The Core

by Peter V. Brett

  —

  Jeph and Arlen sat on the porch with a pitcher of Boggin’s Ale. The whole scene felt like a dream, even if they hadn’t just watched Renna turn into mist and vanish.

  The children whooped at the sight and were a terror getting to bed after, but now all was quiet save for the crickets and the sound of Jeph’s rocking chair.

  “Strange, settin’ on this porch again after so many years, starin’ at the yard like nothin’s changed,” Arlen said.

  “But they have,” Jeph said. “Remember you used to peek through the shutters every night, lookin’ for corelings. Won’t find those in my yard anymore.”

  “Ay, for now.” Arlen sipped his ale, eyes distant.

  Jeph cleared his throat. “Might as well talk about the coreling in the common. Can’t be easy, lookin’ out at the place your mam got cored. Settin’ in the spot I was rooted to, tryin’ not to piss myself while you ran out to save her.”

  “Ent,” Arlen agreed, taking another sip. “Older now, though. Seen more o’ the world. Seen what the demons done to folk. Made ’em feel helpless, like there was no point in fightin’ back.”

  “But you did,” Jeph said. “Eleven years old, you fought the demons and won.”

  “Din’t win,” Arlen said. “Just managed not to die.”

  “Stopped ’em killin’ your mam,” Jeph said.

  Arlen sighed. “Din’t do that, either. Bought her a couple days, but wern’t any stoppin’ it.”

  “Might have been,” Jeph said, “I’d had the stones to press on to Old Mey Friman.”

  Arlen shook his head. “Thought that back then. Thought it for years after, and blamed you. Hated you.”

  Jeph grit his teeth at the words. He’d imagined his son’s spirit telling them to him for fifteen years, but it was another thing to have him there in the flesh, saying them.

  “But I seen a lot of folk cored since then,” Arlen said. “We’d had a Hollow Gatherer here on the farm that night, Mam might’ve made it. Even if Coline Trigg had known her business the next day like a proper Gatherer in the Free Cities. But by the time we’d of made it to Mey…” He spat over the porch rail. “Too late.”

  “Wasn’t too late when your mam called me for help, though,” Jeph said.

  “Ay.” Arlen kept his eyes on the yard, taking another sip of ale.

  “Ent got any excuses,” Jeph said. “Ilain’s been a good wife. Love her and the young’uns. But I could go back, I’d undo it all to have your mam back, even if it meant taking her place on the claw. Loved her all my life. Used to break my horseshoes on purpose…”

  “Just for an excuse to see her at the farrier shop,” Arlen finished. “Mam loved tellin’ that’un.”

  Jeph choked, clenching his throat and squeezing his eyes. His son had a right to hate him, and he wasn’t about to try to guilt him to sympathy with tears.

  “Failed you both, that night,” Jeph managed when he had recovered himself.

  “Ay,” Arlen said. “Won’t lie. Carried a lot of anger at you on my travels. Used to hear you in my head, times I was thinkin’ of doing somethin’ foolhardy. Hated that voice. Used to do fool things, just to spite it.”

  Jeph snorted, and Arlen looked at him in surprise.

  “Ent funny,” Jeph said. “Only made me think how I hear my da’s voice in my head, same way. Callin’ me fool, every time I try’n screw my courage up.”

  Arlen sat back, taking another drink. “Ay. Maybe it’s just the way o’ da’s and their boys.”

  “Ay,” Jeph said.

  “Meant to have a reckoning, I came back to the Brook last year,” Arlen said. “Out of my head, back then. Convinced I’d become somethin’…inhuman. Ready to die, and wanted to settle accounts ’fore I let the night take me.”

  “Creator.” Jeph wanted to reach out to his son, but his hand betrayed him. If he reached out and Arlen pushed him away, he didn’t think he could bear it.

  “Don’t care what you done,” he said instead. “What you become. Seen what you done for your mam. What you done for Renna. What you done for this town. You ent human, what hope the rest of us got?”

  “All have our low moments,” Arlen said. “Things we carry even when folk around us forget, or never knew.”

  “Honest word,” Jeph said. “Carried those few days with me like they just happened, even as the years blew by.”

  “Know you did,” Arlen said. “That night made the world clear to both of us, in our way. Took a while, but when the night came callin’ in the yard again, you din’t set on the porch. Expected us to fight, I came back, but then I heard what you done for Ren, and realized what a fool I been.”

  “Had every right to carry a grudge,” Jeph said.

  “Ay, maybe, but grudges never made anyone a better man,” Arlen said.

  “Honest word.” Jeph eased a bit, taking a long pull of his ale. “Any chance you two come home for good, like Lainie hopes? Be good for the young’uns to get to know their brother.”

  “Like to,” Arlen said. “Creator, dunno anything I’d like more. But it ent in the dice. Truer is, come back to say goodbye.”

  Jeph blinked. “Goodbye?”

  Arlen rubbed the back of his neck. “ ’Fraid I might’ve…started a bit of a war, when I brought back the fightin’ wards. Time’s come to settle it, and things’re apt to get ugly. Wern’t right, not tellin’ you who I was last time. Needed to set that right.”

  Jeph had begun to relax, but the tension returned. “Ugly, how?”

  Arlen blew out a breath, then raised a finger, drawing wards in the air. Jeph found himself clutching his cup and had to force his hand to unclench as he waited.

  “Like I said,” Arlen said when he was done, “fightin’ back draws attention from a particularly nasty breed o’ demon. They came at us, got a kickin’ for it, and now they’re plannin’ to come back in force. Got this crazy plan to meet ’em on their own ground before it goes down.”

  Jeph felt his face go cold and his bladder strain. He clenched tight, hoping Arlen didn’t notice. “Own ground?”

  Arlen tilted his head toward the ground. “Downstairs.”

  “Creator,” Jeph said. “How’s that even possible?”

  “Can’t say,” Arlen said. “Mind demons can pinch your thoughts like a carrot from a field. More I say, more I endanger the plan.”

  “Ren’s all right with this? You going off…below?” The idea was still numbing to Jeph, almost too big to grasp, but he’d watched Renna turn into mist and slip into the ground. This wasn’t much harder to believe.

  “Don’t go tellin’ her sister, but Ren’s comin’, too,” Arlen said. “And a couple others.”

  “Take an army,” Jeph said.

  “Armies draw notice. Takin’ just enough to get the job done, but few enough to sneak.” Arlen took another drink. “Least, I hope I am. Truer is, dunno if I’m pullin’ out a rotten stump or breaking open a hornet’s nest.”

  Jeph wanted to argue. To convince Arlen to abandon this path, to come home and be safe. Looking at his son, he knew that was what he expected, the father’s voice urging caution to the son.

  The look hardened him to the fear. There was never any turning Arlen from a path once he set his mind to it, but perhaps Jeph could ease his doubts. “Never know what you’re gettin’ with either, son. Had stumps give me such trouble I’d welcome a stingin’, and hives that dropped into the sack and tied up neat as can be. But you can’t leave either one on your property without regrettin’ it.”

  “Ay,” Arlen said. “Thanks, Da.”

  “Sounds like we both got our work cut out for us,” Jeph said. “You really think one o’ them mind demon’s going to try and nest in the Brook?”

  Arlen shrugged. “Sooner or late. Might be next month, might be in a decade, but you keep killin’ demons and one’s sure to check in. Too many folk in the Brook, and they know from my memories you’re here, far from help.”

  “What’re we supposed to do about that?” Jep
h asked.

  “Just demons, Da,” Arlen said. “Smarter’n most, and got their tricks, but I killed more’n one. Renna, too. We ent the Deliverer. Just Brook folk like you and everyone else in town. We could do it, so can the rest of you.”

  He finished his ale. “No more standin’ still. Night’s gonna come get us, we don’t get it first.”

  CHAPTER 19

  HUNTED

  334 AR

  “We’re going to die,” Keerin whined, looking at the smoking ruin of Euchor’s way station. The walls were smashed, deep claw marks visible on the stone, and coreling prints covered the hard ground around the ruined structure. The air was thick with the acrid stink of burning flesh and the noxious tang of demonshit.

  Elissa opened her mouth, but Ragen was faster, reaching out to grab the front of the Jongleur’s motley. He nearly pulled Keerin from his horse to face him nose-to-nose. “Say that again and you won’t have to worry about being cored. I’ll kill you myself and no one under the sun will miss you.”

  “Jongleur ought to know better’n to talk like that,” Yon said. “Yur job to stoke us up, not start a panic. Best get that lute ready. Gonna be a long night.”

  Keerin looked at the man as if he were mad. “Just what in the Core is my lute going to do in the naked night?”

  “Ay, Core if I know.” Yon made a vague strumming motion. “Rojer could charm demons so they’d never know we was there.”

  “Well it didn’t keep Halfgrip from getting killed, did it?” Keerin snapped.

  Yon balled a heavy fist. “Keep talkin’ like’at, ya little pissant, Ragen’s gonna have to get in line.”

  Keerin eased his horse away from the men, but others were watching the exchange and casting nervous glances at the devastated way station. Hollowers expected more from their Jongleurs, it seemed.

  Elissa nudged her horse his way, rooting in her saddlebag until she found the leather case from Hary Roller.

  “The Jongleurs’ Guildmaster in the Hollow gave us these.” She handed a sheaf of papers to Keerin. “Music he claims will allow any skilled Jongleur to influence the corelings.”

  “Ridiculous,” Keerin said, but he took the papers and flipped through them. They were covered with lines and symbols Elissa could not read, but hoped would make sense to the man.

  “These are no simple songs.” Keerin glanced at the setting sun. “Am I supposed to master them in two hours?”

  Elissa kept her face serene, but Ragen could tell even she was losing patience. “Unless you want to end up in a demon’s belly. I suggest you start practicing.”

  Keerin pulled hard on his reins, turning his horse sharply away, but he pulled the lute from his saddle and led his horse to a broken bit of stone wall where he could sit while the others inspected the wreckage.

  “That was well done, my love.” Ragen slipped from his saddle, handing off the reins.

  “I don’t know how you expected to inspire the man by threatening to kill him.” Elissa dismounted as well, accepting the kiss he planted on her cheek.

  “I wasn’t looking to inspire,” Ragen said, “only to shut him up. Things are grim enough without that kind of talk.”

  “They are,” Elissa agreed. “If you want to live to tell the tale, you’d best stop threatening and start inspiring.”

  Ragen stared at her in surprise, but after a moment he nodded. “Wise words, Mother.”

  Elissa winked as they made their way into the way station. Inside, the smoke and reek were so overpowering they had to wet cloth and tie it over their faces, but Ragen insisted on a full sweep of the place, looking for survivors.

  There were none. Blood spattered the stones, and here and there lay piles of white human bones jutting from dark, oily excrement. They found charred remains of a handful of corelings, but the station’s complement had been thirty men, all of them armed with flamework weapons.

  “It seems Euchor’s weapons don’t work as well against the demons as he hoped.” Ragen didn’t sound terribly surprised.

  “Ay,” Yon said. “Even caught by surprise, thirty men with warded weapons should’ve given better’n this.”

  Ragen glanced at the shattered walls. “No point staying here. We’re not going to repair the wardnet before nightfall.”

  “We could use it to hide,” Elissa suggested. “If the demons already think the place destroyed, and we draw a few wards of confusion and unsight…”

  Ragen shook his head. “If there were only a few of us, perhaps. But our group is too large, and this place is about to be swarmed, come sunset. They’ll have our scent even if they can’t see us.”

  “Perhaps they moved on,” Elissa said.

  “Dun’t work like that,” Yon said. “Cories rise in the same place they misted the last dawn, and it looks like they stuck around to eat.”

  “Demons are known to haunt settlements they destroy,” Ragen added, “in hope more humans will be drawn there. Best ride fast as we can for an hour, then circle the wagons and set wards before nightfall.”

  “Forward or back?” Yon asked.

  Ragen scowled. “If the demons are attacking way stations, neither is safe. I mean to get home, Yon.”

  “Ay, and we’ll get ya there,” Yon said.

  “Ragen.” Elissa’s voice was tight. “What if this wasn’t an attack on the station? What if they know we’re on the road, and they’re cutting off our succor?”

  “Well past new moon,” Yon said. “Ent any minds about.”

  “They didn’t need minds to hunt us on the road to Angiers,” Elissa said.

  Yon shuddered, dropping a hand to his axe handle.

  Ragen turned to Elissa. “You’re right, but I don’t see how it changes anything. Ditching the wagons and trying to make a run for it is premature. I know a spot up the road where we’ll be able to see them coming.”

  —

  Ragen could hear the cries of the coreling for miles as they raced up the road. There could be little doubt now that the demons had been lying in wait.

  “You were right, Liss. We’re being hunted.”

  “This is one time I would have been happy to be wrong,” Elissa said.

  Ragen ran his eyes over their camp. They had chosen the best available spot, with clear visibility for the Hollowers’ crank bows and few trees or stones for demons to use against them. The wards on the ring of wagons were strong, and Ragen, Elissa, and Derek supervised staking the wardposts of the outer ring personally.

  But if there was truly an intelligence behind the attack, even those protections—which had seen Ragen through thirty years of night travel—might not be enough.

  “Maybe we should have abandoned the wagons and ridden hard for the next station,” Ragen said. “Or hired a larger escort after the attack on the road to Angiers.”

  “You might as well wish we never left home in the first place,” Elissa said.

  Ragen’s smile was humorless. “It wasn’t as if Briar actually needed us to rescue him.”

  Elissa took his hand. “Mistakes are easy to see, when you look back.”

  Inside the ring of wagons, the animals made nervous sounds as the demons grew closer, mingling with the increasingly desperate twangs of Keerin’s lute as the Jongleur struggled with Rojer’s music sheets. The sounds had little effect as the faster demons began to appear, field and flame demons circling, eyes aflame in the darkness.

  “Sing!” Yon shouted to the Cutters positioned along the perimeter of the outer circle. The men and women of their escort stood with a calm Ragen envied, crank bows ready, and lifted their voices in Keep the Hearthfire Burning.

  The demons were not swept up by the song as they had been in the Hollow, but neither did they like it. Flame demons spat fire at the singers, the burning droplets skittering across the web of magic from the outer wardnet. Field demons shrieked and threw themselves at the net, rebounding as the magic flared.

  Normal demons instinctively stepped back when a wardnet flared and hurt them. They would growl and
cautiously circle the wards, probing only now and then.

  But these demons were different. They struck hard, again and again, moving incrementally along the net, searching aggressively for gaps in the protection.

  Ragen could see the web every time the wards activated. Its interlacing protections were tight and regular. They wouldn’t get in that way, but too many corelings could short out the web. It would take dozens of demons striking in unison, but more arrived every moment, surrounding their camp. Ragen could see them flitting just beyond the wardlight.

  “Thin ’em out!” Yon called, and the crank bows twanged, sending heavy warded bolts thudding into the nearest demons at point-blank range. Corelings dropped to the ground, some killed outright, others convulsing as the warded bolts lodged in their bodies continued to turn their own magic against them.

  It was a satisfying moment, but it didn’t last as the ranks were immediately filled with new demons. Cannibal by nature, they even ignored their fallen to resume testing the wards.

  “Light!” Ragen raised his stylus, Elissa and Derek mirroring him at even intervals around the circle. As one they set light wards hanging in the sky, bright as day around their camp. Wind demons, circling silently above, shrieked and veered away.

  Ragen’s heart sank as the horde surrounding them was revealed. In addition to field, flame, and wood demons, stone demons were coming up the road, hauling rubble from the ruined way station. The ward circle would prevent the demons from entering, but it would do nothing to slow thrown rock, and if they should strike the wards and mar the circle…

  “Bows!” Yon cried, and the Cutters raised their heavy crank bows. “Chip away at the stones!”

  Ragen hesitated, trying to gauge the range of the weapons against how far the demons might throw. Stone demons were terrifyingly strong, but they couldn’t throw farther than Hollow crank bows.

  Neither, it seemed, could the crank bows keep them from getting into range. Bolts that skewered lesser demons skittered off or were caught in the outer layers of stone armor, angering the demons more than harming them.

  One of them came into range with a bristle of sizzling bolts across its chest, drawing back a great arm to fling a rock the size of an apple crate.