Jeph nodded. “Thank you, Messenger.”
“I’ll hold you to your promise to protect her from any looking to do her harm,” the Painted Man said, pointing a tattooed finger at his father.
Jeph swallowed, but he nodded. “I will.”
The Painted Man’s eyes narrowed. Jeph was full of sincere-sounding promises, ones he meant full well, yet when the time came for action he was apt to fail.
But with no other option, the Painted Man nodded. “I’ll fetch my horse and go.”
“Wait, please,” Jeph said, catching his arm. The Painted Man looked at the offending hand, and Jeph snatched it quickly away.
“I just…” He hesitated. “We ’d like it if you stayed for breakfast. Least we can do. Whole town might be at the square come evening, like you said. You can take your ease here, till then.”
The Painted Man looked at him, wanting to be gone from the place, but a part of him longed to meet his siblings, and his stomach rumbled at the thought of a proper Brook breakfast. Such things had meant little to him when he was a child, but now they were cherished memories.
“Reckon I can set a spell,” he said, and allowed himself to be escorted back inside as the children ran to their chores and Norine and Ilain headed to the cold room.
“This here’s Jeph Young,” Jeph said, introducing his oldest son when they were gathered around the breakfast table. The boy nodded at him, but mostly stared at his tattooed hands and tried to peek into the shadows of his hood.
“Next to him is Jeni Tailor,” Jeph went on. “They been promised near two seasons. At the end are our youngest, Silvy and Cholie.”
Seated opposite the children, next to Renna and Norine, the Painted Man coughed at the names, those of his lost mother and uncle. He took a sip from his water cup to cover his surprise. “You have beautiful children.”
“Tender Harral says you’re the Deliverer, come again,” little Silvy blurted.
“Well I ent,” the Painted Man told her. “Just a Messenger, come to spread good word.”
“Messengers all like you now, then?” Jeph asked. “All painted up?”
The Painted Man smiled. “I’m one of a kind like that,” he admitted. “But I’m just a man, all the same. Din’t come to deliver anyone.”
“You sure did for our Renna,” Ilain said. “Can’t thank you enough for that.”
“Shouldn’t have had to,” the Painted Man said.
Jeph sat quiet a moment at the rebuke. “You’re right at that,” he said at last, “but sometimes when a body’s in a crowd, and the crowd has its say…”
“Stop making excuses, Jeph Bales,” Norine snapped. “Man’s right. What do we got in this world, ’cept kith and kin? Ent nothing should keep us from standing by them.”
The Painted Man looked at her. This wasn’t the Norine he remembered, the one who had stood on the porch the night his mother was cored. Stood and done nothing, except try to keep Arlen from going to her aid. He nodded, his eyes flicking back to meet Jeph’s.
“She’s right,” he said. “You’ve got to stand up to those that would harm you and yours.”
“You sound like my son,” Jeph said, his eyes growing distant.
“Say again?” the Painted Man said, his throat tightening.
“Me?” Jeph Young asked.
Jeph shook his head. “Your elder,” he told his son, and everyone at the table except Renna and the Painted Man drew a quick ward in the air.
“Had another son, name of Arlen, years back,” Jeph explained, and Ilain took his hand in hers, squeezing to lend him strength. “Promised to Renna there, in fact.” He nodded to Renna. “Arlen’s mam was cored, and he ran off.” He looked down at the table, and his voice grew tight. “Always asking about the Free Cities, Arlen was. Like to think he mighta made it there…” He broke off, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“But you have this beautiful family now,” the Painted Man said, hoping to move the conversation toward something positive.
Jeph nodded, covering Ilain’s hand in both of his and squeezing. “I thank the Creator for them every day, but that don’t mean I ent carrying a weight for those gone before.”
After breakfast, the Painted Man went out to the stables to check on Twilight Dancer, more to escape for a moment than for any need. He had just started to brush the horse down when the barn door opened and Renna came in. She cut an apple and held the halves out for Twilight Dancer to eat, stroking the stallion’s flanks when she was done. He nickered softly.
“It was night when I came runnin’ here, few days ago,” she said. “Demons would’ve got me, Jeph hadn’t crossed the wards and hit one with his axe.”
“Honest word?” the Painted Man asked, and felt a lump in his throat when she nodded.
“You’re not going to tell him, are you?” she asked.
“Tell him what?” the Painted Man asked.
“That you’re his son,” Renna said. “That you’re alive and well and you forgive him. He’s waited so long. Why are you still punishing him when I can see forgiveness in your eyes?”
“You know who I am?” he asked, surprised.
“Course I know!” Renna snapped. “Ent stupid, no matter what everyone thinks. How would you’ve known about my da and what he done, you weren’t Arlen Bales? How would you know Cobie was a bully, or which farm was Jeph’s? Night, you strolled around the cupboards like it was still your house!”
“Din’t mean for anyone to know,” the Painted Man said, suddenly realizing that his Brook accent, which he ’d dropped while living in Miln, had returned. It was an old Messenger’s trick to put folk in the hamlets at ease, shifting accent to match theirs. He had done it a hundred times, but this time was different, like he ’d been doing the trick since he left and was finally speaking in his own voice again.
Renna kicked him hard in the shin. He yelped in pain.
“That’s for thinkin’ I din’t know, and not sayin’ anythin’!” she shouted, shoving him so hard he fell into the pile of hay at the back of the stall. “Fourteen summers I waited for you! Always thought you’d come back for me. We was promised. But you din’t come back for me at all, did you? Not even now! You was gonna just stop in and leave thinkin’ no one knew!” She kicked at him again, and he scrambled quickly to his feet, moving to put Twilight Dancer between them.
She was right, of course. The same as his visit to Miln, he had thought he could look in on his old life without touching it, like removing a bandage to see if the wound underneath had healed. But truer was he had left those wounds to fester, and it was time they were bled.
“Five minutes’ talk between our das don’t make us promised, Ren,” he said.
“I asked my da to talk to Jeph,” Renna said. “I told you we was promised then, and I said the words on the porch at sunset the day you left. That makes it so.”
But the Painted Man shook his head. “Sayin’ something at sunset doesn’t make it so. I never promised to you, Renna. Everyone got a say that night but me.”
Renna looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes. “Maybe you din’t,” she conceded, “but I did. It was the only thing I ever done that was really mine, and I ent gonna take it back. I knew it when we kissed, that we was meant to be.”
“But you’d have married Cobie Fisher,” he said, failing to keep some bitterness from his voice, “who used to beat on me with his friends.”
“You fixed ’em for that,” Renna said. “Cobie was always nice to me…” She sniffed, touching the necklace she wore. “Din’t even know you were alive, and I needed to get away…”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “I know, Ren. Din’t mean it like that. Don’t blame you for doing what you did. Just meant that nothing’s ‘meant to be.’ We all just go through life doing what we think’s best.”
She looked at him. “I want to go with you when you leave. That’s what I think’s best.”
“You know what that means, Ren?” the Painted Man asked. “I don’t just
hide behind a circle when the sun sets. Ent a safe life.”
“Like I’m safe here?” Renna asked. “Even if they don’t stake me again soon as you leave, who I got to turn to now? Who, that wern’t willing to stand by and watch me get cored?”
He looked at her a long time, trying to find the words to refuse her. The Fishers were no different from any bullies—he would cow them come nightfall, if he hadn’t already. Renna would be safe in the Brook. She deserved to be safe.
But was simple safety enough? It wasn’t for him, so who was he to say it was for her? He ’d always looked with derision on those who spent their lives in fear of the night.
Being around Renna was like salt in the wound, a reminder of everything he had given up when he began warding his flesh. It was hard enough around those who never knew him before. Renna made him feel like he was still eleven years old.
But she needed him, and that kept the call of the Core away. Today was the first dawn he had looked forward to since Miln. In his heart, the Painted Man knew he would never survive if he tried to enter the demon world, but seeing his own people put Renna out at night made him want to leave humanity behind forever. If he left Tibbet’s Brook alone, he might.
“All right,” he said at last, “so long as you keep the pace. You slow me down, and I’ll leave you at the first town we come to.”
Renna looked around the barn, spotting a beam of sunlight streaming in through the hayloft doors above. She stepped carefully into the sunlight and met his eyes. “I ent gonna slow you,” she promised, drawing Harl’s knife, “sun as my witness.”
“You clutch that knife like it could help you against a coreling,” the Painted Man said. “Let me ward it for you.” Renna blinked, looking at the knife, then held it out. He reached for it, but she drew it back suddenly, clutching it protectively.
“Knife’s one of the only things in the world that’s mine,” she said. “Like to ward it myself, if you’ll teach me.”
The Painted Man looked at her doubtfully, remembering her poor warding when they were children. Renna noted the look and scowled.
“I ent nine years old anymore, Arlen Bales,” she snapped. “Been warding my property nigh ten years now and ent no demon ever got past, so you quit looking down. Reckon I can draw a ripping circle or a heat ward good as you.”
Shocked, the Painted Man shook his head to clear it. “Sorry. The Warders in the Free Cities treated me the same way when I left the Brook. Forgot how insulting it was.”
Renna went over to where his gear was stored, pulling a warded knife from a sheath on his saddle. “Here,” she said, coming over to him. “What’s this’un do?” She pointed to the single ward at the tip. “And why’s the rest of the edge just a repeat of this other ward, only rotated? How’s it form a net without connectors?” She turned the weapon over in her hands, running her finger over the dozens of wards on the flat.
The Painted Man pointed to the tip. “This is a piercing ward, to break the armor. Those on the side are cutting wards, to let the blade slide in once the armor is broken. Cutting wards are self-linking, if you rotate them proper.”
Renna nodded, her eyes dancing along the lines. “And these?” She pointed to the symbols inside the cutting edge.
After supper, Jeph hitched his cart, and the whole family climbed in to head to Town Square. Renna rode with the Painted Man, seated behind him on Twilight Dancer.
They arrived scant minutes before sunset. If the square had been packed the day before, it was near bursting now. Every borough of Tibbet’s Brook was represented in full, man, woman, and child. They filled the street and most of the square, more than a thousand souls in all, succored only by hastily hauled and painted wardstones.
Everyone looked up when they rode in, ignoring Jeph’s family entirely as they stared at the hooded stranger on his enormous warded stallion, and the girl who rode behind him. The crowd parted as the Painted Man rode through to the center of the square, turning Twilight Dancer back and forth a few times so all could see them. He reached up and pulled his hood down, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd.
“I came from the Free Cities to teach the good people of Tibbet’s Brook to kill demons!” he shouted. “But so far, I’ve seen no ‘good people.’ Good people do not feed helpless girls to the corelings! Good people do not stand by while someone is cored!” As he spoke, he continued to turn his horse back and forth, meeting as many eyes as possible.
“She wern’t no helpless girl, Messenger!” Raddock Lawry shouted, coming to the fore of those from Fishing Hole. “She’s a cold killer, and the council voted to have her staked for it.”
“Ay, they did,” the Painted Man agreed loudly. “And none stood up against them for it.”
“Folk trust in their Speakers,” Raddock said.
“That true?” the Painted Man asked the crowd at large. “You folk trust your Speakers?”
There was a chorus of passionate Ays from every section. The folk of Tibbet’s Brook were proud of their boroughs and the surnames they shared.
The Painted Man nodded. “Then I reckon it’s your Speakers I’ll test.” He leapt down from the horse and, from the harnesses on Twilight Dancer’s saddle, selected ten light spears he stuck point-down to stand quivering in the dirt.
“Every man or woman of the town council who stands with me and fights tonight, or their heir if they’re killed, will get a battle-warded spear,” he said, raising one of the weapons, “and the secrets of combat warding, so they can make their own.”
There was a shocked silence as everyone looked to their Speaker.
“Kin we have some time to think on it?” Mack Pasture asked. “Don’t care to be hasty.”
“Of course,” the Painted Man said, looking at the sky. “I’d say you have…ten minutes. By this time tomorrow, I intend to be back on the road to the Free Cities.”
Selia Barren came out of the crowd. “You expect us, the Brook’s elders, to stand in the naked night with naught but them spears?”
The Painted Man looked at her, still tall and intimidating after all these years. She ’d switched his backside more than once, and always for his own good. The idea of standing up to Selia Barren was more alien to him than staring down a rock demon, but this time it was her that needed a switching.
“It’s a sight more’n you gave Renna Tanner,” he said.
“Not all of us voted her out, Messenger,” Selia said.
The Painted Man shrugged. “You let it happen, all the same.”
“Ent no one above the law,” Selia said. “When the council voted, we had to put the town first, no matter how we felt.”
The Painted Man spat at her feet. “The Core with your law, if it says to throw your neighbor to the night! You want to put town first, come out here and show you can get as you give. Elsewise, I’ll take my spears and go.”
Selia’s eyes narrowed, and then she picked up her skirts, striding firmly into the square. There were gasps of shock from all sides, but Selia ignored them, taking up one of the spears. She was followed immediately by Tender Harral and Brine Broadshoulders. The giant Cutter took up his spear with a hungry look in his eyes. The Squares and Cutters gave a cheer.
“Anyone else have a question?” the Painted Man asked, looking around. As a boy in Tibbet’s Brook, he’d had no voice, but now he finally meant to speak his mind. The crowd had suddenly become animated, but he picked the Speakers out easily, islands in the brook.
“Reckon I do,” Jeorje Watch said.
The Painted Man faced him. “Ask, and I’ll answer with honest word.”
“How are we to know you’re really the Deliverer?” Jeorje asked.
“Like I said, Tender,” the Painted Man said, “I ent. Just a Messenger.”
“The Messenger of whom?” Jeorje asked.
The Painted Man hesitated, seeing the trap. If he said no one, many would assume it was because he was a Messenger of the Creator. His best choice would be to name Euchor as his patron. Tibbet’s
Brook was technically part of Miln, and the people would assume the combat wards were a gift of his. But he had promised to speak honest word.
“No patron for this message,” he admitted. “Found the wards in a ruin of the old world, and took it upon myself to spread them to all good folk, so we can start fighting back.”
“The Plague cannot end without the coming of the Deliverer,” Jeorje said, as if the Painted Man were caught in a logic trap.
But the Painted Man simply shrugged, handing Jeorje a warded spear. “Could be it’s you. Kill a demon and find out.”
Jeorje dropped his walking stick and took the weapon, a hard glint in his eyes.
“Seen a hundred years and more of the Plague,” he said. “Seen everyone I know pass on, even my own grandkin. Always wondered why it was, Creator kept me alive so long when he called so many others to his side. Reckon it was on account of me having something left to do.”
“They say in Fort Krasia that a man can’t get to Heaven, ’less he takes a coreling with him,” the Painted Man said.
Jeorje nodded. “Wise folk.” He went to stand beside Selia, and the Watches all drew wards in the air as he passed.
Rusco Hog stomped into the square next, rolling his sleeves up thick and meaty arms. He grabbed a spear of his own.
“Da, what are you doing?” his daughter Catrin cried, running out to grasp his arm.
“Use your head, girl!” Hog snapped. “Anyone selling warded weapons is gonna make a fortune!” He yanked his arm away and went to stand by the other Speakers.
There was movement from the Marsh contingent, where Coran Marsh sat in a hard-back chair. “My da can’t even stand without his cane,” Keven Marsh called. “Let me fight for him.”
The Painted Man shook his head. “Spear’s as good a cane as any for a man thinks he can sit in council and play Creator.” The Marshes began to shake their fists and shout angrily at him, but the Painted Man ignored them, keeping his eyes on Coran, daring him to step forward. The aged Marsh Speaker scowled, but he stood up from his chair and hobbled slowly over to take a spear. He left his cane on the ground beside Jeorje ’s walking stick.