the flailing claws, maintaining the headlock with one arm. He reached his free hand around to draw a heat ward on the demon’s chest with his bare finger.
The line he traced came alive with fire as he completed the symbol, and he let go his hold and backed away as the demon was consumed in flames.
Renna gaped, but Arlen wasn’t finished with the lesson. He strode towards another field demon, provoking an attack. The demon obliged, roaring and coming at him with claws leading.
‘Of course, if I don’t see it coming in time to stop it …’ Arlen was knocked back several steps and grunted as the demon’s claws struck home, tearing into his abdomen.
Renna gasped as blood arced through the air. She pulled her knife and darted forward to interpose herself between Arlen and the demon.
But Arlen straightened and stopped her up short with a raised hand. The demon pounced again, but once more Arlen blew apart like smoke.
When he re-formed, there was no sign of his injury. Even his robe was mended. ‘… given a moment to catch my wits, I can heal just about anything that doesn’t kill me.’
The demon came at him a third time, but this time Arlen drew a quick warding in the air, and the demon was thrown back as if kicked by a mule before it ever got close to him. His new power seemed limitless.
But as the demon struck the ground several yards away, Arlen staggered in his bow. To Renna’s warded eyes, he had been bright with magic a moment before. Now the glow of his wards was noticeably dimmer.
Arlen caught the look she gave him, and nodded. ‘I draw wards on a demon, the coreling powers them itself. I draw them in the air, they draw their magic from me, instead.’
The demon came back at him a fourth time, but this time Arlen seized it by the throat and pinned it to the ground in a sharusahk hold. As he held it down, Renna could see the wards on his hands throbbing with power, and his glow began to return even as the coreling’s dimmed. The demon shrieked and thrashed, but Arlen held it as easily as a man might hold down a small child. The power in his hands built in intensity until the demon’s throat collapsed. With a flex of his muscles, Arlen tore its head clean off.
Renna caught sight of a field demon stalking her and shifted position to look dim and helpless. It wasn’t difficult. All she needed to do was recall the useless cow she had been all her life. The victim.
But that part of her had died with Harl. When the coreling pounced, it struck the forbidding like an invisible wall, and Renna pivoted in an instant, thrusting her knife into its chest. The wards along the blade flared, cutting through the demon’s armour and sending a jolt of magic into her that warmed her limbs even more than the poteen. She bulled forward, stabbing again and again, each blow sending a thrill of power through her.
When the demon hit the ground, dead, she crouched and reached out her hand, tracing a heat ward on the demon’s rough armour.
Nothing happened.
‘How come you can do it and I can’t?’ Renna called as she scanned the field for more demons. There were some still circling, but they were wary of the two humans now, and kept their distance.
‘Didn’t know myself for a long time,’ Arlen said. ‘Didn’t understand any of my powers. But when I fought that demon along the path to the Core, our minds touched, and a lot came clear. I really have become part demon.’
‘Demonshit,’ Renna said. ‘You ent evil like them.’
Arlen shrugged. ‘Most demons ent evil, either. Ent smart enough to be evil – or good, for that matter. Might as well call a wasp evil for stinging. The mind demons, though …’
‘Them bastards are more evil’n Harl,’ Renna said.
Arlen nodded. ‘By a month’s ride.’
Renna furrowed her brow. ‘So you’re saying … what? Corelings are just animals? I ent sold. Wasps don’t burst into flame when the sun comes up. Even if demons ent evil, they ent natural, either.’
‘That’s day folk talking,’ Arlen said. ‘Folk who haven’t warded their eyes. Look around you. Is magic unnatural?’
Renna considered. She looked at the way the power vented up from the Core, drifting across the surface like a glowing fog swirling at their feet. She saw it at the heart of plants and trees, even animals and people. Would life even exist without it?
‘Maybe not,’ she allowed, ‘but that don’t explain why you think you’re part demon, or why you still have powers in daylight when the sun burns magic away.’
Arlen hesitated, and his eyes flicked away, considering. Renna’s eyes narrowed, and Arlen caught the look. ‘Ent gonna lie to you, Ren, or hold back. It’s just something I ent proud of, and I don’t want you … thinking less of me.’
Renna moved in close, putting a hand on his cheek. His skin tingled with magic. ‘Love you, Arlen Bales. Ent nothin’ in the world ever gonna change that.’
Arlen nodded sadly, not meeting her eyes. ‘It’s the meat that gave me the power.’
‘Meat?’
‘Demon meat,’ Arlen clarified. ‘Ate it for months when I was living in the desert. Seemed only fair, the way they’re always eatin’ on us.’
Renna gasped and took a step back. Arlen met her eyes then, and she knew from his expression that the look on her face was horrified.
‘You … ate them? Demons?’
Arlen nodded, and Renna felt sick to her stomach. ‘Didn’t have much choice in the matter. Left in the desert to die, no food, no hope. I was wretched as a man could be.’
‘Think I would have let myself die.’ Renna immediately regretted the words as a look of anguish crossed Arlen’s face.
‘Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘Guess I ent as strong as you, Ren.’
Renna rushed to him, taking his hands and pressing their foreheads together. ‘You’re stronger than I ever was, Arlen Bales,’ she said, feeling tears well in her eyes. ‘You hadn’t slapped the fool out of me, I’d have let myself die to just keep the Tanner shame a secret. Ent no strength there.’
Arlen shook his head, and a tear of his own struck her lip, cold and sweet. ‘Needed the fool slapped out of me more than once over the years.’
Renna kissed him. ‘You sure it’s the demon meat gave you these powers?’
Arlen nodded. ‘Coline Trigg used to say that what you eat becomes a part of you, and I reckon that’s so. I’ve absorbed the corelings’ ability to store magic in their cells, but my skin has retained its proof against the sun. I’ve become like a battery.’
‘Cells? Battery?’ Renna asked.
‘Science of the old world. It doesn’t matter.’ Arlen waved the questions away in that annoying way he had, keeping the knowledge from her simply because he thought it too tedious to explain. As if she wouldn’t listen to him speak all night. As if there were a better sound in all the world. ‘Think of it as a drain barrel after a night’s rain. Full of water even after the sky clears and the ground dries up. Can’t tap the magic in sunlight, but I feel it inside of me, healing my wounds, making me tireless and strong. At night I can let it out like opening a bung, and I’m only just scratching the surface of what can be done.’
Renna paused, considering. Whatever Arlen might say, it was nearly impossible to see corelings as anything but evil abominations of nature, an offence to the Creator. Despite the fact she was often covered in the foul ichor they called blood, the thought of putting it in her mouth was abhorrent.
But the power …
‘Know what you’re thinkin’, Ren,’ Arlen said, snapping her out of her reverie. ‘Don’t go tryin’ this one.’
‘Why?’ Renna asked.