fires started,’ he said. ‘People collapsing in their homes with candles and lamps in hand, or too sick to see to their wards. With your father and most of the other Warders in sickbed, nets began to fail all over town, especially with all the smoke and ash in the air marring every ward in sight. We fought the fires as best we could, but more and more people fell to the sickness, and there weren’t enough hands.
‘Smitt collected the survivors in a few warded buildings as far from the fires as possible, hoping for safety in numbers, but that just spread the plague faster. Saira collapsed last night during the storm, knocking over an oil lamp and starting a fire that soon had the whole tavern ablaze. The people had to flee into the night …’ He choked, and Leesha stroked his back, not needing to hear more. She could well imagine what had happened next.
The Holy House was the only building in Cutter’s Hollow made wholly of stone, and had resisted the flaming ash in the air, standing in proud defiance of the ruins. Leesha passed through the great doors, and gasped in shock. The pews had been cleared, and almost every inch of floor covered in straw pallets with only the barest space between them. Perhaps two hundred people lay there groaning, many bathed in sweat and thrashing about as others, weak with sickness themselves, tried to restrain them. She saw Smitt passed out on a pallet, and Vika not far off. Two more of Mairy’s children, and others, so many others. But there was no sign of her father.
A woman looked up at them as they entered. She was prematurely grey and looked haggard and drawn, but Leesha knew her blocky frame instantly.
‘Thank the Creator,’ Darsy said, catching sight of her. Leesha let go of Jona, and moved quickly to speak with her. After several minutes, she returned to Jona.
‘Does Bruna’s hut still stand?’ she asked.
Jona shrugged. ‘So far as I know,’ he said. ‘No one has been there since she passed. Almost two weeks now.’
Leesha nodded. Bruna’s hut was far from the village proper, shielded by rows of trees. It was doubtful the soot had broken its wards. ‘I’ll need to go there and get supplies,’ she said, stepping back outside. It was beginning to rain again, the sky bleak and bereft of hope.
Rojer and the Painted Man were there, along with a cluster of villagers.
‘It is you,’ Brianne said, rushing up to embrace Leesha. Evin stood not far back, holding a young girl in his arms with Callen, grown tall though he was not yet ten, next to him.
Leesha returned the embrace warmly. ‘Has anyone seen my father?’ she asked.
‘He’s home, where you should be,’ came a voice, and Leesha turned to see her mother approach, Gared at her heel. Leesha did not know whether to feel relief or dread at the sight.
‘You come to check on everyone but your own family?’ Elona demanded.
‘Mum, I only just …’ Leesha began, but her mother cut her off.
‘Only this and only that!’ Elona barked. ‘Always a reason to turn your back on your blood when it suits you! Your poor father is finding death’s succour, and I find you here …!’
‘Who’s with him?’ Leesha interrupted.
‘His apprentices,’ Elona said.
Leesha nodded. ‘Have them bring him here with the others,’ she said.
‘I’ll do no such thing!’ Elona cried. ‘Take him from the comfort of a feather bed for an infested straw pallet in a room rife with plague?’ She grabbed Leesha’s arm. ‘You’ll come see him now! You’re his daughter!’
‘Don’t you think I know that?!’ Leesha demanded, snatching her arm away. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she made no effort to brush them aside. ‘Do you think I thought of anything else as I dropped everything and left Angiers? But he’s not the only person in town, Mother! I can’t abandon everyone to tend one man, even if he is my father!’
‘You’re a fool if you think these people ent dead already,’ Elona said, drawing gasps from the crowd. She pointed to the stone walls of the Holy House. ‘Will those wards hold back the corelings tonight?’ she asked, drawing everyone’s attention to the stone, blackened by smoke and ash. Indeed, there was barely a ward visible.
She drew close to Leesha, her voice lowering. ‘Our house is far from the others,’ she whispered. ‘It may be the last warded home in all of Cutter’s Hollow. It can’t hold everyone, but it can save us, if you come home!’
Leesha slapped her full in the face. Elona was knocked into the mud, and sat there dumbfounded, pressing her hand to her reddening cheek. Gared looked ready to rush Leesha and carry her off, but she checked him with a cold glare.
‘I’m not going to hide away and leave my friends to the corelings!’ she shouted. ‘We’ll find a way to ward the Holy House, and make our stand here. Together! And if demons should dare come and try to take my children, I have secrets of fire that will burn them from this world!’
My children, Leesha thought, in the sudden silence that followed. Am I Bruna now, to think of them so? She looked around, taking in the scared and sooty faces, not a one taking charge, and realized for the first time that as far as everyone was concerned, she was Bruna. She was Herb Gatherer for Cutter’s Hollow now. Sometimes that meant bringing healing, and sometimes …
Sometimes it meant a dash of pepper in the eyes, or burning a wood demon in your yard.
The Painted Man came forward. People whispered at the sight of him, a robed and hooded spectre hardly noticed a moment before.
‘Wood demons won’t be all you face,’ he said. ‘Flame demons will delight in your fire, and wind demons soar above it. The razing of your town might even have called rock demons down from the hills. They will be waiting when the sun sets.’
‘We’re all going to die!’ Ande cried, and Leesha felt panic building in the crowd.
‘What do you care?’ she demanded of the Painted Man. ‘You’ve kept your promise and seen us here! Get on your core-spawned horse and be on your way! Leave us to our fate!’
But the Painted Man shook his head. ‘I swore an oath to give the corelings nothing, and I won’t break it again. I’ll be damned to the Core myself before I give them Cutter’s Hollow.’
He turned to the crowd, and pulled back his hood. There were gasps of shock and fear, and for a moment, the rising panic was arrested. The Painted Man seized on that moment. ‘When the corelings come to the Holy House tonight, I will stand and fight!’ he declared. There was a collective gasp, and a flare of recognition in many of the villagers’ eyes. Even here, they had heard the tales of the tattooed man who killed demons.
‘Will any of you stand with me?’ he asked.
The men looked at each other doubtfully. Women took their arms, imploring them with their eyes not to say anything foolish.
‘What can we do,’ cept get cored?’ Ande called. ‘Ent nothing that can kill a demon!’
‘You’re wrong,’ the Painted Man said, and strode over to Twilight Dancer, pulling free a wrapped bundle. ‘Even a rock demon can be killed,’ he said, unwrapping a long, curved object and throwing
