The Desert Spear

the wards on his gauntlets flared brightly as he laid heavy blows on the one he had landed upon. By the time the other recovered, he was up again, but the coreling was quick and bit hard into his arm.
    Gared screamed and grabbed the demon’s crotch with his free hand. He flexed his mighty arms, lifting the huge wood demon and using it as a ram to drive into its fellows. He and the demons all went down in a tumble just as other Cutters rushed in, hacking at the prone creatures with warded axes.
    His fiddle useless amid the commotion, Rojer hurried to Kendall’s side, staining his cloak with blood as he threw it over her. Kendall croaked weakly at him as Rojer struggled to lift her. The commotion had drawn more demons from the woods, though, faster than the archers could pick them off.
    Gared, an axe in each hand and blood streaming down his arm, hacked his way to them. He dropped the weapons and lifted Kendall like a feather. With the archers and Cutters providing cover, he ran her to the hospit.

    “I need a blood donor!” Leesha cried as Gared kicked in the hospit door. They laid Kendall on a bed, and apprentices ran for Leesha’s instruments.
    “I’ll do it,” Rojer said, rolling up his sleeve.
    “Check if he’s a match,” Leesha told Vika as she moved to scrub her hands and arms. Vika quickly lanced a sample from Rojer as Darsy tried to have a look at Gared’s arm.
    “Worry about those that are hurt worse,” Gared said, pulling away. He pointed to the door, where other injured Cutters were being carried in.
    There was a whirlwind of bloodied activity as the Herb Gatherers worked. Leesha cut and clamped and sewed Kendall for two hours as Rojer looked on, dizzy from the blood transfusion.
    At last, Leesha paused to drag the back of a bloodied hand over her sweating brow. “Will she be all right?” Rojer asked.
    Leesha sighed. “She’ll live. Gared, I’ll have a look at that arm now.”
    “It’s just a scratch,” Gared said.
    Leesha bit back a scowl, reminding herself how brave Gared had just been, but try as she might, she could not forget how his lies had almost ruined her life, and how he had brutally beaten any man caught speaking to her after she broke off their betrothal.
    “You were bit by a demon, Gar,” she said. “You let the wound fester, and I’ll be cutting that arm off before you know it. Get over here.”
    Gared grunted and complied. “It’s not so bad,” Leesha said, after she had washed the wound out with hogroot tincture. Charged by the magic he had absorbed, the clean cuts from the demon’s sharp teeth were already closing. She wrapped the arm in a clean bandage, and then took Rojer aside.
    “I told you Kendall wasn’t ready for a solo,” she whispered angrily.
    “I thought…” Rojer began.
    “You didn’t think,” Leesha said. “You were showing off, and it almost cost that girl her life! This isn’t a game, Rojer!”
    “I know it isn’t a game!” Rojer snapped.
    “Then act like it,” Leesha said.
    Rojer scowled. “We’re not all as perfect as you, Leesha.” His eyes were seething, but Leesha saw right through to the pain they hid.
    “Come to my office,” she said, taking him by the arm. Rojer yanked his arm away, but followed Leesha to her office, where she poured him a glass of hard alcohol more suited to antiseptics than consumption.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was out of the light.”
    Rojer seemed to deflate, falling into a chair and downing the glass in one gulp. “No, you weren’t,” he said. “I’m a fraud.”
    “Nonsense,” Leesha replied. “We all make mistakes.”
    “I didn’t make a mistake,” Rojer said. “I lied. I lied and said I could teach people how to charm corelings when in truth, I don’t even understand how I do it myself. Just like I lied last year and told you I could see you safely here from Angiers. It’s how I made my way in the hamlets after Arrick died, and how I got into the Jongleurs’ Guild. Seems lying is all I ever do.”
    “But why?” Leesha asked.
    Rojer shrugged. “Keep telling myself pretending to be something’s the same as being it. Like if I just pretend to be great like you and the Painted Man, it will be so.”
    Leesha looked at him in surprise. “There’s nothing so great about me, Rojer. You know that better than anyone.”
    But Rojer laughed out loud. “You don’t even see it!” he cried. “An endless line of weapons and wards comes from your hut, the sick and injured