Peter Brett - The Desert Spear

Rojer went to where Leesha waited by the ward's edge. "She really is quite good," he said proudly. "The demons will follow her around like puppies, charging everything they touch."

Indeed, the corelings drifted after Kendall as she stepped carefully about the field. There were flares of light as demons touched the glass in their path, the etched wards siphoning off a tiny fraction of the demons' magic and guiding it to new purpose.

The corelings hissed, clawing at the areas where they had felt the drain. Kendall tried to change her music to calm them again, but her fear was apparent in her playing as she began to miss notes. She tried to increase her tempo to compensate, and that only made things worse. The demons started to shake the confusion from their heads.

Rojer moved toward her slowly in his warded cloak, with plenty of time to reach her before the corelings turned ugly, but then Kendall misstepped. A bottle shattered under her foot, sending glass through the soft leather of her shoe. She cried out, and her bow slipped from the strings with a jarring sound.

Immediately the corelings perked up, and her spell shattered. Their nostrils flared as they caught the scent of her blood, and they shrieked, launching themselves at her.

Rojer broke into a run, but he had drifted far away to speak to Leesha, and one of the corelings buried its talons deep in Kendall's body, pulling her close and sinking rows of teeth into her shoulder before he could get in range. Blood soaked her dress, and other demons leapt in, prepared to fight one another for a share of the kill.

"Archers!" Rojer cried desperately.

"We'll hit Kendall!" Wonda cried back, and Rojer saw that all the women had bows drawn, but none dared risk the shot.

He put his fiddle to work, notes meant to frighten and drive off the demons. They shrieked and broke off their attack, Kendall collapsing to the ground, but there was blood in the air now, and they were not easily driven back. They hissed and swiped, blocking Rojer's path.

"Kendall!" Rojer screamed. "Kendall!" Weakly, she lifted her head, gasping air as she reached a bloodied hand his way.

Suddenly a huge shape swept by Rojer, nearly bowling him over. He looked up to see Gared tackle one of the wood demons into another. Both corelings were brought down under the burly Cutter's weight, and the wards on his gauntlets flared brightly as he laid heavy blows on the one he had landed upon. By the time the other recovered, he was up again, but the coreling was quick and bit hard into his arm.

Gared screamed and grabbed the demon's crotch with his free hand. He flexed his mighty arms, lifting the huge wood demon and using it as a ram to drive into its fellows. He and the demons all went down in a tumble just as other Cutters rushed in, hacking at the prone creatures with warded axes.

His fiddle useless amid the commotion, Rojer hurried to Kendall's side, staining his cloak with blood as he threw it over her. Kendall croaked weakly at him as Rojer struggled to lift her. The commotion had drawn more demons from the woods, though, faster than the archers could pick them off.

Gared, an axe in each hand and blood streaming down his arm, hacked his way to them. He dropped the weapons and lifted Kendall like a feather. With the archers and Cutters providing cover, he ran her to the hospit. "I need a blood donor!" Leesha cried as Gared kicked in the hospit door. They laid Kendall on a bed, and apprentices ran for Leesha's instruments.

"I'll do it," Rojer said, rolling up his sleeve.

"Check if he's a match," Leesha told Vika as she moved to scrub her hands and arms. Vika quickly lanced a sample from Rojer as Darsy tried to have a look at Gared's arm.

"Worry about those that are hurt worse," Gared said, pulling away. He pointed to the door, where other injured Cutters were being carried in.

There was a whirlwind of bloodied activity as the Herb Gatherers worked. Leesha cut and clamped and sewed Kendall for two hours as Rojer looked on, dizzy from the blood transfusion.

At last, Leesha paused to drag the back of a bloodied hand over her sweating brow. "Will she be all right?" Rojer asked.

Leesha sighed. "She'll live. Gared, I'll have a look at that arm now."

"It's just a scratch," Gared said.

Leesha bit back a scowl, reminding herself how brave Gared had just been, but try as she might, she could not forget how his lies had almost ruined her life, and how he had brutally beaten any man caught speaking to her after she broke off their betrothal.

"You were bit by a demon, Gar," she said. "You let the wound fester, and I'll be cutting that arm off before you know it. Get over here."

Gared grunted and complied. "It's not so bad," Leesha said, after she had washed the wound out with hogroot tincture. Charged by the magic he had absorbed, the clean cuts from the demon's sharp teeth were already closing. She wrapped the arm in a clean bandage, and then took Rojer aside.

"I told you Kendall wasn't ready for a solo," she whispered angrily.

"I thought…" Rojer began.

"You didn't think," Leesha said. "You were showing off, and it almost cost that girl her life! This isn't a game, Rojer!"

"I know it isn't a game!" Rojer snapped.

"Then act like it," Leesha said.

Rojer scowled. "We're not all as perfect as you, Leesha." His eyes were seething, but Leesha saw right through to the pain they hid.

"Come to my office," she said, taking him by the arm. Rojer yanked his arm away, but followed Leesha to her office, where she poured him a glass of hard alcohol more suited to antiseptics than consumption.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was out of the light."

Rojer seemed to deflate, falling into a chair and downing the glass in one gulp. "No, you weren't," he said. "I'm a fraud."

"Nonsense," Leesha replied. "We all make mistakes."

"I didn't make a mistake," Rojer said. "I lied. I lied and said I could teach people how to charm corelings when in truth, I don't even understand how I do it myself. Just like I lied last year and told you I could see you safely here from Angiers. It's how I made my way in the hamlets after Arrick died, and how I got into the Jongleurs' Guild. Seems lying is all I ever do."

"But why?" Leesha asked.

Rojer shrugged. "Keep telling myself pretending to be something's the same as being it. Like if I just pretend to be great like you and the Painted Man, it will be so."

Leesha looked at him in surprise. "There's nothing so great about me, Rojer. You know that better than anyone."

But Rojer laughed out loud. "You don't even see it!" he cried. "An endless line of weapons and wards comes from your hut, the sick and injured cured with a wave of your hand. All I can do is play my fiddle, and I can't even save a life when I do. You and the Painted Man have become giants while I spend months teaching my apprentices, and all they're good for is getting folk to dance."

"Don't belittle the joy you and your apprentices have brought to a town fraught with hardship," Leesha said.

Rojer shrugged. "I do nothing a keg of ale can't do on its own."

Leesha took his hands in hers. "That's ridiculous. Your magic is as strong as Arlen's or mine. The fact that you have such trouble teaching it is just proof of how special you are."

She laughed mirthlessly. "Besides, however big I grow, I'll always have my mum to cut me back down." It was a moonless night, and where Leesha and Rojer walked, far from the glow of the greatward, the darkness was near complete. Leesha walked with a tall staff, the end of which held a flask of chemics that glowed fiercely, casting light for them to make their way by. The flask and staff were etched with wards of unsight; corelings could see the light, but they could no more find the source than they could find the two of them in their warded cloaks.