“What benefit could there be to living on land that demons can set foot on?” Rojer asked.
Leesha sipped her tea. “My mum refuses to move, too,” she said. “Says between your new wards and the cutters running about chopping every demon in sight, it’s a needless bother.”
The Warded Man frowned. “I know it seems like we have the demons cowed, but if the histories of the Demon Wars are anything to go by, they won’t stay that way. They’ll be back in force, and I want Cutter’s Hollow to be ready.”
“Deliverer’s Hollow,” Rojer corrected, smirking at the Warded Man’s scowl.
“With you here, it will be,” Leesha said, ignoring Rojer and sipping at her tea. She watched the Warded Man carefully over the rim of her cup.
When he hesitated, she set her cup down. “You’re leaving,” she said. “When?”
“When the Hollow is ready,” the Warded Man said, not bothering to deny her conclusion. “I’ve wasted years, hoarding wards that can make the Free Cities that in more than name. I owe it to every city and hamlet in Thesa to see to it they have what they need to stand tall in the night.”
Leesha nodded. “We want to help you,” she said.
“You are,” the Warded Man said. “With the Hollow in your hands, I know it will be safe while I’m away.”
“You’ll need more than that,” Leesha said. “Someone to teach other Gatherers to make flamework and poisons, and to treat coreling wounds.”
“You could write all that down,” the Warded Man said.
Leesha snorted. “And give a man the secrets of fire? Not likely.”
“I can’t write fiddling lessons, in any event,” Rojer said, “even if I had letters.”
The Warded Man hesitated, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “The two of you will only slow me down. I’ll be weeks in the wilds, and you don’t have the stomach for that.”
“Don’t have the stomach?” Leesha asked. “Rojer, close the shutters,” she ordered.
Both men looked at her curiously.
“Do it,” she ordered, and Rojer rose to comply, cutting off the sunlight and filling the hut with a dark gloom. Leesha was already shaking a vial of chemics, bathing herself in a phosphorescent glow.
“The trap,” she said, and the Warded Man lifted the trapdoor down to the cellar where the demonfire had been kept. The scent of chemics was thick in the air that escaped.
Leesha led the way down into the darkness, her vial held high. She moved to sconces on the wall, adding chemics to glass jars, but the Warded Man’s warded eyes, as comfortable in utter darkness as in clear day, had already widened before the light filled the room.
Heavy tables had been brought down into the cellar, and there, spread out before him, were half a dozen corelings in various states of dissection.
“Creator!” Rojer cried, gagging. He ran back up the stairs, and they could hear him gasping for air.
“Well, perhaps Rojer doesn’t have the stomach yet,” Leesha conceded with a grin. She looked at the Warded Man. “Did you know that wood demons have two? Stomachs, I mean. One stacked atop the other, like an hourglass.” She took an instrument, peeling back layers of the dead demon’s flesh to illustrate.
“Their hearts are off-center, down to the right,” she added, “but there’s a gap between their third and fourth ribs. Something a man looking to deliver a killing thrust should know.”
The Warded Man looked on in amazement. When he looked back at Leesha, it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. “Where did you get these …?”
“A word to the cutters you sent to patrol this end of the Hollow,” Leesha said. “They were happy to oblige me with specimens. And there’s more. These demons have no sex organs. They’re all neuter.”
The Warded Man looked at her in surprise. “How is that possible?” he asked.
“It’s not that uncommon among insects,” Leesha said. “There are drone castes for labor and defense, and sexed castes that control the hive.”
“Hive?” the Warded Man asked. “You mean the Core?”
Leesha shrugged.
The Warded Man frowned. “There were paintings in the tombs of Anoch Sun; paintings of the First Demon War that depicted strange breeds of corelings I have never seen.”
“Not surprising,” Leesha said. “We know so little about them.”
She reached out, taking his hands. “All my life, I’ve felt like I was waiting for something bigger than brewing chill cures and delivering children,” she said. “This is my chance to make a difference to more than just a handful of people. You believe there’s a war coming? Rojer and I can help you win it.”
The Warded Man nodded, squeezing her hands in return. “You’re right,” he said. “The Hollow survived that first night as much because of you and Rojer as me. I’d be a fool not to accept your help now.”
Leesha stepped forward, reaching into his hood. Her hand was cool on his face, and for a moment, he leaned into it. “This hut is big enough for two,” she whispered.
His eyes widened, and she felt him go tense.
“Why does that terrify you more than facing down demons?” she asked. “Am I so repulsive?”
The Warded Man shook his head. “Of course not,” he said.
“Then what?” she asked. “I won’t keep you from your war.”
The Warded Man was quiet for some time. “Two would soon become three,” he said at last, letting go of her hands.
“Is that so terrible?” Leesha asked.
The Warded Man took a deep breath, moving away to another table, avoiding her eyes. “That morning when I wrestled the demon …” he said.
“I remember,” Leesha prompted, when he did not go on.
“The demon tried to escape back to the Core,” he said.
“And tried to take you with it,” Leesha said. “I saw you both go misty, and slip beneath the ground. I was terrified.”
The Warded Man nodded. “No more than me,” he said. “The path to the Core opened up to me, calling me, pulling me down.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Leesha asked.
“Because it wasn’t the demon, it was me,” the Warded Man said. “I took control of the transition; dragged the demon back up to the sun. Even now, I can feel the pull of the Core. If I let myself, I could slip down into its infernal depths with the other corelings.”
“The wards …” Leesha began.
“It’s not the wards,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m telling you it’s me. I’ve absorbed too much of their magic over the years. I’m not even human anymore. Who knows what kind of monster would spring from my seed?”
Leesha went to him, taking his face in her hands as she had that morning they made love. “You’re a good man,” she said, her eyes welling with tears. “Whatever the magic has done to you, it hasn’t changed that. Nothing else matters.”
She leaned in to kiss him, but he had hardened his heart to her, and held her back.
“It matters to me,” he said. “Until I know what I am, I can’t be with you, or anyone.”
“Then I’ll discover what you are,” Leesha said. “I swear it.”
“Leesha,” he said, “you can’t …”
“Don’t you tell me what I can’t do!” she barked. “I’ve had enough of that from others to last a lifetime.”
He held up his hands in submission. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Leesha sniffed, and closed her hands over his. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “This is a condition to diagnose and cure, like any other.”
“I’m not sick,” the Warded Man said.
She looked at him sadly. “I know that,” she said, “but it seems you don’t.”
Out in the Krasian desert, there was a stirring on the horizon. Lines of men appeared, thousand upon thousand, swathed in loose black cloth drawn about their faces to ward off the stinging sand. The vanguard was composed of two mounted groups, the smaller riding light, quick horses, and the larger upon powerful humped beasts suited to desert crossings. They were followed by columns of footmen, and they, in turn, by a seemingly endless train of carts and supplies. Each warrior carried a spear etched with an intricate pattern of wards.