‘I love you, Da,’ Leesha said, hugging him tightly. She wiped her eyes and left the room.
Rojer tumbled about the tiny aisle of the makeshift hospit as he pantomimed the daring rescue the Painted Man had performed a few nights earlier.
‘But then,’ he went on, ‘standing between us and the camp, was the biggest rock demon I’ve ever seen.’ He leapt on top of a table and reached his arms high into the air, waving them to show they were still not high enough to do the creature justice.
‘Fifteen feet tall, it was,’ Rojer said, ‘with teeth like spears and a horned tail that could smash a horse. Leesha and I stopped up short, but did the Painted Man hesitate? No! He walked on, calm as Seventhday morning, and looked the monster right in the eyes.’
Rojer enjoyed the wide eyes surrounding him, and hesitated, letting the tense silence build before shouting, ‘Bam!’ and clapping his hands together. Everyone jumped. ‘Just like that,’ Rojer said, ‘the Painted Man’s horse, black as night and seeming like a demon itself, slammed its horns through the demon’s back.’
‘The horse had horns?’ an old man asked, raising a grey eyebrow as thick and bushy as a squirrel tail. Propped up in his pallet, the stump of his right leg soaked his bandages in blood.
‘Oh, yes,’ Rojer confirmed, sticking fingers up behind his ears and getting coughing laughs. ‘Great ones of shining bright metal, strapped on by its bridle and sharply pointed, etched with wards of power! The most magnificent beast you have ever seen, it is! Its hooves struck the beast like thunderbolts and as it smote the demon to the ground, we ran for the circle, and were safe,’ Rojer concluded.
‘What about the horse?’ one child asked.
‘The Painted Man gave a whistle …’ Rojer put his fingers to his lips and emitted a shrill sound, ‘… and his horse came galloping through the corelings, leaping over the wards and into the circle.’ He clapped his hands against his thighs in a galloping sound and leapt to illustrate the point.
The patients were riveted by his tale, taking their minds off their sickness and the impending night. More, Rojer knew he was giving them hope. Hope that Leesha could cure them. Hope that the Painted Man could protect them.
He wished he could give himself hope, as well.
Leesha had the children scrub out the big vats her father used to make paper slurry, using them to brew potions on a larger scale than she had ever attempted. Even Bruna’s stores quickly ran out, and she passed word to Brianne, who had the children ranging far and wide for hogroot and other herbs.
Frequently, her eyes flicked to the sunlight filtering through the window, watching it crawl across the shop’s floor. The day was waning.
Not far off, the Painted Man worked with similar speed, his hand moving with delicate precision as he painted wards onto axes, picks, hammers, spears, arrows, and sling stones. The children brought him anything that might possibly be used as a weapon, and collected the results as soon as the paint dried, piling them in carts outside.
Every so often, someone came running in to relay a message to Leesha or the Painted Man. They gave instructions quickly, sending the runner off and turning back to their work.
With only a pair of hours before sunset, they drove the carts back through the steady rain to the Holy House. The villagers stopped work at the sight of them, coming quickly to help Leesha unload her cures. A few approached the Painted Man to assist unloading his cart, but a look from him turned them away.
Leesha went to him, carrying a heavy stone jug. ‘Tampweed and skyflower,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘Mix it with the feed of three cows, and see that they eat it all.’ The Painted Man took the jug and nodded.
As she turned to go into the Holy House, he caught her arm. ‘Take this,’ he said, handing her one of his personal spears. It was five feet long, made from light ash wood. Wards of power were etched into the metal tip, sharpened to a wicked edge. The shaft, too, was carved with defensive wards, lacquered hard and smooth, the butt capped in warded steel.
Leesha looked at it dubiously, making no move to take it. ‘Just what do you expect me to do with that?’ she asked. ‘I’m an Herb …’
‘This is no time to recite the Gatherer’s oath,’ the Painted Man said, shoving the weapon at her. ‘Your makeshift hospit is barely warded. If our line fails, that spear may be all that stands between the corelings and your charges. What will your oath demand then?’
Leesha scowled, but she took the weapon. She searched his eyes for something more, but his wards were back in place, and she could no longer see his heart. She wanted to throw down the spear and wrap him in her arms, but she could not bear to be rebuffed again.
‘Well … good luck,’ she managed to say.
The Painted Man nodded. ‘And to you.’ He turned to attend his cart, and Leesha stared after him, wanting to scream.
The Painted Man’s muscles unclenched as he moved away. It had taken all his will to turn his back on her, but they couldn’t afford to confuse one another tonight.
Forcing Leesha from his mind, he turned his thoughts to the coming battle. The Krasian holy book, the Evejah, contained accounts of the conquests of Kaji, the first Deliverer. He had studied it closely when learning the Krasian tongue.
The war philosophy of Kaji was sacred in Krasia, and had seen its warriors through centuries of nightly battle with the corelings. There were four divine laws that governed battle: Be unified in purpose and leadership. Do battle at a time and place of your choosing. Adapt to what you cannot control, and prepare the rest. Attack in ways the enemy will not expect, finding and exploiting their weaknesses.
A Krasian warrior was taught from birth that the path to salvation lay in killing alagai. When Jardir called for them to leap from the safety of their wards, they did so without hesitation, fighting and dying secure in the knowledge that they were serving Everam and would be rewarded in the afterlife.
The Painted Man feared the Hollowers would lack the same unity of purpose, failing to commit themselves to the fight, but watching as they scurried to and fro, readying themselves, he thought he might perhaps be underestimating them. Even in Tibbet’s Brook, everyone had stood by their neighbours in hard times. It was what kept the hamlets alive and thriving, despite their lack of warded walls. If he could keep them occupied, keep them from despairing when the demons rose, perhaps they would fight as one.
If not, everyone in the Holy House would die this night.
The strength of Krasia’s resistance was due as much to Kaji’s second law, choosing terrain, as it was to the warriors themselves. The Krasian Maze was carefully designed to give the dal’Sharum layers of protection, and to funnel the demons to places of advantage.
One side of the Holy House faced the woods, where wood demons held sway, and two more faced the wrecked streets and rubble of the town. There were too many places for corelings to take cover and hide. But past the cobbles of the main entrance lay the town square. If they could funnel the demons there, they might have a chance.
They were unable to clean the greasy ash off the rough stone walls of the Holy House and ward it in the rain, so the windows and great doors had been boarded and nailed shut, hasty wards chalked onto the wood. Ingress was limited to a small side entrance, with wardstones laid about the doorway. The demons would have an easier time getting through the wall.
The very presence of humans out in the naked night would act as a magnet to demons, but nevertheless, the Painted Man