The corelings soon found their will, leaping at the cutters, talons leading. The wards of their circle stopped them short, and the cutters drew back to swing.
‘Hold!’ the Painted Man cried. ‘Remember the plan!’
The men checked themselves, letting the demons hammer the wards in vain. The corelings flowed around the circle, looking for a weakness, and the cutters were soon lost from view in a sea of barklike skin.
It was a flame demon no larger than a cat that first spotted the cows. It shrieked, leaping onto the back of one of the animals, talons digging deep. The cow woke and bleated in pain as the tiny coreling tore out a piece of hide in its jaws.
The sound made the other corelings forget the cutters. They fell on the cows in an explosion of gore, tearing the animals to pieces. Blood sprayed high into the air, mixing with the rain before splashing down in the mud. Even a wind demon swooped down to snatch a chunk of meat before leaping back into the air.
In a twinkling, the animals were devoured, though none of the corelings seemed satisfied. They moved towards the next circle, slashing at the wards and drawing sparks of magic in the air.
‘Hold!’ the Painted Man called again, as the people around him tensed. He held his spear back, watching the demons intently. Waiting.
But then he saw it. A demon stumbled, losing its balance.
‘Now!’ he roared, and leapt from the circle, stabbing right through a demon’s head.
The Hollowers screamed a primal cry and charged, falling upon the drugged corelings with abandon, hacking and stabbing. The demons shrieked, but thanks to Leesha’s potion, their response was sluggish. As instructed, the Hollowers worked in small teams, stabbing demons from behind when they turned their attention towards another. Warded weapons flared, and this time it was demon ichor that arced into the air.
Merrem chopped a wood demon’s arm clean off with her cleaver, and her husband Dug stabbed his butcher’s knife deep into its armpit. The wind demon that had eaten the drugged meat came crashing down into the square, and Benn drove his spear into it, twisting hard as the warded head flared hot to pierce the coreling’s hide.
Demon claws could not penetrate the ward on the wooden shields some carried, and when the shield-bearers saw this, they gained confidence, striking harder still against the dazed corelings.
But not all the demons had been drugged. Those in the back increased their press to get forward. The Painted Man waited until their advantage of surprise waned for a moment, then cried, ‘Artillery!’
The children in the pen gave a great cry, placing flasks in their slings and launching them at the horde of demons in front of the cutters’ circle. The thin glass shattered easily against the barklike armour of the wood demons, coating them in liquid that clung despite the rain. The demons roared, but could not penetrate the wardposts of the small pen.
While the corelings raged, the lantern bearers ran to and fro, touching the flames to rag-wrapped arrowheads dipped in pitch and to the wicks of Bruna’s flameworks. They did not fire as one as they had been instructed, but it made little difference. With the first arrow, the liquid demonfire exploded across the back of a wood demon, and the creature screamed, thrashing into another, spreading the blaze. Festival crackers, tossbangs, and flamewhistles joined the volley of arrows, frightening some demons with light and sound, and igniting others. The night lit up as the demons burned.
One flamewhistle hit the shallow rut in front of the cutters’ circle, which stretched the full width of the square. The spark ignited the liquid demonfire within, and the fell-brew burst into an intense fire, setting several more wood demons alight, and cutting the rest off from their fellows.
But between the circles and away from the flamework, the battle raged fiercely. The drugged demons fell quickly, but their fellows were uncowed by the armed villagers. Teams were breaking up, and some of the Hollowers were taken by fear and stumbled back, giving the corelings an opening to pounce.
‘Cutters!’ the Painted Man cried as he spitted 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 Painted 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 the Painted Man’s 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 armour, few humans could ever hope to stand toe to toe with a wood demon. The smallest 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 disembowelled 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 Painted 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
