make me slap the fool out of you, Ren!’ Arlen snapped. ‘Look at yourself!’
Renna looked down, gasping at the deep wounds gaping in her skin. Blood ran freely in a dozen places, and her back and shoulder were on fire. The mad night strength left her, and her knife dropped, too heavy to lift. Her legs gave way.
Arlen was there in an instant, easing her to the ground, and then moved off to complete the wardnet around and above them. More and more field demons came racing down the road, surrounding them like an endless field of grass, but even that great host could not pierce Arlen’s wards, nor the flight of wind demons circling in the sky.
He was back at her side as soon as the net was complete, cleaning the dirt and blood from her wounds. There was a fallen demon inside the forbidding, and he dipped a finger in its ichor like a quill in an inkwell, writing wards on her skin. She could feel her flesh tightening, pulling as it knit back together. It was incredibly painful, but Renna accepted it as the cost of life and breathed deep, embracing it.
‘Put your cloak on while I tend the horses,’ Arlen said when he had done all he could. Renna nodded, pulling her warded cloak from the pouch at her waist. Lighter and finer than any cloth Renna had ever felt, it was covered in intricate embroidered wards of unsight. When drawn about her, it rendered Renna invisible to corespawn. She had never cared for the cloak, preferring to let the demons see her coming, but she couldn’t deny its usefulness.
Lacking the warded barding of Twilight Dancer, Promise was easily the more wounded of the two horses, but she stamped and snorted at Arlen’s approach, teeth bared and snapping. Arlen ignored the posturing, moving almost too fast to see as he swept in and took a great handful of Promise’s mane. The mare tried to pull away, but Arlen handled her like a mother changing a struggling baby’s nappy. Eventually, Promise relented and let him tend her, perhaps realizing at last that he was trying to help her.
The casual display of power might have surprised her a few days ago, but Renna was used to surprises from Arlen now, and it barely registered. Again and again, she saw her gaping wounds in her mind’s eye, terrified to think she’d been ignoring them as her life’s blood drained away.
‘That what happens to you?’ Renna asked when he returned. ‘Feel so alive you don’t even realize it’s killing you?’
Arlen nodded. ‘Forget to breathe sometimes. Get so drunk on the power it feels like I shouldn’t need to do something so … mundane. Then I suddenly break out gasping for air. Almost got me cored more’n once.’
He looked up, meeting her eyes. ‘The magic will trick you into thinking you’re immortal, Ren, but you ent. No one is, not even the corelings.’ He pointed at the field demon carcass beside her. ‘And the struggle never goes away. It’s a new fight, every time you taste the power.’
Renna shuddered, thinking of the irresistible pull of the magic. ‘How do you keep from losing yourself?’
Arlen chuckled. ‘Started keeping Renna Tanner around to remind me I’m just a dumb Bales from Tibbet’s Brook, and ent too good to breathe.’
Renna smiled. ‘Then you got nothing to fear, Arlen Bales. You’re stuck with me.’
Renna and the horses were well recovered by morning, but Arlen eased the pace, never taking Twilight Dancer above a trot, and stopping to rest twice before midday.
‘Thought we were in a rush,’ Renna said when they dismounted the second time.
‘Day or two don’t matter at this point,’ Arlen said.
‘That’s not how you felt yesterday,’ Renna said.
Arlen looked away, and his shoulders sagged. ‘Had my priorities wrong, Ren. Sorry for that. Ent right to push you and the horses past your limits.’
Renna took a deep breath. She hated the way he turned from her when saying things he didn’t think she’d like. Men were always doing that, thinking it spared feelings.
And maybe it does, Renna thought. But only their own.
‘Don’t mean you got to baby us, either,’ she said.
‘You came an inch from dying last night, Ren,’ Arlen said. ‘Promise and Dancer, too. Ent no harm in stopping now and again to stretch our legs and have our necessaries.’
He was right, but Renna didn’t feel like she’d been close to death. In truth, she felt stronger and more alive than ever in her life. There was new pink flesh where her wounds had been, lighter than her natural tan and needing fresh blackstem, but smooth without even hint of scar. Her body thrummed with power.
Her eyes flicked to Promise, already knowing it was not the same. Arlen had used the same healing wards on the mare’s flank as he had on Renna, drawn in demon ichor thick with magic. Nothing remained of Promise’s wounds but a few strips of hairless flesh on her blotchy coat, but there was still a tenderness to the horse’s movements, and she showed little sign of her usual wilfulness.
Renna looked up at the morning sun, and smiled. Power’s inside me now. And gettin’ stronger, more I eat. Ent gonna slow you down, Arlen Bales. Soon, you’ll need help to keep up with me.
‘Tell me about the Hollow, then,’ she said. ‘Everyone there think you’re the Deliverer, too?’
Arlen sighed. ‘There most of all. Two years ago, Cutter’s Hollow was a town not even as big as Southwatch. But a flux hit last year, laying half of them low. Someone dropped a lamp in the inn, and fire spread quick, with no one to fight it. Wasn’t long before the wards failed.’
Renna saw the disaster in her mind’s eye and ground her teeth. She found herself clutching at the bone handle of her knife, and it took the full force of her will to let go. ‘Trouble makes for trouble, my mam said.’
‘Honest word,’ Arlen said. ‘Came on them the next day, and found more’n a hundred dead, and half the rest on their backs. With night coming, I warded their axes and taught those that could to fight. Put the rest in the Holy House and made our stand out front. Lot of folk died that night, but they gave better than they got, and more than not were on their feet come dawn. Built the town back from scratch, putting the roads and houses in the shape of a forbidding. Ent no demon setting foot in the Hollow now, not even the princes.’
Renna grunted. ‘Sounds like you made quite the Jongleur’s show of it. Figure you must want them thinkin’ you’re the Deliverer, at least a little.’
Arlen’s face darkened. ‘Last thing I want anyone thinking. Waitin’ for the Deliverer’s kept us hiding behind wards for three hundred years.’
‘Ay, but the wait’s over, ent it?’ Renna said. ‘Painted Man’s come to save us all.’
Arlen scowled, but Renna dismissed it with a wave. ‘Oh, you slap the fool out of any that bow to you and call you Deliverer, but you’re just as quick to temper when folk don’t take one look at you and start hopping to your words.’
Arlen pulled back, stung, but Renna matched his stare and didn’t back down. Finally he gave a helpless chuckle and shrugged. ‘Can’t deny it helps get things done, Ren. And there’s a lot to do. Folk ent got any idea of what’s coming with the next new moon, and I ent got time to baby ’em.’
Renna smiled. ‘Ent arguin’, just keepin’ you honest.’ Quick as a rabbit, she darted in and kissed his warded cheek.
They rode for some time before splitting off from the Old Hill Road down a thickly overgrown Messenger way. Late in the day they met up with a new road of hard-packed dirt. There was a large warded campsite at the intersection.
‘Huh.’ Arlen