Arlen smirked. ‘Some folk. The rest will see it and think you’re one of Leesha’s apprentices.’ Renna scowled, and he laughed.

5

Tender Hayes
333 AR Summer25 Dawns Before New Moon

‘Corespawn it,’ Arlen growled.

‘What?’ Renna asked. They had dismounted after a hard ride, leading the horses through a thick stand of trees that had just opened into a small clearing with a jutting rock face.

‘Someone’s found my hideout.’ He pointed.

Renna followed his finger to the rock face, but shook her head. ‘Don’t see anything.’

‘It’s there,’ Arlen said. ‘You’d have to walk right up to it before you saw the door. Got a metal gate covered in corkweed at the entrance, and the rest covered in moss and grass.’

Renna squinted. ‘How do you know someone’s found it?’

Arlen pointed at a thin trail of smoke drifting out the top of a dead tree that stood solemnly atop the small rocky knoll. ‘That’s my chimney. Didn’t leave the hearth fire burning for three months.’

‘Leave anything important there?’ Renna asked.

Arlen shrugged. ‘Some half-finished warding. Folk joining the Cutters were gobbling up weapons faster’n I could ward them, so I never really built up a cache. Just a place to lay my head.’

There was a squawk, and Arlen sighed. ‘Made my nice stable into a corespawned chicken coop.’

‘So now what?’ Renna asked.

‘Reckon we rent a room in town,’ Arlen said, sounding tired. ‘Starting tomorrow. Day or night, expect folk are going to swarm once we show our faces. Need a few hours’ sleep before it starts.’

‘Why can’t we just camp like we been doing?’ Renna said.

‘Ent animals, Ren,’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong with sleeping in a bed, and we ent too good to get to know folk.’

Renna grimaced. She hadn’t had a chance to hunt tonight, and expected that once they were in town, her opportunities to feed on coreflesh without Arlen’s knowledge would be fewer still. The part of her disgusted by the act was fading quickly as her power grew. She was hungry, and mere food could no longer satisfy.

But the tired look on Arlen’s face checked her. He was carrying the world on his shoulders, and she needed to support him in the coming days, no matter what.

‘Fine. Tomorrow.’ She went to him, taking his hands in hers and kissing him. ‘Put down a circle, and I’ll put you down proper.’ She smiled. ‘You’ll sleep like the dead.’

The tired look left Arlen’s face as she began to caress him. He was never so tired she couldn’t rouse him by dropping her clothes to the ground.

It was hours later when Renna, lying awake as she listened to Arlen’s breathing deepen into a snore, slipped from his embrace. She paused, watching him there in the circle. He looked so small, so vulnerable. For all his power, he wasn’t too good to breathe, or to sleep. He needed someone at his back. Someone he could trust.

Someone strong.

She drew her knife and ran off into the night.

Renna woke with her face in the dirt. She must have rolled off the blanket at some point in the night. She spat and brushed absently at her face as she stretched out the morning kinks. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, but the sky was light enough that she could use her normal vision while still watching the drift of magic as it weakened and fled for the shadows.

Arlen was already up and about, wearing only his bido as he dug in Twilight Dancer’s saddlebags, grumbling to himself. ‘Know I left ’em here somewhere …’

Renna smiled as she watched him. She’d gladly wake up with a mouthful of dirt every morning, if the first thing she could see was Arlen Bales. ‘What’s that?’

Arlen looked up at her as he continued to rummage, and the smile that lit his face was a reflection of hers. ‘My clothes. Aha!’

He produced a crumpled bundle of cloth, shaking out a pair of faded denim trousers and a once white shirt. He pulled them on, and Renna laughed at how baggy they were. ‘Still don’t fit in your da’s clothes?’

Arlen gave her a wry look as he tightened his belt and rolled up his shirtsleeves. ‘Folk said I was lean back in my Messenger days, but I ate well enough. Think I lost twenty pounds since,’ he swept a hand over his tattooed face, ‘all this.’ He cuffed the loose ends of his trouser legs.

His sandals sat atop his neatly folded robes, all of which he placed in a saddlebag. He pulled out an old pair of leather boots but, after a moment’s consideration, grunted and tucked them back away, remaining barefoot.

It was strange to see Arlen in normal clothes. She squinted, trying to imagine the man he might have been if he had never left Tibbet’s Brook, but it was impossible. The tattoos covering his forearms and calves – not to mention his neck and face – were all the more jarring coming from out the plain shirt and trousers. ‘What’s all this?’ Renna asked.

‘Started wearing robes because the hood let me hide my face in the day, and people were less apt to hassle travelling Tenders,’ Arlen said. ‘Plus they were easy to fling off at sunset.’

He shook his head. ‘But I ent hiding any more, and the robes are giving folk the wrong idea. I’m no Holy Man. And if I need to show my wards in a hurry …’ He snapped his fingers, momentarily turning to mist, and his clothes fell away. He solidified again in an instant, clad only in his bido, his wards revealed.

‘That trick looks handy for more than just fighting demons,’ Renna said, grinning.

Arlen smiled. ‘Some things’re worth doing the old-fashioned way.’

‘So we’re walking into town just as we are?’ Renna asked. ‘You’re not going to ask me to cover up like you did after Riverbridge?’

Arlen shook his head. ‘Sorry about that, Ren. I was just full of steam. Din’t have no right—’

‘You did,’ Renna cut in. ‘I gave you reason to boil. Ent holding it over you. Needed the fool slapped out of me.’

In an instant, Arlen was across the clearing, holding her in his arms. ‘You done as much for me. More’n once.’ He kissed her as the sun finally rose, touching them with gentle beams.

‘No more skulking, Ren,’ Arlen said. ‘We are who we are, and folk can take or leave us.’

‘Honest word,’ Renna said, putting her hands on the smooth skin of his shaved head to pull his lips back to hers.

Soon after, Arlen took them to Deliverer’s Hollow, walking on bare feet and leading Twilight Dancer by the bridle.

‘The roads aren’t warded,’ Renna noted.

‘The roads are the ward,’ Arlen said. ‘Or part of one, anyway. After the corelings razed most of the town, we rebuilt even bigger on a plan for a series of interconnected greatwards, like the one the Cutters were clearing up north. Each ring will take longer than the last, but a decade from now no corespawn will be able to set talon anywhere within a hundred miles of the Hollow.’

‘That’s … incredible,’ Renna said.

‘It will be,’ Arlen agreed. ‘If it can be done while the Core spews forth an army to knock us back into the Age of Ignorance.’

Even this early, the roads and paths were well travelled with regular folk going about their business. Arlen nodded to some as they passed, but said nothing and never stopped. All of them stared wide-eyed, some even bowing or drawing wards in the air. Almost all dropped whatever they were doing and followed. They kept a respectful pace, but the din grew as numbers increased, and more than once Renna caught the word ‘Deliverer’.