The Warded Man

but all were very much alive. Three women, six children, and one man.
    “Uncle Cholie!” Arlen cried, and his mother was there in an instant, cradling her brother, who stumbled drunkenly. Arlen ran to them, ducking under his other arm to steady him.
    “Cholie, what are you doing here?” Silvy asked. Cholie seldom left his workshop in Town Square. Arlen’s mother had told the tale a thousand times of how she and her brother had run the farrier’s shop together before Jeph began breaking his horses’ shoes on purpose for a reason to come court.
    “Came to court Ana Cutter,” Cholie mumbled. He pulled at his hair, having already torn whole clumps free. “We’d just opened the bolt-hole when they came through the wards …” His knees buckled, pulling Arlen and Silvy down with his weight. Kneeling in the dirt, he wept.
    Arlen looked at the other survivors. Ana Cutter wasn’t among them. His throat tightened as the children passed. He knew every one of them; their families, what their houses were like inside and out, their animals’ names. They met his eyes for a second as they went by, and in that moment, he lived the attack through their eyes. He saw himself shoved into a cramped hole in the ground while those unable to fit turned to face the corelings and the fire. Suddenly he started gasping, unable to stop until Jeph slapped him on the back and brought him to his senses.
    They were finishing a cold midday meal when a horn sounded on the far side of the Brook.
    “Not two in one day?” Silvy gasped, covering her mouth.
    “Bah,” Selia grunted. “At midday? Use your head, girl!”
    “Then what …?”
    Selia ignored her, rising to fetch a horn blower to signal back. Keven Marsh had his horn ready, as the folks from Soggy Marsh always did. It was easy to get separated in the marshes, and no one wanted to be wandering lost when the swamp demons rose. Keven’s cheeks inflated like a frog’s chin as he blew a series of notes.
    “Messenger horn,” Coran Marsh advised Silvy. A graybeard, he was Speaker for Soggy Marsh and Keven’s father. “They prob’ly saw the smoke. Keven’s telling ’em what’s happened and where everyone is.”
    “A Messenger in spring?” Arlen asked. “I thought they come in the fall after harvest. We only finished planting this past moon!”
    “Messenger never came last fall,” Coran said, spitting foamy brown juice from the root he was chewing through the gap of his missing teeth. “We been worried sumpin’ happened. Thought we might not have a Messenger bring salt till next fall. Or maybe that the corelings got the Free Cities and we’s cut off.”
    “The corelings could never get the Free Cities,” Arlen said.
    “Arlen, shush your mouth!” Silvy hissed. “He’s your elder!”
    “Let the boy speak,” Coran said. “Ever bin to a free city, boy?” he asked Arlen.
    “No,” Arlen admitted.
    “Ever know anyone who had?”
    “No,” Arlen said again.
    “So what makes you such an expert?” Coran asked. “Ent no one been to one ’cept the Messengers. They’re the only ones what brave the night to go so far. Who’s to say the Free Cities ent just places like the Brook? If the corelings can get us, they can get them, too.”
    “Old Hog is from the Free Cities,” Arlen said. Rusco Hog was the richest man in the Brook. He ran the general store, which was the crux of all commerce in Tibbet’s Brook.
    “Ay,” Coran said, “an’ old Hog told me years ago that one trip was enough for him. He meant to go back after a few years, but said it wasn’t worth the risk. So you ask him if the Free Cities are any safer than anywhere else.”
    Arlen didn’t want to believe it. There had to be safe places in the world. But again the image of himself being thrown into the cellar flashed across his mind, and he knew that nowhere was truly safe at night.
    The Messenger arrived an hour later. He was a tall man in his early thirties, with cropped brown hair and a short, thick beard. Draped about his broad shoulders was a shirt of metal links, and he wore a long dark cloak with thick leather breeches and boots. His mare was a sleek brown courser. Strapped to the horse’s saddle was a harness holding a number of different spears. His face was grim as he approached, but his shoulders were high and proud. He scanned the crowd and spotted the Speaker easily as she stood giving orders. He turned his horse toward her.
    Riding a few paces behind on a heavily laden cart