books, histories and basic maps. Nothing you can’t find in the library of any Warder or Messenger worth the name.”
“Then where…?” Leesha began, but the Painted Man moved over to a nondescript section of the floor and stamped his heel down hard in a precise spot. The board was on a fulcrum, and as one end dipped into a hollow in the floor, the other rose, revealing a small metal ring. The Painted Man grasped the ring and pulled, opening a trapdoor in the flooring, its edges uneven and filled with sawdust, making them indistinguishable from the surrounding floorboards.
He lit a lantern and led the way down the steps into a large basement. The walls were stone, and the room was cool and dry. There was a hall leading in the direction of the collapsed main house, but a giant stone block had fallen to bar the path.
Painted weapons lay stacked and hung everywhere. Axes, spears of varying length, polearms, and knives, all delicately etched with battle wards. Dozens of crank bow bolts. Literally thousands of arrows, stacked in gross bundles.
There were trophies of a sort, as well, demon skulls, horns, and talons, dented shields and broken spears. Gared and Wonda drew wards in the air.
“Here,” the Painted Man said to Wonda, handing her a bundle of arrows, delicate wards entwined along their wooden shafts and metal heads. “These will bite coreling flesh deeper than the ones in your quiver.”
Wonda’s hands shook as she accepted the gift. Speechless, she bowed her head, and the Painted Man bowed in return.
“Gared…” the Painted Man said, looking around as Gared stepped forward. He selected a heavy machete, its blade etched with hundreds of tiny wards. “You can hack through wood demon limbs like errant vines with this,” he said, handing the weapon to Gared hilt-first. Gared dropped to his knees.
“Get up,” the Painted Man snapped. “I ent the ripping Deliverer!”
“Ent callin’ you any names,” Gared said, keeping his eyes down. “All I know is I spent my whole life acting the selfish fool, but since you come to the Hollow, I seen the sun. I seen how I let my pride and my…lusts,” his eyes flicked to Leesha, just for an instant, “blind me. The Creator blessed me with strong arms to kill demons, not to take whatever I wanted.”
The Painted Man held out his hand, and when Gared took it, he pulled the man roughly to his feet. Gared weighed more than three hundred pounds, but he might as well have been a child.
“Maybe you seen the sun, Gared,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I showed it to you. You’d lost your da just a day before. That’ll grow any man. Show him what’s important in life.”
He held out the machete again, and Gared took it. It was a huge blade, but it seemed little more than a dagger in Gared’s giant hand. He looked at the delicate warding in wonder.
The Painted Man looked at Leesha. “Those,” he pointed to a series of shelves at the far end of the room, “are the grimoires.” Leesha immediately moved toward the shelves, but he caught her arm. “I let you go there and we’ll lose you for the next ten hours.”
Leesha frowned, wanting nothing more than to pull her arm away and bury herself in the heavy, leather- bound tomes, but she suppressed the urge. This was not her home. She nodded.
“we’ll bring the books with us when we leave,” the Painted Man said. “I have other copies. Those will be yours to keep.”
Rojer looked to the Painted Man. “Everyone gets a gift but me?”
The Painted Man smiled. “We’ll find you something.” He moved over to the blocked corridor. The keystone that had collapsed from the archway looked to weigh hundreds of pounds, but he lifted it away easily, leading them to a heavy, locked door that had been hidden in the darkness.
He produced another key from his robes and turned it in the lock, opening the door and stepping inside. He touched a taper to a huge stand lamp by the door, and it flared to life, reflecting off large mirrors carefully placed around the room. Instantly the huge chamber was filled with bright light, and the visitors gasped collectively.
Carpets, rich and thick, woven in faded design from ages past, covered the stone floor. The walls were hung with dozens of paintings of forgotten people and events, masterworks in gilded frames, along with metal-framed mirrors and polished furniture. Treasures lay piled in rain barrels around the room, filled to bursting with ancient gold coins, gems, and jewelry. Machines of unknown purpose lay partially disassembled alongside great marble statues and busts, musical instruments, and countless other riches. There were bookshelves everywhere.
“How is this possible?” Leesha asked.
“Corelings care little for riches,” the Painted Man said. “Messengers picked the easily accessible ruins clean, but there are countless places they’ve never been, whole cities lost to demons and swallowed up by the land. I’ve tried to preserve whatever survived the elements.”
“You’re richer than all the dukes combined,” Rojer said in awe.
The Painted Man shrugged. “I have little use for it. Take whatever you like.”
Rojer gave a whoop and ran through the room, running his fingers through piles of coins and jewelry, picking up statuettes and ancient weapons. He played a tune on a brass horn, then gave a cry and ducked behind a broken statue, reappearing with a fiddle in his hands. The strings had rotted away, but the wood was still strong and polished. He laughed aloud, holding the prize up in delight.
Gared looked around the room. “Liked the other room better,” he told Wonda, and she nodded her agreement.
The gates of Fort Angiers were closed.
“During the day?” Rojer asked in surprise. “They’re usually open wide for the loggers and their carts.” He sat now in the driver’s seat of the cart from the Painted Man’s keep, pulled by Leesha’s horse. She sat beside him, in front of several bags of books and other items used to disguise the cart’s false bottom. The hidden hold was filled with warded weapons and more than a little gold.
“Maybe Rhinebeck’s taking the Krasian threat more seriously than we thought,” Leesha said. Indeed, as they drew closer to the city, they saw guards armed with loaded crank bows patrolling the walltop, and woodworkers carving arrow slits at the lower levels of the wall. Where the gate had once had a single pair of guards, now there were several, standing alert with their spears at the ready.
“Marick’s tale likely set things in a frenzy,” the Painted Man agreed, “but I’ll wager those guards are there more to prevent thousands of refugees from pouring into the city than they are to ward off any Krasian attack.”
“The duke couldn’t possibly refuse all those people succor,” Leesha said.
“Why not?” the Painted Man said. “Duke Euchor lets the Beggars of Miln sleep on the unwarded streets every night.”
“Ay, state your business!” a guard called as they approached. The Painted Man pulled his hood lower and drifted toward the back of the group.
“We come by way of Deliverer’s Hollow,” Rojer said. “I’m Rojer Halfgrip, licensed to the Jongleurs’ Guild, and these are my companions.”
“Halfgrip?” one guard asked. “The fiddler?”
“The same,” Rojer said, lifting the newly strung fiddle the Painted Man had given him.
“Saw you play once,” the guard grunted. “Who are the others?”
“This is Leesha, Herb Gatherer of Deliverer’s Hollow, formerly of the hospit of Mistress Jizell in Angiers,” Rojer said, gesturing to Leesha. “The others are Cutters come to guard us on the road; Gared, Wonda, and, er… Flinn.”
Wonda gasped. Flinn Cutter was her father’s name, a man killed in the Battle of Cutter’s Hollow less than a year earlier. Rojer immediately regretted the improvisation.
“Why’s he all covered?” the guard asked, pointing his chin at the Painted Man.
Rojer leaned in close, dropping his voice to a whisper. “He’s badly demon-scarred, I’m afraid. Doesn’t like people looking on his deformity.”
“It true what they say?” the guard asked. “Do they kill corelings in the Hollow? They say the Deliverer has come there, bringing with him the battle wards of old.”
Rojer nodded. “Gared here has killed dozens himself.”
“What I wouldn’t give to have my spear warded to kill demons,” one guard said.
“We ’ve come to trade,” Rojer said. “You’ll have your wish soon enough.”
