Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  Now, only now, people began falling to their knees; some gasping, some wailing. Three of the soldiers threw down their muskets. Oh God, Rikard thought like a man waking from a dream; they’ve never seen a D’Angeline, they’re not sure he’s human; and why should they, after all, when he’s not—not wholly? Oh God, Angelicus, you shouldn’t be out there alone, not here, not in this matter. It is our grief, our shame, our loss.

  With his heart in his throat, he stepped forward.

  “I am Rikard Drozhny, the Governor’s son,” he announced. Heads turned in his direction. The captain of the Prince-Protectorate’s troops stared at him. “You have killed your man, sir,” Rikard said. “His body, I think, belongs to St. Sithonia.”

  No one spoke. Feeling a hundred and more eyes upon him, he walked past the captain, past the Vralkaani soldiers, past Chrétien onto the shore.

  On the barren stone, Rikard knelt and gathered the body of the cobbler’s son into his arms. Slack and lifeless, it weighed heavy. The face was calm and unmarked despite the body’s terrible wounds. Rikard stood. The youth’s head and legs dangled. The body was heavy, heavy as stone, but he could carry it all the way to Vralstag if he had to, to the foot of Vral’s Throne itself. He looked around him at the staring faces full of hunger and need.

  “To the Church of St. Sithonia,” he said, and began to walk, carrying the body of the cobbler’s son. One by one, the people of Sithonia stood. They cleared an aisle for Rikard Drozhny and the burden he cradled. They reached out as he passed, touching the body of the cobbler’s son, murmuring, weeping. They fell in beside him, forming a procession.

  And behind them, Chrétien L’Envers guarded their passage.

  One by one, the remaining soldiers of the Prince-Protectorate lay down their weapons and fell in with the procession. Left behind on the shore with the bright D’Angeline apparition, the captain dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands.

  Chrétien L’Envers, the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange, sat alone at the writing desk in his guest room in the ancestral home of the House of Drozhny, reading the words of the letter he had just composed.

  “Dear Father,” the letter stated, “Fondest greetings from your eldest son, the errant traveler. May I hope that it gladdens your heart to read that I am well, and expect to be home in some six weeks’ time with full many a tale to tell. The darkless nights of a Vralian summer are a wonder to behold, though in truth I would not trade them for the moon and stars of Terre d’Ange, and there are no nightingales to be found in the whole of Vralia nation.”

  He read these words and no more, staring beyond the page into the flame of his single candle. The other words did not matter. Encrypted into this brief paragraph was message his father awaited.

  Civil war imminent. Cease all trade negotiations immediately.

  With steady hands, Chrétien folded the letter and inserted it into an envelope. He held a taper of sealing wax in the candle-flame and allowed one precise drop to fall upon the envelope, then stamped it with the impress of his signet ring.

  Within a few days’ time, he estimated, it would no longer be safe for him in Vralia. His role in what had transpired at Lake Khirzak remained a mystery to the populace, but there were Vralian nobles who knew that the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange was visiting his fast friend Rikard Drozhny, the Governor’s son. Word of this was bound to reach Janos Vralkaan. The Prince-Protectorate had already proved himself amply capable of adding two and two in the literal sense; doubtless he was capable in the figurative sense as well.

  The Dauphin of Terre d’Ange would make, among other things, an admirable hostage.

  Rikard wanted him to stay, of course, but Rikard understood. They had spoken some, though not much, of the cobbler’s son and the events at the shrine.

  It had changed things between them.

  “Why did you do it?” Rikard had asked, anguish and bewilderment in his voice. “I thought you were only here to…Why, Angelicus? Armed with a sword, against muskets! You might have been killed, you know. You might well have been killed.”

  “Ah well,” Chrétien had murmured, gazing at Rikard across the vast rift that separated them. “And you wonder why we cultivate beauty? It too is a weapon, my friend, and one that cuts both ways.”

  Rikard was a hero among the common Vralian people. His father reviled him publicly and grieved with him privately. When the war came, they would be on opposite sides, Vralings by blood the both of them. Whichever side won, the House of Drozhny would be there to serve Vralia.

  Vralia and God, Chrétien thought, picking up the gold medallion that Rikard had given him; a talisman of St. Sithonia, of course. The gold gleamed coldly in the candlelight.

  “You can’t tell me you’ve no need of a souvenir now,” Rikard had said with a nonchalance that fooled no one, averting his gaze to hide the emotion it held.

  The talisman was embossed on one side with the Wheel of Vral and on the other with a full-blown rose. Chrétien closed his hand on the medallion and clenched his fist until the gold edges bit into his flesh, a pain he welcomed. His pale, shining hair fell forward to curtain his face.

  Alone in his room, the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange wept.

  The following story, “Mudboy,” started out as a part of my Demon Cycle series from Del Rey Books. When I add a new POV character to the series, I try to take the reader back into their childhood, reintroducing the demon world through their eyes and showing the pivotal events in their life that led them to become the person they are in the central story line.

  Briar was a great addition to the series, and I had originally intended for the following story to be the introduction to my third book, The Daylight War. It would have been the first part of a three-act play on Briar’s young life, spanning the ten years or so before he encountered Leesha and Rojer on the road to the Hollow.

  But I quickly saw how the character might grow unchecked. I kept having more and more ideas for Briar’s own tale, and they were largely separate from the main story line of the series, to the point where it might become a distraction.

  So I cut the section I had written, meaning to save it for a Demon Cycle novella like the others I have done for Subterranean Press. When Shawn asked me to contribute a story to Unfettered, I knew it would be a perfect fit.

  I will eventually write more of Briar’s adventures, but in the meantime, please enjoy this little tale. I am thrilled to finally be able to share it, and in such prestigious company!

  — Peter V. Brett

  MUDBOY

  Peter V. Brett

  Summer 323 AR

  Briar started awake at the clanging.

  His mother was banging the porridge pot with her metal ladle, the sound echoing through the house. “Out of bed, lazeabouts!” she cried. “Breakfast is hot, and any who ent finished by sunup get an empty belly till luncheon!”

  A pillow struck Briar’s head. “Open the slats, Briarpatch,” Hardey mumbled.

  “Why do I always have to do it?” Briar asked.

  Another pillow hit Briar on the opposite side of his head. “Cause if there’s a demon there, Hardey and I can run while it eats you!” Hale snapped. “Get goin’!”

  The twins always bullied him together…not that it mattered. They had twelve summers, and each of them towered over him like a wood demon.

  Briar stumbled out of the bed, rubbing his eyes as he felt his way to the window and turned up the slats. The sky was a reddish purple, giving just enough light for Briar to make out the lurking shapes of demons in the yard. His mother called them cories, but Father called them alagai.

  While the twins were still stretching in bed waiting for their dawn vision, Briar hurried out of the room to try and be first to the privy curtain. He almost made it, but as usual, his sisters shouldered him out of the way at the last second.

  “Girls first, Briarpatch!” Sky said. With thirteen summers, she was more menacing than the twins, but even Sunny, ten, could muscle poor Briar about easily.

 
He decided he could hold his water until after breakfast, and made it first to the table. It was Sixthday. The day Relan had bacon, and each of the children was allowed a slice. Briar inhaled the smell as he listened to the bacon crackle on the skillet. His mother was folding eggs, singing to herself. Dawn was a round woman, with big meaty arms that could wrestle five children at once, or crush them all in an embrace. Her hair was bound in a green kerchief.

  Dawn looked up at Briar and smiled. “Bit of a chill lingering in the common, Briar. Be a good boy and lay a fire to chase it off, please.”

  Briar nodded, heading into the common room of their small cottage and kneeling at the hearth. He reached up the chimney, hand searching for the notched metal bar of the flue. He set it in the open position, and began laying the fire. From the kitchen, he heard his mother singing.

  When laying morning fire, what do you do?

  Open the flue, open the flue!

  Leaves and grass and kindle sticks strew,

  Then pile the logs, two by two.

  Bellow the coals till the heat comes through,

  And watch the fire, burning true.

  Briar soon had the fire going, but his brothers and sisters made it to the table by the time he returned, and they gave him no room to sit as they scooped eggs and fried tomatoes with onions onto their plates. A basket of biscuits sat steaming on the table as Dawn cut the rasher of bacon. The smells made Briar’s stomach howl. He tried to reach in to snatch a biscuit, only to have Sunny slap his hand away.

  “Wait your turn, Briarpatch!”

  “You have to be bold,” said a voice behind him, and Briar turned to see his father. “When I was in Sharaj, the boy who was too timid went hungry.”

  His father, Relan asu Relan am’Damaj am’Kaji, had been a Sharum warrior once, but had snuck from the Desert Spear in the back of a Messenger’s cart. Now he worked as a refuse collector, but his spear and shield still hung on the wall. His children all took after him, dark-skinned and whip thin.

  “They’re all bigger than me,” Briar said.

  Relan nodded. “Yes, but size and strength are not everything, my son.” He glanced to the front door. “The sun will rise soon. Come watch with me.”

  Briar hesitated. His father’s attention always seemed to be on his older brothers, and it was wonderful to be noticed, but he remembered the demons he had seen in the yard. A shout from his mother turned both their heads.

  “Don’t you dare take him out there, Relan! He’s only six! Briar, come back to the table.”

  Briar moved to comply, but his father put a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. “Six is old enough to be caught by alagai for running when it is best to keep still, beloved,” Relan said, “or for keeping still when it is best to run. We do our children no favors by coddling them.” He guided Briar onto the porch, closing the door before Dawn could retort.

  The sky was a lighter shade of indigo now, dawn only minutes away. Relan lit his pipe, filling the porch with its sweet, familiar scent. Briar inhaled deeply, feeling safer with his father’s smoke around him than he did from the wards.

  Briar looked about in wonder. The porch was a familiar place, filled like the rest of their home with mismatched furniture Relan had salvaged from the town dump and carefully mended.

  But in the false light before dawn everything looked different—bleak and ominous. Most of the demons had fled the coming sun by now, but one had turned at the creak of the porch door and the light and sound that came from the house. It caught sight of Briar and his father, stalking toward them.

  “Keep behind the paint,” Relan warned, pointing with his pipe stem to the line of wards on the planks. “Even the boldest warrior does not step across the wards lightly.”

  The wood demon hissed at them. Briar knew it—the one that rose each night by the old goldwood tree he loved to climb. The demon’s eyes were fixed on Relan, who met its gaze coolly. The demon charged, striking the wardnet with its great branchlike arms. Silver magic spiderwebbed through the air. Briar shrieked and ran for the house.

  His father caught his wrist, yanking him painfully to a stop. “Running attracts their attention.” He pulled Briar around to see that indeed, the demon’s gaze was turned his way. A thin trickle of drool, yellow like sap, ran from the corner of its mouth as it gave a low growl.

  Relan squatted and took Briar by the shoulders, looking him in the eyes. “You must always respect the alagai, my son, but you should never be ruled by your fear of them. Embrace your fear, and step beyond it.”

  He gently pushed the boy back toward the wards. The demon was still there, stalking not ten feet away. It shrieked at him, maw opening to reveal rows of amber teeth and a rough brown tongue.

  Briar’s leg began to twitch, and he ground his foot down to try and still it. His bladder felt about to burst. He bit his lip. His brothers and sisters would never tire of teasing if he went back inside with a wet pant leg.

  “Breathe, my son,” Relan said. “Embrace your fear and trust in the wards. Learn their ways, and inevera, you will not die on alagai talons.”

  Briar knew he should trust his father, who had stood out in the night with nothing but his shield and spear, but the words did nothing to stop the churning in his stomach, or the need to pee. He crossed his legs to help hold back his water, hoping his father wouldn’t notice. He looked at the horizon, but it was still orange with no hint of yellow.

  Already, he could see his brothers rolling on the floor with laughter as his sisters sang, “Pissy pants! Pissy pants! Water in the Briarpatch!”

  “Look to me, and I will teach you a Baiter’s trick,” Relan said, allowing the boy to step back. His father toed the wards instead, looking the wood demon in the eye and returning its growl.

  Relan leaned to the left, and the demon mimicked him. He straightened and leaned to the right, and the wood demon did the same. He began to sway slowly from side to side, and like a reflection in the water, the demon followed, even as Relan took a step to the left, then went back to his original position, then a step to the right. The next time he took two steps in either direction. Then three. Each time, the demon followed.

  His father took four exaggerated steps to the left, then stopped, leaning his body back to the right. Instinctively, the demon began stepping to the right, following the pattern, even as Relan broke it, resuming his steps to the left. He reached the far side of the porch before the demon caught on, letting out a shriek and leaping for him. Again the wards flared, and it was cast back.

  Relan turned back to Briar, dropping to one knee to meet the boy’s eyes.

  “The alagai are bigger than you, my son. Stronger, too. But,” he flicked Briar’s forehead with his finger, “they are not smarter. The servants of Nie have brains as tiny as a shelled pea, slow to think and easy to dazzle. If you are caught out with one, embrace your fear and sway as I have taught you. When the alagai steps the wrong way, walk—do not run—toward the nearest succor. The smartest demon will take at least six steps before growing wise to the trick.”

  “Then you run,” Briar guessed.

  Relan smiled, shaking his head. “Then you take three deep breaths. It will be that long at least before the demon reorients.” He smacked Briar’s thigh, making him wince and clutch at his crotch, trying to hold the water in. “Then you run. Run as if the house were on fire.”

  Briar nodded, grimacing.

  “Three breaths,” Relan said again. “Take them now.” He sucked in a breath, inviting Briar to follow. He did, filling his lungs, then breathing out with his father. Again Relan drew, and Briar followed.

  He knew it was meant to calm him, but the deep breathing only seemed to make the pressure worse. He was sure his father must be able to see it, but Relan gave no sign. “Do you know why your mother and I named you Briar?”

  Briar shook his head, feeling his face heat with the strain.

  “There was once a boy in Krasia who was abandoned by his parents for being weak and sickly,” Relan s
aid. “He could not keep up with the herds they followed to survive, and his father, who already had many sons, cast him out.”

  Tears began to stream down Briar’s cheeks. Would his father cast him out as well, if he wet himself in fear?

  “A pack of nightwolves that had been following the herd were frightened of the family’s spears, but when they caught the boy’s scent, alone and unprotected, they began to stalk him,” Relan continued. “But the boy led them into a briar patch, and when one of the wolves followed him in, it became stuck in the sharp thorns. The boy waited until it was caught fast, then dashed its head in with a stone. When he returned to his father with the wolf’s pelt around his shoulders, his father fell on his knees and begged Everam’s forgiveness for doubting his son.”

  Relan squeezed Briar’s shoulders again. “Your brothers and sisters may tease you for your name, but wear it proudly. Briar patches thrive in places no other plants can survive, and even the alagai respect their thorns.”

  The need to empty his water did not go away, but Briar felt the urgency fade, and he straightened, standing with his father as they watched the sky fill with color. The remaining demon faded into mist, sinking into the ground before the first sliver of the sun crested the horizon. Relan put his arm around Briar as they watched sunrise shimmer across the surface of the lake. Briar leaned in, enjoying the rare moment alone with his father, without the shoving and teasing of his siblings.

  I wish I didn’t have any brothers and sisters, he thought.

  Just then, the sunlight struck him.

  The others were stacking their dishes, but Dawn had left plates for Briar and Relan. Briar sat alone with his father, and felt very special.

  Relan bit into his first strip of bacon and closed his eyes, savoring every chew. “The dama used to tell me pig-eaters burned in Nie’s abyss, but by the Creator’s beard, I swear it a fair price.”