Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  Briar mimicked him, biting into his slice and closing his eyes to savor the grease and salt.

  “How come Briarpatch gets to eat after sunup?” Sky demanded.

  “Yeah!” the twins echoed at once. If there was one thing they agreed with Sky about, it was bullying Briar.

  The smile fell from Relan’s face. “Because he eats with me.” His tone made it clear further questions would be answered with his strap. The old strip of leather hung on the wall by the mantle, a warning all the Damaj children took very seriously. Relan used the strap to whip his mule when it refused a heavy load, but he had not hesitated to take it to Hardey’s backside the time he threw a cat in the lake to see if it could swim. They all remembered their brother’s howls, and lived in terror of that strap.

  Relan paid his other children no further mind, taking a second slice of bacon on his fork and laying it on Briar’s plate.

  “Boys, go feed the mule and get the dump cart hitched,” Dawn said, breaking the tension. “Girls, you’ve got laundry to do while I tend garden. Git to it.” The children bowed and quickly filed out, leaving Briar alone with his father.

  “When a boy first stands before the alagai in Krasia, he is sent to spend the following day in prayer.” Relan said. He laughed. “Though I admit when I tried it, I soon grew bored. Still, it is wise to think on the experience. When you are done helping your mother pick herbs, you may take the rest of the day to walk in the sun.”

  A day to do whatever he wished. Briar knew what to say, though the words seemed insufficient. “Yes, Father. Thank you, Father.”

  “You were very brave today, Briar,” his mother said as they weeded the skyflower bed. Briar felt his face flush in embarrassment, thinking of how he had nearly peed in his pants.

  He shook his head. “I was really scared.”

  “That’s what brave is,” Dawn said. “When you’re scared, but keep your wits about you. Your father says you held up better than your brothers.”

  “Really?” Briar asked.

  “Really.” Dawn narrowed her eyes. “You stir trouble by tellin’ ’em I told you that, though, and it’ll be the strap.”

  Briar swallowed. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  Dawn laughed and put her arms around him, squeezing tightly. “Know you won’t, poppet. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Mistress Dawn!” a call came, breaking the moment. Briar looked up to see Tami Bales running up the road. Tami was only a year older than Briar, but the Damaj children weren’t allowed to play with the Baleses since Tami’s father, Masen, called Relan a desert rat at the Solstice festival. Relan would have broken his arm if the other men hadn’t pulled them apart.

  Tami’s dress was splattered with mud and red with blood. Briar knew bloodstains when he saw them. Any Herb Gatherer’s child did. Dawn ran out to meet the girl, and Tami collapsed in her arms, panting for breath. “Mistress…y-you have to save…”

  “Who?” Dawn demanded. “Who’s been hurt? Corespawn it, girl, what’s happened?”

  “Corelings,” Tami gasped.

  “Creator,” Dawn drew a ward in the air. “Whose blood is this?” She pulled at the still-damp fabric of the girl’s dress.

  “Maybell,” Tami said.

  Dawn’s nose wrinkled. “The cow?”

  Tami nodded. “Stuck her head over the pen, blocking one of the wardposts. Field demon clawed her neck. Pa says she’s gonna get demon fever and went for his axe. Please, you need to come or he’ll put her down.”

  Dawn blew out a breath, shaking her head and chuckling. Tami looked ready to cry.

  “I’m sorry girl,” Dawn said. “Don’t mean to belittle. I know stock feels like part of the family sometimes. You just had me thinking it was one of your brothers or sisters got cored. I’ll do what I can. Run and tell your pa to hold his stroke.”

  Tami nodded and ran off as Dawn turned to Briar. “We’ll need sleep draught…”

  “Skyflower and tampweed,” Briar nodded.

  “Cut generously,” Dawn said. “Takes a lot more to put down a cow than a person. We’ll need hogroot poultices as well.”

  Briar nodded. “I know what to get.” He ran off to gather the cuttings while his mother got her implements ready.

  “You’ll have to wait a bit before your walk, poppet,” Dawn said as they headed down the road to Masen’s farm.

  “It’s okay,” Briar said. “I want to help.”

  They could hear Maybell’s bleats of pain long before they arrived. The heifer was lying on the dirt floor of the pen, neck wrapped in heavy cloth soaked through with blood. Masen Bales stood nearby, running his thumb along the edge of his axe. Tami and her siblings crowded around the cow protectively, though none were large enough to stop their father if he decided it was Maybell’s time.

  “Thanks for coming, Gatherer,” Masen said. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Briar, and he spit some of the tobacco he was chewing. “I meant to put the animal down quick and sell her to the butcher, but the kids begged me to wait ’til you came.”

  Dawn nodded, pushing through the crowd and lifting the cloth to look at the animal’s wounds, three deep grooves in Maybell’s thick neck. “It’s good you did. This ent too bad, if we can stave off the infection.” She turned to the crowd of children.

  “I’ll need more cloth for bandages, buckets of clean water, and a boiling kettle.” The children looked at her blankly until she clapped her hands, making them all jump. “Now!”

  As the children ran off, Briar laid out his mother’s tools and began crushing the herbs for the sleeping draught and poultices. Getting the animal to drink was difficult, but soon Maybell was fast asleep, and Dawn cleaned out the wounds and inserted a thin paste of crushed herbs before stitching them closed.

  Tami stood next to Briar, horrified. Briar had seen his mother work before, but he knew how scary it must seem. He reached out, taking her hand, and she looked at him, smiling bravely in thanks as she squeezed tightly.

  Masen had been watching Dawn work as well, but he glanced at Tami and did a double take, pointing his axe at Briar. “Ay, get your muddy hands off my daughter you little rat!”

  Briar snatched his hand away in an instant. His mother stood, moving calmly between them as she wiped the blood from her hands. “Ent going to need that axe anymore, Masen, so I’d appreciate you not pointing it at my boy.”

  Masen looked at the weapon in surprise, as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. He grunted and dropped the head, leaning it against the fence. “Wasn’t going to do anything.”

  Dawn pursed her lips. “That’ll be twenty shells.”

  Masen gaped. “Twenty shells?! For stitching a cow?”

  “Ten for the stitching,” Dawn said. “And ten for the sleep draught and hogroot poultices my rat son made.”

  “I won’t pay it,” Masen said. “Neither you nor your mud-skinned husband can make me.”

  “I don’t need Relan for that,” Dawn said, smiling, “though we both know he could make you. No, all I need is to tell Marta Speaker you won’t pay, and Maybell will be grazing in my yard before tomorrow.”

  Masen glared. “You ent been right in the head since you married that desert rat, Dawn. Already cost most of your patients. Lucky to get cow work these days, but that won’t last when folk hear you’re charging twenty shells for it.”

  Dawn crossed her arms. “That’s Mistress Dawn to you, Masen Bales, and now it’s twenty-five. Call one more name, I’ll go see Marta right now.”

  Masen began muttering curses, but he stomped off to the house, coming back with a worn leather bag. He counted the smooth lacquered shells into Dawn’s hand. “Fifteen…sixteen…seventeen. That’s all I got right now, Mistress. You’ll have the rest in a week. Honest word.”

  “I’d better,” Dawn said. “Come along, Briar.”

  The two of them walked down the road until they came to the fork, one way leading to their home, the other to the rest of town.

  “You run off now, Briar. Enjoy the
sun for a few hours. I’ll see you at supper.” Dawn smiled and pressed a handful of shells into his hand. “In case you want to buy joint of meat and a sugar candy.”

  Briar felt a thrill as he made his way into town, running his fingers over the smooth lacquer of the shells. He’d never had money of his own before, and had to suppress a whoop of glee.

  He went to the butcher shop, where Mrs. Butcher sold hot meat pies and laid a shell on the counter.

  Mrs. Butcher looked at him suspiciously. “Where’d you get that shell, Mudboy? You steal it?”

  Briar shook his head. “Mother gave it to me for helping her save Tami Bales’s cow.”

  Mrs. Butcher grunted and took the shell, handing him a steaming pie in return.

  He went next to the sugarmaker, who fixed a glare on Briar the moment he came into the shop. His look did not soften until Briar produced a pair of shells to pay for the candies he collected from the display, all wrapped in twisted corn husks. These he stuffed in his pockets, eating the meat pie as he walked back out of town. The sun was bright on his shoulders, and it felt warm and safe. The memory of the wood demon snarling at him seemed a distant thing.

  He walked down to the lake and watched the fishing boats for a time. It was a clear day, and he could just make out Lakton in the distance, the great city floating far out on the lake. He followed the shoreline, skipping stones across the water.

  He stopped short, spotting a pair of webbed tracks in the mud left by a bank demon. He imagined the frog-like creature leaping onto the shore and catching him with its long sticky tongue. The tracks made him shiver, and suddenly he had to pee desperately. He barely lowered his pants in time, thankful there was no one to see.

  “Brave,” he muttered to himself, knowing the lie for what it was.

  Late in the afternoon, Briar hid behind the house and pulled out one of the sugar candies. He unwrapped the treasure and chewed slowly, savoring every bite as his father did with bacon.

  “Ay, Briarpatch!” a voice called. Briar looked up to see Hardey and Hale approaching.

  “Where’d you get that candy?” Hale called, balling a fist.

  “We get to haul trash all day, and he gets extra bacon and candy?” Hardey asked no one in particular.

  Briar froze. His mind ran through all the things he might say, but he knew none of them would make any difference. His brothers were going to knock him down and take the candy, promising worse if he told their parents.

  He ran. Over the woodpiles, quick as a hare, and then cut through the laundry lines as his brothers charged after him. Sunny and Sky were collecting the clean wash in baskets, and he barely missed running into them.

  “Ay, watch it, Briarpatch!” Sky shouted.

  “Stop him, he’s got candy!” he heard Hardey cry. Briar dodged around a hanging sheet and kept low as he doubled back around the house, running into the woods out back.

  He could hear the others close behind, and made for the goldwood tree where the wood demon rose. Briar had climbed the tree a hundred times, and knew every knot and branch. He swung up into its boughs like he was a wood demon himself, then froze and held his breath. The others ran by, and Briar counted fifty breaths before he dared move.

  There was a small hollow where the branches met. Briar packed the candy in dry leaves and left it hidden there, praying to the Creator it would not rain. Then he dropped back to the ground and ran home.

  At supper, his brothers and sisters watched him like a cat watches a mouse. Briar kept close to his mother until bedtime.

  No sooner than the door to the tiny room the three boys shared was closed, Hale and Hardey pinned him on the floor of their room, digging through his pockets and searching his bed.

  “Where’d you hide them, Briarpatch?” Hardey demanded, sitting hard on his stomach, knocking the breath out of him.

  “It was just the one, and I ate it!” Briar struggled, but he was wise enough not to raise his voice. A shout might get his brothers the strap, but it would go worse for him.

  Eventually the boys gave up, giving him a last shake and going to bed. “This ent over, Briarpatch,” Hardey said. “Catch you with it later, you’ll be eating dirt.”

  They were soon asleep, but Briar’s heart was still thumping, and out in the yard, demons shrieked as they tested the wards. Briar couldn’t sleep through the sound, flinching at every cry and flash of magic. Hale kicked him under the covers. “Quit squirming, Briarpatch, or I’ll lock you out on the porch for the night.”

  Briar shuddered, and again felt an overwhelming urge to empty his bladder. He got out of bed and stumbled into the hall to find the privy. It was pitch black in the house, but that had never bothered Briar before. He had blindly fumbled his way to the curtain countless times.

  But it was different tonight. There was a demon in the house. Briar couldn’t say how he knew, but he could sense it, lurking in the darkness, waiting for its chance to pounce.

  Briar could feel his heart pounding like a festival drum and began to sweat, though the night was cool. It was suddenly hard for him to breathe, as if Hardey were still sitting on his chest. There was a rustling sound ahead, and Briar yelped, literally jumping. He looked around and it seemed he could make a dim shape moving in the darkness.

  Terrified, he turned and ran for the common room. The fire had burned down, but a few pumps of the bellows had an open flame, and Briar fed it carefully from the woodbox until it filled the room with light.

  Shadows fled, and with them the hiding places of the demons. The room was empty.

  Baby Briar, scared of nothing, his brothers and sisters liked to sing. Briar hated himself, but his leg would not stop shaking. He couldn’t go back to bed. He would piss the covers and the twins would kill him. He couldn’t go down the hall to the privy in the dark. The very thought terrified him. He could sleep here, by the fire, or…

  Briar slipped across the common to the door of his parents’ room.

  Never open the door if the bed is creaking, his mother had said, but Briar listened closely, and the bed was quiet. He turned the latch and slipped quietly inside, closing the door behind him. He crawled up the center of the bed, nestling himself between his parents. His mother put her arms about him, and Briar fell deep asleep.

  It was still dark when he awoke to screaming. His parents started upright, taking poor Briar with them. All of them took a reflexive breath, and started to cough and choke.

  There was smoke everywhere. His parents were both touching him, but he couldn’t see them at all. Everything was a gray blur even worse than darkness.

  “Down!” his mother croaked, pulling Briar with her as she slid off the bed. “Smoke rises! The air will be better by the floorboards.” There was a thump as his father rolled out of bed on the far side, crawling over to them.

  “Take Briar out the window,” Relan said, coughing into his hand. “I’ll get the others and follow.”

  “Into the night?!” Dawn asked.

  “We cannot stay here, beloved,” Relan said. “The wardposts in the herb garden are strong. It’s only twenty yards from the house. You can make it if you are quick.”

  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 dr
ifting 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 there. Bruise the leaves and rub them all over your body. Cories hate hogroot. Even the smell of it makes them sick. 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, tearing off leaves and rubbing them on this clothing and skin. As he rubbed the leaves into his pants, he found one leg 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 gray smoke giving off an evil, pulsing glow. Briar looked up, and saw 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.