The Warded Man

well. He’s got day-jitters from the corelings, and it’s made him poor company.”
    “You can’t tell,” Arlen said, looking back at the cartwheeling man.
    “Jongleurs have their mummers’ tricks,” Ragen said. “They can pretend so hard to be something they’re not that they actually convince themselves of it for a time. Keerin pretended to be brave. The guild tested him for travel and he passed, but you never really know how people will hold up after two weeks on the open road until they do it for real.”
    “How do you stay out on the roads at night?” Arlen asked. “Da says drawing wards in the dirt’s asking for trouble.”
    “Your da is right,” Ragen said. “Look in that compartment by your feet.”
    Arlen did, and produced a large bag of soft leather. Inside was a knotted rope, strung with lacquered wooden plates bigger than his hand. His eyes widened when he saw wards carved and painted into the wood.
    Immediately, Arlen knew what it was: a portable warding circle, large enough to surround the cart and more besides. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Arlen said.
    “They’re not easy to make,” the Messenger said. “Most Messengers spend their whole apprenticeship mastering the art. No wind or rain is going to smudge those wards. But even then, they’re not the same as having warded walls and a door.
    “Ever see a coreling face-to-face, boy?” he asked, turning and looking at Arlen hard. “Watched it take a swipe at you with nowhere to run and nothing to protect you except magic you can’t see?” He shook his head. “Maybe I’m being too hard on Keerin. He handled his test all right. Screamed a bit, but that’s to be expected. Night after night is another matter. Takes its toll on some men, always worried that a stray leaf will land on a ward, and then …” He hissed suddenly and swiped a clawed hand at Arlen, laughing when the boy jumped.
    Arlen ran his thumb over each smooth, lacquered ward, feeling their strength. There was one of the little plates for every foot of rope, much as there would be in any warding. He counted more than forty of them. “Can’t wind demons fly into a circle this big?” he asked. “Da puts posts up to keep them from landing in the fields.”
    The man looked over at him, a little surprised. “Your da’s probably wasting his time,” he said. “Wind demons are strong fliers, but they need running space or something to climb and leap from in order to take off. Not much of either in a cornfield, so they’d be reluctant to land, unless they saw something too tempting to resist, like some little boy sleeping in the field on a dare.” He looked at Arlen in that same way Jeph did, when warning Arlen that the corelings were serious business. As if he didn’t know.
    “Wind demons also need to turn in wide arcs,” Ragen continued, “and most of them have a wingspan larger than that circle. It’s possible that one could get in, but I’ve never seen it happen. If it does, though …” He gestured to the long, thick spear he kept next to him.
    “You can kill a coreling with a spear?” Arlen asked.
    “Probably not,” Ragen replied, “but I’ve heard that you can stun them by pinning them against your wards.” He chuckled. “I hope I never have to find out.”
    Arlen looked at him, wide-eyed.
    Ragen looked back at him, his face suddenly serious. “Messaging’s dangerous work, boy,” he said.
    Arlen stared at him a long time. “It would be worth it, to see the Free Cities,” he said at last. “Tell me true, what’s Fort Miln like?”
    “It’s the richest and most beautiful city in the world,” Ragen replied, lifting his mail sleeve to reveal a tattoo on his forearm of a city nestled between two mountains. “The Duke’s Mines run rich with salt, metal, and coal. Its walls and rooftops are so well warded, it’s rare for the house wards to even be tested. When the sun shines on its walls, it puts the mountains themselves to shame.”
    “Never seen a mountain,” Arlen said, marveling as he traced the tattoo with a finger. “My da says they’re just big hills.”
    “You see that hill?” Ragen asked, pointing north of the road.
    Arlen nodded. “Boggin’s Hill. You can see the whole Brook from up there.”
    Ragen nodded. “You know what a ‘hundred’ means, Arlen?” he asked.
    Arlen nodded again. “Ten pairs of hands.”
    “Well, even a small mountain is bigger than a hundred of your Boggin’s Hills piled atop