“Plague,” said a familiar voice, and Leesha turned to see Jona approaching, leaning heavily on a cane. His Tender’s robes had been cut away from one leg, the lower half splinted and wrapped tight in bandages stained with blood. Leesha embraced him, glancing meaningfully at the leg.
“Broken tibia,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Vika’s seen to it.” His face grew dark. “It was one of the last things she did, before she succumbed.”
Leesha’s eye’s widened. “Vika’s dead?” she asked in shock.
Jona shook his head. “Not yet, at least, but the flux has got her, and the fever has her raving. It won’t be long.” He looked around. “It may not be long for any of us,” he said in a low voice meant for Leesha alone. “I fear you’ve chosen an ill time for your homecoming, Leesha, but perhaps that too is the Creator’s plan. Had you waited another day, there might not have been a home for you to come to.”
Leesha’s eyes hardened. “I don’t want to hear any more nonsense like that!” she scolded. “Where is Vika?” She turned a circle, taking in the small crowd. “Creator, where is everyone?”
“The Holy House,” Jona said. “The sick are all there. Those that have recovered, or been blessed not to fall prey at all, are out collecting the dead, or mourning them.”
“Then that’s where we’re going,” Leesha said, tucking herself under Jona’s arm to support him as they walked. “Now tell me what’s happened. Everything.”
Jona nodded. His face was pale, his eyes hollow. He was damp with sweat, and had obviously lost a great deal of blood, suppressing his pain only with great concentration. Behind them, Rojer and the Warded Man followed silently, along with most of the other villagers who had seen Leesha’s arrival.
“The plague started months ago,” Jona began, “but Vika and Darsy said it was just a chill, and thought little of it. Some that caught it, the young and strong, mostly, recovered quickly, but others took to their beds for weeks, and some eventually passed. Still, it seemed a simple flux, until it began to strengthen. Healthy people began to take ill rapidly, reduced overnight to weakness and delirium.
“That was when the fires started,” he said. “People collapsing in their homes with candles and lamps in hand, or too sick to see to their wards. With your father and most of the other Warders in sickbed, nets began to fail all over town, especially with all the smoke and ash in the air marring every ward in sight. We fought the fires as best we could, but more and more people fell to the sickness, and there weren’t enough hands.
“Smitt collected the survivors in a few warded buildings as far from the fires as possible, hoping for safety in numbers, but that just spread the plague faster. Saira collapsed last night during the storm, knocking over an oil lamp and starting a fire that soon had the whole tavern ablaze. The people had to flee into the night …” He choked, and Leesha stroked his back, not needing to hear more. She could well imagine what had happened next.
The Holy House was the only building in Cutter’s Hollow made wholly of stone, and had resisted the flaming ash in the air, standing in proud defiance of the ruins. Leesha passed through the great doors, and gasped in shock. The pews had been cleared, and almost every inch of floor covered in straw pallets with only the barest space between them. Perhaps two hundred people lay there groaning, many bathed in sweat and thrashing about as others, weak with sickness themselves, tried to restrain them. She saw Smitt passed out on a pallet, and Vika not far off. Two more of Mairy’s children, and others, so many others. But there was no sign of her father.
A woman looked up at them as they entered. She was prematurely gray and looked haggard and drawn, but Leesha knew her blocky frame instantly.
“Thank the Creator,” Darsy said, catching sight of her. Leesha let go of Jona, and moved quickly to speak with her. After several minutes, she returned to Jona.
“Does Bruna’s hut still stand?” she asked.
Jona shrugged. “So far as I know,” he said. “No one has been there since she passed. Almost two weeks now.”
Leesha nodded. Bruna’s hut was far from the village proper, shielded by rows of trees. It was doubtful the soot had broken its wards. “I’ll need to go there and get supplies,” she said, stepping back outside. It was beginning to rain again, the sky bleak and bereft of hope.
Rojer and the Warded Man were there, along with a cluster of villagers.
“It is you,” Brianne said, rushing up to embrace Leesha. Evin stood not far back, holding a young girl in his arms with Callen, grown tall though he was not yet ten, next to him.
Leesha returned the embrace warmly. “Has anyone seen my father?” she asked.
“He’s home, where you should be,” came a voice, and Leesha turned to see her mother approach, Gared at her heel. Leesha did not know whether to feel relief or dread at the sight.
“You come to check on everyone but your own family?” Elona demanded.
“Mum, I only just …” Leesha began, but her mother cut her off.
“Only this and only that!” Elona barked. “Always a reason to turn your back on your blood when it suits you! Your poor father is finding death’s succor, and I find you here …!”
“Who’s with him?” Leesha interrupted.
“His apprentices,” Elona said.
Leesha nodded. “Have them bring him here with the others,” she said.
“I’ll do no such thing!” Elona cried. “Take him from the comfort of a feathered bed for an infested straw pallet in a room rife with plague?” She grabbed Leesha’s arm. “You’ll come see him now! You’re his daughter!”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Leesha demanded, snatching her arm away. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she made no effort to brush them aside. “Do you think I thought of anything else as I dropped everything and left Angiers? But he’s not the only person in town, Mother! I can’t abandon everyone to tend one man, even if he is my father!”
“You’re a fool if you think these people ent dead already,” Elona said, drawing gasps from the crowd. She pointed to the stone walls of the Holy House. “Will those wards hold back the corelings tonight?” she asked, drawing everyone’s attention to the stone, blackened by smoke and ash. Indeed, there was barely a ward visible.
She drew close to Leesha, her voice lowering. “Our house is far from the others,” she whispered. “It may be the last warded home in all of Cutter’s Hollow. It can’t hold everyone, but it can save us, if you come home!”
Leesha slapped her. Full in the face. Elona was knocked into the mud, and sat there dumbfounded, pressing her hand to her reddening cheek. Gared looked ready to rush Leesha and carry her off, but she checked him with a cold glare.
“I’m not going to hide away and leave my friends to the corelings!” she shouted. “We’ll find a way to ward the Holy House, and make our stand here. Together! And if demons should dare come and try to take my children, I have secrets of fire that will burn them from this world!”
My children, Leesha thought, in the sudden silence that followed. Am I Bruna now, to think of them so? She looked around, taking in the scared and sooty faces, not a one taking charge, and realized for the first time that as far as everyone was concerned, she was Bruna. She was Herb Gatherer for Cutter’s Hollow now. Sometimes that meant bringing healing, and sometimes …
Sometimes it meant a dash of pepper in the eyes, or burning a wood demon in your yard. The Warded Man came forward. People whispered at the sight of him, a robed and hooded specter hardly noticed a moment before.
“Wood demons won’t be all you face,” he said. “Flame demons will delight in your fire, and wind demons soar above it. The razing of your town might even have called rock demons down from the hills. They will be waiting when the sun sets.”
“We’re all going to die!” Ande cried, and Leesha felt panic building in the crowd.
“What do you care?” she demanded of the Warded Man. “You’ve kept your promise and seen us here! Get on your core-spawned scary horse an
d be on your way! Leave us to our fate!”
But the Warded Man shook his head. “I swore an oath to give the corelings nothing, and I won’t break it again. I’ll be damned to the Core myself before I give them Cutter’s Hollow.”
He turned to the crowd, and pulled back his hood. There were gasps of shock and fear, and, for a moment, the rising panic was arrested. The Warded Man seized on that moment. “When the corelings come to the Holy House tonight, I will stand and fight!” he declared. There was a collective gasp, and a flare of recognition in many of the villagers’ eyes. Even here, they had heard the tales of the tattooed man who killed demons.
“Will any of you stand with me?” he asked.
The men looked at each other doubtfully. Women took their arms, imploring them with their eyes not to say anything foolish.
“What can we do, ’cept get cored?” Ande called. “Ent nothing that can kill a demon!”
“You’re wrong,” the Warded Man said, and strode over to Twilight Dancer, pulling free a wrapped bundle. “Even a rock demon can be killed,” he said, unwrapping a long, curved object and throwing it into the mud in front of the villagers.
It was three feet long from its wide broken base to its sharp point, smooth and colored an ugly yellow-brown, like a rotten tooth. As the villagers stared openmouthed, a weak ray of sun broke from the overcast sky, striking it. Even in the mud, the length began to smoke, sizzling away the fresh droplets of drizzle that struck it.
In a moment, the rock demon’s horn burst into flame.
“Every demon can be killed!” the Warded Man cried, pulling a warded spear from Twilight Dancer and throwing it to stick in the burning horn. There was a flash, and the horn exploded in a burst of sparks like a festival flamework.
“Merciful Creator,” Jona said, drawing a ward in the air. Many of the villagers followed suit.
The Warded Man crossed his arms. “I can make weapons that bite the corelings,” he said, “but they are worthless without arms to wield them, so I ask again, who will stand with me?”
There was a long moment of silence. Then, “I will.” The Warded Man turned, looking surprised to see Rojer come and stand by his side.
“And I,” Yon Gray said, stepping forward. He leaned heavily on his cane, but there was hard determination in his eyes. “More’n seventy years I’ve watched ’em come and take us, one by one. If tonight’s t’be my last, then I’ll spit in a coreling’s eye afore the end.”
The other Hollowers stood dumbfounded, but then Gared stepped forward.
“Gared, you idiot, what are you doing?” Elona demanded, grabbing his arm, but the giant cutter shrugged off her grip. He reached out tentatively and pulled the warded spear free from the dirt. He looked, looking hard at the wards running along its surface.
“My da was cored last night,” he said in a low, angry tone. He clutched the weapon and looked up at the Warded Man, showing his teeth. “I aim t’take his due.”
His words spurred others. One by one and in groups, some of them in fear, some in anger, and many more in despair, the people of Cutter’s Hollow rose up to meet the coming night.
“Fools,” Elona spat, and stormed off.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Leesha said, her arms wrapped around the Warded Man’s waist as Twilight Dancer raced up the road to Bruna’s hut.
“What good is a mad obsession, if it doesn’t help people?” he replied.
“I was angry this morning,” Leesha said. “I didn’t mean that.”
“You meant it,” the Warded Man assured her. “And you weren’t wrong. I’ve been so occupied with what I was fighting against, I’d forgotten what I was fighting for. All my life I’ve dreamed of nothing but killing demons, but what good is it to kill corelings out in the wild, and ignore the ones that hunt men every night?”
They pulled up at the hut, and the Warded Man leapt down and held a hand out to her. Leesha smiled, and let him assist her dismount. “The house is still intact,” she said. “Everything we need should be inside.”
They went into the hut, and Leesha meant to head straight for Bruna’s stores, but the familiarity of the place struck her hard. She realized she was never going to see Bruna again, never hear her cursing or scold her for spitting on the floor, never again tap her wisdom or laugh at her ribaldry. That part of her life was over.
But there was no time for tears, so Leesha shoved the feelings aside and strode to the pharmacy, picking jars and bottles and shoving some into her apron, handing others to the Warded Man, who packed them quickly and loaded them on Twilight Dancer.
“I don’t see why you needed me for this,” he said. “I should be warding weapons. We only have a few hours.”
She handed him the last of the herbs, and when they were safely stowed, led him to the center of the room, pulling up the carpet, revealing a trapdoor. The Warded Man opened it for her, revealing wooden steps leading down into darkness.
“Should I fetch a candle?” he asked.
“Absolutely not!” Leesha barked.
The Warded Man shrugged. “I can see well enough,” he said.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap,” she said. She reached into the many pockets of her apron, producing two small stoppered vials. She poured the contents of one into the other and shook it, producing a soft glow. Holding the vial aloft, she led them down the musty steps into a dusty cellar. The walls were packed dirt, wards painted onto the support beams. The small space was filled with storage crates, shelves of bottles and jars, and large barrels.
Leesha went to a shelf and lifted a box of flamesticks. “Wood demons can be hurt by fire,” she mused. “What about a strong dissolvent?”
“I don’t know,” the Warded Man said. Leesha tossed him the box and got down on her knees, rummaging through some bottles on a low shelf.
“We’ll find out,” she said, passing back a large glass bottle full of clear liquid. The stopper was glass as well, held tightly in place with a twisted net of thin wire.
“Grease and oil will steal their footing,” Leesha muttered, still rummaging. “And burn hot and bright, even in the rain …” She handed him a pair of cured clay jugs, sealed in wax.
More items followed. Thundersticks, normally used to blow free unruly tree stumps, and a box of Bruna’s celebration flamework: festival crackers, flamewhistles, and toss bangs.
Finally, at the back of the cellar, she brought them to a large water barrel.
“Open it,” Leesha told the Warded Man. “Gently.”
He did so, finding four ceramic jugs bobbing softly in the water. He turned to Leesha and looked at her curiously. “That,” she said, “is liquid demonfire.”
Twilight Dancer’s swift, warded hooves had them down to Leesha’s father’s house in minutes. Again, Leesha was struck hard by nostalgia, and again, she shoved the sentiment aside. How many hours until sunset? Not enough. That was sure.
The children and the elderly had begun to arrive, gathering in the yard. Brianne and Mairy had already put them to work collecting tools. Mairy’s eyes were hollow as she watched the children. It had not been easy to convince her to leave her two children at the Holy House, but at last reason prevailed. Their father was staying, and if things went badly, the other children would need their mother.
Elona stormed out of the house as they arrived.
“Is this your idea?” she demanded. “Turning my house into a barn?”
Leesha pushed right past, the Warded Man at her side. Elona had no choice but to fall in behind them as they entered the house. “Yes, Mother,” she said. “It was my idea. We may not have space for everyone, but the children and elderly who have avoided the flux thus far should be safe here, whatever else happens.”
“I won’t have it!” Elona barked.
Leesha whirled on her. “You have no choice!” she shouted. “You were right that we have the only strong wards left in town, so you can either suffer here in a crowded house, or stand and fight with the others. But Creator help me
, the young and the old are staying behind Father’s wards tonight.”
Elona glared at her. “You wouldn’t speak to me so, if your father were well.”
“If he were well, he would have invited them himself,” Leesha said, not backing down an inch.
She turned her attention to the Warded Man. “The paper shop is through those doors,” she told him, pointing. “You should have space to work, and my father’s warding tools. The children are collecting every weapon in town, and will bring them to you.”
The Warded Man nodded, and vanished into the shop without a word.
“Where in the world did you find that one?” Elona asked.
“He saved us from demons on the road,” Leesha said, going to her father’s room.
“I don’t know if it will do any good,” Elona warned, putting a hand on the door. “Midwife Darsy says it’s in the Creator’s hands now.”
“Nonsense,” Leesha said, entering the room and immediately going to her father’s side. He was pale and damp with sweat, but she did not recoil. She placed a hand to his forehead, and then ran her sensitive fingers over his throat, wrists, and chest. While she worked, she asked her mother questions about his symptoms, how long they had been manifest, and what she and Midwife Darsy had tried so far.
Elona wrung her hands, but answered as best she could.
“Many of the others are worse,” Leesha said. “Da is stronger than you give him credit for.”
For once, Elona had no belittling retort.
“I’ll brew a potion for him,” Leesha said. “He’ll need to be dosed regularly, at least every three hours.” She took a parchment and began writing instructions in a swift hand.
“You’re not staying with him?” Elona asked.
Leesha shook her head. “There’s near to two hundred people in the Holy House that need me, Mum,” she said, “many of them worse off than Da.”
“They have Darsy to look after them,” Elona argued.
“Darsy looks as if she hasn’t slept since the flux started,” Leesha said. “She’s dead on her feet, and even at her best, I wouldn’t trust her cures against this sickness. If you stay with Da and follow my instructions, he’ll be more likely to see the dawn than most in Cutter’s Hollow.”