It was nearly morning when Arlen approached the healing tent. All the Oatingers were asleep except for the guards patrolling the wards. Renna had finished the remaining wardposts, and Arlen had given Varley a map to Deadwell. He drew a little skull over the town well.
‘Sure you gotta do this?’ Renna asked.
Arlen nodded. ‘Can’t turn a blind eye, Ren.’
‘Don’t suppose you can,’ Renna said. ‘So do it quick, while no one’s looking.’
Arlen knelt by the young girl, armless and dying of demon fever, and drew wards in the air. The girl breathed in sharply as the magic swept through her, then relaxed again. The redness and blisters faded from her face, and a healthy pallor began to return to her skin.
‘Where’d you learn healin’ wards, anyhow?’ Renna asked. ‘You pull that from the demon’s mind?’
‘Sort of,’ Arlen said. ‘Ent exactly healing wards. Body wants to make itself well and knows what to do. The wards just give it power to do it fast.’
Arlen moved from one patient to the next, working quickly. He had charged himself with as much energy as he could hold, but it faded quickly with the healing. Soon he was swaying. Finally, his eyes half closed and he stumbled.
Renna was there in an instant to catch him. ‘That’s enough,’ she whispered. ‘Done what you could. Will you kill yourself to heal the rest?’
‘Sneaks up,’ Arlen said. ‘Feel invincible one second, and like I’m drowning the next. Need to learn my limits.’ He drew a deep breath, and again all the magic pooling across the ground like fog was drawn to him. The glow of his wards brightened, but it was nothing compared with the power he had radiated just a few minutes before. He looked haggard, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes.
‘Time to go,’ Renna said.
They galloped for several miles before Renna pulled up. Arlen wheeled Twilight Dancer around when he noticed her fall behind.
‘Go,’ Renna said.
‘Eh?’ Arlen asked.
‘Hunt something,’ Renna said. ‘Ent light yet, and you need more than just the magic in the air to get back up to speed. This ent the time to be getting sloppy.’
Arlen tilted his head, considering her, and that hint of smile crept back onto his face.
Renna was cold to it. She pointed off the Messenger road to the plains. ‘Go.’
He nodded and was off, leaping Twilight Dancer off the road and onto the grasses. Renna waited until he was out of sight, then turned Promise and galloped back the way they had come.
She didn’t have a lot of time, but Renna didn’t need a lot. The wood demon she had glimpsed a few minutes before was still lurking by the thick tree that had hidden it from Arlen’s warded eyes.
She ran Promise right up to the tree and set her kicking, warded hooves exploding into the demon like thunderbolts, hurling it twisted and broken to the ground.
Renna leapt lightly from the horse, drawing Harl’s knife. Arlen’s pushing himself hard.
The demon thrashed as she came for it. Already, its magic was healing its wounds. In moments it would be ready to attack her again, but the demon did not have moments. Wood demon armour was a thick tough skin, gnarled and knobbed, with heavy bone plates jutting from beneath. The ridges between the plates were where they were most vulnerable. Renna struck hard, prising the demon’s breast plates apart and cutting its heart out before it stopped writhing.
He’d have kept on healing folk until it killed him. Always trying to give his life for someone, Arlen Bales. That ent changed in all these years.
It almost seemed to frustrate Arlen that he could find no demon great enough to destroy him, no burden too great to bear. He would keep seeking until he found one. Always trying to die a Krasian death.
Renna bit into the demon’s heart. It was foul and bitter, slick with black ichor, slimy and tough. There was a burst as her teeth met, sending some even fouler liquid spraying in her mouth. She thought there could be no viler taste until she retched, bile flooding around the half-chewn demon heart and up into her nostrils. She longed to spit the horrid mixture on the ground and give heave to her stomach, but she ground her teeth instead.
Arlen can’t find his death here, he’s gonna look for it in the Core, and I ent letting him go alone. Promised to stay with him, and never slow him down.
Renna swallowed, letting the tears stream down her face. She embraced the nausea, riding it like she had ridden Promise that first time, forgetting all else and holding on until her stomach finally calmed. Then she took another bite.
She had collected herself when Arlen returned, his glow restored. The dark circles were gone from his eyes, his movements sharp and agile once more. And his blood was up. She could hear it in his breathing and see the magic crackling around him, bringing with it primal urges not easily suppressed.
She felt much the same. Only the utmost concentration let her keep focus on the wards she was painting onto Promise’s blotched coat. The mare swatted Renna with her tail, but didn’t nip or pull away.
‘Feeling stronger?’ she asked.
Arlen nodded. ‘Still feel off, though. Charged and exhausted at the same time. But it’ll do. We got a long way to ride, and I don’t mean to stop till we reach the Hollow.’
He pointed. ‘Path up ahead will take us east to the Old Hill Road. Fell out of use ’round ninety years ago when the corelings destroyed Fort Hill. Should give us a straight, clear run to the Hollow. We ride on through tomorrow night and we’ll be there noon the next day.’
Renna nodded. ‘Who’s Leesha Paper to you?’
Arlen breathed three times in rhythm, the surest tell he was embracing some feeling or memory, but there was no way to know what that might be. ‘Leesha Paper is Herb Gatherer of Deliverer’s Hollow, but she’s more like Selia Barren from back in the Brook. People hop when she claps. Innkeep in Riverbridge said Jardir snatched her from the Hollow and forced her to his bed. Need to see if that’s so. Pick up the trail, if I can. Find out Jardir laid a finger on her, gonna kill him.’
Renna smiled. ‘Wouldn’t be the man I love if you didn’t. What he did to you, I’m part fixin’ to kill him myself.’
‘Don’t you go tryin’ that, Ren,’ Arlen said. ‘You ent a match for him, no matter what you think you’ve learned. Jardir’s been fighting demons since before either of us was born.’
Renna shrugged. ‘Still haven’t answered my question. Din’t ask “Who’s Leesha Paper?” Asked “Who’s Leesha Paper, to you?” Hear tell the Krasians been forcing a lot of women to their beds. Why’s this the one that makes you come running?’
‘She’s my friend,’ Arlen said.
‘You don’t talk about her like a friend,’ Renna said. ‘You go all stiff. Cold. Can’t read you. Makes me think you’re hidin’ somethin’.’
Arlen looked at her and sighed. ‘What do you want me to say, Ren? You’ve got your Cobie Fishers, and I’ve got mine.’
‘Cobie Fisher is one,’ Renna said, feeling her blood pounding in her veins. ‘Da drove off any other boy who came to court more’n once. How many you got?’
Arlen shrugged. ‘Two or three.’
‘Well ent you popular.’ Renna spat. She could feel the monster raging within her, the demon essence, shrieking for violence. She gritted her teeth. It was too big to embrace. It was overwhelming. She tensed, fighting back the urge to leap at him. To kill him, even.
‘What?’ Arlen snapped, seeing the fierce look in her eyes and returning it tenfold. ‘Was I supposed to hold true because our das bartered us like cattle? I left Tibbet’s Brook and never meant to come back, Ren.’
Renna recoiled. Arlen Bales, just the idea of him and the memory of that kiss in the hayloft and her words of promise, had been Renna Tanner’s whole world when she was young. Dreams of Arlen had kept her going through hard times that would have broken other folk. That did break other folk. The thought that she had meant nothing to him back then, that she didn’t even enter into his thoughts, was too harsh to bear.