The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1)(74)

The one force demons abhor!

Some will tell you

Only the sun

Can bring a rock demon harm

That night I learned

It could be done

As did the demon One Arm!

He ended with a flourish, and Arlen sat shocked as the audience burst into applause. Keerin took his bows, and the apprentices took in a flood of coin.

“Wasn’t that great?” Jaik asked.

“That’s not how it happened!” Arlen exclaimed.

“My da says the guards told him a one-armed rock demon attacks the wards every night,” Jaik said. “It’s looking for Keerin.”

“Keerin wasn’t even there!” Arlen cried. “I cut that demon’s arm off!”

Jaik snorted. “Night, Arlen! You can’t really expect anyone to believe that.”

Arlen scowled, standing up and calling, “Liar! Fraud!” Everyone turned to see the speaker, as Arlen leapt off his stone and strode toward Keerin. The Jongleur looked up, and his eyes widened in recognition. “Arlen?” he asked, his face suddenly pale.

Jaik, who’d been running after Arlen, pulled up short. “You do know him,” he whispered.

Keerin glanced at the crowd nervously. “Arlen, my boy,” he said, opening his arms, “come, let’s discuss this in private.”

Arlen ignored him. “You didn’t cut that demon’s arm off!” he screamed for all to hear. “You weren’t even there when it happened!”

There was an angry murmur from the crowd. Keerin looked around in fear until someone called “Get that boy out of the square!” and others cheered.

Keerin broke into a wide smile. “No one is going to believe you over me,” he sneered.

“I was there!” Arlen cried. “I’ve got the scars to prove it!” He reached to pull up his shirt, but Keerin snapped his fingers, and suddenly, Arlen and Jaik were surrounded by apprentices.

Trapped, they could do nothing as Keerin walked away, taking the crowd’s attention with him as he snatched his lute and quickly launched into another song.

“Why don’t you shut it, hey?” a burly apprentice growled. The boy was half again Arlen’s size, and all were older than he and Jaik.

“Keerin’s a liar,” Arlen said.

“A demon’s ass, too,” the apprentice agreed, holding up the hat of coins. “Think I care?”

Jaik interposed himself. “No need to get angry,” he said. “He didn’t mean anything …”

But before he finished, Arlen sprang forward, driving his fist into the bigger boy’s gut. As he crumpled, Arlen whirled to face the rest. He bloodied a nose or two, but he was soon pulled down and pummeled. Dimly, he was aware of Jaik sharing the beating beside him until two guards broke up the fight.

“You know,” Jaik said as they limped home, bloody and bruised, “for a bookmole, you’re not half bad in a fight. If only you’d pick your enemies better …”

“I have worse enemies,” Arlen said, thinking of the one-armed demon following him still.

“It wasn’t even a good song,” Arlen said. “How could he draw wards in the dark?”

“Good enough to get into a fight over,” Cob noted, daubing blood from Arlen’s face.

“He was lying,” Arlen replied, wincing at the sting.

Cob shrugged. “He was just doing what Jongleurs do, making up entertaining stories.”

“In Tibbet’s Brook, the whole town would come when the Jongleur came,” Arlen said. “Selia said they kept the stories of the old world, passing them down one generation to the next.”

“And so they do,” Cob said. “But even the best ones exaggerate, Arlen. Or did you really believe the first Deliverer killed a hundred rock demons in a single blow?”

“I used to,” Arlen said with a sigh. “Now I don’t know what to believe.”

“Welcome to adulthood,” Cob said. “Every child finds a day when they realize that adults can be weak and wrong just like anyone else. After that day, you’re an adult, like or not.”

“I never thought about it that way,” Arlen said, realizing his day had come long before. In his mind’s eye, he saw Jeph hiding behind the wards of their porch while his mother was cored.

“Was Keerin’s lie really such a bad thing?” Cob asked. “It made people happy. It gave them hope. Hope and happiness are in short supply these days, and much needed.”

“He could have done all that with honest word,” Arlen said. “But instead he took credit for my deeds just to make more coin.”

“Are you after truth, or credit?” Cob asked. “Should credit matter? Isn’t the message what’s important?”

“People need more than a song,” Arlen said. “They need proof that corelings can bleed.”

“You sound like a Krasian martyr,” Cob said, “ready to throw your life away seeking the Creator’s paradise in the next world.”

“I read their afterlife is filled with naked women and rivers of wine.” Arlen smirked.

“And all you need do to enter is take a demon with you before you’re cored,” Cob agreed. “But I’ll take my chances with this life all the same. The next one will find you no matter where you run. No sense chasing it.”