The Core

  She was right. He was not going to betray her.

  —

  Briar felt the vessel slide onto the shoal and grind to a halt. He and Ashia were already in the hold with Captain Dehlia and her new bodyguards.

  “Be careful.” Dehlia held a loaded backpack. “Packed you a lunch.”

  “Don’t need it,” Briar said. “Can hunt.”

  Dehlia pressed the pack into Briar’s chest. Instinctively he put his arms around it and she let go. “More in there than food, Briar, and you’re skin and bones.” She smiled at him. “Suffer for Cap’n Dehlia and eat some bread and cheese.”

  Briar’s brows raised. “Bread?”

  Dehlia winked. “The kind with the crumbly crust you like.” Briar grinned and swung the pack onto his back as they opened the hold and dropped the gangplank.

  “We’ll be gone with the tide, but you’ll want to be well south of here by then,” Dehlia said. “Cories been acting strangely this far north.”

  Briar cocked his head. “Strange how?”

  “Massing in numbers, with breeds we’ve never seen,” Dehlia said. “Killing half our scouts, but they don’t attack the monastery or the Eunuch’s raiding parties.”

  “Scared of their wards?” Briar asked.

  Dehlia shrugged. “Maybe. But I never met a corie smart enough to be scared.”

  Briar nodded. “Be careful.”

  Dehlia’s hug squeezed the breath from him. “You’d better. Want you home, safe and sound, before new moon rolls around.”

  “I will.” The lie was bitter on Briar’s lips as he returned the embrace. Then he took Rasa’s bridle and led the mare down the gangplank and onto the sandbar. Water splashed up to his hips as they waded to shore, but Ashia and Kaji, atop the horse, were clear of it.

  “The strange behavior of the alagai concerns me,” Ashia said when they reached the shore, out of earshot of the boat.

  “Me, too,” Briar said. “Maybe they mean to take the monastery?”

  “That would suggest a demon princeling has an interest in it,” Ashia said. “If so, we walk into great danger.”

  “Don’t have to,” Briar said. “Can walk away, just as easy. Go to the Hollow or Fort Rizon. Keep Kaji safe.”

  “You can, perhaps,” Ashia said. “Kaji and I cannot. I do not think I will ever truly be welcome again in Everam’s Bounty, whatever the Damajah might claim.”

  “Know the feelin’,” Briar said. “But the Hollow—”

  “Could not protect my spear sister’s husband,” Ashia said, “now she is a widow at eighteen. It could not protect my master, dead on alagai talons. I would not trust any welcome from the Hollowers, knowing what they could gain by hostaging my son.”

  Briar threw up his hands. “Wide world. Could get lost in the hamlets, or go into the mountains or forest and build a briarpatch to keep us safe.”

  “Like your namesake against the nightwolves.” Ashia tilted her head as Briar started. “What?”

  “Never told anyone that story.” It had always been a private thing for Briar, a cherished memory of his father, kept secret and safe.

  “Every child in Krasia knows the story of the Briarpatch,” Ashia said. “There is a song, as well. Do you know it?”

  Briar felt like he had swallowed a stone. He shook his head numbly.

  “Tonight I will sing it for you and Kaji,” Ashia promised. “But we cannot abandon our people and hide in the woods. That is the way of selfish chin who have put Everam from their hearts. We have a part to play in Sharak Ka, and that part is here. We must walk the edge of the abyss, and trust in the Creator to see us through.”

  CHAPTER 24

  FIRST STEPS

  334 AR

  As soon as they put some distance from the lake, Briar guided Ashia to a marsh where a thick patch of alagai’viran grew around an ancient, sagging tree. The weed had even taken root in the moss on the tree’s bark, growing right up the trunk.

  “In here,” Briar said.

  Ashia shook her head. “This will not do. It is too damp…”

  Briar smiled. “Trust.”

  The ground was soft, sucking at Rasa’s hooves, though Briar walked atop it like an insect on water, leaving only faint markings in his path.

  The soil at the base of the tree, held together by an old network of roots, was firmer and drier, but it was a cramped space. Barely big enough for the horse.

  Briar tied her bridle to a branch. “Follow.”

  He sprang easily into the tree, climbing into the boughs and quickly out of sight. Ashia stared after him a moment, then shrugged and followed.

  Briar hadn’t gone far. Just above, the great trunk split, then split again, and again. The trunks were like the four fingers of a hand, their crux the palm. Briar had used them as supports for a ring of woven branches, looking like a great bird’s nest. The space was large enough for the three of them to relax comfortably, sheltered by the branches, hidden by the leaves, and protected by the demon root, safe as any warded camp.

  Briar smiled, setting down his pack. “An’ we got bread!”

  The smile was infectious, and Ashia laughed, setting Kaji down and freeing the poor child from his pack. The water sickness had abated once they were back on land, but Kaji was weak, hungry, and dehydrated.

  Briar watched silently as Ashia changed Kaji’s soiled bido. She covered herself with a scarf as she opened her armored robe to set the child at her breast. Briar started, realizing what was happening, and quickly turned his back. Ashia closed her eyes, and began to sing.

  The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

  Teeth like knives, claws like spears

  The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

  But Briar didn’t fear

  The thorns were long

  Bramble and burr

  They tore its flesh

  And caught its fur

  The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

  Teeth like knives, claws like spears

  The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

  But Briar didn’t fear

  The wolf twisted,

  Flesh caught and stuck,

  Briar took stone,

  Drew back and struck

  The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

  Teeth like knives, claws like spears

  The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

  But Briar didn’t fear

  Briar tried to swallow a sob and choked, clutching his knees and shaking. Not knowing what to make if it, Ashia stopped singing.

  Kaji had fallen asleep on the teat, exhausted from their ordeal. She gently pried him away and set him in her shield. By the time she turned to Briar, he was gone.

  —

  Briar ran, but not far. He had not expected the song to affect him so strongly, but while she was singing, he remembered. His father used to sing that song to him. How could he forget such a thing? It was like forgetting the sun.

  “Mudboy.” He punched himself in the chest. “Can’t even ’member their faces.”

  He circled the area, cursing himself as he tended the briarpatch. When he had cooled down, he orbited closer to the tree. Rasa was still saddled, grazing on hogroot.

  Part of him was alarmed at the sight of their protection being stripped away, but the horse needed to eat, and the briarpatch was large. The danger was minimal, and there were advantages to traveling with an animal smelling of hogroot. Demons would shy away from her unless provoked.

  The horse snorted as he drew close. Pack animals tended not to like Briar as a rule, and in truth he cared little for them in return. Mounts were unpredictable when cories were about. He trusted his own two feet more than an animal’s four.

  “There, girl.” He stroked Rasa’s neck before removing the saddle and brushing her down.

  “I am sorry.” Ashia’s voice came from above.

  Briar kept working. “Nothin’ to be sorry over. Just…got homesick, is all.”

  “I understand.” Ashia’s quiet words drifted down
from the sheltering boughs. “I once felt as you. But then I realized I was longing for a home that never truly existed.”

  “Mine existed,” Briar said. “Till I burned it down.”

  “The reports said your family died in a fire,” Ashia said. “But that is not your fault.”

  “Is,” Briar said. “Laid the fire myself. Stoked it myself. Forgot to open the flue, all by myself.”

  “An accident,” Ashia said.

  “Ever kill your whole family by accident?” Briar asked bitterly.

  There was a long pause above. “Not your whole family.”

  Briar climbed back up into the nest. Ashia met his eyes and held them. She did not offer physical comfort, no touching or embraces like Dehlia and Elissa, no kisses and groping hands like Stela. She simply looked into his eyes, present for him.

  “Safe here,” he said when the silence had gone on too long. “Might want to rest.” He knew Ashia was eager to get on with her mission. In truth, so was he. But there was more than the two of them to think of.

  Ashia nodded. “Kaji is weak from the water sickness. He will need a day or two to rest, and some of the crusty bread, if you can spare it.”

  “Course,” Briar said. “Can scout while we wait. Then what?”

  “Then we travel north,” Ashia said. “Have you other…briarpatches in the area?”

  “Ay, lots.” For months the Monastery of Dawn had been the base of operations for the Laktonian resistance, but Briar had never been comfortable behind walls.

  “The khaffit is heavy,” Ashia said. “And he is lame. We will need a series of hidden places to succor from both alagai and Eunuchs as we make our way to Everam’s Reservoir.”

  Briar brightened. “Ay. Can do that. Might take a few weeks to sweep ’em off.”

  “Preparation is the key to success.” Ashia spoke the words Enkido had instilled in her like they were her own.

  —

  Kaji clapped as Briar climbed into the boughs. The night’s rest had brought color back to the boy, and returned his spirit with it.

  “Smell.” Kaji slapped a hand over his nose. Ashia had been mortified the first time she saw the boy do it, but she soon learned Briar had taught the move—and the word—to him.

  Ashia laughed as Briar struck a pose, pinching his own nose so his voice came out as a high-pitched whine. “Smell.” Kaji laughed and clapped again.

  “Ready to get back on the horse?” Briar asked.

  “No.” It was Kaji’s favorite word. It had power the others didn’t, and he was tyrannical with it.

  “Rather walk?” Briar asked.

  “No,” Kaji said.

  “Mum to carry you?”

  “No.”

  “Me to carry you?”

  “No.”

  “Stay here?”

  “No.”

  Briar smiled. “Hungry?”

  Kaji paused. When Ashia asked the question, she meant her breast. When Briar asked it, it meant crusty bread.

  He faltered. “Bread?”

  Briar produced a small loaf, but held it out of reach. “Do you want it?”

  Ashia could see the strain on Kaji’s face as his desire to refuse battled his stomach. At last the stomach won and he reached out. “Want.”

  Seeing them together, Ashia felt her own throat tighten. Who would have thought the half-chin son of a traitor would be a better parent to her son than his own father?

  —

  The wetland was vast, but Briar knew it well, guiding them to dry ground firm enough for Rasa’s hooves. Even so, the way was uneven and teeming with vegetation, making riding at speed impossible. Ashia led the horse instead, walking beside Briar. The air was hot and thick with moisture, mosquitoes active day round in the twilight beneath the canopy of trees. She kept her veil up, protective netting thrown over Kaji.

  Briar was chewing on a stalk of alagai’viran. Ashia had become so used to the smell she hardly noticed it anymore, but the thought of eating demon root still turned her stomach.

  Briar noticed her queasy look and took a fresh stalk from a pouch at his belt, handing it to her. “Try.”

  Ashia shook her head. “I don’t understand how you eat that.”

  Briar shrugged and resumed chewing. “Fills your belly when huntin’s bad. Keeps cories away. Sometimes keeps ’em from seein’ you at all.”

  Ashia remembered their first encounter, when she had searched for him in Everam’s light and found nothing. Had she been looking in the wrong place, or was it something more?

  The darkness was not complete under the trees, but it was enough for Ashia to Draw on the stored magic in her hora and activate the vision wards on the helmet beneath her silk headwrap.

  The world around her lit up with magic. The glow was the root of all life, and it flourished in the wetlands. Light throbbed in the pools of water, sang in the rich vegetation, hung heavy in the ancient, stooped trees. Even the mud glowed softly, teeming with life too small to see.

  But Briar, skin and hair and clothes covered in hogroot sap, looked…dim. Too dim for any human not close to death.

  All save his eyes. They shone like a cat’s at night, belying the power within. Somehow, the demon root masked the magic.

  “Perhaps I will try.” She reached for a stalk and took a bite. The herb was bitter, but so were many things in life. Enkido taught her to endure.

  —

  More than a week went by as they visited one briarpatch after another. Some were little more than well-positioned campsites with more visibility out than in. Others were masterworks blended perfectly into their surroundings with security, space, and comfort.

  All were thick with alagai’viran.

  The latest was a clearing on a small rise. Like all Briar’s hiding places, it was unremarkable at a glance. Just high enough to give visibility and some relief from the puddled ground below, but not so high as to draw attention by itself. From atop it, Ashia could see the demon root ringing the base, too even and perfect to be a natural occurrence.

  “Normally just lie down at the top,” Briar said. “Cories can’t see me, but I can see ’em comin’. Never come near the hogroot, anyway.”

  “We’ll lay my circles, as well,” Ashia said. “The alagai are numerous in the wetlands. In Krasia, they do not cluster so thickly in uninhabited lands.”

  “Here neither.” Briar helped her set the circle. “Never seen so many cories in these parts. Odd ones. Flamers and windies. Big rocks and woodies. But they ent doin’ anything. Not even huntin’. Just…stumblin’ around.”

  “In two days, it will be Waning,” Ashia said. “If Alagai Ka or his princelings rise, they will have an army waiting. We would be wise to find better shelter to wait out the dark moon.”

  “Ay, know a place.” Briar laid a fire in the pit with dry kindling from his pack. “Have to backtrack a bit, but it’s safe.”

  Safe for us to cower from the forces of Nie, Enkido’s fingers used to say of the Dama’ting Underpalace. Hiding behind wards grated on Ashia. She was bred and trained for the front lines.

  A good kai is a patient kai, Enkido taught. Battles were won when the attacker chose the place and time to fight. This Waning was neither.

  “Fight when you gotta.” Briar filled a pot with fresh water and raw hogroot, setting it over the fire as Ashia freed Kaji and brought him to her breast. “Not when you wanna.”

  “Is it so clear in my eyes?” Ashia asked.

  “Seen that look a lot, this last year,” Briar said. “Folk itchin’ to start a fight, because they can’t stand waitin’ for one that might or might not come.”

  “That is the Sharum way,” Ashia said.

  “Ent a Sharum,” Briar said. “Tenders say to always offer peace.”

  “Those who offer peace to alagai are slaughtered,” Ashia said.

  “Fight when I’m in a corner,” Briar said. “But it’s better if they don’t even know I’m there.”

  Briar boiled it in frog meat, but the alagai’v
iran soup remained bitter. Ashia ate it anyway. They needed every advantage if they were to accomplish their mission. Already she could smell the demon root in her sweat, her breath, even her milk. She feared Kaji might refuse to nurse, but he was too hungry to question it.

  This close to Waning, the demons were more active. In Everam’s light, Ashia could see them prowling in the darkness, and the sight of their small campfire drew the alagai’s attention. Most were turned aside by the demon root, but eventually one enterprising bog demon took up a tree branch and began to whip it back and forth, cutting the stalks like a reaper’s blade.

  Briar grabbed his spear and shield, getting to his feet.

  “Killing the demon with a warded weapon will be bright and loud,” Ashia said. “It will only draw more attention.”

  “So will letting it scrape the wards.” Briar slung his shield on his back and set down his spear. “I’ll draw it off. Circle back.”

  Ashia did not doubt he could do just that, but an inner unease counseled caution. Something of Briar’s own philosophy, perhaps.

  “Let me try,” Ashia said.

  “With Kaji in your arms?” Briar asked.

  Ashia smiled and began to sing the Song of Waning. She and her spear sisters had sung it a thousand times under the watchful eye of their dama’ting instructor, but it was different when her sister sang it for Shar’Dama Ka on the day she married the greenland Jongleur. Ashia had sensed the power even then, and learned more from her spear sister’s secret missives.

  Each verse of the song had its own rhythm, its own pitch, its own power. One to make them invisible to demons. Another to drive them away. Others still, to deceive or harm them. They required considerable range, but Ashia was up to the task.

  The bog demon hacked through the alagai’viran patch and was approaching the ward circle when Ashia’s song began to nudge it back. With a touch, Ashia rolled the wardstones to activate her hora necklace. Dialing the wards into different configurations could make her silent as death, or project her voice far and wide. Listen to something far, or silence something near.

  Her song grew louder, driving the demon back the way it came. When it was clear of the demon root patch, Ashia layered another verse alongside the first, confusing the demon, then added in the cloaking verse. The demon shook its head and seemed to lose sight of them, eyes passing blankly over their camp. Eventually, it wandered away and Ashia let the song fade.