The Warded Man

cried as he spit a flame demon on his spear.
    With their backs secure, Gared and the other cutters roared and leapt from their circle, pressing the demons attacking the Warded Man’s group from behind. Even without magic, wood demon hide was as thick and gnarled as old bark, but cutters hacked through bark all day, and the wards on their axes drained away the magic that strengthened it further.
    Gared was the first to feel the jolt as the wards tapped into the demons’ magic, using the corelings’ own power against them. The shock ran up the haft of his axe and made his arms tingle as a split second of ecstasy ran through him. He struck the demon’s head clean off and howled, charging the next one in line.
    Pressed from both sides, the demons were hit hard. Centuries of dominance had taught them that humans, when they fought at all, were not to be feared, and they were unprepared for the resistance. High in the window of the Holy House’s choir loft, Wonda fired her bow with frightening accuracy, every warded arrowhead striking demon flesh like a bolt of lightning.
    But the smell of blood was thick in the air, and the cries of pain could be heard for miles around. In the distance, corelings howled in answer to the sound. Reinforcements would soon come, and the humans had none.
    It wasn’t long before the demons recovered. Even without their impenetrable armor, few humans could ever hope to stand toe to toe with a wood demon. The smallest of the demons were closer to Gared in strength than to a normal man.
    Merrem charged a flame demon the size of a large dog, her cleaver already blackened with demon ichor. She held her shield out defensively, her cleaver arm cocked back and ready.
    The coreling shrieked and spat fire at her. She brought up her shield to block, but the ward painted there had no power over fire, and the wood exploded into flames. Merrem screamed as her arm ignited, dropping and rolling in the mud. The demon leapt at her, but her husband Dug was there to meet it. The heavy butcher gutted the flame demon like a hog, but screamed himself as its molten blood struck his leather apron, setting it alight.
    A wood demon ducked down to all fours under Evin’s wild axe swing, springing up when he was off guard and bearing him to the ground. He screamed as the jaws came for him, but there was a bark, and his wolfhounds crashed into the demon from the side, knocking it away. Evin recovered quickly, chopping down on the prone coreling, though not before it disemboweled one of the giant dogs. Evin cried in rage and hacked again before whirling to find another foe, his eyes wild.
    Just then, the trench of demonfire burned out, and the wood demons trapped on the far side began to advance again.
    “Thundersticks!” the Warded Man cried, as he trampled a rock demon under Twilight Dancer’s hooves.
    At the call, the eldest of his artillery took out some of the precious and volatile weapons. There were less than a dozen, for Bruna had been niggardly in their making, lest the powerful tools be abused.
    Wicks flared, and the sticks were launched at the approaching demons. One villager dropped his rain-slick stick in the mud and bent quickly to snatch it up, but not quickly enough. The thunderstick went off in his hands, blowing him and his lamp-bearer to pieces in a blast of fire as the concussive force knocked several others in the pen to the ground, screaming in pain.
    One of the thundersticks exploded between a pair of wood demons. Both were thrown down, twisted wrecks. One, its barklike skin aflame, did not rise. The other, extinguished by the mud, twitched and put a talon under itself as it struggled to rise. Already, its fell magic was healing its wounds.
    Another thunderstick sailed at a nine-foot-tall rock demon, which caught it in a talon and leaned in close, peering at the curious object as it went off.
    But when the smoke had cleared, the demon stood unfazed, and continued on toward the villagers in the square. Wonda planted three arrows in it, but it shrieked and came on, its anger only doubled.
    Gared met it before it reached the others, returning its shriek with a roar of his own. The burly cutter ducked under its first blow and planted his axe in its sternum, glorying in the rush of magic that ran up his arms. The demon collapsed at last, and Gared had to stand atop it to pull his weapon free of its thick armor.
    A wind demon swooped in, its hooked talons nearly cutting Flinn in half. From the choir