The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1)(162)

Every so often, someone came running in to relay a message to Leesha or the Warded Man. They gave instructions quickly, sending the runner off and turning back to their work.

With only a pair of hours before sunset, they drove the carts back through the steady rain to the Holy House. The villagers stopped work at the sight of them, coming quickly to help Leesha unload her cures. A few approached the Warded Man to assist unloading his cart, but a look from him turned them away.

Leesha went to him, carrying a heavy stone jug. “Tampweed and skyflower,” she said, handing it to him. “Mix it with the feed of three cows, and see that they eat it all.” The Warded Man took the jug and nodded.

As she turned to go into the Holy House, he caught her arm. “Take this,” he said, handing her one of his personal spears. It was five feet long, made from light ash wood. Wards of power were etched into the metal tip, sharpened to a wicked edge. The shaft, too, was carved with defensive wards, lacquered hard and smooth, the butt capped in warded steel.

Leesha looked at it dubiously, making no move to take it. “Just what do you expect me to do with that?” she asked. “I’m an Herb …”

“This is no time to recite the Gatherer’s oath,” the Warded Man said, shoving the weapon at her. “Your makeshift hospit is barely warded. If our line fails, that spear may be all that stands between the corelings and your charges. What will your oath demand then?”

Leesha scowled, but she took the weapon. She searched his eyes for something more, but his wards were back in place, and she could no longer see his heart. She wanted to throw down the spear and wrap him in her arms, but she could not bear to be rebuffed again.

“Well … good luck,” she managed to say.

The Warded Man nodded. “And to you.” He turned to attend his cart, and Leesha stared after him, wanting to scream.

The Warded Man’s muscles unclenched as he moved away. It had taken all his will to turn his back on her, but they couldn’t afford to confuse one another tonight.

Forcing Leesha from his mind, he turned his thoughts to the coming battle. The Krasian holy book, the Evejah, contained accounts of the conquests of Kaji, the first Deliverer. He had studied it closely when learning the Krasian tongue.

The war philosophy of Kaji was sacred in Krasia, and had seen its warriors through centuries of nightly battle with the corelings. There were four divine laws that governed battle: Be unified in purpose and leadership. Do battle at a time and place of your choosing. Adapt to what you cannot control, and prepare the rest. Attack in ways the enemy will not expect, finding and exploiting their weaknesses.

A Krasian warrior was taught from birth that the path to salvation lay in killing alagai. When Jardir called for them to leap from the safety of their wards, they did so without hesitation, fighting and dying secure in the knowledge that they were serving Everam and would be rewarded in the afterlife.

The Warded Man feared the Hollowers would lack the same unity of purpose, failing to commit themselves to the fight, but watching as they scurried to and fro, readying themselves, he thought he might perhaps be underestimating them. Even in Tibbet’s Brook, everyone came and stood by their neighbors in hard times. It was what kept the hamlets alive and thriving, despite their lack of warded walls. If he could keep them occupied, keep them from despairing when the demons rose, perhaps they would fight as one.

If not, everyone in the Holy House would die this night.

The strength of Krasia’s resistance was due as much to Kaji’s second law, choosing terrain, as it was the warriors themselves. The Krasian Maze was carefully designed to give the dal’Sharum layers of protection, and to funnel the demons to places of advantage.

One side of the Holy House faced the woods, where wood demons held sway, and two more faced the wrecked streets and rubble of the town. Too many places for corelings to take cover or hide. But past the cobbles of the main entrance lay the town square. If they could funnel the demons there, they might have a chance.

They were unable to clean the greasy ash off the rough stone walls of the Holy House and ward it in the rain, so the windows and great doors had been boarded and nailed shut, hasty wards chalked onto the wood. Ingress was limited to a small side entrance, with wardstones laid about the doorway. The demons would have an easier time getting through the wall.

The very presence of humans out in the naked night would act as a magnet to demons, but nevertheless, the Warded Man had taken pains to funnel the corelings away from the building and flanks, so that the path of least resistance would drive them to attack from the far end of the square. At his direction, the villagers had placed obstacles around the other sides of the Holy House, and interspersed hastily made wardposts, signs he had painted with wards of confusion. Any demon charging past them to attack the walls of the building would forget its intent, and inevitably be drawn toward the commotion in the town square.

Beside the square on one side was a day pen for the Tender’s livestock. It was small, but its new wardposts were strong. A few animals milled around the men erecting a rough shelter within.

The other side of the square had been dug with trenches quickly filling with mucky rainwater, to urge flame demons to take an easier path. Leesha’s oil was a thick sludge atop the water.

The villagers had done well in enacting Kaji’s third law, preparation. Steady rain had made the square slick, a thin film of mud forming on the hard packed dirt. The Warded Man’s messenger circles were set about the battlefield as he had directed, points of ambush and retreat, and a deep pit had been dug and covered with a muddy tarp. Thick, viscous grease was being spread on the cobbles with brooms.