Chapters 31-32 - The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett (Also: The Painted Man)

 Finally the battle of Cutter's Hollow begins. People have seen the Warded Man beat the living piss out of the corelings outside of the wards. Now some of the villagers have warded weapons to fight with. It was smart of Leesha and the Warded Man to work together in order to get the villagers to act. By drugging the corelings it is easy to show that they can be defeated. It also shows us that they are susceptible to natural phenomena- and more importantly- they aren't supernatural or divine. At least as far as this story goes.

The Warded Man's message, and he will continue to state this- is that everyone served the capacity of 'Deliverer' and everybody made a difference in both their survival and the successful repelling of the enemy. Leesha has been busy for some time studying the carcass of a wood demon. The dissection has revealed quite a lot about the corelings.

The demons people have been fighting are not relatively smart- and their armor is like a carapace. Innards also happen to be similar to how insects are. There is another good word for the Core. I'd call it the hive. The Warded Man is prepared to leave with the battle concluded- and he does not want company because he does not know his new self and whether he will infect (or affect) people or not.

The very ending of the book talks about the Shar'Dama Ka and a band of soldiers reaching Anoch Sun. It is implied that Jardir and a band of warriors reached the ancient city after some time and are going to study it (and loot it maybe?) to reveal its secrets.

-story ends here-

The next volume in the series 'The Desert Spear' will go into Jardir's history and provide much more context to the story of Krasia in the south. There will be some retellings of events that happened in the first volume, only with more information and context involved. Humanity is fighting back now, defeating the drone demons and watching their corpses burn away to the sun.

The 'minds' within the hive (Core) have taken notice. They aren't stupid.

This isn't your grand daddy's coreling. Leesha forshadowed the different types of insects that operate within a hive. This type of coreling is much higher up in rank than a simple drone. In fact it can control them. Being that the Corelings do have a hive, it can be said that the hive has a Queen. A queen- and her chosen mate.