“I’ve an herb pouch in that saddlebag,” the man said, gesturing. Leesha opened the bag and found the pouch. She bent to the fire’s light as she rooted through the contents.
“I don’t suppose you have any pomm leaves?” she asked.
The man looked at her. “No,” he said. “Why? There’s plenty of hogroot.”
“It’s nothing,” Leesha mumbled. “I swear, you Messengers seem to think that hogroot is a cure for everything.” She took the pouch, along with a mortar and pestle and a skin of water, and knelt beside the man, grinding the hogroot and a few other herbs into a paste.
“What makes you think I’m a Messenger?” the Warded Man asked.
“Who else would be out on the road alone?” Leesha asked.
“I haven’t been a Messenger in years,” the man said, not flinching at all as she cleaned out the wounds and applied the stinging paste. Rojer narrowed his eyes as he watched her spread the salve on his thick muscles.
“Are you an Herb Gatherer?” the Warded Man asked, as she passed a needle through the fire and threaded it.
Leesha nodded, but kept her eyes on her work, brushing a thick lock of hair behind her ear as she set to stitching the gash in his thigh. When the Warded Man made no further comment, she flicked her eyes up to meet his. They were dark, the wards around the sockets giving them a gaunt, deep-set look. Leesha couldn’t hold that gaze for long, and quickly looked away.
“I’m Leesha,” she said, “and that’s Rojer making supper. He’s a Jongleur.” The man nodded Rojer’s way, but like Leesha, Rojer could not meet his gaze for long.
“Thank you for saving our lives,” Leesha said. The man only grunted in response. She paused briefly, waiting for him to return the introduction, but he made no effort to do so.
“Don’t you have a name?” she asked at last.
“None I’ve used in some time,” the man answered.
“But you do have one,” Leesha pressed. The man only shrugged.
“Well then what shall we call you?” she asked.
“I don’t see that you need to call me anything,” the man replied. He noted that her work was finished, and pulled away from her touch, again covering himself from head to foot in his gray robes. “You owe me nothing. I would have helped anyone in your position. Tomorrow I’ll see you safely to Farmer’s Stump.”
Leesha looked to Rojer by the fire, then back at the Warded Man. “We just left the Stump,” she said. “We need to get to Cutter’s Hollow. Can you take us there?” The gray hood shook back and forth.
“Going back to the Stump will cost us a week at least!” Leesha cried.
The Warded Man shrugged. “That’s not my problem.”
“We can pay,” Leesha blurted. The man glanced at her, and she looked away guiltily. “Not now, of course,” she amended. “We were attacked by bandits on the road. They took our horse, circle, money, even our food.” Her voice softened. “They took … everything.” She looked up. “But once I get to Cutter’s Hollow, I’ll be able to pay.”
“I have no need of money,” the Warded Man said.
“Please!” Leesha begged. “It’s urgent!”
“I’m sorry,” the Warded Man said.
Rojer came over to them, scowling. “It’s fine, Leesha,” he said. “If this cold heart won’t help us, we’ll find our own way.”
“What way is that?” Leesha snapped. “The way of being killed while you attempt to hold off demons with your stupid fiddle?”
Rojer turned away, stung, but Leesha ignored him, turning back to the man.
“Please,” she begged, grabbing his arm as he, too, turned away from her. “A Messenger came to Angiers three days ago with word of a flux that spread through the Hollow. It’s killed a dozen people so far, including the greatest Herb Gatherer that ever lived. The Gatherers left in the town can’t possibly treat everyone. They need my help.”
“So you want me to not only put aside my own path, but to go into a village rife with flux?” the Warded Man asked, sounding anything but willing.
Leesha began to weep, falling to her knees as she clutched at his robes. “My father is very sick,” she whispered. “If I don’t get there soon, he may die.”
The Warded Man reached out, tentatively, and put a hand on her shoulder. Leesha was unsure of how she had reached him, but she sensed that she had. “Please,” she said again.
The Warded Man stared at her for a long time. “All right,” he said at last.
Cutter’s Hollow was six days’ ride from Fort Angiers, on the southern outskirts of the Angierian forest. The Warded Man told them it would take four more nights to reach the village. Three, if they pressed hard and made good time. He rode alongside them, slowing his great stallion to their pace on foot.
“I’m going to scout up the road,” he said after a while. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Leesha felt a stab of cold fear as he kicked his stallion’s flanks and galloped off down the road. The Warded Man scared her almost as much as the bandits or the corelings, but at least in his presence she was safe from those other threats.
She hadn’t slept at all, and her lip throbbed from all the times she had bitten it to keep from crying. She had scrubbed every inch of herself after they fell asleep, but still she felt soiled.
“I’ve heard stories of this man,” Rojer said. “Spun a few myself. I thought he was only a myth, but there can’t be two men painted like that, who kill corelings with their bare hands.”
“You called him the Warded Man,” Leesha said, remembering. Rojer nodded. “That’s what he’s called in the tales. No one knows his real name,” he said. “I heard of him over a year ago when one of the duke’s Jongleurs passed through the Western hamlets. I thought he was just an ale story, but it seems the duke’s man was telling true.”
“What did he say?” Leesha asked.
“That the Warded Man wanders the naked night, hunting demons,” Rojer said. “He shuns human contact, appearing only when he needs supplies and paying with ancient gold. From time to time, you hear tales of him rescuing someone on the road.”
“Well, we can bear witness to that,” Leesha said. “But if he can kill demons, why has no one tried to learn his secrets?”
Rojer shrugged. “According to the tales, no one dares. Even the dukes themselves are terrified of him, especially after what happened in Lakton.”
“What happened?” Leesha asked.
“The story goes that the dockmasters of Lakton sent spies to steal his combat wards,” Rojer said. “A dozen men, all armed and armored. Those he didn’t kill were crippled for life.”
“Creator!” Leesha gasped, covering her mouth. “What kind of monster are we traveling with?”
“Some say he’s part demon himself,” Rojer agreed, “the result of a coreling raping a woman on the road.”
He started suddenly, his face coloring as he realized what he’d said, but his thoughtless words had the opposite effect, breaking the spell of her fear. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head.