Peter Brett - The Desert Spear

"Shar'Dama Ka?" the Painted Man asked.

"Ay." Marick nodded. "That was it."

The Painted Man swore under his breath.

"What is it?" Leesha asked, but he ignored her, leaning in to the Messenger.

"Was he about this tall?" he asked, holding up a hand above his own head. "With a forked, oiled beard and a sharp, hooked nose?"

Marick nodded.

"Did he carry a warded spear?" the Painted Man asked.

"They all carried warded spears," Marick said.

"You would remember this one," the Painted Man said.

Marick nodded again. "Metal, it was, point-to-butt. And covered in etched wards."

The growl that issued from the Painted Man's throat was so feral that even Marick, usually fearless, took a step back.

"What is it?" Leesha asked again.

"Ahmann Jardir," the Painted Man said. "I know him."

"What does this mean?" she asked, but the Painted Man waved the question away.

"It makes no difference now," he said. "Go on," he told Marick. "What happened next?"

"As I said, I scaled the wall and fled the city the moment they set me free," Marick said. "The hamlets I passed through were half deserted by the time I arrived. When word of the attack reached them, the smart folk grabbed what they could and were on the road before the blood on the cobbles of the central city was dry. Those too weak to travel or too scared of the night stayed behind. I think more stayed than left, but there were still tens of thousands on the road.

"I bought a horse from an old fellow got left behind, and galloped off. I caught up to the folk on the road soon after. The groups were too large to stick together; no city could absorb so many. Most went to Lakton and its hamlets, where any with a hook and line can fill their belly, but the Jongleurs have had a lot to say about you," he pointed to the Painted Man, "and them that believed you were really the Deliverer come again flocked here. I needed to get back to Angiers and report to the duke, but I couldn't just leave folk on the road with so few to ward for them, so I offered up my services."

"It was a good thing you did, Marick," Leesha said, laying a hand on his arm. "These people never would have made it without you. Go and take your ease out into the taproom while we discuss your news."

"I have a room reserved for you upstairs," Smitt added. "Stefny will see you there."

The Painted Man put his hood up as soon as the Messenger left. "Daylight is fading. If there are more on the road, I need to make sure they see the dawn."

Leesha nodded. "Take Gared and as many Cutters as can sit a horse."

"Get your cloak," the Painted Man told Rojer. "You're coming with us." Rojer nodded, and they headed for the rear exit.

"You'll need Warders," Erny said, pushing back his wire-framed glasses and rising from his seat. "I'll go."

Elona was on her feet instantly grabbing his arm. "You'll do no such thing, Ernal."

Erny blinked. "You're always complaining I'm not brave enough. Now you want me to hide when people need my help?"

"You'll prove nothing to me by getting yourself killed," Elona said. "You haven't sat a horse in years."

"She has a point, Da," Leesha said.

"Stay out of this," Erny said. "The town may hop at your word, but I'm still your father."

"There's no time for this," the Painted Man said. "Are you coming or not?"

"Not," Elona said firmly.

"Coming," Erny said, pulling his arm from her grasp and following the other men out. "That idiot!" Elona shrieked as the door slammed shut. Everyone else glanced at one another.

"Take as long back here as you like," Smitt said, "I need to get out front." He, Stefny, and Jona quickly filed out of the room, leaving Leesha alone with her fuming mother.

"He'll be all right, Mum," Leesha said. "There's nowhere in all the world safer than traveling with Rojer and the Painted Man."

"He's a frail man!" Elona said. "He can't ride with young men, and he 'll catch his death of cold! He's never been the same after the flux took him last year."

"Why, Mother," Leesha said, surprised, "it sounds like you truly care."

"Don't take that tone with me," Elona snapped. "Of course I care. He's my husband. If you knew what it was like to be married almost thirty years, you wouldn't say such things."

Leesha wanted to snap back, to shout out all the horrible things her mother had done to her father over the years, not the least of which being her repeated infidelity with Gared's father, Steave, but the sincerity in her mother's voice checked her.

"You're right, Mum, I'm sorry," she said.

Elona blinked. "I'm right? Did you just say I was right?"

"I did." Leesha smiled.

Elona opened her arms. "Hug me now, child, while it lasts." Leesha laughed and embraced her tightly.

"He'll be fine," Leesha said, as much for herself as her mother.

Elona nodded. "You're right, of course. He may look a terror, but no demon can stand up to your tattooed friend."

"Both of us right in one night, and Da not here to witness," Leesha said.

"He'll never believe it," Elona agreed. She dabbed at her eyes with a kerchief, and Leesha pretended not to notice.

"So was that the same Marick you used to shine on?" Elona asked. "The one you ran off to Angiers with?"

"I never shined on him, Mother," Leesha said.

Elona scoffed. "Sell that tampweed tale to someone who doesn't know you. The whole town knew you wanted him, even if you were too prudish to act on it. And why not? He's handsome as a wolf, and a Messenger on top. That's man enough for any woman. Why do you think he used to make Gared so jealous?"

"Everything made Gared jealous, Mum," Leesha said.

Elona nodded. "He's just like his father: simple men, ruled by their passions." She smiled wistfully, and Leesha knew she was thinking of Steave, her first love, who had died the year previous when flux took Cutter's Hollow and the wards failed.

"The Marick I saw when we were alone on the road wasn't much different," Leesha said.

"And you used Gatherer's tricks to keep him off you," Elona guessed, "instead of taking it as the perfect opportunity to have a romp with no one the wiser." It was true enough; Leesha had secretly drugged Marick into impotence to prevent his taking advantage of her on the road.

"Like you would have?" Leesha asked, unable to keep the bite from her tone.

"Yes," Elona said, "and why not? Skirts lift up for a reason. Women have needs down below, just as men. Don't lie to yourself and pretend otherwise."

"I know that, Mum," Leesha said.

"You know it," Elona agreed, "and yet still you sew your petticoats shut, and think denying yourself somehow makes you heroic. How can you treat every body in the Hollow when you don't understand the needs of your own?"

Leesha said nothing. Her mother had a most unsettling way of reading her thoughts.

"You should go up and talk to Marick while your other suitors are out of town," Elona said. "He's had years and tragedy to season him, and come out a hero. The folk outside can't stop singing his praises. Perhaps he 'll be more to your liking now."

"I don't know…" Leesha said.

"Oh, go on!" Elona said. "Take a plate of food up to his room and talk to him. It's not like you have to let him stick you this very night." She smiled and winked. "Though if you did, it'd be a better use of your night than fretting over problems that will remain come morning."

Leesha laughed despite herself, and hugged her mother again. Several times they passed scenes of slaughter; bodies, alone and in groups, torn apart by corelings when night fell upon them without succor.

The Painted Man cursed the sights, spurring Twilight Dancer on harder, not bothering to stop after the first. The others who followed him, even Gared and the Cutters, were inexperienced riders falling well behind his powerful stallion, but he didn't care. There were refugees on the road, driven out of their homes by Ahmann Jardir, the man he had been fool enough to call friend, and he needed to find and protect as many of them as he could before night fell.