‘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 the fire, what do you do?
Open the flue, open the flue!
Then leaves and grass blades and kindle sticks strew
Pile bricks of peat moss, two by two
Bellow the embers 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 favours 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 with 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 towards 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.’
He gently pushed the boy back towards 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 took 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 – towards the nearest succour. 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 keep walking the span of three slow breaths. It will be that long at least before the demon reorientates.’ He smacked Briar’s thigh, making him