Peter Brett - The Warded Man

“No, please!” Leesha cried, throwing herself at him. “They’re running!”

“You would spare them?” the Warded Man roared, glaring at her, his face terrible with wrath. She fell back in fear, but she kept her eyes locked on his.

“Please,” she begged. “Don’t go out there.”

Leesha feared he might strike her, but he only stared at her, his breath heaving. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he calmed and took up his robe, covering his wards once more.

“Was that necessary?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“The circle wasn’t designed to forbid so many corelings at once,” the Warded Man said, his voice again a cold monotone. “I don’t know that it would have held.”

“You could have just asked me to stop playing,” Rojer said.

“Yes,” the Warded Man agreed, “I could have.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Leesha demanded.

The Warded Man didn’t answer. He strode out of the circle and began cutting his arrows from the demon corpses.

Leesha was fast asleep later that night when the Warded Man approached Rojer. The Jongleur, staring out at the fallen demons, gave a startled jump when the man squatted down next to him.

“You have power over the corelings,” he said.

Rojer shrugged. “So do you,” he said. “More than I ever will.”

“Can you teach me?” the Warded Man asked.

Rojer turned, meeting the man’s gimlet eyes. “Why?” he asked. “You kill demons by the score. What’s my trick compared to that?”

“I thought I knew my enemies,” the Warded Man said. “But you’ve shown me otherwise.”

“You think they may not be all bad, if they can enjoy music?” Rojer asked.

The Warded Man shook his head. “They are no patrons of art, Jongleur,” he said. “The moment you ceased to play, they would have killed you without hesitation.”

Rojer nodded, conceding the point. “Then why bother?” he asked. “Learning the fiddle is a lot of work to charm beasts you can just as easily kill.”

The Warded Man’s face hardened. “Will you teach me or not?” he asked.

“I will …” Rojer said, thinking it through, “but I want something in return.”

“I have plenty of money,” the Warded Man assured him.

Rojer waved his hand dismissively. “I can get money whenever I need it,” he said. “What I want is more valuable.”

The Warded Man said nothing.

“I want to travel with you,” Rojer said.

The Warded Man shook his head. “Out of the question,” he said.

“You don’t learn the fiddle overnight,” Rojer argued. “It’ll take weeks to become even passable, and you’ll need more skill than that to charm even the least discriminating coreling.”

“And what do you get out of it?” the Warded Man asked.

“Material for stories that will fill the duke’s amphitheater night after night,” Rojer said.

“What about her?” the Warded Man asked, nodding back toward Leesha. Rojer looked at the Herb Gatherer, her breast gently rising and falling as she slept, and the Warded Man did not miss the significance of that gaze.

“She asked me to escort her home, nothing more,” Rojer said at last.

“And if she asks you to stay?”

“She won’t,” Rojer said quietly.

“My road is no Marko Rover tale, boy,” the Warded Man said. “I’ve no time to be slowed by one who hides at night.”

“I have my fiddle now,” Rojer said with more bravery than he felt. “I’m not afraid.”

“You need more than courage,” the Warded Man said. “In the wild, you kill or be killed, and I don’t just mean demons.”

Rojer straightened, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Everyone who tries to protect me ends up dead,” he said. “It’s time I learned to protect myself.”

The Warded Man leaned back, considering the young Jongleur.

“Come with me,” he said at last, rising.

“Out of the circle?” Rojer asked.

“If you can’t do that, you’re no use to me,” the Warded Man said. When Rojer looked around doubtfully, he added, “Every coreling for miles heard what I did to their fellows. It’s doubtful we’ll see more tonight.”

“What about Leesha?” Rojer asked, rising slowly.

“Twilight Dancer will protect her, if need be,” the man said. “Come on.” He moved out of the circle and vanished into the night.

Rojer swore, but he grabbed his fiddle and followed the man down the road.

Rojer clutched his fiddle case tightly as they moved through the trees. He had made to take it out at first, but the Warded Man had waved for him to put it away.

“You’ll draw attention we don’t want,” he whispered.

“I thought you said we weren’t likely to see any corelings tonight,” Rojer hissed back, but the Warded Man ignored him, moving through the darkness as if it were broad day.

“Where are we going?” Rojer asked for what seemed the hundredth time.

They climbed a small rise, and the Warded Man lay flat, pointing downward.

“Look there,” he told Rojer. Below, Rojer could see three very familiar men and a horse sleeping within the tight confines of an even more familiar portable circle.

“The bandits,” Rojer breathed. A flood of emotions washed over him—fear, rage, and helplessness—and in his mind’s eye, he relived the ordeal they had put him and Leesha through. The mute stirred in his sleep, and Rojer felt a stab of panic.

“I’ve been tracking them since I found you,” the Warded Man said. “I spotted their fire while I was hunting tonight.”

“Why did you bring me here?” Rojer asked.

“I thought you might like a chance to get your circle back,” the Warded Man said.

Rojer looked back at him. “If we steal the circle while they’re sleeping, the corelings will kill them before they know what’s happening.”

“The demons are thin,” the Warded Man said. “They’ll have better odds than you did.”

“Even so, what makes you think I’d want to risk it?” Rojer asked.

“I watch,” the man said, “and I listen. I know what they did to you … and to Leesha.”

Rojer was quiet a long while. “There are three of them,” he said at last.

“This is the wild,” the Warded Man said. “If you want to live in safety, go back to the city.” He spat the last word like a curse.

But Rojer knew there was no safety in the city, either. Unbidden, he saw Jaycob crumple to the ground, and heard Jasin’s laughter. He could have sought justice after the attack, but he chose to flee, instead. He was forever fleeing, and letting others die in his stead. His hand searched for a talisman that was no longer there as he stared down at the fire.

“Was I wrong?” the Warded Man asked. “Shall we go back to our camp?”

Rojer swallowed. “As soon as I have what belongs to me,” he decided.

Leesha awoke to a soft nickering. She opened her eyes to see Rojer brushing down the russet mare she had purchased in Angiers, and for a moment, she dared think the last two days a dream.

But then Twilight Dancer stepped into view, the giant stallion towering over the mare, and it all came rushing back.

“Rojer,” she asked quietly, “where did my horse come from?”

Rojer opened his mouth to reply, but the Warded Man strode into the camp then, with two small rabbits and a handful of apples. “I saw your friends’ fire last night,” he explained, “and thought we would travel faster all ahorse.”

Leesha was quiet a long time, digesting the news. A dozen emotions ran through her, many of them shameful and unsavory. Rojer and the Warded Man gave her time, and she was thankful for that. “Did you kill them?” she asked at last. A cold part of her wanted him to say yes, even though it went against everything she believed; everything Bruna had taught her.