The Desert Spear

by Peter V. Brett

  Even as the corelings burned, his own pain lessened. The sun left him weakened as it always did, but it did not destroy him.

  Yet, he thought. But soon. Best give the Brook its wards while you still can.

  Landmarks began to appear as the Painted Man drew closer to Tibbet’s Brook, bringing his mind, lingering on thoughts of the Core, back to the present. Here was the Messenger cave where he had succored with Ragen and Keerin. There were the ruins where they had found him. Those, at least, were free of demons. A pack of nightwolves had taken up residence there, and the Painted Man wisely gave them a wide berth. Even corelings thought twice before disturbing a pack of nightwolves. Centuries of demons culling the smallest and weakest had left the few remaining predators in the wild formidable indeed. Named after their jet-black fur, adult nightwolves could weigh three hundred pounds, and a pack of them could take down even a wood demon if cornered.

  Next along the road came the small clearing where he had crippled One Arm. The Painted Man had expected the place to be just as he had left it: a scorched and blackened ruin surrounding the clear spot where he had built his circle.

  But it had been better than fourteen years, and that bleak place now bloomed with rich life, brighter, even, than its surroundings. It might be a good omen, if he believed in such things.

  In a far-flung hamlet such as Tibbet’s Brook, a Messenger, or any stranger—even someone from Sunny Pasture, the next town over—was a rare thing and apt to draw attention. When the Painted Man drew close to the town too early in the day, he pulled up and waited. Better to pass through the outskirts and town proper late in the day when folk were busy checking their wards rather than watching the road. He would arrive in Town Square close to dusk, with just enough time to rent a room at Hog’s tavern. Come morning, all he would have to do was find the Town Speaker and give him or her a grimoire of battle wards, handing out a few weapons to those who wanted them in the process, and then leave before half the folk even knew he was there. He wondered if Selia still spoke for the town, as she had when he was young.

  The first farm he passed was Mack Pasture’s, but though he heard animals in the barn, he didn’t see anyone. He reached Harl’s not long after. The Tanner farm was deserted entirely. Recently, it seemed, since its wards were still intact and the fields unburned. But the livestock was gone, and the fields in disarray, as if they had not been properly tended in some time. There was no sign of a demon attack. He wondered what could have happened.

  Harl’s farm had special meaning for him. For eleven years, Harl’s farm was the farthest he had ever gotten from home, but more than that, it was where he had kissed Beni and Renna the night before his mother died. It was ironic. He could no longer remember his mother’s face, but he remembered everything about those kisses. The way his teeth had clicked clumsily with Beni’s and they had both recoiled in shock, the softness and warmth of Renna’s mouth, the taste of her breath.

  It had been a long time since he had thought of Renna Tanner. Their fathers had promised them to each other, and if Arlen had not run away they would likely be married now, raising children and tending Jeph’s farm. He wondered what had become of her.

  Things only grew stranger as he went on. There was no reason for him to have taken any caution with his approach, because he didn’t see a single soul on his way through the Brook; every home was locked up tight. He mentally checked the date, but it was too early for the summer solstice festival. They must have been summoned by the Great Horn.

  The Great Horn was in Town Square and was blown when there was an attack, giving directions so that those closest could come and help search for survivors and rebuild if possible. Folk would lock up their livestock and leave for that, sometimes even overnight.

  The Painted Man knew he had judged his people harshly when he left home. They were no different from the folk of Cutter’s Hollow or any other of dozens of hamlets he had seen. Brook folk might not stand up to the core lings like Krasians, but they resisted in their own way, coming together time and again to reaffirm their bonds to one another. When they bickered, it was over petty things. No one in the Brook would allow a neighbor to go hungry or be left without succor, as happened so often in the cities.

  The Painted Man sniffed the air and searched the sky, but there was no sign of smoke, the surest indicator of an attack. He strained his ears, but there was nothing to guide him, and after some casting about he headed on down the road to Town Square. There would be folk there who could tell him about the attack.

  It was nearly dark as he approached Town Square, and the buzz of hundreds of voices came to his ears. He relaxed, realizing his fears were unfounded, and wondered what occasion could have drawn everyone in the Brook to spend a night in town. Had one of Hog’s daughters finally married?

  The streets were clear, but it seemed all the Brook had gathered. Every porch and doorway and window facing the square was packed full of people. Some, like the Watches, had even drawn their own circles, standing apart from the others and clutching their Canons, deep in prayer. It was a sharp contrast with the folk from Boggin’s Hill, clutching only one another as they wept. He caught sight of Renna’s sister Beni among them, holding tight to Lucik Boggin.

  He followed their gaze to the square’s center, where a beautiful young woman was bound to a stake in the ground.

  And the sun was setting.

  It was only an instant before the Painted Man recognized Renna Tanner. Perhaps it was because she had been on his mind, or that he had just seen her sister, but Renna’s round face, even after so long, was unmistakable, as was the long brown hair that fell nearly to her waist.

  She hung limply, held up more by the ropes wrapped around her arms and chest than her own strength. Her eyes were open, but they stared blankly, focused on nothing.

  “What in the Core is going on?” he roared, digging his heels into Twilight Dancer’s flanks. The giant stallion leapt forward into the square, digging great divots in the grass as he pranced before the shocked crowd. The square was lit with a dim, flickering glow from torches and lanterns, but above the sky was a deep purple. The corelings would rise in seconds.

  He leapt from the horse’s back, rushing to the stake to undo Renna’s bonds. An old man strode out to him, waving a large hunting knife with a stained blade. The Painted Man’s sharp nostrils caught the scent of dried blood as he recognized Raddock Lawry, the Speaker from Fishing Hole.

  “This ent your affair, Messenger!” Lawry said, pointing the knife at him. “That girl killed my kin, as well as her own da, and we aim to see her cored for it!”

  The Painted Man glanced at Renna in shock, and like a slap in the face it all came back to him. The marriage games she and Beni had wanted to play with him in the hayloft, games they said they learned from watching Ilain with their father. Ilain’s secret, pleading words to Jeph, begging him to take her away. The grunting from Harl’s room deep in the night.

  The memories flooded back, but this time he saw them as a grown man, and not a naïve boy. Horror struck him, followed quickly by anger. He reached out faster than Raddock could react, catching the man’s wrist in a sharusahk twist that flipped him to the ground even as the knife came free from his hands.

  The Painted Man held the blade up for all to see. “If Renna Tanner killed her da,” he shouted, “then I tell you, he had it comin’!”

  He moved to cut Renna’s bonds, but several Fishers, led by Garric, charged him with their thin spears. He stuck the bloody knife in the stake and turned to meet them.

  To call it a fight would have been overly kind to the Fishers. They were strong men, but no warriors. The Painted Man was a trained fighter, and stronger than all of them together. It was only by his mercy that none of them were permanently injured when they hit the ground.

  “Ent nobody getting cored while I’m around,” he barked. “I’m taking her, and there ent a corespawned thing you can do about it!”

  There was a thump, and he looked up, his eyes wid
ening in disbelief. Jeorje Watch stood there, looking much as he had the last time the Painted Man had seen him, though that had been over sixteen years gone, and Jeorje in his nineties then.

  “Nothing we can do, may be,” he said, nodding and pointing with his stick, “but reckon we’re not the ones you need to contend with, boy. The Plague take you both!”

  The Painted Man followed the stick and saw he was right. Mist was rising throughout the square, and already some corelings were solidifying. The Fishers on the ground shrieked and scrambled back behind the wards.

  Jeorje Watch had a grim smile on his face, one of righteous satisfaction, but the Painted Man didn’t flinch. Instead he pulled off his hood and met the Southwatch Tender’s eyes.

  “I’ve contended with worse, old man,” he growled, stripping off his robe, as well. The crowd gasped at the sight of his tattooed flesh.

  As always, the first to come were the flame demons. One leapt at Renna, but the Painted Man caught its tail, hurling it across the square. Another pounced at him, but the wards on his skin flared to life and its claws could find no purchase. He caught the coreling’s jaws before it could bite, so it spat fire in his eyes.

  The wards on his face glowed briefly, absorbing the attack and turning it into nothing more than a cool breeze. All the while the wards on his palms glowed more and more fiercely until he crushed the demon’s snout, hurling it aside.

  A wood demon formed next, charging Twilight Dancer, but the stallion reared and trampled it, sparks flying from his warded hooves.

  There was a shriek from above, and the Painted Man pivoted in time to grab the diving wind demon and turn its momentum against it, throwing it hard to the ground and crushing its throat with a stomp of his foot and a thunderclap of magic.

  Two more wood demons came at him, and he kicked the first in the stomach, knocking it back with a blast of magic before grappling with the other. He caught one of its arms in a sharusahkhold and pulled with all his strength, tearing the demon’s arm clear off. This he threw at Jeorje Watch, though the limb bounced off the wards of the Southwatch Tender’s circle.

  Three flame demons set upon the crippled wood demon, and soon the wounded coreling was shrieking as it was consumed in flame. The other wood demon recovered and made to come at the Painted Man, but he snarled at it, and the demon kept its distance.

  “It’s the Deliverer!” someone in the crowd cried. Many others echoed his words, some even falling to their knees, but the Painted Man only scowled.

  “Ent here to deliver anyone that would put a girl out in the night!” he roared. He turned to Renna, pulling the knife free from the stake and slashing through her bonds. She collapsed into his arms, and their eyes met for just a moment. Focus returned to Renna’s gaze, and she shook her head as if to clear it. He lifted her up onto Twilight Dancer’s back.

  “That witch killed my son!” Garric Fisher cried.

  The Painted Man turned, remembering all too clearly the many beatings he ’d suffered at Cobie Fisher’s hands as a child. “Your son was a bully, and never worth a coreling’s piss,” he said, climbing into the saddle behind Renna. She snuggled into him like a child, shivering though the night was warm.

  He looked out over the crowd, scanning the terrified faces. He saw his father there, clutching Ilain Tanner, and felt another surge of anger. Nothing had changed, if Jeph could stand there and watch Renna staked, knowing what they both did of Harl.

  “I came to teach you all to fight the corelings!” he called to the crowd. “But I see Tibbet’s Brook still raises only cowards and fools!”

  He turned to ride off, but something gnawed at him, and he looked back, giving the crowd one last glance, one last chance.

  “Any man, woman, or child who would rather kill corelings than feed them their neighbor, meet me here at dusk tomorrow,” he shouted. “If not, corespawn the lot of you!”

  Jeph met his eyes then, though there was no recognition in his gaze. “Renna Tanner is my kin!” he called, drawing stares from all around. “Succor at my farm up the north road! Renna knows the way!” The Painted Man needed no directions to Jeph’s farm, but he nodded, turning Twilight Dancer north.

  “Here now, you can’t go shelterin’ that murderin’ witch, Jeph Bales!” Raddock Lawry called. “The council voted!”

  “Then it’s best I ent on the council,” Jeph shouted back, “ ’cause the night as my witness, you or anyone else comes to my farm looking for her, there ’ll be more bloodshed, and to spare!”

  Raddock opened his mouth to reply, but there was an angry murmur from the crowd, and he looked around uneasily, unsure whose side they were on.

  The Painted Man grunted and kicked Twilight Dancer into a gallop out of the Square and headed up the road to his father’s farm.

  Renna was silent the whole ride, resting against him and clinging to his robes. A few demons came at them, but Twilight Dancer dodged and put on speed, quickly leaving them behind. Twice, the stallion simply trampled demons into the road without slowing.

  His father’s farm was much as he remembered it, though an addition had been built onto the back of the house. Some of the wardposts in the barley field were still those he had carved himself, coated in fresh lacquer many times over the years. Jeph maintained his wards religiously, a habit he had instilled in his son that had saved Arlen’s life many times since and defined much of the course of his life.

  Drawn to the house, a great many corelings were in the yard, testing the wards. The Painted Man shot two to clear the way to the barn, and once safe behind its wards, he stabled Twilight Dancer and stood in the doorway, picking off the others one by one with his bow. Soon the way was clear, and he escorted Renna to the house proper.

  The Painted Man was shaking as he deposited Renna in the common room and lit the lanterns, kindling a fire in the hearth. Everything about the place was so familiar, it made his heart ache. It even smelled the same. He half expected his mother to come out of the cold room and tell him to wash for supper. An old cat came and sniffed him, purring and rubbing against his leg. He picked it up and scratched its ears, remembering how its mother had birthed the litter behind the broken cart in the barn.

  He went over to Renna who was sitting right where he left her, playing with her skirts. “You all right?”

  Renna shook her head, eyes on the floor. “Ent sure I’ll ever be all right again.”

  “Know the feeling,” the Painted Man said. “You hungry?”

  When she nodded, he set the cat down and went to the cold room, unsurprised to find it laid out just as he recalled. There was smoked ham and fresh vegetables, and bread in the bread box. He took everything to the chopping block and filled a pot from the water barrel. He soon had a stew simmering over the fire, filling the house with its aroma. He opened the cupboard and set bowls and spoons at the table. He went to fetch Renna and found the cat curled in her lap. She stroked it absently as she wept, her teardrops matting its fur.

  Renna said little as they ate, and he found himself staring at her, wishing he knew what words could put life back in her eyes.

  “Good stew?” he asked as she tore bread to soak the last of it from her bowl. “There’s more if you like.” She nodded, and he fetched the pot from the fire, ladling her another helping.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Feel like I haven’t et in days. Haven’t, really. Ent been hungry.”

  “You had a rough week, I imagine,” he said.

  She met his eyes finally. “You killed those demons. Killed ’em with your bare hands.”

  The Painted Man nodded.

  “Why?” she asked.

  The Painted Man raised a brow at her. “Need a reason to kill demons?”

  “But they told you what I done,” Renna said. “And they’s right. None a this would’ve happened, I’d just minded my da. Maybe I deserve to be cored.” She looked away again, but the Painted Man grabbed her shoulders roughly and forced her to turn and face him. His eyes were blazing, and hers went wide w
ith fright.

  “You listen to me, Renna Tanner,” he said. “Your da din’t deserve mindin’. I know what he done to you and your sisters, out on that farm. That kind of man ent worth no mind at all. It’s him that brought these troubles about, not you. Ent never been you.”

  When she just stared at him, he shook her. “You hear me?!”

  For a moment more Renna just stared, and then slowly she nodded. And then again, more decisively. “Wasn’t right, what he done to us.”

  “That’s undersaid,” the Painted Man grunted.

  “And poor Cobie never done nothing wrong,” Renna went on, the words coming faster. She looked up at him. “He wan’t no bully, least not that I ever saw. All he ever wanted was to marry me proper, and Da…”

  “Killed him for it,” the Painted Man finished, when she hesitated.

  She nodded. “Man like that ent much more than a demon himself.”

  He nodded. “And you got to fight demons, Renna Tanner. It’s the only way to live with your head held high. Can’t trust no one else to do what you won’t do for yourself.”

  Renna was curled up by the fire, fast asleep, when Jeph’s cart pulled into the yard early the next morning. The Painted Man watched through the window, swallowing a lump in his throat as four children hopped down from the back of the cart, brothers and sisters he had never known.

  They were followed off the cart by tough old Norine and Ilain. The Painted Man had shined on Ilain when he was young, and she was still beautiful now, but seeing his father help her down from the front seat the way he used to do for his mother gnawed at him. He didn’t blame Ilain for wanting to escape Harl—not anymore, at least—but that made it no easier to see how quickly she had taken his mother’s place.

  He looked up the road, but there was no sign of anyone else following. He opened the door and went out to meet them. The children pulled up short, staring, as he walked over to Jeph.

  “She’s asleep by the fire,” he said.