The Warded Man (37 page)

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.

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 length 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.

Arlen was sent spinning away, but he wrenched himself toward his spare circle, collapsing in the protective ring. As he clutched his wounds, he watched the giant rock demon stumble about. Again and again, One Arm attempted to grasp the spear and pull it free of the wound, but the wards along its length thwarted the demon. And all along, the magic continued to work, sparking in the wound and sending killing waves through the coreling’s body.

Arlen allowed himself a slight smile as One Arm collapsed to the ground, thrashing. But as he watched the demon’s flailing slow to twitching, he felt a great emptiness grow inside of him. He had dreamt of this moment countless times, of how it would feel, of what he would say, but it wasn’t like he imagined. Instead of elation, he felt depression and loss.

“That was for you, Mam,” he whispered as the great demon ceased to move. He tried to picture her, desperate to feel her approval, and he was shocked and ashamed when he could not remember her face. He screamed, feeling wretched and small under the stars.

Giving the demon a wide berth, Arlen made his way back to his supplies, binding his wounds. The stitches he made were crooked, but they held his wounds closed, and the hogroot poultice burned, the pain evidence of its need. Already the wound was infecting.

He found no sleep that night. If the pain of his wounds and the ache of his heart had not been sufficient to drive slumber away, a chapter of his life was about to end, and he was determined to see it through.

When the sun crested the dunes, it flooded Arlen’s camp with a speed that could only be found in the desert. The sand demons had already melted away, fleeing at the first hint of dawn. Arlen winced as he stood up, making his way from the circle to stand over One Arm, retrieving his spear.

Wherever the sun’s light touched, the black carapace smoked, then sparked and ignited. Soon the demon’s body was a funeral pyre, and Arlen stood watching, mesmerized. As the rock demon collapsed into ashes soon borne on the morning wind, he saw hope for the human race.

THE DESERT ROAD wasn’t really a road at all, simply a string of ancient signposts, some clawed and jagged, others half buried in sand, keeping a traveler from losing his way. It wasn’t all sand, as Ragen had once said, though there was enough of that to wander for days seeing naught else. On the outskirts ran hundreds of miles of hard, dust-choked flats, with sparse bits of dead vegetation clinging to cracked clay, too dry to rot. Apart from the shadows cast by dunes in the sea of sand, there was no shelter from the beating sun, so hot Arlen could not imagine it was the same body that brought cold light to Fort Miln. The wind blew continually, and he had to cover his face to keep from inhaling sand, his throat raw and dry.

The nights were worse, the heat leaching from the ground moments after the sun dipped below the horizon, welcoming the corelings into a cold, desolate place.

But even here, there was life. Snakes and lizards hunted tiny rodents. Carrion birds sought the corpses of creatures slain by corelings, or that wandered into the desert and could not find their way back out. There were at least two large oases, where a large body of water caused the surrounding soil to grow dense with edible vegetation, and others where a trickle from the rock or a pool of water no wider than a man’s stride supported a host of stunted plants and small creatures. Arlen had witnessed these desert dwellers burying themselves in the sand at night, resisting the cold with conserved heat and hiding from the demons that stalked the sands.

There were no rock demons in the desert, for there was not enough prey. No flame demons, because there was little to burn. Wood demons had no bark to blend into, no limbs to climb. Water demons could not swim through sand, and wind demons could find no perch. The dunes and desert flats belonged to sand demons alone. Even they were sparse in the deep desert, clustering mostly about the oases, but the sight of a fire would draw them from miles around.

Five weeks from Fort Rizon to Krasia, more than half of it through the desert, was more than many of the hardiest Messengers cared to contemplate. Despite Northern merchants offering exorbitant sums for Krasian silks and spice, few were desperate—or crazy—enough to go there.

For his own part, Arlen found the trip peaceful. He slept in his saddle during the hottest parts of the day, carefully wrapped in loose white cloth. He watered his horse frequently, and spread tarps beneath his portable circles at night to keep the wards from becoming obscured in the sand. He was tempted to lash out at the circling sand demons, but his wound had made his grip weak, and he knew that should the spear be pulled from his grasp, a common wind might lose it in the sand more surely than hundreds of years in a buried tomb.

Despite the cries of the sand demons, the nights seemed quiet to Arlen, used to the great roars of One Arm. He slept more peacefully on those nights than any spent outside before.

For the first time in his life, Arlen saw his path extend beyond being a glorified errand boy. He had always known he was destined for more than messaging; he was destined to fight. But he now realized it was more than that: He was destined to bring
others
to fight.

He was certain he could duplicate the warded spear, and was already pondering ways to adapt its wards to other weapons; arrows, staves, slingstones, the possibilities were endless.

In all the places he had seen, only the Krasians refused to live in terror of the corelings, and for that reason Arlen respected them above all. There were no people more deserving of this gift. He would show them the spear, and they would supply him with everything he needed to build them weapons to turn the tide of their nightly war.

The thoughts fled as Arlen caught sight of the oasis. The sand could reflect the sky’s blue and trick a man into rushing off the road to water that did not exist, but when his horse picked up the pace, Arlen knew it was real. Dawn Runner could smell the water.

Their water had been depleted the day before, and by the time they reached the small pool, both Arlen and his horse were sick with thirst. In unison, they dropped their heads to the cool water, drinking deeply.

When they had drunk their fill, Arlen refilled their waterskins and set them in the shade beneath one of the sandstone monoliths standing silent guard around the oasis. He inspected the wards cut into the stone, finding them intact, but with some signs of wear. The eternally blowing sand scratched at them little by little, wearing down the edges over time. He took out his etching tools, deepening and sharpening them to maintain the net.

While Dawn Runner grazed on scrub grass and the leaves of stunted bushes, Arlen harvested dates, figs, and other fruit from the oasis trees. He ate his fill, and set the rest where they could dry in the sun.

An underground river fed the oasis, and in years beyond memory, men had dug away the sand and cut the stone beneath, finally reaching the running water. Arlen descended the stone steps into a cool underground chamber and collected the nets stored there, tossing them into the water. When he left, he carried a satisfying catch of fish. He set aside a choice few for himself and cleaned the others, salting them and setting them alongside the fruit to dry.

Taking a forked tool from the oasis stores, he then searched around the stones, at last spotting telltale grooves in the sand. Soon he had a snake pinned with the forked stick, and snatched it by the tail, cracking it like a whip to kill it. There was likely a cache of eggs nearby, but he did not search them out. It would be dishonorable to deplete the oasis more than necessary. Again, he put part of the snake aside for his own uses, and set the rest to dry.

In a carved nook in one of the great sandstones, marked with the sigils of many Messengers, Arlen retrieved a cache of tough, dried fruits, fish, and meat left by the previous Messenger, and refilled his saddlebags. Once his harvest dried, he would replenish the nook for the next Messenger to succor here.

It was impossible to cross the desert without stopping at the Oasis of Dawn. The only source of water for over a hundred miles, it was the destination of every desert traveler in either direction. Most of these were Messengers, and therefore Warders, and over the years that exclusive society had marked their passing on the abundant sandstone. Dozens of names were cut into the stones; some were simply scratched print, while others were masterworks of calligraphy. Many Messengers included more than just their names, listing the cities they had visited, or the number of times they had succored at the Oasis of Dawn.

On his eleventh trip through the oasis, Arlen had long since finished carving his name and those of the living cities and villages he had visited, but he never stopped exploring, and always had something to add. Slowly, using beautiful scrolling letters, Arlen reverently inscribed “Anoch Sun” into the list of ruins he had seen. No other Messenger’s mark in the oasis made such a claim, and that filled him with pride.

The next day, Arlen continued to increase the oasis’ stores. It was a matter of honor among Messengers to leave the oasis stocked better than it was found, against the day when one of their number should stumble in too injured or sunstruck to gather for themselves.

That night, he composed a letter to Cob. He had written many such; they sat in his saddlebag, unsent. His words always felt inadequate to make up for abandoning his duties, but this news was too great not to share. He illustrated the wards on the spear’s tip precisely, knowing Cob could spread the knowledge to every Warder in Miln in short order.

He left the Oasis of Dawn first thing the next morning, heading southwest. For five days, he saw little more than yellow dunes and sand demons, but early on the sixth, the city of Fort Krasia, the Desert Spear, came into view, framed by the mountains beyond.

From afar, it seemed just another dune, sandstone walls blending with their surroundings. It was built around an oasis much larger than the Oasis of Dawn, fed, the ancient maps said, by the same great underground river. Its warded walls, carved rather than painted, stood proudly in the sun. High above the city flew Krasia’s banner, crossed spears over a rising sun.

The guards at the gate wore the black robes of
dal’Sharum
, the Krasian warrior caste, veiled against the ruthless sand. While not as tall as Milnese, Krasians were a head taller than most Angierians or Laktonians, hard with wiry muscle. Arlen nodded to them as he passed.

The guards raised their spears in return. Among Krasian men, this was the barest courtesy, but Arlen had worked hard to earn the gesture. In Krasia, a man was judged by the number of scars he carried and
alagai
—corelings—he had killed. Outsiders, or
chin
, as the Krasians called them, even Messengers, were considered cowards who had given up the fight, and were unworthy of any courtesy from
dal’Sharum
. The word
“chin”
was an insult.

But Arlen had shocked the Krasians with his requests to fight alongside them, and after he had taught their warriors new wards and assisted in many kills, they now called him Par’chin, which meant “brave outsider.” He would never be considered an equal, but the
dal’Sharum
had stopped spitting at his feet, and he had even made a few true friends.

Through the gate, Arlen entered the Maze, a wide inner yard before the wall of the city proper, filled with walls, trenches, and pits. Each night, their families locked safe behind the inner walls, the
dal’Sharum
engaged in
alagai’sharak
, Holy War against demonkind. They lured corelings into the Maze, ambushing and harrying them into warded pits to await the sun. Casualties were high, but Krasians believed that dying in
alagai’sharak
assured them a place at the side of Everam, the Creator, and went gladly into the killing zone.

Soon
, Arlen thought,
it will be only corelings that die here
.

Just inside the main gate was the Great Bazaar, where merchants hawked over hundreds of laden carts, the air thick with hot Krasian spices, incense, and exotic perfumes. Rugs, bolts of fine cloth, and beautiful painted pottery sat beside mounds of fruit and bleating livestock. It was a noisy and crowded place, filled with shouted haggling.

Every other marketplace Arlen had ever seen teemed with men, but the Great Bazaar of Krasia was filled almost entirely with women, covered head to toe in thick black cloth. They bustled about, selling and buying, shouting at each other vigorously and handing over their worn golden coins only grudgingly.

Jewelry and bright cloth were sold in abundance in the bazaar, but Arlen had never seen it worn. Men had told him the women wore the adornments under their black, but only their husbands knew for sure.

Krasian men above the age of sixteen were almost all warriors. A small few were
dama
, the Holy Men who were also Krasia’s secular leaders. No other vocation was considered honorable. Those who took a craft were called
khaffit
, and considered contemptible, barely above women in Krasian society. The women did all the day-to-day work in the city, from farming and cooking to child care. They dug clay and made pottery, built and repaired homes, trained and slaughtered animals, and haggled in the markets. In short, they did everything but fight.

Yet despite their unending labor, they were utterly subservient to the men. A man’s wives and unmarried daughters were his property, and he could do with them as he pleased, even kill them. A man could take many wives, but if a woman so much as let a man who was not her husband look at her unveiled, she could—and often would—be put to death. Krasian women were considered expendable. Men were not.

Without their women, Arlen knew, the Krasian men would be lost, but the women treated men in general with reverence, and their husbands with near-worship. They came each morning to find the dead from the night’s
alagai’sharak
, and wailed over the bodies of their men, collecting their precious tears in tiny vials. Water was coin in Krasia, and a warrior’s status in life could be measured by the number of tear bottles filled upon his death.

If a man was killed, it was expected that his brothers or friends would take his wives, so they would always have a man to serve. Once, in the Maze, Arlen had held a dying warrior who offered him his three wives. “They are beautiful, Par’chin,” he had assured, “and fertile. They will give you many sons. Promise you will take them!”

Arlen promised they would be cared for, and then found another willing to take them on. He was curious about what lay under the Krasian women’s robes, but not enough to trade his portable circle for a clay building, his freedom for a family.

Following behind almost every woman were several tan-clad children; the girls’ hair wrapped, the boys in rag caps. As early as eleven, the girls would begin to marry and take on the black clothes of women, while the boys were taken to the training grounds even younger. Most would take on the black robes of
dal’Sharum
. Some few would come to wear the white of
dama
, and devote their lives to serving Everam. Those who failed at both professions would be
khaffit
, and wear tan in shame until they died.

The women caught sight of Arlen as he rode through the market, and began whispering to one another excitedly. He watched them, amused, for none would look him in the eye, or approach him. They hungered for the goods in his saddlebags—fine Rizonan wool, Milnese jewels, Angierian paper, and other treasures of the North—but he was a man, and worse, a
chin
, and they dared not approach. The eyes of the
dama
were everywhere.