The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1)(71)

“She acts like she’s my mam,” Arlen complained, “but she’s not.”

“That’s true, she’s not,” Cob agreed. “But it’s clear she wants the job. Would it be so bad to let her have it?”

Arlen said nothing, and Cob, seeing the sad look in the boy’s eyes, let the matter drop.

“You’re spending too much time inside with your nose buried in books,” Cob said, snatching away the volume Arlen was reading. “When was the last time you felt the sun on your skin?”

Arlen’s eyes widened. In Tibbet’s Brook, he had never spent a moment indoors when he had a choice, but after more than a year in Miln, he could hardly remember his last day outside.

“Go find some mischief!” Cob ordered. “Won’t kill you to make a friend your own age!”

Arlen walked out of the city for the first time in a year, and the sun comforted him like an old friend. Away from the dung carts, rotting garbage, and sweaty crowds, the air held a freshness he had forgotten. He found a hilltop overlooking a field filled with playing children and pulled a book from his bag, plopping down to read.

“Hey, bookmole!” someone called.

Arlen looked up to see a group of boys approaching, holding a ball. “C’mon!” one of them cried. “We need one more to make the sides even!”

“I don’t know the game,” Arlen said. Cob had all but ordered him to play with other boys, but he thought his book far more interesting.

“What’s to know?” another boy asked. “You help your side get the ball to the goal, and try to keep the other side from doing it.”

Arlen frowned. “All right,” he said, moving to join the boy who had spoken.

“I’m Jaik,” the boy said. He was slender, with tousled dark hair and a pinched nose. His clothes were patched and dirty. He looked thirteen, like Arlen. “What’s your name?”

“Arlen.”

“You work for Warder Cob, right?” Jaik asked. “The kid Messenger Ragen found on the road?” When Arlen nodded, Jaik’s eyes widened a bit, as if he hadn’t believed it. He led the way onto the field, and pointed out the white painted stones that marked the goals.

Arlen quickly caught on to the rules of the game. After a time, he forgot his book, focusing his attention on the opposing team. He imagined he was a Messenger and they were demons trying to keep him from his circle. Hours melted away, and before he knew it the Evening Bell rang. Everyone hurriedly gathered up their things, fearful of the darkening sky.

Arlen took his time fetching his book. Jaik ran up to him. “You’d better hurry,” he said.

Arlen shrugged. “We have plenty of time,” he replied.

Jaik looked at the darkening sky, and shuddered. “You play pretty good,” he said. “Come back tomorrow. We play ball most afternoons, and on Sixthday we go to the square to see the Jongleur.” Arlen nodded noncommittally, and Jaik smiled and sped off.

Arlen headed back through the gate, the now-familiar stink of the city enveloping him. He turned up the hill to Ragen’s manse. The Messenger was away again, this time to faraway Lakton, and Arlen was spending the month with Elissa. She would pester him with questions and fuss about his clothes, but he had promised Ragen to “keep her young lovers away.”

Margrit had assured Arlen that Elissa had no lovers. In fact, when Ragen was away, she drifted the halls of their manse like a ghost, or spent hours crying in her bedchamber.

But when Arlen was around, the servant said, she changed. More than once, Margrit had begged him to live at the manse full time. He refused, but, he admitted to himself if no one else, he was beginning to like Lady Elissa fussing over him.

“Here he comes,” Gaims said that night, watching the massive rock demon rise from the ground. Woron joined him, and they watched from the guard tower as the demon snuffled the ground by the gate. With a howl, it bounded away from the gate to a hilltop. A flame demon danced there, but the rock demon knocked it violently aside, bending low to the ground, seeking something.

“Old One Arm’s in a mood tonight,” Gaims said as the demon howled again and darted down the hill to a small field, scurrying back and forth, hunched over.

“What do you suppose has gotten into him?” Woron asked. His partner shrugged.

The demon left the field, bounding back up the hill. Its shrieks became almost pained, and when it returned to the gate, it struck at the wards madly, its talons sending showers of sparks as they were repelled by the potent magic.

“Don’t see that every night,” Woron commented. “Should we report it?”

“Why bother?” Gaims replied. “No one is going to care about the carryings-on of one crazy demon, and what could they do about it if they did?”

“Against that thing?” Woron asked. “Probably just soil themselves.”

Pushing away from the workbench, Arlen stretched and got to his feet. The sun was long set, and his stomach growled irritably, but the baker was paying double to have his wards repaired in one night, even though a demon hadn’t been spotted on the streets in Creator only knew how long. He hoped Cob had left something for him in the cookpot.

Arlen opened the shop’s back door and leaned out, still safely within the warded semicircle around the doorway. He looked both ways, and assured that all was clear, he stepped onto the path, careful not to cover the wards with his foot.