“Said it himself,” Gared said. “Told Jardir he was the last piece of business before he took the fight to the Core.”
“What does that mean?” Ragen asked.
“Arlen can mist as the demons do,” Leesha said. “Renna, too, the last time I saw her. He told me he could hear the Core calling to him, could slip down into it like a coreling at dawn.” She shook her head sadly. “But he didn’t seem to think much of his chances if he tried.”
“Better chance’n any of us,” Gared said.
Ragen kept his composure, but he was squeezing Elissa’s hand so hard it hurt. She laid her other hand gently atop his, and his tension eased. “Gared’s right. How many times has Arlen cheated death? He’ll turn up again, just when we’ve given up, and start the worry afresh.”
Ragen laughed. “Ay, that’s my boy.”
“In the meantime, we need to do as he asked, and grow strong,” Leesha said. “Not something we can do if we’re more concerned with killing one another than the corelings.”
“We didn’t bring that fight, mistress,” Ragen said. “The Krasians believe Sharak Ka is coming, and the Evejah tells them the only hope mankind has to survive is for all the world to kneel before the Skull Throne.”
“They brought the fight,” Leesha agreed, “but it’s been brewing for years. Euchor didn’t build his flamework weapons and train men in their use overnight.”
“No,” Ragen agreed. “He’s long had his eye on subjugating the ivy throne and reuniting Thesa under his rule, but he would never have struck first.”
“The question then,” Leesha said, “is will he be content to stop at Angiers now that he has it, or will he use the Krasians as an excuse to press south and claim all the Free Cities as his own?”
Elissa exchanged another look with Ragen. “He will press. And expect you to follow and thank him for the privilege. The Hollow is too powerful for him to suffer at his doorstep when Angiers gives him a claim to it.”
“Gettin’ tired of folk who ent ever bled for the Hollow marchin’ in and expecting us to bow and scrape,” Gared said.
“You won’t have to,” Leesha said. “Euchor’s weapons won’t work as well here as he thinks.”
“Because of you,” Elissa said. “Because of your magic.”
Leesha nodded. “I have wardings that can render their chemics inert. Flamework weapons are not welcome in my lands.”
“Will you teach us something of this bone magic, and how the hora is preserved?” Elissa asked.
Gared and Wonda looked to their mistress, but Leesha did not hesitate. “Of course. After all, who do you think taught me?”
She looked to Ragen. “I know you have retired as a Royal Messenger, Guildmaster, but I beg you take one last commission and act as my voice in Miln before His Grace, Duke Euchor.”
Ragen bowed. “I would be honored, mistress. His Grace will be expecting a full report from us upon our return. You have my word I will hold secrets given me in confidence, and negotiate in good faith on your behalf.”
Leesha bowed in return. “The honor is mine. We can discuss details in the coming days. For now, I invite the three of you to transfer your belongings here to my keep.”
“Thank you, mistress,” Elissa said. “We gladly accept.”
“S’fine,” Briar said. “Got a briarpatch in Gatherers’ Wood.”
Leesha looked up at that. “You’re sleeping in my wood?”
“Ay,” Briar said.
“Do you know my Warded Children?” Leesha asked.
Briar nodded. “Seen ’em lots of times. Live in the night like me. Brave, but…” He searched for a word. “Angry.”
“Will you look in on them for me tonight?” Leesha asked. “I’ve been away some time, and would like to know what I can expect when I visit them.”
Briar nodded. “Ay.”
CHAPTER 5
THE PACK
334 AR
Briar padded on bare feet through the Gatherers’ Wood. The soft leather boots he wore out of respect for Mistress Leesha’s carpets were laced together and slung over his shoulder under his father’s battered shield.
Bare feet told much that boots could not. Where footing was sure and silent. The residual warmth where prey had been. The rush of nearby water. The thrum of hurried feet. Things that made you part of the night, instead of something clumsily passing through it. Things that could mean your life.
Briar loved the Gatherers’ Wood. Too vast to conform to magic’s shape, it was one of the few places in Hollow County not protected by a greatward. After dark, wood demons roamed the boughs and prowled the forest bed. Water demons swam its ponds. Wind demons skimmed the wider paths and circled above the clearings.
But even amid the wild nature, Briar could see how Mistress Leesha was shaping the wood from within. Some changes, like warded crete walkways and posts, were obvious to all, safe as sunlight. Others, their power shaped by natural features and cultivated plants, were so subtle the unwary might never know they were under the mistress’ protection.
It was why Briar trusted Mistress Leesha so implicitly. She had taken the time to understand the cories. How a certain slick moss on the branches could make wood demons avoid a copse of trees, or a patch of dry ground limit how far a bog demon might range. How fruit and nut trees drew cories in search of prey, and other plants urged them away.
Briar helped as he wandered the wood, cutting hogroot stalks and planting them in strategic places. There was a wild patch growing in a ring around an ancient goldwood tree, limbs hanging over the stalks like a parent bending to embrace a child. A half-frozen stream ran through the patch, eroding beneath the thick roots. It created a small hollow Briar could widen and expand, the moist soil pungent enough to drive off demon and human alike.
He grew the wood’s protections with love and harmony, leaving no sign of his shaping hand. The wood returned his love, providing sustenance and shelter from the cories.
The Warded Children were less delicate. Here and there Briar found signs of their passing, scattered like trash in the street. Broken limbs, trampled plants, wardings carved into the living bark of great trees. Some of their traps were cunning enough to catch a demon, but most were so obvious even cories could spot them.
Still, Briar had seen them fight. For all their clumsiness, the Children had power in the night. It would be foolish to underestimate them. Mistress Leesha was wise to want to learn more.
Briar drew near his patch, but he never went directly to the entrance. He circled, checking the defenses. Like Mistress Leesha, he preferred stinks to snares, urging demons gently away. A few shoots of hogroot, transplanted and allowed to grow wild, were enough to turn a stalking demon onto another path.
Other scents had a similar effect on humans. Even the brave souls living in the Gatherers’ Wood hesitated to step into a patch of skunkweed, or a place reeking of rot. In one place, a diverted stream turned the path into sucking mud that woodies and humans alike would avoid.
Everything seemed in order, until he found a fresh snare. It was an area he’d littered months ago with animal carcasses stuffed with hogroot. Unlike plants and diverted streams, some deterrents had to be maintained. The carcasses were gone and Briar saw signs demons had returned to the area.
The trap was a good example of the craft, evidence that at least one of the Warded Children had claimed this place as a hunting ground. The child knew enough to use the deterrents around the Briarpatch to herd the demon into the path of the hidden snare. The loop lay in a shallow groove dug into the soil, covered lightly with the natural detritus of the forest bed.
The rope had been rubbed with sap and dirtied, leaved twigs stuck along its length to give the impression of natural vine as it disappeared into the branches of a wintergreen tree. Briar had to climb the boughs to find the net holding the counterweights.
Even the wary might be caught in so cleverly hidden a trap, but Briar knew this part of the wood intimately, and the snare stood out to him as if ablaze. It was discomfiting—so close to where he laid his head—but it made Mistress Leesha’s request all the easier to fulfill. At dusk, the hunter would be positioned and waiting. All Briar had to do was watch.