“Boggin’s was the first ale I ever drank,” Arlen said, taking another swallow and letting it slide slowly over his tongue. Suddenly, he was twelve years old again, listening to Ragen and Old Hog haggling at the General Store in Tibbet’s Brook.
“Nothing’s better than your first,” Derek said.
Arlen nodded, drinking again. “My life changed forever that day.”
Derek laughed. “You and every other man.” He set his mug down to take hollowed loaves of hard bread and fill them with a thick meat and vegetable stew.
Arlen fell on the meal like a coreling, tearing chunks of the warm crust and using them to scoop the delicious stew into his mouth. In minutes, he had scraped the plate clean down to the last crumb and speck of gravy. No meal in his life had ever been so satisfying.
“Night, even my mam never cooked like that,” he said.
Derek smiled. “Ent got much else to do out here, so I’ve become a fair hand in the kitchen.” He cleared the plates and ale mugs, replacing them with coffee cups. The brew smelled amazing.
“We can take the coffee out on the porch and watch the sunset, if you like,” Derek said. “Got big windows made of that new warded glass they started making a couple years ago. You ever seen that?”
Arlen smiled. He was the one who had brought the glass wards to Miln, and Cob’s shop did all Count Brayan’s glasswork. He had probably warded the panes himself.
“I’ve heard of it,” he said, not wanting to deflate the keeper, who looked quite proud.
As they left the kitchen, the stone floor became smooth pine boards, and they came to a large common area with fine pillowed benches and low tables. Arlen’s eyes were immediately drawn to the window, and he gasped.
He had once thought the view of the mountains from the roof of the Duke’s Library in Miln was the grandest in the world, but it was only a fraction of the view from the way-
station, which seemed to tower over the mountains themselves. Far below, clouds swirled, and when they parted, he could see the tiny speck of Fort Miln, far, far below.
They sat by the windows, and Derek produced a pair of pipes and a weed pouch, along with a drybox of matches. For a short while, they smoked and drank their coffee in silence, watching the sun set from the top of the world.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful,” Arlen said.
Derek sighed, sipping his coffee. “Used to think so, too, but now it’s just the fourth wall of my prison.”
Arlen looked at him, and Derek blushed. “Sorry. Don’t mean to steal the sight from you.”
Arlen waved the thought away. “Honest word, I know how you feel. How often do they relieve you?”
“Used to be one month off and one on,” Derek said, “but then I got caught in an abandoned shaft with the Baron’s daughter over the winter, and he nearly had my stones cut off. Said he’d be corespawned before his daughter married a Servant. Been stuck out here three months now with no relief. Reckon she must’ve bled by now, else they would’ve called me back and fetched a Tender. I’ll be lucky if they let me come home when the station closes for the winter.”
“You’ve been alone here for three months?” Arlen asked. The thought was maddening.
“Mostly,” the keeper said. “Messenger comes every fortnight, give or take, and caravans come a few times a year. Weeks on my arse, and then suddenly I’ve got a dozen wagons and fifty head of cattle and pack animals to manage, along with thirty guards needing quarter and a Royal to shout at me as I tend them.”
“Was she worth it?” Arlen asked.
Derek chuckled. “Stasy Talor? Ent no girl in the world finer, and you can tell her I said so. I could just as easily have ended up the Baron’s son-in-law instead of exiled out here.”
“Can’t you quit?” Arlen asked. “Find some other work?”
Derek shook his head. “There’s only one work in Brayan’s Gold, and that’s what the baron gives you. If he says spend all year at the waystation, well…” he shrugged. “Still, I reckon talking to myself all day is better than swinging a pick in a dark mine shaft, worrying about cave-ins or digging too deep and opening a path to the Core.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Arlen said.
“Looks safer than Messaging, too,” Derek said. “What happened to your cheek?”
Arlen reached up on reflex, running his fingers lightly over the wound where the bandit’s arrow had pierced his cheek. He had treated it with herbs before stitching and it was healing well enough, but the flesh around the wound was an angry red and crusted with blood, obvious to anyone at a glance.
“Got hit by bandits after the thundersticks,” he said. “Just past the third caravan wardpost.” He quickly told the tale.
Derek grunted. “You got stones like a rock demon, waving a thunderstick around like that. Lucky they weren’t looking to hurt anyone. A bad winter can put some folk past caring.”
Arlen shrugged. “I wasn’t giving up the cargo on my first real Messenger run without a fight. Sets a bad precedent.”
Derek nodded. “Well, you ent likely to find any bandits the rest of the way. You’ll be in Brayan’s Gold the evening after next.”
“Why so long?” Arlen said. “Aren’t we almost at the top? Figure I can crack the whip and make it the rest of the way before late afternoon.”
Derek laughed. “Air gets thin up there, Messenger. Just going up the cart path will have you laboring for breath like you were scaling the rock face. Even I feel tired for a couple of days when I go home, and I was born there.”
By then, the sun was only a thin line of fire on the horizon, and a moment later, it winked out, leaving them in near-darkness for the rising. Outside, the whiteness of the snow resisted the darkening sky.
Arlen turned to Derek, who was little more than a silhouette. The bowl of his pipe glowed softly as he pulled at it. “Aren’t you going to light any lamps?”
Derek shook his head. “Just wait.”
Arlen shrugged and turned his attention back to the window, watching a rock demon rise on the road outside. It was the same slate color as those lower on the mountain, but smaller still, with long, spindly arms and legs with two joints. Sharp bits of horn jutted along its limbs, and it walked as much on all fours as it did upright.
“Always expected rock demons got bigger, the higher up you go,” Arlen said. “Don’t know why.”
“Opposite’s true,” Derek said. “Less to hunt up here, and the deep snow trips up the big ones.”
“That’s good to know,” Arlen said.
The rock demon caught sight of them and launched itself at the window with frightening speed. Arlen had never seen a rock move so fast or leap so far. It struck the wardnet in midair, and magic flared like lightning, throwing the demon back onto the road and almost pitching it down the mountainside. The coreling caught itself just in time, long talons catching fast in the rock at the cliff’s edge.
Suddenly, all the wards at the front of the station came to life, flaring in succession as the magic leeched from the rock demon activated the wardnet, the pattern of symbols dancing across the walls and beams.
Many of the wards winked out soon after flaring, but Arlen could feel the heat wards still radiating faintly, and interspersed through the net and room were light wards, glowing with a soft, lingering luminescence.
Another coreling came at the window, a wind demon that shrieked as it dove from the sky. The net flared again, and the heat wards grew warmer as the light wards grew brighter. More corelings came at the window, and within a few minutes, the room was brighter than a dozen lamps might have made it, and warmer than if it had a roaring fire.
“Amazing,” Arlen said. “I’ve never seen warding like this.”
“Count Brayan spares no expense on his own comfort,” Derek said. A demon suddenly struck the wards right in front of him, and he jumped, then scowled and made an obscene gesture at the offending demon.
“They always come at the window,” Derek said. “Same demons, every night. I keep thinking one night they’ll just give up, but they never learn.”
“Seeing you makes them crazed,” Arlen said. “Corelings might eat what they kill, but I think it’s the kill itself that feeds them, human kills most of all. If they know you’re here, they’ll come and test the wards every night, even if it takes a hundred years for one to fail.”
