Peter Brett - The Warded Man

But their faces were the same; rows of segmented teeth jutted out on their jaws like a snout, while their nostril slits rested far back, just below their large, lidless eyes. Thick bones from their brows curved upward and back, cutting through the scales as sharp horns. Their brows twitched continually as they squeezed down, displacing the ever-blowing sand.

And even more frightening than their larger cousins, sand demons hunted in packs. They would work together to see him cored.

His heart pounding and his discovery forgotten, Arlen moved through the ruins with incredible speed and alacrity, vaulting fallen pillars and crumbled rock while dodging right and left around the solidifying corelings.

Demons needed a moment to get their bearings on the surface, and Arlen took full advantage of that as he sprinted toward his circle. He kicked one demon in the back of the knees, knocking it down just long enough for him to get past. Another he charged directly, only to spin out of the way at the last moment, the coreling’s claws slashing through empty air.

He picked up speed as the circle neared, but one demon stood in his way, and there was no way around it. The creature was nearly four feet tall, and its initial confusion was past. It crouched at the ready, directly in his path, hissing hatred.

Arlen was so close—his precious circle just a few feet away. He could only hope to barrel through the smaller creature and roll into his circle before it could kill him.

He charged right in, instinctively stabbing with his new spear as he bowled the creature over. There was a flash upon impact, and Arlen struck the ground hard, coming up in a spray of sand and continuing on, not daring to look back. He leapt for his circle, and was safe.

Panting with exertion, Arlen looked up at the sand demons surrounding him, outlined in desert twilight. They hissed and clawed at his wards, talons bringing bright flashes of magic.

In the flickering light, Arlen caught sight of the demon he had crashed into. It was slowly dragging itself away from Arlen and its fellows, leaving an inky black trail in the sand.

Arlen’s eyes widened. Slowly, he glanced down at the spear he still clutched in his hands.

The tip was coated in demon ichor.

Suppressing the urge to laugh aloud, Arlen looked back at the injured coreling. One by one, its fellows paused in their assault on Arlen’s wards, sniffing the air. They turned, glancing down at the trail of ichor, and then at the injured demon.

With a shriek, the pack fell upon the creature, tearing it apart.

The cold of the desert night eventually forced Arlen to take his eyes off the metal spear. He had laid a fire when he made camp earlier, so he struck spark to it and coaxed the flames to life, warming himself and a bit of dinner. Dawn Runner had been hobbled and blanketed in his circle, brushed and fed before Arlen left to explore the ruins that afternoon.

As it had every night for the last three years, One Arm showed up soon after moonrise, bounding over the dunes and scattering the smaller corelings to stand before Arlen’s circle. Arlen greeted it as always with a clap of his two hands. One Arm roared its hatred in return.

When he first left Miln, Arlen had wondered if he would ever find a way to sleep through the sound of One Arm hammering at his wards, but it was second nature to him now. His warding circle had been proven time and again, and Arlen maintained it religiously, keeping the plates freshly lacquered and the rope mended.

He hated the demon, though. The years had brought none of the kinship the guards on the wall of Fort Miln had felt. As One Arm remembered who had crippled it, so too did Arlen recall who had given him the puckered scars across his back and almost cost him his life. He remembered, too, nine Warders, thirty-seven guardsmen, two Messengers, three Herb Gatherers, and eighteen citizens of Miln who had lost their lives because of it. He gazed at the demon now, absently stroking his new spear. What would happen if he struck? The weapon had wounded a sand demon. Would the wards affect a rock demon as well?

It took all his willpower to resist the urge to leap from his circle and find out.

Arlen had hardly slept when the sun drove the demons back into the Core, but he rose with high spirits. After breakfast, he took out his notebook and examined the spear, painstakingly copying every ward and studying the patterns they formed along the shaft and head.

When he finished, the sun was high in the sky. Taking another torch, he went back down into the catacombs, making rubbings of the wards cut into the stone. There were other tombs, and he was tempted to ignore all sense and explore every one. But if he stayed even another day, his food would run out before he reached the Oasis of Dawn. He had gambled on finding a well in the ruins of Anoch Sun, and indeed he had, but vegetation was scant and inedible.

Arlen sighed. The ruins had stood for centuries. They would be there when he returned, hopefully with a team of Krasian Warders at his back.

By the time he came back outside, the day was wearing on. Arlen took time to exercise and feed Dawn Runner, then prepared a meal for himself, his mind turned inward.

The Krasians would demand proof, of course. Proof the spear could kill. They were warriors, not ruin hunters, and would not give up a single able-bodied man for an expedition without good reason.

Proof, he thought. And it was only right that it come from him.

With barely an hour before sunset, Arlen began to ready his camp. He hobbled his horse again, checking the portable circle around it. He prepared his ten-foot circle as usual, then took a series of wardstones from his bags and began to lay them around it in a wide outer ring some forty feet in diameter. He placed the stones slightly farther apart than usual, carefully lining them up with their fellows. There was a third portable circle in the saddlebags—Arlen always kept a spare—and he set that one in the camp as well, off to the side in the larger circle, by its edge.

When he was finished, Arlen knelt in his center circle, the spear at his side, and breathed deeply, clearing his mind of distractions. He didn’t watch as the sun dipped and the sand glowed on the horizon before going dark.

The nimble sand demons rose first, and Arlen heard the wards of his outer circle spark and crackle, keeping them back. Moments later, he heard the roar of One Arm, scattering lesser demons from its path as it approached Arlen’s outer ring. Arlen ignored it, continuing to breathe, his eyes closed, his mind calm. The lack of reaction served only to anger the demon further, and it struck hard against the warding.

Magic flared, visible even through his closed eyelids, but the demon did not immediately continue its assault. He opened his eyes, watching One Arm cock its head curiously. Arlen allowed himself a humorless smile.

One Arm struck the wards again, and again it paused. This time, the demon let out a piercing cry and set its feet, thrusting its good arm at the warding, talons spread. As if it were pressing against a wall of glass, the demon leaned forward, shrieking against the pain as it doubled and tripled the pressure against the wards. Angry magic spiderwebbed out from where its claws met the barrier, and as the demon pressed, the magic bowed visibly in the air.

With a sound that chilled even Arlen’s calm mind, the rock demon flexed its armored legs and smashed through the wardnet, tumbling into the inner ring. Dawn Runner whinnied and pulled at his hobble.

Arlen rose as One Arm did, their eyes meeting. The weaker sand demons tried desperately to replicate One Arm’s feat, but the wardstones were precisely spaced, and none of them could muster the strength to cross. They shrieked their frustration at the barrier as they bore witness to the confrontation within the circle.