The Core

  The responses were drowned out as the crowd gave a thunderous roar.

  Behind him, Yon gave a snort. “Ent one for speeches, my arse.”

  —

  Elissa had once loved the great marble steps dominating the main hall of her manse. Any visitors would be forced to pass beneath them, so that she could speak to them from on high, or glide down to embrace them. Only family and select Servants were allowed on the highest level, an escape when the day grew long.

  But now, every step was torture. She managed to keep the worst of it from the public, but Ragen and the closest servants knew. She could not even attempt the climb without help.

  “Easy now.” Margrit supported Elissa with an arm that felt like stone. “Ent in a hurry.”

  But in Elissa’s heart, they were. Already she had put this off too long, and it was nearly too late. At last, they made the top floor, Margrit bearing much of her weight as they went to the visitors’ wing.

  “But I don’t want to live in a warding shop!” Jef cried. “I want to go home!”

  “I’m your home,” Derek said. “I’m your da.”

  “I want Mother!” Jef said.

  “Ay, you think I don’t?” Derek snapped. “But she ent coming back, and we can’t join her.”

  Elissa turned the corner, and the boy looked up, seeing her. He turned to his father. “I hate you!” Then he stormed into his room and slammed the door in Derek’s face.

  “That will be all, Mother,” Elissa said.

  “I don’t think—”

  “That will be all.” Elissa deepened her voice, and she did not need to say it a third time. Margrit made sure she was steady on her cane, and took her leave as Derek looked up, noticing her. He looked like he, too, might run to his room and slam the door, but he stood impassively as she slowly limped over to him.

  Derek made a leg, eyes down. “Your Grace. I apologize for the shouting.”

  “You needn’t be so formal, Derek. If anyone has the right to call me by name, it is you.” She waved a hand at Jef’s room. “And you needn’t live behind the warding shop. You and Jef are always welcome here.”

  Still Derek refused to meet her eyes. “You are kind, but Jef and I have spent too many years living as the guests of others. It’s time we made our own way.”

  “Derek…” She reached for his shoulder, but he flinched, stepping back. Elissa overbalanced and needed to catch herself on her cane. “I’m so sorry.”

  Derek put his hands up to keep from looking at her. “I know how this must weigh on you. I know you were doing what you thought best to protect those in your charge.” He waved a hand at her legs, her cane. “And I know you paid a heavy price.”

  At last he looked up, meeting her eyes. “But I also know that every Mother on the council was taught wardcraft in the Mothers’ School. Cera had house Warders. Yet it was Stasy you gave that pen to.”

  “I know.” Elissa felt her eyes grow moist. “Every moment since I have asked myself why. Perhaps there were Warders more skilled, but she was the one I knew. The one I trusted. Perhaps it was selfish, but I can’t think of another who could have done as well. I would be dead, perhaps everyone in that manse, if not for her.”

  Derek drew a great shuddering breath. “I understand, and for the love I have always borne you, I forgive. But Jef has a right to grow as more than a guest in the house of the woman who got his mother killed.”

  —

  “No use.” Yon spat on the cobbles. “Weeks o’ fightin’, and we’re still losing ground.”

  “And Waning tonight,” Derek reminded, as if Ragen could possibly have forgotten. The man looked haggard, but they all did, and he fought as hard as any when night came. Too hard, some said—taking foolish risks.

  “I mean to break the keep open before the sun sets,” Ragen said.

  “How?” Yon asked. “Can’t get close enough to attack or fortify without them firing on us, and the tunnels are packed with demons, even with the sun up.”

  “A trick I learned from Briar.” Ragen led them down the street to where a Gatherer and a group of apprentices were overseeing large, boiling vats.

  “Every child in Miln has been out collecting hogroot,” Ragen said. “We’re going to dump it into the sewers, and storm the keep from below.”

  Derek stepped forward, an eager gleam in his eyes. “I’ll go.”

  —

  The demons shrieked as the hogroot tea was poured into ancient runnels that flowed into the sewer tunnels. The mixture burned coreflesh like acid, and Ragen could hear the splashing as the demons fled.

  The Mountain Spears didn’t give them time to escape, following in with their flamework weapons and warded rounds, devastating in the narrow passages. Keerin’s Jongleurs provided support, playing from the rear, their instruments magicked with hora to echo through the tunnels.

  For a time it seemed to work. The demons thinned as they advanced to the tunnels nearest the keep walls.

  But then they turned a corner and found the way barred by Euchor’s Mountain Spears, their flamework weapons leveled.

  “Fall back!” Ragen cried, but it was too late. The Mountain Spears opened fire, and the narrow tunnels his own flamework forces used to such great effect suddenly proved a liability.

  Hundreds were cut down in the chaos of those first moments. Bullets whined off Ragen’s warded armor, and one that struck his helmet nearly knocked him senseless.

  “Ay, I got you.” Yon caught Ragen’s arm, pulling him back and shielding Ragen from the press of fleeing soldiers.

  They made it back to the streets as night was falling. Ragen’s forces, waiting for the sewer teams to open the gates, looked on in horror at the rout.

  Then the streets around the keep collapsed, and it seemed all the Core poured forth, scattering into the city streets.

  —

  “Headmistress! She’s choking!” a triage apprentice at the Gatherers’ School shouted.

  “What happened?” Anet rushed to a guardswoman who lay thrashing and gasping, face darkening as she struggled for air. Elissa bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain as she struggled with her cane to keep pace.

  “We were fighting down on Moon Street,” a young guardsman said. He was pale, sweating, and filthy, but seemed uninjured. “Stone demon hit sergeant in the chest, but her armor held. We thought she was all right, but she just started gasping, and coughed blood…” He broke off with a sob. “Please, you gotta save her.”

  Elissa lifted her stylus. “I can…”

  “No!” Anet snapped. “Heal that woman and you’ll only kill her quicker. Get her armor off.”

  Apprentices cut the straps of the breastplate and lifted it away, then cut away her padded jacket and the blouse beneath. The guard gasped and turned his back.

  “Just breasts, boy,” Anet said. “You nursed at a pair yourself. Have a look. You need to see what a demon can do, even if your armor holds.”

  The young guard turned and looked at his sergeant, but then he slapped a hand on his mouth and ran away to retch.

  The guardswoman’s thrashing was greater now, her face turned purple as she strained to draw air through her blackening chest.

  “Hold her still.” Mother Anet swabbed alcohol over a spot and took a long, thin blade, driving it down into the woman’s chest. There was a geyser of blood, and the woman pulled in a ragged breath.

  “Blow broke ribs and drove them into her left lung,” Anet said. “If you’d magicked them—”

  “Her lung would have closed with bone still inside.” Elissa covered her mouth in horror.

  “I’ll need to cut her open to clear the way before you can begin healing,” Anet said. “Can you keep her alive? Give me time to work?”

  “I’m not sure,” Elissa said, “but I can try.”

  “I’m not sure I can save her in any event,” Anet said. “Trying is all a Gatherer ever has.”

  Apprentices fed the woman air from a pump while Anet cut and Elissa traced and powe
red wards to keep the woman’s aura strong, to keep her heart beating. The bone was pulled from the lung with forceps and held in place as Elissa healed her way out of the wound, layer by layer.

  “Incredible,” Anet said. “The power of life and death, all in that little pen.”

  “Believe me, Gatherer,” Elissa put her cane under her, gritting her teeth against the pain as she stood up straight, “even magic has limits.”

  Anet stiffened. She had examined Elissa’s legs personally, and offered no more hope than Cera’s Gatherer. “I apologize, Your Grace. I did not mean…”

  “Let us not dwell on it.” Elissa turned to the young guard. “Return to your unit.”

  “Ay, Your Grace.” The man bowed and shouldered his Mountain Spear, heading back to the front.

  More bodies, more shouting, coming from all sides. The air was thick with smoke and the scent of blood, making Elissa dizzy. She sipped at magic from her stylus for strength, but while it could ease the constant pain and weakness in her legs, neither retreated entirely.

  “Your Grace, are you well?” Anet’s tone shifted from supplicant to command. “When was your last meal? Have you had enough to drink?”

  “I’m fine,” Elissa said. “I just…need some air.”

  “Of course,” Anet said. “I’ll have one of the girls—”

  “That’s all right,” Elissa cut her off. “I need a moment alone.”

  “As you command, Your Grace.”

  Elissa turned away quickly, that the Gatherer might not see her grimace in pain as she put her cane out and shuffled that first, agonizing step. She found a rhythm after that, keeping a slow but steady gait that retained some modicum of dignity.

  She exited the halls of the Gatherers’ School into the Library campus courtyard. It was summer, but a chill crept in at night as a gust pulled pins from her hair.

  Women lingering outside flocked to her immediately. All had been waiting for her to emerge, clamoring for a moment of the duchess’ time to approve this list or that, answer messages, settle disputes, solve problems.

  “Not now, ladies.” Elissa put the tone back in her voice. “Head to the Library and check in with Mother Mery. I will see you all in turn there shortly.”

  The women glanced at one another for a long moment, but then Mother Jone appeared, cracking her hands together. “You heard Her Grace!”

  The women stumbled over themselves to curtsy and hurry toward the Library in hope of getting a good spot in the petition line. Already they were arguing the importance of their business with one another, jockeying for position.

  “Thank you,” Elissa said.

  Jone nodded, offering her arm. “Of course.”

  Elissa accepted the arm gratefully, leaning on the woman as she moved toward the Guardians. The giant statues surrounding the hilltop campus around the Library and Cathedral formed the most powerful wardnet in the city.

  Library guards patrolled the perimeter stiffly, able to hear demon shrieks, the sound of Keerin’s players, and fighting echoing through the streets.

  The sounds were close. The demons had given the campus a wide berth, fearing the power of the Guardians, but it was new moon, and Elissa knew better than any what that meant.

  No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than a flame demon came running up the street, heading for the forbidding. One of the guards shot it down with a warded crank bow. Before it stopped twitching, a stone demon appeared on another street, lumbering toward the wardnet. Guards fired upon it, but its stone armor was thick and the bolts did little more than anger the demon. It bashed against the Guardians’ wardnet and was swatted back like a child.

  All around, more demons were appearing. They had little more success than the first at breaking through the forbidding, yet suddenly Elissa found herself wondering just how powerful the Guardians were. If there was a vulnerability, the demon princes would find it.

  Her hand itched to take up her stylus, blasting corelings away from the forbidding, but it was no longer her place. If the demons breached the wards, she would—with her crippled legs—be more liability than asset to the defenders.

  She was duchess, now, and could save more lives in the Library answering those women’s questions than she could on the front lines.

  “Call for reinforcements,” she told Jone. “Have the guards arm everyone strong enough to hold a spear.” Jone nodded, moving off, and Elissa slowly made her way back to the Library, taking private halls to Mother Mery’s office suite.

  There was a shout just before she rounded a corner, and there Elissa found Mery and her husband, Jaik. Elissa had not seen Jaik in years, since the days when he and Mery and Arlen were young and inseparable. Too caught up in their own drama, they did not notice her approach.

  “I am helping!” Jaik snapped. “I’ve been carrying water to the injured all night.”

  “Duke Ragen didn’t ask for the able-bodied to carry water,” Mery said. “He asked them to pick up a weapon and fight. The Library guards are calling for aid.”

  “Me, fight a demon?” Jaik was incredulous. “Are you insane? I’d be cored for sure.”

  “Boys half your age are lining up to volunteer while you hide under my father’s robe,” Mery said. “You won’t even join the Jongleurs.”

  “My music’s no better than my spearwork,” Jaik said. “You know how hard it was for me.”

  Mery crossed her arms. “Ay, because you never bothered to practice.”

  “Easy for you to say!” Jaik shouted. “We weren’t all given organ lessons in the Cathedral from birth.”

  “You always find something to blame,” Mery said. “I’m starting to realize…”

  “What?” Jaik demanded. “What are you suddenly realizing?”

  “That Arlen was right about you,” Mery snapped. “That you’ve no ambition. You just show up and do the least you can.”

  Jaik flinched. “Always comes down to that in the end, doesn’t it? Measuring me against the perfect Arlen Bales. Night, I’m lucky you were always too holy to open his pants.”

  Mery sneered. “I rubbed against it enough times to know you don’t measure up there, either.”

  Jaik bared his teeth. “Ay, and he left you, anyway. What’s that say about you?”

  “That is enough!” Elissa barked, cracking her cane against the floor.

  Mery and Jaik whirled at the sound. “Y-your Grace!” Mery spread her skirts and dipped while Jaik bent an awkward knee.

  Elissa pointed a finger at Jaik. “If carrying water is what you’re good at, Jaik, there are plenty of wounded in the Gatherers’ School who need it.”

  “Ay, Your Grace.” Jaik seemed relieved as he scurried off.

  “I apologize, Your Grace,” Mery said. “That was…unseemly.”

  “It sounds like a conversation long overdue,” Elissa said. “But best saved until the moon waxes.”

  There was a scream from down the hall, and Elissa was forced to grab at Mery, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out in pain as she stumbled as quickly as possible to investigate.

  They caught up to Jaik on the wide balcony overlooking the Library stacks. Below, acolytes raced up from the lower levels.

  “Demons!” one robed boy called. “Demons in the catacombs!” Acolytes, Mothers, and scholars scrambled, scattering papers and spilling inkwells in a panicked stampede across the floor. Nimble flame demons burst from the lower halls, chasing folk into the stacks.

  “Night.” Elissa felt the pincer snap shut. The demons massing outside the Guardians did not need to break through—only to prevent escape while the mind demons struck from within.

  Flame demons spat fire, but the wards Arlen carved all those years ago flared, turning firespit into a cool breeze. Field demons leapt at fleeing librarygoers, but again Arlen’s net flashed, throwing them back from people hiding between the shelves or under the tables. Demons bounced about like balls as Arlen’s warding hurled them from one shelf into the next, leaving them battered a
nd dizzy while scholars made their escape.

  The danger was greater out in the open, but Elissa had her stylus out, freezing flame demons and knocking field demons into one another with impact wards.

  “Quickly!” She sketched a brief forbidding over the nearest access to the catacombs. “To the Cathedral!” The wards of the Holy House were some of the strongest in Miln, but more than warding bound magic to the stones. Faith gave strength to the walls.

  Elissa looked at Mery, seeing Stasy all over again, but nevertheless she took a hora pen from her pouch and pushed it at Mery. The young mother shrieked and recoiled. “I cannot touch demon bone! The Creator forbids it.”

  “The Creator forbids you let all these people die because you’re too holy to touch a pen!” Elissa shoved the stylus into Mery’s hand. “Shut up and ward.”

  Mery looked at her in fright, but she took the pen. The Librarian’s daughter proved a competent Warder as they descended to the main floor, sweeping up the terrified Library staff as Elissa led the way to the Cathedral.

  But more demons were coming up from below, finding the gaps in Elissa and Mery’s hastily drawn forbiddings. They were not able to start fires, but they circled around the fleeing humans, attempting to cut them off.

  A demon leapt down from the balcony, and Mery barely drew a forbidding in time to keep it from landing on Elissa’s shoulders. The demon bounced off the magic, landing amid their group. It opened an old Mother like a butchered cow then sprang on Jaik, who fell back, curling into a ball as sharp teeth sank into his shoulder.

  Elissa hit the demon with an impact ward, but it took a great chunk of Jaik’s shoulder in its jaws as it was knocked away.

  “Mistress!” Mery called. “He needs…!”

  “To keep running!” Elissa barked. “Everyone! If we don’t make it to the Cathedral, we’re dead!”

  Perhaps even if we do. She kept the thought to herself as Mery pulled Jaik to his feet, blood spurting from his wound. The two of them stumbled even more slowly than Elissa as the corelings massed behind them. More than just flame demons now, there were iridescent snow demons, dull gray stone demons, and sleek green-scaled field demons. These last raced ahead, cutting off their escape into the Cathedral.