Cob grunted as he adjusted the armor.“Ent easy when a steel plate’s cutting into your thigh,” Arlen said.It was a cool morning, dawn still an hour away, but Arlen was already sweating profusely in the new armor—solid plates of hammered steel linked at the joints by rivets and fine interlocking rings. Beneath, he wore a quilted jacket and pants to keep the plates from digging into his skin, but it was scant protection when Cob tightened the rings.“All the more reason to make sure I get this right, Cob said. “The better the fit, the less likely that will happen when you’re running from a coreling on the road. A Messenger needs to be quick.”“Don’t see how I’ll be anything near quick wrapped in bedquilt and carrying seventy pounds of steel on my back,” Arlen said. “And this corespawned thing’s hot as firespit.”“You’ll be glad for the warmth on the windy trails to the Duke’s Mines,” Cob advised.Arlen shook his head and lifted his heavy arm to look at the plates where he had painstakingly fluted wards into the steel with a tiny hammer and chisel.
