Dawn grabbed Briar’s hand, squeezing so hard the boy whimpered. ‘Wet the towel by the washbasin and put it over your mouth to hold out the smoke.’
Relan nodded and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Be careful. The smoke will draw many alagai.’ He kissed her. ‘Go.’
Dawn began crawling for the window, dragging Briar after her. ‘Take three deep breaths, Briar, and then hold the last. Keep it held until we’re out the window, and as soon as we hit the ground, run for the garden. You understand?’
‘Yes,’ Briar said, and then coughed for what seemed forever. At last the wracking ceased, and he nodded to his mother. On the third breath, they stood and Dawn threw open the shutters. She lifted Briar in her arms, swung her legs over the sill, and dropped to the ground with a thump.
As Relan had warned, there were demons in the yard, flitting about through the drifting smoke. Together, they ran for the garden before the corelings caught sight of them.
Dawn stopped up short once they crossed the garden wards. ‘You stay here. I need to help your father with the others.’
‘No!’ Briar cried, gripping her skirts. ‘Don’t leave me!’
Dawn gripped Briar’s shirt tightly with one hand, and slapped his face with the other. His head seemed to flash with light, and he stumbled back, letting go her skirts.
‘Ent got time to baby you right now, Briar. You mind me,’ his mother said. ‘Go to the hogroot patch and hide in the leaves. Cories hate hogroot. I’ll be back soon.’
Briar sniffed and wiped at his tears, but he nodded and his mother turned and ran for the house. A wood demon caught sight of her and ran to intercept. Briar screamed.
But Dawn kept her head, doing the same dance Relan had done that very morning. In a moment, she had the coreling stumbling left as she ran to the right, disappearing back through the window.
Feeling numb, like he was in a dream, Briar stumbled over to the hogroot patch. He rolled in the thick weeds, bruising them and getting sticky hogroot sap all over himself. One of his pant legs was soaked through. He had pissed himself after all. The twins would never stop teasing him once they saw.
He cowered there, shaking, as his family’s cries echoed in the night. He could hear them calling to one another, bits of sentences drifting on the night smoke to reach his ears. But no one came to the garden, and moments later, the night began to brighten, the grey smoke giving off an evil, pulsing glow. Briar looked up, and saw that the ghostly orange light came from the windows of the house.
The shrieks of the demons increased at the sight, and they clawed the dirt impatiently, waiting for the wards to fail. A wood demon struck at the house, and was thrown back by the magic. A flame demon tried to leap onto the porch, and it, too, was repelled. But even Briar could see that the magic was weakening, its light dimming.
When a wood demon tried the porch, the wardnet had weakened enough for it to power through. Magic danced over the demon’s skin and it screamed in agony, but made it to the front door and kicked it in. A gout of fire, like a giant flame demon’s spit, coughed out of the doorway, immolating the demon. It fell back, shrieking and smouldering, but a pack of flame demons had made it through the gap by then and disappeared into the house. Their gleeful shrieks filled the night, partially drowning out his family’s dwindling screams.
Hardey stumbled out the side door, screaming. His face was dark with soot and splattered with gore, and one arm hung limply, the sleeve wet with blood. He looked about frantically.
Briar stood up. ‘Hardey!’ He jumped up and down, waving his arms.
‘Briar!’ Hardey saw him and ran for the garden wards, his usual long stride marred by a worsening limp. A pair of howling flame demons followed him out of the house, but Hardey had a wide lead as he raced for the hogroot patch.
But the boy hadn’t cleared half the distance when a wind demon swooped down, digging its clawed feet deep into his back. Its wing talons flashed, and Hardey’s head thumped to the ground. Before the body even began to fall, the wind demon snapped its wings and took to the air again, taking the rest of Hardey with it. Briar screamed as the demon vanished into the smoky darkness.
The flame demons shrieked at the departing wind demon for stealing their prey, but then leapt onto Hardey’s head in a frenzy. Briar fell back into the hogroot patch, barely turning over in time to retch up his supper. He screamed and cried, thrashing about and trying to wake himself up from the nightmare, but on it went.
It grew hotter and hotter where Briar lay, and the smoke soon became unbearable. Burning ash drifted through the air like snowflakes, setting fires in the garden and yard. One flake struck Briar on the cheek and he shrieked in pain, slapping himself repeatedly in the face to knock the ash away.
Briar bit his lip to try and stem the wracking coughs, looking around frantically. ‘Mother! Father! Anybody!’ He wiped at the tears streaking the ash on his face. How could his mother leave him? He was only six!
Six is old enough to be caught by alagai for running when it is best to keep still, Relan said, or for keeping still when it is best to run.
He would burn up if he stayed any longer, but as his father said, the fire was drawing demons like moths. He thought of the goldwood tree. It had hidden him from his brothers and sisters. Perhaps it could succour him now.
Briar put his head close to the ground and breathed three times as his mother had told him, then sprang from hiding, running hard for the tree line. The swirling smoke was everywhere, and he could only see a few feet in any direction, but he could sense demons lurking in the gloom. He raced quickly over the familiar ground, but then somehow ran into a tree where he was sure none should be. He scraped his face on the bark, bouncing and landing on his back.
But then the tree looked at him and growled.
Briar slowly got to his feet, not making any sudden moves. The wood demon watched him curiously.
Briar began to sway back and forth like a pendulum, and the demon began rocking in unison, moving to keep eye contact like a tree swaying in a great wind. It began to step with him, and Briar held his breath as he moved two steps, then back, then three steps, then back, then, on the fourth step, he kept on walking. Three breaths later, the demon shook its head and Briar broke into a run.
The demon shrieked and gave chase. At first Briar had a fair lead, but the wood demon closed the gap in just a few great strides.
Briar dodged left and right, but the demon kept pace, its growls drawing ever nearer. He scrambled over the smouldering woodpile, but the demon scattered the logs with a single swipe of its talons. He skidded to a stop by his father’s refuse cart, still loaded with some of the items Relan and his brothers had salvaged from the dump.
Briar dropped to his hands and knees, crawling under the cart. He held his breath as the demon’s clawed feet landed with a thump right in front of him.
The wood demon lowered its toothy snout to the ground, snuffling. It moved to the hollow, sniffing the roots and dirt. Briar knew the demon could reach under and fish him out, or toss the cart aside easily, but perhaps that would give him enough time to run out the other side and get to the tree. He waited as the snout drew closer, coming just a few inches from him.
Just then, the demon gave a tremendous sneeze, its rows of sharp amber teeth mere inches from Briar as the mouth opened and snapped shut.
Briar bolted from hiding, but the demon, gagging and coughing, did not immediately give chase.
The hogroot, Briar realized.
A small flame demon, no bigger than a coon, challenged him as he drew close to the tree, but this time Briar didn’t try to run. He waited for the demon to draw close, then flapped his arms and clothes, creating a cloud of hogroot stink even in the acrid night. The demon heaved as if sick, and Briar kicked it, sending it sprawling as he ran on. He leapt to catch the first branch and swung himself up into the goldwood and hid in the boughs before the demon could recover.
Briar looked back and saw the windows of his house blazing like the hea
rth, flames licking out to climb their way up the walls.
The hearth.
Even from this distance, the heat could be felt, smoke and ash thick in the air, making every breath burn his lungs. But even so, Briar’s face went cold. His leg twitched, and he felt it warm as his bladder let go what little it had left. In his mind, he could hear his mother singing.
When laying morning fire, what do you do?
Open the flue, open the flue!
How many times had he laid that fire? His father always closed off the chimney flue after the evening fire burned down. In the morning, you had to open it …
‘Or the house will fill with smoke,’ he whispered.
A minute ago, Briar had been feeling quite brave, but that was over. Brave is when you’re scared, his mother said, but keep your wits about you.
Whatever Briar was, he wasn’t that.
He dug in the hollow where the branches met, finding his hidden trove of sugar candies, and let them fall to the ground as he began to weep.
I should have just shared.
2
Briarpatch
324 AR Summer
It was not quite dawn, but light enough for Briar to see, when the cories started to fade away, like the smoke in the air. The flames had died out some time ago, leaving most of their house intact. Relan had never trusted wooden walls, and had built his home out of hundreds of stones salvaged from the town dump.
‘Only fools’, Relan said, ‘throw away good stone to build with something weaker.’
The air grew quiet as the shrieks and howls of the demons faded away. Briar held his breath, listening, then slipped down from the goldwood tree.
‘Never set foot outside the house till you can step in a sunbeam,’ his mother had taught, but Briar could not wait another moment. He ran towards the house.
‘Mother! Father! Sky! Sunny! Hale!’ Briar was about to add Hardey to the call when he came upon the blackened remains of his brother’s head. The demons had gnawed away the flesh and cracked the skull to scoop out the insides.
Briar steadied himself, wetting his shirt in the rain barrel and tying it over his face as he headed for the house. Smoke hung thick in the air, but already it was lessening. The thatched roof was gone, shutters were blown out and just a few broken boards hanging from a twisted iron hinge were all that remained of the front door.
His bare feet crunched on the warm ashes of reeds in the entryway. He froze for a moment, as if expecting a demon to leap at the sound, but shook the feeling away, continuing forwards. ‘Mother? Father? Anyone?’
His foot squelched on the next step. Briar looked down, seeing blood everywhere. Some of it charred like drippings from a grill, other places wet and sticky. Bits of bone and gore were scattered through the common room where Briar had built up the fire.
Bloody demon footprints churned the greasy ash in every nook and corner of the small house. Briar was too horrified to even attempt to identify the remains, but it seemed there was enough to account for everyone, and to spare.
The stones Relan had carried and mortared stood strong, but the carefully mended furniture was a ruin, as was almost everything else. Briar salvaged a few scraps of clothing, but the food was all gone, and his mother’s herbs and spices. All that remained was the big steel kitchen knife and her mortar and pestle. Briar took them.
He coughed, sending tendrils of pain through his chest. Even with his wet shirt over his face, the lingering smoke was too much.
He was about to leave when a glint of metal caught his eye in the common room. Amidst the bones and oily ash was his father’s spear.
Briar reached to pull the weapon from the muck. The charred shaft broke off in his hand, but the head was still sharp and hard. Nearby he found Relan’s warded shield. The straps would need mending, but the hammered bronze face still shone when he brushed the ash away.
Out on the porch he removed the shirt, breathing deep of the morning air just as sun struck railing. Was it just a day ago he had stood in this very spot with his father, clenching his legs and wishing he was an only child?
Everam heard my selfish wish, he thought. He heard, and sent the cories to punish me by making it come true.
Away in the distance he heard the Great Horn. Folk had seen the smoke and would be coming soon to investigate.
They won’t know, he told himself. Not that I started the fire, or that I made the wish.
He sobbed. What did it matter if folk knew or not? He knew. Knew this was his fault. It was because of his selfishness. His stupidity. His carelessness.
I should have burned up with them, he thought. But that was wrong, too. His family had died with honour. They would walk the lonely path and sup at Everam’s table in Heaven.
But there was no Heaven for Briar now. He was khaffit.
There were shouts from Boggers coming up the road. In a moment they would turn the corner and see him.
Briar turned and ran into the bog.
There was food enough in the bog, if you knew where to look. Birds built nests in the peat, and here and there were edible roots and herbs, obvious to a Gatherer’s son. Briar wasn’t very hungry anyway. A few mushrooms and roots to keep the stomach pains away, a sip of running water as he wandered. The bog went on as far as the eye could see, wetland all the way to the great lake fifty miles away.
Hours passed, and Briar found himself wandering to the dump along the outskirts of the bog. He’d been there countless times, riding on father’s refuse cart.
Briar always found it peaceful. Few came here save his family, and Briar felt safe with the rest of the refuse, at least while the sun was high. The dump was a quiet graveyard, filled with the skeletons of carts and furniture that had passed beyond use, piled with mountains of smaller refuse, tall and stinking. Close to the bog, the ground was damp and soft, stinking even without the trash.
There was a wild hogroot patch behind one of the mountains of refuse, the weeds tall and thick, thriving in the composted soil.
Cories’ll never find me there, Briar thought. The whole place stank too much for them to smell him, and demons wouldn’t wander into a hogroot patch by accident.
Better’n sleeping in a briar patch.
3
Ragen
324 AR Summer
Ragen drew a deep breath. Some of it was his own stink after days on the road without a bed or bath, but greater was the scent of warm pollen to remind him why he loved the Messenger Road. It was summer in Lakton, something those in his home city of Miln, far to the north, could only read of and dream about. The rocky soil of the Milnese Mountains yielded reluctant fruit, but the fertile lands around the great lake gave without care.
He stood in his saddle, snatching an apple the size of his fist from a low-hanging branch. The villages along the road planted the trees with Messengers in mind. It was a point of pride with many villages, and those working the road could feast like kings on apple and pear, peach and plum. One stretch had oranges so fine just the memory could water Ragen’s mouth.
Take your time, he thought, biting into the apple with a satisfying crunch. Enjoy every moment and remember it, because you’ll never see the like again.
‘A last tour,’ he’d promised Elissa. ‘I’ll be back months before the babe comes, and hang up my spear for good.’
With the months on the road before him, it had been an easy promise to make. He made the most of the time, taking local mail runs to see old friends and say goodbyes. Some were cordial, others surprisingly moving. Correspondences were promised on both sides, but they all knew they would never see each other again.
He’d ridden all the way to Fort Rizon and beyond, travelling three more days just to visit a certain hill and look out over the desert flats one last time. But soon he would be leaving Lakton and entering Angiers, where his list of friends was thinner.
He longed to hold Elissa and see her swollen belly, but he could not help wishing for just a little more time before the gates of Miln closed on
him for the final time.
Ragen had made this run every year for two decades, a trusted face welcomed by merchant and Royal alike. It was a coveted position senior Messengers would cut throats for – just a few years on that run would earn them enough for early retirement. Guildmaster Malcum was likely rubbing his hands with glee thinking of what Messengers would bid in return for the assignment.
But Ragen had already whispered in the right ears, and carried letters from Royals and merchants throughout the land asking for Ragen’s ward, Arlen Bales, to take his place.
Ragen swallowed a lump of pride. Perhaps his tour was coming to a close, but it was fitting Arlen should take up where he left off, as Ragen had for his father, a Royal Messenger before him.
Ragen was jealous of Arlen, but it was his own future that weighed on him. Everyone spoke of his retirement as something desirable, like it should be some great relief to give up the beauty of the wide world and spend his remaining years on his backside behind warded walls.
‘Night, I’m barely forty,’ he muttered.
Forty-three, his inner voice answered. Used to take four hours and a plate of eggs to shake off a night’s drinking. Now your body aches for days.
‘You’ve got two choices as a Messenger,’ Master Cob told him back when Ragen was his apprentice. ‘Retire young, or die young. Demons aren’t forgiving when you can’t move as fast as you did when you were thirty.’
At last, the peat-farming village of Bogton came into sight on the road ahead, drawing Ragen’s mind from his problems. Soon he would be with his friend Relan and his family, and could enjoy a warm meal and a laugh. Krasian goods were expensive in Fort Rizon, but nothing like the duke’s ransom they were in Miln. His saddlebags bulged with Krasian toys for the children, silk and spices for Dawn, and an entire jug of couzi for Relan.
Ragen smiled. For Relan, perhaps, but for himself as well. One last time, they would drink till they tasted cinnamon and spend the night terrifying Dawn and the children with tales of their adventures on the road.