There seemed, at times, to be only two types of men. Those who feared the night, and those who died in it.
Most men feared it, huddling behind wards and flinching every time they were tested. Even messengers, daring to travel beyond the safe walls of the Free Cities, sat behind their wards waiting for the night they misplaced one.
Very few dared to challenge the night. Those of Krasia were spoken of with derision the rest of the world over. They boasted of killing corelings, but in Arthur's experience, they killed a miniscule amount and died. For every dead coreling, there was a house whose wards failed.
There were messengers who started goading corelings. Their answer to fear was to become obsessed with the demons instead, shouting at them and stabbing with their long spears. Ultimately, they died. Faster and messier.
Arthur strung the bow as the sun started to dip into the horizon. The sky was clear of clouds, meaning the corelings would be rising late tonight.
Some would say Arthur was the second type of man. Obsessed and doomed to die.
He knelt down and picked up the quiver of arrows. Remaining on one knee, he picked up his moleskin and an arrow. Checking the wards on the arrow, he recorded it on the moleskin then stood and set the arrow to the string.
Arthur preferred to see himself as determined. He was cautious of the night, but unafraid. He also lacked the obsession with getting revenge on the corelings which doomed so many others. He just wanted to kill them. Not at the cost of his own life, but he wouldn't let them rule his life either.
Arthur had fought hard to gain his freedom.
The last light from the sun faded as the corelings solidified. The fire at his back provided enough light to aim and he let the arrow fly. It hit a wood demon only to bounce off, the ward carved into the arrow doing nothing.
His entire village had been destroyed by corelings when he was seven. Arthur had been found three days later at the gate of Fort Miln. He never spoke of his experience and for many, it was too fantastical to be true.
Arthur knelt and recorded the lack of response in his notebook. The process started over as he chose a new arrow.
Taken in by a warder, Arthur hadn't understood at the time how they were destroying his life. He was no merchant or free man, but servant class. Left to run errands, clean, cook, and do the unwanted chores. No upward mobility. No hope to support himself. He was wholly dependant on his master.
But Arthur was no one's fool. He watched the lessons as he swept, taught himself to read by struggling out the words, and taught himself wards the same way.
He had ten arrows, each with their own warding. Two of them he warded himself with experimental designs. The rest were by Dominick. None of them worked. Without sign of frustration he unstrung his bow and settled beside the fire, going over his notebook again.
In three years time, he disappeared as easily as he appeared. Walked out those gates during the day without a look back. He made it to a settlement before night, gaining succor.
He stumbled upon a messenger and followed the man after he refused to take Arthur with. When night came, the man grumbled but forced Arthur into his warding circle.
After a couple small villages they ran across another messenger. She was going South and Arthur hitched a ride with her. Then there was another messenger, and another, and another until Arthur not only gained a name for himself, but his own pack of supplies and knowledge of every messenger and their routes.
Why wouldn't his arrows work? Arthur frowned and stared out at the corelings growling and spitting outside his warding circle. There had to be some way to turn the defensive wards offensive. Legends were rich with it and messengers poor from searching ruins in hope of it.
Once old enough, Arthur took up cart himself, traveling as he willed and working off a barter system the smaller villages struggling to survive preferred. He traded goods between villages, choosing the lack of money over entering a Free City.
Most messengers carried letters and goods were only for pure profit. Profit they used to take weeks off to explore ruins. Arthur, contrary to the lot, took weeks off to follow small roads no one knew where they led anymore.
He met Dominick because of it.
Arthur pulled free a normal arrow. He considered the arrow carefully, fingers running along the shaft where he would carve the wards, fingertip resting on the arrowhead, a thumb brushing the fletching.
Dominick was a master warder who, with his messenger wife Mallorie, set off in search of ruins once. They never returned and were assumed dead.
They weren't.
Rather, they built themselves a home in the middle of nowhere and worked on creating wards together.
Arthur froze, staring down at the arrowhead his finger had idly tested. All the warding had gone along the shaft as in the old stories, but he didn't have the old offensive wards. He and Dominick were making due with untested and hopeful wards and as the arrowhead is what came into contact with the corelings then perhaps…
They had been startled when Arthur stumbled upon them, but took him in with large smiles and non-stop questions. Arthur had reacted worse than they. He had found abandoned villages and even populated villages out in the middle of nowhere, struggling together to survive. But just two people?
But then they shared their passion and Arthur stopped caring. This was it. This was why he followed trails rather than maps to ruins.
Normally calm fingers trembled as Arthur reached into his pack for his warding kit. He forced a breath, calming before bending over the arrow to paint the smallest ward he's ever drawn onto the arrowhead. He stood, quickly and easily restringing his bow and aiming his arrow.
The future wasn't to be found in the past. They wouldn't survive the night by depending on ancestors long dead.
No.
Arthur released the arrow. It flew true and struck a stone demon. Yet rather than bouncing off, the arrow warded for piercing stuck, sticking out from the middle of an armored scale.
They would make their own future.
A fierce grin stole across Arthur's face.