The Warded Man

The Warded Man is a fantasy novel by the American writer Peter V. Brett, published in 2009. It is the first book of the Demon Cycle series, and it was published in some countries under the title The Painted Man.

The world of the book is one in which the dark belongs to the demons. They come up out of the ground as the light goes, taking on substance and shape as they do, and they have been culling the human race for as long as anybody can remember.

What protects people is a system of wards, symbols of power that the demons cannot cross, and which are half forgotten and imperfectly understood by the people who depend on them. The settlements that survive are the ones that have kept the wards in good order, and the ones that have not do not last long.

The novel follows what happens when the balance between the two sides begins to change, and it is the first of five books in the series. The story that begins here runs across four more volumes.