The Demon Cycle Series Books 1 and 2. Peter V. Brett
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incredulously, a moment later. Keerin looked ready to sick up again.
‘It’s not a trick I mean to try again,’ Arlen said.
‘No, I don’t suppose it is,’ Ragen chuckled. ‘Still, crippling a fifteen-foot rock demon is a deed worth a song or two, eh, Keerin?’ He elbowed the Jongleur, but that seemed to push the man over the edge. He covered his mouth and ran off. Ragen shook his head and sighed.
‘A giant one-armed rock demon’s been haunting us ever since we found you,’ he explained. ‘It’s hammered the wards harder than any coreling I’ve ever seen.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Arlen asked, watching Keerin double over.
‘It’ll pass,’ Ragen grunted. ‘Let’s get some food into you.’ He helped Arlen sit up against the horse’s saddle. The move sent a stab of pain through him, and Ragen saw him wince.
‘Chew on this,’ he advised, handing Arlen a gnarled root. ‘It will make you a little light-headed, but it should ease the pain.’
‘Are you an Herb Gatherer?’ Arlen asked.
Ragen laughed. ‘No, but a Messenger needs to know a little of every art, if he wants to survive.’ He reached into his saddlebags, pulling out a metal cookpot and some utensils.
‘I wish you’d told Coline about hogroot,’ Arlen lamented.
‘I would have,’ Ragen said, ‘if I thought for a second she didn’t know.’ He filled the pot, and hung it from the tripod over the firepit. ‘It’s amazing what people have forgotten.’
He stoked the flames as Keerin returned, looking pale but relieved. ‘I’ll be sure to mention it when we take you back.’
‘Back?’ Arlen asked.
‘Back?’ Keerin echoed.
‘Of course “back”,’ Ragen said. ‘Your da will be looking for you, Arlen.’
‘But I don’t want to go back,’ Arlen said. ‘I want to go to the Free Cities with you.’
‘You can’t just run away from your problems, Arlen,’ Ragen said.
‘I’m not going back,’ Arlen said. ‘You can drag me there, but I’ll run again the second you let go.’
Ragen stared at him for a long time. Finally, he glanced at Keerin.
‘You know what I think,’ Keerin said. ‘I’ve no desire to add five nights, at least, to our trip home.’
Ragen frowned at Arlen. ‘I’ll be writing your father when we get to Miln,’ he warned.
‘You’ll be wasting your time,’ Arlen said. ‘He’ll never come for me.’
The stone floor of the courtyard and the high wall hid them well that night. A wide portable circle secured the cart, and the animals were staked and hobbled in another. They were in the inner of two concentric rings, with the fire at the centre.
Keerin lay huddled in his bedroll, with the blanket over his head. He was shivering though it was not cold, and when the occasional coreling tested the wards, he twitched.
‘Why do they keep attacking when they can’t get through?’ Arlen asked.
‘They’re looking for flaws in the net,’ Ragen said. ‘You’ll never see a coreling attack the same spot twice.’ He tapped his temple. ‘They remember. Corelings aren’t smart enough to study the wards and reason out the weak spots, so they attack the barrier and search that way. They get through rarely, but often enough to make it worth their while.’
A wind demon came swooping over the wall and bounced off the wards. Keerin whimpered from under his blanket at the sound.
Ragen looked over at the Jongleur’s bedroll and shook his head. ‘It’s like he thinks that if he can’t see the corelings, they can’t see him,’ he muttered.
‘Is he always like this?’ Arlen asked.
‘That one-armed demon has him more spooked than usual,’ Ragen said, ‘but he wasn’t exactly standing at the wards before.’ He shrugged. ‘I needed a Jongleur on short notice. The guild gave me Keerin. I don’t normally work with ones so green.’
‘Why bring a Jongleur at all, then?’ Arlen asked.
‘Oh, you have to bring a Jongleur with you when you’re going to the hamlets,’ Ragen said. ‘They’re apt to stone you if you show up without one.’
‘Hamlets?’
‘Small villages, like Tibbet’s Brook,’ Ragen explained. ‘Places too far for the dukes to easily control, where most folks can’t read.’
‘What difference does that make?’ Arlen asked.
‘People that can’t read don’t have a lot of use for Messengers,’ Ragen said. ‘Oh, they’re eager enough for their salt, or whatever it is they’re shy of, but most won’t come out of their way to see you and give you news, and collecting news is a Messenger’s first job. But bring a Jongleur with you, and people drop everything to come and see the spectacle. It wasn’t just for you that I spread word of Keerin’s show.
Some men,’ he went on, ‘can be merchant, Jongleur, Herb Gatherer, and Messenger all at once, but they’re about as common as a friendly coreling. Most Messengers who take the hamlet routes have to hire a Jongleur.’
‘And you don’t usually work the hamlets,’ Arlen remembered.
Ragen winked. ‘A Jongleur may impress the townies, but he’ll only hold you back in a duke’s court. The dukes and merchant princes have Jongleurs of their own. All they’re interested in is trade and news, and they pay far more than anything old Hog could afford.’
Ragen rose before the sun the next morning. Arlen was already awake, and Ragen nodded at him in approval. ‘Messengers don’t have the luxury of sleeping late,’ he said as he loudly clattered his cookpans to wake Keerin. ‘Every moment of light is needed.’
Arlen was feeling well enough by then to sit next to Keerin in the cart as it trundled towards the tiny lumps on the horizon Ragen called mountains. To pass the time, Ragen told Arlen tales of his travels, and pointed to herbs along the side of the road, saying which to eat and which to avoid, which could poultice a wound, and which would make it worse. He noted the most defensible spots to spend a night and why, and warned about predators.
‘Corelings kill the slowest and weakest animals,’ Ragen said. ‘So only the biggest and strongest, or those best at hiding, survive. Out on the road, corelings aren’t the only thing that will see you as prey.’
Keerin looked around nervously.
‘What was that place we stayed in the last few nights?’ Arlen asked.
Ragen shrugged. ‘Just some minor lord’s keep,’ he said. ‘There’s hundreds of them in the lands between here and Miln, old ruins picked clean by countless Messengers.’
‘Messengers?’ Arlen asked.
‘Of course,’ Ragen said. ‘Some Messengers spend weeks hunting for ruins. The ones lucky enough to stumble on ruins no one’s ever found can come back with all kinds of loot. Gold, jewels, carvings, sometimes even old wards. But the real prize they’re all chasing is the old wards, the fighting wards, if they ever really existed.’
‘Do you think they existed?’ Arlen asked.
Ragen nodded. ‘But I’m not about to risk my neck leaving the road to look for