Table of Contents
‘Hold still,’ Cob grunted as he adjusted the armor.
‘Ent easy when a steel plate’s cutting into your thigh,’ Arlen said.
It was a cool morning, dawn still an hour away, but Arlen was already sweating profusely in the new armor – solid plates of hammered steel linked at the joints by rivets and fine interlocking rings. Beneath, he wore a quilted jacket and pants to keep the plates from digging into his skin, but it was scant protection when Cob tightened the rings.
‘All the more reason to make sure I get this right,’ Cob said. ‘The better the fit, the less likely that will happen when you’re running from a coreling on the road. A Messenger needs to be quick.’
‘Don’t see how I’ll be anything near quick wrapped in bedquilt and carrying seventy pounds of steel on my back,’ Arlen said. ‘And this corespawned thing’s hot as firespit.’
‘You’ll be glad for the warmth on the windy trails to the Duke’s Mines,’ Cob advised.
Arlen shook his head and lifted his heavy arm to look at the plates where he had painstakingly fluted wards into the steel with a tiny hammer and chisel. The symbols of protection were powerful enough to turn most any demon blow, but as much as he felt protected by the armor, he also felt imprisoned by it.
‘Five hundred suns,’ he said wistfully. That was how much the armorer had charged – and taken months in the making. It was enough gold to make Arlen the second-richest man in Tibbet’s Brook, the town where he had grown up.
‘You don’t go cheap on things that might mean your life,’ Cob said. He was a veteran Messenger, and spoke from experience. ‘When it comes to armor, you find the best smithy in town, order the strongest they’ve got, and bugger the cost.’
He pointed a finger at Arlen. ‘And always …’
‘… ward it yourself,’ Arlen finished with his master, nodding patiently. ‘I know. You’ve told me a thousand times.’
‘I’ll tell it to you ten thousand more, if that’s how long it takes to etch it into your thick skull.’ Cob picked up the heavy helmet and dropped it over Arlen’s head. The inside was layered in quilt as well, and it fit him snugly. Cob rapped his knuckles hard against the metal, but Arlen heard it more than he felt it.
‘Curk say which mine you’re off to?’ Cob asked. As an apprentice, Arlen was only allowed to travel on guild business accompanied by a licensed Messenger. The guild had assigned him to Curk, an aging and often drunk Messenger who tended to work only short runs.
‘Euchor’s coal,’ Arlen said. ‘Two nights travel.’ Thus far, he had only made day-trips with Curk. This was to be the first run where they would have to lay out their portable warding circles to fend off the corelings as they slept by the road.
‘Two nights is plenty, your first time,’ Cob said.
Arlen snorted. ‘I stayed out longer than that when I was twelve.’
‘And came out of that trip with over a yard of Ragen’s thread holding you together, I recall,’ Cob noted. ‘Don’t go getting swollen because you got lucky once. Any Messenger alive will tell you to stay out at night when you have to, not because you want to. The ones that want to always end up cored.’
Arlen nodded, though even that felt a little dishonest, because they both knew he did want to. Even after all these years, there was something he knew he needed to prove. To himself, and to the night.
‘I want to see the higher mines,’ he said, which was true enough. ‘They say you can look out over the whole world from their height.’
Cob nodded. ‘Won’t lie to you Arlen. If there’s a more beautiful sight than that, I’ve never seen it. Makes even the Damaji Palaces of Krasia pale.’
‘They say the higher mines are haunted by snow demons,’ Arlen said. ‘With scales so cold your spit will crack when it hits them.’
Cob grunted. ‘The thin air is getting to the folks up there. I Messaged to those mines a dozen times at least, and never once saw a snow demon, or heard tale of one that bore scrutiny.’
Arlen shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean they’re not out there. I read in the Library that they keep to the peaks, where the snow stays year round.’
‘I’ve warned you about putting too much faith in the Library, Arlen,’ Cob said. ‘Most of those books were written before the Return, when folks thought demons were just ale stories and felt free to make up whatever nonsense they saw fit.’
