his head. Run. Run now.
Jeph Young shared his father’s fears. ‘Da! Get down!’ The boy drew back an arrow and loosed just as the closer of the demons leapt at Jeph, solidifying faster than he would have believed possible. There was a hiss, and the sound of the arrow shaft quivering.
Jeph blinked, seeing the Messenger standing before him, face grim as he held the quivering arrow inches from where it would have struck Jeph’s head.
Gone were the Tender’s brown robes he had worn on his last visit, though there was no mistaking the Messenger’s tattoos. He wore an open-collared shirt of faded white cotton and denim trousers, cuffs rolled away from bare hands and feet.
The Messenger turned to glare at the porch. ‘You ent learned not to shoot when folk’re in the way, Jeph Young, then you got no business holding that bow!’
‘Messenger?!’ the boy cried. ‘Thought you was a demon!’
‘Boy’s got a point,’ Jeph said, turning back to the man. ‘You misted like they …’ His words broke off as he took in the woman who materialized by the Messenger’s side. He almost didn’t recognize her. She had hacked her long hair away, cut her dress down to almost nothing, and covered herself with painted wards, but the eyes, the shape of her face, so like his wife’s, were unmistakable.
‘Renna?’ he asked. ‘Renna Tanner?’
‘Renna Bales, now,’ the Messenger said.
‘Eh?’ Jeph asked, turning back to the man.
The Messenger glanced at the warding on the arrow and grunted. He put a hand on Jeph’s shoulder and met his eyes. There was something familiar about that look, but Jeph couldn’t place it until the man spoke again. ‘Got a lot to talk about … Da.’
Jeph stood there, staring. The yard was dark, but his mattock still tingled with magic that ran up his arm, and his night vision was strong. He peeled away the wards with his mind as he had with Renna, seeing in the man’s face an echo of his mother, killed fifteen years past on this very spot.
His knees buckled, and the mattock blade dropped to sink into the ground at his feet. Suddenly dizzy, he leaned on the handle for support. The air felt thick, the night closing about him like water.
‘Arlen?’ He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stand.
The Messenger caught him as he stumbled. ‘Ay, Da. It’s me.’
Jeph was numb as he escorted his son and – What was Renna to him now? Sister-in-law? Daughter-in-law? – onto the porch.
‘Inside and wash up for supper,’ he told the children. ‘Tell your mam to set two extra places at the table.’ They stood their ground, staring at the newcomers, until Jeph clapped his hands. ‘Go on!’
Jeph couldn’t blame the children as he watched them scamper into the house. He moved aside to let his guests enter first, staring at the man his son had become. He could forgive himself for not seeing it before, but now that he knew, the resemblance was unmistakable, wards or no.
Arlen was alive.
His boy had come back a man.
The air at the supper table felt fragile, as if speaking would shatter the dream and the pair would mist away like they had never been there at all. Norine led a brief prayer and they set to eating in silence, even the children sensing the tension. There was none of the usual squabbling, no pinches under the table, no tall tales of the day’s work.
‘Pass the taters, please?’ Arlen asked Cholie, and the boy jumped like he’d seen a ghost. In a way, he had. The ghost of his elder brother, now returned and asking for taters.
Finally Ilain could stand it no more. ‘Gonna take some gettin’ used to, Ren. You bein’ my daughter-in-law.’
‘Shun’t be hard. Been acting like you was mam for years.’ There was something about the way Renna said the words, like there was a barb to follow. Creator knew, there were plenty to throw. Their mother had died when Renna was young, and Ilain ran off with Jeph only a few years later, leaving her sisters to the care of their coreson of a father.
Ilain tensed, waiting for the slap, but whatever she might have said, Renna swallowed it, painting a smile on her face. She looked at the children. ‘Goin’ by my niece and nephews, looks like you’ve got a knack for the job.’
Ilain let out a breath, returning the smile. ‘Been blessed to learn from my mistakes.’ She turned to Arlen before either of them could muddy the waters. ‘Guess you kept your promise after all, comin’ back for Ren like that.’
Jeph gritted his teeth. Couldn’t the fool woman leave well enough alone? Was she determined to drive them away again?
But Arlen seemed to seize on the words as a lifeline. ‘Din’t come back for Ren. Came back to see home one more time, and to make sure you had the wards to protect yourself. To make sure what happened …’ He paused like Renna had, thinking better of his words. ‘… to so many families in the Brook,’ he nodded to Norine, ‘never had to happen again. But when I saw Ren there, staked …’ He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t just stand by, could I?’
There was an awkward silence around the table, for standing by was what they – what the entire town – had done.
‘Course not.’ Jeph found his voice at last, meeting his son’s eye. ‘That ent ever been your way, thank the Creator. Shamed the whole town, but we needed shamin’.’
Arlen gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Remembered Ren. Thought of her some nights while I was … away. Kiss she gave me that last night before Mam died.’ He shook his head. ‘Din’t believe a handshake between das made us promised, really. Figured a woman like her would’ve found someone else.’ He turned, taking her hand and looking her in the eyes. ‘Been to Miln and the Krasian desert. Seen most everyplace worth seein’ in between. Lot of folk tried to find me a wife and settle me down, but it never took. Who knew the one for me was waitin’ back at home all along?’
‘I knew.’ Renna squeezed his hand. ‘But Arlen Bales has always been stubborn.’
‘Ay, that’s undersaid,’ Jeph agreed, and the laughter about the table seemed almost at ease.
‘Think it’s romantic,’ Jeni Tailor said, taking Jeph Young’s hand. They were promised, no doubt in much the same way, though it would be years yet before they were old enough to marry. ‘Would you cross the world and back for me, Jephy?’
Jeph Young looked green, coughing something that approximated assent. Jeni seemed not to notice his discomfort, smile undiminished.
‘You two back for good, then?’ Ilain asked. ‘Come home to start a family? We been talkin’ about buildin’ a new house – takin’ on hands. Folk’re flocking to the Brook from Sunny Pasture. Things’re better all around, even
with the troubles.’
Arlen looked up at that. ‘Troubles?’
‘Cholie, Silvy,’ Jeph said. ‘Clear the table and put on the kettle, then run off and play a bit.’
‘Made a sweet cake this morning,’ Norine said. ‘Savin’ it for after Seventhday service, but this is a special occasion. Jeni? Why don’t you and Jeph Young slice it up and bring the tea?’
‘I want to stay,’ Jeph Young whined.
‘You and Jeni can come back to the table when the tea and cake are ready,’ Jeph allowed. ‘Now scoot!’
The children scurried off, and Jeph got up from the table, taking his time fetching his pipe and weed pouch. He offered the pouch to his son. ‘I’ve a spare pipe …’
‘S’all right,’ Arlen said, waving a hand. ‘Used to smoke sometimes, when I was a Messenger. Made me think of home. Now I’m here …’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t feel right.’
Jeph nodded, grateful for the excuse to drop his eyes as he packed the bowl and took a taper to light it. He puffed a moment, bringing the weed to a glow and surrounding himself with a fragrant cloud before returning to his seat. ‘Things been … messy since you left. Brook’s prospering, but folk’re …’
‘Harder,’ Ilain supplied.
‘Folk found the stones to fight corelings,’ Norine said, ‘but some … got to like it.’
Arlen nodded. ‘Ent unexpected. They causin’ trouble?’
‘Nothin’ Selia can’t handle,’ Jeph puffed his pipe. ‘She put a militia together – cleared most of the demons been hauntin’ Town Square and Boggin’s Hill. Brine’s got things harder in the Cluster by the Woods, but the Cutters took to choppin’ wood demons like it was second nature.’
‘Not surprisin’,’ Arlen said. ‘Bet they’re turning out more lumber than they have in years.’
‘Ay.’ Jeph set the pipe in his teeth. ‘Most everyone’s yield is up. Ent no empty bellies in the Brook.’
The Core (The Demon Cycle, Book 5) Page 32
