Free The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett Page A

demanded. “You mind me, boy!”
    Arlen tore his arm away, refusing to look his father in the eye. “Mam needs to see Coline Trigg,” he said.
    “She’s alive?” Jeph asked incredulously, his head snapping over to where the woman lay in the mud.
    “No thanks to you,” Arlen said. “I’m taking her to Town Square.”
    “We’re taking her,” Jeph corrected, rushing over to lift his wife and carry her to the cart. Leaving Norine to tend the animals and seek out poor Marea’s remains, they headed off down the road to town.
    Silvy was bathed in sweat, and while her burns seemed no worse than Arlen’s, the deep lines the flame demons’ talons had dug still oozed blood, the flesh an ugly swollen red.
    “Arlen, I …” Jeph began as they rode, reaching a shaking hand toward his son. Arlen drew back, looking away, and Jeph recoiled as if burned.
    Arlen knew his father was ashamed. It was just as Ragen had said. Maybe Jeph even hated himself, as Cholie had. Still, Arlen could find no sympathy. His mother had paid the price for Jeph’s cowardice.
    They rode the rest of the way in silence.
    Coline Trigg’s two-story house, in Town Square, was one of the largest in the Brook, and filled with beds. In addition to her family upstairs, Coline always had at least one person in the sickbeds on the ground floor.
    Coline was a short woman with a large nose and no chin. She was not yet thirty, but six children had made her thick around the middle. Her clothes always smelled of burnt weeds, and her cures usually involved some type of foul-tasting tea. The people of Tibbet’s Brook made fun of that tea, but every one of them drank it gratefully when they took a chill.
    The Herb Gatherer took one look at Silvy and had Arlen and his father bring her right inside. She asked no questions, which was just as well, as neither Arlen nor Jeph knew what they would say if she did. As she cut at each wound, squeezing out a sickly brown pus, the air filled with a rotten stench. She cleaned the drained wounds with water and ground herbs, then sewed them shut. Jeph turned green, and brought his hand to his mouth suddenly.
    “Out of here with that!” Coline barked, sending Jeph from the room with a pointed finger. As Jeph scurried out of the house, she looked to Arlen.
    “You, too?” she demanded. Arlen shook his head. Coline stared at him a moment, then nodded in approval. “You’re braver than your father,” she said. “Fetch the mortar and pestle. I’m going to teach you to make a balm for burns.”
    Never taking her eyes from her work, Coline talked Arlen through the countless jars and pouches in her pharmacy, directing him to each ingredient and explaining how to mix them. She kept to her grisly work as Arlen applied the balm to his mother’s burns.
    Finally, when Silvy’s wounds were all tended, she turned to inspect Arlen. He protested at first, but the balm did its work, and only as the coolness spread along his arms did he realize how much his burns had stung.
    “Will she be all right?” Arlen asked, looking at his mother. She seemed to be breathing normally, but the flesh around her wounds was an ugly color, and that stench of rot was still thick in the air.
    “I don’t know,” Coline said. She wasn’t one to honey her words. “I’ve never seen anyone with wounds so severe. Usually, if the corelings get that close …”
    “They kill you,” Jeph said from the doorway. “They would have killed Silvy, too, if not for Arlen.” He stepped into the room, his eyes down. “Arlen taught me something last night, Coline,” Jeph said. “He taught me fear is our enemy, more than the corelings ever were.”
    Jeph put his hands on his son’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “I won’t fail you again,” he promised. Arlen nodded and looked away. He wanted to believe it was so, but his thoughts kept returning to the sight of his father on the porch, frozen with terror.
    Jeph went over to Silvy, gripping her clammy