The Great Bazaar and Brayan’s Gold by Peter V. Brett

where the bandit’s arrow had pierced his cheek. He had treated it with herbs before stitching and it was healing well enough, but the flesh around the wound was an angry red and crusted with blood, obvious to anyone at a glance.
    “Got hit by bandits after the thundersticks,” he said. “Just past the third caravan wardpost.” He quickly told the tale.
    Derek grunted. “You got stones like a rock demon, waving a thunderstick around like that. Lucky they weren’t looking to hurt anyone. A bad winter can put some folk past caring.”
    Arlen shrugged. “I wasn’t giving up the cargo on my first real Messenger run without a fight. Sets a bad precedent.”
    Derek nodded. “Well, you ent likely to find any bandits the rest of the way. You’ll be in Brayan’s Gold the evening after next.”
    “Why so long?” Arlen said. “Aren’t we almost at the top? Figure I can crack the whip and make it the rest of the way before late afternoon.”
    Derek laughed. “Air gets thin up there, Messenger. Just going up the cart path will have you laboring for breath like you were scaling the rock face. Even I feel tired for a couple of days when I go home, and I was born there.”
    By then, the sun was only a thin line of fire on the horizon, and a moment later, it winked out, leaving them in near-darkness for the rising. Outside, the whiteness of the snow resisted the darkening sky.
    Arlen turned to Derek, who was little more than a silhouette. The bowl of his pipe glowed softly as he pulled at it. “Aren’t you going to light any lamps?”
    Derek shook his head. “Just wait.”
    Arlen shrugged and turned his attention back to the window, watching a rock demon rise on the road outside. It was the same slate color as those lower on the mountain, but smaller still, with long, spindly arms and legs with two joints. Sharp bits of horn jutted along its limbs, and it walked as much on all fours as it did upright.
    “Always expected rock demons got bigger, the higher up you go,” Arlen said. “Don’t know why.”
    “Opposite’s true,” Derek said. “Less to hunt up here, and the deep snow trips up the big ones.”
    “That’s good to know,” Arlen said.
    The rock demon caught sight of them and launched itself at the window with frightening speed. Arlen had never seen a rock move so fast or leap so far. It struck the wardnet in midair, and magic flared like lightning, throwing the demon back onto the road and almost pitching it down the mountainside. The coreling caught itself just in time, long talons catching fast in the rock at the cliff’s edge.
    Suddenly, all the wards at the front of the station came to life, flaring in succession as the magic leeched from the rock demon activated the wardnet, the pattern of symbols dancing across the walls and beams.
    Many of the wards winked out soon after flaring, but Arlen could feel the heat wards still radiating faintly, and interspersed through the net and room were light wards, glowing with a soft, lingering luminescence.
    Another coreling came at the window, a wind demon that shrieked as it dove from the sky. The net flared again, and the heat wards grew warmer as the light wards grew brighter. More corelings came at the window, and within a few minutes, the room was brighter than a dozen lamps might have made it, and warmer than if it had a roaring fire.
    “Amazing,” Arlen said. “I’ve never seen warding like this.”
    “Count Brayan spares no expense on his own comfort,” Derek said. A demon suddenly struck the wards right in front of him, and he jumped, then scowled and made an obscene gesture at the offending demon.
    “They always come at the window,” Derek said. “Same demons, every night. I keep thinking one night they’ll just give up, but they never learn.”
    “Seeing you makes them crazed,” Arlen said. “Corelings might eat what they kill, but I think it’s the kill itself that feeds them, human kills most of all. If they know you’re here, they’ll