The Warded Man (42 page)

ROJER DANCED AS THEY WALKED, four brightly painted wooden balls orbiting his head. Juggling standing still was beyond him, but Rojer Halfgrip had a reputation to maintain, and so he had learned to work around the limitation, moving with fluid grace to keep his crippled hand in position to catch and throw.

Even at fourteen he was small, barely passing five feet, with carrot-red hair, green eyes, and a round face, fair and freckled. He ducked and stretched and turned full circles, his feet moving in tempo with the balls. His soft, split-toed boots were covered in dust from the road, and the cloud he kicked up hung around them, making every breath taste of dry dirt.

“Is it even worth it, if you can’t stay still?” Arrick asked irritably. “You look like an amateur, and your audiences won’t care for breathing dirt any more than I do.”

“I won’t be performing in the road,” Rojer said.

“In the hamlets you may,” Arrick disagreed, “there are no boardwalks there.”

Rojer missed a beat, and Arrick stopped as the boy frantically tried to recover. He regained control of the balls eventually, but Arrick still tsked.

“With no boardwalks, how do they stop demons rising inside the walls?” Rojer asked.

“No walls, either,” Arrick said. “Maintaining a net around even a small hamlet would take a dozen Warders. If a village has two and an apprentice, they count themselves lucky.”

Rojer swallowed back the taste of bile in his mouth, feeling faint. Screams over a decade old rang out in his head, and he stumbled, falling on his backside as balls rained down on him. He slapped his crippled hand against the dirt angrily.

“Best leave juggling to me and focus on other skills,” Arrick said. “If you spent half the time practicing singing as you do juggling, you might last three notes before your voice breaks.”

“You always said, ‘A Jongleur who can’t juggle is no Jongleur at all,’” Rojer said.

“Never mind what I said!” Arrick snapped. “Do you think Jasin ripping Goldentone juggles? You’ve got talent. Once we build your name, you’ll have apprentices to juggle for you.”

“Why would I want someone to do my tricks for me?” Rojer asked, picking up the balls and slipping them into the pouch at his waist. As he did, he caressed the reassuring lump of his talisman, tucked safely away in its secret pocket, drawing strength.

“Because petty tricks aren’t where the money is, boy,” Arrick said, drawing on his ever-present wineskin. “Jugglers make klats. Build a name, and you earn soft Milnese gold, like I used to.” He drank again, more deeply this time. “But to build a name, you have to play the hamlets.”

“Goldentone never played the hamlets,” Rojer said.

“Exactly my point!” Arrick shouted, gesticulating wildly. “His uncle might be able to pull strings in Angiers, but he has no sway in the hamlets. When we make your name, we’re going to bury him!”

“He’s no match for Sweetsong and Halfgrip,” Rojer said quickly, placing his master’s name first, though the buzz on the streets of Angiers of late had them reversed.

“Yes!” Arrick shouted, clicking his heels and dancing a quick jig.

Rojer had deflected Arrick’s irritation in time. His master had become increasingly prone to fits of rage over the last few years, drinking more and more as Rojer’s moon waxed and his own waned. His song was no longer so sweet, and he knew it.

“How far to Cricket Run?” Rojer asked.

“We should be there by lunchtime tomorrow,” Arrick said.

“I thought the hamlets could only be a day apart,” Rojer asked.

Arrick grunted. “The duke’s decree was that villages stand no farther apart than a man
on a good horse
might go in a day,” he said. “A fair bit farther than you get on foot.”

Rojer’s hopes fell. Arrick really meant to spend a night on the road with nothing between them and the corelings but Geral’s old portable circle, which hadn’t seen use in a decade.

But Angiers was no longer entirely safe for them. As their popularity grew, Master Jasin had taken a special interest in thwarting them. His apprentices had broken Arrick’s arm the year previous, and stolen the take more than once after a big show. Between that and Arrick’s drinking and whoring, he and Rojer rarely had two klats to click together. Perhaps the hamlets could indeed offer better fortune.

Making a name in the hamlets was a rite of passage for Jongleurs, and had seemed a grand adventure while they were safe in Angiers. Now Rojer looked at the sky and swallowed hard.

Rojer sat on a stone, sewing a bright patch onto his cloak. Like his other clothes, the original cloth had long since worn away, replaced a patch at a time until only the patches remained.

“Settup th’circle when yur done, boy,” Arrick said, wobbling a bit. His wineskin was nearly empty. Rojer looked at the setting sun and winced, moving quickly to comply.

The circle was small, only ten feet in diameter. Just big enough for two men to lie with a fire between them. Rojer put a stake at the center of the camp and used a five-foot string hooked to it to draw a smooth circle in the dirt. He laid the portable circle out along its perimeter, using a straightstick to insure that the warded plates lined up properly, but he was no Warder, and couldn’t be sure he had done it right.

When he was finished, Arrick stumbled over to inspect his work.

“Looksh right,” his master slurred, barely glancing at the circle. Rojer felt a chill on his spine and went over everything again to be sure, and a third time, to be positive. Still, he was uneasy as he built a fire and prepared supper, the sun dipping ever lower.

Rojer had never seen a demon. At least, not that he remembered clearly. The clawed hand that had burst through his parents’ door was etched forever in his mind, but the rest, even the coreling that had crippled him, was only a haze of smoke and teeth and horn.

His blood ran cold as the woods began to cast long shadows on the road. It wasn’t long before a ghostlike form rose up out of the ground not far from their fire. The wood demon was no bigger than an average man, with knobbed and barklike skin stretched hard over wiry sinew. The creature saw their fire and roared, throwing back its horned head and revealing rows of sharp teeth. It flexed its claws, limbering them for killing. Other shapes flitted on the edge of the firelight, slowly surrounding them.

Rojer’s eyes flicked to Arrick, who was drawing hard on his wineskin. He had hoped that his master, who had slept in portable circles before, might be calm, but the fear in Arrick’s eyes said differently. With a shaking hand, Rojer reached into his secret pocket and took out his talisman, gripping it tightly.

The wood demon lowered its horns and charged, and something surfaced in Rojer’s mind, a memory long suppressed. Suddenly he was three years old, watching over his mother’s shoulder as death approached.

It all came back to him in that instant. His father taking up the poker and standing his ground with Geral to buy time for his mother and Arrick to escape with him. Arrick shoving them aside as he ran to the bolt-hole. The bite that took his fingers. His mother’s sacrifice.

I love you!

Rojer gripped the talisman, and felt his mother’s spirit around him like a physical presence. He trusted it to protect him more than the wards as the coreling bore down on them.

The demon struck the wards hard. Rojer and Arrick both jumped as the magic flared. Geral’s web was etched in silver fire in the air for a brief instant, and the coreling was thrown back, stunned.

Relief was short-lived. The sound and light drew the attention of other woodies, and they charged in turn, testing the net from all sides.

But Geral’s lacquered wards held fast. One by one or in groups, the wood demons were thrown back, forced to circle angrily, searching in vain for weaknesses.

But even as corelings continued to throw themselves at him, Rojer’s mind was in another place. Again and again he saw his parents die, his father burned and his mother drowning the flame demon before shoving him into the bolt-hole. And over and over, he saw Arrick shove them aside.

Arrick had killed his mother. As surely as if he had done the deed himself. Rojer brought the talisman to his lips, kissing her red hair.

“What’s that you’re holding?” Arrick asked softly, when it became clear the demons could not break through.

At any other time, Rojer would have felt a stab of panic at his talisman’s discovery, but he was in a different place now, reliving a nightmare and desperately trying to sort out what it meant. Arrick had been like a father to him for over ten years. Could these memories really be true?

He opened his hand, letting Arrick see the tiny wooden doll with its bright red hair. “My mum,” he said.

Arrick looked sadly at the doll, and something in his expression told Rojer all he needed to know. His memory was true. Angry words came to Rojer’s lips, and he tensed, ready to charge his master, throw him from the circle and let the corelings have him.

Arrick lowered his eyes and cleared his throat, beginning to sing. His voice, soured by years of drink, took on something of its old sweetness as he sang a soft lullaby, one that tickled Rojer’s memory just as the sight of the wood demon had. Suddenly he remembered how Arrick had held him in the very circle they now sat in, singing the same lullaby as Riverbridge burned.

Like his talisman, the song wrapped itself around Rojer, reminding him how safe it had made him feel that night. Arrick had been a coward, it was true, but he had honored Kally’s request to take care of him, though it had cost him his royal commission and ruined his career.

He tucked his talisman away in its secret pocket and stared out into the night as images over a decade old flashed in his mind and he tried desperately to make sense of them.

Eventually, Arrick’s singing trailed off, and Rojer pulled himself from contemplation and fetched their cooking utensils. They fried sausages and tomatoes in a small skillet, eating them with hard, crusty bread. After supper, they practiced. Rojer took out his fiddle, and Arrick wet his lips with the last drops from his wineskin. They faced one another, doing their best to ignore the corelings stalking about the circle.

Rojer began to play, and all his doubts and fears fell away as the vibration of the strings became his world. He caressed a melody forth, and nodded when he was ready. Arrick joined him with a soft hum, waiting for another nod before beginning to sing. They played thus for some time, falling into a comfortable harmony honed by years of practice and performance. Much later, Arrick broke off suddenly, looking around.

“What is it?” Rojer asked.

“I don’t think a demon has struck the wards since we started,” Arrick said.

Rojer stopped playing, looking out into the night. It was true, he realized, wondering how he hadn’t noticed it before. The wood demons were crouched about the circle, motionless, but as Rojer met the eyes of one, it sprang at him.

Rojer screamed and fell back as the coreling struck the wards and was repelled. All around them the magic flared as the rest of the creatures shook off their daze and attacked.

“It was the music!” Arrick said. “The music held them back!”

Seeing the confused look on the boy’s face, Arrick cleared his throat, and began to sing.

His voice was strong, and carried far down the road, drowning out the demon roars with its beautiful sound, but it did nothing to keep the demons at bay. On the contrary, the corelings shrieked all the louder and clawed at the barrier, as if desperate to silence him.

Arrick’s thick eyebrows furrowed, and he changed tune, singing the last song he and Rojer had been practicing, but the corelings still swiped at the wards. Rojer felt a stab of fear. What if the demons found a weakness in the wards, like they had …

“The fiddle, boy!” Arrick called. Rojer looked dumbly down at the fiddle and bow still clutched in his hands. “Play it, fool!” Arrick commanded.

But Rojer’s crippled hand shook, and the bow touched string with a piercing whine, like fingernails on slate. The corelings shrieked, and backed a step away. Emboldened, Rojer played more jarring and sour notes, driving the demons farther and farther off. They howled and put clawed hands to their heads as if in pain.

But they did not flee. The demons backed away from the circle slowly until they found a tolerable distance. There they waited, black eyes reflecting the firelight.

The sight chilled Rojer’s heart. They knew he couldn’t play forever.

Arrick had not been exaggerating when he said they would be treated as heroes in the hamlets. The people of Cricket Run had no Jongleurs of their own, and many remembered Arrick from his time as the duke’s herald, a decade gone.

There was a small inn for housing cattle drivers and produce farmers heading to and from Woodsend and Shepherd’s Dale, and they were welcomed there and given free room and board. The whole town showed up to watch them perform, drinking enough ale to more than repay the innkeep. In fact, everything went flawlessly, until it came time to pass the hat.

“An ear of corn!” Arrick shouted, shaking it in Rojer’s face. “Whar we sposa to do wi’that?”

“We could always eat it,” Rojer offered. His master glared at him and continued to pace.

Rojer had liked Cricket Run. The people there were simple and good-hearted, and knew how to enjoy life. In Angiers, crowds pressed close to hear his fiddle, nodding and clapping, but he had never seen folk so quick to dance as the Runners. Before his fiddle was halfway from its case, they were backing up, making room. Before long, they were reeling and spinning and laughing uproariously, embracing his music fully and flowing wherever it took them.

They cried without shame at Arrick’s sad ballads, and laughed hysterically at their bawdy jokes and mummery. They were, in Rojer’s estimation, everything one could ask in an audience.