The Painted Man

Coline had said Ragen was heading to Sunny Pasture before returning to the Free Cities. Arlen liked Ragen, the only elder he’d ever met who didn’t talk down to him. The Messenger and Keerin were a day and more ahead of him, and mounted, but if he hurried, perhaps he could catch them in time and beg passage to the Free Cities.

He still had Coline’s map, strung around his neck. It showed the road to Sunny Pasture, and the farms along the way. Even deep in the woods, he was pretty sure which way was north.

At midday he found the road, or rather the road found him, cutting straight across the woods ahead of him. He must have lost his sense of direction in the trees.

He walked on for a few hours, but he saw no sign of a farm, or the old Herb Gatherer’s home. Looking at the sun, his worry increased. If he was walking north, the sun should be off to his left, but it wasn’t. It was right in front of him.

He stopped and looked at the map, and his fears were confirmed. He wasn’t on the road to Sunny Pasture, he was on the road to the Free Cities. Worse, after the road split off from the path to Sunny Pasture, it went right off the edge of the map.

The idea of backtracking was daunting, especially with no way to know if he could make it to succour in time. He took a step back the way he had come.

No, he decided. Going back is Da’s way. Whatever happens, I’m going forward.

Arlen started walking again, leaving both Tibbet’s Brook and Sunny Pasture behind. Each step was lighter and easier than the one before.

He walked for hours more, eventually leaving the trees behind and entering grassland: wide, lush fields untouched by plough or grazing. He crested a hilltop, breathing deeply of the fresh, untainted air. There was a large boulder jutting from the ground, and Arlen scrambled on top of it, looking out at a wide world that had always been beyond his reach. There was no sign of habitation, no place to seek succour. He was afraid of the coming night, but it was a distant feeling, like knowing you would grow old and die one day.

As the afternoon turned to evening, Arlen began looking for places to make his stand. A copse of trees held promise; there was little grass beneath them, and he could draw wards in the soil, but a wood demon might climb one of the trees, and drop into his warding ring from above.

There was a small, stony hillock free of grass, but when Arlen stood on top of it, the wind was strong, and he feared it might mar the wards, rendering them useless.

Finally, Arlen came to a place where flame demons had set a recent blaze. New buds had yet to pierce the ash, and a scuff of his foot found hard soil beneath. He cleared the ash from a wide area and began his warding circle. He had little time, so he kept it small, not wanting his haste to make him careless.

Using a sharp stick, Arlen drew the sigils in the dirt, gently blowing away loose scrapings. He worked for over an hour, ward by ward, stepping back frequently to assure himself that they were aligned properly. His hands, as always, moved with confidence and alacrity.

When he finished, Arlen had a circle six feet in diameter. He checked the wards three times, finding no error. He put the stick in his pocket and sat at the circle’s centre, watching the shadows lengthen and the sun dip low, setting the sky awash with colour.

Perhaps he would die tonight. Perhaps not. Arlen told himself it did not matter. But as the light waned, so too did his nerve. He felt his heart pounding, and every instinct told him to leap to his feet and run. But there was nowhere to run to. He was miles away from the nearest place of succour. He shivered, though it was not cold.

This was a bad idea, a tiny voice whispered in his mind. He snarled at it, but the brave front did little to loosen his knotting muscles as the last rays of the sun winked out, and he was bathed in darkness.

Here they come, that frightened voice in his head warned, as the wisps of mist began to rise from the ground.

The mist coalesced slowly, demon bodies gaining substance as they slipped from the ground. Arlen rose with them, clenching his small fists. As always, the flame demons came first, scampering about in delight, trailing flickering fire as they went. These were followed by the wind demons, which immediately ran and spread their leathery wings, leaping into the air. Last came the rock demons, laboriously hauling their heavy frames from the Core.

And then the corelings saw Arlen and howled with delight, charging the helpless boy.

A swooping wind demon struck first, raking its hooked wing claws to tear out Arlen’s throat. Arlen screamed, but sparks flew as the talons struck his wards, deflecting the attack. Momentum carried the demon on, and its body slammed into the shield only to be hurled back in a shimmering burst of energy. The creature howled as it struck the ground, but it pulled itself upright, twitching as energy danced across its scales.

Next came the nimble flame demons, the largest no bigger than a dog. They skittered forward, shrieking, and began clawing at the shield. Arlen flinched each time the wards flared, but the magic held. When they saw that Arlen had woven an effective net, they spat fire at him.

Arlen was wise to the trick, of course. He had been warding since he was old enough to hold a stick of charcoal, and he knew the wards against firespit. The flames were turned as effectively as the claws. He didn’t even feel the heat.

Corelings gathered to the spectacle, and each flash of light as the wards activated showed Arlen more and more of them: a fell horde, eager to flay the flesh from his bones.

More wind demons swooped in, and were thrown back by the wards. The flame demons, too, began to hurl themselves at him in frustration, accepting the stinging burn of the magic in hope of powering their way through. Again and again they were thrown back. Arlen ceased to flinch. He began to scream curses at them, shoving his terror aside.

His defiance only enraged the demons further. Unused to being taunted by their prey, they doubled their efforts to penetrate the wards as Arlen shook his fists and made rude gestures he had seen the adults in Tibbet’s Brook make to Hog’s back sometimes.

This was what he feared? This was what humanity lived in terror of? These pathetic, frustrated beasts? Ridiculous. He spat, and the saliva sizzled on a flame demon’s scales, trebling its fury.

There was a hush from the howling creatures then. In the flickering light of the flame demons, he saw the coreling host part, clearing a path for a rock demon that stomped towards him, its footsteps like an earthquake.

All his life, Arlen had watched corelings from afar, from behind windows and doors. Before the terrifying events of the last few days, he had never been outside in the air with a fully formed demon, and had certainly never stood his ground. He knew their size could vary, but he had never appreciated just how much.

The rock demon was fifteen feet tall.

The rock demon was enormous.

Arlen craned his head upward as the monster approached. Even at a distance, it was a towering, hulking mass of sinew and sharp edges. Its thick black carapace was knobbed with bony protrusions, and its spiked tail slid back and forth, balancing its massive shoulders. It stood hunched on two clawed feet that dug great grooves in the ground with every thunderous step. Its long, gnarled arms ended in talons the size of butchering knives, and its drooling maw split wide to reveal row after row of bladelike teeth. A black tongue slipped out, tasting Arlen’s fear.

One of the flame demons failed to move from its path quickly enough, and the rock demon swiped at it in an offhand manner, its talons tearing great gashes as the blow launched the smaller coreling through the air.

Terrified, Arlen took a step back, and then another, as the giant coreling approached. It was only at the last moment that he came to his senses and stopped before he retreated right out of the protective circle.

Remembering the circle gave fleeting comfort. Arlen doubted his wards were strong enough for this test. He doubted any wards were.

The demon regarded him for a long moment, savouring his terror. Rock demons seldom hurried, though when they chose to, they could move with astonishing speed.

As the demon struck, Arlen’s nerve broke. He screamed and fell to the ground, curling up in a tight ball, covering his head with his arms.

The resulting explosion was deafening. Even through his covered eyes, Arlen saw the bright flash of magic, as if night had become day. He heard the demon’s shriek of frustration, and peeked out as the coreling whirled, smashing its heavy, horned tail against the wards.

Again the magic flared, and again the creature was thwarted.

Arlen forced himself to let go the breath he had been holding. He watched as the demon struck his wards again and again, screaming in rage. A warm dampness clung to his thighs.

Ashamed of himself, of his cowardice, Arlen came to his feet and met the demon’s eyes. He screamed, a primal cry from deep within him that rejected everything the coreling was and everything it represented.

He picked up a stone and threw it at the demon. ‘Go back to the Core where you belong!’ he cried. ‘Go back and die!’

The demon barely seemed to feel the stone bounce off its armour, but its rage multiplied as it tore at the wards, unable to get through. Arlen called the demon every foul and pathetic thing in his somewhat limited vocabulary, clawing at the ground for anything he could throw.

When he ran out of stones, he began jumping up and down, waving his arms, screaming his defiance.

Then he slipped, and stepped on a ward.

Time seemed to freeze in the long, silent moment shared by Arlen and the giant demon, the enormity of what had just happened slowly dawning on them. When they moved, they moved as one, Arlen whipping out his etching stick and diving for the ward even as the demon swiped a massive, clawed hand at him.

His mind racing, Arlen assessed the damage in an instant, a single line of the sigil was marred. Even as he repaired the ward with a slash of the tool, he knew he was too late. The claws had begun to cut into his flesh.

But then the magic took effect once more, and the demon was hurled back, screaming in agony. Arlen, too, screamed in pain, rolling over and pulling the claws from his back; hurling them away before he could realize what had happened.

He saw it then, lying in the circle, twitching and smoking.

The demon’s arm.

Arlen looked at the severed limb in shock, turning to see the demon roaring and thrashing about, savaging any demon foolish enough to come within its reach; savaging with one arm.

He looked at the arm, its end neatly severed and cauterized, oozing a foul smoke. With more bravery than he felt, Arlen picked the massive thing up and tried to hurl it from the circle, but the wards made a two-way barrier. The stuff of corelings could no more pass out than in. The arm bounced off the wards and landed back at Arlen’s feet.

Then the pain set in. Arlen touched the wounds along his back, and his hands came away wet with blood. Sickened, his strength ebbing, he fell to his knees, weeping for the pain, weeping for fear of moving and scuffing another ward, and weeping, most of all, for his mam. He understood now the pain she had felt that night.

Arlen spent the rest of the night cowering in fright. He could hear the demons circling, waiting, hoping for an error that would allow them access. Even if sleep had been possible, he would not have dared attempt it, lest a shift in his slumber grant the corelings their wish.

Dawn seemed to take years to come. Arlen looked up at the sky often that night, but each time he saw only the giant, crippled rock demon, clutching its caked and ichorous wound as it stalked the circle, hatred in its eyes.

After an eternity, a hint of red tinged the horizon, followed by orange, yellow, and then a glorious white. The other corelings slipped back down to the Core before the yellow touched the sky, but the giant waited until the last, its rows of teeth bared as it hissed at him.

But even the one-armed rock demon’s hatred was no match for its fear of the sun. As the last shadows scurried away, its massive horned head sank beneath the ground. Arlen straightened and stepped from the circle, wincing in pain. His back was on fire. The wounds had stopped bleeding in the night, but he felt them tear open once more as he stretched.

The thought led his eyes back to the clawed forearm lying next to him. It was like a tree trunk, covered in hard, cold plates. Arlen picked the heavy thing up and held it before him.

Got a trophy, at least, he thought, making an effort to be brave even though the sight of his blood on the black talons sent a shudder through him.

Just then, a ray of light reached him, the sun finally more above the horizon than below. The demon’s limb began to sizzle and smoke, popping like a wet log thrown on a fire. In a moment, it burst into flame, and Arlen dropped it in fright. He watched, fascinated, as it flared brighter and brighter, the sun’s light bearing down upon it until there was naught left but a thin, charred remnant. He stepped over and gingerly nudged it with his toe, collapsing it into dust.

Arlen found a branch to use as a walking stick as he trudged on. He understood how lucky he was. And how stupid. Wards drawn in the soil were untrustworthy. Even Ragen said that. What would he have done if the wind had marred them, as his father threatened?

Creator, what if it had rained?

How many nights could he survive? Arlen had no idea what lay over the next hill, no reason to think that there was anyone between here and the Free Cities, which, by all accounts, were weeks away.

He felt tears welling in his eyes. Brutally, he wiped them off, growling in defiance. Giving in to fear was his father’s solution to problems, and Arlen already knew it didn’t work.

‘I’m not afraid,’ he told himself. ‘I’m not.’

Arlen pressed on, knowing the lie for what it was.

Around midday, he came to a rocky stream. The water was cold and clear, and he bent to drink. The move sent lances of pain through his back.

He had done nothing for the wounds. It wasn’t as if he could stitch them closed as Coline might. He thought of his mother, and how when he came home with cuts or scrapes the first thing she did was wash them out.

He stripped off his shirt, finding the back torn and soaked through with blood, now crusted and hard. He dunked the shirt and watched as soil and blood washed downstream. He laid his clothes out on the rocks to dry, and lowered himself into the cold water.

The chill made him wince, but it soon numbed the pain in his back. He scrubbed as best he could, gently washing out the stinging wounds until he could stand it no more. Shivering, he climbed from the stream and lay on the rocks by his clothes.

He awoke some time later with a start. Cursing, he saw that the sun had moved far across the sky, and that the day was nearly done. He could travel a little farther, but he knew the risk would be a foolish one. Better to spend the extra time on his defences.

Not far from the stream was a wide area of moist soil, and the sod pulled free easily, clearing him a space. He tamped down the loose dirt, smoothed it, and set to warding. He drew a wider circle this time, and then, after checking it thrice, drew another concentric ring within the first for added safety. The moist earth would resist the wind, and the sky showed no threat of rain.

Satisfied, Arlen dug a pit and gathered dry twigs, building a small fire. He sat in the centre of the inner circle as the sun dipped, trying to ignore his hunger. He doused the fire as the red sky grew lavender, then purple, breathing deeply to steady his pounding heart. At last, the light vanished and the corelings rose.

Arlen held his breath, waiting. Finally, a flame demon caught his scent, and raced at him with a shriek. In that moment, the terror of the previous night came rushing back to him, and Arlen felt his blood go cold.

The corelings were oblivious to his wards until they were upon them. With the first flare of magic, Arlen breathed his relief. The demons clawed at the barrier, but they could not pass.

A wind demon, flying up high where the wards were weak, passed the first ring, but it smashed into the second as it swooped down at him, landing hard in the space between. Arlen struggled to maintain his calm as it lurched to its feet.

It was bipedal, with a long, thin body, and spindly limbs that ended in six-inch hooked claws. The undersides of its arms and the outsides of its legs were webbed with a thin, leathery membrane, supported by flexible bones jutting from the creature’s sides. Barely taller than an adult man, the demon’s spread wings spanned twice its height, making it seem huge in the sky. A curving horn grew from its head, bent back and webbed like its limbs to form a ridge down its back. Its long snout held rows of inch-long teeth, yellow in the moonlight.

The coreling moved clumsily on land, despite its graceful mastery of the air. Up close, the wind demons were not nearly as impressive as their cousins. Wood and rock demons had impenetrable armour and otherworldly strength to power their thick claws. Flame demons were faster than any man, and spat fire that could set anything alight. Wind demons … Arlen thought Ragen could puncture one of those thin wings with a hard stab of his spear, crippling it.

Night, he thought, I’m pretty sure I could do it myself.

But he didn’t have a spear, and impressive or not, the coreling could still kill him, if his inner wards did not hold. He tensed as it drew close.

It swiped the hooked talon at the end of its wing at him, and Arlen winced, but magic sparked along the wardnet, and it was thwarted.

After a few more futile strikes, the coreling attempted to get airborne again. It ran and spread its wings to catch the wind, but it struck the outer wards before it could gain sufficient momentum. The magic threw it back into the mud.

Arlen laughed in spite of himself as the coreling tried to pick itself up. Its huge wings dragged on the ground and threw it off balance. It had no hands to push up with, and its spindly arms bowed under its weight. It thrashed desperately for a moment before it was able to rise.

Trapped, it tried again and again to take off, but the space between the circles was not great enough, and it was foiled each time. The flame demons sensed their cousin’s distress, and shrieked with glee, hopping around the circle to follow the creature and taunt its misfortune.

Arlen felt a swell of pride. He had made mistakes the night before, but he would not make them again. He began to hope that he might live to see the Free Cities after all.

The flame demons soon tired of mocking the wind demon, and moved off in search of easier prey, flushing small animals from hiding with gouts of fire. One small, frightened hare leapt into Arlen’s outer ring, the demon in pursuit stopped by the wards. The wind demon snatched clumsily at it, but the hare dodged it easily, running through the circle and out the far side, only to find corelings there as well. It turned and darted back in, again running too far.

Arlen wished there were a way he could communicate with the poor creature, to let it know it was safe in the inner ring, but he could only watch as it darted in and out of the wards.

Then the unthinkable happened. The hare, scampering back into the circle, scratched out a ward. With a howl, flame demons poured through the gap after the animal. The lone wind demon escaped, leaping into the air and winging away.

Arlen cursed the hare, and cursed all the more when it darted right for him. If it damaged the inner wards, they were both doomed.

With a farm boy’s quickness, Arlen reached from the circle and snatched up the hare by its ears. It thrashed wildly, willing to tear itself apart to escape, but Arlen had handled hares in his father’s fields often enough. He swung it into his arms, cradling it on its back, hindquarters up above its head. In a moment, the hare was staring up at him blankly, its struggles ceased.

He was tempted to throw the creature to the demons. It would be safer than risking it getting free and scuffing another ward. And why not? he wondered. If I’d found it in the light, I’d’ve eaten it myself.

Still, he found he could not do it. The demons had taken too much from the world, from him. He swore then that he would give them nothing willingly, not now, not ever.

Not even this.

As the night wore on, Arlen held the terrified creature firmly, cooing at it and stroking its soft fur. All around, the demons howled, but Arlen blocked them out, focusing on the animal.

The meditation worked for a time, until a roar brought him back. He looked up to find the massive, one-armed rock demon towering over him, its drool sizzling as it struck the wards. The creature’s wound had healed into a knobbly stump at the end of its elbow. Its rage seemed even greater than the night before.

The coreling hammered at the barrier, ignoring the stinging flare of the magic. With deafening blows, the rock demon struck again and again, attempting to power through and take its vengeance. Arlen clutched the hare tightly, his eyes wide as he watched. He knew that the wards would not weaken from repeated blows, but it did little to stop the fear that the demon was determined enough to manage it anyway.

When the morning light banished the demons for another day, Arlen finally let go of the hare, and it bounded away immediately. His stomach growled as he watched it go, but after what they had shared, he could not bring himself to look at the creature as food.

Rising, Arlen stumbled and almost fell as a wave of nausea took him. The cuts along his back were lances of fire. He reached back to touch the tender, swollen skin, and his hand came away wet with the stinking brown ooze that Coline had drained from Silvy’s wounds. The cuts burned, and he felt flushed. He bathed in the cold pool again, but the chill water did little to ease his inner heat.

Arlen knew then he was going to die. Old Mey Friman, if she existed at all, was over two days away. If he truly had demon fever, though, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t last two days.

Still, Arlen could not bring himself to give in. He stumbled on down the road, following the wagon ruts towards wherever they came from.

If he was to die, let it be closer to the Free Cities than the prison behind.

4

Leesha 319 AR

Leesha spent the night in tears.

That was nothing out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t her mother that had her weeping this night. It was the screams. Someone’s wards had failed; it was impossible to tell whose, but cries of terror and agony echoed in the dark, and smoke billowed into the sky. The whole village glowed with a hazy orange light as smoke refracted coreling fire.

The people of Cutter’s Hollow couldn’t search for survivors yet. They dared not even fight the fire. They could do nothing save pray to the Creator that embers did not carry on the wind and spread the flames. Houses in Cutter’s Hollow were built well apart for just this reason, but a strong breeze could carry a spark a long way.