corelings would rise in seconds.
He leapt from the horse’s back, rushing to the stake to undo Renna’s bonds. An old man strode out to him, waving a large hunting knife with a stained blade. The Painted Man’s sharp nostrils caught the scent of dried blood as he recognized Raddock Lawry, the Speaker from Fishing Hole.
“This ent your affair, Messenger!” Lawry said, pointing the knife at him. “That girl killed my kin, as well as her own da, and we aim to see her cored for it!”
The Painted Man glanced at Renna in shock, and like a slap in the face it all came back to him. The marriage games she and Beni had wanted to play with him in the hayloft, games they said they learned from watching Ilain with their father. Ilain’s secret, pleading words to Jeph, begging him to take her away. The grunting from Harl’s room deep in the night.
The memories flooded back, but this time he saw them as a grown man, and not a naive boy. Horror struck him, followed quickly by anger. He reached out faster than Raddock could react, catching the man’s wrist in a sharusahk twist that flipped him to the ground even as the knife came free from his hands.
The Painted Man held the blade up for all to see. “If Renna Tanner killed her da,” he shouted, “then I tell you, he had it comin’!”
He moved to cut Renna’s bonds, but several Fishers, led by Garric, charged him with their thin spears. He stuck the bloody knife in the stake and turned to meet them.
To call it a fight would have been overly kind to the Fishers. They were strong men, but no warriors. The Painted Man was a trained fighter, and stronger than all of them together. It was only by his mercy that none of them were permanently injured when they hit the ground.
“Ent nobody getting cored while I’m around,” he barked. “I’m taking her, and there ent a corespawned thing you can do about it!”
There was a thump, and he looked up, his eyes widening in disbelief. Jeorje Watch stood there, looking much as he had the last time the Painted Man had seen him, though that had been over sixteen years gone, and Jeorje in his nineties then.
“Nothing we can do, may be,” he said, nodding and pointing with his stick, “but reckon we’re not the ones you need to contend with, boy. The Plague take you both!”
The Painted Man followed the stick and saw he was right. Mist was rising throughout the square, and already some corelings were solidifying. The Fishers on the ground shrieked and scrambled back behind the wards.
Jeorje Watch had a grim smile on his face, one of righteous satisfaction, but the Painted Man didn’t flinch. Instead he pulled off his hood and met the Southwatch Tender’s eyes.
“I’ve contended with worse, old man,” he growled, stripping off his robe, as well. The crowd gasped at the sight of his tattooed flesh.
As always, the first to come were the flame demons. One leapt at Renna, but the Painted Man caught its tail, hurling it across the square. Another pounced at him, but the wards on his skin flared to life and its claws could find no purchase. He caught the coreling’s jaws before it could bite, so it spat fire in his eyes.
The wards on his face glowed briefly, absorbing the attack and turning it into nothing more than a cool breeze. All the while the wards on his palms glowed more and more fiercely until he crushed the demon’s snout, hurling it aside.
A wood demon formed next, charging Twilight Dancer, but the stallion reared and trampled it, sparks flying from his warded hooves.
There was a shriek from above, and the Painted Man pivoted in time to grab the diving wind demon and turn its momentum against it, throwing it hard to the ground and crushing its throat with a stomp of his foot and a thunderclap of magic.
Two more wood demons came at him, and he kicked the first in the stomach, knocking it back with a blast of magic before grappling with the other. He caught one of its arms in a sharusahkhold and pulled with all his strength, tearing the demon’s arm clear off. This he threw at Jeorje Watch, though the limb bounced off the wards of the Southwatch Tender’s circle.
Three flame demons set upon the crippled wood demon, and soon the wounded coreling was shrieking as it was consumed in flame. The other wood demon recovered and made to come at the Painted Man, but he snarled at it, and the demon kept its distance.
“It’s the Deliverer!” someone in the crowd cried. Many others echoed his words, some even falling to their knees, but the Painted Man only scowled.
“Ent here to deliver anyone that would put a girl out in the night!” he roared. He turned to Renna, pulling the knife free from the stake and slashing through her bonds. She collapsed into his arms, and their eyes met for just a moment. Focus returned to Renna’s gaze, and she shook her head as if to clear it. He lifted her up onto Twilight Dancer’s back.
“That witch killed my son!” Garric Fisher cried.
The Painted Man turned, remembering all too clearly the many beatings he ’d suffered at Cobie Fisher’s hands as a child. “Your son was a bully, and never worth a coreling’s piss,” he said, climbing into the saddle behind Renna. She snuggled into him like a child, shivering though the night was warm.
He looked out over the crowd, scanning the terrified faces. He saw his father there, clutching Ilain Tanner, and felt another surge of anger. Nothing had changed, if Jeph could stand there and watch Renna staked, knowing what they both did of Harl.
“I came to teach you all to fight the corelings!” he called to the crowd. “But I see Tibbet’s Brook still raises only cowards and fools!”
He turned to ride off, but something gnawed at him, and he looked back, giving the crowd one last glance, one last chance.
“Any man, woman, or child who would rather kill corelings than feed them their neighbor, meet me here at dusk tomorrow,” he shouted. “If not, corespawn the lot of you!”
Jeph met his eyes then, though there was no recognition in his gaze. “Renna Tanner is my kin!” he called, drawing stares from all around. “Succor at my farm up the north road! Renna knows the way!” The Painted Man needed no directions to Jeph’s farm, but he nodded, turning Twilight Dancer north.
“Here now, you can’t go shelterin’ that murderin’ witch, Jeph Bales!” Raddock Lawry called. “The council voted!”
“Then it’s best I ent on the council,” Jeph shouted back, “ ’cause the night as my witness, you or anyone else comes to my farm looking for her, there ’ll be more bloodshed, and to spare!”
Raddock opened his mouth to reply, but there was an angry murmur from the crowd, and he looked around uneasily, unsure whose side they were on.
The Painted Man grunted and kicked Twilight Dancer into a gallop out of the Square and headed up the road to his father’s farm.
Renna was silent the whole ride, resting against him and clinging to his robes. A few demons came at them, but Twilight Dancer dodged and put on speed, quickly leaving them behind. Twice, the stallion simply trampled demons into the road without slowing.
His father’s farm was much as he remembered it, though an addition had been built onto the back of the house. Some of the wardposts in the barley field were still those he had carved himself, coated in fresh lacquer many times over the years. Jeph maintained his wards religiously, a habit he had instilled in his son that had saved Arlen’s life many times since and defined much of the course of his life.
Drawn to the house, a great many corelings were in the yard, testing the wards. The Painted Man shot two to clear the way to the barn, and once safe behind its wards, he stabled Twilight Dancer and stood in the doorway, picking off the others one by one with his bow. Soon the way was clear, and he escorted Renna to the house proper.
The Painted Man was shaking as he deposited Renna in the common room and lit the lanterns, kindling a fire in the hearth. Everything about the place was so familiar, it made his heart ache. It even smelled the same. He half expected his mother to come out of the cold room and tell him to wash for supper. An old cat came and sniffed him, purring and rubbing against his leg. He picked it up and scratched its ears, remembering how its mother had birthed the litter behind the broken cart in the barn.
He went over to Renna who was sitting right where he left her, playing with her skirts. “You all right?”
Renna shook her head, eyes on the floor. “Ent sure I’ll ever be all right again.”
