The Daylight War (14 page)

He pointed. ‘Path up ahead will take us east to the Old Hill Road. Fell out of use ’round ninety years ago when the corelings destroyed Fort Hill. Should give us a straight, clear run to the Hollow. We ride on through tomorrow night and we’ll be there noon the next day.’

Renna nodded. ‘Who’s Leesha Paper to you?’

Arlen breathed three times in rhythm, the surest tell he was embracing some feeling or memory, but there was no way to know what that might be. ‘Leesha Paper is Herb Gatherer of Deliverer’s Hollow, but she’s more like Selia Barren from back in the Brook. People hop when she claps. Innkeep in Riverbridge said Jardir snatched her from the Hollow and forced her to his bed. Need to see if that’s so. Pick up the trail, if I can. Find out Jardir laid a finger on her, gonna kill him.’

Renna smiled. ‘Wouldn’t be the man I love if you didn’t. What he did to you, I’m part fixin’ to kill him myself.’

‘Don’t you go tryin’ that, Ren,’ Arlen said. ‘You ent a match for him, no matter what you think you’ve learned. Jardir’s been fighting demons since before either of us was born.’

Renna shrugged. ‘Still haven’t answered my question. Din’t ask “Who’s Leesha Paper?” Asked “Who’s Leesha Paper, to
you
?” Hear tell the Krasians been forcing a lot of women to their beds. Why’s this the one that makes you come running?’

‘She’s my friend,’ Arlen said.

‘You don’t talk about her like a friend,’ Renna said. ‘You go all stiff. Cold. Can’t read you. Makes me think you’re hidin’ somethin’.’

Arlen looked at her and sighed. ‘What do you want me to say, Ren? You’ve got your Cobie Fishers, and I’ve got mine.’

‘Cobie Fisher is
one
,’ Renna said, feeling her blood pounding in her veins. ‘Da drove off any other boy who came to court more’n once. How many you got?’

Arlen shrugged. ‘Two or three.’

‘Well ent you popular.’ Renna spat. She could feel the monster raging within her, the demon essence, shrieking for violence. She gritted her teeth. It was too big to embrace. It was overwhelming. She tensed, fighting back the urge to leap at him. To kill him, even.

‘What?’ Arlen snapped, seeing the fierce look in her eyes and returning it tenfold. ‘Was I supposed to hold true because our das bartered us like cattle? I left Tibbet’s Brook and never meant to come back, Ren.’

Renna recoiled. Arlen Bales, just the idea of him and the memory of that kiss in the hayloft and her words of promise, had been Renna Tanner’s whole world when she was young. Dreams of Arlen had kept her going through hard times that would have broken other folk. That
did
break other folk. The thought that she had meant nothing to him back then, that she didn’t even enter into his thoughts, was too harsh to bear.

Arlen rushed at her, and instinctively she drew her knife. He was quicker, grabbing her wrists and holding them down with the strength of a rock demon. She strained against him uselessly.

‘Din’t know the girl you were then,’ Arlen said. ‘Or the woman you’d be. I had, I would have turned right around to take you away with me.’

Renna stopped struggling and looked at him. ‘You mean that?’

‘Honest word,’ Arlen said. ‘You askin’ if I got some past with women? Ay, I do. But past, as in done.’ He reached out, cupping her face and lifting it so their eyes met. ‘My future is Renna Tanner.’

Renna let her knife drop to the ground, but when he let her go, she still leapt on him.

T
hey galloped until dawn, then eased the horses into a walk as the sun burned their night strength away. Arlen took them off road, leading Twilight Dancer with confidence down a Messenger way so overgrown and twisted it was almost invisible. The path beneath Renna’s feet never vanished, but it opened up suddenly before her and closed off quickly behind, like she was wandering through a thick fog.

Around midday, the path merged into a wide Messenger road, and they were able to mount again after a break for lunch and necessaries. Like the roads in Riverbridge, the Old Hill Road was made of stone, but most of it was now cracked and eroded into enormous potholes, filled with dirt and thick with stunted patches of scrub and weed. In more than one place, a full tree had broken through, leaving great blocks of broken stone, moss-covered and filthy. In other places, the road ran for long stretches as if untouched by time, miles of grey stone, flat and uniform with nary a crack or seam.

‘How’d they haul stones that big?’ Renna asked in wonder.

‘Din’t,’ Arlen said. ‘They made a muddy porridge called crete, which hardens into solid rock. All roads used to be like this, wide and stone, sometimes hundreds of miles long.’

‘What happened to them?’ Renna asked.

Arlen spat. ‘World got too small for big roads. Now Old Hill Road’s one of the last of her kind. Nature doesn’t take them back quickly, but eventually she does take ’em back.’

‘We’ll make good time here,’ Renna said.

‘Ay, but night will be a race,’ Arlen warned. ‘Field demons are drawn here like pigs to the trough. Come up through the potholes.’

Renna smirked. ‘Who am I to worry? Got the Deliverer with me.’ Arlen scowled, and she laughed.

Renna wasn’t laughing any more. Promise had relented to take a few strips of braided leather as a girth, but it was still all Renna could do to hang on as the giant Angierian mustang galloped flat-out over the ancient highway, leaping obstacles and barely keeping ahead of the reap of field demons at her heels.

Twilight Dancer fared no better, with as many of the corelings on his tail as Promise’s. The demons seemed bred for the road, their long tireless strides eating up the pavement.

Above, the raptor cries of wind demons filled the night sky. Renna glanced up and saw the demons clearly by the glow of their magic, massive wingspans blotting out the stars. Even wind demons weren’t quick enough to dive and take a galloping horse, but if they slowed …

‘Do we fight?’ Renna shouted to Arlen. Both their senses were far more acute in the night, but it was still hard to tell if he heard her over the thunder of hooves and the shriek of demons sensing a kill.

‘Too many!’ Arlen shouted back. ‘We stop to fight, more will catch up! Keep on!’

His face was clear as day to her night eyes, lined with worry. He was in no danger, of course. Nothing could harm Arlen in the night. But Renna had no such security. Her warded cloak would not shield her at a gallop, and while she had painted much of Promise’s splotchy coat, those wards wouldn’t last long in a pitched battle against an ever-increasing number of demons. Even Twilight Dancer’s warded barding had gaps necessary for mobility.

Renna’s hand itched to go to her knife, but she kept her arms tight around Promise’s powerful neck. A coreling nipped at the mare’s heels, and caught a hoof in the face for its efforts. The wards Renna had carved into it flared, and the coreling’s long, razor-sharp teeth shattered as the demon was thrown back.

Renna’s satisfaction at the blow was short-lived. Promise stumbled, momentarily losing her stride, and the other corelings gained quickly, almost upon her. Back down the road, the demon she had kicked rolled to a stop and wobbled to its feet. Already its magic was repairing the damage. It would be back in the chase before long.

Arlen let go of Twilight Dancer’s reins and turned, drawing a ward in the air. Renna felt a rush of air, and the corelings at her heels were thrown back like leaves in the wind.

Renna smiled and looked back at Arlen, but the curve fell from her lips as she saw how his glow had dimmed. He couldn’t keep using that trick, and the field demons at his own back were barely a stride behind. She cursed her own stubborn refusal to practise with the bow he had given her.

A field demon leapt, its long hooked talons digging deep grooves into Twilight Dancer’s hindquarters just beneath the barding as it tried to pull the massive stallion down.

Dancer broke stride to kick back, his warded hooves crushing the demon’s skull, but the pause gave another of the demons time to climb atop an ancient pile of crete and hurl itself at Arlen.

Arlen twisted, catching a swiping paw in one hand and punching the demon hard in the head with the other. ‘Don’t slow!’ he called as Promise ran past.

Magic flared from the wards on his fist as he struck again and again, leaving the demon’s face a ruined mass. He hurled the demon back into the reap, knocking others to the ground in a jumble, then kicked Dancer back into a gallop.

They soon caught up, but Dancer’s flanks were wet with running blood, and his speed began to lessen as the demons renewed their chase.

‘Night!’ Renna looked up the road, seeing another reap of demons charging at them from the opposite direction, spread as wide as the road. To either side the ground fell away in a thicketed ditch. There was no escape there.

Part of Renna longed to fight. The demon in her blood shrieked for the carnage, but the sense left to her knew it was a hopeless battle. If they couldn’t break the ring and outrun the pack, it was likely only Arlen would survive to see the dawn.

The thought gave her some comfort as she leaned in to the charge.

‘Stomp right through,’ she whispered in Promise’s ear.

‘Follow my lead,’ Arlen called. He had leached some power from the demon he’d killed, though it was still less than he’d started with. He drew a quick ward in the air, and the demons directly in front of the horses were knocked aside. He laid about with a long spear, jabbing at any demon that drew too close, but one was not fast enough and was trampled under Twilight Dancer’s hooves, magic flashing in the night. Renna followed right behind, trampling the hapless demon further, leaving it crushed and broken.

Left to itself, the demon might have recovered from even these grievous injuries, but its reapmates sensed its weakness and temporarily gave up the chase, falling upon it viciously, rending its armour with their long talons and tearing away large chunks of flesh in their teeth.

Renna bared her teeth, and for a second, imagined herself
joining them, feasting on demon meat and revelling in the
power it brought.

‘Eyes in front!’ Arlen snapped, breaking her from the trance. Renna shook her head and turned away from the grisly scene, putting her mind back to the business at hand.

It looked like they might clear the trap, but the clash had slowed them enough for a wind demon to chance a dive at Renna, talons leading to snatch her right from horseback and carry her off.

The blackstem wards on Renna’s arms and shoulders flared, forming a barrier that gave the demon’s talons no purchase, but the force of the rebound threw Renna from Promise’s back. She hit the ground hard, smashing her right shoulder with a pop and tasting dirt and blood in her mouth. The wind demon crashed shrieking down beside her, and she rolled, just barely avoiding the razor-sharp talon at the end of its massive wing.

Her shoulder screamed at her as she shoved herself to her feet, but Renna embraced the pain as wood embraces fire, awkwardly pulling her knife in her left hand. To lie still was to die.

Not that her chances of living were very good. Nearby, Promise reared and bucked, kicking at the field demons snapping and clawing at her from all sides. In a moment they would be upon Renna as well.

‘Renna!’ Arlen wheeled Twilight Dancer about, but even he couldn’t be quick enough.

The wind demon struggled awkwardly to its feet. Wind demons were clumsy on land, and Renna used that to her advantage, kicking a leg out from under it and driving her warded knife deep into its throat as it fell. There was a hot splash of ichor on her hand, and she felt a wave of magic pump into her. Already, her injured shoulder felt stronger.

A field demon leapt upon Promise’s back, and Renna reached into her pouch for a handful of chestnuts. The heat wards she had painted activated when they struck the coreling, and the nuts exploded with a series of bangs and flashes, scorching its coarse armour. The demon wasn’t badly injured, but it was startled and stung, enabling Promise to buck it from its tenuous perch.